The Students of Hogwarts and the Sorting Hat

Potions Class

Calvin

As the feast ended, and everyone was leaving, Calvin looked for some sign of where to go next. This whole world amazed him. Just weeks ago, he had assumed that he would be going to a normal school with all of his friends, until Professor McGonagall, the headmistress of Hogwarts had  come to his house and told him that he was a wizard and that he was invited to Hogwarts. Until then, his life had been normal, well almost normal. Now he was in a world that he once believed was just fantasy.

Someone called his name and he snapped out of his thoughts. One of the older students was speaking to him, “I am Harold, and I’m one of the Hufflepuff prefects. I will show you to your room, and if you have any questions, you can ask me.”

“Okay, “Calvin replied, and the set off to the Hufflepuff common room.

The common room looked very cozy. There were sofas with lots of comfortable cushions. The prefect sat down on one of them and motions for Calvin to take a seat.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” he began, “because your year is so small, we already have your schedule.” the prefect handed him a piece of parchment and proceeded to explain where the different classes were, scribbling a map out on another spare piece of parchment.

“now typically, us prefects usually introduce a new year of students to this house by explaining how we will act as your family at Hogwarts, etc. but you will probably also end up being pretty good friend with the other students in your year,” Harold explained, “oh, and just to let you know the other houses have a tendency to make fun of Hufflepuffs, especially Slytherins.”

“What about Ellie?” Questioned Calvin.

“The girl who became a Slytherin in your year?”

Calvin nodded and Harold shrugged in reply, “who know, your muggle born, right?”

Calvin nodded again.

“Well, Calvin, many of you-know-who’s followers were in Slytherin, and you have probably herd of you-know-who’s philosophy- or lack thereof.”

Despite the prefect’s efforts to persuade him that all Slytherins were bad, Calvin still didn’t believe it, for Ellie had seemed nice when he had met her on the boat, and besides, the sorting hat probably wanted thee to be one student in each house. In that case, it wasn’t Ellie’s fault that her last name was the farthest down the alphabet.

“Any other questions?” the prefect inquired.

Calvin shook his head and they both got up. The prefect showed him to his room with some second years who told him where his bed was. All of his things were already there, and he fell asleep quickly.

***

The first class they had that day was potions class. Calvin sat down in a chair followed by Teddy and Kathrine. They all starred at each other being the socially awkward people that they are for a few seconds and then began talking at the same time.

“You first,” Calvin gestured to Kathrine.

“Oh, I was just wondering,” she turned to Teddy, “wasn’t your hair turquoise yesterday? Because it is red now.”

“I’m a metamorphmagus,” he explained, “so I can change my appearance.”

“Cool,” exclaimed Calvin, “so can you change it to say… orange?”

Teddy closed his eyes and a second later, his hair was orange.

“That’s amazing!” said Kathrine, “how about blue?”

“Green?”

“Yellow”

“Maroon”

“Light violet”

“Puke green”

“Hot pink”

“The color of marsh mellows”

“Orange with purple polka-dots”

Every one turned around at the new voice.

“Hi every one,” said Ellie.

The room was suddenly quiet.

“Is this because I am a Slytherin or something? Because you all talked to me yesterday…” Ellie looked at them with an expression that showed she was disappointed, “well the sorting hat is crazy and I argued that Slytherin was not a good house to put me in, but did it listen? No. and now no one will talk to me!”

Then the teacher walked in and Ellie had to sit down.

“Hello class! I am Aniri Lequar Reldews,” the teacher informed them, “but you can call me Professor Reldews.” She walked up to the front of the classroom, “Welcome to Potions! This is my first year teaching but I hope that we will both learn a lot together!”

Then she began to hand out syllabuses. “The format of this class will closely resemble that of the classes that were taught by the most amazing potions teacher that ever came to Hogwarts,” she paused for emphasis, “Professor Snape!”

Katherine turned around in her chair to whisper to Calvin, “I think that our potions teacher is a little…” she twirled her index finger in circles near her ear. Calvin agreed.

“We will begin by taking a pretest of everything that you will learn in the next seven years at Hogwarts, you aren’t expected to know any of this yet, so if you don’t know something, just guess.”

 Calvin turned over his test and found fourteen multiple choice questions. Two for each year? He wondered. The questions asked things about different ingredients and their properties and uses, as well as what potion was used for what and which potion did what. He recognized some of the ingredients from when he had read his potions text book, but he couldn’t remember enough to answer the questions with certainty.

After a few more minutes, he finally turned his test in and looked around. Katherine was biting her lip as she starred hard at her paper, teddy was bubbling in an answer and Ellie was sitting in her chair, starring off into space as if she had finished a long time ago.

When the class ended, they were all walking down the hall to their next class when Kathrine asked Ellie, “How did you finish that test so fast?” echoing Calvin’s thoughts.

Ellie responded, “Well in Colorado, we don’t start learning spells until we are eleven or twelve, but I took this potions making class with my friends for a few years and we learned a lot. The book work is pretty easy, it is the potion making that is really hard.”

Then Teddy asked, “Does anyone else think that the teacher is a little crazy?” Everyone started laughing.

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A/N: Maybe I can get another chapter in sometime next week before I leave for Girlscout Camp for three weeks.