A House Homecoming for All

Dumbledore seemed strange, almost ubiquitous in the way he turned and looked appraisingly at all of the returning housemates, even Jessica who was clinging onto Snape for dear life, fearing death was more imminent with a demented old codger smiling contentedly at her for no apparent reason.

\"What do you think he\'s up to, eh?\" Jessica leant in and nearly forced Snape to lurch from his seat in unrequited belance on the left armrest.

\"I would assume, preparing to ingest some form of nutrience for the night, love,\" Snape mutterred whilst regaining the equalization of his inner ear, Jessica still edging closer and about to teeter entirely off and onto her paranoid face before Snape caught hold of her bum in a very intimate manner.

Blushing, Jessica quit her clamouring and settled down beside Snape who looked very pelased with himself indeed for not being forced to reduce their relationship to reprimanding her for fidgeting at dinner.

Draco had managed to sqeak by his father\'s frenetically pervasive gaze and fiddled with Andrew\'s robes beneath the table, Andrew\'s face becoming a carved block of obvious pleasure had anyone bothered to look in their direction. Instead, most everyone\'s attention had been drawn to the newest and perhaps most controversial couple of them all, Cait and Remus.

Wood had purposefully made himself disposed for the evening for this very eventuality; Cait had in fact meant more to him than an illustrious shag in all of the various broomclosets of Hogwarts and had scorned him in her newly found convoy with the likes of a werewolf. His only consolation was his own jealously contrived sentiment that she was only with him because she wanted to swing in a more dangerous element in the bedroom than simple bondage practices would allow and he himself was not one to turn into a raving monster each month. But if she had to go elsewhere wou would he, and soon Wood was drowning his bereft dicky in someone else\'s chichi for a bit.

Lucius, who had mysteriously got lumbered sitting next to Jess\' favourite short-man, Flitwick, seemed every bit as aloof as his reputation dictated for him to be, though neither Jess nor Snape would dare to bring it up, but it seemed a bit inequal to the dishevelled mess he still had to thwart back at the manor before it would be in any condition to live in. But, now that his period of usefulness at the school had outgrown itself, it seemed he would have plenty of time to stew about a potential retaliation from the Dark Lord and force Draco to take the brunt of responsibility for the manor\'s restoration as he was the newest heir.

Aye, it was a humble existence, but someone had to perdure the madness of stuch a hectic lifestyle. Snape looked over curiously at Lucius who was obviously thinking of far more pertinent matters than how long Cait and Wolfie had been shagging before this coronation into the Gossip Courts.

Although Snape was somewhat preoccupied by the steady ascent and descent of Jess\' fingers through his lank hair, he couldn\'t help sympathizing with the sadistic blonde who\'d most likely already delegated the odious task of house elf calibre to his only child.

But in morning dew, the glorious scene came through, which no one could rightly deny sitting there on the tall thrones at the head table of Hogwarts, the school in session at last, and the majority of students chatting in wonder about the reason behir. Mr. Malfoy, and four new honorary teacher\'s assistants and brand new Muggle Studies Professor were all sitting before them.

Dumbledore hushed the busily calculating crowd to emulate the silence of the frowsty halls with the clearing of his throat, beginning the gambit, which would explain everything as well as it ought to be explained.

\"Welcome everyone to another year at Hogwarts! It is my immense pleasure to extend our hospitality not only to you new first years, but also to our new more aged witches and wizard of the four houses marked here for sorting.\"

Dumbledore was decidedly different, more confident and alluring - his hair not even causing Cait to curl her lip in distaste or provide Jessica with any smarmy remarks about hygene to Snape for once. No, now it seemed as if the Rowling books did in fact do justice to a man worthy of such immense admiration in serving his people, however small, as a scrivener of hope and protection.

Andrew, who was squished between Draco\'s immense stage fright for such a public figure, was feeling a wee bit sted aed and looked over to still see Jessica\'s inimical glare at the headmaster. Cait soon caught the miniature exchange while Dumbledore continued with his rather impressive opening remarks and shrugged her shoulders in effort to allow the obfuscating role reversal to merely take its course.

Suddenly, Dumbledore\'s voice grew clearer to all three housemates as he mentioned all four of their names, one in memorium of course.
\"If these fine young people would care to rise for a round of applause for not only stopping the Dark Lord from purging this very castle of all of its livelihood held in highest and most prized hearts, I give you the late Tiera Hufflepuff, Caitlin Gryffindor, Andrew Ravenclaw, and Jessica Slytherin!\"

Jessica gulped down the swig of pumpkin juice and nearly regurgitated in front of the entire school as Snape clapped her on the back and urged her out of her seat with a smirk. Gasping, she looked about at Cait and Andrew for a moment before something caught her eye from the far left cooridor - that repentent doppleganger appeared flo floated down to stand a few feet away from the table, everyone\'s suddden silence exemplified the impromptu performance, and eventually hovered a few inches away from Jessica\'s chair. Moaning softly, Tiera made to speak.

