Disclaimer: I know, you know, so everybody should know already that harry Potter isn't mine

And again this chapter isn't beta-ed, so all mistakes are mine, and if you find any just tell me.

Chapter 7

On September 1st all 6 of them started out in the green commonroom, talking, reading or playing a game. Waiting for the other students to arrive by carriage, which would be the end of the summer course and the start of the real school year.
Earlier Charles Terduyne had already explained the activities planned for the day, urging Nikolaas to have his stuff packed and ready to move to the Red commonroom and dorms, since he had chosen not to take the dual study path. So when he showed up, just before the first students were scheduled to arrive, Nikolaas waved a quick goodbye and took off to the other side of the buildings.

As carriages started arriving, the noise levels increased and the school seemed to come alive. Most of the older students immediately went to their rooms to unpack, and came down to the commonroom when they were done. Second years would come in, look at a list with room assignments on the notification board and rush off again.
The newly arriving first years were also shepherded into the commonroom, but they did not have much more time than needed for a name exchange before they were collected again by Charles Terduyne and shown to their rooms.

All first years had a shared room in the basement level, and shared a bathroom between two rooms. Since the Greens had a bit more room all 2nd years and up had a room for themselves, and shared the bathroom with only one person. With the rooms location appointed based on availability and academic performance in the first year, since everyone wanted an outside room, with a window on one of the upper floors.

Harry's roommate for the year was Jordi Brown, an American muggleborn who didn't attend the summer programme because his parents had already planned their holiday before he knew about Thule and magic. Not that he seemed to really care that he had missed extra work and classes.

On the other side of the bathroom there was Edvard Halvdan, a Norwegian Half-blood, raised in a mostly magical household. And since apparently there were an odd number of students, or just an odd number of boys, Edvard had the room for himself.
This was for Jordi immediately a reason to complain how unfair that was, while hap hazardously unpacking his stuff. Spreading it all over the room, while not putting it away in the closet, his nightstand or desk. Annoying Harry, who was already starting to hope he would do so soon because his hands were itching to do it himself, for he definitely didn't like living in a Dudley like pigsty. But besides this Jordi was a nice person so he hoped it would work out.

As they went down to the commonroom Edvard came along, and they ran into Méri-Antoinette and her roommate Ananda Zabini, who had their room on the same hallway. Once back in the commonroom Jordi took off to talk to some other first years, leaving Harry, Edvard, Méri-Antoinette and Ananda together, which was the beginning of their group of friends, which would eventually dominate their year.

With the new arrivals introductionary activities started again. Name games, tours over the grounds and through the building, the visit to the hospital, handing out of the class schedules etc. With the tours being optional for the group that had done the summer course, Harry and Méri-Antoinette decided to spend that time in the library.
Since the 1st of September was a Friday they had the weekend before classes started, getting introduced to all kinds of activities by upperclassmen. Clubs were again starting up, lots of picnics occurred all over the island since it was still very nice weather, people swimming at one of the beaches.

There was so much to do, so many new experiences, it was a bit overwhelming. And when Monday classes more new things were added to that. The first week was not really all that difficult. Getting to know the teacher and their methods, what to expect in the different classes, what would be covered in which class.
Like Charms and Enchantments introduced the spells and how to make them work and would later on include the why they worked that way, while the first year magical theory course was all about what magic was, the theoretical differences between the wanded subdivisions etcetera.
Although after the first few weeks they would be learning how charms worked so that they could learn to do charms from books. For the classes only reached the surface of all charms and enchantments in existence.

Many classes had test in the first week, since many of the wizard raised children had never been to school before and therefore had different starting levels. The 2nd language Latin course, were all first year students who picked it were in the same class, would even be split up to negate the huge level differences, from knowing nothing to children who had already taken up to four years of optional classes at their Atlantian primary school. And while Harry tested into the upper part of the beginners section, that still placed him n the beginners group.

