Author's Note: I apologize for not updating this in over a year. I was too focused on the other fics I was writing and didn't come up with anything for this one.
On Friday, the first class of the day was World Culture. All the religious staff was there, plus the Buddhist nun and monk and the Shinto priest from the shared temple for the main Asian religions (besides Hinduism) in Windmere. They all took turns giving an overview of the various religions practiced worldwide, and Reverend van Herten and Father Vasquez said that they would return next to week to further explain Christianity and the various sects in it. After that was the Muggle and Wizarding Culture classes. Harry and his group of friends from primary school had that time as a study period, as they were familiar with both worlds, and Frank, Veronica, and Kalea joined them.
At lunchtime, Mikhail and Leilani said that the Muggle Culture class was boring, since their parents had already given them an overview of the Muggle world and they could probably blend in among the Muggles in their respective countries without problem. "Well, if you two already know that stuff, then why don't you tell the teacher and ask to be in the study period with us?" Eileen suggested. "You'll probably have to take a small test to show that you're not lying, but that's all."
"Then we'll do that," said Mikhail. He and Leilani got up and went to speak to Professor Freeman, who was teaching the Muggle Culture class, at the staff table.
After lunch, Harry, Hermione, June, Ron, Neville, Draco, and Arista headed for their French class, while Kalea, Anthony, and Frank went to Spanish class, Dean and Veronica to German class, and Leilani, Eileen, Mikhail, and Stella had Japanese class. Professor Lavelle, who was also the fourth-year Herbology teacher, taught the French class.
When class started, Professor Lavelle greeted the class, took attendance, and then wrote a list of vocabulary on the chalkboard. "I would like you all to each copy down what I've written on the board. I will then go over each word or phrase one-by-one. You are to write down the English translation that I will give you." Once everyone had written down the list, she began with the first one. "Bonjour. That means 'hello', or literally, 'good-day.'. Once the class had written down the translation, she had them practice saying 'Bonjour' a few times, and then moved on to the next one, 'Salut', which was the more informal 'hello'.
Professor Lavelle went over the formal and informal terms of asking 'How are you?', the various ways to reply to that question and ask 'And you?' in return, how to say 'My name is", and finished up with the days of the week and months and how to count to twenty in French. The rest of class was devoted to practicing what they'd learned by having them all pair up and taking turns with greeting each other, introducing themselves, and asking how they were and responding to the questions.
Harry was assigned to be partnered with a girl named Natalie Wilcox, whom he remembered from the meet-and-greet session had said that she was a Muggleborn witch from the United States. Natalie appeared to be quite enthusiastic about the whole practice session. When the two of them finished, she revealed that a year ago, she had read this book titled The Avion My Uncle Flew, in which the main character spent the summer (right after World War Two) with his uncle in the French village that his mother and the uncle had grown up in and as a result learned quite a bit of French. (Not enough to be fluent, but certainly enough to get by). Since all the French the main character learned was included in the book, anyone reading the book would learn some French as a result (at least in reading it). Natalie had chosen French as her foreign language purely because she wanted to learn how to pronounce the French words, and the fact that Nightwind School had a mandatory foreign language class was a big reason why she had chosen to attend it over Ilvermorny.
"That is quite interesting," said Professor Lavelle. "I shall look into it and have one of the American alumni of the school buy copies of this book and send them to me. Once our class has gotten further ahead with learning French, I shall assign it as reading material. Since you have already read the book, Natalie, you will be assigned something else to read. And I will definitely assign it to my second and third year classes to read once I've gotten the copies."
The following week flying classes were introduced after the other classes were done for the day. Harry and his friends were assigned to the Monday class, which was taught by Professor Misako Sato (a Japanese witch that had been appointed the flying instructor ten years ago, since before that, the class was taught by a rotating group from those staff members that were really good at flying). She revealed that she had once played Chaser for the Toyohashi Tengu, a Japanese Quidditch team, before retiring to take up the post of flying instructor and Quidditch referee at her alma mater. After determining who had flown before and who hadn't, she instructed those that flown before (after making sure that they knew how to grip their brooms properly and mount) to fly around the Quidditch pitch for five laps, going no higher than fifty feet into the air or flying too fast. She then turned her attention to those new to flying and instructed them in taking off and having them hover a few feet in the air. When Natalie confessed to having a fear of heights, Professor Sato had her return to the ground and excused her from flying lessons.
On Friday, Quidditch trials were held. The Ruby team needed a new Seeker, the Emerald team needed a new Chaser and a reserve Seeker, and the Diamond team needed a new Keeper. Harry and Draco tried out and the only other first-year to do so was a girl named Josefina Delacroix. Harry and Draco proved to be the best out of those trying out for Seeker, with the former being slightly better, and the Ruby and Emerald captains had something of an argument over which team would get whom. Finally the Ruby captain, Oliver Wood, pointed out that the Emerald team had Viktor Krum as their Seeker, who was so good that Quidditch teams from Krum's native Bulgaria were already scouting him out to become a professional player, even though he was only a fourth year. The Emerald captain, Adelheid Chekov, conceded that Oliver had a point and so the Ruby team got Harry as the Seeker while Draco became the reserve Seeker for the Emerald team.
The other two slots were easily filled, with third year Johann Munez being named Chaser and fourth year Lisa Chung being named Keeper. Harry was then introduced to his new teammates (with the exception of the Fred and George Weasley, the Beaters, since he already knew them). Oliver Wood was the captain and Keeper and the three Chasers were Angelina Johnson, Kayla Bjornsen, and Vivienne Rashid. Oliver was a fifth-year, Angelina a third-year, and Kayla and Vivienne were both fourth-years.
The second Phoenix Club spent most of the weekend (as it was either cloudy or raining) in one of the rec rooms. By this point, they were all close friends, and worked well together. Overall, Hermione was the best student out of all of them (and of the first-years), though there were some slight exceptions in certain subjects. While she and Neville were on par when it came to the theoretical knowledge, he was better than her when it came to actually tending plants. The same applied in Potions for her and Eileen, with the latter slightly better at her in brewing Potions, but equal at the theory. Harry was slightly better than Hermione at casting Defensive spells, and Kalea more-or-less her equal at Transfiguration. Charms and Astronomy were the only subjects that Hermione did better than anyone else in both the practical and theoretical portions.
On Monday, the first-years turned in their choices for extracurricular activities. Predictably, Anthony and Hermione had decided to join the Book Club and so did Leilani and Frank. Dean signed up for the Art Club as well as being part of the set designers for the Drama Society, Ron and Mikhail for the Chess Club, Eileen for the Potions Club, and Neville for the Herbology Club. June and Veronica auditioned for the school choir and were accepted, and Arista and Stella signed up for the school newsletter, Nightwind News. Harry and Draco naturally had Quidditch, but the latter also chose to join the the school newsletter.