updated A/N: A large portion of this chapter (especially dialogue) was taken straight from HP source material.

Guest: I'm glad that you found my reasoning sound, and I also agree with you that post-accident Danny probably would have been a Puff (Slytherin seems more debatable to me, but possible). However, I must state that I'm extremely flattered by "always nice to read a new chapter from [me]." Does this imply a special sort of liking to my stories in particular?

Last updated 2/14/2019

Chapter Five
Beginnings at Hogwarts

Hermione had also been Sorted into Gryffindor, just as she had wanted. Neville, too, though back then I hadn't understood the reason for it.

I was lucky that the two people I had met before arriving at Hogwarts both ended up in the same House as me. Even now, I marvel at this stroke of luck. Or was it fate, not luck?

Regardless of what you call it, fate, luck, and coincidence are such finicky things, We should be grateful for the gifts they bring us.

Or so Clockwork would say. I would like to believe that I have not quite yet drifted into those stages of senility, with grand statements that mean both nothing and everything –

Oh dear. It seems to have already begun.

Humanity

"Welcome!" Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of the school, announced gaily. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

A pause, as Dumbledore's twinkling gaze passed over his bewildered students.

"Thank you!"

The headmaster returned to his seat from the podium, looking rather pleased with himself.

Danny stared at him.

What?

"Is he – a bit mad?" he heard Harry Potter, who sat across from him, ask the red-headed prefect Percy who had helped find Neville's toad on the train.

"Mad?" Percy said, nose upturned and looking not affected in the slightest, "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?"

The mention of food brought Danny's attention to what had been empty platters only moments ago – but now they were filled with hopping amounts of steamy, mouth-watering foods. It was food as the mind could only envision it: succulent, hot to the touch, savory, and absolutely delicious.

It didn't hurt that the food didn't come to life, either.

For being a magic castle, Danny thought, mouth stuffed, Hogwarts is almost more tame than home.

Then he looked down the table, to sneak a look at the other first year's reactions, and was immediately forced to reconsider his opinion: a ghost was floating midway through the Gryffindor table, body appearing half cut off.

Danny gulped, swallowing his food too quickly, and paid for it with big, hacking cough.

G-ghost!?

"I haven't eaten for nearly four hundred years," the ghost said forlornly to the other first years, and Danny tuned in incredulously once he was no longer in danger of choking on his potatoes. "I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it." The ghost coughed politely, then straightened his neckerchief and floated upwards, until only his feet were obscured by the table. "I don't believe I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower."

"I know who you are!" Ron, the redhead with the rat, burst, eyes bright with excitement and discovery. "My brothers told me about you – you're Nearly Headless Nick!"

The ghost stiffened at the remark, and so did Danny.

Childhood stories swarmed his mind. His mom, telling him how ghosts promised deadly retribution for any insult. How they would steal children away to the Ghost Zone –

"I would prefer you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy –"

"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?

Danny swirled to the new speaker in horror.

It was Seamus Finnigan, who had introduced himself to Danny the moment he had sat down, cheery smile on his face. He was a bright-faced boy with cropped scruffy hair and spoke with an Irish accent. He was the appearance of "scruffy," but in an intentional sort of way that marked a disregard for society's conventions. Danny got the feeling that they could be good friends. He felt as if Seamus could be friends with nearly anybody, in fact.

He was less sure, however, about Seamus' chances of survival against a ghost.

"Seamus –" he started to whisper, when the ghost interrupted irritably.

"Like this."

The ghost grabbed his own hair, twisted, and just about pulled off his own head.

What.

Danny drew back, abruptly losing his appetite.

Ew. No. He did not just see that.

The ghost coughed, plopping his head back on with an eerie squelch. "So – new Gryffindors!" he said, far too cheerily.

Danny took the moment to realize that neither Seamus, Ron, nor himself were about to be brutally massacred by the ghost, and sighed in relief.

"I hope you're going to help us win the house championship this year?" continued Sir Nicholas without another pause. "Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable – he's the Slytherin ghost."

Danny looked at the Slytherin table, littered by its green and silver colors. He saw the ghost Sir Nicholas was referring to, and immediately looked away.

Nope. Nope. Not for him. Boy was he glad he hadn't ended up in Slytherin. That ghost certainly looked the part of an evil, murderous child-kidnapping ghost.

"How did he get covered in blood?" Seamus asked eagerly.

"I've never asked," the Gryffindor ghost replied, quite delicately.

Blessedly, the first years got the hint. They moved on.

When the dessert appeared (the main course had just vanished as soon as everybody was full), they began talking about their families.

