Prisoner of Azkaban
Chapter Seven
Orientation Day
Xerxes Academy
Alphonse had elected to invite Mrs. and Mr. Granger, Mrs. and Mr. Weasley, and Mrs. Longbottom to see the school for themselves on the first day of classes. He felt that though in general the wizards were not welcome within their boundaries it would be unreasonable to have them not able to access their children. He made sure they were all aware that they were able to enter Xerxes, which the spells still recognized as an independent state, but none of the surrounding countries without further permission.
It was also a test of sorts, since even with an invitation they would not be able to enter if they intended to harm anyone inside the borders. Severus Snape, who had abandoned the idea of remaining secret as far as his loyalties, went to collect the Grangers directly, while instructions had been sent to the Weasleys and Longbottoms. They all arrived within minutes of each other and were instructed to stand to the side as others arrived after them.
Yuery, William, Maes, and Edward Elric arrived next. Then Huan, Ping, and Ling Yao. Alphonse had been waiting for their arrivals and welcomed the two men happily even as the rest of the day students arrived without their parents. Maes and Ping were starting this year for the first time, so their fathers came along. Alphonse turned to all of the new children huddled together. "Hello, welcome to Xerxes Academy. Ping, Maes, you are to be day students as well as your brothers. Please follow Princess Mei as she takes you through your orientation. Hermione, Ron, Neville and Ginny you are resident students, this way please and I will take you through your orientation. Your parents are of course welcome to join you to your orientations."
"Wait, so when will we see you?" Ron asked Yuery as the groups separated to follow the Headmaster and Headmistress.
"After orientation. I'll see you at breakfast, it's in about half an hour until you cause delays." Yuery said with a wave. He was relieved to find Ron had not brought his rat, who Yuery still believed to be an issue that needed to be addressed.
"Since Maes is a day student, I assume Yuery is also a day student." Hermione said as they followed behind Headmaster Elric. Hermione and Ron's parents were busy talking to Neville's grandmother as they walked through a garden before they reached the main part of the grounds.
Ahead of them was an open courtyard surrounded by several buildings made of sandstone. Alphonse leads them to a series of short buildings on the left side as he spoke just loudly enough to hear him. "These are your dormitories while you are here. I will take you in to find your rooms now, and you will meet your dormmates after breakfast, they should be arriving on the trains in the next twenty minutes." Alphonse leads them inside the first building, where he picked up a sheet of paper from a desk just inside the door after greeting the man behind it with a smile. "It appears that Ronald Weasley and Neville Longbottom have been assigned to the same room, Hermione Granger will be on the floor above and Ginevra Weasley will be down the hall from Granger. This way."
Alphonse walked straight ahead, passing what appeared to be a common room filled with comfortable looking couches and chairs and long tables. He paused briefly to point out a door. "Should you have any questions or issues after hours or between classes Miss Aletha Holt will be in residence to offer assistance. She will be here this afternoon at the latest." He then walked down another three doors before opening one, "Ronald, Neville this is your room. You may take a moment to set down your bags and will have plenty of time to unpack after breakfast."
Ron and Neville quickly drag their trunks into the room with the help of Ron's Dad while the others waited. The room was smaller than the one they had shared in Hogwarts, with only two beds and a bathroom attached. Along one wall were a pair of desks and a bookshelf between them, with a bed and dresser against the two opposite walls, the center of the room empty of any furniture but had a large woven rug across the tiles.
Once the boys had set their things down, Alphonse led them back to the main entrance and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Once again, they passed a common room, and he pointed out another door which belonged to Miss Tabitha Holt, sister of Aletha Holt and also expected by afternoon. He reached Hermione's dorm first, which mirrored the boys' below. She set down her own trunk with her parents' help before they went another four doors down the hall to Ginny's room."
Once they had all put their things away, Alphonse leads them back outside. "This is the Magic Track dorms for Secondary students. Next to it is Alchemy Track dorms, then General Track. Any students following multiple tracks will be assigned based entirely on availability of space. We separate the dorms by tracks for safety purposes. There are specialized study rooms in your dorms for practice after classes. Do not use magic outside of those spaces without adult supervision for the safety of all involved."
