Author's note: The game called "it" in this chapter is better-known elsewhere as "tag", and is known by many other names besides. I had to look up the correct name to use here - personally I grew up calling it "tiggy", although the person doing the chasing was still "it".
Chapter Four: First Tuesday
The next morning, the three boys were woken at 7 by an unnaturally cheerful Hermione. It took her a good 10 minutes to bully them all out of bed, but they did feel much better once they got outside and started running. They jogged comfortably at first, not wanting to work too hard, but then Ron suggested a game of "it" and all restraint disappeared. Half an hour later they collapsed on the ground, happy but exhausted.
"Why don't we do this every morning?" asked Hermione. "As our exercise, I mean - it tires us out properly, and it's not miserable."
They agreed, then headed inside to shower and get dressed before an early breakfast.
The Four showed up early to their first class, Charms with Professor Flitwick. Flitwick was there already, and grinned excitedly as he waved them into the room.
"Ah, keen students! Good to see, good to see. Hmm... Harry Potter, of course - could hardly fail to recognise you, young man. And you could only be a Weasley, which makes you Ron Weasley. You must be Neville Longbottom - you look a great deal like Frank did at your age, with just a hint of Alice to you. But as for you, young lady, I'm afraid I can't place you at all."
"I'm Hermione Granger. My parents are Muggles."
"Ah, that explains it. Welcome to my classroom, Miss Granger, and rest assured that the magical status of your parents makes no difference that I'm aware of to your own magical potential. I'm part-goblin myself, mind you - I certainly have no time for the pureblood nonsense. I heard about your conflict with Draco Malfoy yesterday - well done all of you for standing up and rejecting that poison outright."
Somewhat stunned, the Four inclined their heads politely. Flitwick waved his wand at the closed door and then continued.
"You four are here well over quarter of an hour early, and you're definitely here together. To me that suggests a defined fellowship, rather than a normal group of friends. Am I correct, and if so then might I know your task?"
The Four were frankly staring at the tiny professor. Hermione found her voice first.
"Y-yes, I suppose you could say that. We all have something to prove: Harry that he's more than just the Boy-Who-Lived, Neville that he's not a failure next to his father, Ron that he's not a failure next to his older brothers, and me that I'm not a failure because I'm a Muggleborn. Our task, such as it is, is to work together and become strong. Um... How did you know?"
Flitwick smiled.
"I pay attention, Miss Granger, and I think about the world a great deal more than I usually let on."
Hermione nodded, and the Professor continued.
"When you say 'strong', what exactly do you mean? That is, what are you trying to make of yourselves?"
"Um... Everything, really. So we're working on physical fitness, and we'll work on physical and magical fighting, and we'll also study everything for all our subjects here at Hogwarts, and I guess we'll try to understand how magic works also."
"Excellent! I can't recall the last time I heard such a clear intent to excel. The nearest example would probably be the Marauders - that's your father, Mr Potter, and his friends. The Weasley twins are shaping up similarly now, but I've never heard anyone so clear in the first week of their Hogwarts career. Please feel free to come to me with any questions - I would be delighted to help you."
The Four all stammered their thanks.
A moment later, Professor Flitwick looked up and waved his wand at the door. It opened, and a surprised-looking Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown walked in. Flitwick retreated to the front of the room, and the Four talked quietly among themselves as the rest of the Gryffindor first-years trickled in in ones and twos. When they were all present, Flitwick closed the door and began rollcall. That done, he stood on his desk and beamed at them all.
"Welcome to Charms!"
A jet of water shot out from his wand, before separating into droplets which froze solid and hung in midair. These frozen droplets then whirled and danced in a complex pattern as they expanded, their sides seeming somehow to be pushed outwards by coloured lights within. Then the spheres shattered, leaving a haze of ice crystals in the air between Professor Flitwick and the class. The colours had transferred to the ice, and in the haze the class saw a vivid rainbow. After a stunned pause, they applauded wildly - most of them had never seen anything like it.
A stack of feathers on Flitwick's desk suddenly distributed itself to the students, and he began to teach them the Levitation Charm. Soon the room was a din of "wingardium leviosa!", as the students tried and failed to make the feather do their bidding. Quite a few students managed to make the feather do other things, most commonly fall off their desks onto the floor, but control was difficult. The Four worked together, rapidly converging on the correct way to perform the spell. Near the end of the lesson, Hermione was the first to make her feather hover in the air - on the first success it only hovered for a few seconds before flying off in a random direction, but Professor Flitwick was overjoyed.
"Well done, Miss Granger, well done! I haven't had a student learn that charm so quickly since Lily Evans a few decades ago, and even she probably wasn't quite so quick as you. Ten points to Gryffindor! Excellent work!"
The three boys copied Hermione's successful attempt, and by the end of class all four of them could comfortably keep the feather steady for as long as they liked. Just as Hermione was looking around for a heavier object to levitate, Professor Flitwick interrupted the class.
