Harry potter The Boy Who Remembers

"Well, considering it's both our potion, I'm not stupid enough to ruin my own work purposefully. And does it even look ruined?"

The man looked at the potion and then turned back to give Harry an unreadable look, "You added powdered unicorn horn as a catalyst."

Harry shrugged, "the potion was over stabilized. A pinch of unicorn horn would have solved that, and the potion would still be safe enough to handle. I would have added mint leaves to restabilize it after the next reaction."

The potion master's eyebrow raised, "Were my instructions unclear enough for you to follow, Potter?"

"They are perfectly fine, but I'm not the one who added too much flour in the first place," Harry responded while looking at Granger.

The man seemed to glare at the girl before speaking up, "Five points from Gryffindor for causing a scene for no reason."

He then turned and left to berate Seamus Finnigan for almost making his potion explode. Harry turned to continue his work and saw his partner almost in tears, "What is it?"

"How do you know all that? Did you have magic lessons before attending like Neville?" she demanded.

Huh, interesting. The boy who lived ended up having magic lessons before Hogwarts. He couldn't have been training with a wand since his magic would have been too chaotic before his eleventh birthday to be handled by a wand. He definitely wasn't taking potion lessons, considering how abysmal he was in it. It must have been theory lessons or toy wands that don't really cast magic but help train wand movements and incantations. It would explain how the Longbottom scion was learning hexes and pranking spells so quickly.

"I like to read," Harry said.

"Yes, I see you in the library. But I'm also reading, why don't I know the things you do?"

"You read a lot more than I do, at least in terms of library books. But the books I choose are simply better. I read when something interests me, or there's something I want to try out. Reading too much is as likely to distract you from the useful parts. Quantity has a quality of its own, but it's not enough to bridge the gap if you physically can't read enough books."

The girl stopped crying and Harry simply took over the potion and put the hellebore acid in, then a minute later the mint leaves he had saved up. The leaves dissolved and he started stirring the ingredients.

The bushy haired Gryffindor was still confused, "I don't understand."

"Look, you're reading around twice the amount I do. But one in every five books you read is actually useful for your education. You either choose books that are beyond your comprehension, or you just choose books that don't contain any useful information. That difference makes my time reading much more valuable than yours. It's not an insult, it's fact. Don't make it a competition, look at what makes you better and focus on it. It's how you learn. What books don't tell you is that magic is an adventure that you undertake. Restricting yourself is a very bad habit to have." Harry explained.

The girl gave him a slight smile, "Thank you. You're not so bad, Potter."

"You do realize this is the longest conversation we ever had. What impression did you have of me, before?"

"I don't know. Cold, I guess. You should hear what Neville and Ron keep saying about you."

Harry groaned, "We only talked to each other twice in my life, and they attacked me every time. Just because I'm not willing to bow down and kiss the feet of the boy who lived, doesn't mean I'm some monster. It just means that I have some dignity."

The rest of the class was relatively peaceful. At least Granger had stopped glaring at me all the time for no reason. When it was over, Harry submitted a vial of his potion and left the room. He was joined by his friends, but unfortunately, also by Malfoy, "So, you're getting along with the Mudblood, Potter."

Harry simply stopped and looked Draco in the eye while releasing his presence a bit, "What did I say about that word, Draco?"

The blonde paled, "I'm sorry, muggleborn."

Harry stopped scaring the boy and answered, "I needed to, or we would have ended up killing each other in the middle of our classes. She's a bit of a stickler for the rules. I could see myself getting along with her if she relaxed for a bit."

Daphne snorted, "Like that's going to happen."

"Never say never, Daph. Never say never." Harry said with an amused glint in his eyes.

"Stop calling me that, Harry," she yelled back while chasing him.

The Potter scion had tried to make a nickname for her. He expected the girl to disapprove. Daphne was raised like an aristocrat, with a rather large focus on nobility and elegance. She didn't really approve of nicknames. Just calling her by her first name was already proof that she liked him. But the moment he tried out her nickname, she practically ran at him snarling and oddly blushing. She chased him around the castle until they were both tired.

Honestly, Harry liked having friends. It was odd, not having to work by himself all the time. He had obligations, like making sure that they ate their meals together, or him helping the others with their spell work, or them helping him by taking extra books from the library for him to read. The was also the protection of numbers. People didn't try to target him or any of his friends because they rarely instigated anything.

On that side, things were even starting to settle down. The Professors were starting to severely punish the older students that get involved in the rivalry. The Weasley Twins had apparently been in tears as McGonagall confiscated all their ingredients and prank items after they dismissed her warnings. They honestly looked pitiful for the days afterwards.

As for the Gryffindor first years, with Longbottom being too busy with his Quidditch position, they stopped instigating things, which made Malfoy feel like he had won. It was sad that he didn't know that it was all probably designed by the teachers to stop Hogwarts from turning into a battleground. Still, things were starting to calm down, and Hogwarts was beginning to turn into a normal school.

.....

Want to read ahead by more than 60 chapters. Then join my p@treon Right Now.

Link: p*atreon.com/BookReaderBoy (Remove the *)

Also Free members get 2 advanced chapters for Free as well.