Author's Note: Anybody know how to persuade ff.net to accept html codes? Or should I just format this in Word with all my italics etc. and will it work here if I do?
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Severus Snape was dreaming.
iThe look in her eyes was terrible. It was the end of the school year. She'd been very quiet for the last two trimesters of school, and he'd almost been worried, although he had had other distractions.
"Please, Severus, I need your help-"/i
He woke up with a start. All he could remember was a pair of dark, terrified eyes, but he knew that he was not the reason they were scared.
He lay back in bed, trying to remember his dream. He noticed sunlight peeking in behind his curtains, and cursed under his breath when he realized he'd overslept. It was the first day of term, and by the look of the light, he had only a few hours until the train would reach Hogsmeade. He still hadn't finished restocking his private stores for the new year. He hurriedly dressed for his trip to Diagon Alley.
hr
As the train pulled out of King's Cross Station on September First of her seventh year, Hermione Granger thought back to a conversation between her and her parents on the eve of her first time on this train, six years earlier...
i"Hermione, darling, could you come in here for a few minutes? There's something I've been meaning to tell you... well, your father and I, really..."
Hermione followed her mother's voice into the living room, the night before she left for Hogwarts the first time. "What's up, Mum?"
Mark and Carol Granger looked at each other for a moment, and at an unnoticed signal from Carol, Mark began talking.
"Mina, my dear child, there's something we've been meaning to tell you for quite some time. We've been talking about how we were going to tell you, and there really isn't any easy way of doing this –"
Hermione interrupted. "Please don't tell me that you're not letting me go to Hogwarts, after all my preparations-!"
"No, no, nothing like that, dearheart. That's not the problem at all... although I suppose that is why we're telling you this now..."
"Oh, Mark, you're upsetting her. I knew I had to tell her this myself, you're going about it all wrong. Mina, love, I don't know if I'm ready to tell you this, but I think you're ready to hear it. And your father is right, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it and pretend it sounded pretty – Hermione, dear, well, you're adopted..." Carol Granger unexpectedly found herself in tears, at finally saying it aloud to her daughter, to the girl she'd raised from birth, who she loved with all her heart.
Hermione, to say the least, was somewhat startled by her mother's news. Later, over a midnight tea, her mother told her everything she knew – not that there was very much. Chances were that her father was a wizard, at least; the adoption agency had disappeared at most six months after the paperwork was finished, and she couldn't have been more than seven months old at the time. They had never met her mother. The man who they assumed was her father had been very tall, with long black hair, dark eyes, and a velvet voice; more than ten years after she'd seen him, Carol Granger couldn't remember anything more than that to tell her daughter.
"Remember, Mina, that we will always love you, even if you aren't our blood – and maybe you'll find a way to learn who your real family is." At this, Carol's eyes grew mutinous on her again, and she had to reach for a napkin to stifle a fresh wave of tears.
"Oh come on, now, mum, you'll always be my mother, no matter what..." Hermione gave her mother a hug, and they fell asleep on the couch together.
She had been very out-of-sorts on the train the next day, and matters hadn't continued very well the first two months at her new school, either./i
Hermione came back to herself with a start, hearing something she hadn't really been expecting to hear from her companions on the train.
"No, no, no, you've got it all wrong. Ostriches rule the world! It was in a poll!"
She couldn't stop staring at her friends, as her instant audio replay convinced her that she had in fact heard what she thought she had. "What on earth are you three talking about?"
She saw Harry roll his eyes at Ginny, who blushed and looked down at her hands. Ron was oblivious, and proceeded to explain that he and Harry were having an argument about ostriches and lobsters. Somehow it was related to Quidditch. He didn't realize that he'd completely lost Hermione after the first sentence.
She leaned back in her seat with a sigh and pretended to pay attention to her friend, waiting for the train to reach Hogsmeade. She didn't even notice when Ginny got up to leave the car.
hr
Outside in the passageway of the train, sixteen-year-old Virginia Weasley rocked back on her heels at the sight that met her gaze. Draco Malfoy, a young man who once had the misfortune to be turned into a ferret, and now bore little resemblance to the prat he had been at that age, was not iquite/i yelling at his companions of the past six years. He looked incredibly impatient as he hissed at Crabbe and Goyle to shut up, to quit trying to think, to just leave him be, dammit. Ginny swayed as the scene was superimposed by a wisp of memory – iDraco yelling, Lucius the one hissing now, slamming doors, Narcissa weeping/i – and realized that the only reason she hadn't fallen was because the very object of her contemplations had caught her. She blushed a furious shade of red, outshining her own hair. She looked into the grey eyes that were inches away from her own. Draco's eyebrows were knit, his eyes filled with a look she'd seen before, though not from him – she never would have expected to see it from him – confusion, a bit of concern, and just a touch of thoughtfulness. For just a moment, he looked almost innocent.
