AN: Too much spare time equals more chapters, though this one isn't quite as long!
Personally think Caitlin Blackwood (yes that is the Doctor Who girl) would be perfect for Molly. Also think her surname's quite funny considering characters.
Dream-cast for Lien Saffron Thea Robert Irby?
Chapter Seven
Of What Happened While Jayna Was Asleep, and What Happened After She Woke Up
"Students!" Everyone looked up from their empty plates to where Professor Vector was standing. "A few notices. First of all; Madam Longbottom has assured me Jayna Blackwood is fine, and will be perfectly well tomorrow. Secondly, as ever, the Forbidden Forest is Forbidden for a reason. It grieves me to say, however, that our caretaker Argus Filch will not be here to reprimand you about it this year as he has decided to retire. I hope you will join me in welcoming Brendon Thorne to the new position." A middle-aged, stern but not unfriendly looking man waved stiffly from the corner of the room as everyone applauded politely, but with big grins on their faces (especially James and Sam) at the thought of the ancient evil caretaker finally leaving. "I would also like to welcome our last student to be Sorted, who will be going into her Third-Year here at Hogwarts. Aurélie Beauchene is studying English as well as magic, and I know you will forgive her if she makes a mistake."
Aurélie was a small petite girl, with long hair that was so inky black it almost looked purple and miniscule hands. When she looked up through her long waves however, the onlookers were shocked to see smouldering gold eyes blinking back at them without a hint of embarrassment. Even Sam was a little off put, until she broke out a shy smile that seemed to make even Professor Moore's heart melt (the Alchemy and Ancient Studies teacher was seldom seen, not only because his subjects were only taken by a few people each year, but also because he was a vampire, though he was occasionally a guest speaker in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes about his species).
Professor Moore's employment at the school had raised less objections than one might expect; when Remus Lupin was awarded the Order of Merlin; First Class after his death for defending Hogwarts against the Death Eaters, people were slightly less vocal in their complaints against non-humans. Professor Moore himself might have won them over as well seeing as his face was flawlessly perfect. No-one knew if that was because of his vampirism or just because he used to be a model (or what the 1860s saw as a model) but everyone was attracted to him. He had been a Slytherin in his day, and, according to gossip, had gone on holiday with his family in Eastern Europe (no-one was quite sure where) during his twenties where he'd been bitten and turned.
The only downside to Professor Moore's appearance (other than that he was permanently pale and had fangs, though some may not consider this a downside) was he was constantly sucking blood-pops, which did make him look somewhat funny.
Aurélie sat down on the stool. The hat slipped over her head and covered her eyes.
"Hufflepuff!"
Those in yellow cheered. Lydjah hoped that she'd got some food in before she went up, because that would be awful if she'd just had to watch everyone else eating.
"As I'm sure you've noticed," Professor Vector continued, "Professor Slughorn has also decided to go into his second retirement, which leaves me to announce that Professor Elswood will now be the Head of Slytherin House," She paused for the applause from those in green and silver, "and to introduce our second new member of staff and Potions master; Professor Alfredson."
"Oh my Merlin." Lien whispered as he stood up.
Possibly the only positive effect of the Battle of Hogwarts was that lots of students had gained enormous respect for their teachers and went on to train to be teachers themselves, meaning a lot of the current teachers were young and, in the students' eyes, attractive.
Professors Binns, Vector, Hooch, Trelawney, Sinistra, Rossesson, Hobbs, Hagrid (bless his heart) and now Thorne were exempt from the students fawning. But all the other teachers…
Professor Jordan was early thirties, just over six feet tall, with sleek sheets of chestnut brown hair, fabulous ability with eye-liner and a rather interesting wardrobe that ranged from Victorian style wizard robes to jeans and an Appleby Arrows t-shirt.
If people preferred blonde hair there was Professor Avisana, witty, clever, what idiots liked to call 'exotic' and what normal people called tanned, a bold dress sense and a wild streak that everyone had seen in the infamous teacher snowball fight of 2016.
