To his relief, he wasn't the last one to arrive. There were still 3 empty
seats around the table. He sat down in one of them and pulled in his chair.
Just as he did, a girl that looked about the same age as him walked in
briskly and took a seat across the table from him. She was the most
beautiful girl Oliver had ever seen. She had long, silvery blonde hair that
looked as soft and shimmery as silk. She looked just like a veela. A couple
of minutes later, Professor Trelawney walked in and took the last seat a
few places down from Oliver.
"So nice of you to join us, Sibyl," said Professor Snape a little sarcastically.
She chose to ignore him and instead turned her attention to Professor Dumbledore.
"Now that we have all arrived, let's eat!" said Professor Dumbledore, and several overflowing dishes appeared in front of them.
Dinner lasted for about an hour. Nobody really said much during the meal because they were all busy enjoying the delicious food. When everyone was finished, the entire staff left the Great Hall together and headed for the staff room. They filed into the room a few at a time, with most of them standing since there were only a few chairs. Professor Dumbledore made his way to the front of the room.
"Everyone form a circle," he said loud enough for everyone to hear. "I want you all to be able to see each other."
After they had formed a circle he said, "Now, we are going to have a little icebreaker since we have a few new teachers this year. We are going to go around the circle. I want you to give your name and your position or positions here at Hogwarts. I will begin. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry."
"Pomona Sprout, professor of Herbology and head of Hufflepuff house."
"Rubeus Hagrid, teacher of Care of Magical Creatures and Hogwarts gamekeeper."
"Adrianna Brighton, professor of Muggle Studies."
"Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, professor of Transfiguration and head of Gryffindor house."
"Poppy Pomfrey, Hogwarts nurse."
"Oliver Wood, flying instructor and quidditch coach."
"Elena Sinistra, professor of Astronomy."
"Filius Flitwick, professor of Charms and head of Ravenclaw house."
"Elizabeth Vector, professor of Arithmancy."
"Fleur Delacour, professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Sibyl Trelawney, professor of Divination."
"Severus Snape, professor of Potions and head of Slytherin House."
"Irma Pince, Librarian."
"Argus Filch, Caretaker of Hogwarts."
"Eva Hathor, professor of The Study of Ancient Runes."
"Excellent, excellent," said Professor Dumbledore. "Well, now that you all know each other, I want you to spend the rest of this meeting getting to know each other a little bit better."
As the introductions were ending, Professor Binns floated into the room through one of the walls. Oliver heard a small gasp from Adrianna, who hadn't been expecting a ghost teacher.
"So sorry I'm late, I must have dozed off. What have I missed?" Professor Binns asked Dumbledore.
"We were just finishing up introductions."
"Oh, I see. Well, I'm Charles Binns, professor of History of Magic. And incidentally, the only ghost teacher at Hogwarts."
"Alright, now please mingle and try to get to know someone that you don't know very well," said Professor Dumbledore.
Oliver looked around for the beautiful veela-like girl and saw her approaching him. He knew most of the other teachers, but he didn't recognize her at all.
"Hello, I am Fleur Delacour. I thought you might not remember my name since you're new and there are so many new faces."
"Actually, I was a student here a few years ago, so I know most of the professors already."
"Really? When did you graduate?"
"Four years ago."
"Ah, you were not here when I was in the Triwizard Tournament. You graduated the year before."
"Wow! You were the girl in the Triwizard tournament? That's brilliant!"
Fleur blushed slightly. "Thanks."
"How long have you been teaching here?"
"For 3 years. I started teaching the term after I graduated from Beauxbatons. I came here so that I could improve my English, and I must say, I think it's working."
"How old are you?"
"I'm 21, and my birthday is in May. How about you?"
"I'm 22, and my birthday is in March. I'm sorry, I hope you don't mind me asking, but are you a veela?"
Fleur laughed lightly. "My grandmother was a veela. So yes, I am part veela, but I'm afraid I don't have much of the veelas' magical abilities. I don't have enough veela blood in me. What is your blood?"
"I'm a pureblood wizard."
"What house were you in when you came here?"
"I was in Gryffindor."
"I see. Well, it was nice meeting you Oliver. I'm sure we will run into each other often around here. I'm going to mingle a bit more now."
Oliver glanced across the room at Adrianna. He wanted to get to know her a little better, but it seemed that everyone else did as well. Since no one knew her, all of the teachers were trying to greet her and talk to her. Right now she was talking to Professors Flitwick and Sprout. He heard them both congratulating her on winning the quidditch world cup and felt slightly jealous, but decided not to let it get to him.
He turned to Madam Pomfrey and talked to her for a little while about what he had been up to since he graduated a few years ago. Then he talked to Professor Trelawney for a few minutes. He knew who she was, but since he had never taken divination he didn't know her that well.
"Hi, I'm Oliver Wood."
"Yes, I could sense that. My inner eye is very strong you know."
"Umm, yea. Well, I never had divination when I was a student. I took arithmancy instead, so I don't know much about the inner eye."
"You are a poor lost soul without your inner eye, dear boy. However, there are simply some who aren't meant to be seers."
Oliver was kind of confused, but kept trying to talk to her. "I didn't really see you around a lot when I was a student here. Do you socialize much?"
"I prefer the quiet of my tower room. It better enables me to stay in touch with my inner eye."
"Right then... nice talking to you." He had to admit that she was one of the strangest people he'd ever met. Now he understood why so many students thought that she was a big fraud. She didn't seem to have a clue what she was talking about.
As he finished talking to Professor Trelawney, Professor Dumbledore once again stood at the front of the room.
