Harry Potter: Heir of the Dark Lord

Part 4-Lessons at Hogwarts

(Noctis Pov)
"There, look."
"Where?"
"Next to the tall red hair."
"Wearing the glasses?"
"Did you see his face?"
"Have you seen his eyes? Their blood-red, almost shiny"
"He looks a little pale"
"Did you see his scar?"
Whispering we're following both me and Harry from the moment we left the dormitory the next day. People were lining up outside the classrooms and stood on tiptoes to get a look at us or double back to pass us in the corridors again, staring. Harry said to us that he wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding a way to our classes.

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 to the point that you had to remember to jump. There were some doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tried to tickle them in exactly the right places, and the doors weren't really doors, but solid walls just pretending. Not to mention that it was 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 Harry was sure the armor could walk.

Some of the ghosts like nearly headless Nick have been a big help in guiding us in the right direction, while others like the poltergeist named Peeves was worth two locked doors and a tricked staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop a waste paper basket on your head, and pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with a bit of chalk, or sneak up behind or do anything worse.
Even worse than Peeves, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry, Ron, and I managed to get on his bad side on our first day. He caught us trying to force our way through a door, which turned out to be the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. We tried to explain that we were lost, but he didn't believe us and thought that we were breaking into the corridor on purpose. He threatened to lock us in the dungeon until Professor Quirrell, who was passing by came to our rescue.

Filch also owns a cat, who was named Mrs. Norris, and she is no friend to anyone who isn't Filch. She would patrol the corridors alone, and if she caught anyone breaking a rule, or doing something they were not supposed to do, then she would immediately whisk off for Filch, who would somehow appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Apparently, he knows all the secret passageways in the school, better than Ron's twin older brothers, and could pop up suddenly like a ghost. Pretty much all the students hate him and have the dearest ambition of giving Mrs. Norris a good kicking.

And then, once we found the class, there was a lot more to magic, than waving your hand and saying a few funny words. Harry and I quickly found that out.
We had astronomy, which means that we had to study the night sky through the telescope every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars, and the movements of the planets.

Then there was Herbology with Professor Sprout, where for three times a week, we went into the greenhouse behind the castle to study. There we learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.