"Right," Ever mumbled, scanning the schedule that had been posted on the bulletin board, just as Dumbledore had said it would be. "Transfiguration, then Herbology, then lunch...then Defense Against The Dark Arts...and Charms. Right. Got it. I think."

"Talking to yourself, Moore?" She jumped, glancing back over her shoulder, and sighed when she found Charlie there, a piece of toast in his hand. "That's never a good sign."

"I'm just...trying to figure out what transfiguration is."

"Oh, that's what Professor McGonagall teaches." He peeked over her shoulder, scanning the the schedule. "Right, so McGonagall is on the fourth floor, I have a break so I'll take you there. Herbology is out on the grounds in the greenhouses, you'll be able to find it easily enough."

"Yeah, but...what do you do in all these classes?" Charlie ruffled his hair, then smoothed it back down.

"Well, in Transfiguration, you...transfigure things. Turn one thing into another. It starts off with simple stuff, like matches to needles and beetles to buttons. Next year you can turn a rat or a bird into a goblet."

"Doesn't that hurt the animals?" she asked, feeling sick at the thought. "Can you turn them back afterwards?"

"I..." He paused, spiking his hair back up all over again as he thought it over. "I have no idea. You'll have to ask Professor McGonagall."

"Ask her what?"

"If there's a spell to be able to tell you two apart," said Charlie promptly, barely even glancing over his shoulder at the twins as he pondered Ever's question.

"I heard she can turn into a cat," said Fred.

"Yeah, she can," Charlie muttered absently.

"How?!" Ever exclaimed, eyes wide.

"She's an animagus. Means she can turn into an animal," Charlie explained with a sigh, giving up completely on finding an answer for Ever of his own, before turning toward the twins. "Come on then, you three. Er, four," he added when Lee stumbled up behind Fred and George, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Ever bit back a laugh; apparently Lee wasn't a morning person.

"Where are we going?" Lee mumbled, shuffling along slowly.

"Transfiguration."

"We haven't had breakfast yet!" the twins protested. Charlie sighed and pointed his wand at his toast, muttering a word Ever didn't catch under his breath. The toast multiplied in his hand, and he distributed it between the four.

"We don't have time for much else, sorry." Ever didn't complain; she was too busy examining the toast in front of her, amazed by its very existence. How had he done that? When would she learn how to do it herself? Fred noticed, and George glanced up at her a second later. The two of them snickered, each looping their free arms through hers as they followed their brother from the common room.

"Why is it," she wondered, staring at the torches that lit up the corridors, "that the castle doesn't have electricity?"

"Magic interferes with it," Charlie said, looking back over his shoulder at her. "It just doesn't work around us."

"But when I used magic at home, before I even knew what magic was...well, I guess it was magic...it didn't make the lights flicker or anything."

"Well, it wouldn't. One witch, particularly an untrained one, doesn't have enough concentrated magic to do anything to affect it." The older Weasley slid his hands into the pockets of his robes easily as he started down the stairs. "But the school has about four hundred of us right now." Ever nodded, sliding her arms free from the twins' grasp to wrap them around herself. Before Charlie had said "witch", she'd never thought of herself as one. Now, after the day before and walking through a magical castle with students holding wands and rolls of parchment instead of pens and notebooks, she couldn't deny that was what she was. She supposed she hadn't really been able to deny it before, not when things she needed suddenly appeared in a place she'd looked two seconds before or the stove catching on fire when she was really impatient for her grilled cheese to be done had been happening around her for years, but being at Hogwarts made it seem very real and very scary put up beside her little two-bedroom cardboard cutout home in Cardiff, where everything was...normal, where magic didn't exist, and unexplained things were miracles of God instead of wishful thinking coming to life.

"Alright, Ever?" Lee asked. "You've gone a bit peaky."

"Oh. Yeah. Fine." She forced a quick smile at him and focused her gaze on Charlie's back. Hadn't he said that Transfiguration was on the fourth floor? What floor were they on? She had to stop zoning out; she was going to end up getting lost. At the bottom of the staircase, the prefect veered off to the right. She counted the doors they passed...one...two...three, and he stopped in front of the fourth.

