Another Hogwarts Tale

"There look."

"Where?"

"Next to the other girl."

"The one with the glasses?"

A whisper followed them Twins from the moment they left their dorms the next morning.

Outside the classrooms, they stood on tiptoe to get a glimpse of the two. Others turned as they made their way down the corridor and walked past them, looking curious.

The other students cared more about Harry, so it was not as bad for Lucy. She was way too busy trying to find her way to the classrooms, anyway.

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 didn't open unless you asked them politely or tickled them in just the right place, and doors that weren't doors at all, but walls that only pretended to be.

It was also difficult to remember where something in particular was, as everything seemed to change places quite often.

The people in the portraits went to see each other all the time.

The ghosts weren't particularly helpful either.

You got a terrible shock when one of them floated through a door you were trying to open.

Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to show the new Gryffindors the way, but Peeves the poltergeist offered at least two locked doors and a ghost staircase if you were running late and met him on the way to the classroom.

He emptied wastepaper baskets over the students' heads, pulled the rugs from under their feet, threw pieces of chalk at them or snuck up invisibly from behind, grabbed their noses and yelled:

"GOT YOUR CONK!"

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, Argus Filch, the caretaker. Harry and Ron managed to get in his way on the first morning.

Filch caught them trying to squeeze through a door, which unfortunately turned out to be the entrance to the forbidden corridor on the third floor.

Filch didn't want to believe they were lost and was sure that they tried to force the door open.

He'll lock them both in the dungeons, he threatened just as Professor Quirrell came by and rescued them.

Filch had a cat named Mrs Norris, a scrawny, dust-coloured creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes.

She patrolled the corridors alone.

If you broke a rule in front of her or even put a foot wrong, she would scoot over to Filch, who was panting in front of you two seconds later.

Filch knew the school's secret passages better than anyone (except maybe the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any ghost would.

The students didn't like him at all and wanted to give Mrs Norris a good kick.

And then, once you'd managed to find the classroom, there was the actual lesson.

As Harry quickly discovered, there was a lot more to magic than just waving your wand around and saying a few strange words.

"What did you expect?" Lucy said with a smirk as the twins talked about it with their new friends.

Stella Barnes was the only Person in Slytherin Lucy talked to, because the other girls didn't say a word to her. So, the two girls became good friends in the first days of school.

Every Wednesday at midnight they had to study the night sky with their telescopes and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets.

Three times a week they would go out to the greenhouses behind the castle, where they would have herbalism with a plump little professor named Sprout.

Here they learned how to grow all the strange plants and mushrooms and figure out what they were useful for.

By far the most boring subject was History of Magic, the only class taught by a ghost.

Professor Binns had really been very old when he fell asleep in front of the fire in the staff room and got up for class the next morning, albeit leaving his body behind.

Binns rattled off names and dates and they scribbled it all down in their notebooks and mistook Emeric the Evil for Uric the Oddball.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little magician who had to stand on a pile of books to be able to see over the desk.

At the beginning of the first lesson, he read the list of names, and when he got to the twins, he let out an excited squeak and fell off the stack of books.

~~

Professor McGonagall, on the other hand, was very different.

Lucy had quite rightly suspected that this teacher wasn’t a teacher to cross.

Strict and clever, she gave them a speech as soon as they sat down for the first lesson.

"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 they soon realized it would be a long time before they could turn the furniture into animals.

First, they wrote down a lot of complicated things, then each got a match which they tried to turn into a needle.

Most of them had quite a hard time doing it. Lucy glanced at Stella next to her and she seemed to have problems, too.

The blackhaired girl pulled out her wand and pointed it at her match.

Then she said the spell, and nothing happened.

Lucy looked back at her notes and then tried again.

After the fifth attempt, something happened. The match bounced a few inches in the air.

It spun in the air and a needle landed on the table in front of her.

"How did you do that?" Stella asked, amazed.

"I have no idea," Lucy murmured, amazed at him looking away from the needle.

It worked, she thought, grinning widely.

Lucy raised her hand to show Professor McGonagall the needle.

Her teacher walked between the desks and looked at what the children were doing.

"Miss Potter," Professor McGonagall offered when she saw Lucy raising her hand. "Try again. I'll help you in a moment."

"But Professor - I've already done it," Lucy explained, holding the needle in the air.

Her classmates looked at Lucy in astonishment.

Professor McGonagall looked at it and gave Lucy a smile that was rare for her.

Slytherin got 10 house points and by the end of the lesson Hermione Granger had changed her match a little bit too.

Her match had turned all silvery and pointed.

From that day, from that first lesson, Transfiguration was irrevocably Lucy Potter's favourite subject.

They were also excited about Defence Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's class turned out to be a joke.

His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, and everyone said it was to keep away a vampire he had met in Romania that Quirrell feared would come and get him one day.

