Michael Corner and The Education of Wizards

Michael Corner and The Really Annoying Bird's Head

The thing about being a Ravenclaw; The Thing about being a Ravenclaw, is that we're all supposed to be really clever. All the time. And I remember the day when we were first Sorted, and Mum had been telling me that it was so much easier being in Hufflepuff because nobody cared whether you were clever or not.

I remember being Sorted and going to sit on the Ravenclaw table and expecting to be part of this really clever conversation and all they talked about was food. And Potter. The food was good but I knew nothing about Potter. I'd never heard of him. Mum just got on with life and didn't take much interest in the wizarding world and Dad, who is Mundane, just thought it was freaky. These Ravenclaw people seemed to know an awful lot about Potter – more than he knew about himself, he told me later – but I reckoned they were just making half of it up.

All I saw, when he was Sorted, was this very nervous dark-haired kid, much smaller than me. But he'd had the sense to make some friends on the train. I hadn't dared talk to anyone but he seemed to know the Weasleys already, and a bunch of others.

Anyway, after the Feast, and a really strange speech from Mr Dumbledore, we were taken to the Common Room by a girl called Penny, who seemed quite normal and not at all like the genius swots that I thought all Ravenclaws were like. All the rest of the first years were sort of eyeing each other and trying to work out who was going to be top of the class. Penny stopped in front of this door and there was no door-handle. There wasn't even a knocker. There was just this bronzy sculpture of a bird's head holding a bronze ring in its beak.

Penny knocked gently. The rest of us stood there like lemons, then the bronze head spoke, very clearly and a bit like a professor. Even its beak moved.

'Which end of the wand do you hold?" it said.

'The right end," said Penny.

'Correct,' said the bird's head. 'On so many levels.' And the door swung open.

We all gawped at the bird's head as we passed, and one or two of us first years cringed a little.

'That is Muriel," said Penny as the door closed behind us. 'We don't have passwords like the other Houses. When you want to come in Muriel will ask you a question that you have to answer. She will always ask you something that you might be expected to know the answer to, so don't worry that you will be asked something too complicated, but you have to keep your wits about you. If you don't know, wait for someone who does.'

'Blimey, it'll be like living in a permanent exam," muttered the boy next to me. Terry Boot, I remembered.

'I think I'd prefer a password," I said quietly. Unfortunately, Penny heard me.

"Passwords change, or get forgotten," she said. "This is a much better system. You learn in the process.' She pointed out the boys' and girls' dorms and we slunk off to our respective beds.

There were five of us in the dorm and there were exactly five beds.

'How come they knew in advance how many there'd be' I said. 'The Sorting's a sham. It must be.'

'Not necessarily,' said Boot. 'They've got a bunch of house-elves. They'd sort it out during the Feast, no problemo.'

I didn't know much about house-elves. We didn't have one, but the Boots were a big wizarding family so they probably had half a dozen.

'All the same,' I said. 'Pretty quick work.'

'Not for a house-elf,' said Boot.

I stared to wonder how well I was going to get along with Terry Boot.