THE POTIONS MASTER
seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school bet-
ter 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.
And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the
classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly
found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.
They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every
Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and
the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to
the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbol ogy, with a
dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how
to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what
they were used for.
Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was
the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old
indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and
got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns
droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and
got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.
Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard
who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start
of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry’s
name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.
Professor McGonagall was again different. Harry had been quite
right to think she wasn’t a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave
them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.
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