CHAPTER 8
Harry woke up blearily, wondering why his alarm hadn't gone off yet and why it sounded like someone was taking a bath beside his bed. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, before grasping around on the side tablet to find his glasses. He stared in confusion at the sea of green silk surrounding his bed before a huge smile broke out over his face. He was at Hogwarts, and the closest Dursley was half a castle away!
He found the bathroom and quickly got ready for the day. He didn't know what time it was, and everyone else seemed to be asleep, but he was sure he could find something to do to pass the time.
First he started by looking around the room they were in. There were three identical beds with trunks beside them. He wondered whom he was sharing a room with. One of the trunks said "D. Malfoy" on it – no mystery there. The other one was unnamed. He'd have to wait until the other boys woke up to figure out who they were.
Harry wandered into the empty common room. The light was greenish, and making funny patterns on the wall, which he was confused about until he realized that the windows had water behind them, instead of air. He realized that the watery noise he had noticed when he woke up was probably coming from outside the castle: they must be underneath the lake!
He resisted the urge to stand on a chair to press his nose against the glass as if it were an aquarium; Professor Snape would definitely not like that! Instead, he left the common room and wandered around the halls. He found the potions classroom in the dungeon, and, after realizing that the portraits could move and talk, made himself acquainted with some of the nicer-looking ones.
He knew breakfast would be served in the Great Hall at 7:30, and although he didn't know what time it currently was, it couldn't hurt to make his way over there. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite remember the way. He tried backtracking from the way they'd come last night, but he had been so tired that almost nothing looked familiar.
Harry was very nearly becoming panicked – he'd been wandering for what felt like hours (though likely was a lot less), and he hadn't seen a single person. He'd tried asking some ghosts and portraits, but they were largely unhelpful.
"Ooh, an ickle firstie!" he heard a gleeful voice cry, "What's a wee one doing up so early, all alone!"
"Hello?" Harry said. He couldn't see anyone. Maybe it was a ghost. Could ghosts go invisible?
"I'm Harry," he told whoever was talking, "I'm trying to find the Great Hall."
"Hairy Harry should know better than to ask Peevesy for directions!" Harry started as the owner of the voice suddenly appeared in front of him. He was wearing the most outlandish clothing Harry had ever seen on anyone, alive or dead, and seemed to be holding something.
Harry didn't have to wait long to learn what was in "Peevesy's" hands; He soon found himself dripping wet as the cackling figure lobbed balloons at him, then blew loud raspberries as he sped away. Harry rubbed at his face, and wiped his glasses on his robes. They had streaks of black on them – it hadn't just been water in the balloons, but watery ink.
Harry groaned as he tried to clean himself up. Half of his hair was plastered down to his skull and he could hardly see through his glasses. He considered giving up on finding the Great Hall – he'd skipped meals often enough in the past – but was pretty sure they'd be getting their class schedules at the meal. With a sigh, he continued wandering around the halls.
Eventually, a group of students passed by, and a grumpy Harry trailed them until they reached breakfast.
"Look at Potter!" Malfoy exclaimed as Harry sat at the Slytherin table, "He's taken a shower out of an ink bottle!"
"Sod off, Malfoy," Harry replied grumpily as he angrily speared a sausage. Malfoy and the two large boys that seemed to follow him everywhere laughed openly at him, while most of the other Slytherin first years either gave him contemptuous looks or ignored him completely.
At the end of breakfast, Professor Snape came around to hand out their schedules. As he reached Harry, his ever-present look of disinterest turned into a full-blown scowl.
"Mister Potter," he drawled, "As you can't even managed one morning without a pitiful attempt to draw attention to yourself, you will report to me precisely at seven tonight, in my office, for detention."
"But Sir!" Harry was indignant, "It was a ghost, I think!"
"Stupid boy – ghosts are incapable of physically interacting with you." He handed Harry the timetable and swooped away in a billow of robes.
After that, Harry was careful to be around people, even if he wasn't, strictly speaking, with them.
As the first week of classes progressed, Harry quickly learned that magic had a lot more to it then just pointing wands and saying spells. There were all sorts of things they had to learn before even the most basic spells would work, plus, classes like Astronomy and Herbology hardly used wands, and history or magic class was entirely textbook readings and essays.
Charms was taught by a very short, excitable man, who was the head of Ravenclaw house. Harry liked it, but made sure to not look like he was too good at the subject. Luckily that wasn't difficult, since it was harder than it looked, and they were paired with the Ravenclaws, who often got things right faster than Harry would even if he was trying his hardest.
The strict professor who had taken them to be sorted was the head of Gryffindor house and also taught Transfiguration. She didn't let anyone get away with anything in her classes, which Harry greatly appreciated. She was also incredibly sharp, and never missed Malfoy's attempts to sabotage Harry's work. After the first class, Harry and Malfoy weren't allowed to sit on the same side of the room as each other.
