In some ways, it was probably better that Harry's electronic devices failed to work on Vanaheim, for he would have had to figure out some way to completely override their internal programming for the measurement of time or risk being constantly late or early. He was confused as it was just relying on his biological clock.
The length of the year on Vanaheim was close enough to Earth's that significant seasonal dates like solstices and equinoxes would stay relatively constant between them for long ages. This all came down to straightforward orbital mechanics and solar habitable zones, which were not affected by whatever trick of physics broke electricity on the planet. While it wasn't always this close of a match, in the present era it was even nearly the same stage of late summer in Vanaheim as it was on the Earth's northern hemisphere. It would have really confused the Midgardborn if they'd showed up on their September 1st to find out it was already winter on Vanaheim.
However, while year length is a function of celestial orbit, obeying a relatively simple rule of distance to time, a planet can spin at whatever speed it wants. Small favor then that days on Vanaheim were only about 21 minutes longer than those of Earth. Once she got deeper into her studies of human biology, Hermione Granger would eventually learn that, when isolated away from the sun, humans tended to naturally acclimate to a sleep cycle that more closely approximated Vanaheim than Earth and find that fact extremely suggestive. But for the time being, it was another layer of confusion that would at the very least slightly throw off mechanical Earth clocks, like Hermione's spring-powered watch.
More importantly, a longer day with nearly the same-length year meant that Vanaheim had a year that was basically a pure 360 Vanaheim days, vs. Earth's 365 (and a bit). Their year divided up almost perfectly with the seasons, and they only needed a leap day once every few thousand years to correct any calendar drift. When Hermione found out that the planet's moon had an exact 30-day rotation that allowed consistent tracking of the months based on moon phase, she started to figure the planet might have been subtly engineered by the Asgardians at some point to simplify calendar-making.
The main takeaway was that Vanaheim weeks were nothing like Earth's. Nothing about the planet's year or moon cycle was evenly divisible by seven, so why should their work and school schedule follow Earth's strange fixation of five-days on and two-days of rest? No, Vanaheim used weeks of six days.
At least the days were still in the same order as on Midgard and had similar names, so there was some point of reference. Odd-god-out Saturn's Day was the one that got dropped.
All of this was to say that from when they woke up on the first morning after getting to Hogwarts, the children from Earth had all of their assumptions about the proper progression of time completely upset. "It's Tuesday, right?" Harry asked Ron, having gotten their class schedules at breakfast.
"Tyr's Day, you mean?" the redhead corrected. "No, it's Moon Day. Tyr's Day's tomorrow. The train always goes to Hogwarts on Sun Day."
"But I thought it usually went on September 1st, which can wind up being basically any day of the week… our time," Hermione interjected and came to the right conclusion before she'd finished talking.
Ron just shrugged. Vanaheim didn't use the Roman names for months, so "September" meant nothing to him. "We've got Professor Sprout first out in the greenhouses," he just pointed to the line of the schedule for the first day of the week.
That first week passed in a bit of a blur for Harry. He was pretty sure he'd remembered to send Hedwig to tell his aunt he'd arrived safely, but the portal-hopping jet lag from LA to Kathmandu to London simply compounded the time upset on Vanaheim, and it was Frigga's Day before he really started to acclimatize.
Out of that temporal fugue, he could still remember the basics of his first classes.
The aforementioned Professor Sprout was a stout, older woman of the more Asian-looking Vanaheim stock who would be teaching them the proper care of plants in a discipline summed up as "herbology," but which seemed like it would go as deeply into basic farming, forestry, and land management as it would into plants that could be used as components in magic. Because most of Vanaheim was pre-industrial, it made sense, but Harry was immediately hoping he could drop it, particularly when he learned that gardening was a core class but math was an elective that didn't really get started until their third year.
He was a lot more sanguine about the defense seminar. While the hag that taught the class, Mistress Morgan, was terrifying to look at, she was a font of knowledge on hand-to-hand combat that promised to teach them how to fight opponents of all sizes, including beasts with claws and horns. The students from Vanaheim scoffed at the idea of learning martial arts, but Harry was very excited that he wouldn't be as far behind the praxis of Kamar-Taj as the Ancient One had seemed to expect. It seemed like Dean Thomas was going to be an early standout in the class, since he'd been taking karate since he was little.