And then the first doubled week. After a week of wrestling through masses of other children to your next class, very noisy meals and trouble finding an empty table in the library, it was very quiet and relaxed. More than two thirds of the population wasn't there when they woke up Sunday morning, which was a huge advantage according to the upper years. They had more chances getting their hands on the interesting books, horses to ride on, all kinds of stuff actually.
Some of them even came with the advice of making sure to do all your homework for the non-magical courses in the week that everyone was there, and save the research intensive magical work for the doubled week, that way everyone would have time to use the same books and finish their homework. Although they also produced a list of most often used reference books, which would be nice to have yourself, so after striking off the books he already owned he ordered the rest of the books from the Atlantian bookstore once they were back in normal time.

Harry loved the school and courses, even though he was once again firmly at the top of the class. Many teachers gave him extra or different assignments, encouraging him to improve even if that would get him further ahead of the rest of the class.

He got his first brewing experiences in potions, and loved it. He had liked cooking and studying the theory, but brewing was better than both. Although watching the rest of the class could also be great fun. It was very interesting to see the potions changing and sometimes even exploding when a wrong ingredient was added, or the correct ingredient added in a wrong way.

English on the other hand was pretty boring. The first semester would be practical skills like essay writing, how to research, grammar and spelling, and penmanship with various writing materials, like quill and ink and a calligraphy pen. So Harry focused on the calligraphy part, which was tedious and lots of repeatedly copying letters and sentences.

Charms and Enchantments, Transfiguration and Defence, the wanded subjects, didn't really offer much of a challenge to Harry after he had practiced all of the spells in his course books before school started. So much of his homework time for those classes was spend looking up similar spells as the one they were covering in class. Spells similar in how to perform them, not in what they did.

In Runes they would learn a couple of new alphabets, where the meaning of the runes depended upon the use. And later they would start doing some magic with them, but while rune casting made for very strong and semi-permanent to permanent spells, it was also very difficult to do it correctly. It was lots of memorisation, some interpretation and some practice in learning to write the various runes. Not something Harry had very much problems with, he often had most of the exercises for the week finished before the end of the lesson.

In PE they would just play all kinds of games, ball games, most of the time. Although gymnastics and ballroom dancing would also be taught. And as this year was the year of Tennis they would practice that the most in the first semester.
Each year the school had a sports competition, with an all school competition and some games at lower level. This year the sport would be tennis. So everyone had to learn and practice it, so that everyone could join the competition in the second semester.

Being an empath, as well as capable of sensing magic, while in a school full of magical teenagers was a bit taxing though. He could shield very well, especially the empathy part, but shielding heavily continuously took it's toll. The doubled week was better with a lot less people, but there was also a lot more magic everywhere. So he gave in and went to Charles Terduyne, their class mentor to ask if he could do something. Who immediately got the warding teacher to ward Harry's room with emotion and magic dampening wards, which allowed Harry to relax the shielding when in his room.

Not that being in his room went without a problem. Jordi had not cleaned up anything in the room since he unpacked by the time Charles and the warding teacher came by to ward the room, so both of them got a warning to clean it up. And it didn't help at all.
Harry spoke with him, didn't help, Harry started keeping a clean perimeter around his stuff, and still nothing happened.

The group Harry, Méri-Antoinette, Ananda and Edvard however had gotten very close. They sat together in class, at meals, helped each other study and went exploring in some of their free time.
Méri-Antoinette was the comic relief in the group, with an seemingly unending supply of energy. She was the one constantly talking, jumping around and dragging them outside.
Edvard was more a practical than theoretical person, a bit quiet and an ok student, but not focused solely on his studies. He would do his homework, but definitely didn't mind chatting with Méri-Antoinette either.
Ananda was the intelligent English/Arabic/Italian pureblood heiress, working to maintain her superiority over the masses. Although she definitely admitted that she could not beat Harry. She was not the stuck up, prejudiced kind of pureblood, but definitely proud of her heritage. As long as Meri-Antoinette and any NMP-raised person either tried to fit in and adapt to the wizarding customs, as Méri did, or leave the wizarding world all together and not contaminate it with his or her muggle prejudices, she had no problem with them.
Ananda and Harry were the ones making sure they did their homework, studied random interesting topics and helped the other two when needed, while Edvard and Méri-Antoinette made sure they relaxed and had fun, which worked out very well.