The other Gryffindors, Danny soon discovered, were not too different from him. As they swapped stories in fact, Danny realized that for once, his family wasn't strange at all, compared to wonky havoc of the Wizarding World.

Dean – a swarthy boy with a ready smile and too long neck – was laughing at Seamus' story.

"Your dad didn't know?" the boy mouthed to Seamus incredulously, for he had just told the table how it had been such a nasty surprise for his father when he discovered his wife was a witch and hadn't told him for till they were married.

Seamus nodded, grin large on his face.

"How about you, Neville?" Ron asked, leaned forward into the conversation.

Neville briefly looked both flattered and terrified at the attention. Then – like a dam that burst – the words began rushing, pouring their way out eagerly –

"Well my gran brought me up and she's a witch. But the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me – he pushed me off of the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned – but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go." Neville, blessedly, paused to take a breath. "But I bounced – all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here – they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."

"Isn't that a little –" Danny was just about to ask Neville how he survived his family crazy situation (he had a personal investment in the answer), when Harry Potter suddenly clapped a hand to his forehead, with a sharp exclamation, "Ouch!"

"What is it?" asked Percy, the prefect, leaning into the group and staring at the boy with concern.

"N-nothing," Harry said, but the group was now staring at him curiously. Harry didn't seem to notice, eyes on the staff table. "Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?"

Interest dissipated at Percy's quick answer: it was Professor Snape, Potions professor and head of Slytherin. Danny found his gaze hovering towards Neville.

What had we been talking about again?

It didn't matter, because Seamus had already decided a new topic of conversation for their group of first years: dessert. Hermione, who previously had been locked into conversation with Percy and sat between Neville and Harry, now only tentatively joined in on occasions, as the topic was neither about books or coursework and Hermione did not know how to talk about much else. Danny, on the other hand, was eager enough to discuss the merits of the different types of dessert – American, Muggle, or otherwise.

When conversation began to die down and most plates had been emptied, Dumbledore once again stood from the staff table. The chatter stopped, and an eerie silence echoed in the grand halls.

"Ahem – just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."

Danny noticed the redheaded twins, who had been laughing uproariously at the giant spider earlier in the train, looked the slightest bit mischievous at those words.

Suspicious, he thought, corner of his lip twitching upward in bemusement.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

Some laughter.

Danny, however, frowned. "Painful death"? That… doesn't seem normal.

He surreptitiously glanced around, but no one else seemed to be particularly concerned, other than Percy, who was saying, as a prefect he ought to have been told about this….

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" announced Headmaster Dumbledore.

There was a collective groan. Only a few deviants – namely the red-headed mischevious-looking twins a bench to Danny's left – smiled eagerly at the notice. So many red-heads, Danny realized suddenly. Then he tilted his head. Ron, Percy, twins. They look a little similar, don't they? Are they brothers?

Dumbledore flicked his wand, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, rising high above the tables and twisting itself, snakelike, into words.

"Everyone pick their favorite tune," the headmaster beamed, almost like a wizened, wrinkled child, "and off we go!"

All Danny would later recollect of the experience was that it was absolutely horrendous. No coordination. No one started at the correct time. No one ended at the same time.

Holy crap, that was terrible.

Clapping had then ensued, though he had no idea why.

He found himself smiling anyway. He traded looks with Hermione, who had about the same caliber of singing talent as he did. Which is to say, none at all. She grinned at him in response, then rolled her eyes too. Is this supposed to be Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or School of Note Craft and Musicery? he imagined her saying, and chuckled.

"Ah, music," Albus Wulfric Dumbledore said, wiping a faux tear from his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

Percy immediately rounded up the first years. "Come one, follow me, follow me," he ushered them out of the Great Hall doors, then out into the hallway, then a series of winding corridors so nonsensically laid out that Danny got lost immediately.

"Wicked," Dean Thomas breathed, just behind him. Danny turned and saw that the boy was admiring the portraits on the wall, which – to his astonishment – were moving. The figures in the portraits chattered together and pointed out the first years as they walked past. When they saw Danny looking, they waved at him voraciously. Hesitantly, he waved back.

Soon they entered a large room with an expansive drop and a ceiling so far away that Danny could scarcely see it. When the first staircase they stepped on floated them over to the next floor, Danny again found himself astonished and filled with a sense of wonder.

By the time the group stumbled upon a bundle of walking sticks hovering midair, Danny had decided to stop being astonished, and supposed that this phenomenon, too, was a normal Hogwarts-esque occurrence.

When the sticks began attacking Percy, he realized – or rather, hoped – it was less of a normal occurance and more of a "this is totally crazy" sort of thing.

"Peeves," Percy told them, with a half-growl, half-whisper, as he fended off the sticks. "A poltergeist."

