"
It at least taught him something exceedingly valuable about himself— in the last two years, he'd been exceptionally lazy in class.
"
This is often blamed on the drizzlies who are attributed with intensifying their abuse of Harry whenever he outperformed his lazy lazy bully of a cousin setting a very low bar indeed! That said, if there's one flaw about Harry that seems to stubbornly persist, it's his unwillingness or perhaps inability to perceive, let alone take advantage of the opportunities his life in the magical world is overflowing with.

"
'I am a stone on the ground, watch how I sit,' thought Harry, who'd found after his hundred and fifty ninth attempt that empathising with the rock seemed to help his cause. 'As soon as stones can swim, leaves will sink. He who pelts every barking dog must pick up a great many stones. Those who move mountains must begin with a single stone. I am that stone.'
.
.
.
"You could be so much more. A hero amongst the rocks."

'I don't want this,' he imagined the stone saying, crossing its rocky arms stubbornly. 'Why me? I'm only a rock'
"
Whoa... this is very, very cool. It's like he's in a Rocky training montage, even tho he doesn't see the parallels now, this is the process he needs to go thru to go from 'why me, I'm just a kid' to 'You can be so much more, a hero amongst the sheep.' :D

"
Ten minutes later when they arrived at the river, there was no sign of the shtojzovalle. Harry had told Sternley of his interesting encounter with the creature and the hat had confessed he'd never heard of the creatures before, nor knew anything about them.
"
shtojzovalle?

'
In Albanian mythology, the shtojzovalle, also known as shtojzorreshta, shtozote is a small creature with supernatural powers and of extraordinary beauty. They are invisible woodland creatures, which can be seen by humans only on rare occasions and are fond of song and dance.
'
Uhm... when did this happen? I don't mind side mentions of off-screen encounters, but how would Harry have any idea what it was if Sternley doesn't?

"The next day,"
*blinks* Huh! I... I'm a bit... ? Stunned? Disappointed? Confused? I'd have thought Harry's presence would have drawn quite a bit more investigation than, well, none.

"
"I'm pretty lucky," offered Harry.

"You're the most unlucky person I've ever met," replied Sternley. "Your parents are dead. You got landed with the worst set of muggles I've seen for four hundred years. You killed a teacher in your first year and a basilisk in your second and then got lost in an uninhabited, deadly forest from which your only escape is to have a hat teach you one of the most complex magical practices you could ever hope to come across.
"
I'm hoping that, with time, Harry will learn to counter these arguments:
* Your parents are dead. - You lived because they loved you.
* You got landed with the worst set of muggles I've seen for four hundred years. - Hat has probably not seen more than a dozen muggles in that time and he's not seen anything if he thinks that moderate verbal and psychological abuse along with mild to moderate physical abuse is 'the worst'. I personally have had to witness victims of severe abuse and, without ignoring Harry's real and genuine trauma, he was light years away from 'the worst'.
* You killed a teacher in your first year and a basilisk in your second - again, he lived, and his friends proved themselves genuine, both are priceless treasures that hundreds who faced riddle would be glad for.
* and then got lost in an uninhabited, deadly forest from which your only escape is to have a hat teach you one of the most complex magical practices you could ever hope to come across - He escaped a fate of returning to hateful relatives (I never said that they weren't, just that they were not selling his body or carving/burning/drugging it for their entertainment, etc...) who would drive his already depressed soul into deeper darkness. In addition to escaping, he has the opportunity to learn priceless lost magic in an environment which will force him to learn and grow so that he can face the challenges that he cannot avoid on his fated path.
I think I drank some contrary creamer in my coffee... I'ma go decom a server and say thanks for the fun story.

Hat is wonderful. I'm so glad you've not gone too far with the sarcasm or gruffness - both common traits given to Sternly in the majority of fics giving our dear Hat any time to shine. I'm also happy that Harrys first encounter with something 'lethal' is a curious feline, and one that is likely much more magical than expected given first impressions. It's just too bad that Harry's Common Sense is so sadly low... leaving a trail of scratches from his hacked firewood is going to strain those wards something fierce! He will hopefully learn to look for dead fallen wood and make a habit of grabbing every piece that he sees.

Excellent! I'm captivated!

"
"Has anyone ever told you, you look like an angel?" asked Harry, with the acute awareness that reality was falling apart around him.

"You, every time you see me," she said. "All your life."
"
From ch 1, I know that there is no pairing, but this line stuck in my head and I cannot help but hope to see our dear Moonbeam again before all is said and done.

I should have done so with "Minute", but I won't miss doing it here. You write an absolutely entrancing opening chapter - for both stories.

Wonderfully written fic. What I love is that you didn't make Dumbledore this big villain that tries to control everything. I'm so sick of all these fics with a scheming evil Dumbledore.

this was by FAR the best and funniest story I've seen in a long time. Intense kudos to you for this world and story!
That being said, PLEASE continue this excellent story into year 3, i would adore reading it

What a great story! What happened with the war? Is it still going on and Harry is now back in England? Interesting developments with Sternly. I'll go search in the sequel now!

Son of a bitch! Come back here! I thougjt you said this was completed!

Thats kinda weird… sure Harry can be impulsive. But impulsivr to cut Snapes wand in two and then just run aeay from hogwarts?!

She is most awesome, cat lady

The brain is quite the nifty thing, trying to memorize things is hard, but the brain did evolve to survive, the brain is very good at memorizing facts about things that means life or death, so education in harsh environment would obviously push him to the brink, but also he would actually learn easier that way

...I can not put into words how disappointed I am that you got the sword to BREAK to some fucking fire spell. Really? a sword from a creature at least a 1000 years old, forged when he was born and probably enchanted? destroy with some random ass fire sword spell? I questioned when the sword of grifinfor was broken, at least I could believe the reason why. But he gives him a sword that gonna break like that to kill the dark lord? I'm just so fucking disappointed that that's how you've played this out.

I liked this story up to chapter 24 or 25. It had a direction, a purpose. But after Harry got a voice in his head, a forced "war", and it stopped being a "Harry learns magic in order to get home" and turned into "Harry's wacky adventures with a hat" without any goal, rhyme, or reason, it stopped being fun. I keep waiting for there to be an actual goal, but instead Harry just goes after whatever shiny object is in front of him. He's massively OOC even for this story. Somewhere around chapter 24/25 he stopped caring about getting home because the story wanted him to stop caring. And thus I stopped caring about the story, because it has yet to give me anything else TO care about. Where's the arc? What's the story even about any more? It's become an utterly random walk from place to place, fighting whatever happens to be there. All I'm doing now is skimming chapters to see if there ever emerges a purpose to the story. It should've ended 10 chapters ago, after the climactic fight with the wolves, as Harry just WENT HOME. Or at least continued in that direction, instead of whatever drivel this is.

"Vocerr" was never introduced, yet suddenly Harry knows his name. The first occurrence of that name is when Harry thinks of him by it... and he introduces himself only a bit later.