Naturally, no one thing could hold Toby's attention for very long, especially at something so stimulating as a feast, so it wasn't long after the Hufflepuff had made his guess that the new female professor would be the one to teach Charms that he found himself looking back to the occupants at the table. Still drumming away on the surface with his hands, too.

"Hey Puck," the sixth year smiled back, and then automatically looked down to his chest as she mentioned the head nerd badge. "Oh, yeah..." Toby's was currently stuck on the front of his school shirt, but obscured from view by his Hufflepuff robes, which he now pulled back to show the joke badge in all it's glory. "I think they're pretty awesome too. Soph surprised me with mine on the train." He smiled, and then fixed his robes to cover it up again. "I wanted to wear it, but I didn't want to confuse any new kids. S'why it's covered up for now." Just, y'know, in case she was wondering. Toby would have hated for anyone to think that he wasn't appreciating the gift from Soph that he really did love, even though not getting a student leader badge had never bothered him at all. Soph's badge was already very special to him; really solidified their status as togethernerds.

One of the younger badgers (Norah) had piped up to answer his question, and Toby made sure to look around and give her his full attention as well as smile. He... couldn't quite place the girl's name, though that was pretty standard for him.

"Yeah," Tobias nodded. "She's been around here since forever. Since way before I started here, I think. It'll be kinda weird without her, but I bet whoever we get next will be just as great." Encouraging smiles were being given, because looking forward and focusing on the positive was totally Toby's thing. "Maybe we'll find out during the speech or something." Or it would be on the noticeboard later. Something like that.

"Lux, hey!" Toby all but chirped as the girl herself greeted him. By now he was finding it almost effortless to exude that bouncy energy now he was surrounded by his fellow Hufflepuffs and could feed off their excitement of the Start of Term Feast. "Sure I'm excited," he added, and though that was only a half-truth, it was technically still true. "How about you? Oh, and Staco's doing great. He's already getting pretty big." Toby beamed, thinking about his puppy, and wondering what kind of mischief that little guy was getting up to right now. Aaaaaaand as for Hadley. "Maybe you could write to her? Owl her or get one of the staff to pass the letter along? I bet she'd love to know we're still all thinking of her." Couldn't have been easy to leave after so long, right? And the 1st of September was bound to be a weird day to not be at Hogwarts after so many years of being present.

A little way down from Lux, Toby could see Noel, a name and face he recognised from yearbook meetings, about to respond to his question too. Ah, he didn't know either. Well, Toby sort of expected that nobody really knew. He did follow Noel's gaze back up to the staff table again and gave a snort of laughter.

"Yeah. Yeah it is," the Hufflepuff grinned, amused as he took in the scene yet again, though it looked like Airey was getting up off of Prof T right now. Toby almost, almost, made a comment along the lines of wondering what Fuller might have thought of that were he here to witness it, but held back. He'd just say it later when he was back with Soph, who would appreciate, or tease Thompson about it when he saw him (harmless ribbing, of course). "Can we really expect anything other than entertainment from the professors at any Feast, though," Toby added, addressing Noel and really anyone. Hehe. The teachers here were great. "I wonder what brought that on, though."

Switching his gaze back to those gathered around the Hufflepuff table, Toby now found himself making eye contact with Adi. He grinned back at the prefect, and gave a shrug at his response. If anyone would have known, Tobias would have bet on Adi or Mari, so it looked like they just needed to wait and see, which was fine. Hufflepuff was known for its patience after all, right?

"Things are alright, Adi," the sixth year replied, still with a smile on his face. "How about with you? You have a good summer?" Probably the question that had been asked a million times in this room so far this evening, but Toby was genuinely interested, and hoped that everyone had had a great time over the last few months. Of course.