A/N: I couldn't resist. *grins* Here in Seattle, its Neville's birthday; in Britain, its Harry's. Happy birthday, guys!

Um… This chapter covers a day-and-a-half. I'm making progress! Seriously, once we get out of the first week, things'll go faster. I just need to cover the first of each class, so you can see why Sarah is taking things. I swear, I swear the next chapter will cover more.

On that note, the calendar got all screwy. My schedule for Sarah now no longer matches anything, including the books themselves and HP Lexicon. My only excuse is that I was trying desperately to get it to match with itself (which it wasn't for a long time) and I did the best I could. I will be working off of the notes I already have, which include both Sarah's and Harry's complete schedules. (And Hermione's, for that matter, since every class she's taking is being taken by one of the other two) If this really irritates anyone, they are welcome to create a new master schedule for me, and I will incorporate it. Sorry, but I spent several days working out Harry and Sarah's classes, getting them all to work with each other, and didn't want to go and do it all again just because the book said "Thursday" and not "Tuesday."

Honoria Granger, I think I got the translations right. If not, oops! *sheepish grin*

Thanks to: Caitlin, noa, Guest (Hey guys, I can't reply if you don't sign in or leave an email!), iwright, maruaderlove, and dramaqueen1917.

I will have the next chapter out when I have the next chapter done. At a guesstimate, about the 10th of August.

The Arithmancy class was created wholesale; most of the rest of the dialogue is from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 1st American edition, chapters 6 and 7.

Lawyer Banishing Charm: Yeah, nope. Not mine.

I bolted into the classroom two minutes before class started. Blaise looked up as I slid into the seat next to him.

"You left breakfast early." In Slytherin-speak, that was an accusation, accompanied by the unspoken, 'so why are you late?'

Panting, I began pulling out textbooks, looking for Numerology and Gramatica. "Lost track of time. Was reading."

He snorted. "Typical Sarah."

Giving up on the struggle to keep my book bag organized, I glared at him. "You're chipper."

Blaise shrugged. "Food helps."

Our professor walked in at that moment, effectively ending any attempt to decipher Blaise's changing emotions. She was average in every way – average height, average weight, average brown eyes, average medium-brown hair fading to gray – but for, as I was to discover, her above-average intellect.

"Good morning class," she said briskly, not waiting for a reply. "My name is Professor Septima Vector, and this is the introductory Arithmancy class. If you are not taking this class, please leave now." This time she did pause. No one moved. "Good. For those of you who missed it, this class is on Arithmancy, commonly – albeit, inaccurately – summarized as the study of numbers."

She directed her wand at the chalkboard in the front of the room with a flick. "Arithmancy." The word wrote itself on the board. "From the Greek root arithmos, meaning number, and the Latin suffix ancy, meaning, in this case, action of. 'Action of numbers.' This is a poor way to summarize this class. More accurately, it should be 'Arithmagos,' with the Greek root magos, magic. 'Number-magic.'"

On the board was written: Arithmos – number, ancy – action of, magos – magic.

"Math magic," Professor Vector said, smiling. "What you will learn in this class is the technique of using mathmatics in spell casting. Now. How many of you were taught maths at home?"

Most of the class raised their hands, including Blaise.

Vector smirked. "You will find this class one of the most difficult ones you are taking. The rest of you, I assume, were taught at primary school?"

I nodded, as did Granger, Millicent, and a few others.

"You will find this class difficult but not impossible," Vector told us.

Draco looked outraged.

Vector, apparently sensing this, continued on. "The first year of this class will not involve magic. You will not need your wands during our time together, nor will you use them for homework. This year will be used to bring everyone up to par on arithmetic and algebra. If you work quickly enough, I will introduce trigonometry and calculus in the final term; however, neither of these subjects will appear on your final exam."

Judging by the blank stares around the room, many of the purebloods had never heard of trigonometry or calculus. I could see Blaise, out of the corner of my eye, trying out the words silently.

