A Changed Lestrange (1-2) (under editing)

5: The Potions Master

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 Ashton was sure the coats of armour could walk.

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. The Gryffindor ghost, 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 waste-paper 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, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Ashton was yet to have an encounter with him that he was sure would end up in flames, but he already hated him with a passion. Filch owned a cat called Mrs Norris, a scrawny, dust-coloured creature with bulging, lamp-like 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 the secret passageways of the school 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. Suddenly, Ashton wished he had heeded Dumbledore's advice and got a cat, just to get it to harass Mrs Norris.

And then, once you managed to actually find them, there were the lessons themselves. There was a lot more to magic than Ashton originally thought. He had imagined it was just waving your wand and saying a few funny words, but it was most definitely more than that.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learnt how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and found out what they were used for.

By far the most boring lesson was History of Magic, which was the only class 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 the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates and got Emeric 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 their first lesson he took the register, and when he reached Harry Potter's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. When he reached the letter 'L', however, he had a very different reaction — there was a squeak, all right, but a squeak of pure terror as opposed to excitement.

Professor McGonagall was, again, different. Ashton had since thought of her as a collected teacher who wouldn't be one to take advantage of, and he was correct. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they had 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. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realised that they would not be changing the furniture into animals for a very long time. After making a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Hermione had made any difference to her match; and even after showing him how she had done it, Ashton's still did not change — Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile.