Chapter Five

The next morning I visualized the gossip pointing at Harry and talking with what seemed like discretion, though it didn't work, we could hear them.

- "There, look."

- "Where?"

- "Next to the tall, red-haired boy."

- "The one with glasses?"

- "Did you see his face?"

- "Did you see his scar?"

The children peeked out to watch, turned around in the corridors, and stopped on the stairs.

'They were total stalkers.'

'Joe would be proud.'

Outside of all that, the castle was fantastic, there were 142 staircases, some wide and uncluttered, some narrow and rickety. Some led to a different place on Fridays. Others had a step that disappeared halfway down and you had to remember it to jump.

Then some doors wouldn't open unless you asked nicely or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that were just solid walls pretending to be doors. It was also very difficult to remember where everything was, as things seemed to keep changing places.

The people in the portraits kept visiting each other, and Harry commented to me that he was sure the armor could walk.

Despite what others thought, ghosts were also extraordinary, perhaps I liked them because, in my other life, I had never seen one except in movies. So it didn't bother me when they suddenly slipped through the door they were trying to open.

Nick Nearly Decapitated was nice, and so was the fat friar from Hufflepuff. However, the one who became a nuisance was Peeves the poltergeist was in charge of putting locked doors and booby-trapped stairs in the way of those late for class. He also threw wastebaskets at their heads, pulled the carpets under the feet of passersby, threw chalk, slid up behind them, grabbed their noses, and shouted: I've got your nose!

'Maybe he stole Voldemort's nose.'

With Harry, we had unfortunately run into Filch the warden, and his cat Mrs. Norris when we were trying to open a locked door, which with my chicken mind late I remembered was the forbidden door on the third floor, he yelled at us for quite some time that he would lock us in the dungeons despite my and Harry's explanations. Professor Quirrell saved us, however, I already knew he was not as good as he seemed so I dryly thanked him.

On the other hand, magic was challenging, it wasn't just waving the wand and saying random spells like an idiot, we had to study what each one was for and the correct way to say it and wave the wand.

I had already rehearsed several spells alone from my brother's books so it wasn't too bad, except maybe for Seamus who blew up almost everything. I took precautions with him and sat as far away as I could, I couldn't lose an eye or something.

We had to study the night skies with our telescopes, every Wednesday at midnight, and learn the names of the different stars and the movements of the planets.

Three times a week we went to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a chubby little witch named Professor Sprout and learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and figure out what they were to be used for.

The most boring subject was History of Magic, the only class taught by a ghost. Professor Binns was already very old when he fell asleep in front of the fireplace in the staff room and got up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind. Binns talked monotonously, as he wrote names and dates, and made Elmeric the Wicked and Ulrich the Nutty confused and the most tedious people in the world.

Professor Flitwick of the Charms class was a diminutive wizard who had to climb a few books to see over his desk. As the first class began, he pulled out the list, and when he got to Harry's name, he gave a squeal of excitement and disappeared.

'Not that it was anything out of the ordinary'

Harry became uncomfortable and tried to hide his face on the desk.

In every class Hermione would raise her hand like a spring, of course, I did too and that made her irritated and look at me like she wanted to murder me, I wasn't afraid of her, she was annoying.

In Transformations, the first-day Professor McGonagall turned her desk into a pig, she made us write down notes and made us turn a match into a needle. By the end of the class, Hermione had made a change to the match, however, her happiness didn't last long as I had turned it into a needle completely, so the teacher gave me 10 points and a smile.

- "Well done Mr. Weasley"

Hermione looked at me like a bug and I stuck my tongue out at her.

'Girl I already died you need more than that to scare me.'

Then we had Defense Against the Dark Arts, I didn't have much expectation, as I knew it was going to be a fiasco and I wasn't wrong, he stuttered and a garlic-like smell came out of his turban.

Friday I had several first graders following me to find their way to the dining hall. He had a photographic memory so he was the only one who didn't get lost. He looked like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Finally, when we got to the dining room door they all peeled off and went to their tables.

I sighed. - "I feel used"

Harry laughed at my comment.

We sat down at the table and I looked at all the food with sparkling eyes. I pulled out some cereal, toast, juice, and fruit. One good thing about this body was that it was a bottomless barrel and didn't get fat easily.

- "What are we having today?" - Asked Harry with a mouthful of bacon.

- "Double Potions with the Slytherins" - I answered.

- "Snape is the Head of Slytherin House. They say that he always favors them... Now we'll see if it's true" - Dean interrupted.

'It's true.'

I looked at Harry with devilish eyes and made him memorize some facts from the potion book and told him about certain things. Neville also listened attentively.

Hedwig flew through the dining room and landed among the jam and sugar bowl, she dropped an envelope on Harry's plate.

Dear Harry (it said in uneven handwriting),

I know you have Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me, at about three o'clock? I want you to tell me all about your first week. Send me the answer with Hedwig.

Hagrid

Harry borrowed my pen and replied, "Yes, thank you, see you later," on the back of the note, and sent it off with Hedwig.

After breakfast, we headed for the potions classroom, which turned out to be a dungeon. It was much colder in there than upstairs in the main part of the castle, and it was downright creepy to have preserved animals, floating in glass jars, all over the walls.

Snape walked in swinging his cloak majestically.

'I need to do that'

He went through the list and stopped at Harry's name.

'My condolences'

- "Oh, yes" - He murmured. - "Harry Potter. Our new... celebrity."

Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle laughed, covering their mouths.

Snape finished the roll call and looked around the class. His eyes were as black as Hagrid's, but they had none of his warmth. They were cold and empty and made one think of dark tunnels.

- "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of making potions" - He began. He spoke almost in a whisper, but everything was understood. Like Professor McGonagall, Snape had a gift for effortlessly keeping the class silent. - "There will be very little in the way of stupid wand movements here, and many of you will doubt that this is magic. I do not expect you to come to understand the beauty of a gently boiling cauldron, with its glistening vapors, the delicate power of liquids sliding through human veins, bewitching the mind, tricking the senses... I can teach them how to bottle fame, prepare glory, even stop death... if they are anything more than the alcomoques I usually have to teach."

More silence followed that little speech.

Harry exchanged a glance with me with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger was sitting on the edge of the chair and seemed desperate to start proving that she was not one.

- "Potter" - Snape suddenly said, - "What will I get if I add asphodel root powder to a wormwood infusion?"

Hermione raised her hand.

- "It creates a potion called .... Living Dead Filter" - Harry replied.

- "Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar" - He asked again.

- "In the stomach of a goat" - Snape's brow furrowed in annoyance.

- "What's the difference, Potter; between aconite and luparia?"

Hermione rose from her seat and raised her arm.

'What a chaste woman.'

- "None, they are the same plant" - His face became disfigured with anger.

- "Sit down" - He shouted at Hermione in a shrill voice, - "And what are you waiting for to write it all down."

They all began to write on their parchments.

- "Oh and a point deducted for your cheekiness Granger."

Hermione took on the color of ivory.

'I'm sorry Hermione but I had to do it'