It was Friday lunchtime, and the Great Hall was still grumbling with students coming and going to fetch lunch. However, there was just enough respite between the lessons to escape across the entrance hall to the staff room for the hour, to catch up on any late post, check the detention roster and any notes from the prefects.

Professor Storm had elected to eat very little for lunch, Fridays were fairly busy for him where he finished with the fourth years at noon, and began with the NEWT students straight after at one. It was a blessing that the staff room was well equipped with a wide assortment of teas, though most importantly it was particularly strong tea.

As he sorted through a displeasingly large pile of post which mostly followed up the careers fair with questions and offers of apprenticeships for students he tossed the odd piece towards other colleagues dotted around the room, to which they were more applicable to. He wore a frown on his features, but that was almost status quo for the Deputy Headmaster, and no great surprise to his colleagues. 

"It is alarming how many of these people want to employ the students even if they aren't going to pay some of them," he remarked to nobody in particular, shaking his head.

At the bottom of the pile was yet another familiar bright red envelope of a howler. He'd felt the pile of post was warm, which usually was an indication one awaited him in the pile.

"Not again." He tossed it down onto the table amongst the mismatched armchairs and sank down into one of them. Parents sent howlers to him on a semi regular basis in response to the tales their offspring told them about his lessons and the number of detentions he issued. With luck he'd be able to lock it in a drawer or dispose of it out the window before it exploded, though it had already been sitting all morning and was hotter than the teapot.

A cigarette (or two, or three, or four) a day, keeps the drinking at bay; that was Professor Lundy’s mantra anyway – being the newest professor on the Hogwart’s team, Waldo Lundy sat in isolation near a window in the staff room, blowing his cigarette smoke out into the misty April air. He particularly liked Fridays; he had always liked Fridays (he had asked to not have to teach on Fridays) and thus spent most of his Fridays locked up in the Divination classroom, however, today he had decided to venture to the staff room to pick up bags of tea in order to cut them up. (Waldo had recently become deeply interested in strengthening his skills in tasseography and thus he had quickly burned through his jar of stale tealeaves.) And so, there he sat, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of (loose-leaf!) Earl Gray by the window.

The mood in the staff room could best be described as ‘lazy, but stressed’ this particular afternoon. As NEWTs rapidly approached, each professor, in Waldo’s eyes, seemed to be too invested in having their students pass with Outstandings to even care about socializing with their fellow professors – or, he thought, he could just still be terrible at striking up a conversation. He sighed. Either way, Waldo didn’t particularly care – the taste of tobacco and bergamot in his mouth was the most interesting thing in the room anyways.

“It is alarming how many of these people want to employ the students even if they aren't going to pay some of them," remarked Deputy Headmaster Ignan Storm – Waldo hadn’t even noticed the deputy headmaster’s presence until now. Quickly blotting out his cigarette in the teacup’s saucer, he threw what remained out the window; even though he didn’t think Ignan particularly cared, he felt as if he had just been caught committing a petty crime. A second statement of, “Not again,” caused Waldo to glance in the deputy headmaster’s direction, but his eyes were drawn to the bright red item in front of Ignan – another howler addressed to Deputy Headmaster Storm sat prettily upon the coffee table.

“Honestly, Ignan, with the amount of Howlers you receive,” Waldo laughed while sipping his Earl Gray, “I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that you’ve been performing the Cruciatus Curse on your students.” A pause – but before Ignan could respond, he added, “If I were you, I would open that before it burns a rectangular hole in the table… I'm quite fond of it, you see.”

Burning. Everything smelled like burning: burnt tea, burned cigarettes, burnt parchment.

Felinus's low, near-constant growling added an undercurrent of 'stress' to the 'lazy, but stressed' atmosphere of the Staff Room. He was scrubbing a rather nasty burn mark out of the stone in one corner, where a trash-bin had sat until fairly recently. Though he couldn't prove it, the caretaker suspected that an 'unnoticed' one of those blasted red envelopes had been to blame for the blaze.

