The castle was in a bustle for the first day of classes. Breakfast passed by more noisily than normal, and Harry could barely make out the topic of conversation as he ate.

He'd spent the last few days trying to memorize where his classes would actually be, which Fred and George were surprisingly helpful in - though they refused to say how they knew the shortcuts they did, "or else we'd have to prank you into silence".

Harry had a sneaking suspicion, but of course he couldn't tell them about that either - if he revealed that he knew about the Map, he'd have to share how he knew about it - and interfere in the wager between his dad and Sirius, which he didn't want to do. Fred and George were clever, they'd figure it out on their own eventually.

That didn't exactly stop him from resolving to write about it, however, in the next letter he'd be sending home. His parents had responded to Harry's first letter - a short note that he'd been sorted into Gryffindor, like them, and that Gryffindor Tower didn't quite feel like home but it was close - with an admission that they missed him already, which made him resolve to write often.

First, however, there were classes to attend to. Harry, alongside his friends, arrived at Charms class five minutes early, thanks to one of the shortcuts Fred and George had told Harry about - one that didn't work on alternating Tuesdays, but was pretty useful otherwise.

Professor Flitwick, a diminutive wizard who had to stand on a stack of books to reach his desk, was a jovial sort of man. He'd launched into an explanation of magic as an entity, and how casting spells required more than just waving one's wand and saying some funny words.

"The Greek method thought about it in terms of the Elements - fire, air, earth, water. Each invokes a specific frame of mind, a certain style of movement, or a sense that one should pay attention to. Later, the anger that was evoked by fire, and the soothing gentleness of water, were split off into their own elements - those of darkness and light, respectively. While modern magical theory has moved on to more direct descriptions of what was needed, some vestiges of this terminology can still be found - for example, the description of certain spells as 'dark', or an intense emotion as 'fiery', which made its way into Muggle vocabulary."

Harry, along with most of the class, took note of this bit of trivia. It might be useful for History of Magic, just as it was for Charms class - the professor was explaining how wand-movements, emotions, sensations and words tied together in the casting of spells. While, at the end, no actual spells had been taught, it was nonetheless quite fascinating, and the students were delighted when Professor Flitwick made a statuette "swim" across the classroom.

History of Magic, by contrast to Professor Flitwick's interesting description of the way of thinking about magic, was quite a dull class. Professor Binns, the only teacher at Hogwarts who happened to be a ghost, got the students' names mixed up and proceeded to drone on about historic wizards without even noticing when a student had fallen asleep or stopped paying attention.
Harry found himself idly wondering how a ghost could grade homework - clearly they'd found a way to work around the problem that ghosts couldn't affect the physical world by much.

Transfiguration was again different. Like Professor Flitwick's class, Professor McGonagall launched into an explanation that tied into the Greek elements - apparently in the old methods, Transfiguration was almost exclusively under the elements of Fire and Earth, for change and the physical respectively - and then a severe warning.

"It goes without saying, with the mostly permanent nature of Transfiguration and detailed visualization necessary, that it is one of the more complex and dangerous branches of magic to specialize in. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

After an impressive display of turning her desk into a pig and back again, she continued her lecture before handing each student a matchstick and telling them to attempt turning it into a needle.

By the end of the class, Harry had managed to make a point and a rudimentary eye at the back. Hermione's match wasn't as pointy, but had gone a silvery color.

Ron had managed an eye, while Neville had managed a sharp point.

Quite a few students hadn't managed any changes to their needle at all when Professor McGonagall called the end of the lesson, giving a rare smile to those students who'd managed anything.


Herbology took place in Greenhouse 4, where Professor Sprout explained the basics of plant care - how to distinguish an over-watered plant from a dried-out one, signs of disease to look out for, and the roles of fertilizer and mulch. For the first year, their practicals would mostly consist of "mundane" plants - Harry was paired up with Susan Bones to plant asphodel seeds. Neville was praised on his technique for spreading fertilizer, to his embarrassment.