\"Everyone,\" her voice was like a gust of wind too far displaced to be counted as any means of force for a storm, but still threateneing in its mute intensity and so everyone remained quiet.

\"Everyone, I\'d like to clarify a few things for my bravest friends,\" Jessica couldn\'t help mentally rolling her eyes at the patronizing tone Tiera still resorted to even in death.

\"The Dumbledore you recieve tonight has not been the one who had initially welcomed us to our new abode,\" again, Jessica shifted uncomfortably on her feet still standing as the others were in frozen contrition.

\"No, you see, all of the houses worked together, not only defeating the lasting curse cast upon all house elves centuries ago by various dark wizards, one of whom was Salazar Slytherin himself...\"
Jessica blushed uncontrollably and made to resume her seat when Snape rested his arm over the twin rests and challenged her to try.

\"This curse, when an attempt was made to break it, cast the head proprieter of Hogwarts\' house elves to become extremely... absent-minded, and well...\" even the ghost of Tiera looked apologetic and fiddled with her dress, \"less than fully cognizent.\"
Both Andrew and Jessic coughed reflexively as they simultaneously pieced the parts together in their heads.

\"Miss Gryffindor saved the most powerful and duly respected wizard of all time by freeing the least powerful and respected creatures of our world, and for this, they all deserve not only applause, but Orders of Merlin.\"

The sound of palms and fingers didn\'t usually make Jessica or Cait want to crawl into their own skins and hide, but on this particular occasion, it certainly did; Andrew thought he was about to pass out with this sudden epiphany brought to him be their worst enemy, and Tiera merely remained stone-faced in from of the barricade of grateful and thoroughly awed faces. Finally, when things calmed down and Dumbledore resumed his speech, all three were allowed to be seated once more and practically melted with relief.

\"Did you know about that?\" Jessica asked suspiciously, watching as Snape\'s carefully guarded features gave way to some playful frivolity.

\"If I didn\'t then I\'d never admit to it, would I?\" he said with an incongruous glare, Jessica nodding sardonically as she forked an untouched potato off of his plate.

Andrew felt relieved that he\'d at last recieve some sort of legitimate tutelage now that the old spirit he knew and loved from the books had returned to introduce him to the wizarding world and inundate him in the market of pri bus businessing and best breweries for when he eventually owned the Leaky Couldron. Now, instead of having to relive the inadequate torment of the Bloody Baron every time he wanted to ask a question, he could inquire with the most knowledgable wizard in the history of magic.

Cait couldn\'t help feeling as if she\'d never see the blithe acrimony of a New York cabdriver fingering a trucker in gridlock again, as strange as it sounded. Muggle life seemed something sacred and secret in this new world and one she\'d have to ajust to living without; but no matter how many werewolves she shagged, there would always be a bit of American culture thrumming through her vains in aedy,edy, blindingly hoggish stage presence.

Jessica was looking forward to aiding Andrew along with his multimedia presentations in muggle studies, her mind was already assiduously piecing together an especially poignant one on how Hitler and Voldemort could\'ve been the best of friends. To be honest, she didn\'t really think she\'d miss the constant echo of being reminded of her peculiarities in muggledom and clasped Snape\'s hand beneath the table with a squeaze. It was good to see him eat.

Tiera, of course, remained a very prominent new ghost of Hufflepuff, joining the Fat Friar in occasionally games of wizard\'s chess and even managed to get her hands on a ghost violin at an auction she attended with Sir Nicholas, which she often played outside of the common room so the students could relax briefly before heading up to Divination or down to Herbology.

The house elves were of course, still present, but this time, Hermione\'s S.P.E.W. campaign reached its penultimate goal in allowing them to have benefits and decent wages, though they still didn\'t ask for much, nor rightly knew what to do with the money; most everyone had bought a button during that year and Hermione was soon vacationing in Miami, Florida and invited Cait to come along to visit muggle America for a break.

So, it seemed that there was a great lull in the upheaval and preturnatural discomfiture of Hogwarts and most every professor ran their class with penultimate care, never fulling hearing the exact details of how their world was nearly destroyed by a harmless Hufflepuff, or of how the descendent of one of the original ones to imprison the elves led the action-oriented Gryffindor to save the day with the help of a mindful young Ravenclaw. No, it was better to let the world remain as they wanted to and to make the best of things the way they were and change in time, when they were ready. It was a lot like the muggle world really, except that vicissitude and verdant concepts weren\'t as scary as they were magical.



THE END.
A/N: *Cheers to self* Well, I hope you enjoyred that as much as I did; I apologise if there wasn\'t nearly as much innate intricate instances of pure, umbridled smut, but I didn enjoy prodding and tweaking the plot here and there. Good on you if you finished it all ;)