Chapter Text
Daisy wasn’t nervous anymore. At least, that’s what she told herself all the way to Kings Cross Station. She’d seen magic. She had her supplies and a couple of friends ahead of time. Daisy wasn’t nervous at all.
Then they actually reached the station. It was full of people, but none of them looked familiar. None of them looked magical, either, whatever that meant. Daisy searched for some of the robes and odd hats she’d seen in Diagon Alley, but spotted nothing remotely similar.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Dudley said, scanning the crowd just as Daisy had.
Poppy grabbed his hand, and Daisy wished she could do the same without looking like a little kid in front of her potential classmates. Her mom draped an arm over Daisy’s shoulders anyway and Daisy didn’t protest. Daisy’s mother had a busy work schedule and Daisy had wondered if she would care enough to take her to the train station. Her mother’s arm around her shoulders released some of the anxiety she had about leaving.
“Dudley?” Anna asked. “Nine and three-quarters doesn’t mean anything to you?” She’d reached for her phone, probably to call Harry to get things over with.
Dudley rubbed at his forehead. “I remember the weird numbers. But nothing else. We always just left Harry here and then came back to get him for the summer holiday. Yet, somehow, we never saw how he got on the platform. Strange, isn’t it? I don’t understand how we were so uninterested - disgusted even - about his life.”
This wasn’t entirely new information to Daisy. Her dad had mentioned it before. She knew her grandparents had not approved of Harry’s magic, had mistreated him, and so had her father. I was very mean to him, Daisy. I was a horrible person to him, and so many others, and I regret it. The best I can do is raise you and Poppy with better values than I had, so my mistakes don’t get repeated.
“There’s Harry now,” Anna said, pointing. Sure enough, Daisy could see Harry’s messy hair poking up over the crowd and the rest of his family following behind.
“Ready to go to Hogwarts, Daisy?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose!” Daisy tried to match Harry’s smile and relax her shoulders to match the confident poses of her cousins. Apparently, this didn’t fool Harry.
He crouched and said in a low voice, “You’ll be fine. And you can always send me a letter if you need to.” He tapped on her owl’s cage, and little Connie leaned forward to nibble at Harry’s fingers. He pulled his hand back, smiling. “She’ll be eager to fly around the castle.”
Harry straightened up and looked at Dudley. “After all these years, you’ll finally see how I got to school every year. Strange, isn’t it?”
“Quite.”
At Harry’s cue, James lined up his cart just in front of the brick wall for platform 9. Daisy tried to predict the next steps. James couldn’t take out his wand here, not in the open public. He looked like he was just going to walk into the wall, but he slowed to look back at them.
“Poppy? Care to join?”
Poppy’s eyes widened as she looked between James and the solid brick wall. Daisy fidgeted with the handle on her trolley, anxious that Poppy would get to the platform before her. And she would — Daisy’s sister took one side of James’ cart and followed his lead in walking straight towards the brick wall.
Then Daisy blinked. Or, she must have, because their disappearance was otherwise so abrupt as to be, well, impossible.
Not impossible, Daisy thought. Just magic.
Things did not get any clearer when Lily and Ginny went through next. At her turn, Daisy’s mum squeezed her shoulders tighter for a moment, and then walked swiftly at the wall. Stunned by her mother’s apparent confidence, Daisy let herself keep walking until it was almost a trot. Moments later, the crowd opened up and revealed an entirely new train waiting and a platform of kids and parents preparing to say their goodbyes.
To either side of the wall Daisy had just come from (the wall appropriately labeled ‘King’s Cross’) stood fireplaces. As Daisy watched, people appeared in the flames, stepping out untouched with luggage bags. Clearly, the muggle train station wasn’t the only way in. Perhaps it wasn’t even the most popular.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Poppy asked, suddenly appearing at Daisy’s side.
Daisy just laughed. Amazing was an understatement.
