The bit about the first week of classes got stupid long, so I'm going to go ahead and break it up into multiple parts. I'll be posting them as I finish proofreading them, if you're reading this now the next few parts should come over the course of this afternoon.

Let's get this crazy nonsense rolling, woooo...

The Hufflepuffs got to the Potions classroom early, which Violet would say was just on time — it was their first day, they didn't want to be late! But there was no point in getting here early, it turned out, when they showed up the door was locked.

"Are we sure this is the right place?" Hannah asked. "Maybe it's one of those doors over there..."

Justin shook his head. "No, this is it. See, there's that board on the wall just there, which Ben said Professor Snape would put announcements and stuff? This has to be it."

"It makes sense it's locked, when, when I think about it. You know, be- be- be- b– there's p-potions stuff, in there? Not for little kids to play around with, without an adult around."

"Oh, that makes sense. Wish the prefects said that, I could have finished my waffles..."

Breakfast had been a bit heavier this morning than yesterday, with waffles and pancakes and scones and pastries and stuff, with everything that went with that. But, Violet knew eating too much stuff like that made her sleepy, and she didn't want to be sleepy on her fast day of class! That would be giving the professors a bad first impression. (And also she might miss something important, she guessed.) The bread and the different kinds of preserves from yesterday had still been there, though, so she just played around with that again. Áirneas looked like he was kind of regretting his pancakes, moving a little slower than normal and making funny faces, like he felt sick.

They weren't too early to Potions, at least — everyone had class straight after breakfast, so there wasn't very much difference in the time people could leave to get everywhere. Violet and the Hufflepuff were only standing around in the hall outside of the classroom for a minute or two before more kids started trickling along the hall toward them, their uniform robes with the blue and bronze of Ravenclaw. Sùjuān and Tony were near the first to show up, Violet said hi — yes, she forgot the little bit of Chinese Sùjuān taught her! it'd been like a whole month, sorry! — and more people were showing up, there was Mórag, Padma was really quiet, looked distracted, and—

There she was! Even from halfway down the hall, the hood and the gloves made it obvious. Violet kept waiting until she was most of the way down here, and then skipped out to meet her, "Susan, hi!" going right up to grab her in a big hug — Susan let out a little oof from the hit. Oops, going too fast, sorry...

"Hey, you really shouldn't—"

"It's okay, Lisa, Violet can." Susan's arms were loosening already, so Violet backed off — but before she got even a step away, Susan snagged her hand. Violet knew that she felt nice to Susan's Seer stuff, and being in a new big busy place like Hogwarts was probably overwhelming for her, so, if she wanted to steal Violet's aura for a little bit longer, that was okay. Not sure how much she could actually feel Violet through those gloves, the whole point was to avoid touching things, but whatever. Giving her a tired little smile, Susan said, "Good morning, Violet."

"G-g-good morning. Are you okay? You leh, you look tired."

Susan grimaced. "Nightmares — too many people here. Not to mention the ghosts."

...Right, Violet kind of hadn't thought of the ghosts. Those were probably bad to be around, for Susan? She was a Death Prophet, after all, and ghosts were a death thing...

While she was worrying about that, they walked back over to the door to the Potions classroom. Most of the Ravenclaws were here, only a few behind Susan and Lisa, so as long as they were standing around waiting for Professor Snape to show up anyway they all introduced themselves quick — Violet already knew most of the Ravenclaws, from the Hogwarts club at an Ollscoil or the silly noble kid tea parties (or both), but there were a few new people, and obviously the muggleborns wouldn't know anyone. Violet and Susan got a few funny looks, probably because they were still holding hands.

That was a little confusing for a while, Violet distracted enough by that that she missed a little bit of what people were talking about. Then it finally clicked. "Oh! Other people aren't sup-supposed to touch Susan, because she'll feel you die and that sucks, but I can."

All of the muggleborns and even some of the magic-raised kids seemed a little surprised, giving Violet or Susan wide-eyed looks. "You can feel people die?!" Sophie gasped.

"Ah...yeah, I can," Susan admitted, sounding a little uncomfortable. "I'm a death-aligned Seer, it's the same reason you won't see me eating meat. As long as we're all here, I guess, please try not to touch me, if you can help it. Violet's the exception, she's okay — metamorphs don't age, her death is far enough off I can't feel it."

That little detail turned the attention off of Susan and on to Violet. They'd talked about metamorphs a bit their first night here and yesterday — Dora answered most of the questions, actually, which was better, Violet would just confuse people and stammer a lot — but the Ravenclaws hadn't been there for those talks, and they had questions. Which she guessed made sense, wasn't Ravenclaws' whole thing that they were curious about stuff? They asked a few questions, about what metamorphs were exactly, the living forever part, and also what she really looked like (which she thought was obviously misunderstanding the answer to the first question), Violet stammering out answers that she thought weren't actually helping people any, by the confused looks on their faces. But they didn't have time to keep asking, because before very much longer Professor Snape was coming down the hallway.

His robes kind of billowed behind him, which was cool! Kind of silly, but.

