Once his cauldron has sufficiently set up, Hitoshi contented himself with reading through the first chapter of his potions book. He had already done so, of course; potions had been his mother's favorite class in school, and he shared her aptitude for it. He book had already begun to lose its crisp new texture from the intensive reading to which Hitoshi had subjected it.

Hitomi had taken the seat directly behind him and was chattering incessantly to the girl next to her, who seemed to be listening meekly to his sister. He wondered idly where Alex was, though he supposed the boy might have found someone of more interested than Hitomi to talk to. Merlin knew that Hitoshi would probably have nothing to do with her if they weren't related.

By the time Alex arrived, there were only a handful of seats remaining, and all of them were near Slytherins. (From the look of it, they had the same opinion as Hitoshi about getting to know their housemates.) His choices for partners seemed to be between Alex several people he didn't know, and between Alex and a stranger, he would take the one he knew.

Hitoshi shrugged. "Go ahead."

Alex stood there for a moment, trying to read Hitoshi's expression. The boy did seem like he just didn't care much, and from what little he knew of Hitoshi, that sounded about right. He sat down next to the boy, arranging his ingredients and cracking his text.

"So, forgive the dumb question, but what's potions about, anyway? Is it like chemistry?"

Hitoshi considered the question for a moment, looking up from the book at the other boy. "You could say that, I suppose. I've always thought of it as much more like cooking, but I get the feeling most Potions Masters wouldn't like to hear that."

He hadn't had the chance to meet Professor Slughorn just yet, but he had heard a great deal about him, mostly from his uncle. In his uncle's day, Slughorn had been the Potions Master, as well as the Head of Slytherin, and despite Tristan's distaste for Slytherins, Slughorn had been his favorite teacher. It was somewhat comforting to think of that.

And as for his mother, he knew she would be happy with whatever House he was placed in. She had been the first one to tell him that there was nothing wrong with Hufflepuff, or with Slytherin.

Alex tried not to sigh as he looked over the first section. He couldn't call it a 'chapter', because it wasn't really labeled; it was just kind of scattered into instructions on how to make various things, the ingredients of which seemed to mostly involve the body parts of creatures he didn't recognize, followed by the occasional note on theory that made about as much sense to him as if it were written in Egyptian heiroglyphs.

He tried not to look completely out of his depth, but he rather wondered if his parents would have a moral objection to all the crushed... what was a grindylow? Maybe it was a plant?

The sigh eventually escaped despite his best efforts.

Hitoshi counted the minutes after class was supposed to start, glancing between his book and the silver timepiece on the professor's desk. Three minutes had passed, and still no sign of Slughorn. Hitoshi frowned.

After about five minutes, as Hitoshi was beginning to wonder if Slughorn would show at all, the door banged open, and elderly man in a green tweed suit bustled in and threw a briefcase onto his desk with hardly a glance at the students.

"Good morning, class, and welcome to your first day of..." The professor peered up at them and blinked. "Well. Either my NEWT level class is getting younger by the year, or McGonagall has changed my schedule again without consulting me." He chuckled lightly to himself, then glanced at a sheet of paper on his desk.

"Ah, yes, First Year Potions with Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Good, good..." He wrung his hands together and scanned the classroom. "Well, almost all of you are new faces to me, why don't we get to know each other a bit? I'd like to know your name and something about you, and we'll go until everyone in the room has spoken. We'll start with..."

Slughorn paced in front of the first row of desks, tapping his knuckles lightly against his lips. He paused in front of Hitoshi's desk, and for a moment, Hitoshi was afraid Slughorn would call on him.

Instead, he looked over at Alex. "You there. Why don't you start?"

Alex looked up as the teacher came in, then back to his book, listening out one ear while he continued trying to make some sense of the book. He felt incredibly nervous, and he sat very still, folding and refolding his hands in his lap.

He did a small double-take when the teacher called on him, then ran the last few seconds of speech back in his head. Oh, thank god, he only wants my name.

Alex sat up straight and tried to sound normal. "My name is Alex Meriweather, and..." What would he want to know? What was even relevant here? "...and I hope I'm not the only one who has no idea what they're doing?"

