Harry and Bob quickly grabbed lunch. Regular adders didn't eat as frequently as Bob – oftentimes only once a month. Bob said learning things made him hungry, so he ate every day. After lunch, the pair headed to the library to find some transfiguration books.

The library smelled lovely, like aged wood and old books. The shelves reached from the floor to the ceiling, and there were rolling ladders at the end of every shelf. Dotted throughout the library were desks of varying sizes, mostly occupied by Ravenclaws.

Bob thought it was silly that only the Ravenclaws were studying. "Education is important… Why go to school if not to study?"

"Erm, I bet they study some other time and are just eating lunch right now."

"Hmmm, food is good, yes… Study is also good."

"Yeah, but you can't eat books."

"I could eat a book."

"I – right... Well, don't. We're supposed to be looking for transfiguration books, remember?"

"Yesssss, transfiguration."

The two wandered the shelves for a while but the books didn't seem to be ordered in any particular way, so it was hard to find anything. After half an hour, Harry had a small stack of books – not just about transfiguration, but any odd title that caught his eye. He made his way to the front desk and handed his books to the librarian – a very severe looking old woman with horn-rimmed glasses.

"Hello, I'd like to take these out please."

The librarian – Mrs. Pince, according to her nametag – skimmed over the titles then pointed her wand at each book's front page. A return by date appeared in red ink on the top corner of the page. "A late return will lead to points lost. The second late return will result in a ban from the library. Do not dogear the pages, and do not bring books to meals."

"Erm – thanks. I won't!"

Harry carefully put the books in his bag and exited the library.

"She was kind of scary."


Looking at the schedule, Harry saw that the next class was Herbology. The directions said class was to be held in Greenhouse One, which was out on the grounds.

"Do you want to come in the greenhouse, or would you like to go explore and hunt a bit?"

"Greenhouse. We will hunt together tomorrow."

"Oh – okay, that sounds fun. I've been wanting a toad after you didn't share the other day…"

"Mmmmmm, was very clean."

There were multiple greenhouses lined up next to each other, numbered from one to seven for each of the school years. Harry could hear growling coming from one of the greenhouses and was rather intrigued as to what that could be. Perhaps he and Bob would peek in after their hunt…

Entering Greenhouse One, Harry and Bob were a bit surprised by just how much larger it was on the inside. Impressive… Harry thought he could probably extend the Friends of Bob bunker by a fair bit and grow some cool plants in there.

The lesson itself was quite relaxing, as it was basically just magical gardening. Their task was to repot young Devil's Snare plants. They looked a bit like snakes, and Harry found himself wondering how Brownie and her snakelets were doing. He spent a bit of time zoned out, thinking about home, then snapped back to the present when Draco poked his shoulder.

"Are you even listening to me?"

Harry turned to Draco. He was wearing dragonhide gloves, like every other student, but had also put on a long apron and safety goggles, along with what looked like a lace hair net.

"Erm, no – sorry. What did you say?"

"I asked how you're doing that so well and not getting messy!"

Harry looked around to see the other students covered in varying amounts of dirt and struggling with their young plants. Harry's robes were free of dirt and his plant was docile as ever because he had been absentmindedly petting it as if it were a snakelet.

"It's snake shaped. Treat it like a pet."

Draco scoffed, made an odd squinting face as if he couldn't tell whether Harry was joking, then turned back to his plant. Making sure nobody was watching, he started petting it. It quickly settled down, and he ended up winning Slytherin points as the first person to complete the task because Harry kept petting his plant instead of repotting it.


After Herbology was Charms, where the task was to levitate a feather. Harry was immediately good at it, probably because he had spent years doing that kind of thing anyway. Bob liked the movement of the feather, so after earning Slytherin more points, Harry spent the rest of lesson playing a game of keep-away with Bob.

At the end of the lesson, he was pulled aside by Professor Flitwick.

"It's a joy to see another natural at Charms! Your mother was also gifted. If you ever want to hear about her projects or ask any questions, please do let me know!"

Harry was interested in hearing about his mum as Aunt Petunia didn't like to talk about her much.

"What was her best Charms work?"

"Well now, there's a lot to choose from, Mr Potter! Hmmmm..."

The Professor stared out the window for a moment, deep in thought, before looking back at Harry.