The door unlocked with a flick of Professor Snape's wrist — a cool twitter of wandless magic zipping through the air past Violet, similar to when Mum did that kind of thing — he waved them on inside, told them to find seats. The classroom was very plain and functional, greyish stone, rows of tables with the little burner things built into them (two stations in each table, looked like), cabinets along the walls, big wide sinks and drying racks over that way. There was a teacher's desk and a big blackboard on wheels up at the opposite end of the room, runes sketched in circles and designs on the ceiling — Violet couldn't read them, but from potions talk she got from Mum and Muime she assumed those would be for light, and also to keep the air clear. A pretty boring classroom, but she guessed that made sense for potions. Muime always took the risk of 'contaminants' very seriously, a few times she was sitting around watching she even had her wear a face mask and everything. Probably made sense to have only the things they needed in here.

They weren't very far into the room when Susan's hand twisted out of Violet's, and then she was over there sitting down at a table with Lisa. What...? Oh! There was a gap between the tables down the middle, it looked like the Hufflepuffs were sitting on one side and the Ravenclaws the other. Violet pouted at the back of Susan's head for a second, but went over and sat at Lily's table anyway, started setting up her pen stuff.

Professor Snape swept up to the front of the room, stopped by his desk and whipped around to face them with a snap of his robes. The room silent and still, his eyes tracked over the students for a while, before turning down to a scroll in his hand — Violet hadn't even noticed him pick that up, didn't see where it'd come from. "Abbott, Hannah."

"Here, sir," Hannah said, waving a hand over her head.

For a few seconds, Professor Snape stared at Hannah, unmoving and unblinking, before turning back to his scroll. "Finch-Fletchley, Justin."

He went through the whole class — alphabetically, Hufflepuffs and then Ravenclaws — with each name giving them a long, expressionless look, before just moving on to the next. Putting names to faces, maybe? When it was her turn, there was a sudden chill on the air, feeling sparky against her skin — not super obvious or anything, it was pretty weak, but she noticed it. Once he got to everyone, the scroll disappeared again, and then he started talking, his voice low smooth and quiet, slithering through the air.

It was a super basic speech, you know, I'm Professor Snape, this is Potions, with a little bit about the things potions can do for the muggleborns in the room. He had a whole deal about potions not being as quick and flashy as wand magic, like they'd learn in Charms and Transfiguration, more slow and deliberate and meticulous. That it could do a lot of wondrous and dangerous things, but it was an art, one that some of them simply wouldn't have the talent for. And it was like that! From what Violet could tell, alchemy was like magic chemistry, all particular and science-y, but potions was more like magic cooking, except the things you did made magic happen. Which was neat! She did like potions, even if she didn't think she had the 'talent' for them — the potions theory stuff she'd read or heard about was very poetry-like — they were just fun to make sometimes.

But Violet couldn't help pouting a little at the end — he didn't have to call them dunderheads.

"Miss Potter." She twitched, blinking up at him. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"Oh, um, um..." Violet actually made some basic potions with wormwood before, there was one you used if you had an upset stomach — there was a wormwood tonic people made for when people were sick, to make sure they still ate something — and Muime used it to disinfect things sometimes. Asphodel roots were, um...you could eat them? There was a super cheap glue that was made out of it, sometimes. Some people were kind of superstitious about it though, it was an afterlife symbolism thing... Wormwood was sometimes a flavouring in alcohol, and, an infusion would be in alcohol, and if she thought of roots as rooting, holding on to things, taking the calming down of the stomach thing and the killing germs and the death stuff, um... "Sleepy? or maybe dead?"

There were a few giggles in the room, but Professor Snape just kept steadily staring at her — not reacting to the laughing, but not trying to stop it either, waiting for the silly kids to get it out of their system. "That is an acceptable answer. Mister Corner: where would you look to find a bezoar?" There was more giggling when Michael said in the cupboards, but Professor Snape also took that answer. Then he asked Zach what the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane was, and Zach said that depends who you ask, but all of them will kill you, which got more giggles.

Once those died down, Professor Snape explained that a properly-prepared bezoar would cure most basic poisonings — he pointed out where they were kept in the classroom, he actually might tell them to go get one if someone touched or ate something they shouldn't (should any of you be so foolish, but I have lost all hope that any year should pass without at least one such example) — and that there were a whole bunch of very similar plants that were called monkshood and wolfsbane, and some could be called both but some were only called one or the other. Whatever potion you were making might not care which one you were using, as long as it was close enough, but sometimes it did matter, so you should check to make sure you had the one the instructions meant for you to use, just in case — which might be hard to do, because sometimes people used the same words differently, which was very confusing, that's part of what could make potions complicated. Also, yes, those plants were all poisonous, that's what the bezoars were for.

It sounded like Professor Snape had had a reason for asking those random questions...but Violet noticed he didn't go back to the question he asked her. That was odd.

After that, Professor Snape quick asked everyone who'd brewed a potion before to raise a hand — about half the class did — before making instructions appear on the board with a snap of his fingers. He pointed out the door into the storeroom, and then the cauldrons, and told them to get to it. They probably wouldn't have time to finish before the end of the hour, just get as far as you could.

Violet fished her smell amulet out of her bag, and tore a sheet of paper out of a notebook, before doing anything else copied down the instructions. That was a bit of advice Muime gave her back when she was about to start Potions classes at an Ollscoil — copying it down forced you to pay attention to the whole thing, so you didn't miss anything and would catch it if you had to prepare things ahead of time or whatever, and also in a group like this the fumes and stuff might make it hard to see the instructions at the front. Nothing they ever did at an Ollscoil was complicated enough she'd really needed to, but she also liked being able to tick things off, and save the instructions for her own notes, so.

