There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Albus was sure the coats of armour could walk. Inojin on the other hand just seem to know how to navigate the school as if he'd built it himself by the third day Albus and Scorpius just follows him from class to class without question along with a number of the older students who stop Inojin for direction to their classes.
And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as they quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Inojin was happy to learn were similar to his world and that thanks to uncle Shikamaru he know most of them already. He was however unhappy to know that chakra or to be more acutely his clan use of chakra was useless here not that he'd started learning it yet and to top it off every spell in his books work for him and he hate that more as it meant he was not going home any time soon.
Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology with Professor Longbottom, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for. Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. By the end of their first lesson Inojin had read whole of the text book and Modern Magical History in class time.
Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call.
Professor McGonagall was again different. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Inojin had made turn it into a needle on he's first try; Professor McGonagall showed the class and gave Inojin a rare smile as well as ten points for completing the transfiguration correctly.
The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defence Against the Dark Arts. It being taught by Professor Susan Boones who had line them up in their first lesson, empted their bags on the floor, took off house points, five points for every wand not there and gave ten for every one she did find. She inform the class that they were never to come to her class without their wands as they would spend the lesson stunned. She then spent the rest of her first lesson telling them what she learn when she was a member of DA. All in all her lesson was their best so far.
Friday was an important day for Albus and Scorpius. They finally managed to find their way without Inojin to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once as he had a habit of get up early in the morning. Inojin was finishing the last book from his trunk at the table.
"What have we got today?" Albus asked Inojin as he poured sugar on his porridge.
"Double Potions with the Gryffindor," said Inojin answered him which was why he'd made them read the book yesterday but he didn't think it was Albus' subject at all.
Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls. Professor Jess Magnus, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call; he paused at Inojin's name to look at the child as so far none of his collage knows if it was a boy or a girl as they had been informed that it was improper to ask by department of Education but as they had been raving about the child skill to him the Slytherin head teacher. He felt shore when he glanced at the child that his Uncle Horace Slughorn would not have want this child in his club as talent like his scared his Uncle which made him happy at once.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began his speech that came from his favour pass Professor, Severus Snape. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word — like Professor McGonagall, Magnus had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
More silence followed this little speech. Albus and Scorpius exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Inojin looked unimpressed at him waiting to get started as far as he was concerned potion was just a form of chemistry which was the only norm thing in this place therefore hopeful it would keep him sane in this world.
"Potter!" said Magnus suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"I think asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death, sir." said Albus hoping that he was right as Inojin's quickly pass note was hard to read.
"Ten points as it's the correct answer. Malfoy, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
"A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons." Scorpius answered having read the text book well in before and knows most of it off by heart.
"Ten points. What is the difference, Yamanaka, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
"Monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite." Inojin answer in a calm tone as he stared at the cauldron.
"Excellent. Ten points." Magnus said. He then moved to question the Gryffindor's who did not fare well as he ignored Rose and finally snap at her. "Sit down."
Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Magnus put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Inojin, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Inojin had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Rose had somehow managed to melt her partners' cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was sweeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Rose, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over her arms and legs.
"Idiot girl!" snarled Magnus, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"
"Sir we have yet to add them yet, Rose was just about to take it off the fire when it collapsed." The girl Rose had been partner with told him holding there porcupine quills in her hand for him to see.
"Sir I think that Albus's cauldron and not theirs, as that one next to it has her name curved into it. Looks like she try to tamper with it and it melt on her." Inojin said as he turns the other cauldron with the girls name for the whole class to see of course he wasn't referring to Rose but rather to the girl she was working with as he too like Rose had seen her fiddling with the potion but he wasn't going to defender her either.
"Well I see. That will be fifty points off Gryffindor for tampering with other cauldrons. Potter, Malfoy seeing as your potion is no more you get the same grade as Yamanaka today. Miss Granger-Weasley up to the hospital wing, now." Magnus told her as he made the girl partner with her take her away when she tries to argue that she hadn't been tampering as it didn't matter, she'd foolishly tried to solve the matter without informing him. Although he would be reporting this to Professor McGonagall, he wouldn't let it go onto her record this time but it would be note to the partner as would the tampering. Magnus check the girl's potion and pass only Rose.
