Woodgreen Academy Archive

Summary: Snape is on a tectonic plate. Hermione pulls a prank. There’s a “Miss Ron” around.

A/N: The dead are alive but not all of them. Examples: Bruce Wayne is still an orphan. Harry Potter has parents, however. And etc, etc. Though I can no longer guarantee this AU to be angst-free (what with the Elrics showing up in the previous chapter), I can still guarantee that it won’t be angst-ridden.

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It was too good to be true.

First, Heero Yuy, Woodgreen High’s dubbed ‘Perfect Soldier’ walked in and took a seat by the window at the far back of the classroom. He was silent and efficient in everything he did. He was every teacher’s pride and joy because it felt like installing a software — insert disc, press ok and all was well in the world until a virus would come along to wreck it.

Second, Ami Mizuno, who came in as silently as the first student in the classroom and took a front seat; she was a constant running for the honors along with a handful of students in her year. She was shy, timid, and obedient and above all, just as good a student as Heero Yuy. Unfortunately, she already had viruses all over her system ever since she became friends with the Usagi Tsukino from Prime but that did not deter her climb towards the top ranks. The blue hair must be an influence from her strange friends but that was not a problem as long as her brain remained functional.

Third, Richard Grayson, another student at the top of his game; the popular nice-guy attitude helped along with having good relations with his teachers but that was a bonus that didn’t always come along with the brilliant students the academy had. In truth, attitude was more often than not a character flaw in most of the exceptional academes in the school. Perhaps his only problem was his being too friendly, making him too available to lose his footing in the honors race once his peers managed to drag him down to the carefree life of teens.

Nonetheless, his background would not permit him to lose ground — he was, after all, Bruce Wayne’s acclaimed protégé and the shoes had become an urban legend. Supposedly. Severus personally thought that too much credit was being given to Bruce Wayne, along with the three other icons of Woodgreen. The kid walked in, smiled at the teacher in greeting and took his seat by the door.

After seeing three of the best students the school had to offer, Severus Snape was prepared to see a disaster in the fourth student. Such was his karma and he was ready. But the fourth student to walk in made him consider that good things did happen to good people and he had been good, as far as he was concerned.

The fourth student was Draco Malfoy with his entourage, Pansy Parkinson, Vincent Crabbe and Greogory Goyle. Though Severus did not particularly favor Vincent and Gregory, they were manageable. Draco was almost a nephew to him due to the ties he had with the Malfoy family. Pansy was a good student, despite what her reputation might perceive her to be and Severus did not care for reputation but more about performance.

That was seven and Severus was beginning to think that this period was going to be a pleasant journey for the rest of the year. Once again, fate proved how she hated him in the form of Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan, bearing a piece of paper would bring bad news.

Severus brought his dark eyes down on the paper and read the short notice, no longer watching the students filing in. His fingers almost curled and crumpled the paper in his grasp before he got a hold of his irritation and slipped the notice in his binder instead. He had just lost one good student. His only consolation was that class hadn’t started yet and he wouldn’t have to curse the amount of time of switching records because of this minor change.

When he next looked up, he was slightly surprised to see black eyes staring patiently at him. The student must have stood there the whole time he was having his mental anguish. She didn’t look familiar to him so he assumed that the Chinese girl did not start her year in Woodgreen Prime. “May I help you, Miss…?”

“That’s what I’m about to discuss,” she began, stiffening as another one of the scholars walked in, a Chinese boy whose name Severus could not quite remember but he knew he would as soon as his brain stopped being preoccupied with this one in front of him. “I believe I’m registered in your class as Meiran Chang.”

Severus opened his folder to look at his record and nodded, still not seeing the problem. Then he finally remembered the Chinese scholar’s name, Wufei Chang.

“My name is Meiran Ron.” She stopped and stared at him openly, waiting for any reaction.

“Ron?”

“Or Long. Whatever it is your tongue comfortable with but I prefer Ron over Long because of the connotations on having to be referred to as Ms. Long.” She waved a hand in dismissal of that topic.

“Is there something wrong with your student records, Ms. Ron?” Severus personally found the name distasteful because of another student, who was far from being referred to as ‘Miss’. It sent his inactive imagination into nonsensical overdrive. But he had pushed that childish thought aside and commanded his concentration to focus at this student before him.

She looked aggravated and took a step forward, lowering her voice. “It’s very complicated and a long story. I am a foreign student and the laws of my country are different from this land. I will explain that later if I must but at this point, it is not necessary. I simply want to be referred to as Meiran Ron in this class and not as Chang.”

Loathe as he was to comply without further inquiry, he nodded. He kept a mental note to check on this student’s background later on, but for now, he had no immediate problems with a name. He nodded, “Very well, Ms. Ron. For now. You may take your seat.” He took a pencil and wrote ‘Ron’ beside her name in his record to remind himself.

