25 Chapter:25 McGonagall's Words

Victoire woke up to the mad laughter of Megan and Eliot as they pointed behind her and doubled over laughing uncontrollably.

She craned her head and saw the familiar sight of bubblegum pink and for a moment she thought that the entire wizarding world was a bad dream before her eyes came into focus and she realized that the 'thing' covering her face was hair and not... something else.

As Victoire sat up, the person she had been leaning on stood up abruptly and disappeared into the crowd of Hogwarts students without even waiting for a word of gratitude. Victoire watched as the person's pink hair vanished into the distance, leaving her feeling utterly befuddled. 

"Can someone tell me what just 'appened?"

Victoire asked with a rather bewildered look on her face,

"Sometimes, good things just don't last long enough."

Megan said while patting Victoire's back, 

"Just like Bubblehead's face!"

And she once again started to laugh like a mad woman.

"Come along now, it would be supper time soon."

Charlie called from over the entrance and the rest of the team ran to follow up with him, even Victoire was forced to run. It seems like they were in a hurry to get back inside the castle before nightfall.

Upon asking the reason for such a rush, the first years got rather ominous looks from the seniors.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun."

Chortled Lucy as she marshaled the other first years back into the common room instead of the Great Hall. Also, Lucy was a seventh-year student, the seventh-year Gryffindor prefect, and an aspiring Auror. Hence her hatred of the Slytherin Head of the House whom she had to regularly meet for classes.

By the time they reached the common room, most of the corridors were deserted save for the ones leading to the Great Hall. After dumping in the first years, most of the prefects went back to have their dinner. The ones who stayed behind were Charlotte, who was now somehow covered in transparent goo instead of the sparkly one in the morning, and Sam, the other fifth-year prefect, his full name was Samuel but he preferred Sam. 

Both of them were looking more anxious and scared than the first years did, but they still somehow spared courage enough to smirk when they were asked why they all were there.

Once all the first years had settled down in the common room, Professor McGonagall entered through the hole in the wall and closed the entrance behind her. She walked over to the chair right next to the mantelpiece and stared at its occupant, the poor girl sat frozen there until the professor raised an eyebrow at which the girl nearly fainted and was carried off with the help of her three friends. 

Making herself comfortable in the chair, Professor McGonagall addressed the first years, and the two fifth-year prefects,

"Good Evening, or should I say 'welcome to Gryffindor'. I hope you all are perfectly comfortable with your living arrangement as you will be occupying the same room for the rest of your years at Hogwarts."

She said in a tone that almost dripped with formality,

"And of course, if you do have a problem, then you can approach me or any of the prefects, we are all obliged to help you."

At the word 'help' she sent a penetrating look at Sam and Charlotte who were trying to skulk away from her field of view only to freeze in their spots when her eyes landed on them,

"As many of you might know, my name is Professor Minerva McGonagall. I teach the subject 'Transfiguration' to all of Hogwarts' students. I am also the head of the house of Gryffindor and as such, any notices regarding your misbehavior would be sent to me, as the Deputy Headmistress of this school, I am quite busy so forgive me if I leave your punishment in the hands of other teachers except for the more severe ones."

She turned to look at the twins and stared intently for a solid minute before turning to the rest of the students,

"And in case a member of our house has a complaint, they can forward it to the Seventh year prefects, and they, if they can't deal with it themselves, would forward it to me."

Now she was giving Victoire a dark look,

"And since some of you morons endangered the life of a student on your first day at Hogwarts,"

The twins flinched,

"Headmaster Dumbledore has appointed me with the task of educating you with every single rule of the school handbook."

A collective groan swept up from the seats of the tired first-years and the Professor took out a two-inch thick handbook and opened its almost transparent pages,

"We will begin with 'Why it is forbidden to have trolls as a pet in Hogwarts."

Oh boy, if the professor is going to begin from the very first page then she would be talking for a very long time indeed.

***

The night wore on as the first years all listened to the rules and regulations along with reasons why they were exercised and the most severe consequence of breaching them.

There was a Geralus Gripock and his pet elephant and his disastrous failure at using the shrinking charm on it. Then there was Martha Lodloch and her act of bringing a Vampire to school only for it to be disintegrated after it attempted to assault a teacher. And Gerald Bao and his peacock, and Bartha Melody with her chocolate fountain. 

Every single one of them ended up having a disastrous consequence, ranging from memory loss to maiming of limbs. No deaths, not in the ones mentioned by the professor at least. She only said someone brought an acromantula to school and had his wand broken for its actions. 

The first years dropped one after the other, some fell asleep right there on their chair. while others slid down onto the carpet. Victoire found out the true purpose of the punishment just before she too drifted off into the unknown. Professor McGonagall's true purpose was to make the students fear the punishment.

The senior students had all returned from the dinner feast and were in their dorm rooms, except for the prefects who had been retained with the first years and they too were dozing off in one of the corners. 

McGonagall, seeing as no one was listening to her, woke up the prefects and tasked them with sending the students off to bed. One by one, the prefects used levitation spells to bring the students back to their dormitories. It took them a while, but the students were soon tucked in and Professor McGonagall allowed them to go back to sleep.

***

3rd September, 1989, Sunday:

Victoire woke up quite late that morning roughly around 10 a.m. or so when Angelina shook her awake and told her that they were going to explore the Hogwarts grounds. 

She woke up, washed the sleep out of her face, and changed into more comfortable clothes. She made her way down to the great hall, wondering what exactly did Angelina mean by 'Hogwarts' grounds.'

Once at the Great Hall, she saw that it was once again deserted save for Snape and Thistlewood who were locked in an argument only to break up once they sighted more students entering the great hall.

Once they had eaten, Fred and George dragged the trio outside the castle and near the Quidditch ground. Luckily, despite being quite cold, there was no sign of rain or thundercloud in the sky.

The twins led the way and the trio followed after them. They circled the great lake, or at least as far along its banks as they were allowed to, and visited the Herbology sheds, there were eight greenhouses each reserved for a different year with the last one being Professor Sprout's laboratory, and of course, they tried to climb the owl shed, Fred got his nose bitten, Angelina had a barn owl chick hanging from her ear. 

Their last stop for the morning was Hagrid's hut or his garden since he wasn't home and they had to look around the place to find something interesting. Fred suggested a quick tour of the Forbidden Forest but he stopped talking once Alicia glared at him angrily. 

Unfortunately by the time they reached the great hall, the lunch had already ended and the snacks were far from filling. Still, neither the twins nor Victoire were disheartened. They simply changed their next exploration target from the library to the kitchen.

But then again, none of them knew the exact location of the kitchen, except for Victoire who didn't exactly have an excuse for knowing something like that. Thankfully, it was Lucy, who came to their rescue.

"You missed lunch?"

She asked in a low, tired voice, not paying attention to any of them. The five of them nodded their heads,

"Well, that can happen sometimes. I remember when I was a fifth-year prefect, always used to miss a meal or two every day."

And she droned on about her time as a perfect, it was after a whole minute that she turned back to look at them,

"The kitchens near Hufflepuff common room, the painting of fruit basket, just tickle the pear."

And she slumped over a pile of books that were most likely the textbooks for NEWTs, but they appeared to be brand new. Leaving the poor girl to her device, the group of students searched around for the Hufflepuff common room, another thing they needed to locate.

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