Spells and Visions; A Harry Potter story

Chapter 3: First Weeks

Dumbledore told us a few more things, like about Quidditch trials and that the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side was 'out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death'. That sounded like trouble, but also like more reason to see what was there. Then everyone sang the Hogwarts song, which was very interesting.

Percy the prefect led the Gryffindor first-years to the dormitories. But when we were climbing the long, long stairs, floating sticks threw themselves at Percy.
"Peeves," he said to us. "A poltergeist. Peeves, show yourself!"
A strange ghost with dark eyes and a wide mouth showed up out of nowhere. He started talking with a really annoying voice, and Percy sent him away. He warned us for Peeves, because he only seemed to listen to the Bloody Baron, who was also a ghost.

Then there was a portrait of a fat lady in a pink dress. She almost reminded me of my mother. It was not new to me that portraits could talk and move, though. My mum had too much portraits of cats hanging in her room. She almost wanted to hang them in our rooms, too. Thank goodness she didn't.

Percy spoke the password: 'Caput Draconis', and the portrait swung aside, making a hole in the wall visible. We climbed through and came in the Gryffindor common room. I said goodnight to Neville and went to the girls dormitories by direction. I was in a room with Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, Sally-Anne Perks and unfortunately Hermione Granger. For some reason she didn't seem to like me at all.
We didn't talk much, and went to bed.

The next day the lessons started. Fortunately, I already knew much, because I had scrolled through the books at home. I had nothing better to do anyway. And I just liked reading. I was possibly just as much a nerd as Hermione, only I didn't care to correct everyone and everything all the time. I was one of the more silent students.
We had Herbology, by Professor Sprout, where we learned things about weird plants. We had Charms lessons by Professor Flitwick, who was a very small wizard. The only class that was taught by a ghost, called Professor Binns, was History of Magic, probably because the ghost was old and knew much about history. Professor McGonagall, who we had met before, taught Transfiguration, in other words, transforming things into different things or animals. Professor Quirell, who was a stuttering wizard with always a purple turban on his head, taught us Defense against the Dark Arts. And Potions was a class taught by a really creepy wizard, called Professor Snape. In the dungeons. He seemed to really hate Harry Potter for some reason.

Professor Snape had in the first class asked Harry all sorts of questions on which I knew a few answers, but Harry didn't, and seemed really uncomfortable. I had read Fantastic Beasts and where to find them by Newt Scamander at home, and I loved it. If only Snape would ask questions about that, then I could answer them all.
He took a point away from Gryffindor because of Harry.
"But that's not fair," I whispered to Neville, who sat next to me.
"Well, miss Black," said Snape, turning to me. "Would you have known the answers?"
"On some I did," I said, while Snape stared right through my soul.

One of the things I would rather have learned than all this, was to Apparate and Disapparate, or teleport. It would come in handy when I was late for class or something. I would look for spells on how to do that in the library later.
A few days later, my owl, Sofia, brought me a package, with a letter from my mum.

"You might need this, Jynx, as a reminder that you make sure you get good grades in school and most importantly, do not forget that I will always be aware if you do something unacceptable or if you get in trouble. And say hi to Neville for me."

The last sentence was written with such a feeling of awkwardness like she didn't mean it but tried to be nice anyway. I crumpled the letter and opened the package. In the meantime I said to my brother: "Mum says hi."
"Well, that's new," Neville answered.
In the package was a Remembrall, a ball that showed if you had forgotten something. It showed nothing to me. I gave it to Neville.
When Neville looked at it, the ball turned red.
"Well, seems like you forgot something," I said.
"Yeah, but what? I can't remember it."
I laughed. "Keep it, you might need it more than I do."
"Thanks, J," my brother smiled.