Nearby, she saw a boy about her age, who was saying, “Dad, I think i’ve lost Buttercup again.”
“Really, Frank,” the man standing next to him said. He turned away to search, while muttering, “and I thought a cat would be harder to lose than a toad.”
Behind Daisy, the rest of her family and the Potters arrived. Most of the Potter and Weasley children immediately dispersed to find friends, but Lily stayed by Daisy’s side.
“There’s only a few minutes until the train leaves. We should go find a compartment,” she declared over the voices heard from all over the station.
“Yes, um, just a moment,” Daisy said, just as loud, her voice still barely heard. She turned around and faced her parents and little sister. Before she could say a word, Poppy embraced her. “You’re going to have a great time. Send me an owl every week!”
Anna pulled both girls into a hug. “Text or give us a call when you can, okay? Let us know how you’re doing.” She kissed Daisy on the head and stepped back to let Dudley into the circle.
“There’s nothing I can say to help you that hasn’t been said already,” he said. “I love you. We love you. Be safe out there, okay?”
Daisy nodded. After one last hug, she joined Lily, and they rushed towards the back of the train.
“First years have their own compartments now, thanks to James,” Lily said as they hauled their bags through the corridor. “He changes the story every time, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but the result was several first years sneaking into the carriages instead of the boats, and another couple of first years ending up falling into the lake.”
Daisy laughed uneasily. Without an idea of what the usual process was, Lily’s sentences meant very little. She only gathered that, hopefully, it would be more difficult to make a mistake now than it had been before James’ year.
The two girls entered an empty compartment and stowed their things. Lily sat opposite to Daisy, grinning, and unlike Daisy, ignoring the window and their family members still standing on the platform.
“Perfect, isn’t it? You, me, and our soon-to-be friends. Everyone meets someone important to them on their first trip to Hogwarts.” She leaned back confidently. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll meet the person you’ll marry today, Daisy.”
If the comment was a joke, Daisy couldn’t detect it. She understood how Lily could relax, but couldn’t bring herself to sit back the way she did. Daisy’s legs stayed stiff in front of her, hands clasped in her lap.
As Lily predicted, their compartment didn’t stay empty for long. With specific spaces reserved for the first years, each one had to be full or close to it. Before long, others joined, awkwardly taking their seats. The first girl came in alone and eagerly introduced herself.
“I’m Sophie! Sophie Hatman. Glad to meet you and hopefully to not fight you for house points.” She shoved a brightly colored duffel above her seat and sat down next to Lily. Instantly, Daisy recognized the similarities. To start with, they both literally bounced with excitement over the trip. Beyond that, their likeness was more about attitude, posture, and their facial expressions. Lily was angular where Sophie was round, pale while Sophie’s skin appeared a light brown, and Lily’s straight red hair was nothing like Sophia’s dark curls. Yet, somehow, in classifying types of people, Daisy would have put them in the same group.
The other three to join them arrived together. The boys introduced themselves as Wyatt, Connel, and Jonathan. None of them looked overjoyed to meet each other, or to be on their way to a famous school of magic, but Daisy figured maybe they were just nervous. After all, their introductions clarified that none of them knew each other, either.
“So,” Lily began, trying to break the silence, “What houses do you think you’ll end up in?”
Daisy avoided Lily’s eyes. She’d been told about the houses. Harry had assured her that where she ended up didn’t really matter. However, Lily’s stories about her imagined school life made it clear that she expected them to end up together. Daisy’s knowledge of her own and Lily’s personalities made that difficult to imagine. And, as much as Daisy wanted a friend who knew their way around the magical world, she wasn’t so sure she wanted people to define her by Lily’s energy and reputation instead of her own.
“I’m certain I’ll be in Gryffindor,” she said after a pause. “Most of my family ended up there, and I have to argue that it’s the best. What do you think?” She turned to Sophia and waited.
