Gohan woke up the next morning bright and early, he was excited to see what the day held in this new school. 'Finally a chance to be around kids my own age,' he thought to himself as he dressed and headed out the door. The Portrait of the Fat Lady squawked as she was moved, waking her. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to wake you." Gohan rubbed his head and chuckled as he had forgotten that there was a living painting guarding the door.
"It's too early, child, go back to bed," the Fat Lady yawned.
"I get up when the sun does," Gohan smiled as he walked backwards towards the ledge of the seventh floor staircase. "No sense wasting time."
"Child look out!" The Fat Lady shouted as she saw Gohan's foot meet air and fall over the edge towards the floor hundreds of feet below. She was never the fastest painting but when you can move in the spaces between portraits she was able to get around the school much faster than most. "Pop-" wheezing and huffing. "Stu- fell, hel-" the Portrait said loudly to the nurse as she woke her up. "Oh jeez. A student... fell... the staircase... seventh floor..." she was able to gasp out as the other occupant in the portrait offered her a glass of water.
The nurse had gathered enough information from that to understand what had happened. She bustled as she never had before, hoping that the student was in a shape where she could possibly save them. "Excuse me," she said as she passed by a young Gryffindor with black hair.
"WAIT?!" The Fat Lady cried out, garnering Poppy's attention. "That was him." she called out to the nurse. "He's the one that fell."
"What," Poppy turned back to see the student turn the corner to the large doors that led outside. "But, you said he fell from the seventh floor?"
"He did, but he's fine. Go get him," The Fat Lady pointed in the direction of the student.
"He's gone," Poppy said as she looked out onto the bare lawn. She missed the flashes across the lawn as Gohan moved through his kata at speeds too fast to be seen by normal eyes. "I'll talk to Minerva about this morning, we'll see if she can have a talk with the boy if he knows what happened." Yawning as she went back to her office to grab some more sleep before the first of the injuries began for the year.
"It's beautiful, in a disgusting way." George said as he watched the art in front of him.
Fred couldn't look away. "It's like there's a deeper meaning in the universe."
What the twins and quite a few other students were watching was two people eating breakfast. The Weasley clan had hoped that in public that Ron's eating habits would improve but he was gobbling down food and not having a care for how much of a mess he was making, but the boy sitting across from him was eating even more, yet, not a single morsel was wasted. The other boy's manners however were impeccable, he just simply devoured the food in front of him.
Percy and another fifth year girl started walking down the lines of the table. "This is your class schedule," the older redheaded boy said as he passed out the papers to the boys. "Do not be late to class."
Gohan took a look at the schedule. "Hmm, transfiguration first," thinking back to the spells he saw his mother doing, "Oh that must be when she changes one thing into another, transfigure, transform. Neat." Humming about how obvious the name was to explaining what he would be learning.
With breakfast finished up, Gohan started to head to where the paper said the class was, which didn't particularly help as while the classroom was stated to be on the ground floor, the campus was large enough that one could easily get lost, especially for a new student on the first day. However, unlike other students, Gohan had the ability to sense energy. And while too many of the people in the school were the same level of power, barring a few exceptions, it wasn't hard to locate congregated students on the ground floor, of which there were only three.
Through a simple process of elimination, ruling out the group across the yard as he was fairly certain it wouldn't be that far from the main castle, he just had to pick one of two classrooms and if he was wrong, then just go to the other one.
"This way," Harry said as he pulled out his father's marauder's map, being the only child of a marauder, it was given to him with the blessing of his father, godfather and 'uncle' Remus, to use it to cause as much mischief as he could, within reason. The harrowing story they liked to tell each year of their 'individual' heists to retrieve the heirloom from Filch's office, which after each retelling got more outlandish, served as a reminder of the lengths that were taken to get the map back. Simply going to the headmaster and being made to tell him that they wanted it back from Filch, did not make an exciting adventure.
Using it as a guide to locate the classroom he needed so he wouldn't be late, he noticed something on the map. "Huh, that's strange," Harry turned the map to see if it was right. "Is that Gohan?" he wondered as he saw one dot on the map, moving so fast one would have to assume he was flying a broom through the halls.
