Draco Malfoy and the Sorcerer's Stone

TᕼE ᑭOTIOᑎ ᗰᗩᔕTEᖇ

Whispers followed me from the moment I left my dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at me, or doubled back to pass me in the corridors again, staring. I wished they wouldn't, because Harry, Ron, and I were trying to concentrate on finding our way to 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 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, and I was sure the coats of armor could walk. And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as I quickly found out, 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 found out what they were used for. 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 while we scribbled down names and dates, and got Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. 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 my name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. Professor McGonagall was again different. I had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave us a talking-to the moment they 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 soon realized 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. By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match.

Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile. I was very relieved to find out that I wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Blaise and I didn't have much of a head start. Friday was an important day for us. We finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

"What have we got today?" Harry asked as he poured sugar on his porridge. "Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Zabini's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them -- we'll be able to see if it's true." "Wish McGonagall favored us." I sighed. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving us a huge pile of homework the day before. "How is he gonna hate the famous Draco Malfoy," Harry joked. "Besides, you're the only one who is trying to be friends with his son."

"Blaise is my friend, but his father insist on having him sit with the teaches during every meal." I replied. "And sitting at the Slytherin table doesn't help much." "Better than sitting at the table closest to Thorn." Casper Thorn was sorted into Slytherin like all of his family was. "You're probably right." I sighed continuing with breakfast. Just then, the mail arrived. I had gotten used to this by now, but it had given me a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.