Despite having been a Ravenclaw, Paul MacBride had never been a good student. He spent countless hours squeezed in a library corner behind stacks of books, researching any and every obscure topic that had nothing to do with what was being taught in class. Paul graduated Hogwarts a well-educated man, unfortunately his transcripts didn't reflect that. After school, Paul took the first job he could get. He worked three miserable years as a low-level ministry official before finally deciding that unemployment was better than the mind-numbing work of filing papers.
He sent Headmaster McGonagall an owl asking if Hogwarts had any job openings. Headmaster McGonagall knew that Paul needed something that challenged him intellectually, teaching the same basic material that Paul had found tedious as a student would not fulfill that need. Instead of hiring him, Headmaster McGonagall wrote Paul a letter of recommendation and put him in touch with Mabel Fitzpatrick, the headmaster of a small American school called the Salem Witches Institute.
The Salem Witches Institute was a small, exclusive school that only admits the best of the best wizarding students. The small student population and their advanced knowledge provided Paul with the exact challenge he was looking for. As a transfiguration professor, Paul was often able to tailor his lessons to match the individual needs of his students.
Today's lesson was challenging Paul's patience more than it was challenging his intellect. Simon Dantes is by all means a gifted student. He's a prodigy in the subject of charms. At only eighteen he's already created his own charm that allows him to fly without a broom. In the subject of transfiguration, Simon is…less gifted.
"No Simon', Paul admonishes for the fifth time today, "swish then flick."
Simon tries again. He flicks his wand then swishes it. He's doing it on purpose now. Light flickers at the tip of Simon's wand and then disappears.
Simon shrugs, leaning his chair back and balancing it on two legs.
"I dunno Professor MacBride, I just don't think I'm going to get it today."
Paul screws his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose, and tries desperately to resist the temptation to murder his student. Simon is oblivious to his professors near meltdown, he's too busy trying to balance his chair on two legs without having to hold onto the table.
Of all his classes, transfiguration is Simon's least favorite. In his opinion, it is also the least important of all magical subjects. What good was turning things like cups into rodents in the real world? Simon couldn't bear to waste his time or energy trying to learn something useless, he had to get out of this classroom immediately.
It helps that Professor MacBride is notoriously impatient with unskilled students. Simon learned early on in his education that Professor MacBride was quick to dismiss a student not showing adequate progress. Today was no different.
"I think we've done enough for today", Professor MacBride sighs, "You can go but I expect you to practice this spell and you will be tested on it when we meet again on Wednesday."
The legs of Simon's chair crack against the grey stone floor. In a flash his long arms reach out across the table and gather up his textbook, parchments, and quill.
"Of course, Professor," Simon promises, shoving everything into his school bag, "Whatever you say"
Simon slings his bag over his shoulder and makes a beeline for the door. He breathes a sigh of relief when the old wooden door shuts behind him. Simon made his escapes thirty minutes before the scheduled end of his lesson, giving him forty-five minutes of free time before quidditch practice.
He decides to go back to the student dormitories for a quick nap, transfigurations really sapped his energy. The Salem Witches' Institute is spread out across the entire city of Salem. Class rooms are hidden away in backrooms and basements of various buildings. Half the reason for the school's limited student population if because it exists inside a no-maj city.
The student dormitories are located on the seventh floor of the Hawthorne Hotel and only accessible through a stairwell hidden from the no-majs with a concealment charm. The Institute's student population is neatly separated into one of two houses, Saorosa or Solasta. The small student population and limited campus size means there's not much difference between the houses, but it gives the students something to belong to within the school community.
Students from both houses live together and share a common room. The houses even shared quidditch players between them, if one team had two seekers and one chaser while the other had four chasers and no seekers. This was how Simon, a proud member of house Saorosa had ended up on loan to house Solasta has their seeker his first year at the Institute.
Simon bounds up the secret stairwell, eager to get a quick minute of rest before apperating out to the quidditch field, located somewhere in rural Vermont. The common room is empty save Alistair, who is sitting at one of the three oak desks pushed up against the walls of the common room, hunched over some parchment. Alistair does not look up from his work when Simon breezes through the common room.
Simon and Alistair look like they could be brothers, both are tall dark and handsome. Their personalities, however, could not be more different. Where Simon is friendly and easy-going, Alistair is quiet and closed off. Where Simon is meticulous about his appearance, even going so far as to gel his raven hair back every morning, Alistair is careless and in desperate need of a haircut. While Simon is a member of house Saorsoa, a house that favors the bold and outspoken, Alistair is a member of House Solasta, which favors the gentle and reserved. Other students joke that they are twins and professors sometimes use the more poetic metaphor that they are two sides of the same coin.
