From the Ashes

Who: Brendon and Billiam (now with bonus Jon!)
When: Sunday evening. Kiddies ahoy!
Where: Outside the castle
What: Unicorns.

Having levitated and transfigured more spare doors into feasibly operational boats than had possibly been seen since the Spanish Armada, William had left the others to the duties of chaperoning first-years across the lake and gone to find Brendon with the carriages. As a pastime, fishing eleven-year-olds out of murky water at night left a certain something to be desired.

He had a reasonable amount of faith in Jon, but the grimaces Schechter had displayed during his earlier offer of mermaids left William feeling that perhaps reinforcements might be welcome. If not, he could always head back inside to double-check the master list of arriving students and have a chat with the Sorting Hat about organizational charms. Also possibly nick a pumpkin pasty.

"Brendon?" he called, keeping his voice down so as to not startle any unicorns. "Are you...?" Ah. There he was. And there were the unicorns, waiting silent and resplendent only a few meters away. Brendon was standing more still than William suspected he'd ever been, staring at them with hearts almost palpably visible in his eyes.

"Brendon?"

Who: Gabe and Spencer
When: Backdated like fucking crazy to shortly after this owl landed
Where: The greenhouses
What: "So, Slytherin, huh? What does that shit really mean?"

Hola Abuela, look at me now, Gabe was thinking, leaping down the front stairs of the castle two at a time. Of course, he wasn't actually sure that his maternal grandma would believe any more than he did that he had been made head of a house he barely understood at a school he hadn't attended in a country to whom he owed no allegiance, but had fought for regardless.

Gabe didn't actually live his life to fuck with his grandmother's head, but it was a nice perk.

It was a lovely evening, and despite the fact that he whined from October right through to April every year he'd been in this benighted country so far, Gabe would readily admit that one of the good points of being this far north was how long the sunlight lasted in summer. It was rich and golden, pouring over him like honey as he strode down the lawn towards the still battered-looking greenhouses, wherein he really hoped he was going to find Spencer Smith. Because if he was going to be head of Slytherin, and the owl from Schechter suggested he was -- and oh look, he was still holding that, better shove it in a pocket or something. Where was he? Right. Being head of Slytherin. Maybe knowing a bit more about the house than Pete's drunken prejudices and the layout of their dorms might be a good idea.

"Anyone alive in there?" he called out, as he came up towards the entrance to the main greenhouse.

Who: Spencer, William & anybody else who wants to join
When: Monday night
Where: Fourth floor, near the girls' bathrooms
What: Debugging the castle

It wasn't like he'd thought the first day of classes would be, for any possible meaning of the word, easy. Still, Spencer was maybe a little amused by just how quickly he'd found himself comforting some crying second year Ravenclaw girls about the "horrible, horrible things!" they'd apparently run into in the bathroom on the fourth floor. He'd spent his free period heading up to see what was going on, and after establishing that the horrible things were considerably more dangerous than a sixth year in a bad mood, he'd sealed off the bathroom and a good deal of the area around it and sent out an Owl to as many people he could think of who might be interested in fighting their way through some vicious greenery and what looked like two very annoyed Graphorns. He wondered how they could have missed it in their initial clean-up of the castle -- probably it had a trigger to do with students, he supposed, which meant he'd be willing to bet his life on some nasty charms waiting inside along with the more visible traps.

Now, he leaned back against the wall, twirling his wand idly between his fingers and waiting. To be honest, he was almost glad of the distraction from the pile of parchments waiting on his desk. He'd decided a good way to start off the year would be administering quizzes in an attempt to find out what the students already knew, and had somehow conveniently managed to forget while doing it that he was the one who was going to have to mark them.

Plants with seven inch teeth sounded infinitely preferable.