CH26

The Great Hall was full as he entered, but there was a distinct lessening of chatter as he walked through the door and a great deal of staring. He hesitated for a moment, then strode purposefully towards his table, forcing himself to keep his head high. But even his house's table wasn't very welcoming. Although already crowded, the few spaces left miraculously found themselves taken up when ever he drew near. Frustrated and a little hurt, he searched for some possible opening.

"Wot'cher there, Harry!" someone said. Harry turned to see the Weasley twins on either side of him. They quickly grabbed him by the arms and led him a section of the table particularly crowded with first years. Completely disregarding everyone else sitting, they made a bit of mayhem shoving everyone aside to make space for all three of them. Not a few students fell clean off their benches. Harry would have felt bad for them if they hadn't been able to so easily find new seats where he himself hadn't.

Harry found himself sitting across from Hermione and Clyde. Hermione had her nose buried in a book and hadn't noticed a thing (which Harry was glad for, as he didn't want her pity or for the twins to be lectured). Clyde was just about to fall asleep in his eggs.

"It's about time you got up," Hermione said, barely glancing up.

"Well, if someone had bothered to wake me..." he muttered, then gave Hermione a smile. "The watch works by the way. Although you might have gone a bit overboard on the heating charm."

"It's suppose to give you an incentive not to be late." She didn't look up when she said it, but her wicked smile was a little hard to miss. Clyde's head finally slipped off his hand and landed in his eggs. They all had a good laugh at him, and Hermione gave him a strong cup of tea. Then she got out their schedules (all schedules were the same for first years in the same house), and gave them an outline of what their week would be like.

The twins quickly got involved, and started telling them about the teachers and each of their little quirks and who assigned the most homework and who was the most generous with points and whose detentions were the worst. How much of their information was reliable, Harry didn't know. While he could easily see McGonagall handing out the most homework, he couldn't see Snape handing out the most points (especially when the twins gave each other a rather curious look when they said it).

Hermione eventually dragged them off to History of Magic, Clyde's face flecked with eggs. Professor Toure was their teacher, and Harry got the impression she was a bit of a fanatic. She had a strange philosophy regarding the necessity of dark wizards and war and violence for the progress of wizarding culture. Anyone caught criticizing Grindlewald or Morgana got a week sitting in the corner. Anyone caught criticizing Voldemort got the corner, a week's worth of detention, and had to write a letter to the man apologizing for whatever they said (this was probably the most effective deterrent). She seemed to pay extra close attention to Harry, who made it a point to say nothing through her entire class lest he let something slip. "I sort of wish they had kept the previous professor. Professor Toure is competent and all, but I think it would have been interesting to have been taught by a ghost!" Hermione said on the way to Charms.

Professor Flitwick taught Charms and had the greatest sense of humor of all their professors. He regaled the first years by levitating all sorts of things across the room, sometimes bouncing off people's heads as they went. This was the first class where wand-work was required, and the first time Harry had the opportunity to touch his wand since he bought it. Removing it from its case, he felt an instant surge of power. Clyde, who had been dozing next to him, started and turned to him as if he'd been poked.

They were asked to levitate a feather as an exercise. Hermione and a Hufflepuff boy were the only ones to really succeed. Dean Thomas, another Gryffindor, set his on fire. Clyde split his feather in two (not even Professor Flitwick could figure out how). Harry came close, causing his feather to skim the top of his desk but never take flight. Next was Dark Arts and Defense, taught by Professor Quirrel. Everyone who had been looking forward to it, Harry in particular, was soon disappointed. While Quirrel seemed to know his material, the man was prone to stopping in the middle of what he was saying to sigh in the most depressing way. Clyde was caught sleeping in the middle of an explanation of the difference between hereditary curses and bloodline curses, and the only thing the other man did was look at him longingly, sigh, and continue with his lecture. By the time lunch rolled around, Clyde finally woke up enough to ask what he had missed. Hermione proceeded to lecture him on the missed material, adding a great deal more information than was actually talked about, and scaring the poor boy rigid. She was just getting past the class material and getting into lecture mode over his irresponsibility when she spotted Draco waiting for her at the entryway to the Great Hall.

