The first few days at Hogwarts were a whirlwind of new corridors, shifting staircases, and the bewildering but exciting rhythm of a life governed by bells and timetables. For most first-years, it was an exhilarating chaos. For Ariana, it was an exercise in observation, a study of the intricate systems—both magical and social—that made the castle function. She moved through the boisterous, crowded hallways of Gryffindor Tower like a swan on a choppy lake, serene and undisturbed by the frantic paddling of those around her.
Her mornings began not with a jolt, but with a slow, quiet awakening. Midnight, in her small cat form, would be a warm, dark weight on her chest, her strange, resonant purr a more effective and gentle alarm clock than any spell. She would watch the other girls in her dormitory—Hermione, Lavender Brown, and Parvati Patil—rush through their morning routines with a flurry of chatter and misplaced hair ribbons. Ariana's own preparations were a silent, efficient ballet. She dressed, braided her hair, and ensured her school bag was perfectly ordered, all with a placid economy of motion that was both admirable and slightly unnerving to her dorm-mates.
Their first class was Transfiguration, taught by their own Head of House. Professor McGonagall's classroom was exactly as Ariana had imagined it would be: a large, sunlit room with high windows, orderly rows of desks, and an air of serious, intellectual rigour. McGonagall herself stood at the front, her posture as severe and unyielding as the stone walls, an aura of no-nonsense authority radiating from her.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she began, her sharp gaze sweeping over the class, making every student sit up a little straighter. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
She then transformed her desk into a large, grunting pig and back again, a feat of such flawless, casual power that it left the entire class speechless. The task for their first lesson was, by comparison, deceptively simple: to turn a matchstick into a needle.
Each student was given a single wooden matchstick. A collective sigh of relief went through the room; it seemed manageable. But as the students began, wands waving and brows furrowed in concentration, the true difficulty became apparent. Ron Weasley's matchstick shuddered, turned a silvery-grey, but remained resolutely blunt and wooden. Seamus Finnigan managed to create a small, fiery spark that singed his eyebrows. Neville Longbottom's match simply trembled pathetically on his desk.
Hermione, naturally, was the first to achieve a semblance of success. She had clearly memorized the incantation and the required wand movement perfectly. With a crisp flick and a clear declaration of the spell, her matchstick turned into a needle. It was sharp, it was silver, but it was slightly bent, and still retained a faint, woody texture. McGonagall awarded her a rare, approving nod.
Ariana watched all of this with a calm, analytical eye. She saw her classmates treating the spell like a recipe: follow the steps and hope for the correct result. They were trying to impose their will on the matchstick, to force it into a new shape. She knew, from her own studies, that this was an inefficient and crude approach. One did not command the Anima Mundi; one guided it.
She picked up her matchstick, holding it lightly in her fingers. She did not immediately reach for her wand. First, she closed her eyes and focused her Intentio. In her mind, the architect's mind, she did not just picture 'a needle'. She constructed a perfect blueprint. She envisioned a needle of flawless steel, 38 millimeters in length, with a perfectly tapered point measuring a precise 12 degrees. She designed an exquisitely sharp tip, a smooth, polished shaft, and an eyelet that was clean and free of burrs. And for her own private satisfaction, she added a final, tiny detail to the blueprint: an almost microscopic, elegant spiral pattern engraved around the head, a design so fine it would be nearly invisible to the naked eye.
Once the blueprint in her mind was absolute—a perfect, unwavering platonic form of the needle—she opened her eyes. She took up her Elder wand, its cool, storm-charged wood a familiar comfort in her hand. She aimed it at the matchstick. She did not say the incantation aloud. She simply held the word, the concept, within her mind and used it as a key to open the flow of magic. She then gently pushed her perfect mental blueprint into the Materia of the matchstick, using the Anima Mundi as her medium.
There was no flash, no sound. The change was instantaneous and absolute. One moment, a wooden matchstick lay on the desk. The next, a perfect, gleaming steel needle lay in its place. It shone under the classroom light, a tiny monument to flawless design.
Professor McGonagall, who had been making her rounds and offering sharp critiques, stopped dead at Ariana's desk. Her thin lips parted slightly as she stared at the needle. The other students were still struggling to produce anything remotely sharp. Here was not just a needle, but the archetypal ideal of a needle.
She leaned in closer, her keen eyes narrowing. She noticed it then—the impossibly fine, spiralling pattern at the needle's head. It was a detail that was not part of the lesson. It was an embellishment, an act of such superfluous, exquisite control that it bordered on the impossible for a first-year student. It was not just a successful transfiguration; it was an act of artistry.
She looked from the needle to Ariana's serene face. The girl's periwinkle eyes met hers, calm and questioning. There was no pride in her expression, no look of triumph. Only the quiet satisfaction of a task correctly completed.
"Five points to Gryffindor," McGonagall said, her voice betraying none of her inner shock. But as she walked away, she couldn't stop herself from glancing back one more time. The girl with her dead friend's face was not just a prodigy. She was something else entirely.
Their Charms lesson with the diminutive Professor Flitwick was a far more cheerful affair. The tiny professor, who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk, was excitable and full of praise.
Their first lesson was the Wand-Lighting Charm, Lumos.
Again, the results were mixed. Most students produced a weak, sputtering light at the tip of their wands. Ron's looked like a dying firefly. Harry managed a respectable, if slightly flickering, white light. Hermione, with her precise pronunciation, produced a bright, steady beam that earned her a delighted squeak from Flitwick and another ten points for Gryffindor.