"Math skills are essential to Arithmancy. Next year we will begin examining simple spells and looking at the math behind them. In your fifth year, we will, in addition to continuing our study of spells, start to alter a few of our own. There is no 'practical' Arithmancy O.W.L. In sixth and seventh year – by which point many of you will be gone – having taken a further, deeper look at why numbers are important and how they affect spells, you will begin work on a new spell. Successful completion of a spell guarentees you an Outstanding on your N.E.W.T. Most of you will prefer to take the written paper instead. Any questions so far?"

Most of us shook our heads. Granger, meanwhile, raised her hand. "Professor, you made no mention of our textbooks."

Professor Vector looked like she wanted to point out that Granger hadn't actually asked a question yet. "Miss?"

"Hermione Granger, Professor."

"Yes, Miss Granger, the textbook that you purchased will give you a good background in the subject. However, since many of you are lacking in the necessary mathematical ability, I will spend the first year covering maths, rather than magic. Your homework each night will be twofold: problems that I will display on the board, and a section of reading, together with the questions at the end of the chapter." Professor Vector looked around the room. "Are there any more questions?"

This time the entire class shook our heads.

Vector smiled. "Good. The remainder of class, as well as all of the next one, will be spent on a comprehensive exam to determine how much I have to teach you." A flick of her wand levitated a stack of papers that began distributing themselves throughout the class. "The questions begin with the unbelievably basic and continue through advanced calculus. You are not expected to answer every question. You are not even expected to make an attempt. The scores from this test will not affect your grade. However, if you do not perform to your highest ability on this test, you will delay your classmates, which typically makes them very displeased with you. You may begin once you have your paper."

An hour later, I exited the classroom, Blaise whinging beside me. "Did you know the answer to question forty-two? Because that's where I started having problems; I mean, that can't be something we're expected to know. That's just not right. My mum didn't teach me anything with letters in it."

"Six times nine," I replied off-handedly.

Blaise blinked, following me to Charms. "That's a problem, not an answer. But is fifty-four really the answer?"

I giggled finally. "No. It's a joke from a book I read."

He stopped and gaped at me. "Sarah, you are really odd sometimes. But seriously, what was the answer?"

"I dunno." I didn't; I could remember that I'd gotten through that question easily – having an engineer for a father meant that you learnt math quickly, even if you weren't very good at it – but I couldn't pull out the exact answer.

"Sa-a-ar-ah!"

I ignored him, choosing to find a seat in Charms instead.

Charms went typically well, although unlike Arithmancy, we did receive homework. After lunch, we wandered out onto the grounds, staying in a clump near – but not next to – the groundskeeper's hut. Draco was, yet again, amusing himself by re-enacting Potter's reaction to the Dementors, although only Crabbe and Goyle seemed to find this anywhere near funny.

Hagrid – my mind balked at adding the 'Professor' – was waiting none too patiently for the rest of the class. "C'mon now, get a move on! Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"

This was worrying; I had never had much interaction with Hagrid, but there were plenty of rumours about his love for dangerous animals. And something that got him this excited… I shuddered.

The something, as I discovered several minutes later – following a lesson on the most energetic book I'd ever had the misfortune to own – was a hippogriff, or rather, twelve of them. They were gorgeous, there was no doubt about it. The smooth transition from bird-of-prey to warhorse, combined with the fiery intelligence in those golden eyes made me fall in love with them immediately. It was like taking the stallion that every teenage girl dreams of owning and combining it with something that can fly.

"Hippogriffs," Hagrid yelled, beaming. "Beau'iful, aren' they?"

For once, I agreed whole-heartedly.

Hagrid clapped his hands together. "So, if yeh wan' ter come a bit nearer –"

The previously silent cautious portion of my brain pointed out the size and relative pointiness of the beak and claws. I stayed perfectly still.

Potter, of course, moved forward, along with Granger and Weasley. Why was I even surprised at this point?

"Now, firs' thing yeh gotta know abou' hippogriffs is, they're proud," said Hagrid. "Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don't never insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do."

