DISCLAIMER: THE BOOK BELONGS TO J. I HAVE ONLY BORROWED BOTH CHARACTERS AND PLOTLINE.
CHAPTER 4
The morning was a total mess, as the boys ran around taking quick showers , putting on their robes and knotting their new bronze and blue ties. Swinging his bag on to his shoulder, Harry walked down to the common room and found all the other first years grouped together around a rather tiny dwarfish man sporting a pompously large mustache, "I am the Head of the House Professor Flitwick, I will also be taking your charms classes. Should any of you face any problems, or difficulties, talk to your house prefects or me, also remember Hogwarts is a place of learning, respect the school, take pride in who you are, do not break any of the school rules. Lastly I wish you all the very best. Now go have breakfast I will give your schedules to your prefects who will give it to you in the great hall, hurry up now and remember, make me proud."
They all trudged down to the hall chatting with one another Harry found Cho standing next to him and he was grateful, he knew making friends was hard for him but Cho had willingly offered her friendship so he accepted and entered the hall with her.
Breakfast was a quick affair and taking his schedule he realized that he had potions as his first subject with all the other houses. In fact he had all his subjects with the other houses except for care of magical creatures he had with Hufflepuff ,and Astronomy with the Slytherins.
Heading to the dungeons with Cho, Harry saw Darren and pulling Cho, caught up with him and Ron. Introducing Cho to the other boys, they stood in the corridor along with rest of the other houses waiting for the door to be opened.
Draco Malfoy standing with Blaise nodded at Darren in greeting who nodded back, while Ron quietly snickered. Suddenly they heard footsteps and turning around saw Professor Snape. Harry and Darren had already seen him at their house, when he had sometimes visited Lily Potter but had ignored James and the boys quite thoroughly.
He wore black robes, and had tied his shoulder length hair in a ponytail, he was very pale, with a prominent hooked nose. Looking down at the first years rather condescendingly, he opened the doors to the potions room and entered it not saying anything at all. Following him inside, the children quickly found tables to sit at in the large slightly drafty room.
After giving them an introductory speech about the art of making potions, Professor Snape divided them in twos Harry paired off with Cho who was the obvious choice for him.
He started them on simple pain relieving potion. Reading the instructions, Harry walked over to the supplies cupboard while Cho set up their work station. Bumping into Darren, Harry smiled at him and picked up the necessary ingredients, reminding each other of forgotten components.
Having thoroughly read the directions Harry and Cho started working diligently. She was good at apportioning the work and soon they found themselves ahead of the class, their only competition being Draco and Zabini.
Giving a last stir, the potion turned a pale blue. Taking a little they bottled and labeled it. Draco had already given his bottle to the professor had who awarded them with their first house points, Cho carried their bottle and was similarly awarded but the points were given rather grudgingly in comparison.
Suddenly there was a loud hiss and turning to his right harry saw Seamus and Neville scrambling over to stand on their chairs while their potion slowly made its way out of a large hole in the cauldron. Snape snarled and stood fuming in front of the boys "ten points from Gryffindor" he said vanishing the mess in front of them.
Darren gave his bottled potion to the professor it had turned a dark blue, a color, that came only after the potion had been stirred one too many times, Snape looked at him snidely and asked him to read the text properly before attempting their next potion.
Finally gathering their stuff Harry and Cho decided to head to their next class when Darren came running to over to Harry and gave him a letter addressed to him from their parents. Panting he told Harry how he had forgotten to tell him about the new owl that dad had sent him with their letters in the morning, saying that Harry was also to get an owl of his own but it was delayed.
Promising to show Harry his new owl later, he went with Ron towards the quidditch pitch, another class they had separately .
Harry had care of magical creatures with the Hufflepuffs. Hagrid another friend of the Potter's was the professor, so Harry already knew him, but, he hated flaunting that information as it would bring unwanted attention to him so he greeted him politely along with the others.
They were only having an introductory class today and were assigned to read a topic on bow truckles for the next day.
After a short recess, all four houses gathered in the Transfiguration room, filing in quietly as Professor McGonagall was already standing inside, she was very firm with the class and threw a bunch of questions at the students so as to measure what knowledge they already had.
They were very basic questions, so a few people had their hands raised, though none as excitedly as Hermione's. Harry knew the answers to most question but stayed quiet and listened to everyone, even Darren answered a couple of questions to a beaming professor. All in all it was a good class and as an extra treat the professor turned into her animagus form of a cat to all the oohs and aahs of the others
While coming out Harry saw Darren being surrounded by a bunch of Gryffindors and was being thumped on his back, too hungry to wait to find out what happened Harry decided to head to the great hall first and ask questions later.
After wolfing down large portions of food, he went over to the Gryffindor table to find out the details. Darren excitedly caught his hands and told him that he was the youngest seeker in a century to play in a house cup. Apparently Neville had lost control over his broom when he was at quite a height and Darren had flown at breakneck speed grabbing hold of Neville and had kept a hold on his broom leading him to safety, Professor McGonagall had seen it and immediately recruited him as the new seeker.
Harry was very happy for Darren. His brother was an astounding flier, and James had always said that he was a natural. Thumping him on the back he promised to give Darren a box of chocolate frogs later on.
Next was charms where they had started on their first spell 'Wingardium Leviosa'. Harry could do this spell easily with or without a wand but he took his time, waiting, for someone to do the spell right first, when he saw Hermione's feather rise off the ground, followed by Darren's and then Draco's so he cast the spell the and watched his feather rise.
Only Seamus had messed up his spell real bad, when the feather had become hard and shot straight at Millicent Bulstrode's bottom, which was bent over as she was picking her fallen feather from the ground, squealing in pain, as she clutch her stinging bottom looking wildly for the perpetrator ready to slug them with her rather meaty hands while Seamus sat cowering in his seat trying to look inconspicuous. Laughing uncontrollably Harry had to grip the table so as not to fall of his chair, while Ron was choking from almost having swallowed his feather.
Finally, the last subject for the day DADA with Professor Quirrel. They hadn't seen him at the welcoming feast, but they had heard all about his many eccentricities. He wore a large turban wrapped around his head, a part of it had started to unravel and hung over this right eye making him look slightly demented.
He stood quivering at the front of the room looking highly uncomfortable and snappish smelling strongly of a pungent garlicky odor. He divided the class into groups of six and assigned different spells to each group to demonstrate in the next class.
In Harry's group there was Cho, Ron, Darren, Hermione and Neville. They immediately got down to dividing the work so that they could meet after dinner and discuss it together later and practice the wand movements. Tired and really sleepy they left the class and headed to their common rooms Darren called Harry and asked him to meet up before dinner to check out Mobius his new eagle owl.
So before dinner they climbed up to the owlry and called the bird down. It was a handsome eagle owl with stunning gold and black feathers. Mobius was a pompous name but looking at the bird Harry deemed it worthy.
His letter had also promised him an owl but apparently the owl had yet to be delivered, so he'd have to wait and in the meantime could use Mobius. Slowly stroking the bird which seemed to enjoy his administrations, Harry gave him some owl treats he had borrowed from Cho and left.
Later their DADA group came together in the room beside the library. It was the room used for group studies and other houses getting together. They worked together for some time with occasional complaints from Ron but completed the work before heading off to sleep.