Harry and Blaise awoke the next morning to the incessant ringing of an alarm clock. Eventually, Blaise had enough, and pushed it onto the floor. Harry, who until now had still been half asleep, jumped up when he heard a quiet cry of "Ow!" The voice was clearly not Blaise's, so Harry looked around warily, trying to find the source of the cry.
"Oi! Down here!" Harry looked down, and was shocked to see the voice had come from the alarm clock. "Would you mind putting me back up there? I'd do it myself, but I don't have legs, you see?"
Nodding in shock, Harry reached down and put the clock back in its rightful position on Blaise's desk. The clock somehow nodded at him, though how it managed that without a chin Harry couldn't be sure, and then a small funnel extruded from the side facing Blaise. The clock swelled up, then let out an incredibly loud tone not unlike a foghorn directly into Blaise's face.
"Who—wha—huh?" Blaise said eloquently as he shot up in his bed.
"Apparently it's time to get up," Harry said with amusement as he walked to the bathroom.
Forty five minutes later, Harry and Blaise were seated across the Slytherin table from Daphne and Tracey, who had left the dorms before them. It was only seven fifty, so they had made it with time to spare.
"How are your rooms?" Harry asked the two girls.
"They're fine, I suppose. Maybe a little under furnished, but that's for us to take care of," Daphne responded. "Yours are the same? Just a bed, desk, and dresser?"
"Yep," Harry returned. "I think we'll have to do some research on how to make our rooms more comfortable."
"Research? Harry, we haven't even had a single class yet. Why are you using such nasty words?" Tracey asked with a yawn. Harry was about to respond, when the massive clock in the school chimed eight times, signaling the start of breakfast. Looking around the hall, Harry was nearly certain that there were some first years missing from Slytherin, and many from the other houses were nowhere to be seen. He did, however, sight Hermione speaking to an Indian girl at the Ravenclaw table, and Neville sitting near a boy with dark, curly hair at the Hufflepuff table. He waved to each of them, and received one back from both, though Neville's looked somewhat nervous.
The instant the bells had stopped ringing, Snape began sweeping down the Slytherin table, passing out schedules. He paused, giving Harry a sharp look before handing him his schedule and moving on down the table. Harry glanced over it as he scooped some eggs onto his plate.
"Great, Potions first thing. Did you know that Snape is the youngest Potions Master in over two centuries? I bet he's a great teacher," Blaise spoke up.
"I dunno, it seems like he already hates me," said Harry. "Looks like we won't be learning any actual magic until this afternoon. Charms and Transfiguration should be fun though."
"Who do we have Potions with?" Tracey inquired with a mouth full of bacon.
Blaise groaned as he looked over the schedule. "The Gryffindors, of course. This should be fun. I heard on the train that the Gryffindors and Slytherins always try to sabotage each other in Potions, by throwing stuff in each other's cauldrons."
Tracey looked nervous. "Isn't potion-making supposed to be, like, really dangerous? Even without people trying to sabotage you? My mom said that sometimes you can accidentally make a potion explode just with a simple mistake or mistiming."
"I guess we'll have to sit as far away from them as possible," mused Harry. "What classes is everyone looking forward to the most? Transfiguration for me."
"Potions for sure," Blaise answered. "Don't tell anyone, but I've actually made a few already at home with my mom. She's not a Potions Mistress, but she knows her stuff."
Tracey replied next. "Definitely Charms. There's just such a variety of stuff you can do, it just seems the most useful. What about you, Daph?"
"Well, the classes I'm really excited about aren't offered until third year, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. So I guess I'll go with Charms as well, since it's so applicable to Arithmancy," Daphne answered.
Just as Harry was about to ask what Arithmancy was, the noise of the entire hall was drowned out by the arrival of dozens of owls swooping in through a window above the staff table. Most of them were carrying today's Daily Prophet, though a few were carrying letters. Harry paled as he heard one cry above the others, and saw a pure white owl dive directly towards him.
"OW! Hedwig, stop—Ow! Look, Hed, it was an accident—Ouch, please, I promise it won't happen again!" Harry begged as his owl nipped at his ears and cuffed his head with her wings after landing on his shoulder. His friends looked on in a combination of shock and amusement as Hedwig continued to berate Harry. "Here, Hed, you can have my breakfast!" At that, Hedwig immediately ceased her attacks and hopped to the table, quickly scarfing down all of the bacon on Harry's plate. Harry sighed in relief.