He kept his head low, fighting the stain with one paw wrapped in a sort of glove made from the head of a mop, green Scouring Solution bubbling like acid as he worked. Every now and then, he shot the new Professor Lundy a furious glare. "Use an ashtray," he grumbled. "I just swept these floors."

If he hadn't been so annoyed, Felinus might have been amused by how quickly Professor Storm's reputation had spread even to the new staff. But, then again...the man had dumped the Fourth Years into the lake last week. Only a fool wouldn't notice the slew of howlers that came from that.

"I wish you wouldn't bring those things in here." He growled pointedly at the howler, which seemed almost ready to burst into flames. "I'm still dealing with the remnants of the last one!"

Lundy was smoking again, though at least it wasn't in front of the students. Traditionally, smoking was not at all frowned upon by the wizarding population, but with the increase in Muggle-borns and Muggle influences, there'd been a rise of warnings and suggestions it was not something they should expose students to.

He missed the fact his colleague had slung it out of the window, but Felinus did not, and growled about ashtrays and floors.

"Honestly Ignan, with the amount of Howlers you receive, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that you've been performing the Cruciatus Curse on your students." Lundy remarked, and the Defence Professor's face twitched into a darker expression.

"If I were you, I would open that before it burns a rectangular hole in the table… I'm quite fond of it, you see."

"Fond of the ta…?" Ignan dismissed the idea, and continued, "Regrettably, the Ministry does not allow me to use the cruciatus curse on students. I tend to use frogs, and even then students have tried to rescue them." He remembered Sasha and his classmates trying to run from the classroom in horror at his use of animals in the demonstration. He had wanted to demonstrate it on them at that moment.

"I wish you wouldn't bring those things in here. I'm still dealing with the remnants of the last one!"

"I don't bring them in here by choice." Ignan retorted, quite understanding the irritation of howlers, though unsure if the mess was caused by one he'd missed, "This one arrived in the late post this morning and was waiting for me. Eighth since Monday morning."

Between the dementor trouble and making the fourth years swim in the lake to practice getting out of trouble in deep water, he had been receiving more than usual since the holidays.

On the table, the howler had begun to sizzle.

"Damn it!"

He tore open the howler with a slice of his wand down the edge of the envelope, and it coiled into a mouth.

"PROFESSOR STORM!" It began. Well, some of them began far less politely, he sank back in the armchair and awaited what misdeeds were to be cited this time:

"I have written to the board of governors AGAIN to advise your IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL! Not only have we DEMENTORS at the GATES OF HOGWARTS, but I heard you tried to DROWN a WHOLE CLASS OF STUDENTS in the lake!"

The shrill voice belonged to a student's mother, probably a girl's mother, they seemed to be more likely to write letters.

"My Elspeth wrote you a BEAUTIFUL essay over the holidays and I heard you marked it as POOR! I couldn't believe my eyes when she wrote me, I HELPED HER MYSELF to write that essay, it was OUTSTANDING."

"I'll be sure to remark it as troll for the assistance," Ignan uttered, trying to save face in front of his colleagues.

"I knew they were wrong to let the likes of YOU teach at HOGWARTS. You've been HELPING DURMSTRANG in the Tetrawizard. TRAITOR! Next you'll be teaching my daughter the DARK ARTS! I hope when this reaches you, you're PACKING YOUR BAGS!"

And with that, it burned up in a lick of flames and Ignan let out a long sigh, glad it was over, and dared to look round himself at who else had appeared.

Miranda, or as students and staff called her, Professor Bone-Mend,  had been sat quietly a corner of the staffroom, glasses propped on her nose and marking  quill at the ready. A large pile of crisp parchments sat on the table before her which needed the illegible scrawl of the Professor of Healing all over them. The students would doubtlessly receive them, flick straight to the grade and cast the papers away but Elliot was of the practice of forcing them to read and copy everyone one of her words. If not, how would they ever learn?

But the witch’s concentration had been broken when the smell of burning reached a very well trained nose. Her features screwed up in disgust and eyes glanced over the glasses in the direction of the chatter.

And then the howler screamed at Storm.

