Angela Cross and the End All Spell

Angela Cross and the End-All Spell

--a Harry Potter Universe fanfiction--

Chapter Seven

**Roll Call**

The first day of classes taxed Angela's sense of direction to its limits and then proceeded to turn it upside down and inside out.

Everything had started out quite pleasantly. As she had woken up to her first new day of classes and headed down into the Gryffindor common room, there was a notice posted on the room's main bulletin board, a listing of classes for first year students. Many faces were crowded around it, muttering to each other, wondering what the classes would be like. Percy Weasley was there as well, his little gold badge polished to a highly reflective shine, answering any questions the new students might have, telling them where their classes were going to be and what should be brought to each, though there was a nicely detailed notice beside the class schedule that did this job just as effectively. It seemed to Angela that Percy was quite happy demonstrating (or perhaps flaunting) his encyclopedic knowledge of the school to those around him, never resisting the opportunity to turn just enough so the morning light from the window would catch his badge and gleam across the various surfaces of the room.

It was six o'clock, rather early, but she still had to get ready for class and have breakfast. Angela had slept so soundly in that warm bed though that she felt completely awake, the adrenaline already pumping at the thought of what her classes would bring. When she had returned to her room to get dressed she had found a surprise in her trunk, as did all the other students in the dorm: all their uniforms had been altered in the night while they slept, the neutral colors of the sweaters and ties now replaced with the red and gold tones of her new house. Even her robes now had the Gryffindor patch emblazoned upon them. It was of little surprise to her when she went to look in the room's main mirror and found a line of students wanting to admire their new digs, though it was worth the wait when she looked at her complete Hogwarts outfit, twirling here and there to take in all the details: it brought an added sense of realism to what she was going through, making her even happier if that were possible. She noted her schedule for the day, got her books and class supplies, and headed out to start her first day of classes.

It was at that point that things became difficult. She could only vaguely remember all the twists and turns the group had made the night before, but almost none of those paths were even there when she tried to head down to the Great Hall. Doors didn't seem to lead to the same halls and often led into empty rooms or back ways she had already come, some doors weren't even really doors but instead led straight into brick walls. When she turned back to the Gryffindor common room to get some directions, she was especially worried to find the path she had originally taken was no longer going back where it did only minutes before, and it was only random luck that got her back to where she had been. Paintings changed constantly as characters from them often moved from one painting to another so they were all but useless as landmarks, and when she finally found her way to the main stairwell it was rather disturbing to see various staircases turning side to side and moving up and down randomly within what looked like an infinitely deep well. It took about five tries but she finally found her way down to the bottom floor, leaving her extremely frustrated: had it not been for a passing group of upperclassmen that seemed to know their way down the stairs with uncanny precision and ease, she would probably still be stuck upstairs. Angela could see as she reached the Great Hall for breakfast that she was not alone in her frustrations, for a number of first years continued to trickle in after her, looks of utter annoyance, exhaustion or hunger on their faces.

Unfortunately, due to the forty-five minutes it took to get to the Hall in the first place breakfast was a short-lived experience, and Angela only allocated herself fifteen minutes to chow down on a bowl of grits, some eggs and some hash browns. It was an interesting experience to be in the Great Hall this time, though, as students were rushing about willy-nilly, making sure they had all their supplies in order, getting reacquainted with old friends from previous school years, stuffing their faces with last-minute meals - a much more casual yet much more electrified atmosphere than the night before. As Angela ate she looked up and noticed the ceiling to the Hall was closed this time, now appearing like an old wooden cathedral from within; still, there were plenty of windows to let in bright shafts of light as the morning sun climbed higher and higher.

Another interesting sight to see, and one that slightly freaked her out at first, was the morning mail call. Owls seemed to be the preferred means of carrying post in Great Britain, as was the case when hundreds of owls had burst in through one of the open windows in the top of the Hall, each with packages and parcels to deliver. Many students had letters of their own to send, and many of the owls that headed off were now carrying closed envelopes to go to friends, family, and the like. Angela decided she'd see how the week went before sending her owl Percy off with a letter to her mother; though she kept his cage in her room, he spent most of his time in the owlery in one of the other towers on the school grounds. Had she known taking care of an owl was such an effortless task she would have raised one a long time ago, though she suspected the magical breeds of owls used for mail were probably somewhat smarter than the average type.

First up for the day was Transfiguration, which to her relief just required a hop across the courtyard outside and down a couple of straight, easy-to-navigate hallways. She wasn't entirely surprised to be one of the first in the room, even if there were only ten minutes left until class started, as getting down to the ground floor was a chore in itself; only Hermione Granger (surprise, surprise), a handful of others from either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, and, funny enough, a well-groomed silver-and-black-striped tabby cat that was sitting attentively on the teacher's desk had made it before she did.

