Author Notes: Thanks to all the readers and reviewers. Answers/replies to questions and comments are/will be posted at www fanfiction net/topic/135718/89507238/1/

Update 14 July: Many thanks to Aletheya for proofreading this chapter.

Chapter 7 - Classes

Charms soon became Harry's favourite class. The diminutive Professor Flitwick usually started his lessons with a magical display followed by theory and ending with a practical section. Tom had already tutored him on a large number of useful charms, so Harry had been concerned he'd be bored. He soon found his fears unfounded. The charms Flitwick started with, mostly colour and texture changing ones, were nothing like those that Tom had taught him. Also, Tom's theoretical knowledge only included what he had read over the summer and Professor Flitwick's explanations and examples made it so much more understandable and useful.

Having just finished helping Hermione tweak one of the wand movements, he asked Tom about that. "Tom, why didn't you start off teaching me all this?"

'All what, Harry? I taught you all the basic and more advanced wand movements and how to correctly pronounce Latin and Greek.'

"I mean, all this theory about magic and how it affects different substances, all the conditions and stuff and you never taught me any colour changing charms."

'Do you really want to learn all the theory and spells twice, Harry? I understand the need to practice, but there is no need to waste your time practicing and relearning utility spells. Most of the spells I taught have useful functions or are unlikely to be in the syllabus. There are a few reasons for that. It'll be to your advantage if you can cast spells people don't expect you to know, especially if you can cast them well. Learning first year charms before you attend school could also lead to trouble, can you work out why?'

Harry considered Tom's question as he practiced the incantation, "Because if I had already learned all this, then it would be obvious that I had help?"

'Very good, Harry. Look at Hermione. She has the movement and incantation correct but she needs to be reminded to focus her mind. She is concerning herself too much with the movement and words and not the desired effect. Tell her, Harry.'

Hermione frowned when Harry made the suggestion. She moved her finger to point at a paragraph in 'The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1' and she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. A smile lit Harry's face as a thoughtful look crossed her face and, ignoring the book, she tried the spell again. The piece of parchment she had been working on instantly turned a brilliant yellow.

"Thank you, Harry. I wish they had said that in the book. I wonder just how much research they put into the book. Did you notice none of them have a bibliography, glossary or index?"

Professor Flitwick wandered over and clapped happily, "Well done indeed, Mr Potter and Miss Granger. One point each. Now please try for some other colours."

After both quickly achieved a few additional colours, they turned to help others with the spell and soon had earned their house two more points each for their actions.

By the following day, in Charms, Harry and Hermione had already read ahead and so spent most of the practical section assisting both their fellow Gryffindor classmates and also the Hufflepuff students who they shared Charms with. Professor Flitwick was very impressed and Gryffindor gained more points.

Susan and Hannah suggested, and Hermione and Harry quickly agreed to, a joint Gryffindor Hufflepuff Charms study session once a week. Soon, the group swelled in size with around half the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors putting in their names to be part of the group.

After the first study session, the only member the two elected leaders, Harry and Hermione, had reservations about, was Ron Weasley. He didn't seem to take the work seriously, preferring to spend the study session attempting to engage Harry in conversation.

It all came to a head towards the end of their second study session.

Harry had been trying to explain why the third part of the wand movement affected the colouring changing charm to Hannah whilst Ron was once again trying to get his attention so he could teach him some more about the different Quidditch teams. "Ron, please stop with the Quidditch. We are studying Charms."

Ron snorted, "Charms, Charms. Come on, Harry, Quidditch is much more interesting."

Hermione huffed, "This is our Charms study session, you know, Ron. Really, you should be trying harder."

"What you saying? Just cause you already memorized all the books I have to work harder or something? I don't need to be a.."

Harry cut him off, "Ron, if you are rude to Hermione you can just leave. If you don't want to study, why are you here?"

Ron clenched his jaw and looked about ready to explode.

