The staff room at Hogwarts was naturally - and ironically - the most secretive place in the entire school. Anything uttered in there absolutely did not leave that room under any circumstances. This rule had nothing to do with the fact the professors of Hogwarts would discuss their personal lives or badly behaved students, but rather because of the fact they liked to place bets on which students would end up together either at school or in adult life.

Nobody was entirely sure how it started (possibly through some offhand comment about how Pomona had seen two of the older girls kissing in a quiet corner of the Greenhouses), but it got the others thinking: what about the rest of the students? Who was kissing who? Who had crushes on who? Who would end up marrying who? It was a fun, harmless little game of theorising at first, but then of course it was Severus who had accidentally said - as a turn of phrase - "I would rather bet that…"

Thus, the dishing out of Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts had begun. All of them collected into a pot and then handed off to the winner at the end of the school year, or split evenly if nobody got it correct or students broke up or got with someone else. It was only fair.

Then it got interesting when Harry Potter started Hogwarts.

He had his close friendships with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, but also a rather fun rivalry with Draco Malfoy. There was also an anomalous girl, Violet Merryworth, who had interactions with Potter but it didn't seem like anything could even come from it. She wasn't close enough.

As they were all first years, however, none of the teachers were particularly keen on placing bets on eleven year olds, until Severus rolled his eyes up at the notion. He slammed a few Galleons down on the table.

"Potter and Malfoy. They hate each other," he said bluntly. Minerva sighed and added a few Galleons and Sickles to the pile.

"Potter and Weasley. They're best friends after all."

Filius added some money too. "Potter and Granger!" he squeaked. When everyone stared at him rather blankly, he merely shrugged. "It might be funny."

Almost regrettably, Quirinus waved his wand and a piece of chalk floated up to one of the boards so he could start keeping a tally of who was betting on who. For the time being, the rest of the professors did not join in, and Albus kept an oddly close eye on the bet as it progressed throughout the year.

They had to change the rules a little.

None of them expected an outcome from some first years, so they had to create a second pool for the older students where it was more likely for something to actually happen (Minerva and Aurora won in good faith of Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater remaining together). The pool for Potter and those in his year would carry over until something significant happened; it would not be bound by the end of the school year, necessarily.

That worked out rather wonderfully on Valentine's Day 1993: Filius had spied Potter being handed a singing Valentine card that appeared to be from one Ginny Weasley. Thus more money was thrown into the pot as they added in yet another potential pairing to mix.

Fuel was only added to the fire when Potter saved the Weasley girl from the Chamber of Secrets, although Irma informed them of an anomaly: Potter had been seen talking to the Merryworth girl in the library shortly after the fact. He was telling her to owl him that summer.

Curiouser and curiouser. Was Potter beginning to dote on Merryworth?

No, absolutely not. They all waved it off and said goodbye for the summer. The other pool of money to do with the older students was split evenly, and the money for Potter and his friends was locked away safely.

Arriving back in the September of 1993 brought only a couple of sixth years that piqued any interest between the professors and their strange bets. Minerva was keeping a close eye on Potter and the Merryworth girl, who were steadily becoming closer friends. Either way, it still didn't seem warranted enough to add them to the board. She was a sweet girl - a quiet girl - incredibly studious and kept her head down. Strange for a Gryffindor, but Minerva knew why the girl was in that house - to prove herself and her worth. It was obvious.

Then something strange happened one day.

One snowy day in December, Remus came bursting into the staff room at break looking more excited than anyone thought he even should be.

"Sorry - something rather interesting happened this past week. I found Mr Potter and Miss Merryworth practicing spells in my classroom," he was smiling, and it made the rest of the teachers suspicious. What was he getting at? "And now they have a rather… exceptional dynamism in my class. We've got to add them to the board - no other way about it!"

They all looked between him and their board.

Surely… surely the anomaly wasn't going to change the outcome… was it?

Hello! This fic was inspired by a tumblr post about the Hogwarts professors shipping Harry off with people. Thought it might be fun to do a little spin off of my current WIP fic, "Quietly Observant." If you haven't read that, go ahead and please do! It'll provide more context for this in the long run and how I'm changing canon!

Comment?

-OL.