“Thank you.” She bowed and turned to leave.

Severus was sharp enough to hear the almost inaudible growl towards the Chinese boy before she went to sit as far away from him as possible, which placed her right next to Heero Yuy. The Japanese boy took notice as well as he shifted his glance from the window to Meiran and then to Wufei then back outside the window.

It was not a good sign and Severus almost forgot to stop himself from openly scowling. Her name was going to be a problem, he just knew it. Especially once the transfer was made, considering how shallow some of his students were now that he had time to notice who else had walked in: Hanamichi Sakuragi, Kaede Rukawa, Hisashi Mitsui, Ryota Miyagi and Tsukasa Domyouji.

‘Why is the whole basketball team together in this class?’ He wondered. It baffled him why all of them were together. If anything, it was the presence of one Tsukasa Domyouji that created the anomaly because his three friends were missing. The four of them had always been inseparable even during their time in Prime.

The second bell rang and Severus reigned in his thoughts to a halt as he looked at his class. He tried to gauge the probability of disaster based on experience from his memories when he was still teaching them in their Prime. He knew that some things never change and he was particularly wary of the row of six footers at the back. He had gangsters in the room. If Marcus Flint hadn’t been in his first Chemistry period, he wouldn’t be surprised if the boy walked in here to join the tectonic plate.

Five minutes later, a familiar redhead knocked on the door, looking as displeased as the professor inside.

“Why are you here, Mr. Weasley?”

“Didn’t you get the notice?” Ron scowled and walked in, already looking for an available seat.

“I did but I was informed that you will still take your original schedule today.” Severus was obviously not happy about having to deal with transfers marring his already prepared records, even if said records were still empty of performance markings.

“Yankumi…er…” Ron stopped and his ears turned bit red when Severus leveled him a disapproving gaze, “I meant Ms. Yamaguchi told me I don’t have to attend her Math since I’m technically not in this period’s Math class anymore. I’ll start tomorrow in her morning class so she sent me here instead. I can go now if I don’t have to attend this class either since I already took it this morning.”

The boy looked hopeful.

Severus pointedly dampened that hope. “You’re in school to learn, Mr. Weasley; not to loiter on an unexpected free cut. Take your seat. And next time, refer to your professors by their proper names and not by a nickname your upperclassmen concocted.”

Draco smirked. Ron scowled. Seamus waved a hand and told Wufei to move over so Ron could sit with them — which the Chinese boy ignored. As a small argument erupted, the rest of the class began to chat amongst each other and Severus bitingly snapped at them to settle down.

“Mr. Finnigan, unless you want to give up your chair and sit on Mr. Chang’s lap any time this period, I suggest you stop insisting on this matter.”

To Ron, “Find an available chair, Mr. Weasley. It doesn’t matter where you sit. I assure you, you won’t have time to have a friendly chat while in my class.”

To everyone else, “Wherever you are seated right now is where you will remain till the end of this year. If you feel uncomfortable with those around you, either step out of this class or bear with it.”

Ron found himself seated between Hanamichi Sakuragi whose red hair was redder than Ron’s natural one, and Kaede Rukawa, who was already sleeping. Ron didn’t like where he was. Not one bit. It was like being situated between two towers and Impending Doom was the name of that poor space.

“Now that we are all settled, I’ll call in attendance and raise your hand when I say your name. Before anything else, Ms. Relena Peacecraft has been transferred to the morning Chemistry class. If anyone else here wants to transfer to another period, tell me so after class.” Without further adieu, Severus began calling each name and took pleasure at the silence.

At least the incident from this morning entered the rumor mill and helped to subdue the room. He would not repeat the same name twice and if the unfortunate student didn’t hear it the first time, he might as well step out and forget that day. Missing one class of Severus Snape meant missing half your life because of the amount of information one lecture provided.

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“I swear Snape has something against dismissing class on time,” Ron ranted as soon as he entered the Prefect HQ. He dropped his bag in his cubicle and dragged a chair into Hermione’s, only to see …no one. “Huh… Hermione?”

“Over here, Ron!” Hermione peeked out from the door of the conference room and waved at him. “We’re all here.”

His mood for ranting was momentarily cut short as he made his way towards the other room. He looked at the other two occupants and raised an eyebrow. They, in turn, were also looking at him quizzically.

“Where have you been?” Hermione asked.

“Can’t possibly be Chem. He transferred in our class and that was before the recess bell in the afternoon.” Draco leaned back against his chair, tilting his head. He heard what Ron was complaining about earlier.