Sophia shook her head. “You’ll lose the ‘Gryffindor’s the best house’ argument every time with anyone who know’s what they’re talking about. Not that I, personally, have any strong feelings about it. I might be there with you.”
“What houses were your family members in?”
“They weren’t,” Sophia said. She smiled. “Technically, I’m muggle born.”
Everyone seemed more attentive at ‘technically,’ including Daisy. Could Sophia be like her? Muggle born, but with other relatives there to help?
“I was adopted by a wizarding family two years ago, though. They’re a mixed bunch. We’ve got all the houses represented.”
No one seemed to know what they were supposed to say to that, so Daisy decided it was her turn. “My parents are muggles, too. But Lily’s my cousin, and she thinks I’ll be in Gryffindor.”
“Best of luck to you, then,” Sophia said.
From there, the boys made vague comments on their own destinies. The only one with a firm opinion was Jonathan, who hoped he’d end up in Ravenclaw like his mother.
After that, Daisy tuned out most of the conversation. Too much of it was about magical topics she didn’t know, wasn’t sure she wanted to know, or wasn’t willing to risk looking stupid by asking about. What classes she was most looking forward to wasn’t relevant, because she didn’t know, and all she could think about was Emma going in the opposite direction from her until, maybe, they would just stop talking.
Just before they all changed into their robes, Daisy checked her phone. It unlocked with a click, revealing a picture of her and Emma in the background. There was only one notification, a best of luck and we love from her mum.
“It’ll be difficult letting those go, won’t it?”
Daisy spun around. Sophia stood behind her, holding a black robe in her arms. “I hope the technology building isn’t just a shed at the edge of the grounds. I fully intend on spending as much time there as I can.” She grinned sheepishly. “I didn’t take to the all-magic, no-tech life as well as my adoptive family hoped.”
Daisy smiled back. “I’ll be there with you,” she said. Hopefully, Lily was right about making lasting friendships on the train, because Daisy couldn’t picture someone from a more relatable background than Sophia.
After everyone was ready, the talking mostly subsided. All of them focused their attention on the window as the patches of trees turned into a thick forest. When the castle came into view, even Lily’s eyes widened with awe. The castle looked majestic, Daisy had to admit. Even backlit by the moon, casting heavy shadows that hid its details, Daisy thought it looked too grand to be a school. Surely, this had to be a palace, a historical relic, or a computer edited movie-set in this unreal dream she was having.
A loud voice echoed around them, though Daisy saw no speakers. “We will arrive at Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave luggage on the train. It will be taken to the castle separately.”
The train slowed. From her seat, Daisy could see some of the other first years already rushing between train cars, eager to get a first glance. When the train stopped, and doors finally opened, Daisy waited a moment.
Lily grabbed her hand. “What are you waiting for?” she yelled over the chatter. Daisy let Lily take her arm and lead her onto the mulched pathway. Older students were strolling towards the castle, one or two adults ushering the first years away from the larger path and onto a smaller one.
“Firs’ years! Firs’ years, over here!” A giant man with long bushy hair and beard held a lamp over the crowd of children before him. He stood more than twice as tall as any of the first years, and cast a foreboding shadow over the students, but once Daisy could see his friendly face, with twinkling eyes and a bright smile, she figured he couldn’t be as scary as he looked.
Lily looked up. “Oh, hey it’s Hagrid!” she said, still in an overly cheery tone, and pulled Daisy towards him.
They were about to approach Hagrid, when they were stopped by a small elderly man at a long table in the middle of the path.
“Electronics please,” he recited. “And don’t sneak any through. They’ll only break once they enter the Hogwarts grounds.”
Daisy took out her mobile, now covered in a dark blue protective case, and her laptop, and held them out to the man. He took them from her and placed them in a metal lockbox about the size of a small suitcase. “Here’s your key. You will be told when you can access your items. Good evening.”