Great performance, you idiot. He contemplated changing his name and moving to Hawaii. He'd heard Hawaii was really warm and had beautiful beaches.

Hitoshi spared a sidelong glance for his partner, raising an eyebrow slightly. Hitoshi didn't particularly care for these sorts of introductions, either.

Slughorn chuckled quietly to himself, apparently under the impression this was all some great joke, then glanced over at Hitoshi, who was still deciding whether or not he actually liked this professor. "And what about you, my boy? Tell us about yourself."

Hitoshi tensed, his eyes flitting up toward the professor. He didn't appreciate the attention, and though he couldn't see it, he could feel his classmates' eyes watching him. He swallowed down the lump in his throat.

"Hitoshi Gilespi," was all he managed to force out, his voice barely above a whisper.

Slughorn's eyes widened, and a rather characteristically ridiculous grin spread itself across his face. "My, my... Then you must be Cassandra's child. Unfortunately, I retired from my position before I got the chance to teach her -- what with all the business with You Know Who -- but Severus tells me she was one of top students in her year, and coming from Severus, there is certainly something to be said for that. I did have your uncle Tristan, though. Natural talent, thought for sure he'd come out first in my class, but unfortunately Severus was not quite so fond of him. He claims your uncle deliberately destroyed half of the potions classroom, can you believe such a thing?" Slughorn let out another laught, and Hitoshi got the impression this was all supposed to be quite funny. Hitoshi was not quite so sure he agreed.

Hitoshi shifted uncomfortably and sunk down in his chair. If having attention drawn to him wasn't bad enough, Slughorn had singled him out. Hitoshi didn't mind hearing stories about his mother, but he would much rather have heard them from her.

"Of course, you'll be every bit as talented as her -- I can tell from looking at you, you have the makings of a true Potions Master." He grinned down at Hitoshi, making his beady little eyes scrunch up. "And a Slytherin, at that, though it's not quite my house anymore, not that I begrudge that of Severus..."

He stopped, and for a brief moment, Hitoshi thought he was ready to move on to another victim. Mother's favorite professor or not, Hitoshi was beginning to think he didn't like Professor Slughorn.

"Now, perhaps I'm wrong, but didn't you have a sister?" He scanned the room briefly, most likely expecting to see another Slytherin. "But then, surely your sister would be a Gryffindor--"

Hitomi, seated directly behind him, raised her hand went up hesitantly, her eyes focused steadily on the back of her brother's head. Hitoshi was almost as embarrassed for her as he was for himself.

"Hitomi Gilespi," her small voice said. "I'm Hitoshi's twin. I'm a Hufflepuff."

Slughorn looked down at her with a strange sort of smile. "My, my. A Hufflepuff." His eyes twinkled strangely. "If only one of Rivienne's had been a Ravenclaw, I'd have the whole set." He sighed and shook his head, as though this were some grave injustice, then -- thankfully, finally -- moved on to the girl sitting beside Hitomi, and started the whole mess anew.

As embarrassed as Alex had felt, he felt just as bad for the little rant the Professor had gone on. 'Have the whole set?' What was that supposed to mean?

He turned and gave Hitomi an apologetic smile.

Hitoshi turned back to stared at the book in front of him, dimly aware of the other students around him introducing themselves. He had already met most of the Slytherins, as as for the Huffepuffs... Well, as far as Hitoshi was concerned, he hardly cared beyond the two he had already met.

Eventually Slughorn finished introducing the classroom to one another and moved onto his lecture, which mostly consisted of tips for How Not to Kill Yourself when Making Potions. Though most of it -- like not sticking body parts into the cauldron while brewing a potion -- seemed rather obvious to Hitoshi, from the look of some of his classmates, it might have been somewhat necessary. Hitoshi didn't trust the two Slytherins at the back of the classroom to do anything involving dangerous magical substances and fire.

Once Slughorn finished the rather extensive list, he instructed them to open up to the first potion in the book. It was a simple potion for enhancing memory; there were only a handful of ingredients and the estimated brew time was less than twenty minutes. Hitoshi could probably do it in his sleep.

