Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Luckily for Harry, the schedules for first year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws is conveniently the same. The House Ghosts tend to be helpful when Harry needs help navigating the hundred and forty-two staircases to get to class. A Poltergeist named Peeves is even more helpful after nearly eating a Mana Bolt on Harry's way to Transfiguration on Monday. On the topic of Transfiguration, most of the Ravenclaws and all of the Hufflepuffs are surprised the first lesson when the seemingly absent professor turns out to have been hiding as a tabby cat on her desk.

The caretaker and his cat, Mrs. Norris, are highly unpopular among the students however get along surprisingly well with Harry, perhaps because both he and Mrs. Norris are felines. As for the rest of the classes, Monday night at midnight is Astronomy, while they go out to the greenhouses three times a week to learn Herbology from the Hufflepuff Head, Professor Sprout.

Easily the most boring class is History of Magic, which is the only one taught by a Ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staffroom fire and got up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns drones on and on while they scribble down names and dates, and get Emeric the Evil and Ulric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher and Head of Ravenclaw, is a tiny little wizard who has to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk and smells as though he is part goblin. At the start of their first class he takes the roll call, and when he reaches Harry's name, he gives an excited squeak and topples out of sight.

The class everyone has really been looking forward to is Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Professor Quirrell turns them into a bit of a joke. His classroom smells strongly of garlic, which everyone says is to ward off a Vampire he'd met in Romania and is afraid will be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he tells them, had been a gift given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome Zombie, but they aren't sure they believe his story. For one thing, when Hermione asks eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the Zombie, Quirrell goes pink and starts talking about the weather; for another, they notice that a funny smell hangs around the turban, and the Weasley twins, the red-heads from the feast, insist that it is stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell is protected wherever he goes. Harry thinks the smell is oddly similar to a Crimson soldier but doesn't mention it to anyone.

Friday morning at breakfast, Harry receives a note from a school owl written in an untidy scrawl while discussing with Susan at the Hufflepuff table their first Potions class, scheduled for after Herbology. The scrawl says:

Dear Harry, I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week and perhaps we can trade stories from before you got your Hogwarts invite. Send your answer back with the owl that delivered this note.

Hagrid

Harry pulls a quill and normal ink from a waist pouch and scribbles Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sends off the owl.

Herbology goes smoothly as always and then it's off to the dungeons where there is a suspicious lack of ventilation magic to deal with potions fumes. The Potions class is taught by one of the former followers of Voldemort and as a result, the class is informed to call him Professor Severus as he wants to avoid being referred to as 'No Name'. Severus, like Flitwick, starts the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he pauses at Harry's name.

"Ah, yes," he says softly, "Harry Potter. Our new – celebrity."

Harry sniggers behind one hand as Severus winces in pain from lack of respect to an individual he owes his life. Severus finishes calling the names and looks up at the class. His eyes are black like Hagrid's, but they have none of Hagrid's warmth. They are cold and empty and make you think of dark tunnels.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he begins. He speaks in barely more than a whisper, but they catch every word – like Professor McGonagall, Severus has the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

More silence follows this little speech. Harry and Neville exchange looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione is on the edge of her seat and looks desperate to start proving that she isn't a dunderhead.

"Potter!" says Severus suddenly, before wincing again. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"If I remember correctly Professor, that would be a key step in making the Draught of Living Death," Harry comments after making a small effort to ignore the way Hermione's hand shoots into the air.

"Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar, Potter?"

Hermione stretches her hand as high in the air as she can without leaving her seat, but both Harry and Severus ignore her.

"I believe a goat's stomach, though that's a rather odd place to find a magical poison neutralizer," Harry replies though he doesn't mention the other oddity regarding bezoars being part of the language of flowers.

"One more question to see if you actually know anything or just got lucky," Severus says with yet another wince. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Hermione stands up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

"There isn't a difference, the plant, also going by the name aconite makes an excellent medicinal powder and, with the proper processing, can suppress or treat many magical illnesses such as lycanthropy," Harry replies as he pulls a flask of the lycanthropy cure from one of his waist pouches.

"Sit down," Severus snaps at Hermione. "I suppose that flask is a supposed treatment for lycanthropy? Give it to me and I will have it tested as soon as possible. Two points from Ravenclaw for trying to show off Granger." The rest of the class period is spent mixing up a simple wand waver's potion to cure boils. Severus sweeps around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone. He is just grudgingly telling everyone to look at the perfect way Harry has stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing fill the dungeon. Neville has somehow managed to melt Susan's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion is seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Before it can spread much further, Harry hits the entire class with an overpowered Antithesis that burns away the spilled potion and heals the angry boils covering a moaning in pain Neville.

"Idiot boy!" snarls Severus. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Then he rounds on Susan Bones. "That's fifty points you and your partner have lost for Hufflepuff. I would have thought the niece of the DMLE Head would be able to stop a mistake like that."

As they climb the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, it is clear that Neville can use something to cheer him up. Luckily for the Hufflepuff boy, Harry decides to invite him, Hermione, Susan and another Hufflepuff girl named Hannah Abbot to come with him to Hagrid's.

At five to three they leave the castle and make their way across the grounds. Hagrid lives in a small wooden house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes are outside the front door.

When Harry knocks, they hear a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rings out, saying, "Back, Fang – back."

