A/N: You're all in luck. I was inspired to write the next part rather quickly. It's amazing what some good reviews will do:)
Disclaimer: Some teachers were based on the group Rockapella at the request of spitgurl and cause I had nothing better to do:) If you know nothing about Rockapella, then you won't even notice. If you do, they don't belong to me, they belong to themselves.
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Chapter 3: Prefects and Pontifications
The Sorting finished quickly, with Uric sitting uncomfortably next to a very depressed Mena. Professor Stewart removed the hat and stool from in front of the teacher's table, pausing to bow to the Headmistress. He found his seat next to Professor Baker, and the Headmistress stood up to give the welcoming speech. The room went utterly silent.
"I am Headmistress Kurze. Welcome to Hogwarts, the top magical school in Britain. Here you will embark on an education that will serve you for the rest of your lives. I expect…" Uric lost interest at this point and noticed that Eustace was quietly reading a book under the table.
"Eustace?" he whispered.
"What? We're not supposed to talk."
"How long will she talk?" Eustace glanced up at Mrs. Kurze, who was expounding on school spirit.
"It will be awhile Uric. You should at least listen to her speech the first time. Next year you'll know to bring something to occupy your time." He went back to his book and Uric saw that the rest of the table was ignoring Headmistress Kurze as well. A girl in pig-tails was busy sketching her friend, who in turn was working hard on some sort of puzzle. A red headed boy was slowly shredding a copy of the Daily Prophet, while the boy across from him worked industriously on the most complicated paper airplane Uric had ever seen. Except for the first years, no one at the table was paying the Headmistress the slightest attention.
Uric wondered what the professors thought of this, but a look at the head table revealed a similar state of boredom. Every teacher except Professor Stewart was involved in some other activity, whether writing furiously like the huge, brown-haired professor near the end, or playing with string like Professor Baker. Other teachers were reading or (and this seemed to be the most popular) sleeping. Uric shrugged and devoted some time to a theory of his about midgets and their secret warrior society, The Raging Giants.
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A stomach rumbled hungrily, and Uric realized with a start that it was his. He glanced at Headmistress Kurze and wondered how long this would go on. Abruptly, Eustace closed his book and placed it beneath the bench. He saw Uric looking at him and inclined his head towards Mrs. Kurze.
"She just mentioned how she became Headmistress right?" he asked in a low voice. Uric listened for a moment and nodded. "That means she'll be finishing off soon." Sure enough, Mrs. Kurze spoke a couple more sentences, exhorting them to have a good school year and a couple of other things.
She stopped talking and slowly the applause grew, as each person looked up from their activities and realized the speech was over. Uric gently nudged Mena who seemed to have fallen asleep, and got a nasty glare for his trouble.
"Hasn't someone told that woman she's a bloody bore yet?" she said to the table at large. A few of the students glanced at her, but it was Eustace who answered.
"Considering what she'd do to anyone who did, no." Their plates were filling with food and Uric dug in, listening with only half an ear to the conversation. Mena looked up at the rather harmless looking headmistress.
"She can't be that bad," protested Mena. Eustace speared a potato with his fork and pointed it at her.
"Headmistress Kurze is the scariest person on this earth, with the possible exception of Satan himself. She is horribly strict and those eyes…" He shuddered. "You never want to be called to her office. Every student leaves there crying. You see that boy over at the Slytherin table? The one with the dark brown hair and the build of a beater?" Both Mena and Uric looked to see who he was talking about, and spotted a massive boy who looked more like a rhino than a human being. "That's Stark Chanson. A seventh-year Slytherin. He got called to Kurze's office for fighting and had nightmares for weeks, not to mention the crying and general trauma. Didn't he, Xanos?" The boy next to Eustace nodded and went back to his meat pie. "It was all over the school, and they say that Stark got off lucky. Just trust me when I say never to cross her." Mena still didn't seem convinced, but decided to drop the subject.
