Chapter Four

The next morning Penny awakens to the bright shining sun that streams through the windows of the Ravenclaw dormitory. After dressing and heading towards the common room She takes a look at the notice board which contains the school time-table for every Ravenclaw year. First years are to have a potions, followed by a flying lesson by Madam Hooch, but what Penny was most looking forward to was charms class with Professor Flitwick. Penny was relatively excited about this as the Professor was a former dueling champion and is a wealth of knowledge, and head of the Ravenclaw house. After the student's make their way towards the bathrooms and get washed up they are led by their prefect Penelope Clearwater back to the Great Hall in time to have their breakfast. Penny Agnes and Drew sit together again and whilst eating, discuss what they are to expect from their first charms lesson. The Great Hall is once again lively as the voices of many students over lap and echoes off the great stone walls. Breakfast was quickly eaten and the students all head off towards their classes. The first year students head towards the dungeon for potions class. The Dungeons were filled with grime and dirt, the temperature seemed to get colder the further they headed in. If that wasn't enough to create a dower atmosphere there were spider webs covering a large percentage of the walls and many ponds filled with viscous liquid. Potions class was relatively straight forward. Professor Snape seemed to target the Gryffindores but left the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws mostly alone. They were required to learn the ingredients for a simple potion that cures boils. With Snape's dominating atmosphere he soon found how to push the buttons of certain students forcing them to make mistake or to make them argumentative. Snape sneered with delight every time he managed to corner a student. His yellowish skin and disordered teeth seemed even more terrifying within the dower potions class surroundings.

Following that was flying lessons with Madam Hooch and other lessons such a "Transfiguration" with Professor McGonagall which is the only other lesson so far to interest Penny, Everything continued much the same way as it was meant to in the books. After slogging through the majority of the mundane subjects such as "A History of Magic" and Professor Quirrell's incredibly dull "Defense Against the Dark Arts" it was finally time for the first year charms class. The classroom was located in class ninety-nine, in the south tower. At the front of a series of desks stood Professor Flitwick. His short stature and friendly nature seemed to mask his sharp inquisitive mind. The Professor was stood upon a stack of books so that every student could see him. Charms class this morning was being held with the Hufflepuff, Gryffindore, and Slyverin first years. In years gone by there used to be enough students per house to fill a classroom but after the rise of Voldemort and the death eaters, and their campaign to eradicate Muggle-Born wizards and what they called blood-traitors, the British wizarding community took a sever drop in population. Because of this the smaller numbers of each house have been folding into each other in order to fill the classes. The Ravenclaws first charms lesson began with the cheerful Professor Flitwick giving a quick explanation of charms in his trademark squeaky voice. According to him "charms are the foundation they will build upon as they move onward and upwards in their career as witches and wizards". The students opened their text books at the Professors urging. The first spell is the levitation spell Wingardium Leviosa. The Professor explained. "To the wizard and their wand especially when newly partnered, clear communication between the wizard and the wand is the key. The wand unlocks the wizards innate magical power but to successfully complete a spell, The wizard must move his wand in a specific manner for each spell and clearly enunciate and pronounce the spell". The textbook had pictures indicating the correct wand movements, and the spell was also written as "wing-GAR-dee-um-leh-vee-OH-sa". Certain wizards with particularly strong accents found pronouncing this difficult and others found the flowing wand movement to be difficult. Between the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws though every student read the text-book properly so they were fully aware of where they were struggling and with a bit of prodding by Professor Flitwick were soon correcting their faults. The Gryffindore and Sliverin's however were for the most part falling behind. The Sliverin's were trying to use brute power to make the feathers float and the Gryffindores had mainly just skimmed the text book so there were many not getting either the wand movement or the pronunciation correct. Penny who had already read this textbook and practiced the wand movements and pronunciation at home was more than capable of making it float but she chose not to stand out instead watching her fellow students and giving a bit of helpful advice here and there. Suddenly a Gryffindore girl began floating her feather and Professor Flitwick proudly said " Oho well done, see here everyone Miss Granger's done it". but before he could even finish another Gryffindore boy had made his feather explode much to the shock of the rest of the class.

After the end of a rather boring day the first year Ravenclaws returned to their common room. Penny sat down near the fireplace on a comfortable looking Chaise lounge reading the book she picked up last night which is her ragged second-hand edition of the standard book of spells grade four. Agnes noticed and asked "why are you reading that for Penny?" Penny looks up from the book and says "I read the others before school started" Agnes was shocked by this "Penny began explaining. My Father gave me some pocket-money so I spent it on second hand books so as I love reading. Agnes looks at Penny like she has just witnessed a rare beast in the wild. Drew begins asking questions from stuff he has already read too as a kind of test. To their amazement Penny's answers were word for word what was written in the Standard book of Spells grade one. The trio started making a game out of this and passed their free period enjoying quizzing each other. Some of the other students thought it seemed like fun and under Penelope Clearwater the prefect who having a free period decided to act as the Quiz master divided the first year students into teams of three. Penny, Agnes, and Drew were competing against Padma Patil, Terry Boot, and Michael Corner. Michael was a thin child with dark black hair and brown eyes, his best friend Terry was built slightly bigger with his brown hair cut with a sensible looking fringe. Then there was Padma Patil, Penny was thought she was a beautiful young woman with smooth brown skin and shimmering black hair. The rules of the game is simple Penelope Clearwater will ask a question the first student to make their wand glow will get to answer that question. If they get it right they get ten points if they get it wrong they lose fifty points. Penelope asked "What are the ingredients for Wide-eye Potion?" The first to make their wand glow was Penny who said confidently " six snake fang, six dried Billywig stings, two sprigs of Wolfebane and four measures of Standard ingredient herb mix". Penelope waved her wand with a flourish greenish lights began to circle Penny, "correct" said Penelope. The other students looked disappointed but motivated none the less. "Next what spell can be located on Chapter twenty-one of A Beginner's Guide To Transfiguration?" Once again Penny's wand began to glow te fastest. "The answer is the snail to teapot spell" once again Penny got it right. Safe to say this pattern remained unbroken for the entire of the game and led to a crushing defeat of the other team. Sometimes the other team jumped in to answer questions without them being fully asked and as a result got them wrong. The game ended with a final score of Penny, Agnes and Drew's team on one hundred points with their opponents with a miserable score of minus two hundred and fifty. Due to the sudden popularity of the quiz's in Ravenclaw the older years began hosting quizzes against each other quite often. Professor Flitwick even acted as quiz master from time to time. It was also safe to say only the older Ravenclaw students stood a chance against Penny who quickly established herself as the Queen of Quizzes for her year a title she was not too fond of.