THE WITCHING HOUR ➸ h. potter

6 - settling in

I was trying to concentrate on finding my way to the classes.

People kept stopping me and saying random things as I walked, which didn't help at all.

"Have you seen the dragons yet?"

"Those sweets she gave me were horrible! I was sick for days!"

"Nat! I've lost Trevor again! If you see him, could you tell me, please? Gran's going to be so mad if I go back home without him!"

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 you had to remember to jump. I had already made that mistake several times.

Then there were doors that wouldn't open, unless you asked politely or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all — but solid walls just pretending.

It was also very hard to remember where anything was because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and I was pretty sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a shock when one of them suddenly glided through a door I was trying to open.

Nearly Headless Nick always seemed happy to point us new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class.

He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab at your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

He seemed to have taken a liking to me for some reason, though — just sticking his tongue out and flying away whenever it was me. The others got pretty bashed up quite often.

Even worse than Peeves (if that was possible) was the caretaker, Argus Filch. He, unlike the poltergeist, hated me very much.

In fact, I managed to get on the wrong side of him on my very first morning. Filch found Harry, Ron and I trying to force our way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor.

He wouldn't believe that we were lost and was sure we were trying to break into it on purpose. He was threatening to lock us in the dungeons when we were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing by at the right time.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later.

Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone — except for perhaps the Weasley twins — and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts.

The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick. I felt a bit sorry for her, though, and would stop anyone who tried to hurt her when I was there. Blame my strange love for all creatures.

And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic I quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. An older student had laughed at Harry when he said something about it in front of them.

We had to study the night skies through our telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. I found it quite interesting, actually.

Three times a week, we went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology with a little witch called Professor Sprout, where we learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and found out what they were used for.