Augustine's POV( I know that she is an OC but b/c you are looking at the world through the eyes of a (nearly)silent protagonist, you get a more well-rounded opinion. Also, I really don't want people yelling at me for neglecting a character. I have way too many to work with in the first place)

Italics=Foreign Language/Dream

Underline=Thoughts

Underline Italics=Foreign Language in Dream

Bold=Emphasis

Disclaimer: Though this may be shocking, I am not Japanese(gasp!), A troll-I mean Devil- I mean New York Times Best selling Author, or a British woman. This means, sadly, that I am not Hiromi Arakawa, Rick Riordan, or J.K.Rowling, which also implies that I don't own any of the main/side characters except for Augustine. Sorry to disappoint.

I looked at my schedule right before bed. My first class was Arthimancy, which I figured to be a bit like arithmetic. The rest of my classes were classic wizard classes, with the exception of Alchemy, Herbology, and History. My pure-blooded housemates assured me that it was a misprint for History of Magic, but I wasn't so sure. Same for Home EC.

Each 1st year was allowed to take 3 electives maximum, as long as the filled in the scroll that they had passed out at dinner. I checked the box for Alchemy, Home EC, and Care of Magical Creatures. My dorm mates, Margaret and Annabeth, were understanding and agreed, but the older Ravenclaws looked at me like I was insane when I told them that I'd signed up for 3 electives. I was just as surprised that Ravenclaws acted like this towards 3 electives. Weren't they the studious house?

I just shrugged and put on my pajamas(A/N: Since she is American, she will say Pajamas instead of Pyjamas. The British students will say it that way.). It was late anyways, and even though I shouldn't have gotten it, I still felt like I had a MAJOR case of jet lag. I passed out in my navy blue bed, entering what I hoped would be a dreamless sleep.

Boy was I wrong.

-o0O0o-

I was sitting on the mantle of a wooden fireplace. The room my spirit was in was small but homey, with white washed walls and exposed wooden beams. Two small children sat on the fireplace, playing with simple wooden toys. A woman with long brown hair sat in a rocking chair, knitting. It was snowing outside.

I drifted over to the children looking closer at them. They both had golden blonde hair and bronzy-golden eyes. The bigger of the two had wild untamed hair and a fiery look to his face while the smaller of the two had short cropped hair and a kind gentle face. The biggest was moving a toy soldier across the floor while the younger chased his with a wooden cannon. The boys giggled and grinned while they played.

The mother coughed before smiling.

I felt my spirit being pulled somewhere else, and I let myself drift. Better to go along with fate than fight it when it came to dreams. If you fought Somnus while in his realm, you may never wake up.

I found myself in the same room as before, except the two children were now much older. 11 or 10, I'd say. Stacks and piles of papers, books, and random drawing supplies littered the floor. The smaller boy was sleeping on top of a pile of books he was using as a pillow. The bigger one was still reading, late into the night.

"Can't give up....." The boy muttered as he threw aside the book he'd been reading. He just grabbed another and read yet again.

There was another pull. My visions got faster and faster, becoming blurrier as I went on. I saw darkness. An island. Large doors. Trains. Explosions. Half-Naked men sparkling. A funeral. Red light. Rain. Snow. WW1. Zeppelins. Apartment after apartment. Libraries. And finally, blackness.

-o0O0o-

I awoke, gasping for breath. My body was covered in sweat, and my head hurt worse than when I had my migraines. I tried to get up from my bed, but I fell flat on my face.

"OOOoowwwwww........."

Annabeth jumped out of bed and ran over to me. "What hurts?" She asked calmly. I waved at my head. Annabeth just nodded and grabbed two white pills along with a water bottle. "Take these. It'll help."

I shook my head and struggled to my feet. "No thanks....I'll manage without any pills."

Annabeth accepted my answer and put the pills away. I looked over at Margaret's bed, but she was already gone. Probably at breakfast.

We got dressed and followed a 3rd year to breakfast. Based off of unsaid rules, we should've sat with the other Ravenclaws, but Piper, Jason, Thalia, Nico, Will, Hazel, and Calypso were all sitting in a circle in the corner. Annabeth and I walked over and sat cross-legged with them. The Gryffindors nearby looked a bit surprised and miffed by the unsaid intrusion on their territory, but said nothing. We ignored them and chatted amiably in a mix of Latin and Ancient Greek that everyone understood.