Then there was the Spanish Professor Casales, who had features as soft and kind-looking as her nature, a beautiful singing voice, curly black ringlets and who was only, as the seventh years liked to point out, five years out of school herself.
Professor Van Allen wasn't everybody's cup of tea; she was a bit of a bitch to be honest, but no-one could deny that she was striking; cheekbones like Angelina Jolie's and a dry sense of humour.
Both Professor and Madam Longbottom had a fan-club, though the former's was considerably larger than his wife's.
Professor Sanders was the opposite of Professor Moore; golden hair to match his bronzed skin, a constantly friendly attitude… Plus he was over a hundred years younger.
Professor Elswood was a very interesting guy; he'd been in a band in his youth and someone (bless them) had found their old photos; he used to have a Mohawk not unlike Green's and seventeen piercings to match. He had curly brown hair that he kept short and an 'adorable' pair of thick black glasses now, but all those interested were determined to see if he still had his 'dark' side.
Professor Alfredson blew them all out of the water.
Easily six foot four, a muscular torso high-lighted by his too-small t-shirt, chin length shaggy brown hair, flint coloured eyes, a thin but long scar that travelled from his left eyebrow to the right corner of his mouth and a gorgeous arse to boot.
"He's teaching Potions?" Lydjah whispered to Lee, fanning herself. The lesbian smiled, agreeing.
"Not my type… I'd probably still bang him." Lydjah burst out laughing.
"Finally I would like to announce our Head Girl and Head Boy this year; Emma Lacy and Atticus Truman!" Professor Vector announced, after the thunderous whoops and wolf-whistles had died down. The two Heads stood up and smiled awkwardly, Atticus looking too enthusiastic, Emma looking as enthusiastic to be spending a year working with him as she would eating a pile of horned-slugs.
No-one was surprised when Atticus Truman was announced to be Head Boy, mainly because he seemed to have made it his personal mission to tell every single person on the train ride up, but Emma Lacy's new status caused a bit of a ruckus especially as that was two Ravenclaw Head Girls in a row. It wasn't as big a surprise as Emma's new boyfriend was; apparently she'd finally fallen for the roguish Gryffindor's charm but no-one could doubt Killian was head over heels for the girl, though many girls were very upset at his unavailableness. Speaking of the handsome dark lion turned into a handsome adorable puppy every time he looked at Emma, he was cheering very loudly for her, while sending subtle glares in Atticus' direction, not that the Hufflepuff noticed.
"Now if the new students would follow their Prefects back to their Common Rooms…" Professor Vector didn't bother to finish as the scraping of benches began.
As soon as the Start-Of-Year Feast was over the seven of them met up by the Gryffindor table, as if they'd somehow managed to communicate across tables (Lydjah had thought James was having a spasm when he tried to Morse-code blink at her, made worse by the fact that James had no idea how Morse-code worked and was trying to blink out syllables), though Scorpius had taken a while to try and extract himself from Vincent before the first-year was dragged off by the Slytherin Seventh Year Prefects; Lynne Nott and Neal Quigg.
"Hospital Wing?" Scorpius asked, trying and failing to look unconcerned over his oldest friend's current crazy banshee status.
"She's knocked out, won't wake up until the morning." Lydjah disagreed.
"Oh."
"Look let's just go back to our common rooms and unpack our stuff; we can all visit her in the morning and then… We'll meet up on Thursday like usual?" Albus suggested.
"Our timetables have all changed this year," James interjected, gesturing to his other third-years, "I don't know if Thursdays are still ok with everyone."
"Well how about we meet up for lunch then?"
"Lunch on Thursday, at the Kitchens." Sam confirmed.
"Sounds good. See you later." James called, as him and Sam wandered off towards Gryffindor tower.
By the time they got back to the Gryffindor common room it was mostly empty with everyone going to unpack their things upstairs. One person sat hunched in the big armchair however, sniffling quietly.
"Is that George Arnold?" Sam whispered as they got closer to the person.
"Georgia." James corrected.
"What?"
"She identifies as Georgia now."
"Oh."
"Max was making some comment about how all the boys in her dorm were being real dicks about it."
