Chapter 2

Muggle Studies

The first class Monday morning was Muggle Studies. The trio sat at a table located in the middle of the third row. "Why do I have to take this stupid class?" asked Ron rhetorically putting his head down on the table.

"Because it's required."

"Yeah, I kinda got that from the 'you need to take it in order to graduate Hogwarts' bit. I'm just asking why it's required," said Ron, still annoyed. "I mean what we are actually going to learn in this class, it's useless. Oh well at least it is an easy O."

"I bet if someone dropped you off in London you couldn't find your way to the Leaky Cauldron, even if you did have a map," said Hermione.

"I could too," Ron protested.

"Yeah, sure," Hermione said sarcastically. Just then she noticed that Professor Summers was staring impatiently at her and Ron.

"Would you two like to take this conversion after class for detention with me?" He asked.

"No sir," they said in unison.

"All right then. Like I was saying before these two troublemakers-," Malfoy laughed. "Excuse me, do you have a problem?"

"No, I think you may have just made my day. A teacher, or whatever you are, actually saying a bad thing about that Mudblood."

"Malfoy," Ron said warningly.

"Oh what are you going to if I call her that again, hmm?" Malfoy asked in a teasing voice. "Are you going to sic your uncontrollable girlfriend on me."

"For the last time she is not my girlfriend!" shouted Ron through gritted teeth.

"Mudblood, Mudblood, Mudbl-" Malfoy didn't get to finish his last curse because Ron slugged him and broke his nose. Malfoy picked up his wand and muttered something that wasn't audible due to the massive blood pouring out of his nose. The spell did nothing.

Mr. Summers just sighed. "Ok, Malfoy, or whatever your name is, go to the nurse and get your nose fixed, come for detention once you're better, which will be soon, and 10 points from Slytherin. And for you Mr. Weasly, detention tonight, and 10 points from Gryfinndor."

"But…" Ron protested.

"Would you like to make it a double detention Mr. Weasly?"

Hermione's hand shot up. Mr. Summer's ignored it. She started waving it frantically, he still ignored it. She cleared her throat loudly. Still staring at the blackboard he said, "Yes, Miss Granger I see your hand up but I don't know why. Do you want to waste even more of this 'useless subject'?"

"Ok for starters, I never said it was a useless subject, I think it is a great class especially for the students who are from all wizarding families. And two-"

"Miss Granger you must be the most annoying, trouble making, brown nosing student I have ever met in my life," He said, although that wasn't true, Jean had corrected him and interrupted him more times they he could count, and he almost liked it.

Usually Hermione would have been close to tears if a teacher had insulted her like that, but this guy was different. She wouldn't win by making a fuss. She would win by outsmarting him. "I didn't finish," she interrupted him. "Like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted," the people who knew Hermione were dumbfounded that she was actually correcting a teacher, "you can't take away points."

"And why is that, is it against the rules to take away points on the first day?" Mr. Summers asked sarcastically. He didn't think he had ever been this rude to anyone in his life (well, maybe Logan, but he didn't count).

"No, actually Snape does it all the time, but you can't take away points before we have any, they can't be negative. And none of the houses have any yet."

"Actually they did. Gryffindor had 30 until a moment ago, now it has none, Slytherin now has 20, and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff both have 25. If you have any more comments I suggest you give them to me after supper during detention, which you will now be joining me for," Hermione was instantly silent and remained so for the rest of the class.

"Ok," he sighed. "Now that that is taken care of. My name is Mr. Summers; you will call me Mr. Summers or Sir. I understand that you teachers here like the title 'Professor' but that is the name of my mentor and I don't feel that it is right to have the same title as him. Today we're going to go over what I expect in this class and what our ciriculum is this year." The class groaned.

"As in your other classes you will have a final. But unlike your classes you will also have a midterm. Basically it will be a quiz on what you have learned the year so far. Ok, as you know I am new here and some of you are taking advantage of it. I understand that you have a different grading system here than in the States. I will try to adapt, but here are the equivalents I accidentally put the wrong one. He wrote on the blackboard:

O- A+ or A

EE- A-, B+, or B

A- B-, C+, or C

P- C- or D

D- F

Seamus's hand went up. "What about a T?"

"I'm sorry, a what?" asked Mr. Summers. "I wasn't made aware of a T."

"It's below a D," said Seamus.

"Well, then I won't give those out."

"Ok you will receive written homework at least once a week. The other times your homework will be studying. You will be given quizzes, practical and written, on the material around once every other week, after we have finished a section. I expect you to treat me with the same amount of respect as all of the other teachers here. You will be to class on time or you will get a detention. You will not need wands in this class, so I don't expect them to be out, no magic works up here anyway," The class gasped. "Instead of magic we have electricity."

"For the first few months we will be covering everyday nonmagical objects. After that we will be covering what an average day is like for a nonmagical person. After winter break we will be going to be covering some current events and pop culture. During that time I will also be going throw a little bit of each subject, math, history, English, biology." She taught Biology. He snapped back reality. Pull yourself together. You can do this, he assured himself. "The basics. For the remainder of the year we will go into electronics and why they work in this room and not anywhere else in the castle." Hermione suppressed the urge to answer the question. "Any questions?" No one raised their hand. "All right, I have compiled a test of what I will be teaching you later on. How well you do on it will not affect your grade in the slightest. It is just something for me to see how much you already know."

Half the class was stumbled by the first question. Name the current Prime Minister of England. Almost the rest were stumbled by the second. Who is the current president of the United States of America?

The first two pages were rather easy for Harry. Most of it was current events that were going on in the UK or in the USA. When it started to get to pop culture on page three he was stuck. Name two of the Beatles.

Crap! Harry thought. He'd heard their names, but couldn't remember them. John, there's was one named John. And Paul, one named Paul. What are there last names? Wasn't there one named Star or something? He wrote down John Star and Paul Star hoping that one of the two would be right.

The next question was, What is the highest grossing movie of all time? Harry was stumped. How the heck am I suppose to know?

Hermione found the first 10 pages rather easy, but she couldn't remember whether it was Spiderman or Superman that was venerable to Kryptonite. On page 11 was the start of math. The first 5 questions were elementary problems like 5x5 and 110-9. Then the algebra problems started. Hermione was in one of the higher math classes before she found out that she was a witch so she had started to learn algebra. She hated it with every fiber of her being. 14x- 2(x+10) 12x x was the problem that was the final straw.

After 10 minutes of this torture more that half the class gave up. At the end of the class Mr. Summers called time and Hermione was the only one that finished over half of the test.

The trio's next two classes were free periods. They decided to spend it in the Gryfinndor common room. "I hate this year," said Ron. "Do you know who stupid that test made me feel? I think I answered like one question right on that thing."

"The Tony Blair one?" asked Harry.

"Yeah," Ron sighed. "At least you don't have detention with that jerk."

"Hey, at least it isn't Snape," Said Harry.

"I'm starting to wish it was with Snape," said Hermione.

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