Hermione's Problems

Professor Snape's Antics

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. Hermione was fed up of Harry Potter being treated as a celebrity when all he really was, was a sweet young boy trying to hide from his own fame.

Hermione had managed to stay incontrol of her bladder during the day, thankfully however was still regularly wetting the bed at night, something she was now very used to, and had devised a simple ruitine to dispose of nappies without her dormitory noticing. 

Professor McGonagall;s classes were again different. Hermione learnt quickly to pay attention and take notes without cutting any corners, McGonagall was not a witch you should cross.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle, just like how Percy had explained.  By the end of the lesson, Hermione had just about to change the match's shape and colour, to a pointed silvery object but was very much still made of wood. However, as the only student to make any difference in her match, Hermione received an incredibly rare smile from Professor McGonagall.

Hermione learnt that there were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and the suits of Armour would roam around regularly.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop bin rubbish on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Filch would always tell off students who were in the wrong place, he often threatened to hang students by the thumbs in the dungeon or make them scrub the bottom of the lake.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

Hermione's Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were particularly interesting, not because of the subject, but Professor Quurrel's poor level of teaching. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went. Therefore, Hermione decided that Defence Against The Dark Arts was a skill she'd have to learn on her own in the library, not in Quirrell's lessons.