Emma Potter

8: A new Life

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the red hair. and girl with bushy hair"

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Coppery-bronze hair?"

"Did you see their faces?"

"Did you see their scars?"

Whispers followed Harry and me from the moment we left our comman the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at us, or doubled back to pass us in the corridors again, staring. I wished they wouldn't, becauseit was bloody annoying. 

Hermione and I managed to find our way to classes  easily. Harry and ron however....weren't so lucky. Who I really despised at hogwarts was the caretaker and his cat.Argus Filch. Harry and Ron managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning{congrats, to my brother}. 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. 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.

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.

We had to study the night skies through our telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week we went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for. Easily the most interesting class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while Everyone thought he was boring, I couldn't be happier to learn about the history of magic.

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 reachedMine  Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.He also said he had never seen such raw charms talent as he had in me and hermione when we were the only 2 who managed to send our rocks running across our desks

Professor McGonagall was again different.  Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

"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. we were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, b. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only me and Hermione  had made any difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how ours had gone all silver and pointy and gaveus a rare smile."You ahve your mothers talent Ms. Potter" she told me , I was ready to burst with pride.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. 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.

Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like us, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn't have much of a head start.

Friday was an important day for Harry and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.