HPatRS: The Gamer 8

"Very well then." The Hat said before calling out the house that would shape Harry. "Ravenclaw!"

Harry flicked the pop up telling him that his sorting granted his the title of "Ravenclaw Student" which had the bonus of +5 INT.

People politely clapped, though two Gryffindor boys were loudly mourning the fact that Harry Potter was not one of them.

One of the Ravenclaw prefects welcomed him to the house as well as several others. Some were less than considerate in asking what happened the night he got his scar.

"Both my parents were murdered in cold blood. Somehow, I didn't." Harry snarked.

"Why don't you know?" One particularly dense Ravenclaw continued. Several others told him to back off.

"Because it was highly traumatic and I was only fifteen months old at the time." Harry crossed his arms. "Do you remember anything from that age?"

"Uh… no." The Ravenclaw seemed to deflate slightly.

Harry turned his attention to the staff table. Professor Snape was sulking for some reason.

With Blaise Zabini finally at the Slytherin table Dumbledore stood up to give a speech before clapping and the tables filled with food.

Harry dug in.

After the feast, Dumbledore sent everyone to bed.

The Ravenclaw prefect led the first years to the Ravenclaw common room, which Harry had found a secret passage from the Chamber of Secrets a week before, and explained that it had a riddle as a password.

Harry thought this was foolish as while Ravenclaw may be the house of the brillant that didn't mean the other houses were filled with idiots. All it would take is someone figuring out the riddle and they would have access to the Ravenclaw common room.

'Then again, the Come and Go Room has access to all of them and that isn't exactly well protected.' Harry thought. He shook his head as he changed for bed. It would be odd to hear another sleeping near him.

* * Next Morning * *

Harry groaned as he looked at the time table. He didn't have Transfiguration until Friday afternoon. First up was double potions though. Harry had managed to bring his Potion level up to 15/100 as he studied. It wasn't much but it did give him an edge over his classmates. Harry had found a method in an old textbook. Make sure you have all of your ingredients prepared and laid out when you start in the order you need to use them.

Harry also noted the mistake on the board and almost said something but if his classmates used only the board instead of looking to their books then they deserved to mess up.

As it was Harry was the only one to get his potion perfect. The potion also pushed him to the next level.

His classmates complained and whined all the way out to the greenhouses.

Professor Sprout quickly went through her introduction then had them repotting some plants into bigger ones. Harry noted that his gardening skill came in help.

Harry easily completed the task and was rewarded with 5 house points. He offered help to his housemates but was staunchly refused.

The preteen buried himself in a book, Tales of Beedle the Bard. It was interesting seeing the different bedtime stories.

After herbology was dinner. Harry easily ate and fended off questions about the night his parents had died.

They were curious and wanted to know how he survived.

After dinner Harry quickly retreated to the library in order to do some of the small amount of homework he had gotten.

The next day was only different in the fact he has history and charms. He still had to tell his housemates to back off and that he didn't remember what happened and even if he had, why would he tell strangers about it.

History was boring, very boring. Harry buried himself into some theory on the runes he had. Talismans from other cultures worked the same as the old Norse runes his books had shown. Harry was curious if they could work together, making a super talisman. *AN*

He'd ask Professor Babbling later if anyone else had come up with the idea.

Charms class was simple. Harry had continued to level the charms he had learned and the charm skill itself. So far Harry had gotten 3rd year spells to work and just acted like he was having trouble in order to not outdo the other Ravenclaws completely.

His near constant brushing off of the insensitive inquiries about that fateful night had not made him popular.

Friday had finally come and with it came transfiguration class. Transfiguration was the one skill he had not been able to level up at all and Harry was excited to do so.

The boy easily saw the cat for who she truly was and grinned. The cat flicked her tail. Harry took his seat and waited.

Once all the students were in place, Professor McGonagall acted like any other cat and did nothing.

The students started talking and fidgeting, wondering where the teacher was. A muggleborn wondered aloud if the rule about if a teacher is more than 10 minutes late then class must be canceled.

Harry then replied with another question. "Wouldn't it be awesome if we could learn to change into animals?"

"What do you mean?" Lisa Turpin asked.

"Like, cats, wouldn't it be awesome to be a cat?" Harry gestured to the tabby on the desk.

"Maybe, depends on the breed." Someone said. "I mean some cat breeds can have some major health problems."

"Tabbies usually don't." Harry said. "At least the ones I knew."

"Bah, cats are stupid." Michael Corner said. "Being a dog would be awesome though."

The tabby's tail twitched.

"Why?" Harry asked. "Why would you want to be a stupid chihuahua?"

"What? No, I'd be a border collie." Michael said defensively.

"So far you've been all bark and no bite." Harry said. "No way you'd be a dog like a border collie."

"No, Michael'd be a terrier." Lisa said. "He's kinda cute."

The tabby on the desk stood up, knowing that this could easily devolve into a fight.

"You'd probably be a snake, Potter,"

"What's wrong with being a snake?" Harry asked.

"They're evil." Michael said. "And slimy."

"They're animals. No animal is evil." Harry defended the serpents. "And snakes aren't slimy. You're thinking frogs and slugs."

Professor McGonagall jumped down and transformed back. "That's enough."

With that transfiguration began.

After several weeks people started to back off on asking Harry about the night he became the Boy-Who-Lived.

Instead they pestered him to help them with homework and spells, this Harry was more than happy to help them with.

However, Harry refused to let people copy his work. Instead Harry pointed them to different sources after giving them a basic framework of the homework.

