A/N: I will not use this space to give away any spoilers about HBP, but I must say this, after reading the book. This fanfic will continue as I began it. I will not make any character changes, so, from this point onward, this fanfic is AU. Live with it!
Characters introduced in this chapter: Real life friend: Lauron - Alyson Fitzpatrick; Internet friends: Tinkerbell816 - Bella Luciano, lovingfredandgeorge19 - Laney Thornton, Molly4Minister - Angelica Bones
Starting Classes 1
A dumpy looking witch with a bit of leaf in her hair and a fine layer of dirt on her person began bustling around the Hufflepuff table about halfway through breakfast. She handed out schedules quickly to the seventh years, fifth years, fourth years, third years, and second years at the table. Those students began looking over their schedules, exclaiming in delight or distress based on when they had certain classes. "Just first and sixth years left!" the witch said brightly. "First years, where are you?" she looked down the table and spotted the new faces. All of the first years had sat together at the end of the table which was furthest from the staff table and closest to the door. The witch approached them, a smile on her face. "Hello and welcome to Hufflepuff! I'll be your head of house! My name is Professor Sprout and I teach herbology." She looked down at the papers in her hand and began passing them out. Alice was surprised to see a schedule with her name on it passed to her. Professor Sprout, apparently, already knew all of their names. Alice barely perceived the professor walking halfway down the table to discuss schedules with the sixth years as she surveyed her own class schedule.
"Look," said Ava. "We have potions first thing! My dad's favorite teacher when he was at Hogwarts was the potions professor!"
"We have flying right after lunch," said Daphne, looking a little green.
"You say that like it's a bad thing," said the girl next to her who was eying the food in front of them with more scrutiny than the schedule in her hand. "I wouldn't mind learning how to ride a broom correctly. We never had one at home." She chose some cereal and poured it into the bowl before her.
"I don't mind brooms, exactly," said Daphne. Looking slightly embarrassed, she continued, "I just don't like heights. Surely that makes since Bella."
The girl looked up from her cereal which she was pouring milk over. "Really? Well it's only one class."
"I heard we only have flying for one year," said a boy across the table from them helpfully. He had brown hair and blue-green eyes behind glasses. He took a doughnut from a plate in front of him and bit into it. After swallowing, he pointed down at the schedule and said, "But look! We have astronomy Thursday night. I didn't think we were allowed to be out that late."
Alice, on Daphne's other side from Bella, checked this. "It is sort of late, isn't it? I guess it's just an exception to the rule since it's a class and all." She looked across the table at the guy who had pointed this out and had just finished off his doughnut. "What's your name? I don't think I caught it before."
"My name's Steven," he said. Alice opened her mouth to introduce herself but Steven interrupted her. "And your name's Alice."
Alice blinked. "Um, yeah, it is. How'd you know that?"
"Well, you were the first person Sorted. I paid real close attention at the beginning of the Sorting."
"Oh. Well, that's true." Alice tried to not think of being the first student Sorted. That moment of embarrassment and fear was in the past and that's where she liked it. She looked back down at her schedule and tried to drown out the talking around her as she got a good idea of when her classes were. History of Magic is on Monday and Friday, she thought. She wouldn't say so out loud though. She had a sneaking suspicion that few of her classmates would be thrilled about a class which sounded boring and which would, undoubtedly, be all books and no wandwork.
The Hufflepuffs had potions with the Slytherins. Alice was the person who suggested that they leave the Great Hall as soon as the first year Slytherins stood up. She figured, since the Slytherins' common room was in the dungeons, they might have a better idea of where to find the classroom than any of the Hufflepuffs would. So, keeping on the heels of the Slytherins (some of whom seemed eager to lose the Hufflepuffs in the maze of tunnels underneath the school) they made it to their first class on time.
The professor made a face as if he could smell something really nasty on the Hufflepuffs as they walked into the room, and, as if it were the natural order of things, the two houses segregated themselves instantly, the Slytherins on the left side of the classroom and the Hufflepuffs on the right side. Alice found herself at a table with Ava and Steven. At the front table on the left side of the classroom, she easily spotted Leslie and another girl with straight black hair and a creamy complexion. They were both giggling over something written on a paper which Leslie held. The professor walked right past them and stood, leering, above Keri.
