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WizardingWhovian - Same, I can't wait to see Bill, and what she's like.
Once again, I would really appreciate constructive criticism from you guys.
Will awoke at 7 o'clock, being strangled by the web of blankets that were now wrapped around him, yet he didn't even remember going to sleep, not in this bed anyway. Seconds later, the curtains around his bed were ripped open; Will immediately sat up, pulling the sheets up around his body. In front of him stood one of the boys from the day before, not the gang leader but the other bulky one.
"Up! He wants you!" Will was yet to know any of their names, but his experience with gangs meant that he knew the boy was talking about the other bulky one. He also knew that from now until the end of his time at Hogwarts he would be their servant, but he was okay with that - it was nothing new. "Come on then, hurry up!"
The boy walked away, leaving Will to figure out how to escape the clutches of the sheets. Once dressed, he walked over to the leader, who dropped his untouched books, Will failing to catch them.
"Squib," he said, nonchalantly, his head held high whilst Will scrambled around, picking up all the pristine books. "You will take all my books to lessons. We have Defence Against the Dark Arts first." The boy brushed past Will, who was now standing up, clutching onto the pages, slamming his shoulder into Will's before walking out of the door, heading towards the great hall for breakfast. Will hurriedly put the books on the end of the boy's bed before following after him, tripping over a book that he had apparently missed when clearing them up.
Breakfast was tiny, in comparison to the great feast the night before, yet even after The Gang and Will left, there were still mountains of food left. Once again, Will ate nothing, except for drinking a mug of tea, which he thought he would try, considering he never had previously. Unlike the night before, he noticed a glare as sharp as a knife come from Professor Snape. Will ignored it, watching everyone else fill up on pieces of toast and strips of crispy bacon whilst he sipped at the warm liquid.
When the other four boys were done, Will followed them back to the dormitory to pick up the boy's book and quill, remembering that he himself had none of the correct equipment - he hoped the teachers would all forgive him, but he highly doubted it, considering today he had Professor Umbridge, Professor Snape, and Professor Flitwick, who all scared him, despite the glow of pink that engulfed Professor Umbridge, and the fact that Professor Flitwick was the only person he had seen so far who appeared not to be half-giant, and smaller than Will, which was quite a feat, to be frank.
The group of five boys walked quickly to their first lesson, Defence Against the Dark Arts, The Gang stalking forward, their long legs striding ahead whilst Will had to run to keep up with them. They reached the classroom on the second floor, joining the little line of fifteen first year Gryffindors and Slytherins, waiting for the lady in pink to welcome them in, hoping that the first lesson wouldn't be too terrible.
The doors flung open, a scent of flowers hitting their noses as soon as it did so - in the doorway stood Professor Umbridge, wearing what, Will guessed, would be her signature colour - pink.
"Don't dawdle - come in and find a seat! We have much to do today," she said, moving out of the way, gracefully marching to the front of the classroom, turning round to watch the first years find seats. Will placed books he was protecting on the larger boy's desk before walking over to a spare desk in the middle of the classroom (that resembled a florists or a sweet shop more than a classroom), next to a tall Bangladeshi girl dressed in Hufflepuff robes, with hair longer than Will had ever seen before.
"Good morning class," the short lady at the front, wearing a fluffy pink cardigan over her knee-length fuchsia pink dress, said cheerfully, her tight curls bobbing up and down and she turned around and began scratching away at the blackboard, writing 'Defence Against the Dark Arts For First Years' in slanting curvy handwriting, the colour of the chalk being pink, matching her attire, as opposed to the usual white chalk that the majority of professors owned.
"Morning," a few people responded, not having quite the same energy levels as her. Whilst she ran on sickly sweet energy, everyone else was tired, just getting used to the new ways of life, now that they were all parentless until the Christmas holidays.
"It's good morning Professor Umbridge, to you," she said, shaking her head as if she were disappointed in the thirty first-years already. "Come on, let's try that again. Good morning class," she said cheerfully.
"Good morning," the class said again with a little more effort.
"I suppose that will do… for now. I would all like you to take out your books, and we can do a little introduction to the course, which is mandatory for the next five years. If you're lucky, we can even do a little test to see how much you already know." Everyone began to open their school books to the first page, except for one person. "And where would your book be, Mr Davies?" Professor Umbridge said, raising her eyebrow, walking up to William's desk in the middle of the classroom, looking down at the young boy.
"I don't have it, ma'am," he said, quietly.
"Speak up boy!" She shouted, before returning to her fluffy state, readjusting her cloy cardigan.
"My father never took me to buy anything, ma'am."
"It's Professor Umbridge to you, not ma'am. Why did he not buy you your school equipment? It's not correct to turn up to lessons unprepared - he should know that, surely."