Ginny pushed herself back up to her feet and pulled away from him. Glancing behind him, she was relieved to discover that Crabbe and Goyle had missed her near fall due to a fortuitous distraction by the lunch cart. She looked back at Draco and saw the same disdainful sneer that usually inhabited his face.
"What's wrong, Weasley? Has your family gotten so poor you can't even afford to keep your balance anymore?" As a joke, it barely deserved a groan; as an insult, it wasn't much worse. Ginny decided to ignore it completely.
She stepped back, about to return to the compartment holding her brother and friends, but she had a nagging feeling that the scene in the passage wasn't finished. She took a quiet breath to calm herself. "Malfoy." She nodded to him, trying to tell her eyes to thank him for catching her. Perhaps it worked; at any rate, his eyes widened for a moment, almost in respect, and then he, too, stepped back, and in a much more subdued voice replied.
"Weasley." He nodded back to her.
She dropped her eyes to the floor for a moment, then looked back up at him, feeling one corner of her mouth twitching up into the start of a grin, and hurriedly turned down the hallway before she broke out into a smile. There were few things that traveled as fast as gossip amongst teenagers, and she knew that if she'd openly smiled at Draco Malfoy without gloating over some trick she'd played on him, tongues would be wagging for half the year. She made her exit, and quietly sat next to Hermione for the rest of the journey, ignoring Ron, Harry, and Hermione alike, and thinking about what she'd seen.
hr
Snape was having a terrible day.
His suppliers in Diagon Alley had been sluggish, and his temper was smoldering. His trip to Kansas City was worse.
He'd been planning for some time now to invest in a Muggle chemistry set. Ideas for several potions that utilized ingredients not found in the Wizarding world had been fermenting in the back of his mind for years, and an article published in last week's iArs Alchemica/i had pushed him to hurry up his timeframe. Mortimer Munkfrede, a notable German/American Potions Master, had been experimenting with Muggle chemistry himself, and had published an article which had rather infuriated Snape – infuriated him because the ideas were ones he'd had years before, but had never bothered to publish. Now, Munkfrede was rapidly becoming more famous than any Potions Master for the last half-century, and for nothing that Snape hadn't already considered (and in some cases, discarded) nearly a decade ago.
He muttered under his breath as he pushed through unfathomable crowds in the Plaza. Why on earth were all these Muggles out and about? A sign in a nearby shop caught his eye, answering his question – "Labor Day Sale! Up to 50% Off Selected Items!" He growled and raised his eyes to the heavens, asking why this had to be happening to him today. He ducked into a nearby restaurant in hopes of catching a quiet moment before finishing up his shopping.
And he found one, although he would have sworn someone was breaking a statute against using magic in the Muggle world to provide for it. He walked upstairs to the bar and did a double take; the woman standing behind it cleaning glasses was the spitting image of Rosmerta from the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. He looked at her rather quizzically for a moment, and her rather large grin at seeing his expression didn't really help his mood any. He seated himself at one end of a long table in the center of the room, and waited as she set down the glass she was working on to come over to the table.
"Hey there, handsome. I seem to have lost my name, can I have yours?" The gleam in her eyes was enough to let him forgive the horrible line, and he almost smiled at her.
"Sev- I mean, my name's Stephen, and I cannot believe that a lady so lovely could possibly have forgotten her own name. I beg that you reveal it to me, for surely you must have a lovely name to go with your lovely face." Hah. That would show her. He could still be a gentleman when he chose, although he did not often reveal this side of himself.
She laughed outright. "My, aren't you a cheeky one? Well, Stephen, my name is Iris, and this is my bar, so tell me what you want, and if I feel like giving it to you, I shall." She continued to grin at him.
"Well, beautiful Iris, I am sure that you know the contents of your pub far better than I possibly could, so I beg that you offer what relief you deem proper for a poor man stuck shopping in the middle of a Labor Day crowd." He smiled back at her, wishing that the expression didn't feel so out of place. Perhaps this day would improve yet - if he managed to make it back to Hogwarts before the start-of-term feast, at any rate.
