60 Chapter 60: A Scheme for more

The next day started great. It was nice and sunny for a day in northern Scotland in the fall, which was reflected by the enchanted ceiling. His breakfast was great, and he was surrounded by his friends. Once they received their schedule for this year, which was pretty similar to the one last year as there were no new classes for them, they headed down towards the Greenhouses. The first lesson the Ravenclaws had today was Herbology with the Gryffindors.

But that is where things began to go downhill. Before they even arrived at the Greenhouses, they could already hear the annoying voice of Lockhart. He was giving Professor Sprout, a squat little witch who wore a patched hat over her flyaway hair, tips on how to take care of her plants.

Gilderoy Lockhart, however, was immaculate in sweeping robes of turquoise, his golden hair shining under a perfectly positioned turquoise hat with gold trimming. "Oh, hello there!" he called, beaming around at the assembled students. "Just been showing Professor Sprout the correct way to take care of a Wiggentree! But I don't want you running away with the idea that I'm better at Herbology than she is! I just happen to have met several of these exotic plants on my travels..."

Their usually friendly professor looked quite disgruntled as she ignored the man and sent them towards Greenhouse three, where their lesson would be today.

Hearing that they would work in Greenhouse three today made the students more excited since they had only worked in one before. The third one contained the more interesting and dangerous plants.

When Harry passed Lockhart, he got stopped by the professor, making him internally groan but still kept up a polite facade.

"Harry! I've been wanting a word — you don't mind if he's a couple of minutes late, do you, Professor Sprout?" Judging by Professor Sprout's scowl, she did mind, but Lockhart said, "That's the ticket," and closed the greenhouse door in her face.

"Harry," said Lockhart, his large white teeth gleaming in the sunlight as he shook his head. "Harry, Harry, Harry. When I heard that I got accepted as your professor this year, I was quite excited."

"Finally, I have the chance to not only impart my magical knowledge but also my extensive expertise in handling publicity. I probably already gave you a taste when you landed on the front page with me," he said with his bright smile.

'That idiot couldn't possibly think I am excited to learn from him?' thought Harry while keeping his face polite.

"I know you're probably thinking something along the lines that I am an internationally famous wizard who could help guide you on the right path. After all, you have a bit of fame already with all that business with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" He glanced at the lightning scar on Harry's forehead. "I know, I know — it's not quite as good as winning Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award five times in a row, as I have — but it's a start, Harry, it's a start."

'Is he serious?'

"That's something we can work with. But you should take it slow; you are only 12. If you have any questions, you are open to consult me." He gave Harry a hearty wink and strode off. Harry stood stunned for a few seconds, then, remembering he was supposed to be in the greenhouse, he opened the door and slid inside.

Professor Sprout was standing behind a trestle bench in the center of the greenhouse. About twenty pairs of different-colored earmuffs were lying on the bench. When Harry had taken his place between Tracey and Hermione, she told him about the subject of today's lesson: Mandrakes.

The lesson ended up quite interesting, which gave his day an upward spin again after the unwelcome disruption caused by Lockhart. He also managed to secretly secure some Mandrake seedlings without anyone watching and placed them in his Sacred Gear. They were quite a limited and regulated commodity, hard to get without Potion or Herbology Mastery.

Luckily for him, they were the subject of the lessons today. Even with the two he snatched, he could grow more of them in one of his public greenhouses and release them into the wild of the main dimension once he had enough of them, adding another magical plant to his ecosystem.

His next lesson on his schedule was Transfiguration. Last year, they began with transfiguring inanimate objects like matchsticks into other things and scaled up from there.

This year, they would move on to another branch of Transfiguration. From McGonagall's lesson, he remembered the rough lesson plan. In first year, they learned inanimate transfiguration. In second year, transfiguration on living beings, like today, turning a beetle into a button. In third year, untransfiguration, an art allowing them to reverse their transfiguration, and Switching, allowing them to switch two partial characteristics between two objects. The last new thing they learned at O.W.L. level was Vanishment, the art of vanishing an object. During their fifth year, they would be repeating all they learned and, of course, scaling up to prepare for their exams.

From the books in the library, he also learned what the N.E.W.T. curriculum looked like. Besides all the previously learned spells without an incantation, they would also work on Conjuration, a very complex art allowing them to conjure objects with their magic. They would also delve a bit more into Human Transfiguration than they had learned in the previous years.

While Transfiguration was still a quite happy occasion, even with a strict teacher like Professor McGonagall, who was very knowledgeable in her field, the next lesson made him lose hope for the rest of the school year, and it was only the first day.

But before he got to that, Harry made a small stop in the library during his break. However, he wasn't there just to check for new books. Instead, he wanted to add something to the library.

As the only devil with real connections to the Wizarding World, he had a unique opportunity. Yes, devils were quite famous for their businesses nowadays, but there was something they had been famous for much longer: contracts.

Contracts were the method by which devil society, especially the noble clans, built their riches. And Harry was in a unique position to gain access to this society, which had lost contact with devilkind long ago.

There were no laws preventing him from forming contracts with wizards. They were simply not interesting enough when they were still young a few thousand years ago, and considered a failed product. But now they had quite an extensive amount of riches and knowledge, things that Harry wanted for himself.

Yes, his copy of the Hogwarts Library was quite big and contained a lot. But it was still pretty basic knowledge, not including some of the more esoteric arts that he had come to realize when he studied the books he got from Knockturn Alley.

A lot of this awesome knowledge was in the possession of the old families, sometimes even labeled as family magic. With his target audience in mind, he carefully placed some of his personal summoning leaflets in books that they were likely to read, like some of the darker ones or in the copies of the Pure-Blood Directory by Cantankerus Nott and similar books. Books that a pureblood was more likely to read.

Of course, he only placed the one-time summoning leaflets there, as he wanted the possibility to not be summoned again by them if the target didn't fit his criteria. He could have written down his personal summoning circle with all instructions, but this could easily go wrong, as wizards were not the most open-minded people. He would have to break the connection if he didn't want to be summoned again and later create a completely new one.

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