"This staff meeting had come to an end. You may feel free to stay and socialize for a while, but you are free to leave as well. Breakfast will be at 8 tomorrow morning, and lunch is at noon. Our next staff meeting will be a brief one just after lunch tomorrow. Goodnight everyone."
Oliver noticed that Professor Trelawney was the first one out the door, no doubt to retreat to the quiet of her tower. Then he remembered that he needed the key to his office and ran to catch up to Professor Dumbledore before he left.
"Professor Dumbledore!"
"Yes Oliver, I suppose you'll be wanting the key to your office?"
"Yes sir, how did you know?"
"I realized after I got back to my office that I forgot to give it to you this afternoon, but I suppose you just magicked your way in. Very well, here is your key."
"I had another question if you don't mind, professor."
"Go ahead."
"How do I open the closet where the quidditch things are kept? I know where the closet is and looked for a lock, but there is none."
"There is a password that you must say, and then the closet door will swing open for you. The password for that closet is 'clean game', because that is how quidditch should be played."
"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore."
Oliver decided to go back to his room. He felt like getting ready for bed since it had been such a long day. But just as he was leaving he heard Adrianna saying goodbye to a few professors, so he decided to hang back and wait for her. She saw him standing there by the door.
"Are you waiting for me?" she asked.
"Yes," he said lamely.
"Awww that is so sweet! Thank you."
"Anytime. I was hoping maybe we could talk some more and I could get to know you a little better."
"That would be wonderful. Why don't you come back to my rooms with me? I love them, they're amazing! I can't wait to show you."
Oliver smiled at her enthusiasm and walked with her to her rooms.
As Oliver had never taken Muggle Studies, he wasn't entirely sure of where the classroom or the office was. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was just down the hall from his own office.
"My classroom is the next door down," Adrianna informed him as she opened the door to her office. It was pitch black inside.
"I didn't think about lighting a lamp before I left since it was daylight," she explained as she pulled out her wand.
"Lumos," she said softly and the tip of her wand lit the room. She walked across the light blue rug toward her bookshelf and stopped a few feet in front of it.
"Hot air balloon," she said clearly, and the bookcase swung open to reveal the entrance to her living room.
"Guests first," she said. He walked into her living room and she entered right behind him and pulled the bookshelf shut behind her.
"It's not that big, but let me give you a quick tour anyhow," she said. "Obviously, this is the living room."
She had a bright red couch the same color as his bedspread facing her fireplace, and an off- white area rug. She also had a coffee table, but it was oval-shaped and different from his. Instead of having two armchairs, she had a loveseat that matched the couch facing toward the windows, and there was an end table where the couch and the sofa met. A chandelier lit the room. The most noticeable difference was that instead of having two doors leading to other rooms, there was only one. Where the other door would have been, there was a small kitchen area with a square wooden table and four matching chairs. The sinks and countertops in her kitchen were white marble with gold trim.
"This is the bedroom," she said, opening the door. "It's a mess, I haven't finished unpacking yet." She had the same furniture as he did in the bedroom, only she had a dresser with an oval mirror in addition to the other furniture. Her bedspread was royal blue, and her canopy and curtains were a soft, gauzy white material. She had clothes and other things from home laid out on the bed and falling out of her trunk.
"You have to see the bathroom, it's amazing!" She led him through a door in the bedroom wall.
"It's identical to mine," said Oliver as he looked around.
"Oh, well I guess they give all of the teachers the same furniture, it's probably easier that way."
"Not all of the same furniture. Your bedroom set is the same as mine, but you have a different bedspread and curtains. You have totally different living room furniture than me, and I don't even have a kitchen area. I think they make everything unique for each teacher's tastes."
As they were walking back through the bedroom, Oliver noticed a big ring of brass keys hanging from one of the knobs on the wardrobe.
"What are those for?" he asked.
"My trunk."
"Well then what are the rest of them for?"
"My trunk. They're all for my trunk."
He just looked at her with a puzzled expression.
"It has several compartments," she explained. "Each key opens a different compartment. Would you like to see?"
"Sure."
Adrianna shoved the things into the trunk that were falling out and shut the lid, then selected one of the keys to open it. When she lifted the lid, it the trunk was empty. She opened the trunk five different times with five different keys, and each time the contents of the trunk were different.
"Fascinating. I've never seen a trunk like that before."
She removed something from the last compartment that Oliver had never seen before, and then shut the trunk and hung the keys on the wardrobe and led Oliver out of the bedroom.
"What's that?"
"It's a CD player."
"A what?"
"A CD player."
"How does it work?"
"You honestly don't know what a CD player is? Didn't you ever take Muggle Studies?"
"No."
"A CD player is how muggles listen to music. They go to the store and buy little discs with music copied onto them called Compact Discs, or CDs. Then they put the CDs into the CD player, and there's a laser inside that reads the disc and plays the music. It needs electricity to work."
"Oh, I see. But then it won't work here, the castle doesn't have electricity."
"I know. I'm going to ask Dumbledore to help me bewitch it so that I can use it for my classes this year. And I wouldn't mind listening to it in my rooms either..."
Oliver laughed. "You don't mind breaking the rules, do you?"
"I'm not breaking them. I'm bending them. As long as I have permission it's not breaking the rules. Well, that's the grand tour," said Adrianna with a smile. "Have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?"
"Sure, water is fine."
"Good, because that's all I have right now."
Adrianna went to the kitchen while Oliver took a seat on the couch. She came back a minute or two later with his glass of water and sat down at the other end of the couch.
"I've decided to send an owl to my mom," she said. "My family would think it's weird if I just disappear at some school in Britain and they can't call, can't e-mail, can't even write snail mail letters."
"Call? E-mail?" he questioned.