Students suddenly seemed to be finding their way to class at the same time as her and Angela wanted to get her preferred seat: one in the front row. It was a location she chose not because she was a teacher's pet or anything (which was what she assumed was Hermione's reason for choosing the front row), but because the teachers didn't seem to pay as much attention to the front row as they did the back, where the troublemakers or lackadaisical tended to hide and instead ended up getting called upon more to answer the difficult questions; while Angela was enthusiastic to learn, she wasn't enthusiastic to be called on out of the blue to ask questions she was sure she'd be clueless about. She took her seat and got ready to learn magic.

The majority of the class had made it just before the doors automatically swung shut, closing with a heavy thud, yet there was no teacher to be seen. For a few minutes everyone tried to stay in place and wait patiently, but it is a hard thing for a gaggle of eleven-year-olds to stay put for long and soon mumblings and mutterings began to flood the room...

... Until there was a loud skritch from the chalk board at the end of the room, and everyone swung around, eyes squinted in pain at the first sound, to see a piece of chalk writing upon it without anyone there:

Open your notebooks and begin to copy this down. Speaking will not be tolerated.

A series of long explanations on the fundamentals of Transfiguration began to scrawl themselves onto the chalkboard with the help of the floating chalk, and silently everyone began to take notes. Still, though, no teacher was present.

The doors to the room swung open and both Ron Weasley and Harry Potter ran through, completely winded. While some students turned to glance at the twosome (or, more specifically, Harry), many kept their attention on the board in case the teacher was just invisible and writing notes on the blackboard. Hermione just made a look of disgust that they were late and went back to note-taking.

"Whew, made it," said Ron, trying to catch his breath but apparently happy that no teacher was present. "Can you imagine old McGonagall's face if she knew we were late?"

The tabby cat, which everyone seemed to wonder why it was sitting on the teacher's desk in the first place, suddenly leapt off the table and in mid-air smoothly and quickly transformed into Minerva McGonagall, her feet easily catching the ground in mid-step as she made her way sternly towards the two. The whole class was so stunned that there weren't even gasps of surprise from them.

There was a moment of silence, uncomfortable silence from Harry and Ron, before Ron finally broke it.

"That was bloody brilliant!"

"Thank you for that assessment, Mr. Weasley," she said dryly. "Perhaps it would be more useful if I transfigured either you or Mr. Potter into a pocket-watch. That way one of you might be on time."

"We got lost," said Harry embarrassedly. This was definitely an excuse Angela, and probably most of the students in the room, could sympathize with this day.

"Then perhaps a map?" responded Professor McGonagall. "I trust you don't need one to find your seats." With that, she turned briskly and headed behind the table, taking the chalk in mid-write and continuing as though she had been writing the whole time without stopping. Harry and Ron just looked at each other mortified and found an empty set of seats, taking notes along with everyone else. Angela, on the other hand, was desperately hoping Professor McGonagall would tell them where to find said map.

The young girl was thirsting to start using her wand sometime soon, but unfortunately the first half-hour of class was all note-taking and lecture. Professor McGonagall informed the class that Transfiguration was some of the most complex and dangerous magic they would learn in the school, and threatened them with permanent expulsion from her room should they be caught 'messing around'. Angela got the impression she was completely serious and took her as such, though she had to admit she liked a teacher who kept the peace while keeping things interesting, especially a teacher who would start off the second half of class by turning her desk into a pig and back again. This part of class was much more exciting, as Professor McGonagall gave them all matchsticks and instructed them to turn them into needles. Angela's attempts were far from successful, ending up with nothing but pointy matchsticks by the end; only Hermione Granger managed to pull off a perfect transformation, which brought a short-lived but genuine smile from the teacher. Other students had varying degrees of success: Harry had came fairly close, turning the matchstick into a needle with a bulbous red striking end; in the back of the room, the Hufflepuff boy with the large head, Jason Wages, wasn't even trying to turn it into a needle but was instead trying, with limited success, to turn it into a snake, ending up with a matchstick broken in multiple places that was slithering across the table and getting himself detention from Professor McGonagall immediately; meanwhile, Neville wasn't able to affect his matchstick in the slightest, no matter how much he waved his wand, which he was doing quite animatedly; Seamus just kept causing his matches to burst into flames whenever he tried to cast on them. Despite not quite getting it right, Angela was incredibly excited to had gotten as far as she did, and couldn't wait to practice some more when she got the time.

The week that came was full of such interesting experiences, albeit taxing in one way or another. Monday mornings were allocated to Transfiguration, while she had herbology classes on the first three days of the week after lunch, one of the few classes that the Gryffindors didn't have scheduled with the other houses present. A small, round witch named Professor Sprout would teach them about the various plants, fungi and herbs and their uses, and Angela was pleased that her own experience with her home garden gave her a slight leg up on everyone in the class except Hermione, who apparently memorized every book on plants the wizarding world had to offer.

