Emily went down to breakfast the next morning with Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott and chatted with them all throughout breakfast. Something about them reminded Emily of Diana and halfway through breakfast she decided to include the other girls in her group of friends. Emily made a note to introduce Susan and Hannah to the others after classes that day.
In the Slytherin table, Diana, Tracey, Daphne, Ron, and Blaise sat together at one end of the table, with an empty seat each between Tracey, Blaise, and the rest of the Slytherins. It was rather obvious that they wanted to have nothing to do with Diana. Some of them would accept Ron, because he was a pureblood even if his family were blood-traitors and poor, but didn't want to be near a Muggleborn.
Halfway through breakfast, Alex left the Gryffindor table and headed over to the Ravenclaw one. "Good morning, Hermione. Could you and anyone that you want to bring from your house go to the portrait of all four Founders that's on the fifth floor after classes today so we can all meet? Father told me that there's a room behind the portrait, but not very many students know about it. There's no password required to enter, but if we make it our permanent meeting spot, we or the Founders can make one up."
Hermione, somewhat surprised, nodded. "All right, Alex." As he went on to the Hufflepuff table, she turned to Padma and Ling and asked, "Do you want to come with me? You can meet my friends." Then she looked over at Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot, whom she had talked with last night at the feast and found them to be very nice boys who reminded her of Alex in the brains department. "You're welcome to come too, Terry and Anthony." The two boys exchanged looks and then said that they would come. Padma and Ling also said they would go.
At the Hufflepuff table, Alex told Emily the same thing he'd told Hermione. She nodded and then turned to Susan and Hannah. "Would you like to come with me, girls? I would like you to meet my friends."
"Sure!" exclaimed Hannah and Susan simultaneously.
Emily then considered the first-year boys. She had spoken with them last night at the feast, and out of the five, only Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Muggleborn, and Ernie Macmillan (a bit pompous, but still very nice) had captured her interest. Zacharais Smith had stared at her scar all throughout dinner and what conversation he made was boring, and the two other had been more interested in the fact she was the Girl-who-lived and didn't care what she was like as a person. With that, she decided that she wouldn't mind adding Justin and Ernie to her circle of friends, and immediately invited them to come with her to meet her friends, which they accepted.
At the Slytherin table, Alex passed along the message to Ron and Diana, who immediately asked Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey, who accepted at once. Alex, who had stuck around, grinned. "I'm glad that you see sense, Daphne. I knew you were smart and could be made to see reason concerning Muggleborns and Muggles. And the few times I've met you, Blaise and Tracey, I thought you two seemed nice. I'll be happy to include you as my friends, as Diana and Ron are doing. I'm going back to finish my breakfast, so I'll talk to you guys later."
Transfiguration, which was with the Ravenclaws, went quite well for Emily. Professor McGonagall, who was as strict as she looked, gave the class a stern talking to. After that, she turned her desk into a pig and back again. Everyone was quite impressed, but were disappointed to learn that they wouldn't learn something like that until much later. After taking a great deal of complicated notes, everyone was given a match and told to try to turn it into a needle. Out of the Hufflepuffs, only Emily and Ernie Macmillan were able to succeed. Professor McGonagall gave them a rare smile and five points each to Hufflepuff.
Of the Ravenclaws, Hermione was first to transfigure her match into a needle successfully and was awarded five points to Ravenclaw. Padma, Ling, and Anthony soon followed and were awarded a point each. The other students had no luck, though Terry had manged to make his match pointy and the thickness of a needle and Lisa and Susan had turned their matches silvery and pointy like a needle, but still made of wood.
Herbology, taught by Professor Sprout, head of Hufflepuff, was with the Gryffindors. Neville did very well in the class and Emily gathered that Herbology would be his forte. Unfortunately, it wasn't hers, at least the practical part anyway. She had never been good at gardening to begin with. However, she had no problem with learning the properties of all the various plants and fungi.
On the way to lunch, Emily, Susan, Hannah, Justin, and Ernie made a wrong turning and then tried to force their way through a locked door in hopes that it would be a way out. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the out-of-bounds third floor corridor, and when Filch caught them, refused to believe that they were lost. If Quirrell hadn't come along at that moment and rescued them, the five were sure that they'd have been given detention or been taken to Professor Sprout so points could be taken off.
The last class of the day was Defense Against Dark Arts, which turned out to be a disappointment. Quirrell's stuttering didn't help with his lecture at all, and his room smelled of garlic as he wanted to ward off a vampire he'd once fought and was afraid would come after him. The turban he was wearing he said was a gift from an African prince for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but when Justin eagerly asked how it had happened, Quirrell turned pink and quickly changed the subject. Therefore, nobody really believed him, and there was a funny smell around the turban, which the Weasley twins insisted was stuffed full of garlic so that Quirrell would be protected wherever he went.
After class was the meeting in the room behind the Founders' portrait. The Founders greeted the first years and Salazar Slytherin showed no anger that there was a Muggleborn in his house. After centuries of being a portrait, his views on Muggleborns had changed and he no longer wanted to keep magical learning to purebloods exclusively.
The room itself was bright and cheerful, with banners on the walls representing all four houses. There were seven cases full of books, a few shelves with magical instruments, a long table with twenty chairs, four smaller round tables with six chairs each, and an empty square area with a few fat cushions around it.
After looking around the room and deciding that they liked it, the twenty of them sat down at the large table. Alex and Neville had brought Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, and Marcella Horowitz. Marcy was a petite brunette with penetrating gray eyes that looked as if she could see into your very soul. She spoke English with a slight accent, which she explained, "I have it because I picked it up from my grandparents, who are not native English-speakers. They were born in Poland and moved to Britain a few years after World War Two. They're Jewish and survived the Holocaust, mostly due to being magical. They home-schooled me, since Mum and Dad were busy with work."
