Take your seats, talk amongst yourselves while you wait for your classmates to arrive. If late, please make it clear in your post, otherwise it's assumed that your student is on time. Each table can seat two people (three if you squeeze). On each table there are several thick strands of yarn in multiple colors. Each is about 6 inches long.  [1]



Today was a day of firsts. It was his first day teaching, and his first class of the morning was the first years. The number three was a magical number, and Bertie hoped that it would bring him good luck in this supposedly cursed position. He was the third Transfigurations professor appointed for this school year. That was another three—another sign of good luck. Adelebert wondered though, if students were likely to respect someone in a position that was constantly changing. Stability was important—and it must have been difficult for them to form a connection with one professor, only to be introduced to a new one the following week. Transfigurations wasn’t the only exception—the amount of staff here who had been here last year was a minority.

Bertie was perched on a curtain rod above a window, near the entrance of the classroom. In his animagus form, he was small, chubby, fluffy, and in his opinion—absolutely adorable. For a chickadee, his beak was a bit larger than usual, and his eyes were a bright blue. Bertie suspected that this was because of his rather large nose and dazzling eyes in his natural, human form.

As he waited, he smoothed his feathers with his beak (an act known by bird-lovers as preening). No matter how much he did this, though, his feathers remained fluffy, giving him the appearance of a tiny ball of feathery poofiness.

1.	If your character is not listed, s/he will be added to the roster once you post. For my own convenience, I only have the currently active students listed.

Rou was the first to arrive, which was not unusual for him due to his drive to be as efficient and punctual as possible when it came to performing so as not to disappoint his grandfather. His eyes quickly swept through the room and determined that there was no one, not even the professor, present in the classroom. This struck the boy as peculiar, though he knew that the Transfiguration professor was brand new to the school, though that usually meant they would try to be far earlier to class than the students.

Roland's eye was then caught by a rather disproportionate-looking songbird perched on top of the curtain rod of a nearby window. It was busy grooming itself in the sunlight and seemed to pay little attention to the room at large. Rou raised an eyebrow as he briefly contemplated the bird.

An interesting pet for a Transfiguration teacher, though the boy as he sidled into a chair further to the back; He was never one for sitting all the way up front and drawing attention to himself. Even so, the chirping songbird continued to hold Rou's attention as he regarded it out of the corner of his eye.

Aoife had yet to miss or be late to a class at Hogwarts, but she was usually one of the last to show up. Transfiguration was a different story. Aoife had been happy in the Autumn term to find something she was good at that wasn't cooking or taking care of animals. After all, Care of Magical Creatures didn't come until third year!

Aoife walked into the classroom, her black and yellow robe swaying, only to find that someone had beaten her to be first in class. What was odder was that the professor was not in the room yet. Aoife looked around more closely to make sure she just wasn't missing the teacher.

'No, I still don't see him. I do see...Roland?' Aoife walked up to the row where he was sitting and smiled.

"Hi."

Ravenna was one of those students that was neither early nor late. Often, she would be seen entering with a gaggle of other students. Today, however, that wave of first years wasn't as thick. Upon arriving in the classroom, she discovered there were only two of her peers and both were Hufflepuffs. Ravenna was mildly surprised that she was the first Ravenclaw in to the room.

"Hello," she nodded in a friendly manner towards the two.

Her warm, pale blue eyes scanned the classroom for some sign of an adult. The news had spread like wildfire in the common room last night that there was a new Transfiguration teacher...again. She'd rather liked Professor Finnigan. What a shame.

An odd sound coming from the room brought her out of her thoughts. She surveyed the almost-empty room again before her gaze followed the Hufflepuff boy's to a little bird perched on a curtain rod. It was grooming itself. What a large beak it had! And such pretty blue eyes! ...Did birds have colored eyes? Ravenna pondered this for a moment before turning back to the others.

"Do you suppose the new professor got lost?" She pulled out a chair at her usual spot and sat down. "If he--or she--is new, isn't that likely to happen?"

That question had confused her. Aoife herself had gotten lost only twice since she had started at Hogwarts. Of course, she had experience in creating her own routes to get to places at home in Feeny.

'But still, I'm 12 and I can find my way around here fine, why can't a professor?' She thought, getting more irritated as it reached closer to class time.

"I don't know." Aoife answered after her thoughts. "Seems pretty stupid of him or her to get lost when most of us got around just fine after a few days. What were you looking at anyway?" Aoife looked back where Ravenna was looking and spotted the bird.

"Oh!" She exclaimed. "What's a bird doing here? Is it...Wait..." Aoife started to think.

