The next day at breakfast, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all anticipating what would happen in their classes.

"You know the man from the ministry?" Harry said, "I heard Lavender say he was good looking."

Ron looked up at the man at the head table, "That's gross," he said, "He's like 30! That's twice our age . . ." then he looked at Hermione, "What do you think?"

"What does my opinion matter?" she said, obviously avoiding the question.

"Well, you're a girl," Ron explained, "Do you think he's good looking?"

"Well, yeah. He is quite good looking," she answered honestly, "But it's not like I'm going to try to flirt with him or anything. Maybe if I were 30 . . ." when Ron looked at her like she was crazy, she said, "Oh come one, look at that woman, and tell me you don't think she's attractive." She pointed to a woman sitting near the end of the table, dark auburn hair, and a sweet face.

Ron looked at her, and shrugged, "Alright, she's a little attractive . . ."

"See! She's probably 30."

"Whatever," Ron said.

Trying to change the conversation, Harry said, "What do you think she teaches? What do you think any of these people teach?"

They looked at all of the faces at the head table.

"That guy reminds me of Mad-eye," Ron said.

He was looking at a man with glasses, bangs pulled to the sides of his head, a yellow short-sleeve shirt, striped tie, and was giving the entire Great Hall a somewhat suspicious glare.

"Yeah," said Harry, "I can see that. He does look like someone who's expecting a death eater to walk through the door."

"Well then I hope he's not the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher," Hermione said, "Moody shouldn't have been performing Unforgiveable curses on students!"

"Yeah, but remember, Hermione?" Ron said, in a tone of explaining something very simple to someone, "That wasn't Moody. That was some mental lunatic that worshipped You-Know-Who."

"Well I don't care who he was," she said, "As long as the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher doesn't do anything dangerous, or loony."

"Don't worry," Harry said, "after last year, I'm sure they were very careful picking the teachers this year."

"Speaking of which," Ron said, with a mouth almost full of scrambled eggs, "what's our first class today?"

"Potions," Harry answered, looking at a piece of paper.

Ron shrugged, "Any teacher will be better than Snape."

All of the students walked slowly down to the dungeons, but not as slowly as they had when they were all expecting Snape to be down there. Except for the Slytherins, who were going to miss his favoritism of them.

When they got into the classroom, they saw a man, about in his mid thirties, dressed with a very preppy style, including a brightly colored pink and navy tie, short brown hair, and perfect, straight, white teeth. He was flashing his straight white teeth in a big friendly smile.

"Ah, Hello," he said, with an American accent. "Wel-come to po-tions!" he said, making his voice go up and down, kind of in a sing-song way.

Harry and Ron looked at each other. Already he seemed to be Snape's exact opposite, and at this point, they were wondering if this was a good thing.

"My name," the man continued, "is Andy Bernard, but you can all call me," he paused for dramatic effect, "Professor Nard-dog."

Half the students raised their eyebrows, as if they were unsure if he was serious. The Slytherins made faces as if they had lost any hope that this teacher would be anything like Snape.

"Alrighty!" he said, with a smile, "Today, we will be brewing a Wit-Sharpening Potion. Pretty simple." He started writing instructions on the board.

Hermione raised her hand, "Excuse me, professor?"

Andy turned around, and raised his eyebrows, "Professor what?"

Hermione looked at Ron and Harry before answering, "Professor . . . Nard-dog . . ?"

Harry and Ron were doing their best to fight off laughter. Ron even had to hold a hand over his mouth.

"Yes?"

Hermione ignored Ron and Harry, "Isn't a Wit-Sharpening Potion a fourth year level potion?"

Andy furrowed his brow, "I thought this was a fourth year class . . ?"

"No," Hermione answered, "We're fifth years."

"Oh," he said, with a confused expression, going to look in a book on his desk, "right . . . well then," he went to erase the instructions, "then instead, a Draught of Peace. That will also be good for you because that is going to be on your OWLs."

Throughout the potions class, the students quickly learned that they could get away with talking, much more than they could with Snape. Especially since Andy was doing a lot of the talking himself. He mentioned an Ivy League school, Cornell, which he attended, at least three times, and he also sang. He went around to every individual person asking if they needed help, and even after saying no, he insisted they did need help. Except for Hermione. When he got to her table, he looked into her cauldron, smiled at her and said, "Wow, you are really getting this!"

"Um, thank you," Hermione answered, obviously liking the compliment.

Then Andy turned to Ron's cauldron, and made a face, "Whoa! I don't think it's supposed to be that color! Actually, that is the exact opposite of the color it's supposed to be."

Ron looked down at the contents of his cauldron, then looked back up at Andy and raised his eyebrow, "It's red. How does anyone know what the exact opposite of red is?"

Andy looked at him like he had lobsters coming out of his ears, "Are you serious? It's blue obviously! Haven't you ever looked at the negatives of pictures?"

Ron's ears turned red, "Uh . . . no . . ?"

