History of Magic was boring. Well, for Julia and Agnes it was. Hannah and Maria pay attention throughout the entire lecture, taking detailed notes about the first goblin settlements. Let's just say, Julia and Agnes are going to do their homework with Hannah and Maria.

Throughout the entire lecture, Julia's mind wanders back to the detention she got. What would her parents say? Back on the Hogwarts Express, she remembers her dad jokingly telling her to not get in trouble the first week of school.

Julia would count that a record. Getting detention the first day of school in her second class. Upon thinking about it more, Julia becomes enraged. What was she supposed to do? Let Olivia curse her friend? Suddenly, Julia doesn't regret her actions.

The ten year old brunette slips out a clean piece of parchment and starts writing. This gets Agnes' attention, because she's surprised that Julia is starting to take notes. Agnes glances over at the parchment, however, and doesn't see the dates that goblins first moved to Egypt. Instead, Agnes silently chuckles at the sight of Julia writing a complaint letter to her parents.

Hannah thinks this is one of her least favorite classes, but she knows she needs it to pass with good grades. She is a fast writer, so she can write down points quickly before having the rest of the presentation to look up at the professor and listen to him explain the book pages.

The professor is named Professor Binns, and he is a ghost. You'd think being taught by a ghost would be exciting, right? Wrong. His voice is bland and seems to drone on and on without end. Maybe if he acted a little more... lively, then the class wouldn't be so bad.

Maria absolutely loves the class. She is very interested in the background of magic, and wishes to know everything she can about her heritage. She's not as fast of a writer as Hannah, but that doesn't stop her from being extremely detailed in her notes.

Lauren rolls up the sleeves of her robes and puts on her gardening gloves just as Professor Sprout told them. Professor Sprout, a short woman with grey curly hair and dirty wizard robes, puts her own gloves on. "Pay attention class! This lesson will impact some of your future Potions classes, so it is important. Now, who can tell me the properties of a Valerian Sprig?"

Lauren quickly thinks of any clues. The professor said that it will impact Potion classes later, and she knows that the Gryffindors are making a potion to cure poisons. Lauren raises her hand to take an educated guess. Professor Sprout smiles and points at Lauren. "Yes, Ms. Johnson?"

"I know the tops are used as an ingredient for Treacle Fudge, but the roots are more useful for us." Lauren pauses for a second to make sure everyone is following her before continuing. "The roots are used as potion ingredients, but I'm not exactly sure for which potion. Maybe the Drought of Peace?"

"Excellent! Ten points to Ravenclaw!" Professor Sprout claps her hands and gestures to the pot in front of her. "Yes, the roots are used in potions such as the Draught of the Living Death and the Draught of Peace."

The class is spent planting the Valerian Sprigs, and Professor Sprout has taken a liking to Lauren. The blonde ended up putting her hair up in a messy bun to keep it out of the dirt. Lauren likes this class, but she knows it would be more fun with some of her friends here. She wonders if Julia is alright, and how she's handling the thought of having detention on Friday.

After class ends Agnes, Hannah, and Julia bid a farewell to Maria as the Hufflepuff heads off to her last class, Potions. The three Gryffindors head over to their Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Julia gripping a folded up piece of parchment behind her books.

"You feeling okay, Jules?" Agnes asks, a worried look on her face.

Julia's blue eyes look down at the note she wrote as she continues to walk with her friends to class. "Just peachy."

Hannah stays silent, knowing that if she pushes Julia, she might snap. The three travel up the west tower and into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

The room is mysterious. The atmosphere of the room is enough to get Julia temporarily out of her thoughts. After all, this is the class she's looked forward to the most. Many weird things hang from the ceiling, which the Gryffindors can't decipher. The walls are old and cracked, which just adds to the strangeness of the room. They arrive early, so the girls sit in the front of the desk at partner tables, letting Julia sit alone.

While they wait for other people to arrive, Julia unfolds her parchment and reads it over:

Hi Mama and Dad,

I think I let you down today because you said to not get in trouble the first week of school. I didn't know what to do. This Slytherin girl was going to put a curse on my friend in the hallway, so I blasted Stupefy at her. I had Potions class next, and the mean girl told Snape what happened. Snape gave me detention for Friday. What should I have done? Are you mad at me? If so, I'm really sorry.

Love, Julia. Your favorite daughter.

Julia sighs and folds the parchment back up. She'll deliver it tonight when they eat supper in the Great Hall. Even if it's supposed to be breakfast when letters are sent, she can't wait that long. She has to send it today.

"Alright, class!" The professor pops up from behind his desk after a couple more minutes of waiting, making the class jump in their seats. How long was he waiting there to scare them? "Today is your first day of Defense Against the Dark Arts! Grab your quills, because it's time to take notes."

Professor Laney was way too excited about taking notes. Even Hannah doesn't find this topic interesting. Something about how there's a difference between water, fire, and land nymphs? Hannah can tell the professor is trying to be upbeat and informative, but the subject just isn't clicking with her.

Agnes, on the other hand, is having way more fun in this class than History of Magic. She writes down all the notes and glances at her wand every ten minutes. She wants to learn some attack spells like the one Julia knows. Maybe they are just taking notes now and they'll try spells at the end like how they did in Charms. However, Professor Laney just ends the class with a homework assignment.

Entering the Potions classroom was scary to say the least. Lauren and Maria are grateful to have each other for Potions class, or else they may be too scared to even go. They are one of the first ones there, so they are able to grab a partner table in the front right side of the classroom.

