Thanks to Almarna, Ryu D for editing
Chapter 2

"Have you seen a toad?" A bushy-haired girl asked imperiously and stared at us expectantly.

The expression on Harry's face said all that needed to be said about what he thought about her demeanour, but I was slightly more prepared for the confrontation with Hermione's social incompetence than he.

"You should wait for someone to beckon you inside after knocking, we could have been changing." I softly chastised, careful to keep every emotion but disappointment out of my voice.

The girl blushed and began to stammer something, but I interrupted her. "Regarding the toad, no I haven't seen one, but if you wish, I could summon it here." I offered, at which Hermione promptly, any embarrassment that she might have felt about being called out on her rude behaviour forgotten, began rapid-firing questions in my direction.

I shall spare the reader a rendition of the questions, as they can probably imagine what they pertained.

"I would be willing to answer questions, after having dealt with the issue of the missing toad, but I think an errant pet has priority at the moment. Can you describe the animal to me in greater detail?" I chastised, again, before asking a question that I knew would remain unanswered.

"Oh, so you need to know how it looks to summon it? It's not actually my toad, and I haven't seen it, I guess I could go get Neville so he can describe it." Hermione quickly babbled out before promptly running off.

I stared at the spot that she'd inhabited before leaving.

"Shoe-in for Ravenclaw that one. Although I fear that we won't be getting any peace in the next seven years if she gets sorted there." I commented.

"Ravenclaw, that's one of the houses right. Is it the one you're in?" Harry asked.

"Yes, the house of knowledge, and one of the two houses that you should wish to be in if you want to have a quiet school experience," I answered.

Harry made to query further, but was interrupted by an out of breath Hermione appearing once again at our door, dragging an even more out of breath pudgy blonde behind her.

"You're talking about Hogwarts houses? The topic is so interesting and I've read all about it in 'Hogwarts a History' d-" She started again, but I cut her off with a cough and a pointed look in Neville's direction. She blushed again and her mouth shut with an audible 'click'.

"Can you describe your toad to me Neville, preferably starting with the name?" I politely asked the boy as I pulled out my wand.

"Errm, well his name is Trevor, he's about this big," he gestured how big exactly he was with his hands, "he's green, and warty and has this weird orange spot on his back." He said before falling silent, crossing his eyes. "That's, uhmm, all I can say really, he's a toad."

I raised my wand, and slowly completed the wand motion of the summoning charm, enunciating the spell clearly. "Accio Trevor the toad." As I held a mental image of that very toad in the forefront of my mind. I could have honestly done it without fanfare, a single flick of my wand would have been enough, the summoning charm being my second most well-used charm, but I wanted to make sure to do it correctly.

Knowing I had succeeded when I felt a connection that was growing ever closer form with some sort of object, in this case probably Trevor, I waited. Not too long, four seconds or so, although that was enough time for everyone in the compartment to start growing fidgety. Thankfully that was the point where the toad came tumbling in through the open door. I snapped off the summoning charm with a mental twang, and caught the toad in a simple levitating charm, directing it gently into Neville's arms.

He grasped it out of the air with a soft exclamation of "Trevor!", before profusely thanking me. I was gladdened that he did not attempt to do so by shaking my hand.

Before Hermione could launch into a barrage of questions, I started explaining the charm I'd just cast, seeing out of the corner of my eye, that Harry was also curious.

"Accio, the summoning charm. One of the most useful pieces of magic you will ever learn. It has some peculiarities however, although I hesitate to call them such, since they are in hindsight quite obvious. Firstly," I put up one finger, "the chance of successfully casting the spell is increased if you have an intimate knowledge of what you are summoning, which is why I asked for a description of Trevor. Secondly, the summoning is made easier if you have a claim on the item that you are attempting to summon. It would be easier to summon a pair of shoes that belong to you, rather than, let's say, a pair of shoes that belong to a room-mate of yours. Thirdly, this being an extension of the second point. If you are attempting to summon something that is currently being held by someone else, you will enter a contest of will, intent deciding who shall lay claim on the item. This coincidentally is why it is almost impossible to summon people, except perhaps parents summoning their children in dangerous situations. Fourthly you will be learning the charm in your fourth year."

