Harry Potter : Chapter 4: Lesson Given, Lesson Learned I

The Welcoming Feast had delivered on the expectations I had from my metaknowledge, and after stuffing ourselves, meeting the ghosts, and being generally warned from the Forbidden Forest by Headmaster Armando Dippet, we first years followed a male Prefect charged with leading the way.

"You're a big one, aren't you? How did it come to be?" I turned my head to my left, where a dark-haired girl, with her badge shining proudly on her robes, was eyeing me with open curiosity.

"Potion accident when I was a child," I offered my practised lie with a thin smile, "I was too curious for my own good I suppose."

And that was that.

We were led from the Great Hall through a confusing set of stairs and corridors, finally reaching the dungeons while the prefects explained what their role was.

"I am Joseph Deverill, she's Genine Carrow, we're the fifth year prefects. So if you need anything in these first weeks, don't hesitate to ask. Now, try to remember the way, and don't tell it to anyone from the other Houses, it's a secret."

The trick to not getting lost is just keeping going down. I thought to myself as I looked over the ambience. Gone were the great windows and almost none airy landings. In fact, the corridors were noticeably smaller, and dare I say it? Even gloomier.

After two utterly unremarkable suits of armour and a nook for a lit torch, the prefects had us stop in front of an apparently random stretch of wall, where he spoke: "Palmam qui meruit ferat".

The blank wall seemed to unfold with a sound of grinding stone, not unlike what I remembered from Diagon Alley's entrance.

The resulting archway let us access a large room made of granite, characterised with leather couches around low coffee tables, armchairs and lit fireplaces situated in locations in order to stave off the cold and damp.

It was, without a doubt, the most dungeon-like room I had ever seen, with greenish lamps and chairs. This dungeon extended partway under the lake, which gave the light in the room a green tinge.

The common room had lots of low backed black and dark green button-tufted, leather sofas and dark wood cupboards. One of the wooden tables had a Wizard's Chess set on it, where a couple of older students was playing while drinking what I was certain wasn't water.

Where the walls weren'0t bare, the room was decorated with tapestries featuring the adventures of famous Medieval Slytherins.

It has quite a grand atmosphere, but also quite a cold one. I thought as my eyes landed on one side of the room was placed the largest fireplace, which roared merrily and around which the older students seemed to hold council, or some tripe along those lines.

There was a piece of abhorrently classical and slow music playing from a gramophone and the quiet chattering of students covered the room in a white noise not dissimilar from the pattering of a shy rain.

While I ignored the repetitive explanation about House Points and Quidditch, prefect Joseph led us towards one archway, that after a few meters let us in a circular room that held seven minor archways, whose contents got lost in the darkness.

"Each corridor contains a number of rooms." With a twitch of his wand, a brilliant '1' appeared on our left. "Each year the corridors slide clockwork wise, so now you'll always know where your room is.

I suggest you don't try to bother the older years: stay in your corridor. And don't even attempt to enter the gals' dormitory, the wards won't let you."

Joseph Deverill simply gestured towards our corridor.

"The House Elves will bring your belongings once you choose a room, so tuck in, your first week will be demanding, I suggest taking as much shut-eye as you can."

I let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding when it was revealed that each was going to have his own room, that we would keep for the seven years and that would be returned to its original state once we completed our stay at Hogwarts. 

I'm never letting anything important in my room. I decided as I walked towards the first room, the other firsties, still somewhat wary of my size, were all too glad to follow my lead.

My room was more akin to a cubicle than an actual room, with just enough space for a bed, the trunk that appeared at its feet, and a bathroom that was actually somewhat lavish. And not for the first time, I was overjoyed that I was born after the invention of toilets.

The idea of shitting in a hole on a plank of wood did not amuse me in the slightest. Then again, maybe wizards had a solution before plumbing became a thing.

I eyed my bed with a critical eye: "I'll need to learn Engorgio properly sooner or later."

Relishing the warmth from my wand as I waved it in a slow clockwise circle followed by a jab, envisioning the result I was expecting while I willed reality to bend, I spoke: "Engorgio!"

