CHAPTER 07 LIFE IN HOGWARTS

Everyone present in the hall were busy putting away their hungers with the feast Hogwarts had offered them. Among them, Ezzy had a fork on his right hand, with which he picked up a sausage from his plate. He brought it before him and looked at it very intently.

'Not even a month ago, I didn't even like the smell of it, and now, its one of my favorites. It's funny when I had realized the first time that I was eating meat' thought Ezzy.

*Flashback*

"Breakfast's ready Ezzy, come on, it's about time you've had your breakfast." Aunt Emily called Ezzy.

"Coming!" Ezzy replied.

He sat down on the chair. It had already been 3 days since Aunt Emily had come to live with him. Even though it was very early for Ezzy to be so comfortable with anyone, but Aunt Emily was an exception. She was a very warm and motherly woman, even if Ezzy tried to resist, he would've failed, terribly.

He had a book on his hand, which was really driving Aunt Emily insane.

"Young man, how many times have I told you, books are off limits while eating." Aunt Emily said.

"Sorry Aunt Emily, no can do, I've only got a month to prepare. How could I possibly go without being prepared to a world that I know absolutely nothing about?" Ezzy replied not taking his eyes off his book.

"I know but if you continue like this, you might get sick. Just don't overdo it." She said in a worried tone.

"Of course, Aunt Emily." Said Ezzy who had already finished his sausages on his plate.

"Someone's hungry. Need more sausages?" she asked.

"Huh? Sausages? What are you talking about? I don't eat meat… even if I get a smell of it, I might barf." He answered.

"…" Emily was dumbfounded hearing Ezzy, as for all three days they had lived together, they had meat for every single meal.

Ezzy looked at his Aunt Emily who had gone completely silent. "Sorry, did I miss something? Did you ask something?" he asked thinking she had asked something and was waiting for his answer.

"Ezzy, honey, I think it's time for you to close that book, stop joking and eat your breakfast." Aunt Emily said in a grimly serious tone, while adding some more sausages and toasts on his plate.

"Huh? Joke? Seriously I am a pure vegetarian, I don't even like the smell of milk that much." He said, who had already picked up a sausage and took a bite.

"Honey, then what are you eating? Well if you're saying chicken sausages are 'vegetables' then I don't know how I've lived my life until now." She said with a chilling smile.

"I don't know what you're say…. Huh?" He said closing his book and when he saw the sausage on his hand. Finally, it dawned upon him, that all along, since the day he came to this world, since he had his first breakfast with the Winters, he had been eating meat.

*Flashback end*

*Hehehe* Ezzy was smiling in a creepy way, making others around him uncomfortable.

'How stupid am I?' he thought.

While eating, all the others were talking and knowing about each other. Some were getting familiar with how they would be living here with some seniors.

Then Harry made a pained whimper, while he was looking at the teacher's table.

"Say Percy, who's that? The one who is talking with Professor Quirrell?" Harry asked Percy

"That's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to… everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts too."

Ezzy looked at the table and he got flabbergasted. A chill went down his body.

'How much everything's been changed? I… if he…. is like that then where… is Voldamort?' he thought as he looked at Prof. Quirrell, who had no turban, and had a head full of hair. 'And how come Harry groaned in pain?' he thought as he looked at Harry and again looked around the teacher's table, and there he found a face which seemed quite familiar, but couldn't wrap his head around it.

"Percy, who is that man? Right besides Prof. Dumbledore?", he asked.

"Oh that? That's Prof. Riddle, he's the elemental magic professor.", Percy answered.

"A great man he is." Said Fred

"And a fun one too." Said George

Hearing the name Riddle, the fork on his hand fell on the ground.

Stammering he asked, "R..r… Riddle?"

"Yes, Alexander Riddle, the greatest hero of the magical world, after his majesty the Wizard king and Prof. Dumbledore of course." Said Ron.

Hearing the 'Alexander' and 'Hero' his turned his head towards Ron in shock, and asked, "Hero?"

"Yes, he captured an awful lot of death eaters and saved so many lives during the dark lord's war. I tell you, he might be the strongest Gryffindor and the fire magician I have ever seen." Explained Ron looking at Prof. Riddle.

