First morning at school

Chapter 43:

First morning at school

The feast ended with endless desserts from all over the world. There was every sort of pudding that one could think of. Ice cream in all flavors and baked sweet goods from every place imaginable. It was like a dream come true for every kid, except for Richard and Kyle. Both of them finished their meal with a nice-tasting tea and looked all around with relaxed gazes.

Most of the first - third years were almost fighting who could get what and only fourth years and above were eating much calmer and with more table manners.

When they had asked Charlie why many of the older students were also trying to taste everything but with more elan, he had answered that a feast like this only happened on the first day and on the holidays. On normal days, it was only normal food, with only a few options, and dessert was usually only served on weekends.

Also, a schedule of the food that was served each day of the week will hang in each common room. All of this "eating contest" made much more sense to Richard and Kyle after they heard this.

Sniffy was lost in three puddings and Richard swiped a few of the sweet things into his spatial ring for future snacks for her. Kyle saw this and also put some things into his ring secretly. Both of them worked with utmost caution in this operation and got a few good-looking things.

Their reason being, it was very good when you needed to bribe a few kids with some sweets, or just to surprise their friends. The ability of their rings came in handy as time was frozen in them and no food would ever spoil there.

The desserts were finished after a bit, and Dumbledore was giving his usual welcome speech. He told all of them to enjoy their stay and that the forbidden forest was off-limits. At this part, Richard let out a chuckle as he thought about what good would do such a speech to little kids.

An authority person forbidding children something, that was just like inviting them to do some rule-breaking. He looked over at the Weasley twins and found a twinkle in their eyes at this point of the speech.

After another few minutes of welcoming them and with nothing out of the norm happening, like a death corridor, Dumbledore finished his speech and wished them goodnight.

The older students went on to their common rooms while Charlie Weasley rounded up all the first years alongside the female prefect, who introduced herself as Beatrice Harris. She looked like your next-door neighbor with long curly brown hair and had a confident smile on her face.

Walking up to the Gryffindor common room should take them about 15 minutes from the great hall while both prefects told them some intricacies of the moving staircases and the castle.

Apparently, the staircases moved with intent and when you wanted to go up, then it would bring you up. It was trickier when more people stood on the landing of one staircase and the intent of most of them would win. Therefore, if someone wanted to go up, then they should just wait on the right side and on the left side to go down. So it was much easier to figure out where the stair would move to.

Beatrice also warned them of Peeves, the poltergeist. When he was around, he loved to annoy people by enchanting the staircases so that some steps would go invisible or be more prone to stumbling.

He was mostly annoying the first and second-year students since they could not do much to him. They would learn spells to deal with him only during the second year and should just call one of the older housemates when they had troubles with him. Peeves also kind of feared the bloody baron, and he was usually in the dungeons.

All muggleborn students were captivated by the beauty of the castle and looked all over the place. Torches were floating all over the corridors and the staircases were brightly lit by an unknown light source. Richard was curious as he could not find any point where the light came from. The entire room was just brightly lit.

When he was asking this question, Beatrice and Charlie looked at each other and could only helplessly answer that they did not know. No one had ever asked them something like this, but he should be able to find some clues in the library.

Richard wrote this down in his head for future research and looked all over the place. Everything looked brand new. It did not look like an old castle. No dents or cracks could be found anywhere. The floor was spotlessly clean and every suit of armor that stood by the wall was also rust-free.

On the floor could be seen carpets all over the place in every color imaginable. Richard was not expecting such an inviting feeling from the castle. He had expected an old-looking castle with the wind blowing through holes and cold stone floors with spiderwebs in every nook, but he was nicely surprised by this.

Their way took them through a few more corridors and they stopped in front of the fat lady. After announcing the password to everyone, the picture did not swing to the side like in the original but got see-through. Everyone made their way through the picture and into the common room.

Every newcomer was stunned by what they saw. It was a cozy-looking room with a red carpet all over the floor and Gryffindor flags hanging all over the walls. On the walls were also pictures of quidditch games and many miscellaneous things. There were swords, maces, and many more types of weapons.

Three open fireplaces stood on each wall excluding the wall where they came through and a magical fire was burning inside them. Next to the fireplaces were couches and cushions placed all over the floor. A few people were sitting inside them and were talking to each other.

6 long tables stood at the right side with chairs beside them, obviously for learning. A few bookshelves were placed on the wall with all kinds of books on them. On the ceiling were a few chandeliers floating around, which lit up the room with dancing flames.

