In every job that must be done there is an element of fun

Damon sat on the edge of his new desk looking, as he thought of it, handsomely dishevelled. He'd never been a teacher before and he was looking forward to the whole moulding young minds part of it.

He looked out across his entirely empty classroom and grimaced. He'd not been able to place his own personal mark on it yet and nor had the teacher before him, or so he'd been told. This left the walls of the room still bare and made the room seem smaller somehow. Damon would have to remedy that as soon as possible.

In the meantime, they would not be working in this room today in any case so the lack of adequate furnishings could be safely put aside for the time being.



OOC. Today's lesson is going to take place in another part of the castle! I'll be posting again in three to five days to lead everyone to our secret destination.

Feel free to say hello to Damon or to talk amongst yourselves as you take your seats.

Despite the vast population of witches and wizards that filled Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Nerissa had found in the five years that she had spent within the walls of the enchanted castle, that as long as you could remember which hallways lead where, and what windows were close enough to the ground to slip out of, that it was not too terribly difficult to avoid other human beings.

Classes, on the other hand, were an entirely different story; Nerissa could not dash out the nearest exit when one of her classmates decided to turn to her and speak. She had no choice but to sit completely still and stare ahead at the front of the classroom- and so the small mouse paused before entering the classroom, one half of her body on either side of that imaginary edge.

The students of Basic Charms had been assigned a new professor, she noted, her dull eyes taking in her surroundings, stopping momentarily on the man who stood at the head of the classroom. He was new, and therefore unknown... something which frightened Nerissa.

She allowed a mouthful of oxygen to fill her lungs for a moment, but the sound of the sigh was a bit louder than she had intended it to be and had echoed off of the bear walls that held the classroom together, causing her hands to fly to her mouth.

“May I ask you a question, sir?” came the sudden quiet-yet-determined voice of the young Ravenclaw student; she may have been frightened by the stranger, but she had always been able to stand tall- or as tall as possible for such a small child –when she faced a professor. Though she looked quite the opposite of determined as she spoke through her parted fingers in such a way, having forgotten to move them away from her lips.

“What might I refer to you as? The school has gone through many professors, as I am sure you have been informed, and it has become a bit difficult to remember what face to pair with which name, but I do try to keep track,” she continued, taking a step further until she had officially entered the classroom, hiding a good portion of her fair face in her untidy red hair.

Damon smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way at the timid girl who was first to turn up to the lesson. He didn't know what it was about him that intimidated children so. At least, not at times like this. Certainly, he could be intimidating when he wanted to be, but he did rather pride himself on his ability to blend in with the rest of wizarding society so this reluctance made him feel completely out of sorts. Did she not know he had been made head of Hufflepuff house? He was probably the most trustworthy man in the entire school.

"Well, properly you are supposed to call me Professor Ambrojze," he replied, careful to pronounce his surname clearly so that she would be able to copy. "I suppose you could just say sir if that's too much of a mouthful though."

The professor smiled, and Nerissa took the moment to scrutinize every emotion in his eyes; she had found that emotions were easiest to spot in one’s eyes when they smiled, but at that moment, she was unable to determine anything about the man.

“Yes sir- I mean, Professor Ambrojze,” Nerissa replied, having a bit of difficulty pronouncing the Charms professor’s last name, due to her thick accent. Her lips seemed to fumble with the “J” and “Z” hopelessly, causing her to wince to herself. “Yes, perhaps it would be more respectful for me to stick with ‘sir’…” she added in the hope that she hadn’t offended the man in any way.

Nerissa looked up from a small part between the tangled hair that she had retreated behind and glanced at the row of desks that the classroom had to offer. She would settle for a desk at one end of the middle row; she felt that it was the perfect combination of being near enough to the front of the classroom to read what was written on the chalkboard, and isolation, in order to avoid any unnecessary conversations with her hyper peers.

The mouse scurried off to her desk and took a seat, before spreading her small collection of Charms textbooks out on the splintering surface of the table, never lifting her eyes gray eyes from her new professor. She watched his every movement carefully, which Nerissa saw as a necessary precaution when among strangers.

