Celestia Grimsbane had, once again, lost track of time. She had been working on some spell models in her practice room, attempting to find a decent way of explaining them to the students once lessons started up for the term. She wanted her first lessons to go absolutely perfectly, and that wasn't likely to happen without putting as much time into her plans as possible. Of course, the lesson she had been working on wasn't on the agenda until mid-November, but that was rather beside the point. By the time Celestia had looked up from reading one of her various reference books, she had realized that she'd actually meant to leave the Transfiguration department fifteen minutes earlier.

She had rushed back to her office and into a set of navy blue dress robes before practically running speed-walking down the stairs to the Great Hall. Once she'd reached the entrance hall, Celestia had paused to smooth the front of her robes down and catch her breath; there was no need to alert everyone that she'd meant to arrive much earlier. Her plan was to saunter up to the dais quite confidently and not looking rushed in the least.

Unfortunately, that last bit didn't work out so much. Celestia was so startled to see that she was among the last staff members to arrive that she couldn't help quickening her pace as she crossed the Great Hall quite a bit more hurriedly than she'd planned to do. The worst part was that the Headmistress was already here; Celestia had certainly not been planning on making a bad impression at her first start-of-term feast working here...

As she climbed the steps to the dais, fervently hoping that the feeling that absolutely everyone was staring at her was only in her imagination, Celestia flashed a bright smile at her assembled colleagues and chirped, "Good evening, everyone!" There, that had been fairly cheerful. She slid gratefully into her assigned seat at the very end of the table, fervently thankful to Merlin that she was seated closest to the exits -- and hopefully far enough away to avoid any censure from the headmistress for her timing. As her eyes strayed to the four empty tables in front of her, Celestia had to admit that she was mostly thankful that she had still managed to arrive before the students did.