According to Ron, with Transfiguration you could increase the amount of real gold, or turn a different mineral into gold. But the gold made that way would lose its power over time. The goblins owned the gold veins used in Britain's wizarding world, so getting real gold was hard. Galleons were apparently a stretched mixture made with magic. Harry did not know how much of that was true.
A true alchemist, beyond the limits of Transfiguration, a great wizard whose work would not revert. That was probably what Albus Dumbledore was.
"I want to study and become like Dumbledore too. I want to try making the Sorcerer's Stone."
Harry said it half joking and half serious, and Ron laughed like he found it fun.
"That'd be great. Show me if you ever make it. ...But hey, if you turn into a total swot like my brother Percy, I'm dumping you as a friend."
"It's fine. I'm not that hardworking. I'm not that much of a swot."
In truth, Harry had read his textbooks over and over on the way here. He would have liked to try practicing, too, but Harry had not used magic even once. There was a law that minors could not use magic freely.
Would he be able to keep up in class? Would he end up isolated in his house? Harry was deeply anxious about that.
"Ron, have you decided what house you want to be in?"
When Harry asked, Ron answered without hesitation that it was Gryffindor.
"Definitely Gryffindor. Best house there is. ...Well, I don't know if I can get in. If Gryffindor doesn't take me, Ravenclaw might not be bad. If it's Hufflepuff...well, I guess the twins will give me grief."
Even though he teased swots, Ron apparently thought in a pretty realistic way. He named the house that valued intelligence as his second choice.
"All your brothers were in Gryffindor, right?"
"Yeah."
According to Ron, the oldest two worked as a bank employee and a dragon researcher. On top of that, his third brother was a prefect, and the twins' older brother was a regular on a sports team. That was impressive.
"What about your parents?"
Harry had started to suspect that the wizarding world might care a lot about bloodlines.
"Just happened that way. Don't talk like Slytherin, Harry."
"Yeah, sorry, Ron. I just kind of thought maybe that's how the wizarding world works."
Ron hated being told it was decided at home, and Harry understood that feeling, so he apologized honestly.
An awkward silence almost fell between them, and Ron decided to play the clown to change the mood.
"If you ask what I can do, I'm the loser of the siblings. The twins taught me a spell, so watch this, yeah?"
Ron showed off the twins' fake magic, and of course it did not work. Seeing it, Harry got his confidence back, and he laughed.
Ron's plan was drowned out by the voice of a girl who came into the compartment.
She had buck teeth, and it did not look like she cared much about fashion, with messy hair. She seemed to be looking for a boy's pet, but she got interested when Ron tried to do magic, so she watched Ron's spell with Harry.
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow. Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow!"
Harry did not feel like laughing in front of the girl, and Ron ended up embarrassed for nothing. The girl rattled off what she wanted to say at them, refused Harry's offer to help look for the pet, and stormed out.
"Any house is fine, but I'd rather not be in the same house as her. That sounds exhausting."
"She's probably Ravenclaw. She seems smart."
"Then I'm in trouble if Gryffindor rejects me. Ravenclaw is my second choice..."
Either way, thanks to her, the weird tension between Harry and Ron disappeared.
"Well, at this point, any house is fine. Just not Slytherin. If I get Slytherin, I'm packing my stuff and leaving Hogwarts."
Ron tried to land the conversation with a joke. That Slytherin was evil was a shared belief among siblings and wizard kids, and it was the standard punchline too.
But Ron's dislike of Slytherin had real weight to it. At home, the twins had told him about Slytherin students' bad behavior, and Ron's uncle had been killed by a Dark wizard who came from Slytherin. Kids with backgrounds like that were not rare, and Ron's opinion was what most wizarding families thought.
Slytherin was where terrible little criminals in training went.
The irony was that the kids least wary of Slytherin and its students were the ones who had not grown up in the wizarding world, like Harry and the girl from earlier.
"Ron, don't you think that's a bad way to say it?
There are good students in Slytherin too."
Ron's eyes widened. He had not expected to hear someone defend Slytherin from a kid whose parents were killed by a Slytherin Dark wizard.
Right. Harry did not really know the wizarding world.
Thinking that, Ron wanted to warn Harry as a friend, out of simple goodwill.
"Maybe. But, you know...in Slytherin, it's basically right to do bad, sneaky stuff.
That means the good guys lose, doesn't it?"
Harry respected Ron's opinion and said something along the lines of, basically there are a lot of bad people in Slytherin. If a Slytherin student heard it, they would not take it well. Saying there are good ones too meant there were usually a lot of unpleasant ones.
Harry had heard from Hagrid that Slytherin was the house that produced Voldemort. But he had also heard there were plenty of good people there too.
Even so, Harry intended to get into Slytherin. He expected that Slytherin was the only place that would accept someone like him who could speak Parseltongue, and he wanted to become a great and admirable wizard who would not shame his parents.
Since coming to the wizarding world, Harry had been treated like a hero. But the real Harry was nothing but a skinny kid, and he did not feel like he could live up to everyone's expectations.
It made him feel like he was letting down the wizarding world that had accepted him. So he wanted to achieve something worthy of ending up on a Chocolate Frog Card, as a great wizard.
(...Even if Ron finds out I can speak Parseltongue, will he stay with me?)
Talking to Ron was fun. Unlike Asclepius, Ron was the first friend his own age Harry had ever had. Harry truly wanted to cherish him.
But because of that, Harry did not have the courage to take that last step. He was scared that if Ron knew Harry had the same talent as a Dark wizard, Ron's eyes would change.
Even so, if Harry ended up in Slytherin, was it too much to hope Ron would still be his friend?
"Still...Merlin you keep talking about was from Slytherin...and if people from Slytherin get insulted when they haven't done anything, of course it's going to feel bad."
As Harry said that and tried to ask Ron more about Slytherin, someone came into the compartment.
A boy with slicked back blond hair and an arrogant presence that intimidated the people around him. Draco Malfoy arrived at the compartment where Harry and Ron were, with two big boys following him.