Paul's tie was a clip on! Art looked bewildered! "Great Scott that's just-that's... th-that's incredible!" he thought it was the best thing since... well, since he'd started seeing a physio for his back, really. "Well it doesn't even LOOK like a clip on," he chuckled.

Art chuckled at Rosie's comment. "N-no don't be silly, you will be great. I have complete confidence in you." And he DID! Look how well she was blending in with everyone? Art enjoyed chatting to these new, young, fresh Professors, and he enjoyed seeing everyone chatting along, getting to know each other. "Mmmm," he agreed, "W-well it still tastes just as wonderful and fills you up to bursting!" He was planning on rolling up to the tower after the feast. How he'd roll UPWARDS was anyone's guess.

Art smiled warmly at Laurel, who was a very polite young lady. "Oh... A-Art, really, but I would never mind being called Arthur." No, he had heard snickers of Rat Man in class last term, and that didn't even bother him. "A-and... and do you like Laurel or-or something different?" He didn't want to be calling her by a name she didn't prefer. "For me, it was easy to give up the house bias when I came back as a Professor. M-most of my family were Ravenclaws anyway, so... so I grew up with a great deal of affection for all houses. Although," he said, pausing to chuckle. "I did shout for the Gryffindor quidditch team a bit louder."

"Oh wonderful to hear Joy. I'm... well I'm doing alright. The back has been playing up but I have a new topical potion I apply and it's getting better." Mmm... the thought didn't even occur to Art that this might not be appropriate dinner talk. "Good! I-I'll pop down at some stage this week perhaps."

"Nor am I... the BIG cats are more up my alley, but not the house cats." Although his daughter had three of the things, and loved them to bits. Art let out a chuckle at Rafael. "Well I'm sure Madame Curie would appreciate that greatly," he said, humour still deeply sketched onto his face.

Art was never one to notice how someone was acting, in body language, or voice. So he hadn't really noticed that Gaston appeared nervous at all. Madame Curie squeaked away in his ear and Art grinned over to Gaston. "Madame Curie says hello to you too," he said, tipping the goblet of water towards her in case she was thirsty. "We're great, thank you. Hungry but I'll soon be complaining of the opposite," he chuckled.

Felicity was soon next to Art on the table, and he turned towards her to offer her a smile. "Felicity, good to see you again," he said.




Art sat quietly whilst Headmaster Sahnoun gave his speech. He gave a clap at the announcement that he would be staying on for another year, and Art truly was happy about this. He clapped, too, when the Headmaster introduced all of the new staff members, giving them a warm welcome to, or back to, Hogwarts. And a very solemn dedication was made to a previous Headmaster, Botros, who had recently passed away. Art hadn't had the pleasure of meeting the man, but he had heard a great many things from students, staff, and of course the Board of Governors who he had met for the employment process. He stood up and bent his head out of respect, for a silent moment.



And it was time to dig in! Food everywhere! Art filled his plate up, took bites of food, and offered bits to Madame Curie, who was now burrowed in the pockets of his robes. It had been too much social interaction for the little dear. He was half way through eating a Yorkshire Pudding, when Peeves and Miffy appeared. Well, appeared at the Staff Dais. He had seen Miffy floating about, but took no notice of her. But he couldn't very well IGNORE them now, could he? Especially not as they just announced they were going to get married. Art sat there with his eyes wide and his mouth open, just staring at the couple in love. A wedding? For Poltergeists? Why would they feel the need to get married? He was quite speechless.

Ohohohohohooooooooooo you saucy saucy man.

"Chalkboards, how quaint," she chortled.


"Oh ho hooo well aren't you just a darling studmuffin," Marion weeped. "Not teeeeeeeeeeeerrible well I am sad to say, but Headmistress Truebridge and I were quite close and she was very dear friends with the man. So there is a bit of a strong string tying us together. It is quite easy to become attached to kind spirits such as himself. He will be teeeeeerribly missed."

Marion had still been busy dusting her eyes when the two poltergeists appeared at the dais. Was it not enough they were ruuuuuuuuuining things for their darling students? HMMMMMMMMMMMMM?

And then her ectoplasm began to boil.

He. Had. Not. Just. Called. Her. OLD?!

The last time she had had such sentiments so brashly thrown at her face she had been alive and threatened to take 100 points from the culprit.

The announcement that followed fell on deaf ears.

