Chapter Two
Starting as they Mean to Go On

Charles Weasley, or Charlie as he was known to most was head boy this year, following in the footsteps of Bill, the eldest brother. He and his younger brother Percy would be joined by Weasley twin brothers this year. The two eldest Weasleys were very much head boy material, and were a pleasure to teach. Slatero was three years older than Charlie, having left and returned after a year away studying with the likes of aurors. Davina was the same age as him, joining the staff the same year. Both of them had only expected a temporary placing, but had been asked back for another year.

Slatero and Davina were put on station duty with Hagrid. The night air was oddly bitter as the three of them walked down. Slatero wore a Cossack style fur hat in an effort to hide his hair.
"You'll just get hat hair!" Davina laughed as he came out to the gates to meet them.
The train was on time as per usual. The station master stood with them, a pocket watch in one hand, staring down the track. Behind him were a team of house elves and the horseless carriages.
"Seventeen, sixteen..." Slatero noticed his friend staring at the moon.
"Clear night, despite the wind." He commented.
"Thirteen, twelve..." The steam of the Hogwarts Express appeared over the trees and the scarlet engine came into view, slowing for the station.
"Seven, six..."
"Goin' t' be on time, I don't know why 'e counts." Hagrid sighed, holding the lantern up higher, well over their heads.
"Three, two, one..." The train halted and the carriages bumped gently, sending a wave of clanks up and down the train. Doors were flung open into the darkness along the platform, students piling out.
"First years this way!" Hagrid called over the milling mass of heads. Davina and Slatero got on the train at the front and worked their way through the compartments with the elves following them, taking bags and trunks off the train. Something black flew out of the third compartment down. Slatero quickly identified it as a bat, and was off in pursuit.
"Honestly!" Davina sighed in mock indignation. There was a crash from further down the train. Davina pulled her head out of a compartment and looked down the corridor. She guessed Slatero had run into a student while capturing the bat. By his triumphant grin on finding his feet, she took her guess to be correct. He held a huge bat in his hands.
"Fruit bat, not Vampire, but puzzling why it's inside and here."
"I just hope it didn't enter too suddenly." Davina commented. Both of them knew a sudden entry into a dwelling, or perhaps even a train, signified the death of an occupant.
"Either that or it signifies good weather." Slatero inspected the bat and held out one of the wings.
"What are you going to do with it?" Davina asked, eyeing the bat sceptically before checking the next compartment.
"Keep if of course." Slatero replied, deep in concentration inspecting the wing.
"I thought it was a fruit bat."
"I'm hardly going to keep a live vampire bat am I, so this will be a worthwhile teaching aid." Slatero said, tapping the bat with his wand. It vanished. Davina didn't ask. They finished checking the train and station then apparated to the gates with the statues of winged boars and hopped up on the back of the last horseless carriage.

Davina and Slatero found their seats (Slatero once again beside Severus) at the staff table. Dumbledore smoothed his robes down as he gazed across the decorated great hall. Each house table was nearly full, students sat before golden plates and goblets lit by the floating candles. Slatero took his hat off and Severus stared at his hair. Davina started laughing. The Defence against the Dark Arts teacher stared from one professor to the other.
"What?" He demanded. Davina stood up and started to untangle the shrunken bat from his hair. As she worked at it, the doors of the Great Hall opened, and silence fell. Rather than leave Slatero with the bat, Davina kept going. Minerva lead a long line of first-years to the front before the staff table.
"Weasleys..." Severus muttered, seeing the two identical twins walk jauntily up the hall. McGonagall placed the hat on the three-legged stool and soon it broke into song. Davina finally freed the bat from Slatero's hair and it escaped from her hands, the spell wearing off. It shot up towards the enchanted sky. Attention was turned from the hat, to the bat....
"For Merlin's sake you two." Severus muttered, drawing his wand, but before he could do anything the bat exploded, sending a shower of coloured lights out.
"Bravo Severus." Albus said, the sorting hat finished its song and the hall clapped. Slatero noticed, as Severus protested his innocence that Charlie was glaring at his twin brothers.
Minerva seemed unaffected by the bat and proceeded with the large scroll of parchment in her hands.
"Oh bloody hell, put the hat back on." Davina hissed. Slatero shoved the hat back on, wishing silently that he didn't have hair at all to worry about.

The sorting proceeded in much the same fashion as before following that mishap.
"It must have been the." Davina whispered to Severus and Slatero as McGonagall called:
"Weasley, Fred," and the first of the twins sat down on the stool. All previous Weasleys has been Gryffindors. The sorting hat pronounced Weasley
"GRYFFINDOR!" Almost immediately; Fred hurried to his table to sit with Lee Jordan, their dreadlocked friend, to watch his twin's sorting.
"Weasley, George," The second of the twins sat down on the stool and once again the hat shouted "GRYFFINDOR!"
The two Weasley twins were reunited and also with their families. Dumbledore stood.
"A most lively and entertaining sorting, I must say, now, time for the feast." Dumbledore clapped his hands and the plates filled. The happy chattering returned.
"There isn't anyone else who has pulled a stunt like it." Slatero agreed. Severus frowned at them, and then sneered.
"One lesson with me and they'll regret that bat."
"Who would that be Severus?" McGonagall asked, sitting down the other side of him. The head of Slytherin declined to reply.
"What was it doing in here anyway?" Minerva asked, serving some pork onto her plate.
"We brought it off the train." Davina replied. Slatero looked at her oddly.
"It was me who brought it in here Minerva, it was a fruit bat." He admitted. Minerva just nodded, smiled slightly and said:
"Like the hat." Slatero blushed and stared at his plate. He knew the underlying message.
"It's not that bad, honestly." Davina sympathised. Her friend gave a slight smile and busied himself with the food.