Leo Perry and the Scrolls of the Druid

- CHAPTER EIGHT -

First Day

Leo woke early the next day. Casper was gone. He must've gone off to explore again.

He was so excited about his first day of lessons that he was up before everyone else. Before he looked at his books, he decided to find his timetable from the night before. He wanted to know what classes to read up on.

He crawled out of bed. He looked down the long room. He could see a few of the boys in the distance. Most of them were still sleeping, but a few were reading or writing. They were probably finishing up some homework from the holidays, he thought.

He went to the bottom of his bed, where his trunk was. All of his things had been brought to his room before he had gone to bed. He even got his clothing from before the sorting back.

He found his timetable in his robes from the night before. This semester, he would have Transfiguration, Defense against Dark Forces, Magic History and, because he was raised as a muggle, An Introduction to Magic. That would mean that next semester he would have Potions, Herbology, Astrology and Charms.

As Leo read, lying on his bed it became light outside. He saw that the sky outside grew lighter, through the high windows in his dormitory.

Henry woke up as Leo got dressed. He was going to go out to the living room and now Henry could go with him. They walked down the long room, being very quiet. They didn't want to wake up anyone. They didn't want to make people hate them on their first day, especially not the older boys.

They passed through the doorway and entered the living room. Leo had been too tired and it had been to dark for him to notice much about this room the night before, but now he stood with his jaw dropped. There were large cushioned couches and chairs everywhere. There were coffee tables and long counters with stools. There was even a balcony with a ladder leading up to it. On the balcony, which encircled the room there were more chairs, couches and tables as well as long book cases. On the outward wall of the room there were long, tall windows that let all sorts of light in. The room was decorated in blues and it was the warmest and most inviting room that Leo had ever been in.

He and Henry sat down on a couch. There was no one else in the living room yet.

'So what do you have?' Leo asked looking at Henry reading his timetable.

'Transfiguration, Herbology, Magic History and a spare,' he said. Leo was surprised. He had assumed that he and the other first years from Loberon would all have the same classes.

'You don't have the same!' Henry said, looking at Leo's timetable. He was equally surprised as Leo. 'What's "An introduction to magic"?'

'I have no idea,' said Leo, 'They didn't say anything about it in the letter. It must be for students who grew up in the muggle world. You have a spare during that class.'

'Yeah, that's good! Too bad you don't get one.'

'Yeah,' said Leo gloomily.

Leo sat with Henry, discussing classes for quite some time. Other students kept passing them and leaving through the doors. Sometimes they waited for friends in the living room but not for very long and then they headed to the dining hall.

At seven-twenty, they decided to head down to the dining hall for breakfast. They had remembered Professor Wigelstrom's warning and they didn't want to go hungry until lunch.

They exited through the door that they had come through the night before. The coat of armor leapt out of their way as they entered the corridor outside. Leo had his first good look at the castle as he walked towards breakfast. There were tapestries, paintings and all sorts of wall hangings everywhere. As he saw the moving portraits he remembered back to the wizard card he had received on his birthday. Apparently, moving pictures was a normal thing in the wizarding world. On every wall there were unlit torches. Everywhere Leo looked he could spot doors. There were doors to classrooms, doors to closets, doors to corridors, doors to stairways and even doors to doors. Henry told him that some doors weren't actually doors and even if they were some lead to nowhere.

'Really?' Leo said in disbelief.

'Yeah,' he said, 'I read in that book Deirdre let me read.'

'How do you remember that?' Leo asked, 'You didn't even have it for that long!'

'I just have a good memory, I guess,' said Henry.

Leo still looked around in awe. They passed paintings that sneezed and a coat of armor that coughed. There was one man in a portrait that asked for directions and there was another painting that had two whispering witches that pointed at the pair of boys as they walked by. When Leo and Henry reached the second floor a portrait of a woman spoke to them, even though they had said nothing to her.

'This is not the secret entrance to Raserpen! How dare you accuse me! Go away! Shoo or I'll go inside and get the Raserpen peer-tutors! Oops! Forget I said that!' she called after them as they continued walking. As the boys turned a corner, Leo saw one of the Raserpen peer-tutors out in the corridor in front of the portrait. She looked very angry and was pointing her finger accusingly at the painted woman.

Leo and Henry finally reached the dining hall. They had turned so many corners and took so many wrong paths that they were five minutes late. They ate their breakfast (toast with jam and porridge) quickly and after they finished they realized they had rushed for nothing and sat at the Loberon table, speculating about classes.

When the bell rang, Leo and Henry headed to their first class, Transfiguration, together. They entered the classroom just in time and they sat down in a desk. There were a few other students wearing blue robes but Leo didn't know them. The rest of the class was filled with all the different colours.

'Let's begin,' said the teacher. She was a short witch with short blonde hair that she had styled so that it stuck up on the top of her head. She had a very high-pitched voice that slightly irritated Leo. 'I am Professor Lillith. I will be teaching you Transfiguration. It is a very important subject and you must always pay attention! Concentration is the key and if you goof around you will be punished.'