"Awww, it's adorable." Rowena waved at the bird as she sat down, her curly hair bouncing at the movement. It was a very fluffy bird, and looked as if it might be even softer than Boudicca.

It was also much too small to carry anything, unlike the owls.

Aoife's comment made her pause in the middle of setting out her books, and Rowena looked over to the other students. A bit of a thought had struck her. "My parents said that Professor McGonagall used to show up to teach as a cat. Maybe the new professor is a fluffy bird?"

It made her glad she'd been on time, as usual. She'd get to watch everyone else. And the fluffy bird!

The right as the giant clock struck ten, the bird flew across the room and to the front of the classroom, making the very noises that gave the Chickadee it’s name—“Chickadee-deee-deee!”

Within seconds, the bird morphed into a moderately tall man with wavy dark hair, blue eyes, and a round face. His robes were dark, but underneath he wore a pastel pink dress shirt and a yellow square tie. His slacks were brown and plaid. Overall, he looked eccentric, yet enthusiastic to be here.

“Good morning everybody! Sorry I couldn’t make it to breakfast to introduce myself.” He had been busy setting up and writing lesson plans all morning. Bertie looked around at each of the students. It was easy to tell by their uniforms which houses they were in. "Three points to Gryffindor for such an accurate guess!" Bertie nodded at Rowena approvingly.

 “My name, is Professor Adelebert Hughes.” He picked up a piece of chalk and scrawled his name on the blackboard.  “My friends and fellow colleagues may call me Bertie. To my students, I would prefer to be called by my title—‘Professor’. If you want to tack my surname onto the end, so be it.”

He clapped his hands together. “I am going to lay down some rules and expectations—“ He pointed to a large, blank poster on the wall with his cozified wand, and text appeared on it, a list of his rules. He was silent for a bit, so that they could read the rules to themselves.

“First, I would like each of you to introduce yourselves to me. Tell me your name, your birthday, and your favourite food. I’ll start.” He put his wand in his pocket. “You already know my name—But I was in Gryffindor when I went to Hogwarts. My birthday is on October 20th. My favourite food is… Roast beef and potatoes.”

Aoife's eyes widened as the chickadee had morphed; a small gasp left her mouth before she covered it. She had read about animaguses but to see one transform was something else!

Still shaking a bit, Aoife sat down next to Roland Dylanis and got out her supplies. She looked at the professor more closely before covering her mouth to make sure she wouldn't laugh.

'What man wears pink?' She thought, smiling and trying to hide the laughter as she watched her professor. Then she read the rules for the class.

'Equal oppurtunity to earn extra credit...Wonder what that means.' Aoife's thoughts were interrupted once she heard the professor ask everyone to tell them their names along with other things. She smiled when the professor told them his favorite food. Oh, if only she were at the Halloween or even the end of year feast.

Aoife then raised her hand.

Frank was developing a bad habit.  He was making friends, you see, and not moving quickly from breakfast to class to class to lunch and et cetera.  And so as the tower bells rang ten times, the blond-haired young wizard was speeding down the sunlit corridor.  He froze in the doorway a moment when he saw someone totally unfamiliar standing in Professor Finnigan's place.  Wait... who was this?

He slipped in best he could just in time to hear the instructions.  An icebreaker game.  He normally quite liked those, but he was still hung up on the other thing.

He raised his hand, but forgot to wait to be called on.  "Where's Professor Finnigan?"  He seemed quite concerned.  Even though they'd butt heads earlier this year, he'd grown quite fond of the pretty young professor who'd admitted she'd also struggled with Transfigurations when she was his age.

No professor, but a curious fluffy little bird hiding in the rafters. It was an interesting way to start a Transfiguration class, of course. Lexi sat, perched on the edge of her seat with her elbows braced against the edge of the table, keeping her propped up as she looked around and listened in on the chatter of her classmates.

It was then that the 'fluffy' little bird swooped down from it's perched and turned into something that wasn't nearly as cute. Their professor. He looked like he would be a fun guy though, what with his interesting taste in clothing, and dramatic entrance. Lexi sat back in her seat a little, briefly wondering where the other professor had gone, but trying not to dwell on the thought for too long.

Hey! They almost had the same birthday! Just two days apart! That was wicked!

She raised her hand like Aoife had done, but turned her head to listen to what Frank had to say. Yeah, where was Professor Finnigan? Lexi didn't mind the new professor, but she'd like an answer to that question as well.