Over time class standings became a bit more interesting to see, and Harry had to work to remain in the first place in various classes.
Arithmancy, the mathematical notation of all things magical, and was very much a study of practice and insight. And while Harry was good, got it, knew the book by heart and made all the exercises, he could not surpass Méri-Antoinette and her intuitive grasp of numbers.
In common math and physics he still managed to do so, because he had studied more than required where Méri had never bothered to do so. But she definitely managed to compete for the top spot.
Cultural magic was mostly theoretical in the first semester, but several of the magical raised students came close to his grades. Having picked up some of those more unusual forms of magic by seeing them practiced, while he had to learn them in class of from books.
And Ananda decided she needed something to be better in, so she focused on her favourite subject: History. Both magical and non-magical, and started reading up on that in her free time. But with the huge advantage Harry had in history, as well as his pretty good knowledge of general wizarding history he managed to stay top of the class.
But in the wanded subjecst and potions he remained uncontested the best of the class.

Not that school ended after class hours, for many things happened.
Harry finally had enough of sharing with Jordi, who was a pretty nice bloke, but really needed to lean to prioritize and clean up his mess. So in early October Harry managed to get him to move to Edvards room, while Edvard would take the empty spot since he rather shared with Harry than Jordi.

Harry learned to swim on the weekends, when one of the PE teachers would accompany him to the beach for an hour or two, until it got to cold in the beginning of November. After which he was promised more lessons in April

Méri-Antoinette had been asked to join the Greens tennis team as first/second year player, and decided to play individual as well, as she had proven to be pretty good. Ananda had decided to play some games for the fun of it as well, while Harry and Edvard would just cheer them on.

They developed a routine for the day: Harry would get up early and take a shower before Edvard and Jordi woke up, and read some until Edvard was done. He and Edvard would see the girls at breakfast, which they usually ate at 7.30, when it was not that busy yet. Which left an hour or more to go to the commonroom or library, and get a head start on homework for the day.
During classes they would usually pay attention, although Edvard and Méri-Antoinette sometimes secretly play a game. But between classes they spoke with many people they ran into on their way to their next class.
Lunch was relaxing time, they would grab something to eat and go outside, or eat relaxed and talk some in the hall. Play some games in the commonroom with some of their classmates, and just generally having fun. Then more classes before they each went another way, as they had only one, maybe two electives with one of the others.
Harry would reserve a piano room for the 30 minutes between his last class and his elective, to practise his playing. Before hurrying off to the elective of the day.

Electives that were a whole different experience than the normal classes. All different ages were mixed together, whoever wanted to take the class. Classes like fencing and unarmed combat also mixed the different levels, with multiple teaches roaming the practicing students working on their various assignments. Giving examples and new techniques as needed for the students they thought needed them, or whoever wanted to pay attention. Although the first couple of lessons the new students were taken apart to teach them the essential basics.

Magical law was very much a classical class, with lectures each week and lots of reading assignments. While his music/Piano and mind magics lessons were something in-between. Which made Unarmed combat and fencing the only electives he took with students from the red and blue classes, since there it wouldn't matter that they wouldn't be there half of the time.

The mind magics classes only included their own level students, but since it was a practical course they would only have a short lecture before they got to practice. With depending on the subject was individual or in pairs or groups. Not that there was not already enough variation on one level.
Most children raised in a magical family had at least leaned to clear their minds, or meditate before entering secondary school as it helped with burst of accidental magic. But for this class they had to find their magic as well as mindscape, which most did not know how to do. Add to that the children raised in non magical homes, and you've got a very diverse group.

