Blood and Wine (Book 1)

Chapter 7

HOGWARTS, A FEW DAYS LATER

A few days had passed by since the Sorting and the first day, it had been quite a challenge for (Y/N) in multiple ways, there were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts, wide, sweeping ones, narrow, rickety ones, some that led somewhere different on a Friday, some with a vanishing step halfway up that had to be jumped.

Then there were doors that refused to open unless they were asked politely, or were tickled in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending, quite a few of these doors tempted (Y/N) to just slice them apart with his Claws.

It was very hard to fully remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot, it was made worse if anyone had the misfortune to run into Peeves, the resident Poltergeist of Hogwarts who seemed to enjoy tormenting and pulling pranks on anyone, except for when the Bloody Baron was around, Peeves seemed to be scared of him.

Worse than Peeves though was the School's Caretaker, Argus Filch, who seemed to hate all the students here, though... he was quite nervous around (Y/N), since he knew what he was, and the fact he was almost ten feet tall certainly helped to make the man think twice before trying to get on the Male Dimitrescu's bad side.

Filch owned a Dust-coloured Cat called Miss Norris, she was a scrawny Creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes just like her owners, she would watch students for if they did anything wrong and then would rush off to fetch Filch, who would suddenly appear a few seconds later wheezing to punish the offender.

Then there were the lessons themselves, there was a lot more to Magic than simply waving a Wand and saying a few funny words, (Y/N) had done his best to familiarise himself with the Teachers and landmarks to find the classrooms.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets, three times a week they were supposed to go to the Greenhouses behind the Castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little Witch called Professor Sprout, where they learnt how to care for all the strange Plants and Fungi and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring lesson was History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a Ghost, Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he fell asleep in front of the Staff-Room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind, Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates and got Emric the Evil and Ulric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms Teacher, was a tiny little Wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk, at the start of their first lesson he took the register, when he called out (Y/N)'s name and then looked up and saw the very tall young man looking at him he gulped slightly, and when he reached Harry Potter's name he squeaked and toppled out of sight, making some of the students giggle.

Professor McGonagall was also different, she was strict and clever and had given them all a talking to the moment they sat down in her first class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts, anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back, you have been warned" she had said to her class, before she then changed her desk into a Pig and back again, (Y/N) was quite impressed and interested to see what other things could be turned into something else, after taking a lot of complicated notes, the class were given a match and told to try turning it into a needle, by the end of the lesson only Hermione Granger and (Y/N) had made any difference to their matches, both of them managing to get the matches to turn Silvery and gain pointy ends.

The class that everyone was really looking forward to was Defence Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke, his classroom reeked of Garlic, which was apparently to ward off a Vampire he'd run into in Romania, who he was afraid would come back to get him someday, and (Y/N) wondered if said "Vampire" could be his Mother or one of his Sisters?