3. Hogwarts

They arrived before the castle after crossing a long way in between tall grass then the black lake where, according to Hogwarts : A History, is inhabited by tons of magical creatures.

There, the giant that would cast glance to Harry left them for professor MacGonagall that Harry didn't see watching him because he was busy looking at those carriages that transported the elder students being pulled magically. How convenient, and the first years had the be magically pulled by boat. Harry wondered if they had to go by this transport in June, if so, he hoped that the ride during the day will be better.

He barely noticed how the forty something first years got to the entrance hall, standing in front of a great gate that led supposedly to the Great Hall and waiting for the deputy headmistress to let them in for the sorting ceremony.

Because he read about it, Harry lost focus to look at those huge hourglasses and wasn't too surprised to see a hord of ghost appearing to startle the students, whether intentionally though the one being more colorful than the other was doing it on purpose if he relinshing on the screams was anything going by.

When he finally turned to his fellow yearmates, they were looking at him as if waiting for something. Before he could know what, professor MacGonagall came back to retrieve them and they're finally allowed in the Great Hall.

Now that the sorting ceremony was starting, Harry made sure to pay attention to each of his yearmates, in case he had to develop some sort of relationship.

He paid special attention to Kevin (last name Entwhistle, he realized he never asked) being sorted at Ravenclaw and he tried to summoned all the knowledges that could put him at Ravenclaw too. Hermione was sorted in Gryffindor after five minutes of debate with the sorting hat (a hatstall, Harry remembered reading), Neville (Longbottom, the boy who lost his toad, Trevor as he had found back in the Entrance Hall) too, then Draco was in Slytherin and proudly stride to the table with all those arrogant face.

Then, it was his turn.

Harry repeated everything he knew about Rowena Ravenclaw in his mind while walking to the stool and the hat hold by Pr MacGonagall, both so he could be sorted there and to ignore the whispers that raised once his name's uttered. He sat and got covered by the loose headgear.

The hat actually talked to him. Saying he had courage for a Gryffindor, a good mind for a Ravenclaw and Harry stopped him at that, needing nothing more.

"But you have great thirst to prove yourself, I shall place your to the house that could best fit you."

"Listen here your old piece of dirty cloth, you place me in another house than Ravenclaw and I can promise you that I set you on fire, and maybe I'm not advanced enough for an Incendio, but I know how to start a fire thanks for being a scout and I'm eager to see how you're going to burn under million of spectators and what material you're made of and the spell you've been cast if it can show up and-"

"Alright, you made your point, you do have your place there with that mindset. RAVENCLAW!"

Harry sighed relievedly and let go of the patched and frayed thing, giving back to the deputy headmistress that arched a bow at the sorting. As he walked to the table were Kevin's sit, he noticed that the ginger twins were on the Gryffindor table, applauding his sorting among others.

And despite promising himself to pay attention to his others yearmates, arguing with the hat was more tiring than expected and he only noticed how Ron's sorting made such a ruckus that he was forced to clap along. He tuned out the speech from the headmaster, Order of Merlin, Chief Warlock and all his titles to look at his fellow housemates, who were glancing not so discreetly at him.

He ate plenty at the Start-of-Term feast and got to know all the professors' name thanks to the seniors students, then followed the girl prefect to their common room, which the entry was to answer a riddle. The boy prefect took turn to point the boy's dormitory and lead them to their floor. Harry got into their dorm with his five other dormmates to notice their stuffs were already there, thanks to the house elves' magic and he wondered if he would be allowed to meet one during the year.

When Terry Boot, Michael Corner, Anthony Goldstein and Oliver Rivers turned in for the night, he asked Kevin if he wanted to practice some spell to have some advance, being muggle raised, and to get used of their wand. The answer being affirmative, Harry welcomed him on his bed and they cast a protection charm around his four-poster to not bother the others boys and started to skim through the The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) and waving their wand for all night.

The next day, the first day of school, at breakfast, they got to know the head of their house, Filius Flitwick (the half-goblin), who handed them their timetable. He also spent the time to tell them they could ask him anything if they hav any question before going through the other Ravenclaw students.

Harry looked at the timetable to note they had lot of course with the Hufflepuff house, like potion, transfiguration and flight. Herbology was with the Slytherins and charm with the Gryffindors, the rest being astronomy (a wednesday midnight!), history of magic and defence againt dark arts were hold for the ensemble of the houses.

