Chapter Rating: PG-13

Summary: The first dinner in the Great Hall. Just sort of establishing people's characters and meeting them up.

Disclaimer: Some stuff's mine. Other stuff's other peoples'. You can guess which is which.

"I don't want to destroy your tank-top

Let's be friends, let's just walk away,"

-Weezer

"WOOOOOSSSSSH, PEW-PEW, BADDA BADDA BADDA BAM!"

The smallest boy at the Hufflepuff dropped one fork and raised his hand to push black bangs out of his eyes when he realized one very important detail. About five people, at least from his quick count, were staring straight at him. Come on! Was it really that odd to be reenacting a galactic battle with your food at your first dinner at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Well, judging from the stares he was getting, it was.

Not a bit faltered by their strange looks, Ian Leahway grinned at them rather than anything else. "Well, you see, there's a war on. The evil chicken lord is fighting off the spoon prince for control of the mashed potato mountain and-"

Most of the people around him were still staring, but one took the opportunity to interrupt him. A boy with slightly curly dark brown hair, slim and a bit tall on average compared to the other first years raised his fork at Ian. "Not if the fork rebels can help it," Levi Delahunnt told him in a voice that spoke as if he did this sort of thing all the time.

A few minutes later the two were already sparring Star Wars lightsaber-style with their forks, and by this time people had given up on attempting to clue the two boys in that they were, in fact, extremely weird. They also weren't about to admit that they found the whole thing amusing.

A girl with pale blonde hair cascading down her back rolled her startling crystal blue eyes at the two boys, obviously 'beyond their childish immaturity.' "You two can't say you're not even concerned with this juicy news. I mean, everyone's talking about Harry Potter going to school with us! In our year and everything, come on!"

Levi looked annoyed as Ian's attention was quickly drawn away from him and to the girl. He blinked his dark eyes – one couldn't quite tell if they were blue or brown – at her, shrugging. "Who's this Potter kid, anyway?"

Almost everyone within earshot turned to stare at him, save the blonde girl herself, Alexa, who was already looking at him, and whose eyes simply widened, and two others. Levi's clear, gray eyes simple conveyed boredom with the subject, and another average-sized boy with particularly average looks simply picked around and stared down at his plate.

The Task girl from earlier, the one with the bright blue hair, waved a hand in the air, her matching blue eyes widening, but in a different manner than Alexa's. She looked extremely excited about something. "I know! I know who that is! He's the one who defeated Ol' Whassissname, right?"

The group officially had the attention of one other boy, a girl with curly pigtails, and another one with an almost annoyed expression and her head in the other's book. Add that to the original Ian, Levi, Alexa, and Task, and that made seven people, plus three older students who recognized Ian as an obvious Muggle-born and simply shook their heads, smiling.

As Alexa let out an exasperated sigh, the girl with the book handed it back to Payton (pigtails), keeping that same original scowl as she explained. Her way of talking to Ian was like she was talking to a two-year-old, and it was obviously working better than anyone else's. "Lemmee guess," she looked at Task, "blue hair here's either got Muggles for parents and she's been reading up on magic, or she's just got one wizarding parent and they just let up the info. Am I right?"

As Task shook her head in shock, Matty, the girl explaining, changed expressions from a scowl to a self-satisfied smile. "So. You, kid, you're definitely a Muggle-born yourself. And I know Payton here is, I've already been talking to her."

"Well listen up, kiddies. There's this really bad guy, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," she looked pointedly at Task, who'd messed this up earlier, "He hated anyone who wasn't purebloods. Like blondie here, me, Delahunnt over there, and maybe a couple of our other listeners."

"And yes," Matty looked around Ian at Levi, who now wore a shocked expression on his face like Task had earlier, "I know you're a Delahunnt. I was paying attention during sorting, and besides, I met Tobias once." Tobias was Levi's brother, in Gryffindor. "Anyway, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had a bunch of followers, Death Eaters. And all together they killed a lot of Muggles and Muggle-borns." She looked over her glasses at Ian, to make sure he was getting it. "Those are… normal people, I guess you'd say, from your point of view. Nonmagic, that is. Like your 'rents, I'm sure."

Ian gave a double nod to communicate he understood, and Matty continued. "Anyhow, there was a resistance, too, so he went after them, you see. And Harry Potter, his parents were one of them. He tried to kill the baby, and, you see, he survived, killed Voldemort, dead." She clapped her hands together quickly for effect.

It was then that something caught all their attention. Apparently one more person was in on their little conversation as well. The boy who had moments before been hanging his head, pushing his food around his plate rather than eating it, looked up. His stunningly pale green eyes looked troubled as he spoke up. "There were still Death Eater stragglers… the war was everywhere." He blushed when he realized everyone was looking at him, then looked down again, a scowl now apparent on his face.

Levi, who'd had that same bored look on his face only moments before, now lit up, practically leaping over the table as he shouted, "Hey! Australia talks!"

The scowling boy, Tadd, now directed his gaze at Levi. His green eyes, now darker with annoyance, met Levi's mocking gray ones. There seemed to be some sort of exchange there. You've heard of love at first sight? Well this was more like… loathe at first sight.

"It's Tadd. Not Australia. Not Travis. Tadd."

Levi leaned back onto the bench. "I prefer Travass, personally," he said with a smirk, showing off the foul language he'd already succeeded in learning from his parents and older brother.

Everyone around was almost tense-looking, as if something was going to start right then and there. But the meal ended, and it was time for the Prefects to show them to their dorms.