Chapter 5

The next morning was her first experience of the regular routine at Hogwarts. Up early to get ready and dressed, then off to breakfast at the Great Hall. She had slept only a few hours and was utterly exhausted, stumbling down the stairs with the rest of her house. But as she approached the Great Hall, her stomach began to growl. Barely had she taken her seat when a wonderful breakfast appeared on the table - like no other she had ever had. Fried tomatoes - she hadn't known that people fried tomatoes. Fried bread! Whoever heard of such a thing - and delicious, too. For some reason she felt a craving for peameal bacon, and asked her neighbour at the table if Hogwarts ever served it.

"Never heard of it," said Ron, "but there's lots of other stuff." And indeed there was. Imogen tried bits of everything - sausages, bacon, eggs and a breakfast fish of some kind - another first for her. She was reaching for another piece of the fried bread when suddenly it disappeared into a large, strong hand, and then straight into Ron's gaping mouth.

"Ron," exclaimed Hermione. "You great greedy glutton! That's your fifth piece, and it was the last - you practically snatched it out of Imogen's hand!" For some reason Imogen found herself admiring Hermione's powers of alliteration, but before she could think further on that topic, Ron started to apologize to her, the effect of which was lost due to the crumbs flying from his mouth. Imogen dissolved into laughter. And it felt good to laugh, for the day before had been so terribly stressful, and this, her first real day at Hogwarts, was likely to be even worse. Because she was a newcomer, and the least able of anyone at the table, she did not feel she could engage in any banter with her fellow students. So she sat quietly through the breakfast, speaking when spoken to, cheerfully downing her food (and many cups of coffee) until it was time for classes to start.

The students streamed out of the hall, many of the fifth-year Gryffindors heading for the tedious History of Magic course with the translucent Professor Binns. But Imogen would not be seeing the ghostly teacher. As she had been excused from attending his course, she was off to an unused classroom to practice what she hoped she had learned from her reading of the first-year Charms and Transfiguration texts the night before. She would not be rejoining her housemates until double potions later that morning, and she had almost two hours to work on her own.

Imogen was not at all familiar with castle and knew that she could easily get lost, and so it was with great caution that she made her way to the classroom Professor McGonagall had told her was available - it was only on the second floor, but given Hogwarts' capricious staircases, she still had to be careful. As she walked down the hall, she kept an eye on the various wall paintings, thinking that perhaps this would help her remember her surroundings better. The landscape paintings were passive decorations, but some of the portraits stared right back at Imogen. In one painting a young girl waved at her; in another, a gentleman easily old enough to be her father leered openly, nodding his head appreciatively.

She made her way to her destination without incident, closing the door to the unused classroom behind her. She was very glad to be alone - it would be embarrassing to display her incompetence to anyone. She put her books on a nearby desk, and looked around her. There was nothing about the classroom to suggest it was meant for a particular subject. She opened up her Charms text, and looked at the illustration for how to hold a wand. Once she was satisfied she knew the proper grip, the next lesson in the text was on basic wand movement. The night before she had been amazed to discover just how complicated the subject was. A wand could be moved in three dimensions, of course: up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards. But it could also be rotated in those dimensions, as well. Thus a witch might be required to move her want left to right, while rotating it counter-clockwise - a large number of combinations were possible. But the text only made the point that the more complex spells at times required more complex wand movement, pointing out that new students were not expected to deal with the more difficult charms. For now, the only spells she would be learning were one-dimensional, requiring no rotation - a simple poking motion with the wand while the spell was pronounced.