We exchanged info on different subjects, from passwords to secrets. The most valuable find, however, was discovered by none other than Magnus himself. After he'd been whisked away by Professor Dylan, he had learned that the hat had shouted "HOUSE OF GHOSTS" in Welsh, the Sorting Hat's spirit's original dialect. Magnus had wandered around the castle looking for the house of ghosts when he stumbled across a tapestry of Frey. He had examined it, curious, and found that a door was behind it. Past the door was a bedroom mirroring his own back in Valhalla, which he immediately knew was his own. Not only that, but the room's tapestry(and door!) appeared wherever and whenever he wanted.

It seemed a bit too convenient, but so did the idea of magic. We eventually arranged to meet at Magnus' room for important meetings because of the need for secrecy. The House of Ghosts was now our unofficial base.

Percy opened his mouth, having finished his breakfast of a blueberry acai smoothie and oatmeal. "Actually, on the topic of houses, I don't know if you guys have this in your houses, but Hufflepuff house is actually really segregated."

Will and Frank nodded in agreement. Calypso and Hazel shared a look of discomfort.

Piper rose an eyebrow. "Segregated how?"

Percy was about to respond when Frank held up a hand. Percy stopped and nodded at Frank, giving him silent permission. Frank cleared his throat before looking around and leaning in. "Well, you know the common core traits of Hufflepuff house? Caring, Hard Working, Patience, Justice, Loyalty, and Fair Play?"

We all nodded. We had memorized the traits on the train ride to Hogwarts.

Frank sighed and leaned against the wall before restarting. "That itself is dividing the students. See, not everyone is hard working or kind. They're a mix, which generally would be very good. But for whatever reason, the differences are what is dividing them. They've split into 3 groups based off of the person's strongest trait. Yellows, who are kind, caring, and generally patient, Blacks, who are hard-working, have a strong sense of justice, and dedicated, and Stripes, who are a mix of Yellows and Blacks with Loyalty. The Yellows and Blacks can't seem to stand each other to the point where if you interact with someone who isn't in your group, you may be harmed badly."

Everyone who wasn't a Hufflepuff was shocked. We'd all heard that Hufflepuff house was the House of hodgepodged people who all got along well. We never expected something like this to be under the Badger's surface.

"They gave all of the new students a questionnaire after dinner and had us fill it out before doing anything else. They split us up based off of that." Calypso huffed. "I got Blacks, Hazel and Percy got Stripes, and Frank got Yellows. Blacks and Yellows will tolerate their groupies interacting with Stripes, but even looking at a Yellow or Black is intolerable. They've even separated the dorm rooms based off of it!"

Leo put his hands around Calypso's shoulder. "It's that bad, huh?"

"Yeah...I heard that it didn't used to be this way before though. Some of the 7th years say that this problem only arose after the war with Voldemort. Then again, those people were other Blacks..." Calypso sighed heavily.

Leo looked pissed and jumped to his feet. "I dealt with enough racism as is being Latino and now you're all suffering from it? I'm gonna march straight up to the head of your house and-"

"HEY LOOK! IT'S THE POST!" A random kid from the Gryffindor table shouted, pointing at the ceiling. Dozens of owls poured in from the windows and flew down to their respective students. Hestia gracefully flew down to our group of time-travelers and dropped a rather large package in the middle of our haphazardly-made circle.

Leo angrily sat down and grumbled to himself. Jason picked up the package and gently shook it. No noise came out, either drowned out from the chatter in the Great Hall or due to the box itself.

Thalia grabbed a silver hunting knife from seemingly nowhere and slit open the box's tape. Inside was a wooden box that perfectly fit inside of the cardboard box. Thalia just slid out the original package's contents before tossing the box itself aside. The wooden box that had been delivered was made of a solid dark wood called epay with small shallow carvings of the Gods from Greek, Norse, and Egyptian Mythology. Carter moved the box towards himself and unlatched the box, gasping. Sadie leaned over his shoulder to take a peak and showed the same look of shock. Carter delicately leaned in a brought out a bronze plate and gently placed it on the stone floor.

"This looks like part of the Scales of Judgement from the Underworld....but how?" Carter wonder aloud.

Nico just looked unamused. "There was a letter in there as well. It says that this is indeed from the old scales and has now been turned into a way to sacrifice food to the gods. Just place the food on there and pray. It'll disappear."

Annabeth let a small laugh escape. "Well, I guess that solves one of our infinite amount of problems. How about we meet up at Magnus' at 8:00 tonight to continue talking about our problems. We'll probably end up talking about our classes at Lunch, so after the day sounds the best. Does that work for everyone?"

