The Sorting Ceremony was getting longer by the year, due to the baby boom that had taken place after Voldemort's defeat; people were getting hungry while they waited. Oleandra could hear Crabbe's stomach loudly rumbling from five seats away, and she could see a trickle of saliva running down Goyle's chin; his expression blank as usual. Oleandra shuddered in disgust, her appetite suppressed; at least for a little longer.
Finally, the Sorting Hat fell silent, having run out of students to sort, and Professor McGonagall scooped it up before walking away with it. It would be going back in the headmaster's office to collect dust until it was once again needed the following year.
Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet to announce the traditional start-of-term feast.
"To our newcomers," said Professor Dumbledore, his arms stretched, "welcome! To our old hands—welcome back! There is a time for speech-making, but this is not it. Tuck in!"
It was a welcome decision to cut the speech short; everyone had waited long enough to eat due to the ever-increasing number of young Wizards and Witches to sort. The instant he sat back down, food appeared on the plates; all sorts of meats and vegetables, their accompanying gravies and sauces popping into existence next to them in saucers.
A glass of red juice appeared in front of Oleandra instead of the flagon of pumpkin juice everyone else got; it seemed that the House-Elves had not forgotten her order of grenadine from the previous year. Still, Oleandra discreetly pulled out her wand and tapped her glass, muttering a series of incantations that Viviane had taught her to detect common poisons. They wouldn't work for the more obscure poisons, but those spells would detect garden-variety magical poisons and even mundane Muggle toxins such as cyanide and arsenic without a problem.
Nothing, her food wasn't poisoned.
Since Naudhiz, the rune of distress, didn't start ringing as soon as she brought the glass to her lips, she supposed it would be fine to have a sip. And by the time she was done with her verifications, many people around her had already moved on to seconds, and her roast goose had cooled down significantly. Oleandra sighed; at this rate, she would be drinking from a flask like Mad-Eye!
Meanwhile, over at the Gryffindor table, Astoria was having quite a lot of fun. Ever since she had changed, people had warmed up to her considerably. She was no longer the girl who had been accidentally sorted into the wrong House, she was one of them. And she also had much more of an appetite…
"I am both amazed and horrified that you managed to eat that entire roast," Ginny commented to her. "By yourself."
Alicia Spinnet was looking jealously at her from across the table, wondering how Astoria could eat so much and yet stay so thin. She was a member of the Quidditch team and got much more exercise, and she still needed to watch her portions! It wasn't fair!
"You should have some vegetables too," Hermione told her, pushing a plate of Brussels sprouts towards her. "You know, you could have those reduced," she added, eyeing Astoria's sharp canines. "I had Madam Pomfrey do my incisors when Malfoy cursed me last year, or if you'd rather have a proper dentist have a look—"
"I'm fine with the way I look," said Astoria, after swallowing a bite.
She was challenging the very notion of dining etiquette by eating as fast as she could while maintaining a proper ladylike image.
"And the Hat wants all the houses to be friends?" Harry was telling Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, while looking over at the Slytherin table where Oleandra and company were sitting. "I mean, they're not all bad, but…"
"That's the spirit!" Nearly Headless Nick said encouragingly. "That's exactly what the founders had in mind when they came up with the Houses system; separate, and yet, different strengths complimenting each other!"
Astoria was beginning to understand how Sirius Black must have felt, due to her newfound surge of popularity. Sirius had also been a Gryffindor, despite his entire family only ever sorting into Slytherin. And from what he'd told her, he'd also been quite popular during his Hogwarts years.
He must be so bored right about now, stuck inside his empty house, all alone.
Back at the Slytherin table, Oleandra was beginning to feel uncomfortably full, so she pushed aside her plate to take a deep breath; she still needed to leave some place for dessert.
And one slice of pie later, Dumbledore got to his feet once more and began his speech.
"Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices," said Dumbledore. "First-years ought to know that the Forest in the grounds is out-of-bounds to students – and a few of our older students ought to know by now, too."
Oleandra clicked her tongue in annoyance. She didn't need a reminder of the time the fake Moody had Stunned her in the back. Forests were more of a Daphne thing, at any rate. She'd take the dark waters of the Black Lake any day of the week over the dark woods of the Forbidden Forest.
Dumbledore then went over the usual topics of the forbidden items list, before continuing on to explain the staffing changes. An old woman named Professor Grubbly-Plank had been brought out of retirement to replace Professor Hagrid for the Care of Magical Creatures lessons, and the toadlike Professor Umbridge was replacing the fake Mad-Eye as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.
Oleandra and her fellow students applauded politely. She hadn't got a chance to look at the required reading she had purchased in Diagon Alley, since she'd bought her books right before leaving for King's Cross station.
Usually, the choice of books hinted at the new teacher's personality. For most classes, the new books would always be the next grade's edition of the same book; for example, there were seven different versions of The Standard Book of Spells: one for each of the grades from one through seven. But since the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers constantly changed year after year, and each one had their own ideas about teaching, by the end of her fourth year, Oleandra had ended up with a bookshelf's worth of differing works about the subject.