"Sorry, I've lost you again. They're muggle ways of communication. My mom was used to getting an occasional owl when I went to wizarding school, but she's probably forgotten about it. I'll tell Sunny to just drop it through the mail slot so that it doesn't startle anyone. They have a right to know where I am and what's going on in my life."
"Why can't they just send you an owl?"
"They're muggles, remember? They don't know a whole lot about owl post. But then again, at least I don't have to worry about ever getting a Howler."
"Do you have any other family, or just your parents?"
"I have a younger sister named Leah, but she's a muggle too. I have 20 aunts and uncles and a ton of cousins, I don't even know how many. I suppose I've never really tried to count. I'm the only witch in my entire family, as far as I know."
"Wow, that's a lot of family."
"Yea. How old are you, Oliver?"
"22."
"Really? Me too. When's your birthday?"
"March when's yours?"
"August."
"Oh, happy belated birthday!"
"Thanks."
Just then, they heard a voice from the other side of the bookshelf. "Adrianna? Are you in there? 'Ow do you open ze bookshelf?"
Adrianna got up turned the handle on her side of the bookshelf/door. "Hi Fleur! What's up?"
"I just wanted to come and say 'ello and make sure zat you are getting settled in alright."
"That's so nice of you! Please, come in and have a seat. Do you want anything to drink? I have water."
"Water would be great. Oh, 'ello Oliver, I did not see you there," said Fleur as she sat down on the loveseat.
"It's nice to see you again, too," he replied. He nearly laughed at the combination of their accents. They all sounded so different. There was Fleur's beautiful French accent, Adrianna's distinctly American accent, and his own Scottish accent.
Adrianna got Fleur's glass of water, but instead of returning she stood just outside the doorway to the kitchen. "Do you guys want to play a game or something? I have a deck of cards. We could sit around the coffee table or the kitchen table, it doesn't matter."
"Sure," said Oliver and Fleur at the same time.
"We can sit on the floor around ze coffee table. I am feeling too lazy to get up and move," said Fleur.
Adrianna went into the bedroom and returned a moment later with a deck of cards. She sat on the floor with them and began shuffling the cards.
"Don't you 'ave a self-shuffling deck?" asked Fleur.
"Nope, these are regular muggle playing cards."
"Next time I'll bring my self-shuffling deck," said Oliver. "What are we playing anyhow?"
"How about hearts?" suggested Adrianna.
Everyone agreed, and they played hearts for a couple of hours. Fleur turned out to be an excellent hearts player, and Adrianna wasn't bad either. Oliver hadn't played for a while. He was out of practice, and to the delight of both girls, it showed. Finally, Fleur glanced up at the clock.
"Oh my! It is nearly 1 am! We must go to bed soon if we want to get up in the morning! I am so glad that you 2 are teaching at 'Ogwarts, though. It is nice to 'ave other teachers my own age."
"Thanks Fleur," said Oliver. "I've got a question for you before you go."
"I've got an answer."
"Do we have to go to breakfast tomorrow? I mean, what really matters are the staff meetings, right? So theoretically, I could wake up in time for lunch and then go to the staff meeting. Right?"
Fleur chuckled. "Yes, you may skip breakfast and sleep until noon if you like. Goodnight." And she left through the bookshelf/door.
"I should be leaving, too," said Oliver. "Thanks for letting me hang out here."
"My pleasure. Sweet dreams."
Oliver walked down the hall to his own office and unlocked the door behind the tapestry. He made sure that Lightning had come back and was in her cage, then climbed into bed and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
The next day, Oliver woke up at 11:15. He took a hot bubble bath in his big jacuzzi tub, and then dressed in a set of chocolate brown robes. He let Lightning out to fly around for the day, then left his rooms and locked his door on the way out. He was just emerging from his office when he heard a voice from down the hall.
"Good morning, Oliver. Off to join the monastery I see," teased Adrianna as she walked briskly down the hall towards him. Her jade green robes billowed out behind her, and she wore her hair down again.
"Does it really look that bad?"
"No, I was only teasing. Brown is a good color for you. It brings out your eyes," she said with a smile.
They walked together toward the Great Hall and met Fleur on the stairs.
"Bonjour!" she called to them from the landing below and waited for them to catch up. "So glad you decided to rise and shine and join the rest of us, Oliver," she said and grinned.
The trio walked into the Great Hall together and selected three seats in a row. Oliver sat in between the two girls. Fleur was sitting next to Professor Hathor, and poor Adrianna was stuck next to Professor Trelawney. The other teachers arrived with Professor Dumbledore right behind them.
"I don't know about you all," said Dumbledore, "but I am starving. Dig in."
An array of food appeared in front of them, including both sandwiches and pancakes.
"I took the liberty of asking the house-elves to prepare some breakfast foods for those of us who are late to rise," he said with a wink in Oliver's direction.
After lunch, all of the teachers once again left the hall together and walked into the staff room. Professor Dumbledore stood at the front of the room with a stack of parchment in his hand.
"As promised, this will be a short staff meeting. I have a few announcements to make. As you know, this would be the year in which the next Triwizard tournament would be held. However, in light of the events that took place during the last Triwizard tournament, the Ministry has decided that it is too soon to have one again. We will, however, carry on the tradition of the Yule Ball, so if any of you do not have dress robes I would advise you to purchase some. Now, I have here all of your teaching schedules and your lists of required texts. If you should find that you're missing anything, I might have it to lend to you or you can always buy it in Hogsmeade. I have not planned any more meetings since I want you to have the next few days to prepare your lessons. When I call your name, please come forward."
Adrianna was the first to receive her schedule. When she went up to get it, Dumbledore whispered something to her and she nodded and stood off to the side of the room. The other teachers came forward and took their schedules, then left one by one. Oliver was the last person to get his schedule. He took it and went back up the 5 flights of stairs to his office.