Tuesday mornings were a tough fight though, for that was when History of Magic was being taught by what she was told was the only ghostly instructor in the school. Angela, surprised that she had made it to the Great Hall for breakfast a whole ten minutes earlier despite still having trouble finding her way (and getting waylaid by Peeves who knocked a tapestry off a wall and onto her head), was ready and energized to learn all about the history of this new world she was now part of, only to discover that Professor Binns was so utterly boring, monotone and unenthusiastic about what he taught that staying awake for the whole class period was a nearly-futile struggle. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students were passed out throughout the room after only ten minutes of lecture about the glorious, bloody battles of the wizards of old against goblins, trolls, dragons, and giants, told in a voice so utterly without passion that even this fantastic topic was dreary beyond compare. Angela was only able to keep herself coherent by amusing herself, imagining Professor Binns saying "Bueller, Bueller, Bueller," over and over again. Despite the occasional snores however, the Professor didn't stop or even glance at his student body once, just going on and on about the violent massacres on the battlefield as though he were discussing socks or dental floss.

"Hi!"

Angela was about to take a seat at her first class of the next day when she looked back behind herself - Kathy had just walked into the classroom, carrying her pink bookbag on her shoulder and waving.

"Hello!" Angela responded happily. She hadn't even considered that she would be sharing a class with her, but it was a great surprise and a great offset to what had begun as a rather frustrating trek through the labyrinthine school grounds.

Their socializing had to be cut short though, for Wednesdays mornings were Defense Against the Dark Arts, which despite the exciting prospects of fighting against evil creatures and laying waste to the forces of darkness at the end of a wand, turned out to be a major disappointment to everyone. Professor Quirrell's room stank of garlic, making listening to his lecture incredibly difficult for all, and though he obviously couldn't help it his stuttering wasn't helping either. In fact, lecturing was all Professor Quirrell seemed willing to do, barely going into detail about any of his own experiences in the field and not giving students to bring out their wands once. Angela seemed somewhat disappointed that Quirrell wasn't discussing anything regarding Dark Magic, as she was wanting to learn more about those spells and possibly understand what was hidden in her head to a greater degree. Throughout the entire hour of class, however, the sole extent of Professor Quirrell reciting his personal experience was when someone asked him about a zombie he had bested for an African prince, which brought nothing but a flushed face from the instructor and a quick change in topic to the weather.

If Wednesday mornings were a disappointment, Wednesday nights were what Angela lived for: at midnight was Astronomy, a topic Angela absolutely adored. While most of the Gryffindor (and even a couple of the Ravenclaw) students looked bored to tears, cataloguing stars and mapping out planets, Angela was enthralled with the heavens and was only disappointed when 1:00am had rolled around and class ended. The teacher, Professor Sinistra, even complimented Angela's thoroughness of her notes and her apparent interest in the subject, which brought a bit of an annoyed huff from Granger who apparently didn't like being showed up by another student. Sinistra explained to everyone that the primary purpose of Astronomy was because certain complex spells they would learn in later years were more or less powerful depending on the alignment of planets and which constellations were in certain positions, as well as indicating that certain powers that governed the laws of magic could only be communed with when their own stars were in ascendance. She also made an offhand remark about them being an integral component to Divination, but didn't seem to take foretelling the future very seriously, which brought Kathy no small measure of annoyance.

Professor Flitwick's Charms class was scheduled on Thursdays to accommodate the late hour of Astronomy, giving the students a whole extra hour to get to class. When the cheery-faced, whiskery little wizard, who had to stand on a stack of books to be seen, took roll, he actually fell off of his stack with a happy squeak upon calling the name of Harry Potter who had succeeded in making it to class with fifteen seconds to spare this time. The Professor encouraged a lot more wand activity than the other teachers, but unfortunately it was primarily an exercise in proper wand movement than in actually casting magic spells. With fifteen minutes to go, though, everyone was handed an apple and told to try and make it orange in color. And yet again, only Hermione was able to complete the charm properly, which Angela could see was beginning to wear the patience of the class thin. Hufflepuff shared this class with them, and once again Jason Wages got a reprimand, though a considerably lighter one than in Transfiguration, for trying to make the apple as hard and heavy as a bowling ball. Professor Flitwick commended him on his creative idea of 'Bowling for Apples', but suggested he try to keep his attention focused on the task at hand.

Despite only having one class scheduled, Friday was a long day; to Angela's amazement, though, she had actually made it to the Great Hall without getting lost at all. In fact, most of the students seemed to have made it to breakfast on time for once - Neville Longbottom seemed to be one of the few that didn't seem to show up the entire breakfast period, but otherwise the Hall was filled with almost as many students as were present at the Sorting Ceremony earlier in the week. Angela had no idea just how she made it down so easily, especially since she couldn't imagine verbally giving anyone the directions she had taken, but it seemed as though she and the other first years were finally getting used to the chaotic layout of the school. Or perhaps the school was just getting used to them instead...

