Chapter 6 - First Impressions

She strode briskly down the cool stone passageway, cloaked in her favourite black cloak. This early in the morning, most of the students still slept. Hogwarts, formidable castle that it may appear, was a very tranquil place at the moment, the only sound being her own sharp steps against the stone floor. The sun was just barely peaking over the forest and a mist was slowly lifting over the grounds. She stopped at a window to watch the sunrise. It was the first time she had been able to do so in two months. While her countryside property was comfortable, it didn't offer views like Hogwarts did.

Yes, she thought, it was good to be back. The moment was broken when she heard faint footsteps making their way closer. She turned to face the incoming figure, and inclined her head. The figure made his way over and greeted her.

"Good morning, Minerva."

"Good morning Albus."

"Ready for another year?" he asked benevolently.

"I was ready. Then Harry Potter happened."

"Ah yes. He is… confident, is he not."

"I'll say he is. Albus, just what happened at the sorting?" she peered into his eyes.

He sighed and then crossed his arms and rested them on the window ledge.

"Minerva, I've been asking myself that very same question. There is only one thing I can think of, but it is very obvious."

"Well?"

"I believe that the Sorting Hat saw something… more in Harry Potter's mind, than it should have seen."

"Something like what?" she said eyes widening slightly.

"I cannot say. I do however believe that it is the reason for Harry's manner. Did you notice how he interacted with his fellow peers?"

"Interacted with them? What on earth do you mean?"

"It was very slight, however, if I had to put it in simple terms.. he talks to them almost as if they are children… and that he isn't one. Like a child-sitter would talk the one they are looking after. They give their full attention, and let the child say what they will and occasionally impart wisdom when needed. Harry seems to do this. Not always, but most of the time.

"That's quite the observation from someone that was sitting next to me at dinner, 50 feet away from Mr. Potter. Tell me Albus, you wouldn't have happened to have cast a listening charm on the Gryffindor table during dinner did you?" she asked, mouth drawing thin in mock annoyance.

"Oh but my good Minerva, the kids have such interesting conversations, and the tales they tell of their summers are just so engaging."

If Minerva were slightly less lady-like she would been rolling her eyes.

"I wonder if this is because of the Dursley's," she said, "Perhaps making him grow up to fast."

"It's possible," he offered. "However I don't think the sorting hat would have reacted like that just because of a…tougher upbringing, if that is the reason for it at all. Many students would have had a longer sorting if that were the case. Our colleague, Severus for example. Anyway, I am on my way to break my fast. Care to join me?"

She sighed. "Yes Albus, I will join you for breakfast."

And with that they continued on there way, never noticing the youth with green eyes standing in shadow in one of the many nooks that Hogwarts offered.

—

"So that was interesting." Harry said. He watched his Professor's disappear around a corner and stepped out of the shadow.

"Maybe, although I wouldn't say it's unexpected."

It had been luck that he had heard that conversation at all. He had woken up early and had decided to go for a walk around the castle. He had nearly stumbled into McGonagall, but had ducked into hiding just in time, not sure if he was breaking curfew being up so early.

"Do you think I should start acting like the other children? Throw them off?"

"If you want to. Although I get the feeling Dumbledore would see through you."

"Yeah I guess he would. Now I believe you were showing me a passage way somewhere through here…"

—

Hermione sat down for lunch, setting her books on the table in front of her. It was Friday, and they only had one more class for the week. It would be their first potions class and it would be a double period. She enjoyed her classes for the most part, taking a liking to Charms and Transfiguration. Potions though would be something entirely different from all their other subjects, she was sure. She was looking forward to it, although she had heard bad things about the professor of the subject and it was enough to make her a little nervous. She hoped she knew enough to impress her teacher.

Speaking of impressions…

Harry Potter strolled into the Great Hall, Ron in tow. They seemed to be becoming good friends. That or Harry was nice enough to let Ron hang around with him. That aside, Harry had managed to impress all of their teachers without breaking a sweat. Perhaps most impressive had been that first Transfiguration class.

(Flashback)

Hermione had just taken her seat in class. It was a Ravenclaw/Gryffindor mix and almost everyone had arrived. The first week of school, no one wanted to be late. She pulled out her books and placed her wand on her desk. She looked around, on the walls there were posters of items half-transfigured. There was a bookshelf on the side of the wall underneath a window that gave a view to the outside. At the front of the class was an old fashioned, but beautifully hand crafted mahogany desk. Sitting rather primly on top of the desk was an orange tabby cat.

"Odd," she thought, "McGonagall must use a cat to demonstrate transfiguration.."