"Right," Ever murmured, "Fourth floor, turn right, fourth door on the right."

"You got it," said Charlie, and flashed his crooked smile—was that a Weasley trademark? Did Bill smile like that too? "Class'll be starting soon, so you four should go find decent spots."

"Right," said Lee. "Dibs on the back!"

"Oi, wait a minute!" the twins cried, running after him into the classroom. Ever giggled when Charlie rolled his eyes.

"Thanks for helping us get here."

"S'what I'm here for." She waved and turned toward the door, but before she'd taken two steps, the prefect had called her back. "Don't forget to ask McGonagall," he said. "You've got me curious."

The first Transfiguration class of the year began when the cat on Professor McGonagall's desk jumped into the air and morphed into the woman who had handled the Sorting ceremony the previous evening, to the ooohs and aaahs of all present. The hour and a half that followed was considerably less exciting, much to the twins' and Lee's disdain. Notes were written on the blackboard for the students to take down, and while Ever, in her seat in front of the three between Angelina and Alicia, copied them down dutifully, the three of them entertained themselves with "dueling" behind her. A warning was issued halfway through the class from the stern professor, and for a brief period—about fifteen minutes—there was silence, broken only by the scratching of quills and a quiet cough now and then. When the grace period was up—and with a quick glance in McGonagall's direction—the boys continued their quill duel.

The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan received their first detention on September 2nd, 1989, before their first class was over. The punishment didn't seem to effect their good humor, though for the next half hour they resigned themselves to doodling on their rolls of parchment. When McGonagall dismissed the students—Ever decided that her question could wait until the next lesson, because the poor professor had already been tried by her new friends—the first year girl leaned against the wall outside of the door, waiting for the three to finish up on the details of their detention.

"Are you friends with those three that were sitting behind us?" Alicia asked, flopping back against the wall beside Ever. She took a deep breath, determined not to be nervous around her classmates anymore, and managed a smile.

"Yeah, I met them on the train yesterday. They were really nice and kind of...um...helped explain about Hogwarts and magic and...stuff," she finished lamely.

"They're rather cute, aren't they? The red-heads?" She looked to her left and found Angelina leaning on her other side.

"I guess so. I hadn't really thought about it."

"So you're muggle-born, then?" Ever nodded, picking at the skin around her thumb. "You must've thought I was mad yesterday, talking about quidditch! Do you know what that is?" She looked up at Alicia, and when she found her looking genuinely curious instead of disgusted, she smiled and shook her head.

"Well, you see," Alicia began, sliding down the wall to sit cross-legged on the floor. Ever and Angelina followed suit. "You've got seven players on a quidditch team. Three chasers, two beaters, a keeper, and a seeker."

"What do the chasers chase?"

"The quaffle," said Angelina. "It's a red ball about...this big." She held her hands apart, a bit wider than a basketball. "There are two more types of balls in the game. Two bludgers and the golden snitch. The bludgers are about..." She held out her hands again to demonstrate something about the size of a softball. "And the snitch is about...hm." She held her fingers together in a little circle just a bit bigger than a golf ball.

"So the chasers get the quaffle. At the end of each pitch there are these three tall poles with hoops on the end, and they throw the quaffle through to get ten points," Alicia explained.

"Right, but the keeper blocks the hoops."

"So the keeper is like a goalie in hockey?" When both girls shot her confused glances, Ever shook her head. "Nevermind. It's a...muggle sport." The word "muggle" still felt strange in her mouth. "I'll tell you about it later, if you want. Keep going."

"Right," said Angelina, shaking her head—her braids swished around her cheeks, the beads at the end clacking gently—as if to shake off the confusion. "So the keeper does that, and the seeker goes after the golden snitch."

"The snitch is the most important part of the game," Alicia chipped in, "because usually the team that catches it wins."

"How come?"