He sat down at his desk and looked over his schedule. It was a light teaching load, but then the quidditch matches and practices weren't included in the schedule. He would have the Slytherins and Gryffindors together on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws together on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In addition, there was a new elective flying class on Fridays for second-years who were not yet confident in their ability to fly. Under required texts was listed Quidditch through the Ages with a little asterisk next to it. Underneath it said that Mondays and Tuesdays were to be used for book instruction, while Tuesdays and Thursdays were for practical application. The second-year class didn't need a textbook.
Oliver sat in his office for a little while with Quidditch through the Ages and began dividing the chapters and topics into lessons that he could teach.
"Lucky I already owned this book. I didn't know I would be teaching lessons from it," he thought to himself as he worked. After a little while, there was a knock on his door.
"Come in," he said and Adrianna stuck her head in the door.
"Hey, I just got done talking to Professor Dumbledore," she said.
"Oh, what did he have to say?"
"Two very interesting things."
"Well, let's hear then," Oliver prodded.
"Muggle Studies has become a required class for all students third year and above, unless they are muggle-born," said Adrianna. "Dumbledore said that in light of recent events, he and eleven of the twelve school governors have decided that all students need to better understand muggle customs and culture. I think it's great, but it means an extra heavy schedule for me. I've got the same number of classes as the other teachers with a full schedule, however, mine are combined classes with considerably more students."
"Wow, I guess you'd better get busy on those lesson plans then."
"Yeah, you're not kidding. What's your schedule like?" she asked, snatching his schedule off the desk. "You lucky duck! You've only got 5 class periods! I've got 28!"
"Yea, but I have quidditch practices and games, too."
"It still doesn't compare to what I have."
"You said there were two very important things," he said, changing the subject. "What was the other one?"
"Dumbledore said that your Minister of Magic has just informed him that the Spanish ambassador to Britain has decided to enroll his son at Hogwarts rather than send him to a school in Spain," said Adrianna.
"Wow that is exciting! But why would he tell you in private rather than just announcing it to the whole staff?"
"Because I speak Spanish, and the ambassador's son doesn't speak much English. I am going to help the boy learn English and help him out with his classes since they will obviously be taught in English."
"Wow, talk about responsibility! Are you sure you'll be able to handle it?"
"I'm sure I will. I might have to give up quidditch though."
Oliver looked horror-stricken. "But you can't! You're the best in the world! You can't just quit!"
"Yes, and what better way to go than on top of the world?"
"Well, I guess if you look at it that way. How old is the ambassador's son, or don't you know?
"He's eleven, and he'll be a first year."
"Excellent. I'll have him for flying lessons then."
"Yeah, just don't get too impatient with him if he doesn't understand every word you say."
Later that night, Oliver was working on his lesson plans. He had been working on them for quite a while, actually. He had done lesson plans for the next couple of months from Quidditch through the Ages, which wasn't all that hard considering that he only needed one lesson plan per week and could use the same lesson plan for all of his classes. Finally, he was sick of lesson plans. He stood up and picked up a jar sitting on one of his shelves that contained a glistening white powder, and then threw a handful of the powder into the fireplace. A white fire immediately appeared in the fireplace.
"Adrianna, why don't you take a break from those lesson plans and hang out here for a while?" he called into the fire.
A few seconds later Adrianna climbed out of the fireplace in front of him. "Of course you couldn't just walk down to my office," she scolded. "You nearly scared the crap out of me!"
Oliver laughed. "Should we call Fleur?"
"Sure why not?"
Oliver called Fleur through the fireplace the same way that he had just called Adrianna, and she too climbed out and brushed the ash off of her light blue silk robes.
"You just wait, Oliver," she said. "One night you will be writing your lessons, and Adrianna and I will yell at you through ze fireplace and scare you, too."
"Thanks for the warning," he replied.
"Fleur those are really nice robes," said Adrianna. "I meant to say something earlier but I forgot."
"Zese old things! Zey are my old Beauxbatons uniform robes. But I thank you for ze compliment."
"Do you guys want to play some exploding snap and get our mind off of lessons for a while?" asked Oliver.
"Sure," said the girls, and they all went into Oliver's living room and played started playing exploding snap.
"So, peeps, is there anything that I should know about Hogwarts that I don't? You know, anything I should watch out for?" asked Adrianna while they were playing exploding snap.
"Peeves," said Oliver almost immediately. "He's our resident poltergeist. I'm surprised you haven't run into him yet. He wreaks havoc wherever he goes. If you run into him when you're late, he's worth 2 locked doors and a trick staircase."
"And Moaning Myrtle," said Fleur. "She is a ghost zat 'aunts ze girl's bathroom downstairs, ze one zat 'as ze out-of-order sign 'anging on ze door. Best not to use zat one if you can 'elp it."
"There's a ghost for each house," Oliver added. "The Fat Friar for Hufflepuff, the Grey Lady for Ravenclaw, Sir Nicholas for Gryffindor, and the Bloody Barron for Slytherin. The Bloody Barron is the only one who can control Peeves."
"Zen of course there are ze moving staircases and ze trick staircases zat Oliver mentioned, and certain classrooms zat only appear on specific days of ze week."
"And you should know what kind of students each house typically has. Hufflepuff looks for hard workers, Ravenclaw looks for the clever ones, Gryffindor the brave, and Slytherin the ones who seek power. Slytherins are the ones you'll have to watch out for. They turn out a lot of dark wizards, and some of them think that because they're pure bloods they're better than everyone else. They won't be very happy about having to take Muggle Studies this year."