Introductions were made and for the next two hours until dinner, the twenty first-years talked and got to know each other better. By the end of the meeting, they had all decided to become friends and that this room would be where they would meet. All of them swore an oath to not reveal the location of this room to anyone else, unless it was someone they felt was trustworthy and wanted to add to the group, and then went to ask the portrait to create a password for them. The Founders consulted among themselves and decided on "Hogwarts united', which was something they wanted and felt that the group was working towards that, since it was composed of friends from all four houses.
Classes continued and the group of twenty, who had decided to call themselves the Hogwarts Gang for the time being, met every evening in the Founders' room to hang out and work on homework together. The afternoons, after classes, were spent in exploring Hogwarts so that they wouldn't get lost in the future or touring the grounds.
On Thursday was Emily's first Potions class, held with the Gryffindors. Normally the Gryffindors and Slytherins had Potions together, but it seemed that this year, Professor Snape had been able to talk Dumbledore into not doing that for the first-year classes.
The Head of Slytherin swept into the room, his black robes flapping, very much like a vampire. Emily then recalled what Aunt Petunia had told her, that a person named Severus Snape had lived in the same town as the Evanses did and had become friends with Lily, telling her all about the magical world and that she was a witch a couple of years before she got her Hogwarts letter. Aunt Petunia had also said that Lily and Snape had stopped being friends after fifth year, but as the two sisters weren't getting along at the time, Aunt Petunia had no idea why, other than that an insult had seemed to be involved.
Emily smiled wryly at the thought that her mother's former friend was now her Potions professor. She then realised that Alex had been her version of Snape, telling her all about magic three years before she was due to attend Hogwarts. Emily sincerely hoped that unlike her mother had with Snape, she would not have a falling out with Alex and stop being friends with him.
After giving a speech on Potions, Snape looked at Emily and barked, "Miss Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
She blinked, then recalled what she had read and answered, "It would make a sleeping potion known as the Draught of Living Death, sir."
"Correct. Tell me, Miss Potter, where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?"
Emily was tempted to say, "In the supply cupboard', but she had feeling that he would not be amused and would take points off from Hufflepuff for her cheek. Instead, she answered correctly, "A bezoar would be found in the stomach of a goat and is a stone used to counter most poisons."
"Correct," said Snape, sounding slightly grumpy, but with a somewhat pleased look in his eye. "Finally, what is the difference between monkshod and wolfsbane?"
For a moment, Emily blanked out, but then recalled the relevant passage in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. "They are the same plant, which is also known by the name of aconite, sir."
"Correct," said Snape grudgingly. "Apparently you've inherited your mother's talent at Potions, the theoretical part, anyway. One point to Hufflepuff and we shall see how well you do at brewing potions." The other students had varying degrees of shock on their faces, for they had heard from older students that Snape favored Slytherins, rarely awarded points to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and never to Gryffindor.
With a wave of his wand, directions appeared on the board and everyone was told to pair up and work on brewing a simple potion to cure boils. Emily partnered with Marcy and they got to work. The other girl was quite good at making potions and as a result, they were able to brew a perfect potion. Snape inspected their work and awarded Hufflepuff another point, but gave none to Gryffindor.
Ernie and Hannah also produced a perfect potion, mainly due to the fact that they had followed the instructions carefully and worked hard at it, particularly Ernie. To their surprise, Snape grudgingly awarded them a point.
Alex and Neville worked together. They barely managed to avoid disaster as Alex saw that Neville was about to add the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire and stopped him in the nick of time. After realizing his mistake, Neville apologized and then paid more attention.
On Friday, Aunt Petunia sent a package of biscuits (cookies) and a letter expressing her approval of the Hogwarts Gang and how everything was going so well. Hagrid also sent a note inviting the Hogwarts Gang over for tea that afternoon. Diana accepted for them all and at three in the afternoon all twenty of them went to Hagrid's hut. Fang greeted them enthusiastically and tried to lick Ron's and Justin's ears.
As the hut wasn't that big, it was something of a squeeze to fit everyone, but eventually everyone got settled. Hagrid made tea and asked how the first week of classes went. They all said they liked them. The rock cakes that were set out were horrible and really as hard as rocks, but the twenty politely pretended to enjoy them.
While Hagrid was asking Ron about his older brother Charlie, Emily noticed the newspaper clipping on the table, which said there had been no leads on the break-in at Gringotts that occured on her birthday. She pointed out the clipping to the others gathered around the table and then exclaimed, "Hagrid! That break-in happened on my birthday! What if it occured while I was there with my family and friends?"
Hagrid quickly looked away and loudly offered Tracey some more tea. It was quite obvious that he was avoiding the issue and that was Diana remembered that Hagrid had business at Gringotts for Dumbledore, about "You-know-what" in vault 713, from what she had overheard him tell the goblin. Could it be that the vault Hagrid had gone to was the one that had been targeted for theft? If it had, then that would mean that he had taken whatever was in there just in time.
On the way back to the castle, Diana told the others what she'd realized. Padma then came up with the theory that as Hogwarts was the safest place to hide something, along with Gringotts, whatever had been removed from the vault was now at Hogwarts, probably in the forbidden third floor corridor. The others agreed that it made sense.
Author's Note: If you can come up with a better name for the group than the Hogwarts Gang, please write it in a review for PM. Thank you. If I pick your name, I will credit you in the chapter with the name change and send you a large box of virtual chocolate.