Chương 25: ITW,H - Chapter 25 - (2) Study Group

(Word Count: 1, 150) A murmur went through the disappointed crowd.

"That's not fair!"

"We came all the way over here!"

"At least divine my future!"

"Surely you can teach us something!" Harry ran his fingers through his hair, annoyed. He didn't owe anything to these people, and they're coming to demand things from him?

"Fine, you want my advice? Here's one: Go and learn occlumency. Don't ask me what it is, I gave you the term, now go research."

"Occlumency?"

"What's that?"

"How will that help us?"

"Well, for one, it will stop me from doing this." Harry turned off the sonorus charm, and cast a mass confundus charm, paired with a mild compulsion charm. All of the students that weren't first years all started gathering their things and filing out the door. Though he did leave Fred and George alone. They were friends. Surprisingly, there were three upper years that had managed to shrug it off, two Ravenclaws and one Slytherin Harry didn't recognize.

Those three must have either studied occlumency or were naturally strong-minded. It was a non-specific compulsion after all. Everyone that was left looked in awe and a bit of fear at the leaving crowd. Harry shooed the remaining upper years away and they paled and fled. Fred and George packed up their things too.

"Alright, Harry, message received. We'll get out of your hair too."

"That wasn't very nice, Mr. Potter," Professor Babbling tutted.

"Still, that was rather impressive. 5 points to Gryffindor."

"Thank you, professor," Harry said, "Would you mind returning the classroom to its original size?"

"Of course." Professor Babbling took out her wand and flicked it towards the corners of the room, where a string of runes that weren't there before flashed and faded away. The room slowly began shrinking back down. With some more flicks of her wand, this time chanting "evanesco," she vanished the excess tables one by one. It was interesting to see the professor's specialty at work. She could silently remove a set of space expansion runes, yet had to chant out a vanishing charm.

The group of first years gasped at the changing room, and gathered together at one long table. When that was all done, Harry sat down at the table with them and sighed.

"Now that that fiasco is out of the way, hello, everyone!" This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it No one said anything and just looked at him. Harry looked around at everyone. The remaining students were: Hermione, Neville, Ron, Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, Dean Thomas, Terry Boot, Padma and Parvati Patil. A total of 13 students. That's not an omen, is it?... Nah. Finally, the silence was broken by Ron.

"Blimey, mate, you can't just do something like that and pretend nothing happened!"

"Sure I can. Watch this!" Harry turned to the rest.

"Okay, group! This is a study group that I want to put together so we can help each other with two things: help get homework out of the way quickly and help each member of the group find a field of magic that they're passionate about and generally be a sounding board to share and discuss ideas. How does that sound to everyone?" Padma nervously raised her hand.

"Um… I know I wasn't invited, but is it okay if I stay?"

"Of course! I just didn't want this to turn into a lecture to the entire school. You are, of course, welcome to stay." Then he addressed everyone.

"However, I don't want unproductive members of the group! So if you all want to be a part of this, then you have to put in effort, understand?" Harry eyed everyone one by one, and they agreed. When he got to Ron, he gulped and nodded.

"Sure thing, Harry, with that outline for essays you gave me, I should be okay." He smiled.

"Good. I'm sure some of you already know each other, but why don't we do a round of introductions? Please state your name and something you're interested in. I'll go first.

"I'm Harry Potter. My main focus has been in the mind arts, which you've seen an example of, but I'd like to learn more about divination and language." He gestured to Hermione for her to continue.

"My name is Hermione Granger. My favorite class so far is transfiguration."

"I'm Ron Weasley, I like Quidditch." He looked down, a bit embarrassed. He felt a bit out of his depth with this. He wasn't the academic sort.

"I-I'm Neville… er, Longbottom! And I like herbology. I'm not really good at anything else…" Neville also looked down in embarrassment.

"My name is Susan Bones! I was really looking forward to defense against the dark arts, but…" She glanced at Professor Babbling off to the side.

"It wasn't what I thought it was going to be."

"I'm Hannah Abbot!" She looked at Neville, "I also love herbology." Neville straightened up at that and smiled.

"Daphne Greengrass. I want to be a mediwitch."

"I'm Tracey Davis! I loved charms class!"

"My name is Blaise Zabini. I liked potions, though I don't know about becoming a full-time potion's master."

"I'm Dean Thomas! I'm new to magic, so I don't really know what I like the most yet, but I liked charms class the most."

"I'm Terry Boot. I liked charms the most, too, but whatever you did just now was incredible, Harry. You said that was Mind Arts? Could I learn more about that?" Harry nodded.

"Sure. I have some introductory books that I can lend you."

"My name is Padma Patil. I really liked transfiguration class the most, but then I watched Professor Babbling expand the room, and I'd like to learn more of that." Professor Babbling looked up from her translating and smiled.

"I look forward to having you in third year! Until then, I can also point you to some books. Since I will be checking in on you guys once in a while, I can also answer any questions."

"And I'm Parvati Patil. Par-vati," She repeated, emphasizing the "par" of her name.

"A lot of people get my name wrong and say pav-arti, but that's wrong. Anyway, I guess I liked Astronomy class. I just think the stars are beautiful." The rest of the time, they went over the remaining homework they had left. Neville got to showcase his expertise in herbology when he helped almost everyone with their herbology assignment. By the time dinner rolled around, they'd finished their homework and decided on a schedule for the following weeks.

Since most of the homework assigned was due the next class period, they would meet bi-weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, to ensure everything was done on time. Professor Babbling also wouldn't be here all the time and would only check in randomly to make sure they weren't getting up to mischief, but she felt that she could trust them to behave enough.