Disclaimer – I borrowed some ideas for this chapter from "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" which is JKR's. Bits you don't recognise are mine. Simple!
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In the name of Helga: Year One
shewhodares
Badgers and Lions.
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Rachel Bagshot was the first to awake the next morning; the excitement of the previous night mixing with first day nerves in her tummy, preventing her from sleeping. Lying on her back, she looked upwards and was initially confused by the canopy of black velvet above her – so different to her room at home – but then started grinning as she recognised her new four poster bed. The heavy brocaded curtains were still drawn, and Rachel tentatively peeled them back as she glanced around the dormitory.
To her left, Susan Bones dozed peacefully. The night before, the redhead had barely changed into her nightclothes and climbed into bed before sleep claimed her, neglecting to shut the fourth curtain that separated her from Rachel. Her face swathed in flame coloured hair, Susan looked the most relaxed of all.
Opposite Rachel, although shielded from view, Hannah Abbott could be heard tossing and turning in a fitful slumber. Murmuring softly, it sounded as though the pigtailed blonde was still dreaming.
To the right of Rachel's bed was that of Rebecca Fawcett. The last of them to rest after the feast, Rebecca had left her front and side drapes opened wide to the room, and now her bronze curls spread over the vast pillows, surrounding her head like the rays of the sun as it begins to set. Rebecca was also snoring, and it occurred to her dorm-mate that this was probably the reason she'd awoken in the first place. She had a feeling that it would be something of a recurring theme of their years at Hogwarts.
The final inhabitant of the first year girls' dorm was Sally Anne Perks, who occupied the bed opposite Rebecca and next to Hannah. Cradled in the yellow duvet, Sally was just about visible in her little corner – more settled now, and not as baffled by the mystical presence of the school.
It was then that Rachel noticed something different. Beside each bed was a small chest of drawers for their belongings, accompanied by a small, leather backed chair. Whereas last night her chair had been empty, it was now holding up her House uniform; a grey jumper (where the v-neck was edged with a stripe of canary yellow, one of coal black and another of yellow, accompanied by the House crest), a tie (of diagonal stripes in the same colours), a pair of yellow gloves, and over the back, black robes – same as those the rest of the school wore, except for obligatory crest on the left hand side. It was the same for the other four girls.
Rachel was picking up the jumper and running her fingers over the embroidery when, at her side, Susan began to stir. The bed creaking gently as she sat up, she yawned and casually turned towards her fellow witch, gesturing towards the others.
"Aren't they awake yet?"
"I don't think so" replied the brunette, looking over at the grandmother clock that stood by the door. "But look at the time!"
Like most magic clocks, this one didn't have numbers or digits on it. It had been made to show the times that would be important to Hogwarts students – "Breakfast", "Lessons", "Lunch", "Dinner", "Bedtime", and "You really should be studying now, you know!" The single, pointed hand of the clock had now left 'Bedtime' and was worryingly close to 'Breakfast'. The redhead saw this, and pursed her lips in thought.
"You know what we have to do now, don't you?"
"What?"
"What do you think?" Susan grinned mischievously. "We run around and wake them up!"
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When the five girls finally got down to the Great Hall for breakfast, they found that the boys were already there. Ernie and Justin were having a lively debate about muggle versus magical sport, Antony was struggling to keep his tired eyes open, and David was staring absentmindedly up at the paintings that hung on the wall next to the Hufflepuff table. Typically relaxed, his tie was hanging open around his neck as he chewed on a piece of toast. Julian was nowhere to be seen.
"Morning ladies!" David hailed, taking another bite. "How are we this morning?"
"We'd be better if you didn't speak with your mouth full" Hannah said disdainfully, taking a seat next to Sally-Anne. "Honestly, you'd think you hadn't seen food for a month, the way you're eating!"
David didn't take this telling off too seriously, and instead took a swig of pumpkin juice from the goblet in front of him. "You can't go to classes on an empty stomach, Han. They might not be doing anything difficult in today's classes, but you've still got to be alert. Call it the Ravenclaw in me" he said, seeing the suspicious look on his friends' faces. "Just because I don't want to be too clever doesn't mean I want to be stupid, either!" Everyone laughed.
"Speaking of clever, does anyone know what class we've got first?" called Ernie from the end of the table. "They'd better not give us anything too hard straight away!"
"That's where Julian's gone, mate" David shot back. "Collecting timetables. He should be back in a minute." Turning round towards the doors of the Hall, he saw the dark haired boy enter, eyes poring over a sheet of parchment in his hand. "Bloody 'ell, I've got good timing!"
