'There, over there.'

'Which one?'

'The girl with red hair in a braid, between the twins and the boy with dreadlocks.'

'You sure she's Cla-rie Potter?'

'Are you deaf or something? McGonagall said that and she said that herself last night.'

Whispers followed Clarie wherever she went on the next day, which was troublesome. People queuing outside classrooms would tiptoe to get a good look of her. Some might cast her strange looks on staircases and some might even pat her shoulder and greet her, which was really bizarre. She didn't really like the idea of people talking about her: these kind of whispers made her feel somehow – isolated, because she'd have too much experience of being isolated and talked behind her back in muggle schools, although this time, the different ups was the people sort of accepted her.

What were worse were the paths in the castle: there were over a hundred staircases at Hogwarts, all could move and in different forms, for example some were sleek and narrow, some could move to their own choice, and some were trick stairs that had a few steps vanished which were jump-the-step-or-fall games.

Also there were the classroom doors that caused another part of the trouble. They were another part of the trickery challenge in the castle, for some of them were hidden behind portraits and mirrors, some needed you to tickle them in the right place, and some that required you to ask politely in order to open them, which Clarie loathed the most. Once Clarie was almost late for transfiguration for she left her book back in her dorm, and she dashed back and forth to the classroom which unfortunately had that kind of door. Clarie, badly-tempered at the moment and sweaty after rounds of running up and down got so mad started swearing badly, threatening to blast it apart with her wand and kicking the door despite its polite request, ended up with a not particularly pleased McGonagall opening the door for her from the inside, with Lee, George and Fred sniggering at her at their seats.

The ghosts weren't always helpful, either. Nearly Headless Nick was always helpful to new Gryffindors, and the Fat Friar, the ghost of Hufflepuff was always jolly and willing to help everyone out except for agreeing to copy their homework and examinations. Most of the others tend to play cool, and things also get chilly when one or two of them passed right through you, by or not by accident, as it feels like having a bucket of icy water splashing through you when that actually happened. Also, Peeves was the one ghost you actually had to look out for especially. He'd sneak up invisible behind girls and blew their robes up, releasing some sort of pixie-like creatures that were more than glad to mess around in the castle, and he was even despicable enough to snatch your books from your hands and throw it out of the windows. The teachers were powerless when it came to controlling Peeves, except only if Dumbledore or the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin Ghost who banned Peeves from the opening feast were passing by.

Even worse that Peeves there was the caretaker, Argus Filch and his beloved cat Mrs Norris. Both had bulging bloodshot eyes, they were always alert of what was happening in every single corner of the castle at once. Put a toe out of line spotted by either one of them, they'd find their partner and appearing in front of you two seconds later, probably by transported through secret passageways they haven't discovered yet. Everyone wished they could jinx them both if the teachers or the school rules ever allowed.

And once you could live with that kind of lifestyle, the lessons were the things you're most keen of.

Performing magic wasn't about saying a few funny incantations. Every Wednesday they had to go to the Astronomy Tower with their telescopes and study the movements of stars and planets. This became one of the easiest subjects for Clarie, providing the fact that she had the advantage of coming from a muggle school, which provided her with brief and basic astronomy knowledge in her earlier school years.

Then they had to go to the greenhouses thrice a week, where a dumpy little witch, Professor Sprout, the Head of Hufflepuff House would teach them Herbology, mostly about how to take care of magical plants and fungi, and their functions.

Easily the most boring lesson of all was History of Magic. The only thing that gave them wows was the first lesson when Professor Binns, the only ghost teacher entered by passing through the blackboard, and that's it, end of the thrill as he'd start writing notes on the blackboard and speaking in a flat, plain boring tone, which conveniently sent Clarie and Lee snoring and drooling through the lesson without Binns knowing that, leaving Fred and George who copied all the notes rather grumpy when they had to let Lee and Clarie copy those after class. They even made them promise to swap copying duties between the four of them every history lesson.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on top of a pile of books to see over his desk to his students. At the start of the lesson he took register and actually did remember all of their names by heart immediately, and when he reached Clarie's name he gave an excited squeal and toppled out of sight. Following that was notes-copying, although that was a great deal more enjoyable than Binns' classes as he would demonstrate the charms one by one, and even gave them time for practical tryouts.