Hippogriffs were sounding more and more like Professor Snape. I snickered at the thought, and turned my attention back to Hagrid, noticing, on the way, that Draco was planning something.

"Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the firs' move. It's polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an' yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh're allowed ter touch him. If he doesn' bow, then get away from him sharpish, 'cause those talons hurt."

Oh yes, very much like Professor Snape.

"Right – who wants ter go first?"

There was a long pause. Most of the class took a step back. I remained where I was. I wasn't enthusiastic about the idea, but if no one else volunteered, I'd do it.

"No one?" Hagrid looked pleading. It reminded me of a Great Dane after you removed his dinner.

"I'll do it."

I really wasn't sure why I was still surprised at this point. Of course Potter would volunteer. Honestly, what else could brave, rash, senseless, moronic, acts-before-thinking Potter do?

One of the Gryffindorks said something about tea leaves. Had they had Divination this morning? That would make sense – if they were stupid enough to take the class in the first place – as I could not picture Brown in my Arithmancy class.

Potter clambered over the paddock fence, turning a nasty shade of red at Hagrid's yell of encouragement, before switching rapidly to parchment-white as our professor – such as he was – unleashed one of the hippogriffs. I blinked, and swore silently, as the other students in front of me moved, blocking my view.

"Easy, now, Harry," Hagrid said in what he evidently thought was a quiet voice. "Yeh've got eye contact, now try not ter blink… Hippogriffs don' trust yeh if yeh blink too much…" There was a beat of silence, during which I attempted to move and succeeded only in stepping on Blaise's foot. "Tha's it. Tha's it, Harry… now, bow…"

I was pretty sure that this wasn't what Harry was looking for.

"Ah." This time Hagrid sounded worried, a new emotion for him. "Right – back away, now, Harry, easy does it –"

There was a pause again. I shoved Blaise out of the way.

"Oy! What was that for?"

I poked him. "Shhh! I can't see."

He scowled at me, but stepped to the side.

"Well done, Harry!" Hagrid bellowed. "Right – yeh can touch him! Pat his beak, go on!"

Peering around Crabbe's shoulder, I was able to see Harry patting the hippogriff – Buckbeak, was it called? Students around me began clapping. Belatedly, I joined them.

"Righ' then, Harry. I reckon he migh' let yeh ride him!"

Somehow, I didn't think this was what Harry was looking for.

"Yeh climb up there, jus' behind the wing joint, an' mind yeh don' pull any of his feathers out, he won' like that."

No, I didn't think he would. I snickered again at the image of Snape-as-hippogriff and his presumed reaction to someone pulling out one of his feathers.

Blaise gave me a look. I ignored him, getting my giggling under control.

"Go on, then!" roared Hagrid.

I couldn't see the take-off, but the flight was amazing. Hippogriffs were beautiful standing still, graceless when walking, and completely and utterly breath-taking in flight. Seeing an animal the size of a draft horse effortlessly soar into the air was an image that would stick in my brain for years.

The landing, on the other hand… Both an eagle's talons and a horse's hooves were well-adapted for hitting the ground. Putting them together, however, was just asking for confusion. By the time the hippogriff got his legs straightened out, Potter looked sick.

"Good work, Harry!" Hagrid roared again. "Okay, who else wants a go?"

To fly? No thanks. I liked the appearance of the hippogriffs, but trusting my body to one of them? Not gonna happen. What if it spooked, as I'd heard could happen with horses, and I fell off, fifty feet above the ground?

With that in mind, I joined Blaise and Theo with a jet black hippogriff. They ever-so-kindly volunteered me to go first. Glaring at them, I bowed shortly.

The hippogriff turned a fiery golden eye on me, blinking once, before bowing in return.

Exhaling heavily, I stepped forward carefully, and rested my hand on its beak, before slowly moving up its head. The feathers were soft and smooth, smaller on the head than on any other point on the body.

A high-pitched scream had me whirling, wand out. Draco was bleeding badly from one arm, and the hippogriff he had been working with had blood all over its beak. Hagrid was there suddenly, wrestling with the hippogriff to get it back into its collar, as Draco threw a fit.

