"Seriously mate have you been holding out on us?" Mike demanded with fake sternness while barely able to hide his interest in truth.
I ignored the MANY people trying to act like they weren't also leaning in to listen when I answered.
"Not exactly, I was trying to keep it quiet but my little trip to the hospital wing left me a bit more gifted than when I arrived there. Not much more than a party trick like you saw at dinner. That was actually the storms fault, got my magic acting out a bit is all." I mixed lies and partial truths with any trouble.
"I don't see why you'd hide it, that's bloody brilliant." Terry said with a excited grin and got nods all around the common room.
I shrugged "Didn't want to get singled out for it yet if I could help it, that cats out of the bag now though." I said helplessly.
"Can you show us again?" Mandy asked eagerly.
I sighed at that but let a few sparks flicker around me while they gasped in awe. I cut it off quickly though with a slight shrug before mentioning breakfast.-
I was trying to keep my annoyance off my as I ate my food in the great hall as many eyes and "not as quiet as they thought" whispers about my little showing the night before filled the place. Dumbledore and Flitwick looked amused by the situation but I was getting a tad heated. It's like we weren't all damn wizards or something. I was almost glad for history of magic first thing after breakfast as all my peers from the other houses seemingly were hit with whatever odd ghost voodoo Binns had that made you tired the instant he started talking.-
Once I knew what timeframe he was talking about this class though I rolled my eyes before choosing to read through the second year potions textbook I had prepared just for this class this morning. Something neither the books or movies properly conveyed was the fact we as students had to actually prepare for our classes every morning. That meant we were lugging around a good seven or so pounds of books, parchment, quills and ink throughout the school most days. Some students left their books in the classrooms instead but this made proper studying troublesome since you'd need to borrow someone elses book later. -
Personally I found it easier to just prep my daily supplies before I left for breakfast. Despite having two extra weeks of time to get used to this though my peers looked lost and bored to death since they hadn't brought anything to occupy their time.
"Hey, why does your textbook have so much stuff written in it?" Terry asked in a whisper.
"This is a secondhand copy. Those are notes left by the previous owner. I bought it specifically for them." I whispered back.
"Merlins beard! That's genius!" Mike somehow exclaimed in a whisper.
"I don't recognize the potion though? Is this our textbook?" Terry asked confused.
I shook my head "It's next years textbook, I already memorized this years book." I said honestly.
"You haven't even had a potions class yet and you're reading ahead!?" Terry's voice wasn't controlled this time drawing eyes to us.
"Shhh! It's one thing not to pay attention but don't draw it either." I shushed him hurriedly while watching Binns to make sure he hadn't noticed.
The ghost was thankfully off in his own droning monotonous recitation of a particularly dry segment of history involving a political coup within the goblin hierarchy during the rebellions of 1713.
Terry looked sheepish at the reprimand but still pressed on about me reading ahead. I explained that it was a good idea since it better prepared you for the future. The further ahead you were to everyone else the faster you could start branching out to parts of the topics not taught at Hogwarts. Most students ended up doing this anyways even if they weren't ahead simply because they were more interested in some subjects then others which was perfectly reasonable.-
As for WHY I was able to read and memorize stuff fast enough to already be reading ahead I just said it was talent since I definitely wasn't mentioning the skills that I used here. Skills were the one thing across my system that I absolutely wouldn't be selling in this world. It wasn't about profit at that point but potential future troubles. If I wasn't wrong some skills and abilities were hereditary and while it wouldn't be too big a problem at first if the entire next generation started out as super geniuses from the buttload of skills their parents bought from me things would get VERY out of hand. -
The world really didn't need a bunch of Voldemorts or Grindelwalds running about all at once. One in a generation was already bad enough thank you very much. I wasn't worried about selling devil fruits though since those weren't hereditary. The powers were lost with the death of the user. So long as I managed to whip up a way to track the fruits in the wild I could always just reclaim them after they respawned. The things were obviously magical so it should be possible in theory to make a devil fruit radar of sorts. -
'That reminds me but I need to talk to Whitebeard about grabbing some medicinal plants or substances from his world with body strengthening properties to see if I can mix them with Re'em blood for a better effect.' I thought as I turned my attention back to my book.