Chapter Thirteen: Day by Day

Several months before starting at Hogwarts, James had written me revealing that he had a slight fear of becoming homesick when away at school. As my response, I had convinced him that his parents would always be a letter away, and that he'd become so comfortable at school that he wouldn't even miss Godric's Hollow. I didn't even know how I managed to write those words when I was afraid of being homesick myself, even with Dad at school with me.

On September 2nd, 2016, our first official day at Hogwarts, I arrived at breakfast early, practically too excited to eat. James arrived with the blond boy I'd seen the night before, Matthew Wood.

"Allie!" James slid upon the bench across from me. "'Morning! You've met Matt, right?" He gestured toward the boy, who was already helping himself to heaps of eggs.

"Hey," Matthew waved my extended hand off, spearing sausages with his fork tines. "You're that professor's daughter, right?"

I yanked my hand away. Throughout the morning, the people I passed acknowledged me as "Longbottom's daughter". I already loathed being called this and before the boys had joined me, I was considering asking Mum if I could change my last name legally. "Yes…my name is Alice."

"How did you get a granny name like that?" Matthew seemed to be joking, but his comment caused my jaw to drop in offense.

"Excuse me?" I tightened the grip on my fork.

"Hold it there," Matthew was grinning, clearly entertained by this. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"Well, you did," I averted my eyes away. "It was my grandmother's name. She died before I was born."

Matthew shrugged. "Well, sorry then."

James, suddenly uncomfortable by this exchange, sought to change the subject. "About that professor's daughter thing, Alice…don't feel bad, people are calling me Harry Potter's son."

"Yes, but you're used to being called that," I pointed out. "I've never been called Longbottom's daughter."

"That's another thing…" Matthew began. "What kind of last name is Longbottom?"

I shot him a look; he only snickered and sipped at his pumpkin juice.

That arrogant prat! I'd have loathed him even more if he wasn't suddenly friends with James. Luckily, Arria and Fred arrived at the table together at that moment, and I perked up immediately when seeing two likeable people.

"I heard about your friend, Alice," Arria sat down and began putting together a plate for herself. "I'm sorry."

I managed to shrug it off. "It's okay. We've promised to stay in touch."

"She could have been a Gryffindor…then maybe we wouldn't have that awful Natasha in our dorm," Arria giggled and lowered her voice. "Did you hear her last night? She snored non-stop!"

She and I smirked and glanced at the far end of the Gryffindor table. Natasha and Julianne Corner sat next to each other, whispering like mad – apparently, they were already best friends.

Halfway through mealtime, Professor Cole began sweeping up the aisle, calling out names and handing out schedules. "Jordan! Potter! Longbottom! Weasley!..." He recited all of the first-year Gryffindors' names. We obviously had the same schedules.

James was the first to tear open his envelope. He shrugged when seeing it. "Not bad. Michael said that the best class to have first thing is Charms." He waved the schedule triumphantly. "Lucky us."

Breakfast was finished quickly from then on. We headed off to class in thongs of people – I felt content and popular when traveling to Charms with James, Matthew, Fred, and Arria. The new leather satchel Mum had purchased for me hung loosely on my shoulder, weighed down by textbooks and quills inside. A rush of adrenaline coursed through my body, preparing for not just the day ahead but the upcoming seven years.

Charms was no longer taught by Filius Flitwick, who had retired about two years before we began school. A thirty-ish witch by the name of Professor Bufflee replaced him. She acted stern, spoke firmly, and her hair – which would have looked quite pretty let down – was pulled back in a tight bun. She discussed regulations of class with us firstly and then went on to assign an essay explaining what we hoped to learn this year in Charms.

Next up was Transfiguration, taught by the nervous Professor Cole. How he became a Gryffindor was a mystery to me. But from the moment he admitted he was a registered Animagus and transformed into a ball python before our very eyes, I was hooked onto the science of changing one object to be another. With my new wand, I eagerly tried out the sample spells he assigned to us during our first class. They were simple, such as changing water to food coloring, but they enthralled me.

This fascination continued for me on every other day that week. Transfiguration class to me was a happy haven, a time to just experiment and see where it led you. Most people would disagree, stating that Potions would be fit properly with that description, but I never cared. From the very first class, it was my favorite subject.

Speaking of Potions, it was clear from our very first meeting that I would struggle with it. Our teacher, Professor Zabini, was a former classmate of Dad's and loathed Gryffindors, even though rumors flew that he had saved James and Fred's uncle Charlie's life during the Final Battle. Zabini was the epitome of any Potions master – greasy personality, slicked-back hair, and the attitude to match.

We didn't have Potions on our first day of class; it was only scheduled for the second and third days of the week. Before our first Potions class, as we waited outside the dungeon for Zabini to let us inside, James warned me to keep my mouth shut no matter what. "Dad says that this guy's a bad egg, no matter what he did for Uncle Charlie. If I were you, I'd pick out a seat in the back and avoid any eye contact." He mimicked what he would do to look away from the teacher, and I had to laugh.

