A/N: Well, here's the second chapter. My thanks to Serayane and Grandwilde for their lovely reviews. Second of all; don't expect any updates for an entire month. I'm going on vacation on the thirteenth of July, to Italy, and I'll be away for three weeks. Anyway; enjoy reading and please review! I really could use some comments on how to improve my writing.

Chapter 2 - Matches And Needles

"I wonder who we have for History Of Magic," Terry said, as the four of them sat down next to each other. "My grandmother had this terrible teacher - or at least, she said he was terrible - Professor Binns, or something. She said he was really boring."
Cassie was just busy getting her book out of her bag, when suddenly Faith let out a loud scream. "A GHOST!"
"Oh, get a grip, Faith," Hera said impatiently, "the entire castle is inhabited by ghosts. They even got a poltergeist out here - what harm could he do."
Cassie looked up from under a table, and indeed a ghost was standing behind the teacher's desk, or - to be more correct - floating behind the desk. He didn't look directly at the students, a bored expression on his face and he started to call off names, to see if everyone was there; "Euan Abercrombie?"
"Yeah," a boy who was sitting at the very end of the classroom raised his hand, to show the ghost he was present.
"Evelyne Aura?"
"Cassandra Elizabeth Avery?"
"Here," Cassie said, raising her hand as well. In total; there were about sixteen to fifteen Ravenclaws in her class. (there were two groups of first year Ravenclaws in total) At the moment, their class was mixed with the Gryffindors. Of some Cassie already knew the name, she had talked to Todd and Larry last night, Daphne was the girl who had accidentally broken one of the Crystal Balls of a sixth year this morning ("If I hadn't known the spell to repair this," the sixth year had said in a threatening tone, "I would've thrown you out the window! Do you have any idea how expensive this is?") and Boas was the small kid, who hardly reached to Cassie's shoulders. When the ghost was finished, Faith raised her hand.
"Yes, miss Rivers," he asked.
"When will the professor arrive, sir?" Faith asked.
"I am the professor," the ghost said, "my name is professor Binns."
Terry gasped and gave Cassie a horrific look. 'Oh, right,' Cassie thought, 'that was the teacher her grandmother had...'
"This year we will start with the Goblin Rebellions, and - by request of professor Dumbledore - we will also discuss the first reign of You Know Who," professor Binns told them, "I would advice you to take notes of everything I say, because it will all come back on your exam by the end of the year..."
"Why would they let a ghost teach History of Magic?" Hera whispered. Faith shrugged, "I dunno... maybe they felt sorry for him?"
"What did he mean with the first reign?" Cassie demanded, not paying any attention to the discussion of Hera and Faith and turning to Terry.
"According to Dumbledore, You Know Who came back last year," Terry whispered, "Harry Potter said he saw him, but the Daily Prophet says he made it all up to get attention. But because Dumbledore believed Harry, they say he's gone crazy as well."
Why had her mother never mentioned this? Cassie never read the Daily Prophet herself, she found it boring, but her mother always told her when something bad had happened - like when the Dark Mark appeared during the Quidditch Cup Finals last year. "Seems like Voldemort did not loose all his Death Eaters when he died," her mother had said darkly.
'Maybe she didn't find it important enough,' Cassie thought. After all, if Harry Potter was just making it all up...
"Today we will start with the first Goblin Rebellion, exactly five-hundred years ago when Hairy Hank..." Professor Binns began, his voice dull and monotone. The first years hurriedly got out their quills and ink and started to scribble down every word he said,