"Did I tell the class to take out their wands?" he asked her.
Looking near terrified, Keri shook her head and quickly put her wand away. Continuing to ignore the two giggling Slytherin girls, the professor began to stride around the room, dictating to the class. "This class is not like any other class which you will take at this school. Potions is more than a magic. It is a science. I am Professor Snape, the potions master. You will arrive at this class on time and with any materials which you might need. You should, in fact, already have your cauldron out and on your desk. We will be making a simple potion today, but even so, I don't expect many of you will get it even half right."
Many students on both sides of the room began to set up their cauldrons noisily upon the tables before them. "You will also need the ingredients which you should have purchased at an apothecary before term started. I expect you all to be quiet. Simply follow the directions on the board," Professor Snape flicked his wand at the board which instantly held the instructions for a one hour potion on it, "and you should be done before class is over." Snape rounded on Josef who had chosen to sit at the table behind Alice's table. "Why is your cauldron not out yet? Didn't you hear me tell the class that you should take out your cauldrons?"
"I … um," said Josef.
"What is your name?"
"J-Josef Wynnsgard, sir."
"Ten points from Hufflepuff, Mr. Wynnsgard, for not paying attention to my instructions."
"What?" said Ava, turning around to confront the professor. "But that's not fair! Three, no, four Slytherin students don't have their cauldrons out yet!"
Snape looked down his nose at Ava. "Did I ask for your opinion, miss…" he paused, obviously wishing Ava to supply her name.
"Borboa!" said Ava fiercely.
Snape looked taken aback and he stared harder into her face, recognition dawning on him. "You're in Hufflepuff?" he asked, not bothering to mask the surprise in his voice.
"Yes I am!" said Ava. She shrugged off Steven who was trying to get her to calm down and turn back around. No one in the class was paying any attention to their cauldrons or the potion up on the board, entranced by the scene Snape and Ava were giving them. Snape seemed to notice this.
"Well, that's just surprising," he said to Ava. In the next moment he had stormed past her to his desk. It was obvious that the time for talking had past. The last few Slytherins, Leslie among them, took out their cauldrons and the class got to work measuring out ingredients.
After lunch the Hufflepuffs headed out onto the Hogwarts grounds for their first flying lesson. They had this class with the Ravenclaws. Ava took no time at all to walk up to Blaine's side. A boy with blue eyes and brown hair was already walking with Blaine. He introduced himself as Dominic and the three began chatting animatedly to each other about their first lessons as they headed toward the Quidditch pitch. Alice let the trio get ahead of her. From what she could hear the students around her saying, it seemed that the Ravenclaws had had herbology with the Gryffindors that morning. A few of the girls were complaining about what state their fingernails would be in after seven years of sifting through dirt in the greenhouses. Remembering Professor Sprout from that morning, smiling happily down at the first years, Alice felt that it couldn't be that bad. It must at least be better than potions, she mused. Professor Snape so obviously hates any student who's not a Slytherin that I'm surprised Dumbledore lets him teach. He must be really good at making potions.
"Here's one of the people I met on the Hogwarts Express!" Alice heard a familiar voice saying. In the next moment, a hand came down on her shoulder and she turned her head to see Eve and another Ravenclaw girl with eyes as green as Eve's, but brown hair instead of red. "Alyson," said Eve, talking to her friend, "this is Alice. Alice, this is my friend Alyson. She has muggle parents, just like me!"
Alice smiled warmly at the new girl, but there was no time in which to hold a conversation. The students had just reached the Quidditch pitch and a slim woman with short gray hair and remarkably hawk-like eyes was standing beside two rows of ten brooms each which had been lain out on the ground.
"Quickly everyone!" she called out in a sharp voice. "Pick a broom and stand to the left side of it! I am Madam Hooch and I will be instructing you in flying lessons."
