Used to short nights and not much sleep, Harry awoke at seven the next morning feeling more rested than usual.

He'd moved around enough in the night that the sheets were badly damaged, but consoled himself with the thoughts he'd had last night and shook himself out. The other four boys were still asleep, so he got himself dressed in his robes (which took a bit less time than it had the previous day) and contemplated his school books.

Without any idea of his schedule for the day, he couldn't just carry them all around in his ex-Dursley backpack – though the more correct term was probably frontpack given where he usually slung it – and so he decided to just take his wand to breakfast, and come back up to the tower once he knew what he was after for the day.

Snagging Seeress from his trunk and holding it against his side with one of his wings, he loped down the flights of steps to reach the common room. There were only a few people here this early in the morning, and Harry said hello – meeting someone called Cormac who didn't sound very awake – then made his way out of the portrait hole and jumped down the grand staircase.

Someone on the fifth floor shouted in surprise, and Harry spread his wings to slow his fall – resulting in a great crackling whoom of air, and also resulting in his book dropping out of his grip until he somewhat belatedly caught it with his forepaws. Then he beat his wings twice, blowing a storm of air around as he slowed and landed.

A couple of students who were near the bottom of the staircase clapped, and Harry blushed slightly – ears folding down a little in embarrassment and a hint of pride. Stowing his book under his wing again, he made his way to breakfast.

Breakfast turned out to mostly be much more conventional than the feast had been. There was toast, sausages, baked beans and scrambled egg, among other things, and Harry took some sausages and toast before settling down to read. One wing sufficed to hold the book in place, and he could turn the pages with one forepaw while eating with the other.

This time he managed to retain enough focus to not bite the end of his fork off, and he was still reading when Dean stumbled down to eat half an hour later.

"Any idea how we get our schedules?" the black boy asked, then looked up as Professor McGonagall came over.

"Mr. Thomas, good morning," she said, and handed him a piece of paper with his class schedule. "For the first year, all Gryffindor first years will have the same schedule, but please keep a hold of this."

She gave one to Harry as well, who scanned it and found that their first lesson was Charms. It gave a classroom number as well, which made Harry stare – how could they need more than thirty classrooms with only about a dozen teachers in the entire school?

To his surprise, there were free periods dotted around the timetable, and some of the classes were stacked to make double or triple periods. There were several free periods on Wednesday morning, for example, but that was because Astronomy was at midnight the night before.

It also looked like most of the classes were joint with another House, which made sense.

Ron joined them ten minutes after Dean, but the first thing he did was ask Harry if he could borrow Harry's owl.

Reminded by that of something else he was planning to do, Harry nodded. He took the letter Ron had written, put it in his pocket along with his book and schedule, then headed out the main doors.

The grounds outside the castle were beautiful in the September sunlight just coming over the mountains, and Harry crouched for a long moment before exploding into the air – gaining height rapidly and soaring over the slope leading down to the great lake he'd flown over the previous evening. The Forbidden Forest hulked not too far off, dark and menacing, and Harry examined it carefully – wondering what hid within – before spiralling around to gain height and rise up towards the top of Hogwarts.

He'd been expecting to have a little trouble locating his target, but it turned out to be very easy. As he passed the highest level of the main building and reached the height at which there were only towers, a white shape came flying out to join him and barked something.

"Morning, Hedwig!" Harry called, smiling. "I've got a letter one of my friends wants to send, but I'm not sure where it's going… do you mind if I ask you to send it?"

Hedwig flew over and landed on his head, then nibbled his ear.

Taking that as it probably being okay, Harry slid sideways a bit before alighting on the roof a little outside the Owlery. Removing the letter from his robes, he offered it to Hedwig, and she looked briefly at the address before taking it in her beak.

"Good luck!" Harry told her, and she touched his paw with her wing before taking off and flying south.

With almost an hour before his class, still, Harry was tempted to fly down and visit Hagrid – but after remembering how complicated it was to get around inside Hogwarts he reluctantly declined, deciding instead to go up and snag his books before finding his first lesson.

He was already wondering whether he could get his robes adjusted to have bigger pockets, or maybe whether it was possible to make pockets that were bigger on the inside. If he could, he wouldn't need the backpack to carry his things around for the times there were two classes in a row.

Best of all would be a Luggage, but he wasn't sure Hogwarts would survive dozens of Luggages running back and forth.

When he actually got back to his dorm room, however, Harry realized that there wasn't exactly a clear indication of which books he'd need for Charms. History of Magic and Herbology were obvious enough, perhaps, and he could make a guess at Potions (while Astronomy didn't seem to need any at all) but most of the books about magic could be for Defence, Charms or Transfiguration – except for the Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration, of course.