On the left side could be seen two staircases that snaked their way up to the dormitories. Next to it was a door that led to two bathrooms for everyone. In between doors and bookshelves could be seen French windows which showed them the castle grounds outside.

It took a few moments for every fresh face to come back to their senses and all of them fell instantly in love with this place.

Richard was one of the more surprised people and was more expecting that this room looked like its movie counterpart, but oh boy was that different. It was so much bigger and more amazing than that.

Beatrice gave them a tour and told them about their daily routine. Breakfast was served from 7 to 8, 12-13, and 18-19. Their schedules for classes would be handed over tomorrow at breakfast and she reminded them of the curfew at 9 pm. If they were caught outside the common room, then they would serve harsh detention. Only in their 5th year would this be more relaxed. Then they could be out till 12pm.

After ending their tour and telling all kids that boys would not be allowed in the girl rooms as the stairs were enchanted to not let them up. Both prefects walked them up to their dormitories and told them they should go to sleep soon, as it had been a long day.

Both Kyle and Richard had already said goodnight to Sniffy and let her chat with her newfound roommates.

The student dormitories were strange. Gryffindor was placed in one tower and it was a given that it was enchanted to be bigger on the inside than on the outside, but the staircase to their dorms led them up and none of that was seen from the outside.

Windows could be found now and then, and the scenery through them was breathtaking. They went up to the 4th floor and got through the second door. A corridor appeared in front of them and a few doors were visible. Charlie told them that the first floor was for prefects and seventh-year students, the second for 5 and 6 years, and so on. He also wished them goodnight and left them alone.

If one of them had questions, they just needed to stop by one of the prefect rooms.

Finding a door with his name on it, Richard went inside and was apparently sharing the room with Kyle, Fred and George, and Lee Jordan.

When he stepped inside, he was nicely surprised as he stepped into another enormous living room. On the sides were 6 doors with 5 rooms for each of them and a bathroom. Bright letters showed which room was for who.

The right side was practically a huge French window to look at the surroundings of Hogwarts. It was an amazing view. Under it on the window ledge was a cozy mattress placed to relax.

Checking out the bathroom, they found a huge bathroom with 2 showers, 4 sinks, and 2 toilets. Everything was in this old castle style, and every one of them loved it.

Back in the living room, they wished each other a good night and went to their private rooms. Their individual rooms had a vast bed, with a nice drawer next to it, and on the left wall stood a table with a chair, and next to it was a cupboard.

The floor was also full of this cozy carpet and on each side of the room were vast windows. Richard did not understand how such a thing could work, but it had to be magic as the rooms of the other boys were right next to his. Looking up at the ceiling, he was dumbfounded again. He was looking at the clear sky with stars and the moon clearly visible. The enchantment of the great hall was not only in the great hall.

Richard marveled at this and could not wait for a rainy day to fall asleep at this view.

Not having to unpack anything, he just put out some of his books next to the bed, magically changed his clothes to his pajamas, and went to bed. It was an eventful day and Richard was now sure that many things were different. He had counted the teachers, and they were much more than he had ever seen in the movies or read about in the books.

He knew things would be different in reality and just hoped that his future knowledge was of more use here. Alone, that much more children were going to school here was saying something.

Not being able to calm down for a long time, he thought about these differences and hoped that the plot was the same, at least for the time being. His next two years here at Hogwarts should be the most relaxing years to come, therefore he decided himself and thought not too much about the plot. He had a lot more time to study these changes.

The most important thing was now to become stronger and learn more about magic.

Falling asleep a bit later, he was having some weird dream about Voldemort coming back as a vampire and playing in the circus. It was a stunning picture, Voldyshorts juggling things around.

The entire room was shrouded in darkness as Richard woke up, and the room lit up. The enchantments in this room were strange. Last night, he did not know how to turn the lights off, but when he thought about that, they went dimmer and the room was darkened, except for the moonlight that was shining on him.

Richard chuckled about his dream and made sure to review it later in his meditation session. Getting up from his bed, he then used a few spells to get ready for the day and his clothes changed into their training form.

Snow was now back in her full might and was prancing around his shirt for the moment while grumbling at Richard, as she was almost hidden on his school uniform.

"Yes, yes. I am sorry. I can do nothing about that. You would be too catchy on my school uniform. However, you can enjoy the next two days as it is the weekend."

