The small boy twitched even more when she mimicked him. What did she mean by that?! Was she making fun of him?! He should bite her. Yes, that would do. Although, that thought soon evaporated when he blinked down at his fork seeing a strawberry was stuck on it. Looking up at Cela with a confused look, he looked back down at the strawberry and sighed. He was already tired, he shouldn't bother biting her today. He'll do it later.

Sticking the strawberry in his mouth, he sucked on the fruit while green eyes surveyed the halls. Everyone seemed excited to be here. He was excited as well, but right now with his clothes Willie wasn't that excited. He just wanted to get to Garret and get him to help fix the whole problem.

"Hbhai." He mumbled the fork still in his mouth as he kept on sucking the fruit. Sticking the fork out, he smiled sweetly at her, tilted his head and said, "Me name'th Willie. Willie Crocker." And with that, he stuck the fork back into his mouth.
Garrets brother. He was a Ravenclaw. In disbelief he almost fell over. He walked over and sat across from the little kid. He asked in the nicest way he could "You got into Ravenclaw? Good".

He looked up at the new voice and frowned deeply. "I ain't a Ravenclaw, mate." Willie told him, shaking his head. "Been wantin' to be in Thlytherin, but thtupid 'at put me in Hufflepuff." Putting back the fork, he lied his head on the table and watched the students around him. This was very, very boring. He needed to do something.

His eyes widened once he saw a hand place some candy on the table and then to his amazement, a pygmy puff! When he'll go to Diagon Alley next time, he'll buy himself a pygmy puff and call him... call him... Well, when the time comes, he'll be able to name him.

Jumping at the sound of someone so close behind her Amy dropped her fork and quickly turned around. "Oh Jake," she said placing her hands across her chest. She allowed her body to relax as she scooted over to make room for him to set beside her.

“Yeah…I am alright,” she said picking up her fork again. “Where have you been everyone else entered hours ago,” she asked with a teasing tone to her voice.

Her face dropping "No! That's horrible. And you possibly leaving after next year...what am I going to do!" Liz finishes with tears in her eyes.

"I can't believe we won't be seeing Mel here this year..."

Hannah Leigh took a bite of her mashed potatoes. She missed her aunt's stir-fry, her brother Thomas' bad attempts at grilled cheese, her grilled chicken that was usually the only decent thing to eat-
Hannah Leigh James was homesick.

Partly because she knew no one at this table. Partly because her new-found friends were Griffindors.
Partly because it had only been four months since the news.

The news that her parents cruise ship had sunk. There were only three survivors, a family. Why couldn't they have just cast a spell to breath and stay warm in the water? There were muggles all around. Why did they care? Them dying would have been better than the Wizarding World being uprooted.

Hannah hated those answers. They weren't a good enough explanation for why her twenty year old aunt had to take care of seven children. She was going to be homeschooled this year, but when her parents died-

Hannah felt like crying. She looked at the gravy that flowed from her roast beef and sobbed quietly. Her life was not fair.

Jake laughed when as Amy jumped "jeesh Amy sorry" he said laughing. Jake sat next to Amy "this is my first time at this table, think I stand out?" he aked her smilling. Jake looked around before looking over at her again "You wouldnt believe it if I told you" Jake rolled his eyes " Will somehow managed to get out of his cage and I to chase him till I was able to catch him" He shaked his head "We just got here and he's already up to no good" he said to her "so how Bella?"

Rian's eyes filled with tears when Liz's did. "I am leaving after next year," she said in a barely-audible voice. The thought brought up another unpleasant thought that had been festering in her mind for a while, but she pushed it back.

She bit her lip as she willed tears not to flow over. It was the first day back at Hogwarts, and she would not cry. She couldn't. She nodded hopelessly. "I know, it won't be the same. I...I don't know. I'll miss her so much..." she sighed and looked down at the table.

Casper Scouten pushed up the arms of his too-large robes for what must have been the twentieth time since he had put them on during the train ride. If his mother could have seen him she would have whipped out her wand and performed some fancy spell to straighten the wrinkles and crease the fabric in all the appropriate places. But thankfully she was not, and Casper's preferred look of tousled blonde hair and wrinkled drooping robes was left untouched.

