AN: how does Slytherin operate? Time to find out!
I nearly titled this 'Dawn' but that seemed too pretentious and overly symbolic for a chapter that's just setting the stage.
If you want more info on the class schedules, check out the next work in this series.
Wix is a gender-neutral term for a magic-user, e.g, witch or wizard.
There's a lot of homework included in this chapter. Despite the books being set almost entirely in Hogwarts, Harry and co never seem to do much actual school work, which frustrates me. Personally, I like realism/world-building about magical classes and what they'd contain.
Again, I really recommend reading this on archive of our own/AO3, the formatting is a whole lot better and you can use different 'skins' to change the appearance to be more comfortable to look at or whatever.
seriously XD
just google,,, like, "golden girl (the world is yours) AO3 harry potter" or something, it's pretty easy to find with the right keywords.
Dorothea is woken promptly at six o'clock the next morning by flares of cheerful blue light and odd chiming noises.
This turns out to be Pansy's magical alarm clock, a silver disc spelled to light up the room and wake the owner.
Thea grumbles as Pansy rushes to turn it off, but quickly accepts the other girl's apology. Dorothea decides to get up anyway, and goes through her usual routine, which takes twice as long as usual as she adjusts to her room in Slytherin:
Her full stretching routine and some light ballet practice, interrupted by Pansy's curious questions. A shower, which involves navigating the confusing mass of knobs and dials in the showers and a mirror which offers fashion advice as she braids her hair back. Choosing her outfit is at least faster than usual, as Thea only needs to pick from her identical selection of slacks, dress shirts and Slytherin robes. She does choose a pair of her new magical socks, cute black ones with blooming roses on them, and her usual Mary Janes - Hogwarts didn't specify any shoes on the equipment list, and Thea is grateful for the point of familiarity.
Pansy and Thea wait for the Prefects in the Common Room, quickly joined by Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode, who have the room next to theirs.
They're escorted to breakfast by the fifth-year Prefects - Gemma Farley and Cadmus Nott - as well as a handful of third and fourth-year students who've also been assigned to guide them.
Breakfast is a more casual affair than the Feast.
Thea sits with Pansy, Tracey Davis and Blaise Zabini, surrounded by other members of their House. The food is plentiful and delicious, and they chatter about simple things as they eat. Professor Snape hands out their class schedules in businesslike silence, and Thea examines hers eagerly.
First-year classes are from nine till three. They have five periods, each one hour long - three in the mornings and two after lunch. Some classes are Slytherin only, and some are mixed with other Houses.
Today's a Monday, so Slytherin has double Herbology with Ravenclaw from nine to eleven, a free period, lunch at twelve, and then double Defence by themselves from one till three that afternoon.
Thea's been carefully ignoring the weirdness of Hogwarts, but classes are a whole new kettle of fish.
If she's selective about what she pays attention to, Hogwarts is just an eccentric, old-fashioned boarding school who's strangeness can be partially explained by the isolation. Robes are warm and covering, a sensible uniform for such a cold climate. Quills and candles and a steam-train are just an aesthetic choice, leaning towards traditional appearances.
But owls delivering mail at breakfast, food that appears on their plates without apparent effort, strange classes with titles such as Transfiguration and Defence against the Dark Arts?
Dorothea is quickly reminded of the freakishness of the magical world, and how uncomfortable it makes her.
The class schedules are a reminder that Dorothea does not belong here, and it puts her off-balance for the rest of the day.
Herbology, at least, is sort-of normal - plants and gardening - if Thea ignores the plants which talk and move and consciously react to their environment. It's shared with Ravenclaw, but Thea barely has a chance to smile at Lily and Hermione before class starts and the first-year Slytherins close ranks.
Professor Sprout covers the syllabus and her expectations for them, and assigns them an introductory essay, due next week.
Herbology studies both magical and non-magical plants and their various uses and properties - medicinal, decorative, uses as potions ingredients. Plants which can be grown to protect a property or repel enchantments, plants which talk, plants which heal you by singing or glowing or a million other strange methods.
Thea takes mental notes about the homework expectations and tries to ignore the weirder parts of Sprout's lecture, like the instruction not to enter Greenhouse Five on a new moon in case they encounter the wakening 'Widdershins Walnut' tree.
