17. Ravenclaw Tower

"I slept good, dad. Ravenclaw Tower is so cool! Do you know that the entrance asks you a question and you have to give it the right answer before it lets you in? Have you ever been up there?"

"No, but perhaps you could give me a tour some time."

"My roommates are really nice too. I mean they don't give a hoot about Harry Potter."

"I suspected the Ravenclaw's would not care one way or the other that Harry Potter was sorted into their house so I was happy when you were sorted there."

"Thanks for the note you sent with Hedwig last night. Do you have time to talk with me today?

"Of course. Filius provided me with a copy of your schedule and Potions is your last class of the day so we can talk after that."

"Okay, Dad. I'll see you this afternoon in Potions,"

The Gryffindor first years were entering as Harry turned to leave. "Well, if isn't the snake traitor. Who would have thought Harry Potter would agree to be adopted by the Head Snake?" It was the same loud-mouthed red haired boy that had made the crack about Hermione last night. He was followed by two other Gryffindors Harry recognized as Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas.

"Why don't you shove it up your arse, Weaselby?" Draco snapped coming to stand beside Harry.

"You shove it, Malfoy. Your father's You-Know-Who's right hand man."

Severus came out again. "Mr. Malfoy, return to your house table. Mr. Potter-Snape, please go sit down and Mr. Weasley, if I hear one more unpleasant remark I will have plenty of cauldrons that will need scrubbing by the end of the day. That goes for you also Mr. Finnigan and Mr. Thomas. Now all three of you find your house table and sit down."

"Git!" Weasley muttered as the three moved away.

"Shut up, Ron!" Finnigan ordered. "We have Potions with him tomorrow and he hates Gryffindor enough already. No point in giving him any reasons to take points."

Harry was midway through his breakfast and was talking with Michael, Terry, and Hermione when a shadow fell over his plate – three shadows to be exact and they were all dressed in Gryffindor robes and all had red hair. Two of them were identical right down to the last freckle.

"Hi, Harry!" One of the twins said. "I'm Fred Weasley; this is my brother, George and our older brother, Percy the Perfect Prefect." Percy frowned at Fred's joke, but didn't say anything. "We just wanted to introduce ourselves and let you know that were not all gits like our younger brother."

Harry smiled and shook all their hands, "I'm pleased to meet you and your brother is sort of a git."

"Well, don't worry if he gets out of line again, we'll just ask Percy to stomp on him," the other twin, George joked.

"If he doesn't behave I can take points," Percy announced proudly. "Prefects are allowed to take points."

"Better than that though Perce can owl mum about Ron and she'll send him a Howler – believe me, one thing you never want is a Howler from our mum!" Fred joked.

"We know, we've had plenty of them," George muttered.

"We'll let you get back to eating your breakfast," Percy said taking an arm of each twin and steering them back towards the Gryffindor table. Fred turned back and yelled, "See you around, Harry."

Harry waved at them. It was nice to know the entire Weasley family wasn't a bunch of gits like Ron.

He walked to his first class, Transfiguration with Hermione, Neville, Vince and Greg. Draco was headed to Charms with the Gryffindors and waved at him as they passed in the hallway.

"I've heard Professor McGonagall is really strict," Hermione whispered as they sat down in class

"I don't think she's as strict as my dad," Harry said.

"But he has to be strict because Potions is dangerous and people in the class could be injured if somebody's cauldron explodes."

Professor McGonagall came into the room just then and everybody immediately quieted down. She called roll first to make sure everybody who was supposed to be there was and hadn't gotten lost. She started off their lesson by giving them a basic definition of Transfiguration. "Transfiguration is a branch of magic that focuses on the alteration of the form or appearance of an object by manipulating it molecular structure. Transfiguration can be done to most objects and as with most forms of magic it includes, but is not limited to Transfiguration spells." She quickly changed her desk into a pig and just as quickly changed it back into her desk as the class gasped in surprise. "You won't of course be able to do this particular transfiguration for many years yet, but it is an example of transfiguring one object into another and back again. Please turn to Page 10 of your textbook and read the first chapter. When you have finished, I'll pass out matches and you will attempt to turn them into needles."

Everybody settled down, opened their textbooks and begin to read the assigned chapter. After a half-hour, Professor McGonagall handed out the matches and instructed them on focusing their magic. "Learning how to focus your magic will make leaning spellcraft much easier."

Nobody had managed to turn their match into a needle by the end of class. Some were pointy and some were still plainly matches. Harry thought his match looked more pointy and slimmer, but it clearly wasn't a needle yet.

Their next class was double Herbology with Professor Sprout. Harry really liked the motherly looking Professor. She sorted them into teams of three. He was teamed up with Hannah and Greg while Neville was teamed up with Vince and Susan. Hermione was teamed up with Justin and Morag. They all worked amicably repotting Siamese Sipapodds under Professor Sprout direction. Harry knew from from what his dad had told him that Sipapodds were the main ingredient in nutrient potions because they were loaded with vitamins and minerals.