Danny only had a second to feel dismay before Percy raised his voice, "Peeves – show yourself."

His command was met by a raspberry, a rude arrogant gesture that suggested anything but compliance.

Percy's face turned a shade alarmingly similar to his red hair.

"Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?" Percy threatened.

A pop, and suddenly a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air. The walking sticks that had battered Percy were clutched in his hand.

Another ghost, Danny realized mournfully, stepping back.

And this one looks like bad news.

"Oooooooh!" he said, with a cackle that augured dark times ahead. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!"

A walking stick swooped at their heads. Danny threw himself at the ground.

"Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" he heard Percy's voice, muffled through the thickness of human bodies.

The clack of wood against the floor. Rattling coats of armor. Bodies relaxing. Danny tentatively picked himself up from the floor.

"You want to watch out for Peeves," Percy said, as they set off again. Danny had to fight off embarrassment at his overreaction, for everyone else now looked perfectly nonchalant, if a little bewildered. Certainly no one had dropped to the floor like he had. "The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him, he won't even listen to us prefects. Here we are."

A portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress hung before them.

"Password?" she said, and Danny pretended to not be surprised that she spoke. And moved. Really, he should be used to that by now.

"Caput Draconis," Percy said. The portrait swung open, and the first years tentatively stepped through into the Gryffindor common room.

It was a place of warm gold and red colors, proud banners and feelings of warmth enveloping the cozy-looking room. A stir of excitement rose within him as he realized that he was in one of whistling towers that they had seen from the lake, but the excitement was soon quenched by an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, shaken loose inside of him by the sight of large sitting chairs set in prominent display.

All Danny wanted to do at that moment was curl up into one of them, so tired did he suddenly feel. But Percy ordered them up to the dorms – separate ones for boys and girls – and finally he had entered the room that he would live in for the next year.

There were six four-poster beds, each with a trunk at the foot of it and soft red velvet curtains overhanging the sides. Almost in unison, the first year Gryffindor boys stared at them in stupefaction, then yawned and pulled on their pajamas. It was not long before they were settled and most of them had fallen asleep, though Dean and Seamus had begun excitedly whispering to one another.

Danny, however, remained wide awake.

Even as the exhausted feeling persisted, he found that he couldn't sleep. Everything was too unfamiliar. Too much had changed since the day before. It was dizzyingly disorientating, and filled him with a restless energy that warred with his exhaustion.

After nearly half an hour of this, he stood up. There was no point in fruitlessly trying to fall asleep when it was so obvious it wasn't working.

He began his descent down the dorm stairs, fumbling and tripping in the dark as he made his way to the common room. He was relieved to see the light of the hearth fire burning as he arrived.

To his half-hearted shock, someone was already sitting in one of the armchairs.

"Couldn't sleep?" Percy's voice drifted to him, surprisingly soft.

"No," Danny agreed as he walked toward the warmth of the fire. "I couldn't."

It was surreal, somehow. An older boy, in a position of authority no less, and him, Danny Fenton, standing here by a warm hearth in the middle of the night, in a school of magic. In which he was a student.

He sat down. The armchair was just as comfortable as it looked. He watched the way flames sent shadows flickering across the walls, playing out fascinating shapes and stories unknown.

"It happens sometimes," Percy said. "It's why I stay down here the first day. Every year there's always someone who misses home."

"And you?" Danny found himself asking.

The redhead slowly shook his head with a wry smile.

"Sometimes I think that I have too much of home with me here in Hogwarts, with Fred and George." Then, almost as an afterthought, "And Ron, I suppose, now. There are things I miss of course, and not all the family is here, but Hogwarts has become something of a second home." If Danny hadn't been staring steadfastly into the fire, he would have noticed Percy's appraising gaze. "Give it a chance, and I think you'll settle in fine."

Danny didn't reply, and soon the echoing remnants of the conversation melted into the silence, imbuing the silent air with its cumbersome connotations. Danny didn't want to think about it. He just wanted to sit here. Rest. Not think.

He shouldn't have been surprised to find himself dwelling on the subject of astronomy once more.

"Percy," he said, rather abruptly. The prefect's head jerked up sharply at the noise, as if he'd been about to nod off. "Is there…" He faltered. "Do wizards have the opportunity to go into space? Or to study stars? Anything of the sort?"

The prefect seemed to blink very slowly at him, almost owlish.

"Of course," he said after a pause that was just a hair too long. "There's an astronomy class that you'll be taking this year, and you can take more advanced levels later if you choose to do so. The Ministry of Magic – I'm nearly positive – also has a branch devoted to stars. But it's obscure." He frowned pensively. "Very obscure," he repeated, almost as if he were speaking to himself.

