Chapter 11: Organizing the Classroom

It took two weeks for the shipment of supplies I'd ordered to arrive. I had no idea where Headmaster Slinkhard had ordered them from, but however he'd pulled it off, there were suddenly boxes upon boxes of muggle school supplies and decorations for my classroom sitting in the Entrance Hall.

"Need some help with those?" Alex asked, emerging from the Great Hall. Everyone else was still eating breakfast, but I'd elected to skip it in favor of getting started organizing my classroom. I was excited to finally put some life into it.

"I've got it," I replied, my sense of independence rearing its head. It was almost like a reflex for me to refuse help in situations like this. I didn't even think about the three-story, multi-trip adventure that was ahead of me before answering.

"Come on, just let me help," Alex insisted, shaking his head at me. "Without magic, it'll take you all morning to get these up to your classroom."

"I can manage," I said obstinately, not entirely sure why I was still refusing the help. I really didn't want to carry all these boxes up several flights of stairs and down winding corridors.

"I'm sure you can," Alex smirked. "But it'll take you all day, and by the end of it, you'll be covered in sweat. With my help, it'll take one trip and no physical exertion."

I opened my mouth to decline yet again, but Alex cut me off with a stern look. I shut my mouth and pressed my lips together as I smiled. "Fine," I said, defeated. "You can help."

With a wave of his wand, all the boxes lifted into the air as one and began a slow migration towards the Grand Staircase.

"Well I can at least carry one," I insisted, following after Alex and the boxes.

"No need," Alex said, walking ahead of me. "Besides, they're already in the air now. If I lower them on the stairs, they'll just fall all over the place."

"You know, I could've done this myself," I repeated myself as we reached the second floor. "You didn't have to help. You could've stayed and finished breakfast."

"I know," Alex said. "I was done with breakfast anyway. And your classroom is on my way anyhow."

"On your way where?" I frowned. Alex's office and classroom were on the sixth floor. Getting off the Grand Staircase on the third floor was a complete detour.

Alex didn't answer, but I could feel him smirking. I felt the sudden urge to throw something small at him, like an eraser or a crumped up piece of paper, but I had nothing in my pockets.

"You could say thank you," Alex said once we'd arrived at my classroom and he'd deposited the boxes on the floor at the back.

"Thank you," I parroted back at him.

"Do you need help with anything else?" he asked, looking from the boxes to me. "You've got a lot to unpack there."

"I'm fine," I assured him. "Besides, I'm sure you've got tons of work to do."

Alex shrugged. "I've got time," he said. "Come on, I'll unpack and you place and organize."

Not giving me much of a choice in the matter, Alex threw the lid off the first box and delved inside. Not that I minded. I did appreciate the help, not that I would have asked for it. And I was enjoying the company. It was nicer than doing this all alone, especially without an iPod to blast music from while working.

"Okay, what is all of this?" Alex frowned, reaching into the first box and pulling out a stapler. He held it like it was a rotten banana and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"It's called a stapler," I replied. "It's for attaching multiple papers together and it's going on my desk."

I took the stapler and walked over to my empty classroom desk, placing it on the corner for now until I had more supplies and could organize them properly.

"Alright, and what's this supposed to be?" Alex asked again, holding out a three-hole punch.

"That's for punching holes in the sides of papers," I explained. "So that they can be placed in binders or duo-tang folders."

"What's a binder?" Alex asked, looking into the box with a very lost expression on his face.

I laughed. "It's something you use to file a bunch of different papers together when they're all related," I explained.

"Right," Alex nodded.

And so the morning continued in much the same fashion. Alex pulled items out of boxes and asked what they were. To the best of my ability, I explained what they were called and what kinds of functions they performed. Sometimes, Alex made fun of the objects. White-out, for example, he thought was rather silly, given that one could simply cross out the mistake and keep going. He also found the need for highlighters rather puzzling.

In total, I'd ordered four sets of all the office supplies. One set was for my classroom desk, one set was for my office desk, and two sets would go in the supply cupboard at the back of the classroom for student use. I would be encouraging the use of muggle supplies for all their assignments. Essays turned in on parchment would be docked marks.

The most fun part of the unpacking came when we got to the boxes full of posters and picture frames. I'd ordered posters of all sorts of different muggle things to put up all over the classroom. The idea was to give the students an idea of what some of the things we'd be studying looked like. There were posters of bands and celebrities, posters advertising one thing or another, posters for movies, book covers, posters of sports teams. Some were simply pictures of things like planes, or certain types of food, or animals that weren't encountered in the magical world. Most importantly, not even one of my pictures or posters moved. They were all completely stationary, like in the non-magical world.

Alex's presence actually proved vital during this part of the decorating process. I hadn't thought about how I was going to hang all the posters and pictures in their frames, but given the fact that my walls were made of stone, I was going to have a hard time getting sticky-tack to hold, or to hammer a nail into the wall. Luckily, Alex knew some good sticking charms, and he had everything sticking to the walls within a matter of minutes.

By the end of it, the classroom was looking much cheerier, and much more inviting. I was proud of our work and thoroughly satisfied with the result. I would still have to do some reorganizing of my desks, but that could wait until I was alone. Alex didn't want to watch me puzzle over whether to put the three-hole punch in the middle or bottom drawer. That was something I could do on my own.

