A/N: Wow. This is really behind schedule. Ah well.. enjoy!

Moonstruck Madness Year One: Chapter 8

First Classes

It seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I've pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I'd be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd pinch myself to see if it was real-until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I'd better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But it IS real." Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables

Anne was astounded at the size of Hogwarts. She said to Hermione, numerous times, that the inside was even more magnificent than the outside. "142 staircases!" she'd exclaim somewhat randomly. "And they're all different!" Some with trick steps, some that changed direction, some that seemed to appear out of nowhere – Anne was actually somewhat frightened by the staircases of Hogwarts.

Anne was also having some other issues. Specifically, she had been seized by a sudden and debilitating bout of homesickness. Until now, she had completely believed that she'd be back in Green Gables very soon. However, attending all of her classes where the teachers dropped the phrase "for the rest of the school year" very liberally in their opening lectures abruptly brought it home that she might be here a very, very long time.

Hermione was also very impressed by Hogwarts, though she did not share Anne's tendency to stand in place mesmerized by the movement of the staircases for hours on end. Instead, she occupied herself with trying to remember which staircases had trick steps and which way all of the staircases went. It turned out to be rather more difficult than she had first thought, especially because the staircases with trick steps were prone to moving just when she figured them out. Hermione swore to herself that she'd get them all straight if it took a diagram to do it.

The most impressive thing about Hogwarts, Gilbert thought, was that despite its great size, he still managed to run into the same people with amazing regularity. He wasn't thinking time during classes, but rather the time afterwards. If he went to the library to look for something, Anne and Hermione would probably be there. If he decided to go walk around the lake, Anne apparently had made the same decision.

His other problem was more academically related. He just couldn't do Transfiguration. Not wouldn't or refused to, but plainly couldn't. And it frustrated him to no end. He repeated the spell word for word and syllable for syllable, and did the wand movements almost exactly – with no result. Professor McGonagall said that sometimes it took some students a bit more time to get used to the kind of magic Transfiguration was, because it altered the properties of an object completely. But he could tell she was getting little worried after everyone in the class – even Ron, who had nearly decapitated both him and Harry in the process - had mastered turning a matchstick into a needle except him. His medical test with Madame Pomfrey was scheduled to be soon. Maybe he would have answers then. Luckily, he hadn't had any strange memory lapses since the first one. This probably had something to do with the fact that he'd been carefully avoiding head trauma ever since.

Ron, having heard stories from his brothers, was probably the least impressed of all of them. However, that wasn't saying much, as Ron was still prone to shout "Blimey!" whenever he was outside the castle and looked back at it. He also shouted loudly whenever a staircase unexpectedly moved, which happened to him quite often since he didn't pay attention to their patterns.

After a few days at Hogwarts, Harry concluded that it was a strange and wonderful place. Ghosts could teach classes, and staircases could move? The other issue was the wizards themselves. Before Hogwarts, He'd been an ordinary kid with glasses. Now he was the Boy-who-Lived, and too many other fancy titles with excessive hyphens and capital letters. At times he felt strangely like the boa constrictor he'd accidentally set off at the zoo, with all the extra attention and the stares he was drawing from people. He wasn't sure what to make of Hogwarts- admittedly, the school was rather confusing to navigate, and the singing suits of armor were rather off-key (or was that Peeves?), but there was still that thrill that came every time he experienced magic. It really was real. For a rare time, Harry truly felt like he belonged at somewhere. Hogwarts was beginning to feel like home.

Until Friday, Anne had been managing to actually enjoy Hogwarts.

Astronomy was fascinating - she loved learning about the mythology behind all the stars, and Wizarding mythology was quite a different variation from the traditional Greek and Roman versions she had learned in school. Anne wasn't quite sure if Hercules would have appreciated sharing a constellation with Batrandus the Brutal, apparently, was a genius at ancient alchemy and potions. He was the blood- and-gore type of guy, and could make potions that could make you burn from the inside, that could rip you to pieces, and even change the color of your organs every few seconds (this was a rather unfortunate mistake – but that was another myth). Most notably, he fueled the unimaginably painful poison for Hercules' arrows. Anne figured they probably didn't get along very well up there in the sky.

Herbology was fun-it reminded her of gardening, although it was slightly more hazardous. The plants in the greenhouse had a strange way of wrapping themselves around students when they weren't noticing – Neville in particular.

The initial shock of having a ghost teach History soon wore off after a couple of days. Students quickly lost interest after they realized the monotone Professor Binns spoke in was permanent. Anne wasn't sure if letting Binns teach past his retirement age was a good idea—within the time span of an hour he had managed to get Anne mixed up with Hermione, and had called Anne various forms of the names: Anna Shire, Annie Sherry, and Anya Leery.

History of Magic may have been boring, but she could talk to Hermione without anyone noticing, since nearly everyone was asleep, and Professor Binns really didn't notice anything. At least he still had his creativity with all the names he managed to come up with in a day.

Charms was amazing since it was what she had always imagined magic to be. After the rather impromptu discussion with Professor Burbage, Anne felt a lot better about magic. She supposed those Muggles must have made a mistake. Yet she still had little qualms about performing magic – she never held a charm for more than a few seconds, and she wasn't sure it she was able to.

Defense Against the Dark Arts had a very interesting textbook, though the same couldn't be said of the professor. Professor Quirrell was an extremely nervous man, stuttering and fumbling his way through class. By the end, Anne doubted that any more than half the class left understanding a complete thought by the end. Anne figured she and Hermione would just have to practice a lot on their own.

Transfiguration had an absolutely amazing teacher (even though she was quite strict).

And it was quite amusing seeing the faces of Ron, Harry, and Gilbert after Professor McGonagall transformed from a tabby before their eyes.

But there was a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that she shouldn't get too attached to this place since she would soon be home in Avonlea again. She refused to believe otherwise. She had decided to consider this an extended 'holiday', but she couldn't help missing Diana and Matthew and Marilla – it was horribly ironic that the one person from Avonlea she wouldn't miss was here with her.

Anne noticed that she got tired a lot more easily, and that pumpkin juice made her feel rather queasy. She supposed these were aftereffects of time travelling, or just her body getting used to magic. Either way, she hoped they would go away with time. Or that she'd be home soon.

Overall, she'd had a decent week, considering the strange circumstances.

Friday suddenly changed all that, and made Anne extremely annoyed.

For starters, Professor Snape ridiculed Hermione in their first Potions class. Well, actually, he made fun of all the Gryffindors. But most of all, he excessively ridiculed Harry, and had unecessarily pulled Hermione in too for good measure. She thought that she might have liked Harry if it wasn't for his extremely annoying and simply hateful friends.

The next thing that went wrong was rather more catastrophic.