Chapter 5
Hermione skipped lunch. She wanted to find the library. Look for textbooks, as both classes she has been in haven't provided any textbooks, and how can she get ahead in her class if she doesn't read the textbooks until she could recite the contents in her sleep. She shoves down her fear as best she can and wanders looking inside every building starting on the farthest cloud islands and working her way inward. It is only after that Hermione remembers the spell that shows a path leading to where one wants to go.
She learns a lot about the layout of the school by doing this, even as it takes her the entire lunch period to find the library at the center of the school. The school's layout forms the clouds into a concentric spiral bridged in some places with the gleaming bridges of light. The dorms float outside the spiral bridges labeling the direction they are named for. Surprisingly there are different levels not only to the towers and buildings floating on the layer with the dorms but also a lower level with no buildings. It is larger than the main level of islands, the ones that are in the spiral and as Hermione had watched she had seen it shift rising and lowering in a random pattern while older looking students had fired spells at each other. Hermione had been tempted to stay and watch, but she had a mission. She had to explore and find a library. The classrooms surround the library with the first year classrooms the furthest away and the seventh year classrooms closest to the library.
Hermione would have been late for Potions if she hadn't run into Sylvia and Meisa coming out of the library.
"Isn't potions next? The hour ended. Sylvia and I came to the library to practice the translation charms. We asked the librarians to tell us when 55 minutes had gone by and they taught us a clock charm.I'm sure Sylvia will teach you."
Meisa said while Sylvia activated the guide to get them to the potions classroom.
"Walk and talk, why don't we?" Sylvia snarked with a teasing smile as she walks backward.
Meisa smiled and Hermione giggled as they follow after Sylvia.
"But seriously Hermi. Just because we have to hurry to class doesn't mean you get out of telling Mei and me all about why you seem to have been wandering around looking for the library when there is a handy directional system straight out of Ender's Game." Sylvia continued as Meisa and Hermione caught up and she stopped walking backward in favor of walking in between the two. Hermione blushed.
"I forgot about the charm. So instead I uh… walked around looking into every building."
"So instead of using magic you just wandered aimlessly?" Sylvia asked with a snort.
"Sylla be nice. I'm sure Hermione here didn't just wander aimlessly. She is much to smart for that. She got all the charms in class really quickly."
"Yes, yes. Our friend Hermi is genius. She just needs to remember to use all her resources."
"For your information, I didn't wander aimlessly. Yes, I forgot the charm, but now I know where everything is, and the basic layout of the school. Did you know that the school has multiple levels of clouds? The bottom is a huge field and below that I think is stables and maybe a mail system? Do we get mail?"
"Really?" Meisa asked though Hermione thought it was for the information about the field.
"I think we get mail, it would just be hard, you know for the birds to fly this high," Sylvia said, her brow furrowed as she thought.
They talked about what they thought about the school, where they came from and what they thought of classes. By the time they made their way into the Potions classroom, just as the bell rang, they were all smiling.
"You're late. Find seats and sit. I'll let it slide as it's the first day of classes but know this won't be acceptable again." The professor snapped from the front of the class.
Hermione wanted to cry and scream that it was unfair, but she wasn't that brave and so cheeks burning she found a seat in the back next to Neville and tried to shrink into non-existence as the professor explained the curriculum they would be following for the year.
"To first understand Potions you need to understand what makes a potion, the ingredients; namely their properties and how they interact to different stimuli and each other. Do not even think of going near a cauldron until you know all the possible ingredients you might ever be asked to use by heart and some that you'll probably never hear off again. This will hopefully help avoid accidents later. Understood?" The professor asked.
Normally Hermione loved teachers, but she was thinking of making an exception for Professor Beytnyk. He was demanding, sharp-tongued, seemed to think he was of superior intelligence than everyone else, and a perfectionist. On the bright side, Hermione thought, Neville seemed just as fearful of the man as her and was saying nothing about her attempts to disappear.
The man stalked through the room and dropped huge books onto each student desk, barely looking at the students and once he was back at the front asked them to open to the first page and make a heading for the table of contents.
"The first two ingredients you are to learn are easy…" The professor started and Hermione quickly took out her quill and opened the book to the second page. The professor dumped information about the ingredients to them the rest of the class stopping only a minute before the bell to list the two ingredients they where to research before the next class on Thursday.
Hermione hurried toward her last class of the day- Defense. In a corner of her mind, she wondered what they would be asked to defend against. And why it seemed to be such a big deal she had two separate classes both for defense. Honestly. Did one really need that many classes for defense?
