Disclaimer: Hogwarts, its faculty, and most of its students (excepting the ones I made up) do not belong to me; if they did, this wouldn't be fanfiction.


Richard woke late the next morning to find his roommates already out; getting ready as quickly as possible still left him arriving at Ravenclaw's table after a number of people had left. Sophia had just been sitting down when he entered the hall, and he took a seat across from her. "Care for a quick game?" she asked with a slight smile, motioning at a chessboard another student had left.

"Sure," Richard agreed, glancing at the opening set-up. "I have you checkmated in 67 moves," he added, deadpan. "Try again?"

"Sure," she answered, equally calm. "Switch colors?"

"Alright," he agreed.

"I win in 43 moves. You should really watch your castles better than that."

Smirking, Richard began eating.

"Enjoy yourselves while you can," Ackerly advised. "We have flying with Gryffindor later this morning."

"Oh dear. Well, at least we have Charms and DADA with Hufflepuff," offered Richard in what he hoped was a reassuring voice.

"Yes," sighed Sophia, "But Potions with Slytherin."

"What's so bad about that?" Richard asked. "Charms, DADA and flying are the more dangerous classes, aren't they?"

Sophia, along with several of the others, gave him a look that Ravenclaws normally reserve for Gryffindors. "You're the oldest in your family, aren't you?" Sophia asked after a moment.

"Only, actually," Richard admitted. "What have your older siblings told you about potions?"

"Heard of Professor Snape?"

"Yeah, my mom was in school with him. Said he was smart enough to be Ravenclaw but in trouble enough to be Gryffindor. Reading between the lines, she didn't seem to like him much – though certainly more than she did that Gryffindor they had teaching DADA last year – and she told me not to get on his bad side because he can be quite harsh on anyone outside Slytherin."

"Did she mention what he teaches?"

It didn't take a Ravenclaw to figure out what that meant. "Potions, I take it?"

"You got it."

"And he's terribly biased, so the Slytherins can get away with anything?" Richard guessed.

"Right again."

Richard sighed. "Well, that's not until tomorrow. I'll make sure to double-check my shielding charms tonight." He glanced at the clock, and sighed again. "Well, at least the first thing we have with them is Transfiguration. McGonagall should keep them under control if anyone can." He and his classmates headed out to their first class.


Upon walking in, Richard spotted a familiar cat sitting on McGonagall's desk; the students already in their seats were talking freely, and he smirked broadly as he took a seat in the back, waiting to see everyone's reactions.

When the last student had entered class, the cat leapt off the table, becoming the Deputy Headmistress by the time it landed. There was instant silence, save for gasps from several students; muggleborn Sean Lochrin, sitting next to Richard, almost fell out of his seat.

"Good morning," the professor said. "And welcome to Transfigurations." Without wasting any more time, she called roll and began class.

Richard listened as McGonagall gave the simplest explanation of Transfiguration theory and the methodology for simple changes, jotting down the few things he hadn't previously known; his classmates, especially the other Ravenclaws, were taking far more copious notes. "Mr. Davitt," she called as she finished, "could you pass these out for me?" she gestured to a box on her desk.

"Of course, Professor," he answered, rising to take the box.

"I noticed you only noted my additions," she murmured as he picked it up. "Already read the book?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he answered. "You know my family." He'd been eight when he read the book, actually, but there was nothing to be accomplished by bringing that up.

"Mr. Davitt is handing out porcupine quills," McGonagall explained to the class. "Your first transfiguration assignment will be to change them to quill pens."

The class went fairly well; after finishing his own, Richard helped out a few of his classmates, and then collected the quills at the end, sorting those that had been returned to normal porcupine quills (or which had never changed) from those that had been stuck after something went wrong.

"That wasn't too bad," Bradley commented as they headed out.

"No, but we have flying next," Richard answered. "Keep your heads down, one of my best friends is a first year Gryffindor, and even if the others are all practically Hufflepuffs he'll be dangerous enough alone."


The other Gryffindors were not practically Hufflepuffs. One of them, Michael Foster, seemed determined to out-Gryffindor Tom, spinning around and showing off whenever the teacher, Madame Hooch, wasn't looking. He nearly knocked Lochrin over three times before Tom began mimicking him, matching whatever he did with flourishes that Foster couldn't follow.

Ten minutes into it, Madame Hooch had already warned them both. "Prewett! Foster! 10 points from Gryffindor for foolish waste of class time. Hold the brooms steady, please, while I help Creevey." One of the other Gryffindors, terribly excitable, had been having a good deal of trouble keeping his broom under control.

Richard was glad to see it, actually; he would otherwise have been the worst in the class, needing all his concentration to keep the broom from shifting under him.

"All right," Hooch continued after a moment. "We all seem to have the basic idea. Follow me up, but stay in a circle." Rising up on her own broom, she hovered perhaps three meters off the ground – not terribly high, by Quidditch standards, but enough to hurt if anyone fell. "Good. Pair off and fly a couple laps around the pitch. Foster, you're with Creevey, Prewett with Davitt, Quirk with Stebbens, Ackerly with Flynn. . ." she continued around the class, and Richard realized after a moment she was pairing weak and strong fliers, not necessarily in direct order but in pairs that could work together; the first ten minutes had taught her not to put Foster with anyone outside his house.

"You okay, Runt?" Tom asked as they started around.

"I'm managing, just don't push the speed too much," Richard answered, focused on flying as straight as he could.