"She had a knack for combining what she had learned in Transfiguration and Charms. I remember she made a little snow globe once… She'd taken a glass from the Great Hall and transfigured it into a sphere, then placed some small pine cuttings from the forest into it. She popped some snow in there, then layered all sorts of different charms – temperature and climate charms, a charm to allow the scent of the trees to permeate the glass, and of course the Unbreakable Charm. I'm not sure what came of that little snow globe, but it was wonderful!"

Harry knew what had come of it… He had seen it on a shelf in Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's room. He hadn't often needed to go into their room and didn't realise it had been something his mum had made. He felt a bit strange. Not sad, but not really happy either.

Unsure of what to do, he thanked the Professor and wandered to the last class of the day.

"I feel a bit weird."

Bob nuzzled Harry's cheek.

"You feel perfectly fine to me."

"Erm – I mean emotionally."

"Hmmmm. Sad?"

"No, not sad. Almost sad, but not really."

"I do not understand this feeling."

"Neither do I, Bob…"

"Is it useful? Does it tell you something important?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Then let's ignore it."

"Yep – sounds good."


History of Magic was a class shared with the Ravenclaws. Harry was surprised to see Slytherins and Ravenclaws alike falling asleep.

"Is this like the nap program?"

"It sure seems that way…"

Harry quite liked History of Magic… It felt a lot like the fantasy stories that Harry and Dudley liked to read.

For their lesson, they were supposed to read about a battle between goblins and discuss the issues that led to the outbreak of war. That seemed a little boring to Harry, so he added more interesting bits here and there. He was sure Professor Binns wouldn't mind a few embellishments… Orcs and Nazgûl made the homework much cooler.

"Pssst."

Harry looked up from where he was drawing a cool sword on his parchment. Again, with the palm trees… But this time it looked to be a girl from Hufflepuff.

"Hi! I'm Susan. Can you draw me one too?"

She shuffled over a scrap of paper. Harry drew her a sword with a badger on the hilt… Or what was supposed to be a badger, anyway. It ended up looking a bit like a bear, but was neat enough that a few of his classmates asked for drawings too. Pansy got a picture of a cat-o-nine tails where each cord was a snake, Crabbe got a dwarf holding a knife (just a butter knife, as per his request), and Draco got a picture of Bob even though he asked for a dragon, because Bob thought it would be funny.


At the end of the first day, Harry was exhausted but happy. He brushed his teeth, listened to Charybdis recount her joyous time staring at mermaids and fish in the lake, then fell asleep within minutes.

Meanwhile, at Number Four, Dudley was up past his bedtime because he was sad. He knew that Harry was probably enjoying school, but it felt weird without him there. Earlier in the day he had chatted with Brownie a bit, planned some cool things for the Friends of Bob bunker, and had done yoga in the garden… but all those things just weren't the same alone.

He felt that his worries were building up, so he hopped out of bed and wandered downstairs to the sitting room. His dad was asleep on the sofa, but he saw his mum reading a book – and it looked like she was crying!

"Mum?"

She jerked and put the book down, looking up at Dudley.

"Diddums, what –", her voice cracked slightly, and she cleared her throat. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"…I was thinking about Harry. What if he hates me when he comes back from school?"

"That's just nonsense. Of course he won't."

"But what if he does? Maybe he'll start thinking about things, like how I'm thinking about things… Do you remember before, when I – I was mean to him when we were younger? What if he thinks about that and then he hates me?"

She pulled Dudley onto the cushion next to her.

"Oh, Dudley, I don't think he even realises that we were... All of us – Vernon as well, we weren't…"

It wasn't like her to stammer. She trailed off, staring at the book in her lap for a moment. "We weren't the best him, but I don't think he knew that. He only knew what was normal for snakes."

Right… Dudley realised that was probably true, but he still felt bad about it, and there were still other things worrying him.

"What if he doesn't think I'm cool, then? All his new friends are gonna know magic and I don't."

"No! Dudders, you're mummy's very cool boy!"

"…Ugh, muuuum."

"Here, look. We can learn magic together. Even if there's things we can't do, we can learn the theory. That's very cool!"

She handed him the book that she had been reading – Spells and Potions for People with Low or No Magic. That did sound cool…

Dudley supposed that his mum was right. There was nothing stopping him from knowing magical theory. It would probably be good for business, as well… Maybe he could even help Harry with homework when he came to visit.

He wanted to sit and read the book right away, but it was past his bedtime and his mum told him he would have to wait until the morning. So, Dudley went to bed, not worried about the past, but looking forward to learning.