"OK, that's all we have time for today. I'll see you all on Thursday morning, and we'll continue working on the Levitation Charm. Potter, Weasley, Longbottom, Granger, could you stay back for a moment? I'll write a note to Professor Binns to excuse your lateness if necessary."
The Four stayed in their seats as the rest of the class filed out. When the room was empty except for Flitwick and the Four, the tiny professor closed and locked the door with a wave of his wand.
"Very well done, all of you - very well done indeed! I've no doubt you're all quite talented individually, but I couldn't see that at all today - all I could see was your teamwork, which is truly first-rate. Now, we don't have long before my fifth-years arrive, but I wanted to talk to you briefly before I let you go. You're all going to be very bored quite soon if I don't let you race ahead of the rest of the class, but I can't teach two completely different classes at the same time. Instead, I offer this compromise: if you all spend your classtime on Tuesday and Thursday mornings helping your classmates with the standard curriculum, I will tutor you to your full capacity on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Your classmates will benefit greatly, you four will learn the standard first-year material very thoroughly, and you'll probably reach OWL level in Charms by the end of the year. And if at any stage you change your minds, you can always go back to standard classwork and have your afternoons free again."
The Four quickly agreed to the plan, arranging to meet back in the Charms classroom at 3:30 that afternoon, and then they scampered off to History of Magic with an excuse note from Professor Flitwick.
History of Magic turned out to be, if anything, a more obvious waste of time than Defence Against the Dark Arts. The teacher, Professor Binns, was a ghost. He droned on and on, reciting word for word the contents of their centuries-old textbook. He was already doing so when the Four reached his classroom, and didn't even seem to notice their arrival. After a brief colloquy conducted entirely in meaningful glances, the Four decided not to interrupt him. They weren't in trouble for being late, so why bother?
After a few minutes of droning boredom, Ron decided to find out how much attention Binns actually paid to his classroom. Ron was now committed to taking his life seriously, but that didn't mean he had to sit quietly and waste his time just because the school told him to. He tried a subtle wave of his hand, altering it partway to rub his nose instead. The droning continued uninterrupted. Ron's tests grew more and more blatant, only stopping when actually slipping out of his seat and sitting on the floor had no effect. His friends' reactions ranged from amused to horrified at his antics, but they all became serious when he gestured towards the door and raised his eyebrows. After a brief non-verbal argument, which Hermione lost, the four of them quietly slipped out of the room. Their classmates, mostly asleep or at least half-asleep, hadn't noticed their arrival and didn't notice their departure - Dean Thomas would later comment to Seamus Finnigan that the Four hadn't shown up to History of Magic, but otherwise no one noticed.
Once outside, the Four headed to the empty classroom which they had used the previous day - it was empty again, and the dust suggested that this room had probably been empty for some time. Hermione was the last in, and she shut the door behind her before turning to tell her boys off.
"You can't just walk out of a class! You just can't!"
"Hermione, we just did," said Ron calmly. "No one cares except you. Sorry."
As Hermione sputtered, Neville put a hand on her shoulder.
"Hermione, normally I'd agree with you here. School's important, and we have to take it seriously. We have to follow the rules, and we have to work hard. This is different, though - that class really is a complete waste of time, and we've got much better things to do with our time. It looks like we won't get in trouble for skipping it, and I really think that's what we should do. We'll use this time to study History of Magic and nothing else, if that makes you feel any better. Actually that's a brilliant idea, because it'll give us a solid defence if someone like Professor McGonagall does eventually notice and ask us why we haven't been going to that class. OK?"
Hermione nodded reluctantly, and they started studying History of Magic. A few minutes later, Ron suddenly jumped.
"How will we know about essays, if we don't go to class?"
Before Hermione could say anything, Neville answered him.
"We'll ask Dean and Seamus, or maybe Parvati. Good point, though. We should also show up for the start of each lesson - partly in case there actually is rollcall, and partly to hand in any essays."
They all agreed that that was reasonable, and carried on studying until it was time for lunch.
As the Four were eating lunch, Dean and Seamus walked up to the table.
"Did you guys really not show up to History of Magic?" asked Dean.
"Well, sorta," said Ron. "We got there late, and then we left once we figured out that Binns wasn't going to notice anyway."
Dean and Seamus looked very impressed.
"Wish I could do the same," said Seamus. "Can't though, me mam'd kill me. And seriously, what are you going to do when McGonagall finds out?"
Ron shrugged. "Well, first up we're hoping McGonagall doesn't find out. If she does, though, we'll just tell her we've been studying on our own instead - we actually did spend the time studying History of Magic, and we're going to every time. Er... That reminds me though, can we count on you guys to let us know when Binns sets essays?"
Dean grinned. "Sure. Worth it for us anyway, just to see what happens to you when you do get caught."
Ron grinned back at Dean, ignoring Hermione's half-hearted glare.
"Did he mark the roll?" said Harry.