Harry had learned to clear his mind, through his mother's exercises, and as a result of his magic sensing abilities had also found his magic. His shielding from rampant emotions was, according to the teacher partial occlumency shields, one of the mind magics they would be working on that year. So he would have to learn to form complete shields, but once he knew how, in late November, he managed to keep up strong shields immediately. While the rest of the class had to get used to keeping them up all the time and slowly work on increasing their strength.
But first they had to learn to find their mindscape, and consciously access it. An interesting task, for how do you visualise your mind? How do you access it? To which they had to find their own way, with some help, for everyone is differently and thinks differently.

The music classes would teach musical history, reading sheet music and musical theory to all students, and split up according to instruments after that. After which everyone got to play in silenced bubbles while the teacher would roam and correct them, as well as give them new pieces to practice. Where everyone would get at least one piece the same as the other students and one individual part.

After his electives he would make his way to the library, where Ananda, Edvard and Méri-Antoinette would be already, or they would arrive soon after him. On most days Harry managed to finish his homework in the hour before dinner, and when he didn't he would check out the necessary materials to finish it in the commonroom later, or the next morning.
When they arrived at dinner usually determined with whom they would sit, at a table with their classmates, at a small table with the four of them or spread out somewhere with others when there were no seats together anymore.

After dinner they would be in the commonroom, like all other first years and most of the older students as well. They would finish their homework, some of their classmates would start working on it. Harry was everyone's favourite person to ask to help them, since he usually knew the answer and could explain the things they didn't get clearly. There were even some second years that would ask him first, which was fun and taught him lots about subjects he wasn't working on yet too.
Later they would play some games, hang around and talk to people. Harry managed to make quite a bit of friends and acquaintances in the second and third year classes as well, both the studious and more easygoing students.

For their group Harry was appointed the unofficial leader, besides being their study help. If they were squabbling over which game to play, they would go with Harry's choice or solution, if they didn't know how to solve/do/handle something, they would ask Harry first. Just the small things, but it was definitely visible for those paying attention to it.
And while their class was split up in various groups: Harry, Ananda, Meri-Antoinette and Edvard. The group consisting of Keno, Jordi and Yahel, who were all pretty easygoing and always in for a game, inside or out. Jordi as the brash and chaotic one usually dragged them into something, although Keno might be silent but really opinionated. And Yahel would just go along.
Jennifer and Emma, best friends, with Natalya and Carmen who would sometimes join them, and sometimes didn't. Jennifer and Emma were usually the ones most in touch with the gossip network, paid much attention to their looks and were just in general pretty 'girly' girls.
And were Jennifer was intelligent enough to manage good grades without working too hard, Emma had some trouble and usually was the one with the lowest grades of the class.
Natalya was very hard, for herself and others, could bitch a lot and make interaction with others a bit difficult for herself. While Carmen was really shy and had to be coaxed to join in most conversations.
And with 11 students in their year of Greens they were the smallest class, even less than the 8th years class, which missed some members that had graduated after 7th year.

But life besides school also included really taking part in wizarding culture. Harry had his purple ribbon ready for the dark moon, but hadn't expected a moonday celebration in the commonroom were almost everyone joined in in the ritual thanking and celebrating of magic before dispersing. It wasn't until after he had joined in this celebration that he started paying attention to what was happening on the day of the full moon, and saw what he had missed during the full moon in the first week of September. Full moon wasn't celebrated, as it was a day of contemplation and mourning. That doesn't mean it wasn't acknowledged, though. In the 2nd commonroom, the commonroom that was kept more quiet, there would be a corner with a sky blue bowl, where people would place notes that would be dispersed into magic late in the evening.

Then there was the autumn equinox festival, where they celebrated the night becoming longer than the days, the coming of the time of magic and the start of the water season. It was the evening of their first formal dinner at school, were they were expected to appear in dress robes, participate in ballroom dancing and the ritual extinguishing of the summer flame by autumn water. Although the first years didn't necessary have to dance, since they hadn't had time to practice it during their PE classes yet.

