My Tale {Book One in the Hermione Granger Series}

Chapter Ten

I got up early the next morning, before heading down to the Great Hall. Once there, Professor McGonagall handed me my timetable. It consisted of Astronomy, Potions, Herblogogy, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration, as well as an extra course for muggleborns or those whom did not know they were wizards/witches, which wasn't compulsary.

After eating my breakfast I decided to head to class. On my way, I had people whispering:

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the red hair."

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see his scar?"

They were obviously talking about Harry, as people were lining up outside classrooms, some standing on tip-toe, to get a look at him, and some even doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring.

I learned from Percy last night that there was one 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. 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.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point 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 your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

Even worse than Peeves, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamplike 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 his way around the school, perhaps better than anyone, 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.

However, the most interesting thing was the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

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. Three times a week we went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where we learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and other students found out what they were used for- I had already read my textbooks, and answered most of Professor Sprout's questions.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on, and whilst many people fell asleep, I scribbled down notes furiously - not wanting to miss anything.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of our first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Strict and clever, she gave us a talking-to the moment we sat down in her first class. "Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. We were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but as Percy said, we weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, we were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. I said the incarnation, and by the end of the lesson, I was the only person to have made any difference to the match. Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave me a rare smile, and I beamed happily.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told us, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but I didn't believe this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the red-haired twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

I was very relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like me, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. However, I was the top of the grade, and the Ravenclaws gave me snobby looks, whilst everyone else called me a know-it-all. But I ignored them.

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NOTE: I DO NOT OWN THE PLACES, CHARACTERS AND IDEAS OF THE HARRY POTTER SERIES. THEY REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF J.K.ROWLING.

Dedicated to Lilly5pad for being the second to comment and loving my fan-fiction.