'What is it with this school and rules?' Henry whispered to Leo, who replied with a quick shrug of his shoulders.

'We will be starting off small,' she continued, 'We will practice changing objects into other objects. We will start by changing pins into matches, a standard first year procedure. Once you've got the hang of that, in about a week or so, we will gradually begin transfiguring larger objects.'

'It'll take a week?' Leo was astounded.

'I guess,' said Henry, 'She must not expect much from us.'

'I have some things for you to copy down. If we have enough time after that we may be able to start on our pins.'

Leo and Henry spent the rest of the period copying notes. They copied the rules of the classroom, Professor Lillith's marking scheme, an introduction to transfiguration, a brief ('Yeah right,' said Henry) History of transfiguration, and the beginner's theory of transfiguration. Leo noticed that most of the notes that Professor Lillith wrote on the chalk board were straight out of the text book.

When there were five minutes left in the class, Professor Lillith began teaching wand movements and told them to memorize the basic ones for homework.

'That took so long!' said Henry as they walked toward their next classes.

'No, I don't think so, I think it just seemed long because it was so boring!' Leo said. Henry laughed.

'Those notes were horrible!'

'Yeah,' said Leo, 'They were also straight from the textbook. She didn't do that much. She could've just made us read it out of the book.'

'That'd be better than notes!' Henry agreed.

'Hey guys,' Deirdre walked up to them, 'What do you have next?'

'Defense Against the Dark Forces,' said Leo.

'I have Herbology,' Henry told her.

'Oh great! I have Defense against Dark Forces with you, Leo. I think we have it with Lizz, too.'

'Cool,' said Leo remembering the fast talking girl from the night before.

They said goodbye to Henry as he continued down and out to the grounds and they headed to their next class on the first floor.

They got to the class to find that Lizz had already arrived. She chose desks near the front for her and Deirdre and Leo chose a seat behind them. A boy, whose friends sat behind him, sat next to Leo. He was wearing white robes.

'Hi,' Leo said to him, 'I'm Leo Perry.'

'I'm James,' said the boy, 'James Blakely.'

'So what clan do white robes mean?' Leo asked him curiously.

'I'm in Pumogar,' he said, 'You're in Loberon, right?'

'Yeah.'

The teacher entered the room a few minutes later, out of breath.

'Sorry I'm late,' she said. She was a very tall witch. She had short grey hair and a very large round nose. She wore square glasses.

'Nice of you to show up,' Leo muttered to Deirdre and Lizz.

'You! ,' the teacher pointed at Leo, 'Shut up!' Leo sat back and was quiet.

'Sorry,' Leo lied. He wasn't sorry, what was there to be sorry about? It was nice of her to show up.

'I'm Professor Natwelle. I will be teaching you how to defend yourselves from the dark forces. This is very powerful evil magic that you may all one day face. I plan to make this as fun as possible for all of you and eventually I'll let you curse each other.'

The students all looked at each other. This seemed to excite most but also scare a few of them.

'That'll be great!' whispered James. Leo saw Lizz's blonde haired head nod to Deirdre.

'Your partners for any partner work will be the person sitting next to you.' Leo was glad he had talked to James before this.

'Now, today we will be doing some notes and a few activities in your partners.' Once again Leo spent his class writing notes. He hoped that it wasn't always like this. He had never done so much work in non-magical school.

After writing these notes, Professor Natwelle wrote some questions on the black board and told the students to find the answers with their partner. Leo got out a piece of parchment and a quill and he turned to James and they worked together to finish the questions before the end of the period so that they would not have homework.

They managed to finish just as the bell rang for lunch and Leo headed toward the dining hall with Deirdre and Lizz and also a lot of his class. Henry met Leo at the Loberon table a few minutes later. His stomach growled.

'If this is what its going to be like all year,' said Henry, 'I'm going home.'

'It's not that bad,' said Deirdre.

'So Herbology wasn't fun?' Leo asked.

'It was OK,' said Henry, 'Tyler was in my class. We looked at a whole bunch of plants and then the teacher assigned us some reading on them. So that's OK, I'll finish in about ten minutes tonight.'

'We didn't get any homework,' said Leo. The conversation stayed about the same as they ate their lunches. They talked about their morning classes. Leo said that he didn't like either of his teachers a lot but they were nice enough.

The bell rang and he headed toward Magic History with Leo and another Loberon girl called Ashley. Leo was dreading more notes and more homework.

When he arrived in class, his teacher was waiting for them. 'Welcome!,' he said smiling, 'Now straight to work! I'm Professor Morzen and I want you to read pages one to forty in your textbook!' The students all stared at him with their jaws dropped, 'I'm just kidding. It's your first day! Your first years and you're probably excited. I was excited in my first year! Let's have some fun. How many of you have had the chance to use your wand today?'

Leo looked around and very few hands were in the air.

'That's what I thought,' he said shaking his head, 'Alright wands out! You'll need to learn how to use them some time. Now just pick something you want to happen. Try to move a book or a pencil or something. Don't point your wand at anyone! Just try small things. Now concentrate on what you want to happen and wave your wand.'