"Oh." So no actual space travel. "Thanks."

Maybe he'd find a way. Seven years was a long enough time to figure it out.

Wasn't it?

Growing Up

She was the very picture of forcible self-restraint.

"No," Hermione said, far too obviously attempting to hide her irritation and failing. "That's not correct. It's supposed to be Grindelwald that terrorized the country, and Dumbledore the one that stopped him. It's why he's so famous, you know; it's not only because he's the headmaster."

Neville had an expression of wonderment on his face. "Really? Why didn't Mr. Binns just say that?"

Mr. Binns was a ghost. He also was the professor of History of Magic. Danny supposed it made a twisted sort of sense.

If only his class weren't so boring. He yawned.

"It's only the second day of school. Why do we need to worry about homework?" he complained, as all students were apt to complain.

"Yes," Hermione said, looking inflamed. "If you're not going to worry about it now, then when are you going to start worrying about it?" The words were quite reasonable. The tone suggested anything but.

"Preferably never," Danny replied cheekily.

This was the beginning to many such conversations between the friends. History of Magic was oftentimes the cause of them – for if Danny were to be perfectly honest, the ghost wasn't much of professor at all, with that droning, unenthusiastic voice of his – and he had to frequently ask Hermione, who was somehow alert enough to scribble down just about every word, to explain the lesson to them. She didn't take to it well.

The next day, however, fared much better, without any such nasty dispute. They had their second Herbology lesson with the Hufflepuffs, a far more hands-on experience than History of Magic had been. Neville particularly excelled in it, and was strangely quick to absorb every fact surrounding the plant they were examining.

At night was their astronomy course – Danny's obvious favorite. He had known much of what they had viewed that night beforehand, but it was fascinating to hear the explanations from a wizarding perspective. He wondered which was the true explanation for stars' evolutions, and found himself reluctant to let go of the science he had learned in previous schooling.

On Thursday, came his first Charms class.

If Danny were his sister, he might've described Professor Flitwick as avuncular. However, he was not his sister, and so settled with the simpler title of "jovial" and "kind." Indeed, these were the words that remained in his head when he looked at the short, stout Charms professor for many years after. He knew, from the other first years, that this man was also the head of Ravenclaw House.

"Welcome, welcome!" the professor had said cheerily, standing on a tall pile of books, as they each entered the classroom. When he called roll however, he toppled right off the stack with a small squeak when he came to Harry Potter's name.

It was endearing. Embarrassing, but endearing.

He found himself liking the merry professor.

For class, Professor Flitwick began teaching them the charm Wingardium Levoisa, and had them working through the wand movements and pronunciations step by step. "A bit of a practical exercise, before we dive into the theoretical," Flitwick said. Next class, they'd actually try to cast the charm.

Double Transfigurations was after Charms, and Professor McGonagall the professor.

When Danny entered the class with Hermione however, only a strange tabby cat sat at the professor's desk, watching the students with an eerie focus.

At first, Danny tried to ignore it. Then, feeling uncomfortable with the cat just sitting there and having nothing better to do, he began studying the strange marks around the cat's face.

Suddenly, a strange intuition hit him. Class was in two minutes. The woman who showed up at his door five minutes early at 8am wouldn't be late to her own class. He was sure of it.

He turned to Hermione, grinning.

"Want to bet that cat's Professor McGonagall?" he whispered.

She looked at the car, startled, then back at him. "You mean – ?" she breathed.

Danny shrugged. "If there's magic, it's possible, right? She turned my table into a pig. If she can do that, why not – "

"– herself into a cat," Hermione finished. Her looked turned speculative, drifting towards the ceiling. "But it would be different, wouldn't it? Turning something else into something, and turning yourself into something? Like…" She paused, searching for words. "Like a dentist operating on their own teeth, rather than on someone else's."

"Hermione, the daughter of dentists," Danny intoned.

She punched him in the arm, but was smiling, secretly pleased. Danny would've hit her arm back in a mighty vengeance, but then his gaze caught the cat's piercing look, and he gulped instead.

Right. No horseplay.

…This had really better be McGonagall.

Another minute rolled around. The cat leapt from the desk, and promptly, midair, transformed into the very human shape of Minerva McGonagall.

He flashed Hermione a victorious grin. Too bad she hadn't taken the bet.

"Today," the professor said, eyes lingering severely on him, and he lost the grin. "You will be learning the science of Transfiguration. Make no mistake, this class will not be easy. But you will learn to perform wonders with what you learn here." She flicked her wand, a brief, short smile on her lips, and her table transformed into a pig. Another flick, then it was back. "Now, get out your notebooks and quills. Wonders require a lot of hard work, and learning."