"Got it, Runt. Nice and easy."

"That the best you can do, Prewett?" demanded Foster as he flew past.

Tom started to answer, but got only far enough to open his mouth before dropping the subject to shout, "Watch your partner!" Unattended, Creevey had started to slide off the broom; Foster fell back again to catch him, glaring at Tom's back as he did so.

"Ignore him," Tom murmured. "He's just upset about last night."

"Even you, Oaf, cannot possibly be so dumb as to have picked a fight with one of your roommates before classes even started."

"Hardly my fault. He just made a challenge, lost, and didn't take it well." Michael's family, Richard realized, was one of those that looked down on the Prewetts for having less money; unlike most of that sort, the Fosters had not fallen consistently into any particular house.

"What sort of challenge?" he asked, carefully avoiding the class issue.

"Oh, he'd heard about the accident last month and thought he could do better."

Richard's broom bucked under him as he lost concentration; Tom quickly helped him balance, and when he had focused enough to bring the broom back under control, the Ravenclaw said, "Do you mean to tell me that less than a month after breaking your leg and your brother's broom, you decided that not only were you going to continue jumping off buildings but that you should try Gryffindor tower?"

"Well, I made it fine. Beat him, fair and square."

"If McGonagall ever finds out, you are dead." Tom took a moment too long to either answer or meet Richard's eyes. "Oh, no. She saw you, didn't she?"

"She was right at the bottom when I stopped."

"How bad was it?"


"Mr. Prewett, do you have any idea the sort of danger you were in?" Professor McGonagall had fumed. "You could have died! What were you thinking?"

"Um. . ." she clearly hadn't seen Foster, and Tom was not about to lose any extra points to Gryffindor by including a second student. "One of my classmates challenged my flying, and I picked what was probably a dumb way to prove him wrong."

"I should certainly say so!" snapped his head of house. "If you had taken another half-second to stop you could have cracked your neck. I have faced enough comments from my colleagues on our house's lack of common sense because of necessary risks that my students have taken these last few years, I most certainly do not need to see them proved right in such a pointless and idiotic manner. Twenty points from Gryffindor – which will have to be retroactive tomorrow, since we haven't had time to win any yet – for sheer stupidity and pride."

"Yes, Professor."

"And you will be serving detention with me tomorrow night."

"Yes, Professor."

"And, Mr. Prewett, do not for a moment imagine that Madame Hooch will not have heard about this by tomorrow morning, or that your parents will not know tonight. Now get back to the common room and find some less suicidal way to spend your first night."


"Ouch," Richard grimaced, recognizing the Deputy Headmistress' tone from his own run in (honestly, you'd think the Restricted Section was Gringotts, the way she carried on). "Well, I can't say you didn't deserve it. Come to think of it, add in Madame Hooch this morning and Gryffindor is already negative thirty."

"Don't remind me," Tom sighed.

"Hear from your mother yet?"

Tom glanced over in surprise. "You didn't hear the howler? How late were you to breakfast this morning?"

"Very," Richard admitted. "Stebbens and I were up until three

"Sophia Stebbens?" Tom emphasized the girl's name. "What were you two doing?"

"Playing chess," answered Richard, giving his friend a disgusted look. "What do you take us for, a pair of idiot Gryffindors?"

"I thought you liked Gryffindors," Tom complained.

"No. Emphatically not. I like you, and your parents, and maybe your aunt Molly. I have a good deal of respect for McGonagall. That makes five of you I can deal with out of the quarter of Wizarding Britain that went through your house." Tom found himself more than a little put off; he had always thought Richard immune to the ties between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, but his friend was clearly not on Gryffindor's side.

"Well, looks like it's time to head in," he pointed out, gesturing to where the other students were returning the school brooms.

"I'm heading to the library," Richard said. "Should have time to get a start on my Transfiguration homework before lunch. Want to come?"

Quite aside from his confusion after that last comment, Tom had no intention of spending his first free hour of the day doing homework in the library. "Thanks, but no. I'm going back to Gryffindor tower. See you at lunch, Runt."

Going back to Gryffindor tower turned out to be a mistake: Foster was waiting for him in the otherwise empty common room. "Look, Prewett," the other boy growled. "It was obnoxious enough of you to try and show me up last night, class today was over the line."

"What do you mean try to show you up? And if you don't like it stop trying to beat me at flying. Now if you'll excuse me," I have to be going, he would have said.

"I won't." Foster cut him off. "You ought to know your place, Prewett."

"My place is Gryffindor. You're the one acting like a Slytherin." In Tom's family, that was a dangerous insult.

Foster apparently didn't feel the same. "I might wish I had been, if this is what Gryffindor's come to. I can respect a half-blood like Potter or even a Muggleborn like Granger, if they have some talent, but if you and Creevey can qualify perhaps the House isn't what it used to be."

Tom laughed. "What've you got that I haven't? I beat you last night, I was better than you in flying, and I didn't see you do anything great in potions."

"I have class, not that I expect you to understand that. You might be able to learn enough that my father would hire you as a cook, if we didn't have house-elves to do it better, but no more."

"Foster, I've met your father." He'd been with his mother at work when the rich jerk had come in, and only Malfoy had ever been less pleasant. "I'd rather hang out with the house-elves."

"You would, Prewett. They don't even own clothes, they must be almost as poor as you."

Both boys would later claim the other one threw the first punch.