Seamus shook his head. "How could he? Can't hold a quill, can he? Honestly mate, he barely even noticed we were there - he just started talking as we were coming in. I reckon I could have waved me arms around and done a dance and he'd not have noticed."
Ron grinned. "Yeah, I tested that."
Dean and Seamus stared at him.
"You did what?" said Dean incredulously.
"Well, I didn't exactly do a dance. I did wave my arms around, though. That was when I realised that Binns didn't have a clue, so we left."
"Bloody hell," said Dean. "You're my hero, mate. If you don't get ripped apart by McGonagall by next week, I just might join you."
Hermione looked disapproving, but let it pass without comment.
They studied Charms after lunch in what they had already come to think of as their study room. After trying everything they could think of with the Levitation charm, including levitating each other (which partially worked), they moved onto the Wand-Lighting Charm. This proved easy for them, and they were working on the sunbeam variant "Lumos Solem" when it came time to go to Flitwick. They went, feeling quite pleased with themselves.
Professor Flitwick seemed delighted to see them.
"Welcome, welcome! Have you made any progress since this morning?"
Hermione beamed. "We worked on the Levitation Charm until we ran out of things to try, then we learned the Wand-Lighting Charm and practised that, and we were working on Lumos Solem when we ran out of time."
Professor Flitwick stared at her for a long moment, dumbstruck.
"Miss Granger, could you please levitate this ink bottle? Don't worry, I'll catch it if necessary."
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
The ink bottle hung steady in the air, three feet above Flitwick's head. Hermione brought the bottle back down to the desk, smoothly and gently.
"And you boys?"
One by one the boys performed the same task - they didn't all have perfect control like Hermione's, but the ink bottle was never in any danger of smashing.
"Could you all demonstrate the Wand-Lighting Charm?"
"Lumos!" and four wand-tips were glowing softly.
Professor Flitwick was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
"Amazing! I've never seen anything like this, not at all. I shall be very interested to see just how rapidly you progress in this subject."
They learned even faster with Professor Flitwick than they did on their own, and raced through the early parts of the curriculum. The spells didn't necessarily work immediately, of course - no one was that good - but the Four worked together extremely well to figure them out. They all had different basic styles and flaws: Ron was bold but messy, Hermione already knew the textbook word for word but tended to be a bit stilted, Neville was understated and sometimes needed encouragement to cast clearly, and Harry was dextrous but inconsistent. Between them, though, they could converge on the correct technique very quickly. And once one of them had cast a spell successfully, the others could get it very quickly. With Professor Flitwick as a reliable model to begin with, the Four learned spells at a breathtaking rate. They would all need to spend time later practising and the boys would need to spend time memorising the spells, but a glance at a book (or a word from Hermione) would be all that any of them ever needed to remind themselves of any spell that they had ever cast successfully.
At the end of the period, Professor Flitwick addressed the Four seriously.
"Based on what I've seen today, you four have the potential to be the greatest Charms prodigies that Britain has seen in my lifetime at least. I was a prodigy myself, but nothing like this - the same goes for Albus Dumbledore, for that matter, though his genius ran more to Transfiguration. I have taught prodigies, including your mother, Harry. None could come close to this on their second day of classes.
"I have watched many prodigies, in my field and in others. Almost without exception, in their work as prodigies they were solitary geniuses - understandable, since no one else could keep up with them, or even cared to try very hard. The Weasley twins show signs of shared excellence, and arguably the Marauders did so to some extent at a later age, but your situation is completely unprecedented. I honestly do not know what you four can truly accomplish - quite simply, I have no example by which to judge you. You will understand, I hope, why I am so interested in your progress."
The Four all nodded excitedly, and he went on.
"This being only your second day of classes, I should perhaps ask: is this talent of yours specific to Charms, do you know?"
The Four all shook their heads, and Hermione spoke for them.
"No, Professor. We aim to excel in all of our classes, and we think we can. We've spent a bit more time on Charms and of course it makes a big difference to have this extra help from you, but I don't think there's anything special about Charms for us."
Flitwick looked thoughtful for a moment, then waved his wand absently. A piece of parchment appeared in his hand, and he glanced at it.
"By lunchtime on Thursday you should have had at least one session for each subject, correct?"
"Yes," said Harry, "though Transfiguration gets short-changed a bit there - we'll have studied everything else ourselves, but our first study session for Transfiguration is Thursday evening."
Flitwick nodded.
"Very well, I'll allow for that. When we meet for our private Charms session on Thursday afternoon, though, I suggest that we talk seriously about your academic options here at Hogwarts. If you perform in your other classes as you have in mine, then I suspect we may be able to give you a great deal more freedom and opportunity. This would have obvious social consequences, of course - you should think about that over the next few days, and decide whether you are willing to sacrifice the companionship of your current classmates in order to pursue academic excellence."
Hermione opened her mouth to assure Professor Flitwick that that wouldn't be a problem, but Neville laid a hand on her shoulder and she subsided. They walked to the Great Hall with Flitwick, chatting about prodigies he had known.