'Hand him a branch, Harry, ask him to teach you about Quidditch later.'

Harry almost frowned. He didn't really see the point, but followed the advice, "You know a lot about Quidditch, Ron, and it does sound interesting, fun even. How about after we finish here you teach me about it? Just not now, alright?"

The anger drained out of Ron and he grinned. "Yeah, it's right fun. Me and.. yeah, right. Okay, sorry, Harry... Hermione. I'll tell you all about it later. Charms first. Sorry."

Hermione narrowed her eyes as she stared at Ron for a moment before muttering, "Okay." then turned back to Justin Finch-Fletchley who she was coaching on wand movements.

Harry smiled and turned back to Hannah as Ron opened his textbook to the relevant chapter and listened in.

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff also had Herbology and Astronomy together. For their Herbology study group, the Charms group decided to stick together. Neville was elected as the study leader for those sessions. He had been rather reluctant to take the responsibility, again doubting his abilities, however the rest had unanimously agreed that he was easily the best choice given his natural talent with plants. Also, when discussing plants, his normal nervousness just dissipated so, as long as it was in Herbology he turned out to be a good study leader. Generally they met to study in the same empty classroom as they did for Charms but after a few weeks Neville managed to talk Professor Sprout into occasionally letting the study group into one of the greenhouses as long as she was working in there at the time. Everyone was very impressed, especially when Neville had made them all promise not to tell anyone else as it certainly wasn't normal for any of the younger years to have only partially supervised access to even the least dangerous of the greenhouses.

For Astronomy, they didn't bother forming a study group. It turned out easier to just study that in pairs or small groups. The classes were mildly interesting, though occasionally frustrating to Harry, as Tom didn't think highly of the subject and made many more disparaging and distracting remarks within that class. Still, Harry couldn't fault him too much; he was such a big help for the other subjects that having to put up with that behaviour for just one class was still a good deal.

-my-friend-tom-

Transfiguration was with the Ravenclaws, who tended for the most part to form study groups within their house only so, by the end of the first week, all the first year Gryffindors had done the same. Sadly, it was much less well organised than the Charms one and, since they hadn't organised any sort of official leader to the study group, they just had to put up with members of the group getting distracted fairly frequently. Deciding to hold it in the Gryffindor common room hadn't been the best idea either. Ron's effort to stay focused when Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan started talking sport impressed Harry and, when Ron finally took control and asked the two boys to join him away from the rest to continue the conversation, he almost cheered. Sadly, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil continued to mix discussion on what Harry considered frivolous topics with their study and practice.

Harry and Hermione found their Occlumency exercises made Transfiguration much easier, so they introduced a number of the simpler exercises to their study group. To their surprise, Neville took to those exercises like a fish to water and, after only a few Transfiguration lessons, his practical work had improved by leaps and bounds. Tom often made comments about something strange about Neville's magic during Transfiguration but, whilst Harry thought it was curious, he didn't think too much about it.

No one could be bothered forming a study group for History of Magic, though all the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors were most impressed with Harry when he gathered everyone together after class during the second week and presented a compiled collection of Binn's notes that had been proven to be nearly unchanged for the past eight decades. He also had with him notes on a duplication charm specific to paper that could be used by first years. It took the better part of an hour for enough students to get the hang of the charm so that they could make duplications and hand them out to everyone. The charm initially lasted only a few days, so Harry made it a habit to bring his originals to every class just in case anyone needed to recast it. However, for most of the class he read his own history books, which he soon found himself sharing and trading with the rest of the class. By the end of the six weeks, Mandy Brocklehurst of Ravenclaw had created a system for tracking the various history books everyone was bringing, including who owned which, who had borrowed it, and for how long for.

