Chapter 6: Humble beginnings
I awaken to Hedwig's soft hooting. My room is dimly lit, I judge it to be about 6:30.
"Morning Hedwig." I slur; She hoots in acknowledgement.
I sit up from what was, by far, the best night of sleep I've ever had. The bed sheets were made by house elves yesterday morning, the bed frame itself was created by magic: conjured by Dumbledore. I'll have to get to conjured things, they feel … wrong, too young.
I swing my legs over the edge of my bed and stretch my arms out wide, blearily walking to the en suite. I can't help but wonder at the size of the room. Do all students have such large rooms? How can the castle fit everything in it? Surely magic has it's limits, doesn't it?
The en suite consists of a shower, toilet, sink, and a wide mirror. Small, but it makes me feel like royalty. The castle seems to change itself to make the correct number of rooms. Not conjured as I can feel it's age, but like rearranged space. I return to my room to find my uniform from yesterday washed and folded on my now made up bed. I lay my hand on the shirt to update myself on it's little adventure. Bless you Linter the house elf.
I unlock my window and let Hedwig out after copious amounts of head scratching. I smile as I watch her take off.
The book Dumbledore got me answered some questions. The tale of 'The Potters' going into hiding during the war to avoid the Dark Lord, even in books they daren't write his name, and how the nefarious 'Sirius Black' sold them out to You-Know-Who before killing Peter Pettigrew and 12 muggles with a single spell. It occasionally strayed to the more fantastical version, portraying Sirius as a loyal Deatheater, Voldemort's followers, but for the most part is stuck to the facts. There are a few missing pieces to the puzzle, but I know the story – My story.
I open my bedroom door once I'm fully clothed, I had made an attempt to tame my hair but it seems to be an impossible task. I walk up the spiral stairs at the end of the corridor, almost being run down by a girl whom I can only describe as angry.
"Watch where you're going!" She snaps at me before storming off.
"Sorry about Marietta." I look up to a new face, looking apologetic. "She's not a morning person." Welsh maybe? Possibly of Chinese descent if I know my humans, which I don't.
"And I've learnt that the hard way." I say. She smiles, looking relieved, and races after 'Marietta'. I shake my head and follow on into the common room. Not many people are currently here, either they're still asleep or already at breakfast. No sign of Penelope, but Keith is sitting in an armchair. "Morning Keith." I sit on the chair opposite, testing my elbows on my knees. His eyes flick up to me.
"Morning Potter." He closes the book and flicks his wand. '7:01AM' floats out of the tip. "Right, I'll see if the other three are up." That must be the Tempus charm, my parents cast it hundreds of times. I really should go to the library as soon as possible to learn what these spells do. The trouble with 'learning' books is that they have so much stuff in them, I can't do more than one book at a time. I've learnt my Standard book of spells and the magical theory one already. I've not touched my other books at all, the headaches from learning too much at once are horrible. The spellbook had a warning at the beginning telling readers to not attempt the spells without supervision, it usually contains the first spells many people learn after all.
"Good morning Harry." Penelope approaches with the first year girls. "Settle in ok?"
"Yeah." I nod. "Keith's gone to get the others."
"We forgot to mention it last night, but boys can't go into the girls dormitories." She tells me. "We're not exactly sure what happens if they do, nobody has tried it in this house, but Professor Flitwick assures us it isn't pretty." That's actually a good idea.
"I'll bear that in mind, the same holds true for the boys dorm?" She shakes her head.
"No, girls can go into the boys dorms and rooms." She explains. It seems that wizards are even worse than regular people when it comes to gender equality. Keith returns with the others.
"Ready to go?" He asks; A round of nods. "Alright."
We leave the common room and file onto a staircase before it moves. The castle seems to be humming again, as if it's happy to have students again. The portraits wave to us and greet Penelope and Keith. Our party merges with the other students as we approach the Great Hall. I ignore the pointing and whispers as we seat at the Ravenclaw table. Do they expect me to do something? Bounce a ball on my nose?
All the components of the very familiar Full English Breakfast are lain out on the platters. Vernon loved anything that could clog his arteries quickly. The prefects from the sixth year start to hand out the timetables, handing the last of the stack to Keith.
"Right … Su li." He hands the girl her timetable. "Corner … Goldstein … Potter ..." I accept the parchment. Professor Flitwick used a Gemino charm to duplicate this from the original. It's taken on some of the properties of the original and somehow distorted them. An animated quill signed my name at the top. The information on the quill is much more concrete. A simple grey coloured feather that Professor Flitwick used a charm to cut and heat the nib to work as a quill. Without contact with the actual quill I can't be sure how it writes. I refocus on the timetable.