Harry eventually shrugged and decided to take both the spellbook and the magical theory book, and set off to find Charms class.

Forty-five minutes later, Harry had gone up fourteen flights of steps, down seventeen, found Neville, found Hermione, properly met Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, run into Professor Quirrell, asked four portraits for directions and been the subject of a very determined haunting by Lord Ridley. He'd also finally found the Charms classroom, which was already occupied by several Ravenclaws.

He couldn't help but feel as though it would be easier if Hogwarts was a bit less massive and imposing and a bit more… flat.

Sir Nicholas led Ron, Dean and Sally-Anne in just a minute or so before the stroke of nine, and Harry waited with interest to see what the lesson would be like. All the books he thought might be relevant were lined up at the head of his desk, and he'd pushed the chair out of the way so he could lean with one forepaw and use the other to write with.

The teacher – Professor Flitwick, if he remembered correctly – was nowhere in sight, and at first Harry wondered if they'd all got the wrong room by mistake. He wouldn't put it past the confusing castle to have wrong numbers on the doors sometimes, but then someone gasped.

Some books were floating up from behind the teacher's desk into the air. They all looked different, with titles like Charming Wizards From The Past and Spells for the Household, and Harry tensed – getting ready to jump out and catch one of the books, if that was what they were going to be doing today.

The books spun in midair, however, then began to all drop down behind the desk. Or at least the first few did – later volumes landed on top of the first ones, forming a pillar of books atop the teacher's chair behind the desk.

One final volume, The Flying Book Of Flight, rose above the level of the desk with the tiny little Professor Flitwick atop it. His wand was waving as he directed the books to their landing places, with the one he was riding coming down last, and it was only once the last one had landed that he looked out at the class.

Then he gave a little gasp and fell off his newly built tower.

"...what was that all about?" Seamus asked, looking around to see if anyone had an answer for him.

"Oh, my – goodness," Professor Flitwick said from behind the desk, and one of the books floated back down so he could ride it up again. Once there he pulled a small scroll from the pockets of his robes as he floated up, and unrolled it. "Well, I can see Mr. Potter is here, but is Mr. Boot?"

Terry Boot raised his hand. "Here, Professor."

"Good, good… Miss Brocklehurst?"

After the attendance roll had been taken, Professor Flitwick moved on to the actual lesson.

He started by asking if anyone knew what Charms was, and jumped around the classroom getting half-a-dozen answers before he told them all the real definition. Charms were spells which added properties to an object or creature (such as the Hover Charm he had performed on his books), or which had an instant effect not related to transfiguration (such as summoning).

From there the Professor moved on to some of the basic concepts behind magic, and about how spells were cast. Spells could be cast with nothing but a wave of the hand and an effort of will, but it was made much easier by a wand and also much easier by saying the words associated with the spell – which interested Harry, as even when Professor Flitwick went into more detail it sounded a lot like how things were done in the Belgariad books. Belgarath would only carry around a staff to make himself look impressive, but it was enough to make him wonder if the author was secretly magical.

After about a page of note-taking, Professor Flitwick told them they were going to be doing the fun stuff. That meant getting their wands out and waving them around, sending coloured sparks of all sorts bouncing off the walls (though Ron and Neville both had a bit of trouble in making anything as fiery as the rest), and then trying to learn their very first spell – Lumos, which was simple enough and just made the ends of their wands light up.

Harry was very pleased with himself that he got it working, though he wasn't the first – about half the class had beaten him to it. But it didn't matter, because he'd done some actual, intentional magic.

Their homework was to write about ways to use the charms in the first chapter of their spellbooks, and Ron and Neville – both of whom hadn't quite managed to get the charm working properly – were also told to get it finished.

It had been quite an enjoyable lesson, which Harry took as a good omen (though he did wonder why the homework was assigned by parchment length) and he headed off to change books for the next lesson in high spirits.

"Hey, Ron," Harry said, poking his friend with his tail. "Ron. Wake up."

"Huh?" Ron asked, yawning. "W-wha?"

He looked around, seeing they were in a classroom with about two dozen other drowsing students, then over at Harry.

"You fell asleep during the lesson," Harry explained, putting away his notes. "I did my best to try and keep you awake, but it kept distracting me."

"Wait – mate, you didn't fall asleep during that?" Ron asked, rubbing his eyes as Harry turned his attention to trying to wake up Dean. "How'd you manage that?

"It wasn't really that bad," Harry shrugged.

"It was!" Ron insisted. "I've heard stories from the twins about it – heck, even Percy said he had trouble staying awake in History of Magic sometimes!"

"Huh," Harry frowned, having successfully woken Dean up. The other boy didn't even bother complaining, just picking up what notes he'd managed to make and packing them in his bag. "I mean, it was a bit dry, but it wasn't as bad as the Silmarillion."

