There were Jessa and Cassandra, Kirk with a shiny new badge, and all the first years staring around like they'd never seen a castle before. The new year was always exciting, but this one was special. This was OWL year, and he was not looking forward to the extreme amount of studying he knew he would push himself into. He was also not looking forward to the wait for the feast to appear, but he still had a chocolate frog left from the train, so at least he wouldn't starve.

A glance at the staff table confirmed Hirsch was still around. Good, some stability around here, he thought. Last year had been a 'drama llama,' to borrow his mother's phrase. Although, who knew when a flying taxi, snowmobile, or similar would be spotted bringing some new set of people to invade the castle.

He didn't want anything unexpected and chaotic to interrupt his OWL year.