Professor Bone-Mend suddenly looked extremely unimpressed. Her quill was delicately placed on the top essay and she waited for the caterwauling to cease.

“Next time you decide to drown a class, Professor Storm,” The Devonshire witch started, her tone betraying mild amusement, “You may want to consider stopping the students from telling their parents. It doesn’t tend to go over too well with the British when you nearly kill their offspring.”

A small smirk started to grace her features. “Pity really. Some of the Hogwarts students would have made excellent live subjects for our lot.”

It’s quite unnerving to be stared at furiously by a lion, but fortunately for Waldo, he had just started to get used to Felinus’ feline shape and the lion’s glare didn’t make him as weak in the knees as it once did; “Use an ashtray, I just swept these floors,” the lion growled. “Ah… yes… of course! My mistake,” Waldo looked out the window where his cigarette butt had landed and let out a small nervous chuckle, “… maybe next time…?” he apologized as Felinus busily continued scrubbing the stone floors with his giant paw. He took a sip of his tea, pausing to stare the ash in his saucer.

“PROFESSOR STORM. I have written to the board of governors AGAIN to advise your IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL!” the Howler shrieked in a piercing voice.

Waldo couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ignan as he observed the scene, it was ludicrous that a professor, no, the deputy headmaster was being punished for trying to teach the students how to survive. “My parents would have never sent my professor a howler… in fact, my mother would have probably sent me a howler if I had written to her complaining about a professor...” Waldo thought to himself as he continued to sip on his Earl Gray – it had grown tepid in the window’s continuous draft, but the Divination professor didn’t seem to notice.

“… you’re PACKING YOUR BAGS!” Finally.

A strange silence took over the staff room as everyone processed what had just happened. Waldo tried to think of what he could say but he didn’t really think it was his place to “comfort” the deputy headmaster and so he remained silent and tried to measure how many more sips it would take until he could read the tealeaves in his cup.“4… maybe 6,” he thought to himself.

“Next time you decide to drown a class, Professor Storm,” a voice began behind Waldo, “You may want to consider stopping the students from telling their parents.” Waldo grunted a little at the remark – the voice belonged to Professor Elliot, or Professor Bone-mend as people took to calling her. Waldo didn’t particularly care for Professor Elliot, he wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she seemed eager to harm students in order to then heal them or if it was the fact that he was a little off put knowing that these foreign professors had known his colleagues almost as long as he had. Either way, he found Professor Elliot’s comment to be in poor taste.

“Are you honestly suggesting that it would have been beneficial to have Hogwarts students drown, maybe even die,” said Waldo, trying not to sound angry, “in order to help some Durmstrang students practice little healing spells?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Because, in truth, that’s not very professional." And then he quickly turned to Ignan, "Now, I’m not saying that I think your students could have drowned, Ignan, but we are speaking in hypotheticals aren’t we… I mean… I…” Waldo trailed off, flustered from being angry but trying not to sound angry at Professor Elliot as well as trying to not give Professor Storm the impression that he had agreed with the howler.

Not knowing what to do with himself he gulped down the remainder of his tea in a sudden rash movement, trying not to swallow or choke on any of the tea leaves, and went back to staring out the window.

"Next time you decide to drown a class…" Elliot followed the howler, "… with the British when you nearly kill their offspring."

Despite himself, he smiled faintly at the comment, Miranda was one of the staff who could fully appreciate the differences between the two schools and their approaches, from first hand teaching experience.

Lundy protested at her dark humour, though it was rather difficult to work out when she was joking, and Ignan suspected that more often than not, she wasn't.

"Now, I'm not saying that I think your student could have drowned, Ignan…." He'd been too hasty to try not to annoy either of them to the point of dislike, while stating his opinion that Lundy had to stare out of the window again.

"The trouble was," Ignan began, to both of them, drawing his wand to rid the table and nearby floor of the remnants of the howler, "I didn't do a good enough job of drowning them. The buggers got out, and therefore found parchment and ink to write home."

Glancing beneath the table from where he sat, he added to Felinus,
"There, think that's all of that one. You've my permission to burn any others you find."