After Herbology, the fifth-year Prefects come to collect them, handing out Aguamenti and Scourgify charms to the soil-covered first years. After being escorted back to their Common Room, the first-year Slytherins spend their free period playing Exploding Snap. Thea mostly watches and tries to pretend she isn't discomfited by the explosive magic. She needs to get used to this quickly - even if she hopes that somehow there's been a mistake, Thea knows, deep in her bones, that the magical world is also her world.
Lunch is boisterous, even in Slytherin, where Dorothea gets the sense that they're supposed to be refined and elegant at all times. Yeah, right.
Thea listens as the others talk about growing up in magical households, filing away scraps of information for later.
Malfoy, the blond boy who called her a Mudblood at the feast, won't shut up about his father, Lucius Malfoy, who Dorothea gathers is an influential figure in magical high society. Blaise Zabini's mother is the same, a powerful and well-known wix, and the Zabini's are descended from a famous Italian magical line. Parkinson, Goyle, Greengrass, and Nott are also from elite families, while Bulstrode, Crabbe and Davis are from more normal families. The pureblood first-years all seem to have large estates, wealthy and well-connected parents, and equally exalted lineages, while the others, half-bloods, do not - Daphne Greengrass talks about horse riding and her younger sister and the Greengrass estate in southern England, while Tracey Davis talks about playing with her cousins, growing up in a cottage in St Austell and attending a normal 'muggle' primary school.
Dorothea is vague when asked about her family, though there are some things she can't avoid mentioning:
"I was raised mostly Muggle-style since I was a kid. I think I would've preferred a magical household," she comments to Milicent. It's all completely true - she would've prefered being raised by wixen instead of getting such a lovely surprise just as she was about to go off to a nice, normal secondary school and spread her metaphorical wings. (Other than that, Thea keeps quiet and lets her fellow Slytherins assume whatever they like about her bloodlines).
The first Defence against the Dark Arts lesson is a joke. Aside from Dorothea's distaste for the subject matter, Professor Quirrell stutters his way through an introductory speech and then assigns them reading to do, the first two chapters of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection. There is no practical demonstration of what they could learn later on, or even a useful idea of the basic concepts - Quirrell's speech was far too disjointed to be of any use. Plus, the professor gives Dorothea an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that she can't quite ignore.
All in all, it's incredibly boring, and Thea spends half the lesson interesting herself by trying to identify whatever's off about Professor Quirrell and joining Pansy in doodling elaborate gowns on a sheet of parchment.
After classes, Thea heads back to the Common Room with Pansy, Millicent and Daphne. She drafts an awkward letter home, messy and ink-stained, before giving up to play Exploding Snap with Pansy. Daphne eyes her terrible writing - she's never used a quill before, okay - and immediately pens a letter to her parents asking for some calligraphy and writing books. Thea slides her a chocolate frog in thanks and tries to pretend she's simply a bad student rather than someone using a quill for the first time.
At dinner it becomes more difficult to pretend that she grew up in a magical household, surrounded by older students, but Thea manages with lies of omission and imprecise language, letting people hear what they want to hear.
"Yeah, I'm Potter's cousin. Not quite sure on the details though."
"Oh, of course, a lot of the pureblood families are like that now, I should know." replies Blaise. Thea remembers Blaise complaining about distant cousins vying for a betrothal to him (as an heir of the main family line, he's quite the catch) and winces in sympathy.
Dorothea asks a second-year witch about DADA - "Was last year's teacher any better than Quirrell?" - and lets the conversation move away from family lines.
People are quick to bitch about a succession of terrible Defence teachers, thoroughly distracted from any questions about lineage, and Thea relaxes a little.
Tuesday brings double Transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs.
Dorothea slips into the seat next to Neville, who smiles at her.
"Well-met, Dorothea," he offers formally, and Thea returns the greeting.
"How are you, Neville? How's Hufflepuff? Is your Common Room as cool as ours?"
Thea peppers her (tentative) friend with questions, eager to get to know him better. Class may be a struggle, but people have always been Dorothea's strong point. They chatter only a little before Professor McGonagall starts the class by turning from a cat into a person, causing Justin Finch-Fletchley to fall out of his seat in shock. Thea smirks before she catches McGonagall's sharp look and smooths her expression into one of neutral interest. Professor McGonagall is scary, and Thea immediately resolves to be just like her when she's older.
Dorothea takes dutiful notes throughout the lecture, even as her dislike of such concrete freakishness rears its head.
(Daphne's right, Thea thinks as she looks over her notes later - her writing is atrocious, she really needs to get better at quill-work).
