I didn't expect to use as much of JKR's book as I have in the last couple of chapters, but I did say at the start that I was going to remain as compliant with her world as possible. The only things I am changing are the things that Harry has a hand in and unless he'd started hexing people at dinner, there is only the one way any of it could have gone.

All of the characters except for my own handful of originals, as well as locations, names, titles etc are and remain the property of JKR and I hope you like it.

Principles such as Splicing are mine as well as all unique books, histories, titles, traditions and spells. I give users permission to use them, but only if you reference me in your work.

Review please whether you like it or not. Tell me what you do and do not like and why! I do love having my ego stroked with 'Wow, great!' etc, but it's not as useful for my process as having some real examples and effects. If any of you would like to PM me a review or opinions or just talk about my story, please do so.

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Chapter 15: The First Day.

Harry awoke the next morning well-rested but sluggish from the previous night's excesses. He put his glasses on and looked for Nidhogg who had disappeared.

A yawn from the opposite side of the dormitory made him look up. 'Morning.' said Ron.

'Morning.' said Seamus who had fallen asleep on his hand, giving him a handprint mark all over the right side of his face.

Dean was nowhere to be seen.

'Morning.' said Harry, gingerly climbing out of bed and turning it over looking for Nidhogg.

'What're you looking for?' asked Ron, rolling out of his bed.

'Nothing.' Nidhogg must have gone looking for a mouse for breakfast.

Harry made his bed and Dean came back into the dorm carrying a small leather toiletry bag and a towel over his shoulder. He looked very fresh and his tightly springy black hair dewy. 'You should see the bathrooms, they're top!' He said, throwing the bag into a drawer by his bed. 'I saw this little house elf earlier, she was dusting and showed me the way. They take care of everything here, we just leave anything we want washed on the floor and they just take it away and put it back, ironed and everything!'

Harry frowned. He'd always done his own washing, and Dudley's and everyone else's when he lived with the Dursleys. He tucked in the corner of his bed sheet and Dean laughed. 'You don't even need to make your bed, they do all that too.'

Ron was beaming, the idea of being so lazy obviously appealing to him.

'Will they wipe our noses too?' Harry asked.

'Probably.' Dean answered. 'It seems a bit weird, doesn't it, these little creatures going round doing everything for us? Imagine how lazy we'll be by seventh year.'

'I guess that's why there are so many fat wizards.' Harry said, looking at Seamus who had the very definite beginnings of his own paunch.

'I don't know how I'm going to cope; I used to play football for the local team and everything.' Dean said, sitting on his bed.

'We'll just have to figure out a way to keep fit.' Harry said, 'Now, show me where the loo is.'

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Harry returned from the most fun shower he'd ever had. The bathrooms were plain, but the showers had dozens of nozzles that squirted out different colour soapy water that smelled like whatever you wanted them to. There were piles of fresh, soft towels, flip-flops and fancy glass bottles of shampoo that applied, lathered and rinsed itself. There were three wash kits laid out next to stone wash basins filled with fascinating things: a tiny bar of personalised soap called KleenThee; Earbuds with bits of cloud on the ends instead of cotton wool; hair gel that, when touched with a want turned as hard as concrete; deodorant that changed fragrance with every shake and a toothbrush with a tiny label that read: "Madame Gleam's all-in-one Wonderbrush: brush, toothpaste, mouthwash and flossing all in one stick. Instructions: Run under cold water and brush.

Harry did as instructed and felt like his mouth was being taken apart and each bit scrubbed individually before being put back together like new. He stared at the brush – which was self-drying – in wonder and noticed that there was a little dial on the bottom for selecting mouthwash flavour. It was currently set on "Fresh Mint" but Harry saw that there were also settings for "Sweet Chilli", "Steak and Chips", "Pumpkin Juice" and "LadyKiller Witch Attractant". He laughed and dropped the brush into the bag and, marvelling at how absurdly fresh and clean his mouth was, returned to the dorm.

There was a letter by his bed instructing him to be in the common room by eleven am for orientation and Harry, Ron, Dean and Seamus descended the stairs together. Already in the commonroom, waiting with Percy and the other Gryffindor where they met with Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Fay Dunbar and Hermione Granger who beamed as they entered the room. A few moments later the fifth new Gryffindor girl, Tina-Marie Bowden entered, pulling a brush through her thick black hair. She started upon seeing Harry, his hair gelled vertically straight up and his scar on show.

Percy cleared his throat, 'Right, let's get started, first I'm sorry that there isn't a female prefect here at the moment, but Audrey Etheldreda is unwell at the moment. She sends her greetings and says she will be with you as soon as she is able. It goes without saying that your first days at Hogwarts will be incredibly important for setting the tone of both yourself and of Gryffindor moving forward. Gryffindor has perhaps the most prestigious history out of the four houses of Hogwarrts and I will not let you tarnish our reputation. I am a prefect and as such can –and will- deduct house points from any of you found misbehaving or doing anything to bring our house name into disrepute.'

He carried on for almost an hour, talking about how the responsibilities of a first year, rules and regulations of both Gryffindor house and Hogwarts and the millions of ways in which those rules could be broken. He then conjured a three-dimensional map of Hogwarts which was covered with hundreds of tiny labels and locations which he went through one at a time. Finally, he handed out A4-sized envelopes to each of them which contained a small map, their class timetable, the menus and times for meals and the processes for addressing everything from bullying to unfair marking of homework. Also inside was a small booklet that "I have taken the time to compile myself" giving a brief biography and photo of each teacher in the school. Several of them had notes attached reading "Not a first-year teacher" to teachers of subjects such as Conjuration, Arithmancy, Divination and a handful of NEWT specialists.