After a long hour of note-taking and cramped hands, she then set them to a practical exercise: attempting to transfigure a wooden match into a needle.

At first, Danny had taken the lecture in with wide-eyed enthusiasm. Then, as the lecture went on and on and the enormity of the task of learning magic began to dawn upon him, trepidation and doubt gradually stole enthusiam's place.

Magic wasn't just pointing a wand and waving. It was memorizing pronunciations and wand movements exactly, developing and honing an intuition for movement and sound, being able to visualize intent clearly, and, in the case of Transfiguration, thoroughly understand the backing ideas behind objects and their possible transformations. Transfigurations, especially, seem to involve counterintuitive mind tricks, imagining something as something else, even while it clearly was not that "something else". Professor McGonagall walked them through some theoretical examples, precursors for what they would one day be able to accomplish, and Danny just felt his nervousness grow and grow.

The trouble, really, was that he liked the stern-faced professor, and didn't want to let her down.

He knew he inevitably would. It was a hidden shame, deep within him, that insidiously whispered those words to him. This was magic. Such a wonderful thing. How could someone like him, weak "Fentina" or – better yet – "Freak Fenton," match up to the splendor of that?

Then Professor McGonagall had set them to actually transfiguring a wooden match into a needle. Shape, composition, and color. Imagine it shifting, edges becoming pointer, becoming heavier, a silver color, the feeling of metal… she had instructed.

He stared at the blank wooden match for the longest time, his hand resting on his wand.

"Mr. Fenton?" It wasn't the strict call of a teacher from across the room, but instead the worried murmur of an adult. Danny startled. She was right next to him. "Are you quite all right?"

It's funny, he thought. She asked me that right before I was Sorted too.

"I'm fine," he said with a sickly, tight smile. "Sorry."

She hesitated.

"If you ever need anything…" She trailed off.

"Thanks," he said earnestly, but also wished that she wouldn't do this now, when so many eyes could be watching. In class, no less. "I'll work on trying to transfigure the match now." He was hyperaware of his hand resting on his wand, the strange current of energy that accompanied the connection. The slight tingle in his fingers.

When she had left, Hermione was quick to turn to him, a frown plastered on her face.

"What was that about?"

Danny shrugged.

"Are you feeling well?" Hermione persisted. "You do look a bit down."

"I'm fine," Danny repeated stubbornly. He sought a distraction, and his eyes landed on her wand. "Why don't you try the spell?"

Transfiguration involves a series of complicated hand movements rather than a simple uttered spell, unlike most branches of magic. Only very advanced wizards transfigured with a single swish of the wand. So when Danny watched Hermione cast the beginner-grade spell, her movements seemed like a series of a strange dance, her hand bobbing and weaving to an unknown rhythm.

When she was done, her match had turned silver and pointy. A quick inspection of the rest of the room revealed that she was further along than any of the other students.

"Wow," Danny marveled, genuinely impressed. "You're just good at everything."

She raised her chin proudly.

"It's hard work, and reading ahead. If you want, I could recommend some books…"

Danny smiled.

"That's all right." He picked up his wand and stared at it curiously, its thrumming vibrations. A slight lift, like a bird lifting off to begin the sequence –

– and he was dancing. Not as Hermione had, not bobs and weaves to a beat, but rather a spiraling twisting web, twirled one way and to the next. The textbook would have called his movements inefficient or crude, but the energy of the magic astir inside him drove him to continue forward. It was a song in his ears, the blood rushing and adrenaline stirring at simple hand movements, even when the rest of his body remained stock still. Still his wand hand moved, moved, and moved. Danced, sung, and envisioned what the match would become.

He faltered. Silver. Pointy. What constituted a match? Suddenly the excitement faded into indirected bewilderment, and a sick, nasty feeling coiled in his gut. He felt wrong. The magic thrummed in his fingers, built up to a quivering tension. He needed release.

He closed his eyes, blind to the world, wishing for the moment to be over, yet that also, inexplicably, a perfect silver match would be in front of him.

It was not.

His hand gradually stilled. His breaths became even. It wasn't so bad – it had changed color, and the edges were sharper, but when he touched it, it still had the same quality of wood. Like a toothpick perhaps, painted an odd shade of gray. It repulsed him.

Magic. Why was it having this effect on him?

"Oh, look!" Hermione's voice was delighted. "You almost got it! On your first try!"

She spoke as if she hadn't just done the same, and had done a better job of it to boot. Still, he smiled for her, feeling sick.

"So did you," he said.