A few weeks into the new school year their Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor's head died. Astonishingly it was not the head of Professor Quirinus Quirrell but a second one he had been carrying around under his turban. Professor Quirrell himself survived, and was summarily dispatched to Azkaban where the Dementors could have their turn with him. It was generally thought that it might be an upgrade—downgrade?—from being around the Weasley twin brothers, Fred and George, who had set fire to his turban with a miscast spell. Or rather, they insisted it was miscast.

After some deliberation it was decided the twins will not receive the Order of Merlin for their part in killing off the second head which turned out to be You-Know-Who's shade, for fear that it would go to their heads in turn and they'd be even more impossible to live with. They received detention.

To be fair about it, Harry, who had tried to assist in batting out the flames would also not get a medal. Harry was more than happy to give the twins the glory; he secretly thought that it was when he had touched the head on the back of Professor Quirrell's head that things had really gone south but told no one. For a good while afterwards he made sure not to touch anyone; it was bad enough the castle and everything in and around the castle was trying to kill everyone, he didn't have to do it too.

All three got points.

Once every first-year student had either died, lost a limb, or had something turn into a pustule, they all stopped being bothered and got on with their schooling. Did it hurt to die, lose a limb or turn into a pustule? Yes. Sometimes an exceeding amount. But they also had potions that took care of it and if you could remove the pain within seconds of swallowing something that tasted like Seamus Finnegan's socks smelled, and regrow whatever you lost with only some time wasted in the infirmary, sometimes not even an hour, then life in the castle was not so bad. It was still bad, but not so bad.

The Muggle-born were worse off because dying, losing a limb, and turning into a pustule were fairly new experiences, unlike the Wizard-born who dealt with the side effects of living around magic since birth. Falling into lit Floos, being chewed on by the house pet—looking at you Malfoy with your hippogriff—mothers brewing explosive potions in the kitchens and so on were the order of the day for Wizard-born. The most exciting thing Harry, who had grown up between Muggles, had done was turn his teacher's hair blue. Oh, and apparate to the school roof. He supposed that could have been dangerous if he had apparated into the tiles or something.

Some of them cried, some were stoic, all started sleeping with one eye open, and after a while not a fly would pass through the room they were in without them being aware of it. The moving staircases became a game to be played on a rainy day, like Muggle parkour. Points were awarded for speed and finesse.

As if the castle was not enough, detentions were more often than not carried out in the Forbidden Forest. In Harry, Ron and Hermione's first detention they met Professor McGonagall outside and learned they were to retrieve her desk. In a misguided moment she had turned it into a flying pig in a class demonstration and it had flown through the window, making a straight line for the forest. She would rather it be returned than have to fill out all the requisition forms applying for a new one from Magical Supplies.

"Isn't it forbidden to go in there, Professor?" Hermione had asked nervously, looking at the dark woods. She did not think it was an unreasonable question, after all, it said so in the name.

"Not when it's detention."

"Is it less dangerous when it's detention?" Ron asked being snippy.

"Or when it's dark?" Harry asked, looking at the stars, wondering why they couldn't have done it during the daylight hours. "I suppose all the wild animals and stuff are sleeping?"

"No, most of the forest are nocturnal," Professor McGonagall said. "Do keep an eye out, we've had enough of you eaten."

"Can't you just transfigure a new desk, Professor?" Hermione asked.

"One with my favourite mug in the top drawer? Or the essays on 'Why is it a bad idea to transfigure a mouse into an elephant?' that you've worked so hard on yourself, in the bottom one, Miss Granger? You gave me five feet, I believe? I've yet to mark it."

"Come on, you two," Hermione said, grabbing Harry and Ron's hands and dragging them off to the tree line. "I know how to cast a Lumos."

On the way in they met a group of students that had been lost for a week. The five students had wild eyes and every one of them sported a beard down to their knees, even the girls.

"Don't go in!" they shouted as one and repeated it. "Don't go in! Don't go in!"

The group ran past them adding nothing helpful, and the three hesitated, frozen on the spot.

"Perhaps we can teach ourselves transfig," Ron offered. "We have the whole night. I will do the desk, Harry can do the mug, and you can just write your essay again, can't you?"

"I'll never get it as good the second time," Hermione said. "Just… whoever survives needs to carry the others' heads out and we'll be fine."

They were not fine. No one got hurt, not even a scratch from a tree branch, but they saw giant spiders as big as cars and Ron needed to be carried out anyway. It turned out the twins had transfigured his teddy into a spider when he was younger—while he was holding it!—and gave him lifelong trauma.

"Sometimes I'm glad I grew up Muggle," Hermione said.

Professor McGonagall had only enough sympathy to tell them to try again the next night. Percy, learning of their plight the next morning, told them they were idiots and to learn how to cast an Accio. "There's never a need to go into the forest when you know the right spells," he snapped, his patience particularly thin that day. "Mum will go spare if we lost you—for fuck's sake, grow a brain."

It took them a week before they were well versed enough in the spell to return Professor McGonagall's desk to her. They learned the spell in two days, the rest of the time was wasted standing well away from the tree line, casting it for the desk when they should have cast it for the flying pig instead. No matter, they were just glad they kept their heads. Though the pig did try to nibble on Hermione's thumb.

"What is it with this thumb?" Hermione cried. "It's never anything else!"

"You'll be known as Thumb-girl soon," Ron laughed.

"Thumbelina," offered Harry.

Hermione sighed, feeling quite oppressed. "I suppose it's better than being called a swot."

"Is that what you think they're calling you?" Ron asked before Harry could elbow him into silence. Percy was right, he probably didn't have a brain.

Oh, let us not forget about someone else that kept their head. Neville had exactly as thick a skull as Professor Snape had said, and on the groundskeeper's request, Fluffy had spat enough of him out to be revived. His grandmother took him off to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and declared he will be homeschooled from then on.

Everyone wrote him. As soon as he had grown a hand he wrote them back and said he would return. When you've stewed in some stomach juices you had time to reflect, he said, and he was not going to be known as the Boy-Who-Died-A-Lot—he would be the Boy-Who-Ate-Death. He was hungry for revenge.

"What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger," Ron had said wisely from the infirmary, where he was recovering from having been turned into one giant pustule.

"Nonsense," Percy snapped. "What doesn't kill you tries again. When will you learn not to eat anything those two gave you? You've had eleven years!"