CHAPTER 17

"Yo!" a blond boy with a haircut mirroring Justin's waved at us. "Hector, right?"

"Yes."

He and another boy rose from their chairs and approached, extending their hands.

"Ernie Macmillan—let's get acquainted."

"And I," said the second, nearly blond boy, "am Zacharias Smith."

"Hector Granger," I replied, shaking their hands.

"Chat now or sleep?" Zacharias asked, eyeing us with a weary expression.

"Sleep, of course—Potions tomorrow," I said.

"On the first day? A nightmare!" the boys groaned in unison, and Justin pointed at my school trunk beside a bed in one of the niches.

"Looks like you're assigned here. We've got four guys in our year now."

"And the girls?"

"Two."

"So few?"

As we prepared for bed, I learned where the proper bathroom was—beyond the shower or bath. The shower was communal, at the corridor's end; there was no bath unless you counted the prefects' pool.

"They say," Justin remarked as we climbed into bed, with Zacharias already conked out without closing his nook's curtain, "the late seventies and early eighties were lean years for kids. There are fewer of us now than in past years."

"What happened?"

"A civil war, by local standards. The numbers aren't huge, but given magical Britain's tiny population, the percentages and ratios…"

"You sound smart…" A pillow whizzed from one nook to another.

"Ow…"

"Sleep already, and—"

---

Morning in the new place didn't faze me at all. The elf had roamed for centuries, greeting each day in a fresh spot. Part of the dwarf's memories felt a twinge of disappointment at the common room's hobbit-like layout and design. Well… a dwarf's a dwarf, but how I itch to call him a gnome!

I woke before the others—routine and habit are unshakable. After a quick warm-up, I hit the shower, where a couple of older boys were nursing hangovers under cold water streams. Ignoring them, I finished my hygiene routine and returned to the room. The boys were still out cold, but time waits for no one! Per the schedule I'd found among Hermione's books, breakfast was nearing. Spotting a round metal tray on the table, I grabbed it and a nearby spoon. With a simple sound-amplifying construct, a swing, and a strike—

The clang of metal reverberated through the room.

"Get up!" Another strike. "You'll sleep through Potions!"

That last phrase pierced their sleepy minds far better than the noise, rousing them like sluggish sleepwalkers toward the shower. They returned quickly, glaring at me with clear displeasure.

"We'll be late—or scarf breakfast down," I shrugged, unfazed.

Justin approached his nook, drew his wand, and cast *Tempus**, conjuring an illusory clock face.

"True enough."

Hastily donning the school uniform—trousers, shirt, tie in house colors, a dark jumper with sleeves and the Hogwarts crest, and a robe with yellow lining—we stepped into the common room. The atmosphere buzzed with life, but students didn't linger long, departing as soon as they'd gathered their friends or packed their bags.

"I thought I'd have to wake you," Cedric approached from the side, flashing his signature smile.

"No need," Zacharias muttered, glowering at me, his tousled blond hair uncombed. "Hector woke us in the cruelest way."

"Oh? How so, if it's not a secret?"

"He banged an iron tray like a maniac and yelled, 'Get up!'"

"Uh-huh," the prefect waved it off. "That's nothing! I know a tricky spell—I'll show you later, Hector…"

"No!" the boys yelped in unison, recoiling half a step.

"Alright, jokes aside," Cedric said, pulling several thin parchment sheets from his robe's inner pocket and handing them to us. "Your schedules. And this is…"

He gave me an extra sheet.

"List the extra subjects you've chosen. These forms were filled out in second year, but, well, you know."

"Of course. Got a quill?"

We stood near the exit from the boys' wing, those round doors still irking me. I'd get used to it, hopefully. Beside us was a table cluttered with stationery and odds-and-ends—inkwells and a couple of quills included. Approaching it, I laid the form down, deftly dipped a quill in ink, and filled it out with practiced ease.

"Wow!" Zacharias exclaimed, awed. "My dad would've built me a monument in my lifetime for handwriting that gorgeous!"

"Indeed," Cedric nodded, smiling. "Hogwarts' invitation letter looks like cheap scrap after this."

"It just came naturally."

No surprise there—writing with a quill was a daily elven habit across countless years.

"Well then," Cedric said, taking my form and admiring the script for a moment before continuing, "I'm entrusting our new guy to you."

As the prefect turned to join the gathered first-years, my classmates promptly dragged me back to our room.

"Got the schedule?" Justin asked rhetorically.

"We did," Ernie nodded—he'd been mostly silent lately.

"Let's pack our bags now so we don't scramble later like everyone else."

"Makes sense," I agreed, eager to try the strategy myself.

As we prepped for the day and returned to the common room, I couldn't help noticing that hardly anyone wore a standard school bag—the dress code here seemed laxer beyond the uniform. My personally enchanted triangular backpack wouldn't stand out.

We weren't the last to reach the Great Hall for breakfast, nor the first, so the hum of students filled the air from all sides. As we took our seats at the house table, plates of porridge, sausages, rolls, and other breakfast fare appeared before us. Ernie Macmillan, catching me scanning the house tables and students, launched into a monologue about the school's current "political" landscape—who was who, including a certain Harry Potter, a half-blood who'd supposedly offed the local Dark Lord as a baby, and other tidbits I'd mostly pieced together from Hermione's books. True, I'd had to read between the lines for that info, but now I at least grasped who boasted what blood status, which houses officially ignored it but secretly didn't. To my relief, Hufflepuff paid little heed to such things de jure—though de facto, pure-bloods still held more social sway. Nothing new. My observations naturally led to conclusions on a different topic.