Andy shook his head, "Well . . . you should think about doing that sometime, you know? Learn your colors!"

By this point, everyone was watching as the new potions master yelled at Ron about colors, and Ron's ears turned an even darker red with embarrassment.

Eventually Andy took a few deep breaths, calmed down, and said, in a quieter voice, "Okay, tell me exactly what you did, and where it turned red . . ." and everyone went back to their own cauldrons.

Harry, in his mind, compared Andy to Snape. On his first day, Snape got mad at Harry for not knowing stuff about bezoars and wolfsbane. Andy got mad at Ron for not knowing the opposite of red. At least Andy wasn't favoring the Slytherins.

When Andy got to Harry's cauldron, he said, "How's yours coming along, Big Glasses? Hope you don't mind being called that, I give everyone nicknames."

"Uh . . ." Harry answered.

Suddenly Andy's eyes widened and he smiled, as he looked at Harry's forehead, "You're Harry Potter, aren't you?"

"Um, yeah," Harry answered, flustered.

"Well," Andy said, "trust me, I will not be forgetting your name!"

"So you're going to forget the rest of our names?" Ron muttered, but unfortunately it was loud enough for Andy to hear.

He turned to Ron, eyebrows raised, "You know what, Big Red? You are getting on my last nerve today!"

Ron looked back at Andy, his ears didn't turn red, but he did seem like he mildly regretted saying what he said, "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

All of the Slytherins, and a few Ravenclaws, smirked.

Andy, his eyes still wide, nodded, "Yeah! And . . . let that be a warning to you! Next time you might lose points for your house!"

Everyone then made a confused face; they were not used to a potions teacher that would just let them off with a warning. If it had been Snape, Ron surely would have gotten detention.

Though he was obviously crazy, maybe this new teacher wouldn't be so bad.

*************************************************************************During the half hour lunch period, Michael forced Angela, Pam, Meredith, and Phyllis into the staff room, for the first Party Planning Committee meeting of the year.

As they all sat down, Pam said, "Michael, what could we possibly have coming up, that needs a party to be planned for it?"

"Uh, Halloween, Pam," Michael said in a voice that suggested it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Do you want to go out and tell all of those children that their Halloween party is going to suck because Pam didn't want to miss her lunch!"

Pam took a deep breath in, and answered, "I'm sure we can still have a good party, even if it's not planned two months ahead . . ."

"I know, but this is my first year as headmaster-"

"Only," Angela reminded him, "year as headmaster."

Michael ignored her, "And I really want to . . . knock their socks off, with the parties; I want their minds to be blown . . ."

"Okay . . ." Pam said, "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," he answered, "we could try a school-wide Time Warp, in the Great Hall."

"Time Warp?" Phyllis asked, "Like from Rocky Horror Picture Show?"

"Michael," Pam said patiently, "I don't think any of these students have ever seen that movie . . . in fact, I don't think half of them even know what a movie is . . ."

"What? Pam, are you crazy? These are teenagers! And we're in Scotland, not the . . . Slums of India . . . Of course they know what a movie is!"

"Yeah, but remember, Michael? Witches and wizards in Europe don't use muggle inventions, or wear muggle clothing. They don't even talk to muggles that much."

"Wait- what!" Michael said, with a very confused face, "Wait, was YouTube invented by Wizards?"

"No, that was invented by muggles. Just like the computer, and TV, and all movies," Pam explained.

Michael made a disgusted face, "God, how do these people live without YouTube! You know what? That's what we need to do! We need to introduce these kids to YouTube!"

"Michael, the time we spend with these kids need to be spent teaching them," Angela argued, "Not introducing them to useless, time-wasting websites!" she lifted her hands, palms up, for emphasis, "In fact, I think we could all be spending our time more wisely right now!"

"Oh, yeah! Like doing what!"

"Like preparing for my afternoon classes!"

"Oh yeah!" Michael said, "And what do you teach? Arithmancy? Yeah, trust me, Angela, no one's going to be paying any attention in that class!"

"Okay, Michael? Let's just calm down," Pam said patiently, "how about we meet a week from now? So we can get used to the classes and schedules, and then we could also get to know the students, and maybe get some ideas for the Halloween party? Besides, Angela and I really do need to prepare for our afternoon classes."

Michael sighed deeply, with a very drawn out groan, "Alright, how 'bout this: you and Angela go prepare for your stupid classes, and Meredith and Phyllis will stay here, then in a week, you two will join them-"

"Oh, Michael," Phyllis said, "I don't think I'll be able to be away from the hospital wing for a lot of time; what if someone gets hurt?"

"Yeah," Meredith agreed, "And what if someone . . . needs a book . . ?"

"Alright, Phyllis, no one is going to get hurt on the first day of school; and if they do, they are faking." Michael said matter-of-factly.

Pam and Angela left by this point, Angela to prepare for Arithmancy, and Pam to actually go find Jim, and have lunch with him.