Alex trudged on the grand staircase, attempting to find the Transfiguration classroom. He was now near the landing of the third floor, where he saw a familiar figure, a flaming red-haired girl was conversing with a portrait. He hastened his pace, and quickly caught up to her, and said, "Hey, looking for Transfiguration classroom?" She jumped, looked at him, and said, "Alex! You surprised me."
"Sorry about that. So, any idea which way is the classroom?" he asked.
"Yeah, this man says it's on the fifth floor," she said, pointing at a portrait of the particularly nasty looking wizard.
"Are you sure?" he asked, doubtfully.
"Of course, why would he lie to us?" the man in portrait shrugged in response.
"Alright then," he said.
It took them forever to reach the fifth floor. There were countless stairs in the castle, swinging from one floor to another, and missing a step here and there. Alex felt as though they were intentionally keeping them from reaching the fifth floor. After what felt like a thousand steps, they reached the fifth floor, to find no sign of the classroom. A pearly-white figure glided across the corridor; it was a ghost of a man, with curly white hair, and an extravagant plumed hat.
"Good morning, are you first years?" he said, cheerily.
"Yes- You must be Headless Nick, right?" asked Alex.
"I am called Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, and I would appreciate it if you were to address me as Sir Nicholas,"
"Sir Nicholas, could you direct us towards the Transfiguration classroom?" asked Luane.
"Transfiguration classroom? Merlin's beard! Why would that be here?"
"A portrait on the third floor said it would be here,"
"It must be Merwyn! He has been misdirecting students ever since he came here!" he said furiously, and then went on, "Oh, I have expressed my grievances to so many Headmasters, but to no avail. Why, my dear, the Transfiguration classroom is on the ground floor, near the middle courtyard."
Luane was furious, and quite adamant on giving Merwyn a word or two. It took a while for Alex to pacify her, and remind her that they were already late for the transfiguration. They quickly thanked nearly Headless Nick, and took the flight of stairs. They found the classroom with surprising ease. It was spacious with high windows; students were sitting in rows of desks; in front of class there was a desk, and chair, besides which stood a bird stand with a brilliant bird. It was a macaw, covered with vibrant plumage of red, blue, and yellow; pointy, curved, and white beak; long tail with red and blue feathers. It stared at them with beady intelligent eyes.
"Ha! Even Professor is late," whispered Luane. Alex, for his part, felt something was amiss. Everyone was unusually quiet, especially for the group of 11-year-olds who were about to learn magic for the first time. As they approached the front, the macaw spread its colourful plumage, and transformed into the full-sized man.
"That was wicked!" said Luane with a sense of awe.
"Thank you, if you were to attend classes regularly, you might be able to do the same, perhaps, in twenty years," he said sternly.
Luane was grinning from ear to ear, seemingly oblivious to the situation. Alex had his suspicion, but now he was convinced that she did not have much aptitude for non-verbal communication.
"Sorry, Professor, we got lost," Alex said.
"Thats quite alright, you can't possibly know your way around castle only after one night. Take your seats," he said, "Alright then, since everyone is here let me introduce myself – I'm Brian Fallax, and I will be teaching you Transfiguration."
Professor Fallax was rather benign looking man with cleft chin, and sea-green eyes. "First and foremost, let me transfigure something, so that you can have intuitive understanding of it," he said. He took a candle, pointed the wand at it, with a wave and flick, said, "Aviforce," there was a blue flash, and candle transformed into a little sparrow. It jumped on his palmed, and chirped around. Professor Fallax swished his wand again, crying, "Evanesco," and the sparrow vanished into thin air, living behind nothing, but echoes of its chirping. He waved the wand at his black hair, and they turned snow white, and with another swish, black again.
"Now, as you can see, transfiguration is the art of changing dimension and appearance of an object, however, this is just a rudimentary definition. The line that separates transfiguration, and charms is often blurry, but all of that is for later," he said, with a pause, "For today, you will be learning something simple, how to transfigure a match stick into a needle."
Turning a match into a needle was, unlike what Alex had thought was remarkably difficult. Transfiguration required precision and a great deal of imagination. Whilst Alex managed to turn match into metal, but he couldn't make it pointed. By the end of class, only one person has successfully managed the transfiguration – Luane, and on her first try! To his surprise she thought it was extremely easy. Professor Fallax was delighted, and awarded Gryffindor twenty points.
After the Transfiguration, Luane had charms, and Alex had History of magic. In classroom Alex decided to sit on rear most desk. A sickly pale boy was already sitting there, absorbed in a book. "Excuse me, may I sit here?" he asked, the boy looked at him with hazel eyes, gave a quick silent node, and went back to reading without a word. Professor Binns was very advanced in age, and dead. He simply floated through the wall, and started reding monotonously from his book, he went on with wars and rebellions of old without paying much attention to students. Alex stopped paying attention to class within first five minutes, while the blonde boy beside him tried to pay much attention, but in the end gave up, and pulled out a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages.
"Hey, is that 2002 snitch incident?" Alex asked.
"Yeah, 2002 The Blasting snitch incident, it caused a real ruckus in Quidditch community, which is I guess almost everyone," said the boy, looking at him.
"Apparently it was enchanted to explode, exactly when Ginny Weasley touched it,"
"Who do you think would have done this? Some crazy fan?"
"Nah, my mum said it was an extremely difficult charm. Not every Tom, Dick & Harry has skill for that." said Alex, "I'm Alex Fowley, by the way."
"Oh, I am Edward Helsing, Slytherin,"
"I didn't see you at the sorting yesterday,"
"Umm, yeah, I have some health problems, so, I arrived at Hogwarts few days ago," Edward said, a little hesitantly.