The two classes Harry really didn't like were Astronomy, because it was held at midnight in a cold, dark tower, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, because Professor Quirrel was useless. He stuttered so badly they could hardly understand him, and seemed frightened of everything. Harry often got a headache after that class, which he assumed was from the pungent smell of garlic that infused the room. It was rumoured that it was there to ward off vampires, but nobody knew for sure whether that even worked.
History of Magic was also pretty boring, since the Professor was a ghost who didn't even seem to know he was dead. Nobody listened to him, and either chatted quietly or worked on homework for other classes. Harry had to be vigilant in that class because, like Dudley, one of Malfoy's favourite pastimes was tormenting Harry.
Herbology was pretty fun. Harry was good at it, since his chores back home involved a lot of gardening for aunt Petunia. Plus, his aunt and uncle were unlikely to get mad at him if he did better than Dudley in the course. He almost wished they were in the same class as the Gryffindors so he could partner with Neville, but realized that they could at least do homework together – as long as Dudley wasn't around, that was.
As Harry had predicted, Dudley was making life as difficult as possible for Harry. He told stories about Harry setting him up to get in trouble, and cheating off anyone who tried to befriend him that made it virtually impossible to befriend anyone. It didn't help that the other three houses disliked Slytherins, or that Ron Weasley – who had become good friends with Dudley – was convinced that only Dark Wizards went to Slytherin, so Harry must be evil.
Still, Dudley only had potions class with Harry once a week, since the Gryffindors and Slytherins were usually kept separated, presumably due to the massive rivalry between them. The class twice as long as any of their other classes, and on Friday mornings. They were taught by Professor Snape, so Harry wasn't looking forward to them.
On Friday, there was a big stir when the Daily Prophet arrived. There had been a break-in at Gringotts on Harry's birthday! Luckily nothing had been stolen, but lots of people were worried, since it was supposed to be impossible to steal from the Goblins. Harry wondered if Hagrid would know what had happened. He'd told Harry that he had to get something for Dumbledore when he came to pick Harry up to take him to Diagon Alley. Harry tried to make a mental note to ask Hagrid sometime, but it soon slipped his mind.
After breakfast, Harry made sure he was ready for potions class with plenty of time. He'd been late to a couple of his classes because he kept getting lost without friends to help him. Most of the first years travelled in packs, and usually got mad if Harry tried to tag along, worried that he was going to try and get them in trouble. Harry was known to be quite a snitch, thanks to Dudley.
This was the one class the Slytherins shared with the Gryffindors, so Harry immediately sat beside his only friend: Neville Longbottom. He'd noticed that Neville was alone quite a lot as well, and figured Dudley was probably bullying him. Dudley didn't like anyone who wouldn't back him up in a fight, and Neville was definitely not that sort.
"I-I'm really bad at potions, Harry..." Neville warned him before the class started.
"It's okay," Harry reassured him, "I've never done potions before so I'm probably rubbish."
Professor Snape swept into the room with his usual dramatic flair. He took attendance, but paused at Harry's name.
"Harry Potter, our newest... celebrity." Malfoy sniggered, obviously hoping that Professor Snape would lay into Harry like he did after the welcoming feast. He wasn't disappointed.
Harry sank lower and lower into his chair as Professor Snape asked him multiple questions he couldn't answer. He would have been sure it wasn't first year material, except there was a Gryffindor girl who obviously the answers, so he could only blame himself for not reading his textbook in enough detail.
"Tut, tut, Mister Potter; I don't know what foolishness your other professors have been tolerating, but in this class it is your achievements which will speak for you, not your fame."
Harry glared at his Professor. He had lost a lot of respect for the man; he treated Harry just as badly as his relatives did, and had no apparent reason for doing so!
Snape continued on with calling out names as if nothing had happened, before concluding his introduction with a long-winded (but very poetic) description of the skills they would be learning – if they weren't all 'dunderheads'. Harry had to begrudgingly admit that the man was at least very passionate about the subject he taught.
"I'll get the ingredients while you set up the cauldron," Harry told Neville as soon as they were set to work on making a potion to cure boils.
"O-okay," Neville replied as he attempted to light the fire under his cauldron.
Harry came back with the ingredients and the started to follow the instructions from the book. Neville hadn't been exaggerating – he was absolutely horrible at potions! He could hardly follow the instructions and tended to get nervous and just throw things in without double-checking.
Harry thought he might like potions, if it weren't for Snape. It was similar to cooking, which he truly enjoyed doing, and was pretty good at, due to it being one of his chores at the Dursleys. As it was, Neville was a mess around Snape, and even more clumsy than usual, which was quite a feat.
Harry quickly learned that Snape hated the Gryffindors almost as much as he hated Harry. He stalked down the rows, glaring at the students, and causing most of them to become so scared they made stupid mistakes. Snape would then take points, while pointing to a Slytherin group that had done the step much better.
Something landed in Harry's hair. He brushed his hand through it, absentmindedly, and some bits of porcupine quills fell out. He glanced around. Dudley and Ron were obviously trying very hard to look busy, which was difficult when they were laughing.
