Disappointing Classes

The next morning Draco woke Harry very early, before the sun was up.

'Have you forgotten the second rule?' Harry asked groggily.

'We're not at home and you're not Sirius,' Draco retorted. 'Come on, I want to explore a bit with the Map before breakfast.'

Harry dragged himself out of bed and splashed some water on his face. He walked over to his trunk and let out a low hiss. The trunk popped open and Harry retrieved his clothes, the Cloak and the Map.

'A Parseltongue password?' Draco observed once they had left the room. 'Nice.'

'I didn't want Weasley nicking my things in the middle of the night,' Harry replied.

'I had the same thought,' Draco admitted. 'But I just used a simple Blood Charm.'

'No need to make things complex when simple will do the trick,' Harry agreed. Before they left the Common Room, he slipped the Cloak over himself and Draco. The Cloak easily covered them both, and they found they could manoeuvre about the castle quite comfortably. Draco held the Cloak up a bit and Harry opened the Map. Most everyone was still asleep, of course, so the boys devoted their attention to learning their way about the castle.

Even with the Map, it wasn't simple. Doors didn't always lead where they should, and staircases had a tendency to move about. If it weren't for the advantage afforded by the Marauder's Map, Draco and Harry felt certain that they would get lost quite easily.

On their way back to Gryffindor Tower, Harry and Draco charmed the suits of armour to swear at passers-by. It was a simple prank, the first one James's portrait had ever taught them, but it felt wrong to let the opportunity pass completely, and the boys had nothing else prepared. They thought it would at least get the new term off to a decent start.

Harry ran upstairs to return the Cloak and Map to his trunk, and collected the rat's corpse. He dashed off a short note to Sirius before making his way up to the Owlery, where he sent Pollux off with the package before heading down to the Great Hall to join Draco for breakfast. Dean Thomas was also at the table.

'What took you so long?' Draco demanded as he piled his plate with sausages.

'I had to send a note to Dad,' Harry explained, and eagerly helped himself to breakfast.

'Everyone was whispering about your dad on the train,' Dean said between mouthfuls of porridge. 'He sounds like a pretty interesting bloke. What's he like?'

'My dad is the coolest wizard in the world,' Harry replied with a smile. 'He's good at everything and loads of fun.'

'The best part is, Uncle Sirius really listens to you,' Draco added. 'You know how parents are sometimes distracted by other things, and just want to get you out of their hair?' Dean nodded. 'Uncle Sirius is never like that,' Draco finished.

Dean chuckled. 'He sounds brilliant. I'd like to meet him.'

'Maybe you'll get a chance sometime,' Harry replied.

The food at Hogwarts wasn't quite up to Mopsy's standard, let alone Granny's, but it was decent enough, and Harry and Draco each polished off a couple of plates worth before heading to their first class.

The boys found their classes disappointing, to say the least. It turned out that Aunt Cassie's standards were rather higher than those of their professors, and both boys were head and shoulders above their classmates. In Astronomy the boys already knew the major constellations and stars, and tended to draw funny looks whenever they exclaimed 'There's Great-Granddad!' or 'There you are!'. Herbology was straightforward enough, though neither Harry nor Draco had any particular zeal for the subject. Harry was pleased, however, when Neville Longbottom decided to sit with them. He seemed to be quite the leader in Hufflepuff, and also had a flair for the subject.

History of Magic was taught by a ghost, and neither Harry nor Draco had any idea how the other students were supposed to learn anything with the mindless way Professor Binns droned on. Aunt Cassie's lessons had been far more interesting, with lots of little anecdotes about Emeric the Evil's third wife or Uric the Oddball's illegitimate offspring.

'How do you reckon the others keep them all straight without the stories?' Draco asked Harry after their first class. Harry could only shrug.

Charms was fun, as both boys could handle most everything in the first-year curriculum, but it didn't prove much of a challenge. Harry and Draco had hoped that perhaps Transfiguration would be more interesting, especially since McGonagall reminded them a bit of Aunt Cassie, but instead they found that they were just changing matches into needles. Naturally, both boys managed on their first try, earning them each a few points for Gryffindor, but the class was not very exciting.

Defence against the Dark Arts was most disappointing of all. They were to study nothing that Aunt Cassie had not covered in their very first year of lessons. Professor Quirrell seemed to be utterly incompetent, constantly afraid of his own shadow.

Harry and Draco scoffed at the idea that this buffoon could teach them anything that would be of use against the Dark Arts. To make matters worse, all through the lesson Harry found himself suffering from a severe headache, which was odd, because Harry had never had many headaches before.

'Maybe it's the garlic,' Draco said as they left the classroom.

Harry shook his head. 'I like the smell of garlic. It reminds me of the chateau.'

'Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey,' Draco suggested. He had gone to the hospital wing himself on their first day with a cut, and had become quite fond of the school nurse.

Harry shook his head. 'I'll just wait and see if it passes.'

Fortunately, the headache seemed to pass quickly as soon as they had got away from the classroom, and Harry nearly forgot all about it.

.....

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