Chapter 5: The First Week of School
"Hello" – Normal Speech
'Hello' – Normal Thought
"Hello" – Non-Human Speech
'Hello' – Non-Human Thought
DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, I do not own the rights to the Harry Potter or Naruto franchises. Nor do I own the rights to Hogwarts Mystery or Hogwarts Legacy. Wish I did though.
Naruto and Josh woke up early with excitement and apprehension about beginning their first day. He heads out of his dorm and sees Hermione outside. Smiling, Naruto goes up to her and greets her, "Morning Hermione," he said. Hermione greeted them, "Morning Naruto, Josh, are you ready to go?" she asked excitedly. They nodded, before Hermione asked, "Harry and Ron still sleeping?" they nodded. "Well, I'm sure they'll wake up before class starts, come then we have plenty of time to go over the material before class starts," Hermione said and they headed out of the common room towards the Great Hall.
There were roughly 142 staircases in the school and they varied in position a lot, or steeped, or had a tricked step that you had to remember to jump to avoid getting stuck. The doors were also quite tricky. Some functioned as a regular door, some you had to ask politely, or had to be tickled in the right spot to open them. It was also a bit of a nasty shock when a ghost would fly out of a door that you were trying to get into. If you met him while you were late, Peeves was worth about two locked doors and a tricked staircase. Percy had informed them that Peeves liked to terrorize the other students and Dumbledore was the only person in the castle he didn't dare try to harm.
The three spoke about what they might learn and what would be their most exciting subject to learn as they ate and went over some of the material. Harry and Ron came down later and joined them at breakfast, Harry joined them in going over the material, but Ron wasn't interested. As they learned Naruto told them that as opposed to what he was taught in Konoha, this was rather interesting. This prompted Hermione to ask about the blonde's childhood, to which he replied, "To be honest, I didn't learn about being a wizard until now given that I'm an orphan, but growing up back home… I wasn't liked by many," this saddened Hermione who knew that wizards and witches were usually hated by most muggles. Naruto pressed on. "I was treated like a monster instead of a human being, I didn't know why considering they would always beat and torture me whenever I asked… and the worst part is that when I ask the people who don't hate me, about who my parents were, they were either silent or they gave me cryptic answers," Naruto said to Hermione, as she looks like she's on the verge of tears hearing the story. Harry, Josh, and Ron, who already knew about this remained silent through the exchange. "Looking back, every day back home, if you could call it that, felt like hell… maybe I was cursed or something… maybe they knew I was a wizard… I often asked myself if my parents abandoned me because I was a wizard or if they died for me. I can never tell," Hermione placed her hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry Naruto you got me, Harry, Ron, and Josh … we're a family no matter what," she said with a sad smile. Harry, Ron, and Josh nodded in agreement. Naruto looked at them and smiled sadly, "Thanks, guys," he said softly. Hermione then turns to Josh and asks him about his life. "It was quite the opposite of what Naruto went through," he said trying not to mock Naruto in front of Hermione. "It was a world filled with people using magic, so none of this stuff is new to me. It was a beautiful world where I came from. The epitome of what you would call paradise. Beautiful lush forests, waters so clear you could see the bottom of the deepest oceans. Friends and family with a few siblings, a pretty normal childhood for the most part…" Then his expression went slightly downcast. "Until the nightmare… I don't remember much, but I do know everything I ever knew was slaughtered before my eyes." This sent the others into shock. It was evident to Hermione that Josh didn't give this information to the other boys. "My memory is all fuzzy… I can remember bits and pieces. But there is one thing that happened that I can't seem to remember, no matter how hard I try. After that, all I know is that I woke up in Aaron's house. I don't know if that world still exists, or if anyone I knew is still alive. But one thing I do know is that I will live on for them, and take down whatever killed them if it followed me here," the others were silent at this. Then Naruto said with a sad smile, "Don't worry, man. Whatever happens, we'll be there for you. As Hermione said, we're family," the others smiled in affirmation. Josh smiled back and replied, "Thank you."
Naruto sat next to Hermione in the transfiguration classroom. Josh sat next to Neville Longbottom on the table to their right. The professor, Minerva McGonagall, introduces herself and begins to go over the concepts of transfiguration by talking about the four types of transfiguration. Such as transformation, vanishment, conjuration, and detransformation. The class itself was pretty complex, and the textbook explaining the concepts didn't help matters either. Harry and Ron arrive at class while everyone took notes that McGonagall magicked up onto the board. "Whew, we made it, can you imagine the look of old McGonagall's face if we were late?" Ron said to Harry. As if on cue, McGonagall jumps off the table as a cat and transforms back to her human self, surprising the two boys. "That was bloody brilliant," said Ron. "Thank you for that assessment, Mr. Weasley, maybe if I were to transfigure either Mr. Potter or yourself as a pocket watch, maybe one of you would be on time" the professor retorted. "We got lost," Harry responded. "Then perhaps a map? I trust you don't need one to find your seats" she said, to which the two boys nodded and found somewhere to sit.