And due to the moving staircase created by their founder, they had to move fast to join the classroom before the bell ring. So, without further ado, Kevin and Harry finished breakfast to run to defence, with Pr Quirrel, quickly demoted as Quirrel due to his stutter that hinder with almost everything he's teaching.

The days went fast enough that Harry had an introduction with most of his yearmates in two days.

The most interesting was during herbology, where Draco Malfoy insisted that Harry went with his group of Slytherin to introduce him all the useful names, all the while they're trying to tend to the plants wearing their dragonhide gloves. Sole downside was that most of them came from pureblood family and were, let's say, prejudiced towards muggles and muggleborns. Harry refrained from saying he was muggle raised for now, seeing as they mostly refered to him as heir Potter, as if his name hold some power in the wizarding world, on top of him being the savior. Which was true, as Draco told him that the Potter were, for many generations, pure-blood until Harry himself who was half-blood from his mother being a muggleborn. Still, he got a pass since he's predicted to be a powerful wizard in the near future. Harry smiled politely and mentally took note the names for connections in the "future" then asked Draco who in their year was also part of the category of pure-blood and powerful family.

Starting with the Gryffindor, Harry noted how Draco sneered at that, there was the Patil twins (which Harry shared a house with Padma), the Brown girl, the Longbottom and Weasley boy (the same one he mocked in the train, Harry reckoned it's only their father who are at odds, but guess Generation Xerox  was a real thing).

Harry paid more attention to the Hufflepuff, as they share more classes. They was Ernie MacMillan, Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones who, while not pure-blood, had an aunt in the Wizengamot, the wizard equivalent of Parliament. Especially after the double potion by the third day, where the professor was pretty rude.

Professor Snape was first a moody person and a sour-tempered man. Worse of all, he had some history with Harry, calling him a self-centered boy hero just because of his scar and name and harrassed him for the entirety of the lesson by mocking of his lack of knowledge. The Hufflepuffs started mouthing on the man's back as soon as they left the donjon, saying they were exactly at Hogwarts to learn so it can't be expected they knew everything by the first class. Justin Finch-Fletcher was the most offended, being also a muggleborn who could have so much better at Elton!

But Harry forgot all about blood status when, for transfiguration lesson, Pr MacGonagall showed him the utltimate transfiguration magic. She morphed into a cat, or from a cat, just to catch the latecomer red-hand. Kind of petty. But that made Harry think.

If witches and wizards could morph into animal, animagus as they're called, could it be that all the magical creatures around them be actually human?

"That's not an irrevelant question, mister Potter, and I can't unfortunately answer you properly. The minister had a list of all the registered animagi because the art of animagus is quite complexed and need to be supervised as one could easily be stuck mid-transformation permanently. However, there are people who remained unregistered for multitude of reasons."

"Is there a spell that could reverse the transformation?"

"For those stuck in the middle, there's nothing we could do. But there's the homorphus charm to reverse the transfiguration. It's also interesting to note the charm could be used on a werewolf, although only momentarily."

"Would it be possible to explain more clearly your thought? Aren't werewolves transformed only for the full moon, which is considered a moment."

"It's a full night of full moon, as soon as the moon is visible to when it's not anymore. And the homorphus charm could only revert the werewolf for some minutes, depending on the caster. I think it's enough time to escape the blood thirsty creature."

Harry put aside the information, not being the subject he was interested at the moment.

"Where could I find the information about the homorphus charm?"

"The transfiguration shelf of the library, I'm sure. Will you tell me why are you interested in the subject? I hope you didn't thought of being an animagus without supervision."

"That didn't even came to my mind, professor. I just want to know all the new form of magic and their counterpart. The same there are poison and antidote in potion, spells and counterspells in charm, and defense I guess. And well, maybe not plants and their opposite or that would just kill them. Though, I do have some critisize for history of magic. I mean, it's probably meaningful to have a ghost as professor teaching about history as they must be part of the story, but I also feel like they're not really aware of their surrounding, which is really too bad."

"I see your point, mister Potter. I let you go to your way, but please, do not undertake on thing you could not handle alone."

"Of course not, professor."

Well, Harry was certainly not going to learn the homorphus charm alone, Kevin will certainly be as enthused as him to know new spells.

And Harry will know if those intelligent owls were really as they were said to be. And Ron Weasley's rat, because Harry's sure that not rodent could live a life superior of three years, yet this Scabbers was a decade year old, according to Ron and yeah, no. at least nine years old if the eldest Weasley did graduate three years ago. Pretty sure that rat weren't considered magical creatures, he would have read about it in his copy of magical creatures recommanded by Pr MacGonagall.