Chapter 5
There's one thing you should know about Hogwarts, nothing is ever normal there. For one, the morning post is more than slightly unusual. On Albus's first morning he had just sat down when whoosh, and in came a flurry of owls as if they came from nowhere. Many parcels flew down including a tiny, wafer thin one that landed straight in front of Albus.
"I wonder what it is," Sam said, once he'd got over the shock of his first morning post at Hogwarts, "Did you forget anything?"
"No. At least I don't think I did," Albus replied.
The group of boys sat in complete silence while Albus tried to work out what was inside. He poked and prodded it; he sniffed it and shook it, which did catch a few unwelcome looks; until he finally decided to open it.
He ripped open the brown paper to find a piece of old parchment in the package and a letter addressed to himself. It was written in his father's handwriting. He picked up the envelope and opened it with care, anxious not to destroy its contents. The letter read:
Dear Albus,
I trust you are having a lovely time at Hogwarts. I heard you were put in Gryffindor! I hope you have made friends. I am also hoping that you have made an enemy with Scorpious Malfoy, but don't tell your mother that!
Onto more pressing topics, I forgot to give you this present before you went off to Hogwarts. If you are asking me why I sent you a piece of old parchment I will tell you now. This is more than a bit of parchment. This is a map of Hogwarts. Every single name on this is a real life imitation of where they stand in that school.
But this could do with reinforcing with more information. This map was created by four people 70 years ago; James Potter I, Prongs, Sirius Black, Padfoot, Remus Lupin, Moony, and Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail. With this they could travel around Hogwarts at ease, because they will never be found out. At some point, the map was handed over to Argus Filch, the caretaker, and then Fred and George Weasley stole it by setting off a dungbomb in Filch's office. It was eventually given to me and now I give it to you.
To activate it, all you need to do is tap your wand on the surface of the parchment and say 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.' Once you are finished tap the map and say 'Mischief managed.'
From your loving father
P.S. Please destroy this as soon as you have read it. Make sure no one else sees you using the map and make sure no one else reads this letter.
"What does it say?" Sam asks.
"It's a letter from my dad asking how school is going," Albus lies.
"What's the parchment for then?" Matthew asks.
"Oh, it's just a spare piece that my dad forgot to give to me." That was near enough the truth anyway.
Albus looked towards the staff table. In the centre seat was Arthur Weasley, the headmaster. On his right sat Neville Longbottom, Herbology teacher, deputy headmaster and head of Gryffindor house. Next to him was Charms teacher and head of Hufflepuff, Ernie McMillan. The next teacher along was the man from the Leaky Cauldron. The one with the black top hat and the eye patch. His name is George Gulch. To the right of Gulch was Divination teacher, Lavender Brown and Argus Filch.
On the left of Arthur Weasley was Gabrielle Delacour and Blaise Zabini, two very different people. Next to them was Cuthbert Binns, the longstanding teacher who had the smoothest transaction into the ghosts. Cormac McLaggen replaced the old flying instructor. Next along the line was Angelina Weasley, née Johnson, who teaches Astrology. Rubeus Hagrid is on the end. He teaches Care of Magical Creatures, though his first job is Gamekeeper.
Now though, Professor Longbottom was coming over with a wad of papers in his arms.
"Here are your timetables for the year. You will have all of the main subjects; Charms, Herbology, Defence against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration and History of Magic," he said.
He passed the timetables around to all the first-years. Albus had double Potions then Herbology with Slytherin. Potions was in the dungeons so Albus needed to get going if he was to go up to the Gryffindor tower. He got up and he and Sam walked out of the main hall.
"Snugglemuffin," Albus said as they passed through the Gryffindor entrance to the common room.
"I just forgot something. Wait here while I get it. I'll only be a minute," Albus said.
He ran up the stairs, his bag bouncing off his back. He pulled out the Marauder's Map and slammed the door shut before locking it.
He said urgently, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
The map lit up from one corner and glowed in Albus's hands. When the glow died down, Albus could see an intricate map drawn on the front with the words,
Messrs, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot & Prongs are proud to present
The MARAUDER'S MAP
Albus opened the map. It showed hundreds of names all over the school. Albus found the Gryffindor tower. If he looked closely, he could see himself with his feet in the very top of the tower. Sam was still in the base of the tower, AKA the common room. This must have been what his father had meant by real life names. So it was better to explain in practice.
Albus suddenly remembered that he had Potions in five minutes! He grabbed a quill from his trunk and took off down the stairs, anxious to not be late for Professor Zabini.
"Come on!" Sam said, "We'll be late!"
The two boys ran non-stop down to the dungeons where the Potions class is held. They skidded to a halt before a fuming Professor Zabini.
"What do you think you were doing! You were late and you were running."
"Sorry, we got lost," Albus said.
"Ah! Fickle little Albus Potter. Your father's the so called chosen one. Well you're not getting any favour from me!"