"I-is it supposed to be p-purple?" Neville asked Harry in concern as he looked at the cauldron.
Harry stopped glaring at his cousin and looked down at his book. "Uh, no..."
"Are y-you sure?" Neville asked pitifully.
"Yeah," Harry replied glumly, "But maybe if we add the porcupine quills it'll fix itself!"
Neville hastily grabbed the porcupine quills and was throwing them into the cauldron while Harry double-checked the instructions.
"Wait! You have to take the cauldron off –"
"BANG!"
Their cauldron emitted a noise like a small canon, before melting into a twisted glob and spewing the potion all over Neville and the desk. Neville whimpered in pain as boils appeared everywhere the potion had touched
The potion ran off the table and spread over the floor, causing the students to jump up onto their stools to protect their feet. The bits of porcupine quills Dudley had thrown at Harry were making the failed potion erupt into little fountains whenever they came in contact.
Snape whirled around with a look of utter disgust on his face.
"Idiot boy!" he snapped as he vanished the potion, "your ineptitude is astonishing! You, Finnigan, escort Longbottom to the hospital wing."
"I can take him," Harry offered. He cringed as Snape's dark eyes bore into his. He shouldn't have drawn attention to himself.
"You," Snape hissed at Harry, "Have already done enough damage! As if wasting expensive ingredients wasn't enough, sabotaging a potion is something I will not put up with!"
"I didn't sabotage the potion! And I didn't even waste potions ingredients!" Harry was truly angry, and rather worried about Neville.
"Then I suppose the quills just decided to waltz off of your desk while you weren't looking then?" Snape sneered sarcastically.
"Dudley threw them at me!"
Snape quirked his eyebrow. "And did anyone actually see Mister Dursley do this." He looked around the room – nobody spoke. "I thought not".
Harry was fuming. He knew people had seen Dudley! It's not like Dudley was actually capable of being subtle!
"Five points from Slytherin," Snape said, malice glinting in his cold eyes, "for deliberately sabotaging a potion, wasting ingredients and lying to a Professor."
The class went absolutely silent. Nobody had heard of Snape taking a single point from his house, let alone five at once! Even if Draco hadn't been against him from the first day, Harry was pretty sure he was going to be actively shunned now, if the glares from the Slytherins in the room meant anything. On a plus side, this was a class he wouldn't have to try to do poorly in – between being paired with Neville and having Snape as a professor, Harry was sure he'd be getting bottom marks regardless of how hard he tried.
Harry visited Neville in the infirmary that afternoon. He was still in a foul mood, and sporting a couple new bruises from vengeful Slytherin hexes
"S-Snape really took points from S-Slytherin?!"
Nobody had stopped by to visit Neville, so he hadn't heard the gossip that was spreading like Fiendfyre through the school. Harry nodded miserably, rubbing a sore shoulder from getting "accidentally" pushed into a rather solid suit of armour.
"Well, cheer up!" Neville tried to make him feel better, "maybe the rest of the school will like you b-better! You'll probably be a hero to some of the Gryffindors!"
As it turned out, Neville was sort of right. Almost everyone still thought he must be REALLY horrible if even the Slytherins didn't like him, but there were two boys in Gryffindor who had decided that he was a legend.
"Harry!" Someone called out from behind him. That was unusual. The only one who called him Harry was Neville, and the voice wasn't his only friend's.
"Old pal!"
"Good chum!"
Two identical redheaded boys came up behind Harry and slung an arm over his shoulders. He immediately tensed up; nobody ever touched him unless it was to hurt him. But, it didn't seem like the boys were trying to hurt him.
"We've heard rumours-" started one of the boys,
"-that you got Snape to dock Slytherin points!" finished the other.
"Umm," Harry said, articulately.
"So we just wanted to let you know –"
"-that we think you're absolutely brilliant!" They spun around, so they were both facing a disoriented Harry.
"Even if you are-" one started,
"-a slimy Slytherin," they finished together.
"Thanks? I guess?" Harry had no idea how to act around these two. They were unlike anyone he'd ever met.
"Anytime!" they chorused.
"By the way-"
"-I'm Fred-"
"-and I'm George!"
"Ta-ta!" they both exclaimed as they walked off.
"I thought I was Fred..." Harry thought he heard one say to the other as they disappeared down the hall. Harry blinked. He felt a bit like he'd been run over by a steamroller; they must be the infamous Weasley twins. He'd heard horror stories about them while he sat inconspicuously in the corner of the common room. He had no idea which of them was which, but at least they were nicer than their younger brother!
He couldn't help but smile in bemusement as he went about the rest of his day. He hummed happily as he did his homework outside in the afternoon sunshine. It was good to know someone was on his side for once, even if it was for something he hadn't meant to happen.
A/N: Nanettez pointed out a small error in the last chapter... Dudley's rooming with 4 other boys, not 3 - my bad! It has been fixed!
