From the second he left his dorm to the moment he returned them at night. It wasn't new but it was a pain in the ass, and now it affected Cedric and his other housemates as well.

Whenever Harry walked down a hallway people would watch and whisper and some of them would double back to try and see him again a second time, or a third, yet most of them tended to avoid trying to talk to him face to face.

It was somehow twice as annoying as people who tried to grab his attention on the streets and get him to take a selfie with him. At least after that they left him alone and blew up twitter for a couple of hours.

No, wizards whispered and admired and hissed from a distance and it was going to drive him absolutely insane.

He wasn't even to his first class yet, still half stuck to Cedric's side and trying to hide in his shadow. It didn't really work, but it didn't hurt to try.

Their first class, Harry was grateful for their sponsor system. He coudln't imagine trying to figure out how to navigate his way through the school without someone to guide him first. Someone to point out which corridor was what, which classrooms were on which floor, or outside, or even how to read a schedule.

"What even is a double?" Harry asked, staring hard at his schedule. They'd passed out papers during breakfast to each house, on a magic parchment that changed when a class did.

"You didn't have doubles before?" Susan Bones asked, peering at him from her place at Maxine's side. The older girl was tall and weedy, and walked like a stork. Her nose had been broken at least twice and her hands were strong, with long fingers that grasped Susan's shoulder and guided her along.

She was very different from Susan, who was short and well kempt. Her red hair was tightly plaited down her back. She was small, shorter than Harry who was already a very short boy for his age.

"No. We only had one class at a time," they also didn't have houses. "G.A. had a lot more classes too. Extracurriculars, clubs, community outreach," he listed. "This is gonna take some getting used to."

"Muggle schools sound so strange," Maxine mused.

"I guess," Harry shrugged. "Why do some classes have other houses with them, and others done? Why are most of our classes with Slytherin?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure," Cedric admitted. "It's actually strange. There's never been this many classes shared between houses, and usually we have our classes with Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Can't remember the last time anyone had a class with Slytherin. It's weird."

Harry quietly filed that information away for later.

The group of badgers descended the steps, timing them so they didn't move halfway. Harry did as he'd been taught. He counted steps, took note of paintings and bricks and insignificant things. As they went, through the long halls and wide corridors, their sponsors showed them the boltholes that Helga Hufflepuff had put into place a thousand years ago.

Harry stopped next to Cedric when he came to a tall green door.

"Your first class is Transfiguration, with Professor McGonagall. She's strict. You don't want to cross her, but she's more fair than a lot of folks give her credit for. Just don't mess around in her class and you'll do alright," Cedric said. He squeezed Harry's shoulder and ushered him inside. Harry and the rest of the Hufflepuff first years walked into the room and took the seats on the left side of the room. The right side was already taken up by Slytherins.

Vincent and Gregory waved cheerfully at him and Draco deigned to nod.

At the front of the room was a stern witch that Harry recognized. She was the one from the sorting ceremony, who had greeted the children at the gate. There was something very familiar about her, but Harry couldn't place it to save his life. Harry sat near the front of the class, pulling out parchment and a quill. He still thought it was silly not to use pens, but Jason Blood had explained it to him once that the spells used to check spelling and grammar had a tough time with the synthetic ink used in modern pens.

Which still didn't explain why they couldn't use old pens. They'd been around for hundreds of years.

Wizards were weird.

The older Hufflepuffs vanished from outside the door and they were left alone for the first time.

Harry sat straighter when he felt the teacher's eyes on him.

McGonagall was watching him with sharp, intelligent eyes that made Harry feel like she knew more than she was letting on. It made his skin crawl. It reminded him of Bruce.

She looked away from Harry, towards the Slytherin students. There was a stern set to her mouth. She took no shit.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she began. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then she produced a wand and, with only a few words, changed her desk into a pig and back again. A murmur went through the class and excitement coursed through Harry. He itched to pull out his wand, but first McGonagall started writing on the chalkboard some very complicated notes. Harry scrabbled them down as quickly as he could, trying to digest all of the information.

"There are seven major forms of transfiguration. Inanimate into Inanimate, Inanimate in to animate, animate to animate, animate to inanimate, Conjuration and Deconjuration, human transfiguration, and animagus, which you will learn more about in your third year. In all of these there are very strict laws about what is and is not possible," and so the lesson went.

They covered Gamps laws, and what they applied to, as well as the basic spells and wand motions.

Finally, finally, they were permitted to pull out their wands. Harry had the very surreal realization that he was the only person there that hadn't gotten his wand from Ollivanders. That was fine. Thunderbird wands were good for transfiguration.

McGonagall conjured a match in front of each student. Hannah, who sat next to Harry, prodded her curiously.

"Attempt to turn these into needles," McGonagall instructed.

Harry lifted his wand and gave it a shot.

A small spark shot from his wand and scorched the desk, but the match remained unphased. Brows furrowed, Harry tried again. And again. And again.

