The three made their way to breakfast, and decided to follow in Harry's footsteps for the first week or so in the process. Neville lost most of his clumsiness due to the confidence Harry managed to make him gain, though whether he would bloom or not is up entirely to him. They weren't alone. Near the entrance, they met up with the Hufflepuff duo in Susan and Hannah. After a quick agreement to meet up after they got their timetables/schedules they headed toward their respective house tables.

Harry and Manny could just imagin- never mind, it's happening now! The fame attacked them with the mutters in the air and the gazes on him.

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the red hair."

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see his scar?"

Harry absolutely hated it. As breakfast continued, most of the people taking advantage of the free day to sleep in a bit, the trickle started to repeat those whispers. No privacy at all.

After breakfast, the apparent Heads of Houses, McGonagall for Gryffindor, Sprout for Hufflepuff, Flitwick for Ravenclaw and Snape the Git for Slytherin- Snape the Git felt his eye twitch a bit at that thought- stepped down to hand the students their timetables. Harry noticed the order- it was simple- Sixth and Seventh years first due to the timetables being optimized for each student, then came the Fifth, Fourth, and Third years, whose electives had to be considered- a far less daunting task, all things considered, and then the Second years and then the First years.

When she came to the last bunch, she laid the scrolls out and had them land in each student's hand in a perfect demonstration of the Banishing Charm.

Harry, Neville and Hermione left with their timetables in hand, and met up with Susan and Hannah. The two felt a bit betrayed by Harry's deception, but the morning's whispers weren't even hidden- which meant that they understood why he didn't advertise it.

"So, where are we headed?" Susan asked after they greeted each other officially, and as they moved about. She was a bit uncomfortable with Harry, since she knew that she would've moved with the masses and gawked at him without the meeting in the train. Hannah felt similarly uncomfortable, but because she was around Neville.

"Since we do need to get to classes starting tomorrow, and since we have today off, I thought we'd give the castle a bit of an exploration. Memorize the layout and maybe eye out each trap the castle may put out to keep us on our toes. That way, we can ensure a lack of tardiness in our classes. That's just the morning though. The afternoon will be spent at an abandoned classroom- there is entirely too much space for classrooms not to be abandoned- to get us up to code on our practical classes, since not everyone is like Hermione here." Harry lightly replied, then turning seal-eyes at the now blushing redhead, put his plan in action.

"By the way, Susan, would you mind if the three of us invaded the Hufflepuff table at lunch today? I'd like to be as close as possible to all of you. Of course, you're welcome to join us three at the Gryffindor table for dinner." He asked. Susan heard pleading and couldn't resist the face he made- it was too cute. She folded like wet paper.

They spent a fun morning learning about the castle's ins and outs, and at lunch, made the Hufflepuffs at their table feel foolish by joining them at the table and then proceeding to try to make themselves honorary Hufflepuffs. In fact, the Hufflepuff Prefects both told the Gryffindor trio that they could visit the Badgers' Burrow (the Hufflepuff dorm) whenever, and that their friends could just tell them the code to enter, they were that good as Hufflepuffs, and Hermione became Justin Finch-Fletchley's friend- turns out they ran in similar circles, and he was appalled at the unjustified bullying she experienced due to her smarts. Manny noted this, since the Finch-Fletchleys were distant relations of the British Royal family and that was a connection Harry couldn't normally make.

After lunch, Justin joined the group to the classroom they had picked as their own, mentally noting that Susan intended to give a rundown of how the group worked, since they had immediately chosen him as a leader of sorts on the train, and having finished exulting in the trust he had gained, he had given a few rules to follow. There, Harry played out his plan, after securing the room with his shield.

"Now, I hope you all remember the warning our esteemed Headmaster Dumbledore gave out." Harry sneered out the esteemed part almost like it was a personal insult. To both Harry and Manny, it was. "Since we all know that a painful death is imminent, I had spent a part of my night thinking of why he might make that announcement, and hit upon a few possibilities. Let me hear your remarks about the entire situation"

He proceeded to lay out the possible reasons for the warning which boiled down to

1- The corridor has some kind of new and dangerous artifact that he was studying

2- There is an infestation of some magical creature that was well known, but not truly dangerous to adults only

3- There was a trap laid there by the teachers to draw out some insidious party.

4- It's a test of daring, curiosity, cunning and comradeship.

He let them brainstorm the possible reasons for this, which let them think more about their surroundings, indirectly letting them learn how to think critically and how to look beneath the surface and read between the lines. It was concluded that the third and fourth reasons were most likely to be true, which made them afraid.

"Now that we have all reached the same conclusion" Harry began, then let Manny take over "We unfortunately don't have any way to change the fact that the students are in danger. In any case, we can't tell the teachers our suspicions because they're in on it. This means that they are not on our side. I'm pretty sure that Dumbledore will stonewall any investigation Susan's aunt will attempt to start- in the mistaken belief that all will be well- since it won't be the first one he stonewalls."

The students felt discomfort at the situation, since Harry(Manny) is right. "Which is why we need to arm ourselves first. This" he pulled his wand out from his sleeve? "is a wand. It is a tool. It, consequently, also has the potential to be a weapon. That said, we need to learn magic as soon as possible. Combat magic, to be precise. We should start by learning our first year spells. Are you ready?"

Susan piped up "What about the others, Harry? Wouldn't the other students also be in danger?" "Yes well, I'm unfortunately put off by the vast majority. Even if I weren't, it would be harder to do so. Imagine the entire Hogwarts student population here in this classroom" Harry could see the sense he was making. Of course it was all bullshit when he could make the teachers ignore Dumbledore and volunteer information to the DMLE using his shield, but that would raise suspicion within the old goat, and violate some boundaries neither of the two were willing to cross without a good reason. Snape and Dumbledore classified themselves as enemies when they made their moves. And no one can decide otherwise for them.

When they got their senses back, they decided that he was right. And so they started practising. Immediately, Harry and Manny noticed that they struggled with wand movements.

"ALRIGHT, STOP!" he yelled out. In the confusion, he elaborated "Do any of you have experience writing in cursive or calligraphy?" he asked the group. Hermione had good wand movement, but she listened in anyway.

"I do!" Susan sounded off. Turns out Neville and Justin did too. "Well then, Imma need you to try writing cursive in mid air with your wands- make sure you keep your wand grip as you would for spellcasting." Manny ordered. And they came to realize that wand movements were similar to cursive. Immediately, Susan offered to teach Hannah how to write cursive. Neville was of course struggling with his father's wand, but managed to cast every spell after that. Hermione also knew cursive, which improved her spellcasting a lot, but Harry took the cake, not even needing to move his wand to cast. In fact, he took over from the second-year spells, teaching them everything once they had the first-year spells down.

It was a successful evening, since 5 First years were now capable of second-year spells, and it was fast teaching too.

Yeah, short, I know. How's about this, next chapter will be a lot longer. I struggled with the secrecy aspect a bit. Hopefully I managed to deliver. I'll probably work on Decades of Evolution next.

As always, Read and Review\

Seiichi