"Wow, good thing I asked," said Adrianna as the card that she had just put down exploded.
They played exploding snap for a little while longer, and then said goodnight to each other and the girls left. Oliver changed into his pajamas, brushed his teeth and went to bed.
"So nice of you to join us, Sibyl," said Professor Snape a little sarcastically.
She chose to ignore him and instead turned her attention to Professor Dumbledore.
"Now that we have all arrived, let's eat!" said Professor Dumbledore, and several overflowing dishes appeared in front of them.
Dinner lasted for about an hour. Nobody really said much during the meal because they were all busy enjoying the delicious food. When everyone was finished, the entire staff left the Great Hall together and headed for the staff room. They filed into the room a few at a time, with most of them standing since there were only a few chairs. Professor Dumbledore made his way to the front of the room.
"Everyone form a circle," he said loud enough for everyone to hear. "I want you all to be able to see each other."
After they had formed a circle he said, "Now, we are going to have a little icebreaker since we have a few new teachers this year. We are going to go around the circle. I want you to give your name and your position or positions here at Hogwarts. I will begin. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry."
"Pomona Sprout, professor of Herbology and head of Hufflepuff house."
"Rubeus Hagrid, teacher of Care of Magical Creatures and Hogwarts gamekeeper."
"Adrianna Brighton, professor of Muggle Studies."
"Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, professor of Transfiguration and head of Gryffindor house."
"Poppy Pomfrey, Hogwarts nurse."
"Oliver Wood, flying instructor and quidditch coach."
"Elena Sinistra, professor of Astronomy."
"Filius Flitwick, professor of Charms and head of Ravenclaw house."
"Elizabeth Vector, professor of Arithmancy."
"Fleur Delacour, professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Sibyl Trelawney, professor of Divination."
"Severus Snape, professor of Potions and head of Slytherin House."
"Irma Pince, Librarian."
"Argus Filch, Caretaker of Hogwarts."
"Eva Hathor, professor of The Study of Ancient Runes."
"Excellent, excellent," said Professor Dumbledore. "Well, now that you all know each other, I want you to spend the rest of this meeting getting to know each other a little bit better."
As the introductions were ending, Professor Binns floated into the room through one of the walls. Oliver heard a small gasp from Adrianna, who hadn't been expecting a ghost teacher.
"So sorry I'm late, I must have dozed off. What have I missed?" Professor Binns asked Dumbledore.
"We were just finishing up introductions."
"Oh, I see. Well, I'm Charles Binns, professor of History of Magic. And incidentally, the only ghost teacher at Hogwarts."
"Alright, now please mingle and try to get to know someone that you don't know very well," said Professor Dumbledore.
Oliver looked around for the beautiful veela-like girl and saw her approaching him. He knew most of the other teachers, but he didn't recognize her at all.
"Hello, I am Fleur Delacour. I thought you might not remember my name since you're new and there are so many new faces."
"Actually, I was a student here a few years ago, so I know most of the professors already."
"Really? When did you graduate?"
"Four years ago."
"Ah, you were not here when I was in the Triwizard Tournament. You graduated the year before."
"Wow! You were the girl in the Triwizard tournament? That's brilliant!"
Fleur blushed slightly. "Thanks."
"How long have you been teaching here?"
"For 3 years. I started teaching the term after I graduated from Beauxbatons. I came here so that I could improve my English, and I must say, I think it's working."
"How old are you?"
"I'm 21, and my birthday is in May. How about you?"
"I'm 22, and my birthday is in March. I'm sorry, I hope you don't mind me asking, but are you a veela?"
Fleur laughed lightly. "My grandmother was a veela. So yes, I am part veela, but I'm afraid I don't have much of the veelas' magical abilities. I don't have enough veela blood in me. What is your blood?"
"I'm a pureblood wizard."
"What house were you in when you came here?"
"I was in Gryffindor."
"I see. Well, it was nice meeting you Oliver. I'm sure we will run into each other often around here. I'm going to mingle a bit more now."
Oliver glanced across the room at Adrianna. He wanted to get to know her a little better, but it seemed that everyone else did as well. Since no one knew her, all of the teachers were trying to greet her and talk to her. Right now she was talking to Professors Flitwick and Sprout. He heard them both congratulating her on winning the quidditch world cup and felt slightly jealous, but decided not to let it get to him.
He turned to Madam Pomfrey and talked to her for a little while about what he had been up to since he graduated a few years ago. Then he talked to Professor Trelawney for a few minutes. He knew who she was, but since he had never taken divination he didn't know her that well.
"Hi, I'm Oliver Wood."
"Yes, I could sense that. My inner eye is very strong you know."
"Umm, yea. Well, I never had divination when I was a student. I took arithmancy instead, so I don't know much about the inner eye."
"You are a poor lost soul without your inner eye, dear boy. However, there are simply some who aren't meant to be seers."
Oliver was kind of confused, but kept trying to talk to her. "I didn't really see you around a lot when I was a student here. Do you socialize much?"
"I prefer the quiet of my tower room. It better enables me to stay in touch with my inner eye."
"Right then... nice talking to you." He had to admit that she was one of the strangest people he'd ever met. Now he understood why so many students thought that she was a big fraud. She didn't seem to have a clue what she was talking about.
As he finished talking to Professor Trelawney, Professor Dumbledore once again stood at the front of the room.
"This staff meeting had come to an end. You may feel free to stay and socialize for a while, but you are free to leave as well. Breakfast will be at 8 tomorrow morning, and lunch is at noon. Our next staff meeting will be a brief one just after lunch tomorrow. Goodnight everyone."
