Herbology

"Is that the other one?"

"That one there, he's -Y'know- isn't he?"

"The one with the dark hair by himself."

"Gryffindor gets a star student, and Ravenclaw gets a stain on its reputation"

These not-too-quiet comments follow you throughout the halls on your first week of classes, you do your best to ignore them. Kingsley warned you of what the students might say. As melodramatic as twelve year olds can be you find that its the older students not meeting your gaze that upsets you the most. To a certain degree you were used to ridicule, but fear? You haven't done anything to these people why do they look at you like that?

You try to ignore the remarks, Kingsley always said "You prove yourself with your actions, Marvolo, don't worry what people think at first." Instead you busy yourself preparing for your first week of classes. You remember Kingsley saying that the school was hard to navigate, and if your first few excursions were any indication, he was underselling it.

There are well over 200 staircases, and they seem to move primarily of their own volition. Older students take this in stride, but you find it quite distressing. Why would they build a structure like this?

Unfortunately there wasn't much in the way of assistance. The Portraits would leave their frames and visit their friends in other parts of the castle, and the ghosts weren't much better. One poltergeist, you think he was called Peeves, found your struggles hilarious and teased and pestered you for hours. Another spirit, a ghost who was only mostly beheaded, was about as helpful. He gave instructions assuming that you could just walk through the walls. When you explained your corporeal limitations, he sadly said that he had never attempted to use the stairs.

With all this in mind it was nearly a miracle that you made it your first week of classes at all yet at all on time. For the first time in your life you find yourself completely occupied. Growing up in the Gaunt Estate there was little to do and you found yourself eagerly awaiting your visits from Kinglsey Shacklebolt and John Dawlish. At Hogwarts, there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. Every Wednesday, the students had to study Astrology, so in addition to their regular class-loads on Wednesday you have to pack up your secondhand telescope hustle over to the observation deck in the dead of night.

Three times a week you are expected in the greenhouse to learn Herbology from Professor Sprout, a dumpy witch, head of Hufflepuff, who fixes you with a wary look, and you get the impression that she is much keener than her appearance would lead you to believe.

The first week of Herbology is far from exciting she brings the class through the basic elements of potting plants, and how to determine which soils and fertilizers are best for which ingredients. It doesn't seem to be all that magical of a lesson at first. She seems to want to make sure that the class has a decent foundation of how to tend to plants before moving on to the vagaries of magical gardening.