Chapter 11 - Classes Start
Although the welcoming feast at Silver Grove was not on a level with the one at Hogwarts (one wizardess, no matter how talented, could not exceed the efforts of a platoon of house-elves), the food was good and plentiful. When Ginny, Irma, and Ashley returned from it together, they found that three class schedules had been dropped through their room’s mail slot. Ginny unfolded hers and read it.
WEASLEY, GINEVRA M.
SEVENTH GRADER
Potions: 8:00 - 8:55 AM : Red Cloud
Transformation: 9:00 - 9:55 AM : Chance
Herbology: T &W 11:00 - 11:55 AM: Root
Charms: 1:00 - 1:55 PM: Miyazaki
History of Magic: M & W 3:00 - 3:55 PM: Nacht
Defensive Magic: 5:00 - 5:55 PM: Grayson
Astronomy: Th & F 9:30 - 11:00 PM : Stephanovich
All classes are M-F unless otherwise indicated.
Breakfast Served: 6:45 - 8:30 AM
Lunch Served: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Dinner Served: 6:00 - 7:30 PM
Snacks available in Dining Hall 6:00 AM - 10:30 PM
Quidditch Team Tryouts Th, 7:30 PM
Dueling Team Tryouts Fri. 7:30 PM (invitation only)
Ginny gave the schedule a quick read, then rummaged in her trunk for her nightgown. It was only a little past seven, but that translated to 2 AM in the time zone she had awakened in. She changed, brushed her teeth, then crawled wearily into her bunk and fell fast asleep.
A good ten hours’ sack time remedied her tiredness. Even after washing up and braiding her hair, it was early, too early for breakfast. Ginny entered the common room. One older girl was there, studying her history text. She smiled and said good morning, then resumed her studies. The boy and girl in the opposite side of the chamber were too busy trying to suck each other’s lips off to be so friendly. Ginny mentally gagged as she left the hall. She knew that snogging took place at Hogwarts as well, but the couples were usually more discreet about it.
Outside, she watched the sun rise on the desert, then had a hearty breakfast while she watched the other students arrive. All were in their uniform robes now, in all three colors permitted by the dress code. Most of the girls wore pants underneath, but enough wore dresses that she didn’t feel out of place. Before too long, Irma and Ashley arrived together. Ginny joined them, and they talked while they ate. Despite being of three different years, three different bloodlines, and from three different parts of the world, they had a great deal in common. Before they knew it, the 7:55 bell had rung, and they had to race off to their respective early classes.
The potions room was very much unlike Snape’s. It was a reasonably comfortable temperature, and it was well-lit, and there were no vials and beakers full of slimy things to make one’s breakfast do acrobatics in her stomach. Just neat racks of diverse potion additives along all the walls. Although students were expected to provide their own basic ingredients (which were readily available at the student store), they were not expected to have every single thing they would need. The school provided the more exotic stuff.
Potions master and healer Red Cloud stood at the front of the chamber. “Welcome to Grade 7 Potions,” he said. “My name is Red Cloud, and you may call me exactly that, no ‘professor’ nonsense. I expect you to pay close attention to the instructions I give you. If you make a mistake while brewing a potion, you can produce deadly acids, toxic gases, even explosions powerful enough to level buildings. Even a slight error in your judgment can easily cost you and those around you your lives.” A pause. “The potions we will start with are more forgiving. But you must still pay close attention, and do exactly as you are instructed. If you fail to do so, regardless of whether you survive, you will not pass this class.
“As most of you know,” he continued. “I am what is known as a Squib.” (Ginny had known this, courtesy of her conversations with Ashley, but was surprised that he would admit it so brazenly) “But I have specialized in this branch of magic. I can produce over 7,000 different mixtures without needing a book, and have developed over 1,200 new ones myself. With your cooperation, I will pass this knowledge on to you.”
Ginny suppressed a gasp, and she wasn’t the only one. Developing thirty new potions was considered to be a satisfying life’s work for a wizard. This man had created forty times as many, and he wasn’t all that old!
However, that was about all he said, and he quickly put them to work. Once the brewing got started, Ginny quickly became bored. She had already produced the very straightforward wart-curing potion in Snape’s class, and she had done it under far harsher conditions, both environmental and emotional (Snape had not really stopped disliking her until well into winter term). She did it again without effort, received an E (equivalent to ten out of ten, she had been told), and watched as all the other first-years sweated their way through the project.
She observed Red Cloud as he walked among the students, monitoring them. He showed about as much emotion as a wall, but he at least seemed to understand that he was in the business of helping his class succeed, as opposed to bullying them. And there was no favoritism present. Of course, there was no point for him; he was not head of any hall.
8:55 came, and the bell rang. All of Ginny’s class moved on to the Transformation room, and found the headmistress waiting for them. She obviously knew her business as well. Upon learning that Ginny could already turn a blueberry into a marble, she presented her with twelve other somewhat larger objects and a list of what she wanted each of them turned into. Ginny had a little trouble turning the largest object, a turnip, into a teacup, but by the end of the period, she had finished the assignment.