Potions took place in the dungeons. Much like Professor McGonagall, Professor Black adopted a no-nonsense approach to the subject, launching into his class with a stern look on his face.

"In Potions class, you will be handling sharp knives, poisonous ingredients, and fire. Furthermore, any mistakes in preparation, contamination of ingredients by improperly-cleaned tools, or accidents during brewing will at best result in an explosion - at worst, a prompt evacuation of the entire school.

Therefore, it goes without saying that I will not tolerate any shenanigans in my classroom. You will follow my instructions, exactly as written on the board. You will always wear gloves when handling any ingredients, no matter how benign they may seem. You will clean your tools - all of them - by hand after every practical lesson."

Harry could respect the gravity of the warnings. He'd read ahead a bit - the sort of accidents that could happen wouldn't be pleasant.

Professor Black then proceeded to quiz the students. Harry got a question on the differences between monkshood and wolfsbane - which were the same plant, harvested under different moon phases and used in very different potions.

The use of a bezoar was answered by Blaise Zabini, who explained that it would protect from most poisons and was thus considered an essential precaution.

Hermione then got a question about the necessity of cleaning by hand, which would prevent cleaning magic from contaminating the next potion.

The practical part of the lesson was slightly more relaxing, even though Professor Black had paired each Gryffindor student with a Slytherin - in his own words, this would discourage the traditional House rivalry, as any sabotage would affect both Houses equally.

Harry settled into something of a comfortable rhythm with Tracey Davis - Harry elected to do the prep-work, cutting ingredients into the right portions while Tracey added them to the cauldron and stirred as instructed. It was made slightly more difficult because, in several places, the instructions on the board called for less of an ingredient than the book recommended.

"Sir, here in the book it says to add three ounces of nettles, but the board says two - what would the difference be?" Harry asked for both himself and Tracey, who'd expressed confusion about the same thing.

"An astute question. For this specific potion, the answer is safety - while the instructions in the book make the potion most effective, adding any more of these ingredients by accident will cause the potion to boil over or explode.

In the future, I will be telling the class about these differences before the practical starts. A point each to Gryffindor and Slytherin - I heard you discussing this with Miss Davis, so she had a hand in asking the question."

That seemed fair enough, so Harry nodded and thanked the Professor as they continued their work. Professor Black made a few corrections - cautioning Neville to take his and Draco Malfoy's cauldron off the fire before adding the porcupine quills he was reaching for.

Astronomy, later that night, was spent mostly on the functions of their telescopes and the format of star charts. While it was interesting enough, the fact it had to take place late at night meant everyone went to bed dead tired, and they nearly woke up late for their last class of the week, Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts is actually a bit of a misnomer, in a sense. While, yes, defense against spells that are classified as Dark - jinxes, hexes and curses - will be part of the curriculum, and duelling is part of the practical work, most of this class will focus on creatures and beasts that consider magical folk as their prey." Professor Frank Longbottom started his lecture.

"Today, we will be focusing on the very basics. Many of you will, in fact, have cast an effective spell for self-defense when they first held their wand - never underestimate the usefulness of shooting sparks at something and then running away."

The lecture continued for a while, outlining several creatures - and asking for the commonality between them.

"The answer is that most of these creatures prefer shadowy environments, and will flee from light sources. An effective method of warding them off, then, is the Wand-Lighting Charm - which, as the name implies, makes one's wand light up. In general, a light source is a useful thing to have on hand - all the more reason to never lose your wand. For today's practical, we will be practicing the Wand-Lighting Charm and its counterpart, the Wand-Extinguishing Charm."

Professor Longbottom then demonstrated the wand-lighting charm, which looked quite simple - it was simply a key-like turn of the wand with the word "Lumos". Its counterpart was no more difficult - the same movement in reverse, accompanied by the word "Nox".

It only took the class a few tries before everyone got it, and Harry reflected that the first week of lessons had not disappointed as he wrote to his parents about it, before setting off to the Owlery.


So, I finally got around to writing about the actual classes. Let me know how I did with them.