I saw the disappointed looks on their faces, and that Hermione and Neville had sat down and closed the compartment sometime during my explanation.

"As long as you stick to the curriculum, of course. I'm a third-year myself." I flagrantly added, drawing a dramatic gasp from Hermione.

"That means you learnt the spell two years early!" She exclaimed, at which I nodded.

"But why, wouldn't it be better to learn it when the teachers deem you ready?" She then asked.

I shrugged. "It seems that you've made the common misconception that muggleborns make when they begin attending Hogwarts. They are blinded by the magic, and forget that it is a school. The only school in Britain in fact, which means they can't allow anyone to fail before their sixth-year, and as you undoubtedly remember, a class only moves as fast as its slowest member." I said.

Hermione gained a disappointed look to her face, which prompted a laugh from me.

"Don't look so down, I just mentioned earlier that I learned the spell when I technically shouldn't have yet. Take the curriculum Hogwarts offers as a bare minimum to accomplish, sinking as little time into it as possible, and then discover other magic at your own pace. We have quite the library." I tried to comfort, adding a little something that I knew would draw a reaction. The one who reacted just wasn't the one I expected.

"As little as possible?" Harry asked, while Hermione still seemed stunned into silence by my heresy.

"It's a problem of diminishing returns really," I started, before pausing, formulating my answer, "It takes a lot more time to master something than it does to simply understand the basics. For example, with one hour of studying for a subject, let's say Charms, I have an average grade of EE, exceeds expectations, which requires you to have about 80% of the knowledge on any given task. I could get that EE to an O, outstanding, with another hour of studying. But in that one hour which I invested in raising my Charms grade from an EE to an O, 80% to 90%, I could have learned a completely different subject to an EE level." I finished, before shrugging.

"The question here is naturally if you would prefer having a deep understanding of one subject, or an average understanding of two." I stated.

"So, if you've been ignoring school subjects, what have you been learning?" Neville surprisingly asked.

I smiled at him. "Well, I was always quite interested in healing, so I've been learning some of that on the side. Other than that, I also think that the mind arts are pretty interesting." I explained, leaving out my study of rituals and battle magic not taught at Hogwarts. They did not need to know. I was hesitant to even mention me studying mind arts, but seeds needed to be planted.

"The mind arts?" Hermione asked dubiously, furrowing her brows. "What's that?"

"It's the discipline of defending your mind from foreign influences, such as compulsions, mind shocks, and mind readers. The other side of the spectrum is naturally learning how to attack other minds. I'm honestly quite uninterested in either," a lie, "what I find fascinating is magic's potential to enhance the effectiveness of your mind. Thought acceleration, thought partitioning, memory manipulation. Stuff like that." I said, and shrugged.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Hermione exclaimed, while Harry seemed to be stuck on another implication. "Wizards can read minds!?"

"Yeah, they can. They can also control minds, erase/manipulate memories and much more" I answered Harry's question first, before turning to Hermione. "It is dangerous yes, and I don't recommend you delve too deep into the topic unless you're willing to go at a very slow pace so as to make it less so. However, in the end, learning magic at the potential detriment of your own self is a choice everyone needs to make for themselves."

Harry was blanching with a queasy face, staring out the window, and probably reconsidering going to Hogwarts. Hermione meanwhile was biting her lip, seemingly halting an outburst from herself.

"What other kinds of magic are there, that aren't taught in the curriculum?" She eventually asked.

"Well, I only know the ones I know, naturally, but as mentioned, there's healing and the mind arts. Then we have, let me think, Alchemy, Oneiromancy, Enchanting, Warding, spatial magic, runic magic, rituals, emotion based magic and spirit magic." I halted for a second. "Those are the disciplines I can think off the top of my head, without mentioning the ones that are completely illegal. There are probably a lot more. Although I don't know if Hogwarts has books on every small branch of magic in existence."