Partway down the instructions, Violet noticed something, frowning to herself a little. She raised her left hand, still copying with her right. It took a minute, but before long Professor Snape swished up to her table, looming over her — wow, he was tall. "Yes, Miss Potter."

"What kind of utensils are we m-mmeant to use? This d– this d-doesn't say." Squirming in her seat a little, Violet felt her face go warm, stupid stammering...

Stepping away from her table more toward the middle of the room, Professor Snape said, "Miss Potter asked a question you may all wish to hear the answer to." The noise of people collecting supplies and stuff died down a little, a couple people poking their heads through the door into the storeroom. "Unless contradicted elsewhere in the formula, one should always match the material of cutting and stirring utensils to that of the cauldron — everything which comes into contact with the potion may be considered a component added to it, and thus it is ideal to minimise such additional factors. When brewing in a pewter cauldron, steel and glass are acceptable, unless otherwise specified.

"That is all, you may continue." As the noise in the room started up again, Professor Snape said, "Two points to Hufflepuff."

Violet blinked up at him for a second, and then shrugged — she'd only been asking because the instructions in Potions class at an Ollscoil always said, but okay.

Just as she was finishing copying the instructions, counting off the things she would need, Lily reappeared at the table...with two cauldrons, both of them filled with things on the list. "Oh, thanks! I was about to g-go now..."

Lily nodded, sliding one of the cauldrons over toward Violet's side of the table, her face going a little pink. "Couple more things still, if you can unload that..."

When Professor Snape asked earlier, Lily had been one of the people who'd done potions stuff before, and Violet could tell. She'd wrapped the ingredients in little sheets of linen, keeping them from touching anything, Violet could just pick them up and set them down on the counter — Muime did the same thing, with ingredients she'd prepared but didn't need to use yet. Lily took another trip into the storeroom, while she was doing that Violet taking the cauldrons over to the sinks to half-fill them with water (special pure water, from jugs Professor Snape had back here) and a little measure each of olive oil. She was wondering why Lily didn't bring the cauldrons, but when she came back it was with a couple handfuls of little bottle and jars, the wet ingredients.

Lily didn't need the linen squares back — they weren't hers, she'd found a few neatly-folded stacks of them in the storeroom. By the look of it, only a couple other kids had bothered using them, maybe they just hadn't noticed? Or they didn't know enough about potions to know it was a good idea, to avoid contamination, who knows.

The potion was a little more complicated than any of the ones she'd done at an Ollscoil, but it wasn't that bad. Violet and Lily's both looked pretty good by the end — when doing partner work, they should probably both work with someone who didn't know what they were doing so well — but the rest of the class was pretty mixed. There was a little bit of distraction when someone almost did the steps in the wrong order, Stephen Cornfoot snatching Terry's hand away before he could drop in the porcupine quills.

Professor Snape swept over at the commotion, asked what was going on there, and then asked the class what would happen if you put in the porcupine quills before taking the potion off the heat. Stephen answered himself, sounding a little shaky, that the cauldron would have gotten really hot — since their cauldrons were pewter, Professor Snape said it might have actually melted, spilling molten lead and the potion inside it all over the table. Terry's face went all grey, which, fair, that sounded dangerous. Maybe something that could do that was a little much for their first Potions class?

When there was still some time left in the hour, Professor Snape told them to bottle and label a little phial of whatever they had, even if it wasn't finished yet, and clean up. The little rack on Professor Snape's desk was filled up by the time they left — by the look of the potions, maybe only a quarter of their class got anywhere close, but it was their first day, so.

Once everything was cleaned up, they were let out, with an assignment to read out of their textbooks by Saturday. (They also had class on Wednesday, but they didn't need to have the reading done by then.) Everyone started getting up and moving toward the door, Violet just had her bag over her shoulder when Professor Snape said, "Miss Potter, stay behind." Oh, well, okay then...

The other students all slipped out through the door, Violet instead walking up to Professor Snape's desk — he was standing up here, poking at the phials of potions, now and then making a face at a particularly bad one. Once they were more or less alone, Violet asked, "What is it, P-Pr-Prrah– Sir, sorry. Um. I have Herbology..."

"This will only be a minute." He glanced over her head toward the door, but they were alone in here. "I understand your guardian provided you with an amulet to deaden your sense of smell."

"Yeah, um... It, it, it, sometimes the smell is bad, and— I c-can be weird about things, the bad smells freak me out. I'm told it's an autism thing?"

"It can be, yes. May I see it?"

It took her a second to realise he meant the amulet — she couldn't exactly show him her autism. "Oh! Sure, um..." Shifting her bag over her hip, she pulled it back out of its pocket and held it up by the chain. "Ah...yeah, that's the one. I have a sound one too, so."

Professor Snape just nodded, took the amulet from her. He held it up close to his nose, his eyes narrowed — looking at the runes, maybe? — then pulled out his wand, cast a few spells at it. "This will be safe to use in class," he decided, holding it back out to her, "though should you continue into NEWT Potions you will need a more thoroughly-isolated alternative."

"Okay, thanks." She wasn't sure she was going to be good enough at Potions to take the more advanced classes, but.

