Chapter 12: PENNY
Dear Bill,
I hope everything is fine in Egypt.
It's my first day at Hogwarts, and the first thing I needed to do was write to you, Mum, Dad, and Charlie. I've been sorted in Gryffindor, and so has Ron, but he is still sleeping now. Anyway, here it is. It's beautiful. I haven't imagined Hogwarts like this, and I really like it. I just wanted to let you know that we are fine, and we love you. I miss you, Bill. I'll be writing to you soon.
Penny.
Ps: Ron misses you too.
Penny read the letter she had prepared for Bill one last time, making sure everything was fine. When she was satisfied, she ran to Percy, asking him if she could borrow his new owl.
"Penny, I need him now," Percy said.
"Oh, sorry," she said, looking down. She should have known that. After all, Percy's owl was new, and maybe Percy didn't want him to get tired.
"I'll bring it at the howler later, alright?" He said, smiling at last.
Penny gasped. "There's a place where all owls are?"
Percy shook his head. "Penny," he said, almost pleading, "It's your first day. Please be on time for lessons." Penny nodded, hoping to seem convincing. She really wanted to see all those owls.
"Penny," Percy stopped her before she could walk away. "Letters, now. Then breakfast. I'll be down in five minutes." Penny gave out a breath. He had caught her, and Percy's five minutes were actually five minutes. She didn't have time to visit the owlery.
Penny was very excited for her first day, as she had been excited the previous night. She loved the moving stairs, the pink lady guarding the Gryffindor common room, and her cozy red bed. She loved the dormitory: there were five beds, and she shared her room with Hermione, Cora, Parvati, and Lavander. The first thing Penny did when she entered the dormitory was to place the colorful cover her mother had made on her bed, position her animal-shaped slippers beside her bed, and put her harmonica and Cordelia's drawing on her bedside table—but her favorite moment had been when she put on her uniform. Finally, she was wearing the robe of a real Hogwarts student.
Hermione was the first to wake up, and she was already set on the sofa of the common room reading a heavy book. Penny wanted to say hi to her, but she seemed so focused on her reading that Penny didn't want to disturb her. Percy didn't like it when they made noise when he was reading.
She wondered if Ron was awake by now. She really hoped so, knowing how much he liked to sleep. She walked towards the stairs of the boy's dormitory. She looked down at the steps thoughtfully: the night before, Percy had said that only girls could go up the girls' dormitory; if a boy had tried, the stairs would have turned into a slide, making the intruder fall back into the common room.
"Hey, Penny," her cheeks suddenly became red after hearing Oliver Wood's voice.
"Hi," she said, waving her hand and looking at him walking down the stairs.
"Ready for your first day?" He asked with a smile, and Penny could only nod her head.
"Great," he exclaimed. "I have to go now, but if you're looking for your brothers, go up." Oliver moved to make enough space for her to pass, but Penny looked thoughtfully at the stairs.
"Won't they turn?" She asked, trying to ignore her embarrassment.
"No," he said with a little laugh that made Penny smile even wider. "Or dormitory is safe, go on," he said encouraging. Penny nodded her head and stepped on the stairs, glad that it didn't turn.
"See?" she heard Oliver say.
"Oh, wow. Thank you," Penny said.
Oliver smiled again. "No problem. See you later," he said before walking away.
"Bye," Penny muttered when he was already gone. She was so happy to be a Gryffindor.
The girl took a breath before running up the stairs.
"Hi," she waved at every boy who passed next to her. The boys' dormitory was exactly the same as the girls', with only boys. She had asked a boy where the first years slept, and he politely told her.
She arrived in front of the heavy wooden door and knocked, muttering a song she had invented while she waited.
"Hi," the boy who had opened the door was the one who had lost his toad.
"Hi, Neville," she said, waving her hand. "Is Ron awake?"
Neville nodded. "He just woke up. Do you want to get in?"
"If I can."
Neville opened the door wider to let her in. Even the rooms were exactly the same: five beds and five bedside tables. She saw Neville's toad still sleeping in his cage. Looking to another bed, she saw half of the covers fallen on the floor and Seamus, the Irish boy, trying to make the knot of his red and golden tie. She smiled at him, who returned the gesture before she moved to the next bed with a beautiful owl on the bedside table.
"Oh, so cute,," she said, getting closer to the pet and starting to stork her soft feathers.
"Her name is Hedwig." Penny smiled at Harry, who was adjusting his glasses over his nose.
"Oh wow, so elegant," she said. "It fits her." Harry smiled at her before speaking again.
"Ron is in the bathroom; he just woke up." Penny looked at the bed next to Harry's; she was sure it was Ron's: on it, there was the same cover her mother had made for each of them, Scabbers sleeping in his cage, and a poster of Chuddley's Cannon.
"Yeah, Neville told me," she said, sitting on Ron's bed. "Are you excited?"
"Yeah, very," Harry answered, making Penny smile.
"I can't wait to study Cure of Magical Creatures, but I have to wait until the third year, so I guess I can't wait to do Defense Against the Dark Arts so we can talk about some creatures. What about you?"
Harry blinked his eyes. "I... I really don't know; I've never heard about any of these subjects."
Penny's eyes widened. "What does Muggles study?"
"Oh," Harry said, "Literature, geography, math…"
"What's math?"
"Study of numbers," Harry said.
"It sounds something that Percy would like,," she said without stopping to smile, her eyes fixed on a poster on the wall.
"What's West Ham?" She asked, getting up to look closely at the poster.
"It's Dean's," Harry said, following her. "It's a football team."