Oliver noticed that Professor Trelawney was the first one out the door, no doubt to retreat to the quiet of her tower. Then he remembered that he needed the key to his office and ran to catch up to Professor Dumbledore before he left.
"Professor Dumbledore!"
"Yes Oliver, I suppose you'll be wanting the key to your office?"
"Yes sir, how did you know?"
"I realized after I got back to my office that I forgot to give it to you this afternoon, but I suppose you just magicked your way in. Very well, here is your key."
"I had another question if you don't mind, professor."
"Go ahead."
"How do I open the closet where the quidditch things are kept? I know where the closet is and looked for a lock, but there is none."
"There is a password that you must say, and then the closet door will swing open for you. The password for that closet is 'clean game', because that is how quidditch should be played."
"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore."
Oliver decided to go back to his room. He felt like getting ready for bed since it had been such a long day. But just as he was leaving he heard Adrianna saying goodbye to a few professors, so he decided to hang back and wait for her. She saw him standing there by the door.
"Are you waiting for me?" she asked.
"Yes," he said lamely.
"Awww that is so sweet! Thank you."
"Anytime. I was hoping maybe we could talk some more and I could get to know you a little better."
"That would be wonderful. Why don't you come back to my rooms with me? I love them, they're amazing! I can't wait to show you."
Oliver smiled at her enthusiasm and walked with her to her rooms.
As Oliver had never taken Muggle Studies, he wasn't entirely sure of where the classroom or the office was. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was just down the hall from his own office.
"My classroom is the next door down," Adrianna informed him as she opened the door to her office. It was pitch black inside.
"I didn't think about lighting a lamp before I left since it was daylight," she explained as she pulled out her wand.
"Lumos," she said softly and the tip of her wand lit the room. She walked across the light blue rug toward her bookshelf and stopped a few feet in front of it.
"Hot air balloon," she said clearly, and the bookcase swung open to reveal the entrance to her living room.
"Guests first," she said. He walked into her living room and she entered right behind him and pulled the bookshelf shut behind her.
"It's not that big, but let me give you a quick tour anyhow," she said. "Obviously, this is the living room."
She had a bright red couch the same color as his bedspread facing her fireplace, and an off- white area rug. She also had a coffee table, but it was oval-shaped and different from his. Instead of having two armchairs, she had a loveseat that matched the couch facing toward the windows, and there was an end table where the couch and the sofa met. A chandelier lit the room. The most noticeable difference was that instead of having two doors leading to other rooms, there was only one. Where the other door would have been, there was a small kitchen area with a square wooden table and four matching chairs. The sinks and countertops in her kitchen were white marble with gold trim.
"This is the bedroom," she said, opening the door. "It's a mess, I haven't finished unpacking yet." She had the same furniture as he did in the bedroom, only she had a dresser with an oval mirror in addition to the other furniture. Her bedspread was royal blue, and her canopy and curtains were a soft, gauzy white material. She had clothes and other things from home laid out on the bed and falling out of her trunk.
"You have to see the bathroom, it's amazing!" She led him through a door in the bedroom wall.
"It's identical to mine," said Oliver as he looked around.
"Oh, well I guess they give all of the teachers the same furniture, it's probably easier that way."
"Not all of the same furniture. Your bedroom set is the same as mine, but you have a different bedspread and curtains. You have totally different living room furniture than me, and I don't even have a kitchen area. I think they make everything unique for each teacher's tastes."
As they were walking back through the bedroom, Oliver noticed a big ring of brass keys hanging from one of the knobs on the wardrobe.
"What are those for?" he asked.
"My trunk."
"Well then what are the rest of them for?"
"My trunk. They're all for my trunk."
He just looked at her with a puzzled expression.
"It has several compartments," she explained. "Each key opens a different compartment. Would you like to see?"
"Sure."
Adrianna shoved the things into the trunk that were falling out and shut the lid, then selected one of the keys to open it. When she lifted the lid, it the trunk was empty. She opened the trunk five different times with five different keys, and each time the contents of the trunk were different.
"Fascinating. I've never seen a trunk like that before."
She removed something from the last compartment that Oliver had never seen before, and then shut the trunk and hung the keys on the wardrobe and led Oliver out of the bedroom.
"What's that?"
"It's a CD player."
"A what?"
"A CD player."
"How does it work?"
"You honestly don't know what a CD player is? Didn't you ever take Muggle Studies?"
"No."
"A CD player is how muggles listen to music. They go to the store and buy little discs with music copied onto them called Compact Discs, or CDs. Then they put the CDs into the CD player, and there's a laser inside that reads the disc and plays the music. It needs electricity to work."
"Oh, I see. But then it won't work here, the castle doesn't have electricity."
"I know. I'm going to ask Dumbledore to help me bewitch it so that I can use it for my classes this year. And I wouldn't mind listening to it in my rooms either..."
Oliver laughed. "You don't mind breaking the rules, do you?"
"I'm not breaking them. I'm bending them. As long as I have permission it's not breaking the rules. Well, that's the grand tour," said Adrianna with a smile. "Have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?"
"Sure, water is fine."
"Good, because that's all I have right now."
Adrianna went to the kitchen while Oliver took a seat on the couch. She came back a minute or two later with his glass of water and sat down at the other end of the couch.
"I've decided to send an owl to my mom," she said. "My family would think it's weird if I just disappear at some school in Britain and they can't call, can't e-mail, can't even write snail mail letters."
"Call? E-mail?" he questioned.
"Sorry, I've lost you again. They're muggle ways of communication. My mom was used to getting an occasional owl when I went to wizarding school, but she's probably forgotten about it. I'll tell Sunny to just drop it through the mail slot so that it doesn't startle anyone. They have a right to know where I am and what's going on in my life."