Albus and Sam squeezed past Zabini and took the last two seats at the back of the room beside Rose and Jamie.
"Now, today you will be making a potion for boils. The instructions are on the board," Zabini said and waved his wand at the board. "Start!"
Albus added six snake fangs to his mortar and crushed them into a fine powder using the pestle. He added four measures of the crushed fangs to his cauldron. He heated the mixture while counting ten seconds. He waved his wand over the cauldron. Then, he sat back for forty minutes, until he added four horned slugs to his cauldron. He took the cauldron off the fire and added two porcupine quills to the mixture. He next stirred it five times clockwise and waved his wand to complete the potion.
"Your time is up!" Zabini said, shocking everyone with his loud voice. "Scorpious, perfect as usual. Matthew, that is unacceptable work. Detention! You will do this e3xercise again, tonight at eight o'clock."
Matthew had forgotten to take his cauldron off the heat and it had burnt down into a block of pewter.
"Now, Albus what have we here? I see you can read instructions, unlike your father. Bottle your potions!" Zabini barked.
The students scrambled to bottle their potions as the bell went off leaving a ringing sensation in everyone's ears. Albus and Sam slung their bags across their backs, dumped the potions on the front desk and cleared out. At the last moment before Albus was out of earshot of the freakish classroom, he heard a glass smash with a tremendous bang onto the flagged floor. He turned to see Scorpious positioned over it with a triumphant grin on his face.
"Oops," he said, loud enough for Albus to hear in the most sarcastic vice possible.
"Albus, as you have not got a potion to hand into me, you will get a zero on this assessment," Zabini said.
Albus turned away with a depressed expression on his face.
"Cheer up, we've got Herbology next," Sam said.
The two boys set off up the stairs and through the grounds into the building labelled "Herbology 1". Professor Longbottom was standing outside ready to welcome the new first-years to Herbology.
Once everyone had got there, Longbottom started to speak, "Hello there, and this is Herbology Greenhouse One. You will be taught in here for Herbology while you are a first-year student. Are all the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs here?"
The students nodded as they checked the people standing next to them.
"Oh good. Come on in then," Longbottom replied.
Albus stepped in and stood with his mouth open at the sight before him. The entire room was filled with the strange flowers and plants of the Wizarding World.
"Now," Professor Longbottom said, "Everyone gather round, for today you will be learning of the Devil's Snare. This is a plant who likes the dark and damp. The plant is from Scotland and it is used to trap living things, squeezing them to death. This is it here."
Longbottom led the first-years eyes to where, in the centre of the table, was a patch of Devil's Snare. The dense, dark leaves were shying away from the light and hiding beneath itself to get away from the heat and light of the humans.
"This is a rather peculiar plant because when a living thing struggles within it, the vines and leaves holding it will tighten. Whereas if a victim relaxes, the plant will release them; perhaps because it thinks the victim is dead. But the best way to kill the Devil's Snare plant is to show it light and fire."
Longbottom took out his wand.
"The preferred spell to cast at the Devil's Snare is Incendio."
He pointed his wand and said "Incendio". A burst of blue light came from the tip of his wand, going straight for the centre of the plant. The Devil's Snare recoiled from the brightness in disgust. The leaves and vines around the hole had gone black, having been burned by the children of the blue flame.
"Now you may try this spell yourselves."
From every corner of the greenhouse you could hear the cry of "Incendio" and see the children of the blue flame bolting from wands to harm the Devil's Snare. In no time at all the plant was but a shrivelled pile of blackened roots. Amazingly when Albus stopped firing he saw the person across from him, James Arthur, with his hair blown up at all angles and black streaks across his face.
"James, what happened?" someone shouted.
"I...um...I think I blasted myself. A spell must have rebounded on me," James said, though rather unsure of himself.
"That is enough for today. Class dismissed!" Longbottom said.
The first-years ran out of the greenhouse, wanting to be back inside the slightly warmer castle. As Albus and Sam stepped inside the front entrance, they could hear the screams of people being plagued in the corridor ahead. Peeves the Poltergeist was throwing water bombs onto students trying to get to their next class. Running into the scene was Filch and his elderly cat, Mrs Norris. Peeves caught sight of Filch and shouted to him, "Can't catch me! Can't catch me!" in a playful but mischievous voice that Peeves is known for.
"Oh, no you don't!" Filch shouted angrily at Peeves.
Peeves was sitting on top of the giant chandelier in the centre of the entrance hall, about to undo the screws that keep it from falling over all the people walking through. That's a lot of people endangered now, you know. The chandelier swayed from side to side as if it had caught a breeze. Then suddenly it broke away and sailed to where Albus and Sam were standing on tiptoes to see what was going on in front of them.
"Duck!" someone yelled.
The people around the two boys pulled them down as the chandelier smashed on top of them, glass falling into everywhere that its long range could reach.
"Nobody move. It is important that you stay exactly where you are because of the glass that surrounds you," Rose said, who had come into the entrance hall soon after Albus and Sam.