The Podium

Allen turned back toward the Ravenclaw long table he had come from, his expression calm as he ignored the whispers and stares throughout the Great Hall.

At the Eagle table, Michael, who sat beside Allen's original seat, saw him coming back and shifted aside, wanting to make more room for him. Almost everyone in the Great Hall thought Allen had given up on sitting at the teachers' table and had chosen to sit with the students as he had in previous years. That made McGonagall, who had begun to look worried at the staff table, let out a breath of relief.

"This is so unfair. Isn't Allen also the professor of Ancient Magic Class? Shouldn't the school have prepared a seat for him?" Hermione had originally been used to Allen sitting at the long table, but after this series of actions from him, she too realized Hogwarts's mistake.

At Hermione's words, Ron instinctively wanted to argue back. Then he suddenly remembered that at the end of last term, on the train, it had been Allen who helped prove his orientation. The upbringing the Weasley family had drilled into him over so many years made the freckle-faced red-haired wizard flush scarlet. In the end, he merely opened his mouth, then viciously grabbed a piece of chocolate cake and stuffed it into it, swallowing those sarcastic words along with the sweet.

Dumbledore, frowning, stared at Allen for a while. He straightened up and coughed lightly, intending to continue speaking, but a grating scrape rang through the Great Hall.

It turned out Luna had used Transfiguration to turn the metal fork she had been using to spear pudding into a wooden chair for Allen. After Allen took it casually, he dragged it slowly back toward the staff table. The shrill sound of the