When Piper awoke the following day, she discovered that the uniform she had laid out the night before was altered. The tie, which had been plain black, was now scarlet with diagonal golden pinstripes. The hem and collar of her jumper were trimmed in scarlet and gold. Her robe sported a scarlet lining, a single velvet stripe encircled the sleeves near the cuffs, and the Gryffindor crest decorated the left breast.

She smiled as she looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror after getting dressed. This was really happening! She was a bona fide Hogwarts student about to begin her first day of classes!

She made her way down to the Great Hall around 7:00 and found only a quarter of the students in attendance compared to last night.

"Early riser! Excellent," Matt greeted as she approached the Gryffindor table. He plucked a piece of paper from the first of seven stacks laid out on the end of the table. "Your class schedule."

"Thank you," she said as she took the paper and sat. She filled her plate with soft scrambled eggs, a few rashers of bacon and toast and then studied the schedule for Thursday.

She nearly choked on her toast when she saw that she had Potions with the Slytherins today. She had heard at dinner last night that the Potions professor was the Head of Slytherin and that he favoured his own house and actively had it out for Gryffindor. She was hoping that they'd have his class with a different house, but she just wasn't that lucky, it seemed. At least she had Charms and Transfigurations with Ravenclaw, first. She'd be able to catch up with Dierdra.

After finishing breakfast, she stopped off at her dorm to pack her bookbag with The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 and A Beginner's Guide to Transfigurations, and then set off to find the Charms classroom. The class schedule came with a map, and she was usually pretty adept at finding her way around. Still, she had to admit that the changing staircases and other idiosyncrasies the castle, which seemed to have a mind of its own, possessed made navigating through the halls more of a challenge than she was used to. She grinned. One thing was for sure, she wasn't going to be bored here.

Finding the Charms classroom, she took a seat and watched as other students slowly trickled in. Her dormmate Jocasta sat next to her on one side, while Dierdra sat on the other. They struck up a conversation in which Dierdra inundated them with trivia about their Charms professor, and Ravenclaw's Head of House, Professor Flitwick. Not only was he a master in his field, but a champion-level duelist, as well.

"Sounds like someone has a crush," Jocasta teased her good-naturedly.

Dierdra made a face. "I do not! I'm just pointing out how lucky we are to have a wizard of his calibre teaching us a subject as important as Charms."

Their conversation was cut short when, at precisely 9:00, the professor himself arrived. He was an older, diminutive man with intelligent eyes and a kind smile who had to climb a step stool to be seen over the top of his podium.

"Good morning!" he greeted them, and they parroted the greeting back to him. "Welcome to Charms class. Before I go into greater detail regarding what charms are and aren't, I'd like to go over the class register to ensure everyone found my classroom successfully. It's not uncommon for first-years to get a bit turned around during the first week of classes. If that happens to you, don't be embarrassed, it's quite expected!"

He began calling names. But unlike every other attendance taking she'd experienced on the first day of school, he didn't need to wait for her or her classmates to announce their presence. Instead, he pointed to each of them as he named them off before they had the chance to respond. They all looked at each other as he rattled off the entire list without faltering, a bit befuddled.

"Well done, everyone! Not a single person late or missing. Keep up the good work!"

A Ravenclaw student she didn't know raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr Muir?"

"Sir, how do you know who we are already?"

"Why, because I paid attention last night during the Sorting Ceremony," Professor Flitwick answered as if it were obvious. "Now then, Charms and Transfigurations are often confused for one another by novices, but the distinction is quite obvious once explained properly. You see, Charms adds certain properties to an object without changing its fundamental nature, whereas Transfigurations alters the structure of an object. Or, more simply, Charms does something to an object, Transfiguration changes an object. Transfigurations can change a porcupine into a pincushion. Charms can make that pincushion fly!"

He raised his wand, and a stack of papers rose from his podium. Dividing itself in two, half the stack floated over to her half of the room while the other flew off to the other side. The top page slid itself off the stack and onto the desk in front of Dierdra before moving down the line. Once the last pages were delivered to the last students, Professor Flitwick announced, "Let's go over the syllabus so you'll know what spells you can look forward to learning this year!"