While she was tucking the amulet away again, Professor Snape said, "You do prefer to be called Miss Violet Potter."

...Was that a question? It didn't really sound like it. Just double-checking, she guessed? He had called her that when he was going down the list earlier — and he would have needed to do that on purpose, because her name was actually still Harry on the school's records. "Um, yes?"

He nodded. "Very well. That was all, you may go."

Violet wasn't really sure what that was about, but okay. A little confused, she mumbled, "Bye, then," and started walking off. She was about halfway across the room when she suddenly stopped, turned back around. "Oh, I forgot! I mmmeant to, um. Mm– My Mum said you set it up, so she could b-brring me to see Shannon, um. She was a b-b—" Trying to force the word, she accidentally made her lips do a farting sound, oops! "Sorry! T-talking is hard. Thanks for helping, I wanted to say."

Professor Snape just silently stared at her for a moment, Violet shuffling a little and biting her lip — embarrassed over not even being able to talk right, she could feel her cheeks going pink, ugh. After a little bit, he just said, "Of course." His eyes flicked over her head, nodded at the door. "Get to class, before you're late."

Violet doubted Professor Sprout would be too annoyed about it, since she was the Hufflepuff person and all, but yeah. "Okay. Thanks again, see you on Wednesday!" She turned and skipped the rest of the way out of the room, mostly just to get away more quickly, so she couldn't do anything else to embarrass herself. Like half of the Hufflepuffs were waiting just outside of the door, which was silly, they didn't need to do that! They were all going to be late now!

It turned out they didn't really need to worry about that. They took the underground route, down the hallway to Hufflepuff and then past the dorms and Professor Sprout's office, coming out behind the greenhouses. One of the greenhouse doors was open, they went in to find Professor Sprout and the other half of the first-year Hufflepuffs were in here — whichever class they had Herbology with hadn't gotten here yet. They must have had class in one of the upstairs classrooms, that was a bit of a walk. Professor Sprout said hello, there's the rest of you! they had to wait until the Gryffindors showed up, go ahead and take a look around, just don't mess with anything.

The greenhouse was a little warmer inside than it was outside, but it wasn't that much of a difference — she guessed the plants in here didn't really need special weather so much. There was a sort of classroom area at one end, with a few long work surfaces that had these troughs set into them, Violet assumed to put soil or something in, divots here and there to hold the pots you were working with, along both sides more storage cabinets and a big sink, where the sides weren't taken up by stuff there were raised planters with little leafy plants (flowers maybe?), vines crawling up the sides of the greenhouse. Further back was a much denser growing area, rows of plants directly in the ground, but also above them on racks, and then more stacked above those, up and up nearly all the way to the ceiling, maybe ten feet high. The levels weren't all the same height, Violet guessed it depended on how tall the plants were expected to get, some you only had two racks above ground level with things growing on them, and in other places there were more, one Violet saw had eight levels. The shadows were funny back here, the air sparkly with magic, it didn't look like the sun was actually being blocked by the higher racks at all, getting all the way down to the ground-level plants — they must be doing that with wards.

There wasn't so much interesting stuff in here, just normal plants, herbs and flowers and stuff. Most of the ones Violet recognised were also used in potions, but, sometimes important potions plants were just normal, with nothing magic about them. She guessed it made sense that you'd have to know how to take care of normal plants before doing magic ones. If this class was just taking care of plants, like Bennie had kind of said, then it was probably going to be super easy for Violet, since she'd been gardening forever, but whatever.

Anyway, before too much longer the Gryffindors showed up — all at the same time, coming straight from their last class — and they got started. Professor Sprout just had them all stand around in the classroom area at the front, since there weren't chairs, said welcome to Hogwarts all cheerful and smiling. She had them all introduce themselves before starting proper, since some of the Hufflepuffs wouldn't have met some of the Gryffindors yet. In addition to their names, Professor Sprout had them say where in the country they were from, and if they'd done any gardening stuff or related witchcraft. Violet wasn't surprised that none of the nobles had done really any, or the muggleborns, since muggles mostly lived in cities now — the big exceptions were Neville, who Violet knew spent a lot of time in the Longbottoms' greenhouses, and also Sophie, who helped out at her grandparents' farm sometimes. After Neville, Lily and Violet actually did the most gardening, Lily's family had a pretty big vegetable/herb garden, which sounded neat!

Violet didn't notice until she was taking her turn that some of the Gryffindors were glaring at her, like, Megan and Lavender and especially her new cousin Ron. Um, what...?

Herbology today was mostly just Professor Sprout showing them around, and explaining a bit about the class. There'd be very little book learning for this one — Professor Sprout was going to assign a few essays, and they'd have exactly two written exams all year, but those would all be short and easy. Most of their grade was going to be doing growing projects, which was cool! They'd be shown how to do different gardening things, and taught about ways to make sure the magical properties of plants come through best (to use in potions), do various basic gardening chores and stuff through the year — Hogwarts grew a lot of their own vegetables and mushrooms and potions ingredients, the students' classwork was also to help keep things going. Their first project wasn't for credit, they'd play around with some of the mushrooms in the caves, just for practice. Their second project, they'd be given a plot of dirt, and a selection of seeds and bulbs and cuttings, and they had to grow some stuff, which would be, like, half of their whole grade for the year. Professor Sprout would give more information about how that would work when it got closer to time, they wouldn't be starting until like February or March.