He began laying out the ingredients in front of them, then glanced back at Alex. "This is an easy potion, so we really shouldn't have to do much more than follow the book. I'll start prepping the cauldron if you want to prepare the ingredients."

Alex listened intently to the student introductions, then the long list of warnings; he intended to note down a few of the notes that weren't obvious to him later, for practice, like the bit about not casting spells within a certain area of the cauldron unless the potion called for it, or that there was a section about how to clean the thing. His parents had gotten him a few new journals, and he hoped he had time between homework and everything else to try out a new cipher or two. That could wait until later, though- like if his cheeks ever stopped burning. Next class, he would not sit in the front row.

He flipped back to the correct entry and looked over the thankfully-short list of ingredients: lemon juice, an of herb with a name that sounded like Old English or maybe German, and three drops of an extract of something-or-other. He took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand.

"Okay." A few students were already heading up to the front to grab the ingredients, so that answered one question. "I'll do what I can."

He got up to retrieve the three little glasses, one of each thing; the dropper, and one of each of the other tools; and that seemed to be everything. Professor Slughorn was leaning against his desk, watching the assembled students with a proud smile on his face; Alex merely glanced at him, wondering if there was something to the strange feeling he was getting from the man or not.

When he sat back down, he proceeded to check exactly how much was needed of what; apparently the herb was first. Hmm.

"These... measurements aren't in metric," he mumbled. It did come pre-chopped, at least, but how much exactly was three pinches? And what in bloody hell was a fluid dram?

Hitoshi glanced back at the other boy, taking note of Alex's trouble. "My mum says it's not quite exact. That's part of what makes potions so difficult. Sometimes you have to feel your way through it. She says cooking is the same way. She says she can measure with her eyes."

Hitoshi pinched off a bit of the minced herbs, rubbing it between his fingers. It was a little dry, not fresh like Hitoshi had hoped, but he didn't think it would actually hurt the potion. It just wouldn't smell quite the same.

"The potion says to use three pinches, but it also says you'll know when you've added enough from the color. You want a clear, bright yellow. If it starts turning brown, you've added too much." Hitoshi sprinkled the herbs into the cauldron, making it through most of the fourth pinch when the potion turned the right shade of yellow.

"Now, the next ingredient is the lemon juice. It says four drops, and to stir the potion counter-clockwise for five turns afterward." Hitoshi looked up at Alex expectantly.

Alex watched Hitoshi closely. That made very little sense to him, but if he could focus on the effects and get the right result, that was at least something. That his partner was willing to show him how to do this was also heartening.

"All right." Alex unscrewed the bottle of lemon juice and took the dropper, filling it up and slowly squeezing out four drops' worth of lemon juice. They plipped into the simmering, bright yellow liquid and turned it a little paler; then, he sat the dropper down and picked up the spoon, sticking it in and stirring. Five turns was probably five full circles, he guessed.

"So how do you take this stuff and make a memory potion out of it? I mean... how does lemon juice and this other stuff make what it does? Or is that like asking why math works?"

Hitoshi shrugged slightly. "I'm not entirely sure, to be honest," he replied. "But then, Muggles have things like this too, don't they? Capsules that can cure all sorts of pains, salves that protect you from sunburn... Is it really that different?"

Hitoshi watched as the liquid slowly changed colors, bright yellow slowly swirling into brilliant white. Hitoshi smirked slightly. "See, not so hard. Now you add three drops of the clear extract."

"Uhm." He didn't reply yes, but I know, generally speaking, why those are supposed to work, as much as he was tempted. "S'pose so."

He raised an eyebrow at Hitoshi's smirk. All right, fine, maybe he was being neurotic; he certainly wasn't going to admit it, if so.

Alex squeezed out the rest of the lemon juice back into the bottle, then puffed a bit of air in and out of it in an attempt to clean it out a bit before taking a bit of the clear stuff and dropping a few drops in.

