Chapter 15: The First School Day

Harriet woke up first the next day, feeling quite refreshed despite how tired she had been the night before. The sun was shining through the window, having apparently only just risen itself. She stretched before she got up out of bed and quietly exited the room to complete her morning ablutions. Morag and Padma were already in the bathroom and they shared 'Good mornings'.

When Harriet got back to her room, Hermione had just woken and Harriet suggested that she get dressed and freshen up, offering to wait for her in the common room so that they could head down to breakfast together.

"Really?" Hermione asked, sounding somewhat surprised, "you'd wait for me?"

"Of course!" Harriet assured her.

"Oh," Hermione whispered, mostly to herself, before hurrying to get her things together, "I'll be quick," she added as she rushed out the door.

Harriet got dressed and made her way down to the common room, where a number of her housemates were already waiting.

Morag and Lisa were there, sitting on a couch as were Terry Boot, Stephen Cornfoot and Anthony Goldstein.

Harriet wished them all a good morning, receiving equally polite replies from Stephen Cornfoot and Morag MacDougal and slightly more relaxed 'morning's from the rest.

"Padma and Su Li will be down shortly," Morag told her, "I told Padma that I would wait for her so that we could go down to breakfast together."

Harriet nodded, "I told Hermione the same," she said, before adding, "I can only imagine how disorienting Hogwarts will be to those who did not grow up around magic."

Harriet still remembered her first exposure to Greengrass Manor and the magical world.

"Better to stick together," Morag agreed, "especially at the start."

Stephen Cornfoot looked slightly embarrassed as he informed them, "Michael Corner has already left for breakfast, he assured me that he could remember the way. But I don't think that Kevin has come down yet."

The muggleborn in question chose that moment to enter the common room, dressed quite messily and yawning into the back of his hand.

"'Morning everyone!" He exclaimed with similar replies to Harriet's greeting, "you're not all waiting for me are you?"

"Not just you," Stephen told him, "Padma… Su…Li and uh.."

"Hermione," Harriet prompted quietly, allowing Stephen to repeat it louder.

Stephen plopped himself down into one of the comfy looking chairs and let out another loud yawn.

Harriet looked about the room, noting that most of the older students were only waiting in the common room briefly for a friend, before heading out of the door.

Something else took her notice and she pondered aloud, "how, do you suppose, one goes about turning a book into a ghost book?"

Morag followed the line of her gaze, while she heard a couple of confused noises from some of the others.

The Grey Lady was sitting in one of the armchairs reading from a distinctly transparent volume.

"Curious," Morag added, "it appears to be a first edition copy of 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard'."

Audrey Overton entered the common room and greeted them all with a 'Good Morning'.

"I'm glad to see that you all seem to be here waiting for each other," she said with a smile, "there are a few missing, but if they won't be long I'd be happy to escort you all down to the Great Hall?"

"We are only waiting for three more," Stephen answered, "and here's two of them now," he added, indicating Padma and Su who had just entered.

Audrey whispered a quick head count, "has one already gone down?"

Stephen nodded, "Michael Corner, he said that he knew the way."

"Robert!" Audrey called out to the other prefect, who was talking to some friends near one of the windows, when he looked up she explained, "one of our first years has already headed down."

The other prefect let out a little laugh, "there's always one," he said ruefully, "it was me in my first year. I'll head down now to look for them," he looked over the first years, "Michael… Corner or Hermione Granger?"

"Michael," Audrey answered and as Robert left the common room he told them, "never fear, I'll find him. He'll be waiting for you at the table."

Hermione came down as he left, "oh, you didn't all wait for me, did you?"

"Su and Padma came down only moments before you," Harriet reassured her, "Michael Corner apparently left by himself and Audrey Overton has offered to escort us all down."

Audrey Overton escorted them all down and they arrived to find a sheepish looking Michael Corner already seated.

"Good to see that you made it," Stephen greeted him, to which Michael mumbled, "barely."

Breakfast was the traditional Full English style, with plates and bowls of bacon, a selection of eggs done either poached, fried or scrambled, tomatoes, mushrooms, buttered toast, sausages, baked beans and black pudding. Carafes of coffee and pots of tea as well as jugs of pumpkin juice dotted the table between the food.