"I'd pay big money to see you actually do that," Matthew tossed out from behind us.

"You obviously don't know him very well," I replied with a wry grin.

Matthew opened his mouth to shoot something back at me, but the chamber door creaked open just then. I caught sight of Zabini's profile and felt my blood curdling unpleasantly. As the twenty of us filed past him into the classroom (it was a Double period, which meant longer than a normal class and learning alongside Ravenclaws), the thick scent of sweat and singe nearly knocked me over.

Others were quick to claim seats, with only two to a desk. I was left to sit next to Laura Creevey, who had barely spoken a word to anyone in the past two days. She peeked up at me from over her parchment with big blue eyes, reminding me of a clueless doe.

I shuffled uncomfortably for a moment. "Is it all right if I sit here?"

In response, Laura ducked her head and glanced away. "Sure."

I began setting up my paper and ink, dipping my new quill into the liquid to test its writing capability. Laura, doodling aimlessly on her paper, stayed silent.

"Quiet, please," Zabini's voice echoed alongside the slam of the classroom door as he swished to the front of his desk. "Take note – all students are expected to be waiting outside the classroom at least ten minutes before class time begins." When we did nothing, he cried, "Take note!"

We obeyed, snatching up quills and scribbling down his message. Zabini barked impatiently, "Who can tell me what Potions class can consist of?"

A smart aleck, Leah Juggs, shot her hand up. Zabini nodded curtly at her, and she answered, "To memorize the properties of ingredients and learn how to make and use potions."

"Ten points to Ravenclaw," Zabini declared sourly. "The simplest potion that I have my first years prepare is a boil cure antidote. Instructions are on the blackboard…" He flicked his wand, writing appeared. "…Take out your potion kits, you have fifteen minutes."

Uneasy looks were shared among us all as we tentatively withdrew our kits from our bags. I squinted to make out the thin script on the board, while Laura had already begun crushing snake fangs. Checking that Zabini was out of earshot, I hissed to my seatmate, "Hey! What does the first direction say?"

Laura poured her debris of fangs into her pewter cauldron – I had admired my own pewter one while it was sitting on a shelf in my bedroom in London, but now I wasn't too appreciative of it when I had to drag it across the castle. "Crush a quarter's worth of snake fangs," she replied, her voice slightly higher than it had been before. "Do you need help measuring?"

Scowling to myself, I violently began pounding a handful of fangs. "No, thank you, I can manage."

Eventually, I ended up consulting my textbook for the potion's instructions and still struggled with measuring the exact amount of ingredients that they called for. As fifteen minutes neared an end, the liquid in my cauldron was a pasty green, which I'd later be informed was one step away from an acid green, which tended to burn through the cauldron.

"Sloppy, sloppy, Miss Longbottom," Zabini tusked. "You made the careless mistake of chopping the porcupine quills and then adding them to the cauldron. The instructions said to leave your quills untouched."

I blushed, sinking into my seat. "I couldn't see the blackboard. I looked in the textbook and it called for chopped quills."

Zabini looked amused. "Well, now we know to only consult the board, don't we?"

"Yes sir."

"Due to this trouble of reading the blackboard, perhaps you should be moved to a seat further up front."

"Yes sir." I wanted to protest, but felt that it wouldn't be the best option to do so.

"Corner," Zabini's eyes flicked to the center desk in the first row, "switch seats with Longbottom."

In the front of the room, Julianne scoffed, but gathered her things and sulkily came down the row. I collected my belongings and walked to her old seat, to be dismayed when seeing that she had been sitting next to Natasha.

"Don't even think about touching my side of the bench," she warned as I began to sit down. "And I'll never let you borrow paper or a quill, so don't bother asking."

I chose to reply to neither Natasha nor the nudges James was giving me from behind, trying to make me laugh.

The following day, Potions class was no better. We took notes on the underlying effects of drinking the boil cure potion, and my quill's tip broke in the middle of the session. While asking everyone around me for a writing utensil in a desperate and hushed tone, and avoiding Natasha clearly, Zabini caught me and deducted twenty points from Gryffindor. I was never able to copy down the remainder of the notes.

As the week dragged on, Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts proved to be my most natural subjects. The latter's teaching spot was no longer cursed and Professor Madden had been the teacher for a good eight years. I immediately liked him when he explained that first-years would be given examples of Dark Magic used during the War and then delve into the basic magic that caused the worst of spells and charms. Like Transfiguration, DADA proved itself to be just as experimental and interesting, at least in my opinion. James and Fred both declared it a waste of time, a comment I strongly ignored.