"Oh, I better got talk to him now," she said. "I don't want to have this conversation right in the middle of potion's class." "Good luck," said Harry. "Don't let him make you feel bad about ending up in Gryffindor, either."

She smiled weakly and left.

"Think he'll eat her?" asked Clyde.

Harry shrugged and went to find a seat. This time no one attempted to crowd him out, although no one spoke to him either. The Weasley twins hadn't arrived yet, and they both took the moment of peace to eat without fear of poisoning.

"Well, Potter, I'm surprised to see you here. I thought You-Know-Who would cursed you brain dead. Of course, no one would be able to tell the difference really."

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Ron Weasley, sneering at him. He took a long measuring look, found the spiteful boy to not be worth risking house points over, and turned back to his soup.

"What's the matter, Potter? No witty come back? I guess your brain really did turn to mush."

Clyde was reaching for his wand, but Harry looked at him and shook his head. "Don't bother," Harry said. "It's not like his opinion matters."

"What did you say, idiot?" snarled the boy.

"Harry, he's drawn his wand."

He didn't even bother turning to the redhead. He didn't even stop eating. Clyde was looking increasingly frantic. He kept reaching for his wand, but hesitated when he saw his friend's complete nonchalance. By now, much of Gryffindor table were turning to watch. Harry took a sip of his pumpkin juice. "Put your wand away!" came a new voice, hissing angrily. "Do you want to lose Slytherin points on your very first day?"

"But he-"

"Is obviously above your juvenile behavior," Hermione said imperiously. Harry looked over his shoulder this time to see Draco holding Ron's wand hand down and Hermione hovering just behind them, looking furious.

"Who asked you, you filthy- ow!"

"For your sake, you better not finish that sentence," Draco snarled, his hand now crushing the redhead's wrist. "Now come on. I think you and I should have a discussion about the difference between Slytherin and Gryffindor conduct. Because right now, Potter is being more Slytherin than you."

At this the youngest Weasley brother turned pink around his freckles. Reluctantly, he put his wand away and settled for shooting Harry (who had already turned away) a venomous look.

"We'll settle this later," he said, and stormed off towards his own house' table. Harry waved goodbye without looking. He could just imagine the redhead turning purple like his uncle used to. Draco let out an exasperated sigh.

"Are you going to join us?" "No," said Hermione. "I prefer more civilized company. Thank you." "Suite yourself. After classes?" "You're welcome to join me in the library." "I'll see you then."

"Good luck, Draco."

A moment later Hermione settled in beside Harry. "You handled that really well," she complimented. "I don't think I could have ignored someone pointing a wand at my back."

"What was he going to do? I doubt he knows many, if any more curses than I do. And definitely not something that would hurt me. A Finite Incantatem later and I would be fine, he'd have detention at the least and have lost his house points."

"Bloody hell, Malfoy was right, you are more Slytherin than Ron."

Harry frowned darkly at Clyde, but inside he was more than a little uncomfortable with the comparison. He was Gryffindor. The hat had put him in Gryffindor. So what if it had suggested Voldemort's house first?

Transfiguration turned out to be as difficult as Harry thought it would be. While the transfiguration of a desk into a pig was pretty funny, it was followed by copious amounts of note taking, and then a practice exercise. They were trying to turn matches into needles. Several matches simply caught fire. Harry's sprouted a silver leaf. Hermione came closest by making it silvery and pointy at the end. Lunch and then Potions with Slytherins immediately afterwards. It was... interesting. Apparently, the Weasley twins hadn't lied. Snape really did hand out the most points... to his own house. He kept giving simple questions to his house and then impossible questions to Gryffindor (although Hermione managed to get hersright) and then railed at their stupidity. Harry wasn't sure if he was angry with the bias or amused by the ridiculously immature behavior. At least the man ignored himmuch to Ron's disappointment. It wasn't until class was dismissed for the day that the man finally graced him with his unpleasant attention.