"Why can't they just send you an owl?"
"They're muggles, remember? They don't know a whole lot about owl post. But then again, at least I don't have to worry about ever getting a Howler."
"Do you have any other family, or just your parents?"
"I have a younger sister named Leah, but she's a muggle too. I have 20 aunts and uncles and a ton of cousins, I don't even know how many. I suppose I've never really tried to count. I'm the only witch in my entire family, as far as I know."
"Wow, that's a lot of family."
"Yea. How old are you, Oliver?"
"22."
"Really? Me too. When's your birthday?"
"March when's yours?"
"August."
"Oh, happy belated birthday!"
"Thanks."
Just then, they heard a voice from the other side of the bookshelf. "Adrianna? Are you in there? 'Ow do you open ze bookshelf?"
Adrianna got up turned the handle on her side of the bookshelf/door. "Hi Fleur! What's up?"
"I just wanted to come and say 'ello and make sure zat you are getting settled in alright."
"That's so nice of you! Please, come in and have a seat. Do you want anything to drink? I have water."
"Water would be great. Oh, 'ello Oliver, I did not see you there," said Fleur as she sat down on the loveseat.
"It's nice to see you again, too," he replied. He nearly laughed at the combination of their accents. They all sounded so different. There was Fleur's beautiful French accent, Adrianna's distinctly American accent, and his own Scottish accent.
Adrianna got Fleur's glass of water, but instead of returning she stood just outside the doorway to the kitchen. "Do you guys want to play a game or something? I have a deck of cards. We could sit around the coffee table or the kitchen table, it doesn't matter."
"Sure," said Oliver and Fleur at the same time.
"We can sit on the floor around ze coffee table. I am feeling too lazy to get up and move," said Fleur.
Adrianna went into the bedroom and returned a moment later with a deck of cards. She sat on the floor with them and began shuffling the cards.
"Don't you 'ave a self-shuffling deck?" asked Fleur.
"Nope, these are regular muggle playing cards."
"Next time I'll bring my self-shuffling deck," said Oliver. "What are we playing anyhow?"
"How about hearts?" suggested Adrianna.
Everyone agreed, and they played hearts for a couple of hours. Fleur turned out to be an excellent hearts player, and Adrianna wasn't bad either. Oliver hadn't played for a while. He was out of practice, and to the delight of both girls, it showed. Finally, Fleur glanced up at the clock.
"Oh my! It is nearly 1 am! We must go to bed soon if we want to get up in the morning! I am so glad that you 2 are teaching at 'Ogwarts, though. It is nice to 'ave other teachers my own age."
"Thanks Fleur," said Oliver. "I've got a question for you before you go."
"I've got an answer."
"Do we have to go to breakfast tomorrow? I mean, what really matters are the staff meetings, right? So theoretically, I could wake up in time for lunch and then go to the staff meeting. Right?"
Fleur chuckled. "Yes, you may skip breakfast and sleep until noon if you like. Goodnight." And she left through the bookshelf/door.
"I should be leaving, too," said Oliver. "Thanks for letting me hang out here."
"My pleasure. Sweet dreams."
Oliver walked down the hall to his own office and unlocked the door behind the tapestry. He made sure that Lightning had come back and was in her cage, then climbed into bed and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
The next day, Oliver woke up at 11:15. He took a hot bubble bath in his big jacuzzi tub, and then dressed in a set of chocolate brown robes. He let Lightning out to fly around for the day, then left his rooms and locked his door on the way out. He was just emerging from his office when he heard a voice from down the hall.
"Good morning, Oliver. Off to join the monastery I see," teased Adrianna as she walked briskly down the hall towards him. Her jade green robes billowed out behind her, and she wore her hair down again.
"Does it really look that bad?"
"No, I was only teasing. Brown is a good color for you. It brings out your eyes," she said with a smile.
They walked together toward the Great Hall and met Fleur on the stairs.
"Bonjour!" she called to them from the landing below and waited for them to catch up. "So glad you decided to rise and shine and join the rest of us, Oliver," she said and grinned.
The trio walked into the Great Hall together and selected three seats in a row. Oliver sat in between the two girls. Fleur was sitting next to Professor Hathor, and poor Adrianna was stuck next to Professor Trelawney. The other teachers arrived with Professor Dumbledore right behind them.
"I don't know about you all," said Dumbledore, "but I am starving. Dig in."
An array of food appeared in front of them, including both sandwiches and pancakes.
"I took the liberty of asking the house-elves to prepare some breakfast foods for those of us who are late to rise," he said with a wink in Oliver's direction.
After lunch, all of the teachers once again left the hall together and walked into the staff room. Professor Dumbledore stood at the front of the room with a stack of parchment in his hand.
"As promised, this will be a short staff meeting. I have a few announcements to make. As you know, this would be the year in which the next Triwizard tournament would be held. However, in light of the events that took place during the last Triwizard tournament, the Ministry has decided that it is too soon to have one again. We will, however, carry on the tradition of the Yule Ball, so if any of you do not have dress robes I would advise you to purchase some. Now, I have here all of your teaching schedules and your lists of required texts. If you should find that you're missing anything, I might have it to lend to you or you can always buy it in Hogsmeade. I have not planned any more meetings since I want you to have the next few days to prepare your lessons. When I call your name, please come forward."
Adrianna was the first to receive her schedule. When she went up to get it, Dumbledore whispered something to her and she nodded and stood off to the side of the room. The other teachers came forward and took their schedules, then left one by one. Oliver was the last person to get his schedule. He took it and went back up the 5 flights of stairs to his office.