Potions still remained the toughest field for me and soon, I found Herbology – surprisingly enough – as a semi-complicated study. Our first class with Dad consisted of studying the basic plant's main parts, and then comparing this to an average Wizardry plant. Despite displaying to us several dangerous plants, we were told we wouldn't work with this until at least mid-second year.

It was the Friday of our first official week when I was cleaning my hands of potting soil at the end of Herbology class and my father approached. Until then, we had avoided any face-to-face contact and I refrained from raising my hand in class, even though I didn't know most of the answers to Dad's questions.

"Professor Zabini tells me you're having some difficulty," he casually brought up, piling flower pots on top of each other, "in his class."

I bit my lip, switching the water faucet off. "It's a stupid subject that no one needs to know."

"Alice, if it was stupid, it wouldn't be taught."

"I'm just not good at it, all right?"

"Don't be so upset," Dad had a knowing smile on his face. "I was quite terrible at Potions too."

"Well, now I know who to blame," I joked, and Dad chuckled.

"Have a good weekend, all right, Allie? And write to your mother, she's wondering about you."

"Okay," I dried my hands and snatched up my bag. "See you at dinner."

I left Greenhouse 1 with my housemates and the Slytherins we had had class with. Herbology was the last period of the day and I was actually looking forward to my first weekend away at school. So many possibilities – exploring the castle, writing letters to Mum and Liana, and certainly stuffing myself with the wondrous school food.

Halfway back to the castle, James caught up with me, a snip of paper in his hand. "I got this from Hagrid today," he waved it in my face. "Says that he wants us two to come and visit him later today. Something about wanting to chat with some of his favorite students' kids."

"Just us?" I didn't even remember the last time I went someplace with just James.

James showed me the letter. It requested only James and me.

"Right then," I shrugged. "What time?"

"Half past three. We should go as soon as we dump our stuff in the common room."

We did so, and then hiked the grounds to the very outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, where Hagrid's hut was located. The hut was large and rustic and the door immediately flew open when we knocked.

"Alice! James! Come righ' in!" All I saw was an enormous hand reaching out and pulling us into the cabin. Once over the threshold, Hagrid patted our backs and I was sure I heard a bone crack. "Can I get yeh anythin'? Cuppa tea? Scones?"

"I'll have tea, thanks," I pulled out a chair from the circular table in the middle of the room and sat down.

At the time, I had heard nothing of Hagrid's legendary bad cooking, but James however knew enough to politely refuse any food and beverage. When I glanced at him quizzically, he only raised his eyebrows, as if to say "You'll see what I mean."

Hagrid bustled around his stove for several minutes before placing a mug in front of me. Cautiously, I took a sip, to be surprised by lukewarm and weak tea. I swallowed quickly to stop myself from spitting it out and smiled graciously at Hagrid, who beamed back. When his back was turned, I coughed slightly and James snickered.

"So how was yer firs' week?"

James spoke first. "Busy. The schoolwork's a real bugger."

"I like it," I added firmly. "It's better than helping my mum at the Leaky Cauldron every day."

"I always liked yer mum," Hagrid wagged his finger at me. "Little bit o' a nervous nelly, but a nice girl, no doub'."

I laughed. "That's Mum all right."

"And yer dad, James…" Hagrid appeared nostalgic. "Met him when he was on'y a wee baby! Carried him meself teh tha' awful uncle o' his. He ever mention me?"

"Plenty of times, Hagrid," James grinned. "I know loads."

Hagrid blushed and waved off the conversation. "Say, heard 'bout tha' friend o' yers, Alice. Sorry 'bout it."

"Liana will be fine," I pictured my friend talking to French peers brightly and eagerly. "She's pretty tough."

"Liana once beat me in wizard chess," James clarified. "She is definitely tough."

"Yeh gotta keep an eye out fer those Scamanders," Hagrid agreed. "I know her uncle Rolf – big animal-lover, tha' he is. No wonda' he married Luna."

Hagrid then proceeded to tell us of his third-year Gryffindors in Care of Magical Creatures, this group including Michael, who was oddly unfazed about his sister's departure to a school outside the country. "Tha' Michael kid's a piece o' work. James, yer close with him, aren' yeh?"

James shrugged. "A little, yeah."

"I'd avoid him if I were yeh. He's trouble all right."

"Michael isn't that bad," I quickly defended. I may still have had a miniscule fancy of him, but having not spoken with him in some time, I wasn't certain.

James smirked at me and I reddened. "And you would know, Alice? Is he flirting with eleven-year-olds now?"

Hagrid chuckled. "Eh, don' worry 'bout it, James. I can rememba' kids saying tha' Alice's mum fancied yer dad back in teh day. School romances never last long."

At the thought of this, I crinkled my nose. Picturing Mum admiring Mr. Potter disturbed me slightly, as being her daughter, I only saw her compatible with my own father. Looking over at James, I saw that he seemed to be mulling over the same thing, his eyes glazed and squinted. Meeting each other's eyes, we smirked together.

