AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:

Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.

September 13, 1971

Well, no one died in the last twenty-four hours, so there's that, but it's been a mixed sort of day. I'm telling this one in chronological order, because it needs to be, or else I'm going to leave things out and spend the whole entry covering Potions. We had Transfiguration first thing and Sirius actually got up at a reasonable hour to get there, which was helpful, and we've finally finished with our first set of notes and actually started spell practice as well, which was exciting. It's simple substantive transfiguration that we're working on now, changing one substance to another, essentially. We started with a simple exercise, turning a matchstick into a sewing needle, with mixed success. James was surprisingly good at it; he got results first and managed to do a fairly good job by the end of the class in creating a needle, he managed everything but the hole for the thread. I ended up with a bit of metal in the shape of a matchstick, as did Sirius, while Lily ended up with a wooden needle. Professor McGonagall said that these were encouraging results, though. Peter didn't get anything done, but that's unsurprising. Noreen and Mary didn't either, while Joan's matchstick just went slightly pointy. Marlene ended up with a weird metal-wood hybrid thing and of course, Eleanor didn't attempt it at all. We'll be practicing Wednesday and Thursday with this exercise as well, so we'll have a chance to perfect it, and hopefully Peter and the others will have a chance to get some results, before we move on to a more difficult exercise next week.

In History of Magic, we turned in our essays and did notes, from what we're told by the older students, all Professor Binns ever does is essays and notes, until the end of the year exam. I was the only one who actually took them the whole period, once again. We started our first set of notes in Charms, as well, just the basic terminology and theory, now that we've finished our first spell. Those notes got a bit more attention, though. There's a free period, lunch, and two more free periods on Mondays between Charms and Potions, however, so I went back to the common room with Lily after Charms, since I had nothing better to do. She was mostly chatting with Marlene. I sat on the couch next to them and nodded and smiled at what seemed like appropriate points, but my attention was between the game of wizarding chess being played by Brandon Tintagel and Darren Crawford, another fifth year boy, and on James Potter, who doesn't seemed to be able to take it when people aren't paying attention to him, and so was regaling the room, or anyone who would pay attention, with impressions of the school's staff. They were actually pretty good. His rendition of the caretaker was spot on. As it turns out, James can be legitimately funny when he isn't trying to hurt anyone.

Unfortunately, he's done a bit too much of trying to hurt people, putting the Gryffindor-Slytherin feud for the first years at a boiling point. Apparently, unbeknownst to the rest of us, except perhaps Sirius and Peter, who follow him like puppies, James used the later part of our lunch hour ambushing and hexing first and second year Slytherin students as they headed back towards the dungeons from the Great Hall. The Slytherin first years planned their retribution accordingly. They arrived early in Professor Slughorn's classroom for Potions, so that by the time we in Gryffindor got there, each two-man table had one Slytherin student sitting at it. Interestingly enough, Severus didn't appear to be in on it, as he entered around the same time we did and seemed just as surprised. He asked one of the Slytherin boys, Malcolm Naxton, to move, so he could get a table with Lily, and the boy told him, "I'd rather not, thanks. You don't need to be sitting with that mudblood anyway." That's when I knew it was going to get ugly. Severus turned red, Lily looked puzzled, and luckily no one else overheard because there probably would have been violence then and there over it. We were all still standing when the bell rang and Professor Slughorn came in. His face went from confused to uneasy quite quickly as he saw the situation, but nevertheless told everyone to take seats.

I took a spot next to the rather large and thuggish Vincent Mulciber, expressly so no one else would have to (I'm unusually tall, have superhuman strength and am accustomed to pain, all of which I thought would be helpful against him if things in class got ugly), while Professor Slughorn begun a set of notes on the potion we'll be attempting Friday, an anti-zit rinse. "Something many of you will be needing soon," he noted. I tried to pay attention to him and take adequate notes, while still listening in on the hisses of taunts now going around the class, low enough not to be heard past the table of the speaker, unless it's werewolf ears listening, of course. Still, it was a lot even for werewolf ears to manage. In the meantime, Mulciber started in on me. He started hissing "Hey dumbass," at me over and over. He stomped my foot under the table first, then punched me in the leg. Of course, my entire body breaks itself apart into a new shape and back once a month, a shape which in the time in between generally spends throwing itself at doors, windows and walls, so his attacks didn't bother me so much. There isn't a bone I haven't broken or a joint I haven't dislocated nearly. I know how to put all of my joints back in place, with all that personal experience, and conversely, I know how to take most of them out, too. He wasn't expecting it. He went to punch me again, aiming for my ribs this time, when I caught his hand with that unexpected (for him) werewolf strength and speed and pulled back on his fingers, against the angle of the joints. "You will sit still and you will be quiet or I will break every single one of your fingers," I hissed at him. He tried to wiggle away, but found that my grip was too strong, and that only makes it hurt more. He went still.

"I need that hand to write," he hissed back.

"You should have thought about that and kept it to yourself," I hissed back.

In the meantime, with my right hand, I kept writing, copying down everything on the chalkboard. I kept my ears on what was going on around me, though. Fiona McConnell, next to Lily, was explaining to her exactly what a mudblood was. Next to Mary, Karen Wilder was doing the same. Mary was already beginning to cry. James was scuffling under the table with Stuart Bellinger, while Sirius seemed be scrambling with Nestor Wyatt over the possession of his quill. Malcolm Naxton was doing something under the table to make Peter give little pig like squeals. Most of the girls were trading insults. Jane Maris had Noreen nearly in tears as well, telling her how stupid and ugly she was. Severus had ended up next to Nadine West, who was lecturing him on pureblood superiority and against associating with mudbloods. "I suppose your mother married a muggle, though," I heard her say, "So maybe being a blood traitor runs in the family." Things were mostly under wraps, or at least, being kept at a low enough level that Professor Slughorn either didn't notice or didn't care to notice.

