I should be asleep, not writing this. Ah, the life that is mine.

Anyhow, a little important info for you before you read this chapter. Last summer, I went a bit crazy (read: totally insane) and worked out a fully functional Hogwarts class schedule for all 7 years, plus schedules for the teachers. Color-coded and everything. It's a work of art, truly. Anyways, I worked on that thing for over 10 hours straight, and even though it was primarily for another story, I'm damn well going to use it for this one too. The thing is, dear readers, it's impossible for a single teacher to teach 14 groups of students every week and have all those classes line up in such a way that the students have time to go to all their other classes. It's just not possible. Which means, if Hogwarts is a school, there's a full extra set of teachers for the core subjects. You know what else that means? Hayden's teachers are not the same teachers that canon!Harry had. At least not for most of his lessons. If you have questions on this, please, please, please ask them, because I don't want this to be confusing, but it probably is anyways. At any rate, I'll figure out something to have Hayden interact with some of the teachers we know, but it'll have to wait until after the first day of school.

If you're interested, the schedule is here: interdimensionalhitchhiker84 dot tumblr dot com/ post/ 95838613681/ hogwarts-class-schedule-i-made-this-it-is

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 13

Hayden was roused in the morning by a sharp knocking on the door to the dorm. He rolled over and dropped his face onto his pillow, but then he pushed himself up onto his elbows with a smile. "Magic," he said softly. Today he got to learn about magic. Magic which was probably science which was really, really cool.

He jumped out of the bed and skidded to his trunk at the end of it, landing in a sitting position on the floor. He pushed up the lid and rummaged around to find clothes, then stared at his pill bottles. Would he be able to take them at breakfast? Probably not. He got up to get a glass of water from the pitcher on the table by the wall and quickly swallowed the couple he had to take in the morning.

One of the other boys was watching him curiously when he turned around.

"What did you just swallow?"

"My pills."

"What?"

"Um… medicine?"

"Like a potion?"

"Sure."

"How'd they get it small and hard like that?"

Hayden shrugged.

"What's it for?"

Hayden looked at the strawberry-blond kid—Elian, he now remembered—and frowned. "Um… well, it's for anxiety and… schizophrenia."

"Like a calming drought?"

"Maybe a little. I'm not really sure."

Thankfully, that seemed to satisfy him. Or not.

"You didn't talk much at dinner last night."

Hayden shook his head as he went back to his bed and started to change.

"Don't talk much at all then? Okay."

ooo

When they all made their way back up to the great hall to eat, Hayden had to repress a shudder at the horrible feeling of being in such a large room with what felt like no ceiling, but he shouldered on and plunked down at the Hufflepuff table, which was the third one in. Not helping. If he could just sit against the wall, it would be a lot better.

Repressing a sigh, he poured some orange juice and took a big gulp, only to discover it wasn't orange juice and gag. Then, coughing, he grabbed some toast, eying it warily before taking a bite. Thankfully, that did taste like normal bread. And the eggs didn't seem too bad either.

The blond boy with the unfortunate upturned nose sat next to Hayden at the table.

"Zacharias. Hayden, right?"

Hayden nodded, swallowing the forkful of eggs in his mouth.

"So what's your story?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your story. Where'd you come from? I've got a grandmum who's muggle-born and a sister in the year up. My dad's works in the Wizengamot and my mum's an herbalist."

"Oh, um, well, my dad's in… sort of government? He stops chaos before it starts, normally, and cleans it up when it happens anyways. My tad does the same thing. They met at work." Hayden shrugged.

"So no magic in your family, then?"

Hayden swallowed another bite of food. "M' not sure. I mean, I was adopted."

"Oh, right. That… makes more sense."

Schedules were passed out then, and Zacharias stopped talking. Hayden wasn't sure how he felt about him yet.

One of the prefects showed them up to their classroom a few minutes later, which was good, because they would have been really lost otherwise.

Hayden leaned against the wall, staring at the door as they all waited for the teacher, but turned his head to look when a couple of Slytherins ran up. "Look, that's it!"

Ginny sighed in relief and slumped against the wall next to him. "I thought for sure we were lost."

"Hi Ginny."

"Hi. Ron—that's my older brother—said that History's taught by a ghost and the most boring class there is. Do you think that's true?"

Hayden shrugged, hoping beyond hope that it wasn't, because pushing aside the fact that ghosts still creeped him out, he liked history a lot and didn't want it ruined by a bad teacher.

"Slytherin is… not what I expected. Still a bit terrifying though. I haven't talked to anyone in my family since the sorting and I'm… a bit scared to."

"Why?"

"Well it's just-"

She was cut off by a tall, but not unnaturally tall, man in dark blue robes sweeping into the corridor. "My first class of the year! Welcome, welcome!"

"That doesn't look like a ghost to me."

Professor Robin Reeks turned out to be a very good teacher and so far, goblin rebellions looked awesome. He'd promised that the next class, they'd be started out a class competition. Hayden couldn't wait. Ginny couldn't wait to tear her brother a new one. Except for the part where she was avoiding her family.

ooo

Herbology was next, and Professor Olney knew how to put dirt in a pot, but Hayden wasn't sure of much else. His partner though, Collin from Gryffindor, talked constantly and seemed really excited to be covered in dragon manure. This was the same boy who'd fallen in the mud on the way to the boats. Maybe it was a pattern. At any rate, Collin kept on talking whether Hayden did or not, so at least conversation with him was one thing less to worry about. Apparently his dad worked in the dairy business and he had a couple of siblings and he thought Hayden having two fathers was the coolest thing ever because honestly, mums never let you do anything.

