I woke up around seven in the morning, took a shower and got ready without rushing, then woke up the girls at half past seven. While waiting for them, I chatted with my parents. Judging by how quickly they responded, they were sitting over their parchment and keeping watch—poor things. There was definitely some sense in Hermione's position of "not telling them anything." Although people get used to everything, it's impossible to be afraid for too long. I hope.
When we came downstairs at five minutes to eight, the sleepy boys were already waiting on the couch. The prefect handed out our schedules. So, in the first year there are only eight subjects, if you count flying, which is taught for a month. Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Herbology, History of Magic, Astronomy, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Classes only until lunch, except for night Astronomy on Wednesday. I wonder who are those lucky ones who have Astronomy practice on Friday? Overall, the schedule is pretty slack.
What I want to say. First of all, our Head of House is an awesome lady! After classes, she came to our common room, met the first-years, checked how we'd settled in, and invited us to come to her if we needed anything. She told us a bit about Hogwarts and reminded the prefects to give us an orientation tour of the castle. Also, according to the upper-years, every Saturday Professor Sprout organizes evening gatherings with her House and asks the elves to deliver tea and cookies to the common room. And this is actually the only way to get tea from the elves. The older students showed us the way to the kitchen in the first few days, where we can always stock up on food. But the elves don't give tea, let alone coffee. They say it's not allowed, and they twist their own ears. Well, coffee—fine, but why not tea? Although you can get pumpkin juice and thank goodness apple juice from them in any quantity. So I was extremely pleased with my foresight. I won't have to live for half a year on juice alone. And I'll share with my roommates, of course.
The prefects showed us all the necessary classrooms and main landmarks, but they didn't take us to the eighth floor and the picture with the dancing trolls—I'll have to find it on my own later.
The impression of the lessons in canon was generally correct. Astronomy and Herbology were pleasing in that they were similar to lessons in a regular school, albeit with unusual plants in the case of Herbology. A normal, understandable, and logical learning process.
Flitwick's lessons were fun, although in my opinion, he perceived us as children too much, as if first-years were not eleven, but six years old. So he constantly tried to entertain us so that no one would get bored. His method of flying on a book is worth noting and trying myself. Everyone in our group managed to levitate a feather except for Neville. The realization that he was the last one completely threw him off, and he even started making pronunciation mistakes that he hadn't made before. I remember from canon that his wand didn't suit him at all. McGonagall wouldn't care about this, of course, but I could talk to Pomona Sprout about it later if nothing changes.
McGonagall's class was boring and she's no teacher at all. The children were just blindly memorizing formulas, and whether they succeeded or not was a matter of chance. Those who managed earlier than others were just bored until the end of the lesson while everyone else tried. After I transformed a match into a needle, received the legitimate five points for it, and did it twenty more times, canceling each time with Finite, out of boredom I transformed my notebook into a Rubik's cube (it's not that I'm so cool, it's just that I have an adult's consciousness, and it doesn't take much more energy than for a match) and got minus ten points for mischief for it. So minus five points for the lesson. One Ravenclaw, who created a needle first, also had minus five points, as he started reading a book on charms. Oh well.
By the way, my notebooks and pens became another reason for the Gryffindor Head's displeasure. But thank her for not forbidding them, she only emphasized that if I decided to submit an essay to her written with a Muggle pen, I would immediately get a troll grade. I learned to write with quills, but why suffer unnecessarily if you don't have to? I can manage an essay with a quill, but writing with it during a lecture is too slow and my hand gets tired. I gave a couple of pens and notebooks to Justin, a Muggle-born suffering from the same problem. Apparently, his parents were hit with a much stronger Confundus, since they didn't even think to add a couple of pencils beyond the school list.
Professor Binns mumbled about goblin rebellions. Also an interesting topic, but not in his presentation. However, if you ask questions, you can extract a lot of useful information from him, provided that the information fits into a couple of sentences. Otherwise, he would abruptly break off in the middle of a thought and continue about the goblins from where I interrupted him.
In Defense, I immediately dragged Neville to the very back of the classroom. I suggested that the girls sit further back too, but they didn't appreciate my brilliant strategy and sat at the front desk. I bet they regretted it when Quirrell arrived. But even at the last desk, the aroma was something else. And what to do with him? Even if I knew the Bubble-Head Charm or air purification spells—I still wouldn't risk it right under Voldemort's nose. Although he doesn't have a nose... I'll have to endure. After the very first DADA class, I fully believed that Voldemort is universal evil. Okay, the smell. He's not able to deal with it himself. But why s-s-s-s-stutter like that when he doesn't have to?!
On Friday we had Potions. Hufflepuffs with Ravenclaws first period, Gryffindors with Slytherins second. Professor Snape is truly epic when he rushes down the corridor like a big bat, and today I'll finally get a closer look at him. Up close, Snape looked like a fairly young man who neglects a healthy lifestyle. Perhaps he reminds me of a Linux enthusiast who fanatically recompiles the kernel at night, forgets to eat on time, and considers all Windows users to be sheep.
"...if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach," Snape finishes his introductory speech. His voice is beautiful, but his self-esteem is clearly off the charts.
Potter isn't with us, so Snape calmly conducts roll call, asks a couple of questions on the lesson topic to randomly selected students, and tells us to begin. He didn't ask me anything, and I didn't raise my hand. In other lessons, I volunteered to answer regularly; it's better to have a reputation among teachers as a bit of a bookworm rather than still waters. We brewed the potion independently, not in pairs. Neville was sitting at the desk to my right. Remembering canon, I kept an eye on him. However, now Neville isn't scared by inexplicable confrontations with Harry Potter and strange aggression from the teacher, so maybe he'll manage on his own.