He spent a rather enjoyable hour and a half flirting with the barmaid, and consuming rather a better meal than he had expected. She glanced over at him when he had finished, taking a long look at him. He returned her gaze evenly.
She smiled at him again, a quieter smile this time. "Well, Stephen, I think you'll find that most of the crowds have gone now. I hope the rest of your shopping expedition goes more smoothly without them. And I hope I'll see you soon."
She walked him to the register, where he tipped her nearly two-thirds the price of the meal, and then bowed over her hand. "Thank you, madam, for a most enjoyable meal. I shall certainly strive to return before another year has passed, but should I fail to do so, I devoutly hope to see you a year from today." And he turned around and walked to the door, noting the rather bemused smile on her face as he straightened. "Iris." He tipped an imaginary hat in her direction, smiled once again, and stepped out the door.
He found himself in a much better mood indeed as he finished his shopping. Iris's prediction was right, as the majority of the crowds had indeed disappeared. Around the corner, he found a school supply store, and managed to convince the clerk that he had a son who was very interested in chemistry, and who wanted a chemistry set of his own for the beginning of the school year. Snape left the store, no longer in possession of most of his Muggle money, but far richer so far as he was concerned – the clerk had been very helpful, indeed, to the point he was surprised that "Stephen" hadn't arranged for his purchases to be shipped. In fact, Snape was practically staggering under the weight of his purchases, and was relieved when he reached a quiet alley where he could Disapparate back to Hogsmeade.
After briefly stopping in at the Three Broomsticks to ask Rosmerta if she had a twin sister, at which she burst into peals of laughter and refused to give him any more answer than that, Snape finally returned to Hogwarts, the whistle of the Hogwarts Express carrying to his ears on the breeze.
Even being able to levitate his new toys to the dungeons and his private laboratory could not speed his journey enough, and Snape was rather resigned to being tardy to the start-of-term feast after all. It wasn't as though he ever tried to be late; in fact, he usually strove to be punctual. Somehow, however, he was almost always late to this particular feast, despite Dumbledore's best efforts to entice his presence. At any rate, Snape was most unwilling to just leave his new toys lying about like so much rubbish – who knew what the house elves would do, given the opportunity? The Muggle chemistry set looked like nothing in the Wizarding world, and Snape was not at all looking forward to the chance of having the lot of it thrown out. He organized his new purchases as best he could in the time he had, and hurried to the Great Hall.
He'd timed his entrance better than he thought – most of the students were already in their places, with only the First Years waiting to enter. He made his way to his normal place at the far end of the High Table, and waited for Dumbledore's speech and for dinner. After Iris's lovely midday meal, he was not nearly so hungry as he normally was, but even so, he would not have been allowed a moment's peace if he'd tried to skip the first meal of the term.
Snape watched as the First Years made their first entrance to the Great Hall, idly guessing to himself who was Muggleborn, who was Pureblood, who would be sorted into which house, and who would be most likely to melt cauldrons. He was not looking forward to those, and was privately relieved that none looked likely to be as bad as Longbottom. He waited impatiently as Minerva McGonagall called them each by name, and as the Sorting Hat dealt with them as it saw fit. He dutifully applauded whenever someone was sorted into Slytherin, but otherwise couldn't be bothered. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief when they were done and Dumbledore stood up.
hr
The old wizard looked around the Hall for a moment, taking in the rather large number of new students – nearly eighty, a number which added considerably to the school's population, The castle had been rather aggravated lately, what with having to expand all the dormitories and several of the classrooms. Dumbledore fervently hoped that the Wizarding population wasn't expanding simply because it expected to be severely cut down in the next few years' time, but he was afraid that was exactly why. There were stranger and older magics in the land than even those he knew of, and it would not surprise him in the least if that were indeed the case. He only hoped that this time, Nature would be proven wrong.
He came back to himself after a moment's hesitation, and cleared his throat. "Well, my students, I bid you welcome back to these halls, and I hope that you had enjoyable and uneventful summers. I'd like to remind you all that the Forbidden Forest is just that, forbidden, and any students caught out in the forest will be serving detention with Argus Filch, our caretaker. Also, the Restricted Section of the Library is currently unavailable to anyone but the faculty, as the castle has decided to update its books and they are not yet catalogued. Prefects will take the First Years to their dorm rooms after the meal. I invite you to enjoy the feast!" And with those words, all hell broke loose in the Great Hall as the students took him at his word.
