Several hours later Harry sat curled on a couch near the fire in the Gryffindor common room.
The Welcoming Feast had ended with time still remaining before curfew, so he had set aside his mother’s notebooks and opened the third-year Ancient Runes textbook instead.
A faint smile touched his lips as he searched the pages for the missing component that would complete his primer sequence.
“Harry, why are you reading? Let’s play chess!” Ron strode over, a small board tucked under one arm.
“Sorry—can’t. I’m busy, Ron.”
“What could possibly be more interesting than chess? We don’t even have homework yet!”
Harry glanced up and nearly toppled sideways at the pure horror on Ron’s face.
The boy’s mouth hung open, his complexion had gone chalk-white, and his arms dangled uselessly at his sides—as though someone had just ordered him to eat Scabbers alive.
Harry shook his head at once, silently vowing never to study alongside him.
“I’m looking for an Extinguisher,” he explained.
“The current configuration is still a bit too explosive when all I want is a controlled light show. An Extinguisher should damp the reaction before it combusts.”
Ron’s expression of utter bewilderment was priceless.
Hermione, however, approached with visible concern.
“An extinguisher? Muggle technology doesn’t work at Hogwarts—it says so in Hogwarts: A History. I suppose a simple fire extinguisher might function since it has no electronic parts, but I highly doubt you’ll find one lying about the grounds.”
Harry shook his head.
“I know technology fails here. I read that section too.” Hermione’s face cycled rapidly from confusion through shock to open amazement before he could continue.
“But I don’t mean a fire extinguisher. I mean a rune for extinguishing. Mum never recorded that particular one. I’m hoping it appears in one of the first two course books—I didn’t have enough money left to buy the fifth- through seventh-year volumes. It ought to be basic enough that she simply didn’t bother writing it down.”
“You’ve— You’ve— You’ve—” Hermione seemed momentarily frozen.
“You’ve read Hogwarts: A History?!” she finished in a high-pitched squeak.
“Yeeeaaaah…” Harry answered slowly.
Was that supposed to be strange?
Surely it made sense to read a history of the school one was about to attend.
“I— Wait! Did you say you’re researching runes?” she demanded.
Harry merely nodded.
“That’s incredibly advanced. We don’t even begin runes until third year!”
“Blimey, mate! Why the bloody hell are you looking at stuff two years ahead?” Ron’s eyes had widened so dramatically Harry began to fear they might actually fall out of his skull.
“Because it’s interesting?” He genuinely could not understand the fuss.
It was not rocket science—simply a language, a set of power symbols, and the interactions between them.
Ron muttered something unintelligible and wandered off in a daze, chess set hanging limply from one hand.
Hermione frowned, then drifted away as well, muttering frantically about falling behind.
Harry shrugged and was about to return to his research when Neville settled onto the couch beside him.
“You know, they’re right, Harry. Runes can be dangerous if you’re not careful. My Gran said Dad once nearly blew up the house because he etched one wrong.” Neville shook his head and slumped a little lower.
“I’d probably manage to blow the place up for real if I ever tried.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Neville,” Harry said with a soft smile, giving the other boy’s shoulder a light pat.
“They really aren’t that difficult. If you ever want help with them, just say the word.”
“I will. But I think I’ll wait until we actually reach that class.” Neville offered a shy smile and headed off toward the dormitories.
Harry’s first two months at Hogwarts slipped past almost without his noticing.
He enjoyed most of his classes—everything except Potions and History of Magic.
History at least offered a convenient opportunity for a short nap; when he was not tired, it became the perfect quiet hour in which to refine his developing rune clusters.
The Extinguisher still refused to behave, yet he suspected that weaving a Soften rune into the scheme would temper the reaction enough to turn his Extravagance Rune Show into something impressive yet harmless.
Ideal, in short, for Dudley.
It had taken him less than a week to realise that the effortless facility he possessed with runes did not extend to any other branch of magic.
The discovery was mildly disappointing.
Apparently he had not inherited his mother’s gift for Charms or Potions.
The latter failure, at least, he could partially blame on Snape.
That first Potions lesson had been an experience Harry would have preferred to trade for being run over by a lorry.
Snape’s opening questions were deliberate traps designed to test whether Harry had read—and memorised—the entire first-year textbook.
When Harry somehow answered them correctly, the professor escalated at once to material from the fourth- and fifth-year curricula (as Hermione later confirmed).
Harry still managed the answers, drawing on half-remembered notes from his mother’s potions notebook.
Snape responded by deducting points for “insufferable superiority” and “reading dangerously far ahead.” When Harry dared to ask why the direction of stirring mattered so profoundly, Snape vanished his cauldron on the spot, declaring that anyone incapable of grasping so elementary a concept had no business observing the “horrific results” of his work.
Thereafter Harry tried to remain silent and invisible; Snape simply transferred his venom to Neville, hovering over the boy’s shoulder and dissecting every tremble of his hands and every clumsy movement of his ingredients.
By the end of the hour Harry was sorely tempted to drop his still-defective Extravagance Rune Show into the man’s cauldron.