Their pure spellcasting class was taught by diminutive Magister Flitwick, who was half-goblin. Much more cheerful than that heritage would indicate, his class was where they finally received their wands, and he began to teach them to channel power through them. Their initial training would be less about "spells" than simple projection of energy and manipulation of motion, much of which would require channeling dimensional energy back on Earth. Sadly, they had a lot of training in muscle memory to go before they'd be doing much of anything.
On Tuesday (or Tyr's Day, as the locals insisted on calling it), they had some repeats and then had their first history class with Cuthbert Binns, one of the only ancient ghosts in the castle that had managed to upgrade his speech to modern English. Most of Vanaheim's history was told in the form of orally-recounted sagas, which was also the main literary tradition, so the class was also the school's equivalent of literature study. If not for that, Harry would have tried to drop that class as well. He realized he was still probably going to have to study things like Shakespeare on his own if he eventually went to college on Earth.
Their first class with their head of house, Rector McGonagall, wasn't until Wednesday (Odin's Day). She turned out to be the second-highest-ranking official in the school, just behind the headmaster, in addition to her roles teaching and being in charge of Gryffindor house. Harry worried she was stretched a little thin, and wouldn't have as much time for them as the other heads of house. Her curriculum would ultimately teach them how to use magic to reshape matter, generally called "transfiguration," but they would have to learn an awful lot about biology, materials science, and engineering before they'd even be transfiguring something as simple as a matchstick. She explained that there was significant capacity for accidents if you didn't have a proper understanding of the thing you were trying to transform, which is why they'd be starting out with pure elements and very-simple molecules in small quantities.
That night, they had to stay up well after dark to attend their cosmology class with Professor Sinestra, who would also be handling their miscellaneous physics education with a focus on astronomy and astrophysics. While the heavens purportedly had some input into the working of magic on Vanaheim, the class was much more usefully about how the cosmology of the Nine Realms worked, including the practicalities of convergences and travel via the Night Roads. The lateness of the class didn't help Harry's dimensional jet lag, and he wondered why the non-practical portions of the class couldn't be scheduled for a more reasonable hour.
Nonetheless, after a few more repeats on Thor's Day, Harry was looking forward to his first chemistry class with Professor Snape on Frigga's Day. The class text was half chemical sciences and half potions and alchemy. "I think he may be a fan," he explained to his roommates. "And I was always pretty good at chemistry. You get to do the best lab experiments."
"I don't know if he's going to be a fan," Neville hedged. "He's the head of Slytherin."
"Right," Ron agreed. "I've heard he hates Gryffindors, and always takes points off us for no reason."
"I wonder why he was staring at me at the welcome feast, then," Harry said.
He found out as soon as his name was called in the class the next day, "Harry Potter: our new celebrity." The sarcasm that dripped from that word was almost palpable. Definitely not a fan, then. Snape had barely finished going through the attendance roll before he called Harry out in a sudden pop quiz, "Potter! Powdered root of asphodel and an infusion of wormwood are key ingredients of which potion?"
The rest of his year-mates from Gryffindor were looking confused, except Hermione's hand had already shot into the air. She'd been doing that any time a question was asked, and it wasn't endearing her to her peers. They shared the class with the Slytherins, who looked smug at the targeting, but most of them didn't seem like they had a clue either.
He tried to puzzle it out, "Wormwood's what you use in absinthe, right? It has thujones, which are really bad for you." Tony had explained that to him at some point, expounding on some of the more interesting alcohols he'd sampled, and Harry had really liked the word "thujone" enough to remember it. "Asphodel is a flower, I think." The only other flower he could think of that was used in medicine was opium poppies, so with the nasty alcohol additive he didn't think he was looking at a stimulant. "Some kind of sedative drug?" he asked.
"Are you guessing, Potter? Didn't think to do the reading?" Snape needled.
