You know, I honestly think Harry Potter in canon is a weird guy. There is a massive library filled with probably a multitude of books that contain thousands upon thousands of varied magical spells.

And not once in canon is it mentioned that he just finds some spells interesting and decides to learn them. Ignoring that fiasco with the potions book atleast.

Now, I know what I'm like as a person and I'm sure quite a few of you would think along the same lines.

In your free time at a boarding school, your lessons are done for the day and you have nothing to do, thus you're bored. What to do?

Me, I'm pretty sure atleast a few times I'd browse idly through a few books in the library to see if anything of interest pops up.

It's not like books containing much info would be all that hard to find in the library. I'm sure I'd stumble upon spells like Stupefy, Confundo, Expulso, Confringo easily enough. And after reading their affects, I'd definitely learn them just for the sheer fact that I could confuse people, render them unconscious and cause an explosion or the like with a wave of a bloody stick.

So to sum it up, I'm looking for stories where they are decently written, and even if Harry hasn't changed much from canon he still learns spells of interest to him, instead of basically ignoring the plethora of weapons and the like he's basically been handed the key to.

Anybody know any stories like that? Where he acts upon one of the most basic human conceptions for once? Curiosity.

 

As someone who went to a boarding school without electronic media, books are pretty much the black market gold. And pens. Fancy pens.

 

Well yeah. I was the same way as a teen, but this is the chance to learn cool magic powers and shit. I'd go look up a few spells, if just to make lazing around in my free-time even better. A spell to clean up my mess behind me and make my bed, a spell to make me food, Accio the T.V remote etc etc.

 

The Hogwarts students already have an absurd workload. I mean, seriously, they are done with lessons when it nears nightfall. Then they have to work almost all night with their homework.

I'll admit I'm lazy as hell in regards to homework, but I can totally buy Harry just wanting to hang out with his friends once he's done. After all, he's never had many prior to Hogwarts.

What I find unrealistic is that he has a cloak of invisibility and doesn't use it to do a shitload of creeping on girls.

 

You're possibly going against your own argument with the Confringo example. While Hogwarts has a fairly lax approach to health and safety (or wizards and witches are just generally tougher people), I doubt anyone would sanction a spell to cause explosions big enough to blow up a motorbike's sidercar, and that breaks a wand, something which has never happened to Harry through all the crazy shit he goes through, being put on the syllabus. Chances are, he learnt that all on his own, on the basis that it was interesting and useful.

 

VINCET and its sequel have what you're looking for. It's not perfect, but it's aged better than a lot of stories and gets considerable better after ch2 of the sequel (where one of the authors takes it up himself after a fairly long hiatus).