Kindergarten!AU - In which Hogwarts is a game made up by our favorite tiny heroes!
First AU ever, don't hate me! :)
Also for the Titles Boot Camp, and can be found in my Ethereal Dances collection.
The bell rang, but no one seemed to hear it.
"Time to come in!" she shouted, but the wind drowned her out.
Minerva sighed and pulled her jacket tighter as she made the long walk to the field, stopping just outside the obvious border of rocks. The class was running about with their arms spread like they were playing airplane. Neville fell over, and the class laughed. Draco wrenched something from poor Neville's pocket and through it across the field.
Harry shouted at him, and ran to go get it. It turned into a race, complete with opposing cheers. She laughed as they all stared waving sticks around.
"Recess is over!" she shouted above the wind. "Inside now! Come on! Draco, honestly! Stop poking Neville with that stick! No, everyone has to leave their sticks outside!"
"But Ms. Minnie -"
"Please -"
"We need them -"
She shook her head at all the whining. Sticks in the classroom just wouldn't do. Hermione tugged on her pants. "Can't we just leave them outside the door? We'll lose them if we put them in the grass!"
Minerva sighed again. "Fine, but don't leave them in front of the door where everyone will trip."
The children sprinted off towards the school. Neville sniffed by her side, and she picked him up even though he was getting far too heavy for her bad back. "What's wrong, dear?"
"I can't do any of the spells," he cried into her shoulder.
"You've been doing very well in spelling, Neville," she assured him.
"No, the spells. F'itwick teaches them, and I can't do them!"
"Mr. Flitwick," she corrected absently, and then looked around for the teacher in question. "What do you mean, he's been teaching you spells? Magic spells? Like, witchcraft? At an elementary school?!" Neville blinked at her. She had forgotten whom she was talking to.
Someone else tugged on her pants. "It's a game," Luna told her with a smile. "They have lots of fun. I get to make up the magic animals."
"The - the what?"
"Thestrals you can only see when someone dies in front of you, so only I can see them. They like meat. And then there's Buckbeak," Luna explained.
"He's scary," Neville chimed in.
"No, he ain't," Luna chided.
"Is too," Neville whispered in Minerva's ear, loudly.
Minerva sighed. These kids and their imaginations.