Hogwarts RP

By the evening of 1 September 1995, Hogwarts had awakened from its summer quiet.

Hundreds of candles floated beneath the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, their light falling across four long tables crowded with returning students. Plates and goblets covered almost every available stretch of wood while conversations competed with the scrape of cutlery, bursts of laughter and the occasional shout travelling from one end of a House table to the other.

At the Gryffindor table, Ron Weasley was attempting to fit considerably more food onto his plate than the available space reasonably permitted.

Hermione looked across at him.

“You could always finish what you've already got.”

“I will.”

“You've got three potatoes balanced on top of each other.”

Ron glanced down.

“They seem happy enough.”

Harry laughed into his goblet.

Further along the table, Dean and Seamus were already arguing about something that had apparently begun on the train and survived the entire journey to the castle. Neville was listening with the expression of somebody who had made the mistake of asking what they were talking about ten minutes earlier.

At the Ravenclaw table, Luna Lovegood sat somewhat apart from the loudest conversations, apparently reading something held upside down without showing any indication that she considered this unusual. Cho Chang was speaking quietly with several older students nearby.

The Slytherin table produced another ripple of laughter.

Draco Malfoy leaned back from whatever he had just said, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. Pansy Parkinson whispered something beside him that made the laughter start again while Blaise Zabini appeared considerably less impressed by the entire performance.

At the staff table, Professor McGonagall exchanged a few quiet words with Flitwick before returning her attention to the hall.

Dumbledore remained seated at its centre.

The Headmaster seemed content, for the moment, simply to watch Hogwarts fill with life again.

It had been an uneasy summer beyond the castle walls.

The Daily Prophet had spent much of it insisting that Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore were either mistaken, attention-seeking or actively dangerous. Cedric Diggory's death remained recent enough that conversations surrounding the previous June still had a habit of becoming quieter when his name arose.

Inside the Great Hall, however, dinner continued.

For most of the students, there were more immediate concerns.

Timetables.

Homework.

Quidditch.

Who had spent the summer with whom.

Who had returned looking noticeably different.

And, judging by the argument beginning somewhere amongst the Hufflepuffs, ownership of a missing scarf.

A barn owl swooped unexpectedly low over the Gryffindor table.

Ron ducked.

“Watch it!”

The owl ignored him completely, climbed towards the rafters and disappeared amongst the steady movement overhead.

Hermione watched it go.

“I don't think shouting at it is going to help.”

“It nearly took my ear off.”

“Your ear is still there.”

Ron reached up to check anyway.

Harry grinned.

Across the hall, another wave of students shifted along one of the benches to make room. Someone called to a friend. A goblet toppled and was hurriedly righted. Nearly Headless Nick drifted through the end of the Gryffindor table to several complaints from students attempting to eat.

McGonagall's gaze travelled briefly across the hall.

Then stopped.

Only for a moment.

Her expression changed by the smallest degree.

Flitwick noticed.

“What is it?”

McGonagall didn't answer immediately.

Around them, Hogwarts carried on.

By October 1995, Hogwarts had settled back into the familiar rhythm of term.

The novelty of returning had worn off. New timetables had become ordinary timetables, first-years had mostly stopped getting lost on their way to breakfast, and professors had apparently concluded that several weeks of education meant students could now survive considerably larger quantities of homework.

Between lessons, the corridors were crowded.

Students moved in both directions beneath portraits that had long since abandoned any pretence of ignoring them. Bags knocked against robes, conversations carried between groups and somewhere on the floor above came the unmistakable sound of Peeves laughing immediately before something shattered.

Nobody in the corridor stopped.

Professor Flitwick emerged from a classroom carrying a stack of parchment almost as tall as he was.

“Mind the corner, please.”

Several Ravenclaws moved aside.

A second-year Hufflepuff didn't notice quickly enough and nearly walked straight into the stack.

“Oh—sorry, Professor!”

“No harm done.”

Flitwick adjusted the parchment with remarkable composure and continued on his way.

Near one of the windows, Dean Thomas had a piece of parchment pressed against the stone while Seamus Finnigan watched over his shoulder.

“You've made it worse.”

“I've corrected it.”

“You've crossed half of it out.”

“That was the correction.”

Seamus considered the parchment.

“Fair.”

A few feet away, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil emerged from the staircase still discussing their previous Divination lesson.

“I'm only saying,” Lavender insisted, “there were definitely two.”

Parvati shook her head. “One looked like two because you moved the cup.”

“I didn't move it.”

“You were holding it.”

“That doesn't mean I moved it.”

They disappeared into the crowd before the matter could be settled.

The staircase behind them began to shift.

A chorus of complaints immediately followed.

“Oh, come on!”

“We're going to be late!”

“It'll come back.”

“When?”

Nobody had an answer to that.

At the foot of the stairs, Neville Longbottom looked from the moving staircase to the clock on the wall and seemed to perform a deeply unhappy calculation.

