(Arcane Tinker) Chapter 15: First Days

AN: Like the other AT chapters so far, this isn’t part of the weekly schedule. Tomorrow will be an AWM (EM Vol. 2) chapter, like you guys chose in the last poll. There will be a new poll soon so that you can decide on the new upload schedule (I forgot to make one last week, sorry).

Chapter 15: First Days

2nd September 1991, London

That was his last thought as he fell asleep, staring at his mother’s kind eyes, hoping that they were real and not a painting.

The sound of an obnoxious alarm was the first thing Dean heard as he woke up. He tried to cover his ears in annoyance, only for the covers to pull themselves away from him, leaving him to face the cold morning air without any protection.

He opened his eyes, still grimacing at the sound and saw the familiar figure of Percy Weasley, waving his wand, obviously being the cause of the obnoxious noise. He spoke up loudly, “Hurry up! We have a lot to cover today after breakfast, and you will have your first classes at noon. You wouldn’t want to lose any points on your first day, would you?”

Dean, still half asleep, got up and went to the bathroom. He quickly brushed his teeth, freshened up, and wore his school uniform, thankfully, without the hat. He walked back, glaring at the prefect’s back, while the boy was practically battling his younger brother, trying to wake him up in vain.

It seemed that Percy had had enough, as he just cast a bright spell at him, which made the boy yell in pain, “Bloody hell, Percy. What was that for?”

“I’ve been trying to wake you up for fifteen minutes. Almost half of the dormitory is up.”

The redhead’s face slowly matched his hair, and he grumbled as he walked to their bathroom.

What followed was Percy essentially trying to herd five boys to wake up early, to Dean’s amusement. It was funny, seeing the boy try to act professional while slowly losing his cool. Harry was the first to join him afterwards, also still asleep, followed by Seamus and Neville, before, finally, Ron was ready.

They were probably behind schedule, given the way that Percy kept looking at his watch and glaring at Ron. Nevertheless, it took some time, but they had left the common room through the painting of the Fat Lady.

Percy quickly gave them all a piece of folded parchment each, “Here is a map of Hogwarts. Connect it with your identification runes to be able to see where you are. After activating it, you will be able to see where you are in the castle and how to get to the most important rooms, like the main classrooms, the Great Hall, the Infirmary, the library, and so on. Most of the castle is not labelled, and there are many secret passages that are missing. It will be up to you to navigate the castle and fill in your map. If you lose it, or the map becomes damaged, you can buy a new one from Filch’s office, at the cost of some points, of course.”

Dean pressed his palm to his map and felt a faint tingling. A small spot appeared in one of them, with his name above.

He looked around, and there seemed to be a lot of empty rooms, only a few having the names written on them, much like Percy said. Harry seemed to do the same and whispered to Dean, “My dad and his friends made the first one. They gave it to McGonagall after they graduated, and she changed a few things, and gave one to first years so that they wouldn’t get lost.”

Dean gave him a smile, “That’s amazing. Did they give you any tips on where a few secret passages are?”

“Just a few. They wanted me to explore the castle and ‘enjoy my youth’ whatever that means.”

Dean snorted and just walked after Percy, who had begun a small speech about their classes. Apparently, they had a lot of classes a week, bordering on around eight to ten hours of classes every day, apart from the weekends, of course. This was a lot more than he had been expecting, to be honest, but he could see why.

For most of the classes, there was a minimum of four hours of theoretical lessons and four hours of practical lessons. Magic was dangerous, especially when something went wrong, and the professors obviously wanted to tire them up, while making them as proficient as possible in as little time as possible, to mitigate the risks of accidents.

So far, they had to take History of Magic, Magical Theory, Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Astronomy, and Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Theory-based classes thankfully didn’t have any practical sections, but there were only two: History of Magic and Magical Theory. And thankfully, there were only two hours of practical classes for Astronomy. Dean did not fancy waking up in the middle of the night for a lesson more than once every week.

Anyway, they still hadn’t gotten their schedules yet, something that Percy said they would receive during Breakfast, but it looked like it would be packed. Dean had no idea how there would be more time for electives, and he was afraid to ask.

Still, it was funny to see everyone’s enthusiasm quickly plummet with every word Percy uttered. That man truly was a born bureaucrat. Dean snickered at his own joke and ignored the odd looks his housemates were giving him.

It was by the time that they arrived in the Great Hall that Dean realised how hungry he was. Despite not having done much the previous day, he felt exhausted for some reason. He quickly gave Lisa and Jack a wave to greet them, noticing that they were at their respective tables, and quickly focused on eating his fill. While devouring his breakfast, Dean found himself looking forward to his classes.

Most of what he had read in his textbooks seemed to be step-by-step instructions on how to cast certain spells. Pronunciations and wand movements are extremely critical when casting anything. But there was no reason stated why that was the case.

Transfiguration seemed to be the odd one out in this case, with the textbook filled with, what was in Dean’s opinion, very odd formulas. Somehow, it seemed to quantify some very subjective properties of materials. Like, what would be the viciousness of an object? And for some reason, it seemed to have its own alphabet.

Dean had planned on going to the library, but given his probably packed schedule, he was bound to wait until the weekend until he had any free time, and that’s assuming he didn’t have any assignments.

From what he had gotten from Percy, Magical Theory focused on people’s personal magics more. A way for them to learn to master it, or at least, start to learn to master it. It wasn’t the great theoretical work that he was looking forward to, but it was still an interesting thing to have.

