Lesson One: Pod Two

The smoky, rich scent of incense filled the tower room. The heavily furnished classroom with all of the dizzy, paisley cloth and round tables covered in tarot cards and crystal balls hadn’t changed much since the nineties barring the colour scheme which the new professor had changed upon her arrival at the school. It looked lived in, at least, and she herself was sat on her desk, eating a peach idly, swinging her legs from side to side. It’d been a few days since the accident – Millie having taken the decision of postponing her classes for the sake of the students who were in dire need of a break.

She too had needed a little bit of time and the old Quidditch injury, having reared its ugly head when the werewolf took his swipe at her, was slowly beginning to heal itself with the aid of all kinds of different potions. She had a collarbone again, much to her surprise and glee. The arm still wasn’t right, though, and it was still bandaged and whilst it was out of the sling it was stiff and awkward. She still had tape on her jaw and neck, too, though thankfully her robe collar hid most of it. Underneath she was torn up and sewn up but crucially healing.

Nevertheless, it was time, she knew, to start the job she’d come to do. So, for her class today she’d set out a little table at which she’d sit too when they arrived. She had some tea brewing on the stove and she thought she’d start with something a little bit simple – as much for her sake as it was there’s. It was, after all, going to be one long, long year.

Poppy's first day of classes. She was nervous. It had been brutal just in getting here. She hadn't talked to anyone about the nightmares she had about the enormous werewolf that had taken her--the same werewolf that had dropped the train off a bridge and tried to drown them all--the same werewolf that had gone amuck on the grounds to try to finish off what he'd started.

The left side of Poppy's face was still heavily bruised. She was afraid of magic. Magic had never seemed to bring her anything but trouble, but yet, she was told that she was capable of magic and needed to learn how to use it. She only really wanted to learn how to turn it off.

Still, the blond woman who was the divination professor did not seem to be nearly as menacing as the werewolves had been. Her parents--her real parents--had tried to reassure her.

Her father had altered her school robes to actually fit her. They hadn't had robes in her small size. Her mother had purchased the smallest they had, but finding the robes still oversized, her father had cast a charm to make them fit. He'd also done a very simple charm on her quill to change its color. He had changed it from the standard black to a teal blue rather like a peacock blue. It reminded her of him when she looked at the calming teal color.

When Poppy saw she was the first one to arrive, she took a seat in what sort of looked like the middle of the room, and looked at the professor.

"Good morning," she said, trying to not look nearly as nervous as she appeared.

When the hinges crowed, alerting the blonde witch at the front of the room to a presence, the woman in question looked up from the spot on the floor she’d been staring at absently. Rolling down the arms of her outer robe, Melissa Hayes stepped forward, a smile lifting her weary features at the sight of a young Hufflepuff stepping into the room. This was one of her students, she realised with a start. This little one was very different to her elder years. It was a wonder her subject had even been made available to the younger students to take.

Clearing her throat, Millie stepped towards the table in the middle that she’d made central and therefore preferable to teach around. Her fourth years required a few more tables but the younger, and elder years for that matter, made do with a round table covered in a highly decorative table cloth covered in candles and incense sticks, crystal balls and rolls of parchment. It was at the head, as it were, of this table that Millie to the seat, the other chairs forming an arc around the other end of the table facing her. Despite the table being round, she was still very visible.

“Hello little one,” she smiled affectionately at the first year, taking a roll of clean parchment and handing it to her before setting down a freshly filled ink well also. “How has your day been going so far? Have some of the other professors given you homework yet? Rotten isn’t it? You know, I am thinking about setting up a little group of sorts in the study hall for anyone who needs some help or just somewhere to complain. Hopefully not about my homework, of course. But it’s an idea, isn’t it? What do you think?”