"Hi, Angee!" exclaimed Kathy, coming in from the opposite direction Angela had - the Ravenclaw common room was in a tower on the west side of the school. She, like Angela, was toting her books and note-taking materials, only short the cauldron Angela carried.

"Kathy!" said Angela, just taking her place at the Gryffindor table. This was the first time they had both intersected at breakfast; normally they met in or on the way to class. The two had chatted numerous times during the week, hanging out together during class and often going over their lessons together after. With a whole hour until her Double Potions, they'd have plenty of time to socialize this time around. Angela scooted a little to the side, giving Kathy room to sit, and Kathy pleasantly took the empty place beside her, ready to have some breakfast.

"Ahem."

Angela and Kathy hadn't noticed anything at first. With all the choices to eat, the twosome were in the process of adding fruit to their already sizeable meals, when it came again.

"A-hem."

The girls finally noticed the sound and looked up curiously. There were a group of five second-year Gryffindors sitting at the table, looking at them with surprise and annoyance.

"Yes?" Angela asked.

"Your friend, she's in Ravenclaw."

Angela and Kathy looked at each other, then back at the second-years. Not sure what their point was, Kathy nodded.

"Don't you have your own table?" asked a black girl with short, tightly woven hair. Her tone was anything but friendly.

Both of them frowned at this. "Yeah, so?" asked Kathy coldly.

"This is the Gryffindor table," said a large, burly boy with poorly cut hair and a weak chin, an air of smug superiority coming from him.

"She's having breakfast with me," Angela responded.

"She should have breakfast over there with the other braniacs," said a tall, dark-haired girl, nodding towards the Ravenclaw table farther across the room.

It was bad enough having to deal with a small gang of boys on the train, but to have a gang of her own housemates pushing around her friend was a real slap in the face for Angela.

Defiantly, she added a couple of nectarines to Kathy's plate. The group frowned and crowded around the two, prompting Angela and Kathy to stand up defensively.

"You know, we are upperclassmen to you," the black girl said. She seemed to be the ringleader of the group from the way the others crowded around to her. "If we say you should move, it's a good idea if you move."

"Angee and I are going to have breakfast here," Kathy said, standing up to the girl as best she could; the girl was half a foot taller than she was. "There's no rule saying we have to sit at our house tables, so you can go away and let us have breakfast."

The burly boy moved up to Kathy, trying to intimidate her but not succeeding. "Go back to the Ravenclaw table, little girl," he said in a haughty voice. "We're second-years, you have to do what we say even if I wet my bed every night."

At this last statement, everyone looked at the boy in total surprise, who covered his mouth and looked absolutely aghast. Apparently he had said the last part especially loud and some others at the table suddenly took notice of the group. The boy's face had gone completely beet red, but he looked as surprised as everyone else.

"What did you just say?" asked a skinny boy with thick glasses, one of the group of Gryffindor bullies who had not spoken up till now.

Slowly removing his hands from his mouth, the boy kept quiet for a moment before speaking. "I-I don't know why I said that," he stammered, "I don't wet the bed even though I do every single night and cry like a little girl in the dark-" He slapped his hands over his mouth and went even redder. His fellow groupmates just looked at him as though he had gone insane.

"Lave, what the heck are you doing I like to eat mud pies made out of real mud-" The dark-haired girl slapped her own hands over her mouth and looked completely shocked. The other three in the group were now looking at the boy and girl, wondering what in the world had come over them.

Suddenly, apparently without being able to help herself, the black girl spoke up: "I forgot to put on underpants today." Then the skinny boy: "I'd like to give Professor Snape a big sloppy kiss." The last one of the group, a freckled blonde boy with buck teeth who had remained silent up until now, slapped his hands over his mouth just to be on the safe side, looking at Angela and Kathy with wide, worried eyes.

"I need someone to hold my hand when I go potty-" The skinny boy didn't take any chances and bolted out of the hall before he could utter anything embarrassing again. The others of the group quickly followed suit, hands over their mouths, though the black girl stayed, not entirely sure she would say anything absurd again.

The second she pulled her hands off her mouth she wished she hadn't: "I like to stick quills up my nose and drink bubotuber puss-" she said uncontrollably before running out of the room too, eyes looking like she was about to burst into tears as she ran. Everyone at the Gryffindor table watched the group go with utter confusion, though no one as confused as Angela or Kathy, who sat back down and looked at each other, wondering if the other had done something.

The culprits made themselves known by their sniggering which quickly turned into loud, raucous laughter. Fred and George Weasley, sitting a few seats down the table, were cracking up, slamming their hands on the table in a vain attempt to avoid busting a gut. Angela and Kathy looked at them, not sure exactly what happened, though they were beginning to feel the urge to laugh as well; whatever they had done, it certainly was funny.