"He said he would have nothing to do with magic, Ma'a- Professor Umbridge. I am sorry Professor Umbridge."
"I will not have snivelling in my classroom. Detention, 6 pm, tonight." Umbridge then proceeded to place a large, faded, leather-bound textbook on his desk. The spine of the book was hanging on by a single thread, and half the pages were either dog-eared or torn. Strutting back to the front of the class, she turned, staring at the first years. "William, why don't you read the first page for all of us, partake in the class?"
William stood up from his seat read, as loud and clear as possible, whilst speaking like a cheater ran - as fast as humanly possible, wanting to sit down as soon as possible.
"You have made a countless number mistakes, reading a very simple page, and you read far too quickly for anyone to understand. I may have to reconsider what I was planning for you detention, Mr Davids. Sit down," Professor Umbridge said. "Is there anyone else, more capable than William, who wants to read the passage again?" Some girl at the front of the class raised her hand, and to Umbridge's pleasure, read it as clear as day.
The lesson went ever so slowly after the incident, reading page after page of the book, learning about the theories behind magic.
"Before all of you rush off, I have homework for you: a two-foot long piece summarising everything you have covered today, due in tomorrow." The class groaned, writing the homework down on their parchment, before leaving the room, heading back to their dormitories. "Mr Davies, don't forget - six o'clock, sharp!"
Will picked up the book and quill that were left on the bulky boy's desk, noting that the name on the inside of the book said 'Scorpius Canis', and walked out of the room, running to try and catch up with the group, who were already in the dormitory by the time Will had made it there.
"Hurry up - we have potions, and the last thing I want be is in trouble with our own head-of-house," Scorpius said, snatching the Defence Against the Dark Arts book from Will's hands, replacing it with a book about potions. Once again, The Gang went off ahead, leaving Will to chase after them, hoping that he would arrive in time.
Unfortunately, they did not, The Gang walking into the classroom based in the dungeon, the only source of light coming from the candles in the corners of the rooms, with their heads held high whilst Will stood behind them sheepishly. Professor Snape stood at the front of the class, behind a rickety wooden desk, writing on the charcoal black chalkboard, dressed in his, much like Professor Umbridge, signature clothes, black cascading to the floor like smoke, engulfing him almost.
"And what is your excuse?" he asked, turning around to stare condescendingly at the group of five, past his crooked nose.
"It was his fault," Scorpius said, pointing toward Will.
"That does not explain why you're all late, does it?" Professor Snape said, making The Gang leader question his status. "I expect every one of my house to arrive on time, and to respect everyone - you need to learn to take the blame for yourself and no one else. Are we clear?" The group nodded. "Sit down, all of you," he said, pointing to five seats at the front of the class, right by his desk. They all sat down, Will handing the potions book to Scorpius whilst Snape glared at the five of them. He finally turned back to the chalkboard, writing the rest of his name and the lesson down, which he had been so rudely interrupted by before."As I was saying, you will all be taking this until the end of your OWLs, so you may as well start trying now, while you can still be bothered."
Professor Snape continued to talk for a solid fifteen minutes, explaining the subject in full detail before telling the class to take out their books, which everyone did, except, once again, Will. Professor Snape wasted on time dishing out detentions for Will. "You were not only late but moreover, do not have the correct equipment with you." Luckily, Professor Snape scheduled the detention for seven o'clock, although it was every day for the next week - this meant that there would be time to rush from Professor Umbridge's detention on the second floor at six, to the basements for seven.
Professor pointed over to a cupboard in the corner. "There should be spares in there - you can take one, but by the end of the month, I expect you to have your own copy of the book." Will stood up, walking past the rest of the smallish class to the cupboard at the back, picking up a scruffy book and taking the shameful walk back to his chair at the front of the class.
After two hours of potions, the first half spent reading the first chapter of the book, whilst the second half was spent watching Professor Snape do a potions demonstration on an apparently 'simple' potion which they would have to repeat in the next lesson, the class were let loose for lunch, practically all of Gryffindor and Slytherin rushing down to the great hall like a herd of elephants, whilst Will nonchalantly walked back to the dorm, clutching onto the potions book he had been given by Professor Snape, hoping that he wouldn't accidentally damage it, as that would almost definitely lead to at least another week of detentions, cleaning out cauldrons, as well as Scorpius's book, which he was less motherly over, but still took much care, not to damage any of the corners, otherwise that would be a beating for sure.
Looking at the timetable etched onto the cream parchment paper that every first year received the day before, sitting on his bedside table, Will saw that he had a couple of hours before Charms with Professor Flitwick, and decided that it was probably best for him to do his Defence Against the Dark Arts homework now, considering his evening would be taken up with detentions - it wasn't like he was hungry for lunch, anyway. Picking up the parchment from the DADA lesson that morning, the textbook he had been given by Professor Umbridge, and a quill, Will headed back down the stairs to the emerald common room, placing himself at one of the expensive looking tables (not that any of them weren't expensive) and began writing, well aware that he wasn't worthy of sitting at such a nice table.