Oh, so that was how it was going to be. Harry had a teacher in fourth grade who was a former hippy, found out that he was connected to Stark Industries, didn't like anything having to do with the military-industrial complex, and took it out on Harry. She'd looked at him a lot like Snape was looking. This one probably didn't hate Tony, but was obviously taking something out on Harry that wasn't his fault. He wondered if he'd need to try to get transferred to another teacher like he had in his elementary school. Was there even another chemistry teacher at the small school?
While Harry had been processing that, he hadn't said anything so Snape moved ahead, "I'll give you an easier one, then. Where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?"
"Down here in the dungeons?" Harry guessed. He was going completely off a (wrong) mental definition from watching Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. (Happy insisted that Harry never tell Pepper all the age-inappropriate shows and movies he was allowed to watch in the Stark Industries media room.) The show had called the monster that laid puppet-master eggs a bezoar, and that had been hiding under the school. Snape began to sneer, but Hermione, still waving her hand in the air trying to answer, blinked like he wasn't totally wrong and looked over to the supply cabinets. "Probably in there," Harry pointed at where Hermione was staring.
Snape suddenly looked angry, and glanced over to Hermione, figuring out how Harry had guessed. "Put your hand down, Granger! Potter, what's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
That one Harry was actually sure of. "They're the same thing, sir. Also called aconite." It was a common enough component in video games featuring werewolves, after all. He could tell that Snape was shocked that he'd nailed that one, and ran his mouth off. "It's interesting that the Vanaheim words for things are the same as the Midgard ones, don't you think? I thought they'd use fewer Latin-based names here."
Severus Snape, wrong-footed, actually had to agree on that and admitted, "Much of the basic botanical science terminology was inherited from Midgard, and most of our non-magical flora was shared between worlds so it's unclear where it even evolved. Meanwhile, Asgardian terminology is too far beyond basic chemistry to be of use until much later in the curriculum." Frowning at getting diverted from his original bullying, he followed up with, "You are correct about the three terms for aconite, but you simply guessed your way close to the other answers. Potter, I expect you to read further about poisons and magical sedatives and provide me with a five-page essay fully explaining both of the other questions to present at the next class."
"Sounds fun, sir," Harry agreed. It didn't really, but he knew better than to let the bullies know they were winning. The rest of the students simply stared, confounded, at the game that was going on, unsure who had won or even if a student was fighting with a professor very politely.
What followed was an informative, if dry, lecture about the underpinnings of the intersection of chemistry and magic. Snape's initial question about wormwood and asphodel hadn't been completely designed to trap Harry, since the answer he'd been looking for was that they were used in a powerful sleeping draught that made one appear dead. Both plants, in addition to their soporific effects, had a mythological association with death which aided in making the potion. Many potions and rituals would use components that seemed to be less effective than other substances for the purpose, chemically, because of their other connotations.
After Hermione and Harry were able to answer the more lesson-appropriate questions put to them, Snape stopped calling on them and instead picked on the less-prepared members of Gryffindor for the rest of the lecture. He ultimately nearly brought Neville to tears after a whole series of increasingly-pointed questions about a simple potion for curing boils that the boy couldn't answer correctly.
Given how dumb a few of the Slytherins in the class seemed, who the man passed over, it seemed he definitely had it out for all of Gryffindor, though perhaps for Harry in particular.
They headed to lunch after class, and Hermione rambled, "While that was a very informative lecture, and Professor Snape is clearly skilled in his field, I don't understand why he wouldn't call on me and instead kept asking people that didn't know the answer."
"He's a dick," Dean answered. He'd done better than Neville had, at least, when cornered. Hermione gasped at the profanity.
"Don't say that too loud out in the halls," Ron warned. "He'll give you detention for disrespect."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Dean shrugged.
"I wonder if there's another chemistry teacher. I need to talk to McGonagall about dropping herbology anyway," Harry said.
Parvati assumed, "Not unless they don't get to eat at the staff table." The number of teachers at the table had, indeed, been remarkably small, even for a school with only a few hundred students over seven grade levels.