Prefect Farley ferries them to Charms with light chatter about the Charms Professor - Professor Flitwick is apparently half-Goblin and a world-renowned duelling champion.
Their first Charms lesson is interesting - Professor Flitwick starts them on basic wand-work immediately. They cover Lumos and Nox, and then a simple charm to help the caster with wand movements, and another that corrects your pronunciation - you have to say the incantation, and then the one for the spell you want to improve on.
Thea casts them over and over, watching as the glowing lines illustrate the jab of Alohomora. It's entrancing, and some of the tension seeps out of her as she's reminded of the wonders of Diagon Alley. Magic isn't all bad, really.
After lunch they have their first History of Magic lesson, another Slytherin-only class. It's taught by a ghost, but Dorothea quickly gets over that when she realises how utterly useless he is - Professor Binns somehow manages to make the development of the magical world boring. Dorothea had been excited for a relatively dull, normal History class, but this is actually a bit of a disappointment. Tracey and Daphne start up a game of magical chess, while Vincent and Gregory, Malfoy's two friends, debate the merits of various 'Quidditch' teams. (Thea racks her brain and finally remembers that Quidditch is the sport wixen play on flying broomsticks).
After ten minutes Dorothea gives up on paying attention entirely and starts reading her copy of A History of Magic under the table. Bathilda Bagshot is an entertaining writer, and it's far more interesting than Binns' lecture.
Their last period of the day is technically a free period, but they actually have an introductory Potions lesson with Professor Snape. Their Head of House likes to keep an eye on his youngest Slytherins, apparently.
The dungeons are dark and cramped, but the first-year Potions lab is improbably light and airy. Does Hogwarts have magic ventilation ducts? Thea can't see any sort of windows or air ducts, but it is a magic castle. The room is larger than it should be and filled with rows of stone workstations, while endless cupboards and shelves line the walls, hung with dried herbs or filled with strange things floating in jars.
Professor Snape starts with a stern speech on safety procedures in brewing, describing all the painful and permanent injuries they could get from messing around in a potions lab in unpleasant detail, a strange glint in his eye that unnerves Thea greatly.
Then, Snape gives them a test, five pages of open-ended questions, crammed onto the parchment in tiny writing, to be answered in neat paragraphs on their own separate parchment. Bloody hell.
Dorothea barely looked at her school books all summer, something she's beginning to regret now - it would be easier to fit in if she knew what she was doing. She does her best to attempt every question, painstakingly printing out her answers with the least amount of spilled ink possible, but she doubts she's managed anything near a passing grade.
After that, Professor Snape tells them to read the first three chapters each of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, Magical Drafts and Potions, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them before their class on Friday before briskly dismissing them with no time for questions. It's a lot of homework, and even Malfoy, who'd been bragging that Professor Snape was his godfather and had been giving Malfoy private tutoring all summer, is frustrated. He complains loudly all the way back to the Common Room while everyone else ignores him.
Dorothea spends her whole afternoon sitting in a courtyard on the second floor with Pansy, both of them doggedly working through Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger. After such a poor showing today, Thea can't afford to be caught out so badly again. She takes messy notes on a scrap of parchment and tries to memorise ingredient reactions and stirring patterns.
Potions is an odd combination of chemistry and cooking.
Maybe she can ask Dudley for advice? He's the best cook in their family. Or rather, she could, if he wasn't still ignoring her - Dorothea sent several letters and even called Smeltings on the landline in the week before she left for Hogwarts, and Dudley hadn't replied once.
They have Astronomy at midnight every Tuesday. Thea and a couple of others take Prefect Farley's advice, and eat dinner promptly at 5:30 that evening before heading back to their dorms.
Thea sprawls on her bed to take a nap, and is woken by Pansy's alarm barely half an hour before they have to be ready. A few light stretches to remove the stiffness in her body, a moment to wash her face, and then she's scooping up her satchel and meeting the others in the Common Room. One of the sixth-year Prefects leads them to the Astronomy tower.
Professor Sinistra shows them how to use their telescopes and they spend a peaceful hour pointing out the constellations and planets they can recognise to each other while Professor Sinistra occasionally interjects with her own fun facts. Apart from the late hour it's soothingly normal, no wand-waving in sight.
The same Prefect collects them promptly at one o'clock and hurries them back to bed with a light-hearted comment about 'ickle firsties needing their sleep'.
Thea wakes up again at six with Pansy's alarm chiming, and groans. She dozes for another hour before hauling herself out of bed and through her easiest stretching routine. She's showered, dressed and stumbling blearily into the Common Room just in time for their escort.