"Some people, think they run the show after just one year," Fred said, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Needed to be put in their place, they did," added in George, no longer laughing out loud though giggling uncontrollably.

"You two did that?" asked Angela.

"Guilty as charged," said Fred, sliding down the table closer to the girls. "Just try to keep it under your hat, hm?" He tapped his pointy wizard's hat for emphasis.

"Goldrick's Humiliating Incantation," George said, showing his wand as he slid down along with his brother. "Hope Lee doesn't mind, but his sister can be such a prat sometimes."

"Nah," reassured Fred, "you remember all that trouble she caused for him last year when she told their parents he was failing Snape's class. I bet he'll be thanking us before the day is through."

"Too true, too true. So," George said, "enjoying your first week at Hogwarts?"

"A lot more after that," Kathy said with a smile. "That was awfully nice of you to stick up for us."

"Ah, think nothing of it," Fred said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Second year isn't when you should be going on a power trip."

"Yeah, that's for us third-years," George said with a wink. "House spirit is great and all, but they were just being stupid."

"So it's not going to be a problem if Kathy sits here?" Angela asked.

"Pfft, a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor sitting at the same table? That's nothing, check that out."

Fred gestured behind the girls towards the Hufflepuff table, where Jason Wages and James McGee were sitting together and eating. James was getting extremely dirty looks from everyone on the Hufflepuff table, though neither seemed to care.

"Hufflepuff and a Slytherin sitting together? Now that's a disaster waiting to happen."

If the Hufflepuffs were looking revolted that a Slytherin student was sitting with them, the Slytherins on the next table looked positively murderous. Some of them were throwing food at the boys, who were joking amongst themselves and paying no attention to the catcalls around them. Angela looked back at the Weasleys curiously.

"Why is that a problem but Kathy and I aren't?" she asked.

"Well, aside from the fact that snakes and badgers tend to eat each other in the wild," George said, thumbing at the school crest behind the faculty table which showed the Hufflepuff mascot to be a badger and the Slytherin mascot to be a snake, "Slytherins tend to be a rotten lot. They treat everyone like something a dog leaves on the street, almost never associate with anyone but their own."

Angela turned and looked back at the two boys, who despite the glares from others were getting along splendidly. The Hufflepuff boy was making some loud, obnoxious joke, perhaps to purposefully drown out the nastiness around him, while the Slytherin boy was laughing at it. Neither seemed like the 'rotten lot' sort.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the morning mail call came. To Angela's surprise, her own owl came swooping down with an envelope in his clutches, landing before her with ease and holding it up for her to take. It was stamped with about fifty-cents of American postage and was addressed Angela Cross, Hogwarts Magic School, England in her mother's handwriting. How her mother had gotten a hold of the owl in the first place to send her a letter she had no idea.

"Thanks, Percy," Angela said, taking the letter and offering him a slice of bread, which he took happily.

"What?" asked Fred and George simultaneously.

"It's a letter from my mom," Angela said.

"No, what did you call your owl?" asked George.

"... Percy?" Angela said, wondering what they were getting at.

Fred and George immediately burst out laughing and nearly fell off their seat, their eyes filled with tears. Angela still wasn't sure what was so funny, until she remembered that was the name of their older brother.

"Hang on a sec, bro," Fred said, wiping his eyes and trying to catch his breath. He thumbed down the table, where Angela could see the human Percy sitting with some other upperclassmen, and George suddenly sprouted an identical devious smirk of the one that Fred was wearing. "Keep 'Percy' here for a second, eh?" he instructed Angela, who wondered just what they had in mind.

Fred got up and walked down the length of the table to Percy the Prefect, slapping his hand on his brother's shoulder and taking him by surprise. Percy spun around quickly, wondering what was wrong, until he saw Fred standing over him.

"Yes?" he asked irritably.

"I just wanted to tell you, brother, that I love you," said Fred, a sappy expression on his face.

Percy just remained quiet for a second, then turned to his classmates who were looking at them both with amusement.

"That's... nice," Percy said, immediately suspecting treachery afoot. "Do you want something?"

"Now, now, don't be that way," Fred responded, looking hurt, "you're my brother and I never get to tell you how much you mean to the whole family. Mum is right, you really are the one we should all be looking up to."

Again, Percy paused. "Have you been dipping into the butterbeer again?" he asked, even more skeptical than before. Fred responded by opening his arms wide, looking at Percy expectantly.

"Fred, what do you want?"

"C'mon, you big lug, give your little brother a hug." His arms remained wide.

Percy looked at the other classmates again, who began to snigger at the scene. There was Fred, quite publicly demanding a large hug from Percy, and while he did love his brother, Percy didn't trust him for an instant.