Truth be told, Dean had a lot of questions, and he hoped that the professors would help him solve a few of them a few times. His thoughts were interrupted by Percy giving him a piece of parchment with his name on it. Ah, it must be his schedule.

As he expected, it was very tight, far more than it should have been possible. They had their first transfiguration theory lesson just after lunch. It was quite early, but Dean was looking forward to it. He did notice something. The theory classes were common for all students, and only the practical classes were divided, each lesson being joined with only one house.

Still, after glancing at his schedule, he focused on the names of the professors on it. There were a few recognisable names, like Minerva McGonagall teaching transfiguration, and Filius Flitwick for Charms. However, Horace Slughorn seemed to teach potions. It took Dean a bit to remember the name from the stories in his vision. He was supposed to have been retired and convinced to come back in a few years in the future. It wasn’t that surprising, compared to other changes from the stories that Dean faced. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder where Snape was.

There was also a name that he couldn’t place, a Jacqueline Rowle, who was in charge of both History of Magic and Magical Theory, which certainly was a very heavy workload for the woman. Dean had never heard of the name before, and wasn’t there supposed to be some boring ghost, teaching History?

Now that he thought about it, he did remember not seeing any ghosts since coming here. A part of him wanted to ask Percy about it, but how would he explain that he thought that there were supposed to be ghosts roaming the castle?

There was an Aurora Sinistra teaching Astronomy, but Dean wasn’t even sure who was supposed to teach the class, but it was the final name that made him freeze. Quirinius Quirrell, who taught Defence against the Dark Arts, a supposedly cursed position, and in the stories, the man was possessed by Voldemort.

Dean looked up to see the professor and noticed the bald man chattering amicably with one of the professors he didn’t recognise. He wasn’t wearing any turbans and didn’t look nervous or stuttering.

He really needed to stop comparing real life with a story, even if there were some disturbing similarities. There were too many changes. Still, he would be careful around the man, just in case he was possessed. There wasn’t much he could do without drawing a lot of attention to himself, and even that wouldn't achieve anything.

A flutter of owls broke Dean’s train of thought, and he saw as each one faithfully delivered letters and even newspapers to the student body, and even a few professors. On his left, Harry received a couple of letters and an issue of the Daily Prophet. He dug into his letters quickly, reading them, and Dean suppressed a pang at the thought that he was all alone now.

He distracted himself by motioning to the newspaper in front of Harry, “Do you mind if I borrow this?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he simply replied, distracted as he read his letters with a smile on his face.

Dean looked down at the issue of the Prophet and didn’t see anything interesting. There was no breaking into Gringotts, no grave scandal. There was only the face of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, who was facing criticism for a rise in magical crimes in Britain, and Barty Crouch stating the dip in international investments due to perceived instability of the country. He turned the page and almost snorted as he drank his orange juice.

It was a photo of Neville Longbottom wearing the sorting hat, the article proudly stating that he’d been sorted into Gryffindor. Did one of the students take the photo and sell it to the Prophet? Dean wouldn’t really be surprised by the matter.

Still, the rest of the newspaper was relatively boring, and he closed it, just in time to see Sally-Anne walking towards them. “So, you finally came. We were doubting if you’d ever come down.”

“We’re here before you,” Harry protested.

“We finished breakfast over an hour ago. We took a quick walk around the castle and Sarah showed us our classrooms. Did you get your maps yet, at least?”

“Yeah, Percy gave them to us…” Dean started before being quickly interrupted by the prefect, who was blushing in embarrassment as he spoke to his female partner.

“Alright, we’re already very late. We need to get started.”

The boy practically pulled his younger brother from the Gryffindor table and out of the Great Hall.

What came next was a relatively monotone tour of their classes, the library, which they sadly didn’t enter, and the infirmary. They also went down to the Quidditch Pitch, where they would be taking their flying lessons during the weekend. There was also Filch’s office, where one could buy school essentials using points, if needed.

By the time they had looped back into the Entrance Hall, most of the group looked tired, if not outright bored. Percy clapped his hands once to gather attention and said, “Right. That concludes the general tour. If you get lost, and some of you will, refer to your maps or find a prefect. Do not try to explore on your own; the castle is ancient and full of mysteries. You need to be more proficient with magic to go certain places.”

He seemed to look directly at Ron, who looked away sheepishly, smoke appearing from his head, like it did the previous night. Dean had no idea what that was about, and he didn’t exactly care either.

“You’ll have a short break now,” Percy continued, his voice still clipped and businesslike. “Return to the Great Hall in one hour. Lunch will be served, and your first class will begin immediately after that. It will be Transfiguration Theory with Professor McGonagall. Don’t be late and do bring your textbooks. She does not tolerate unprepared students.”

And just like that, he left, probably to prepare for his own classes, not that he thought about it. Dean ignored Ron, calling the prefect a prat beneath his voice and decided to get his bag and take it down to the Great Hall, Harry following him.

He hoped to talk with Jack and Lisa. They hadn’t spoken with one another since they’d gotten sorted, and he wanted to know what their first day would be like as well. After all, their first class would be all of them together.

AN: Like I said above, this isn’t part of the weekly schedule. Tomorrow will be an AWM (EM Vol. 2) chapter, like you guys chose in the last poll.

As for this chapter, I know that it was uneventful, and I’m a bit disappointed with it. Again, I found that I needed to add a few things before things started to get more exciting, which included a bit about their classes and professors. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting this depending on your feedback, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.