We all nodded before gathering our supplies for our first classes and scattering.

-o0O0o-

I ran off with Leo, Annabeth, Hermione, and Lucia. Lucia had an older sister and brother who were both in Slytherin, so she knew the way through the castle. She led us to our first class, which was Arthimancy. I was ecstatic at the idea of a wizard-version of mathematics, but I was disappointed to find that a class for 3rd years was just regular Pre-Algebra with magic thrown into the word problems. Professor Vector just rolled her eyes as she passed out a magic sheet of parchment.

"This is your homework parchment." She drawled. "After class every day, problems for you to solve will appear on this paper. Fill in the answers on this parchment and turn it into me at the beginning of each class. You will receive your paper back once class has ended with your grade on it before it becomes blank again. 25 problems a night. If you have any problems, speak to me after dismissal."

Everyone groaned. I felt like slamming my head into wall. I was a Pre-Calculus Student at this age in the future! Was Wizarding math really that bad?

To answer my own question, yes. Yes it is.

We struggled through a boring lesson on algebraic equations for an hour before Prof. Vector finally dismissed us. I nearly cheered out loud, but some of the third-years glanced at me as if to say, "Don't."

I stayed quiet and quickly exited the room, heading for what I hoped to be a much more interesting class.

Ancient Runes with Professor Aladdin, a wizard from Iraq.

When I entered his classroom, I took notice of many differences that lay between Professor Vector's room and Professor Aladdin's. For one, Professor Aladdin had no desks. Only personal carpets arranged in a circle. A desk sat in the corner surrounded by strange magic objects I could've never dreamed of. The professor himself was sitting on a white pillow, floating above the center of the circle. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was inaudible.

The students who had just entered simply sat on one of the mats and waited patiently. The professor cracked open an eye and looked around lazily.

"Everyone here?" He asked sleepily.

"Yes sir!" Leo saluted, a grin wide on his face. The class just stared at Leo, confused as to why his arm was in such a position. The muggle and half born students just giggled. The professor raised a dark blue eyebrow.

"Oh? I haven't seen a salute in ages. It's nice to see that things remain constant whenever you are." He murmured to himself. He then looked up at the class and jumped down from the pillow, landing gracefully on his feet. Young brightness shone in his large blue eyes. "Let's get this party started then! I'm Aladdin, your new Ancient Runes teacher! As you may have heard, I'm from an area of your world called Iraq. For those of you who have never looked at a map, Iraq is in a desert that connects Europe, Asia, and Africa." He paced around the room, his lively movements completely clearing away any boredom from Arthimancy.

"Now, I actually applied to be your Defense teacher, but someone was more qualified than me, which I feel is fine because I still get to spread knowledge to you all. Now, can anyone tell me what they know about Ancient Runes, or even just Runes in general?"

Nearly everyone's hand shot up. Aladdin walked around a bit before pointing at Annabeth. Annabeth cleared his throat before speaking.

"This class is for the study of Runic Scriptures, or Runology. Ancient Runes is a mostly theoretical subject that studies the ancient runic scripts of magic as Ancient runes are a form of writing which witches and wizards used hundreds of years ago."

"Correct."

Annabeth beamed.

"...But, only book definition wise." Aladdin finished. "You see, Ancient Runes are not just some dead language that needs to be translated by a bunch of kids. The words themselves are powerful."

The class stared at Aladdin with confusion. Aladdin walked over to the blackboard on one of the walls and started drawing.

"Let's take the phrase 'Rhewi nawr' for example. If you just translated it, you'd read 'Freeze now'. But, if you paired saying it out loud with a hand motion..."

Aladdin stepped back into the circle and made a hand gesture before pointing a finger at the wall closest to Leo. He shouted "Rhewi Nawr!" and a bright beam of blue-white light shot from his fingertips and hit the wall. Ice spread from the impact point and froze the everything within a meter radius. Everyone oohed and ahhed. The wizard didn't even look fazed. "That is the true power of Ancient Runes. They were our ancestor's wands. Now, I want all of you to pick one phrase from your book tonight and try to find the hand signs that go with it. You'll be showing me tomorrow for a grade. Oh, and no using this magic outside of my class. It's extremely dangerous. Now, I yield the rest of my class time to you to practice."

And with that, we were left fingering our way through our textbooks, looking for a phrase that we deemed to be interesting.