As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Albus's mind was racing and his spirits were low. If his cauldron hadn't collapsed would he have done so well as Inojin who left the class having mixing up a perfect simple potion to cure boils that it was sent to the hospital wing to cure Rose, he didn't think so. Really Inojin seem perfect in everything but he didn't seem to want the credit for it as he instead on hang out with Albus and Scorpius who no one else like but everyone hated.
Inojin had never believed he would meet a girl he despised more than Saradra, but that was before he met Rose Granger-Weasley who taught him that he really had despised the forced friendship with Saradra who he may otherwise have never known. Still, first-year Slytherins only had Potions with the Gryffindors, so they didn't have to put up with Rose much. Or at least, they didn't until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Slytherins common room that made them all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday — and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.
"Typical," said Inojin darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of the Queen Bee." He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else as after all if you ended up in a school of real magic what other than seeing a dragon could be more interesting then flying not that he want to trust a broom but hey no one's perfect.
"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," said Scorpius reasonably.
"Anyway, I know Rose's always going on about how good she is at Quidditch, but that's mostly all talk." Albus said.
Rose certainly did talk about flying a lot. She complained softly about first years never getting on the house Quidditch teams and told stories about play with her Uncle Harry. She wasn't the only one, though. Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly.
This was something you couldn't learn by heart out of a book — not that Inojin hadn't tried. At breakfast on Thursday he read flying tips from a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages.
At three-thirty that afternoon, Rose, and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.
The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty-one broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Rose had heard Uncle George Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.
Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." Inojin glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.
"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!'"
"UP" everyone shouted expect Inojin.
Rose's and Yann's brooms sail into their hand at once, but it was one of the few that did.
"Yes" Rose's and Yann's cried out.
"Come on, now, I've no time for shirkers. Say 'Up!'" called Madam Hooch at the front. "'UP' like you mean it."
"UP" everyone shouted except for Rose and Yann. However their broom try to go higher in their hands. But they kept their grip firm. Inojin notice this rather then care that his and Albus were the only ones without brooms in their hands.
"YES!" everyone shouted except for Rose, Yann, Albus and Inojin.
"Up. UP. UP." Albus called disparately however his broom doesn't move. Not even a millimetre. He stares at it with disbelieving desperation. There's giggling from the rest of the class. Inojin study their brooms and notice and interesting detail.
"Oh Merlin's beard, how humiliating! He really isn't like his father at all, is he?" Polly Chapman said loudly.
"Albus Potter, the Slytherin Squib." Karl Jenkins called out.
"Okay. Children. Time to fly." Madam Hooch said.
"Madam Hooch we can't those broom are cracked." Inojin called to her, as his point to his broom. While the class snicker at his excuse.
"What do you mean you can't those broom are fine now call them up." Madam Hooch told him as she stood before him. Inojin stared at her while Albus tried again and failed. With a sign Inojin bent down and pick up the broom showing her a big cracked running though the broom.
"Madam Hooch half our class is now airborne all Gryffindors." Inojin said looking behind her as she turn to see of all the Gryffindors excepted Ross and Yann were still on the ground, hanging from one hand in the air, after all the broom weren't responding to them to began with but hey why tell them that.
"Get back down here all of you. That's eighty points off Gryffindor, ten for each of you." Madam Hooch said and watches them land before turn back to the two students without brooms. "Yes the broom won't fly with that crack. Well what about you?"
"Worse." Inojin told her for Albus and then he bent to picked it up, the broom snapped in the middle. He smiled at Albus who felt relief that it wasn't him.
"Alright go to that broom cabin over there get two other brooms out." Madam Hooch told the boy before going on with lesson.
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Albus and Scorpius were delighted when she told Rose she'd been doing it wrong for years.
"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle — three — two —"