2 Kids Who Are Not Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Draco had been to Hogwarts once before, with his father on school governors' business. He'd been seven, and hadn't seen much of the castle as he'd had to stay with his father the whole time and not touch anything. Even so, he remembered how very big and mysterious the castle had seemed. Now, he realized he'd been wrong; the castle wasn't big, it was stupendously, impossibly enormous, and "mysterious" didn't begin to cover it. There were seven floors and dozens of towers and turrets, scores of corridors and hundreds of staircases connecting it all. He was sure he could spend every waking moment of the next seven years exploring the castle, and he still wouldn't know all of its twists and turns by heart. Moreover, it all seemed to move around quite a lot. There was a single grand staircase leading up the center of the castle, in which each flight of stairs was apt to inexplicably change direction every once in a while--this was quite jarring if you were on it, which Draco found out on his third morning whilst trying to get to Charms class. In addition to this, there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, doors that led somewhere different on a Friday, and doors that weren't doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. The castle was full of portraits, some of whom were happy to point new students in the right direction, and some of whom delighted in doing the opposite. Draco had never given a second thought before to the occupants of portraits moving about and visiting one another--they did it all the time at the Manor, after all--but it could be quite disconcerting when trying to find your way around a labyrinth of a castle.

Many of the Slytherin first years took to navigating the castle together in a pack, and by the end of the first week, by working together they were able to find all of their classes without getting lost. This was beneficial not only in helping them all get to know the castle somewhat, but in sizing up the group of people they'd be spending the next seven years with.

Many of them had known one another before coming to Hogwarts. Draco had spent many a long, boring evening with Daphne Greengrass and her younger sister Astoria at the dinner parties his parents dragged him to, and of course he'd known Vince and Greg for years. Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott, it seemed, had also known one another since they were small. These two fascinated Draco; they seemed about as different as they possibly could be, and he was sure they wouldn't be friends if they'd just met this year. He could tell at once that Pansy was extremely preoccupied with seeming clever and had a deep thirst to be in the thick of things at all times. Theo, on the other hand, was far more mysterious. Everything about him simply seemed perfect and effortless, from the way he dressed to the way he spoke to the way he could remember, without fail, the exact patterns and tricks to each doorway or staircase even if they moved around the castle. Draco's favorite of his new classmates, by far, was Blaise Zabini. Like Vince and Greg, he was keen to tag along with virtually anything Draco suggested. Unlike Vince and Greg, however, he had a sense of adventure and expanded on Draco's ideas. Draco felt very confident that, as long as the two of them were together, he wouldn't be bored all year.

Of course, once they managed to find the lessons, there were the lessons themselves. From the way his father had taught him, Draco had worried the lessons would be unforgiving and exhaust him. However, this turned out to be far from the truth. First off, he'd had no idea, his whole life, how very much easier it was to do magic using a wand. When he tried to move or vanish objects using just his mind, it was utterly exhausting and he failed as often as he succeeded. With a wand in his hand, the power inside him felt concentrated, conducted through a device expressly meant for that purpose, and as long as he was focusing hard enough on his target, his spells never failed. Realizing this simultaneously excited him and gave him a rush of hot rage toward his father for putting him through all of that.

Some of the teachers, like Professor McGonagall, were quite strict and could be very harsh with anyone fooling around in their classes. Others, like Professor Flitwick, maintained a cheery disposition no matter what was going on around them, and provided a constant stream of encouragement as they practiced. Some lessons allowed for a great deal of practical work--in Herbology classes, for example, they took hardly any notes and spent most of their time tending to various plants in the school greenhouses. Others, like History of Magic, entailed a lot of time sitting around trying to stay awake while Professor Binns lectured about wizards who'd invented self-stirring cauldrons in the Middle Ages. Draco's favorite class, by far, was Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall was certainly not someone to cross, but she didn't waste a lot of time on senseless praise or bore them with anecdotes. By the end of their first class they were given a match and set about turning it into a pin. Draco earned a small smile from Professor McGonagall for being the only one to finish the task, and this gave him an unfamiliar sense of pride which stayed with him for the rest of the day.