He turned.

“Does anyone know another way to Greenhouse Three?”

Three students answered simultaneously.

All pointed in different directions.

Neville stared at them.

“Right.”

He chose none of them.

Further along the corridor, a suit of armour abruptly sneezed.

A passing first-year jumped.

The suit of armour chuckled to itself.

From an adjoining passage came Professor McGonagall, and the general volume of conversation diminished almost instinctively as she approached.

Her eyes passed over the stranded collection of students beneath the staircase.

“Unless the staircase has developed the ability to issue written excuses, I suggest you find another route.”

That settled the matter.

Students began scattering.

Dean folded his parchment and shoved it into his bag.

Seamus glanced towards the departing crowd.

“What've you got next?”

“History of Magic.”

Seamus winced sympathetically.

“Rather you than me.”

The bell rang.

Whatever leisurely atmosphere had remained disappeared instantly.

Doors opened. Conversations broke apart. Students hurried towards classrooms while professors began collecting the inevitable stragglers from the corridors.

Within another minute, the passage was almost empty.

Almost.

The portraits resumed their conversations.

The suit of armour shifted slightly against the wall.

And Hogwarts continued into another perfectly ordinary afternoon.

By the third week of September 1995, the Hogwarts staff room had accumulated the usual evidence that another school year was properly underway.

Stacks of essays occupied one end of the long table. Half-finished cups of tea occupied the other. A collection of confiscated objects sat on a shelf near the door, including something small and silver which occasionally vibrated against the wood before becoming innocent again whenever anyone looked towards it.

Rain streaked the tall windows.

Professor Flitwick sat with a pile of fourth-year essays before him, his quill moving steadily across the parchment.

He stopped.

Read the same sentence again.

Then slowly removed his spectacles.

Professor Sprout glanced over from her chair.

“Bad?”

Flitwick considered the essay.

“Apparently the Summoning Charm was invented in 1743 by a wizard named Accio.”

Sprout lowered her cup.

“Ah.”

“I've awarded a point for imagination.”

“Generous.”

“I thought so.”

The door opened.

Professor McGonagall entered carrying another stack of parchment beneath one arm.

Flitwick looked at it.

“Please tell me those aren't mine.”

“They are not.”

“Excellent.”

McGonagall placed them on the table with considerably more force than parchment ordinarily required.

Sprout raised an eyebrow.

“Third-years?”

“Second.”

“Worse?”

McGonagall removed her spectacles.

“One of them has somehow managed to turn a matchstick into what I can only describe as a partially functioning shrimp.”

Flitwick's eyebrows rose.

“That sounds rather advanced.”

“It screamed.”

“Less promising.”

For a moment, McGonagall looked as though she might disagree.

Then the corner of her mouth twitched.

Outside the staff room, footsteps hurried along the corridor before abruptly slowing as they passed the door.

McGonagall replaced her spectacles.

“At least some of them still possess survival instincts.”

The footsteps accelerated again once safely beyond earshot.

Sprout laughed quietly into her tea.

The door opened once more.

This time Snape entered.

His gaze travelled over the room, the essays, the tea and finally the small silver object vibrating suspiciously on the shelf.

“What,” he asked, “is that?”

Nobody answered.

The object stopped vibrating.

Snape stared at it.

Flitwick picked up his quill.

“Filch confiscated it this morning.”

“From whom?”

“He didn't say.”

Snape's expression suggested this had not improved matters.

Sprout leaned back in her chair.

“I wouldn't touch it.”

“I had gathered that much.”

From somewhere outside came a distant bang.

Nobody moved.

A second bang followed.

McGonagall looked towards the ceiling.

“Charms corridor.”

Flitwick listened.

“No, I think that's above us.”

Another muffled impact travelled through the castle.

Sprout considered it for a moment.

“Could be Peeves.”

Snape's expression remained perfectly flat.

“An observation which narrows the possibilities not at all.”

The sound did not repeat.

After several seconds, Flitwick returned to his marking.

McGonagall reached for the first essay in her pile.

Outside, Hogwarts carried on around them: students moving between lessons, doors opening and closing, distant voices travelling through stone corridors.

The staff room settled again.

There were lessons still to teach, essays still to mark and several hundred students elsewhere in the castle providing an effectively unlimited supply of future problems.

For the moment, however, there was an empty chair at the table, a pot of tea that was still warm, and a rare few minutes before the next bell.

The unspoken question was whom would present themselves to fill the empty space among the other faculty members.

By the autumn of 1995, unusual visitors to Hogwarts were hardly unheard of.

Ministry officials came and went with increasing regularity. Parents occasionally arrived on school business. Governors had reasons of their own for appearing at the castle, and there remained any number of witches and wizards whom Albus Dumbledore seemed to know personally despite nobody else remembering their names ever having been mentioned.

Even so, the arrival of someone specifically at the Headmaster's invitation had a way of attracting attention.

The stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to his office stepped aside.

Beyond it, the spiral staircase turned slowly upwards.

At the top waited the circular Headmaster's Office, crowded with books, peculiar silver instruments and the accumulated possessions of generations of Hogwarts headmasters.

Fawkes rested upon his golden perch.

Several portraits appeared to be asleep.

At least two were very obviously pretending.

Dumbledore sat behind his desk reading a short piece of parchment.

He finished before setting it aside.

“Thank you, Minerva.”

Professor McGonagall remained standing beside the desk.

“I would still prefer to know whether any special arrangements will be necessary.”

“A perfectly reasonable preference.”

McGonagall waited.

Dumbledore regarded her over his half-moon spectacles.

She sighed.

“That was not an answer.”

“No,” Dumbledore agreed pleasantly. “Though I had hoped it might temporarily resemble one.”

From one of the portraits came a poorly concealed cough.

McGonagall's eyes flicked towards it.

The portrait immediately resumed sleeping.

Dumbledore's expression remained perfectly innocent.

“I shall tell the staff what they need to know,” McGonagall said.

“I would expect nothing less.”

“And the students?”

“That rather depends upon the students.”

McGonagall gave him a look suggesting several decades of professional experience had provided ample evidence of what the students could be expected to do with incomplete information.

“Precisely,” she said.

She turned towards the door.

Before reaching it, she stopped.

“Albus.”

Dumbledore looked up.

Whatever McGonagall had been about to say remained unspoken for a moment.

Then—

“I trust you know what you're doing.”

There was no accusation in it.

That somehow made the question considerably more serious.

Dumbledore's expression softened.

“So do I.”

McGonagall studied him for another second before leaving.

The door closed behind her.

For several moments, only the quiet ticking and whirring of Dumbledore's instruments disturbed the office.

One of the supposedly sleeping portraits opened an eye.

Dumbledore noticed.

“Patience.”

The eye closed again.

A small silver instrument on a nearby table released a delicate puff of smoke.

Fawkes shifted upon his perch.

Then came movement from the spiral staircase beyond the office door.

Dumbledore reached for the teapot.

A second cup had already been placed opposite his own.

He poured.

By the time the sound reached the landing, Dumbledore was waiting.

The Headmaster's Office fell quiet.

The Hogwarts Express had been travelling north for several hours.

London had long since disappeared behind it, replaced beyond the windows by fields, distant hills and stretches of countryside broken only occasionally by a village or narrow country road.

Inside, the train had developed its own little world.

Compartment doors slid open and shut as students moved between friends. Owls occasionally complained from luggage racks overhead. Somewhere further along the carriage came an argument about Chocolate Frog cards, followed by the unmistakable sound of somebody dropping an entire box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

A first-year hurried past clutching a toad in both hands.

“Found him!”

Another voice called from behind.

“That's mine!”

The first-year stopped.

He looked at the toad.

The toad looked back.

“Oh.”

He turned and hurried in the opposite direction.

A moment later the trolley appeared at the far end of the corridor.

“Anything from the trolley, dears?”

Several compartment doors opened almost simultaneously.

The resulting queue blocked most of the passage.

Two older students attempted to squeeze past one another.

“You move.”

“I was here first.”

“You're walking the wrong way.”

“How can there be a wrong way on a train?”

Neither seemed prepared to concede the philosophical point.

The trolley witch waited patiently.

Eventually one of them backed into a compartment doorway and the obstruction cleared.

The train continued north.

Further along the carriage, a group of students had begun an increasingly competitive game of Exploding Snap. Every few minutes came another sharp bang, followed by laughter and accusations of cheating.

A prefect passed them for the third time.

“If I have to come back again—”

Bang.

Silence.

The prefect closed their eyes.

“Wonderful.”

They continued down the corridor.

For all the movement elsewhere, one compartment remained comparatively peaceful.

Its door was partially closed, muffling most of the noise from the corridor.

A few abandoned sweet wrappers occupied one corner of the seat. Luggage shifted almost imperceptibly overhead whenever the train rounded a bend, and the landscape beyond the window had begun to grow steadily wilder as the afternoon passed.

Someone occupied the compartment.

For the moment, nobody passing outside seemed particularly interested in who.

The trolley rattled past.

Footsteps came and went.

The occasional student glanced through the glass before continuing onwards in search of somewhere else.

Outside, the countryside rolled beneath an increasingly grey sky.

Sooner or later, the prefects would begin reminding everyone to change into their robes.

After that would come the first distant glimpse of mountains.

Then the station.

Then the boats and carriages.

Then Hogwarts.

But for now there was only the rhythmic clatter of wheels against track, the muted life of the train beyond the compartment door—

And then, in a rather unremarkable fashion, the quiet of the journey was interrupted by a quiet voice from just beyond the compartment door.

"Excuse me, I don't suppose there's anywhere to sit in here is there? Rest of the train is fuller than i remember it being last year".