Chapter 4

School

(I had too much fun on the Elvish names. No, really. They embarrass me now. Sorry.)

At home, I usually wake up quite early and get up the moment I am awake. But on my first morning in Hogwarts, I lay in bed for a while. When I get up, I thought, my first day in real school will start.

Dawna was right; I was scared. At least I have friends already, I reminded myself. I think.

Lying in bed had an odd effect: I actually fell back to sleep, though I wasn't tired. I was very surprised when one of the girls shook me awake. "It's time to get up," she said.

Someone tried to wake Dawna; she said something nasty and turned over.

"You're her friend, right? You do it," said a tall girl.

"Just a minute." I thought about it and said a careful spell. The covers pushed Dawna over the side and made her stand. Then I threw her uniform over her. Dawna said something even nastier once she found her way out from under her clothes and saw the other girls laughing like mad.

One of the prefects walked into the room. "What is going on here?" she asked.

"Dawna…wouldn't...wake…up," I said through laughter.

"She threw me out of bed!" Dawna shouted.

"No, the…the covers did," I giggled and started laughing again.

"Well, we're not amused," said the prefect and left.

"Who's she, Queen Victoria?" someone asked, and even Dawna laughed.

"Go to breakfast!" yelled the prefect, coming back in.

"Next time, wake up when we tell you to," I told Dawna.

"No, don't!" laughed the tall girl. "It's much more fun this way."

We were still laughing when we got to the Great Hall. I had forgotten to be afraid.

I remembered when I found out that we had Charms first. I wasn't at all sure that Dawna, Evan, or I could do anything with our wands.

When I told them what I was thinking, Evan said, "Well, a wand from Ollivander's shop chose me, so I must be able to do something. Where did you get yours?"

"Off a tree," I said. "Actually, the tree gave it to me when I first became a wizard. I wasn't expecting to go to Hogwarts then, but Ollivander said that I should use it instead of one of his wands."

"Out of curiosity, how long have you been a wizard?" Evan asked.

"Since spring. Where did you get your wand, Dawna?"

"From Ollivander's."

"Since when does he sell wands that turn into ferns?" Evan asked. He and I laughed.

"He doesn't," she said cheerfully, but she didn't look happy. She sat away from us.

"What did we do?" I asked. Evan shrugged.

Charms was certainly interesting, as our first charm was the levitating charm. As I had read the books, we taught Evan what we knew about the charm.

"Leviosa, not Leviosa," I said, quoting Hermione.

I got it first, sort of using my own wizardry to mix with the power of my wand.

In the end, Evan dropped his wand and lifted his feather in the air using the Force. Dawna saw and, not to be outdone, turned hers into a bird.

I had been glad that Severus Snape was not at the teacher's table. I could just imagine what he would say about wizards like my friends and I. Still, I didn't like the potions master, Professor Slughorn, very much. He made me nervous, though he was always cheerful. I especially disliked how he kept calling on me, Evan, Dawna, or Steven Irvin, the other wizard, (we had potions with Moon) and paid more attention to us than the others. Steven told us that there were two other wizards of our kind in Earth, but we were the only "non traditional wizards" there. He was jealous that I had other unusual wizards in my house, while he was alone.

We made a simple potion, working with partners, on our first day. Halfway through making it, Daymon found an excuse to go up to the teacher's desk. I saw his hand move – he had something in it – and a few drops of liquid hit my robes. For some reason, I just stared as it burned through my robes.

"Fae, are you listening to me?" asked Steven, my partner.

He had been talking to me. What had he said?

Just as I thought that, a bit of the potion hit my skin. Everyone turned to look at me as I yelled in pain and jumped up, pulling the burned robes away from my leg. Steven saw what had happened. A good wizard, he stayed calm and said, "Professor Slughorn, I think some potion dripped on her."

It had stopped burning by then, but it still hurt. Steven helped me limp to the hospital wing.

I glanced at Daymon as I passed him. He was doing a bad job of looking concerned. I glared at him. Don't pretend it wasn't your fault. I know you did it on purpose.

I was looking forward to Quidditch. I have always wanted to fly.