"Because." All three girls jumped, looking around to find the twins—crooked grins plastered across their faces, of course, like they hadn't just gotten in trouble within the first two hours of a new term—and Lee Jordan standing in the doorway. "The snitch is worth a hundred and fifty points. Were you waiting for us, ladies? Allow us to escort you to the greenhouses." Ever rolled her eyes and ignored the hand Fred or George so valiantly offered—Lee had offered his hand to Angelina, and the other twin to Alicia—pushing herself to her feet and grabbing her bag.

"Percy really is going to write your mum now. You know that, don't you?"

At that, the grin disappeared from their faces.

Charlie—who had the whole morning off and an afternoon after lunch packed with classes, which, he explained to Ever, was exactly as he liked it because it meant he could have a bit of a lie in—met them outside of the greenhouses when class was over.

"I was down at Hagrid's hut," he said, turning his wand over in his hands. "He and Professor Kettleburn were prepping flobberworms for the third years."

"Who are they?" Ever asked, walking quickly to match his pace. Fred, George, and Lee trailed along behind them, not interested in flobberworms—whatever they were—or Hagrid or Kettleburn.

"Kettleburn's the Care of Magical Creatures professor. Weird bloke, he's only got one arm and half a leg left, but—"

"How did that happen?" Ever wasn't sure she wanted to know, but couldn't help asking.

"Dunno. Depends on the day of the week you ask him." Charlie grinned at her horrified expression. "But he's alright, just a bit...reckless, you could say. Hagrid's the groundskeeper. He's the big guy that helped you guys onto the boats yesterday."

They made their way through the Entrance Hall and into the Great Hall, where students were already settled digging into their lunch. As the five of them found seats and settled in, Charlie fixed his eyes on his younger brothers.

"Now, Perce doesn't know yet and I intend to keep it that way, unless McGonagall writes to Mum herself."

"How'd you know about it?" Fred—she thought it was Fred, he usually spoke first—demanded, his ears slowly darkening to an alarming shade of red. Charlie tapped the prefect badge on his chest.

"I'm your house's oldest prefect and your older brother. McGonagall figured she ought to pass the information on. Just...please don't cause anymore trouble this week. I don't think Mum would be too pleased if she got an owl from your head of house this early in the year."

"Right," the twins muttered in unison, stuffing their mouths full with bites of ham sandwiches. No more was said on the matter, and after an unnervingly quiet lunch—Ever was used to at least some noise around the red heads—they were off to Defense Against The Dark Arts.

"Seventh floor, turn left off the staircase, second door on your left," Charlie instructed. "I'd take you, but I have to get to Charms."

"We have that next," Ever began, smiling apologetically.

"Second floor, left off the staircase, sixth door on the right." He waved off her thanks and headed up the staircase as she slung her bag over her shoulder.

"So what do you reckon the new Defense teacher is going to be like?" Lee asked as they followed the older Weasley up the steps.

"I dunno. I've never had a different one."

"That's right, you dunno about the curse!" said the twin nearest her. She stopped in her tracks, staring at him. It took a moment for the boy to stop and look back at her.

"Curse?" she asked.

"Yeah, every year the Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher leaves at the end of term." Ever swallowed and forced herself to catch up to them.

"How come?"

"Dunno, but Charlie and Bill have had new teachers every year. Dunno why we'd be any different." For the next five minutes, as they made their way up the next six flights of stairs, nobody spoke. The seventh floor, left turn, second door on the left came far too quickly for Ever's liking. Whether the curse was on the class, the teacher himself, or the position, she felt a trifle uneasy about going through the door. Fred and George didn't seem to feel any qualms about it; they pushed straight through into the room. She bit down on her lip—hard enough to draw blood—and commanded herself to snap out of it. This was a class, and she was going to go in and do well and be a good witch and make her mum proud of her.

That was all the motivation she needed to get her legs moving. Within moments she was seated, for the third time that day, just in front of the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan, watching the door to the adjoining office and waiting for it to swing open. Angelina sat on her left and Alicia joined her on the right, and for a few long minutes there was silence before the office door opened with a very loud creak.

"Sorry I'm late, I fell asleep over lunch and my alarm clock doesn't exactly work here in good ol' Hoggy Warty Hogwarts. I'm Professor Black."