She looked around but Professor McGonagall hadn't seemed to have arrived yet. It looked like everyone had arrived, except… yup, Harry was no where in sight. She asked Ron where he was, but he just gave her a helpless shrug.

"He said, he was going to take another way…"

The start of class bell rang. The class quieted, but there was still no Harry. And still no Professor.

Just then Harry rushed in, hair windswept, cheeks tinted red. He made his way in and placed his things on an empty desk that Ron had saved for him. Hermione was annoyed to see that some of the girls were staring at him, Lavender in particular. Clearly some people couldn't get over the fact that Harry Potter was attending school with them. He gave his peers a winning smile before turning towards the desk and peering down at the cat.

"Sorry I'm late Professor. Although I might say, if you stay like that the whole time, I'm not sure I will learn much."

Hermione looked around the room to make sure she wasn't the only one that was seeing Harry Potter talking to a cat. She wasn't. Her peers were looking at each other quizzically.

"Hey Harry," Seamus called out, grinning, "I believe that's pussycat you're talking to."

The class laughed, albeit a bit nervously. But Harry never stopped smiling. And then the cat stepped off the desk and transformed. And standing there in front of her desk was Professor McGonagall, clad in dark green robes. Her face was stern and she seemed to be slightly annoyed. The laughter immediately stopped and Seamus' jaw dropped.

"Woah." was all he said.

"Please take your seats," she said eyeing Harry.

Hermione and everyone else in the room was still reeling. Again, she thought, Harry seems to possess knowledge that the rest of us are just coming up to speed with. Professor McGonagall waited until total silence commanded the room before speaking.

"How did you know?" There was no asking who she was speaking to. It wasn't necessary.

He looked up at her with a bright grin. "Why Professor, I have never seen a cat sit so stiffly. So obviously, it had to be a Professor."

"Total BS," thought Hermione, "He barley even glanced at the cat before calling it out."

"Of course." If the dryness of McGonagall's answer was any indicator she obviously didn't believe him either. However she didn't press the issue any farther.

"Transfiguration, is a complex and dangerous and magic. Any fooling around in my class will result in a loss of house points and or a detention. Am I clear?"

A muttering of "yes Professor," answered back.

"Very well."

She then demonstrated magic, by turning her desk into a pig and back again. The class oohed and awed. They were disappointed, however that they wouldn't learn how to transfigure such large objects until later years. She then went around and handed out matchsticks for everyone to transfigure into needles.

Hermione concentrated on the task on hand. She brought her wand upon the matchstick, but was disappointed to see no change as of yet. She looked around to see the rest of her classmates attempting the change to no effect. Well all except Harry. His matchstick lay on the desk ignored. Instead he was flipping through the Transfiguration textbook. Hermione was infuriated that he would so deliberately ignore a teacher's order and was about to call him out when she took a better look at his face. His eyes held a look of.. well the only thing she could compare it to was nostalgia. He had a slight look of awe on his face like he was reading an old yearbook. His lips seemed to be moving and she thought he was reading the text to himself, except he was flipping through the pages way too fast. Every few pages he would stop for a moment and his face would light up and a grin might creep onto his face.

"Perhaps, Mr. Potter you could tell us what is so fascinating about the transfiguration textbook, that you feel the need to ignore my instructions?

The class stopped and turned to a sheepishly grinning Harry.

"Er, sorry Professor, just haven't seen this book in ye- er, a while. Since I bought it I mean. It's so interesting."

McGonagall's eyes widened for a moment before they narrowed. "Yes it is interesting," she said. "However, you won't be able to achieve any of the more 'interesting' transfigurations, if you don't complete the first lesson." She said pointedly. And some students laughed

"Oh right." he said. Suddenly in the blink of an eye, his wand was in hand (where did that come from?) and he casually flicked it toward the matchstick, which instantly became a needle, and his wand disappeared from hand (where did it go?!). He picked the book back up and kept reading. He stopped when he noticed everyone staring at him.

"Um Professor?"

Professor McGonagall seemed to be in shock, before coming to herself. She strode over and grabbed the needle off the desk to see it in better light."

"Unbelievable," she said. "A perfect attempt and on a first try. In all my years, I have never seen anyone do this, this well."

"Does this mean I can keep reading?" he asked hopefully.

She looked down at him with what might have been a rare smile.

"Sorry Mr. Potter, but transfiguring one matchstick into a needle, does not mean you are an expert. If you want to truly succeed at this class you will need to be able to do it every time. I'll tell you what, if you can turn ten matchsticks into needles, perfectly, I will let you continue your reading."

He grinned, "But Professor, I changed everybody's matchstick into a needle."

"What!?"