Before he knew it, lunch had finished and The Gang walked into the common room, signalling Will to finish writing the essay, which still had half a foot of parchment remaining, and collect Scorpius's book for Charms, which he did accordingly before they headed off to a third lesson, Will knowing exactly what would happen. They would walk in, probably slightly late, Professor Flitwick would say a short introduction, before they would take out their textbooks, only for Will to have to painfully ask to borrow one, in return not only getting a textbook but a detention also, then followed by an hour of practice.
Professor Flitwick's classroom was on the fifth floor and took ten minutes to walk to, which, as Will had predicted, made the group late by about five minutes. However, Professor Flitwick, a very short man standing on a pile of books allowing him to see above his desk, was a whole lot more sympathetic towards them compared to the other teachers Will had met so far.
"Don't worry you five - ordinarily I wouldn't be too pleased, but it's a ginormous castle, and your first day, you're bound to be late, to begin with. If you find a seat and open your textbooks to the first page, then we can all continue from where we were. William, there is a spare book in the cupboard for you."
"Thank you, sir," he mumbled. By this point, Will's face was radiating as brightly as the sun; this was the third time he had to take the embarrassing walk from the front of the class to the back to grab a book, then walk to the front again to sit down in the only available seat, getting in the way of everyone.
"My name is Professor Flitwick for those of you who don't know, and I will be teaching you charms. Wandlore is very peculiar - the wand chooses the wizard after all, which you must have heard from Ollivander, correct?" The class nodded, minus Will, who was now left confused over this man called 'Ollivander' - who was he? "As a result of the complicity of Wandlore, notwithstanding the fact that it is mandatory until your OWLs, which you will take in your fifth year, it is vital that you pay close attention now." Once again, Professor Flitwick went into a profound amount of detail about the subject and the course over the first year, before teaching a very basic charm to the class. Will suspected all the lessons would be this way until the end of the fortnight, once they had had the first lesson for each course.
However, unlike the other lessons, something strange, peculiar, happened. When it came to the point in the lesson where the class were allowed to practice the charm that Professor Flitwick had taught them on their own, Will noticed a burning sensation on his hands and arms, and a less than normal volume of a charcoal coloured smoke-like substance coming from inside his robes, not that a charcoal smoke-like substance appearing from his clothes was ever normal. He raised his hand - on one else seemed to be having the same trouble as he was.
"What is it, William?" Professor Flitwick asked, looking up from the work on his desk.
"It isn't working for me, sir," Will said, watching Professor Flitwick climb down from his pile of books and walk over to his desk. "Do the charm again," Professor Flitwick said. Will did so, the same thing as before happening.
"I've never seen anyone produce smoke like that, but nevertheless, it has been recorded - this is your own wand right?" Professor Flitwick asked, concerned.
"It's not, sir - it's my mother's wand, sir; we didn't have time to buy anything, sir," Will said.
"You will need your own wand, otherwise nothing will work - unfortunately you won't be able to until Christmas, so consequently, you're going to have to deal with this wand for now. As long as you know the theory you shouldn't be too far behind after Christmas." Professor Flitwick turned back around, clambering back onto his pile of books.
The lesson ended shortly after that, leaving Will about two hours before his detention with Professor Umbridge, by which point his meagre stomach was ready for an even less amount of food. He planned to have dinner with everyone else, which would hopefully remove the grimace from Professor Snape's face, but first, he had to complete the essay for Defence Against the Dark Arts, which was due in the next day. The remaining half a foot of parchment only took about half an hour to complete, leaving him time to walk to the great hall and eat before his detention.
There was, once again, mountains of food, suitable for giants, spread out across the four wooden tables. Will walked over to the practically empty Slytherin table and sat in the middle, picking up some of the lettuce from one of the silver bowls, slowly munching his way through, only managing a few leaves before he felt full. Usually, when there was food at the house, Will would clean up all the plates, yet there appeared to be on where to do that in the great hall. As Will hadn't eaten prior to now, he had to wait to see what other students did before he did anything himself. From what he could see, they just left their plates, which would magically disappear, so, despite Will feeling incredibly rude for doing so, left his half eaten plate of salad also, and walked back out of the Great Hall, beginning to slowly make his way through the maze of stone cold corridors, up the rickety stairs and towards the classroom for his detention with Professor Umbridge on the second floor, hoping that without having to carry the heavy books of Scorpio, he would arrive there on time, or earlier, despite the length of his legs slowing him down.