For the Firefest they didn't have that excuse though, but the Firefest consisted more of dancing around the many fires in circle and line dances than the formal ballroom dancing of the equinox.

Far too soon, as they had just finished settling in, their midterms were upon them. Which caused some panicked students to study franticly, and while Harry quietly reviewed some things, most things he reviewed by helping others. And as they say: 'you don't know the material until you've explained it to someone else', that was probably a better review than he could have done on his own.
The tests themselves went pretty relaxed and ended in a very nice, all house commonroom party. The kitchens had supplied them with snacks and drinks other than the water, tea and lemonade that was always available in the commonroom. One of the rooms had loud music and room to dance, while in the other groups were playing games ore were talking, with very competitive Trivial Pursuit and Twister games going on.

A/N I know, I know, ages since my last chapter. And this one I promised to deliver way earlier. So I just won't promise anything besides that I won't give up upon it. I am a writer that does not always feel like writing, who likes to think about the aspects that are different in this part of the wizarding world and how I can incorporate that in the story, and dislikes the editing, but that means that it can take very long before I post anything new.

I think I should clarify Hogwarts' Educational Situation. The curriculum of the school is influenced by multiple parties: the Purebloods, who own the Board of Governors, The Headmaster, the Political situation.
With the Purebloods having the majority in the legislative branches, as well as the board of governors, they have to agree with any course added or stricken from the curriculum.
The Muggleborns, and their support fight for equal rights and want to strike the courses that only purebloods value, and add courses that would improve their schooling.
With the pre-Hogwarts schooling being very different for the different groups only increases the gap and adds to their conflict.

A course like broomcrafting, which had been essential in the past, when protkeys and mass produced brooms were not readily available. But now it was no longer and all agreed to strike the course.

The Latin course not only taught Latin but also litracy, and since the early 20th century more and more children could read before entering Hogwarts. Add to that that there still are Pureblood families who speak latin as their primary language, or at least teach it to their children before Hogwarts, purebloods often were bored in this class and removed it form the curriculum.
Weaponry and fencing, which only fits into the pureblood lifestyle get stricken, because purebloods often teach that at home anyway while muggleborns didn't see the use of it. Classes like wizarding culture don't get added because the purebloods don't want their children being forced to sit in a class on things they already know, nor do they want to force their children to attend muggle studies, since muggles are inferior and one does not need to know about their barbarian culture.

So the gap between muggleborns and purebloods keeps getting bigger, adding more tension to the conflict each generation. And since the purebloods don't see that they are causing the loss of their culture by not educating those new in their society and the dilution of magic, which is what they are fighting so fiercely against.

Beside that, the muggle world has really changed and developed in the past 200 years, while the magical world hasn't changed much at all since the statue of secrecy was enforced in 1692, which caused many other reforms. At first those changes were of the muggle world catching up on the magical world, but on many aspects of life, muggles have surpassed the magical world. And Magical brittain never took advantage of that. Which causes them to lose many muggleborns to the muggle world or other magical communities in different countries.

The teacher situation at Hogwarts is another problem. For about 40 years Hogwarts hasn't had a defence teacher staying on for more than a year. If it is a real curse or not, doesn't really matter. And while there have been very good teachers, and acceptable teachers as wel as bad teachers, there still is no continuity in the teaching and curriculum.

Trelawney, Binns and Snape are jokes as teachers, Trelawney is a fraud more interesting in proving that she actually does have the Sight, Snape if a great potions master but a horrible teacher. Trelawney and Snape are off course only the past 10 years, but before that you had Slughorn teaching potions. And while he was ok, he really only paid attention to the students that would help him gain influence and political clout. Binns, is stuck on the topic he was reading on just before he died, and he died a century ago, since then there has happened quite a bit that he doesn't even know about.

The Dark lord grindewald and Voldemort problems caused many people to flee the country, or they died. Losing many of the brighter minds.

So culture, innovation and intelligence is lost, leaving bigotry behind.