A moment passed, and Fred looked at Percy, who was still trying to figure out what all the angles were at this point.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Throw your arms around me and let me know we're all still pals!" He was being quite loud now, and Percy knew if he didn't do something soon that Fred would only make a bigger ruckus the longer he had to wait.

"All right, all right," he said, trying to get Fred to lower his voice, "but I swear, you put anything on my back like a Kick me sign and I'll make you sorry."

"C'mere!" Fred said, getting more obnoxious.

Percy got up and, still very careful, making sure his brother wasn't carrying anything in his hands, gave him a very low-key hug. All the students he had been sitting with made mocking Aaaaaaaw! sounds, which prompted Percy to pull away and frown at them very quickly.

"There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Percy ignored him and immediately asked his fellow students if there was anything on his back, but they just shook their heads in a no.

"There, I've been all brotherly. Now go play with George or Ron."

"Cheerio!" said Fred with a quick salute and headed back down to the group, juggling something shiny in his left hand now that his back was turned to Percy. He pulled some string out from a pocket and tied it to the shiny object, completing his little project and showing it off to the group just as he returned.

"Check it out," he said, placing his makeshift necklace around Percy the Owl's neck, "now we have two Prefect Percys!"

Everyone, including the owl, looked at what he had made: it was Percy's prefect badge on a string, hanging neatly from the owl's neck. George and Fred immediately burst out laughing.

"Any mail you plan on delivering at the moment?" Fred asked Angela, who could only shake her head in a no-manner at the sight. She hadn't had a chance to open the letter, but figured she would get a chance to respond to whatever it was about after class. "Then off with you," Fred commanded Percy the Owl Prefect, shooing the bird off the table, "go make sure the other owls toe the line." Flapping his wings, the owl hopped up and away into the sky, looking a little confused at his new gift before vanishing out of the window.

"Anyway," said George, pleased with their little chaos for the morning, "we're off to go boss around second-years. Enjoy breakfast!"

Fred and George, apparently done with their meal, got up and headed out of the hall with large, pompous steps, telling confused students of any age to tuck their shirts in and to adjust the hemline of their skirts before knocking Ron's hat off his head on their way out of the Great Hall.

Thanks to the Weasleys' intervention, breakfast was a much more enjoyable experience after, though Angela kept looking over to the Hufflepuff table to see how the two boys were faring. The other Hufflepuffs were just doing their level best to ignore the fact a member of Slytherin house was sitting with them, though the Slytherin students kept looking as though they were going to get up and pick a fight. Fortunately, the boys got up to head off to their respective classes before anything went down. After stuffing themselves to capacity Angela and Kathy got up, waving at each other as they split up - Angela headed down into the dungeon areas, where Professor Snape would be awaiting her and the other Gryffindors in Double Potions.

None of the other classes had led her so deep underground before as Potions: the room was in a cold, poorly-lit dungeon, and Angela was not the only student to be freaked out by all the pickled animals and various body parts sitting in jars on the many shelves. Most of the light came from old, wrought-iron hanging lamps and metal torches dripping with oil; only one pair of windows marked the room, high up where the back wall met the ceiling, and because they were framed in metal bars and dirty with grime from years of buildup Angela couldn't see just where they led to - she had gone down so many stairs she wondered how any light even made it through the windows in the first place.

Many students had already made it to class before her for once, most of them being from Slytherin house; this was the one class Gryffindor and Slytherin shared, and as Professor Snape was head of Slytherin, he was probably cracking the whip on his house to show up the others. Fortunately, despite their supposed enthusiasm the front row was practically bare; apparently the Slytherins didn't want to be called on any more than the other students present, and Angela was able to take her preferred spot once again.

Almost as soon as she took a seat, the doors to the room shut automatically, indicating the start of class. What surprised everyone was the boom of the doors as they swung open once more, this time by a tall, thin man in black robes who strode with purpose down the left isle, past the students until he reached the wooden podium in the front of the room. He spun around, his robes fluttering slightly, and faced the students with a stern face.

Angela recognized him vaguely from the faculty table at the Sorting Ceremony, but now that Professor Snape was standing right in front of her she could take in more detail: like McGonagall, he gave the impression that foolishness would not be tolerated without having to say a word. His dark eyes scanned the room slowly yet intensely, his face framed by shiny black hair that reached his neck, and his skin was quite pale, though he didn't appear sickly in the slightest. He had a long, Greek-crooked nose and kept his hands in his robes for the time being. And when he finally spoke, the entire class found itself quite compelled to pay attention. At first he simply proceeded with roll call, taking a pause when he reached Harry Potter's name and commenting on his celebrity status, before getting to the heart of the matter.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he said in a deep, exact tone. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

The class stayed silent following Professor Snape's speech, though had Angela looked behind herself she would have seen half the girls in the class swoon at his words and half the boys sit upright, as though they were desperate to win this teacher's favor; Angela didn't look behind herself, however, for she was too busy swooning along with the other girls in the room. The instructor's deep, cultured voice was utterly compelling to say the least.