There were a lot of supplies they had in here! There were tools of all kinds, yeah, and soil and compost and mulch and manure — dragon and mooncalf, woah — but then there was also wood ash and saltpetre and bone ash and potash, and a few pesticides and like, healing potions, but for plants? They'd get taught what all that was for later. After showing them around in the greenhouse, Professor Sprout brought them around to the vegetable patch, down the hill a bit around here, shielded from run-off down the hill with a low wall and a shallow ditch. There was a still a lot of green here! but it was only the beginning of September, so. The place was big — which she guessed made sense, since they had a lot of people to feed and to help with the chores — and she saw they still had carrots and onions and some beans going, and some patches of greens here and there. There were also rose and berry bushes along the edges, it was pretty neat! The mushroom caves were, well, in the caves, Professor Sprout would show them around that stuff later.

And that was it, they were done for today! Professor Sprout led them back up to the greenhouse to collect their things, and then she let them go.

They were barely even past the edge of the greenhouses before Lavender pushed over (kind of elbowing Leanne out of the way), and asked, "Are you really Harry Potter?"

Violet blinked. "Um. Yeah?"

"So you've been lying to us this whole time."

"It was a secret," she said, trying not to sound embarrassed about it — because, well, she had been lying, sort of. In a way that didn't trip her fairy magic stuff, but she still thought it should count. She'd never been comfortable with hiding it, really, but she hadn't wanted to deal with weird Harry Potter stuff either, and Mum said it was safer that way, and then she was just used to being Violet Black...

"And I guess that you've been a boy all along was also a secret."

"...I'm not a b-boy?" Violet was pretty sure Ron muttered something, but she didn't catch it. When she glanced back at him, he quickly looked away, his ears going red.

In a curly sort of drawl, Leanne said, "I can say for sure that Violet is, in fact, not a boy."

"So sure of that, are you?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

Lavender was about to say something else, but before she could Sophie blurted out, "You see, Violet sleeps naked, so."

Her face going very pink — and she wasn't the only one, some of the other Gryffindors (and Hufflepuff boys) seemed taken aback too — it took a couple seconds for Lavender to find her voice again. "So, on top of being a creepy metamorph, it's also a pervert, that's so much better."

There was some gasping and shouting from some of the other kids, but the biggest reaction was actually from Fay. Barking out a sharp, "Hey, now!" she wormed her way through the group, putting herself between Violet and Lavender. She gave Lavender a shove on the shoulder, pushing her a few steps away to the side. "Cool off, Brown, you're embarrassing yourself."

"I'm embarrassing myself? Doesn't this whole thing bother you at all?"

Fay shrugged. "No, why should it?"

"We've known her for years, and—"

"—and she's still Violet. She's always been weird, what's the difference?" Lavender just stared at Fay for a minute, her mouth working, not finding the words to respond to that. Finally she turned her nose up with a huff and stormed ahead of the rest of the group, a few of the Gryffindors following with her. Once she was gone, Fay turned over to Violet, asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks." Not that Violet had really been that bothered — people had called her way worse than that before, and it wasn't like she'd even liked Lavender to begin with (she was mean) — but it was still nice of Fay to step in and stop it.

"Sure," Fay said, with another little shrug, like it wasn't really a big deal.

On the rest of the way up to the Great Hall, there were a few questions from the Gryffindors about being a metamorph and not being a boy. Violet could tell some of them thought it was weird, especially Neville and Amanda, but Violet was weird, and nobody was mean about it, so. Hermione had complicated questions about how genes worked with metamorphs, and, when Violet turned into a boy did she suddenly have a Y-chromosome? Violet didn't know what a Y-chromosome was, so Hermione explained, and no? she didn't think so? She didn't know how genes worked, magic was weird, okay! don't think about it too hard!

Hermione used really big, adult words, and her voice sounded...off somehow, Violet couldn't tell how, quite. Not sure what that was about.

As they were crossing the Entrance Hall, Violet asked if Dean still wanted to go draw things together sometime, and he did seem a little awkward about the not being a boy stuff, but he just shrugged and said sure. She gave Parvati a quick hug before the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors split up to go to their own tables — she looked all down and quiet and tired, she looked like she could use a hug was all!

After lunch they had Defence, which Violet did not like. She didn't expect to like Defence in the first place — Violet didn't want to hurt people, the thought of having to made her super uncomfortable — but it wasn't just the material that was the problem. The teacher was worse than just the class. Professor Quirrell had a pretty bad stammering problem, which, yeah, talking was hard! She kind of felt bad for him about that, because she knew how frustrating that could be...and also kids could be mean, the students probably didn't go easy on him about it. Also, she thought maybe he was ill? She didn't know, he just looked...really pale, and frail, and sweaty, like he had a fever. And there was a funny feeling about him, something that made Violet's skin prickle when she looked at him, a chill, but not like it was really cold, more a magical feeling...but not really that, either...

And her mind-shielding ring kept tingling, growing warm whenever he looked her way, the hair on the back of her neck standing up and her breath turning icey. It was making her super uncomfortable.

