Amethyst Rosewood and The Joys of Independence by Melissa Nichols (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) 📖

Amy woke the next morning to a tiny paw pressing determinedly into her cheek, the kitten mewling loudly. Amy grappled at her side, found a piece of fabric, and lifted it to allow Arcane to jump to the floor. Seeing the faux sunlight from the enchanted sun, Amy decided she'd slept long enough and tied her curtains into place.

"Morning." Amy croaked, rubbing her eyes to clear them of sleep crusties. She didn't know who else was awake yet and opened her eyes to find only Crystal was there, in the last stages of getting dressed.

"Good morning, Amy!"

"Morning. Where's everyone else?"

"They already went to breakfast. It's almost eight. You'd better hurry if you want to eat. The tables will be cleared soon."

"Wow, so late?!" Amy gasped as she quickly dug out a clean outfit and started climbing out of her pajamas. "Will I need to be in uniform?"

"No, there's no class today. But we do have something just after breakfast. Something called 'School Games'. But we can go to that in our regular clothes. Just get dressed, and you can come back to shower if you'd like."

"Oh, do you know where the bathrooms are?"

"No, but I'm sure they aren't far, and there are bound to be a few upperclassmen still here who can show us the way." Crystal finished as Amy buttoned her blue vest over her white button-up blouse.

Satisfied, she looked over her ensemble and quickly made her bed. By the time she had finished, Arcane was also ready to go, fur laying as neatly as possible and still slightly damp from the vigorous bath.

As they passed through the giant doorway into the Great Hall, a packet landed in their hands. They opened it to find a small card — their class schedules complete with their names, House and year — a school rule book, a piece of blank parchment, and the syllabi for all eight of their classes. Amy and Crystal looked at each other quizzingly before someone called Amy's name. Amy looked up and found Rose, Albus and Scorpius gathered together on one of the benches. Amy smiled and rushed over, a place setting materializing and filling itself automatically with eggs, fruit, and waffles.

"Morning!" Amy greeted them as she sat down and started digging into her breakfast. As Amy sat down, Arcane jumped off and started wandering. "Isn't this so great! It's already blowing my mind. The entrance to the Hufflepuff common room is so cool!"

"Everything is just so thought out. I mean - check out this schedule! Two hours of required independent study Monday through Thursday, and seven hours on Friday and Saturday, Sunday is completely free. They even tell us when to do our evening routines, so we're in bed at ten and we're waking up naturally at around seven. And we can use breakfast to finish any last-minute homework, too!"

"Wait, how do you see the whole week's lessons? Mine only shows Monday's." Amy asked.

"You just tap it with your wand and ask it to show you what you want." Rose answered, demonstrating.

"You get used to that sort of thing with Aunt Hermione. She's always working on a project for Hogwarts. What impresses me are the bathrooms - they're so big! They can easily handle thirty people. Not even the Lupin House could do that, and it took all of Aunt Hermione's magical tricks to get them so large and organized." Albus chimed in.

"How are you all so excited about having every aspect of your life controlled and planned out?" Scorpius whined. "They literally tell us when to study, when to brush our teeth, when to eat. It's like they think we're still in primary school."

"I, for one, quite like it." Amy pointed out enthusiastically. "Following this practically guarantees we'll pass our classes. I mean, we've got about twenty hours a week for classes but twenty-two hours of study time, not including Sunday. We have more time spent studying than we do in class so if every teacher assigns us an hour of homework, we'll get it all done and still have an extra two hours. We'll have more if we use Sunday to read ahead or finish any forgotten homework. "

"And we'll develop good time management skills in the process. I've always had trouble with that so it's nice to have everything planned out for me. There's less for me to worry about." Mary stated.

Amy nodded and turned to the packet she had received, wanting to inspect it more. The packet itself was filled with seemingly nothing but rules and policies. She'd have to give that proper attention tonight. She turned to the schedule again.

"And this parchment is a map of the school." She offered helpfully, tapping on the blank parchment.

"How? There's nothing written on it."

Rose answered by drawing out her wand, tapping the parchment three times and saying, "Fourth period Charms class with Professor Newman."

The parchment came to life. It etched the Great Hall, and a pair of footprints with Rose's name underneath. The markings expanded outward, and a red line appeared to connect Rose's footprints to the path out of the Great Hall, to the left and down the hall until the line tapered off the side of the parchment.

"It'll change to show where you are, so you simply follow the red line. Here, try it with mine." Amy drew out her wand and copied what Rose had done. An exact copy of the first map appeared, except it was Amy's footprints that were shown.

"Fascinating! Who comes up with things like this?"

"My mum does. During her time here, she noticed that a lot of students have trouble in the beginning of the year finding classes. In fact, Dad and Uncle Harry were late a lot in their first year. So, she invented things to help. Oh, and don't lose it. You won't get another one next year. These things take a lot of time and a lot of high-level magic to work, so Mum can't be making enough for the whole school every single year."