Funny enough, the other half of the class looked utterly terrified by him.

Then, out of the blue, he returned his gaze to the back of the room. "Potter!" he exclaimed. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

There was a sudden silence in the room as every eye in the class turned and faced the boy with unkempt hair and thin-rimmed glasses. Hermione Granger, who was sitting fairly close to Angela, threw her hand up to answer the question, but no one was paying attention to her (aside from Potter, who was apparently hoping the teacher would redirect his attention her way). Angela had no idea what the answer was and was curious to see if this young boy could come up with the solution.

But his embarrassed, lowered expression said otherwise. "I don't know, sir."

"Tut, tut," Snape responded coldly, "fame clearly isn't everything." It was an awfully harsh reaction, Angela thought, but she had no idea just how much this boy was supposed to already know.

Snape asked Potter another difficult question, this time about something called a bezoar, but again the boy didn't know the answer. The teacher made another snide remark and then asked another question, something about wolfsbane and another type of plant, but again Harry couldn't answer. All the while, Hermione was waving her hand desperately in the air, still getting no attention from anyone but Potter.

Angela desperately ran through her head, trying to remember the answers to these questions herself. She had read the whole potions book while in Diagon Alley, but could barely remember the names of these herbs and fungi, much less what they did. Was she really that far behind the group? Were these questions she should have known the answers to? At least in the other classes the teachers seemed to convey the understanding that many of the kids came from non-magical homes and started everything from scratch, but Snape apparently held his students to a much higher standard.

Harry made some sarcastic remark to Snape that Angela couldn't hear, but whatever it was seemed to irritate the teacher and elicit giggles from the students. Snape promptly explained what each of the ingredients came together to create, though when he was done he turned towards all the students in the room and asked why they weren't writing this down. Angela and the others quickly spun around, grabbing some parchment, and began to scrawl what he had said as fast as they could.

"And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

All the Gryffindors stopped writing for a moment and spun around, looking at both Professor Snape and Harry Potter aghast.

Class continued on, but Angela just hoped the time would pass quicker if possible. She liked how much Professor Snape seemed to know about his craft, and he was certainly pleasing on the ears whenever he passed along instructions or discussed the creation of magical potions, but he was also an apparently unappeasable taskmaster: his voice was sharp and biting whenever a student did something wrong, which seemed to be often, the only student present getting any praise being Draco Malfoy. At one point Neville spilled the contents of a class experiment upon himself resulting in what looked like a horrid full-body burn, and Snape furiously deducted points from Harry Potter, claiming it was his fault even though Harry and Neville sat several seats apart: it was thoroughly disappointing, not for the points he once again deducted from Gryffindor, but for the fact that this teacher Angela had originally thought was so compelling was appearing more and more to be a colossal jerk, focusing considerable amounts of unwarranted aggression on Gryffindor students (and not enough on Slytherin students), and especially dumping on Harry Potter.

"Ruined!" exclaimed Angela when she left the room, up to Kathy who was waiting outside of the room for her.

"What's that?" she asked.

"This class: ruined!" Angela threw her hands up in frustration as she said it. "Professor Snape seemed so cool at first, what happened?"

Kathy just shrugged. "He was pretty tough with us on Monday, too."

Angela proceeded to explain specifically what had happened in class, which surprised Kathy quite a bit.

"Wow, he really let into you guys. He just walked around in our class and chewed us out if we were doing something totally oddball. The only person he got really mad at was that Hufflepuff kid the twins pointed out this morning, he was trying to make fizzy drinks in his cauldron and got detention."

The rest of the day was free of classes, though the homework the girls had been loaded with was considerable to say the least. A foot of parchment about the principles of transfiguration, five chapters to be read regarding the forming of the original Wizards' Council that preceded the Ministry of Magic's founding, a thesis on the comparison between northern and western mushroom spores in treatment of mental ailments, and two feet of parchment just assigned to them moments before about why salamander tongues were a better catalyst for fire-resistance salves than phoenix feathers, efreeti teeth, or dragon blood. It wasn't all bad, though, for Angela had completed her Astronomy homework before she had even finished class, and her Charms homework was bound to be fun: she needed to enchant any fruit of her choice to bounce like a rubber ball before class.

The remainder of the day was bright and sunny, and Angela and Kathy found a nice tree out in front of the school grounds to study under. It was then that Angela remembered she had a letter from her mother; she was going to write a letter to her anyway to let her know how the first week of school went, and as she opened the envelope wondered what her mother would think about getting a letter written on a scroll instead of regular paper. She scanned the letter quickly and immediately wished she hadn't.

"What's wrong?" asked Kathy at Angela's groan.