"Well one of them is called Quenby so I don't know what he's laughing about." At this comment a surprised little snort sounded from the sniffling mess and they realised perhaps they should have kept to whispering.
"Georgia? Are you ok?" Georgia sniffed some more.
"I'm just- I'm just scared."
"Of what?" James asked gently.
"What if the stairs won't let me up? Or the girls won't let me in because of…" She trailed off and gestured to herself self-consciously.
"I read that the stairs change based on gender not genitalia after they had a eunuch one year a few centuries ago."
"Besides you can only try!" Sam said encouragingly. "And if it doesn't work James and I know a way to get him up the stairs so." Georgia smiled at them.
"Ok." James went and stood at the end of the stairs, something Georgia realised was a display of how confident he was they wouldn't turn into a slide because if they did he'd be knocked sprawling. Sam led the way to her new dorm. Hesitantly Georgia slowly made her way up the steps.
They held.
Unabashedly, Georgia started to cry again, this time happily. James whooped and then called that he was going to unpack his stuff. Sam opened the fifth-year girl's dormitory to let Georgia through, bracing herself for having to slap someone.
"Hey." Lena Farnham said. "We were wondering when you were going to come up here. Sorry we kind of nicked all the best beds."
"Yeah. Erm, what is your name now? Only I don't want to misgender your name-" Honour Landon rushed in.
"It's Georgia."
"Cool Georgia. What's have you taken for your OWLs? I took way too many I think, looking at my timetable. Ugh I'm going to fail everything." Lena groaned, flopping down on her bedcovers. Georgia's smile could have lit a thousand cities in that moment.
"See you later Georgia."
"Thanks Sam."
"THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP OWEN?! YOUR COUSINS BEING IN IT? YOU NOT TELLING ME?" Was James' response to Owen Xylander asking why James had immediately started thumping him repeatedly with a pillow as soon as he saw him.
"It's not that big of a deal. They're distant cousins; I only see them once a year."
"You get to see Quidditch celebrities once a year?!"
"You live with one, and also the bloody saviour of the Wizarding world." Quinn pointed out dryly. James glared at him.
"Besides I don't like Quidditch."
"You don't-" James said, looking faint. "How can you not like Quidditch? That's like not liking pygmy puffs or-"
"You like pygmy puffs?" Max chortled. "You're so gay." James counted slowly down from ten in his head, knowing that outright punching the guy wouldn't change his attitude.
"One, and the least important point; I have had so many more girlfriends then you, you freaking idiot. Two, pygmy puffs are the freaking cutest little balls of fluff but with eyes that anyone has ever seen ever. If you can't see that you're blind. Three, I don't care that they're pink, because I am not so insecure about my masculinity that I need to only wear blue things. Four, gay people are just like normal people, and, while the majority of gay people probably love pygmy puffs because the majority of the world likes pygmy puffs, that's nothing to do with their sexuality. Five, using the word gay like the word 'idiot' is only going to increase homophobia."
Max rolled his eyes.
James knocked him off his bed with the force of his pillow throw. Damn he was going to be a good Chaser.
Molly and Lien were a little surprised to find the red-headed girl in their dorm, as they'd never seen her before. Molly cleared her throat as she entered the room, and all the girls turned around, including-
"Isabella?" Lien asked, shocked. Gone was Isabella's black hair; in its place was deep auburn. "Your hair…" Isabella curled one of her locks shyly around her finger.
"How did you change your hair colour like that?"
"I didn't. This is my natural hair-colour; I was charming it all of last year but… I think I prefer it like this."
"Me too." Molly blurted. "Don't get me wrong; last year it looked lovely but now… Red hair really suits you."
"Thanks."
Less than twenty-four hours later, Lydjah was strolling into the Hospital Wing, only to find she'd been beaten by James and Sam. The tension in the room was palpable; both Gryffindors were staring at a recently-crying Jayna with horrified shock.
"What's happened?" Lydjah asked, hurrying over to her bedside. Jayna turned away pressing her face into the pillow. "Jay-Jay?"
When only silence answered her Sam spoke, standing up from the bed. "Lydjah; come with us; we'll explain everything."