Marching along next to Sylvia and Meisa again they were joined by a nervous looking Neville. Hermione hoped he was okay, he seemed to really have low self-esteem and had triple-checked everything he wrote down in Potions. She had finally snapped because his worrying was making her nervous and told him it was fine he was doing fine. Honestly. Hopefully, he would gain some self-confidence or she would be hard-pressed to stand him. Someone constantly questioning their worth was hard to deal with.
Just as hard to deal with as someone constantly acting like a know-it-all. A small part of her said. She ignored it in exchange for asking Neville how his day had been, she knew that he had been in all of her classes except the first one where he had some other class but she hadn't been paying attention to him. Except for a few differences in the schedule there were few enough students that would use a wand instead of other magic like house-elf or siren and mermish magic. Vivvie and Anahita had separated from their group after breakfast and their schedules had made it so Hermione hadn't seen them at all.
Hermione broke out of her thoughts to listen to Neville talk excitedly about his first-class differences between the Wizarding and Muggle worlds.
"I knew a bit about it because my family thought I was a squib for most of my life until I got invited here, my great-uncle even tried to throw me out a window to see if he could scare magic out of me. The class was really interesting you know?"
"It was like that with Intro to Wizarding," Meisa said.
"I felt stupid. Like there was this whole new world and I knew nothing and it was worse when we had to write that list. I was just writing down random stuff, anything I had ever heard about this world and what I had observed yesterday." Sylvia said. Hermione nodded, she had had a similar feeling, and she hated it. She hurriedly switched the topic to what class they were looking forward to the most.
The defense classroom was shaped like a theater with rows of seats in a curved pattern around a raised stage. The professor was a heavily tattooed man with just as many scars crisscrossing his body. His demeanor was harsh as he barked out the names on the attendance list. His description of the course made Neville shake with nerves.
"I will teach you how not to die when faced with a feral dangerous magical creature, how to hold your own against a dark wizard and hopefully not die. Normally I would have you run laps to build up your body because of the stronger your body and mental control the stronger your magic and ability to duel. But that's for Self-Defense. Since I doubt that many of you are strong enough or know enough spells to properly duel we will start on ways to defend against various magical creatures. Different creature each week and a half and then a test. Something easy to start with, Vampires. Now I know that there are vampires here but there are precautions in place. I'm talking about a feral blood-thirsty vampire. Someone tell me weaknesses."
A pale boy raised his hand.
"Preferably not a vampire in their own right, Romanov. I know you know your weaknesses, I want to see if others know." The professor said.
The boy put down his hand. The class was silent. Hermione racked her brain for things she had heard about vampires in muggle stories. Maybe there was some truth to them. All of them seemed to have sunlight and some of the older ones contained chickens and cats and holy water and coffin nails or sharpened crosses. Unfortunately, Hermione had never paid much heed to mythological creatures, they were fake and some of the stories seemed completely crazy. Now though she wished she had paid maybe a bit more attention.
Draco or Malfoy as he insisted they call him, unlike most of the students here he seemed to still want to keep himself aloof was the one who finally answered.
"Beheading, some are affected by sunlight, stakes and holy water," Malfoy said confidently in his knowledge that he had it right.
"For the most part. Holy water only works in some places and on some strains of vampires. There are vampires impervious to holy water and some who are impervious to sunlight. Stakes and beheading kids! Those are the best most surefire ways to make sure what's dead stays dead. Works every time. That and an Avada but there are ways to survive it especially if you are already dead. But that's for a later date and a few more years from now. Now ways to identify Vampires. Memorize them quick. Write them down if you want but lists of attributes aren't helpful in the moment you're faced with a would-be vampire. Well, I thought I said to prepare to memorize and said you could use a list where's the parchment? The raised quills? Children these days!"
Hermione almost laughed. It seemed Professor Zachar had an odd sense of humor.
