Ymwadiad: Rwy'n berchen ar unrhyw beth sy'n dilyn ... yn anffodus. I made my own map of Hogwarts, so that is where my directions to and from classrooms come from.

Start of Term

Vita rushed up the steps after Scorpius as he attempted to lead her and Fiske to History of Magic. They raced around the corner at the top of the stairs, praying for it to be the right door. There it was, finally. Yesterday, Scorpius had managed to lead the three of them to this door, of which the inside was a terraced amphitheatre.

"We have two minutes, GO!" Vita pushed Scorpius through the door. Inside, about seventy students sat in the rows of desks. Vita, Fiske, and Scorpius hastened to sit near the windows. They weren't able to get the seats in the back of the room, but they definitely were not in the front, either. Vita slid her bag up onto her desk and pulled out some parchment and a quill. A minute later, about twenty-five chattering students burst through the door. It seemed one house had decided to band together and help each other find the classroom, probably the Hufflepuffs.

They all settled down as the teacher came into view. A few people gasped as they realized what his pearly, translucence meant. The teacher was a ghost. Scorpius and Fiske had warned Vita of this, so she didn't freak out like some of the other students were doing.

"First years, I am Professor Binns. This is History of Magic. You will take notes here," Professor Binns voice was very monotonous and Vita only just caught herself before she fell into a daze. She had to prove herself worthy. Some of the other Slytherins had started to push her around when it spread that she was a muggleborn. She had to be higher than them. Vita slowly dipped her quill in ink and diligently wrote down every single word Binns uttered.

Every once and a while, she would look to either of her sides and smirk at Scorpius or Fiske. Scorpius slept through the whole class and Fiske's eyes were glazed over as he doodled absentmindedly on a spare piece of parchment. Vita looked around the room. Only around twenty people had been able to resist the soporific effects of Binns voice, and most of them were probably Ravenclaws. Vita smiled to herself.

.o0o.

Vita and Fiske tried to shake Scorpius awake the moment class was over. "We have to find Transfiguration, c'mon!" Fiske shouted in his ear, his Welsh accent prominent. After Vita and Fiske had just about given up, as Scorpius slept like a log, he jerked awake of his own accord.

"Transfiguration, okay. We need to get back to the Entrance Hall," Scorpius led the way out as Vita gave an exasperated look to Fiske. Luckily, the staircases hadn't moved since before History of Magic, but Fiske still managed to get his foot stuck in a disappearing step. Scorpius and Vita hoisted him up by the underarms and continued on their way. The Transfiguration classroom was a direct offshoot of the corridor next to the Entrance Hall, so once they got there, it was a straight shot.

Most of their History of Magic class must have gotten themselves lost, because there were only nine students in Transfiguration as of yet. Professor Boot sat at his desk. "Choose your seats wisely, you will have them all year," he called from the front of the sat down in the center of the room with Scorpius and Vita following.

"I was looking at the textbook last night," Fiske and Scorpius gave Vita a funny look, "Don't look at me like that, well, Transfiguration looks really difficult."

"You read textbooks, just because?" Fiske asked incredulously.

Vita sighed, "That's not the point I was going for, but yes. You just don't understand. A few months ago, I had no idea magic existed. I thought it was just a part of some of the books I read. Now it's a huge part of my life. You wouldn't understand, you grew up with it."

"I guess that makes sense," said Scorpius. Fiske nodded his head in agreement.

Just them Kelly and five or so of her new-found cronies strutted through the door. They sat down in the back of class and several of them gave Vita dirty looks. As if to say, "Look what you're missing." Vita pointedly looked back to the front of the classroom, ignoring them.

Five minutes later, Professor Boot stood and class began. "Today we begin the study of Transfiguration, one of the most difficult areas of magic to master." Professor Boot passed a parchment to the front row, "Sign your names in the seats you're sitting in, please. In Transfiguration, one needs to see every step of the change in one's mind's eye before the transfiguration can take place. The endpoint is not the difficult part, halfway is." he turned to face the rolling blackboard, with a grin, and promptly turned it to a giraffe and back.

A girl in the second row squealed. Professor Boot announced, "You may be able to accomplish that feat in your seventh year if you apply yourself. Today you will attempt to transfigure a toothpick into a straight pin." Boot then instructed a boy in the front row to pass out a box of toothpicks.

Professor Boot enlarged his toothpick and demonstrated o the class several times. The students nodded and attempted to transfigure their own toothpicks. Nothing happened "Keep trying" said Professor Boot, "Picture the changes within your mind." Vita concentrated on her toothpick. What about it was different than a pin?

Pins are metal with a plastic ball at one end and toothpicks are made of wood, she thought. Vita decided to make the ball end first. In the next half hour, she thoroughly succeeded in hurting her mind, but the end of her toothpick did look rather like a plastic ball and had a yellowish tint. Vita sighed and looked over at Fiske, who was being corrected by the Professor about the was he was spinning his wand in his hand. Apparently, you were supposed to slowly twist it in your fingers. Vita tried it and the end of her toothpick turned bright yellow. She smiled.

"Nice job concentrating on one part at a time," commented Professor Boot, who had been looking over her shoulder, "Try the other end now."

Vita smiled sheepishly, "Thanks." Professor Boot made as if to move toward the next student, "Wait a moment, please. Sorry if this is weird, but are you related to Mathew Boot?"

"How on Earth do you know my brother?" he responded.

"He's my aunt's ... ex ... husband," she said, thinking through the words.

"Sorry, my big brother has three ex-wives, what was her name?"