He sat down on the Ravenclaw bench diagonally from a small boy with a lisp who seemed quite on edge. Casper assumed he was a first year, afraid to be torn from home. His stomach grumbled lightly and he grabbed for any tidbits of food that didn't bear any resemblance to tentacles or fins or gills.

They were interrupted by the speech. "It sounds as if he IS the new Headmaster. I did hear you'd be getting new staff, but that is quite a lot of new staff. Was there some sort of illness here last term?"

Karma had opened her mouth to say something else, and was cut off by the new Headmaster. He seemed very nice, and she was excited about the new term starting now.

"That, he is. And with the staff, some of them had to leave. With the others, I really don't know what was going on. I guess some of us just got to be too much to handle."

Hannah Leigh looked at the boy. He was in her year, and she was immediatley embarassed by her weeping, as quiet as it was. His robes were too long and his hair was not brushed, but Hannah thought he was a refreshing break from the neat, straight hair and the tailor-made robes.

Should she make conversation? He was a possible friend, something Hannah needed way more of. She decided to talk to him.

"Hi." her voice croaked and so she tried again. "Hello." she said. "I'm Hannah Leigh James."

Amy laughed as she nudged Jake in the arm, “Of course not.” After a moment she finally decided to take a bit of carrots at the moment Jake informed her of Will. She started to laugh catching the carrot in her throat making her choke.

“Oh my gosh,” she said finally relieved from choking. She gave a hesitated cough before continuing. “Bella is fine. I think she is in my room, but she may be on the grounds. I can not wait to see what Will thinks of her.”

Nia shook back her long blonde hair, and glanced over to the Slytherin table where she could see her twin brother flanked by a couple of girls. She smirked, wondering which of them was Paris - and equally who this angel Lyra was. Ah, it was obvious her dear little brother had a crush, and she couldn't wait for him to get turned down. Who would want Theo? Yes, he had left Buzz at home (and Nia had been severely tempted to flush him down the toilet before leaving, though had resisted) and he could even manage to pronounce somre words properly now, but she knew her darling brother was still a cry baby at heart. Worse than their new sibling in fact.

Curious, Nia almost started towards the Slytherin table, but instead decided to head over to her own table for at least a short while. She'd let her brother have a little peace away from her. Knowing she was now no longer one of the youngest n the long table, Nia headed for a space on the Ravenclaw table. Wow, there were lots of faces she didn't recognise. She smiled as she slid into a seat, before looking along the plates for something to eat.

A bright grin on her lips, little Melly rapidly made her way to the Ravenclaw House Table, barely noticing that she wasn't exactly on time or that the new headmaster had been revealed. She was just far too glad to be back at Hogwarts to notice it. True, she already missed her younger brother and her parents, but how could she not be excited when she was about to find out even more about magic and everything surrounding it?

Unfortunately, being late meant she wouldn't be able to pick her seat and so she was left with picking one of the few empty ones that were left. And so, she did nothing but sit down on the first one that she saw, not bothering to check whether it was a friend or a stranger that was sitting next to her. Sooner or later she was bound to find Juni or some other friend of hers, right?

Lyra looked around the Ravenclaw table trying to find someone she knew. She had had to sit with a group of older students on the train, not having been able to find anywhere else to sit.

She glanced down at her hands. She wasn't sure if she had made the right decision, telling the sorting hat that she wanted to be in Ravenclaw, and not Gryffindor, like her mom.

She smiled despite herself, knowing her father would be pleased. What better house for the daughter of a brilliant Oxford professor? Even though she knew she had a lot to live up to, she was determined to make him proud.

She remembered back to saying goodbye to her dad at the station, and how he told her not to worry about what house she was in. Maybe he actually didn't want me be in Gryffindor. Or be like my mum at all.

Searching the table again, she smiled when she saw Mariel and Lasca. Mariel was talking to a boy Lyra didn't know, and Lasca was examining the Head Table. Lyra walked over to them and asked, "Do you guys mind if I sit here?"