"So has your mother taught you Potions, then?" he asked. "You seem like you know how to do this already- and thanks for helping, by the way."

Hitoshi watched Alex intently. He was extremely careful with every step of the process, and Hitoshi wondered if his caution was because of Slughorn's warnings, or if Alex was naturally so meticulous.

"Sort of. I watch her do potions, and sometimes she lets me help. I've never done anything on my own, but I've watched her enough to understand it." Hitoshi glanced from the description in the book to the potion in front of him. As far as he could discern, it was absolutely perfect. The two of them didn't make a bad team. It looked like they were the the first group to finish.

"And as far as helping you goes..." Hitoshi shrugged. "You're my lab partner. It would be stupid not to help you." He glanced at the next table, where a pair of Hufflepuff boys were attempting to salvage the frothing mess in their cauldron by stirring in boomslang oil, which seemed to do nothing but turn the foam bright blue.

"Besides," Hitoshi's dry whisper was barely loud enough to allow Alex to hear, "you're still doing better than most of our classmates, and both of them come from wizard families."

Alex grinned. "Well, I'm glad I managed to be useful to you, then," he said softly, amusement sparking in his voice. At this rate, he thought he might get to genuinely like Hitoshi.

Good god. If 'dumping random things from the shelf to try to make it better' was the level most of the others were on, he would have to stop himself from getting a big head. He leaned with one elbow on the table; was that it?

"So what now?"

Slughorn, who had been pacing up and down the aisles, seemed to suddenly realize tat something rather unfortunate was happening a few tables over and rushed to rectify the situation.

"Nothing to worry about, children, this happens all the time!" Slughorn banished the bubbling mess with a flick of his wand, then chuckled quietly to himself as he replaced the lid on the cauldron. "Of course, it would be wise not to use ingredients not listed in the future," he murmured, picking up the half-empty vial of boomslang oil. Slughorn looked pained as he tucked it into his robes. "This is a bit too pricey to waste."

Slughorn turned back around to Hitoshi's and Alex's table, his eyes settling on the potion in front of them. He was quiet for a moment, and his eyes crinkled in pure delight. "Why, this is as perfect a potion as I've seen from any first year. Well done, boys."

He glanced back at Alex. "Mr. Meriweather, was it? It seems you and Mr. Gilespi have a promising future in my class."

Alex felt like the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up; there was definitely something about this guy he couldn't quite parse. Professor Slughorn seemed nice and everything, but that didn't mean he wasn't hiding something- and it might not have been anything bad, anyway. Alex wasn't very good at interpreting the weird feelings he got from people, and in the few instances he'd been able to figure out what the heck the feeling was about, it had been about very different things, and he was beginning to get the impression that it would've been easier if he'd ended up with some kind of magic talent rather than a normal one.

Still, the day was young, and his impressions were likely to change again. "Uhm... thank you, sir," he answered, smiling slightly. He looked to Hitoshi, not wanting to take too much credit, but not wanting to embarrass the boy further, either.

The rest of the class passed mostly without event, at least aside from Slughorn continuing to single out Hitoshi and his sister periodically. (Hitoshi assured his sister that the professor would leave off a bit after a day or two, at least from her. The two of them were hardly so fascinating as Slughorn seemed to imagine.)

Eventually the end of class came, which meant that Hitoshi would be moving on to Charms class with Ravenclaw house. He didn't mind terribly -- as much as he liked potions, he found Slughorn a bit creepy -- though he couldn't help but wish he was going to another class with the Hufflepuffs. He didn't know a single person in Ravenclaw house. Still, Hitoshi would much rather be going to Charms than to Transfigurations with his aunt, and he was fairly certain that was where Alex and Hitomi were headed.

Hitoshi packed up his cauldron and books at the sounds of the bell, then turned back to Alex. He couldn't place why, but he was almost looking forward to having classes with Alex. He couldn't help wishing that the boy had been in Slytherin with him. "I suppose I'll see you in Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Alex spent the rest of class between reading the textbook and making notes in the spiralbound he'd brought- or at least, trying to figure out how in heck one used a quill pen while not many people would be watching him. When it was time to go, he quickly stuck the top back on the ink and packed things up.