They had a bit of a break after Charms class. She, Dierdra, Jocasta, Bill and her fellow Muggle-born Edgar, who Bill had sat next to in class, walked together to the hallway the Transfigurations classroom was in, finding a grassy courtyard surrounded by a cloister nearby. It was the perfect spot to pass the time while waiting for the next class to begin, and they took full advantage of it and the sunny weather they had been graced with that day.

They didn't have long to enjoy it, though, before they had to get to class. Unlike Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall was already in the classroom waiting for them as they filed in. Once everyone had found a seat, she got right down to business.

"I find it best not to sugarcoat this," she began. "Transfigurations is one of the most difficult subjects you will learn throughout your years at Hogwarts. Many of you will find it to be the most difficult. It requires great discipline to excel. You must be focused. You must be precise in your wand movements, pronunciations, and intentions. I expect you all to study hard and take this class seriously from day one. What you learn this year will be the foundation upon which every subsequent year will build. If you need help understanding something, my office door is always open. I can also recommend some excellent tutors. I urge you not to hesitate to use the resources I am offering you for your own benefit."

"Whoa…intense," Edgar breathed from where he sat behind her.

"Now then, who can tell me what Transfigurations is?"

Every hand in the class shot up, and Professor McGonagall looked nonplussed for half a second before she smiled ever so slightly. "I see Professor Flitwick has gotten to you before I have. Mr Weasley, you may answer."


They had lunch after Transfigurations, where some of her fellow Gryffindors griped about Professor McGonagall already assigning homework.

"It's the first day of class!" Claudia said, sounding beyond horrified. "Who gives out homework on the first day of class?"

"Professor McGonagall," Bill pointed out with a straight face.

"And Professor Snape," said a girl who sat near enough to them to overhear the conversation. She had two stripes on her sleeves, so Piper hazarded a guess that she was a second-year.

"Don't we have him next?" Bill asked.

"Yes," Piper answered.

"There goes our weekend," Claudia sighed.

"It's rotten luck that you have Transfigurations and Potions back-to-back," the second-year commiserated. "But you should be able to get most of your homework done during study hall if you try. Chin up!"


After lunch, they gathered up their copies of Magical Drafts and Potions and their supplies and headed down to the dungeons for Potions class. While she was wary, given what she had heard of Professor Snape and the experience she had had with some of the Slytherin students so far, she also couldn't help but be a little excited. As a little kid, she had loved to mix 'potions' made of various leaves, sticks, and flower petals mixed with water. It was one of her favourite games. Her favourite subject in primary school was science class, and she was especially fond of the chemistry-related lessons. Over the past several weeks, she had already read the potions book cover to cover. She really wanted to like this class.

It was colder in the dungeons than in the rest of the castle and about as welcoming as one would expect a dungeon to be. The potions classroom was dimly lit, and the Slytherin students were already there when they arrived. Their common room must be nearby, she reasoned. Yet another reason to be glad she wasn't a Slytherin. Who would want to live in the dungeons?

She had asked Bill at lunch if he wanted to partner up for Potions. Based on what she'd seen from him in the other two classes, he seemed intelligent and studious. She thought they'd do well working together, give Gryffindor a fighting chance at actually impressing Professor Snape. Bill had agreed. They chose a table at the front of the class and set up their equipment.

Moments later, Professor Snape swooped into the room. There was no other term for it. His unrelenting black robes billowed behind him as he strode purposefully to the front of the room. He made a rather bat-like impression, and, combined with the dungeon setting, she couldn't help but think of Dracula. It was a bit of a shock when he turned to face them, and she saw how young he was. He must only be a few years out of Hogwarts, himself. She wondered if that's why he had cultivated such a fearsome reputation. He had probably still been a student when the sixth and seventh-years were her age. He would have to be strict to gain their respect.

His opening speech to them was similar to Professor McGonagall's. This was a challenging class, and potentially dangerous. He would brook no nonsense and tolerate no shenanigans, given how dire the consequences of such foolishness could be. She noticed that he aimed that part at the Gryffindor side of the room, which is also when she saw that there was a Gryffindor side of the room. Unlike her classes with Ravenclaw earlier, there was no mixing between Gryffindor and Slytherin here.

After he was done speaking, he told them to put their books away and handed out a slip of parchment to each of them.