Lily impatiently pulled her towards Hagrid again. Because she shared a mobile with her brothers, apparently she had nothing to hand over. With Lily’s rush, Daisy would have thought they were running late, but they still had to wait next to Hagrid as the last people checked in electronics and were accounted for.
Then they all followed Hagrid down a slick, steep slope, surrounded by something - Daisy guessed tall trees - that blocked out all light. Soon, Daisy started hearing gasps of amazement coming from the students in the front, and peered over their heads to see what they were looking at. The path ahead had widened, and all the first years could now see the towering castle over the broad black lake spread out before them.
“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid said, and gestured for all of them to get in one of the small wooden boats at the shore.
Daisy took the lead this time, spotting Sophia getting into one of the boats with Wyatt and guiding Lily towards them. Just as she started to wonder where the oars were, Daisy realized that their small fleet of boats had already started gliding through the lake towards the castle. The waves could barely be noticed, and she would have sworn there weren’t any at all if not for the sound of them slapping the sides of the boats.
After passing under the castle, they turned up at another boat harbor, and everyone clambered out.
“Now, follow me this way everyone,” Hagrid called, helping the last student out of his boat. He led them up a flight of steps up to a pair of humongous oak doors and knocked. Daisy turned around just in time to see the last few boats disappearing around the edge of the castle and into the unknown darkness of the lake.
The door only took a few moments to open, and behind it was a short wizard who introduced himself as Professor Flitwick, Deputy Headmaster.
Daisy stepped into the Hall, not expecting anything too grand, but she couldn’t help but gasp once she saw the room. The ceiling was taller than she could see, and marble staircases led up in different directions. There were no electric lights, only torches hanging on the walls, and lots of large windows that surely showed lots of light during the day.
Once all the first years stood in the hall, Professor Flitwick turned around. “Welcome to Hogwarts!” She said. “The first term feast will begin in just a few moments, but before you can find seats, you must be sorted into your houses. The four houses are Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. What house you are put into is very important, because you cannot get re-sorted, and while you are here you will eat, sleep and spend free time in your house dormitory, and have classes with members of your house. Each house has it’s own unique history and qualities that will suit different people. For the rest of the year, your doings will earn, or lose your house some points, and the house cup will be awarded to the leading house at the end of the school year. I wish you all the best of luck - I’ll be back to lead you into the Great Hall momentarily.”
“Soon, we’ll all be sitting together at the Gryffindor table. I’m sure of it,” Lily whispered to Daisy and Sophia. Daisy smiled and nodded, sharing a knowing look with Sophia.
“I hope all of you are ready, because it’s time to enter the Great Hall!” Professor Flitwick was already back, and the doors to the feast were wide open. “Line up and follow me!”
Daisy shivered despite the warmth of the castle interior. Maybe it was the magic, or the grand architecture, or maybe it was just fear. There were no words to describe the Great Hall, and even though Harry had described the sorting ceremony as simple and nothing to worry about, she still had no idea what she was going to be asked to do in front of the entire student body. The four house tables and the head staff table all looked almost full. Every person seated there would be watching. The lack of the appearance of a ceiling somehow magnified this, as if unknown people in the sky would peer down at her as Daisy was sorted. Daisy suddenly wanted to talk to Lily about it, but the silence among the first-years was so intense she didn’t want to break it.
In the middle of all the tables, Professor Flitwick placed a stool with a ragged old hat on top of it. No one else moved. Sophia, unencumbered by the silence, leaned in to ask, “What’s an old hat got to do with anything? They do realize they made us all buy new ones, don’t they?”
“Shhh,” Lily hissed. She pointed at the hat and as they watched, the folds of the hat turned into a mouth, opening to form the words of a song.
...Are you afraid of what you’ll hear?
Afraid I’ll speak the name you fear?
Not Slytherin! Not Gryffindor!
Not Hufflepuff! Not Ravenclaw!
Don’t worry, child, I know my job,
You’ll learn to laugh, if first you sob.*
Where the sorting hat’s last words.