Professor McGonagall was again, different from the others. Strict was the first impression she'd given to Clarie since the Welcoming Feast, and clever was the second she got in class. She gave them a talking-to the moment Clarie and the rest of the class settled down.

'Transfiguration is one of the most complicated and dangerous subjects you will ever learn in Hogwarts,' she said. 'Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.'

Then she proved her worth and power by transforming her desk into a graceful peacock, and changed it back. Everyone was thrilled and couldn't wait to get their wands and start the work, but they soon realised that they still had a far way before doing that. After copying what's worth of the total of their charms and history notes, they were all only given a single piece of match and the task of turning it into a needle.

'Hell, does it seem like it's pencil-sharpened to you?' Clarie stared at her match hard and asked George after half an hour of trying. He only frowned and asked, 'What's pencil-sharping? Like do you mean "sharpened it"?' before Professor McGonagall instructed them to work the charm out better. By the end of the lesson none of them succeeded, but she seemed rather pleased and showed the class how Clarie's needle 'successfully' turned sharpened on one end and had the touch of metal except that it still had wooden patterns of the match on it.

The class most people looked for was Professor Chong's class, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and she did not fail their first lesson's expectations.

'In this term, we'll start with the history and evolution of the traits of Dark Arts, and I shall teach you some start off defence spells if you make satisfactory progress,' she said. 'If possible, I will give you chances to work the charms out... practically.'

They groaned at the word 'history'; but soon enough it wasn't as bad as they expected. Without the boring tone of Professor Binns, this sort of history was more interesting, but the only thing was it was covering only Dark Arts.

'Does this lesson sound a little – I don't know, dark to you?"'Colette asked quietly after lesson.

'Hell, no! It's awesome!' Clarie exclaimed.

'Wait and see, we'll lay our hands on the charms soon enough if we catch up on well,' Lee gave a fist bump to Clarie.

Soon enough Clarie realised she wasn't the ones who couldn't catch up with studies; instead she got on quite well. Some people from wizarding families, like Fred and George started almost at the same point as she was, although she suspected the reason that they weren't more superior was the fact that they weren't too interested with studies. Some older students knew of the fact that she'd jinxed Rookwood back on Hogwarts were rather impressed.

Thursday marked an almost 'successful' day for Clarie, as the four of them finally were able to get to their classes without getting lost or into trouble. And things turn all the way downwards – and bizarre during their last double lessons: potions with Slytherins.

Potions took place down in one of the dungeons, which was colder than up in the main castle, and would have been creepy even without the dim lights and sickening animals floating within glass jars around.

Snape, like Flitwick, started class with taking register, and paused at Clarie's name with a strange expression as he set eyes on her face. Soon enough he continued.

'Snape's head of Slytherin house, and I heard he'd favour them a lot,' Lee whispered into Clarie's ears. 'Sounds like you want me to give him a fuck,' Clarie giggled.

'There are no conversations allowed on my lesson, Mr Jordan,' Snape paused his register taking thoroughly. 'A point shall be deducted from Gryffindor for that.'

Rookwood, sitting a few places away from Clarie smirked arrogantly.

Clarie felt unfair. If Snape should think his lesson being disturbed, she should've taken the blame: she giggled and swore. Besides, she did see Rookwood flirting with Nakaruma just a minute ago.

She almost stood up before Lee pulled her down, shook his head and gave her a warning eye: don't.

Lesson started soon enough, and Snape gave them a brief rundown with the recipe of a simple potion to cure boils, with only Snape interrupting the peaceful process at the twins.