When Julian reached the top of the oak table, they could see a stack of envelopes in his grasp, not totally dissimilar to the letters they had received accepting them into Hogwarts. With one eye still on his own sheet, he sat down between Antony and Ernie and dropped everyone else's in a pile next to the butter dish, and a scramble ensued as each young Hufflepuff made a grab for the envelopes.
"No point in rushing" said the half Italian, who put down his copy of the timetable and reached for the fruit bowl. Attention focused on him, and for a second there was no sound other than the solid crunch of Julian's teeth into apple flesh. "We've got a free lesson first."
Suddenly, Antony spoke, barely able to lift his head from his crossed arms. "Thank Merlin" he mumbled. "I need more sleep! What do we have second thing, then?"
"Herbology with Gryffindor" Rebecca answered, her quick eyes skimming over the timetable in front of her. "That'll be interesting – it's with Professor Sprout."
"The House Head?" Hannah interjected, looking up from her plate.
"The very same. Then we've got History of Magic, that's with Gryffindor again –"
"Oh no!"
This was from Rachel, her objection being not to having two lessons with Gryffindor one after the other, but with having History of Magic, a subject she already knew was boring, forced upon her on the very first day.
" – there's another free after that, and then we've got double Transfiguration with Ravenclaw in the afternoon." Rebecca finished, throwing her timetable back down with a flourish. "Doesn't sound too bad to me." She waggled her fingers in front of Rachel's face. "What's so bad about History of Magic, anyway?"
Rachel sighed. "It's all names and dates and wars, and people with stupid names like Denuras the Dangerous and Ivor the Idiot."
"Cool!" the boys chorused, all looking up at once.
"You would say that, you've never heard somebody go on about it for ages!"
"Still, at least we've got time to prepare for it first" reasoned David, who glanced up and down the table. "Now, where's the bacon?"
~*~
Professor Sprout, the Herbology mistress, taught her classes in what was undoubtedly Hogwarts' strangest teaching area. Whereas its companions were vast, imposing constructions made entirely of glass, Greenhouse Number One was a tiny building that looked like a bad Muggle builder had thrown it together in a tea break. The bottom of the greenhouse was encircled in an ochre red brick wall, thrown haphazardly together till it stood three feet high with holes every so often in the crumbling cement. The windows, even if a little dusty, were perfectly all right – but the roof itself was a different matter. A gaping hole at the back meant that a huge palm tree grew through it comfortably, and the whole structure looked as though even a weak spell would knock it clean off.
With that rather off-putting thought in mind, the chattering Hufflepuffs entered the class followed by the ten students from Gryffindor. The Professor, a stocky little woman who wasn't much taller than her students, glanced at each of them as she ran a pudgy finger down the register, ticking off each of them as she went. Every so often, she would stop at a name she recognised and tell anecdotes about that student's family. It made the students laugh, and did a lot to relax the tension that had been building in the humid air.
"Hannah Abbott?"
"Yes, Professor!"
"Ah, Miss Abbott. Anton's daughter, I presume?"
Hannah replied that she was, and felt her insides freeze as attention focused on her. She flicked a bug off her sleeve and tried to look calm.
Professor Sprout leaned on her little trestle table and turned halfway towards the curious Gryffindors, eyes going misty as the memories replayed in her head. "As you know, I'm head of Hufflepuff House. But let me tell you something. I've been teaching for more than thirty years, and I've hardly taught a bigger joker, more of a scallywag than Anton Abbott. Such a lively lad, but I've never been able to bear teaching the hidden properties of Bengali Snake-wort since he was in my class of third years."
A quiet murmur of interest began to pass amongst both sets of students, and right at the back, a Gryffindor boy sprang up from his seat. "What did he do?" he said, eyes imploring her to relate the story further. "Er, Professor!" he added quickly, and plastered an innocent smile across his cheeky face as one of the girls elbowed him.
"He used the stuff to spike my tea. Gave me a green tongue and turned my hair purple for a week, so he did."
The class went silent for a moment, and the inquisitor, a cute little boy with cocoa skin and chocolate eyes, changed his expression from one of angelic goodness to one of awe – eyes popping out and jaw hanging towards the table in surprise. Then, as each of them imagined the tiny witch with shocking mauve hair instead of white flecked grey, a bubbling torrent of laughter spilled from the class. It started with the suppressed snorts from Gryffindors Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, then flowed behind them to where the Gryffindor girls clenched their teeth together, trapping the giggles in their mouths. To their right, the Hufflepuff girls did their best to keep some sort of dignity – arms folded tightly across their stomachs, they were doubled over in spasms of silent sniggering. The Hufflepuff boys, who sat straight in front of the Professor, showed no self-restraint at all. The spluttering of Justin, Julian and Ernie as they held their heads in their hands was matched only by the carousing of Antony and David, who took one look at each other before slapping the desk and emitting huge, belly laughs that nearly raised the precariously balanced roof.