After several days of this, Harry started to charge people. Despite being a first year Harry became a tutor people were willing to pay for. It was cheap, just a knut an hour. Though Harry did agree to barter, different things were assigned different values.

For example, a Chocolate Frog was worth 2 hours worth of tutoring, though cards could vary depending on the rareness.

Bertie Botts Every Flavor beans were worth 30 minutes or 2 for a full hour.

He would also bargain for books, parchment, quills and undisclosed favors.

All in all by Halloween most of Harry's free time was either tutoring or homework.

On Halloween something major happened. Ron Weasley was being cruel to Hermoine Granger, saying that she had no friends because she was a know-it-all and bossy.

This caused the bushy haired Gryffindor to run off with tears in her eyes.

Harry, feeling some bit of empathy, followed the girl to the bathrooms where he tried to talk her out of the bathroom.

This changed when a foul odor reached Harry's nose. It smelled like sewage and compost.

Harry looked over his shoulder and saw a mountain troll, one that was easily 30 levels above his current combat abilities.

Harry burst into the bathroom, unintentionally gaining the creature's attention.

"What are you doi-" Hermoine said.

"Shh." Harry shushed the girl, covering her mouth. "There's a mountain tro-"

Harry was cut off by the door shattering.

Hermoine quickly backed into a stall.

"Right, I can't die here." Harry said before a hidden side of him came through. The side of him that was the perceived image of Harry Potter that thousands of little girls read about at bedtime. "Still got stuff to do."

The troll roared at the small boy. The boy wasn't good food. The boy was skinny and seemed to be really boney.

"Stupefy!" Harry yelled, willing the troll to fall unconscious, to be a non-threat. "Stupefy!" Harry yelled again, forcing more and more magic into the spell, his desire for the spell to work ever increasing. "STUPEFY!" The red light of the spell blinded both Harry and the troll.

The third time was the charm as the troll's magical resistance was overcome by Harry's power and desire to keep himself and someone else safe.

Harry heard and felt the boom as the troll fell back. A ding told him a window had declared him something.

"Oh, God." He vaguely heard the girl behind him say. "Oh, God." She repeated several times as people ran into the bathroom.

"What Happened here, Potter?" Harry heard the smooth tones of the Potions Master.

"I stopped the troll." Harry said, rubbing his eyes.

"H-he used stupefy." Hermoine said as she looked out of the stall.

"That's rather advanced for you, Mr. Potter." Flitwick said.

"It was really bright too." Hermoine said as she noticed Harry rubbing his eyes.

"Can't see." Harry said.

He felt someone grab his chin. "He was too close to the light of the spell." Snape said.

"Why can the girl still see?" An unfamiliar voice said.

"She was in the stall." Harry said.

"Stop rubbing your eyes, Potter." Snape said, letting go of his chin. "It won't do any good."

It took some hours and a nasty smelling goop but Harry's sight was restored.

Harry had been awarded the title 'Troll Slayer' which added an effect that allowed Harry to partially ignore the magic resistance of creatures.

The next day, Hermoine went up to Harry. "Thank you." She said before darting away.

Harry watched the young witch leave before promising himself that he would reach out to her.

After all, he had evidently killed a troll defending her, though some would claim he was did so more to protect himself than a girl he barely knew.

Later that day, Harry found Hermoine in the library.

"Why did you save me?" She asked in a small voice.

"Because I wanted to live, that meant defeating the troll." Harry said. "Saving you was just a bonus."

"You could have run." Hermoine pointed out.

Harry paused. "Oh, true."

"Probably because you're so small and thin." Hermoine proved that her ability to read people was next to none.

"Hey, I'm not that skinny." Harry said defensively. "I just have a fast metabolism."

"Then eat higher calorie food." The bushy haired girl said.

"I have been." Harry whined. "I've been eating high calorie foods since mid-July."

"And you're still skinny?" Hermoine said in a huff. She hesitated. "Want to be friends?"

"Hmm…" Harry said before tapping his lips. "Maybe, study buddies?"

"Oh, sure." Hermoine said, a shy smile forming on her face.

Harry pulled out a journal. "Cool, I've been trying to figure something out and since people keep buying out my time maybe you can help."

Hermoine's smile faded. "Oh, what do you need to know?"

"How to defeat dementors." Harry grinned.

Hermoine looked at the journal. Harry had found several books on dementors and all had mentioned the Patronus Charm but none had given the incantation to it or how to cast it. She hummed in concentration. "I'll look up the charm but why do you need to know?"

"Er…" Harry tried to figure out a reason without telling the girl about his abilities. "Can I tell you later?"

"I'll look but I want a reason before I tell you anything, Harry Potter." Hermoine said, her bossiness coming through.

"Right, I'll tell you my reasons later, I promise." Harry said. "Wait, let me copy the journal." Harry said, pulling out one of his blank journals from his bag. A few wand movements later and Hermoine had a copy of his dementor journal.

"We can use these for notes?" Hermoine frowned.

"Yeah, no one's stopped me yet." Harry said. "They're easier to keep track of than scrolls of parchment."

Hermoine nodded before wandering off to find the information needed.

Harry groaned as he realised that he could have put a copying spell on the journal he had given the girl and gotten the information that way.

A clink of copper told Harry his next tutor session had begun.

AN: I saw this in Harry Potter and the Hermetic Arts by HaikenEdge. In that Harry plays DnD and learns how to do magic that way. This later screws up his ability to learn magic normally.

Sorry for the long wait, lost the document, then Covid 19 happened and my job as a cashier got far too hectic to write, then I got distracted by another fandom.

So, sorry for the long wait.