Astronomy class was easy.
Pearl had spent millenia dreaming about going back into space, and so she'd enjoyed telling Steven about the stars from the time he was young. She'd laughed about human constellations; the human believe than Earth was the center of the universe amused her.
She'd known Copernicus and Keppler and other great thinkers in the past. It had only been in the past few centuries that the gems had retreated from humanity. Steven's mother Rose had always been fascinated by humans, and she'd drawn the others with her.
So her education about astronomy had been unusually thorough.
Herbology was almost as good. Steven had inherited his mother's abilities with plants, although thankfully he'd managed to not raise the contents of the first year greenhouse as a sentient army dedicated to protecting him.
He still wondered sometimes what had happened to the watermelon army that he'd raised and later sent into the sea.
Still, he enjoyed working in the earth, and he enjoyed learning about the magical plants. Professor Sprout was kindhearted and she seemed to have a talent for saying the comforting thing.
History of magic was a struggle though. The professor was a ghost and he droned on and on about names and dates that didn't make any sense to Steven. The only saving grace was that his fellow students seemed to be struggling almost as much as he did.
It was difficult to sit through the entire class trying to take notes when he'd never had to take notes before, and he'd begun to wonder if he even belonged at the school at all.
So it was with a sense of trepidation that he followed the other Hufflepuffs into Transfigurations.
It was a large room filled with rows of desks, just like history of magic. Unlike that class, there was no ghost at the head of the class, only a cat sitting on the desk.
Steven stopped suddenly, uneasy.
Ernie McMillan, his housemate asked, "Steven?"
Steven shook his head. Not taking his eyes off the cat, he slid into his seat.
Amethyst's favorite form had been a cat. Sometimes it had seemed as though she spent more time in other forms than she had her own. It wasn't until later that he'd learned that she didn't like herself. She'd relished the chance to become anyone or anything other than herself.
As the students finally settled down, the cat leaped off the desk, transforming in a single motion into the imposing figure of Professor McGonagall.
Steven stiffened, forcing himself not to hyperventilate.
"They aren't going to make us do that, are they?"
The last time he'd tried shape shifting into a cat, he'd almost died, his body turning into a hideous mass of cats. He'd been lucky to return to his own form.
Ernie shook his head. Unlike Steven he was good at school.
"She's an Animagus. That's rare magic and you have to have a license to be able to do it."
Steven forced his breathing to slow.
They weren't going to force him to shape shift. This wasn't going to be a dangerous, life threatening class.
The other children had been talking among themselves, but the professor quickly silenced them.
"Of all the magics you will learn at Hogwarts, transfiguration is some of the most dangerous. Any tomfoolery will not be tolerated. You will be asked to leave the class and not come back."
Steven nodded soberly. Ernie had told him that transfiguration was the art of changing other things instead of yourself, but if it was anything like becoming a mass of cats it was dangerous indeed.
With a wave of her wand, McGonagall changed her desk into a pig.
Immediately Steven was distracted, wondering if the pig remembered having been a desk, and if changing back into a desk was a form of murder. Was creating life and then taking it away again right?
She gave them each a match and had them try to turn it into a needle.
Steven struggled, and only the fact that the students around him were struggling gave him any hope at all. Ernie was the only one who's managed to change his match much at all.
Ernie and Hannah Abbott did their best to reassure him that they would help him.
Defense against the Dark Arts sounded useful. Steven had learned through hard experience that knowing how to fight evil was important. Their first class with Professor Quirrell seemed easy enough, although the room smelled liked Fish Stu's Pizza back home, and Quirrell wore a strange turban. He smelled of garlic.
Although he seemed innocuous enough, Steven felt uneasy around Professor Quirrell. He didn't particularly like him, which was very strange.
Steven liked everyone. He'd even liked Peridot when they first met. Only Jasper and some of the more dangerous gem monsters hadn't made his list of people he liked.
He'd even tried to domesticate a Centipeedle once, teaching it loyalty through kindness and salty potato chips despite it's tendency to spew acid when it got excited.
The fact that Quirrell made him uneasy was unusual enough that he had to examine his own reasons. It wasn't the stutter. He'd dealt with people who were hard to understand without any problems at all in the past.
It wasn't the stench of garlic. Jenny Pizza and her entire family had that; Steven had been polite enough not to mention it, knowing it was the price they paid for working in a pizzeria.
There was just something...Steven couldn't put his finger on it.
He dismissed the thought. Doubtlessly he'd bring the professor around. In his experience, almost everyone could be made into a friend if you worked hard enough at it.
The few exceptions had been exceptionally dangerous, attempting to destroy humanity. With the exception of Jasper they hadn't even been actively evil. They'd simply had a job to do, creating more gems for the armies of the empire. It was simply unfortunate that the process that created new members of their species also drained the life force right out of a planet.
The Kindergartens had been completely devoid of life for over six thousand years, not able to grow as much as a single lichen or piece of moss. If they'd had their way they'd have done that to the entire planet.
Sometimes Steven wondered if the definition of being evil was just not caring.
Finally potions class came.
Steven had been looking forward to potions. The dour professor had tried to pretend that he didn't like Steven, but Steven just knew that he'd already made inroads with him.
He'd already decided that the professor was a lot like his friend Lars. He was someone who liked to present a prickly outside as a way of hiding the goodness inside.
The professor glowered down at him as the students settled into their seats.
"Mr. Universe," he said. "Where would you find a bezoar?"