"What's that, a fruit?" Neville asked, but of their little group even Hermione looked surprised.

"You actually read through the Silmarillion?" the witch blinked, tilting her head slightly in a way Harry recognized as one of his own mannerisms. "Why?"

"There's dragons in it," Harry answered, since that made it obvious to him. "Really powerful ones, too, though not very nice."

"Charlie's told me some stories of how hard dragons are to stop," Ron volunteered, as they began to file out of the room to head down to lunch. "How much worse than that could it be?"

By the time Harry had finished telling them, Ron seemed quite surprised.

"...destroyed a mountain range?" he repeated. "By crashing?"

"Yeah, though he was the biggest," Harry explained, choosing a place and sitting down. A second fork appeared next to his first, and he blinked in surprise before putting it to the side.

While the feast the previous evening had been spectacular and breakfast had been fairly conventional – aside from the lack of cornflakes – it transpired that lunch involved a few normal things and a few things only Wizards (or Witches) could think up. Pumpkin Pasties and Chocolate Croquettes sat alongside robust ham-and-cheese sandwiches and pot pies, and Harry found plenty to satisfy him.

"A mountain range," Ron said, shaking his head, then seemed to decide it would be better to eat lunch now and wonder about Muggle ideas of dragons later.

"What's next after this?" Dean asked, halfway through one of the croquettes.

"Herbology," Neville told them. "That's after lunch, then I think it's Transfiguration straight after that."

"Oh, great..." Ron groaned. "That means we have to carry both sets of books, and Transfiguration's got loads."

Harry had to admit it didn't exactly sound ideal either, but they'd have to get used to carrying all those books sooner or later.

Herbology, well… Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of Herbology, yet.

It was sort of like gardening, which Harry definitely had experience with, but it was also a kind of gardening where there wasn't much pruning (a problem for a dragon who had become used to the odd snack as he did the gardening) and a lot of the plants were quite odd. Oh, plenty of the herbs and fungi which had magical uses were ones that were at least known to Muggles – like mint, which Neville told him had magical properties if mixed right, or nettles – but others like Bubotubers looked very strange indeed.

As was the case with Charms, the first lesson was largely about introducing them to the concepts involved, and Professor Sprout also took pains to make sure they were aware of all the dangers involved. Greenhouses One and Two didn't have any lethal plants, but a few of them were quite unpleasant or could sting, so it was gloves whenever they got near them.

"What are those?" asked one of the Hufflepuff boys – Harry thought he was called Justin – as Harry used one of the trowels to unpot a nettle.

"You mean my gloves?" Harry replied, shifting the plant to a new pot and then packing some mulch around it. "Yeah, Hagrid helped me get them."

"That really big man who met us at the train?" Probably Justin checked, and Harry nodded in confirmation. "Why not just – oh."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "It made me kind of uncomfortable… I mean, these aren't exactly dangerous to me, but I know some stuff might be."

He carefully touched one of the nettles just below his rolled-up sleeve to demonstrate, and Probably Justin blinked.

"That's pretty impressive."

"Mr. Potter?" Professor Sprout called, hastening over. "While I appreciate that your unique circumstances mean that you have less to fear, less does not mean none! Please don't take chances like that in future."

"Sorry," Harry replied, chastened. "I'm still getting used to the idea of magical plants."

As Professor Sprout left, Justin gave Harry an odd look.

"Surely you should be used to magical plants?" he said. "You're clearly not Muggle-Born."

"No, but I got raised Muggle," Harry explained. "There's the same kind of magic there is on the Leaky Cauldron at the top of Diagon Alley… I think. Nobody ever notices unless they're magical."

Justin nodded, then snorted.

"I was just imagining how it would have gone if we had ended up going to the same non magical school," he explained. "First day at Eton, there's a dragon standing in assembly and nobody else seems to notice."

Herbology was only an hour long (though it was three times a week to make up for that, and at different times of the day because some plants were only active in the evening) and straight after that Harry barely had time to brush off his gloves and put them back in his bag before it was off to Transfiguration.

Professor McGonagall's started the class by revealing herself to have been the cat standing on the desk at the front, and Harry stared for a long moment before raising his forepaw. The Professor went through her warning about how dangerous the class was before calling on him, and Harry took a moment to decide just which question to start with.

"Is that something that all wizards and witches can do?" he asked.

"Not exactly, Mr. Potter," she answered. "It is a very rare skill, though almost anyone could learn it if they put in sufficient effort and had the dedication to see it through … dedication which is extremely rare. A few witches or wizards however have abilities which prevent it, such as being a Metamorphagus."

Harry still had his forepaw up, and after taking a few questions from the rest of the class Professor McGonagall called on him again.

