Disclaimer: Oh dear, aside from not being J.K. Rowling, the fact that I am so horrible at constant updating should show how very NOT Rowling-ish I am.
I do apologize most sincerely, and, despite the fact this could possibly have gone on longer to make a more lengthy chapter, I felt that something was better than nothing after all of this time.
The next morning proved bright and clear despite the early hour. Remembering that they needed to attend breakfast at the Head table, the six got up and dressed, choosing plain black robes that were only slightly different from the school robes. Convening in their Common Room, the six were slightly startled by the sudden appearance of Tibby, who carried with him six slashes of purple.
"Heres you go, masters and mistresses," the squeaky voice piped. Large, bulbous eyes watched them. "The Headmaster is being insisting you wears these as identification." With that, Tibby silently offered a slip of cloth to each of them before popping away.
"He has a strange fixation on the color purple, doesn't he?" Neville said, eying the tie critically.
Ginny sighed with resignation. She glanced at her tie with distaste.
"That he does, Neville, that he does." So saying, she led the way to the Great Hall.
They were still reluctantly affixing their ties when they arrived, finding that, as they were somewhat early, there were plenty of places for them to sit and so they settled towards the end of the table closest to the Gryffindor side of the hall. Soon, Professor Dumbledore walked in and his eyes twinkled especially brightly upon seeing their ties.
"Ah, wonderful, wonderful," he beamed at them. "These ties are to show your affiliation with Hogwarts, but of course, as wonderful a color as purple is, you may of course change the color." He brandished a warning finger, though. "Please keep them a solid color, if you will, if you start getting into patterns and such, you may end up being confused with the rest of the student body." With a grandfatherly pat, he left them.
Hmm… Ginny mused quietly. As much fun as it would be to change it every day, I think it would be best if we each picked a particular color. She tapped hers thoughtfully with her new wand. It became a deep shade of ruby. Ah, as I thought. She felt their confusion. Just tap yours, too. You'll see what I mean.
Sharing skeptical looks, the others followed her directions. They were shocked to discover that a simple tap changed their ties to what could only be described as their "House" color. Ron's turned emerald green, Neville's bright yellow, Hermione's navy blue, Luna's purest white, and Harry's turned a shimmery shade of silver.
"Well," Ron said critically, "it appears that Hogwarts has some very definite preferences."
A vaguely chime-like snort echoed through their thoughts.
Well, of course Hogwarts whispered you don't become spontaneously sentient without forming a few of your own opinions, Mr. Weasley They all heard her laugh fade away. Upon seeing the gob smacked look on Ron's face, the others couldn't help chuckling a bit either.
Grumbling, Ron began piling his plate high with food. As the others began doing the same, the rest of the Professors trickled in and more students arrived.
I don't remember this many students getting up quite this early in our world Hermione said, somewhat skeptically.
Looking up, Harry studied the Hall. His eyebrow rose. Hmm, looks like they're curious. For indeed, all of the students were failing in their attempts at subtlety as they watched the Professors' table.
Well Neville said slyly, drawing the word out. We could always give them a bit of a show, couldn't we?
What do yAHH! With an unmanly shriek, Harry toppled to the floor, his chair pulled out from under him, giving him an unexpected view of the surprised faces of the Potters, Sirius, and Remus.
"Oh," he said lamely, "hello."
Sirius grinned. "Hello there," he said cheerfully. "You do rather like to make an impression, don't you?" he asked, leaning down to help the young man up. Harry scowled at his so called friends as he pulled up his chair.
"Not so much that," he said "so much as I have horrible taste in friends." He decided to ignore the barely hidden laughter of his now ex friends. Sniffing disdainfully, he instead turned his attention to the Professors. With Sirius to his right, and Remus, followed by James and Lily on Sirius's other side, Harry turned almost completely away from his friends, Ginny being seated directly by him, and instead engaged the Professors in a light conversation.
By mutual, albeit silent, agreement, they steered clear of any potentially dangerous topics and instead chatted lightly on the mundane and trivial. By the time breakfast was over, Harry's friends were agreeably contrite, the students had concluded that they had woken up early for breakfast for no discernable reason, and nothing of significance had been said between the Marauders and Harry. And then it was time for classes.
Speaking of which…
"Oh!" Lily Potter turned around, her expression apologetic. She busied herself with the parchment she held under one arm. "I was supposed to give you all your schedules since all the Heads of Houses need to give out the ones for their students." She separated each schedule and handed them to them. "Here," she said, "I hope it's easy enough to understand, especially considering you're not any of you taking on a full schedule." She smiled at them. "I see at least three of you will be under my tutelage for the rest of the year. I hope we can have a good time." With one last smile, she was once more on her way, leaving the six to peruse their schedules.
"Hmm," Hermione said, glancing rather thoroughly through everyone's schedules. She straightened and tapped her wand against a spare bit of parchment. "Alright, I've organized our schedules according to who shares what and so on and so forth." Rolling the parchment out, the six hovered over the end of the table to see where she pointed. "See here, on Mondays, Harry, Ron, and Neville have Potions with the Gryffindors and Slytherins, I have Arithmancy with Ravenclaw, and Ginny has Transfiguration with Gryffindor." She looked at them. "Transfiguration is in the morning, Potions is in the afternoon." Once she knew they understood, she continued. "Alright then, Tuesday morning Harry, Ron, and Ginny have Charms with Slytherin, and I have History of Magic with Gryffindor at the same time. Wednesday we all have Defense, but Harry and Ron have it with Gryffindor and Slytherin in the afternoon and the rest of us have it in the morning with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff." She narrowed her eyes at both boys. "You will behave," she said sternly, "or I'll know why." Threat carried out, she continued with her organization. "On Thursday, Neville and Luna have Herbology with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in the morning, and Sunday evening Luna has Astronomy with the Ravenclaws." She glanced up at everyone, "Clear?" When everyone had nodded she rolled up the parchment and sent it off to the Board of Information. "Well," she said, looking to Ron, "since the rest of us have Defense right now, why don't you and Harry see what you can do without getting into any trouble?"
