Chapter Text
The morning of September first, all eleven of the students that had spent the summer at Hogwarts were taken by the six adults in charge of them to London. This time they had all their luggage so that it could be taken from the train to their dorms. Well all they luggage they planned to bring to school at least. They all had some things still left in their rooms at home, of course. Even Harry who’d never had enough stuff /to/ leave any anywhere. An issue that Sirius and Remus had fixed rather nicely over the summer. The group had a nice brunch before they were at the platform early. Cedric was the only prefect among them, but when given the option, the rest of the group was willing to go early for him rather than drop him off on the way to a later brunch.
The founders were a bit dubious about the idea of prefects and head students, but didn’t want to throw /everything/ out without even giving it a chance. They would see for themselves how this worked with a good support system behind it. Especially since the nighttime patrols were no longer necessary. They could see the value in rewarding the most responsible students and designating them as ones to look up to, but that was a lot of responsibility to put on so few shoulders. Their old way had all of the upper year students mentoring all of the lower year students. The seventh years mentored the first years, the sixth years mentored the second years, and the fifth years mentored the third years. The fourth years were learning to stand on their own two feet and growing into their own mentorship that would start the next year.
They did, at least, plan a combination of the two methods. Without the ‘patrols’ as the main job of the prefects, which never should have been their job in the first place, there was plenty of room for a new purpose. The prefects would run the mentorship program for their year with the head boy and head girl overseeing the whole thing. The head boy and girl would also be charged with encouraging house unity and working with the prefects to set up activities and events along that vein. They suggested at least one weekend afternoon a month with something fun like games or a party or competitions that mixed houses on teams, like maybe a ‘trivia game’ where each team had a member of each house. When it came to things like sports, mixing teams like that wasn’t particularly feasible because they needed to work together over an entire season, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t team up on other things.
They made sure that the new head students for the year had details of their revised duties so that they could adequately explain them to the prefects during the meeting on the train. They’d even met with them both, all four of them with each of the prospects, to go over it all in person to make sure there were no misunderstandings. They, along with Sirius and Remus who were also on the platform, stuck around until the train left the station and while the prefects were having their meeting with the head students, they all went back to Hogwarts to work on their final preparations for the arrival of the students in seven hours. Sirius and Remus joined the rest of the teachers in seeing to the final setup of their classrooms and offices, going through their student rosters for those that chose to do so, which was most of them, and just generally fortifying themselves for the teenage invasion.
The founders first checked with the elves to make sure they were all set for the welcome feast and had everything they needed before heading to their respective common rooms. They checked the wards to make sure they were in place and the alerts set correctly. They checked the changes they’d made to the layout of the common rooms. Each house was different since they had different values and habits, and they were all customized as such. The Ravenclaws now had a big seating area in the center around the fireplace, but also had smaller tables around the outsides of the room with localized silencing charms that the students could take up or down as they wished. Dedicated study areas. Ravenclaws hated studying in the library. Found it too distracting. Which was why they had their own library in house, and could just check books out of the Hogwarts library as needed.
Damon had rearranged the Slytherin common room to allow the different factions their separate areas to ‘hold court’. The jockeying for position with only one central seating area was ridiculous and nearly came to violence many times the previous year. He hoped that this would lessen hostility between them enough to allow them to come together in a more cohesive unit, which may seem counter-productive to some. Splitting them up so they could come together. It made perfect sense to Slytherins though. It was easier to ally with groups when you weren’t fighting over the same resources. Slytherins didn’t need study spaces in the common room since they were more likely to use their dorm rooms if they weren’t in the library.
Bonnie also had multiple smaller seating groups, but in a very different configuration for a very different purpose. They were all designed more like interconnected cogs. Allowing for the different friend groups to consolidate, but still be part of the larger group as a whole. In contrast, the Gryffindors, as the party house, kept the same general setup of the large combined seating area, but Enzo expanded the dorm rooms enough for each bed to have a desk beside it for study in the dorms. Something that Slytherin had always had. They also set up unused classrooms near all four common rooms for the students to practice their spells, but those rooms had additional wards on them to prevent students from getting up to no good. Including the doors not closing or locking if there were fewer than four students in the room and alert wards that any student could activate for any fighting that would summon a teacher and make it unable to cast magic in the room until a teacher turned it off. They couldn’t just alert to certain types of magic since students would need to practice their defense spells too and would even be learning jinxes in charms and hexes in transfiguration for those who weren’t taking defense. But if things got nasty, the students could summon help.
Once the founders double checked all those areas to make sure they didn’t forget anything, they joined the rest of the staff in the great hall for their final kid-free lunch, and then headed to the library to check in with Madam Pince. She was their greatest fan right now since they’d spent the summer not only going through the headmaster’s library and returning all the books he’d removed, but added boatloads of new ones. Even the ‘inadequate’ books weren’t removed. Just placed into a different section and marked as outdated. It might do the students good to have examples to refer to for the contrast. The founders had used their own accounts to completely revamp the library with the same books that all other magical schools used. And the class books were all placed on each student’s individual shelves in the dorms with a few sets in the common rooms for the incoming first years due to be sorted. There were an additional few sets for each year added to Ravenclaw house’s private library for communal study purposes.
Their next check-in was with Madam Hooch to make sure she had all the new brooms organized. The two dozen new training brooms for first year classes and the hundred mid-range racing brooms for use by other students. They weren’t top of the line Firebolts, or even Nimbus’, but sturdy and dependable Cleansweeps that were good enough for every student to get a chance to play, even if they couldn’t afford their own brooms. The differences between the models rarely mattered so much at the level of school play and only the real prodigies could make use of the full abilities of the top end brooms. At a professional level, they made all the difference, but for students, a Cleansweep was generally as good as a Firebolt, which in most hands was more of a status symbol.
Hooch was another one that was their new best friend. Not only for the new brooms that were way overdue, but also for giving her more to do with all the new sports options. Especially since it came with a hefty raise. She’d been making practically nothing with nothing to do but teach the first years for a single term and then refereeing a handful of games over the course of the school year, but now she felt like she was actually /doing/ something and had the paycheck to prove it. Hagrid was their last stop to see how he was doing with the acromantula farm that had been running for about nine months now. He had been completely shocked when he got his share of the first month’s profit from the farm and even protested that he didn’t need that much gold. He even declined their offer to expand his hut. He was a simple man who didn’t need much, but he was still getting his fair share now. And realizing just how much Dumbledore had essentially stolen from him for so long.
The founders reiterated the rules, now that the students were returning, on security for the farm and double checked all the wards, taking a moment to key Professor Grubly-Plank in so that she could remove some for her classes. They would only be learned about at NEWT level and even then only the juveniles that were no larger than a dog. Hagrid, for obvious reasons, did /not/ have clearance to remove them from the trunks alive. He could bring out any dead ones for harvesting, but not living ones. They also, during that visit, did another quick check to make sure he wasn’t keeping any illegal animals or doing any unauthorized breeding. They’d already prevented a couple attempts in the last nine months.
The big man just didn’t understand what constituted as dangerous given his ability from his half-giant side to withstand most anything. Nor did he seem to comprehend the concept of the natural order and how if Magic wanted new creatures, She could make them. Not him. He could, mostly, follow clear rules at least when they were laid down. The problem was that Dumbledore had so clearly allowed him free reign with no rules at all, so it was taking a bit to get him used to the new way of things. They were relatively sure that they had it all settled now, but would keep checking for a while just in case. The founders finished their rounds in time to make it to the great hall and join the head table just as the train was pulling into Hogsmeade station.