When it was Ariana's turn, she once again approached the task from a foundation of pure theory. Light, she knew, was not a monolith. It was a spectrum. It had wavelength, frequency, intensity. To simply create 'light' was like a painter choosing only to use the colour white.
She held her wand and focused her Intentio. She didn't just think 'light'. She thought of a gentle, swirling dance of colours. She envisioned threads of soft rose-pink, tranquil lavender, and warm gold, all weaving together in a slow, harmonious ballet. She channeled her magic, not as a single blast, but as three distinct, controlled streams, each imbued with a different chromatic property.
"Lumos," she whispered, the word more a breath than a command.
The light that bloomed at the tip of her Elder wand was breathtaking. It was not a single beam. It was a soft, glowing sphere of intertwined colours. Rose, lavender, and gold swirled within it like mist, coalescing and separating in a gentle, mesmerizing dance. It cast a warm, beautiful light across her desk, making the very air around her seem magical.
The classroom fell silent. Everyone stared, mouths agape, at the beautiful, impossible light. Professor Flitwick, standing on his pile of books, let out an audible gasp, his tiny hands clasped together in pure delight.
"Oh, my stars!" he chirped, his voice full of wonder. "Extraordinary! Miss Dumbledore, that is the most advanced and controlled first-year Lumos I have ever seen in my fifty years of teaching! That is not just a charm; that is a work of art! Twenty points to Gryffindor! Twenty points!"
Ariana simply gave a small, polite nod of acknowledgement and, with a thought, extinguished the beautiful, swirling light, leaving her classmates staring at her with a mixture of awe and utter bewilderment.
The final class of the day was the one everyone had been dreading: Potions, in the dungeons, with Professor Snape. The descent into the dungeons was a descent into cold and shadow. The classroom was dark, lined with shelves of pickled animals and mysterious ingredients in glass jars. The air was frigid, and the students shivered in their robes. Professor Snape made his entrance like a phantom, his black robes billowing behind him. He was a man who commanded fear as effortlessly as other wizards commanded magic.
His opening speech was a masterpiece of intimidation. He spoke of the "subtle science and exact art of potion-making," his voice a low, menacing whisper that held the class in a grip of terror. He made it clear he expected little from them, a "cauldron-full of dunderheads."
Then, his black, merciless eyes landed on Harry. He began a brutal interrogation, asking Harry questions about powders and bezoars that a first-year could not possibly know. It was a naked display of power, a targeted humiliation.
When Harry inevitably failed to answer, Snape sneered. "Pity. Clearly, fame isn't everything." He ignored Hermione's frantically waving hand completely.
The day's lesson was to brew a simple Cure for Boils. The instructions were on the blackboard. Snape stalked the aisles like a predator, his robes whispering over the cold stone floor, criticizing Neville's potion until the boy was a trembling mess and his cauldron was melting, and sneering at Harry and Ron's clumsy attempts.
He approached Ariana's desk last. She had set up her station with the neat, methodical precision of a surgeon. Her ingredients were chopped to a perfect, uniform size. Her cauldron was simmering at a precise, steady temperature. She had read the instructions, yes, but she was also feeling the potion. She could sense the magical properties of the dried nettles releasing into the water, the way the stewed horned slugs created a viscous base, and understood on an intuitive level that the porcupine quills must be added after the cauldron was taken off the fire, to prevent their volatile magic from causing a reaction.
Snape loomed over her, his shadow falling across her workbench. He peered into her cauldron, his long, hooked nose nearly dipping into the steam. He was searching, hunting for a flaw, for any minuscule error he could use to tear down this new, prodigal Dumbledore. He had been warned by the Headmaster, in no uncertain terms, that this particular student was not to be targeted. The command had been delivered with a quiet, steely finality that even Snape had not dared to question. But the prohibition only fueled his resentment. He wanted to find a reason, any reason, to justify his inherent disdain.
He found nothing. The potion in her cauldron was perfect. It was the exact shade of turquoise the textbook described. It was simmering with a gentle, even heat. The consistency was flawless. He could smell the perfect balance of the ingredients. It was the work not of a first-year student, but of an accomplished potioneer.
His black eyes narrowed. He looked at her, at her calm, focused expression, the graceful way she stirred the potion—seven times, clockwise, each rotation a perfect circle. He saw no fear, no anxiety. She was not even looking at him. Her entire being was focused on the art she was creating in her cauldron.
He was filled with a cold, grudging fury. He could not fault her. He could not belittle her. He was bound by the Headmaster's strange, protective order. So he did the only thing he could. He said nothing.
He stared at her perfect potion for a long, tense moment, the silence stretching until the other students held their breath. Then, with a faint sneer that was more for himself than for her, he turned on his heel and swept away to terrorize someone else.
Ariana had been aware of his presence, of course. She had felt the weight of his gaze, the sharp, analytical probe of his own powerful magic assessing her work. She felt his frustration, his resentment, and his grudging respect. And she understood. He was a man of immense talent and deep bitterness, bound by an order he despised. His pointed silence was more telling than any praise could ever be. It was a declaration of her victory in their silent, one-sided battle.
When the class was over and she had bottled a sample of her flawless potion, she left the dungeons, her composure as serene as ever. The first day was over. She had met the challenges laid before her and found them… simple. The true curriculum, she knew, was not in these classrooms. It was in the ancient books, in the deep theory, and in the quiet of her own mind, where the real magic was waiting to be woven.