The third subject Gryffindor had with the Ravenclaws was Defence Against the Dark Arts and, if anything, it was worse than History of Magic as even though it was just as useless information wise, you couldn't do self study during the class as easily. Professor Quirrell turned out to be rather a joke but, what was worse, Tom discovered that there was something in the classroom that adversely affected him so, for that particular class, Tom would move a little way into the quiet. Not so far that he couldn't communicate with Harry, but far enough that he lost contact with what Harry was sensing or doing.

No one formed a study group for DADA, as the homework was so easy that nobody had any problems with it.

After the second class, Tom explained why they had such a useless teacher to Harry, 'Many years ago, when Lord Voldemort returned to Britain after travelling on the continent in search of dark magic and a very specific artifact, he came here to Hogwarts. Dumbledore had since become Headmaster and he came in to apply, for the second time actually, for the post of Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. He had two reasons to apply for the position. One was to get access to Hogwarts so he could hide one of his Horcruxes in the castle and the second was that, as a Professor at Hogwarts, he would have ready access to many potential new recruits.

However, Dumbledore refused him the post and, though he expected as much, he was still infuriated enough that he cast a powerful Curse on the castle. The Curse has ever since meant that no one has ever managed to hold the post for longer than a year. Though he may have cast it in spite, it has had a powerful effect that played to his strengths rather well. Ever since then, the quality of the education in that field has significantly dropped.'

"Can the Curse be removed?"

'Indeed, but unfortunately you as yet do not have the power to do it. Lord Voldemort had to pour in an immense amount of power to create the Curse and though you don't need quite as much, trying to dispel it now would leave you dangerously exhausted or even dead.'

"So, we have only have to put up for Quirrell for one year, then."

'See, a silver lining to the dark cloud. I wouldn't be surprised if the spell that affects me so within the classroom is a ward or something similar created by an earlier more capable professor. I think next weekend it would be worthwhile exploring the room a bit further before we assume that, though. Tonight let's revise your knowledge of detection spells.'

"Gah.. they are difficult."

'All the reason to practice them frequently.'

-my-friend-tom-

The last two classes were with the Slytherins. It seemed to be well known that the Gryffindors and Slytherins had a long time feud, so they had most of their classes with the other houses. However, Potions turned out to be the absolutely worst choice to have with the snakes, as far as Harry was concerned.

Harry had entered the class looking forward to the subject, even though he had already been told a number of horror stories about Professor Snape by other students. Tom had told Harry very little about the man, saying that until he had more information it was all guesswork, but they would discuss it more after the first class. Harry loved cooking and imagined that brewing would be very similar. He had already studied a large number of potions,including not only those that Tom had asked him to learn but also the others in the books that they had been described in. He had read up on all the ingredients and interactions he needed for the potions in the textbook and on Tom's list and was keen to start experimenting.

The class took place in the chilly dungeons near where Harry had been told the Slytherin common room and dormitories were. His first indication that it wasn't going to be a pleasant lesson came about when Snape got to his name during the roll call. "Ah, yes, Harry Potter. Our new... celebrity."

The Slytherins all sniggered.

'Sounds like you have a fan, Harry. Maybe you should offer him a signed copy of Harry Potter and the Greasy Potion Master.'

Harry couldn't quite suppress a giggle as he called, "Here, Sir."

Snape glared at him as he continued with the roll call and gave an impassioned speech about potion making before ruining the tone by adding a childish insult to the end.

'Well, he certainly hasn't changed his attitude much over the past ten years. Always thinking he was better than everyone else. Mind you, when it came to potions, that was true.'

"He's a good teacher?"

'No idea, I just know that he was one of the best if not the best potion brewer in the country at the time.'

Snape glanced around the room before his eyes snapped back to Harry and he sneered, "Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry thought for a second, "Well, I imagine it would be similar to the Draught of Living Death but without the Valerian root or the Sopophorous Bean it wouldn't be such a strong sedative. Maybe just paralysis. Is that what we are going to be experimenting with today, Sir?"

Snape sneer froze.

'I do believe he was not expecting you to answer, Harry.'