"A quiz?" one of the Slytherin students exclaimed as she looked at the parchment. "But we haven't learned anything yet."

"I am aware of that, Miss Treharne," Professor Snape answered. "I want to gauge just how abysmal this year's crop of first-years is, so I know what I'm dealing with before I set you loose in my classroom."

The next twenty minutes were spent in silence as they worked on their quizzes. She felt pretty good when she was one of the first ones to finish. Professor Snape began grading them on the spot as they handed them to him and was done only a few minutes after the last student had turned theirs in.

He began handing back the quizzes, skewering some of the Gryffindor students with biting comments about their poor performance. His expression as he continued to hand back quizzes suggested that some of the Slytherins had performed just as poorly, but he said nothing to them about it.

He handed Bill his quiz without comment. Curiously, Bill peeked at his score before showing her. 99%.

"Mr Rane," the professor addressed one boy as he handed back his paper. "100%. Five points to Slytherin."

The professor moved on.

"Miss Cyclonis, your mother was a potioneer, was she not?"

"Yes, professor."

"An aptitude for the subject must run in the family. 100%. Another five points to Slytherin."

There was only one quiz left to hand back. Hers. He walked over to her. "Miss Cochran," he said, fixing her with a speculative stare as he held out her quiz to her. She took it, looking at her score at the same time as he announced. "100%."

"That's impossible! She must have cheated!" Nott, who was seated next to Cyclonis, burst out.

"On what basis do you make that accusation, Mr Nott?" Professor Snape asked.

"She's Muggle-born; she has no way of knowing any of this!"

"Miss Cochran, your response?"

"I didn't cheat," she told him earnestly. "I read the book over the summer."

"You spent your summer reading textbooks?"

"No, sir, not all of them. I just skimmed through most of them. The potions text is the only one I read all the way through."

"And why is that?"

"I like chemistry," she answered hesitantly, not sure that he'd understand. "So, I thought I'd probably like potions, too." To her surprise, he took her answer in stride.

"Well then, if you've read the text, you'll know what herbs make up the mixture commonly referred to as Standard Ingredient."

Nervous at being put on the spot, her mind went blank for a moment. She could remember reading about it. It was in one of the first few chapters, even, because so many potions used it. And in the appendix, too. But what was it?

"Sage," she began, and once she had gotten one, everything else clicked into place. "Mugwort; vervain; lavender; rosemary, thistle; and hyssop."

"Correct. And what is its purpose?"

"It's a stabilizer, professor."

"Correct." And then, as if it pained him to say it, he added. "Five points to Gryffindor."

Alexander Nott looked furious, and that made her almost as happy as winning the house points.


Friday saw the Gryffindor first-years spending most of their morning taking double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs. Professor Sprout didn't spend as much time introducing the class as the professors had yesterday. Instead, they quickly got down to the task of learning how to properly propagate dittany by carefully digging it up and cutting the root crown in half, and replanting the divided plants into separate pots.

Piper liked the work, but she liked Professor Sprout even more. She reminded her of Agatha. Not physically, as Professor Sprout was older, squat, and dowdy where Agatha was only in her 30s, tall for a woman, and while she didn't try to keep up with the latest fashion, she always looked put together. But Professor Sprout smiled a lot, and whenever she caught anyone making a mistake, she corrected them kindly.

Where Professor McGonagall was stern and gave the impression of being exactly what she was, a teacher with high expectations, Professor Sprout came across far more motherly. She thought Hufflepuff was lucky that they had her as their Head of House.

And the best part? She didn't assign them any homework that day.


That afternoon, they had Flying with Slytherin.

There were butterflies in Piper's stomach as they walked to the training grounds, a mixture of nerves and excitement. This class was the one she had been looking forward to the most, outside of potions, and she didn't want to embarrass herself. She had the feeling that most of the wizarding kids already had at least some idea of how to ride a broom, so she was already behind, but she was determined to make a good showing.

They arrived at the class to find two rows of brooms laid out on the grass, and the flying instructor, Madam Hooch, standing between them. She had short, greying hair and hawk-like yellow eyes that scanned the students, seeming to size them all up as they each chose a broom to stand beside.

The scrawny Slytherin boy, Maximus Coventry, nudged his broom dubiously with the toe of his shoe. It didn't go unnoticed by Madam Hooch.