It took some time for the first years to calm down again, understandably so, as this was the first they'd ever heard of someone actually being able to pull off a prank like that on a fully trained witch. As the last of the chuckles died away, Professor Sprout shook her head, and with a knowing smile continued her way down the register.
"Rachel Bagshot?"
"Yes, Professor!"
"Dear me, we do have the famous names here today, don't we?" the teacher said. Much to Rachel's relief, she didn't elaborate for the rest of the class on exactly what she meant.
"Susan Bones?"
"Yes, Professor!"
By now, the Hufflepuff head felt like it was going to be one of those days.
Still further she continued, past the names of Lavender Brown, Caroline Creevey, Rebecca and Justin, Seamus, Julian, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom. Ernie was on the receiving end of a suspicious glance – leaving him to wonder just how much his older siblings had actually paid attention in Herbology classes – as was David (which shocked no-one who'd got to know him over the past twenty four hours). Following this early display of doubt, Parvati and Sally-Anne, who were next on the register, were extremely relieved to get away with just an acknowledging nod of the head.
Next, of course, came "Harry Potter!"
Antony and David, hidden away in the corner, simultaneously rolled their eyes to the ceiling as the Professor burbled the bespectacled boy's name in excitement, and then looked him with an air of someone who was seriously impressed. The look on David's face said it all. If the History of Magic teacher reacted in a similar way, the first day of Hogwarts' classes would end with most of the new intake throwing themselves off the ramparts in indignation.
"Ah yes" Sprout sighed, looking at Harry's name contentedly. "You're another one whose father I taught, actually! Not in the same year, thank goodness – otherwise I'd be long retired! Now, where was I?" She ran her free hand through her thick grey locks, and eventually found Dean Thomas' name on the register. Apart from nearly fainting when she called for Ron Weasley, and shooting another venomous glance at Antony, the Herbology mistress was quite sane.
Ticking off the last name with a flourish, she placed the register back down on the table in front of her. Appearing to be more of her cheerful self, now that the complicated introductions were out of the way, she clapped her hands together, her voice was full of glee.
"Right chaps! For your first lesson, we shall be drawing and labelling the structure of a very important plant, and listing the five things we need to do to take care of it. Now, first of all I would like you to take out your quills and your notebooks – "
Almost acting as one, the class reached into their respective bags and did as they were told.
"Put on your dragon-hide gloves – "
More apprehensively this time, twenty sets of protective gloves were pulled on.
"And go and collect yourself a Sabre-toothed Venus Fly Trap!"
~~ * THE END * ~~
A/N: This chapter is for Wannabe Hobbit, who suggested Herbology with Gryffindor as their first class. I hope you liked it!
This was another one that was difficult to write, but in case any of you noticed that little actually happened – bear with me, there * is * a reason for that, I promise you! I think you'll all be able to guess what the class' reaction was to dealing with a giant-toothed plant on their first day was anyway, but I'll deal with the aftermath of Herbology in my next chapter. Even as I write this A/N, I'm coming up with some (hopefully) exciting plot twists that I know I'm going to enjoy writing, so I can't wait till the moment I'll be able to get them to you!
Now, on to the reviewers: for each and every one of you, I am eternally grateful. To the leaders of the ITNOH repeat-review community (that's Kat Hallowell, Rachel Perez and Wannabe Hobbit for the uninitiated!) – I'm even more grateful, if that's possible. Continued support = happy shewhodares = more Hufflepuff adventures! Oh, and as it was raised in a review for "The Feast", the Hufflepuff common room password ('Brassica Oleracea') * is * Latin (well done WH!), although I never learned it, I just looked it up in one of my mother's gardening books. It means 'Brussels Sprout', and is what is known in literary circles as "a-godawful-shewhodares-attempt-at-a-subtle-pun" :-)
And to my newest repeat reviewer, everyone wave hello to Adele! * Heather waves *
Hun, you're another one who is far too sweet! I was really, really touched by what you said, it honestly means a lot coming from an author who herself has received so many kind words, which applies to Kat, Rachel and WH as well, but you know what I mean :-) I'm glad it was an antidote to your working day, although I'm afraid over the next month or so you might have to wait a while for the next chapter/s, due to my finals that are coming up. Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! Roll on summer and freedom!
Kisses, hugs, and for anyone who actually made it this far, a pat on the back!
~ * shewhodares * ~