"…" Ezzy couldn't speak or think anything or any word. He felt all kinds of emotions all at once. He got happy that the prof. wasn't the 'Voldemort' but that didn't mean he truly wasn't considering how crazy that psychotic freak was, might even be possible that he's faking it, dining, smiling all grittily.

'Is he really not him? Well considering how normal he looks right now, may be? But there are still chances he might be?' Ezzy thought.

"Then, does he have any relatives like father or brother who was also a wizard before him or after him?" He asked.

"As a matter of fact, he did. A brother, not so sure about his father." Said Percy, "There are words about him, don't know his name but he was his twin. They say he was in Slytherin, and was a great student here, even better than Prof. Riddle."

"Rumor has it, they hated each other, always fighting.", said George.

"Some might even say they were their own worst enemies." Said Fred.

"Well, what would you even expect? One was Gryffindor and the other was Slytherin… the natural enemies…" Ron said squinting his eyes looking at Malfoy sitting far away in the Slytherin table.

The students kept on talking but as for Ezzy, it didn't matter anymore. He kept on looking towards the teachers table, towards Prof. Quirrell and Prof. Riddle. Prof. Quirrell was nothing like in the books, he was cheerful happily talking and laughing with other professors. And as for Prof. Riddle, he was really energetic and quite young for his age. In his 60s he still looked like he was in his 40s.

'Why was Voldy even obsessed in becoming immortal and turned into that nose-less snake monster? As far as I can see, he could have been just fine, if he looked anything like his brother.' Ezzy thought looking at the energetic handsome professor who was having a delightful chat with Prof. Pomphrey.

When he was having all these thoughts, his pets had already come out from his pocket and had started eating from his plate. Hermione and Suhi were squealing looking at the two eating.

"Ezzy! Are they your pets? Can I pet them?" said Hermione

"Me too!", added Suhi.

"Alright, but be careful they haven't really been around many people, they might bite you.", Ezzy said to them looking at the two little fluff balls who were helping themselves from his plate.

After few moments of chatting, Prof. Dumbledore again stood up. All student's attention moved to him as they were already fed and were only chatting with their friends.

Ezzy again started to think about the whole situation he was in, rather than listening to the Professor.

'Should I just ignore it all and just live my life?' he thought and looked at Harry, Ron and Hermione. 'But I always wanted to be close with these people. If I stay away from them then not only will I be clueless of the situation but I might as well die without my own knowledge, and not to mention boring.' He thought.

He supported his head with his left hand on the table and thought again, 'I thought I'll be living a peaceful like doing whatever I wanted and leave all the unnecessary obstacles to the golden trio. But it seems fate has a different idea for me.'

*Sign* Signing he stood up as everybody did, everybody started to sing as the school's music club member came to the front started to play. He just stood there watching everything that was playing in front of him, Grindleflies flying and putting up a synchronized light show, long golden ribbon flying about them, twisting itself like snakes into words.

After it ended, he held onto his two pets and followed behind Percy as Prof. Dumbledor had motioned that they may leave.

Along with the other chattering students he followed Percy, out of the hall, though the corridor, to a staircase then though a door then to the marble staircase. Like most of the students, Ezzy was already very tired, when he saw the staircase, he thought its better to camp out there on the foot of the staircase than to climb though all those stairs. There he saw a maze-like staircase moving from one direction to another. He looked down and up the stairs, it kept going on both directions like there was no end to them.

'How big is this place!?' he thought tiredly. 'At least they could've made some kind of elevator.'

Grudgingly he dragged his leg though the stairs. Seeing the stairs, Ezzy was already annoyed but what Percy said nearly made him explode.

"Come on now everyone, show some energy, we don't have long way to go, its only up to the seventh floor." Percy said seeing how tired all the new students looked.

But right then broomsticks came flying towards them, but Percy took out his wand and did some hand gesturing and made them disappear.

"Peeves, Show yourself!" Percy shouted.

"Ohhh! So fun, firsties!!", a little man with dark eyes and wide mouth appeared floating not too far from them. He then looked at Percy and pulled out his tongue and made some fart noises. He then materialized some water balloons and threw it towards the first years. Some students got hit by it, Neville and Ezzy were one of them. Neville was fully drenched and Ezzy got his right leg wet.

Then that was it, the last straw for Ezzy, not only was he forced to walk until when he was exhausted and sleepy. Now he had his clothes wet. Ezzy was the kind of guy who could be said happy, easy-going but one thing he didn't like was getting his things dirty.