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Professor Umbridge said, smiling widely. Terry pinched Cassie excitedly in the arm and whispered proudly, "my aunt." She waved, but Umbridge ignored her.
"My name is Professor Umbridge and... What miss Umbridge?" she snapped, looking directly at Terry who had just started to wave with both arms, because she had thought that her aunt hadn't noticed her. Terry turned a bright shade of red, "n-nothing aunt -"
"When we're in my classroom, it's Professor Umbridge," the professor said strictly, her eyes flashing as though it was a shame that Terry had openly revealed that they were related. "Now, as I was saying; I will be your Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher this year. Now get out your books..."
Everyone quickly got out their books and looked expectantly at their teacher. Faith looked like she was about to faint, clutching her wand as if her life was depending on it.
"Now everyone put your wands away and open your books at page 10 and read the introduction, there will be no need to talk," she settled herself behind the desk and looked at the group of young students, who looked disappointed but didn't protest. Cassie looked at Faith, she was the only one still holding her wand and was looking directly at professor Umbridge. "Faith," she whispered. Faith didn't reply.
"Faith," she said - louder this time, "you're supposed to..."
"Miss Avery," Umbridge snapped, "is there a problem?"
"Er... I just wanted to..."
"I thought I told you not to talk?"
"Yes, but..."
"Than why are you talking?"
"Because..."
"Return to your book, than, miss Avery," Umbridge turned to Faith, "and you, miss Rivers; I told you to put your wand away." Faith rolled her eyes but obeyed. The rest of the class was spent with reading the introduction. "We'll probably get to do the spells next time," Faith said hopefully, as they left the classroom, "I mean, she first wanted us to know enough about defensive spells and stuff before she teaches us all the cool stuff..."
"Yeah," Cassie nodded, but something told her that Umbridge didn't plan on teaching them anything fun.

'Explain the process of turning a match into a needle'. That's what she had to write about for her professor in Transfiguration.
Cassie bit on her tongue while reading her book for Transfiguration, hoping to find anything useful. When Cassie had accidentally set her desk on fire when she tried to transfigure her match, McGonnagal had said that it might be wise for her to study the text before she did anything again. "And to make sure that you do," McGonnagal had said, "I want you to write a report about it, it doesn't have to be long, but just so I know you studied it."
And that left Cassie in the Common Room of Ravenclaw, all her classmates already went to bed, officially they had to be in bed by half past nine, but Cassie didn't have time to follow the rules. She wanted to finish this before tomorrow.
'Transfiguration is a delicate process. You only need to make a minimal mistake in the movements of your wand and/or in your incantations, and all your work has bin for nothing. The eventual purpose of learning Transfiguration, is to be able to turn other objects, animals and even yourself into whatever you need or desire. But everyone should be aware, that only a selected few will have enough talent to ever become - as they call - an Animagus, which means that you can turn yourself into an animal by will.
'A lot of wizards have tried, and most have failed, often at the cost of their lives, but it has also occurred that wizards had to spent the rest of their lives in animal-form because they did not have enough power to shift back..'
"That would probably happen to me if I tried," Cassie muttered.
'Others only managed to transfigure parts of their body, so that they were - for example - half cat and half human and this process is, unfortunately, still irreversible, though it is said that they are working on a cure in the Department Of Mysteries.
'But even if there was a cure, the Ministry and schools in witchcraft, want to avoid these accidents at all cost. Before any wizard or witch ever tries to become an Animagus, it must understand the arts of Transfiguration entirely. And to reach this goal, we have to start at the very beginning, by turning a match into a needle. There are no risks involved -'
Cassie snorted, yeah, that was why half the classroom was on fire this afternoon. No danger whatsoever.
'- And it is easy to do. But even though transfiguring a match is only the very basic of our goal; it must not be taken lightly. The difficulty is that the match is a small object, so your aim has to be more accurate. It would be a shame if your spell accidentally hit a person who's sitting next to you and turn him/her into a needle, and it would bring a lot of trouble too!
'Therefore, we will take the time to explain how exactly the match is transfigured...'
Cassie groaned, this was going to take longer than she thought...