"What's strange?" Gohan asked as he stopped next to the group of Harry and his friends who were following the Potter boy to their first class. The sudden appearance of the young man scaring the other kids enough to make them jump. "Whoops, sorry." Gohan apologized as he hadn't intended to spook his classmates.
"Were you just on the other side of the school?" Harry asked as he looked at the map once more.
"Yeah, a bit ago," Gohan answered as he looked up at the door. "Great, we're not late then." He smiled as he would hate to give a bad first impression on his teacher that he was a lazy slacker.
"Right." Harry responded as he looked at Gohan suspiciously, checking the map once more to see if that was who he was before putting it away, his dad warned him that Minerva might not like finding out about the parchment. This made him miss the additional name that was next to Ron Weasley's on the map when he stowed it in his robes.
"Psst, where is the teacher?" Gohan leaned over and asked the girl sitting next to him.
The cat that had been sitting on the desk leaped off and morphed into Professor McGonagall. "It would seem we have all of our students, and on time as well." Looking over and counting all the heads. "I am your professor of transfiguration, Minerva McGonagall." She greeted her students for the first lesson of the day.
After a bit of introduction to magic, she gave each student a matchstick. "I will want each of you to attempt to use what I told you, to turn this into a sewing needle," Demonstrating the spell they would use to accomplish such a task.
'Finally,' Gohan smiled as he pulled out his wand. His mother had told him that waving it around could cause accidents if he wasn't careful, so for the time he had it, he never used it for anything. But holding the wand, it felt right in his hand. A soft thrumming sound, similar to his aura rang out when he gripped it.
"Well someone is certainly eager," Minvera chuckled as she felt the magic rolling off Gohan in waves. "Dial it back a bit, or you'll find yourself too tuckered out for the rest of the day." she instructed as she thought that Gohan's lack of control would come back to bite him later on.
"Huh," Gohan looked up from his matchstick. "What was that?" he asked.
"You are projecting your magic outward," Minerva said as she gestured to the rustling papers around the room. "I know you are excited but do try to have some self-control."
"Oh, sorry," Gohan's cheeks turned red as he noticed that he was the cause of the disturbances. He thought back on the feelings of his magical energy, he clamped down his control and took a couple of meditating breaths.
Minerva watched as the young child went through the normal steps someone trained in occlumency would when they were protecting their mind. "Most interesting." The teacher contemplated as she wondered what else Gohan was taught, as she assumed that Lily had in fact been teaching her son some branches of magic.
She smiled brightly as each of the students went through the instructions she gave them, they seemed like a promising lot. Surprisingly two students seemed to be making significant progress. "Precise movements, excellent control, the only thing he's missing is wanting it." As she commented quietly on Gohan's attempts.
Gohan's many years of training his body and fighting style meant that he didn't need to worry about getting the wand movements wrong, that was the easy part. He was unsure about how much power he needed to put into this spell as he didn't want to use too much and cause an accident,, this resulted in him not quite getting the result he wanted though.
"Well done class," Minerva called out, stopping her students. "Now the homework is to write an essay on what you have done, and where you think you need to improve."
As the students began to pack up to go to their next lesson, Minerva called out, "Mr. Son, would you please remain behind for a moment, I would like to have a quick word with you."
Shrugging Gohan set his bag back on the table and patiently waited for the rest of the students to file out. "How can I help you professor?"
"I was informed of a possible incident this morning involving the seventh floor staircase." Minerva brought up the topic Poppy wanted her to. "Could you enlighten me as to what you believe happened."
"Oh," Gohan said. "I didn't think anything was strange, I just wanted to get outside for a warm up before I started the day, I'll try to be more careful next time."
"That's very good, but, the portrait said you had fallen, is that true?" Minerva inquired further.
"No, I didn't fall." Gohan shook his head.
Thinking to herself that this was all just a case of a tired portrait overblowing a student tripping, she was prepared to ignore the notion when Gohan's next comment made her pause.
"I flew down to the ground floor." Gohan said as he smiled. "I would have gone out the window, but I wasn't sure if that was rude, mom always told me to use doors when possible."
"Flew?" Minerva cocked her head to the side. "Mr. Son, while I am sure this never came up, it is forbidden for first-year students to have brooms, they simply have not finished their introductory flying lessons and have not been cleared by Madame Hooch to use one on school grounds."