He sat down at his desk and looked over his schedule. It was a light teaching load, but then the quidditch matches and practices weren't included in the schedule. He would have the Slytherins and Gryffindors together on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws together on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In addition, there was a new elective flying class on Fridays for second-years who were not yet confident in their ability to fly. Under required texts was listed Quidditch through the Ages with a little asterisk next to it. Underneath it said that Mondays and Tuesdays were to be used for book instruction, while Tuesdays and Thursdays were for practical application. The second-year class didn't need a textbook.
Oliver sat in his office for a little while with Quidditch through the Ages and began dividing the chapters and topics into lessons that he could teach.
"Lucky I already owned this book. I didn't know I would be teaching lessons from it," he thought to himself as he worked. After a little while, there was a knock on his door.
"Come in," he said and Adrianna stuck her head in the door.
"Hey, I just got done talking to Professor Dumbledore," she said.
"Oh, what did he have to say?"
"Two very interesting things."
"Well, let's hear then," Oliver prodded.
"Muggle Studies has become a required class for all students third year and above, unless they are muggle-born," said Adrianna. "Dumbledore said that in light of recent events, he and eleven of the twelve school governors have decided that all students need to better understand muggle customs and culture. I think it's great, but it means an extra heavy schedule for me. I've got the same number of classes as the other teachers with a full schedule, however, mine are combined classes with considerably more students."
"Wow, I guess you'd better get busy on those lesson plans then."
"Yeah, you're not kidding. What's your schedule like?" she asked, snatching his schedule off the desk. "You lucky duck! You've only got 5 class periods! I've got 28!"
"Yea, but I have quidditch practices and games, too."
"It still doesn't compare to what I have."
"You said there were two very important things," he said, changing the subject. "What was the other one?"
"Dumbledore said that your Minister of Magic has just informed him that the Spanish ambassador to Britain has decided to enroll his son at Hogwarts rather than send him to a school in Spain," said Adrianna.
"Wow that is exciting! But why would he tell you in private rather than just announcing it to the whole staff?"
"Because I speak Spanish, and the ambassador's son doesn't speak much English. I am going to help the boy learn English and help him out with his classes since they will obviously be taught in English."
"Wow, talk about responsibility! Are you sure you'll be able to handle it?"
"I'm sure I will. I might have to give up quidditch though."
Oliver looked horror-stricken. "But you can't! You're the best in the world! You can't just quit!"
"Yes, and what better way to go than on top of the world?"
"Well, I guess if you look at it that way. How old is the ambassador's son, or don't you know?
"He's eleven, and he'll be a first year."
"Excellent. I'll have him for flying lessons then."
"Yeah, just don't get too impatient with him if he doesn't understand every word you say."
Later that night, Oliver was working on his lesson plans. He had been working on them for quite a while, actually. He had done lesson plans for the next couple of months from Quidditch through the Ages, which wasn't all that hard considering that he only needed one lesson plan per week and could use the same lesson plan for all of his classes. Finally, he was sick of lesson plans. He stood up and picked up a jar sitting on one of his shelves that contained a glistening white powder, and then threw a handful of the powder into the fireplace. A white fire immediately appeared in the fireplace.
"Adrianna, why don't you take a break from those lesson plans and hang out here for a while?" he called into the fire.
A few seconds later Adrianna climbed out of the fireplace in front of him. "Of course you couldn't just walk down to my office," she scolded. "You nearly scared the crap out of me!"
Oliver laughed. "Should we call Fleur?"
"Sure why not?"
Oliver called Fleur through the fireplace the same way that he had just called Adrianna, and she too climbed out and brushed the ash off of her light blue silk robes.
"You just wait, Oliver," she said. "One night you will be writing your lessons, and Adrianna and I will yell at you through ze fireplace and scare you, too."
"Thanks for the warning," he replied.
"Fleur those are really nice robes," said Adrianna. "I meant to say something earlier but I forgot."
"Zese old things! Zey are my old Beauxbatons uniform robes. But I thank you for ze compliment."
"Do you guys want to play some exploding snap and get our mind off of lessons for a while?" asked Oliver.
"Sure," said the girls, and they all went into Oliver's living room and played started playing exploding snap.
"So, peeps, is there anything that I should know about Hogwarts that I don't? You know, anything I should watch out for?" asked Adrianna while they were playing exploding snap.
"Peeves," said Oliver almost immediately. "He's our resident poltergeist. I'm surprised you haven't run into him yet. He wreaks havoc wherever he goes. If you run into him when you're late, he's worth 2 locked doors and a trick staircase."
"And Moaning Myrtle," said Fleur. "She is a ghost zat 'aunts ze girl's bathroom downstairs, ze one zat 'as ze out-of-order sign 'anging on ze door. Best not to use zat one if you can 'elp it."
"There's a ghost for each house," Oliver added. "The Fat Friar for Hufflepuff, the Grey Lady for Ravenclaw, Sir Nicholas for Gryffindor, and the Bloody Barron for Slytherin. The Bloody Barron is the only one who can control Peeves."
"Zen of course there are ze moving staircases and ze trick staircases zat Oliver mentioned, and certain classrooms zat only appear on specific days of ze week."
"And you should know what kind of students each house typically has. Hufflepuff looks for hard workers, Ravenclaw looks for the clever ones, Gryffindor the brave, and Slytherin the ones who seek power. Slytherins are the ones you'll have to watch out for. They turn out a lot of dark wizards, and some of them think that because they're pure bloods they're better than everyone else. They won't be very happy about having to take Muggle Studies this year."
"Wow, good thing I asked," said Adrianna as the card that she had just put down exploded.
They played exploding snap for a little while longer, and then said goodnight to each other and the girls left. Oliver changed into his pajamas, brushed his teeth and went to bed.