"Can you turn into any animal?" he asked then, thinking of Poledra's wolf-form and owl-form – or more correctly her human-form and owl-form, as she'd been born a wolf.

"Not at all, Mr. Potter," she told him, though she sounded pleased with his questions. "An Animagus can turn into only one animal, which is an animal version of themselves; it is not known exactly what determines what animal someone gets, though it always shares some identifying mark with them or their personal image."

A couple more questions followed, then they were into the really substantive bit of the lesson. That turned out to mean more note-taking, an explanation of the fundamental philosophy of transfiguration (which was that 'free' transfiguration could turn anything into anything, subject to the Five Exceptions, but was very difficult, and that transfiguration working with specific spells was easier to learn and to perform) and then moving on to turning a matchstick into a needle.

The idea, as Professor McGonagall explained it, was that by learning enough spelled transfigurations one would become more adept at performing other spelled transfigurations without needing so much learning time – or even eventually make one able to progress to free transfiguration.

Of course, it was harder than that made it sound, and by the end of the class only Hermione had managed to do more than make the matchstick perhaps a bit thinner.

Apparently it was all about visualization.

Between the end of Transfiguration and dinner about half the First-Years gravitated to the library, which was when Harry spent an hour or so writing about ways to use charms – doing his best to come up with interesting if impractical ones to go with the obvious, such as using Lumos to send signals or the Hover charm to lift up a chair one was sitting on – before putting his quill down and deciding to have a proper look at what Hogwarts library held.

It was a dry, dusty place with shelves creaking with books, some of them hundreds of years old and written in that funny font where an s looked like an f. In fact, quite a lot of the books were very old, but Harry supposed that that had to make sense if there weren't many wizards, as that would mean it'd take a long time for wizards to write enough different books to be worthwhile. Anything that might be relevant to a main course class had at least three copies, some of them checked out already, but annoyingly there wasn't a fiction section in sight.

Resigning himself to doing a lot of rereading – and wondering if he could perhaps contrive to convert some more of his galleons to pounds and fly into a Muggle town to stock up – Harry instead took mental note of where the section on magical creatures was, which also led to the realization that a lot of the books stored in that section were travelogues of long journeys up rivers into dark rainforests.

"Well… maybe," he mused.

It sort of counted.

That evening, Harry flew down to say hello to Hagrid. The big man seemed a bit out of sorts, his heavy coat scored with new marks and lines, but he waved it off as being the result of a creature in the Forbidden Forest being 'feisty' and welcomed Harry in.

"So, how's your first day been so far?" Hagrid asked. "Hope you're getting on all right."

"It's been great," Harry assured him. "I'm not really used to this kind of school, and that makes it kind of weird, but the magic stuff's all interesting so far."

He glanced back up at the castle. "Though I think I'm going to get lost at some point..."

"Ah, well, you don't have the same problem some have," Hagrid noted. "If you're worried about getting lost, just learn the way back from the front door to your dorm – and if you ever don't know where you are in the castle, jump out a window and sort it that way."

He gave Harry a rock cake to try, which was crunchy and interesting, and asked him how things had gone with his relatives (fairly well) and how everyone was finding it that he was a dragon.

"I think everyone's trying to ignore it, actually," Harry confided. "I get looked at, especially when I use a wing to keep my place or something, but it's not too bad."

"Good, good," Hagrid nodded. "Sometimes kids can be interested in what's different."

He flashed Harry a smile. "I never stopped bein' interested."

Harry chuckled as well.

"Is it allowed to go and visit a nearby Muggle town?" he asked. "Not straight away, that is. But I think I might run out of books, and..."

"Hmm… don't know that, actually," Hagrid admitted. "Don't think there's been any call for it. We're a way away from anywhere Muggle, and o' course most students don't have a way to get there without risking being discovered. But you're different, and… I'll ask Professor Dumbledore."

"Thanks," Harry smiled.

He looked under the table, which was where Hagrid's big dog Fang was hiding. "Do you think he's coming out?"

"Not likely," Hagrid judged. "Fang's bark's worse than his bite, and 'e thinks you're worse than his bark."

Tuesday brought a new lesson, Defence Against the Dark Arts, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Professor Quirrell had a dreadful stutter, and his classroom had a strong smell of garlic which gave Harry a bit of a vague headache throughout the class.

He did his best to concentrate in spite of that, as the Professor ran through the difference between a Jinx, a Hex and a Curse, as well as a few other spells which were technically Charms or Transfiguration but fell into the category of defensive spell. The differences didn't really seem to be all that consistent, but Harry supposed he'd learn at some point.