As it turns out both of them were in the same dormitories along with three others. Alex was having time of his life at the Hogwarts. Other than classes, and homework they were free to roam around the castle. Edward was studious, and insisted on writing down every word that came out of Professors mouth. Professor Payne, excluding Binns was oldest member of the staff. He was most eccentric and energetic of the staff. He rushed into the room sprightly, and without delay said, "Before we begin the class, let me warn you, there will be no carless wand waving in the class. You are wizards not baboons with sticks."
He put his hand on a desk in front raw, and looked at round faced Hufflepuff boy with intense gaze, and said, "Tell me boy, do you wish to burn off your eyebrows?" Poor Paul Smith, frightened, frantically shook his head from side-to-side. "Then you will follow my instructions?" Paul shook his head in agreement.
"Then watch carefully," he said. Professor Payne swished, and flicked wand at the book, and said with a smile, "Wingardium Leviosa," and with that Pauls textbook hovered into the air. Professor Payne moved his wand like directing an orchestra, all of their books rose in air, their pages fluttering as though blown by wind, and simultaneously all of them fell in front of them.
"Now all of you try to levitate the feather that has been given to you. And remember swish and flick, and speak clearly," he said.
Soon, the room was filled with the chanting of the spell. Everyone swished and flicked their wands under watch of Professor Payne. "Ah! Watch out, you would have taken my eye out," said Edward to Luane.
"But I didn't," said Luane, rolling her eyes.
"You might have, and besides, no matter how precise the wand movement, the spell won't work,"
"What do you mean?"
"Unlike transfiguration, charms require more precision in the incantation," said Edward, as though that was something obvious. By the end of the class few people had managed to levitate the feather, and Paul had managed to burn of his feather, and eyebrows.
Potions class took place in the dungeons, in room that was dark and damp. Shelves lined the stone-cold walls, stocked with parts of dead animals, and wild plants. Steady stream of cold clear water flowed out of mouth of stone gargoyle. Professor Black took the class.
"Potion making is a science that is stepped in the art of precision. It requires utmost patience in all of its aspect. Initially, you must follow every instruction exactly as I have written them, lest you may run into some terrible situation. Ask twice if you don't understand anything, loss of body hair should hardly be the price you pay for the reluctance," said Professor Black. Edward looked at Alex with a nervous laugh. After that Professor Black taught them basics, which was really some mundane tasks such as how to properly clean cauldrons, handle the flames, and cut the toad liver. Today they were brewing the cure for boils, Professor Black pointed her wand at black board, and instruction appeared on the board.
Potion making was tedious and cumbersome, every component must be added at the right time, too early or too late, and whole endeavour would be for nothing. Professor Black would go from desk-to-desk correcting students on every tiny mistake. Alex noticed, Edward was about to add porcupine quills to his potion, he intervened before Edward could make the whole mess, and said, "Take that off the flames! Porcupine quills would cause rapid drop in the pH of solution at high temperature, you would melt the cauldron!"
"Very good Mr. Fowley, five points to Slytherin for helping your classmates," said Professor Black.
At the end of the class Professor Black was examining potions, vanishing them as none of them were up to the mark. Edward's potion looked like boiling tar, and smelt quite foul as well; Professor Black vanished it even before reaching their table. She looked at Alex's potion, it was boiling blue liquid emitting soft pink smoke.
"Excellent! Everyone take a good look; this is what cure for boils looks like when completed. Twenty points to Slytherin."
It was Friday, and Luane was jumping up and down in excitement. All the first years have been waiting for Defence against the Dark Arts class, and it was finally here. Three of them reached early in class, and took the first desk. Professor Wright was nimble like a snake, before anyone could notice he was already standing in front of them. He stared at them through dark round glasses, it gave Alex impression, that he was looking at his soul.
"Away with all of these," he said, pointing at their books, "I have assigned you those only because administration insisted. Apparently, students need textbook for the self-study."
"I am Varek Wright, and you may address me either as 'Sir' or 'Professor'. Before any of you fly off in your reveries, let me burst your bubble, and inform you, we won't be covering any jinxes, hexes, or curses till Christmas. We will begin with dark creatures, specifically vampires," he paused, and looked around, and said, "Well, then, who can tell me what are vampires?"
'Varek' Alex thought he had heard this name somewhere before; he just couldn't put his finger on it. Alex was surprised, when Edward did not raise hand, he always raised his hand no matter what question was asked. Few people raised their hand, but Professor Wright ignored all of them, and fixed his gaze on Luane, and said, "How about you Ms. Fischer." Luane looked taken aback. She slowly stood up, and hesitantly said, "Umm, they are undead creature, who feed on human blood."
"Wrong, they are living dead not undead, and they feed on fresh mammal blood, not just human blood. Ten points from Gryffindor, for not knowing such rudimentary information," he said dismissively, "Mr. Helsing, why don't you tell us, what are the living dead?"
"Their souls are partially fused with their bodies, unlike undead, who do not have souls,"
"Correct, now, the concept of soul, and its relation with corpus is not in the scope of your studies, so we will proceed with the other characteristics of vampires," said Professor Wright, and then he looked at Alex, and said, "And Mr. Fawley why are we not taking note of all this?"
"Arr- you said to put everything away," replied Alex.
"I meant textbook. Lazy, are we? Ten points from Slytherin," he said, and then looked at Edward, who was taking out quills, hoping Wright wouldn't notice, "And you, Mr. Helsing, seeing as you are already pulling out the quills, couldn't you have informed him? Ten points from Slytherin. I hope everyone else is taking notes," he said looking around the class, by which time everyone else was already shuffling through their bags. Soon, Alex came to regret his decision of choosing to sit in the front desk. He understood why no one liked Professor Wright, man took the house points from everyone as frequently as he breathed!