The students hurried forward to claim a broom. Unlike in their potions class, Alice noticed that the students did not segregate themselves. There was a mixture of both Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws in each line. Alice chose a broom between Eve and Daphne.
"Hold out your right hand over your broom," instructed Madam Hooch. The students obeyed. "Now focus on your broom and say 'up'!"
Twenty voices yelled "Up!" at their brooms. This was immediately followed by a round of giggles as most people's brooms simply rolled over on the ground or didn't move at all. Alice's broom had been one of them that had rolled over. Movement out of the corner of her eye forced her to look. Alyson, on the other side of Eve, had managed to get her broom off the ground, but it was hovering halfway between her hand and the grass. Her face was turning slightly red as she concentrated. She called "up" one more time and snatched the broom as it rose higher in the air. In fact, a few other students were managing to get their brooms off the ground, but few of them could get the broom to rise too far, despite yelling "up" many more times. Alice focused on her broom once again. "Up!" she yelled. It vibrated slightly but remained stubbornly on the ground. On her other side, she heard Daphne scream. The girl's broom had zoomed up into the air and bypassed her hand to hover above her head. Looking unsettled, she snatched it out of the air.
Just as Alice had turned back to her own broom, Madam Hooch blew a whistle hanging around her neck. "That's enough! If you haven't been able to get your broom off the ground, bend down and pick it up. I will now show you how to mount it correctly." Blushing slightly, Alice bent down and picked up her broom. But when she noticed that over half of the other students were doing the same thing, she didn't feel so bad.
Madam Hooch walked around the students, correcting their hand grips or how they were sitting on their brooms. As she passed Alice, she simply nodded and walked onto Daphne. Breathing a sigh of relief that she at least knew how to sit upon a broom correctly, Alice watched as Madam Hooch corrected Daphne's seat, informing the girl that she would slide off the end of her broom once in the air if she didn't sit a certain way. Daphne's face started to turn the same shade of green which Alice remembered from breakfast and she quickly fixed her posture, holding herself as stiffly as possible in imitation of Madam Hooch's instructions.
The rest of the class was fairly uneventful. They were not given permission to actually fly and instead focused on hovering a few feet off the ground and then touching back down again. Alice was satisfied with the fact that she actually got off the ground (about a fourth of the students seemed able to do no more than jump feebly), and she was less embarrassed by the fact that nearly all of her touchdowns resulted in her tumbling off her broom when she noticed that almost everyone else was having this same problem. When Madam Hooch collected their brooms and dismissed the class, Alice trooped back up to the castle with a strong feeling that she would be sore in the morning.
The last class that day was History of Magic. Alice was happy to see that the Hufflepuffs were having this class with the Ravenclaws. There was something about taking her, hopefully-to-be favorite class with the house that she had anticipated joining since she was a little girl.
"History," said a boy ahead of her, "is definitely not my best subject. I can never remember all those names and dates."
"Don't be too eager to bash the class before the first lesson, Dominic," said Alyson, sitting down in one of the front seats of the room. All of the students were making their way into desks. Alice found herself looking around the room for the professor, but the only people in the room were students. She sat down next to Alyson, right in front of the teacher's desk and took out her bulky copy of A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot and some parchment, ink, and a quill.
Professor Binns, she thought, who is Professor Binns? As if in answer to her question, the professor took that moment to enter the classroom. An old, boring looking ghost flew straight through the chalkboard and settled himself at the teacher's desk. Someone (a Ravenclaw whom Alice did not recognize) screamed as the ghost appeared. The ghost paid no attention to the scream or to the class who were now laughing at the girl for being startled at the approach of a ghost when all of the first years already knew that Hogwarts was full of ghosts.
"I am Professor Binns," said the ghost, "and this is your first year of History of Magic." With only this short introduction, he charged right into the lesson. Twenty students hurried to ink their quills and begin taking notes about the creation of the Ministry of Magic. Alice, who had always been interested in history and had read a few books on it in the past, was happy to discover she already knew most of the facts which were coming out of Professor Binns' transparent mouth. This class is going to be a breeze! she thought.