They were also told the reason why there was such a variety of spells to deal with the subject. There was something of a trade-off between ease of casting, how much a spell tired the caster out, and how effective it actually was on the target – as well as how easy it was to reverse, for that matter – and Professor Quirrell made sure to point out that dragons were just one of several kinds of magical creature which were highly resistant to magic.

Harry should really test that out at some point.

Oddly enough, though, once the class was over and Harry looked over his notes, they seemed fairly clear – he could see where it had all come from and where it was going – but the stutter just made it upwind work to treat the class seriously while it was going on. (Harry had heard of 'uphill work' and decided a dragon should rephrase it slightly.) Maybe it would go better once they moved on to practical work, though Harry was fairly sure fire breath wasn't allowed.

Though, if he was magic resistant, could he use his wings to block spells or something? Or just take off and fly around, because moving things were harder to hit – and if his eyes were the only place that wasn't covered by magic-resistant scales, then moving fast would make it even harder to hit his eyes.

The penultimate regular class that Harry was introduced to was Astronomy, which began at the stroke of midnight as Tuesday became Wednesday.

Owing to issues with the lack of week nights available, Astronomy took place with the whole year at once. This gave Professor Sinistra perhaps the largest single class in the school, but she seemed quite up to the challenge – explaining clearly what they would be doing tonight and for the rest of the year. They would be using their telescopes to examine the moon, to look at the planets and their moons, to view the constellations and to plot out when they intersected.

Someone from Ravenclaw raised his hand to ask if that meant it was like Astrology, and Professor Sinistra told him quite sharply that it was not – that was a matter for Divination, which was a third-year elective. Astronomy was concerned with facts, with the here and now, and only with those parts of the future which concerned the predictable movements of the planets and other celestial bodies.

The practical upshot of this was that the somewhat-tired students were taught how to use a telescope, as well as the basics of navigating the night sky. It would change, week by week, and the sky would get darker towards the end of the year before lightening again, but with a sufficiently good telescope and enough training it would be possible to locate the stars and the planets even during the twilight pseudo-night of the Scottish summer.

While it was interesting enough, Harry was curious, and when the class proper was over he approached Professor Sinistra as the other students were packing up.

When asked why it was that students were taught Astronomy as a compulsory subject, the Astronomy teacher looked at first a little offended.

"Well – why not?" she asked him. "Surely you don't find the class boring?"

"I don't, it's interesting to learn about," Harry replied. "And I can use it to navigate by the stars, if I ever go flying at night – or I hope I'll be able to, at least. I'm just curious why everyone does it."

"Astronomy is used in Potions," Professor Sinistra said then. "And in Alchemy. There are ingredients of both which rely on the lunar cycle – as do some magical beasts."

"Like Werewolves," Harry agreed, remembering that part of the Fantastic Beasts book. "And Mooncalves. But I… suppose I don't see why it takes five years of study."

Professor Sinistra looked around. "Mr. Potter, you're curious, and I think that's admirable. So I believe I'll now tell you why I believe it is that my class is core studies, and not an elective like Muggle Studies or Divination."

Harry sat down, doing his best to look trustworthy and admirable.

"Professor Dumbledore likes astronomy, and we have an Astronomy Tower."

After a long pause, Harry blinked. "That's… it?"

"That, as you say, is it," Professor Sinistra told him. "I suspect it is the same reason why we have a Divination class, or why there are clubs for both chamber music and tenpin bowling."

After the end of Astronomy, the various First-Years had to make their way back through the upper reaches of the castle – yawning and tired – to get their sleep. There were no classes until quite late in the morning on Wednesday, to compensate, but it was still a pity for the Slytherin and Hufflepuff students who had to make their way down at least fourteen flights of stairs to reach their dorms.

Harry had to go back up to the Astronomy tower after being the last to leave – having managed to mislay his telescope, which was awkward for him to carry – and several twists and turns later on the way down from the tower he found himself unsure whether he'd ended up in the right place.

Looking suspiciously around, and not quite sure if he'd got himself turned around or not, Harry peered down one corridor. Everyone else had gone, he was up after what would normally be Curfew were it not for Astronomy class, and if the cratchity caretaker caught him he was fairly sure he wouldn't take 'Astronomy' as an excuse.

"Good lord," said a doorknocker. "Are you a dragon?"

"Yes?" Harry replied. "I'm fairly sure I have everything you need to be one."

"Wait," the doorknocker said suddenly. "I didn't – oh bother."

The door behind it opened, swinging to the side and revealing an empty room full of armchairs.

After due consideration, Harry decided he should go in to what was presumably Ravenclaw common room. If there was a Prefect here he could tell them he was lost, and get back to Gryffindor Tower that way, and if not then he could… well, do something or other.

Five minutes later, he found the library.

Eventually, Harry woke up on Wednesday morning.