As the seated older students cheered happily, those standing around Daisy shuffled nervously. Daisy could guess why. If everyone listened to the words as she had, they must be worried about the sobbing before you could laugh bit at the end.
“When I call your name, you will sit, and try on the hat,” Flitwick said once the cheers had quieted. “When you have been sorted, you may join your new house family at their table.” Without a pause, he called the first name. “Adair, Connell!” He called.
One of the boys from the train ran up to try the hat. His skinny limbs and spiky blond hair looked rather silly as he ran, almost tripping over a few cloaks as he went. The hat fell over his entire face when he put it on, but after only a couple seconds, the hat yelled “SLYTHERIN!” and Connell ran gleefully to sit with his new house, his previously spiky hair now pointing sideways at awkward angles.
Lily sighed next to her. “I should have known,” she said. “He really didn’t seem like a Gryffindor, did he?”
If she expected an answer, she would be disappointed. Daisy cared more about the next students than Lily’s vision of a Gryffindor dream team.
The process repeated with the rest of the students ahead of Daisy in name. Bates, Jasper became the first new Hufflepuff, followed by the first Gryffindor, Bell, Amelie. A couple more students went up, Benson, Rupert to Ravenclaw, Castle, Bella to Slytherin, Clavis, Jonathan to Ravenclaw as he’d hoped, and then it was “Dursley, Daisy”
Daisy walked quickly, knowing that if she ran, she would surely fall. She sat down and placed the hat on her head.
“Hmm,” said a small voice in her mind. It must be the hat, she thought. It definitely isn’t me. “You have quite an interesting mind, dearie, so much potential, but so much fear of what you can do… I think that - well, maybe not. You only show your bravery when it comes to protecting... curiouser and curiouser…”
The hat’s voice broke free of Daisy’s head and yelled out to everyone, “HUFFLEPUFF!” and then went silent.
Daisy took off the hat and set it back on the stool behind her. Her new house was roaring, and she couldn’t see Lily, Sophia, or any familiar face in the crowd through the haze that seemed to cover her sight.
Daisy sat down next to Jasper, the other new Hufflepuff, and continued to watch the sorting. She caught Lily’s eye finally, but Lily looked away, expressionless.
“Ellis, Gracie!”
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Hanson, Trevor!”
“RAVENCLAW!”
And finally “Hatman, Sophia!” Sophia looked, by far, the most confident first year so far. She’ll be Gryffindor for sure, thought Daisy. But the hat surprised her, and from the look on Lily’s face, she’d been taken aback too, when the hat crowed a loud “HUFFLEPUFF!”
When “Potter, Lily!” came along, there were a couple of murmurs, but people didn’t seem surprised. They must have already known that James and Albus’ little sister would arrive that year. Daisy wondered, not for the first time, just how famous Harry and Ginny were.
The hat only hesitated for a second before calling out the predictable choice. “GRYFFINDOR!”
Lily joined Gracie Ellis and her brother James at the table, just as expected.
And on it went. First year after first year sorted into a house. Another few that stood out to Daisy were Wyatt Warner, who also went to Gryffindor, Hugo Weasley, who went to Ravenclaw, Jessamine Yates, a Slytherin.
Finally, with everyone sorted, the food arrived. To be more precise, it appeared after Headmistress McGonagall seemed to call it forth from nowhere.
“I don’t know If I’ve ever seen this much food in my life!” Sophia said, taking small pieces of every food she could get her hands on. Daisy agreed as she, too dug into her food.
When she’d eaten enough to stop her stomach growling, Daisy took a break to ask about her current most pressing worry. “Lily looks kind of mad, doesn’t she?”
Sophia followed Daisy’s eyes to the Gryffindor table. Lily was smiling, and acting cheerful, but every once in a while, she glared at them before taking a bite.
“I’m sure she’ll get over it,” Sophia said. “Don’t let it get you down. We’re at Hogwarts! We should celebrate!”