Most of the other first-year Slytherins look equally tired. Theodore Nott is in danger of dropping face-first into his porridge, and Tracey Davis looks ready to go back to bed. Pansy is cheerfully awake, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. At Thea's tired expression, Pansy eagerly lists off a string of cosmetic charms and magical skincare products with a very Slytherin quip about appearances being part of power.
Malfoy cuts in that connections are more important, and then a second-year adds that building a power base without relying on others is important. Soon, half of Slytherin is debating methods of gaining and keeping power. Five different students recommend about eight different ways to achieve their ambitions, and the whole thing spirals as Thea watches, wide-eyed. The Slytherin reserve and elegance has gone out the window.
Eventually, it winds down, and the first-years all venture off to the Hogwarts Library as the first period begins - they have a free hour, and before breakfast the Slytherin Prefects had firmly 'encouraged' them to get onto their homework before it began to pile up.
Thea manages a messy, ink-stained draft of her Herbology essay, which is decent but barely legible, and moves onto the Potions reading. She makes it through a chapter of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi before they have to get to History of Magic, guided by a random fourth-year Slytherin and their Ravenclaw friend who were also in the library.
History of Magic is spent again reading the textbook and making notes, though Thea finds herself staring out the window more often than not. Binn's droning voice does not make an active learning environment.
After the montonus lecture in History, Transfiguration is a wake-up call. Their double period yesterday had been spent going over the syllabus and doing boring introductory bits and pieces. Now, they start to perform actual magic, turning matchsticks into needles.
Pansy excels immediately, though the rest of them struggle through the hour with little progress. Neville shrinks into himself more and more with each failure, and Thea reminds him that no one else has managed much either. Pansy smirks and tosses her hair before dropping the act to give them tips.
Lunch is, as always, filled with idle chatter. Blaise and Millicent trade light-hearted insults, Thea and Pansy plot to redecorate their dorm room, and Theodore Nott banters with one of his cousins in second-year.
After lunch they have their theoretical Astronomy double, looking at star charts and learning about the solar system. They name the planets and their moons and learn the zodiac constellations. It's easy for Thea - she did this last year in a Science unit in primary - but she notices her magical yearmates struggling with the subject. Maybe growing up in a magical family isn't always an advantage?
The afternoon is again spent doing homework. Thea finishes the required chapters of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and moves on to the DADA reading. She might dislike Quirrell, but it just wouldn't do to completely fail a subject.
Then, Dorothea finally finishes her stilted letter home - talking about her Sorting and new friends, and emphasising the normal parts of Hogwarts. She sticks to regular subjects that could theoretically exist at a Muggle school - Astronomy, History and Herbology - and ignores the others. She even puts in a footnote about Harry's Sorting into Gryffindor.
A friendly sixth year Hufflepuff with lemon-yellow hair and warm copper skin guides her to the Owlery and shows her how to send a letter with a school owl.
On Thursday morning, Thea is finally able to sit with Lily at the Ravenclaw table for breakfast. Though they've shared a handful of classes, they haven't been able to catch up properly, and Dorothea misses her friend.
After a quick hug, Thea's welcomed to a seat, right next to Lily and the other first-year Ravenclaws.
Lily flips her cobalt-blue headscarf to lie on top of her robes as she introduces Thea to some of her housemates - Anthony Goldstein, the pale-skinned boy with the curly brown hair who shared their boat for the ride across the lake. Padma Patil, a quiet brown girl who wears her thick black hair in twin braids, and Terry Boot, a bubbly boy with tawny gold skin and close-cropped black hair. Hermione's there as well, the black girl glowing with contentment in her new House.
Thea's happy for her friends, tentative and new as these friendships may be. She greets each of the Ravenclaws in turn with the now-normal bow, hand on her forehead. They talk about classes and the different attitudes of their Houses, and their families, and the schools they attended before is called back to the Slytherin table by Prefect Nott just in time to be escorted to class - a double period of Charms.
Charms is the same as Tuesday - practical spell-casting broken up by short lectures from Professor Flitwick. The wizard's sheer enthusiasm for the subject shines through in every word, and Thea finds herself enjoying the magical class. In Herbology they learn to care for a handful of non-magical herbs and are introduced to Dittany, an all-purpose magical healing herb.
Lunch is short, as they have to scrub off the dirt from Herbology and swap their school books out for the next class before they can even get to the Great Hall. They dig into their food and make idle small talk, annoying the older students with endless questions about classes.