He yawned, shifting a bit, and a couple of books clattered to the floor. That prompted him to wake up the rest of the way, and he blinked before looking around.

He was in that library he'd found the previous night, surrounded by books that had looked interesting – a few of them half-finished, open to where he'd switched to look something else up or spotted a better choice.

As he shifted, there was a quiet chirp from a foot or two away. Harry looked, and Hedwig was sitting serenely on his telescope – as if that was where she'd been meant to be all along.

Harry yawned, and a second or two later a Prefect peered in through the library door. She seemed pleased to notice he was up, and waved her wand, and suddenly a hubbub of conversation could be heard through the door.

"Good morning," she said – Harry was fairly sure she was the one who he'd seen on the train. "I assume you got lost last night?"

"Yeah, on the way back from Astronomy," Harry agreed, stretching his wings out. "I'm sorry I made a bit of a mess."

He looked around. "It's just… you have novels in here. I'd thought there weren't any in the castle except my own collection!"

"Are you quite sure you're a Lion?" the Prefect asked. "That sounds much more like what an Eagle would say."

Harry looked politely confused about the terms, and the Prefect explained how Slytherins were Snakes, Hufflepuffs were Badgers and so on.

"Tempus," she added, and a string of numbers appeared in the air before she waved them away. "If I've got your class schedule right, you have History of Magic in half an hour."

"That's right!" Harry realized. "Why didn't someone wake me?"

"It's the school motto," the Prefect told him, which was fair enough.

Ten minutes after that, Hedwig had flown out the window, and Harry was out of Ravenclaw tower feeling quite pleased about how the night had gone.

It might have been the result of a total accident, but while a few of the Ravens had been leery of him most had apparently decided that a dragon who curled up on a pile of books for the night was perfectly acceptable.

He had the vague feeling that they might have adopted him.

Then it was across to Gryffindor, lope up the stairs, exchange Astronomy equipment for History textbooks, and jump down several floors of the staircase with sweeping wingbeats to reach History of Magic in time.

In a way, Harry was starting to see the appeal of such an oddly laid out school. It did make getting to lessons a lot more interesting.

A few questions once Harry had finished eating lunch that day established that there was nothing strictly preventing Harry from going into Ravenclaw Library again. Professor Flitwick seemed quite entertained by the idea, though he did ask Harry to please make sure he didn't fall asleep there again as it made the actual Ravenclaws uncomfortable using the library, and even gave him permission to take one or two books out of the library at a time so long as he was diligent about returning them in good time.

Then the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday was largely normal lessons, none of them strictly new but all of them settling down to the more normal rhythm after the demonstrations that had been specifically selected to give them all a good introduction to the course.

It was funny how quickly something could become routine – though Harry himself was still having problems navigating the castle at times, and on one occasion had to resort to Hagrid's advice and jump out a window. He'd felt a bit guilty about it, but the window had been quickly closed – even though he'd been sure there was nobody there.

And it was still odd that he could tear up his bedclothes every night – albeit by accident – and then find them fixed the next time he came to his room, with his letters neatly stacked in his trunk again. He'd have asked Percy for details, to check if it was something House-Elves did, but the older boy seemed to be very busy all the time and Harry was sure he'd seen Percy go into a room and then not come out of it – only to stride along a corridor in a different direction five minutes later.

Then Friday came around, which was one of the days where the First-Year Gryffindors didn't have much in the way of lessons at all – just their final new full-time class, Potions.

It was like Astronomy, in that it was a class where they only had one lesson a week but it was a two-hour double, and it was a class they had joint with the Slytherins – which was the house that Professor Snape was in charge of.

Harry didn't think that would be a problem, though. He was fairly adept at cooking (and a lot of Potions seemed to be about cooking, from what he'd read about it), and they'd already had lessons with the other three Heads of House. Professor McGonagall had been fair as far as he could tell, though he was able to admit that maybe he wasn't in the best position to notice it, and Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick had both been far too enthusiastic about their subjects to be biased at all.

About the only real concern Harry had to admit about the class was that it would mean he'd have to try not to nibble on any of the ingredients – or the equipment.

"Really?" Ron asked, at breakfast that morning. "You're looking forward to Potions?"

"Well, I've enjoyed all the other classes," Harry pointed out, he felt quite sensibly. "Even Defence has been pretty good, it's just all that garlic in the classroom and the stutter that's giving me a headache."

"Yeah, but my brothers all say Snape's biased," Ron countered.

"It sounds like a bad idea to just jump to that conclusion," Hermione said. "Harry, did you just eat your fork again?"

"Well, an extra fork keeps showing up whenever I sit down to a meal," Harry replied. "I'm just assuming that it's for me."

He swallowed. "I want to make sure I'm nice and full before Potions, so I don't feel hungry in Potions… actually, anyone got an idea where it is?"