"Letter from my mom," said Angela, "she just sold her house and is now living solely out of her truck." Apparently, after returning to the States with Mr. Weasley, Sheri had followed through on her original plan before all this had started and was now living in a field out in Cimarron County on the Oklahoma border. Angela couldn't help but wonder what her mother had done with all her stuff that hadn't come to Hogwarts with her, but decided she'd rather not think about it. The only positive thing out of all of this, Angela thought, was that she had at least escaped this madness and was living far away from her mother's crazy money-making husband-finding schemes. Suddenly her homework didn't look like such a burden.

Angela scribbled out a lengthy letter about how her first week of school was, constantly reassuring Sheri that she was fine and having a wonderful time, before picking up her supplies and heading to the owlery to pass the note on to Percy. The thought of using an owl to send a letter across the Atlantic was quite amusing, and the day seemed slightly less tiring even as she climbed the long spiral of stairs, Kathy coming along with her.

A bit out of breath, the two finally reached to top of the tower where the owls lived. It was a particularly creepy sight: dozens upon dozens of owls, all kinds and sizes and ages, sat up in the rafters looking down upon the two. Hooting and chirping were unrelenting, and the place smelled of straw and the messes the straw was there to keep off the stone floor. Tiny bones of a variety of small creatures - some mice, some rabbits, and some that even looked like little people - littered the whole room. There were a few spacious, open windows spaced around the wooden thatched roof and ever-so-often an owl would flutter in or out.

With all the birds in the large round room, Angela wondered how she was going to find Percy, when a sudden glint of gold and a flutter of feathers came her way. Percy hopped down to the floor, still wearing the prefect badge neatly around his neck; he seemed to like the added bit of jewelry to his repertoire.

"Here you go, Percy," Angela said, petting the owl's head as she tied the tiny scroll to his leg. "Take this to my mom's new place. Do you know how to find it?" The owl hooted understandingly and spread his wings, jumping into the air and taking wing out the window. It was easier than even dialing a phone number, which she was sure due to her mother's location she was sure Sheri wouldn't have anyway.

Kathy was curious about Angela's mother, so Angela obligingly shared some of her mother's crazy antics with her on the way down the stairs; Kathy's reaction to her descriptions was comical and often shocked, and Angela assured her that her mother's actions were not typical of the average Muggle. In turn, Kathy answered Angela's questions about why Harry Potter was so famous and why everyone at the school seemed to make such a big deal about him. As they stepped off the stairs and headed down the hallways, Kathy told her the story of an evil wizard whose name she seemed very apprehensive to bring up, someone she would only refer to as You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

This wizard had, for a whole decade, held the wizarding world in the grip of fear. He had given rise to a movement of pure-blood wizards who felt there was too much Muggle blood coming into their respective lineages, and these wizards began eradicating those around them who were not of pure-blooded families and either enslaving or killing others who would not join them. Few wizards could stand up to his unrelenting evil, Albus Dumbledore being one of those few. Then, one night, You-Know-Who hunted down a wizard and witch who had been opposing him: the parents of Harry Potter. He killed them and then attempted to kill their baby boy as well, but instead wound up being destroyed somehow. The baby survived with only a scar, which was that chicken scratch Angela had seen upon Harry Potter's head.

"So he's famous because he killed this wizard while he was a baby?" Angela asked for confirmation.

"I don't know about that," Kathy said, "No one knows what happened that night. What Harry Potter is really famous for is that he's the only person who ever survived You-Know-Who."

"He's famous because he didn't get killed?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Kathy excitedly, "No one ever lived when You-Know-Who wanted to get his hands on them. And after Harry lived, You-Know-Who was gone, and all his slaves freed from his spells. Harry Potter marked the end of his reign of terror."

Angela nodded, getting a better picture of why everyone looked at him, especially his scar, with so much awe. A quick question popped into her head, though : "This 'You-Know-Who'... His name wasn't Price Delgado, was it?"

Kathy shook her head. She had apparently never heard the name before; the evil wizard's name started with a V, but that's all she was really willing to say. Whoever he had been, to make someone like Kathy nervous to even spell his name was saying something, and he had apparently been before her time or any of the other first year students, as well. Angela began to wonder if this V-wizard had any connection to the Book of Black, when she stopped in mid-step and looked at the hall they were in wide-eyed. Kathy stopped at her side, wondering what was wrong, until she too noticed it.

The walls and floor of this hallway were dark, gray stones, damp, and there were no more tapestries on the walls, just lines of old wooden crates. Water could be heard dripping here and there, and the occasional scurry of tiny feet echoed down the hall.

They had been so enraptured in their respective discussions that they weren't paying attention to where they were going. The two girls looked at each other, hoping the other was better oriented, but it was plain to see this wasn't the case. How they had diverged so profoundly from their original course they couldn't say, but the brightly lit passageway they were in was gone, now replaced with what looked like a medieval dungeon.

Angela and Kathy were lost in Hogwarts.