He was speaking to Snow in a soothing voice and was smiling at what Sniffy had practically created. At first, his wolf was only an inanimate object who was doing a few things, but after Sniffys newest change, it lived. Richard was not quite used to his recent addition but was also loving every single thing about it.

Being ready, he went out of the room and found Kyle already waiting for him. "Morning." Both greeted each other and chatted a bit while they walked down to the common room. It was their usual time for practice and they were very energetic and practically jumped 3 chairs at once.

Sniffy was already waiting in the common room and greeted them enthusiastically. "Good morning, you two. Did you sleep well?"

Nodding their heads at her, the trio went out of the common room and, surprisingly, stood in a pitch-black corridor.

"It looks like not even the pictures are awake at this hour." Chuckling at that, they went on to the moving staircases and got down to the ground floor. As they were the only ones on the staircases, they got down easily and had not had to wait for one at all.

Kyle looked up where they came from and said." Next time we could just jump, it would be a lot faster and much more fun. Hm we could even "surprise" a few little redheads with this." He had a mischievous-looking smile on his face when he looked at Richard while Sniffy could only shake her head at his antics.

Richard liked this idea, and both of them were hatching a plan for this.

This darkness would freak out most students, but not one of the trio had any trouble seeing in the darkness. Everyone had their own way, and they soon came to the door that should lead them out of the school.

Opening it, all three of them were prepared for a loud old door noise, but it opened with no trouble.

Walking out of the old castle, they soon changed from walking into running and started their usual training. Running around the lake took them a good junk of time and they found a pleasant spot next to the forbidden forest to get their training done.

It was a nice place, where few people would come to since it was way out of the way and normal students would surely not come this far.

Their training took them the usual time and Sniffy was quite surprised when she felt sunrays on her body. Basking in the rays for a couple of minutes, she then remembered something.

All of them were now at school and their usual schedule would have to change. Looking for the time, she found out that it was already late. 7:34 to be precise.

Alarming her friends of this, who were completely immersed in their sparring match and she needed to pour some water on them to get them out of it.

Explaining what was going on, she was flustered about this situation. Kyle and Richard were also not expecting this and dried themselves. It had taken them about an hour to get here. On a normal Saturday, it would not have been an issue, but to not be there at their first meal was not good. They would get their schedules today and could not skip it.

Thinking about a way out of this, Richard had an idea. "Can you two not teleport us in front of the entrance?" Hearing this, Kyle and Sniffy got out of their heads and answered.

"Yes" "True" Seeing them both nod at this and hearing them answer, he said. "Then let's get ready." Not wanting to eat breakfast with the smell of sweat on their bodies, they were using a few cleaning spells and turned their clothes into more appropriate ones.

Both boys were now wearing simple jeans and a shirt, and above them, a robe. Sniffy, on the other hand, was going with leggings and a skirt over it and a t-shirt. Not even bothering about a robe. Both of her clothes were deep blue with flowers all over them and the leggings were black themed.

Sniffy took Richard's hand, and all three vanished in the blink of an eye and appeared right next to the entrance door in a little corner.

Walking inside the castle and into the great hall. They found some free seats in the middle of the table and started eating a few things after greeting their classmates.

"Thought you three had vanished." Said Fred. "We knocked on your doors for a couple of minutes, but you never answered and the doors were locked." Talked George on.

"We even asked Melinda if she knew where you were Sophia, but she also did not know." Came back from Fred.

All three of them could only say that they were out for their morning training and their classmates around them looked confused at this statement. Richard explained they were training each morning to stay fit, but all around them could not understand why someone wanted to do that and got back to their breakfast.

Breakfast was ending and Professor McGonagall was coming down from her seat and up to the table where all first years were sitting.

"I hope you all have a fine morning and did like your first night here at the castle."

All of them wished her a good morning and smiled at her. She did not seem so strict after all.

"Here are your schedules for Monday till Friday. Use these two days to get yourself aquatinted with the castle. The rooms and floors are on the bottom of the sheet for each class, don´t be late on your first day and have a pleasant weekend."

McGonagall said to the students, and then handed out all of their schedules. After that, she said that her doors were open for them if they had questions.

With this ended their breakfast and the trio was looking forward to exploring the big castle for the next couple of days. Sniffy was apologizing to Melinda and her other roommates as they were also very concerned about her whereabouts, as they could not find her down here after looking through the common room.