Harriet added a small amount of everything to her plate and poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice. Hermione, who had sat next to her, copied her selections.

Harriet had to stifle a giggle when Hermione took her first gulp of her juice. Some of the others closer by didn't.

"What on earth is that?" Hermione exclaimed, refraining from wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Other students farther away heard her exclamation and exhibited knowing smiles.

"It's pumpkin juice," Harriet explained, "a staple of many wizarding breakfasts. But, I'm led to believe, a bit of an acquired taste if you didn't grow up drinking it."

Hermione gently pushed the glass of pumpkin juice away from her plate and poured herself a cup of tea instead (something that attracted further grins from some of the older students.)

A small man (likely part-goblin, Harriet guessed) carrying sheafs of paper, approached them then, "Good Morning first-years, I'm Fillius Flitwick, your head of house. I'm sorry that I was not able to greet you last night in the common room, but I'm sure your prefects did a good job getting you sorted into your rooms. I've got your timetables here," he said as he began to hand out pieces of paper to all of the first-years, "and as you'll see you have some free time between the end of breakfast and your first class of the day. I'll ask that you all meet me in the common room and I'll run through some important rules and information before you all head off to your defence against the dark arts class."

Various "Yes, Sir"s and "Yes, Professor"s were his reply and he nodded with a smile, "Good, good." He said as he continued down the table to sort out the timetables for the rest of the students.

As the Ravenclaw table was the next one to the Slytherin table, Harriet and Daphne were able to sit back to back with each other and were thus able to turn around and catch up; both with Daphne and Tracey (who was sitting close next to her). The Slytherins had private rooms in the dungeons, but Harriet quite liked the idea of sharing a room with Hermione. Tracey told her that the Gryffindores and Hufflepuffs each had only one room for first year boys and one room for first year girls.

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the mail, carried in by over a hundred owls who circled the great hall looking for the recipients of their cargo. Artemis, the Greengrass' mail owl, spotted Daphne and Harriet straight away and dropped it's letters straight into their laps before winging back out of the Great Hall. Neither opened their letters in the Great Hall of course, correspondence was to be opened in private, but they did notice quite a few others opening their letters. Hermione seemed to have lost the expression of sudden surprise that had taken her over upon the owl's first arrival and was looking a little down.

"I think that I shall write a reply to my parents before dinner and post it by one of the school mail owls," she said to her room-mate, "perhaps you might like to write a letter yourself and we could go up to the owlery together?"

She brightened briefly, before looking sad again, "but my parents don't have an owl of their own, they won't be able to respond."

Harriet gave her a smile, "just instruct the owl that you send to await a reply and it will do so. Just make sure to inform your parents of that, or they might worry about the owl hanging about."

"Oh," Hermione exclaimed, "that sounds fantastic. I can't wait to tell them how my first days have gone and how the sorting happened and how I got the greatest room-mate!"

She blushed quite fiercely at her last statement, as soon as she had realised what she had said. For Harriet's part, she didn't mind the overboard compliment, she was just happy that she had cheered up Hermione.

Once breakfast was finished, Audrey checked in with them to ensure that they knew their way back to the common room. They assured her that they did and she left to get ready for her own first class. Harriet had finished her breakfast before most of the others, but decided to wait for them. Daphne and Tracey both said goodbye as they headed back down towards the dungeons.

Harriet sipped a cup of tea until the boys finished their breakfasts (most seemed to eat quite a bit), at which point they all trooped off back to the Ravenclaw common room. They only had to wait for a couple of minutes for Professor Flitwick to arrive and he began to instruct them on what was expected of them as Ravenclaw students. A certain grade level was required (they should obtain 'Acceptable' in every class), but study groups would be organised and posted on the noticeboards for students to attend. Ravenclaw students who were performing poorly would be allocated a mentor from a higher grade to provide extra tutoring to lift their grade. Professor Flitwick then admitted that some of his colleagues could be a bit difficult to "listen to", but that past students had written up the most important pieces of his lectures and had them bound by year level. Multiple copies of each existed and all could be found on the first bookcase to the left upon entering the common room. Professor Flitwick described to them where his office was and then drew their attention to one of the tables where a map of the castle had been engraved.

"Ravenclaw tower is here," he pointed, then moved his finger to another part of the castle, "and your nine fifty-five Defence Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Quirrel will be here."

