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.

She worked hard through the book's initial chapter, attempting each of the spells the text contained. The first few spells she found difficult, but as she persisted and her confidence increased, she found that it was easier and easier to learn each new spell. Finally, when she'd finished the chapter, she decided to try one last charm.

"Lumos!" She said the word with far more confidence that she had the night before, and was rewarded with a brilliant beam from her wand, far more powerful than her effort from the night before, a light easily visible in the bright classroom. Emboldened, she waved her wand at a text book.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

The front cover of the text rose marginally, and then fell back again. The levitation charm was one that first years did not attempt until they had been at Hogwarts for two months, and at present it seemed that it was still far beyond Imogen's meagre abilities.

Imogen was interrupted by the sounds of students exiting their classes - it was break time. She was amazed to find she had already spent ninety minutes on Charms and had not even started Transfiguration. But the time-turner which hung about her neck was there to be used, and so Imogen gathered up her books, and headed for the second classroom that her head of house had designated as available for her for situations like this. Imogen exited the door, and first headed back towards the Great Hall, preferring to use that as the starting point for her wanderings in the castle. From there, she headed for a staircase, and climbed up to the third floor, again keeping a close eye on the paintings and various other decorations to help keep herself oriented. Her progress through the halls was slow and hesitant - she did not want to be too hasty, and wind up losing precious time wandering through the castle, lost.

She reached the third floor and walked down the hall, looking for her classroom. She heard the sound of running feet down the hall. But when she looked, she saw nothing, and the sound stopped. She soon found her classroom, and once inside, pulled the time-turner from under her blouse. She inverted it as instructed, and as this was her first time, only once. The sensation she underwent was brief, but very odd indeed, and once it had passed, Imogen knew that she had moved back in time exactly one hour. The rules pronounced by Professor McGonagall were very clear. Under no circumstances must Imogen do anything that might cause her to encounter herself. Further, when she went back in time, she was to stay within areas McGonagall had designated as safe, so that there was no chance that she might influence events around her in such a way as to change the past. And so for the next hour, Imogen would be confined to the present classroom. Imogen made sure that she turned over the alarm hourglass on a nearby desk, for she had to be out of the classroom before she was going to enter it an hour from now. The door had locked itself behind her, in mindless obedience to the charm McGonagall had placed on it that morning, for Imogen herself lacked the magical skill required to lock a door in such a way as to prevent even Muggles from opening it, let alone wizarding students. It would take an advanced student indeed to undo a professor's magic, and so for the next hour, Imogen was free to work on Transfiguration.