"I don't have a broom, I have other things, but," Gohan said, his comment about Icarus and the Flying Nimbus, he stopped himself before he started to get off topic and floated off his chair to demonstrate his point. "I can just fly on my own."
"Goodness," Minerva jumped back in shock.
"What's wrong? It's not that unusual to fly."
"With brooms or carpets maybe, most certainly not without complex spellwork, not to mention doing so silently and without your wand is incredible." Minerva said as she knew there were ways to fly under one's own power but for a child to do this at such a young age was a marvel.
"I've been able to do this since I was five," Gohan said as he didn't feel it was that impressive.
"That certainly explains how you did not injure yourself during the 'trip' downstairs then," Minerva said. "I will only ask that you think about how what you do looks to people who are unaware, no sense in causing unnecessary scares."
"Oh yeah, that's good thinking," Gohan agreed with the notion. "Will that be all Professor?"
"For now yes, but, in the future the Headmaster may ask you to explain what happened on that Halloween night, ten years ago," Minerva informed the student.
"Ugh, seriously," Gohan groaned. "Everyone wants to know about that apparently. Just tell him my dad killed that evil wizard, he didn't even make it one footstep into the home before my dad took him out."
'A muggle killed the dark lord, and supposedly in a very quick manner, that's outrageous, something else is going on here,' Minerva thought as she smiled and waved as the student left the classroom. "Well I certainly have something to discuss tonight with the other teachers." as she smirked about the first day meeting the staff went to, so they could give the others their first impressions of the new students, this would certainly be different than any previous years.
"Potions next then," Gohan mused as his schedule said to go to the dungeons. "Everyone else should be there already," he realized as he had forgotten to get a note in case his conversation with the professor ran long. "I have ten seconds to get there, just enough time." Gohan realized as he sensed where the students would be before vanishing from where he was.
"Okay, if he's going to be on time then," Harry said as he looked at the map, either Gohan would be late or he would appear suddenly at the door. It was almost too quick for him to notice but the dot that said Gohan was moving through the school so fast he had to be going faster than any known broom.
"Whew, made it," Gohan sighed as he quickly sat in an empty spot next to the same blonde Slytherin girl he rode the boat with.
The potions professor Severus Snape strode into the room, his robes billowing behind him. "Put away your wands. This class does not allow silly wand waving." His first instinct was to put the Potter child on the spot with difficult questions just to make him look uninformed to the rest of the class, but he saw the other student who was on his mind.
"Mr. Son," Snape called out as he locked eyes with the child. "What potion requires ginger root, armadillo bile, and ground scarab beetles?"
"I don't know sir," Gohan shook his head, as he didn't know the answer to that question.
"That was a favorite of your mothers," Severus commented on the potion, Lily used to make batches of the wit-sharpening potion around testing time to keep up with her very packed schedule. "It's alright, I just wanted to see if your mother had been teaching you before you came to the school."
"Somewhat," Gohan answered. "I mostly helped with preparing the ingredients."
Snape hummed as he turned to the board and showed the instructions for the potion they would be making.
Daphne turned to Gohan. "If you know how to prep a potion, do so and I will handle the timing and adding the ingredients," her tone forceful and demanding.
Gohan shrugged as he wasn't opposed to doing the knife work. He gathered the ingredients he would need from the cabinet that was expertly labeled. "You're supposed to cut those," Daphne tossed her hair to the side in annoyance.
"Yeah but if you do that, you don't get as much juice, as crushing them, this way you only need two, not four." Gohan explained as he pressed down on the dried fruit as the fluid gushed out.
"It seems that your mother did teach you some tricks of the trade then," Snape smirked as he looked over at Gohan using the techniques he shared with Lily.
"Yeah, she said she got them from, a friend," Gohan sadly said as he quickly put it together who this friend his mother always alluded to in her stories was.
"Did she now," Snape said, trying his best to not let his emotions come out with his comment, he needed to remain detached from wanting to find out more, at least, for the remainder of the lesson. As Snape oversaw the class, he realized that it would be better to have this discussion sooner than later.
"Mr. Son, if you would remain afterwards, I would like to speak with you," Snape said.
