Okay I finally got frustrated enough to the point I said FUCK IT and slapped down a few new sentences and stopped caring about this chapter entirely.
So sorry I've been away it's just these new animes have been shoved down my throat and I was gonna post this sooner but ended up making this one-shot for Assassination Classroom and well here we are. Feel free to yell at me or whatever it's been a long few weeks
chapter 10: the grumpy old bat in robes
Dessert had been wonderful.
The golden plates and silver platters with only scraps had been cleared away to reveal large mounds of ice cream, tarts, frosted pastries, and delicious sweets; everyone had been delighted and quickly demolished anything they could get their hands on.
This time around, when the desserts appeared, Hermione partook on the unhealthy amounts of food to celebrate her new friend.
Now with fully bellies and satisfied grins—plus an ominous warning from Dumbledore, like what the fuck—, the students and teachers left the Great Hall to head to their dormitories. The older students had left before the first years so as not to be held up with all the rules that would be explained by the House prefects.
They had encountered many ghosts, one a lot crueler than the rest, Peeves the Poltergeist, who had taunted the students as they passed and threw chalk at them.
Up many flights of stairs, down long winding corridors, and through secret passages that could get anyone lost, the students had made it to a room full of stairs attached to the sides of the walls.
"-and you said something back in the Hall about the ceiling being enchanted, right?" Harper was asking Hermione.
Hermione nodded, about to go off on another tangent with a smile on her face - after all, many people didn't take an interest in anything she had to say - when Harper's jaw fell open at the sight before them.
The staircases had begun moving. They shifted, barely audible, from their original positions to direct themselves to different doorways and floors. Hundreds and hundreds of portraits of animals, people, sceneries, and objects were hanging from the walls, all the way up and down the walls. Hermione felt her own amazement spike at seeing how many floors there were in the castle, but was quick to hide it, unlike Harper who looked like a fish out of water.
Percy, who was leading them through Hogwarts, had paused for only a moment to allow the first years to take it all in before moving on again.
"Hurry up!" He called impatiently as a new staircase settled before them, leading up to the floor above. "The stairs move, if you haven't noticed! You wouldn't want to get left behind. Watch your step!"
Percy stepped onto the staircase and began climbing without hesitation, not waiting for the first years more-than-likely to slip and fall down to the many floors below. Everyone crowded onto the stairs to avoid anyone getting left behind on the floor below and to make sure to stay far away from the edges.
Portraits muttered to themselves or waved to the students as they passed, smiling happily to anyone that returned the wave or greeted them.
"Incredible," Harper muttered beside Hermione as a painting of drunk monks greeted them in slurs.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I would hardly call that incredible."
Harper shrugged, still gazing at each of the paintings they passed curiously. Hermione was interested in how they worked as well, as she hadn't yet finished her copy of Hogwarts, A History, but would be more than delighted to tell Harper about it later if she found it.
Harper turned to Hermione. "You're Muggle-born, aren't you?" she asked suddenly.
Hermione blinked, not sure where this was going, but still answered with a weary, "Yes."
"Why aren't you more impressed?"
Hermione tilted her head. "What do you mean?"
Harper gestured vaguely to the moving portraits as the students paused in front of a large painting of an enormous lady in a pink silk gown.
"With this. With everything, really. You just learned about magic existing, no sooner than me, and yet you're acting like it's no big deal. Hell, even the ones that grew up around magic are astonished." She paused when they entered the opened portrait to the Gryffindor common room.
"I'm still trying to process everything, so is Harry." She nodded to Harry and the redhead he had been sitting with on the train, both bearing marveled expressions at the room.
"But you… You're used to hiding your expressions, aren't you?"
Hermione didn't answer right away. She thought over the question in her head, trying to look at it from different angles, to see if there was some ulterior motive. When she couldn't find when, she hesitantly said, "It was easy to keep the bullies away if they couldn't see how they bothered me."