History is a nice break, and Thea continues to work her way through A History of Magic. Their lesson is interrupted halfway through by Peeves, who cackles and pelts them with bits of chalk before being chased off by the Bloody Baron. Dorothea's never been more happy to see her House ghost, a dour wizard who spends most of his time looming in dark corners of the Common Room. For her free period, Thea elects to go for a walk around the lake. On her way back into the castle she runs into Harry and the Gryffindors from the train - Dean Thomas and Ron Weasley - and the third-year Weasleys, twins Fred and George. They chat for a few moments, though Harry looks as awkward as Thea feels talking to her usually-shunned cousin. Ron expresses trepidation about their first Potions class on Friday morning, and Thea tells them about the mountain of reading Professor Snape's already assigned, while his brothers try to reassure him with tales of all the House points they've personally lost in Potions.
Back in the Slytherin Common Room, Thea slogs through yet more homework - the first three chapters of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, painstakingly rewriting her Transfiguration notes until they're readable, and dashing off a few short paragraphs about correct telescop procedure for Astronomy.
Finally, it's Friday. Thea's actually beginning to recognise the route from Slytherin to the Great Hall, which is good for her wavering confidence surrounding both her place in the magical world and in Hogwarts specifically.
Their first class on Friday morning is double Potions with Gryffndor, which promises to be a nightmare - two Houses that historically do not get along, paired with a teacher infamous for taking House points on a whim, set in the volatile environment of a Potions lab.
Class starts of well, with Professor Snape's entrancing speech about the purpose of potions, but quickly gets messy - Professor Snape seems to hold a grudge against Harry, asking him rapid-fire questions about random topics, and taking points from Gryffindor for every minor infraction.
They brew a Boil Cure potion, which at least goes off without a hitch - Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff had had their first Potions class on Wednesday afternoon, and Thea had visited Neville in the hospital wing after his potion went painfully wrong (though thankfully the school nurse healed him up by dinnertime). Malfoy preens as Professor Snape compliments his "perfect" potion, and Thea glares at him. Her own Boil Cure potion is generally the correct colour and consistency, but she won't be winning any brewing prizes just yet.
Coming second-best to a prat like Malfoy grates on her, and she can see something similar in several expressions around the room. Thea has a strong sense of competition anda distinct need to be the best, which she's fully aware of, having been complimented on it all through primary school by parents and teachers alike. She's immediately determined to get better at Potions as soon as possible.
After Potions they have Defence, this time with Hufflepuff. Professor Quirrell has decided to be proactive and splits them into pairs to do a pop quiz. Thea ends up with a pureblooded Hufflepuff called Susan Bones, a steady girl with white skin and blonde hair the exact same shade as Thea's own. They work together easily enough, bouncing ideas off each other and answering all the questions on the sheet.
Thea sits at the Hufflepuff table for lunch, chatting with Neville about some of the prettier magical plants in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. Neville loves talking about Herbology, and Thea saw the book's illustration for Singing Violets (magical violets which come in an array of pastel colours and sing soothing lullabies at dusk) and just had to know more.
After lunch, she ends up relaxing with a mixed group of her friends on the shores of the lake, Lily and Anthony sit nearby, heads bent over a book on seasonal and time based magic, while Dean Thomas and Susan Bones are drawing increasingly ridiculous caricatures of the teachers in Dean's sketchbook. Thea and Millicent, the only other Slytherin who seemed chill enough to come, braid each other's hair and speculate about Flying lessons, which next week.
Harry, Ron and Hermione stop by to say hi before trotting off to visit Hagrid, the school gamekeeper and the one who'd guided them across the lake on their first night. Hagrid apparently bought Harry his owl, knew him as a baby, and wanted to talk to him because he knew his parents, or something? (there was a lot of information in Ron's babble as they passed and Thea didn't catch all of it).
Pansy and Thea both sleep in until eight o'clock on Saturday morning.
After a brief breakfast, Dorothea packs a bag with her dance gear and goes exploring. Thea needs a proper studio to practice in - she won't let magic take her ballet away from her along with the rest of her normal life.
Most of the rooms in Hogwarts are classrooms, stone floored rooms filled with battered wooden desks or empty bookshelves, but there are a myriad of other forgotten rooms - Thea stumbles upon bathrooms with archaic plumbing, a room entirely filled with various breeds of stuffed birds, several different music rooms, and even a Roman-style amphitheatre, several stories tall and built entirely out of pure white marble. It should not possibly exist in the amount of space it has, but of course it does. Wixen and their magical buildings.