Gohan suppressed a sigh as this would be the second time today he was asked to remain behind, he wondered if this would happen in all of his lessons. "Yes sir." Gohan said as he stayed in his seat.
"I wanted to speak to you," Snape said as he sat at his desk. "Has your mother, ever, mentioned. It's a silly notion." he waved dismissively as using a child as a medium for his falling out with the woman he loved.
"You are the childhood friend she talked about," Gohan bluntly said. "Sir, my mother had two people she believed to be her truest and closest friends." Rising out of his seat. "One she said she had a falling out with, that left her crying for a week and the other was my father."
"I made poor choices when I was younger, choices that I regret," looking to his left arm where the Dark Mark was hidden by his robes.
"This is the address of our house in Hogsmeade," Gohan said as he quickly scribbled his house's number. "She used to tell me she wished that things were different. You can make that wish come true if you really regret it."
Snape looked at the paper as if it was the most precious gift in the world, he reached out to take it when Gohan gripped his wrist, almost painfully. "You really hurt her last time, if you, EVER, hurt her like that again, I will make sure that not even Shenron can fix you." Gohan threatened as he let some of his power slip and his aura become visible. The suffocating pressure of his power filling the room. "Do I make myself clear?"
Slowly Severus nodded his head as Gohan's firm features slid into a happy smile. "Good, have a nice day professor." Gohan waved his goodbyes as he left the classroom to go to the rest of his classes that day.
"Wotcher neighbor," Tonks said as she sat down next to Gohan during dinner.
"Hello Tonks," Gohan greeted the young woman.
"So firstie, how's the first day?" she inquired with a smirk.
"So far so good, I might need to do some exercising though, I've not had much chance to work out some energy." Gohan contemplated.
"Ooh," Tonks wiggled her eyebrows. "I want to see. You're doing something to get that much into shape. You don't mind do you?" Hoping that maybe she could pick something up by watching what Gohan does and possibly using it herself to edge out the competition in the auror training program she was going into after graduating.
"Not at all, you might have trouble keeping up if you're not used to it though, so, don't be surprised if it's a bit boring." Gohan acquiesced to the request.
Tonks chuckled as she was pretty sure this kid was blowing it out of proportion. "Well you set the expectations pretty high then."
Gohan finished up his eating before hopping off the bench. "Well, no time like the present." he chuckled as he tucked his hands behind his head.
Tonks eagerly followed the first-year out of the massive doors and onto the lawn where the cool September air swirled around the grounds. She noticed a few other students came along, notably the twins. She and the rest of the audience watched as Gohan took a few deep breaths. "It's kind of cute," she cooed as she watched him slowly move through forms that looked like kung-fu stances she's seen in cheesy action movies.
The next moment though, Gohan exploded into a blur of speed, the sound of his punches and kicks cutting through the air as he kept picking up speed. "That's less cute," Tonks muttered. 'Kind of hot though, wait,' she paused as she wondered what the hell was going through her mind at the moment. Gohan eventually began moving so fast he suddenly disappeared from sight all together.
"Where the hell did he go?" Fred asked as he and George looked around the yard to try and locate the strange first-year. When suddenly he became visible again on the yard, and again further down, charging himself, and a third time falling from the sky.
Gohan ignored the cries of alarm from the other people watching as he used the reduction in his own power to assist him. He had to focus as the two clones, while having a portion of his full power, together were stronger than him because of how much he had to use to create them with the Multi-Form Technique. Each blow he sent out would be blocked by one while the other used that opportunity to strike back. It was exhausting, it was overwhelming, it was fun.
Gohan began to laugh as he hadn't actually enjoyed training in almost a year since his dad died. He knew he should finish this up quickly, curfew would begin soon for the third-years and below. Slamming one of his duplicates into the ground he quickly tossed the other one straight up and unleashed a pillar of ki to vaporize them both. "HAAAAA!" his voice carried across the grounds as a beam of yellow energy shot up from his body.
Wiping the sweat from his brow Gohan smiled as he turned back to the castle, only to see the stunned mass of students. "Hey," Gohan waved as he began to walk and whistle past them.
"What the hell did we just see?" Tonks exclaimed in confusion. That none of the other students could answer, only served to make the experience all the more surreal.