"I was hoping that was just a rumor..." Liz looked down at her plate. "I heard Jen mentioning it one day at the end of last year."

"We can't just go our separate ways no matter what!" Liz says urgently. "We've been through too much together. We need to find Melinda" Wiping her eyes, she gives Rian a hug.

"We'll get through this. It will work out, I just know it will," she finishes kind of doubtfully.

Casper looked up from his plate, which was now dismally clean and empty. He could see his messy reflection in the shine of it and felt pleased with himself.

The girl looked somewhat anguished. Casper was not a very emotionally deep person, and rarely felt truly sad about something. He preferred cheer and satisfaction.

"Hello," he said cordially as he piled lumps of bread back on his plate. "Care for some food?" Casper offhandedly held out his hand with a piece of bread. "I'm Casper." He managed to make these words legible through a mouthful of bread without letting more than a few crumbs tumble out.

Rian didn't looked up when Liz said she thought it was a rumor. If Rian did look up, she would've cried for sure. But she nodded fiercely at what Liz said next.

"Mel went off to France with her grandma," she told Liz. "I don't know when she'll be back...but when she does, we'll go visit her," she promised. She wiped at her own eyes and wrapped her arms around Liz.

"It will work out, Liz," Rian agreed, her voice determined. "And you can come visit me every single day during breaks, when I'm gone. And I'll write letters. I'm just going home...I'll still be there for you." she said, her voice breaking.

Becca, after being the first student to enter the Great Hall, watched everyone enter behind her... but kept a close eye on the Staff Table. A bunch of new faces appeared, and she felt the urge to jump up and go interrogate them, but she stayed in her seat and behaved. There was a first.

Out of mild curiosity, Becca stood up halfway and looked up and down the Ravenclaw Table. She tried to spot the mystery boy, Plymouth. Hmm... she definitely didn't see him. Maybe he WAS bad news, and he already got sent home! That would have been incredibly tragic, though, since she really needed to make new friends.

And then... a man stood up. He was the Potions Master, that was all she knew. She had always wanted to take a Potions class, but never got around to it. The man, Bontecou, only needed to say one word in his voice of authority for Becca to realize that he was the new Headmaster. It was... definitely nothing she could complain about. He hadn't made his way onto Becca's bad list, so maybe it would all be okay.

The name "Truebridge" was spoken next to "Lainey." An icky, sick feeling hit the pit of her stomach. Who was this man? He had better know he's got a hard position to take up after having the best professor ever teach it. She scanned up and down the Staff Table, looking for the man. Of course, there were too many new professors to pick one out. She would definitely go meet him, though. And when she did... it might get intense.

Jake couldnt help but laugh again "Amy dont choke" he said hitting her gently on the back. "Well he likes you, he would most likely like her" Jake thought for a second "hopefully she'll keep him out of trouble" Jake smilled " or he might turn her into a little trouble maker, just like him" Jake laughed at the thought, and pick some of the food in front of Amy "hope you dont mind, I still havent eaten anything" he said eating want he took. "you know what they say sharing is caring, and you do care dont you?" he said prettening to pout at her

Lasca glanced over in time to see Nathaniel's hair change color and then grow longer. She dropped her fork and jumped a little in her seat. Staring in astonishment she sputtered, "Your mother...I mean you can...I can.." She looked around at her companions and realized her mistake, to cover up her slip up she made a show of things. "Opps, my fork slipped out of my hand. How clumsy of me."

Just then Lyra came over and provided a welcome distraction. "Hello Lyra. Please join us. You must be hungry, there is plently of food to go around." She plastered a big smile on her face and then went back to eating again. How could I be so stupid! She cast sidelong glances at Mariel and Nathaniel to see if they had caught on.