The two sat behind Naruto and Hermione, and class resumed. Twenty minutes go by as Professor McGonagall talks about transformation by showing an Animagus, which interests Naruto as that reminds him of the transformation jutsu that would be used back home, except in this case, you can only turn into animals. The professor gave the class an assignment where they would have to turn a match into a needle, only Hermione was able to do it, while Josh wasn't far off. Nevertheless, both of them seemed to impress McGonagall.
Potions class was located in the dungeons, and for the first few minutes of class, Professor Snape gave the class a run-down of what they would be learning. Snape noticing that Harry, Josh, and Naruto didn't seem to be paying any attention snapped a question for each of them beginning with Naruto, "Mr. Uzumaki, would you mind telling the class what shrivel fig is used for?" Naruto responds, "It's a magical plant found in Abyssinia, and when skinned its liquid inside is used for potions such as Shrinking Solution and the Elixir to Induce." Snape nodded in approval and said, "You respond quickly and correctly…impressive." He then notices Josh and says "Well, look who we have here. Brother of the famed curse-breakers, Aaron, and Jacob Forest." Everyone turned to Josh, especially the Slytherins. 'So, Joshua Forest was related somewhat to two big names at Hogwarts,' Malfoy thought, 'Interesting,' Snape continued, "Your brothers gave me quite a bit of trouble during their respective times here. If you are anything like them, our time together will be very short indeed," Josh replied, "With all due respect, Professor, I think you among few others should know very well that I am nothing like either of my brothers." "Very well, prove it then. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Josh answered, "There is no difference. They are the same plant; it also goes by the name of aconite." Snape replied, "Well seems you aren't like them after all. And here we have Mr. Potter, our new celebrity." The Slytherins sniggered, "Tell me, Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" "It makes a very powerful sleeping potion known as the draft of living death," Harry answered. "And where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" "It's a stone taken from the stomach of a goat. A plus about it is that it can save you from most poisons." Harry replied, and the Slytherins shut up at once. "Well, well, good to see that fame hasn't gotten to your head, Potter," Snape tells Harry.
Snape then instructed the class to make a cure for boils potion and for this lesson, they needed to partner up with someone to make the potion with an approving grade. He swept around criticizing almost everyone except for Malfoy. Naruto and Hermione worked hard and kept quiet, making sure everything was done right, avoiding criticism as Snape couldn't find anything wrong. Josh and Dean Thomas were in the same boat doing rather quite well. The same couldn't be said for Harry and Ron, who were blamed for an accident involving Neville Longbottom and another Gryffindor named Sheamus Finnegan and had two points taken from Harry.
Soon after this though, Malfoy's cauldron began to hiss slightly. Josh and Malfoy noticed this at once. "You didn't put enough snake fangs," Josh said, grabbing all the attention in the room. 'Why is Josh helping him?' was the thought running through the minds of all the Gryffindors in the class. "You don't know what you're talking about," Malfoy snapped, irritated. "You put in five snake fangs instead of six," Josh said back calmly. "Actually, Mr. Forest is quite right," Snape said cutting through the exchange. Josh shot Malfoy a quick knowing glance and got back to work. Soon the class was finished, and everyone went off to their next lesson. But Harry had quite a bit on his mind after Potions. He seemed to have a nagging feeling that Snape seemed to hate him. He made these feelings known to the others, who told him not to worry too much about it.
It had been a few days into the first week of term, and the only class that the gang hadn't attended yet was flying, which would take place on Saturday with the Slytherins. The information that they would be paired up with Slytherin made Harry slightly tense but excited nonetheless to try and get into the air. Naruto and Josh shared Harry's sentiment. As they sat down at the Great Hall for some lunch, Sheamus was busy trying to turn his drink of water into rum which failed miserably as it exploded on him instead. While everybody laughed, post owls came flying into the hall delivering parcels and such. Harry noticed a newspaper with an interesting headline, which Josh ordered. Harry took the newspaper from Josh, who was busy interacting with the owl, and read. Naruto and Hermione noticed that Neville got a Remembrall, to which Neville stated that he didn't know what he had forgotten. Harry then spoke up, "Hey guys, somebody broke into Gringotts," Naruto, Ron, and Hermione looked at them open-mouthed, "Listen, believed to be the work of dark witches or wizards unknown, Gringotts Goblins, while acknowledging the breach, insists that nothing was taken. The vault in question, number 713, had in fact been emptied earlier that same day," Harry spoke as he read over the article. Naruto was shocked, "713? That was the vault Hagrid took us to, wasn't it?" Naruto asked. Harry and Josh nodded. The five looked at each other before reading more from the article.