Thankfully, it was only a single period class, they were let out to go to Transfiguration before too long. The Transfiguration classroom was very normal-looking, the greyish stone the Castle was made out of with very little added decoration, afternoon sunlight slashing through the tall windows. There were neat rows and columns of desks, raised up a little bit at the front was a teacher's desk, blackboards on wheeled frames to both sides — written on the blackboards was a message to pick a seat and get out their notebooks, so Violet and the Hufflepuffs went ahead and did that. There was a gap down the middle of the desks again, and the other half of their class wasn't here yet, but the Hufflepuffs still all went to sit on the same side. Violet still thought splitting up was weird, but whatever.

There were two seats to each desk again, she ended up sitting next to Sophie this time. While she was setting up her ink set, Sophie let out a low hum, said, "That's pretty, what is that?"

It was nice, Violet thought! It was made out of glass, a bright pretty blue, the light bouncing through the faces making little chinks of different colours splashing against the desk, the inkwell parts ringed with curly little Celtic knot patterns, now and then a little glass rose blossom stuck inside. It was actually a Christmas gift from Aunt Andi last year, and it was neat! There were a bunch of little inkwells so she could have several colours out at once, when she was doing ink drawings, and there were enchantments in the rim that would clean out her pen with a tap so she didn't get things mixed around, and when she folded it up to move the inkwells got sealed, so she didn't have to clean it out every time she used it.

She only had black ink in it right now though — black writing ink, not drawing ink, those were different — so it was mostly empty. She thought it would actually be fun to take notes in colours, but Muime had a good point about making sure it was readable, so, fine, she was doing the practical-but-boring thing...

"It's for writing," Violet said. She slapped a fresh notebook down on the desk, quick dipped her pen in the black and sketched a random little squiggle shape in the margin of the first page. "See?"

"Th'ing isn't in the pen?"

Violet was confused for a second, before putting together Sophie meant the ink. "Oh, no, mages mostly d-d-don't mmake pens like that." They did make some, they were just more expensive, and more rare. "They, they, it's also b-better, if you want to use it for other things." Violet fished out her pen case, set it open on the table turned toward Sophie. "See, there are d-d-d– more nnnibs and stuff, they make different lines? For dr-droh-d-drawing. Bleh, sorry."

"Is okay. Do you think we can use those instead a quills? I don't know how to write with a feather, I dried at home and I made such a mess."

"No, we need q-q-quills for, for, for– so we can't cheat, on tests."

"So we only need them for essams?"

"Only exams, yeah."

"Okay, good," she said, sighing a little. "I brought pencils, I have time to learn how to write with a feather."

"I can help, later. Um. May, may we, may, maybe ask the other new people." Muggleborns, she meant, but screwing up talking was making her feeling all twitchy and self-conscious, she wasn't sure she'd be able to get the complicated word out.

"Thanks, I'll ask around."

Around then, Professor McGonagall was showing up, followed pretty close by, um, the Slytherins, they had this class with the Slytherins. She was super tall, and stern-looking, and mostly dressed super conservative in plain long robes and stuff, but she had the best hats! All in rich deep colours and the fabric went glittery in the light, they were great. The Hufflepuffs all perked up when she walked in, but she just went to sit behind her desk and started to flip through some papers, people started chatting again after a few seconds.

As the Slytherins came in, Olivie skipped ahead of the group, making a bee line for Violet. She guessed what Olivie was thinking, stood up just in time for Olivie to reach her desk and snap her up in a tight hug. "Hi!"

"Hi yourself!"

"You're Harry Potter!"

"Yep!"

"You tricked everyone," Olivie said, letting go and backing off a step. Giving Violet a fake, joking sort of glare, "That was very sneaky for a nice friendly Hufflepuff."

Avoiding Olivie's eyes, she shrugged, muttered, "Sorry." She hadn't liked hiding it, especially not from her friends, but—

"It's okay, silly, I get it — it was a secret. I bet it was Lady Cassie's idea, to hide you, yeah?"

"Oh, um, she, yeah, her idea." At first Violet just went along with it because being a girl had still been new, and she'd been worried the neighbour kids would be mean about it, but yeah, Mum had wanted to do it for hiding reasons.

"So there, it was family business, and you were just doing what your mum told you. Don't have to feel badly about that."

...Okay, she got how that might make sense, especially to old-fashioned magical types, but she still felt bad about it anyway. Some of the other Slytherins were catching up by then, Daphne first with Tracey behind her shoulder, and then— Oh, more hugs! Kind of surprising her, but not a bad surprise, hugs were nice. "Hello, D-Daphne."

"Hello, Violet." Leaning away a bit, her hands still on Violet's arms near her elbows, Daphne said, "Your paintings in the article were so good!"

"Oh, thanks!"

"Truly, I mean it! I've seen some of your drawings before, but nothing like— Ach, no, on second thought, there were some at your birthday, weren't there."

Violet nodded. She wasn't surprised Daphne kind of forgot — most people had spent the party by the food or the table tennis, which hadn't been close to Master Walter. "And, when I think about it, I always visit you, I d-d-don't think you've seen my are room?"

"No, I don't remember ever coming to your house before! I'd like to see, do you think there will be time to visit over the holiday?"

"Um, I'm not sure, there mm-might be wedding stuff. I have art homework, though, I, I can...show you some of that? I geh, guess?" Violet didn't really think watching her paint sounded like it'd be very interesting for anyone who wasn't an art person — painting was slow sometimes — but multiple people had asked about it already, so...