His turban, he explained, was given to him by an African prince for getting rid of an annoying zombie, but they weren't sure what to make of this story.

When Seamus asked Finnigan curiously how Quirrell chased the zombie away, Finnigan turned pink and started talking about the weather.

They had also noticed that the turban gave off a funny smell, and the Weasley twins insisted it was also stuffed with garlic to protect Professor Quirrell wherever he went.

Lucy and Harry also found that they weren't miles behind the others.

Many of the students came from Muggle families and, like him, had had no idea they were witches or wizards.

There was so much to learn that even students like Ron didn't have much of a head start.

"What have we got today?" Lucy asked when she was with Ophelia on Friday at breakfast. She, Stella and Ophelia sat at the Gryffindor table, like every morning.

Lucy grabbed some toast and spread some jam on it.

"Double Potions," Ron said. "Snape’s Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them - we’ll be able to see if it’s true."

"Probably it is," Ophelia said, poking in her food. "My paps said he was weird at school."

"Wish McGonagall would favored us," said Harry, sitting across from Lucy.

Professor McGonagall was Head of Gryffindor House, and yet she had given them a ton of homework the day before.

At that moment the post came.

Lucy had gotten used to it by now, but the first morning she got a bit of a shock when, during breakfast, suddenly a hundred owls buzzed into the Great Hall, circling the tables until they recognized their owners, and then them Dropped letters and packages on her lap.

Hedwig hadn't brought Harry anything yet.

Sometimes she would perch on his shoulder, nibble Harry's ear a little and eat a piece of toast before retiring to the owlery with the other school owls to sleep.

That morning, however, she landed fluttering between the jam jar and the sugar bowl, dropping a letter onto Harry's plate.

He took the letter and started reading it.

Dear Harry and Lucy, it said very scrawled,

I know you guys have Friday afternoon off. Wouldn't you like to visit me around three and have a cup of tea? I want to know everything about your first week.

Send me a reply through Hedwig.

Hagrid

Harry borrowed Ron's quill pen, scrawled "Yes, please, see you later" on the back of the letter and sent Hedwig off with it.

Luckily the twins had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, as Potions class turned out to be one of the worst thing that had ever happened to them.

~~

At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the impression that Professor Snape didn't like him.

By the end of the first potions lesson, he knew he had been wrong.

It wasn't that Snape didn't like him - he hated him.

The potions class took place deep down in one of the dungeons.

It was colder here than upstairs in the main castle, and it would have been spooky enough without the pickled animals swimming around in large jars lined the walls.

Snape started the lesson like Flitwick did Reading the list of names, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name.

"Ah, yes," he said. "Harry Potter. Our new - celebrity."

Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle giggled behind their hands.

Snape called out the rest of the names and then looked at the class.

His eyes were as black as Hagrid's, but they had none of their warmth.

They were cold and empty, reminiscent of dark tunnels.

Lucy shifted further in her chair as Snape called her name and looked at her.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began.

He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort.

"As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids"

The class remained silent after this little speech. Lucy and Felis looked at each other.

Hermione Granger sat on the edge of the chair looking like she was hell bent on proving she wasn't a fool.

"Potter!" Snape said suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Add grated root of what to an infusion of what?

Harry looked at Ron, who looked just as puzzled as he did; Hermione's hand had shot up.

Lucy too looked confused at Stella, who just shrugged.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry.

"Tut, tut - fame isn't everything."

Snape ignored Hermione's hand.

"Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione held up her hand as high as it did possible without her getting up from the chair, but Harry hadn't the faintest idea what a bezoar was.

He avoided looking over at Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter.

Lucy glared at the Slytherins.

"You don't know the answer either," Lucy hissed.

"Miss Potter, you were not asked to speak," Snape said.

He glanced at her, then back at Harry.

"I don't know, sir," he replied to Snape's question.

"Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"

At the Dursleys he must have been reading his books, but did Snape expect to be able to harvest anything from 'One thousand magical Herbs and Fungi'?

Snape was still ignoring Hermione's trembling hand.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Lucy knew that. She tried to sign Harry the answer, but Harry didn't notice.

At that question, Hermione stood up, her fingers almost touching the dungeon ceiling now.

"I don’t know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don’t you try her?"

A few laughed; Harry caught Seamus's eyes, who winked at him.

Snape wasn't pleased though.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione.

"For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?"

This was followed by a loud rustling of parchment and quills.

Snape's voice cut through the noise, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

The Gryffindors didn't fare any better in Potions class either.

Snape paired them up and had them make a simple potion to cure boils.

He walked among the tables in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and grind up snake fangs.

He looked at Lucy and Stella's potion.

"Surprisingly, it's quite decent," he said.

Then he went on.

The two students looked at each other questioningly. Quite decent? Their potion had not even the color it was supposed to– Lucy even checked it in the book.