"What about the other teachers? Are they all so bad?" she asked. She didn't seem too interested in eating, but Uric was. He carefully edged a bowl of pudding as far away from him as it could get. It figured that the pudding would try to get at him, even while he was at Hogwarts. He would have to be on his guard.
"Most of the teachers aren't so bad. You just have to know how to deal with them," explained Eustace. For instance, see Professor Leonard there? Blond hair, skinny and talking to Professor Bear? He teaches Transfiguration, and you'll be all right in his class so long as no one mentions ducks."
"Ducks?" asked Jasper Kullman from across the table. He had apparently been listening as well.
"Ducks, mallards, residents of the family antidae, whatever you want to call them. Just don't mention them in his presence!" Eustace said fiercely. Mena and Jasper starred at Eustace like he was insane. Uric, meanwhile, had divided his plate in half and was conducting a war between the peas and the mashed turnips. The peas had just made a daring foray into the turnips, but were about to be pressed back by a counter offensive mounted by the turnip's general. He looked up from the battle, the confusion evident on his face. Had someone said something about ducks?
"I think they get the point Eustace," said Xanos, "Could you just continue with your acclimation speech before we get the entire rant on why ducks are evil?" Eustace, being older and more mature than the first-years, stuck out his tongue at Xanos.
"Okay, so there's Professor Bear. That's not his real name, but everyone calls him that. You can see why." Professor Bear was tall, muscular and looked like he could easily give a bear a run for its money. "He teaches History of Magic and has the deepest voice you'll ever hear. Personally, I think he did a sonorous charm that went horribly wrong when he was younger. Next to Bear is Professor Kerman. He's our head of house and teaches Herbology. As long as you don't insult his plants you'll do fine." Professor Kerman was at that moment holding what appeared to be a very serious conversation with a plant on the table in front of him.
"You should see what he's done to the common room," chimed in Xanos again.
"Do you want to tell them about the teachers?" said Eustace in an annoyed voice. Xanos grinned at him.
"Sure," he said easily, and pointed towards the teachers table. "Kerman's sitting next to Professor Wright, who teaches Arthimancy, not that you'll care about that until third year anyway. He's flirting with Professor Baker, who you probably already met since she rode in the first year coach. Eustace here's got a crush on her." He elbowed his friend.
"Shut up!" Eustace was blushing slightly.
"He's in good company. Not only does Baker have half the boys in the school after her. She's got Professor Wright as well. Then again, I've seen Professor Wright flirt with the Headmistress and she's already married to the caretaker!" Xanos saw he was loosing his audience at this point, since eleven year-olds really weren't interested in such mushy things as flirting, and decided to go on with his descriptions.
"Of course, you've met Professor Stewart," he said. There were nods all around. Even Uric was listening. This was mostly because he had eaten all the turnips, and the peas were in the middle of their celebratory victory, but he was listening. "Stewart's as strict as Kurze, and is intolerant of other peoples weakness'. He likes logic though, so if you can justify everything he'll give you full credit. Let's see…" Xanos was scanning the teacher's table, looking for the ones he wanted.
"The one with the short brown hair, adding lots of whip cream to his pie is Professor Thacher. He's Head of Slytherin believe it or not. Don't laugh at his jokes in class. You'll just encourage him." Xanos, finally spotted who he was looking for and pointed proudly. They saw an Indian looking man with dark hair and eyes, chatting happily with a willowy blond woman. "The woman's our new Divination professor, Hirt or something. The man is Bhanu Darshan. The best chaser to come out of India for over four-hundred years. He would have led India to the World Cup last year if it hadn't been for the tragic demise of their Seeker."
"What's he doing here then?" asked an incredulous Jasper. Xanos shrugged.
"No one knows. I mean, who in their right mind would give up that sort of job to teach Potions at Hogwarts?" He shook his head. "It just isn't right."
"Would someone pass me the chocolate syrup please?" said Uric suddenly. Jasper picked it up and made to hand it to Uric, but froze when he got a look at Uric's plate. Slowly everyone else focused on the plate as well.