Most of the Slytherins weren't treating her any different, after the whole Violet Black is Harry Potter thing came out. Tracey didn't really talk to her at all, but she mostly didn't talk when there were other people around anyway, just silently standing over Daphne's shoulder. For a second, it almost looked like Millie was going to go for a hug too, which would have been a surprise, because Millie could be so shy! She ended up just giving Violet a little nod, saying hello and stuff — as nice as she ever was, when there were people around, so. (Violet decided not to just hug her herself, didn't want to make her uncomfortable.) Pansy was kind of glaring at her, and Theo just ignored their group over here, sitting at a desk and getting out his things, which were also normal, neither of them had ever really liked Violet anyway.

Draco was also glaring at her, his cheeks and his ears going pink, but she kind of expected that — he had been all serious about finding her (as in Harry Potter) on the train and she just messed with him about it, so. She was still feeling kind of bad about the whole thing — not tricking Draco specifically so much as worrying everyone else (but she was honestly starting to feel bad about Draco too) — which was making her feel bleh, didn't really know what to say to Draco. Not like he was walking over to talk to her anyway. She gave the big boys following him, Gregory and Vincent, a friendly wave though. Vincent looked a little uncomfortable, glancing away, but Gregory gave her a little smile and waved back, he seemed nice!

When he saw the waving, Draco scowled. "What are you smiling at?" he snarled, from halfway across the room.

...Violet didn't know how to respond to that. So she just didn't, turned back to the girls chatting around her instead.

Professor McGonagall stood up pretty soon after that, the kids still standing scrambling back to their seats. After reading off the roll — like Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell had, only Professor Sprout hadn't bothered — she started the class off with a very serious lecture. Transfiguration was serious magic, and it could be very dangerous if you did something you weren't supposed to. Anyone who was caught playing around in her class would be kicked out, immediately; do it more than once, and you'd be removed from the class permanently. She didn't care what that might mean for them if they couldn't continue in Transfiguration, there was no point in trying to appeal to the Board. She would not tolerate anyone endangering their fellow students in class, no matter who went complaining about it.

Once that message had sunk in, the class very quiet and still and serious, she went into explaining the basics of how transfiguration worked. This was all stuff Violet already knew, obviously, but she went ahead and took notes and copied the diagrammes and stuff Professor McGonagall put up on the boards anyway. Things had a thing they were supposed to be, blah blah, the spell forced the thing to turn into something else, holding it in that shape, blah blah, it really did become the thing, but it only so long as the spell lasted, blah blah, as soon as the energy put into the spell ran out it turned back to normal, blah.

Violet thought Professor McGonagall was using too many big words, maybe? She knew what things like identity and formal inertia and schematic interference meant, from her own magic lessons with Mum, but she kind of doubted most of the other kids in the room did. Not that she didn't explain what the big words meant, it was just sort of...perfunctory, little asides here and there. Glancing around, Violet saw a lot of confused frowns, so.

Eventually the lecture part was done, and Professor McGonagall went around the class setting a box of matches down on each table. They were magic-made matches, actually, which were different — they were a good six inches long or so, actually made out of a kind of compressed paper pulp, the tip had some alchemical stuff on it that lit when you squeezed it in the palm of your hand for a couple seconds and then let go. There were also some that you could just whap against something to light, but these were the squeeze kind. Violet didn't see matches very often, but she knew they were super common in households where people were too poor to afford wands and go to academy.

Professor McGonagall explained the assignment as she went around, the same one Dora and Bennie already told them about: they were supposed to turn a match into a needle. When she came back around to the front of the class, she pulled a match out of Ollivie and Millie's box and demonstrated it for them — that was actually a knitting needle, but Violet guessed that was closer to the size of these magical matches, and less likely to get lost somewhere and accidentally lit when it changed back. (Violet was pretty sure sitting on one of these matches could also light it, so.) They had a double period today, but since they were just starting out Professor McGonagall would be letting them out early, they were to keep trying to transfigure a good needle until she decided it was time for them to go. Go ahead and give it a try, then.

Violet flipped the lid of the box open, and pulled out a match. A tap of her wand, and she turned it into a needle — her knitting needle came out orange and green, the colours swirling in a spiral down the whole length, because it seemed fun. Putting her wand back, she set the needle down on the table in front of her. There.

So...did she just keep transfiguring more needles, or what?

It was obvious that Violet wasn't the only one of them who'd had practice before starting academy, though they seemed to have more trouble with it than her. Mum had said other kids who started early probably would have focussed mostly on charms, so. (And metamorphs were cheaters with transfiguration magic, can't forget that.) After a minute or two, Draco had a decent-looking needle — though the texture looked off, like it was still the same material, just painted a different greyish-whitish colour — and Olivie and Daphne were doing pretty good too. Wayne and Áirneas were having more trouble, after five minutes Wayne's needle was still shaped like a match and Áirneas's randomly set on fire, a few others getting mixed results like that.

The muggleborns kids — and also the ones from poorer families, like Lily or Hannah, who wouldn't have gotten a chance to practise before school — weren't even getting that much. Which wasn't really a surprise, since none of them ever used a wand before, and you kind of needed to know how to do that before you could cast a spell with one.