Harry looked over his timetable, seeing that, to his surprise there was still time set aside for subjects such as English, Maths, Art and Physical Education. Each subject was given two hours each week.

'They're there so you don't leave school illiterate as barbarians!' Percy shouted when Ron complained at having to learn arithmetic.

They listened as closely as possible for the three hours in which Percy rambled on about duty, honour and the importance of never forgetting a fresh quill and emergency ink bottle until he stood, opened the door to the corridor and smiled. 'Right, time for the tour!'

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The first stop of Percy's tour of the school was the great hall for a quick lunch of tuna and mayonnaise or cheese and pickle sandwiches before moving to Professor McGonagall's office, two floors below the commonroom. She wasn't there, given that she was taking the first OWL class with the new sixth year Slytherins and Hufflepuffs.

'Please don't bother Professor McGonagall,' Percy said testily, 'She's a very busy woman and has no time for your worries of not passing your first year charms exams. If you're worried about something you can either speak to myself, Audrey –when she returns- or another teacher. If it's something health or injury related you can speak to Madame Pomphrey, the nurse in the Hospital Wing – which just happens to be our next stop!'

He led them on a tour that Harry was certain was a good five miles of keeping up with the long stride of a lanky fifteen year old. They took in the quidditch pitch: an oval of grass more than a mile long with a fifty-foot high wall and stands with three goal rings either end. Then there was the Care of Magical Creatures area, basically a large modular zoo with different areas for holding and housing a massive range of animals for study. There were vast areas of the castle not in use because, according to Percy, since the last war, more parents had chosen to teach their children magic at home where they could keep an eye on them because You-Know-Who had been a student at Hogwarts in the beginning. Percy derided this as the height of idiocy, but Harry knew another reason for use of less of the castle than a hundred years ago was also to do with how much of the magical population had been wiped out by Voldemort or fled the country, leaving the magician population of Britain lower than it had been since the start of the industrial revolution, a time when magicians had fled the mechanical growth of the then-modern world for pastures greener.

Percy's tour ended back at the great hall for dinner at half-past five. The first years were all footsore and exhausted and all bitterly disappointed that their first day at school had included not a single wave of their wands. They slumped onto the tables and later, their bellies fit to burst they trudged back to the common room and collapsed into the chairs. They chatted for a few hours, mostly about their origins and plans for the future before falling into their beds nervous, excited and slightly fearful about their first day of lesson.s

Nidhogg was back when Harry pulled the covers back, coiled into a tight knot. Harry scooped him up and dropped him into a pocket. 'I'm going for a bath.' He said to Dean, who was pinning up a poster of West Ham football club on the wall next to his bed. Dean nodded wearily.

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The baths were as good as the showers, with bubbles that smelled of chocolate, strawberries, cinnamon and pine leaves. The bath chamber was actually a series of troughs dug into the floor of a long, low-ceilinged room in a row and all fed by the same water supply. Harry filled one with cinnamon and strawberry bubbles, stripped and lowered himself into the hot water. Nidhogg emerged from Harry's trousers and settled next to his head.

'Day good?'

Harry thought about it. He'd seen amazing things: a castle far too large to be real, ghosts jousting in the corridors and the Hufflepuff quidditch team practicing, flying almost too fast to see. But had it been a good day?

'It was a bit disappointing, to be honest.'

'How?'

'Well, I expected to actually start learning, you know? After a month of being terrified, of nervous planning and learning everything I can about the world I never knew about, it turns out I know more about it than people who have lived every day of their lives in it.'

'You not compl-compla-complacent.' Nidhogg struggled over the longest word Harry had ever heard him use.

'I guess.'

'Mother say wizards lazy. You are not.'

Harry laughed, 'Absolutely, they use magic for everything, even things that can be done with little or no effort.'

'Wizards forget body strong: magic strong.'

'You mean that the fitter a person is the better their magic?'

Nidhogg nodded.

Harry sat back, sinking up to his ears.

Nidhogg slid silently into the water, bobbing up around Harry's exposed toes and winding his way around. 'I'm glad you are lion.'

Remembering Neville's face and Malfoy's ignorance, Harry had to agree. 'The sorting hat told me that there were twin storms inside me, one lion, one snake.'

Nidhogg didn't stop. 'Inside as outside. Inside you lion are lion and snake. Outside you are lion, I am snake.'

Harry laughed as Nidhogg broke through a pile of red foam. The little snake was insightful and had a way of summarising whatever was on Harry's mind at the time.

'Where did you go today?'

'Esploring.'

'Ex-ex-e-x-ploring.' Harry pronounced the work for him. There were a few words and sounds that didn't come naturally to Nidhogg.

'Exploring. Found tasty mouse.'

'Where did you go?'

'Lots places. Found man with big hat talking to shiny glass.'

'Man with big hat?' Harry asked, sitting up in the water.

'He smelled scared, kept repeating words.' Nidhogg came to rest on the wave generated by Harry sitting up and lay on the side of the pool. 'Shiny glass talking too maybe.'

Harry had no idea what the little snake meant. Shiny glass had to mean a mirror but several of the people in the castle had big hats. Nidhogg's definition of "big" was pretty broad too, as the first time he had seen cat, he had claimed that it was "big-big".

Nidhogg, apparently tired from the day's exertions, coiled up on a large sponge at the side of the bath and closed his eyes.

Harry decided it was a good idea too.

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