That was until the point where runty Norman Avery, sitting next to Eleanor Stark, brought her father into the conversation. I was paying attention to Nadine and so I didn't catch the whole comment, but it ended with "end up like your father." This is how we reached the point in time where we all finally heard Eleanor Stark's voice. It was yelling out an incantation, as she promptly set Norman Avery on fire. I believe the incantation was "incendo." His chest burst into flames. Around them, the girls shrieked and moved away. This finally caught Professor Slughorn's attention. He yelled something and rushed forward to put Avery out. He fell flat on his face, though, heading towards him. There might have been a Trip Jinx involved, I believe. It might have been from Sirius. At least this is what I would gather from my knowledge of Latin, Sirius' furtive muttering of the word, "Claudeo" and Professor Slughorn's tumble to the ground. Norman Avery screamed as his chest burned. I could smell the meat cooking on him. It smelled glorious. (I can never let anyone read this.) Professor Slughorn got up, perhaps assuming that his fall had been an honest mistake in rushing to help one of his students. He doused the flames on Avery's chest, grabbed both him and Eleanor by the arms, one in each hand, and pulled them out of the room. He's surprisingly fast and strong for such a fat man. But then, I am surprisingly fast and strong for such a skinny boy.

There was a stunned sort of silence for a moment, before Anne Barnes said, "She'll be expelled."

"I have to say, I'm impressed by her fighting spirit," Sirius put in.

"Shut up, blood traitor," Malcolm Naxton said.

"Shame of my womb," Fiona McConnell said in a high pitched voice, quoting Sirius' mother's howler. A few of the Slytherins giggled.

Then chaos really broke loose. James and Stuart had stopped mid-scuffle, still locked together, to watch Norman Avery burn. James took Stuart's current inattention as an opportunity to slug him in the jaw. At the same time, Sirius attempted to throw a hex at Fiona McConnell, no doubt in response to the impression of his mother, but was stopped by Nestor Wyatt, who is rather thickly built, grabbing him around the neck to stop him. Vincent took the opportunity that these distractions caused to try to get away from me, but I held tight. "Sit still and be quiet or I will break all of your fingers," I repeated again softly. Clumsily, he made for his wand with his left hand. Swiftly, I pulled mine with my right and pointed it directly at his right eye. "That is a terrible idea," I told him. Honestly, the only thing I could have done with my wand that close to his eye was poke him in it, but he didn't know that. He went still and kept his mouth shut. I looked about. James and Sirius were both fighting with their respective seat mates, while what was going on between Malcolm and Peter wasn't so much as a fight rather than utter physical humiliation. He'd somehow gotten Peter's robes open in front and was holding his arms back one handed and slapping his fleshy stomach with the other hand while Peter squealed and teared up. Joan and Margaret Stone were pulling each other's hair. The other girls were exchanging insults. I was reminded quite vividly of The Lord of the Flies. Malcolm was even laughing and going, "Pig, pig, pig!" while he hit Peter.

After a couple minutes of this, Professor McGonagall rushed in. She stopped at the door, clearly shocked at the sight in front of her. Luckily, I was near the back and was able to lower my wand, release Mulciber's hand and promptly look innocent. Mulciber took up the same look. We must have looked terribly odd; we were the only two students still seated. "Stop this at once!" Professor McGonagall shrieked. Mary, Noreen and Peter were all crying, Peter with his robes open and his gut hanging out. Joan was crying as well, as Margaret had fistfuls of her hair. Stuart Bellinger's mouth was bleeding while Nestor Wyatt still had Sirius struggling to get out of a choke hold. At the sound of McGonagall's voice, everyone ceased. I won't go into the ten minutes of yelling that followed from Professor McGonagall, but it hurt my ears. The incident ended with James, Sirius, Joan, Stuart Bellinger, Nestor Wyatt, Malcolm Naxton, Margaret Stone, Karen Wilder, and Jane Maris being given detentions, tonight, cleaning the Great Hall after dinner and ten points from their respective houses each. She wouldn't hear James' objections that the Slytherins started it as, she rebutted, he should have reported it as soon as it began instead of turning it into an all-out brawl. Of course, James did actually start it ambushing students in the hall at the end of lunch period, but no one was going to say that now. Stuart also tried to object on the grounds that cleaning was for house elves. Professor McGonagall took another ten points from Slytherin for it. Since Potions was clearly over at this point (Professor Slughorn sent her down on his way up to the infirmary to keep order), she then sent us back to our common rooms. She made the Slytherins leave first (likely so we wouldn't just pick up the brawl again in the corridors), spent another five minutes lecturing us Gryffindors on our terrible behavior and then escorted us up to Gryffindor Tower herself. She told us we were all confined to the tower for the rest of the evening, except for dinner, and those who had detentions. That's where I am now.

It's still uncertain what has become of Norman Avery and Eleanor Stark.

I'm going to try to fill in from my potions book what I should have learned in class today, if I can manage to make heads or tails of it. This isn't what I thought school would be like at all.

AUTHOR'S END NOTE:

Well, this happened.

It's too bad that Hogwarts doesn't have school counselors. It might have done Harry some good around books five and six, among other people. Of course, the wizarding world doesn't seem to have psychiatric services in general, which explains more than it doesn't.

Also, if you have anything to say, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.