At lunch, Hayden pulled out a notebook and pen and started writing a letter to his tad, then he was dragged off with his classmates to Astronomy, which was way behind his previous knowledge, but Luna seemed to find interesting. Hayden spent the class helping the people around him and watching Luna's reactions to learning things. It was a theory only class though, and they'd apparently have a night-time one too for practical stuff. He looked forward to that a little more though, no matter how much he already knew, because there was less light pollution here than anywhere he'd been before and the stars would probably be clearer than he'd ever seen them.

After astronomy, a prefect showed them all the library, and Hayden stayed there to finish up his homework and letters. Collin came up behind him while he was writing his letter to his dad, the one for his tad already finished and put in his bag.

"What are you writing?"

He jumped. "Oh, it's… it's a letter. Hey Collin. You've still got some," he pointed at his cheek to mirror where the leftover dirt was on Collin's face."

"Oh, thanks!" he said, attempting to wipe it off but only making it worse. "I don't really understand the brightness of stars stuff. Could you, er, you know, help?"

Hayden knew he was going to regret this, but nodded. "Yeah, okay."

ooo

At dinner, Hayden nervously approached a prefect. "Um, I was wondering… if maybe… you could… um… show me where to send my letters from."

The girl smiled. "Yeah, absolutely. Right after dinner I can take you straight up to the owlry."

The owlry was very high up and there were an awful lot of owls and it was a bit cold, but one of the birds hopped down to take the message without even being prompted. "You just hand them the letter if it's in an envelope, or roll up the message and tie it around their leg. It's really simple."

Hayden nodded, then pulled out the first envelope, the one with the address of his old flat on it beneath the name 'Ianto Jones.' Hesitantly, he held the letter out, and the bird took it in its beak, jumping out the window in a rush of flapping wings.

"Woah."

"Yeah," she agreed.

"Um, I actually… have one more." Another owl hopped down. "Oh, okay." Hayden gave the second letter to the second bird and watched it fly away too.

"Um, I was wondering," he took a breath, "how do the owls know where to go?"

"You know, I'm not really sure."

"Okay. And um, at meals… do we have to sit at the house tables?"

"Nope, not unless it's a feast. Sit wherever you like."

Well that was a relief. By the time they'd gotten down to the common room, Hayden was much more informed about the school. As it turned out, they got a completely different set of teachers than the 2nd, 4th, and 6th years, which explained how all the classes were taught and why Ginny's brother said history was taught by a ghost. His class was. Hayden felt really bad for him. Also, there was a general map of the school that worked most of the time, but you had to ask Professor Flitwick for it, and since his office hours were on Friday mornings, that's where Hayden would be headed right after breakfast. If he could find the office. He'd take Luna with him, since that was her head of house.

ooo

Dear Tad,

It's… overwhelming. I mean, it's really magical. There are ghosts hanging around everywhere and everything's lit with floating candles and the ceiling in the Great Hall is charmed to look like the sky outside. I'm not going to lie, Tad, that's really uncomfortable. I'm going to ask later if we can sit where we want instead of at house tables so maybe I can stay closer to the walls.

History class is fantastic! Prof. Reeks is going to set up a class competition that sounds like a lot of fun. In Herbology, we mostly just got covered in dragon dung, but it was an introductory lesson, so we might be learning a bit more later. Astronomy was really boring, but I helped some other people. That's okay, right? I mean, helping isn't cheating, is it? I'm not really sure about how this formal school thing works.

The castle is huge and everything moves around, which isn't helpful, but the library moves around to help you find things instead of the other way around, so that's nice.

There's not much else to say, really.

I was sorted into Hufflepuff and the common room is really cozy. The windows just look out on grass, but it's really cool how the morning sunlight hits it. And I didn't have any trouble sleeping in the dorm bed.

Are things going smoothly with setting up the hub? Did you find my lucky pencil? Did you talk to Dad after I left on the train?

I know you're still mad at him for putting me in danger, but please don't be, Tad, because what he did was to protect everyone. He didn't really have a choice. I know you know that, but really, it didn't hurt me. Somehow, it even made me better.

Do you think I should explore the castle? I don't like the idea of getting lost, but if I explore, then there's less chance of it happening later, right?

-Hayden

ooo

Dear Dad,

How's Myfanwy?

Yeah, I know. History was awesome, Herbology was dirty, and Astronomy was boring. I've got Potions tomorrow afternoon, so we'll see how that goes.

I got sorted into Hufflepuff and the common room is really nice. Lots of warm colors and the windows show grass and there's lots of plants all over the place. The older kids are really helpful so far, but that doesn't mean that everyone isn't getting lost anyways. Do you think I should explore the castle? The place is huge and I want to get an idea of where things are, but I also don't want to get lost while I'm exploring.

Speaking of huge, the Great Hall is enormous. And doesn't look like it has a ceiling. It's some sort of charm, but it's very uncomfortable. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it yet. And the orange juice isn't made of oranges. It's the colour orange, but it's not citrus. I don't know what it is, but it's disgusting.

You'll be here Saturday, right? I'll tell you more then. Can you bring me more of the anxiety meds? I… think I might need them.

-Hayden

Thanks for reading! Review!

-MP