Harry rolled his eyes good-naturedly and grabbed Ron. "Come on, Ronald, let's go be good little boys and stay out of trouble." As they walked away, the others could hear the two discussing ferrets and dogs named Fluffy, and decided they didn't really want to know after all.
"Well," Hermione said, shaking her head slightly, "It's a good thing we came already prepared."
"Yeah," Neville replied, checking the time, "we've got ten minutes to get to class and I'd rather not be split up." Thankful that they had decided to use shoulder bags spelled the same as Hermione's beaded purse and therefore fit all of their school things at once, the four set off in the direction of the Defense room, pleasant anticipation in their veins.
While the others were in class, Harry and Ron decided to do a bit of exploring now that they were 'allowed' to be seen. Despite warnings to the contrary, the two wandered casually into the Forbidden Forest, keeping a careful watch on the time and reminiscing like old men as they walked.
"Strange, isn't it?" Ron asked Harry. "Seems like every time we've been in the forest, it's been a near life threatening experience, yeah?"
Harry thought about it for a moment, before nodding.
"Hmm. Except for that time I found Luna out here feeding thestrals, yeah, I think you're right."
Ron snorted. "Right. Because thestrals are 'Just so cuddly!'"
They were still snickering when they heard a crashing sound coming towards them, putting them both on instant alert.
Meanwhile, the others were experiencing their first class in the "new" world.
They entered the room to find that half the class had already assembled.
I suppose having these three as Professors WOULD make things rather exciting Hermione commented drily.
Ginny snorted in a rather indelicate fashion as the four managed to seat themselves near each other, Ginny and Hermione at a bench in front of Luna and Neville.
It took only a minute more for the rest of the class to pour in and for the lesson to begin.
"Now," Professor Black said gleefully, clapping his hands together, "due to the honor-"
"The privilege," Professor Potter corrected.
"Of course, privilege, thank you, Professor Potter," Professor Black said with a bit of a mischievous flourish. "Due to the overwhelming privilege of being in our quite renowned seventh year of Defense class, we, your estimable-"
"Awesome," Professor Potter put in.
"Wonderful," Professor Lupin added helpfully. "Don't forget wonderful."
"Yes, yes, we, your estimable, awesome, wonderful, and super kick-ass Professors- pardon me, forget to tell Minnie or Professor Potter's absolutely lovely other half that I said that. As I was saying-" he broke off to look at his fellow teachers. "What exactly was I saying? I got lost in the glorifying of our names."
Professor Potter cleared his throat importantly and glanced down at the parchment he held in his hands.
"Ah, yes, it says here that after we introduce ourselves as the wonderful wizards we are, we tell them what we have in store for them." He snapped the parchment into a roll and pointed at Professor Lupin. "Would you like to do the honors?"
Professor Lupin smiled. "Why yes, Professor Potter, I would be glad to inform the class that as a special start-of-term treat we will be teaching them the Patronus Charm."
As the class broke out in excited whispers, the only thought the four otherworlders in the class could think was Shit!
Alright, alright. Excuses, what are they? Besides work and health unexpectedly kicking my ass, I'm quite afraid I got caught up in my other stories... please don't hate me. Please know that I will not ever abandon this though, as terribly unhelpful as that may seem.
And as promised:
lordamnesia, or should I say, Lord AWESOME :D, thank you so much for your review, yes, I do realize that can now reply privately, but that seems rather awkward to me after all this time... *whistles innocently* thanks so very much for your review, I do hope that I can continue to make the story an enjoyable experience.
deanine, I apologize for the choppiness, I can only assume that it is a result of updating three different stories and coming and going from each one. I will strive to work on it, I promise, but for now I thank you for being so wonderful and kind as to review and stick by the story despite its flaws. :)
To the wonderful Zakuro46, you are indeed awesome and truly EPICLY FANTASTIC. In all honesty. Your review, did you but know it, is one of the reasons there is any chapter at all because it absolutely ate at me that I didn't have anything to put up yet. I apologize for the overwhelming lateness of the update and the possible suckiness of it, but I hope you know that I will do my best to have another chapter out much, much sooner than this one because I hate the feeling of possibly disappointing anyone. Thank you so, so much for your awesome review and I hope that you enjoy this chapter despite the fact that it ought to be much longer considering the time it's taken to get it out. Again, THANK YOU! :)
Alright, so small cliff-hanger, nothing major, I just felt that instead of waiting for me to finish the rest of what I've worked on, this was an appropriate place to divide it :) I hope you agree with me. Also, the reason for the lateness, aside from working on my other stories and outside influences and such, was simply due to an inability to figure out exactly where to go from where I'd gotten to in my writing. I think I've figured it out now, so hopefully no more worries there :) Thank you to everybody who still enjoys this story, I hope you have a wonderful night/day!