Invisible

THE POTIONS MASTER

HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
CHAPTER 8

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"And ten points will be given to Slytherin because, apparently, the other Potter isn't as useless as her brother."

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{ CHAPTER 7 }

A BIT OF A JOKE

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WHISPERS FOLLOW LILY'S BROTHER from the moment he leaves his dormitory the next day. People queuing outside classrooms stand on tiptoe to get a look at him or double back to pass him in the corridors again, staring.

Lily has decided to ignore, or at least try, the fact that she's invisible next to Harry. She has decided that she will act the same way she used to before Hagrid had come to take them. It will be hard, but she doesn't know what she'll do if she's completely alone, especially now.

She wishes they wouldn't obsess over him, because she's trying to stay calm and concentrate on finding her way to classes while they push and run past her on their way to Harry.

There are a ton of different types of staircases at Hogwarts, doors that don't open unless you ask politely, or tickle them in exactly the right place (which is very weird), and other doors that aren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It's also very hard to remember where anything is because it all seems to move around a lot. The people in the portraits keep going to visit each other, and Lily is sure the coats of armour can walk.

The ghosts don't help, either. It's always a nasty shock when one of them glides suddenly through a door you're trying to open (or worse - glides through you). The Bloody Baron is never happy to point new Slytherins in the right direction, and Peeves the poltergeist is worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you meet him when you're late for class.

Then there's also the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry, Ron and Lily managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Filch found them trying to 'force their way' through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor which Lily assumes Dumbledore had told them about during her vision.

He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing by.

Filch owns a cat called Mrs Norris, a scrawny, dust-coloured creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes just like Filch's. She patrols the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'll whisk off for Filch, who'll appear, wheezing, two seconds later.

Filch knows the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins, apparently the school troublemakers) and can pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hate him, and it's the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs Norris a good kick.

Lily honestly doesn't think he's that bad. He's just very keen on doing his job well, and she doesn't support animal abuse, no matter how much the animal annoys you.

And then, once she's managed to find them, there are the classes themselves. There's a lot more to magic, as Lily quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. Unfortunately, Harry and Lily don't have many classes together.

Lily has to study the night skies through telescopes every Thursday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week she and her fellow Slytherins go out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learn how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and find out what they're used for. Every time, Lily hopes she'll teach them about the plant she'd seen in her vision, but so far, the woman hasn't even mentioned anything remotely similar to it.