Sano dropped his eyes and felt himself blush. Dammit! Great way to get the teacher's attention on the first day, idiot! He looked up again and sighed when he saw the professor talking to McGonagall. Now he could worry about important things like dinner.
"So, how come there's so many of you here?" Ron asked Sano.
"What do you mean?"
"We never get this many transfer students. Usually it's one or two a year.
Sano shrugged and reached for the bread. "Dunno."
"Don't you have a school in Japan?"
"Yep." He shoved more food into his mouth.
Misao leaned over Hermione. "We don't know what happened. I heard my grandfather talking and he said the school was destroyed."
Sano looked at her. "How?"
She dropped her head. "I didn't hear that part. He caught me listening and chased me out of the room."
Sano laughed at that, ducking to avoid a bread roll. "Loser!"
"I am not!"
"Yes, you are!"
"Am not...you, you...mongrel!"
Sano dropped his fork and grabbed for the girl. Misao ducked and started laughing.
"What is going on here?"
The entire table stopped eating and looked up at Professor Saitou.
"Are you all deaf?"
"Uh..."
Sano cringed as he was pinned by a sharp golden glare.
"Yes, baka?"
Sano straightened up, "Hey! I am not!"
'Then what was going on?"
"Saitou, leave the students alone." Sano turned around to see the little redheaded teacher smiling at them.
"Go away battousai."
The redhead stopped smiling and frowned up at Saitou. "Then stop scaring the students. You'll have enough time tomorrow. Besides, aren't you supposed to be at the Slytherin table?"
"Hmph." Saitou looked at Sano and smirked. Sano glared back up at him and continued to glare as the professor turned away. He looked back at Professor Himura who was talking to Misao, Hermione and Kaoru.
"Don't mind Professor Saito. He likes to intimidate people."
"Hai, Himura-san."
"English please, Miss Kamiya."
Sano snickered as Kaoru blushed. He watched as Aoshi came up to Himura and bent to whisper in his ear. Himura nodded, smiled at the Gryffindor table and left with the other teacher.
"They're so cute!" Misao squealed. "I like Professor Shinomori."
Harry leaned over Ron, "Sanosuke?"
"Yeah?"
"What does 'baka' mean?"
Sano growled and cut his eyes at Saitou, who merely looked up with another smirk.
Argh!
"Sanosuke?"
"It means 'idiot'." Yahiko volunteered.
Sano leaned over and slapped Yahiko upside the head, grinning as the brat went face down into his potatoes. He looked over at Ron, Harry and Hermione.
"So, who do we lookout for?"
"Eh?" asked Hermione.
Ron rolled his eyes. "He wants to know about the teachers." He turned back to Sano. "The one you really have to look out for is Snape." He pointed at the Slytherin table. "He's the slimy-looking one."
Sano looked over at the table. Snape was currently glaring at Saitou, who was blithly ignoring him.
"Snape seems to dislike Saitou."
Harry just waved his hand. "Apart from the fact Snape hates just about everyone especially Gryffindors, he really doesn't like any DADA teacher. He wants that position."
Sano nodded at that information and listened as the rest of the table filled him in on Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Binns (who was a ghost) and 'boring as hell' according to Ron. But what really interested him was Harry's announcement that Quidditch tryouts were tomorrow evening.
The feast ended with the students singing the school song, and then the prefects lead the students off to their respective houses.
"Password?" asked a portrait of a very fat lady in a pink silk dress.
"Caput Draconis," said the prefect. Sano watched as the picture swung forward to reveal a hole in the wall. He and the others crawled into what was obviously the Gryffindor common-room filled with squishy furniture and a lit fireplace. He followed the other boys up a winding staircase to the sixth-form bedroom and got ready for bed.
"Get up!"
A pillow hit Sano in the face and he sat up, spitting feathers. He glared around and saw Yahiko standing next to the bed.
"You little brat!"
The brat danced out of the way, pulling facing at the older boy. "Nyah! Do you want to be late for class? Kaoru sent me to wake you up, lazybones."
Sano dragged himself out of bed and slowly got ready for the day. He and Yahiko went down to the hall for breakfast. Sano was tucking into his breakfast when loud flapping came into the hall. He looked up to see owls soaring in with mail. His parents' owl settled next to him with a package and helped himself to Sano's toast with a contented hoot. Sano scratched him on the head, then opened the package. He grinned; his mother sent him an extra sweater, a new quill, his spell book and another warning to not drink or gamble. His dad sent him some extra money.
"Sano!!"
He looked up at Misao's screeched. The girls were grimacing and Hibou was hopping around hooting madly.
"Look what your owl did!" Misao yelled, pointing at the dead rat in front of her.
Sano looked at Hibou. "Bad owl."