"At least I need to start on my essay, so I can tell Hagrid I can't make it to tea," Harry nodded. The huge man had invited him to his hut that afternoon to hang out. While Harry was grateful for the help that the groundskeeper had provided in rescuing him from Stane, taking him shopping, and buying him Hedwig, it felt pretty odd for an adult to want to spend time with him socially. Sudden punishment homework would be a good excuse.
Harry wasn't able to grab a few moments of McGonagall's time until the next week, catching her in private right before class. She brushed off his initial question about dropping herbology with the assertion, "There's plenty of maths in your other science classes for your grade level. We can revisit the issue once you've had more than a week of classes. It's a learning strategy that has worked for students from Midgard for centuries; give it time for the context to become apparent, Potter."
That wasn't exactly what he'd hoped to hear, but he followed up with the bigger problem. He had written to his aunt after Friday's class and gotten a letter back from her over the weekend. Responding to his mention about the chemistry professor seeming to have it out for him from day one, Pepper mentioned:
"Snape" sounds familiar. Is he a little younger than me? I remember your father used to complain about some other boy that he didn't get along with at school, and I think that was his name. "Snape the snake," is hard to forget. As I recall, they both got more than a few detentions going after each other. Having someone that hated James teach you seems like a pretty big conflict of interest. Let me know if I need to write the headmaster.
With this information, Harry asked the rector, "Did Professor Snape hate my father?"
The Scottish witch frowned, but allowed, "They certainly didn't get along well while they were in school. Why?"
"He spent all class on Friday trying to make me look stupid, and gave me extra homework for not knowing about the draught of the living death or bezoars on the first day of class."
Her lips pursed and she said, "He probably hoped you would be a prodigy like your mother, who he got along quite well with in school." Harry didn't think she actually believed it, and was trying to distract him with that detail. Seeing his face remaining resolved, she offered, "I'll speak with him to get his point of view. I expect him to treat you like the rest of your peers. Now, if you'll take your seat, class is about to begin."
Harry resolved to take his head of house at her word and see whether it had any effect on that Friday's class, but first, the excitement of Thursday. It was the first flying lesson, and not even having to share it with the Slytherins was going to bring down the boys of Gryffindor. Well, Neville seemed like he was afraid of heights, but Harry, Dean, Ron, and Seamus were all excited to finally get to go up on a broom.
"Ready to get shown up, Potter?" Malfoy jibed, already waiting out on the field with the rest of his house by the time Gryffindor made it out, even though they'd rushed to get there early. Malfoy had tried messing with them several times throughout the past week and a half, and Harry was already over it. "You've never been flying, have you? Might just fall off."
Harry had an idea and grabbed Dean and Ron's shoulders to rearrange where they had come to a stop in front of the Slytherin boys. He explained, "Malfoy, you're Ron's mean kid. I think Nott has to be my nemesis. Then Zabini and Dean. I'm not sure which of your bookends is which. Seamus, do you have a preference for your evil opposite?" Stood up in a line, it was interesting that both houses had wound up with five boys, three light-skinned with dark hair, one dark-skinned, and one with lighter hair. "The girls don't match up as cleanly, but I guess that will change when Ron steals your girlfriend before the big quidditch match. That's Parkinson, right?"
Pansy Parkinson, who did have designs on Draco Malfoy, smirked at Potter casting her correctly in his weird little story.
"Why've Neville an' I gotta get the thick ones?" Seamus complained.
"Sorry, Seamus," Harry shrugged. "Slim pickings, and both of you are liable to be bigger than me when we finish growing, right?" Secretly, Harry had picked the kid that seemed the smartest of the bunch to be his nemesis. Also, Theodore Nott was, so far, the most laid back of the Slytherin boys.
"Fair 'nough," Seamus allowed. "I'll take Crabbe, I guess."
"Great!" Harry squinted. "Which one of you is Crabbe?" It's not that the boys were really that similar-looking, other than being dark-haired and big, but neither of them had spoken up to differentiate themselves yet.
"I won't stand for this!" Malfoy interrupted. "You're clearly the leader, and I'm not going to be nemeses with a Weasley!"