Sure enough the map had marked 'Defence Against the Dark Arts'. There were many, many rooms engraved on the table, but only a small fraction of them contained markings.

"Well that, I think, is all that I need to tell you about for now," Professor Flitwick said cheerfully, "I shall see you all for Charms after your Defence Against the Dark Arts class. Welcome to Ravenclaw, the house of the wise and clever."

He left them then, and as they still had a little while before they had to head off to their first class, they mostly spread out to look at the books on the bookshelves. Stephen Cornfoot and Terry Boot were the notable exceptions to this, deciding to sit themselves down opposite a Wizard's chess board and begin a game.

Hermione went straight to the first bookshelf on the left while Harriet picked a random bookshelf to look through, and soon selected a copy of "Morgan's Treatise on Potion Improvement".

Upon opening, once she had returned to her seat, she discovered that the title page had been signed by the author, with a message "to my fellow Ravenclaws, I hope this aids your studies." Harriet wondered if all of the books had been donated to the library by Ravenclaw Alumni and reasoned that it was probably very likely.

She read through the book until it was time to leave, most of it went over her head but she did understand bits and pieces from her prior reading of the potions textbook.

They headed down to their first class of the day: Defence Against the Dark Arts, a class that they shared with the Gryffindors and everybody seemed to be looking forward to. It was supremely disappointing. The room stank of garlic, supposedly to ward off a vampire that Quirrell was afraid of. When he told them that his turban had been gifted to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, an Irish Gryffindor asked how Professor Quirrell had fought off the zombie, but the Professor went pink and started to talk about the weather.

Their next class was Charms, with their own Professor Flitwick and it was shared with the Hufflepuffs. Harriet only knew a couple of them: Ernie McMillan and Susan Bones (the latter only through a chance meeting with her Aunt; Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, in Diagon Alley.)

Charms was a much better class than Defence Against the Dark Arts, for one they didn't have to translate every word of the lecture through Professor Quirrell's continuous stutter, but also because Professor Flitwick would happily entertain any question they had.

"The only bad question is the one left unasked," he said to them at the start of their class.

It was later in the day, once they had returned back to their rooms, that Harriet opened her letter.

Dear Harriet,

We all hope that you have had a wonderful first night at Hogwarts, the view of the castle from the boats is something that Cossima and I both recall vividly. Please know that no matter which house you are sorted into, we are proud of you and we hope that the tensions between some houses do not put a wedge between you and Daphne.

Harriet wondered if they thought that she might have been sorted into Gryffindor, as the only tension seemed to be between the house of the Lion and the house of the snake.

Please write back to let us know how you have settled in and don't hesitate to write if you are in need of anything. We shall see you on your holidays.

Love Hew and Cossima Greengrass.

P.S. And Nance!

P.P.S . And Astoria!

The last two lines were written in a different hand (Likely Nance's, Harriet thought with a smile.)

Harriet pulled out her writing desk and penned a reply back, agreeing with their assessment of the view of Hogwarts and informing them that she had been sorted into Ravenclaw, was rooming with a friendly muggleborn named Hermione Granger and was quite enjoying her time at Hogwarts so far. She reassured them that there was no tension between her and Daphne and that they were able to converse and swap details of their situation with each other over breakfast.

Once she had placed her letter into an envelope and sealed it, she offered her writing desk to Hermione (who had just come into their room).

While Hermione wrote her letter, Harriet began her Defence Against the Dark Arts homework and once Hermione had finished, they did their charms homework together.

Once their homework was completed for the day, they went downstairs to dinner with a quick detour via the owlery in the top of the west tower to post their letters.

AUTHORS NOTES:

Sorry sorry sorry for the long delay. I've been very time poor lately and have only just had opportunities to catch up on my writing. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

THANK YOU so much to the following author follow/favourites: tamarayann97, fechoritas, angel23ramirez

Thank you to the following story follow / favourites: aesrea, persona user99, JLHenry, EmtionsGuardian, Kalisto Luna, kerovin-victor75, ReaderNicholas666

Kalisto Luna: thank you so much for the review! I'm glad that you like the story and I'm happy that you like Harriet so much :)

Guest: Thank you for the review! I hope that you make an account so that I can thank you by name :)

Machmsps: i really did have a brain fart, thanks for picking up on that!