'Mr Weasleys, as you might not have noticed, no items unrelated to my lessons shall be allowed,' Snape said, as he spotted them passing joke items such as Dungbombs and hiccup sweets back and forth, which they had shown Clarie before. 'Hand them over. Now.'

Reluctantly they handed the things in their hands out to Snape. 'Two points will be taken from Gryffindor for your cheeks, Weasley, from each of you,' Snape emphasised, and slipped the handed-out objects into a drawer on the side of his desk.

Anger pounded in Clarie's chest. In muggle world, she would have either got out of the classroom straightaway, or go on passing more stuff with people on lesson. Bur she had learnt that she should not engage anyone – not until she was equipped yet.

She raised her hand, and the Gryffindors around her immediately hushed her to put down her hand.

Snape raised an eyebrow. 'Yes, Miss Potter?'

'I would like to ask, professor,' she began, 'that if I should unfortunately catch a cold and I forget to bring handkerchief or any kind of material to wipe my nose, am I allowed to borrow from my classmates?'

She almost forgot to bite back the taunting word 'sir' at the end of her sentence.

Snape glared at her. 'Sit down,' he snapped. 'For your enquiry, Miss Potter, I would suggest you to go to the Hospital Wing if you are affected with any kind of sickness.'

Lesson continued – and he put them into pairs to brew the potion. He criticized almost everyone's work, except Rookwood, and, to many people's astonishment – Clarie.

While he took a vial of Clarie's potion as sample to show the class, a cauldron behind him exploded – with a series of wild guffawing from Fred and George, who were covered in a thick, smelly brown matter as if Peeves decided to take another round of revenge on them with droppings.

'I'm – I'm sorry, pro – professor,' George seemed almost unable to breathe with laughter. 'I think I left a dungbomb in my cloak which I forgot to hand out.'

The class broke from shock into laughter, even a few Slytherins, although most of them remained with an angry face. Snape, with his black cloaks covered in dung also, pointed his wand at his cloak and said, 'Tergeo.' And his cloak was immediately clear and stainless.

'Ten points from Gryffindor, for the two of you,' he snarled as if he wanted to kill the twins for staining his cloak. 'And stay behind to clear up the mess, I shall discuss your detentions afterwards.'

The bell rang at the moment, and Snape dismissed the class. Everyone passing by the twins avoided them, but when Clarie and Lee came they did not go away.

'We'll meet up with you guys after we've dealt with sloppy Snape,' Fred said with a big proud grin on his face.

'You'll see sloppy Snape first, I can help you out with this,' she threw her pack behind her back and knelt down to clear the mess with Lee.

'Like seriously, we'll catch up with you – just go,' George urged them away.

'I'm fine,' Clarie insisted, and whispered into the twins' ears, 'Distract him. I wanna get the dungbombs back.'

Realising what she was up to, the twins slapped her hard on the back with an artful beam on their faces.

'What do you think we should do – like, Ter-gio?' Lee pointed his wand at the pool of mess and said. Instead of clearing up the pool of dirt, it exploded – leaving Clarie and Lee in dots of disgusting waste. She could clearly hear Snape paused with his lecture and the twins giggling.

She winked at Lee and said, 'I'll fetch some towels.' And darted off to Snape's table.

She was somehow a half-skilled thief: she used to make fun of her muggle classmates with replacing people's stuff or else. She pulled away some towels hanging on the side of his table as cover and retrieved two Dungbombs with a swift move. 'Sorry, professor, we're just clearing up,' she said innocently as she covered the bombs with the towels.

Snape simply hardened his face. 'Hurry up,' he snapped. She nodded and returned to Lee.

'Wrap that up, Snappy Snape is receiving a parcel,' Lee muttered. Clarie fought down a laughter as she wrapped a mess with one of the towels.

'Hey guys, you doing good?' George returned from the grumpy-faced Snape.

'You call clearing this good?' Clarie squinted at them as if condemning the twins, as Lee hushed, 'Hurry up!'