"Wow, Harry, you said she would be mad last night but I wasn't expecting that," Blaise sniggered. "Quite the owl you have there."
As if she could understand the sarcasm in his tone, Hedwig levelled a stern glare directly at Blaise. Seeing this, Blaise quickly returned his gaze to his own plate. After a few seconds, so did Hedwig.
"Where did you find her, Harry? She's beautiful," Daphne asked. "Can I pet her?"
"Got her at Eeylops, in Diagon Alley. Go ahead, it's not you she's mad at," Harry replied, still rather peeved at Hedwig's public dressing-down.
A few minutes later, Harry had managed to find another plate of bacon and continued his breakfast now that Hedwig was distracted. "So, what's Arithmancy?"
"It's kind of a way to break spells apart into math, so you can see the components of the spell and how it works. There's a lot more to it than that, but I haven't learned much of it yet. I know that it's really important for creating new spells, though. For your NEWT in Arithmancy, you actually have to create your own spell," Daphne lectured.
"Does that only work for charms, or can it work for any type of magic?" Blaise inquired.
"I'm not positive, but I think it can be for any type of spell. I haven't read if you can use it for runes or potions, but I'm not quite sure how you would," Daphne answered slowly. "For spells, you cast it at a specially prepared piece of parchment, and it translates it into the equivalent Arithmantic sequence. I don't know how you would do that with a runic scheme or with a potion." While she was speaking, the clock began to chime nine o'clock.
"We should probably head to Potions, since we don't know exactly how to get there. It looks like there's some directions on the back of our schedule, though," Tracey said. The group stood up, grabbed their book bags, and left the Great Hall.
Ten minutes later, Harry, Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise were all leaning on the wall near the door to the Potions classroom. It was locked, but Harry was confident that he could now find this room fairly easily. They were discussing how they expected the first class to go when a group of students turned the corner at the end of the hallway. After a glance, they were revealed to be Slytherins, evidence by the green trim of their robes.
"Good morning," greeted Draco as he approached. Turning to the group he arrived with, he began introductions. "This is Harry Potter, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, and Tracey Davis." Turning back to Harry's group, he continued. "This is Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle." Harry stepped forward and shook everyone's hands, though Parkinson and Nott seemed rather reluctant to do so. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to simply go through the motions, not understanding or caring who they were meeting.
"We would have been here sooner, but Crabbe and Goyle really didn't want to leave the table," Draco joked. "Not to mention they were late to the table, too. Professor Snape was not happy. They both have detentions already." Goyle grunted in agreement. Just then, another group of students turned the corner. This group was much louder, and were dressed in red trim. A sneer appeared on Draco's face almost instantaneously.
"Looks like the Gryffindorks finally decided to show up. Get lost on the way down?" Draco asked, smirking as he did so. Two Gryffindors pushed to the front of their group with scowls on their faces.
"Surprise, surprise, Malfoy ended up in the house of snakes," Ron said. "Who would've thought that the kid of a Death Eater would go there. Gotta say, though, Potter, I'm surprised at you. I thought you were a decent sort in the boat on the way over the lake, but clearly I was wrong." Harry was surprised at the amount of vitriol in his voice. He had been nothing but polite to Ron, but apparently just being sorted to Slytherin was enough to make Ron hate him.
Before he could respond, the door to the classroom slammed open behind him, and silence fell in the hallway. Turning, they saw Snape standing in the doorway. "Inside," he said in a quiet but firm voice. The Slytherins filed in first, filling up the desks on the right side of the classroom. Harry sat next to Blaise in the front right corner, with Daphne and Tracey seated right behind them. The Gryffindors filled in from the back row, only reluctantly sitting in the front after the others had filled up. Harry and Blaise took their books and spare parchment from their bags, along with quills and an inkpot.
Author's Note: Finally getting to some classes, and we can see some real magic! If I ever get to third year (I hope I do), I'm hoping to put my own spin on Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, since they're usually skimmed over like they were in canon. Thanks for reading and reviewing!