Secrets Only Trouble Knows - George Weasley

73 - The Unforgivable Curses

When I woke up the next morning, I saw the raging storm that had threatened to drown Hogwarts last night had blown itself out, though the ceiling in the Great Hall was still as gloomy as ever as I pattered down to breakfast.

Per usual, I sat with all of my friends at the Gryffindor table like we always did in the mornings. As we ate breakfast, half of my friend group spent the time discussing magical methods of aging themselves and bluffing their way into the Triwizard Tournament (I'm sure you could guess who), and the other half, myself included, talked about classes this year and how we were both excited and nervous for them.

Being sixth-years now, from here on out until we graduated we were going to be taking N.E.W.t-level courses. This was both good and bad— good, because we'd only be pursuing the subjects we actually enjoyed, but bad all the same because our studies were going to be harder and more strenuous than ever before. Nevertheless, we remained optimistic about our second to last year at Hogwarts.

After we'd finished eating, we stayed put in our seats and waited patiently for Professor McGonagall and the other Heads of Houses to descend from the staff table. The distribution of class schedules was much more complicated than usual this year, for each Head of House needed first to confirm with every student that they'd achieved necessary O.W.L. grades to continue with their chosen N.E.W.T.s.

When Professor McGonagall finally got around to me, she immediately cleared me for the N.E.W.T.s. I had wanted: Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, and Astronomy.

Thankfully, I was going to have at least a couple of my friends in every class with me. George and I shared all of them but one; he wouldn't be continuing in Astronomy with me since he didn't make a high enough score on his O.W.L. for it. The same went for my best friend Adrian as well. Instead of Astronomy, his fifth class was going to be Potions. He'd always been much better in the subject than me and had made an 'Outstanding' on his O.W.L. last year, granting him acceptance into Snape's exceptionally hard class.

Additionally, I was happy to see I was going to be having a couple free periods this year too. These were certainly going to be really nice, but, at the same time, I'd heard down the line from older students that unfortunately these periods aren't as "free" as you'd like them to be because of the heavy course load you're given this year and next.

Once everyone had discussed their courses with their Heads of Houses, we were dismissed and it was time to get on with our first day back at school. I followed after all the other students as they exited the Great Hall, but I didn't join them as most of them headed off to their first class of the day.

Instead, I made my way back to the common room; I had my first free period right after breakfast, and I ended up enjoying it by sitting by the fireplace with my journal. George, Fred, and my brother, on the other hand, used the free time to go set up their "first prank of the year." I blessed whichever poor soul ended up baring the brunt of it.

An hour later, I walked a couple floors down to Professor Flitwick's Charms class which I sat through with George and a bunch of my other friends. We were starting off first with Cleaning Charms, and I made a point to tell my brother, the twins, Kol, and Lee to pay extra close attention to what Flitwick was saying. The state of their dormitory could sometimes be quite disastrous and they could certainly use the help they'd get from perfecting this charm to keep it cleaner.

Once Charms had finished, I had quite a bit of time in my day to spare, which I ended up spending getting a headstart on the homework Flitwick assigned. Then, later on in the afternoon, I caught back up with my friends and made my way with them to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom for my last class of the day. All along the walk there, we talked excitedly about what class with the strange new Professor Moody was going to be like.