Instead of seeing pity reflected in Harper's eyes, she saw empathy. She let out a mirthless chuckle as her black eyes swept the room.
A roaring fire was placed in a hearth on the other end of the room. Two narrow staircases led up to disappear into the walls with two lounge chairs on either side of the entrance. Huge worn yet comfy-looking sofas sat beside the hearth, already filling with tired students, and study tables were scattered around the room next to towering windows. It was spacious, warm, with everything decorated with the brilliant colors of red and gold, and reminded Hermione of home. She knew she would like it here.
"I do that too," Harper suddenly spoke up. "It pissed off Dudley to no end when me and Harry didn't give the desired reaction. 'Course, we'd only get beat on more because of it sometimes, but I always protected Harry." Her gazes landed on Hermione and they glowed warm with the light of the fire. "I'll protect you too."
Despite how happy Hermione was for having finally made a friend, she felt her pride interfere. "Thanks, but you don't need to do that. I can take care of myself."
To her surprise, Harper grinned. "Oh, I know you can. But it's always nice to have backup, y'know?"
Hermione decided not to answer, but allowed a content smile to stretch her lips.
Percy went over to the entrance to the staircase and called loudly for attention. When everyone was looking at him with drooping eyes, he said, "Boys' dormitories to the left, girls' to the right. You best be off to bed now. All your stuff will be in your rooms by now."
He turned and disappeared up the steps.
Exchanging a look with Harper, Hermione headed towards the stairs with most of the other first years while Harper went to say goodnight to her brother.
Hermione climbed the stairs to the right and when she came to the top saw a row of doors. The first one of the right had a small plaque that read her own name, Harper, Lavender, and Parvati. She approached the door, knocked, and entered.
Inside, the color scheme was much the same as the common room. A heater was placed in the middle of the room, five four-poster beds with red curtains surrounded it, their trunks were sat at the feet of the beds, and large windows separated each bed to let in long shafts of moonlight. A worn gold-and-red rug was placed beneath each bed and a few bookcases were beside the door.
Two other girls were already inside and huddled on a bed; one with brownish-blonde curly hair and a dark-toned girl with beautiful black hair.
"Hello," Hermione greeted promptly when both pairs of eyes landed on her.
"Hi," the dark-toned girl said politely as the other girl waved and smiled. Both were seated on one of the beds and had been talking among themselves until Hermione had entered.
When she noticed she disturbed their conversation, Hermione's eyes scanned the remaining three beds until she saw her trunk resting at the foot of the bed closest to the door. Sitting down and rustling through her trunk while the other two continued to converse, Hermione pulled out Hogwarts, A History and flipped to the last page she was on. Just as she found the sentence she left off on, Harper opened the door.
Harper's eyes quickly found her trunk, next to Hermione's bed, and landed on her owl that she had noticed Harper having on the train.
Harper passed her bed and said an uneasy "goodnight" before she pulled the curtains around her bed and disappeared behind them.
…..
"Where is he?"
"That's him, next to the redhead."
"Have you seen his face?"
"Have you seen his scar?"
Whispers and hushed conversations had followed the twins, mainly Harry, since leaving their dorm rooms earlier that morning. All those at the Gryffindor table during breakfast in the Great Hall had crowded around to get a good look at Harry, but only Harper, Ron, the Weasley triplets, Neville, and Hermione had been able to sit with him.
Ghosts floated above them as they headed down the corridors to their first classes - Professor McGonagall had handed them their schedule at the Great Hall - and now they were headed off to Potions. They already had Charms, in which Professor Flitwick had read out their names and fallen off his books, and Transfiguration, where they had attempted to turn matches into needles. One kid, Seamus Finnigan, had set his match on fire, Harry had managed to make his pointy and a bit silvery, while Hermione got hers to fully turn into a needle by the end of class, with Harper getting hers thinned and pointed.