"Bloody hell, that's awesome! Is that all your mother does, invent things?"

"That's a good deal of it, but she also heads up a lot of social activist factions."

"What does your dad do?"

"He was an Auror — a wizard who captures dark wizards — but around the time he married my mum he went to work with Uncle George in Diagon Alley."

"My dad -" Albus chimed in. "Is still an Auror, head of the office in fact, and my mum is a Quidditch journalist."

"What do your parents do, Scorpius?"

"Dad works for the Ministry, Mum stays at home." He said simply.

"That's... also cool!" Amy didn't know what else to say; how do you respond to a statement like that?

An idea crossed her mind, unbidden but still helpful. "Hey, Rose! Is it possible to charm a pocket watch to remind me a few minutes before class starts or something?"

"Yeah, of course it is. But I don't know how to do that. I can ask my Mum to work on it, though."

"That'd be great, thanks!"

Just as Amy put down her utensils and the plate emptied itself, Arcane came back, hopping onto her witch's lap.

"We should get going to School Games." Rose suggested, standing, and tapping her map to show the way. The others stood as well and followed her out of the Hall. "Afterwards, we can do whatever we want."

Rose led the way down the corridor to the left, around the corner, and through a few more corridors until they came to the back entrance of the castle. They could see a stadium with six tall hoops and towering stands.

"That's where we're going - the Quidditch Pitch." Albus explained, falling into place behind his cousin.

As they drew nearer and entered the Pitch, Amy recognized the Hufflepuff Head Boy Alexander, marching around the Pitch along with seven other students. They were directing arriving students to sit on the grass on the side of the Pitch.

"They're the Head Boys and Girls of each of the Houses. They're one step in authority under the Heads of Houses and higher than the prefects. They're seventh years, all of them." Rose explained to Amy as they found a space where all eight first years could sit together.

Once the oval was full and it looked like no students were being left out, the Head Boys and Girls returned to the center of the circle where the Gryffindor Head Boy spoke up, placing his wand at his throat.

"Welcome back to Hogwarts, everyone." His voice boomed around them, shocking Amy with its intensity. Rose quickly explained that it was a magnification spell; His wand was basically acting as a microphone. "Normally we'd jump right into the activities, but today we need an introduction for the first years. To explain why we meet here every day and endure an hour of fun and games." As he finished, he stepped back and the Ravenclaw Head Girl took his place.

"This hour of activities is a recent development, only ten years in effect. Ten years ago, Hogwarts was a very different place. The segregation of the Houses caused rifts, and stereotypes nearly suffocated the students, who fought to uphold them and turn them on their opponents. To the students of yesteryear, Ravenclaw was the house of ace students who did nothing but study all the time. If you wanted to pass your classes, you had better be in Ravenclaw."

The Slytherin Boy stepped forward as the Ravenclaw Head Girl stepped back into line, his voice lower in pitch but no less in volume. "Slytherin was a house of dark witches and wizards in the making who were more concerned with blood status than playing nice. To be in Slytherin was to join the cause of history's darkest wizards."

"Hufflepuff was a House of pansies who were spineless and weak, and loved peace so much they'd rather roll over to their tormentors than stand against them." The Hufflepuff Head Girl spoke clearly, stressing the more important words with a bite.

"And Gryffindor was the House for those who would jump into any battle, or jump off a cliff for kicks." The Gryffindor Head Girl spoke, her scarlet hair drawing Amy's attention in fascination.

"And there were more pertaining to things like how a pureblood thinks, how inferior a Muggleborn was, and many more that ultimately only did harm to the school. These stereotypes were driven by segregation and a lack of a sense of community." The Ravenclaw Head Boy barely seemed to take a breath during his piece.

"Ten years ago, a student — a Gryffindor Muggleborn named Melinda Jasper — going into her seventh year was inspired by the audacity and bravery of fellow Gryffindor and social activist Hermione Granger. Melinda looked at how the Hogwarts of her era had become and vowed to change it." Alexander spoke boldly.

"During her fifth and sixth years at school, she researched the psychology at Hogwarts and what she could do to change it. Finally, during her last summer, she compiled the research she had accumulated into a letter to Headmistress McGonagall, asking for a chance to change things. McGonagall approved. So, Melinda sent copies of the initial letter and detailed plans to the Head Boys and Girls for the next year. They all agreed to help, and so Melinda started a new tradition." The Slytherin Head Girl seemed mostly disinterested in her piece of the story. She spoke like she was reciting a list, staccato and broken.

"Your class years are the beginning of the new era, already starting to reap the benefits of Melinda's plan. Memories of the House segregation have faded. The stereotypes are already beginning to break down, and