When the desserts, too, had appeared and disappeared, McGonagall stood to give her announcements.
“Firstly, everyone should be reminded that the forbidden forest is out of bounds for anyone without special permission. Quidditch trial times will be posted on your house’s news board whenever your captain has set the schedule. And lastly, I must tell you that things are going to be very different this year. New classes have been added: Muggle Electronics, Muggle World History, and Muggle Daily Life, along with several art and music electives will be available to students based on current school year, and their family background. If upper-class students desire to change an elective class, they should make an appointment to discuss it with their head of house. Those in earlier years should bring questions to their house prefects. With that, I bid all of you a good night.”
Daisy woke up early the next morning. The unfamiliar room, full of unfamiliar people, couldn’t coax her into a deep sleep like her room at home could. It was only 6:30, but since breakfast didn’t start until 7:30, she had plenty of time to get ready. Her earlier reluctance to go to Hogwarts subdued by her curiosity and excitement, Daisy rose to look around the dormitory.
The Hufflepuff dormitory was full of furniture in varying shades of yellow and gold. The first year girls’ room had five beds set facing towards the center of the circular room. Hanging vines lined the crevices in the walls, potted ferns, and cacti grew on shelves, and quilts lay across the beds and chairs. Each bed had a collection of house-specific clothing items draped over the ends and tied with a shiny black ribbon.
The common room was much the same when she ventured down. As she walked through the rounded door, hanging plants tickled the top of her head and she noticed them draped over every beam that crossed over her. There were only a couple of people already sitting in armchairs, whispering to each other, and none of them were first years, as far as she could tell.
“Daisy?” a hushed voice said from behind her.
Daisy turned, a little surprised anyone here would know her name, only to see that there was one first year sitting alone in a corner.
“Hi Jasper,” she whispered back. Daisy sat down in a black armchair next to him, and they waited for the other first years. Slowly, more people joined them, quietly finding their place nearby. Everyone was wearing their long black school robes and a few people even wore hats too. Daisy even got to know the names of all the other girls in her year. Besides herself, Sophie, Regina Cattermole, Emily Macmillan, and Laura Eustace were also in her year. Daisy was relieved that no set friend groups had already formed, as not one of the first year Hufflepuff students had met before boarding the train.
When Sophie, the last first year to come down, got there, the group followed a prefect through the halls to breakfast, where the other Houses had already begun gathering.
Plates of food already waited for them at their table when they took their seats. To Daisy, it looked like much more than they could eat. Surely they didn’t always get this much? Just on special days, maybe? She decided on a simple breakfast of two pieces of buttered toast and some scrambled eggs. Anything more, and she wouldn’t have been able to finish before McGonagall directed all first years to join prefects at the head of their table.
“Welcome to Hufflepuff!” a prefect boy with a long, narrow face and mischievous smile greeted them as each first year arrived. The girl next to him had curtains of light brown hair that curved around her face, hiding her reaction to the new students.
“I’m Tobias Sanders,” the boy said. “This is Arianne Carver. We’re your prefects, of course, you met us last night. Now, um, just a moment -” Daisy could see him silently counting them off to make sure they were all there. “Right then. We’ll be escorting you to your first class, Potions with our head of house, Professor Cressida Sawyer, but before that, here are your maps.”
Arianne passed around a stack of rather thick pamphlets. Daisy started to unfold hers, quickly realizing they were far from normal. Pieces of the map randomly folded in different directions, had odd little flaps, and the staircases kept being redrawn as she watched. She hadn’t even opened the full thing yet and already felt lost.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Tobias said. “It looks complicated, but you’ll have the whole thing memorized within the week, I promise. This is the first year we’ve even gotten maps, and everyone else did just fine.”
Arianne made a sort of “hmph” noise that made Daisy question the accuracy of Tobias’ one week estimate. Or maybe not everyone had done “just fine”.