He got up again from the armchair, and made his way through the jumble of chairs to the teapot, speaking smoothly as his German-tinged accent could.

"Can't stop them writing home, and I've had one a fortnight since I got here. One student writes home, the parents are friends, it snowballs with exaggeration… sometimes its fairly amusing how the story gets twisted, and I'm sorry I didn't think of the atrocity to perform in the first place. More tea, anyone?" 

For months now Nightingale had kept to himself, but these past few weeks had made him more of a recluse than ever. Still suffering through his break up and the trials of being a homeowner kept him buys with his classes and his books. He knew the sure way to figure his way out of heartache was to be as busy as possible, and with his new way of instructing everything was much different. It had been a while since he had received any howlers, and for this he was thankful. It seemed that the parents of Hogwarts were appreciative his new direction and that he was starting to listen, and ever since everything with the attacks…well, maybe even some of the staff had started to understand that he wasn't such a fool.

With his nose down in the book, Gale entered the room without looking up and even dropped his hand to touch the mane of his lion friend before making his way to the coffee. Voices he knew, a few he did not suffered in silence of trying to win his attention, and finally when he heard Ignan he looked up from his book, "You would think by now that they would know better than to just write home about you. Might I suggest that next time you tie stones to their feet before putting them in the lake." He poured his cup of coffee and realized that the smell of cigarettes made his mouth water, but no one smoked at this school did they? A new face. A bearded new face.

"I led them out once on a string of rope and one child set that rope on fire. You would have thought I had stabbed them all in the heart as many howlers as I got. Better get used to it, Pup." And that he turned his hateful eye back into his book while settling into the sofa.

The newest Professor’s outburst made Miranda very intrigued indeed. She stared at him plainly, features expressionless. He really was quite eager to protect his new fledglings wasn’t he? The true Hogwarts professor eager to help and smother his students in order for them to grow into more tea leaf reading bearded people. Miranda didn’t believe in tealeaf reading. Neither did she believe in wasting children’s time teaching them to create futures that would never come to be from the random scattering of badly sieved leaves.

Her eyes scanned to Professor Storm who was speaking and weaving his way to the habitually most important area of the staffroom. He began to speak and another professor entered. But Miranda was far more interested in the tealeaf reader who almost choked on his own leaves. She rose from her chair and made her way over to him, suitably high heels clicking on the stone floor before she lowered herself onto the arm of the chair in front of Professor Lundy. Her legs crossed over one another and she sat up nice and straight, glancing down at him over her glasses.
“One sugar would be lovely, Professor.”

“Well, Professor Lundy..." There wasn’t a trace of a smile on her face. It was the simple pokerface she’d perfected through her time working at Durmstrang.
“Firstly, there is in fact a silver lining to most unfortunate situations. A few dead students; a few improved grades. You utilise the resources offered.  Then there’s your slight on my student’s ‘little’ healing spells. They aren’t little. There’s a reason we’re the best school in Europe. Even Professor Storm regrets making the move. He can’t even successfully drown a group of young individuals anymore.”

A small, polite smile then formed on Miranda’s lips. “You’re perfectly suited to Hogwarts, though.”

Branwen arrived in a light cloud of soil and debris as usual, a twig with living leaves stuck in her frizzy white hair.  She was beaming and glistening from the sun. 

"Spriiiiing!" she sang as she mosey'd in, not very concerned if she interrupted anyone's conversation.  She loved spring! It was bright and green and alive and a pleasant sort of wet.  She peeled off her gloves and stuck them in her heavy canvas apron with toads all over. 

"The real magic is in the growing things," she declared.  "Don't be jealous! I know you're all into wand waving and spells and books, but I know that in your hearts you harbor a deep resentment that you didn't follow the same path as I."

Her brazen affirmations were not meant to be hostile but rather in a sort of provocative jest.   The good weather put everyone in a better mood.