After waiting for the room to fill, Professor Snape enters the room and whisps to the front desk. "This may be your last class of the day, but mark my words it is not the easiest. Brewing potions could just possibly be the most difficult thing you ever do, and only experts can perfect it."

Snape stares at Maria dead in the eyes while saying, "And I can sense that some of us here are not so extremely gifted."

Maria starts breathing again when Snape looks away from her. Why did she have to get on the bad side of the most scary professor in the school on her first day? Snape continues, "Now, students, turn to page 324 and produce the potion that cures poisons. Have it on my desk labeled with your name before you leave here today."

With that said, Lauren and Maria face each other to create a battle plan. Lauren thinks of the best course of action and explains to Maria, "You heat up the cauldron while I go get the supplies. When the water is heated, I'll tell you what to do and which ingredients to add. Make sense?"

Maria nods and pours a liter of water into the pot. Lauren heads off to the cabinets to get the ingredients and scales. After she gets what she needs, Lauren makes her way back to her table to see the water almost to a boil.

"Perfect." Lauren opens her book and flips to page 324. "Consistently add salamander blood until the potion turns red."

Maria feels kind of queasy at the sight of the blood, but other than that she carefully scoops the liquid into the cauldron. After a couple more scoops, the potion turns bright red. "Okay, what's next?"

Lauren is quick to learn what the different ingredients are, so she helps Maria navigate around the workplace. Before they started with the second ingredient, Maria had the idea to put her hair up in a low ponytail to keep her long hair out of the way. The Ravenclaw and the Hufflepuff are the first to be done with their potion.

"Now take the potion away from the heat, and allow it to cool." Lauren orders, and Maria turns off the heater. She carefully uses these metal clappers to lift the cauldron and place it on a safe mat. Lauren smiles. "Awesome! After it cools, it's ready to use."

"How long does it take to cool?" Maria asks with a smile on her face. In all honesty, Maria completely forgot about Snape and how scary he can be because she got so invested in making the potion.

Lauren flips the page in her book and points to a sentence. "Five minutes. It says you can keep a thermometer in the potion if you want, but it could taint the potion."

"Let's just wait five minutes then. I don't want to get points off for doing something avoidable." Maria says. She sits down in her seat and wipes the sweat off her forehead.

Lauren sits down next to her and sighs. "How do you think the others are doing?"

"I think they're bored. That defense class was boooooring." Maria dramatically and slowly rolls her eyes and leans backward on her chair. Unbeknownst to her, Professor Snape was watching her and Lauren work on their potion. And, hearing her say that the DADA class was boring, he cracks a small smile.

"What rubbish!" Agnes growls when she exits the classroom. "We didn't get to perform a single spell, and we got a boat load of homework for next class!"

"We will use magic later in the year, I presume. It's day one after all." Hannah tries to reason around Agnes' anger and defend the professor's teaching methods.

"In Charms class we got to use magic!" Agnes points out.

Julia cracks a small smile, and defends Professor Laney even more. "Yeah, well, there's a lot to learn about Defense Against the Dark Arts before you can use it. Charms is much easier to perform, anyway."

The Gryffindors surprisingly meet up with their two friends at the doors to the Great Hall. Since it's not an important feast night, the five decide to sit together at a table somewhere.

The girls dig in, being very hungry because they completely forgot about lunch. Lauren is the first to bring that up. "The best time to have lunch is between third and second period. The only reason why we ran out of time, is because we were caught up in the dungeons with Professor Snape."

"Yeah, you're right." Hannah pulls out her schedule that she copied down in a planner. "We have half hour between classes at that time."

"You're so organized, Hannah." Julia smiles and compliments. Her leg bounces under the table since she's anxious to send her letter. However, she knows she has to send it tonight or she will overthink it.

Julia pulls out the folded parchment and takes a deep breath, gaining Maria's attention. "What's that?"

Agnes swallows a whole biscuit and gasps. "Is that what you were writing back in History of Magic?!"

Julia nods and unfolds the paper. "It's a letter to my parents explaining what happened. Hopefully they won't be mad..."

Lauren puts her arm around Julia since she's right next to her. "They shouldn't be, you did a very brave thing. Your parents might even send advice if they write back."

"Yeah! Maybe they'll give us the secret to Snape's weakness or something!" Agnes loudly whispers to the group, making the other four girls roll their eyes playfully.

Hannah nods at Lauren, agreeing with her. "Julia's parents are super chill. I'm sure they didn't have great experiences with some of their professors either."

"It's natural to be nervous, Julia, but I think everyone here is right. Even if they are mad at you, I'm still very grateful that you helped me out." Maria smiles with her eyes closed, not wanting to think of what would have happened if Julia wasn't there to help her.

"Thanks, guys." With a new stroke of confidence, Julia pierces her lips and makes a funny whistling sound. Like a bird tweeting. After a minute or so, a small dark grey owl flies through one of the big windows and onto Julia's shoulder.

"Here, Gravy." Julia gives the bird a treat from her plate before handing the bird her letter. Everyone watches as the owl spreads its wings and flies back outside through the window.

A weight seems to have lifted off of Julia's shoulders when she saw Gravy fly through the window with her letter. The rest of the night, she's more happy and giddy, which makes the other girls relieved. After dinner, the girls depart for their own houses to go to sleep and get ready for the next day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better now that they've gotten their first day out of the way.