There’s a particur kind of madness in assigning children to a castle full of sentient staircases, hex-ready corridors, and talking hats—and then handing them a week-long schedule that looks like it was designed by a madman who downed three shots of firewhisky and said, “Let’s break their spirits by Tuesday.”
Welcome to Hogwarts.
Our first-year css schedule arrived on crisp parchment, floating neatly down to our pillows with the unnerving cheer of a howler that hadn’t started screaming yet.
Jake snatched his and whooped. “YES! Flying css on Thursday!”
Desmond groaned. “We’ve got Potions first thing tomorrow. Who schedules brewing before breakfast?”
I scanned my own list with the enthusiasm of a condemned man reading his final rites.
First-Year Gryffindor Schedule:Monday:AM – Transfiguration (McGonagall)PM – Herbology (Sprout)
Tuesday:AM – Charms (Flitwick)PM – History of Magic (Binns)
Wednesday:AM – Defence Against the Dark Arts (Professor Hargrave)PM – Astronomy (midnight session)
Thursday:AM – Flying Lessons (Madam Hooch)PM – Potions (Slughorn, with Slytherin)
Friday:AM – Study Period / Library OrientationPM – Charms / Transfiguration Review
There were no weekends listed. I assumed that meant they were either mercifully free… or used for remedial spell explosion cleanup. Time would tell.
Monday morning.
Transfiguration hit us like a brick wall wrapped in Latin incantations and theoretical physics.
Professor McGonagall stood at the front of the cssroom like the ghost of discipline itself. She gave one look at Jake, and I could see her mentally preparing a year’s worth of damage control.
She expined the rules. The theory. The risks.
Then she turned a matchstick into a needle with one flick of her wand.
Jake gasped like he’d just witnessed a miracle. “Blimey, I can’t even sharpen pencils without stabbing myself.”
“I believe you,” I muttered.
Desmond tried to transfigure his matchstick and ended up with a twig coated in silver.
Jake turned his into a melted clump.
I just stared at mine. The stick stared back.
“Needle,” I whispered.
It didn’t move.
So much for inherited prodigy.
Herbology was next.
Professor Sprout was a kind-faced woman with dirt under her fingernails and a tone that said “I will absolutely make you repot screaming pnts while you cry.”
Jake nearly passed out when we had to repnt Snapping Puffweeds. They had teeth. Small, but enthusiastic.
Nathaniel got bitten. Twice. He apologized to the pnt afterward.
Tuesday.
Charms with Professor Flitwick. A literal half-sized man with the energy of a caffeinated squirrel and a voice like a musical bell.
“Swish and flick! Enunciate!”
Jake shouted “Wingardium Leviosa!” and sent his feather flying directly into Desmond’s eye.
I got mine to twitch.
Progress.
Then came History of Magic.
Professor Binns floated in through the bckboard. Yes. Floated.
He was a ghost. A literal dead man. Which expined why he sounded like he was narrating from the afterlife.
Ten minutes in, Jake was doodling dragons in the margins. Desmond looked like his soul was leaving his body.
I started counting how many words Binns could say without blinking. The number was upsetting.
Wednesday morning, Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Finally, something useful.
Professor Hargrave was a tall, wiry man with scars, sharp eyes, and the general demeanor of someone who'd survived seven duels and no therapy.
“Magic is dangerous,” he said. “You will learn to use it like a sword. Or be cut by it.”
Jake looked thrilled.
Desmond nodded like he’d just been recruited to a secret wizard militia.
I leaned back in my chair. This one, at least, spoke my nguage.
Wednesday night?
Astronomy.
We hiked up towers under moonlight like some sort of secret ritual, then froze our extremities identifying consteltions with brass telescopes while trying not to fall asleep standing up.
Jake fell asleep on his telescope. Woke up with a star map imprinted on his cheek.
By Thursday morning, we were wrecked.
Jake? Still bouncing.
“Mate,” he said as we stumbled down toward the flying field, “I think I fell in love.”
Desmond blinked. “What?”
“I knew it,” Nathaniel muttered.
“With who?” I asked.
Jake pressed a hand dramatically to his heart. “Her name’s Evie Lockhart. She’s in Gryffindor. Red hair. Laughs like she means it. I swear when she waved her wand in Charms, my soul left my body.”
“That was probably the gust from Flitwick tripping,” I replied.
“I’m telling you—it’s destiny.”
“You met her yesterday.”
He nodded solemnly. “And I’ll die for her tomorrow.”
I stared at him.
Nathaniel whispered, “Is this… normal?”
“No,” I said ftly. “This is Jake.”
Desmond tilted his head. “Are we… supposed to be in love? Already?”
“You’re supposed to be learning to not kill yourself with a levitation spell,” I answered.
Jake ignored us all. “I’m gonna learn a love charm. Write a poem. Maybe get a phoenix feather. Something romantic.”
“I’m reporting you to the Ministry of Bad Ideas.”
Flying css was chaos, as expected.
Madam Hooch had a whistle sharper than a cutting curse and eyes like hawksteel.
Jake actually did well. He hovered straight up on command, then nearly somersaulted when he tried a turn.
Desmond hovered. Then immediately puked.
I stayed low. Observed. Felt the wind. The rhythm.
For a brief moment, my body remembered how it felt to fly—not on a broom, but high through trees, chakra on my feet, the world rushing beneath me.
But that power was gone.
Now… I had a broom.
I kicked off.
Wobbled.
Recovered.
Steady.
Jake cheered like I’d just scored a goal. “You got it, mate!”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
That night, after dinner, we crawled back into the dorm room.
Jake was still grinning like a lunatic. “Best. Day. Ever.”
“You got bitten by a pnt, punched by your own feather, and confessed your love to a girl who doesn’t know your name,” I said.
He shrugged. “Still a win.”
Nathaniel sighed, “I just want to not fail.”
Desmond flopped face-first into his bed. “I want death.”
Kuro curled onto my chest, purring contentedly.
Magic was exhausting.
People were worse.
But somehow… I was starting to get used to it.
[End of Chapter 6]
