Disclaimer: JKR owns everything. I own nothing.

Hermione's Late Night Recovery- Chapter Four

The eight members of the new house stood quietly, shivering their dungeon common room. They were still divided by their old houses. Crabbe and Goyle were standing menacingly in the corner, they were lost without Draco. Hermione was next to Neville. Neither of them was talking, but Neville was shaking in fear. The three Hufflepuffs clustered together near the fire, but it didn't provide much heat. The lone Ravenclaw was in the middle of the room looking lost.

Finally their waiting ended and Snape came in through the main door. It was easy to open, because of the difficulty some of the house members had with memorization the portrait had been trained to learn each student's name and face and could recognize them. Everyone had also set up a special question that the picture of Headmaster Dilys would ask if she thought that they were an imposter.

Severus cleared his throat. "Welcome to the first house meeting." He spent the next five minutes teaching his new house how to line up properly and pay attention. "Our house still does not have a name. That will be one thing we're going to work on today." He motioned to the rooms around them. "I will also give you a tour and we will have our first learning strategies class."

Neville shivered. The thought of Professor Snape terrified him and now the man was his Head of House and his teacher for two classes!

Hermione stepped to the front of the group. "Does anyone have any ideas for our house name?"

"Snakes!" Vincent Crabbe yelled. "They're awesome, like Slytherins."

"You're not a Slytherin right now." Hermione reminded the large boy. "We need an original name. Something special that lets everyone know that we're not to be messed with." Not that I have any ideas.

One of the Hufflepuffs, Megan Jones, said, "Doghouses." Most of the others laughed. It did have an animal, like the other four houses. But the 'house' part was too much.

"Athena." Hermione suggested. "Wisdom and war."

Gregory Goyle just shrugged. "I don't wanna be some girl goddess." He scoffed. "Weightlifters." He flexed an arm, showing off the muscle he'd built over the summers and years by working out with his father.

"Catpaw." Megan gave another suggestion. "Or kittenpaw!" She giggled.

Snape felt like smashing his hand against the wall. Working with these eight was going to take every ounce of his patience, and then some. Still, it would be a challenge. And it would make teaching potion classes easier compared to these classes.

"Metamorphosis." The Ravenclaw girl mentioned. She was quiet and they almost missed hearing her.

Hermione smiled. "Great idea! It's perfect." She gave the girl an encouraging smile.

There wasn't any outbursts and Severus looked around the eight students quickly. "Is Metamorphosis your final choice?"

Everyone exchanged looks and nodded. Hermione answered the question. "Yes Sir. We'd like to be Metamorphosis."

"Fine." Snape took his wand out of its holster and pointed it at the Ravenclaw. With a wave and a murmured incantation the trim on her robes and tie turned from blue and bronze to white and black. He performed the charm on each student and added a black and white band on his own robe. Like it or not, he was their Head of House and responsible for getting them ready to continue with their academic careers.

"We will go over your rules and time tables in the classroom. But first I'm going to show you around." Snape couldn't remember the last time he had to conduct a tour. Normally his prefects did it, but Metamorphosis only had first years and none of them had enough experience to be prefects.

Snape led them to the end of the common room. There was two doors. "These lead to the dormitories. Only one will open for you. And that is the one that you will be in." At their confused looks, he sighed. "Just test it out."

The eight tried it quickly and found that the boys could open one and the girls the other. The rooms were much nicer than their house dormitories, there was partitions between the beds and large, neat desks in each section of the room. Their trunks had also already been delivered, but none of their things had been put away and still needed to be tidied.

"As you must likely have discovered, the wash rooms are at the end of your dormitories. There are showers and toilets. Also there is a charm that can be used to turn the shower area into bath tubs, or if both dormitories agree, a large pool." Snape told them. He thought the pool was the coolest and once again thanked Hogwarts for providing them with such ingenious rooms.

There was only one unexplained door left. He opened it and walked to the front. "Everyone come in please." Then he spelled on the lights.

The room reminded Hermione of muggle school. It wasn't simply a lecture hall, or a lab like their classes were in at Hogwarts. There was all kinds of fun and exciting things. The desks were singles, but they were pushed together in groups of three and two.

"Take your seats please." Snape told them, summoning a variety of school supplies to the front of the class.

Hermione ended up at the group of two with the Ravenclaw and the two Slytherins ended up with a very unhappy Neville, leaving the Hufflepuffs together.

"I'm going to take roll call." Snape explained everything as much as he could. Dumbledore had suggested going that to make sure that his students did what he wanted. "When I call your name, please raise your hand and say 'here'."