"Wait, you mean that we don't learn how to defend our minds in school?" Harry asked, latching onto the thing that seemed to be worrying him the most.

I shrugged, "apparently."

I took a glance at the only girl in the compartment, who still seemed to be looking into nothing with a shocked face.

Harry grumbled and threw himself back.

"Are you telling me that for every subject we have, there are a dozen different branches of magic that we won't even cover." Hermione, looking as if someone had just brazenly walked up to her breakfast table, Pulled down their pants and shat in her cereal.

"Well yeah, although to be fair, you can't just go to university and take every single course there is either." I explained. "With how appalled you look at being denied knowledge, I can definitely see that you'll be a good fit for Ravenclaw." I attempted, quite brutishly to change the topic, we would be arriving at Hogwarts soon.

Hermione seemed taken aback at that, before mumbling something about Gryffindor.

I gave her a weirded out look, "Sorry, but why would you want to be in Gryffindor. The learning environment there is horrible. No offence." I quickly said to Neville.

"Why would the learning environment be horrible?" Hermione asked, seemingly confused.

"Well, if you're sorted into Gryffindor, you automatically make an enemy out of most people in Slytherin, so you already start with one fourth of the school not liking you, which can't be pleasant. Then, Gryffindor is the house of the courageous and just, but what people seem to forget is that eleven year-olds can hardly exhibit these two traits, and rather than being courageous and chivalrous, exhibit the various sub-set personality traits, like brashness, being quick to judge and exclude others." I said, carefully watching Neville's reaction. "They're basically, in a muggle equivalent, the house of jocks."

Hermione seemed scandalized, while Neville seemed, apathetic, simply listening with a far away look in his eyes.

"My Grandmother always says that Gryffindors aren't worth interacting with until they've been out in the real world for a bit." He admitted with a frown, apparently noticing my look.

"Alright, so Gryffindor might not be the best for learning, but what makes Ravenclaw so great?" Hermione asked, seeming unconvinced.

"The house of Knowledge, this basically means you'll be sharing a house with people who value learning, and will know to respect you doing that if you wish. Ravenclaw is one of the two neutral houses at Hogwarts, which means you won't make any enemies if you're sorted there. We also have our own rooms, not dorm-rooms." I explained, before tapping my chin in thought. "Oh, and we also have a personal library, containing books not in the Hogwarts library, donated by various Ravenclaw alumni."

Hook, line and sinker. Hermione seemed convinced.

"Although, I should warn you, that the environment can get quite anti-social and academically competitive in the higher years. I've had people refuse to tell me what books they read to learn certain theories and whatnot, because they were afraid I'd pass them in class rankings if given the advantage." I warned. "However, all in all, Ravenclaw's goal as a house is to foster academic and magical ambition, and it does this the best out of the four houses. Just like Slytherin fosters political ambition, and Hufflepuff fosters a friendly environment to spend seven years in."

"Friendly environment?" Harry asked, curiously.

I nodded, "Well, it is the house of hard work, and loyalty. As mentioned earlier children don't really know the meaning of real loyalty, and thus the personality trait its replaced with is basically friendliness. Personally, if I wasn't so focused on learning magic, I would have wanted to be in Hufflepuff. It has a pretty friendly and easy-going atmosphere."

Harry nodded, looking contemplative.

"I will warn you however, the way that the sorting works, you can influence the house you will be in yourself. Which sometimes leads to people who really should not be in a house, being sorted there anyway. Be it because they want to honour family tradition, or because they have some sort of fancy idea of what the house is supposed to be and want to be part of it."

That was the moment that the train conductor announced that we would be arriving in Hogwarts soon, and Neville and Hermione left for their own compartment.

I turned to Harry. "This is where we part ways, the first years take the more scenic route to Hogwarts, do enjoy the experience. Farewell" I said, before leaving the compartment without another word.