There was a lot of blood. Even as Hagrid carried Malfoy out, I was still standing, shaken by how much blood there was. So very red. The contrast of red blood on green grass stood out in my brain. So different from red blood on gray concrete – No! I wasn't going to think about that anymore.

Blaise shook my shoulder, jumping out of the way as I rounded on him. "I don't think I'm the only one with nightmares," he said quietly, with a self-depreciating smile.

I blinked at him, still trying to make the images go away. "I think you're right."

We followed the rest of the class back to the castle, ignoring the drama in the front. I almost wanted to ask Blaise what his nightmares were about – and that thing with the dementor – but I didn't want to discuss my own.

I dozed my way through our practical Astronomy class – 'most useless bloody lesson on the face of the planet' was what Blaise called it, and I agreed with him – and by the time it ended, I was exhausted and almost incontinent as I stumbled back to the dorms. Thus, when the first scream came, I panicked.

Two years of training – even on my own – meant that my panicking was quite a bit more focused than most teenage girls'. I drew my wand and ran towards the noise.

The utter silence following the scream was almost worse; as I ran, my brain unhelpfully provided possibilities for the quiet. It finally settled on Sirius Black breaking in and killing a student as the worst and provided images of a bearded man attacking a little girl.

Turning a corner in the depths of the dungeons, down an unused corridor, I came upon a sight I had never anticipated.

Whisper, looking ruffled for once, was sitting in the centre of the corridor, cleaning herself. Next to her, looking as smug as a cat can get, was a gigantic ginger tom whose parents were probably a pug and a tiger.

I blinked, put together what I knew of feline reproduction, and left.

Potions the next morning promised to be interesting. It started with Snape's comment as I entered and went downhill – for the Gryffindors – from there.

"Miss Levine, please come see me after supper. There has been a complication with your family."

I blinked, trying to translate this, and came up with See me after supper for our private lessons plus a manufactured excuse. Attempting to figure out what we would be covering tonight, I began work on my Shrinking Solution.

Midway through the class, Draco walked in, right arm heavily bandaged, causing immediate disruption. I shot him a grin before returning to my potion. Yes, he had been an utter prat in provoking that hippogriff – I'd gotten the whole story from a hysterical Pansy – but it was good to see him looking better.

Pansy, who was either infatuated with Draco to the point of nausea, or the best actor I had ever seen, simpered, "How is it, Draco? Does it hurt much?"

Draco grimaced – or, he tried to. Really, it looked more like he was trying not to grin. "Yeah."

Snape raised an eyebrow over his Potions journal. He also appeared to be trying not to grin, but it was much more subtle in him than it was in Draco. "Settle down, settle down."

Potter and Weasley scowled at each other. I ignored them. Snape had a tendency to be vindictive as a general state of mind, but in some places I agreed with him – Potter, while not cocky per se, had a bad habit of walking straight into danger. With any luck, someday Potter would realize that the constant reminders of his temporary stupidity – it seemed to be limited to Potions class and dangerous situations – had the side effect of teaching him about caution and dealing with opposition.

Draco, however, was not yet done showing off. "Sir! Sir, I'll need help cutting up these daisy roots, because of my arm –"

I snickered quietly.

"Weasley, cut up Malfoy's roots for him," Snape said from his journal.

I continued brewing, steadily ignoring the imminent firestorm from the volatile trio, only stopping when Snape finally stood up.

Glowering down at Weasley and Potter, he said "Change roots with Malfoy, Weasley."

Ah. Presumably this had something to do with the required daisy roots, Weasley's obsession with his own belongings and a rudimentary form of revenge on Draco enacted via his roots.

"But, sir –"

"Now."

Even I flinched at that voice. I'd heard it from Snape a couple times, and wished strongly never to have it applied to me again.

"And sir," Draco added, "I'll need this shrivelfig skinned." I could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Potter, you can skin Malfoy's shrivelfig." Snape was no longer spending any attention on the journal, instead directing the full force of his glare at Potter.