When the lesson was over, Alice blew on the ink to dry it. A quick glance around the room showed her that, except for Alyson, no other student seemed to have many notes. In fact, two seats behind her, Bella had actually fallen asleep over her parchment and had nothing more than a dot of ink where her quill had been resting. It had not gone unnoticed by Alice that Professor Binns was an accomplished monotone, but she had still found the subject matter intriguing. What is more interesting than stories of the witches and wizards who perfected the spells we use today or of the struggles we have had controlling vicious magical creatures and getting along with other magic users?
Bella was the person who woke up the girls in the morning the next day. "Wands!" she yelled. "We get to use wands today!" Ava fell out of her bed with a thump. The other girls were up in a flash. Alice had her wand in her hand so fast that she would have sworn she'd been holding onto it all night.
First on the Tuesday morning schedule was double charms with the Gryffindors. The feelings among the first year Hufflepuffs were those of extreme excitement.
"That was such bad luck to have potions, flying, and history of magic on our first day. Aren't those the only classes where we don't use wands?" asked Daphne as they all began to pull on their robes.
"No," said Keri, stopping on her way out the door. "Astronomy doesn't sound like a wand class, does it? And then, what about herbology?"
"Oh yeah," said Daphne. "I guess I forgot. Anyway, I'm glad we have charms today. Isn't Professor Flitwick that really short teacher?"
"Yeah," said Ava, packing her bag with the books she would need. "I think he's really cute!"
Alice began to giggle furiously at this statement. "Cute!" she said, "I know what you mean, but it sounds so funny for you to call a teacher cute! Like you have a crush on him or something."
"I do not!" said Ava, looking affronted. But then she began to laugh too. Keri had already gone on ahead, but soon the other four girls followed, laughing the whole way down to the common room.
"What's so funny?" asked Steven, walking down from the boys' dormitory with Joseph. The girls just laughed harder and refused to answer.
Walking into the charms classroom after breakfast, the Hufflepuffs got their first good look at the first year Gryffindors who sat on the far side of the Great Hall during meals. They looked like a pleasant enough group, and Bella and Daphne walked over to a girl with auburn colored hair right away.
"Hi Angelica!" hailed Bella, "Thanks again for that chocolate frog! I still can't believe I forgot to take my money with me on the train! I'll pay you back."
Angelica waved her away. "Don't mention it. Let's just say you owe me a chocolate frog. They're my favorite candy anyway."
"Alright," said Bella. "Hey, this is my friend Daphne. Can we sit with you?"
"Sure. My friend here goes by Laney." She motioned toward a girl with long, straight, golden blond hair who had already sat down and taken out her books.
Someone tugged on Alice's sleeve. "Alice, come sit over here!" It was Ava, and Steven was right behind her. The three of them chose a corner of the room and sat down. Professor Flitwick had just entered the room.
"Miss!" he said, pointing at a girl with a lot of freckles. "Could you help me with these books?" He had a very squeaky voice and Alice poked Ava in the shoulder and began to giggle again. Steven gave them a curious look but didn't ask what they were laughing about.
"Thank you miss…"
"Ponte," said the girl.
"Miss Ponte," said Professor Flitwick, nodding. The girl went back to her seat and the professor climbed onto the books which she had helped him to stack. A few girls in the room "awwed" at the small man, but he was either used to this or else didn't get what they meant by it, because Professor Flitwick smiled widely at the class and waved his hands for silence. "Today," he said, "we are going to be practicing a special wand movement which is used in many elementary charms spells."
A rustle sounded through the class as all of the students took their wands out.
"It is called, the swish," Professor Flitwick gave his wand a slow swishing movement which most of the students copied, "and flick," Professor Flitwick produced a nice flick with his wand.
Throughout the rest of the period, Professor Flitwick continued to demonstrate the "swish and flick" from upon his stack of books and called out to individual students from time to time to tell them what they were doing wrong or to award points to either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff when someone had done a very nice "swish and flick."
When it was all said and done, Alice's first class with a wand wasn't as spectacular as she had probably envisioned it before. She hadn't spoken a spell or done any actual magic, but she had used a wand and that's all that really mattered.