Neville couldn't help but sigh when Headmistress McGonagall peered up at him from her table.

"What is it now, Longbottom?" She asked, perhaps a bit too sternly for a woman who was supposed to treat her former student as an equal, at least ever since he became the school's permanent Herbology professor.

"I'm not entirely sure about this, Headmistress," he shrugged. "The timing isn't, well, great, and I do think we should discuss it again before — "

"Oh, no, no, I've taken care of that," McGonagall dismissed his words with a wave of her hand. "I've had very long conversations with each and every one of the Wizarding Schools' headmasters and headmistresses, and they have all agreed to it. The children will be here on September 1st, and that's the end of it. They'll enroll in our classes, they'll stay here all year, they'll sit their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s if they must. But I believe this is going to be a very enriching project for both sides, Professor Longbottom." She stressed the thirty-nine-year-old's title, her brow rising ever so lightly.

Neville sighed yet again, but eventually nodded his head. "All right then. I'll — I'll take care of selecting the students who will be showing them around and staying with them, I suppose."

"Precisely, Mr. Longbottom," the Headmistress's lips twitched into a faint smile. "Make sure the house elves get their dormitories ready. One for the girls, one for the boys. I'm fairly sure they're going to love our school just as much as we do."

Neville nodded quietly and let his hands sink into his pockets, mumbling right before leaving the room, "If you say so, Professor."

Hey there! I know I said I'd be away for a couple of weeks — which turned into two months because you know, uni completely took away all of my spare time. But alas, I'm back — and I just came up with a super duper idea for a new HP SYOC! So yeah, idk if this mini-prologue was of any help at all, but — the story's going to be set in 2019, and it's going to follow fourteen exchange students (one or two per each of the Wizarding Schools that can be found around the globe — there isn't a set number of characters that I'll be accepting per school, but I'd really like to have at least one from each) who will be staying at Hogwarts for an entire school year, with two Hogwarts students staying with them instead of joining their Housemates as they usually would. They'll be living together, fighting each other, making new friends, and most importantly . . . perhaps even defeating a bunch of evil creatures together!

Oh, and also, I intend for this story to feature a few of the OC's from my previous SYOC, A Twist In Time, but only in very small supporting roles — so if you submitted a character for that one, it'd be lovely if you sent me one for this story too!

As for the schools, I have decided to use the seven Houses that have been confirmed to exist so far by J. K. Rowling, plus two Houses that I decided to make up because I didn't want to miss out on the possibility of getting more diverse, beautiful characters from those sides of the world. There's a lot of info on the seven canon ones on Pottermore, but here's a short list of them just in case you need to decide which one suits your character best:

1. Beauxbatons Academy of Magic (Pyrenees, France): most of its students come from France, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Belgium.

2. Castelobruxo (Amazonian rainforest, Brazil): its students come from all over Latin America.

3. Durmstrang Institute (Scandinavia, probably northernmost Sweden or Norway): willing to accept international students, but most of them come from northern and Eastern Europe (Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and so on).

4. Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Mount Greylock, United States): students generally come from the United States or Canada.

5. Koldovstoretz (Russia): most of its students are Russian, although there is a fair share of Ukrainians, Belarusians and students from all over the Caucasus and Eastern Asia.

6. Mahoutokoro School of Magic (Iwo Jima, Japan): its students are fundamentally Japanese, although there might be a few Korean or Chinese ones.

7. Uagadou (Mountains of the Moon, Uganda): its students come from all over Africa.

And as for the ones that I decided to make up...

8. Makutu Academy (Iasoa, Vanuatu): its students come from all over Oceania and Southeastern Asia. It is one of the most diverse and magically interesting schools due to its students coming from either Western wizarding families or from traditional Oceanic tribes, who had their own rites and spells and eventually passed them on to their native and foreign students alike when the school opened back in 1875. Although most of its classes are taught in English, they tend to use spells that come from all sorts of native language, so they actively encourage learning those while at school too.

9. Sahar Almadrasa (Wadi el Rayan, Egypt): hidden behind one of the most majestic waterfalls in the Nile river, it is the school that most Islamic and Arab students attend, from Morocco to Pakistan. There are some Israeli, Lebanese, and Turkish students, too. They tend to excel at Potions, Transfigurations, and Ancient Egyptian, which is the language that a lot of their spells were created in.

So yeah, that's it. The form's up in my profile page, and it'd be lovely if you could PM them to me as soon as possible because I'm dying to get this story started. So yeah — as per usual, please try to avoid submitting Mary Sues/Gary Stus and make sure to make your characters as unique and as interesting as possible!