Drucy awoke to the last thing she ever thought she'd see in Slytherin – sunlight. It streamed through her half-circle window, low and early, half-dappled in shifting shade. She thought the shutters had been closed the previous night. She could only guess that perhaps Topsy had opened them for her. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window, peeking out, hoping to see something beautiful. Her hopes were answered. Her window rested just a foot or two above ground, not far from the Herbology greenhouses. Thick moss spread directly underneath with a couple of late-season mushrooms sprouting here and there. Further out, she could see the grassy lawns surrounding the castle and the trunks of enormous trees. She knew the lake had to be nearby, but she could only catch a glimpse of it if she looked as far to the side as she could. Drucy had grown up in a bedroom that was a couple of stories above the ground, and she found this new view intriguing.
Even though she knew that Topsy had agreed to help her dress, Drucy decided to do the job herself. Just as she had finished fiddling with her mass of curls and setting Jade the little green snake into its usual hiding place, her door clicked several times and opened. Esme smiled brightly at her little sister as she waited in the doorway. "C'mon, Drucy, it's breakfasttime! You won't know what books you need yet, so you'd better bring them all. Hurry up. I still need to curse your door for you."
Drucy hurried into the common room, her rather heavy bag slung over her shoulder, and stopped still in surprise. Bright green light filtered into the room from the enormous window, which now featured a beautiful underwater garden. Drucy had never seen a sea anemone before. She ran up to the window, placing her hands against it. As she did, several of the undersea 'flowers' suddenly vanished, sucked inside various rocky and coral-like 'tubes'. Drucy startled, and Esme chuckled from the stairway. "You startled them as much as they startled you, kid. They'll poke back out in a few seconds. You haven't got time to watch them now. Come on!"
The sisters made their way to the Great Hall, where the tables were already set with a marvelous spread of breakfast items. Drucy ate quickly, but well, her appetite sharpened by excitement. As she was deciding whether or not to take a few more peach slices, a voice that she'd recognized from last night broke into her thoughts. She looked up to see the friendly, round man who had greeted them at the door. "Here you go, dear. It's your schedule," Professor Slughorn beamed. "How did you like your first night, my dear? How was your room? I selected it myself, you know!"
Drucy took the schedule from his hand, smiling shyly. "It's beautiful," she told him. "I thought Slytherin was supposed to be some kind of dark, damp dungeon, and it really isn't."
He patted her hand kindly. "Of course it isn't, dear. Do you think I would live in a place like that? Yeech. I hear it was a little… darker… when Professor Snape was the Head of House. I like my fresh air and my comfortable chair." He winked at her and moved on, handing Esme her schedule with another wink. "Sweet girl, your sister. How was your night, hon?"
Drucy took a look at her schedule. Transfiguration, Charms, Lunch, Potions, Potions. "Why is 'Potions' written twice?" she asked her sister quietly.
"Double," Esme answered. "Two class periods in a row. Look at this…" She directed Drucy's attention to the word written in smaller lettering underneath "Potions". "It looks like they're still setting Slytherins up with Gryffindors for Potions. I wonder if you'll have Herbology with the Ravenclaws. My year does." Drucy scanned her schedule and saw that, yes, on Wednesday she had Herbology first thing in the morning with Ravenclaw. Just then, the bell rang, and she slipped the schedule quickly into her bag.
The Transfiguration teacher nearly frightened Drucy at first glance. The tall, dark-haired man had a hooked nose that nearly reminded her of the glowering portraits of Severus Snape. He was round-shouldered, and he met each student entering his classroom with a glare. Something about him, curiously, reminded her a little of her father, though she could not imagine two people opposite in temperament. He introduced himself with a mild accent as "Viktor Krum", which sounded vaguely familiar for some reason. Within ten minutes of his lecture, Drucy realized that the glare was not personal. Krum didn't seem to actively dislike anybody. He just had some sort of everpresent 'internal glare' that expressed itself naturally.
The glare deepened, however, when Drucy failed to turn her wooden stick into a pencil. Failure in and of itself was not extraordinary. Students were trying and failing all over the room. She, unfortunately, distinguished herself by failing dramatically. She waved her wand with a nice, smooth, strong motion, and the stick burst into flame each time, burning itself out so quickly that it barely scorched the varnish on the old wooden desk. The second time she had to trek up to Krum's desk for another stick, he simply handed her three of them. The first ignited like the previous two. Frustrated, she waved her wand sharply at the next stick. It burst into charcoal dust with a decided *PAF* that left everyone in the classroom glancing in her direction.
