Hermione also did not know about such a thing and is concerned.

"No Defense professor lasts more than a year. Sometimes they get fired, sometimes something awful happens to them, I think one or two have died. It's been going on for ages, since before Bill was in school. They say the job is cursed."

"Wow. Whoever it is this year must be really brave." Or really stupid. Or know enough about magic to confidently not-believe in that kind of curse.

"Every year? Do they know why??"

"Nope. The teachers all say it's not a curse but they don't say what they think it is instead, so."

"Well that seems like it should really be someone's top research priority, jeez."

Bruce does not have the kind of experience with adults that would lead him to make inferences like 'it would be in Dumbledore's long-term interests if he didn't have to hire a new person every year so he's probably working on not having to,' so he just shrugs.

"Are there any other cases of something like a job being cursed? If it was the classroom or the job title or the office or something that would be easy to get around but I don't know what it would even mean to curse a job separately from all of those."

Also, when is this year's professor going to show up? Or start talking if they're already here. Maybe it's a test and the students are supposed to find them.

Hermione makes a note to look that up.

The professor will loom out of the clouds of perfume once everyone is sitting down, bringing with him an overwhelming scent of garlic that is, somehow, still detectable even through the perfume. This is very intimidating, with his sweeping robes and sharp, dark features and enormous purple turban, right up until he opens his mouth, and out comes a high-pitched, wavering nervous stammer.

"G-g-good m-m-morning," he says, "I, I, I am Quirinius Q-q-q-uirrell, and I will, will be teaching, um, D-d-defense, a-against, the, the," deep breath, as if collecting his courage, "D-d-ark Arts." (1)

He peers around at his very small class of Gryffindors.

"The first skill we'll be working on, and it is my solemn duty to ensure you are all able to perform it before we proceed further in the curriculum even if it takes until Christmas, is Vermillious, the red sparks. This is the spell you should cast if you are in distress and need an adult wizard to rescue you. Any questions before we begin?"

(1) Editor's note: The rest of his speech is also like this, but for the sanity of the reader subsequent stammering will be omitted from the narration.

What a useless spell. He doesn't have questions and if he did he wouldn't ask them, for all the usual reasons plus not actually wanting to hear the answer spoken aloud in that stammer, agh. Also his head is suddenly in pain from the combination perfume and garlic smell. He stares at his desk and breathes through his mouth and waits for the next thing to happen.

The next thing, if no one has any questions, will unfortunately be more of Quirrell talking. 

He seems inexplicably to be frightened of the textbook, which he keeps picking up to check the next sentence he's supposed to say and then dropping as though it has threatened him with a knife.

It's an excruciating hour.

They are instructed, at the end of it, not to attempt to practice vermillious on their own, as it should never be cast outside a classroom environment unless you are actually in trouble. They will be attempting it for the first time next class.

Why, it's not like anyone would actually react

Does doing it in History of Magic count as a classroom environment

The rule actually seems fairly reasonable and it's definitely not worth getting in trouble over.

And that's not the important thing! The important thing is that classes are over and they can go to the library!

"I sure hope our classes start having magic in them soon."

Shrug. "At least nobody spent the whole first class going over the homework policy and making sure we had all our school supplies."

"Muggle primary school sounds awful."

"It was alright." It was much better than the summer holidays.

"Hermione, do you know how to get to the library from here? It's probably down some because all the important stuff so far has been on the first couple floors but that's just a guess." If anyone is going to have already found directions in a book somewhere, or just have a magic intuition for finding the nearest library, it's going to be Hermione.

Library library library!!

"First floor, walk toward the sun from the great hall doors, then count five armors and turn left," recites Hermione.  

Someday she totally will have a magic intuition for finding the nearest library, but in this case she asked Percy this morning.

That works too!

"Toward the sun, no matter what time of day it is? Coooool." He has got to do that mapping project just because otherwise his brain will melt trying to visualize everything without paper.

"Apparently! Which at first I was worried meant you couldn't go to the library at night but of course even at nighttime the Sun is still in a direction - four, five - oh, but you can't be sure which direction is East from memory in the dark if the walls aren't always in the same place, can you, we'll need a compass spell, there's got to be - oh,"

Hermione is not an easy person to stop from chattering once she's gotten started, but a first look at the Hogwarts library is enough to strike her absolutely and reverently silent.

It's six stories tall, at least, but it's hard to count them precisely, because the dizzying array of balconies and spiral staircases and floating shelves and doors are offset from each other at various shifting heights. Unlike the rest of Hogwarts, which is lit primarily by things you don't want near your books (sunlight and fire), there is not a single window, lamp, or torch to be found. Instead, on every available surface that isn't books - the ceilings, the floors, the edges of the shelves, the study nooks and tables - there are an impossible abundance of glittering, glowing stones, all in shades of soothing moon-silver and amber-gold, just bright-cool enough to comfortably read by but warm-dark enough to relax under.

One gets the distinct impression, coming in, that following the instructions does not always land you at the same entrance, nor, most likely, will exiting always drop you in the same place relative to the rest of the building; a gaggle of second-year Ravenclaws who had been just around the next corner behind them, as they were counting armors, has just emerged from an entry door three-ish stories up and made a beeline for their favorite study table. They are, very notably, visible but not at all audible.

It is very quiet, in the library.

It's particularly dramatic, if you'd spent a lot of your childhood in mundane libraries, which these days still hum ambiently with tapping keyboards, shuffling footsteps, and the buzz of electric lights. The carpets in the Hogwarts library decline to allow sound to leave their surfaces, the books make oddly muffled thumps when set down upon surfaces, and the gem-lights make no sound at all.

Oh, it's beautiful. It looks like the concept of libraries feels. He drifts forward, taking in the labels on the shelves. They're divided by subject, some of them labeled with the names of familiar classes and others with specialties they have yet to encounter (and one off in the distance labeled "Restricted"). They came in near the Transfiguration section, and it looks like books aimed at first years are on the lower shelves of each bookcase.

Unless Ron or Hermione does something very obtrusive he's going to be holding five books by the time he remembers they exist.

Extremely same.

Ron has to admit it's kind of cute watching them go into a swot trance. It's like they're in a candy store except instead of running they just drift. He wanders off to see what this place has on Quidditch, since they're probably going to be a while.

Items on the History - Quidditch shelf include such favorites as Quidditch Through the Ages (very popular; there are several copies and they're all well-loved), A Snitch In Time (a heavily narrativized history of the Golden Snidget and Snitch), He Flew Like A Madman (a biography of Dai Llewelyn), and perhaps most relevant to Ron's interests, Flying With The Cannons (a less narrativized and yet probably more fun history book). 

Hermione will eventually run out of hands and land with her pile of books at a study table. She stares at the pile for about ten seconds, paralyzed by the surfeit of choices, and then starts in on Unfinished Business: Why Ghosts Form.