But no, some things don't change with a change of house. He's reaching for the porcupine quills with his hand over the boiling cauldron.
"No!" I make a jump towards him and grip the quills together with his fingers.
Snape sharply spun around:
"What is the matter, Miss Granger?" he burns me with his gaze.
Damn, he really knows how to intimidate; even I'm affected by such a tone, and Neville has completely drawn his head into his shoulders.
"Porcupine quills, sir," I explain.
Snape looked at the fire under Neville's cauldron and measured him with a contemptuous look:
"Idiot! I suppose you don't know that if you add porcupine quills before you take the cauldron off the fire, there will be an explosion? Because of your stupidity, your classmates could have been injured! Minus ten points from Hufflepuff and a troll for the lesson."
You're the idiot, I think, making a child cry. You can yell at an adult student so they understand their mistakes, but an eleven-year-old won't understand anything, they'll just be scared. That's what happens when a person doesn't love their job.
Before lunch, we meet Harry and Ron near the Great Hall. Until this day, we communicated in hello-goodbye mode; outside our common room, the girls and Neville were always with me, and Ron always tried to quickly drag Harry away from us. But today Harry was bursting with resentment, so he, ignoring Ron's maneuvers, complained about Snape at length and with relish.
Yes, Professor Snape is quite a character. He also yelled at Neville for no reason, and by the way, he's his own worst enemy, because a frightened Neville is a time bomb. The teacher is still responsible for our safety. Even if children aren't particularly protected in this school, Neville could accidentally blow up the professor himself. If canon is to be believed, he is exceptionally talented.
I agreed with Harry that Snape was wrong, sympathized, and advised ignoring the professor's attacks as much as possible, focusing on the potions themselves. You can't always find a reason for dislike, and it's better to pay attention to those who like us. Harry agreed that those who praised him were more numerous.
"Hermione, come with us to Hagrid's today, he invited us for tea?" a couple of seconds later, realizing I wasn't alone, he invited the rest of the company too.
Susan and Hannah didn't want to go to the gamekeeper's, and Neville was too shy, since he wasn't specifically invited. Well, I'll go.
Hagrid's place is very atmospheric—a real hunter's cabin. Roughly hewn wooden furniture, a fireplace made of unprocessed stone, hams hanging from the ceiling, bundles of skins, bunches of herbs and feathers. I like it. For the two hundred and first time, I regretted forgetting my camera. For some reason, my parents don't want to send it with an owl.
There was a newspaper clipping on the table. Showing all my dexterity, I supposedly accidentally brushed it onto the floor with my sleeve. It seems no one noticed. Hagrid brewed us delicious tea, scolded Filch and Snape to the delight of the boys. Very pedagogical. Although Hagrid will become a professor only in a couple of years, however, in the book this won't affect him in any way.
I change the subject:
"Hagrid, tell us about your work, the Forbidden Forest—it's so interesting! What animals live there? And which are your very favorite?"
The giant broke into a smile and enthusiastically began to talk about all kinds of creatures. Yes, working with animals is definitely his thing. About the acromantulas, characteristically, not a word. So, it turns out, Hagrid is excellent at keeping secrets when he needs to.
After such a pleasant conversation and my undoubted interest, I'm almost Hagrid's best friend. In response to my admiration for unicorns, he gave me a whole bundle of their hair. Hagrid, you fool, do you even know how much this costs? And what potions can be brewed from them... I showered him with thanks, clarified several times whether he really didn't need them himself, and carefully put them in my bag. My preciousssss!
I hadn't noticed such greed in myself before. However, previously, almost strangers hadn't given me such valuable things.
We sat almost until curfew, the conversation about the robbery never came up—well, that's just fine.
On Saturday morning, my owl brought me and Justin our first pack of assignments. Yes, he did talk to his parents, and Lord Finch-Fletchley enrolled him in some elite school by correspondence. We arranged it through me, that is, through my parchment. My parents called Justin's parents and kept in touch by phone, corresponding with us. And then they decided to meet in person and discuss everything. Looking ahead, I'll say that they became quite close on the basis of criticizing the magical world and the problems of raising magical children.
I suggested to the girls that we make a sofa out of the unused fourth bed and organize a corner for tea parties. For this we needed a table with chairs, and we decided to go to Filch. I was ready to go alone, as the oldest, but my roommates turned out to be real comrades-in-arms. I say this without irony, as first-years were openly afraid of Filch. He, learning that we weren't there for detention, was very surprised, grumbled in response to the request, but still allowed us to pick something from the broken furniture. Well, Reparo to help us.
We turned the fourth bed with its wide side to the wall, removed the canopy from it, I took out the blanket and pillows I brought with me from my backpack. It turned out quite well. The former canopy made a nice tablecloth for the table, which was actually a former desk.
I took out tea boxes with tea bags; it turned out that in magical England, tea with different flavors is a rarity, so teas with the taste of raspberry, cinnamon, tropical fruits were a big hit, as well as Muggle chocolate. The girls brought out magical sweets, and Susan promised to ask her aunt to send a teapot, so we wouldn't have to conjure boiling water in cups every time.
I got lucky with my roommates. They are both very sweet and were friends even before Hogwarts, I enjoyed talking with them, and in the evenings, when I was tired of conversations, they easily left me alone with a book, spending time with each other. I looked after Neville as much as I could, and did homework with Justin. It would be nice to find someone my own age. My own psychological age. Parents don't count; we have a good relationship, but it's still easier for them to perceive Hermione as a child. And I can understand them. Well, not everything at once. And maybe in a few years I will already be more of a teenager than an adult woman. The body and teenage hormonal boom can't help but have an influence.