Suddenly all the students stopped looking at Harry to look at their own desks, where sitting innocently, were perfect needles.

"You've got to be kidding me."

(End Flashback)

After that first Transfiguration class Hermione decided that she would no longer be surprised by Harry Potter. The idea of being in awe of another student's magical prowess was a strange feeling to her. In primary school she was used to being top of the class, the one with all the answers. Of course, in primary school she was made fun of a lot and was rather hoping that the students would be different here.

Harry and Ron strode over to the Gryffindor table and grabbed seats on the opposite side of where she was sitting a few seats down. The tables were loaded with food and they both helped themselves to lunch.

"How did you do it?" she blurted out rather loudly and reddened a little as she received looks from not only Harry and Ron but much of the Gryffindor table.

Harry smiled and motioned to his mouth as he finished chewing a sandwich.

"I'm sorry, what do you mean?"

"The needles," she hissed. Hermione grabbed her book bag and moved down to be across from him. "I've read through the entire first year transfiguration book…"

"I'll bet you have," muttered Ron, though he shut up when he got a hard stare from Harry. He looked back at her.

"Yes, and?" he motioned her to continue.

"Well I've looked through the book, but no where in it does it even mention transfiguring multiple items at a time. And yet you go off and just change all the matchsticks into needles at once."

He nodded "Well yes I suppose that is possible. Of course there is another possibility as well."

"There is?" she asked getting confused.

"Yes, that I simply changed all the matchsticks one at a time in rapid succession, so fast that it would seem like they were all changed at once."

"Is that what you did?" she asked incredulously.

"Of course not, why do separately what I can do at once." he grinned and she scowled at being led on.

"Alright you did them all at once but how? And where did you even learn to do that?"

"Learn?" he asked taken aback. "Why would you have to learn that?"

"Well," she sputtered, "how else would you know how to do it, without learning it first?

"Hermione," he said slowly as if he was talking to a small child, "You have things backwards. You think that you are here to learn what you can do with magic. You don't realize that you are here to learn that there is nothing that you can't do. With practice," and suddenly a cinnamon bun flew toward him and he caught it out of the air without even turning his gaze from her, "you can do anything you want."

He leaned back and took a big bite out of the flying treat he snagged. Hermione wasn't even sure if he had some how summoned it, or someone else had thrown it across the table. If it was the former, he had just brazenly displayed wand-less magic. It it was the latter he had the reflexes of a hawk. Either situation was impressive.

"Showing off now?"

"Oh leave him be Lils, he makes a good point."

Hermione thought about what he had said. "So you mean to say, that everything I want to do with magic I should already be able to do?"

Before he could answer, she suddenly, reached down into her bag. She sat back up, wand in one hand and set her matchstick down on the table. She nervously glanced up at Harry who tilted his head to the side with slight interest. She looked back down to her needle and then concentrated. She closed her eyes and willed her matchstick to change into a needle. She opened them, to find her matchstick staring back at her.

"Urrgh," she groaned.

Harry looked at her sympathetically, "Like I said…With practice"

"Oh?" she said. "And when would you have been practicing something like that?" she shot back, still a little irked at her matchstick's difficulty to co-operate.

Harry paused for a moment before answering with a smile, "Why Hermione…a good magician never gives away his secrets."

And with a wink he started loading up his plate and tucked in.

"Hmmph." was all she replied with.

Just then the warning bell went off. Students finished their eating and started gathering up their books and bags and making there way out of the great hall. Hermione gathered up her books as well. She noticed Harry was actually loading up his plate with another sandwich.

"You do know that there is only 5 minute to get to class right?" she warned.

"Not to worry sunshine, I'll be there right after this sandwich."

She narrowed her eyes, "I do hope so, other-wise Gryffindor could lose points because of you."

"Like I said, I'll be there," he said unconcerned taking a slow bite out of a turkey on white.

"You better." she warned before looking at Ron. "Well are you coming, Or are you also going to be late for Professor Snape's class?"

Ron looked torn between wanting to stay for another sandwich himself and making class on time. In the end the thought of being late for a class taught by the most horrible of teachers (or so his brothers told him) made him a lot less hungry.

"Yeah, I'm going," he mumbled. "See you in class Harry."

And with that they set off out of the hall. By that time a minute had passed since the warning bell and Harry was one of the few students left in the Great Hall and definitely the youngest by a few years.

"So…we do have a shortcut to get to potions right?"

"You bet your a…."

"James!"

"I mean, yeah we got shortcut." James said sheepishly

"Alright lets do this."

And with that he grabbed his bag and started off in the opposite direction off the students to a back door of the Great Hall.