"HOW DARE YOU USE SUCH FOOOOOOOUL LANGUAGE, PEEVES?!" she hooted while flapping her arms about. OLD TIMERS?! "Is it not enough you have ruuuuuuuuuuuuined a perfectly good feast in honor of a great man?"

It was nice to hear about what others wanted to do for their first lessons. ”So are you going to focus on that a lot this term?” Scrying with Laurel sounded like a very tempting offer to Rosalyn. Not only would it give them more time to catch up, but she would get to see if her limited ability was still there – or if it had improved. ”I would absolutely love to. I admit that I did dreadful in Divination even though I find it fascinating.” Most forms of magic interested her though she wasn’t too fond of the Dark stuff. Defence Against the Dark Arts was nice since it helped people to protect themselves against Dark Wizards and Dark Creatures. She was all for that and duelling. Would be fun to join the club and throw in some fun spells against her colleagues like the cornflake skin spell. Or she could make them grow antlers. Good times.

Another compliment on the way that she looked. Rosalyn smiled at Joy. ”Why thank you. How are you doing this evening?” Seemed that the Healer was in a good mood but it was always nice to ask and she did want everyone to be in a good mood their first evening at the castle. ”You ready to get started? Hopefully there won’t be many kids needing to see you.” Injuries and sicknesses were never a good thing but they DID tend to happen at Hogwarts. The insanity never seemed to end and would probably continue for as long as the school existed. No matter because they would handle everything. Maybe there would be a bit of an adventure this term! She was all for that so long as no one got hurt in the process.

Oh goodness. Marion’s correction got a laugh from her. ”Of course. I’m not sure why I said that. Probably all the excitement of this evening.” It was rather infectious, wasn’t it? ”I bet you are really proud of him. I heard talk from some of the others that he dreams of being an Astronaut. Now that would be an amazing accomplishment.” Personally Rosalyn would NEVER want to go into outer space because it seemed scary to her, but she was all for people reaching their goals in life; there were a few things that she had on her list and hopefully she would manage to accomplish a few of them before she died. ”Oh, yes. Uncle Art put in a good word for me. He's such a wonderful man.” Not just saying that because he was her uncle but there wasn’t anything bad with a little family bias. AND the actual Arithmancy Professor was keen on the joint lesson idea. How wonderful! Pythagorus was the PERFECT topic for a lesson and more or less in her vein of thinking. ”Sounds perfect to me!” she told Rafael with a twinkle in her eyes. She was excited to get started and looking forward to planning something out with him eventually. They were going to have fun with this, and more importantly she wanted the STUDENTS to have fun with it. They were the main focus of her time at Hogwarts; she would do anything she could to help keep them happy and safe.

Nod towards Gaston. Rosalyn liked him from what she knew of him so far and was glad to see that he seemed to relax at least a little bit. ”Of course. It was one of my favourite subjects at school as well. I enjoyed most classes.” Some more than others, but they all were important in some way or another even if she wasn’t very good at them. Arithmancy would need to be read up on before the lesson with Rafael since it wasn't her strong suit, but she DID know about Pythagorus so it shouldn't really be a problem. ”So do you have a favourite spell?” she asked him curiously. There were some pretty awesome ones out there. ”I think mine would be the Patronus Charm. It's really difficult to master, but I won’t forget how happy I was when I first managed to cast mine.” It had been absolutely amazing.

There Uncle Art went being amazing like always. If she wasn’t a couple seats away from him, Rosalyn would have given the man a hug. ”Stop it, you’re going to make me blush,” she said playfully while waving away the compliment. Really it was appreciated and he knew how much his support meant to her. ”Well, just as long as you don’t turn into the blueberry girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” she told him with a wink while thinking about that old muggle movie she had seen years ago. How he would manage to head up to Gryffindor tower feeling fit to burst would be beyond her.

When the Headmaster gave his speech, it was hard to keep from getting teary. Even though she had never met Professor Botros, Rosalyn had heard only great things about the man and wished him well in the afterlife. A feast in his honour was a lovely idea and something that everyone would appreciate… Except for Peeves and a girl poltergeist. This was a new development, but not as important as the fact that they were disrespecting a man who had passed away. ”I’m happy about your…upcoming wedding, but respect needs to be given to the dead.” Which was to say that it WASN’T cool to barge in when a feast was given in someone’s honour.

Paul was ready for food already. When would Mohamed do the speech thing? And then the food would do its appearing thing and they could all eat and then sleep and prepare for tomorrow, yeah?