But it wasn't working. He didn't get it. His wand was supposed to be good for this type of magic. So why wasn't it working?

By the end of the lesson no one had made much progress, muggleborn or pureblood or inbetween.

Harry left the room, dijected, alongside his fellows. He didn't have time to say much to the Slytherins before Cedric and the other Hufflepuffs appeared to collected their young cubs and ferry them off to Herbology, which they had alone.

No student who did not wish a horrible, painful death was permitted to go in the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side.

Naturally, that was exactly where Harry went his first chance. Classes had already started, and he did have more in the morning, but he was too curious for his own good. Besides, it wasn't like he'd never stayed up too late before. In Gotham he would go whole weeks with only a few hours each night for one reason or another. A case, an attack, or a simple bout of insomnia.

He waited until it was dark before he went out, trading his school shoes for another pair. They were thick soled but flexible, with a hell of a grip on the bottom. Technically they were meant for rock climbing.

Harry used them for other things. Hero things.

Things like sneaking around at night with his cloak swirling around him and a hood pulled up above his head to keep his light skin from showing up in the dark passages of Hogwarts castle.

It was all too easy to slip out of the Hufflepuff common room. It wasn't really guarded, only watched over by the portrait of Helga Hufflepuff herself, who looked more so amused when he held a finger to his lips and winked on his way out. He tiptoed past the kitchen, an ear open for any house elves or teachers that might be lurking about. Once he hit the moving staircases he ran. They tried to move right when he stepped on, mischievous or some other horrid enchantment, but Harry was not to be deterred.

It took him no time, or effort, to jump from on stair to the other, catching the guard rail and hauling himself up before he found himself at the necessary entrance. The people in portraits were even oblivious to his silent, rapid steps, most of them sleeping or chatting with each other. It was nothing for the young vigilante.

The third floor corridor was nothing special. It looked the same as all the others. In fact Harry was sure that more than one first year would find themselves lost and wander there by mistake. Not that he had done that, but he probably would have if it weren't for the cloud of sponsors that lead the first years around.

Harry checked each door he found with care, and explored the rooms within. He only took cursory glances, looking for out of place things.

He found them in the face, or rather faces, of a three headed dog.

Harry stopped dead in the doorway, staying very, very still. The creature had its eyes facing forwards, one pair, while the other two seemed to nap. It's ears were trimmed like a doberman and its face was massive, powerful jaws square and dangerous.

Harry took a deep breath before he took his eyes off of the creature. There was a window covered curtains, and an empty shelf where books may have once been. No reason for a massive, three headed dog to be in there. Nothing at all…

Except for that trap door he could see when the dog shifted on top of a rug.

Huh.

Now, how did one get past a giant guard dog?

Harry stepped back and shut the door quietly before he looked around the area, checking for anyone approaching. When he didn't see them he picked his way out of the hallway, avoiding being caught all the way back to the common room. There was a close encounter with Mr. Filch, who all of the student hated.

The man had come around the corner right as Harry was closing the door to the dogs room. The beam of his light flashed across his black cape and away before swinging back. Harry was barely fast enough to launch himself upwards and bounce off of the wall to catch himself on the ceiling supports. He pinned himself with his legs between two, doing an awkward sort of split that required him to bend sideways and hold on with one of his hands.

It was not pleasant. But it was high enough that he could stay there until Filch had given up on the 'trick of the eyes' and continued on his rounds.

Argus Filch. Ron, who was still his friend even if they had been sorted differently, and another Gryffindor named Longbottom managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that had turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing. The more Harry knew the man the more he was suspicious of him. Nervous characters like that were never as innocent as they seemed.

Not that Harry could say anything about that. He wasn't what he seemed either.

His only worry was for the beast that haunted the hallways with Filch, who upon closer inspection looked like Walder Frey.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny creature that would as soon scratch you as look at you. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

Harry, for his part, took the duo as a challenge. He was going to make a game of avoiding being caught by them. If he could make it the whole year he would consider it a success. Like training, only this was solely for mischievous purposes. He was also going to need to find all of the secret passages.

Perhaps he could enlist the twins in that. Only a few days in and he, and all the other newbies, already heard the parade of horror stories of the stunts the boys had pulled over the years. Harmless, but disruptive and loud. Harry was going to befriend them immediately.

Harry was so caught up in his musings he forgot that he had gone out to 'get a text book', so when he returned he had to make his face fall and his shoulders slump.

Helga Hufflepuff greeted him with crossed arms and an arched brow.

"No book," she observed, and Harry scratched his cheek and looked away. The potted plant nearest to his head was rather lovely, wasn't it? He liked the shapes of its leaves.

"It wasn't where I thought it was, and it wasn't where I thought it wasn't," he mourned dutifully. He was going to have to find a better way of sneaking out. Maybe a window?

Yes, he decided when he walked past her fondly shaking head. A window would do nicely.