"Rhona Denman-"

"Oh, she was the first one. I'm afraid I may have been the one to scare her away. Don't preform magic in front of muggles. They don't appreciate it." Professor Boot smirked as he continued walking through the aisles between the desks. Vita wearily eyed her toothpick. Her head throbbed nastily.

.o0o.

Vita walked out of Transfiguration with Scorpius and Fiske, her face glowing. Even the all amount of change she had caused in her toothpick was more than the smartest of the Ravenclaws had produced.

"Potions is in the dungeon," stated Fiske. In fact, potions was the easiest classroom to locate, as it was one of the doorways that branched away from the route to the Slytherin Common Room. The three eased into the foggy classroom. They were the first students there and sat their stuff down at a table near the storage closet. A cheerful face came toward them out of the yellowish haze.

"G'mornin'," she sang, her Irish accent faint, "M'name is Professor Malam and congratulations on finding the classroom first. By the way, I'm Head of Hufflepuff. Are you from Gryffindor or Slytherin?"

"We're Slytherins," answered Scorpius.

A quick scared emotion flitted across Professor Malam's face "Well, welcome to Potions," she said, "We'll begin once your classmates arrive." Malam disappeared back into the haze.

"What, has she got some longstanding grudge against Slytherins?" Fiske leaned in towards Scorpius and Vita.

"It's very possible. She looks about fifty or so and thirty-five years ago, Slytherins were overly nasty to muggleborns and Hufflepuffs in general. It's really a wonder that we have you," Scorpius motioned to Vita, "a muggleborn, in our midst."

Vita blushed, "The hat just put me here 'cause I'm a 'Wyllt'," she air-quoted. "The older kids have already started pushing me around and ramming me in the halls with their shoulders."

"Wha-," Fiske choked out.

"And the weird thing is, you know those books we all signed?" Scorpius nodded, "Mine only had, like, ten names in it, and only the first was male."

"That's not important, right now. You said that like you were expecting to get picked on," said Fiske.

"Well, yeah, a little bit," Vita looked uncertain. "I'd heard of Slytherin's reputation about muggleborns. I promise you, I'm fine."

hoard of people streamed through the hazy outline of the Potions door. They were the loudest, most obnoxious, group of students Vita had seen so far. They were the Gryffindors. y crowded into the tables around Vita, Fiske, and Scorpius. A few minutes later, the rest of the Slytherins strode in, taking the last few tables. Professor Malam cleared the fog with a grand sweep of her wand. The fog was siphoned off into its tip.

"Potions are finicky creatures. If you miss one line in the instructions, or cut a bean in half instead of squashing it with the flat of your knife, your potion will be irrevocably ruined," Professor Malam announced. "Unnecessary experimentation will be punished severely. No one will be getting injured or killed on my watch. Is that clear?" The students murmured in assent. "Good, now turn to page five in your textbooks. We will first brew a potion used to cure boils. It should prove to be a good learning experience. But first we must learn how to heat a cauldron, stir properly, and in general, brew a potion. That is where page five comes in. You may wish to take notes." The students rummaged through their bags for parchment.

.o0o.

The students ambled out of Potions. They had lunch hour now and felt like they had all the time in the world. Vita walked, next to Scorpius, down the corridor. They dallied next to the wall, waiting for Fiske to finish asking Professor Malam about the potion they would be making the next time they had her class.

Scorpius fiddled with his wand while leaning on the wall. "We haven't even had lunch yet and we already have an essay on early Egyptian magic for Binns, we have to practice transfiguring toothpicks for Boot, and we have to copy the instructions for the cure for boils three times. If this is what happens all year, I don't know how I'll keep up."

Vita rolled her eyes at him, "Millions have done it before you, you'll be fine."

Fiske chose that moment to appear. "You get your answers?" asked Scorpius.

"Not really," Fiske shrugged. "Let's just go to lunch, I'm starving."

The three made their way to the Great Hall. When they sat down, Fiske immediately started shoveling food down his throat. Vita gave him a look of disgust, he looked just like her brothers. Scorpius broke out in laughter. Fiske looked very confused.

"What?" he asked, his mouth full of food. Scorpius guffawed, sinking into his seat. "I'm 'ungry," Fiske forced the food down his throat in one great gulp.

Vita sighed as she grabbed the implements to make herself a sandwich.

.o0o.

Vita walked back to the Great Hall after a visit to the lavatory. Scorpius and Fiske were standing outside the doors. They met her halfway, pretty much rushing.

"We have five minutes to get to Charms. C'mon," said Scorpius. They rushed towards Charms, but the staircases had moved.

"We need to get out at that door," Vita pointed. They zig-zagged across the staircases and eventually reached the door they needed, but they knew that they were not going to get to Charms on time. They fairly flew down the Charms Corridor and took a brief moment to catch their breath before stumbling through the doorway into a large, square room where the desks all faced the center. A willowy man stood in the middle of the desks, his pale skin fairly glowing in the windowless room. He gave the three latecomers a stern look and they stopped dead in their tracks.

"Well, sit down then," he gestured to three empty seats at the far end of the classroom. He spun around to face the rest of the class as they sat down in the midst of a mass of Hufflepuffs. His long, straight, black hair was curiously marred by a white streak extending down from his temple. "We were all just introducing ourselves to the class," said the Professor. "As I was the only one who had yet gotten around to it, I will go again for the sake of our three latecomers. My name is Professor Emrys Schiff. As you can see, I am Charms Master, here at Hogwarts. But I also offer an Elementary Healing Course to seventh year students. Now let's go around the class. I only need your name, but if you would also mention your favorite food, that would be lovely." A few of Vita's classmates gave Professor Schiff a funny look, but Vita decided that she was going to like this class.