Simon and Alistair by no means have an antagonistic relationship, but they aren't friends. Simon gets along with everyone (unless you're a certain transfiguration professor). Alistair doesn't dislike anyone who isn't explicitly rude to him or his pet cat. Alistair doesn't seek out friends and Simon doesn't pursue them. So, Alistair and Simon are physical twins but social acquaintances.
Alistair taps his quill against his parchment. He knows that he knows the steps to making a veritaserum potion, he just can't remember. He registers a person breeze past his desk, but it isn't who he needs right now. Aurora would've stopped and said hello, she always does no matter how engrossed Alistair is in his homework.
She's so good at potions. Alistair sighs running a hand through his curly mess of hair. He puts the quill down and leans back in his chair. He wishes Aurora would walk through the common room and then tries to force the thought out of his brain. He needs to think about how many ounces of bezoar is needed to make veritaserum not how Aurora's eyes light up when she laughs. She makes him nervous in the best way and Alistair hates it.
Unfortunately for Alistair, Aurora is busy somewhere in rural Vermont checking quidditch equitment before the rest of the team apperates out for practice. Aurora was made captain of the House Saorosa team after the previous captain graduated last year. Between her new duties to the quidditch team and the club she formed for future healers to study poisons and hexes in hopes of finding a cure, Alistair hardly sees her anymore.
Aurora is drawing out which drills she wants the team to run when she hears a popping sound behind her.
"Afternoon", A British voice behind her says.
"Hi Simon", she replies still scribbling away at her clipboard.
"I don't suppose you heard" Simon says.
"Heard what?"
Aurora turns around to face Simon, searching his face to gauge if he's going to say something serious or make a joke.
"Practice is canceled. Our applications have been processed and the Headmistress called a private meeting with everyone who applied to announce who's been excepted."
Aurora nearly drops the clipboard. The applications had been processed. At the end of last year Headmistress Mabel Fitspatrick announced a special cultural exchange program between the Salem Witches Institute and Koldovstroetz, the wizarding school in Russia. There are five open slots and nearly the entire student body is hoping to go to Russia. Aurora had been anticipating this night the entire summer, finally she'd know for sure if she would get to spend the year abroad in a new place with new people.
Aurora is silent for a beat, as she processes what Simon just told her. When it hits her, Aurora has a million questions, "Oh my God! What time is the meeting? Why didn't anyone tell me? How did you find out?"
Simon does his best to answer her rapid-fire questions.
"The meeting is in ten minutes, I only just found out from Tommy Heingburg as I was leaving for practice. Tommy said he saw a notification posted on the wall in the common room. It must've been put up after I got back from transfiguration. Tommy said the notification said that all applicants were to report to the history of magic classroom for a meeting about the cultural exchange program. There's no way Headmistress Fitspatrick would call a meeting unless the applications had been processed."
Not wanting to waste another moment Aurora puts down the clipboard and pulls out her want.
"Well the what are we waiting for?" she asks Simon and then apperates back to Salem.
The classroom is already half full by the time Simon and Aurora get there. There's never more than ten students in one class, but already twenty students are crammed into the history of magic classroom eagerly awaiting news on the cultural exchange program. Half the student population of the Salem Witches Institute is at this meeting.
Simon and Aurora make their way to the back of the room where almost everybody is standing. There's only seven desks in the history of magic classroom. Luckily not five minutes later Headmistress Fitspatrick arrives flanked by two professors.
Headmistress Fitspatrick is as old as she is elegant. Her white hair is pulled into a Gibson girl bun, as was the style when she attended the Institute as a student. She wears one of her signature black dresses with a high collar and a waist synched by a silver belt. She looks every part the wise leader of young witches and wizards.
The students part the like the red sea when she enters, allowing her a clear path to the front of the room. She glides past the students who are watching her with bated breath, eager to hear what she has to say. The room seems to be humming with anticipation.
"Good evening students."
Headmistress Fitspatrick addresses the students in a voice so serene that it seems as if she is unaware of how tense everyone is.
"You've come here today because all of you wish to participate in the cultural exchange program with our Russian sister school, Koldovstroetz. I would like to commend each and every one of you for your desire to expand your horizons and further your education through new experiences. You have all made me proud to be Headmistress of the Salem Witches Institute. Unfortunately, we only have the resources to send five of you abroad this year. I hope those of you not accepted will not be too disappointed or deterred from seeking out similar opportunities in the future."
She is silent for a moment, almost as if there is something else she wants to say, but decides against it and announces, "The students who will have been accepted to the cultural exchange program are; Alastair Aurelian, Gene Bixby, Donna Bixby, Simon Dantes, and Aurora Vanler.