Three packages of fresh, smelly and still-warm dung, wrapped in stained white cloth. Lee and Clarie left them under Slytherin tables – a reserved gift for the sixth-year Slytherins in the upcoming lesson.

'Good day, professor!' Lee yelled back as the four of them left, filthy and stinky. 'We've never been better to do this,' Clarie grinned from ear to ear. People passing by casted them disgusted looks and avoided the gang like the plague.

All except one.

Peeves never ceased to let a chance of messing with students slip by. He poured down a bucketful of water onto the four of them, which was almost as bad as passing right through them: the bucket was half-filled with ice.

'PEEVES!' a damp, icy Clarie screeched at Peeves. He returned a loud raspberry and on the spur of the moment, Clarie reached for her pocket and threw her precious stolen dungbomb and threw it out with all the strength she could manage with her arm.

Students in the area shrieked and ran from the bomb. It bounced on the wall, then the chandelier and exploded right in the centre of Peeves' ghostly figure with a mighty 'BOOM!'. Peeves, now being returned with the favour, dirt covered and zoomed away, cursing them along the way, who were busy guffawing at Clarie's successful revenge.

'Um, guys…?' Lee patted their shoulders uncertainly and the three turned to what he was looking behind them: the scrawny cat of the caretaker with bulging eyes, Mrs Norris.

'Run!' George yelled and they darted off, as everyone made way for the filthy little troublemaking first-years.

Exactly five seconds later Filch emerged from nowhere in front of them and forced them to stop.

'My, my, someone's in big trouble now,' he said in a creepy way. He grabbed Clarie's arm and said, 'Follow me.'

Clarie shook him off angrily, and seeing that there wasn't any chance of escaping, the four reluctantly followed him back to his own office.

Filtch's office was small. Really, it was barely larger than a broomstick cupboard only, and stinked with mould that was growing on things around.

'Double trouble, toil and trouble,' Filtch chanted as he searched between piles and stack of documents and drawers. 'Never seen such troublesome kids for at least a decade… and I shall ensure you four are going to get some serious detention…'

Suddenly George, standing on the left of Clarie elbowed her and nodded at one of Filtch's drawers: half opened, there lied a single piece of old, yellowish parchment with another piece of parchment above marked with Confiscated and Highly Dangerous.

She elbowed Lee on her right and gestured him to look. A glint of excitement sparkled in his eyes. The four of them exchanged looks of silent agreement: grab it.

'Um, sir – Mr Filtch?' Fred asked as Filtch was still busy over finding records of misbehaving students and detention. 'Yes?' he snapped.

'Do I need to hand out some remaining, um, dungbombs?' he asked uncertainly and fished some brownish bouncy spheres from his pocket.

'Hand them out, now, or you'll get more than detention,' Filtch threatened. 'Once I get whipping authorization from the headmaster, it's no longer funny.'

Fred handed over with an unusually shaky hand and accidentally dropped them halfway – creating enough distraction and time for Lee to snatch the piece of parchment from the drawer and slip into his backpack.

'You foolish boy!' Filtch roared as he attempted to wave the clouds emerging from the set-off dungbombs, with the gang running off in thundering and mocking boos. 'You careless, useless…'

They scampered back to Gryffindor tower, occasionally tripping with uncontrollable laughter.

As soon as they entered the common room, the lit fireplace warmed them up. Marcus Keith, a fellow first year frowned at the sight of the pranksters and asked, 'What kept you so long? What's up with, um, y'all?'

'Parcel delivering - '

'- friendly chitchats - '

' – and some leisure relaxation.'

The twins spoke so fluently as if only one person was speaking. Marcus snorted with a slight grin and returned to his work.

The four of them looked among themselves. Clearly, they've had much more than a usual first-year would have in their first week in school, and although they were all craving for a nice warm bath or a warm-up by the fireplace, they had to admit that this was one of their best days ever in their lives.