"You actually made it?" Faith asked, her eyebrows raised, "why?"
"Because I had too, that's why," Cassie snapped, she was feeling awfully tired. She had bin working on McGonnagal's assignment till at least eleven o'clock. Now the four of them were sitting at breakfast in the Great Hall.
"No need to get all defensive about it," Faith mumbled.
"Anyways," Terry said, before Cassie had time to reply, "We've got Charms next!"
"Finally some action!" Hera said cheerfully. "I wonder who we'll get."
"I bet," Faith said gloomily, "that it'll be someone just like Umbridge."
"Hey!" Terry said offended, "what's wrong with my aunt?"
"Nothing, just that she's dull."
"We've only had her once, maybe she was just in a bad mood... I'm sure that she'll..." Terry was cut off by Boas who said it was time to go to their class and in a few minutes all of first years were making their way through the building. (apparently, the older students didn't think it was time to leave the Great Hall yet, though they only had fifteen minutes left till classes started)
Cassie followed her classmates, not having any idea where to go, and still not feeling at home in the gigantic castle, in which she got lost every time she tried to get anywhere by herself. Her mother and her sister Jane had told so many amazing stories about Hogwarts, but to be very honest, she'd rather be at home.
"This way, this way," Boas squeaked. Somehow, he always seem to know his way around the building. He told Cassie that he had bin exploring yesterday, and his father had told him so much about the castle, that he knew what it looked like before he even got here.
About five minutes later, they were standing in front of the the (supposedly) right classroom and they were waiting patiently for their professor to arrive.
"It's professor Flitwick, you know, our head of the house," a girl told Terry. That girl hardly ever talked to anyone, her name was Caitlin, or something like that. She wasn't sure.
"What's professor Flitwick?" Cassie asked, turning to Caitlin.
"Our Charms-professor," the girl mumbled, her pale skin turning a bright shade of red, probably not used to this kind of attention. She had long, wavy, blond hair reaching to somewhere about her middle and deep blue eyes.
"Flitwick? Isn't he really small?" Boas asked. Cassie looked at him with raised eyebrows, "like you're a giant." He shot her a death glare.
"You know," Terry whispered, "you really should try to be nice to others... after all, you'll have to put up with them for seven years." Cassie shrugged, like she cared.

"Well, hello there." Professor Flitwick squeaked, "as you all will have guessed, I will be teaching you charms in the following seven years to come. And I'd like to welcome you all to Hogwarts and I hope you will enjoy your stay..."
Cassie sighed, anymore teachers welcoming her to this school and she'd go crazy, honestly.
"Before we will start with learning how to use spells, we'll read the introduction..."
The class moaned, none of them felt like reading the twenty-paged introduction of their Standard Book Of Spells. Was this what becoming a witch was about? Cassie wondered, just reading books? Unlike the rest of class, she didn't have any problem with that at all. After Transfiguration, she feared that she was probably the worst witch that had ever set foot in Hogwarts, and she didn't feel like doing any spell anytime soon. She eagerly opened her book, but unfortunately for her; Flitwick was a very friendly man. "All right, all right," he said, gesturing for the class to remain quiet, "I think you want to learn how to do spells? Very well, we will start with the very basics; learning how to get light the tip of your wand.
"It's very simple. Repeat after me: Lumos!"
"Lumos," the entire class said.
"OK, now get your wands ready and say it again!"
Everyone got their wands and raised them in the air, like Flitwick did, and on his sign they all said: "Lumos!"
Most children got the spell to work, but Cassie only managed to get blue sparks flying out.
"No worries, no worries," Flitwick said, climbing of his stack of books he was sitting on and hurrying towards Cassie, "you're not concentrating hard enough... Now, raise your wand slightly - exactly. Now, repeat after me, Lumos."
"Lumos," Cassie said, wondering what she had to concentrate on.
"Excellent, excellent!" Flitwick squealed. Cassie looked up, and indeed her wand was giving off light. She grinned, that was pretty good... but than her light started to flicker and died out. She pouted.
"It was very well for a second try," the professor assured her. "Just keep working on it. Now, class, we'll learn the counter spell. Repeat after me: Nox."
"Nox," was the immediate reply of the young students.
"This will make the light go out." Flitwick explained. They practiced for a few more minutes, and a half an hour before the class ended, Flitwick said: "Now everyone, we've learned a spell, now we'll read the introduction."
No one complained this time, all satisfied by what they had learned. Only Cassie felt horrible, she still couldn't perform the charm correctly... maybe she wasn't a witch after all, maybe she was just a squib and they made a mistake or something. She didn't know, all she knew, was that something was wrong with her.

~*~

A/N: Next time; Cassie's first potions class, strange letters, meeting new students and a lot of trouble with Umbridge! Please leave a review and tell me what you think.