Hagrid's big, hairy face appears in the crack as he pulls the door open.

"Hang on," he says. "Back, Fang."

He lets them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There is only one room inside. Hams and some type of bird are hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle is boiling on the open fire, and a in the corner stands a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

"Make yerselves at home," says Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounds straight at Neville and starts licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang is clearly not as fierce as he looks.

"This is Neville," Harry tells Hagrid, who is pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

"A Longbottom?" says Hagrid, glancing at Neville's chubby face. "I'm sure you'll be better than those Weasley twins I spent half me life chasin' away from the forest."

The rock cakes are shapeless lumps with raisins that are hard enough Harry suspects Hagrid must be related to Giants or Draugorcs, but Harry, Neville and the unintroduced girls pretend to be enjoying them as they tell Hagrid all about their first lessons. Fang rests his head on Hermione's knee and drools all over her robes.

Harry is somewhat disappointed to hear Hagrid call Filch "that old git."

"An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her – Filch puts her up to it."

Harry tells Hagrid about Severus' lesson. Hagrid tells Neville and Hermione not to worry about it, Severus likes hardly any of the students. As the conversations continue, Harry notices a cutting from the wizarding newspaper:

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark Wizards or Witches unknown.

Gringotts Goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

"But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

While interesting, it sounds like the Goblins have things handled for the most part. A short time later, the five students head back up to the castle for a proper dinner.

For the second week of school, everything is pretty much the same as the first week with the exception of Flying lessons on Thursday. Leading up to the first lesson, many first-year students raised in the wizarding world can be heard boasting about how good they supposedly are on a broom. Neville is one of the few wand wavers who hasn't been on a broom before saying his grandmother never let him near one. Privately, Harry feels she had good reason, because Neville manages to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.

Hermione Granger is almost as nervous about flying as Neville is. This is something you can't learn out of a book – not that she hasn't tried. At breakfast on Thursday she bores the first-year 'Claws all stupid with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville is hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everyone else is very pleased when Hermione's lecture is interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

A Barn Owl brings Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opens it excitedly and shows them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seems to be full of white smoke.

"It's a Remembrall!" he explains. "Gran knows I forget things – this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red- oh..." His face falls, because the Remembrall suddenly glows scarlet, "you've forgotten something..."

"Not really all that useful apparently. Perhaps it could be tweaked to tell you at least a hint as to WHAT you forgot," Harry says as Neville scrunches his face trying to remember what he is forgetting.

At three-thirty in the afternoon, Harry, his friends, and the rest of the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff first-years hurry down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It is a clear, breezy day, and the grass ripples under their feet as they march down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the Forbidden Forest, whose trees are swaying darkly in the distance.

Twenty broomsticks are waiting for the first-years, lying in neat lines on the ground. Harry has heard the Weasley twins complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them start to vibrate if you fly too high, or always fly slightly to the left.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrives. She has short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a Hawk.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she barks. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Harry glances down at his broom. It is old and some of the twigs stick out at odd angles.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," calls Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!'"

"UP!" everyone shouts.

Harry's broom jumps into his hand at once, but it is one of the few that does. Hermione Granger's simply rolls over on the ground, and Neville's hasn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like Saberfangs, can tell when you are afraid, thinks Harry: there is a quaver in Neville's voice that says only too clearly that he wants to keep his feet on the ground.

Madam Hooch then shows them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end. And walks up and down the rows correcting their grips.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," says Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle – three – two -"

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushes off hard before the whistle has touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Come back, boy!" she shouts, but Neville is rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle – twelve feet – twenty feet. Harry sees his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, sees him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and – before anyone else can react, Harry pulls out his experimental two-man glider and intercepts the falling Hufflepuff. The broom Neville had been on still rises higher and higher, starting to lazily drift towards the Forbidden Forest and out of sight.

Glancing at Neville, Harry drops a note to the class and steers the glider to the hospital wing window with minimal maneuvering to avoid making Neville feel worse. Madam Pomfrey quickly directs Harry to place Neville in one of the beds when she sees the two students enter through the window. As the school nurse feeds a calming draught to the Hufflepuff boy, all four Heads of House enter the infirmary only to stop in surprise at seeing Harry perfectly healthy and no clear signs of injury on Neville.

"That was rather reckless Lord Potter. Having said that, is there any chance you would be interested in joining one of the House Quidditch teams perhaps on a rotating basis since you aren't actually in one of the four Houses that have teams?" Professor McGonagall says once the Heads are certain no one was actually injured.

"Any attempt to help the House teams as a player will have to wait until next school year. At the moment, I have zero experience on a broom in addition to the obvious issue of not being in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin. There are also my duties as Lord of multiple Houses and my normal student duties to consider. Speaking of which, I would like to request time off school grounds for next Thursday, September 19, for myself and Ms. Hermione Granger to celebrate her birthday after classes end. The time off school grounds would be spent visiting her parents and maybe returning to a vacation site in the land I grew up in," Harry replies.

"As long as you keep in mind the Statute of Secrecy, I see no problem with allowing you to celebrate Ms. Granger's birthday of school grounds, though we usually require signed consent from a student's guardian," McGonagall answers before she and Madam Pomfrey send both students back to Flying class. The rest of the lesson is decidedly less exciting.

AN: Thanks for reading and please review.