Waldo had hoped that the rest of the staff would have ignored him after, what he thought, had been an entirely embarrassing outburst – he also wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep his anger inside him from resurfacing if someone decided to speak to him…

“More tea, anyone?” Ignan asked. In all truth, Waldo did want more tea, but he also wanted to read these tealeaves... “I’m fine, thank you,” he replied while still staring out the window.  Another voice piped up in the room, a new voice, it spoke of how it had also received quite a few howlers after an incident that had occurred in his class. “Well see, that’s ridiculous; I do agree that parents are being far too sensitive and excessively flippant in their usage of howlers, but still… I wouldn’t think that joking about death,” He turned to face the voice and was instead met with the uncomfortably close Professor Elliot, “Oh, I…” he trailed off.

“Well, Professor Lundy…” she began. Waldo couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated. He never particularly liked Durmstrang, his mother had constantly told him that Durmstrang was filled with some strangely dark individuals – they were, according to Sibylle, extremely cold and not particularly friendly. His mother’s wisdom seemed to ring scarily true as Waldo examined the expressionless (yet oddly attractive) face of Professor Elliot; her lips almost seemed to spit out the finishing barb of her commentary, “You’re perfectly suited to Hogwarts, though.”

Waldo didn’t know how to respond.  All he could muster up was, “Well Miranda, the same could be said for how well suited you are for Durmstrang… and, no, that’s not a compliment.” He had sounded dumb – he knew he had sounded dumb. “Why the hell did I add that last part,” he thought to himself as he glanced down into his drained teacup. An uncomfortable silence gripped the room for a second time in the afternoon… Waldo hoped someone would come in and break the sil-

"Spriiiiing!"

Ah, Branwen, someone Waldo actually liked! He smiled at the witch, looking past Miranda's smug face, trying not to look too eager.

He had forgotten about his tealeaves for now.

In the end, it was the combined scents of smoke, dirt and coffee– and the unmistakable, passionate shrieks of Howlers –that drew her to the staff room, the one place she’d still had yet to step foot in despite the month and change she’d been here—claws softly clicking against stone, dark fur gleaming under window-filtered sunlight, that four-legged gait brisk, energetic and carefree. It was not, perhaps, the most sensitive course of action, considering how many there were at the castle who were still iffy about her being there, but it was lunchtime, which meant the jolts and hitches in breath were at a minimum. Anyway, she’d just come back from her afternoon jog; she couldn’t be bothered with such things until she’d eaten.

(She’d had the opportunity to eat a rabbit, earlier, but there was still a standing treaty with a certain pack to consider, so.)

Not long after the jovial Herbology professor swanned in, so did Shona—making a sleek, slinking shadow as she made her way towards the coffeemaker. Only a little larger than the average female wolf, she only had to stretch a bit to rest her chin atop the counter’s edge, her black, wet nose twitching as she sniffed. Was it French roast? Hazelnut? ...eh, who cared; she always ended up putting a ton of milk and sugar into hers anyway.

Deeming the present amount fit for consumption (and letting the room’s conversation– and silence– wash over her, effectively labeling the lot of them meaningless until human), the werewolf shifted back, fur receding into lycra and flushed skin, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She kept her back to the rest of them– snorting softly with amusement at Branwen’s good-natured boast as she waited for her coffee to pour itself –but only until she had a mug similar to Gale’s in hand; when she did, it was easy to see that her smile had lingered, if only at the corners. “How many?” she asked Ignan, voice pitched low but clear as Miranda subjected the Divination professor to a stare. Hazel green eyes flickered to the newly cleaned spot on the table, before meeting the deputy headmaster’s and crinkling at the corners with a slight quirk of a grin. Although the surface was well clear of any ashy remains, the smell of it had yet to go away. “I got one today, at breakfast-” Which made... twenty-two, twenty-three this week? She’d have to check. “I’ve been judging them on eloquence and creativity.” Her grin widened brilliantly– a wolfishcheerful contrast to leonine ire.

She was hardly a Durmstrang alumnus clearly used to backlash, but she was a werewolf. And her lessons weren’t exactly gentle, either.