"So why did he ask, then?"

Snape frowned and asked his second question, "Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Harry glanced around the room and spotted the potions supply cupboard, "I'd check the section listed as antidotes first and if not there I would check amongst the area labeled as non magical animal ingredients, Sir."

Snape snapped, "Explain!"

Harry took a deep breath, "A bezoar is a stone-like aggregation of matter taken from the stomach of a goat. Though it's actually made up of plant fibre it had been common practice to group it with animal products. Its main use is as an antidote hence why it is commonly included in medical kits and with other antidotes."

Snape snorted, "Right then, someone else. Who knows the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Hermione put up her hand and Snape, after glaring at the Slytherins - none of whom raised their hand - finally turned his attention to her, "Wel,l then?"

"It's the same plant, Sir. Also known as Aconite."

Snape sneer returned, "And that it's the limit of your knowledge, then?"

"No Sir, I also know its leaves are very poisonous and the fleshy roots and purple flowers are common potion ingredients. There are over a hundred different species. It's a perennial plant and..."

'Still a bookworm though at least she knew the answer.'

"Fine, fine. Well why aren't you all taking notes? It seems that most of this class are exactly the dunderheads that I was expecting." He turned a glare on Malfoy for some reason before moving to the board.

'Well, he certainly doesn't seem happy that Gryffindors showed up his vaunted Slytherins.'

"Do you know why he doesn't like me much?"

'I'm not sure. I was actually expecting a different response to you. There are certain things that he was involved in but it seems the explanation I was preparing is incorrect. I would beg that you give me some more time to investigate.'

"Okay, Tom. You know best."

'Thank you for your confidence in me Harry, but please be careful. Remember, I can make mistakes like anyone else and I have insurmountable evidence to support that.'

Snape put instructions up on the board and without even the most basic of explanations set the class working on the potion. Harry and Hermione quickly had their potion brewing and so started helping their nearby classmates. Harry had narrowly managed to stop Neville from a disaster when Snape came up behind them, "What's this? Chatting away instead of doing your own work then. That'll be two points from Gryffindor, Potter."

Harry gave a confused look, "No Sir, I was explaining to Neville that the cauldron needs to be off the fire before the porcupine quills are added. Is that correct, Sir?"

Snape frowned, "Well, yes. But I don't recall giving instructions to help your classmates." He took a moment to glance at Harry and Hermione's perfectly brewing potion. "However, since your potion is not a total disaster, carry on."

Harry noted that he didn't cancel the point deduction or give him any points but still he had the feeling it could have gone a lot worse.

The next Potions class the Slytherins arrived already upset about something and started to systematically try and sabotage the Gryffindors' work. Neville suffered burns when Malfoy managed to throw something into his cauldron and many other Gryffindor potions were ruined.

By the third class Harry, with Tom's help, introduced the other Gryffindors to a small warding charm to repel thrown objects. Hermione was very curious about where he had learnt that particular charm and wasn't happy when Harry told her he had promised to not mention the name of the person who had taught him. However, given that she didn't want him to break a promise and the spell had turned out to be so useful, she had eventually let it go.

Snape just ignored the actions of the Slytherins but was quick to pick up any retaliation by the Gryffindors. Harry noticed he was also much harsher on marking down the quality of his housemates' potions and Neville initially suffered most of his ire in the first week of classes.

Only four of the Gryffindors thought it worthwhile to have a study group for a class that was turning out to be mostly practical. Snape's set homework was less thought provoking than menial labour. Harry decided that Ron wasn't that keen on the subject, but was trying to prove that he wasn't an airhead like Lavender by forcing himself to study. Surprisingly, when Ron put his mind to it, he could actually do quite well. Neville continued to struggle and Harry ended up partnering with him for most study sessions and classes. Hermione partnered with Ron, though she made it quite clear that he had to be on his best behaviour or he'd be out a partner and out of the study group very quickly.