He then leads them further down the path toward a shorter building as he continued. "This is where you will be eating all of your meals while you are here." He brought them inside a currently empty room filled with round tables with six to twelve chairs depending on the size of the table.
"How do we know where to sit?" Ron asked confused. There didn't seem to be any labeling system to the tables.
"You may sit wherever you wish, there are no assigned tables for meals aside from the high table which is reserved for teachers." Alphonse said with a smile as he pointed to the table in front that was raised above the rest to make it easier for the teachers to watch over the students. Alphonse then waved behind him as he saw Mei lead her group into the room. "Everyone will be arriving soon so please find a place to sit for now, meet me back here after breakfast for the rest of the tour."
Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Ginny separated from their parents and walked toward the tables, Ping and Maes came over quickly to join them. "You're Yuery's friends, aren't you? The ones he met last year?" Maes asked when the two groups merged.
"Yeah, you're one of Yuery's brothers, right? Maes was it?" Hermione said with a smile. Yuery, Draco, Huan, and William came into the room and waved.
"Yes, I'm Maes Elric, nice to meet you. This is my first year here, Ping too." Maes said as Yuery and the others reached them.
Yuery greeted the others before leading the way to one of the tables with twelve chairs, "Once more kids arrive, we can grab breakfast, this should be a good spot."
Yuery's friends Hiro and Anya joined them shortly after, and Yuery realized they didn't have enough seats for anyone else to join them, but William reminded him it was just for now since the youngers ones including himself were likely to sit elsewhere other meals. Yuery nodded in agreement before leading the others to the long serving tables for them to gather breakfast before anyone else arrived.
Even as they scooped up plates of eggs and toast, other children started arriving in the room. "I should warn you now, the structure is a lot different here than at Hogwarts. Specialized classes are in the mornings for our year, general classes in the afternoon. It's a bit different for Primary students so don't worry Maes they'll also explain this in orientation, so we will share all of our afternoon classes, but only some of our morning classes."
"Will they not be explaining to us as well?" Hermione asked with a frown.
"I'm sure they will I feel you should get the extra warning…the issue that I should have mentioned before." Yuery took a deep breath, "I am very famous here. Very famous. Like Hogwarts, but not because here I am not the only very famous kid BUT some of the other kids try to avoid us because they somehow got it in their heads that we could get them expelled or something. Ping, this may be an issue for you too, Will has some of it but not as much as me. No one is outright avoiding us, and no one bullies us, so it isn't anything really fixable…it just is awkward sometimes."
"Yeah, that's why Yuery wanted to try Hogwarts so badly, he wanted a chance to be normal. From what he said, it didn't work." Huan said with a frown.
"You were never going to be normal, even if you weren't famous, Brother. Have you met our family?" Will said as Maes giggled. "Have you met you, actually? We could have spent our whole childhood in Reseembool, and we would still be weird." Everyone at the table laughed, even Yuery though he also glared at his little brother.
London England
Sirius was frustrated and concerned. A few days ago the children arrived to take the train to Hogwarts and the child he was watching for was not among them. He knew because he had risked going as far as the platform to watch them all enter the train. Pettigrew hadn't shown up either, luckily. Neither had Harry.
Still, Sirius was concerned. Was that damned rat with the boys wherever they are? Were the boys somewhere together? Did Dumbledore have something to do with this, or worse Severus? He had to find out what was going on, so he was going to have to risk going to Hogsmeade again. He had intended to go up there if he couldn't catch Pettigrew out today but now the risks were less impressive with Pettigrew off the map. If only he could have figured out who that boy was then he could track the bastard down without bothering the students.
