"Do you think Professor Longbottom's nice?" Jeffrey Davies asked the girls as they were walking across the courtyard to the greenhouses.
"Oh, I know he's nice. He's a family friend." Rose explained to the questioning faces.
"Is it true he's a war hero? I mean, he doesn't really look or act like one." Kathryn chuckled.
"Yeah, he's a war hero! He stood up to a few Death Eaters when they were controlling the school and he stood up to Voldemort and he cut off the head of Voldemort's snake. If that isn't a war hero, I don't what is. " Rose replied.
"What greenhouse are we in? One?" Jamie asked, not waiting for an answer she opened the door to the greenhouse.
Albus and Jesse finished their breakfast quickly and rushed down to the dungeons to collect their things. Albus grabbed some quills, a bottle of ink, parchment, and his Herbology, History of Magic, and Potions textbook and jammed it into his bag. Albus looked over and saw Jesse was doing the same.
"You know my cousin Rose would have a fit if she saw us jamming our stuff in here." Albus said, smiling to himself at the thought of his cousin.
The boys navigated their way through the hallways and out of the castle having only one minor incident with Peeves. Unfortunately, that incident left Albus covered in mud. The boys entered the greenhouse and immediately got confronted with Rose.
"What did you do?" Rose shrieked at Albus.
"Peeves." Albus said, rolling his eyes. Rose said 'Scourgify' and led a clean Albus over to the bench where she was sitting.
Rose opened her mouth to talk, but just then Professor Longbottom came in.
"Today we will be sorting different kinds of roots for the potions class. If you could all open your textbooks to page 20, you'll see a chart with pictures and the name of the roots and I would like you to put each kind in a container on you desk. Two different roots cannot be in the same container. Please label containers when you're done. You may work in partners. If you finish before 9:50, you may talk quietly or do some silent reading. If your wondering, 10 minutes before your next class starts, we let you leave. Your timetables are not wrong, just very basic." Professor Longbottom explained to the first years, handing out boxes full of different and strange looking plants to them along with ten containers for each group.
Rose and Jamie decided to work together, as did Albus and Jesse. The two groups worked silently for a while, and then Albus and Jesse started talking.
"When do we get to do magic, like your cousin did?" Jesse asked, obviously disappointed with the class.
"After lunch. Unfortunately, they decided to give us boring subjects in the morning. But Potions is ok, and I heard History of Magic is taught by a ghost." Albus replied, putting a smile back on Jesse's face.
"What are the subjects after lunch like?" Jesse questioned.
"Well, my mum said Transfiguration's hard, Charms is fun, but Defense Against the Dark Arts is fantastic." Albus said.
"What's so good about Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Jesse asked.
"You get to learn curses, counter-curses, jinxes and things like that. And you get to try them on each other," Albus explained excitedly.
"Cool!" Jesse exclaimed.
"Would you boys shut it? Some people are trying to work here." Rose stated angrily to the boys.
The boring class finally ended at 9:50 and Albus and Rose went their separate ways. Rose set off with high hopes to Transfiguration and Albus went to History of Magic knowing that, regardless of what he told Jesse, he was in for a boring class.
The Ravenclaw's went into the Transfiguration room and sat at their desks waiting silently for their teacher to arrive. Ten minutes later, the children were quite puzzled. The teacher still wasn't there. A buzz of chatter had started about what to do. Most of the students had just taken out their Transfiguration textbooks and started reading. Just when everyone had resigned themselves to reading from the textbook, they heard a pop. The Ravenclaw first years gaped in awe at the front of the room. Where the comfy looking black chair had once stood was now a beautiful Indian woman, identical to the Ravenclaw's Head of House if not for the red tie and the gold ribbon holding her long braided hair. "That, students, was Transfiguration. By the end of your Hogwarts education, you will be able to do this and more. But first we must start small. Matchsticks to toothpicks small. I assume you all have read the first few pages on the theory of transfiguring small or similar objects, so I will begin handing out the matchsticks and you may start whenever you're ready." Professor Parvati told them and started handing out the matchsticks to each person.