"Something wrong with the broom?" she asked him.

He folded his arms across his chest, one hand gripping his opposite shoulder. He was silent for a moment, long enough that Piper thought he wouldn't answer at all, but he plucked up the courage to speak. "These brooms are ancient. How're we supposed to learn how to fly properly on them?"

If Madam Hooch was offended by the criticism, she didn't show it. "What's your name?" she asked instead. He gave it, and she perked up. "Coventry? Any relation to Ignatius and Tacita Coventry?"

He nodded. "My father and aunt."

"Fine Quidditch players, and even better coaches," she praised. "But it means you more than any of your classmates should know that successful flying has more to do with the rider than the broom. These brooms are perfectly airworthy and up to the task of teaching first-years the rudiments of flying. Now then, let's get to it! Everyone, position your dominant hand over your broom and say, 'Up!' Be forceful. You're giving it a command, not inviting it to a tea party."

Piper let her hand hover above her broom and, concentrating hard on the mental image of her broom obeying her command, said, "Up!" Obediently, it flew upward and smacked into her waiting palm, and she tightened her grip around it. Looking to her left and right, she saw that Bill, Claudia, and a couple other Gryffindors had succeeded in summoning their brooms on the first try. Across from them, on the Slytherin side, about half of them had been successful, including Coventry, Nott, and Cyclonis. The only one from the group she had encountered on the Hogwarts Express to not have their broom in hand was Josephine Avery, who was red-faced and defensive looking as she glanced at her three friends, though none of them commented on it.

"Keep trying!" Madam Hooch encouraged the students whose brooms were still on the ground, setting off another chorus of, "Up!" More brooms flew into waiting hands, including Avery's. By the third try, most students on both sides of the makeshift aisle had their brooms summoned. Finally, after another couple of tries, it was only poor Edgar who hadn't managed it.

"Maybe you're nothing but a Muggle, after all," Nott jeered at him.

"Two points from Slytherin," Madam Hooch snapped. "Bullying has no place in my class." She went over to Edgar and coached him through summoning his broom. In short order, he, too, had his broom held tight.

"Now everyone mount your brooms," Madam Hooch ordered as she summoned her own broom and demonstrated the proper technique for mounting it and the grip they should use while flying. "And then kick off. Not too hard, just enough to hover a couple meters off the ground." She demonstrated this as well, and they all mimicked her. Several students were wobbly on their brooms, but Piper didn't have any trouble balancing on the broom and keeping it steady. They weren't even moving yet, but Piper was already in love with flying. Madam Hooch began giving instructions on going forward, up, down, and braking and Piper eagerly soaked it all in.


The weekend came and went uneventfully. Just as the second-year had said at lunch on Thursday, she had been able to apply herself during study hall and finish her homework by Friday evening. That left her plenty of time to write a letter to send back home, learn the basics of two popular wizarding games called Exploding Snap (which she enjoyed) and Gobstones (which she did not), and explore the grounds of the castle a bit. The Great Lake was particularly beautiful around sunset, with the colourful sky reflected in the water and the forest silhouetted against the far shore. Dinner on Sunday was nearly as good as the Welcoming Feast had been, a Sunday Roast with all the fixings in quantities so great that she was not at all surprised when one of Monday's breakfast offerings was bubble and squeak served with fried eggs.

Monday morning, Piper discovered her least favourite class. True, she had yet to attend a single session of Defense Against the Dark Arts or Astronomy, and she was several years away from being able to take any of the electives that the third-years and above could. Still, she was pretty sure that History of Magic took the prize for the most boring class at Hogwarts.

She had assumed that attending a class taught by a ghost would be interesting. Ironically, she had assumed that having a ghost teach a history class would make that history come alive. She had assumed wrong. Professor Binns had floated in and immediately began lecturing them in the most monotonous, droning tone she had ever heard in her life. Not only that, but beyond taking attendance, he hadn't once acknowledged that any of them were there. She had the feeling that she was going to have to read the textbook to glean any information about the history of the wizarding world. She wasn't sure she'd be able to make it through any History of Magic class without getting lost in a daydream and missing half the lecture, which is exactly what happened that morning.

By the bleak, dazed looks on everyone's faces as they filed out of the classroom, she wasn't the only one.