The feast had changed over to dessert while everyone was talking, and Uric had taken full advantage of the change. The various cakes, éclairs, tarts and ice cream had been turned into a scale model of what was obviously Hogwarts, complete with little flying buttresses made of sugar sticks. Uric ignored their stares and leaned forward slightly to remove the small pitcher of chocolate syrup from Jasper's hand. He promptly upended it on the castle, leaving it a gooey, chocolate mess.
"What did you do that for?" demanded Mena. Uric looked at her blankly, then back at the desert castle.
"It was raining," he said. At that moment, the Headmistress chose to stand up and lead them all in the Hogwart's song. She painted the words up in the air in front of them and told them to all sing it to the tune of a popular wizarding song. The first-years valiantly attempted to sing along, except for Uric, who sang to the tune of a lullaby his mother used to sing him instead. The words seemed to fit surprisingly well, even if he did end a couple minutes earlier than everyone else.
After that, Headmistress Kurze dismissed them. Uric walked reluctantly out, gazing longingly at his uneaten chocolate Hogwarts. Mena followed him, "accidentally" stepping on his heels to keep him moving. She happened to glance up at the enchanted ceiling and saw heavy rain drops falling from a dark, gray sky. She shook her head and followed, the now disappearing Hufflepuffs out the door.
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All the first-year Hufflepuffs followed Eustace and his fellow prefect Charis Masterfield through a twist of confusing corridors. Abruptly, Eustace stopped in front of a beautiful painting of a maiden and a unicorn in the middle of an enchanted forest. The Maiden smiled upon seeing them.
"Puffskein," said Charis and the painting swung inward to reveal the Hufflepuff common room. It looked very green, and humidity seemed to be flowing out the door and into the passageway.
"The Maiden doesn't talk, but she'll let you in if you know the password. If you forget, you can always find a prefect and ask," said Eustace as he led them through the entrance. When all of them were in, the painting swung shut behind them, leaving them in what Uric first assumed to be a jungle.
Plants of all shapes and sizes decorated the room. Ivy somehow grew out of the carpet to coat the stone walls and frame the few pictures. Potted plants hung down from the ceiling at various heights, making it impossible to navigate the room without constantly watching where one's head was. A tree actually grew in one corner, its roots twisted into the semblance of a large chair. Flowering vines, crisscrossed the floor and any other open space, leaving very little room for the chairs and couches that were scattered throughout the room.
"We have to be careful not to set the room on fire in the winter," said Eustace cheerfully, gesturing towards the plant surrounded fireplace. "Luckily, many of the plants are sentient and can move further away when we light the fire."
"Girls can follow me up to their dorms," said Charis. She led them up a ladder, her long black hair swaying as she climbed. Eustace grinned at the remaining first-years.
"Guess that means I take the boys. Follow me." He headed towards another ladder, this one leading down into a room. Uric wasn't following however. A large painting over by the window had attracted his attention. Strange animals were snuffing about in it and the silly looking creatures enthralled Uric. He tapped impatiently on the shoulder of a girl sitting in one of the chairs reading.
"What are those creatures in the painting?" he asked. She gave him an odd look.
"They're badgers silly. You know? The symbol of our house?"
"Badgers…" Uric could feel the large grin that split his face. The girl was inching away from him, but Uric turned and went down the ladder to the first-year dorms. He took the only bed that was left, checked on Simon, than got ready for bed. His last thought before he fell asleep was that the Sorting Hat had chosen the right house for him after all.
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Thanks to my reviewers Em, Spitgurl and Pez. I'd love to hear more, so please review.
Pez – Thanks about the character names. I tried to take a leaf out of Rowling's book when I chose them. As for Alexis, you're going to have to wait awhile for that one:)
Next Chapter: Uric attends his classes and finds out who his friends, and enemies are. Meanwhile, the teachers learn just how much "fun" it is to have the Oddball in a class.
I'm not sure how long until the next part will be up, depends on my inspiration;)