"Well I think it looks great," I declared once the last box was empty.

"It definitely looks like you'll be teaching muggle studies," Alex said.

I frowned and looked over at him. "Well that's the point, isn't it?" I asked. "That is my subject."

Alex nodded. "It's just… so different in here than it's ever been before. And I've never seen so many things I didn't know the names for before."

"Pretty big culture shock, huh?" I asked, a little cheekily.

Alex chuckled and gave me the win. "Alright, point taken," he said. "It's hard to beat you in that department."

"I think I'm handling it pretty well," I said, reflecting on my time here. While the first few days had been hard, I'd adapted really well over the past weeks. When the ghosts had started appearing around the castle, I'd only been mildly surprised. I no longer jumped when a portrait tried to talk to me, it was becoming perfectly ordinary to me to have my food magically appear on my plate, and the moving staircases were becoming so predictable, I suspected I would be lost if they stopped rotating.

"Much better than any of us had expected," Alex agreed. "Headmaster Slinkhard had wanted to hire someone immediately when Professor Carborough announced he was leaving, but nobody was applying for the position. When the end of July came around, we were about to give up hope and just hire a wizard to take the position. We didn't think there'd be enough time for a muggle to adapt before the students arrived."

"I'm still a little nervous about that," I admitted.

"Well that's to be expected, magical or non-magical," Alex assured me. "I was nervous this time last year too. But the students are great. And the ones that aren't won't really be your problem anyway. You're not anyone's Head of House."

"No, but if someone misbehaves in class, I'll still have to give out detention," I pointed out.

"The other teachers would understand if you passed that responsibility over to the appropriate Head of House," Alex informed me. "You know, if you felt uncomfortable running a detention for students with magic when you don't have any magic yourself."

"I can run my own detentions, thank you very much!" I exclaimed, suddenly offended. Did Alex think because I was non-magical, I was somehow inept? If that was the case, why would they have even hired me in the first place?

"Of course you can!" Alex exclaimed hurriedly. "I didn't mean to suggest that you couldn't. Only that if you were worried that they might use magic against you in detention…" he trailed off.

"I don't intend to allow wands in my detentions," I declared, making an on the spot decision. "In fact, I don't think I'll allow wands in my classroom at all."

It was an adaptation on something I'd heard of a lot of muggle teachers doing nowadays with cell phones. In order to keep students focused on the lesson, they all had to deposit their cell phones in a basket at the door of the classroom and weren't allowed them back until the end of the lesson. It was a good idea, and one that might work well for me here. If students had to leave their wands behind, they wouldn't be tempted to try to use magic in class, and it would force them to do things the muggle way, experience the non-magical way even better.

"The students are not going to like that," Alex said, sounding like he wanted a front row seat to my first lesson.

"Probably not," I agreed. There'd been a lot of controversy over the no cell phones thing when it had first started. In the end, the rule had stood, and so would mine. "But they'll learn to accept it."

KkKkKkKkKkK

Lunch was poorly attended. Hannah, Tessa, and Neville were all down at the village for the day. Mr. Clarke and Mark Brunwell were both asleep, already on their nocturnal schedule in preparation for the upcoming school year. Mr. Filch was off having an argument with the poltergeist and Andromeda Tonks, the transfiguration professor, who'd only just arrived back a few days ago, was on a fire-call with her grandson, who worked at the Ministry of Magic.

"So you got everything all set up and organized?" Skye asked me as we selected some sandwiches from a large central platter.

"Pretty much," I confirmed. "You should come by and take a look later. The room is transformed."

"It's definitely something," Alex agreed, munching on some carrot sticks.

"Well I am proud to say that I've finished my annual upkeep on all the brooms in the broom shed, which means that this afternoon I get to test them all, to make sure they're all still safe and functioning properly," Skye declared happily. "And you are all welcome to join me. There's a ton of brooms down there to test and I could use some extra bodies."

"I'm in," Cameron agreed readily.

"Me too," Alex nodded. "I could use an afternoon out of the castle."

Sadly, I dropped my sandwich onto my plate and swirled my water around in my goblet. "Well I wouldn't be much help," I muttered. Being a muggle meant I couldn't fly a broom on my own, so my presence would just be redundant. "I'll probably just go back to my office and make sure my desk is organized just the way I want it."

"Oh come on," Skye insisted. "Just because you can't fly the brooms doesn't mean you can't still help. You can be the one that sorts through the brooms on the ground and passes them to us to test."

"Gee, doesn't that sound like fun," I muttered sarcastically. It was a fake job to make me feel better and we all knew it.

"Okay, so that was lame, I know," Skye admitted. "But it'll still be more fun if you come too. Even if you can't fly any of the brooms yourself."

"Are you sure?" I asked. I didn't want to be a nuisance. "I wouldn't be in the way? Because I really do have stuff I could do in my office."

"You would most definitely not be in the way," Skye assured me. "But if you'd rather work in your office, you're more than welcome to stay here."

"No," I shook my head immediately. "I'd much rather be down at the pitch with you guys."

"Well it's settled then," Skye smiled. "We'll all spend a lovely afternoon on the quidditch pitch."