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Severus Snape was dreaming.
iThe look in her eyes was terrible. It was the end of the school year. She'd been very quiet for the last two trimesters of school, and he'd almost been worried, although he had had other distractions.
"Please, Severus, I need your help-"/i
He woke up with a start. All he could remember was a pair of dark, terrified eyes, but he knew that he was not the reason they were scared.
He lay back in bed, trying to remember his dream. He noticed sunlight peeking in behind his curtains, and cursed under his breath when he realized he'd overslept. It was the first day of term, and by the look of the light, he had only a few hours until the train would reach Hogsmeade. He still hadn't finished restocking his private stores for the new year. He hurriedly dressed for his trip to Diagon Alley.
hr
As the train pulled out of King's Cross Station on September First of her seventh year, Hermione Granger thought back to a conversation between her and her parents on the eve of her first time on this train, six years earlier...
i"Hermione, darling, could you come in here for a few minutes? There's something I've been meaning to tell you... well, your father and I, really..."
Hermione followed her mother's voice into the living room, the night before she left for Hogwarts the first time. "What's up, Mum?"
Mark and Carol Granger looked at each other for a moment, and at an unnoticed signal from Carol, Mark began talking.
"Mina, my dear child, there's something we've been meaning to tell you for quite some time. We've been talking about how we were going to tell you, and there really isn't any easy way of doing this –"
Hermione interrupted. "Please don't tell me that you're not letting me go to Hogwarts, after all my preparations-!"
"No, no, nothing like that, dearheart. That's not the problem at all... although I suppose that is why we're telling you this now..."
"Oh, Mark, you're upsetting her. I knew I had to tell her this myself, you're going about it all wrong. Mina, love, I don't know if I'm ready to tell you this, but I think you're ready to hear it. And your father is right, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it and pretend it sounded pretty – Hermione, dear, well, you're adopted..." Carol Granger unexpectedly found herself in tears, at finally saying it aloud to her daughter, to the girl she'd raised from birth, who she loved with all her heart.
Hermione, to say the least, was somewhat startled by her mother's news. Later, over a midnight tea, her mother told her everything she knew – not that there was very much. Chances were that her father was a wizard, at least; the adoption agency had disappeared at most six months after the paperwork was finished, and she couldn't have been more than seven months old at the time. They had never met her mother. The man who they assumed was her father had been very tall, with long black hair, dark eyes, and a velvet voice; more than ten years after she'd seen him, Carol Granger couldn't remember anything more than that to tell her daughter.
"Remember, Mina, that we will always love you, even if you aren't our blood – and maybe you'll find a way to learn who your real family is." At this, Carol's eyes grew mutinous on her again, and she had to reach for a napkin to stifle a fresh wave of tears.
"Oh come on, now, mum, you'll always be my mother, no matter what..." Hermione gave her mother a hug, and they fell asleep on the couch together.
She had been very out-of-sorts on the train the next day, and matters hadn't continued very well the first two months at her new school, either./i
Hermione came back to herself with a start, hearing something she hadn't really been expecting to hear from her companions on the train.
"No, no, no, you've got it all wrong. Ostriches rule the world! It was in a poll!"
She couldn't stop staring at her friends, as her instant audio replay convinced her that she had in fact heard what she thought she had. "What on earth are you three talking about?"
She saw Harry roll his eyes at Ginny, who blushed and looked down at her hands. Ron was oblivious, and proceeded to explain that he and Harry were having an argument about ostriches and lobsters. Somehow it was related to Quidditch. He didn't realize that he'd completely lost Hermione after the first sentence.
She leaned back in her seat with a sigh and pretended to pay attention to her friend, waiting for the train to reach Hogsmeade. She didn't even notice when Ginny got up to leave the car.
hr
Outside in the passageway of the train, sixteen-year-old Virginia Weasley rocked back on her heels at the sight that met her gaze. Draco Malfoy, a young man who once had the misfortune to be turned into a ferret, and now bore little resemblance to the prat he had been at that age, was not iquite/i yelling at his companions of the past six years. He looked incredibly impatient as he hissed at Crabbe and Goyle to shut up, to quit trying to think, to just leave him be, dammit. Ginny swayed as the scene was superimposed by a wisp of memory – iDraco yelling, Lucius the one hissing now, slamming doors, Narcissa weeping/i – and realized that the only reason she hadn't fallen was because the very object of her contemplations had caught her. She blushed a furious shade of red, outshining her own hair. She looked into the grey eyes that were inches away from her own. Draco's eyebrows were knit, his eyes filled with a look she'd seen before, though not from him – she never would have expected to see it from him – confusion, a bit of concern, and just a touch of thoughtfulness. For just a moment, he looked almost innocent.