"Nice use of the plural on nemesis," Harry acknowledged. This would all be easier if Malfoy was stupid, or if he was smart and not a jerk. "But I'm clearly just the comic relief tech guy. I'll make some wacky gadgets. Play a support role. Ron's the hero, here."
"Yeah! Fear Ron Weasley and the Warriors Four," Ron boasted, finally getting sufficiently puffed up. Off to the side, biting her tongue to not get involved, Hermione was relatively sure that Harry was messing with Ron, and worried the Weasley boy was going to be hurt when he realized. "We challenge you to a wizard's duel!"
"You're on!" Malfoy responded. "Trophy room. Tonight at midnight!"
Zabini rolled his eyes and said, "Not I."
"Me either," Nott added.
Harry gave his new nemesis a sad look and explained, "You missed the obvious, 'No, Nott I,' joke."
Theodore rolled his eyes. "I didn't miss it, Potter. You can do better than name puns."
Trying to take back control and his running crew already abandoning him, Malfoy sniffed and argued, "Wizards duels are one-on-one with a second anyway. Me and Crabbe against Weasley and Potter."
"Tonight!" Ron agreed.
Harry suddenly wondered if he'd gotten in over his head. Hermione recognized the look and just shook her head, warning, "The instructor is coming."
With an adult finally present, the sniping was derailed for a bit. Harry still thought it was a little on the nose for the wizards and witches of Vanaheim to use flying broomsticks as their primary mechanism for transportation, but he seemed to have a talent at using the enchanted items. His broom snapped right into his hand when he commanded it, while most of the students couldn't get much more than a wiggle their first time.
Poor Neville—when they were instructed to kick off, hover, and return to the ground—kicked off too hard and started to float away to Madam Hooch's unhelpful instruction to, "Come back, boy!" If video games had taught Harry anything, it was when to recognize a crisis in which he could intervene. Neville was moments away from losing control and falling off or worse, and he had his broom still in his hand.
"Got you, Neville," Harry assured the boy, having thoughtlessly rocketed into the air to catch his housemate while everyone, including the teacher, stood there helplessly. "You just need to tilt the front down slowly. There you go."
"Excellent teamwork. Five points to Gryffindor!" the literally-hawk-eyed professor insisted once they were safely on the ground. "The boy has demonstrated what can happen if you kick off too hard. Let's practice taking off and landing—carefully—a few more times before we start doing laps."
For the rest of the lesson, Harry proved to be a natural at flying, but other than getting a few points saving Neville a nasty fall, he wasn't going to be invited to play on the quidditch team early or anything. At least the Longbottom heir was grateful, and Harry was able to fly rings around Malfoy (who'd amusingly been using the wrong broom grip his whole life).
Harry realized that Draco was still sizing him up like competition, and decided to further double-down on keeping out of the nascent bully's crosshairs. That evening he explained to his roommates, "I don't know, guys. We agreed Seamus was Crabbe's nemesis, right? If Nott was Malfoy's second, I'd be right there, but it feels weird to go. I wouldn't want to steal your thunder or anything."
Neville and Ron nodded. There were many legends about what happened to people that tried to steal Thor's thunder, so they got the metaphor. Seamus agreed to go to the duel as Ron's second, and Harry calmly went to bed.
He wasn't expecting to be woken up a couple hours after he went to sleep by the two boys barely able to contain their fear and excitement. "She'll get o'er it," Seamus was assuring Ron loudly.
"Killed… or worse, expelled," Ron did a bad impression of Hermione. From bed, Harry could only tell who he was imitating because Ron was raising his hand in the air in pantomime of the girl's bad classroom habit.
"You beat Malfoy?" Harry asked, blearily.
"Tosser didn't show," Ron said. "I think he sicced Filch on us. But we found out what's in the forbidden corridor on the third floor."
"Tis a portal that leads to a giant wolf!" Seamus explained. "Wi' another portal behind it!"
"Convergence," Harry nodded. Percy had suggested as much. "Good job, not dying. Night." With Seamus and Ron still whispering about their adventure, Harry drifted quickly back to sleep.