Filius Flitwick

Well. History of Magic was extremely boring. Seriously, how do you make learning about the history of magic boring!? As far as I can tell, it's not even the history of magic. Just the history of wizards!

At least the person he talked about today seemed interesting. Uric the Oddball sounds like my kind of guy. As I walk to the first class on my second day, I can't help but chuckle. 'A jellyfish hat. Wonder what I could do to top that?'

Anyways, I'm walking to the Charms classroom alone after eating breakfast. The reason for that is rather simple. Everyone else is sleeping in! Seriously, it was already eight o'clock by the time I finished breakfast, but the Great Hall was practically empty!

A bunch of slackers, that's what the students are. I wonder if I can find out where the food comes from and sabotage the late-risers…

Anyways, it took me twenty minutes to find the classroom. I'm lucky I found it yesterday with Draco and the others or it might have taken me even longer. But even with me getting there later than I thought I would, the only person there is the teacher. Filius Flitwick.

'Heh. Flitwick. Flit a wick. Wickety Flickety Bickety. Flit a wick to brick the tick. That is a fun name to mess around with. But not as easy to insult as the Dark Lord Moldywart. Volditorc. Told-ye Mort.'

The guy is short. Like, really short. Even shorter than me, an eleven year old, mildly malnourished little girl!. Though what he lacks in height, he more than makes up for in fanciness. A suit with a short (no pun intended) tailcoat, a bow tie, and his hair slicked to the sides. And that's not even mentioning the impeccable-ness of his neatly curled mustache. Oh, and he's wearing spectacles.

(A,N: Yep. I'm going fancy Flitwick instead of wild Flitwick. It just fits with the image of him trying to improve people's views on goblins by showing that a half-blood like him is more proper than most witches and wizards. Plus I like the image of that version being a pro-duelist instead of the old and wild version.)

He looks like he's about to go to a fancy ball instead of teaching a class full of kids how to do magic. Though the suit would fit for a magician on a stage, so I guess he's still dressed as a stereotypical wizard?

Whatever.

Regardless of his stature or his fanciness, he looks surprised to see me. "My, my. Miss Potter, what are you doing here so early? Class doesn't start," he glances at a clock on the wall, "another forty minutes."

I shrug. "The castle is ginormous, and with the stairs always trying to mess with people, I wanted to make sure I wasn't late." I scratch my head sheepishly. "Guess I got a bit overzealous about the class after learning about the extension charm. Not to mention the wide variety of things you can do with them."

He beams at me. "Nonsense! You have no need to apologize for passion in something! Ten points to Slytherin for your exuberance!"

I smile, but looking down at him, a thought strikes me. "By the way, why are you so short?"

He looks at me, for a moment, his smile frozen on his face. "... Five points from Slytherin for insulting a professor."

I can't help but roll my eyes. "I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just curious. Are you just naturally short, or is there a specific reason? Like getting hit by a shrinking hex that didn't go into full effect! Or you gave away your height for power, or to save someone! Or…"

As I ramble off a few more theories, I ignore the bemused look he gives me. You get used to it.

Eventually though, he interrupts. "One of my parents was a goblin." He gives me a wary look as he speaks, and those I'm not used to. People usually aren't wary of eleven year old kids after all.

"Cool! Then can you teach me about goblin culture later? I didn't see any kind of class about learning about other species."

He blinks at me, taking a moment to respond. "... The Care of Magical Creatures class will teach you about the variety of magical creatures that exist. But that class is not taught until the second year, and is considered an optional class."

Now it's my turn to give him a bemused look. "Ok? But what about goblins? Or vampires? Oh, and I recently heard about Veela as well. You know, the other sapients of the magical community."

He says nothing, and the silence stretches on into uncomfortableness. It's not until the door opens at eight forty that he moves again. By this point I've taken a seat at one of the desks on the right side of the room. They're kind of built like the bleachers at a rugby game.

At the sound of the door opening and students entering the room, the short teacher jumps and shouts. "Twenty points for Slytherin!"

He looks around wildly for a moment before sheepishly walking back to his desk. Meanwhile, Ron, who walked in beside Harry, has a shocked look on his face for a moment before shooting me a glare. He drags Harry, who gives me a smile and a wave, to the desks on the other side of the room, making me roll my eyes.

'Seriously. We're in different houses. It doesn't mean we need to be at each other's throats all the time. It's not like there's an actual rule against sitting with other houses, after all.'

Anyways, Harry gives me a helpless shrug when I glare at him, pulling a snort from my throat.

Slowly, the rest of the students start filing into the classroom. Slytherins with me on the right, and Gryffindors with Harry and Ron on the left. Oh, and Hermione too. I'm surprised that she wasn't the first one into the class on their side, actually.

She looked embarrassed to be one of the last few into the room before the bell ring for it to start. Or would it be that the bell gongs?

Hmm… Since it actually does sound like a gong, I'm going to start saying that it gongs, instead of rings. I ignore the fact that after our last class yesterday, we found the bell, and confirmed that it was in fact a bell and not a gong. Though maybe I could use magic to make the form resemble the noise…?

The last person to enter the class is Neville, the boy who seems to have the worst luck out of all the first years. Losing histoad on the train, being sent to the hospital wing during his first class, and tripping his way into the classroom just as the bell gongs.

"Are you alright, dear boy?" Flitwick, who seems to have recovered from whatever happened to him earlier, asks the boy.

Getting up and rubbing his now red nose, he responds in a slightly nasally voice. "I'm ok, professor. Thanks for asking."

He finds a seat, doing an admirable job of ignoring the snickers floating around the room. Without looking, I reach out and smack Draco on the back of his head. He glares at me with an affronted expression, but seeing that I'm not even looking at him, he gives up and turns his attention to the teacher.

"Well then, shall we begin?"