He smiled a little at Hitoshi, an uncertain look in his eye. Was this really going well so quickly? He still didn't really know Hitoshi, or either of them, really (and it was at that point that he realized Hitomi would be in all of his classes, as would everyone else in his same House and year, and all of a sudden the world got a lot smaller).

"I guess," he replied, after a moment of hesitation. "I mean- if we don't kill each other by the end of the day, want to hang out sometime?"

Hitoshi hesitated for a moment, looking over the other boy. Hitoshi had hardly even talked with anyone else his own age until he came to Hogwarts, let alone had friends. Alex was a Hufflepuff...but Hitoshi liked Alex far better than anyone in his own house, and anyway, his house shouldn't affect who he decided to be friends with. After all, his sister was a Hufflepuff, too.

"After Defense Against the Dark Arts, we can go to the library and work on homework." They had already been assigned the questions at the end of the first chapter in the book in Potions, and Hitoshi had no doubt that Snape would assign them even more homework than Slughorn had. Suddenly remember that his sister was there as well, he turned around. "Hitomi can come, too, if she wants."

The girl grinned, her book hugged against her chest. "Aw, Hitoshi, you do care," she cooed.

The boy rolled his eyes. "I'm only inviting you because I know you'll never manage if I don't help you."

He grinned. Hitoshi reminded him a little of his own brother, if his brother weren't an obnoxious, arrogant prat. Come to think of it, Hitoshi really wasn't like Adam at all.

"All right, then. I'll see you in class." He turned to Hitomi. "Ready to go?"

"Mm-hm!" Hitomi smiled. "My aunt teaches Transfigurations. I can't wait until you meet her -- she's really nice. I'm glad we've got her before we have to deal with Snape." Hitomi wrinkled her nose. Her mother might have liked Snape, but she had at least been truthful enough in her stories of him for Hitomi to know she wasn't going to enjoy his class. Hitoshi might like him, but Hitoshi was also in Snape's house.

"Come on, we're all the way on the third floor for Transfiguration, and I can't remember which staircase goes the right way on Mondays." Hitomi grabbed Alex by the arm and hauled him out after the rest of the Hufflepuffs, waving back at her brother.

Alex took a moment to wave goodbye to Hitoshi before trying his best to keep up with Hitomi without dropping his things. He wasn't going to think too hard about the staircases going different ways on different days- it was hard enough to navigate them moving, as far as he was concerned.

---

Last period had been the worst stupid thing Kathy could remember experiencing.

Kathy had this one little problem- she didn't do it often, but when she was late, she was late in a particularly spectacular fashion. Being late to the first period class on the first day was bad enough; being a whole ten minutes late, because some clumsy older idiot had spilled pumpkin juice all down her robes at breakfast, then not being able to change in time anyway because she got lost, then finally making it down to the classroom only to realize she'd been put in DADA with some sleazy creep who seemed to hate her House on principle, that was Kathy's luck.

She'd taken a seat in the back, after that, and tried not to make too much of a stir for the teacher. She was going to punch that third year right in the face later, if she had anything to say about it.

Transfigurations was next; she rather hoped she would find someone who would volunteer a cleaning charm by lunch, but that wasn't the first thing on her mind. She dashed into the classroom just slow enough that she didn't think it would cause comment, and found a seat somewhere in the middle.

Between her late classmate and Aurelia's inability to keep her mouth shut even when she knew she should, Aurelia was fairly certain Gryffindor had dipped into negative amounts of House Points. (Granted, every time Gryffindor lost a point, Snape seemed to be in a slightly better mood; by the end of class, he'd even given Ravenclaw five points. The recipient had nearly fainted from the shock.) When she walked into the Transfigurations room, she'd never been quite so happy to go to a class. At least here their teacher would be a Gryffindor. If they were really lucky, maybe Professor Gilespi would favor her house.

Aurelia flopped down in the seat next to the girl who had showed up late to Defense Against the Dark Arts and beamed over at her. "Well, that was something, huh?"