Daydreamer - The Girl Who Lived

Chapter 6

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the red hair."

"With the black hair?"

"Did you see her scar?"

The second I had left the comfort and safety of my dormitory, people stared and whispered about me, stopping in corridors and doing double-takes in order to get a good look at me. I felt like an animal in a zoo, everyone acting like I was an exhibit instead of an actual person.

Their staring was also very distracting, I had enough to think about at the moment. The hundred, forty-two stairs in this castle that had vanishing steps and enjoyed moving for no apparent reasons, doors that sometimes weren't doors and doors that you had to ask nicely to be able to open them, and the ghosts that caused everyone to jump when they appeared through a wall without warning.

Peeves was an irritating pest, he locked doors and pushed people into the trick staircases just because he thought it was funny. I once saw him pour a pot of ink on someone's head, threw chalk at individuals who just so happened to be walking down a corridor he was in, and he had the annoying habit of turning invisible and grabbing people's noses. I wasn't sure whether I had gotten on the wrong side or him or if he found me amusing, not reacting to any pranks he pulled did seem to deter him somewhat but he didn't understand what I was shouting at him (since it was in Spanish), which meant he spent a lot of time just screaming in my face.

There was also the evil caretaker of this place, Filch. A man all the students hated, any small rule break and he was there in an instant, threatening to lock students in the dungeons. He only seemed to love one thing, and that was his cat, Mrs. Norris, a cat who was just as evil as him. She patrolled the corridors, running to Filch when she spotted someone placing a toe out of line. All the students hated him, and many wanted to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

Once you had eventually found your way, there was the complex classes. Every Wednesday night we had Astronomy in the highest tower in the castle, studying the planets, stars and their movements. Professor Sprout taught us a class called Herbology three times a week, this class was all about magical plants and their uses, we had this class with the Hufflepuffs. Then there was Professor Flitwick, who taught Charms, a wizard so short that he had to stand on a large stack of books just to be able to see over his desk.

The worst class I had attended so far was History of Magic, which I was sure was a fascinating subject... when it wasn't taught by a ghost. Not that there was anything wrong with ghosts, it's just that his one had been boring before he died and remained that way in death. Apparently, the story was, he had fallen asleep in front of the fireplace and then got up to teach without his body, seemingly unaware that he had died in his sleep. Professor Binns had a hallow voice and just droned on, I was struggling to keep up with English at the best of times, but he made it practically impossible for me to understand anything.

One teacher who had attempted to make the language barrier easier on me, be it in very subtle ways, was Professor McGonagall. She was strict, clever and definitely not a teacher to cross, the woman giving us a stern talk as soon as we had sat down. "Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she had started to tell us. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

She turned her desk into a pig, causing us all to start clapping. Transfiguration turned out to be so complex that we wouldn't be attempting anything like that for a long time, instead our task was changing a match into a needle. This is where Professor McGonagall was different to other teachers, a piece of parchment with the instructions written in Spanish had been placed in front of me without the teacher saying a word about it. I had gone to thank her when she just moved on, clearly not wanting anyone to think she was playing favourites.