When he got hit by the water balloon, all the tiredness flew away and got replaced by rage. His eyes and hands trembled, slowly his whole body started to tremble.

"*Ptff* Mate, you got your pants wet. Haha…" Ron said laughing.

"Shut up", Ezzy interrupted Ron's laugh in the middle.

He took out his wand.

"Sorry mate, no need to take your wand out for it…" Ron said taking a few steps back.

Ezzy took out his wand and pointed towards the poltergeist and shouted, "Sanctumos!!!"

From the tip of his wand a corporeal liquid like substance with blindingly golden light started to disperse. Slowly getting bigger and bigger, illuminating the whole area.

It slowly reached towards the poltergeist, when it touched his leg, he started to burn.

"Ahhhhh!!!" *poof* With a loud scream he vanished.

Seeing he disappeared, Ezzy retracted the spell.

*huu huuu* Taking long and big breathes he said, "Let's continue, I'm tired."

"Right…" Percy said and continued walking not sure what to make up from the situation.

"Gosh, he's a scary one." Ezzy heard Ron whisper to Harry.

After the incident, they continued their journey through the staircase, then reached the end of a corridor where a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress hung.

As they reached at the end of the corridor she asked, "Password?"

"Caput Draconis" said Percy, then turned towards the first years, "Remember this you all, it's out password or else you'll be locked out of the dorm" as the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall.

They went inside and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room. Which was quite cozy, but also quite large in size. Not only were there sofas, armchairs but also some long tables like one finds in a library. The sofas were in the middle portion, surrounding fire places, then at the corners along the windows were the long tables for students to study or do their homework.

Percy then said, "As for your living arrangements, five of you will be sharing a room. Girl's dorms are through the left door and boy's the another."

Saying that he turned around towards the door but then turned around like he remembered something, "AH! I almost forgot, tomorrow, you all should already be here in the common room by 7 O'clock. Prof. McGonagall will be distributing your schedules and selecting your year's house captains. So better not be late."

Then he turned around and went inside.

Following him all the other students entered their respective door and found a spiral staircase.

As they climbed the spiral staircase, they found out that rooms at the lower levels were already occupied. Ron, Harry, Ezzy and couple of other students found their room at the top of the tower.

There were only two dorm rooms there. Five students at one dorm and only two on the other.

The one which would be occupied by five students was quite big compared with the other one. On its door had the names of Harry, Ron, Neville, Liam and Seamus. Then on the other one was for Ezzy and a new face Peter Jane.

They parted their goodbye and entered their respective dorm. As they entered inside, a small creature appeared out of thin air.

"Welcome young masters, Poppy welcomes you to your dorms." A squeaky voice welcomed him.

It looked like chihuahua, with big round eyes, big pointy ears and with no furs.

"An elf!" Ezzy, "why is it here?" Ezzy asked looking at Peter.

"Oh, Hogwarts has helped managing and protecting house elves so I think each dorm has an elf" He said while shrugging.

"What can I do for you sirs?" asked Poppy hoping he could do some work.

"I don't think there's an…." As Ezzy was about to finish his word, he saw the elf's face. It was about to cry.

"On another thought, I might actually have to ask for your help" Ezzy said.

"Hurray! Poppy might be the best help you could find." The elf said.

Ezzy took out this trunk from his pocket and enlarged it, took out a box. Inside it was a tiny tent.

"Poppy, if you would be so kind to make my bed disappear, and make some space for me to place my accommodation." Ezzy said.

"Right away, Master." Poppy said.

With a flick of its finger, the bed disappeared. Ezzy placed his small tent in that space, and took out his wand and made a simple swiping hand gesture with his wand and reciting the password in his mind.

The tent started to grow in its size and stood at the size of 2m X 3m X 2m.

"Wow!" Peter said in astonishment, "You brought a tent here? Is it even allowed?"

"As far as I know." Ezzy said.

"I'm Peter Jane by the way." He said to Ezzy.

"Nice to meet you Peter, I'm Ezekiel Knight but you can call me Ezzy." He replied

"AH! And you can call me Jane, Peter is my father." Jane said.

Like that they chatted for a while, but since they were exhausted, Jane went to his bed while Ezzy entered his tent.