7th of August, 1991

Where to even start? It has been the most amazing week I think I've ever had in my life. Even better than that time mum took me to the Quiddich World cup last year in Canada.

This school is amazing, it's so big and grand I doubt I' wont even have been through half of it by the end of the year. But Gemma told us to mind the staircases as they liked to move on their own which is mad. I hope I dont oversleep and am late to a class or I might take a wrong stairway and get horribly lost!

The moving paintings are one of my favorite things though. I can't believe that they are practically alive! Max and I talked to a few of them when we were out of classes. The painting of Circe the Greek Goddess is very pretty and nice to look at though she is rather unsettling in the things she says. There's a painting of Merwyn the Malicious who Max knew a lot about with their love of jinxes and hexes, most of them created by this dark wizard. He was fun to mess with. Then there's Sir Cadogan, an actual Knight of the Round Table, except I had never remembered a mention of him in the Arthur books I had read. He got really cross with me and challenged me to a duel to which we laughed at. And there was even a picture of Merlin! But he spoke in nothing but riddles that neither me or Max could figure out what he was saying.

But Professors Snape and McGonagall, the head of Gryfindor house, did catch us one night talking to a painting and ruined all of our fun. They told us that the paintings werent actually alive. The enchantments placed on them make them seem to be, but theyre actually just an imitation of the real person they are and we shouldnt mistake them into thinking they're real people. Which seems incredibly mean. The paintings say theyre real and they enjoy our company just as much as we enjoy theirs, so why should they be treated like they don't matter?

But besides that, there was so much more fun things I got to do this week. All of my classes are really interesting. All first years have to take seven classes including flying lessons. One of my favorite classes so far is Astronomy with Professor Sinistra, because I loved looking up at the stars growing up and now I get to actually learn about them and how they relate to magic. Another one I really love is History of Magic taught by Professor Binns, an ACTUAL GHOST! We have a ghost teaching us history which is wicked! Defense Against the Dark Arts is really neat as well. Professor Quirell is a weird one, but Max says that we'll learn tons of dark stuff in this class throughout the years which sounds exciting.

I'm also trying to enjoy Potions as best I can, but Professor Snape makes it very difficult. Every time a student asks a question he just gets cross and I feel like he's not teaching us properly. I really hate that he's my Head of House, but there's nothing I can do about it so I have to just try to enjoy everything else about this school.

Our first day of flying lessons made me really nervous. I had the broom in my hand after a few tries which was good, but I don't think I really want to fly on one of these things just yet. I love to watch Quiddich, but that's different to having myself high up in the air which is terrifying. Luckily, we didn't actually fly today, except when Harry Potter and Malfoy got into a fight and Harry caught some Rememberall thing the Longbottom kid had. Max was so keen with trying to be friends with Harry after that but so far they haven't spoken to him.

I get to see Max loads since we're in all of the classes together, we sit by each other and laugh at all the fun things in Charms and Transfigurations, and then at study period, we pass notes to each other when Professor Snape isn't looking. So far, it's been really fun.

There's this one girl named Hermione Granger who is one of the smartest people I've ever seen. She answers every single question in every class we're in and she knows just about every fact their is to know about Hogwarts. She seems really intimidating to talk to because I think she'll find me as an idiot. She's also in Gryffindor so I dont know how she would react to me. Max thinks she's pretty which I agree!

So far nothing bad has happened which is nice. I've enjoyed my first week of classes and soon I'll be able to choose some extra subjects outside of class hours. Max really wants to take art which I may join as well, though Ghoul Studies sounds really wicked as well.

I haven't had much luck with making friends in my actual house. Malfoy has most of the boys in a gang who bully all the first year muggle borns in the other houses. Then there's Pansy and her group of girls who do the same. But not all of the first years seem mean. When I study on my own in the common room, I sit near the other quiet kids like Theodore Nott who doesn't really talk to anyone. There is also one girl named Emma Vane who is a part of Pansy's group but often makes fun of them more than the students they bully. She came over to me the other night and told me she liked me because I wasn't like the other boys in Slytherin who she thought were stupid. So I guess she's my friend? I'm not sure.

But anyways, the best part of this week was getting to sit down with Max and actually starting a fun adventure together. I read as much of my new books as I could. This new edition has a ton of new monsters and a lot of classes have been either changed or gotten rid of. I do like that being a Bard is easier now and Max agrees with me as they decided to make Claudio into one instead of a wizard which should make the game a lot more fun!

We played in the Great Hall after classes. Right now we're just playing with parchment and dice I brought from home. Max is currently making their figurine out of clay while I make some of the new monsters, and we are going to see how to enchant them to actually move around like dad did. My mum said that we may have to wait a few years in order to have the proper magic to make it, but I've seen some other kids play Wizard's Chess so if I can just learn how that works, that can help me with our game loads!

I can't wait to see what else will happen this year. I hope it'll be even more amazing every week I'm here!