Kana Takemoto-Zhou sat at the Ravenclaw table in her hideous black robes and scowled, and scowled and scowled. The expression was fairly well welded to her face, actually, considering that the sharply downturned brows hadn't lifted once since she returned the fiasco that was Diagon Alley. She certainly looked very different, being divested of her mint, macaron-ed ensemble and her petticoats. Anyone who had the bravery, if not the actual brainpower to go with it, to lift her robe would have discovered that she still insistently wore bloomers. And they were ruffled and polkadotted and trimmed with lace. She had a pink ribbon around her neck with a cupcake hanging from it, nonpareils sparkling tackily as they caught the candlelight and it matched the crisp headbow she wore defiantly atop her head.

Her parasol - more important than her wand in terms of self-defense as of now - perched by her side.

Let us have a sample of her thoughts as she sits, a valiantly ridiculous and malevolent little girl cutting up her potato with the venom only someone reaching puberty can aspire to:

This stupid uniform might look like a bathrobe, but the dogs can't take away my freedom of self-expression!!!

One might reflect that it is troubling for a person to put so much of her own ideas of identity into her clothing choices - one might also want to take a class on Gender Studies. All Kana wanted, at this exact moment, was to go home. Failing that, she wanted to punch some of her overexcited, 'OMGHOGWARTS!!!' classmates in the face.

"I have some, thanks." she gestured to her plate which was still somewhat full and smiled. After crying about-that- that was quite a feat.
"You're third year too, right?" she asked him. She thought he was, she remembered his sorting. Possibly. Oh, well. She waited for him to answer and looked at the Griffindor table for Lizzie, Chris, and especially Marcus. She thought she saw Lizzie and Chris but she wasn't sure. Marcus was nowhere in sight. She hoped he was okay.
She touched the bottom of her hair, the part resting on her shoulders, absentmindedly. She moved it behind her ear. "I go by Hannah by the way." Who would want to go by Hannah Leigh all the time? It was tiring.

"Hi Damian." Cela answered cheerfully, lifting her eyes away from the scorpion for a few moments.

"Right." Cela agreed, "I don't know, I'm not really so good at naming pets. It took me months to name my owl." She hummed to herself happily and looked around the table.

"Oh my!" Cela exclaimed as she blinked at the presents put in front of her. Candy. Pygmy Puff. She turned around and gave Barry a hug, being careful of the scorpion of course. Turning back to the candy, Cela dropped the Scorpion down her shirt and made a crooning noise as she picked up the pygmy puff, "Yeah it was nice." Cela agreed half absently, before blinking at the warning about contacting Nico, "Oooh. I'll be good." she promised before offering some candy around.

Cela grinned at Willie and gestured to the candy while stroking her newest pet. Barry was always so nice to her. And on the bright side; a pygy puff was a pet that her brother would approv... Cela stopped midthought, realising she didn't so much mind whether he approved or not anymore.

It wasn't like he was here.

"Thats funny, Garret said he wanted to be a Slytherin toooooo." Cela noted.

Cela picked up a jelly slug and happily began to suck on it, her head cocked as she listened to the conversations around her. Nom. Jelly Slug.

"Hi!" Cela turned her head as another kid sat nearby. She gestured to the stash of Candy Barry had put on the table in front of her, "Want some?"

She made her gesture wider to include the other people sitting nearby that she didn't know.

Whispering Liz replies, "Maybe I'll be there more then just visiting... I don't really want to go home now. My papa has...I mean he is really busy now. And my aunt works a lot."

Lowering her head to hide the tears. "It just won't be the same anymore. It will work out though, especially if I stop being so shy." she says with a giggle.

Lyra's jaw dropped as she saw the boy talking to Mariel change his hair color and make it grow longer. Then she felt stupid for being suprised. A metamorphagus, of course. It's not like I haven't read about them. Lyra rolled her eyes at herself, but stopped in confusion when she saw Lasca babble something and drop her fork. Or pretend to drop her fork.

She let it go and smiled when Lasca asked her to join them. She piled potatoes, peas, and roast onto her plate, and dug in. She hadn't been able to find get her pocket money from her trunk when the trolley rolled around, for fear that the other students would see the broom that she had snuck. She couldn't believe she had done that! She wondered if Lasca had managed to bring hers, but didn't want to ask with so many other people around, for fear of getting the other girl into trouble.