Alice was waiting quietly, excited for the lesson. She loved transfiguration, almost as much as History of Magic, but not nearly as much. She really loved that. Well, maybe Charms was her next favorite class. She did love Charms. So, transfiguration was a solid third. And it definitely helped that the professor was a Hufflepuff. She found she liked Hufflepuff teachers more and more and felt united with others from her house. For a while, she felt that she stuck out. People didn't seem to like Hufflepuffs that much, like they were a lesser house or something.

Well. She thought that they were awesome.

And there was a new teacher. Oh boy, she thought, but then she thought about Professor Finnigan. She liked her. Well, she loved everyone of her teachers. But this one was a Gryffindor. She wasn't prejudice or anything, she just secretly hoped that he was a Hufflepuff. She liked Hufflepuffs. She liked Gryffindors, Lexi was a Gryffindor.

She raised her hand quietly, awaiting to be called on.

Bertie was about to call on the Hufflepuff with the short brown hair and freckles, when a stray student walked in. Late. On the one hand, he didn’t think it was fair to take points away for tardiness on his first day as a professor. On the other hand, they were in the middle of a semester and the class times didn’t change just because the professor did. He held up his index finger in a ‘hold on’ motion and looked at Frank with kind eyes. “Five points from—“ He examined the clothing, “Ravenclaw for tardiness. Next time, it'll be ten. Please do take a seat.”

“Professor Finnegan—“ He looked from Frank to the rest of the class. “Is no longer teaching here. I do not know the details, I am just her replacement. She is probably fine.” Bertie himself had a little crush on Effie when they went to Hogwarts together.  He hoped that she was alright, and part of him was sure that if anything bad had happened, the paper would have picked up on that. He assumed that she had found a different job, or had gotten burned out at this one like Bertie himself did as an auror.

 “I am touched by your concern for her—all of you.” He said, and sighed. “Now, who had their hands up—ah yes—“ Adelebert pointed to Aoife, “You first, then—“ He pointed to Alexandra, then Alice.

The youngest Sellaphix was gobsmacked. His mouth hung open for a moment, but in a sort of trance he just obeyed the new teacher and walked over to a seat nearby Aoife.  Five points?! he mouthed in shock to himself.  Merlin's knickers, he really had to get his act together.  First a detention in Herbology last month and now this?

He slumped in his seat, his brow furrowed and bit his lip.  He wasn't hearing what his classmates were saying, and more and more eager hands were popping up for their turn to share.  But not serious Frank.  Frank was considering the choices in his life that had led him down this dark path.

The path that his brother before him had trod.  A path called Figa Road.

Rou's slightly-raised eyebrow from observing the odd songbird turned to a fully-raised pair when the bird chirped a small song and then transformed into the professor. Rou noted that, apparently, he was the new Transfiguration professor after the departure of the previous teacher, but Rou never really paid much attention to the instructor as much as the instructions, anyway. He gave a quick story about himself and was asking for volunteers to introduce themselves to him just as Frank Sellaphix decided to grace the class with his presence. A small smirk played on Rou's lips as he saw his classmate come in late, especially with how high-strung Frank had acted after getting a detention in Herbology previously.

Rou rolled his eyes as he saw Frank, on the other side of Aoife, who'd decided to continue her presence with him, completely slump into his chair as if his world had ended. So he got himself a detention and a few points from Ravenclaw. Who gave a damn? It's not like he was being forced to succeed lest he face dire consequences at home! Then again, the boy barely knew any of his fellow classmates.

Rou paid a bit more attention to the class and didn't bother raising his hand. He was never one to try and attract attention to himself for a reason. Only if Professor Hughes called on him personally would Rou even bother speaking out. He wasn't really much of a participant, more of a reclusive learner type.

The petite Ravenclaw was just as astounded as the rest of her classmates when the puffy bird transformed into their professor. She examined him for a few minutes while listening to his speech, her eyes glancing at the board and taking a mental note on how to spell his name correctly. Professor Hughes sounded silly; maybe it would be best if she called him only Professor.

All eyes seemed to momentarily fixate on her house mate, Frank, when he got points taken away. Ravenna should have been upset, but as the boy sat down with the look of one whose life was forfeit, she didn't have the heart: he was punishing himself as it was. She wanted to comfort him and tell him not to worry about it, that she or another classmate would get the points back. Unfortunately, talking without permission could earn a further deduction. She'd just have to let him sulk.

The professor's explanation for Professor Finnigan--or was it now simply Miss Finnigan?--was hardly detailed. The Í'm sure she's fine' part could get a bit out of hand for any of her classmates who had a vivid imagination, but Ravenna took his words to mean one thing: he didn't know. That was all there was to it.

Among the students who had raised their hands, Ravenna also raised her own and waited to be called upon.