Ginny pushed herself back up to her feet and pulled away from him. Glancing behind him, she was relieved to discover that Crabbe and Goyle had missed her near fall due to a fortuitous distraction by the lunch cart. She looked back at Draco and saw the same disdainful sneer that usually inhabited his face.
"What's wrong, Weasley? Has your family gotten so poor you can't even afford to keep your balance anymore?" As a joke, it barely deserved a groan; as an insult, it wasn't much worse. Ginny decided to ignore it completely.
She stepped back, about to return to the compartment holding her brother and friends, but she had a nagging feeling that the scene in the passage wasn't finished. She took a quiet breath to calm herself. "Malfoy." She nodded to him, trying to tell her eyes to thank him for catching her. Perhaps it worked; at any rate, his eyes widened for a moment, almost in respect, and then he, too, stepped back, and in a much more subdued voice replied.
"Weasley." He nodded back to her.
She dropped her eyes to the floor for a moment, then looked back up at him, feeling one corner of her mouth twitching up into the start of a grin, and hurriedly turned down the hallway before she broke out into a smile. There were few things that traveled as fast as gossip amongst teenagers, and she knew that if she'd openly smiled at Draco Malfoy without gloating over some trick she'd played on him, tongues would be wagging for half the year. She made her exit, and quietly sat next to Hermione for the rest of the journey, ignoring Ron, Harry, and Hermione alike, and thinking about what she'd seen.
hr
Snape was having a terrible day.
His suppliers in Diagon Alley had been sluggish, and his temper was smoldering. His trip to Kansas City was worse.
He'd been planning for some time now to invest in a Muggle chemistry set. Ideas for several potions that utilized ingredients not found in the Wizarding world had been fermenting in the back of his mind for years, and an article published in last week's iArs Alchemica/i had pushed him to hurry up his timeframe. Mortimer Munkfrede, a notable German/American Potions Master, had been experimenting with Muggle chemistry himself, and had published an article which had rather infuriated Snape – infuriated him because the ideas were ones he'd had years before, but had never bothered to publish. Now, Munkfrede was rapidly becoming more famous than any Potions Master for the last half-century, and for nothing that Snape hadn't already considered (and in some cases, discarded) nearly a decade ago.
He muttered under his breath as he pushed through unfathomable crowds in the Plaza. Why on earth were all these Muggles out and about? A sign in a nearby shop caught his eye, answering his question – "Labor Day Sale! Up to 50% Off Selected Items!" He growled and raised his eyes to the heavens, asking why this had to be happening to him today. He ducked into a nearby restaurant in hopes of catching a quiet moment before finishing up his shopping.
And he found one, although he would have sworn someone was breaking a statute against using magic in the Muggle world to provide for it. He walked upstairs to the bar and did a double take; the woman standing behind it cleaning glasses was the spitting image of Rosmerta from the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. He looked at her rather quizzically for a moment, and her rather large grin at seeing his expression didn't really help his mood any. He seated himself at one end of a long table in the center of the room, and waited as she set down the glass she was working on to come over to the table.
"Hey there, handsome. I seem to have lost my name, can I have yours?" The gleam in her eyes was enough to let him forgive the horrible line, and he almost smiled at her.
"Sev- I mean, my name's Stephen, and I cannot believe that a lady so lovely could possibly have forgotten her own name. I beg that you reveal it to me, for surely you must have a lovely name to go with your lovely face." Hah. That would show her. He could still be a gentleman when he chose, although he did not often reveal this side of himself.
She laughed outright. "My, aren't you a cheeky one? Well, Stephen, my name is Iris, and this is my bar, so tell me what you want, and if I feel like giving it to you, I shall." She continued to grin at him.
"Well, beautiful Iris, I am sure that you know the contents of your pub far better than I possibly could, so I beg that you offer what relief you deem proper for a poor man stuck shopping in the middle of a Labor Day crowd." He smiled back at her, wishing that the expression didn't feel so out of place. Perhaps this day would improve yet - if he managed to make it back to Hogwarts before the start-of-term feast, at any rate.