I must say I was a little surprised that there is still competition for the Quidditch cup in Hogwarts. If they were afraid of the houses being split up, they should stop all competition. Though the house point system is a good idea to keep people behaving.

The Quidditch class was only Sun. I wasn't sure if that was good or not. There weren't very many people, which was good, but I didn't have the extra support of another wizard like me.

I'm as alone in Sun as you are in Moon, Steven.

But we're not as alone as Dawna and Evan are.

My broom was very obedient. Of course, it might have helped that I ordered it to come to my hand in the Speech of Wizards.

Evan's came pretty quickly, too, but he might have been using the Force. Dawna had said before that why did she need a broom when she could just turn into a bird? But she was very annoyed that it took her ten tries to get her broom to her hand. Daymon managed to make his broom come on the first try. I couldn't help but be annoyed.

The thrill of flying! Being off the ground without having to concentrate on a spell is absolutely amazing, beyond words in this language. I know I sound dramatic, but if you have ever flown on a broomstick and don't understand my feelings, go back on the broomstick and think of it from the point of view of someone who has never flown.

Madam Hooch explained that first years and older students "uncertain of their Quidditch skills" would be allowed to try out for seconds on the Quidditch team, an idea that had disappeared in Hogwarts over the past hundred years. There would be a few alternate chasers and beaters, an alternate keeper, and possibly an alternate seeker per house. They would come to some of the practices. This way, if a player on the primary team was sick, hurt, or on detention during a Quidditch game, someone who had been practicing with the team could play, instead of someone who hadn't been on a broom for ages or nobody at all. Madam Hooch said something about this being because Harry Potter kept getting hurt for the last game of the season, so Gryffindor didn't have a chance to win the cup for a few years. She added that first years could be on the real team, but they would have to be extremely good.

I talked a lot to Dawna and Evan about Quidditch. Evan said he wouldn't play; it would be too easy for him to affect the movements of the balls, purposefully or not. Dawna was pretending to not be terribly worried about the tryouts, but I was sure she was.

Though I managed to pay attention enough in History of Magic to take notes, my mind definitely wasn't thinking about what the ghost teacher, Professor Binns, was saying.

What I was really thinking about was how to make my quill take good notes. It had to not skip anything important out of the lesson but not copy down every word Professor Binns said. But these thoughts also kept appearing in my mind:

How am I supposed to make it seven years with several people who hate me in my own house? It wasn't just Daymon. He had a few friends, two Sun girls in my year had made it clear at lunch that they didn't like having a new kind of magic around, and I thought that many people in the school were afraid of us. Of course, they could be upset because I had chosen a boy from Moon as my partner. I had gotten teased a bit about the two of us. Madam Pomfrey had healed the burns and fixed my robe in a few seconds, but when we moved on to more complicated spells, Daymon would find something much more painful and harder to cure. I was sure of it.

My mind moved to,Will I get to play on the Quidditch team if I'm good even though I'm a first year? Would the captain be prejudiced against me even if I was good?

Why do the new houses seem like Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffyndor/Slytherin with new names?

How much more time in this class?

Some former Slytherins might be in Moon; there's no rule that Slytherins can't be quiet or shy.

Will I be good at Quidditch?

Was Professor Binns a man or woman? Does it matter with a ghost?

Why do Daymon and the others hate me?

Why shouldn't they? I'm strange.

Why are there manual trained wizards here, anyway?

Why is there a shapeshifter from the States in a British school? Haven't any other schools integrated different kinds of magic?

Wasn't I trying to figure out how to make an intelligent quill? I could buy one, but I don't know when I would have the time.

Is it possible for anyone but Hermione to pay real attention in this class? I looked around the room.

Is Evan paying attention or just pretending?

How much longer in this class?

There were only two interesting things about Transfiguration. The first was that Ginny Potter was the teacher. (I wondered where Harry was, though. You'd think they would live together.) In fact, that was what I thought about for most of the class. We weren't doing anything except taking notes. I really needed to get a note-taking quill.

Then, Dawna started transfiguring things around her. It started with her quill. It became a small fern identical to her wand. Evan covered a laugh with his hand. "Did your wand have a baby?" he whispered.