Almost as if I was using Word to process an image, it looked like I had taken an angle of the bed and pulled following the diagonal, causing the width and the length of the bed to grow in a proportionate manner.

With a satisfied smile, I undressed and went to sleep, briefly considering trying a Colloportus in order to secure my room before abandoning the idea.

One thing was using a charm that I managed to study upon the books that Hagrid's father kept since his time at the school, a whole different kettle of fish was attempting something that I was aware of only thanks to my metaknowledge.

So I simply pinned the door in position through my trunk, heaving it easily with a strength that I still wasn't used to, and then went to sleep.

...

My first days at Hogwarts went by in a rush of lessons and impromptu explorations. It was all too easy to get lost when trying to navigate the castle, which in my opinion had a tendency to spontaneously rearrange itself. The books only spoke about the Stairs Moving, there was no talk about magic fuckery going on everywhere.

Defence Against the Dark Arts was for now mostly theory, listing a number of minor magical creatures that were somewhat nasty unless you knew how to deal with them, but we were weeks away from learning actual magic.

Herbology had very little to do with magic in my opinion, and a lot to do with remaining calm, caring for nothing but the greenery around you. While I didn't particularly enjoy having to scrub the dirt from beneath my fingernails, I bulldozed through my tasks with methodical stubbornness, and dutifully memorized the information about the plants, hoping that at least they would turn out useful in Potions.

History, sadly, had one very dead Professor Binns as its teacher. So I spent those hours either doing homework or preparing diagrams in order to study History on my own.

On Tuesdays, just before midnight, we had astronomy with Professor Summit, a woman who always had a pair of binoculars hanging from her neck. Her class took place at the top of Hogwarts' tallest tower, where we poked our telescopes between the crenelations to chart the heavens with sleepy eyes.

It was interesting, more or less, mostly because the stars and the other celestial bodies influenced the development of some potions I had read in the Library, but otherwise useless.

Sure, I was aware that a Basilisk hatched from a chicken egg under a toad after a night of the full moon, at least listening to my metaknowledge, but for some reason, I doubted that we were going to be taught the importance of starts during the creation of rituals to create lethal beasts that we could drop on our enemies.

But, if Herbology, Astronomy, Defence and History were somewhat exactly how I had thought they would be, Charms, Transfiguration and Potions actually caught my interest.

Besides the frustration born out of my occasionally getting lost, which I did in fact share with all the others first years, to the amusement of the older students, it appeared clear that using magic was not a priority for our professors, which were busy making inane questions that challenged the absence of logic of Wizardkind in a way that did not make sense.

"To cast magic, you must first understand what it is you are doing," explained Professor Farsee in Charms. She was a small, elderly witch, not more than five feet tall, and of a serious disposition: "You can pronounce an incantation beautifully, move your wand with exquisite precision, and yet nothing will happen if your head contains no more understanding of magic than does a Muggle's!"

Sarah Wingtip, a first-year Ravenclaw with whom Slytherin shared Charms, raised her hand from her place next to me: "But sir, what about accidental magic?"

"An excellent question!" Professor Farsee exclaimed. Her voice ascended in pitch when she got excited, temporarily abandoning her gravelly tone in a way that managed to convey her passion for the subject.

"In truth, all wizards can cast some rudimentary magic without training. Think of it like a conversation with someone who doesn't speak English. You might be able to get by, a little, with pointing at things.

If you have a mind for languages, you may even pick a few words up. But to have a proper conversation, you need to learn their language. So it is with magic."

From the back of the class, where I could easily oversee everything going on, I raised my hand and asked once I was called by the elderly witch: "The 'language' of magic works through what then? Symbols? Is that the reason behind the wand motions?"

I earned 2 points for my House with my insightful question, which received an affirmative answer: "But then if the symbols make sense only to me, would it be possible to use different wand-motions in order to perform the same Charm?"

And just like that, I lost 5 points because my questions disturbed the normal advancing of the class.

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