“I bet the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws thought it was a test of bravery or memory or something,” Sophia whispered next to her. “Otherwise, not having a map is just lunacy, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Daisy whispered back, pointing to yet another fold in the paper, “this thing might make things even more confusing.”
It only took ten minutes to get to the potions classroom, between the distance, Tobias spouting random facts about the castle, and two people getting stuck in a trick stair, one of whom was a Slytherin second year who looked rather embarrassed to have held up the herd of new students. While walking through the halls, Daisy had witnessed portraits having conversations with each other, a nasty-looking ghost (Peeves, as she was later told) swooping by looking for someone to throw a water balloon at, a staircase she had just walked on moving, and she could have sworn she had seen a statue of armour scratch its nose, but when she looked again, it was back in its original placement.
When they arrived at the classroom, the prefects left them in the hands of Professor Sawyer. The entrance to the classroom was in a rather dark dungeon hallway, and Daisy expected the classroom to be the same. Walking into the room revealed that it was on a hillside, meaning that it was in the dungeon, but one side of it faced the sloping outside of the hill. Windows let in natural light and air, making it more cozy and friendlier than a couple of the other dungeon rooms Daisy had peered into on the way down. It smelled of grass and perhaps oranges, and looked much more like a science classroom than Daisy would have expected. Desks, arranged in sets of two, faced the front of the classroom. Each had a rather witchy-looking cauldron, but also recognizable things like test tubes and measuring equipment.
Also, to her surprise, there was already one student seated at each pair of desks.
“Go on and join someone,” Professor Sawyer urged them. “You’ll be taking this class along with the Ravenclaw first years, so you may as well get to know each other. You’ll have the same desks for the rest of the term, so don’t go making any enemies.”
Daisy took a seat next to Jonathan, hoping the boy she’d met on the train would prove just as friendly in class as he’d been before the sorting.
From there, Professor Sawyer talked them through their surroundings: what was at their desk already, what they needed to bring each day, and a first reading assignment from the textbook. Multiple people groaned at the assignment, to which Professor Sawyer tutted and said to be grateful it wasn’t more. Daisy took the statement for granted. Professor Sawyer, while not particularly foreboding as small as she was, reminded Daisy of her Gran, Gina, who would smuggle you forbidden cookies one minute, but insist she continued to practice her piccolo for an extra half hour just because she’d gotten one note wrong. Professor Sawyer must have been younger, as her face showed far fewer wrinkles and her dark hair barely had hints of grey, but her attitude matched perfectly.
For the first time, Daisy thought she might genuinely enjoy a class of magic. She’d been prepared to hate potions because of James’ complaints, but maybe Albus had been right after all.
The rest of the class was really a tour of the castle: the new parts of the castle, to be specific. The first-year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students followed quietly through the more modern looking hallways, just as lost as they’d been in the original Hogwarts corridors.
“There aren’t any trick staircases over on this side,” she said, “But you’ve still got to keep watch for some of your landmarks moving.” She pointed at a lady in a portrait taking a nap. “That one over there likes to mislead people when she’s not passed out, and she’s not the only prankster around.” Moving on, the professor started to point out individual classrooms. “This is where you’ll be taking your English, Math, and PE classes, and those of you unacquainted with the daily life of Muggles will have some of your studies here, and some in the technology building. There are also new choir and and band rooms over here,” she gestured into a large room with lockers for instruments, “if any of you care to join in the music, I’d recommend keeping an eye out for any auditions posted in your common room.”
“And, finally, the technology building might be the best of the recent additions, but to see it, we have to go out onto the grounds.”
The doors to the outside were open and Professor Sawyer lead the way out into the grounds. The day was sunny, and the walk wasn’t as far as Daisy had pictured. She almost wished it was, just so she could look around outside more. All of them hustled through the door into a hallway clearly made to mimic that of the castle. However, there was no sign of magic anywhere. The walls were bare, except for wide windows looking back the way they just came.