"I asked one of the Badgers," Dean said. "They had it yesterday. It's, uh… yeah, you go into the door to the dungeons, and it's two floors down..."

Potions class was laid out differently to any classroom Harry had ever been in. The tables were arranged in pairs, with a hearth between each pair, and it was clear after a little thought that that was where the cauldron was meant to go.

Several of the places were already taken when Harry and his friends arrived, and after a complicated round of negotiations and place-switching that Harry could barely follow he found himself working with Daphne. Ron and Dean had ended up working together, with the black boy announcing that he 'had cooked once', and Neville and Hermione were seated together as well.

The rest of the class filtered in over the last few minutes as Harry put his textbooks on the table, and then at almost exactly nine Professor Snape entered the room.

The first thing he did was to take the list of names, which gave Harry a valuable reminder about who was in the Slytherin half of the class, but oddly enough he paused at Harry to say that Harry 'couldn't help standing out'.

While Professor Snape moved on to Dean, Ron and Blaise, Harry inspected his wings to make sure they looked the same as always. Daphne shrugged, but she looked mildly interested.

Professor Snape's description of what the class would be like was simultaneously interesting and puzzling. The bit about no wand-waving made Harry wonder if anyone could mix a potion just by following the recipe – could Aunt Petunia have done Potions class, if she wanted? - and the lists of effects were quite amazing. What would it mean to brew glory or bottle fame?

Harry wrote it all down, resolving to look it up at some point, then Professor Snape called on him.

"Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry frowned briefly, then reached for his One Thousand Magical Herbs And Fungi. Flipping through to the end of the A section, he located Asphodel and scanned the page.

"I think it's a powerful sleeping potion called the Draught of Living Death, but I'd have to double-check to make sure," he answered.

Professor Snape frowned.

"Close that book, Potter, I'm not testing your ability to look things up," the Professor said, and Harry did so promptly. "Where would you find a Bezoar?"

"In my pocket," Blaise said, before Harry had time to think about the question. "You need them around my house, I've had three stepfathers die last year."

"Zabini, was I asking you that question?" Professor Snape demanded. "Sit down and stay silent. Potter, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

That one Harry did know, thanks to his letters to and from Neville. "I think they're both non-magical names for the same plant."

After a long moment, Professor Snape nodded slightly.

"Perhaps this year won't be as bad as I was anticipating. For your information, a Bezoar is found in the stomach of a goat and it is a preventative against most poisons, but any Potions class will also contain several in storage in case of a potion mixed by a complete dunderhead."

Turning without further comment to the chalkboard at the front, the Potions Professor began outlining the basic rules of safety when handling potions ingredients – namely, to only use them in precisely the ways outlined by the recipe as it was presented on the board, to only handle them with gloves of dragon hide material (Harry hoped his own Manticore-hide gloves would suffice) and to be careful when using knives and the fire in the hearth and all the other potential sources of danger when dealing with hot, poisonous or otherwise malodorous ingredients.

A quiet discussion between Harry and Daphne as the recipe in question went up on the board led to the conclusion that Harry would do the cutting and weighing – he'd done enough of it at home – while Daphne would take responsibility for outlining what they were required to do and for stirring.

The recipe on the board was a little different from the one in the book, so Harry took notes on the differences (Daphne did the same), and then settled into a relaxing rhythm of preparing ingredients. Getting the exact correct amount of dried nettles was a bit fiddly, but the instructions specified the exact amount in ounces so Harry thought it was better to be precise; the rest went to the side. Then the horned slugs needed to be put in for stewing, which meant having two things on the fire at the same time as the main potion was supposed to be in use before the slugs were finished.

Professor Snape was going up and down the desks offering criticism to just about everyone (except Draco) but Harry thought this was entirely appropriate given that they were handling dangerous magical mixtures; he even took the opportunity to ask for clarification on what was to be done with the cut-offs, which Professor Snape told him should simply be thrown away if they were common ingredients like nettles.

When Harry ate them a minute or so later during a quiet section of the preparation process, Professor Snape seemed unsure what to make of it.

"Can you do that to everything?" Daphne asked, as she stirred the cauldron and they waited for the slugs to finish stewing.

"Most things," Harry replied, double-checking the recipe. Nettles, snake fangs… the only things left to go in were the porcupine quills and the stewed slugs, and those both had to be added in quick succession after the cauldron was off the heat. "I haven't tried anything poisonous though."

"I'm pretty sure nettles are poisonous," Daphne replied, sounding amused. "How do you tell if something's poisonous?"