Dawna, annoyed, turned it into a stick with small leaves on it, then a golden chain, then a rolled-up piece of parchment about the size of her quill. Then, the parchment she was writing on became a large leaf. Then it was a piece of muggle notebook paper.

I sighed. "We aren't muggles here. Turn it back into parchment."

She said perfectly sweetly, "Whatever you want." The paper became parchment, and the quill became a small, black snake.

Dawna, what are you thinking? Are you mad?

A girl behind us gave a choked gasp. Dawna was playing with the baby snake. Ginny – well, Professor Potter – looked over at us. I grabbed the snake just behind the head and pulled it under the table. Dawna took it from me and it became a feather again.

"What's wrong?" asked Professor Potter quietly.

"Porter had a snake!" said the girl.

"Where is it, then?"

"Fate took it away."

Most people call me by my first name because it's easier to say and remember than Laurence, but in this case, it wasn't a good idea. There was a ripple of laughter through the class, though some people didn't make the connection.

"What?" Ginny said, hiding her laughter.

"She's Fate Laurence. The one with the long hair."

I am always identified by my hair.

"I see," said Professor Potter. "What happened to the snake?"

Dawna held up her quill.

I knew exactly what Ginny was feeling. I had felt the same on the train.

"Miss Porter, I asked where the snake was. Snakes are not quills."

"This one is," I said, but quickly bit my tongue. This was Dawna's fault. I didn't need to get involved.

"Dawna is a shapeshifter, and she can change other objects, too. Especially her wand," Evan explained. Dawna shot him a scathing look.

Professor Potter looked skeptical. "Come see me after class, Miss Porter."

I couldn't concentrate at all for the rest of the class.

Dawna caught up to us later and immediately started scolding Evan for explaining what she was doing. Evan pretended to ignore her, but I could tell he was annoyed.

It was a while before I could get more than a word in. Finally, I shouted in the Speech, "Dawna, let me talk."

She was instantly silent. "What did Ginn – Professor Potter say?" I asked.

"About what?"

"Must you act so stupid? About whatever she wanted to talk to you about."

She shrugged. "I didn't get a detention, but she told me that if I ever turned anything into something dangerous again, I would get a week of detentions."

"Is that all?" I pressed.

"I'm not in Transfiguration class anymore."

I was relieved and disappointed. "What are you doing that period?"

"I have a few choices: Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, those are third year classes, or – did you know there's a class for sixth years in the Speech?"

"The Speech of Wizards?" I couldn't quite believe it.

"Aye," she said, imitating my accent.

"You're joking to see if we believe you," I accused.

"Nay." She grinned.

"I do not say that!"

"No, there really is."

"Brilliant!"

"But Ginny doesn't think I should take it because it'll all be sixth-and-seventh years. She thinks study hall would be good. And there's a wizard's chess class, but not in that period." She giggled. "Who would do a chess class when they're busy studying for their N.E.W.T.s? Anyway, I'll probably do Care of Magical Creatures. And, yes, I know it won't be Hagrid, but maybe that's good."

We approached Defense against the Dark Arts with mixed feelings. From Harry's story, we figured that we had a one in four chance of getting a good teacher. What was worse, some of the girls thought he was handsome, just like some had thought about Professor Lockhart.

He welcomed the class. "I am Valuial Elessar, son of Eradan, son of Aglar, daughter of..."

The names were interesting since they were clearly from an unusual language. It was one I vaguely recognized, and liked to hear, but I stopped listening after a few minutes.

Until –

"…Aragorn, son of Arathorn."

What!?

Of course, that was the name, Elessar. King Elessar. Aragorn. Suddenly, I laughed aloud. I knew what language the names were.

It was Sindarin, closely related to the Speech.

"Do you find something amusing?" asked Elessar.

"The names. Yours means Twilight Power. And the others are Lonely One, Glory…" I couldn't remember any more than that.

He looked at me intently. "You are a wizard, are you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am honored to be teaching in the year in which magic is becoming integrated. It shall be a fascinating experience."

I could feel Daymon's dislike.

I wondered if we were going to have to listen to this fancy English all year.

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