The eight looked at him. Each person didn't want the nerve-racking experience of being first. And it meant that you could never be late for class.

"Abbot, Hannah." A red haired girl who used to be a Hufflepuff raised her hand and answered.

"Brocklehurst, Amanda." The tiny Ravenclaw raised her hand and squeaked out and answer.

"Crabbe, Vincent." The ape like boy responded the way he'd been ordered too. He still managed to terrify Longbottom out his wits by simply cracking his fingers.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin." The Hufflepuff looked around nervously, as if he was making sure that it was his name before he answered.

"Goyle, Gregory." Slightly smarter than Crabbe, Goyle just glared at Longbottom. His glare wasn't the best, but he was proud of it. He usually held people while Crabbe hit them and had built strength from resistance training.

"Granger, Hermione." The busy-haired girl launched herself half out of her seat in her enthusiasm and her 'here' was very confident and loud.

"Jones, Megan." The dark skinned Hufflepuff answered as she'd been told and went back to playing with her fingers and making little patterns in the air with her wand. She just wouldn't stop moving, at least she'd finally stopped talking.

"Longbottom, Neville." He squeaked and grew wide eyed at his name, but Neville answered.

Snape closed his roll book and set it on to his desk. He wished that there was a podium for him to stand it, but Albus had demanded that it get set up like a muggle classroom. That was the way he wanted it. It was suppose to make it easier to apply muggle cures to problems that he saw occuring.

"To being we're going to make a discussion about the learning strategies class and Metamorphosis." He told them. "With your group, explain why you think that you are here and how you plan to return to your original house, if that is your goal. If that is not your goal, please choose another to discuss." Severus tried not to yell in frustration at the blank looks. It was straight forward and they needed to move on.

Hermione smiled at Amanda. "I'll start." She told the little girl, she seemed to be painfully shy. "I'm here because I didn't get enough sleep and took a potion to make me stay up later. So they decided that they should keep a closer eye on me."

Amanda nodded.

"And my goal is to return to Gryffindor tower and get really good marks this year." She told the other first year. She didn't want to talk about marks with a Ravenclaw, but they hadn't gotten back any marks or exams. "Why don't you go." She said after Amanda still hadn't started.

Amanda nodded nervously and didn't make eye contact with anyone in the room. "I was given permission to start a year early." She said. Her voice was so quiet that Hermione had to bend over to hear her. "And I'm having a hard time fitting in and I just want to go home."

Hermione touched her shoulder gently. "I'm sure it will be fine. You'll get over the homesickness. And I haven't really made any friends either." She felt so old next to Amanda. Almost like a second year to a first year. But they were both first years.

Thank Merlin! Severus thought when he saw Brocklehurst smile timidly. From what Filius said I was positive that she would never fit in and find a friend.

"Is everyone finished?" He asked the class. Again, I can't just move on like I normally would. Why does Albus want me teaching this class? I'm can't provide the kind of adult figure these children need. Pomona or Minerva would be so much better.

But the students were nodding and stopping their discussions. It had been easy enough, since some of them weren't sure why they were there.

Snape used his wand to send a course outline to everyone's desk. "This is a breakdown of the units we're going to be covering and the topics within those units. Please read over it and raise your hand if you have any questions." He told them. I'm glad I don't have to do this for Potions. It would take ages to write out!

Hermione took the paper and read over it.

Learning Strategies Course Outline

Unit One: Quills and Writing

Basic skills

Advanced skills

Drawing

Unit Two: Note Taking

-Shorthand

-Summarizing lectures

-Review of Quill and Writing Skills

Unit Three: Essays

-Introductions and Conclusions

-Body of the Essay

-Research

Unit Four: Tests and Exams

-Reviewing

-Memorization techniques

-Practice Exams

Hermione finished reading and glanced around the class. Amanda was finished reading, but everyone else was still bent over their papers. Megan was shifting in her seat and kept glancing up and looking around, while Gregory was sounding out the words in the paper.

"Are there are questions?" Snape asked, sending a glare at Megan. But the girl was oblivious and continued her annoying, constant motion.

Hermione's hand shot into the air. She was always had a question and it was looking simple enough. But there was always more to know.

"Miss Granger."

"Sir, I was wondering if we're going to study History of Magic. I don't want to fail the final exam." She told him. Exams made her nervous enough, and now she had a different teacher than most of the first years.

"We will also be covering the History topics. Don't worry." He told them. "Tomorrow we will have our first class together. You have have the last thirty minutes to unpack and arrange your things. You are expected to keep your dormitories and common rooms neat."

With that, all the students rushed to get out of the class. Neville almost fell on his face in his haste to get away from the Potion Master.