"Football…" she repeated interested, she had never heard that.
"It's the best team that exists." Dean's voice made her turn.
Seamus laughed. "Don't let Cora hear you."
"So, it's a game?" Penny asked, looking between Dean and Harry, who nodded. Penny smiled wider—a muggle game.
"What are the rules?" She didn't even finish the question that Dean had started to explain to her how that football worked, and it was pretty bizarre: they didn't use brooms, and they played with just one ball, but the players were a lot, and they had to run all the time. It sounded like a kind of game her sibling and Ginny would have played.
"Penny, what are you doing here?" Ron had just come out of the bathroom, his toothbrush in one of his hands, his tie loose around his shoulders, and his robes hanging on his arm.
"I wanted to be sure you were awake," she ran to him, kissing him on the cheek before going towards the door. "I'll see you later," she waved at everyone before running down.
Walking down the stairs, she smiled and talked with the paintings hanging against the stone walls of Hogwarts, but since now, Penny's favorite part had been the Great Hall, with the Houses' tables and the flying candles and the roof where you could see the sky outside.
"Morning," she said, hugging George from behind, who was sitting talking with Lee and Fred.
"Hey, Pen," George said while the girl kissed Fred.
"Where's Ronnie?" Fred asked.
"He is arriving; he's with Harry," she explained, preparing her plate for her breakfast.
"What do you have as first lesson, little lady?" Asked Lee curiously.
Penny thought for a moment before saying, "Transfiguration with McGonagall."
"Oh, good luck," Fred said, making Penny frown.
"She is great, Penny," George added. "She is just very strict."
"And scary," Fred said.
"And amazing," Lee said. "I had lots of fun during Quidditch matches last year."
"At least you don't have Snape as first," Fred said, and Penny frowned.
"Snape?" George drank his pumpkin juice, nodding his head.
"The potion master," he said.
"He is a git," Fred said, making George and Lee nod their heads.
Ron and Harry arrived not long after sitting next to Penny and starting to talk about Hogwarts and how they had spent their first night. Penny hadn't done much: Hermione read before going to bed, Pervati and Lavander talked for a bit, and Cora hung a poster at the side of her bed. She also took out a white and black ball from her strange truck. Penny had talked a bit with them before going to bed, but she had been very tired, and sleep got the best of her.
Harry and Ron had done more or less the same, but while Ron had slept, Harry had been so excited not to be able to sleep until late at night.
"I'll be right back," Harry said, standing up and walking towards the professors' table.
"Ronnie," Penny said, making her brother look up from his plate. "Who's the woman Harry is talking to?" Ron looked in the direction Harry had gone. Now, the boy was talking to a very pretty woman who was smiling kindly at him.
"I don't know," Ron said before Penny turned to George, pulling his robe's sleeve.
"Georgie," she said. "Who's she?"
"Oh," George said. "That's Rachel; she is the school counselor."
"She is pretty," Penny said, making George laugh.
"I know," he said. "Lee never stops talking about how pretty she is."
Harry didn't know anything about their world, but he knew the big man from the day before and the Hogwarts' counselor; she wondered how.
Penny's first lesson didn't go as she had planned: while walking to the Transfiguration classroom, the stairs had changed, and she and Ron and Harry had arrived at the third floor, where no one was allowed to go. They even had an unpleasant encounter with the caretaker, Flinch, and his cat, Mrs. Norris. At first, Penny thought she was cute, but she growled at her, making Penny change her mind.
When they arrived in the classroom, the lesson had already started. Professor McGonagall just glared strictly at them, watching them sit down. Some Slytherins laughed at them while Penny took out her book, notebook, and quill. Ron sat behind her while she sat next to Hermione.
"It's the first day," Hermione muttered.
"Oh," Penny whispered, taking out her wand. "The stairs changed." Her gaze then fixed on the room, especially the animals that were in there: birds, cats, and monkeys.
She smiled happily before looking at her classmates; they had that lesson with Slytherins, and the class was divided perfectly in two, Gryffindor at one side and Slytherins at the other. She spotted the pale boy from the train set with a boy very tall and surrounded by a group of girls that didn't seem very nice. Then she spotted Dean and Seamus sitting together, and in front of them, there were Neville and Cora, who had her fingers black because of the ink she was trying to take in.
The first lesson of transfiguration focused on teaching them how to change a match into a needle. The professor made it seem very easy, but it really wasn't.
"I don't understand," Ron muttered to a perplexed Harry. "That's the words, but it doesn't change."
"Maybe the movement is wrong," Harry tried.
The professor had made everyone try the charm, but none had succeeded so far. Penny had tried, but it didn't even change color.
"Miss. Granger," Hermione looked ready as the professor called her. She moved the wand, speaking the words, and Penny smiled, amazed, when she saw the match changing, but it suddenly stopped.
"Well done, Miss Granger. Half of it is a great success." Hermione smiled, satisfied, and everyone was impressed.
Neville tried, but nothing happened, as happened to Dean, Seamus, and Malfoy, the pale boy. Then, the professor walked to Cora, who was still trying to get the ink from her fingers. As soon as the professor got close, the girl looked up, took her wand, and moved it, saying the words and the match became a perfect needle.
"She did it," Harry muttered, making Ron nod. Penny looked amazed at what Cora had done while Hermione turned to her match again.
"Good," the professor said, almost unimpressed, before walking to another student. Cora smiled before returning to look at her fingers.
"No points?" Ron asked.
"Maybe it's because it's the first day," Harry guessed, but it seemed to have affected them more than Cora, who was coolly making sure that no ink was on her fingers anymore.
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