Sophie looked like she was getting super frustrated, really quickly, so Violet decided to try to help. She copied the thing that Mum did with her at her first lesson...though obviously Sophie wasn't a metamorph, Violet asked if she remembered what accidental magic felt like instead. Just, think about that feeling really hard, and try to push it out of your hand. Like this — Violet pushed her magic into Sophie's hand, she twitched in surprise, giggling, that tickled! See if you can get the magic feeling to come, and push back at Violet...

Professor McGonagall was going around the room, when she saw Violet and Sophie were sitting here holding hands and not doing anything she came up to loom over them, asked why they weren't working on the assignment. Violet pouted up at her — they weren't working on the assignment because Sophie couldn't, she was trying to help! She closed the matchbox again, and then doubled it — if the box was closed, it was one object, so the charm would copy the box with all the matches inside — and then tipped one of the boxes over, scattering the matches over her side of the desk. Then she transfigured one, green and yellow stripes, then she transfigured another one, rainbow swirls, then she transfigured another one, shining like polished gold, and then another, curling vines with little purple flowers on a white background, and then another, this one sparkled!

Professor McGonagall just stood there watching her for a long moment, before turning away and continuing wandering around the room without another word.

Anyway, it took a bit, but Sophie eventually managed to push her magic against Violet's hand, brushing over her light and cool and smooth. A couple more minutes of practice, and she got it so she could keep pushing. It wasn't a constant pressure, seeming to waver, stronger and weaker, but she thought that was fine? It should work anyway, though she might have trouble holding a sustained spell until she got better at it. Anyway, yeah! Just do what Professor McGonagall said earlier, imagining what you want the match to be, and believe it really hard, while pushing magic down your wand...

Sophie did get it to work — she never did get a perfect needle by the time class was over, all her tries still had something match-like left, but that was pretty good! Well, yeah, Violet's were really pretty, but she had a lot of practice (and also metamorphs were cheaters), this was good for your first magic ever! You just did magic, isn't that so cool?!

(Talking about how neat it was that they were learning magic cheered Sophie up, at least.)

Everybody packed up their things, and then all the others started getting up and streaming out of the room. Violet stayed put, though — no, she had to talk to Professor McGonagall about something, she'll catch up later. While she waited for the room to clear out, Violet put her transfigured needles back into the matchbox — she had to transfigure it a little bigger to fit — humming to herself, her feet swaying under the table.

"Did you have a question, Miss Potter? I didn't wish to draw attention to it earlier, but this is quite excellent work for a first-year student."

"Thanks!" Violet glanced over her shoulder — they were alone in the room, but her friends could be waiting just outside again. So she kept her voice low, just in case. "Did my mum wr-ww-write you, about my magic?"

Her face squishing into a funny kind of frown, Professor McGonagall let out a hissing breath through her nose. "I did receive a warning as to your participation in this class. I'll admit I'm very sceptical."

...That was fair. Instead of just saying her magic was permanent — Professor McGonagall already hadn't believed Mum when she said it, why would she believe Violet? — she picked up her transfigured matchbox with her transfigured needles and held it up to the professor. "See for yourself."

"Very well." Professor McGonagall sure sounded like she didn't believe her — but her funny frown disappeared the second she cast a spell at the matchbox, and it didn't turn back to 'normal'. She cast a few more spells, some of them looking complicated, the tip of her wand making graceful little swirls...but eventually she stopped, just, staring at the matchbox, her face blank. Finally, after several seconds of tense silence, she said, "These transfigurations are permanent."

"Yep."

"How did you do that?" Professor McGonagall almost sounded like she was accusing Violet of something, like, like she'd cheated or something.

"That's a family secret, I'm not supposed to tell." The professors of the classes she was doing active magic in — just Transfiguration and Charms, mostly — needed to know her magic was funny for safety reasons. But they didn't need to know why, Mum said. People had superstitions about the fairies, not to mention soul magic, they might be weird about it.

"...I can't imagine it's an effect of whatever ritual Lily might have performed that Hallowe'en."

Violet pouted. "I'm not supposed to tell."

"Of course, Miss Potter, I'm sorry." Professor McGonagall vanished the transfigured matchbox with a slash of her wand. Folding her arms behind her back, she cleared her throat — by the look of it, trying to find the stern, serious look she'd had before Violet freaked her out with her rules-breaking magic. "I will keep this in mind while directing lessons going forward. It shouldn't be a problem in most cases, so long as you avoid bringing undue attention to any...peculiar behaviour of your spells. And of course we will need to invent some justification to exclude you from participation in the lessons on human transfiguration."

Yeah, she had a feeling Violet transfiguring other people was probably a very bad idea. "Yes, ma'am."

Professor McGonagall hesitated a moment, staring down at Violet — though she didn't really seem to be seeing Violet? Like, she was facing this way, but her eyes didn't seem to be focussed on anything, busy thinking. She let out a heavy sigh, shaking her head. "Well. I'll see you on Wednesday, Miss Potter."

...It didn't look like Professor McGonagall was very happy about this conversation, but Violet couldn't tell what that feeling was, exactly. Oh well, it probably wasn't her business. "Okay, bye."

She slung her bag back over her shoulder and skipped out of the room, putting Professor McGonagall's reaction to her weird fairy magic out of mind. Again, she found half of the class — not just the Hufflepuffs, but her friends in Slytherin too — waiting just outside the door in the hall. They didn't have to wait for her again! There was still some time before dinner, what did they want to do until then...