He turned in Rosalyn’s direction and nodded. “Some students will grate on your nerves, I warn you,” and he thought of Kaycee Richards. Granted, the girl was growing on him. “But they’re all wonderful in their own ways.” Even murderous Daxton Prince. He was…a wonderful…………….wonderful might have been the wrong word for Daxton. Maybe more…interesting. CHALLENGING.

Just when Paul’s stomach gave an enormous growl, Mohamed decided to grace them all with a lovely speech, really, it was beautiful. The bit about Botros…sigh. Paul’s first term here was under Botros. He was a lovely man, very kind. Always very kind. Hearing of his death had dampened his spirit greatly, and he hung his head for the moment of silence respectfully.

Food had appeared, and though he felt a little sad about his former headmaster, he dug in, turning only to hear Laurel say she wanted some plant advice. “I have some simple guides I can let you borrow, m’dear!” he said after chewing a mouthful of something that tasted reaaaaaally good. Something spicy, too. He otherwise didn’t know where to start beginner planters without a guide. It was hard, once you were advanced, to start out small with people. Teaching was different; focusing on specific plants and upgrading them over the years was a bit different.

Joy was taking this all so very well. She was a breath of fresh air from Cece. Blegh. “You are a delight, Joy. The students will be getting hurt on purpose with you here.” And he winked. Best to warn her now.

He hadn’ really been paying attention to whatever mayhem Peeves was causing down at the students’ tables…and he would have answered Rafael but the poltergeistS –plural—were suddenly UP HERE CAUSING MAYHEM.

AHEM.

Paul was immensely irritated at the timing of this announcement! Right after a moment of silence? Really? Of course, one could not possibly expect Peeves to show any sort of respect for anyone.

Bloody MARRIED?!

Could ghosts get married?!

His colleagues all seemed to share his sentiments, too.

All else was forgotten, though, when he suddenly heard YELLING from his badger table. He knew Brady’s voice immediately because the boy yelled quite a lot, but the other voice…was that /Paige/? Something must have been terribly wrong—the Baron and the poltergeists were there, and the Friar seemed to be trying to interject-

“Excuse me—“ he said to those around him. He set his napkin down in front of his plate and scooted off the dias.

Justin chuckled with Laurey, "Ahahaha, something like that. A few decided to rock the boat enough to get good ol' Barty to put a stop and save them." Listening as she spoke of her trip, "Yeah? I take it him and Oliver are doing well, yes?"

If anything were to light Justin's eyes up even more, was the chance to brag about his family. "She's two years old. You muust come over during the break and meet her, she would love to see you." Speaking of, he pulled out his mirror to check up on her.. Aww, sleeping already. He looked fondly at her before tucking it away again.

"Why thank you Arty. You must be proud to be a good choice as head of the lions." Chucking a bit, "Oh yeah? That had to been rough putting the broom aside." "Awww, do you have pictures? I got plenty of Lucy's at my Hut that I can share after." Babies. They've been on his mind a lot lately.

Justin rose his brows at Viktor, proposing a date with his cousin. You know what that meant? "Laurey's got a daaaate. Laurey's got a daaaaate." He sang teasingly at her. It was times like these that he would revert to his old teenage self. "Lemme know how it turns out."
He added. See, he wasn't always playing mean.

His first flying lesson. Merlin. He smiled warmly at Rosalyn. "You bet. It's been a good while since I last taught a subject, but I'm sure it'll come easy." Everyone loved flying, supposedly.

And now it was the speech. Justin clapped for each of the welcoming additions to the staff. His smile did fall flat at the news of Botros' passing. What a good man, he thought standing up to honor him. Abraham had been the one to hire and convince him to take on a cursed job. It was a sad thing, knowing how his health deteriorated since he had to relinquish his position here. He even had family attending this school. Rula Botros was in his house, Justin recalled. Poor girl and right during her OWLs year. He would have to keep an eye on her. Being the Father Snake around here. That would be good.

Now what was this? Peeves and Miffy were at it again? And getting married? Married?? Justin turned his head side to side, seeing others reactions. Did they hear what he just did? And before he knew it, the Baron had just called them over. Thank you Bloody Baron, he could eat in peace... or not. Watching as it became a shouting match rivaling the Gryffindors. As the poltergeists, two ghosts and loud students were in the mix.

Sighing, he tucked his food away. "Right behind you." Setting his utensils and unfinished meal down. He went right after Paul. This was not going to end well. He would be sure to check on his snakes after since things didn't look any better over there.