Harry Potter: Returns Back From Game of Thrones (ASOIAF) - 30

Chapter 30: Gryffindor's Equal

Remembering where anything was proved nearly impossible—everything seemed to constantly shift and rearrange itself.

The portraits continually visited one another for tea and gossip, making them utterly useless as reliable landmarks. Harry was quite certain even the imposing suits of armour could walk about when students weren't watching.

Fortunately, the castle was finite in size. Even a constantly changing map eventually became familiar after enough repetitions—rather like those deliberately confusing puzzle games that initially seemed impossible but eventually felt manageable through sheer repetition and memorisation.

First-years rarely tumbled to their deaths from the moving staircases—they proved far sturdier than many fictional protagonists who couldn't manage basic jumps. Once students became upperclassmen, they stopped worrying about getting hopelessly lost in the labyrinthine corridors.

Sometimes Peeves caused deliberate mischief by violently jostling a staircase whilst students were mid-crossing, but each house's resident ghost helpfully guided their newcomers through the worst navigational challenges.

Gryffindor's ghost was Nearly Headless Nick, who'd been half-decapitated during his mortal execution. His lingering annoyance at the botched beheading struck Harry as somewhat peculiar—in many cultures, leaving a fragment of flesh attached was considered a final mercy. Harry's own executions in Westeros had always been clean one-stroke affairs, the condemned's suffering ended instantly.

Nick actually got along remarkably well with Harry. When they swapped stories about military tactics, battlefield strategies, and proper execution techniques, they became instant kindred spirits—even if neither could share a drink together. Nick proved as helpful as the Fat Friar when guiding lost students, and he was impressively fast when necessary, having fled the instant Harry began petrifying ghosts that first evening.

The castle's doors presented another exhausting ordeal. If one didn't politely request entry or press exactly the right spot, they remained stubbornly shut. Some apparent "doors" were actually solid walls cleverly disguised to look like doorways—their latches only functioned from the far side, making them completely impassable.

Who designed a door leading absolutely nowhere? Harry seriously contemplated using the sort of breaching techniques he'd learned during sieges.

His battle-honed instincts insisted some of those mysteriously sealed doors concealed important hidden chambers. When time permitted, he would "persuade" them—testing whether his high Charisma could somehow convince the enchanted barriers to open with a gracious "Enter, my lord."

Advancing his skill with Alohomora would certainly help. Here in this magic-saturated environment, Charisma amplified every spell's effectiveness dramatically. Once his fundamental spellwork improved sufficiently, even basic charms could potentially bypass most protective wards through sheer force of personality.

Hogwarts' protective enchantments, however, still surpassed Gringotts' defences considerably. His physical strength hadn't yet reached the level where one punch could shatter a thousand magical barriers simultaneously. Most Gringotts wards were simply curses—his divine power could wash those away relatively easily. But several Hogwarts doors involved sophisticated spatial magic. Even combining his King of Strength abilities with Alohomora couldn't budge those particular obstacles.

He wasn't here to rob the institution anyway. No practical need to smash through every locked door simply to satisfy curiosity about what lay beyond.

The Weasley twins clearly knew numerous shortcuts and secret passages throughout the castle—Harry didn't pry into their secrets. When their bond strengthened sufficiently through shared experiences, they would naturally share such valuable intelligence.

Initially, Harry followed the conventional routes like other first-years, dutifully climbing staircases. Within days he'd begun simply vaulting between floors—memorising a classroom's precise elevation, then leaping directly up to catch window ledges and haul himself through.

These rapid vertical routes sometimes crossed near the forbidden fourth-floor corridor. Harry had therefore made diplomatic peace with caretaker Argus Filch early on. The sour, aging Squib had few companions besides the equally unfriendly Madam Pince—their relationship dynamics were no mystery to Harry's perceptive eye.

In fact, Harry would confidently wager that if Dumbledore and Grindelwald stood side by side, he could accurately read the true nature of their historical relationship—high Charisma sharpened every form of perception dramatically, whether assessing humans, objects, magical auras, or even animals.

Filch's cat Mrs Norris normally prowled the corridors relentlessly, fetching her master at the tiniest rule infraction. When faced with Harry's overwhelming presence, she simply froze, permitting him to stroke her fur or shoo her away as circumstances required.

The academic classes themselves filled the remainder of daily life. Beyond Charms, magical education held profound scholarly depth. Nine subjects studied simultaneously, plus Harry's private regimen of physical conditioning and sword practice borrowed from Dumbledore's office. He appreciated these broad fundamental studies—though wizards had no formal "university" system, a mature witch or wizard need only focus intensely in one particular direction and magical power would naturally follow that concentrated intention.

Wednesday nights found them using telescopes to carefully map stellar positions and planetary movements under the vast night sky. Three times weekly, the stout Professor Sprout led students to the greenhouses scattered behind the castle to cultivate peculiar magical plants and fungi. Sprout, as Head of Hufflepuff House, embodied the kindness the Sorting Hat had described—practically "a living echo of Lady Hufflepuff herself," which constituted extraordinarily high praise from that notoriously particular enchanted artefact.

Even higher praise had been the Hat's private words to Harry:

"Good heavens, by Merlin's pointed crown! Harry Potter—by sword-craft alone I would name you the finest warrior in a thousand years. Stronger than Gryffindor himself in raw combat ability—well, perhaps... let us diplomatically say Gryffindor's equal at minimum, certainly no less."

History of Magic, taught by the ghostly Professor Binns, bored most students into near-catatonic states. Harry devoured every lecture, cross-referencing wizarding historical accounts with corresponding events in mundane records. The system even encouraged his attendance—timely participation and passing yearly examinations granted valuable attribute points as rewards. Compared with the brutal life-and-death struggles of war-torn Westeros, Hogwarts genuinely felt like playing on Easy Mode.

After experiencing the violent Westeros childhood and surviving the relentless academic pressure of that other world's education system, first-year coursework felt refreshingly manageable. Harry studied willingly and enthusiastically—though only because he genuinely loved acquiring new knowledge. Professor Binns' monotonous droning voice could claim absolutely no credit for inspiring student engagement. The ghost had clearly "quit" caring about teaching quality upon his death decades ago, yet somehow continued lecturing regardless.