New Professor

In the Hogwarts Great Hall, the young witches and wizards from the other Houses were already seated around the four long tables. Above them, stars glittered across the velvet-black ceiling, and thousands upon thousands of candles floated in midair, lighting the hall. The four tables were set with gleaming golden plates and goblets. On the dais at the head of the hall stood another long table, where the teachers sat.

"Harry, you're too slow... Why haven't you changed?" Ron and the other young lions stared at Harry with wide eyes.

"I'll tell you later." Harry sat down at the Gryffindor table and gave a brief reply. He had warily noticed that the witches and wizards around them were all listening in on his conversation with Ron, and this was hardly the place to recount his earlier humiliation.

Ginny looked at her boyfriend's Muggle clothes and frowned. "And why are your clothes all wrinkled and so dirty? What happened?"

"He said he took a bad fall." Hermione, who had been a step late saying goodbye to Allen and Luna, had now returned to the Gryffindor table as well. She had completely forgotten that the odd-looking pair of Spectrespecs was still perched on her head, which did help draw quite a lot of the young lions' attention away from Harry.

Harry truly wished they would all think he had gone off and done something very brave—preferably faced two Death Eaters and a Dementor. But now he was rather worried that Pansy Parkinson would tell her Slytherin classmates what had happened, and then this embarrassing experience would make its way into the ears of the other Gryffindors.

Allen and Luna also returned to the Ravenclaw table, but Helena realized she had missed the ghosts' yearly custom of frightening the first-years. She did not