"Hufflepuff's there are some things you need to know. My twin sister and I both teach here. She teaches Charms and is the Head of House for Ravenclaw. I teach Transfiguration and am the Head of House for Gryffindor. The only way you can tell us apart is by looking at the colour of our ties and hair ribbons. Mine is red and gold, hers blue and bronze. Another this is neither of us are married, so we are both officially called 'Professor Patil'. The both of us have given permission to the students to call us Professor Parvati and Professor Padma. I am Professor Parvati and my sister is Professor Padma. Now it's time to get to work." And with that the students started working. The Hufflepuff's, unfortunately, didn't read their textbook and now had to read the first chapter before starting.
Rose was the first one to get her matchstick completely transfigured. Professor Parvati was ecstatic and she awarded 10 points to Ravenclaw. Rose helped out some of the students around her, particularly one Hufflepuff boy who, instead of turning the matchstick into a toothpick, turned it into a candle. This caused the whole class, including Professor Parvati to laugh for a few minutes. After the class was over, Rose had a handful of toothpicks and Professor Parvati told them their homework was to practise transfiguring matchsticks into toothpicks and once they think they got the hang of that, to attempt to transfigure the toothpicks into pins.
Instead of falling asleep in History of Magic like the Hufflepuff's and many Ravenclaw's, Rose took notes. Professor Binns was the most boring teacher in the history of teachers, but Rose knew the only way to pass exams was to pay attention and take notes. It was hard for her to not doze off, but somehow she made it. By the end of the class, she had many well written notes and knew what the homework was. Which was more than she could say about the Hufflepuff's and a good half of the Ravenclaw's. Rose was thankful it was lunch because her stomach had started growling.
Rose ate her lunch in complete silence, studying the History texbook for the quiz tomorrow. "Why are you reading that texbook, Binns didn't assign us any homework." Jessica Albert said from across the table.
"No." Rose agreed, "But we do have a quiz tomorrow."
"What? I didn't hear that!" Kirsten Hall said, sitting next to her best friend.
"That's because you were asleep. Professor Binns told us about halfway through the class we would be having a quiz." Rose explained.
"Oh. Well, what's the quiz on?" Kirsten asked
"I'm not telling you. It's your own fault you weren't paying attention, so now you have to pay the price." Rose replied. Kirsten and Jessica gave Rose a look, and Rose knew then that she had lost a chance at friendship with those girls. Not that she's ever want to be friends with people like that. Rose just went back to her book, all too aware the girls across from her were giving dirty looks and whispering about her.
Rose couldn't wait for Potions class. She had heard great things about Professor Slughorn and was excited to see her brother's Head of House. Rose and Jamie set off to Potions 15 minutes before the class started. "Where do you think the classroom is?" Jamie asked.
"I dunno. I guess we just go down?" Rose said, slightly unsure. Thankfully, the two girls guessed the right stairs and barely got lost. Some of the credit went to the pictures though, which were extremely helpful to the young Ravenclaw's.
"So what was with Kirsten and Jessica at lunch?" Jamie asked when they got into the classroom. Because of the portraits, the girls were a few minutes early.
"I wouldn't tell them what the History quiz tomorrow was on." Rose explained. Jamie nodded and opened her mouth as if to talk, but Professor Slughorn came in.
"Ah, hello girls! Ravenclaw I presume?" the teacher asked. The girls nodded and Professor Slughorn gasped.
"You are Miss Weasley, correct? I taught your mother, Hermione Granger. Brilliant student she was, though not as good as Harry, but very, very close." Professor Slughorn reminisced. "Anyway, my dear, how would you like to come to a dinner party next month? Your cousin Albus will be attending as well." Professor Slughorn asked.
"Um…sure." Rose said, not seeing any reason to deny.
"Good, good, now class will be starting in a few moments, so take a seat." Professor Slughorn told the Ravenclaw's, noticing the students starting to walk in. The girls sat next to each other and in front of them sat Jeffrey Davies.