Professor Chance examined each item. “Very well done,” she murmured. “You just completed last year’s final examination for seventh-graders in this subject. And with a perfect score, I might add. I see that Professor McGonagall’s reputation as a teacher was not exaggerated.”
Ginny’s first Herbology class was not until next day, so she had three hours free. The weather was nice, so she spent it outside by the fountain, composing letters home. As she worked on a letter to her parents, she saw the school’s Herbology teacher cruise by in the distance, on his way up to the rooftop greenhouses. Professor Root was one of Irma’s favorites (Ashley, needling her friend, had suggested that she had a crush on him; Irma of course denied it). He was mild-tempered, chunky around the middle and bald on top, and his robes (brown today) were always wrinkled. He was the head of Goose hall, and it was rumored that he sometimes had trouble managing the more difficult students. Fortunately, Geese were rarely troublemakers.
Lunch came next, followed by Charms. Professor Miyazaki was shorter than most of her students were, but she was a formidable presence nonetheless. She spent most of the period demonstrating charms far more complex than any first-year was likely to learn, then instructed her class to read the chapter on Basic Wand Technique for the next day. Ginny scanned the chapter and realized she already knew everything it was demonstrating. She looked through the rest of the thick tome (it was the sole text for three years of charms) and discovered that she knew at least a quarter of it.
Professor Miyazaki dismissed the class early, but as Ginny was packing up, she said, “Not you, Miss Weasley. Please remain.”
Ginny waited until the other children had left. “Am I in trouble?”
“Have you done anything wrong?” Ginny shook her head. “Then you’re not.” The professor lay a blackboard eraser on Ginny’s desk. “Please perform a Hovering charm on this.”
Ginny drew her wand. “Wingardium Leviosa.”
The eraser rose into the air, swiftly and smoothly. Ginny deftly maneuvered it around the room, then eased it back down.
“Very good, Miss Weasley.” The professor presented her with a cup of water. “Please perform a Chilling charm.”
“Frigidaria,” Ginny said, tapping the glass. The water instantly froze.
“Fine. Wand-light spell, quickly.”
“Lumos,” and red-gold light blazed from the tip of Ginny’s wand.
They went through maybe a dozen more charms, until the bell sounded. Professor Miyazaki nodded. “You are too advanced to benefit from my class. Until the headmistress decides what to do with you, I would like you to follow the prescribed course of study for eighth grade. Please read pages 327 to 339 tonight, and be able to execute a Sweetening Spell by this time tomorrow.” She bowed to her student. “That’s all, you may go.”
Ginny had felt a bit of trepidation about History of Magic. Professor Binns, her previous ghost teacher, had been about as fun as a muggle dentist’s appointment, and far less exciting. Furthermore, she had heard that Nacht had ways of dealing with students who didn’t pay attention: he was known to jab a finger into one’s shoulder. Irma had gotten that treatment once, and had said that it was like getting jabbed with an icicle. Ashley said that for extreme cases, he would just walk through you, which was like getting doused with ice water. He had supposedly taught at Durmstrang for 450 years before being ousted by a headmaster who distrusted ghosts.
Much of what she had heard was true, but it wasn’t at all what she had expected, simply because Professor Nacht was almost impossible to ignore: not only was he a natural storyteller, but he had experienced many of the events he was describing. When he described the disastrous muggle witch hunts of 1692, which had killed zero wizards, zero devil worshippers, and twenty innocent muggles, he made the hearer feel almost like they were there. Binns had spent decades, perhaps centuries doing the same thing over and over. Nacht had spent his post-mortem years evolving and improving his teaching skills. When the 3:55 bell rang, Ginny found herself wondering where the time had gone.
That left only Defense. And there, for the second time in as many classes, Ginny found herself learning new things. Gilderoy Lockhart had spent his time telling the students about his marvellous exploits. He was a gifted author, but not much of a teacher. Comparatively, Ulysses Grayson couldn’t have successfully authored a coloring book. But, by the time the class session was half over, Ginny had a good idea as to how to carry a wand ready for battle, draw it rapidly, and evade an unfriendly hex. Professor Grayson warned her, however, that the latter skill would take them a long time to perfect.
And he then proceeded to prove it, putting them on the dueling floor and casting the harmless but silly Pili Puniceus hex at them. It was bright-colored with a narrow area of effect, comparably easy to avoid. Ginny, her reflexes honed by years of Quidditch with her brothers, finished the exercise as a redhead, but she was one of only a half-dozen or so lucky ones. Happily, the spell was as simple to reverse as Professor Grayson had said it was. He was the only one who actually left the room with pink hair.
Ginny was tired as the day drew to a close, but it was a good kind of tired. Some things had gone as expected, and there had been some surprises. But she had good teachers, and she was starting to make friends. The only downside was that she was a bit concerned about the brewing conflict over bloodlines. And it was brewing, no doubt; Nettlebank had indeed been restored to normal form, and she had a coterie of about a dozen students around her. Eating with her two roommates that night, Ginny had seen their malevolent glares. But she knew that she would have to face that when it came. There was no point in brooding about it beforehand.