At dinner, that night everyone compared how classes had seemed thought for the most part they had had the same basic core subjects. After dinner, Hermione went off to explore the library as she hadn't been able to since she had explored the school grounds during lunch. What she saw took her breath away. There were levels going up as far as she could see and a reference system, with multiple control stations to prevent lines, that pulled books from the shelves to make it so someone didn't have to spend too much time searching for the book they needed scattering around the main floor which was filled with comfy chairs and tables for study sessions as well as the checkout desk.. Hermione thought herself in love. She wondered if she could volunteer here in her free time, as she had done during the summers starting when she was eight and insisting she didn't need a babysitter anymore. Having no idea what book she could ask the reference system to grab her she started for the circular staircase that took people up to the different levels. There was a level for each subject you could imagine from Alchemy to Zygomancy all in alphabetical order as you went up from A-Z. Hermione saw a level early on devoted entirely to Battle Magic, a level on Blood Magic and Rituals, another for Dark Curses(which had a dark foreboding feel about it), Dueling, Magical Creatures, and Magizoology, the list went on. Once she got to the final level- Zygomancy witch Hermione figured out was just a fancy word for Divination she stopped to sit and rest her legs. Climbing those staircases was an excellent leg workout! Once she was rested Hermione started her way back down.
After working on her Potions homework and practicing the charms she had learned Hermione fell asleep.
The next day was much the same only with different classes. And nothing was as fun as the first day either. In Magical Creatures, the Professor explained that there would be guests speakers coming in to talk to them about different creatures. In Transfiguration, they learned how the theories and didn't get to do any actual spells, though that was okay it was still learning something other than the syllabus. In Magical Law they learned about the basis for Magical government action. Etiquette was not fun, though the professor Lady Lyra Amalthea tried to make learning multiple ways to greet someone interesting.
On Wednesday Hermione didn't know what to expect as she walked into the weirdest class she had ever heard of. Who wanted to teach people how to lie and manipulate?
"Welcome all!" The professor said smiling as they filed in. Her curly brown hair hung loosely around her shoulders and her dark brown eyes gleamed with mirth.
"To start off… My name is… Alicia Nova. I am... actually an escapee from Azkaban. I graduated from school two years ago. Which one was a true statement?"
"You graduated two years ago?" Vladimir said.
"Correct. Name's Alyssa Starr. Totally not a convict. But I must admit to being almost too young to teach, I finished my training a few months before school starts. And in this class, I will be teaching you how to deflect the truth, lie outright, and bend people to your will-all while they think it was their idea in the first place. It is a hard art to master. Of course, I will also teach you how not to fall prey to said manipulations and lies. For today though… Poker faces everyone"
Hermione knew she would like this class and she hoped the rest of the classes today would be just as interesting and fun as a class where they had learned to play poker. As Professor Starr- or Alyas she liked to be called because "Professor makes me sound old"- had said it was a great way to learn to control their features and look for the smallest tells. Everyone had been terrible either forgetting the rules or giving away their hand to early.
The day didn't disappoint. In Survival Skills they learned how to find water and a useful charm for purifying it as well as how to build an A-frame shelter. Professor Syvestris explained how to everything and helped when needed though she was also good at standing by and letting them learn through trial and error.
Self-defense though was hellish. The professor smiled chillingly at them and ordered them to run laps until they couldn't run anymore, do push-ups with proper form and work on strengthening their core, arm, and leg muscles. By the end of the period, Hermione felt like she was dying. She was jealous of how Sylvia could lope along with what seemed like an endless amount of stamina though she was happy that at least her upper body strength wasn't as bad as some. She would have to admit that she was middling. But the professor a were-wolf who had apparently turned thousands insisted that they needed to be able to do all of these things before they could move onto fighting. Though he did show them the basic stances and one of the arm exercises he had involved punching while holding weights. Hermione was glad that it was before lunch or it probably would have been unbearable. Two students had already puked.
Astronomy was interesting Professor Deluna a pale vampiric man with swirling cloaks explained how the movement of the stars could affect magic and tell the future if one knew how to look. Hermione was grateful she had taken the Free Study time to sleep at Sylvia's and Meisa's urging. She had been planning to spend in the library.
The next day the only new class the next day was Herbology where they learned about magical plants in a classroom based on a greenhouse. Then the classes repeated with a class on Magical Art thrown in on Friday and Saturday. They took classes right through Sunday though they also had a large block of free time so the students could all decompress from the busy week. At the end of the week, Hermione felt she could safely call Sylvia and Meisa friends with Neville and Vladimir becoming study buddies with her at her insistence. But Neville had a knack for Herbology that she lacked and Vladimir was excellent at Potions and Hermione helped them where she could. All in all, she felt it was a good relationship based on learning and the sharing of knowledge. And Lie-detecting was fast becoming one of her favorite classes along with Defense and Charms. Her least favorite classes were probably Potions and Self-Defense though she had a feeling that she would thank the two professors for drilling the basics into her as she continued her magical education. But right now- she was bored listing down potions ingredients and all her muscles ached from the grueling hours of Self-Defense- and all she wanted to do was sleep.