"Ok, students listen up! We will be making a very simple antidote to a non lethal laughing potion. If you could all pair up and take out your textbooks, we will begin." Professor Slughorn told the students. There was a rush of people switching places to sit next to their partners. Rose and Jamie stayed next to each other and took out their textbooks. "Would everyone please turn to page 115 and read the two chapters on that page. We will not be started on the potion until next week because, simple as the potion may be, you must first learn how antidotes work and the proper ways to put together a potion. On Wednesday we will be having a quiz on tools for potion making. I will give a more in depth description tomorrow. On Friday an two essays will be due, one page long each, on the antidote and laughing potion we are doing. I suggest you use your time wisely and start working on studying and the essays now. You may begin reading." Professor Slughorn said, many Hufflepuff's groaning at the amount of work. It wasn't that the Ravenclaw's liked how much work was being assigned, they didn't any more than the Hufflepuff's did, they just knew it would be counter-productive to waste time complaining.
Rose and Jamie were finished reading and were taking notes when it was time to go to the next class. Both were very excited because this would be their first class with the Gryffindor's and their first class with their Head of House. They found the Charms classroom relatively easily and sat down at a desk. In front of the girls was a boy with blond hair and big green eyes and Jeffrey Davies. "Hi! I'm Roonil Wazlib!" the boy said turning around. Just then the teacher walked in.
"Hello. I'm Professor Patil, but please call me Professor Padma. I believe you've all had Transfiguration with my sister, so there'll be no need to give you the talk again. Welcome to Charms, I believe we'll all have lots of fun in this class, but I may be biased seeing as it was one of my favourite classes when I was in school. Does anybody have any questions before we continue?" Professor Padma looked around and saw a hand up. "Jamie?"
"What was your other favourite class?" Jamie asked.
"Divination. Always good for a laugh, and simply a breeze to pass as long as you saw danger in your future. I also quite liked Defense Against the Dark Arts. Any other questions?" there weren't any, so the teacher continued. "We will begin with a levitating charm. Before we start doing the magic, we must first learn the incantation and the movements. The movements come first and we'll be using a stick first, then add the incantation, then the wand. You all have a stick on your desk, if you could pick it up and follow me. Swish and flick. Do it now. Swish and flick. Good. I will tell you the incantation on Wednesday, and we will do the spell on Friday. In the meantime, I would like you to practise the swish and flick movement, without your wands, and read Chapter One in your textbook. On Thursday I want to see an essay on one mishap that occurred because of mispronunciation or incorrect movements. No shorter than one paragraph, please. You can continue." the Professor told the group of first years. Rose and Jamie read the chapter in the book and practised the movements. They earned 10 points each for quiet working.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts class was pretty much boring. All they had to do was read a few chapters and take a few notes. After the class had ended, they had a full hour before supper. Rose used that to do her Charms essay. She found a woman who had, when trying to conjure water, said Ajementi rather than Aguamenti and shot fire rather than water out her wand. After she was done, Rose went down from the library to the Great Hall to eat. Supper was uneventful, and Rose ran up to the library to get a head start on her Potions essays.
It took her a while, but she found a book on a few different types of potions and took it to the remote place where the entrance to the Ravenclaw Tower was. She opened the book and saw a very large index. She turned back a bit too far and ended up in the 'LU' section. She saw something that caught her eye. It was 'LUCK'. She turned to the page it indicated and saw several different potion names. The first one was Felix Felicis.
The Felix Felicis Potion is an extremely strong luck potion. It is identified by its golden color. Just a little bit of Felix Felicis can make the user lucky for up to 12 hours. If used excessively, it could result in mishaps. A person who has drank Felix Felicis can be easily identified by a very happy look, an overconfidence that comes off more like someone who is drunk or high. The person may seem to make unusual choices that result in good things happening. Felix Felicis is also called 'Liquid Luck'.
"Interesting." Rose muttered to herself. She turned back a few pages in the index and found 'LAUGH'.
A few hours later, Madam Prince came and told Rose the library was closing for the night. Rose told her she was just going to put the book back and then she would leave. After the book was away, Rose returned to the place she was reading at, and pulled the large blue book. She walked through the tunnel until she finally reached the door. She knocked on the door with the knocker, the eagle opened it's mouth and said:
Expensive to view
Swallow not chew
Complex and petite
The worlds at my feet
The cat wears a grin
It's easy to win.
When the bird closed it's beak, Rose realised she had no idea what the answer was.