Snape was just telling the whole class to see how well Malfoy had cooked his whelks when billowing green smoke and a loud hiss filled the dungeon.

Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus' cauldron into a misshapen lump.

The concoction seeped over the stone floor and burned holes in the shoes.

In no time the whole class was on their chairs while Neville, who had spattered himself with the brew when the cauldron shattered, moaned in pain as angry red boils erupted all over his arms and legs.

"You idiot!" Snape snapped at him, wiping away the spilled potion with a flick of his wand.

"I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered as boils were now breaking up on his nose as well.

"Take him to the hospital wing," snapped Snape at Seamus.

Then he took on Harry and Ron who had been working at the table next to Neville.

"You - Potter - why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That’s another point you’ve lost for Gryffindor."

That was so unfair that Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ron punched him from behind their cauldron.

"Don’t push it," he muttered, "I’ve heard Snape can turn very nasty."

As they climbed the dungeon steps an hour later, Harry's mind was racing and he was feeling miserable.

In the first week Gryffindor had already lost two points because of him.

Why did Snape hate him so much?

"Cheer up," said Ron, "Snape’s always taking points off Fred and George. Can I come and meet Hagrid with you?"

"True. Snape is an idiot. It's not your fault that he took points from Gryffindor," Lucy offered.

~~

After class and before they wanted to go to Hagrid's, Lucy sat outside with Stella, Ophelia and Louisa.

Ophelia had met Louisa in the library when the blonde, shorter Hufflepuff wanted to reach for a book and couldn't reach it.

Ophelia had kindly fetched it from the shelf for her and they immediately became friends.

"I already hate Snape," Stella said. "Even if he's our head of house."

"I don't particularly like him either," Lucy agreed.

"Well, I have better things to do than talk about Snape," Louisa said, shrugging.

They changed the subject and the girls told each other about their home.

Ophelia lived with her father in a small cottage at the see, Stella lived with her Parents and little siblings in an apartment in London and Louisa, her Uncle Gavin and his boyfriend Max recently moved to the suburbs.

"We alsohave two turtles, they are cool."

~~

At five to three they walked to Hagrid.

Harry brought Ron and Lucy had asked, Stella, Ophelia and Louisa. However, Stella and Ophelia still wanted to go to the library, so only Ron and Louisa joined them.

Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest.

There was a crossbow and a pair of galoshes by the door.

When Harry knocked, they stopped inside an excited Scratch and a thunderous bark.

Then Hagrid's voice rang out: "Back, Fang - back."

Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack of the door, then he opened it.

"Hang on," he said. "Back, Fang."

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside.

Hams and pheasants hung from the ceiling, a copper kettle simmered over an open fire, and in the corner was a huge bed with a patchwork quilt.

"Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, releasing Fang. Who immediately lunged at Ron and licked his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang obviously wasn't as wild as he looked.

"These are Ron and Louisa," Harry explained as Hagrid poured boiling water into a large teapot and placed cookies on a plate.

"Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, looking at Ron's freckles. "I spent half me life chasin’ yer twin brothers away from the forest."

The cookies were so hard they almost cut their teeth, but the four of them didn't show it and told Hagrid all about the first lessons.

Fang rested his head on Harry's knees and drool ran down the robes.

Harry, Lucy, Ron and Louisa enjoyed that Hagrid called Filch a "that old git".

"An’ as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I’d like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D’yeh know, everytime I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can’t get rid of her - Filch puts her up to it."

Harry Hagrid told of Snape's first lesson.

Like Ron before him, Hagrid advised him not to worry about it; Snape just doesn't like a lot of students.

"But he seemed to really hate me."

"Rubbish!" said Hagrid. "Why should he?"

But Harry thought he noticed that Hagrid wasn't really looking him in the eye.

"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron. "Liked him a lot - great with animals."

Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose.

While Ron was telling Hagrid about Charlie's work with the dragons, Harry pulled a piece of paper out from under the teapot.

It was a clipping from the Daily Prophet:

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been.taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

"But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you,"said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone was trying to rob Gringotts.

But Ron hadn't mentioned what day that was.

He nudged his sister and showed her the newspaper article.

"Hagrid!" Lucy addressed him, "that burglary at Gringotts was on our birthday! Maybe even while we were there!"

This time there could be no doubt: Hagrid met both Lucy's and Harry's eyes.

He sighed and offered him another cookie.

Harry read the newspaper article again.

The dungeon being searched happened to have been emptied on the same day.

Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it that, for all he had brought out was this dirty little package.

Was this what the thieves were looking for?

When the first years returned to the castle for dinner, their pockets were stuffed with the rock-hard cookies, which they had been polite not to refuse.

Harry reflected that no lesson had given him so much food for thought as this afternoon tea at Hagrid's.

Did Hagrid get that package just in time?

Where was it now?

And did Hagrid know more about Snape than he wanted to tell them?