Leo did what he was told. He focused his mind on his quill, which was lying in front of him. He wanted to change its colour. Instead, when he waved his wand it flew up and hit Ashley in the head.

'I'm sorry,' said Leo. He didn't really know Ashley which made the situation more embarrassing. She had a red mark on her forehead, underneath her long golden blonde curls, where the quill had hit her.

Leo looked around. Many people were looking at objects with fury. They had not been able to accomplish what they wanted. It seemed that many people wanted to levitate objects and Leo had been the only one to do so. He didn't tell anyone it was unintentional.

'Yeah right,' said Henry, 'As if you meant for that to happen!' Leo winked at him and Henry laughed. They spent the rest of the class trying to make things happen with their wands. It was a lot of fun.

'Tomorrow we will start some real work,' said Professor Morzen at the end of the class, 'But we'll still have fun doing it!' Leo left, said goodbye to the others and headed to his Introduction to Magic class.

When he arrived, he noticed that the class was much smaller than all of his others. His teacher, a very smart wizard who seemed to think the class a waste of time, explained that it was only a half semester course and that after November they would have a spare like their friends. His name was Professor Beech and he also had them use their wands. He taught them two very minor spells that they would also learn in other classes. They worked on those for most of the class and then the professor explained that they would be learning very general catch up units to all of their classes.

Leo left the class in high spirits and he headed toward his living room before dinner. His afternoon had been so much better than his morning and he couldn't wait to talk about it with someone.

He headed upstairs and found the coat of armor. He shook the metallic hand and entered the beautiful room. He found Henry sitting on a couch with Ryan and Tyler.

'How was your Introduction class?' asked Henry.

'It was fun,' said Leo, 'It's only for half of the semester and then I'll have a spare with you.'

'You have Introduction, too?' asked Ryan, 'I have it second.'

'Cool,' said Leo.

They spent the next couple of hours talking, reading and doing homework. As they waited for dinner, they were joined by other first years. At six they headed to the dining hall for dinner.

Leo and Henry sat near Tom who told them about his first day, in return for their very first day stories.

'When I was in Herbology I lost a sickle to Beth. Turns out that plant could bite.' Tom rolled his sleeve up and showed Leo his arm. There were very large, widely spaced, tooth marks along his forearm.

Tonight's dinner was less spectacular than the previous night, but it tasted just as good. They couldn't have a huge feast every night, thought Leo. After eating a large plate of pasta, Leo had a bowl of ice cream and was full enough to head upstairs, finish off the little bit of homework that he had and go to sleep.

As he and the others headed back to the living room, a pair of blue robes flew past Leo. Whoever it was had their hands up to their mouth.

'Igottagetobathroom,' Leo heard Henry's voice as the boy flew past. Leo wasn't sure if he should follow. He decided to go back upstairs with everyone else.

They all gathered in the living room. They sat together in a gathering of couches. The first years had all silently agreed to stick together all the time. Leo looked around the group. He saw Ryan, Tyler, Deirdre, Lizz and Ashley. He saw many more faces, but he didn't know any of their names. This made him feel awkward.

'Do you think Henry'll be alright?' asked Deirdre.

'I'd imagine so,' said Leo, 'If he doesn't come back in a little bit, I'll go see if he's OK.'

Leo, having finished his homework, helped Deirdre finish her Defense against Dark Forces questions. He had conversations with the other first years and met most of the ones he didn't know. He also met some students from different years.

As most of the students went off to bed, Leo decided he would wait for Henry to return. He eventually fell asleep by the fire. He woke up a while later. He checked the dormitory as well as searching the living room, and Henry was still not back. It was past student curfew, but Leo decided that he would go and search for his friend. He went through the door, past the coat of armor that leaped out of his way and ran straight into the front of John.

'What're you doing here?' John asked, quickly dropping something. Leo looked down to see what it was, but nothing landed on the floor. He looked behind John to find Cyndi whose arm swung back toward her, as if she had been holding something up. John's face turned red.

'Aren't you a first year?' Cyndi asked. Leo nodded.

'What's your name?' John asked.

'Leo,' he said.

'Leo Perry?'asked Cyndi. Leo nodded again.

'So, what're you doing here?' John repeated.

'I was going to find my friend, Henry Walsh. He got sick after dinner and I haven't seen him since. I was going to look for him in case he was still off somewhere being sick.'

'Henry found us a few hours ago,' said John, 'He is at the hospital being treated. He'll be fine in the morning.'

'Oh,' said Leo.

'Now as for your punishment,' John started.

'Oh John,' said Cyndi, 'He was just worried about his friend. Don't be such a prune.'

John made a face at her and they both started snickering and staring at each other.

'Can I go to bed now?' Leo asked after a while.

'Go,' said Cyndi, 'Just don't be caught out here again.'

'I won't,' said Leo. He headed back into the living room. As he headed for the dormitory door, he heard John and Cyndi enter the living room behind him. He heard light conversation and snickering again. Leo ignored it and headed to bed. He would go and find Henry if he wasn't back in the morning.