Hagrid sought to prolong our visit when it was well past its acceptable length. We finally promised to return the following Friday, and then walked back to the castle for dinner in silence, shivering in the late summer air. I spoke quietly after a long two minutes.

"It's strange, isn't it? To think of our parents when they were our age?"

James nodded. "They went through so much. I mean…a lot. Death and stuff."

Both of my grandmothers had passed away before I was born, Mum's mother before my parents even began dating and my namesake just two days before my birth, on August 14th, 2005. I had never met my maternal grandfather, but perhaps he was still out there somewhere, in a feud with Mum or battling a terminal illness – my mother never spoke of him and I had seen no photos. Frank Longbottom, my grandfather, passed away when I was six months old – I had once seen a photograph of my drooling baby self on his lap, his eyes blank, but a small smile on his face, as if he knew I was his granddaughter. Other than being taken to his funeral – which I didn't remember at all – I had never experienced death before like our parents had.

Smiling, I added, "Let's just hope the same things won't happen to us."


As September went on, workloads of homework increased. I did schoolwork in the library often with Arria Jordan, the only other studious and bearable roommate of mine. Laura Creevey technically fit both descriptions as well, but continued to keep to herself, roaming the castle alone. I often saw her by the war memorial in the Great Hall, reading her uncle's name off the granite thoughtfully.

Natasha Quinn and Julianne Corner were the closest friends among us five, rarely seen without the other. The only time they spoke to the rest of us in the dormitory was when they felt like belittling us, criticizing the state of our beds or our hair. Laura was the only one who took the comments to heart, occasionally crying when Natasha and Julianne were out of the room. Arria would shape her into line, being the tough rock that she was after growing up with Fred Weasley.

As for me, I still felt awkward around the four girls most times. Arria was the closest thing I had to a friend in my dorm, but even she chose being with Fred over me. James continued to divide free time between Matthew Wood and me, occasionally succeeding in getting both Matthew and I to spend time with James together.

When we were both there, we'd shoot biting words back and forth. One day in Charms, the three of us grouped together to work on an in-class assignment. Professor Bufflee nearly had to administer a Shield Charm to keep Matthew and me from ripping each other's heads off. James, of course, barely acknowledged our dislike of each other, entertaining himself regularly by performing minor pranks on the Slytherins.

The other Gryffindor boys – Fred, Martin Thomas, and Kyle Norsworthy – had become their own trio, with Arria tagging along most of the time. In Potions, Professor Zabini would be in the middle of a lengthening, dull lecture when the four of them would burst out laughing at an inside joke from the back of the room. By the beginning of our third week of school, the boys of this group had already served detention four times each and Arria had gone twice. Dad warned me to avoid getting involved in their misdoings. To this, I nearly revealed James's doing of several pranks on the Slytherins, but it was unnatural for James Potter to be caught playing a prank, or for anyone to rat out on him.

I wrote to Liana often, and tried writing Mum just as much. When I did contact the latter, I received in reply the same type of letters: How are you doing, Allie? Is the schoolwork difficult? Are you being nice to your roommates? Work hard and squeeze in some fun…

However, on mail days at breakfast, James's owl Damon (having not purchased an owl of my own pre-Hogwarts, I used my friend's for sending out letters and getting replies) would often bring me a letter from Liana, its contents always varying. Bonjour, mon ami! I love French, don't you? It's so fun!...My roommate Jillian is American, isn't that ironic?...I can just spot the ocean from my dormitory's window, and yesterday, Madame Pierre let us have lunch on the beach…Have you ever had bouillabaisse, Alice?

Liana spoke the rave of her new school, making it seem like the best place in the world. I was perfectly happy at Hogwarts, but couldn't fight back the curiosity of seeing Beauxbatons for myself. Finally, I wrote Liana asking if she could send me several pictures of her school and new friends, and I would do the same.

Her owl Belle arrived one morning with Liana's letter, its envelope thick. I knew then that photos were stored inside. Pushing aside my porridge bowl, I ripped open the thick creamy paper and about five moving photographs poured out. There was no actual letter, only captions on the back of each picture.

One portrayed the view of the coastline from Liana's bedroom window; another showed her and her roommate Jillian together. For eleven years old, this Jillian gave off the vibe of a seventeen-year-old fashion model.

Another showed off her favorite professor, the last gave me an idea of how elite Beauxbatons actually was as I gaped over the picture of the school's entry hall. Later that day, as I trekked around school snapping shots of the interior, James and Arria, and Professor Madden, I felt extremely inferior to Liana's current position.

Soon, the first month of school was nearing an end, and Hogwarts had become a second home to us all. As I fell asleep the night before October 1st, I licked my lips in anticipation, wondering if this second month would bring anything worthwhile.


A/N: Please review!