Gryffindor Princess and The Philosophers Stone (Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter Four: The Art of Learning Magic

The next week was one of the most exciting weeks of Hopes life. She'd become much closer with Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil and the three of them had formed a sort of trio. She tried as much as she could to include the other girl from their dormitory (Hermione Granger) but the girl was such a know-it-all she was difficult to tolerate. 

Their first few classes were all about learning the basic's of everything. Internally Hope had thought that living at the castle her whole life would give her an advantage over the other students in their classes, but in all honesty, she was just as in the dark as the rest of them. The only real advantage she found that she had, was that she already knew her way around the castle. The Hogwarts castle was huge, and filled with trick staircases and hidden passageways. 

Getting to the classes wasn't the first years only problem, however. They didn't quite realize the amount of Homework they would be getting from the teachers, even in their first week of school. ("We're only in our first year!" Parvati whined."). Hopes favorite subject was easily transfiguration, she found the idea of turning one object into another very intriguing. They did classes such as Herbology, which was the study of magical plants, and for these classes they would have to go outside into the green houses by the castle. And once a week on Wednesdays at midnight they would have to go outside and study the star patterns using their telescopes, for their astronomy class. 

Hope's least favorite class, she supposed, would have been a tie between Potions and History of Magic. Their History of magic teacher, Professor Bins,  was a ghost who was rumored to have sat down in his arm chair one day and simply floated out of his body when he'd died. However, death appeared not to have discouraged him from teaching in the slightest. He would read them lectures from the Goblin wars in a monotone voice. Making it very difficult to pay attention in his class. 

Their charms classes had been becoming progressively more exciting as the weeks had gone on. For the first few weeks they'd only learned basic things such as, proper pronunciation or wrist movement. But professor Flitwick, their tiny charms teacher who had to stand on a pile of books just to see over his desk, had promised that by Halloween they would be able to start learning some spells. 

Transfiguration, Hopes favorite class, had been absolutely wonderful. After studying the theory they'd been able to start working on spells faster than any other class. Their first attempt was at turning matches into needles. Hope had absolutely tried her best during this lesson and she had managed to change her match to a sort of silvery color, but Hermione Granger had managed to completely transform her match with only one lessons practice. 

Hope had thought that defense against the dark arts would be a particularly exciting lesson, however she'd been very mistaken. In her time at Hogwarts she'd seen many, many teachers come and go and she'd heard story's of the sort of things they would have learned in lessons. However, Professor Quirrell's lessons had turned out to be, something of a joke. He wore a large purple turban on his head that he told them he'd been given during his travels in Africa, from an African prince. Both his classroom and Turban smelled strongly of garlic, which a set of twins (the Weasley twins) insisted Professor Quirrell had put there to defend himself against a Vampire he'd met in Romania. 

Finally, Potions was an incredibly irritating class for anyone who wasn't in Slytherin house. Unfortunately Potions was the one class that the Gryffindor's took with the Slytherins so it was the only time Hope ever had to see Draco Malfoy, the blonde boy she'd taken a disliking to at Madam Malkins. During their potions lesson Professor Snape seemed to find any excuse to deduct points from Gryffindor and give points to Slytherin. 

In the beginning of their first lesson Snape had asked Harry Potter a series of very difficult questions, and when he didn't know the answer Snape took points from Gryffindor House. This made Hope rather angry as no other teacher would have taken points from a student for not knowing the answer to a question. He then placed them into pairs and started them off concocting a simple potion that was to cure boils. He swept around the classroom a frown almost plastered to his face. He seemed to find a problem with everyone's potions except for Malfoys. 

Hope had been partnered with Hermione and Lavender and Parvati had been placed together. They'd only just finished their potion when Hope heard someone yell in pain. She spun around and saw that Neville Longbottom, a round faced boy who was in Gryffindor house, had somehow managed to melt his cauldron. The liquid that was once inside his cauldron was seeping along the floor and burning anyone it touched. Neville, who had been doused in the potion, was moaning in pain as the potion burned him. Because of this incident Snape had not only found an excuse to take points off Neville for messing up his potion, but he also found a way to make it Harry Potters fault, as he'd been sitting next to Neville and Snape decided he should have known to stop him. 

Back up at the common room Hope, Lavender, Parvati and Hermione were all sitting together working on their History of Magic Homework. It was easiest to do this Homework when Hermione was around because she was the only one in their year who seemed to be able to stay awake during Professor Binns Lectures. 

"What year did Ogball die again?", Lavender asked, bent over her paper. 

"1742", Hermione reminded her, having already finished her own two feet of parchment, "and his names Ogbalt not Ogball." 

Lavender scribbled a few words out on her parchment and rewrote them. Hope asked Hermione to read over her essay and correct it. As they sat Dean Thomas, another boy in their year, came over to sit beside them. 

"Hey, Dean", Hope greeted, smiling at him. Dean Thomas was on the taller side, with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. 

"Hey", Dean replied. He sat down on an empty seat beside Lavender, who turned slightly pink. He looked over at Lavenders parchment and helped her correct a few things, Lavender turning a deeper shade of pink every time his hand accidentally brushed hers. Parvati sighed and stood up rolling up her parchment and placing it back into her bag. 

"I'm going to bed", she announced, "come with me, Lavender?" 

"I'll be up in a minute", Lavender replied, "I really should finish this." 

Parvati said goodnight to the rest of them and climbed up the stairs to the girls dormitory's alone. Hermione handed Hope back her essay and told her that it was alright except for her ending which she thought was too rushed. Hope began to edit her essay. 

It must have been very late that night when Hope finally finished her essay. When she looked up after writing her final few words she saw that Lavender and Dean had both left and Hermione was sitting next to her reading one thousand magical herbs and fungi. The common room was nearly empty, with only a few people sat occasionally at tables doing last minute homework. She packed up her things and Hermione put her book away in her bag. 

"Thanks for staying up with me", Hope told her, "you didn't have to." 

"It's alright", she replied, "I figured you might need some help. And I didn't want to leave you alone." 

Hope climbed into bed after changing into her pajamas feeling that Hermione might have been a better friend than she'd given her credit for.