Belladonna Le Faye

At Hogwarts

Minerva McGonagall looked down at the students eating breakfast in the Great Hall. Seated at the end closest to the teachers’ table at Gryffindor sat Ronald and Ginevra Weasley. Ron due to the titude that had only gotten worse with the disappearance of Hyacinth Potter. Ginevra sat there because Ronald was the only student who would talk to her.

Hermoine was seated near the middle of the table talking with some of the younger students with Daphne Greengrass adding to it as she sat backwards at the Slytherin table. Even Draco was having a pleasant conversation with Hermoine as they answered the questions of the younger students. 

The girl had become much more pleasant to converse with without Ronald and Ginevra annoying her. She had hexed the two the first week of school, and told them if they ever came near her again she would make sure the stayed in the Medical wing for at least a week. Needless to say they did not venture near her again, as a result Ronald’s grades had been slipping and he was close to failing out.

Draco wasn’t teasing or making fun of Hermoine this year. Partly due to the fact that despite, the Weasley twins no longer being at Hogwarts, he had been majorly pranked the first week of school after calling her a mudblood. She told him not to say it again to her or anyone else or he would be pranked again. No one could prove she actually did it, so she had not been punished.

Hermoine and Draco had actually become great friends when he apologized, though a little reluctantly by his mother who was the new Transfigurations teacher as Minerva was now the Headmistress.

Narcissa Malfoy was an excellent Transfigurations teacher and conversationalist in Minerva’s opinion. Narcissa was a registered animagi capable of turning into a snow leopard. She had already helped Draco with the transformation. Minerva had heard Hermoine ask for help with it as well as she was smart enough to realize it would have been dangerous to try to do without proper supervision. She had also taken over as the head of Slytherin.

Minerva glanced to her right at the new potions professor now that Severius was teaching at Ilvermorny. Horace Slughorn was teaching once again. The students seemed to like him a lot better than they did Snape. 

Then again Snape was grouchy with everything that Albus put on the man's shoulders. As much as Minerva had hoped to convince him to stay for at least a year to see how teaching without Albus around was. However, he told her that he also wanted to get away from the memories that the school brought. From his years of schooling specifically and for the students to have time to forget what he did to them due to stress.

On her left a few seats away was the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Marvolo Gaunt, formly Tom Riddle having had his name legally changed. The curse on the position had been removed causing the bad luck that befell the teachers given the position to sease. So far he had been amazing, teaching them spells from different parts of the world.

The Board of Educators had also come in made some changes with a couple of the other classes as well. Changing the location of the History of Magic class left Binns droning to an empty classroom while a new alive teacher was brought in to teach the students. Guinevere Stovia was a true expert in her field. Due to few people taking an interest in History of Magic in Britain, the board had turned to the Goblins to find an expert somewhere else. They had gotten them the best. Guinevere had started with the fifth years hoping to get them up to par for their OWLs. She had no concern for the NEWTs yet as no students took History after OWLs.

Another change was to Muggle Studies, it took some convincing but they had hired a muggleborn’s mother to teach the classes. Specifically, a single mother with previous teaching experience, Samantha Loves was formerly a history teacher from a muggle high school. She was teaching the students of the advancements of the Muggle world from technology to weapons.

New classes had been added, though some were actually classes that Albus had canceled when he became headmaster. Traditions and Etiquette was one such class, which was a required class for all students to take. Lucius Malfoy was the teacher for the class. His pureblood supremacy attitude was being dealt with by his wife and Professor Marvolo, not to mention Professor Loves who had already stepped on his toes with her high heels and gave him a bloody nose after he insulted her.

Language classes were also being offered. Mermish was held by the lake with a mercouple, Sylvia and Scott, who spoke english. Goblinese was being taught by a friend of Filius Flitwick’s, Genok,  was retired from the bank and thought that this would be a great opportunity to educate the next generation of witches and wizards on the culture of Goblins while teaching them his language. German was being taught by Otto Fischer, who was quite strict when it came to misbehaving children. French was being taught by the former Triwizard Champion Fleur Delacour, who was quite happy to help young minds flourish.

Warding was also a new class being offered. William Arthur Weasley was teaching the class, He started by testing the class on different types of wards and giving them an aptitude test. Anyone who did not pass the aptitude test was immediately booted from the class, since they would be unable to cast any of the wards. Needless to say, Ron did not pass.

There were also new after school activities available. Madame Pomphrey was teaching those who wanted to learn different Healing and First Aid spells as well as muggle techniques to ease someone's pain if they couldn’t heal them. 

There was also a Wizarding Chess club, which Ron was kicked out of during the first meeting, because he was a bad sport. He would loudly celebrate his victories and when Draco, who was polite when he won telling his opponents that he enjoyed the match and when he lost he would congratulate his opponents, beat him. Ronald threw a fit and accused Draco of cheating. Marvolo praised Draco on his tactics during the match and he and the other spectators pointed out that one could not cheat in wizarding chess due to magic on the sets.

Another after school activity that was started was a study group where any student who needed a little help would meet in the library on fridays with Madame Pince. This was Hermoine’s idea when multiple first years were asking the same questions. Madame Pince agreed to supervise the group and often had a book to advise when questions about subjects came up that no one had the answer for or if someone was working on a paper.

Saturday was filled with different muggle sports. The quidditch pitch was covered with muggle sports equipment from football and cricket. Safety spells were put up. Even the teachers joined in on occasion. Filius and Genok loved to get on the football field and kick the ball around with the students. They soon learned that Minerva had a mean swing in cricket. While the safety spells kept the people from getting hurt from the sport they were not playing, Dean had insisted that part of the experience was getting hurt in the game, so Madame Pomphrey was on standby if something happened.

The third floor corridor on the right hand side of the moving staircase was cleaned up and aired out. The rooms were then set up for different arts and crafts, muggle and magical. These were able to be accessed by the students at any time. Many students used it as a way to clear their heads and destress.

Minerva smiled thinking about all the changes that the school had gone through since Albus had been outed. The smile only grew as she watched students from the different houses sit with their friends at other tables. Minerva saw the same smile on her coworkers’ faces and nodded. 

Their priority was the students, their safety, and their education. Albus had put that on the back burner in his obsession of Hyacinth Potter in defeating the dark. Magic was magic, the only thing that mattered was the intent, there was no light or dark magic.