The first thing she noticed when she walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was the giant dragon skeleton that hung suspending from the ceiling, like something out of the Natural History Museum back in London.

The second thing she noticed was Professor Skeelur perched atop his desk, grinning as he watched them file into his classroom. Today he was wearing dark grey robes with bright turquoise scrollwork decorating the sleeves and high collar.

The third thing she noticed was the meticulously diagrammed seating chart that was posted on the front blackboard. Everyone had stopped to gawk at the chart, and not just because this was the only class to have one, either.

She wasn't surprised when Nott was the first to speak. "No, I'm not partnering with that plonker! Absolutely not!" He caught Coventry by the sleeve and dragged him over to a desk of his choosing. Professor Skeelur's grin never faded. If anything, it widened slightly as they sat. She didn't have long to wonder about that before the chairs pulled themselves away from the desk, and the two boys were ejected from their seats, landing on the ground with undignified squawks of pained surprise.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen," Professor Skeelur said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "It would appear as though those are not your assigned seats."

Coventry picked himself up and, shooting Nott a brief glare, walked over to his assigned desk and plunked down in his chair, crossing his arms and slouching. Connor Monohan sat down next to him and introduced himself, offering his hand to shake. Coventry looked at his hand, up into his eyes, and then pointedly forward. Connor let his hand drop.

It wasn't the most auspicious start, but it got everyone else moving. Bill was paired with a Slytherin boy named Keegan McCarthy; Jocasta was paired with Josephine Avery. Professor Skeelur had created a very deliberate pattern. No two Gryffindors or Slytherins were sat together, and every effort had been made to avoid partnering up two students of the same blood status. Piper's own desk was in the front row, centre column. And she was partnered with Cyclonis. Given their encounter in Ollivander's, Piper suspected that this may have been Professor Skeelur's most deliberate choice of all.

"We meet again," Piper said, mentally kicking herself at how falsely bright her voice sounded.

"So it would seem."

"I'm Piper. I didn't get the chance to introduce myself in Diagon Alley."

"I know who you are," Cyclonis answered, pointing to the board. Right. The seating chart had their full names. And they had had Flying together. And Potions. And, of course, they had both been at the Sorting Ceremony.

"Right."

They were saved from any further awkward conversation by Professor Skeelur. "Mr Nott, having trouble finding your seat?"

"I told you, I'm not sitting with him," Nott said from where he stood in the back of the room. The 'him' in question was Edgar Grant, who was sitting alone.

"Suit yourself. Just know that I'll be deducting one point from Slytherin for every minute you stand there." That tore a groan from every Slytherin in the room. Flushing, Nott stalked to his desk and sat down. "Excellent! Let's get started," the professor said, hopping off the desk. He flipped over the board to reveal the year's curriculum outlined on the other side.

"This year, we'll be focusing on jinxes, counterjinxes, and Category XX dark creatures. I will also be providing you with a thorough introduction to the sport of duelling. The class will culminate with a practical end-of-year exam that I think you're really going to enjoy. I know I will!" His chuckle sounded a touch ominous.

"Before we learn any jinxes and how to defend ourselves against them, however, we must first learn what a jinx is and how they differ from hexes and curses. Get out your books and open them to page thirteen."


Tuesday's class schedule was a repeat of Thursday, and Wednesday a repeat of Monday, except for the addition of Astronomy, which all the first-years had together at midnight. It was a lot of students to deal with all at once, but Professor Sinistra pulled it off. She was a statuesque, dark-skinned witch wearing cobalt blue robes decorated with a spattering of silver stars and was every bit as stern as Professor McGonagall.

They began with a review of the planets and then a lecture on their movements, how they followed an elliptical path around the sun, moving west to east in the night sky. Then she handed out star charts and told them that they would be tracking the movements of Jupiter and Saturn that term. One house at a time, she had them set up their telescopes on the Astronomy Tower balcony, showing them how to find Polaris and the two planets and teaching them how to fill out the star charts.

Out in the middle of nowhere, at the top of the tallest tower in the castle, the view of the night sky was unlike anything she'd ever seen before. She thought the class was a lot of fun. Of course, getting up the next morning was less fun. Next time she'd take a nap before class.

But all in all, she thought the first week of classes had gone rather well.