Professor Krum strode up to her. He glowered, first at her face, then at her wand. "Vot is the matter with your vand?" he asked sharply. "Vot is the core? Heartstring?"
All of Drucy's mother's warnings flashed through her head. "I, um… I don't want to talk about my wand. I don't know why it's doing this."
"Let me see," he commanded. Reluctantly, she handed it over, hoping that it would not misbehave. It didn't seem to give him any trouble, though. He gave it a couple of experimental flicks and handed it back. "Your core is too powerful for the vay you are waving it around," he told her. "It is perfectly good for transfiguration. Be softer. Gentler. Let me see."
Drucy took the wand back. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Then she waved it timidly. Nothing happened.
"No, no, no!" Krum scolded. "You cannot be scared. You cannot be prissy. You must command. This is Transfiguration. You are commanding the stick. 'Be something else.' Your vill must be stronger. But you must not be angry with it." He looked her in the eyes for a long moment. "Who are you?" he asked. "Who are your parents?"
Nervous now, she told him. He nodded sagely. "Yes, I thought I knew the look in your face. Your father and I vere in the same school. He is not a fighting man. Your vand will serve you well in Transfiguration, but you must vant it to happen." Krum's voice was gentler now, kinder. "Take a breath. Relax. Now try."
Drucy waved her wand one more time. The stick trembled slightly. It became slightly straighter, and the end turned into a point. Krum picked it up and rubbed the point against his finger. It did not leave a mark. This didn't seem to bother him. "Good," he told her, handing it back and abruptly moving on to another student.
Charms, on the other hand, was an unmitigated disaster, or so she naively thought. No matter what she did, her wand staunchly refused to perform the spell. She tried different ways of swishing and different ways of chanting, and none of it did any good whatsoever. This wasn't like Transfiguration. She could tell just by the way the wand felt in her hand. It just plain wasn't interested in the spell. "You're making us fail!" she told it as softly as she could manage through gritted teeth. The closest two students glanced at her, and she fell silent, mortified and hoping that she hadn't spoken in Parseltongue.
By lunchtime, Drucy was already exhausted. She lugged her bookbag to the table and dropped down beside her sister. She didn't feel like talking about her morning, so she waved the questions aside by saying that she was too hungry to talk, and then trying to pretend she was as hungry as she had been just that morning. No sooner had she decided to give up on her meal, however, than she heard another familiar voice, one she never thought she'd hear again. "Hi," Daniel Jacobs said casually, as he swung one leg over on the bench and sat down on the other side of her.
Drucy couldn't smother her delight, despite her concern. "Is this allowed? You're Gryffindor now. Are you supposed to stay at their table?"
"I don't see why," Daniel told her, cocky as ever. "It's my House and I love it, but I spent all dinner and breakfast there. I just wanted to say hi. Nobody's stopping me." Indeed, nobody else had spoken, though several students from both Slytherin and Gryffindor were eyeing him in mild confusion.
"You'll get to see me in Potions this afternoon," Drucy told him, amused. "Hey!" she protested mildly, as he picked a strawberry off her plate and popped it into his mouth.
"Oh that's why it said 'Slytherin' on the schedule," Daniel responded jovially. "I was wondering what they meant by that.
Drucy began to suspect that Daniel was being so studiously casual and silly because he knew that people were staring and wanted to annoy them.
"I had Charms first thing, you know," Daniel told her. "Man, what a chore! I finally managed to make the stupid feather wiggle a little. I don't see the use of using a spell to lift a feather."
"At least you wiggled it," Drucy confided in disappointment. "I got nothing out of it at all… and I kept setting sticks on fire in Transfiguration."
"Awesome," Daniel grinned, and Drucy felt her spirits lift just a little. She took another strawberry from her plate and, on impulse, tossed it at him. He caught it neatly. "I think I'd better go," he told her, "before the Gryffindorians think I've abandoned them. See you in Potions!" Popping the strawberry in his mouth, he stuck his hands in his robe and strode away whistling.
Drucy could not help laughing. She and Esme made a quick trip to her room, where she divested herself of nearly all of her books and picked up her cauldron. She entered the Potions room, not very far away, with her morning optimism restored.