Damon raised a hand as the little girl began to pull piles of books out of her bag. Was this how children were taught these days? No wonder their heads were all so empty.

"Don't bother with all that- Sorry, what's your name?" he said. "We won't be staying in here today. In fact, just stop bringing those books all together, will you? We probably won't use them for the rest of the year."

"-just stop bringing those books all together, will you? We probably won't use them for the rest of the year."

Keith was liking what he heard.

He walked into the classroom and dropped his bag onto the nearest desk, looking around the classroom. He was early, or maybe everyone else was just late. Only Nerissa had arrived before him - weird girl, she kind of creeped him out. Of course, roughly half the Hogwarts student body creeped him out, so he could deal.

“My name is Nerissa Hatts, sir,” she replied to his question, though she doubted her name would be remembered amongst the many other students that would introduce themselves that morning.

Nerissa’s fingers stopped their page-flipping abruptly, “We aren’t going to be reading from our textbooks?”

Though the Ravenclaw enjoyed hands-on activities- what with her love of Herbology- Charms had always been one of the classes that Nerissa expected to do a decent amount of bookwork in, and therefore, the notion of scrapping their textbooks made her slightly more uncomfortable.

She did not, however, protest- rather, she slowly began to rewind, sliding the books that she had purchased from Diagon Alley earlier that year, back into her tattered rucksack.

Another student had entered the class; a Ravenclaw whom Nerissa had spotted in the Common Room and at their house table from time-to-time, though she had never officially learned his name… and did not intend to; both her past and her odd behavior around the other students was well know. Her peers no longer expected her to speak to them, as they once had.

She turned her eyes away, and returned to her original position; staring straight ahead with her hands lying upon the surface of her desk.

“You mentioned a change in location,” Nerissa addressed the new professor once more, realizing that she was missing an important piece of the puzzle before her, “will we return to this classroom?” It was a rather cold and empty room, after all- one which she would gladly turn her back on.

Sam couldn't help but like the sound of the new Charms teacher, even before he entered the classroom.

From the hall outside the classroom Sam heard the voice of him and couldn't help but crack a grin, which quickly transformed into a glazed look, as he pretty much glided into class. An Irish teacher. With an Irish accent. Oh this was going to be good. Irish accents were like gold to him, pure and utter gold, so much fun to listen to, so much fun to suddenly remember some odd pronunciation midway through a test and crack up laughing.

So it went without saying that Charms, already one of his favourite subjects at the school (In competition with Transfiguration) now definitely held the top spot in his eyes. "Hello Sir, I'm Sam," he said, walking straight up to the man and holding his hand out with a smile, "I'm afraid I don't have a name for you though," He added, a slightly frustrated look crossing his face.

((I know, right? He wasn't even supposed to be Irish, but now whenever I write him, I hear Dylan Moran's voice inside my head))

Damon counted heads. Three. Why weren't people coming to his classes? He was the new teacher and the youngest teacher (actually the oldest teacher, but they weren't to know that). Weren't they supposed to come to his class because he could identify with them on their level, or something? Or at least because they were curious?

"You can leave your bag here," he answered Nerissa. "You'll only need your wand and I doubt anybody will steal your textbooks."

"So now we have Sam and..." he looked quizzically at the other small child. "I'm Professor Ambrojze, but Nerissa and I have decided "Sir" might be easier on everyone."

"We're going down to the kitchens. Somebody leave a note for the stragglers."

Ryo was running late, again. Why? He didn't know, but it probably had to do with the fact the the night before he had broken his alarm fron anger. He was now running toward class, finally finding a use for being a vampire he used his vampire speed to get there quicker.

As he reached the class he stopped running in vampire speed and began to walk. He walked into teh class and didn't see many people. Just a few other students and the Professor. "Hello, Professor. Sorry I'm a tad late. I had trouble with my alarm." he said, walking past him.He walked for the nearest desk and put his things down.