I watched with interest as Potter grudgingly grabbed Draco's shirvelfig and began mangling it with his skinner. It didn't take long before the trio of heads was bent towards each other, talking quietly. I wondered what Draco was sharing. Probably a combination of half-truths and lies about the fate of our Care of Magical Creatures class. I didn't have a clue what was going to happen there, but if I didn't, neither did Draco.

"Miss Levine," Snape said from over my shoulder, making me jump. "Is there a reason why you are staring determinedly at Mr Potter, or was I mistaken and you were, in fact, working on your potion?"

Swallowing rapidly, I looked up at him. "My potion is completed, sir."

One eyebrow shot up. "Really? I find that hard to believe when I know that this potion takes precisely three hours to complete, including setup."

"That's just it, sir, I found some charms to speed up the preparation. Instead of spending three-quarters of an hour on cutting roots, I spent five minutes." I smiled up at him.

His mouth quirked in his almost-smile. "Very good, Miss Levine. Five points to Slytherin. Although I must say that if you had taught those charms to Mr Malfoy, we might have been able to avoid some trouble."

I grinned. "I thought it best, sir, for Draco to discover things on his own. I wouldn't want to show up such a scion of the pureblood class," I told him, looking completely innocent.

Snape gave me a glare with quite a bit of humour in it, and turned away to go torture Gryffindorks, noticeably, Neville Longbottom. I hadn't had much to do with Longbottom, avoiding him as much as possible in case he remembered a throw-away comment from our first ride on the Hogwarts Express, but in Potions it was hard to avoid the boy who destroyed a cauldron a month. "Orange, Longbottom," Snape exclaimed, immensely pleased with himself. "Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn't you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn't I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?"

I processed this, inwardly wincing. On the one hand, Longbottom's careless errors raised the probability of a dangerous explosion and only Professor Snape's skill had prevented serious errors to date. On the other, there were probably better ways to get students to listen than accusing them of blatant stupidity. Compounding the problem, Snape appeared to be particularly ticked off today.

Granger, in a fit of stupidity, decided to stick her head in. "Please, sir, please, I could help Neville put it right –"

"I don't remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger," Snape said coldly. "Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens. Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly."

That was… that was a new level of vindictiveness for Snape. And there wasn't even anything that could go particularly wrong with this potion, other than permanently dying your clothing orange.

I tuned out most of the rest of class, as with my potion successfully completed – perfectly, as I may point out – I had very little to do.

Finally – finally – Snape strode over to Longbottom's cauldron, barely – at least to me – concealing his excitement. "Everyone gather 'round, and watch what happens to Longbottom's toad." I spared a thought as to how he had laid hands on the aforementioned amphibian. "If he has managed to produce a Shrinking Solution, it will shrink to a tadpole. If, as I don't doubt, he has done it wrong, his toad is likely to be poisoned."

Starting to grin, I shook my head. The Shrinking Solution did not turn toads into tadpoles. That would be a De-Ageing Complex, which was a NEWT level potion. Snape was being especially Slytherin: Letting the students think that he would poison a familiar, while actually testing the potion independently. That changed things entirely. But still, Snape was being remarkably annoyed today.

The toad, with a small pop, turned into a tadpole, much to the pleasure of the Gryffindors. Snape, looking even more sour – probably at the stupidity of the Gryffindors, who didn't even know what their potion was supposed to do – added a few drops of a different potion to the tadpole, who turned back into a full-grown toad.

"Five points from Gryffindor," Snape added. "I told you not to help him, Miss Granger. Class dismissed."

A/N: Nobody got the challenge, but the DADA class didn't fit into this chapter anyway, so it goes on to next chapter! Here it is again:

New Challenge: What is Sarah's boggart?

Rules: Only your first review counts, have to be at least reasonably close, if you already got a cameo for any reason, you won't get one for this, etc. It's not canon. Why would it be? With any luck, this will show up next chapter (I bloody well hope).

Also, anyone who can find and explain the Douglas Adams' joke will get a (small) cameo.