History of Magic was easily the most boring class, Harry and Harper had decided, and the only one they had with a ghost. Professor Binns was boring, with a slow, monotonous voice that turned even the most exciting subjects dull and tiring. A large majority of the students had been nodding off to sleep when the class finally ended. Hermione and Harper had been one of the few to stay awake, as Hermione was desperate to learn about the history of the Wizarding World while Harper's insomnia had prevented her from keeping her eyes closed for long.
Defense Against the Dark Arts had been just as disappointing as History of Magic as the students soon came to learn Professor Quirrell made it quite clear they would not actually be learning any spells to defend themselves. He had gone on and on about his time in Romania as he studied the vampires, but if anyone were to ask a question about how he dealt with them, he'd shrink in on himself and stutter something under his breath for the next five minutes. He had actively avoided eye-contact with Harper, no doubt after the incident at the Leaky Cauldron, and Harry would clutch at his scar whenever Quirrell passed by their desk. Thankfully, the Slytherins didn't notice.
By the time Potions rolled around, their last class of the day, Harper was beginning to feel the weight of all she had learned weighing down on her and was finding it difficult to lug around her bag, stuffed with books and parchment.
The Gryffindor first years were trudging down to the dungeons when they ran into the first year Slytherins, with Malfoy right along with them.
Harper noticed her brother glaring at Malfoy's goons, two heavy-set boys that looked like they shared a brain cell between them, and they returned it. Malfoy was sneering at Harry when he caught his eye, and mocked any Muggle-born that even looked his way — Harper could tell because they were staring around themselves in awe and leaped back from any ghost that floated past.
The dungeon doors swung open in quite the dramatic way and, stood in the entrance, was the greasy-haired man with a hooked nose the twins had noticed at the High Table at the Banquet and this morning.
He had a rather foul expression upon his face, something that clearly unsettled most, if not all, of the students present.
Harper wondered how qualified he was to teach, be Head of Slytherin House even - as she learned from Ron - when he clearly upset the children as he did. She concluded Dumbledore was off his rocker.
Professor Snape whirled around without a word and the students - relectuanly - trailed after him.
The temperature immediately dropped upon entering, and Harper pulled with most others her robes tighter around herself.
"This is insane," she muttered to Hermione, who stood just beside her. Hermione's only response was chattering teeth.
Everyone quickly made their way to desks, the Slytherin and Gryffindor Houses unconsciously splitting to opposite sides of the room and pairing up. The pulling of numerous stools from their places against stone was heard as the students took their seats and scooted in as close as they could to their cauldrons, where the stands were still warm from the last class.
The shelves were all holding various dusted books that looked centuries old and jars of pickled animals with tails in places there shouldn't be. The air was frigid like ice and no natural light could penetrate the room for lack of windows and never getting the chance to air out.
Candle stumps were put in chandlers high above their heads, but their light struggled to reach the students, and torches were set up along the walls. The stone walls and floors did nothing to help keep them warm.
Like Professor Flitwick, Professor Snape took out a roll of faded parchment and paused when he got to the twins' names.
"Harper...Potter." His lip curled at the word, as though it tasted foul on his tongue. Harper merely pulled out her Potion's book and flipped it to the first page. Beside her, Harry was taking notes and Ron was staring at Professor Snape with a slightly green face.
"Harry Potter. Our newest..celebrity," he sneered, eyeing Harry from over the parchment with a look of hatred.
Harper immediately jumped to Harry's defense, resting a hand over his as she noticed him stiffening. This teacher had some nerve… She didn't like him.
The professor glanced at her for only a moment, then turned back to Harry and began asking him questions about potions that weren't even in the first few chapters of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.
This was going to be a long class.
….
Yes I know the Slytherins didn't have DADA with Gryffindor in the books but I wanted them included okay? And they got like literally zero classes with Ravenclaw so we're gonna fix that
Hope you guys will be okay with me re-writing the class schedules so it'll be easier on my brain
...did I mention House-unity in later years?