"Oh, well… I read a book about it once," Harry told her. "A Muggle book, I mean. It said that if you don't have a reaction for several hours after it's rubbed on your skin, and you don't for a few minutes after you've put it against your lips, and you hold it in your mouth for at least fifteen minutes without anything bad happening – and a few other steps – then you can eventually be sure."

"Muggles," Daphne chuckled. "Wizards just have a spell for it. It's much simpler."

She frowned. "Though I don't think it's set up for dragons. Actually I don't think anyone knows much about dragons that eat plants as well as meat."

"No chattering in class," Professor Snape warned.

Harry wondered if there was a book somewhere in the library which explained all the odd interactions that potions ingredients could have. He'd overheard the Potions teacher criticizing Neville for nearly following two of the instructions in the wrong order, and apparently if the porcupine quills had been added before the cauldron had come off the fire it would have resulted in a nasty, magically-infused mess that could easily have dissolved the cauldron.

Nothing in Harry's experience cooking could explain that, at least not directly, but that was why he was here to learn – and it was clear that, while caustic, Professor Snape knew his potions. Four pairs had made mistakes which had rendered their potions useless or nearly so, and the Professor had barely had to glance at the results before outlining exactly where they'd gone wrong.

All that meant that Potions slotted into Harry's Hogwarts experience somewhere in the middle of the pack. It wasn't as pleasant so far as Charms, perhaps, but it was a better classroom experience than Defence and was more paws-on than the somewhat one-note History of Magic.

Maybe Professor Snape's brusque attitude would become a problem, as time went on, but Harry could overlook that sort of thing. He'd been doing it at home for years.

"Potter, stay behind," Professor Snape instructed, as they were packing up. "I want a word."

"Yes, Sir," Harry agreed promptly, thinking quickly over the schedule. He'd planned to go up and get started on the Potions homework straight after the lesson, but since the homework had turned out to be prep for the next lesson it would arguably be better done on Thursday evening if possible.

At the Potions teacher's words, Draco and his friends (Vincent and Gregory, if Harry remembered right) all sniggered on their way past and out the door.

Once the rest of the class had left, Professor Snape approached Harry's desk.

"Mr. Potter," he began. "I have been teaching Potions at this school for many years, but never have I seen anything quite so foolish as a student eating Potions ingredients."

Harry tilted his head a little. "I'm sorry, Sir? I usually eat the leftover ingredients when I cook."

Professor Snape blinked. "When you… cook."

"Yes, Sir," Harry agreed. "My Aunt and Uncle expect me to cook, and I think they try to not give me enough, but it doesn't work because I can eat the eggshells and packaging and stuff and that fills me up."

"Your… Aunt," Professor Snape repeated. "Mr. Potter, are you saying that you have been cared for the last few years by Petunia Evans and her oaf of a husband?"

Harry nodded. "If that's what she was called before she married Uncle Vernon. But they haven't been all that bad, because… well, since I turned into a dragon I think they couldn't find a way to make it awful for me."

He frowned. "Hold on, how do you know my Aunt's name?"

"That is none of your business, Mr. Potter," Professor Snape told him. "But, for your information, you should not eat or drink anything in a Potions laboratory because of the serious risk that it is contaminated and may be toxic. I do not care if you have not suffered a toxic reaction before because you are a dragon, this is something you should not do."

"Okay, Professor," Harry said, nodding. "Sorry about that. Do you have any tips on how I could avoid the temptation?"

"I am not your nutritional consultant, Mr. Potter," Professor Snape told him. "Since the rest of your year, and all the other years in Hogwarts, have managed to refrain from eating potions ingredients for the last decade then it should not tax you to do the same."

Harry considered that, and nodded again. "All right, Professor. I'll do my best."

Professor Snape frowned, examining Harry's expression, then seemed to accept (possibly on guesswork) that the Gryffindor had been sincere.

"Another question, Mr. Potter," he said. "You mentioned turning into a dragon, and of course I can see that you are now. But how did this come about?"

"I'm sorry, Professor, I don't really remember," Harry admitted, wings twitching slightly. He raised a talon to his muzzle, scratching absently as he thought. "It was kind of a long time ago… it was after I'd gone to school for the first time, but not long afterwards."

Harry waited to see if Professor Snape had any further questions. His face had gone an odd colour and he was muttering things about 'legacy' and 'delayed Charms' to himself, and after what he thought was an appropriate length of time Harry raised his forepaw.

"Can I go, Sir?"

"What?" Professor Snape asked. "Yes. Of course you can go!"

It was nice to have a teacher so concerned with his well-being.

AN:

I did consider what House to put Harry in, but ultimately the fact remains that while he's a lot more of a book-reader than in canon it's still not enough to put him in Ravenclaw.

It's funny how a willingness to look things up, a smartarse Slytherin, a few letters with Neville Longbottom and being a dragon can change a Potions class.