The moment Branwen came through the door bringing with her the very air of Spring with her, Gale felt he could breathe again. He loved her dearly, and was eager to tell her of his garden. Buying the old farmhouse had been the best decision of his life, and every weekend when he returns home new plants were sprouting up all over. He knew a great deal of them so far, but brought in sketches of some of the leaves for help with identifying them. He marveled at how the dirt under his nails didn't bother him, and how the sun that painted his cheeks was such a normal now he was used to the small burn. Fair skinned that he was, it wouldn't turn brown like his father's, but at least it wasn't looking so bad.

Gale was happy to be on his own, content to listen to another day in the staff room, but when the new professor called Miranda out on her quip about the students he had to stop a moment. First Ignan and now Ms. E? Oh this poor soul, it felt like looking in the mirror, and with such a beard too...

He wanted to rush to Waldo's defence, but instead kept quiet and sipped his coffee--eager to see how this panned out.

It wasn't often that Lucrezia graced the staff room with her presence, especially not during times she knew it to be quite busy, such as now. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and if running out of coffee was not a desperate time, she did not know what was. She entered the staff room quietly, heading straight for the coffee pot, without even stopping to see just how... tedious the company of the room would be.

With her cup full to the brim, she pulled out the vial of belladonna tincture and dropped half of its content into the cup. Due to some heavy modifications on the recipe, the tincture no longer released toxic vapors when coming in contact with alkaline substances, so now she had no reservations to publicly deal with her practices of mithridatism. When the first sip of coffee hit her mouth, the Potions Mistress' face relaxed visibly and then she finally turned her body to the rest of the room. She bowed her head slightly in greeting, stopping to acknowledge both Professor Donovan and Deputy Headmaster Storm, to whom she almost smiled.

The rest of them were met with just a curt nod. Strangely was a strange sort of creature, Woodward was an accident of nature, or well—magic, she supposed, Kesali was not to be spoken of, and while for Elliot she might've held some sort of professional respect, Ezia couldn't say she knew much of the woman. The same went for the newest addition to the Hogwarts staff, Lumpy, or Loony, or something. But the distaste in which Ezia held his subject, would probably cater to her general reluctance of his character, in the end.

Lucrezia supposed the social norms dictated that now that she was here, she should stay for a while, as uncomfortable as the idea sounded. "Eloquence and creativity of what, Professor Donovan?" Ezia asked, leaning slightly on the table behind her as she crossed her legs at the ankles. Her forehead crinkled at the middle, as her nose took a whiff of the air. "Is something burning in the castle?" she asked, one intense eyebrow arched high. And if it was, why was everybody so utterly calm?

The headmistress of Hogwarts stood poised upon the threshold of the staff room. Luncheon was in full swing and after ducking her head into the great hall to ensure no catastrophes were taking place, she stepped on over to the far less brash sounds of the staff’s inner sanctum. She was, however, quite taken aback – as the sounds emanating from within were much louder than those in the hall across the way. She was contemplating turning on her heel and taking her chances with a tray in her office when the howler’s screeching stopped.

Taking a deep breath, Minerva pushed on the doors to the room and stepped gracefully inside. “Discussing howlers, are we?” She asked lightly before heading toward an empty seat, completely missing the exchange about drowning students completely. “I daresay you’ll be receiving your own soon enough, Professor Lundy. Leave it to the housewives of Great Britain to think they know how to teach your classes better than you ever could. I’ve not gone a week without one since my return. I consider myself lucky if I’ve less than five to sort through on any given day,”

The stately witch shook her head slightly, but then offered a small yet genuine smile for the newest addition to Hogwarts staff. It was true, Minerva was simply not a fan of divination, but Lundy looked competent. The headmistress had been tempted to remove Divination from the school’s curriculum on several occasions, but something always stayed her hand… She supposed it could have been the warning letters from the board of governors every time she brought the subject up.

“Mr. Woodward, your janitorial order should be in the post today. I’ll have the elves deliver it to you this evening,” She offered the lion a sharp nod, then turned toward the other staff, “I suppose you’re all prepared for examinations?” She asked, while summoning a cup of tea to sip.