He spent a rather enjoyable hour and a half flirting with the barmaid, and consuming rather a better meal than he had expected. She glanced over at him when he had finished, taking a long look at him. He returned her gaze evenly.
She smiled at him again, a quieter smile this time. "Well, Stephen, I think you'll find that most of the crowds have gone now. I hope the rest of your shopping expedition goes more smoothly without them. And I hope I'll see you soon."
She walked him to the register, where he tipped her nearly two-thirds the price of the meal, and then bowed over her hand. "Thank you, madam, for a most enjoyable meal. I shall certainly strive to return before another year has passed, but should I fail to do so, I devoutly hope to see you a year from today." And he turned around and walked to the door, noting the rather bemused smile on her face as he straightened. "Iris." He tipped an imaginary hat in her direction, smiled once again, and stepped out the door.
He found himself in a much better mood indeed as he finished his shopping. Iris's prediction was right, as the majority of the crowds had indeed disappeared. Around the corner, he found a school supply store, and managed to convince the clerk that he had a son who was very interested in chemistry, and who wanted a chemistry set of his own for the beginning of the school year. Snape left the store, no longer in possession of most of his Muggle money, but far richer so far as he was concerned – the clerk had been very helpful, indeed, to the point he was surprised that "Stephen" hadn't arranged for his purchases to be shipped. In fact, Snape was practically staggering under the weight of his purchases, and was relieved when he reached a quiet alley where he could Disapparate back to Hogsmeade.
After briefly stopping in at the Three Broomsticks to ask Rosmerta if she had a twin sister, at which she burst into peals of laughter and refused to give him any more answer than that, Snape finally returned to Hogwarts, the whistle of the Hogwarts Express carrying to his ears on the breeze.
Even being able to levitate his new toys to the dungeons and his private laboratory could not speed his journey enough, and Snape was rather resigned to being tardy to the start-of-term feast after all. It wasn't as though he ever tried to be late; in fact, he usually strove to be punctual. Somehow, however, he was almost always late to this particular feast, despite Dumbledore's best efforts to entice his presence. At any rate, Snape was most unwilling to just leave his new toys lying about like so much rubbish – who knew what the house elves would do, given the opportunity? The Muggle chemistry set looked like nothing in the Wizarding world, and Snape was not at all looking forward to the chance of having the lot of it thrown out. He organized his new purchases as best he could in the time he had, and hurried to the Great Hall.
He'd timed his entrance better than he thought – most of the students were already in their places, with only the First Years waiting to enter. He made his way to his normal place at the far end of the High Table, and waited for Dumbledore's speech and for dinner. After Iris's lovely midday meal, he was not nearly so hungry as he normally was, but even so, he would not have been allowed a moment's peace if he'd tried to skip the first meal of the term.
Snape watched as the First Years made their first entrance to the Great Hall, idly guessing to himself who was Muggleborn, who was Pureblood, who would be sorted into which house, and who would be most likely to melt cauldrons. He was not looking forward to those, and was privately relieved that none looked likely to be as bad as Longbottom. He waited impatiently as Minerva McGonagall called them each by name, and as the Sorting Hat dealt with them as it saw fit. He dutifully applauded whenever someone was sorted into Slytherin, but otherwise couldn't be bothered. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief when they were done and Dumbledore stood up.
hr
The old wizard looked around the Hall for a moment, taking in the rather large number of new students – nearly eighty, a number which added considerably to the school's population, The castle had been rather aggravated lately, what with having to expand all the dormitories and several of the classrooms. Dumbledore fervently hoped that the Wizarding population wasn't expanding simply because it expected to be severely cut down in the next few years' time, but he was afraid that was exactly why. There were stranger and older magics in the land than even those he knew of, and it would not surprise him in the least if that were indeed the case. He only hoped that this time, Nature would be proven wrong.
He came back to himself after a moment's hesitation, and cleared his throat. "Well, my students, I bid you welcome back to these halls, and I hope that you had enjoyable and uneventful summers. I'd like to remind you all that the Forbidden Forest is just that, forbidden, and any students caught out in the forest will be serving detention with Argus Filch, our caretaker. Also, the Restricted Section of the Library is currently unavailable to anyone but the faculty, as the castle has decided to update its books and they are not yet catalogued. Prefects will take the First Years to their dorm rooms after the meal. I invite you to enjoy the feast!" And with those words, all hell broke loose in the Great Hall as the students took him at his word.