“No, not Chem but I’m still going to rant that Snape does it on purpose.” Ron crossed his arms and sat down. “Yankumi just stopped me on my way out to give me the assignment she gave to her class. I think we’re classmates on that one now, Hermione. When’s your Chem?”

“You can’t copy my assignment.” Hermione frowned at him. “My Chem’s last period and Snape did dismiss us ten minutes late.”

“See!”

“Why’d you transfer?” Pansy inquired.

“I can’t have Snape making me late for my lunch. And I can’t take the last period either because my afternoon’s going to be busy as soon as the schedules for orgs and soccer practices are made.”

“You seriously expect to make it through the tryouts because your best friend is the new captain,” Draco deadpanned from across the table. The implication of that statement did not escape Hermione’s notice as well as Pansy’s.

Ron reddened, as was expected, “For your information, Harry will choose his team fair and square. If he’s as biased as you are, you won’t be playing this year.”

“And for your information, I don’t have to take the tryout because I’m already a default member in the outfield positions.” Draco’s lips curled, not one to stop in flaunting his good points.

“That’s exactly why everyone else tolerates your existence in the team. Admit it, Draco. No one likes you. You’re not a team player.”

“So says the boy who almost got us out of the running for the semi-finals. Isn’t that right, Weasel King.”

“Boys, we don’t have time for this.” Hermione tried to stop them before fists could fly. “Besides, Ron, you still have your job to go to.” She placed a light hand on Ron’s arm and the boy’s anger deflated, albeit his glower didn’t simmer down a notch.

“Yes, yes, moving on.” Pansy pushed Draco back down to his chair while Hermione did the same to Ron. “What’s for today, Hermione?”

“I’ll need all of your final scheds by tomorrow. That way I can find a comfortable time for everyone to have that weekly meeting.”

“There’s the Friday night outing Onizuka wanted. Isn’t that considered official?”

“Was he serious?” Hermione looked disturbed.

“You know what he’s like,” Pansy shrugged, not pleased either.

“Very well…” Hermione looked at her notebook then back at the other prefects, “but that’s for when we report to him. We’d still need time for all of us to meet for other arrangements.”

Ron shook his head. “My afternoon’s tight. Let’s just agree on something a week before the actual meeting if we absolutely must have that meeting.”

“You can quit being a prefect…”

“Will you just shut up, Malfoy?”

Draco rolled his eyes but kept silent.

“Fine, fine. We’ll do that but I still need your schedules,” Hermione nodded. “Next, student council members; we’ll probably have a list of homeroom class presidents by the end of this week.”

“I’ll take care of that. I’ll even do the briefing.” Pansy laughed, already planning on how to let the new breed know who was boss. “I don’t think all of us need to be together during their orientation.”

“I’ll leave that up to you then. I already gave the forms for tryout schedule requests at the registrar’s office. Once all the varsity teams submit their forms, I can start scheduling them.” Hermione closed her notebook. “I decided to be the one to do that for obvious reasons since Pansy already volunteered for the orientation.” She gave a pointed look at Draco and Ron.

“Meeting adjourned?” Ron looked at his wristwatch. “I need to be at work by 6. At most, I have two hours after class everyday. That’s my free time provided I’m not needed or doing something else outside prefect duty.”

“I thought you wanted a couch?” Pansy suddenly remembered after a brief look around the conference room. She did want to rearrange the little furniture they have. Again. “I just received the bank book from the director’s secretary earlier.”

“How much do we have?” Hermione still did not want the couch, obviously.

“A lot.” Pansy grinned and slid the black book over. “I have no idea how last year’s unit did it.”

Before Hermione could pick it up, Draco opened the book and looked surprised. “Who were last year’s prefects again?”

“Shin Sawada, Cedric Diggory, Barbara Gordon and Haruka Tenou,” Ron answered, momentarily forgetting it was Draco who asked.

“Last year’s dream team.” Hermione nodded, remembering how she liked the combination of the four the previous year. “Can’t say the same for this year,” She couldn’t help but quip.

“You almost sound amused, Hermione.” Pansy’s eyes gleamed with mischief.

“I think we can afford a couch,” Hermione said after looking at the black book. “As a matter of fact, Draco and Ron can shop for one.”

Finally, Pansy laughed. It was more than enough punishment coming from Hermione. “Don’t be late for your job tomorrow as well, Ronnie. Meeting adjourned.” She stood up and started to make her way to the door.

The two involved looked shocked and fell silent, as if waiting to confirm that it was a joke. It was so synchronized that Pansy laughed some more.

“Did you just pull a prank!?” Ron stood up and grabbed Hermione’s wrist, aghast.

“Me?” Hermione blinked innocently at him. “Of course not. Pansy and I would be busy with other things — the schedule and orientation if you haven’t forgotten. They need to be prepared; which leaves the both of you free to canvass reasonably.”