Chapter 13

After dinner was finished the original four houses left for their common rooms while the Vagabonds waited at their table for Maria, she soon joined them and began leading the way to their new common room and dorms, they followed her until she stopped in front of a painting with two men and one woman dressed like highway men in it.

"This is the painting is of the original Vagabonds and they guard the door to your common room, it will only move if you give the password." Maria explained. "The password will change weekly and be provided on the noticeboard inside. This weeks password is 'Greensleeves'."

The painting of the Vagabonds slid to the side revealing a small stairwell with a door at the top.

"The door will only open using one of the enchanted keys that will change every year."

Maria handed out golden keys that were reminiscent of the amulet used to open the original door to the Vagabond lair and used her own to open the door. She walked inside with the children following behind and the door automatically closing behind them. The room was coloured purple and white with a fireplace, the kitchenette and glowing orbs were back along with one of the bookcases (though most of the books were different), there were more comfy chairs along with a couple sofas there was a cupboard full of stationary supplies and art stuff and fake windows to give off that did show the outside.

"It isn't much but it's the best I could do given the time limit" Maria said. "Girl's dorms are to the right, boys are to the left. Everyone can have their own room of choose to share with another, the rooms with automatically resized to fit the number of people sleeping in it, each dorm has two levels with a bathroom on each level, and you can only enter the dorm for your gender, boys cannot go into the girl's side and vice versa."

The children separated into the separate dorms, all but the Saxton triplets chose to have their own room, the triplets sharing a room and their bed as they weren't used to sleeping without each other. They unpacked what they could before settling down into their beds.

In the morning the members of the Vagabond house slowly woke up, got dressed and trudged into the common room, they were waiting to go to breakfast since it was still fairly early. Maria was also there since she didn't have an office or room of her own as of yet, not that she minded, she just slept in one of her animal forms and didn't expect any students to need her help over the other teachers. Once it became a suitable time for breakfast the Vagabond students and their head left for the Great hall together, on the way out the students picked up their class schedules that had been sorted out and left for the students in each house, when they arrived the students sat down at their table while Maria sat at the head table and started talking with Professor Flitwick.

Suddenly, the Great hall was flooded with owls delivering the morning post, some letters were dropped off as well as a newspaper called the Daily Prophet.

Potter twin alive!

New house at Hogwarts!

The two headlines were nothing new to the students at Hogwarts but they all knew that they would be new to most of the adults out of Hogwarts and bound to start causing trouble.

"Well, I'm not subscribing to this newspaper." Matilda said with a frown after reading the Daily Prophet she had borrowed. "They're assuming to much just so they can get a story big enough to fill a page. And what does it mean we were unavailable for comment, we haven't gotten any letters and the revelation was only last night."

"Let it go, sis." Harry said.

Matilda sighed and gave the paper over to Vida.

"I see they're already slamming Maria for being a Shapeshifter." Vida said dryly.

"It's amazing how they start making up stuff when they don't have all the facts." Aria commented. "There's nothing here about her except for that and how bad the hiring for Hogwarts must be if they're hiring a half-breed."

Layla got a look of confusion on her face and then wrote something down for everyone to read. 'But a Shapeshifter isn't a half-breed.'

"We know, but they care more about riling up their readers over getting their facts straight." Vida said.

"Isn't that what Kenny said about the paper?" Aria said with a smirk.

Vida just rolled her eyes.

Up at the head table Maria was reading the paper with raised eyebrows.

"Can I sue them for this?" she asked McGonagall.

"Probably not." McGonagall answered. "They haven't out right attacked or made up lies about you."

"But they've made plenty of assumptions, they call me such a degrading term as half-breed when that doesn't even apply to me, I'm not half anything."

"It's because you're kind turns into animals and are well know for living in the wild, like some werewolves." Snape answered with his usual unfriendly tone.

"That's stupid."

"Be that as it may, there are still many people who won't be happy with you being a teacher here, let alone with you being in the walls and near the children." Flitwick warned.

"Once again, that is stupid. Nobody had any problems when I was a student here. And if anyone bothered to research my kind they would find it a grave crime to hurt any sort of child and we are punished by magic itself."

"How does that work?" Snape asked.

"I'm not telling because I don't trust you." Maria answered with a straight face, causing those who heard her to stifle their laughs while Snape went red with anger.

"Anyway," McGonagall interrupted before Snape could cause trouble. "Yesterday I looked up you're school records and have to admit I'm impressed, you got very high marks on all your subjects."

Maria blushed at the compliment. "Thanks, I was told that I had a bright future ahead by my teachers, I spent by time between leaving Hogwarts and my pilgrimage as a on the field healer."

"An on the field healer?" Sprout asked.

"It a healer that would go into a battle field or the area of an attack while it was still going on in order to help the sick and injured."

"That's amazing!"

Maria shrugged. "I'm surprised you don't have them now." She said.

"The advances in magic probably stopped the need for them." Flitwick theorised.

"Getting back to the subject at hand, I've decided to see if you can handle the first to third years for me so that I can focus on preparing my older students for their OWLS and NEWTS."

"Sure, no problem." Maria answered.

McGonagall handed Maria the first to third year transfiguration schedules.

"Thank you. You can also share my office until we can get you one of your own." McGonagall said.

"Oh, thanks." Maria said.

Soon breakfast finished and the teachers moved towards their classrooms before classes were due to start.