Charms straight after breakfast with Professor Flitwick himself. Herbology after lunch and broom practice before dinner. It quite helpfully points out meal times and curfew times. The curfew ends at 6AM. I'd often toyed with the idea of running, not just running away from Dudley, but for fitness. Healthy body; healthy mind? That explains a lot about Vernon actually.
A sudden burst of activity signals the arrival of a flock of owls. Mostly newspapers, but some letters too, from family no doubt. I spot Hedwig entering through the window, Easily distinguishable by her colour. No other snowy white owls in sight. She flies down and lands on the table in front of me, ducking her head to meet my hand. More scratches. She's apologetic for not bringing me anything. I smile as she nips my fingers playfully.
"Find anything good to eat?" I ask her. An image of a light brown mouse by some pumpkins flickers into my head. "A mouse? Did you catch it?"
"Prek! Prek!" She answers happily. Thoughts of the mouses mangled body enters my head, I grimace ever so slightly.
"Definitely caught it." I softly stroke her head as she treats me to some amazing aerial views of the castle.
"Are you talking to your owl?" Michael from yesterday asks.
"Lots of people are." I nod to the other tables.
"Yeah, but their owls don't look like they're talking back." Michael eyes Hedwig wearily.
"Chk chk chk!"
"She says owls can't talk." I relay the message to him.
"Err, right." He beckons somebody further down the table. This is clearly Michael's brother, or an incredible coincidence. "Gavin, look at this." 'Gavin' slumps down on the bench beside his brother.
"You've trained an owl?" He leans forward. "Urgh, I wish Daisy would stand still long enough to tie a letter to her leg."
"Still no luck?" Michael asks. "Not even for the 'Master of owls'?" He smiles cheekily.
"Piss off." Gavin grumbles. "That book wasn't even worth half what I paid for it. What's your secret?" He asks me.
"Lots of attention." Hedwig rubs her head on my knuckles. "Honestly I've got no idea." She nips at my fingers before taking flight again.
"Harry." I look over to Keith, standing with the others. "Taking you to charms now." I nod.
"Catch ya later, Mikey." Gavin ruffles Michael's hair, much to his irritation.
I think having charms as your first lesson is the best way to start a life as a wizard. Something as simple as levitating a feather is trivial to older people, a charm that was used by James and Lily many times, but to me it's my first spell. Exhilarating and breathtaking – Magical. I'm also proud that I was one of the few able to cast the spell correctly. Professor Flitwick is incredibly enthusiastic, giving more praise to those that were trying their best rather than those who actually did it. He explained to Anthony and I that learning a new spell is it's own reward. This didn't stop him from awarding us 5 points each of course. Keith and Penelope await us outside the classroom with the Hufflepuff prefects. Penelope does a quick head count before nodding happily.
"Did any of you get it today?" She asks as she leads us through the corridors.
"Me and Harry got it." Anthony says happily. "Professor Flitwick gave us 5 points each."
"I think I got mine to push off the edge of the desk." Lisa says. "Although it might have just been some wind." She deflates a bit.
"It was your first lesson after all." Penelope says. "You can't expect your first spell to work right."
"Professor Flitwick closed the windows at the start." I tell Lisa. "So it wasn't the wind." She perks up slightly.
The tricky part of navigating Hogwarts seems to be finding the central stairwell. Once you are in the 'core', it becomes a lot easier. Getting back to the Great Hall is only a matter of going down a lot of stairs. On this particular trip, I've learnt of a resident of Hogwarts named 'Peeves'; A Poltergeist that enjoys tormenting students if the water balloons and dung bombs are anything to go by.
The hall is already full of students as we arrive. I start to think of the spells from my parents' wands. When I used Wingardium Leviosa, it felt familiar; as if I'd cast it before. A recasting from memory rather than learning a new spell. The spells range from a simple cleaning charm to blasting hexes capable of killing. I'll have to spend some time to sort through it all. All the information is sitting in my head, but unexamined.
James' wand, in his earlier years, was Peeves incarnate. He loved jokes, jinxing people or setting up grand pranks, especially on his friends and … Snape. My eyes flick up to the potions Professor. I'd heard he wasn't a pleasant man at dinner yesterday. Could it have something to do with the torment he went through at the hands of my Dad? Hundreds of spells subtly sent to disrupt him. He wouldn't hold a grudge surely.
"Herbology with Gryffindor next." Penelope reads from her copy our the first year timetable. "The greenhouses are outside, so it's a bit of a walk; We'll leave early."
A/N: Another chapter! This one falls a bit short from my normal length, but i'd prefer a short one than cutting the story off in the middle of something important.
It's starting to build up steam now, hopefully it will start to get interesting soon.
I'm going for a Michael Gambon Dumbledore for this, i think it will be fun. Enjoy!