His next logical step after Pettigrew was tracking down Harry. He had contented himself with the boy being alive and safe when no one knew how to contact him, but that was clearly not the case if he had attended Hogwarts last year. The newspaper clipping, he had received years ago with Harry's picture seemed to have been taken in the muggle world, though he had not tried to learn anything more at the time he had since tried to find the paper it had come from once, he was no longer in prison. He had hit nothing but dead ends in the search so far, though he could not give up.
Xerxes Academy
Edward and Ling were amused by Arthur Weasley. He was a fountain of questions about how things worked for both the Grangers and the two of them, most of which were easy enough for them to answer. The Grangers had been interested in the different calendars and seemed fascinated with magic and alchemy. Likewise, Mr. Weasley was fascinated by the 'Muggle' world.
Edward was in the middle of explaining power lines when Alphonse joined them. Mrs. Weasley smiled at Alphonse as he greeted them, before asking why he wasn't sitting at the staff table. Edward had finished his explanation, so he turned to join their conversation instead as Alphonse replied, "I only sit at the staff table when necessary. I often join other tables or eat before classes begin at my cottage." Edward frowned at his brother as he made a note to ask Mei if Alphonse was eating properly, before Alphonse continued, "I wished to ensure you had no questions considering this school is completely new to you and you are entrusting your children into our care."
"It is my understanding that you have muggle children here as well. Is it safe to have them included in classes together?" Mrs. Weasley asked fretfully, concerned for the safety of the children.
"Yes, we have Alchemy training and Magical Training classes separate from the other classes. Mixed classes at this stage will not allow the use of either magic or alchemy. Once the children are better trained then the inclusion of magic and alchemy is allowed, however that will not be this year at all." Alphonse assured the parents with a small smile as he reached out and stole a carrot off of his brother's plate. "The Ethics of Leadership class is also open to other students should they be interested, though admittedly there have not been many requests in the lower classes."
"Would it conflict with the required magic classes?" Arthur Weasley asked as he watched amused as Alphonse stole a second carrot from his brother. "Ron and Ginny would do well to take such a class."
"It does not interfere with the other specialized classes; we have to ensure accommodation to certain high-profile individuals so they may attend all of their necessary classes." Alphonse reached to his brother's plate a third time.
"You could have just gotten your own Brother." Edward pushed it in front of him, as he added to Al's statement. "He means my son. Yuery needs to be in both classes, so they staggered them. At the moment to the best of my knowledge Huan, Anya, Yuery, William, Maes, and Ping are the only students taking Ethics of leadership."
Alphonse tried to give Edward back his plate with a frown before adding "There are a few more but that is essentially the list at the moment yes. We also have the Hughes girls, Hiro and Clara assigned this year. It is always a small class. Would you like me to assign Ron and Ginny?"
"Hermione would like to join as well, I'm sure. It does sound like a class she would be very interested in." Mrs. Granger added. "What of the alchemy classes? Hermione was fascinated at the concept over the summer."
"I'm afraid we would have to assign her a private tutor first, to determine her aptitude before committing the classes to her schedule. Alchemy classes are kept intentionally very small." Alphonse smiled again as he explained to assure them, he meant no insult to their daughter. "Traditionally Alchemy lessons are one or two students per master, so we are already trying something nearly unheard of with our classes of four or five and we do not wish to risk students missing critical information. Rebounds are dangerous. It is why our magic classes are also kept down to no more than six children at a time."
"How many teachers do you have on staff to have such small class sizes?" Molly Weasley asked, the school was not as large as Hogwarts, but it wasn't small either.
"We currently have four hundred students this year and twenty teachers. Not all students are magic or alchemy track of course." Alphonse said as he finished his brother's carrots and pushed away the plate refusing to eat anything else on it. "Lupin is in charge of the Magic department and Tringham is in charge of the Alchemy department. I can have them come speak to you for a more specialized conversation on the children's syllabus for the year. I am familiar with the generalized lesson plan of course, however there are far too many students for me to recall each individual plan without looking at my files." Unsurprisingly both couples agreed that they wanted to speak to at least Lupin before they left for the day as the noise level in the cafeteria rose indicating the children were finishing their meals.