Sawyer pushed open the first door to their right and let everyone in. “This is the computer lab. All of you, at some point, will have to use the computers in here for one of your classes. They are also available for you to do whatever you please during the weekend, if you haven’t brought your own. And this,” she showed them another room, “Is where any of you that have your own electronics will keep your stuff.” The room looked like a combination of a gym locker room and a bank vault. There were metal storage units everywhere, with numbers and openings for keys.
“Feel free to decorate your area as you wish. Put your name on it, so it will be easier to find without counting all the numbers,” Sawyer added.
The other rooms in the technology building contained muggle kitchen appliances, workout equipment, televisions, and finally a large ‘commons area’ for all houses to sit together and spend time with their technology.
“Keep in mind that this building is only open until 7:30 for first years, as your curfew is 8:30.”
They ended their time with Professor Sawyer back at the new wing of Hogwarts, where she handed everyone a schedule and pointed them in the right direction. Luckily for the Hufflepuff students, their next class was English, a class in a room only a few paces away. Daisy waved goodbye to Jonathan as the Ravenclaws disappeared down the corridor in search of their History classroom.
The English professor wasn’t there yet when they arrived, so they all stood awkwardly around the empty room. Soon, the Slytherin first years, a group that outnumbered their own group, joined them. Daisy was displeased to notice the usual Slytherin prejudices Lily had told her about. They looked like the most unpleasant lot of students she’d seen so far.
As it was a Muggle class, Daisy knew what to expect from English. Aside from the fact that everyone was wearing robes, and writing with quills and parchment instead of pencils and paper, everything was normal. Professor Ryder, when he arrived, turned out to be a friendly, talkative bloke, and taught English in the same way Muggles did. Or at least, he seemed to towards the end. They spent most of the class playing games to get to know each other’s names.
During the games, Daisy’s suspicions of the Slytherins were verified to be at least partially true. Every time Daisy spoke, she noticed a couple of them smirk. Bella Castle even had the nerve to layer their voices with disgust when saying Daisy’s name - even in front of the teacher.
“Just ignore them,” Sophia whispered. “You’re just a target because you’re Muggle-born, and related to Harry Potter, who probably put a couple of their parents in prison when he defeated Voldemort.”
“That’s really comforting,” Daisy said sarcastically. “It really helps to know that this isn’t a temporary thing, and that I wasn’t imagining it.”
After charms with Professor Flitwick, which they had with the Ravenclaws again, was the first class with Gryffindor: World History. Daisy was a bit nervous for this class, simply because she didn’t know what to do about Lily, or if there was even anything she could do besides wait.
Luckily, there wasn’t actually anything to be worried about. Lily came and sat next to her before class started.
“Hey. Look, I’m sorry if I seemed kind of mad yesterday. I just thought… that how my parents made friends was the only way to make friends. I thought that all my plans were ruined because we were in separate houses, but that isn’t true. Forgive me?”
Daisy smiled. “Of course.”
Lily continued to introduce them to her fellow Gryffindor first years, Wyatt Warner, and Gracie Ellis, before Professor Anthony Goldstein ushered them to sit down and gave them a pre-test on how much they already knew about different historical points in time.
The last class of Daisy’s first day was transfiguration with the Slytherins again, taught by Professor Padma Patil, who compared to Cressida Sawyer, was nowhere near as strict. Professor Patil was almost like one of the students herself, stopping to chat with students as well as helping them in trying to transform a toothpick into a needle. No one succeeded that first day, but she assured them it wasn’t unusual.
“I can’t believe the first day of classes are over,” Jasper yawned at dinner later that evening.
“Neither can I,” Daisy said, “But we still have all new classes tomorrow.**”
Sophia groaned. “To be honest, we’re only one day of school in, and I’m ready for a holiday!”
“I’m not,” Daisy finally responded, as they exited the Great Hall. She pointed to a sign on the hall’s notice board. “Flying lessons start Wednesday.”