AHP: Year 1 Chapter 4: The First Day

George:''"Yeah, I think you simply did exactly what we told you to do."  Harriet:"What was that?"''

Fred:"Showed them there was more to you than being famous. Now scram, you're gonna ruin our reputation with all this 'making us be nice to the new kid business'."

-Fred and George talking to Harriet

Summary
          Harriet is the first girl to wake up the next morning. She’s ecstatic to see her new school uniform because it’s the nicest outfit she has ever owned. When Ronnie wakes up, she is relieved to see that they wrote her name correctly on her uniform. When asked why her name was listed as Ronald, she explains that her parents were certain that she was going to be another boy. After she was born, both her parents were exhausted and Mr. Weasley accidently wrote the old boy name instead of the new girl name. Since her family couldn’t afford to have her name changed, they decided just to call her Ronnie.

          As Harriet waits for Ronnie to finish getting ready, Lavender puts a silver hair-clip in the shape of a running cat into Harriet’s hair. When Harriet turns around to see how far along Ronnie is, she sees that Ronnie has already left without her. Harriet stays behind and lets Parvati and Lavender do her hair and make-up.

          As soon as the three girls enter the Great Hall, Harriet can hear a majority of the students whispering about her, which makes her feel uncomfortable. The girls end up sitting with and introducing themselves to Fred and George. Harriet is at first disappointed in how the twins act like slobs, but soon catches on that it is really just an act.

          Once Lavender and Parvati move away from them, Fred and George tell Harriet that they believe the two girls are not good friends for her since they only want to be friends with her because she is famous. The twins convince her to talk to Ronnie, but she only does so after she gets both of them to agree to never tease Ronnie about her name ever again.

          Ronnie starts to leave the table as Harriet approaches, but Harriet quickly asks if she’ll wait so that they can walk to class together since they’re friends. Ronnie agrees and Harriet spends the rest of breakfast sitting with Ronnie, Dean, Seamus, Kieran and Marcus. After receiving their time tables Ronnie complains about how the first lesson is with Professor Binns who is boring, but everyone else has a hard time believing that a history class taught by a ghost could ever be boring.

          When they finally get to Professor Binns classroom, Hermione is the only other student there and the contents of her bag have been scattered throughout the room by Peeves. Harriet helps gather her things back together and asks if they can sit with her, despite Ronnie’s clear disapproval to sitting near Hermione. Harriet starts to think that the twins assessment of Lavender and Parvati is correct as they seem very offended about her not sitting with them during breakfast. When class begins, it appears that Ronnie was right about Professor Binns as he is so mind-numbingly dull that only Hermione is able to pay attention throughout the entire class.

The next class they have is Transfiguration. They spend half the class taking notes and the other half attempting to transfigure a match stick into a needle. By the end of class Hermione is the only one to get her matchstick to change, which causes Ronnie to become more irritated with Hermione.

Fortunately Ronnie, Hermione and Harriet all seem to start getting along with each other after working together during their Herbology class. When the three girls go into the castle to clean the dirt off of themselves, the girl’s bathroom toilets are overflowing and a ghost girl is wailing and flying around the room. Before the girls can get away from the bathroom, Filch shows up and blames them for upsetting Myrtle. While trying to explain that it isn’t their fault, Professor Quirrell shows up. As the two adults argue if the girls are at fault, they take the chance to run away from the situation and clean up at the next bathroom they are able to find.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-size:14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif">Later in the day, Ronnie and Harriet head up to the dorm room since people in the common room can’t seem to stop whispering about Harriet. When they get there it is somewhat awkward since both Parvati and Lavender are already there. It isn’t until after Hermione comes in and quickly leaves due to the tension in the room that Harriet finally invites the other girls to work on homework with them. Lavender and Pavati agree if the other girls agree to try some hair charms with them.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-size:14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif">When Hermione comes back to dorm sometime later to see everyone now getting along, Lavender tells her they can help so that her hair isn’t so huge. Hermione leaves once again and doesn’t come back until after all the other girls have gone to bed.

Characters who appear in this chapter

 * Harriet Potter
 * Quirinus Quirrell
 * Ronnie Weasley
 * Hermione Granger
 * Lavender Brown
 * Parvati Patil
 * Dean Thomas
 * Seamus Finnigan
 * Kieran O’Brien
 * Marcus Van Der Lakk
 * Neville Longbottom
 * Fred Weasley
 * George Weasley
 * Hesper
 * Draco Malfoy
 * Scott McIntyre
 * Hedwig
 * Minerva McGonagall
 * Cuthbert Binns
 * Peeves
 * Pomona Sprout
 * Myrtle Warren
 * Argus Filch

Characters who are only mentioned in this chapter

 * Molly Weasley
 * Arthur Weasley
 * Mr. Van Der Lakk
 * Petunia Dursley
 * Padma Patil
 * Mr. Patil
 * Mrs. Patil
 * Dudley Dursley