Thea finds several abandoned dance studios of different ages and styles, all in stages of disrepair. Eventually, she chooses a large room on the seventh floor. It's clearly designed for ballet, with a smooth wooden floor, a barre, and mirrors lining two of the walls. A skylight, which again, should not be there, fills the room with natural light. It's dusty and one corner is home to several years worth of ballet studio clutter - broken equipment, old leotards, discarded pointe shoes, and crumbling sheet music - and another houses a grand piano that can only be described as exhausted, but these are things Thea can fix.
Later. Right now, she wants to dance.
Thea moves through an hour of stretches before she starts her ballet drills. She misses dance class already.
By lunchtime, she's gone through every single piece of choreography she knows, twice. Thea pulls on sweats and a jumper over her practice gear and makes the long trek down to the dungeons. A shower and change of clothes later - she pulls on her enchanted flower sweater over her usual dress shirt/slacks combo - and she's at lunch with the rest of her house.
Pansy's eager to know where she went, but subsides when she learns Thea was dancing. Thea's noticed Slytherin House values privacy to the extreme, and asking anything outside of polite and generic questions is considered passé.
Thea spends her afternoon with her yearmates in a corner of the Common Room, sipping hot chocolate and playing various magical games. They play Exploding Snap, magical chess, and Gobstones, and regular card games with a set of self-shuffling playing cards.
Malfoy is brutal at Gobstones, and Crabbe repeatedly beats the entire first and second year at Exploding Snap, while Theo and Tracey play several vicious matches of chess. It's fun, to hang out with everyone and relax, after a week of magical classwork and confusing homework on topics Dorothhea never encountered at her nice, normal primary school.
On Sunday, Thea's morning is occupied by homework. She, Blaise, Millicent and Pansy all hole up in the library to finish off their various assignments and readings, sharing wizarding sweets back and forth as they study.
In need of some fresh air, Thea takes a break to walk around the Lake, and is suitably surprised when a post owl finds her there. The tawny owl carries a letter from her parents, and Thea opens it with hesitation. Do they still love her?
Maybe they do. Mum's penmanship is jerky, and some of the ink has run from water damage, but concern shines through. Mum offers a few words about the weather and her garden and how Dudley is doing at Smeltings and Dad compliments her perseverance and encourages her to do well in sensible subjects like history.
end notes:
I did originally plan to make this longer, but it just felt like a natural cut off point, so I'm trying to get the next chapter out soon.
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St. Austell is the largest town in Cornwall
Fun fact - 'to rack one's brain' and 'to wrack one's brain' are both actual phrases meaning the same thing, but 'rack' is the technically correct one (i googled this bcs i wrote 'wrack' and then got suspicious and stared at it for like ten minutes during editing).
Not sure if I'll go into such detail about classes and stuff ever again cos it was getting a little tedious to write by the end, but I wanted to lay out all the first impressions and budding relationships going on. Plus wordbuilding, yay!
Professor Snape is frickin complicated to write. I don't want to woobify him into a misunderstood angel who's cruelty can be entirely blamed on his tragic past, but I don't think I can write him as 'explicitly an asshole to small children' the way he is in canon.
So, instead, we get - stern, a little bit of a sadist but trying to reign it in, and definitely angsty and fucked up about his role in the war and his dead ex-best friend. Also a little bit of his nastiness is a symptom of ptsd - irritability, anger and general emotional hyperarousal are common symptoms, esp. in men - not that this excuses the whole 'regularly bullying vulnerable students in your care' though.
young!Draco Malfoy is,,,uh, not popular in Slytherin because a) he constantly goes on about how awesome his dad is b) he's eleven so basically nobody older than him cares about his opinion and c) he's not subtle or cunning, both of which are prized traits in Slytherin.
He'll get over it and develop a personality soon, I do want him to become three dimensional instead of the flat antagonist he is for the first few books of canon.
Our friendly sixth year Hufflepuff who takes Thea to the Owlery is actually Tonks! I made her a year or so younger than in canon so there could be some sweet sweet bonding with the cast of firsties, because Thea needs more acquaintances and Harry needs not-terrible relatives.
According to the wiki Susan Bones is a half-blood but eh.
My interpretations of the canon characters are definitely inspired by Shanastoryteller's harry potter fanfic 'survival is a talent', which you can find on archive of our own . org