A Tumultuous Tenure

(Part 2 of The Mental Mentorship)

Note: The funny dominates from the first fic, however, some seriousness will be thrown in, heck, even a little romance, too.

We last left Professor Snape verbally torturing the poor, long-suffering Professor Vector, who was a new professor at Hogwarts. She couldn't exactly avoid him, though she tried in vain, because he was her Dumbledore-appointed mentor.

Professor Vector is no longer under Snape's mentoring and is a full-time tenured professor at Hogwarts. She thinks she may be safe now, finally, from the verbal clutches of Snape…Professor Snape has also had time over the summer holiday to reflect on his mentoring duties. Professor Dumbledore summoned her to his office several months ago to discuss a few matters that arose…

The last chapter of The Mental Mentorship ended around the Triwizard Tournament. We will see other events around the end of the last school year in flashback as well as new ones, of course. This will start off over the summer before the new school year and well, ok, on with the fic…

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor did I create, nor do I seek to profit from these characters or the Harry Potter books. This is just for fun. The only gold I have received is from leprechauns, and I think we know what happened there…

Chapter 1: Summer Snapshots

July…

A dark-haired man sat at his desk at midnight after returning home, beginning a letter…thinking better of it…and starting over once again. Parchment was crumpled in a single, white, long-fingered hand, and then tossed carelessly into the hearth of a fireplace.


Two men were sitting across from each other, separated only by the large, ornate desk between them. They were having a discussion in a dark room lit only by candlelight.

August…

The heavy oak door that was charmed to open only at the discretion of the office's occupant, muffled the conversation somewhat…

"…be reasonable? I can not see the sense in this…I have overlooked…"

"We both know…brilliance…courage…"

"…possessed no control…devastated…a young man…we may see worse."

"…have somewhat procrastinated…it is voluntary…never without a choice…promised…no earlier than necessary."

"…stalled…experience?"

"Harry is special…realize…children are already involved."

"…left alone…takes it well."

"There are other capacities, as we both very well know."

"Respect…decisions…wishes…We need every fine mind and heart. It will not matter if events take a turn for the worse."

Wales – United Kingdom – End of August…

I was back home at my parents' home in Wales enjoying the holiday and Snape-free summer. Well, not entirely a Snape-free summer. I didn't have to see his face which was joyful enough, but I kept receiving owls from him. Some of the topics included…potions books that were out of place…a supposed set of scales that was cracked…vials that were not in the proper order, and the like. He obviously had done an inventory over the summer of the dungeons and checked on how I had left everything once he was no longer my mentor. I had no idea what he was talking about because I once feared him so much…I would never have allowed any of those things to happen while I worked with him.

Once in a while, between these accusatory statements, I mean overblown falsehoods, were questions of where I had been on my travels over the holiday and if I had heard any news about Hogwarts or if I had corresponded with some of the other teachers He even asked if I had received my welcome back letter from Dumbledore yet.

This was far more disturbing than the accusation-filled owls. They were bordering on…dare I say it, pleasant? An exception, of course, was his owl, Charon, who made Snape's deliveries to me in Wales. The owl truly couldn't contain his pleasure at dropping the letters off at my house. I am being sarcastic…but I guess I was lucky that Charon never brought any blood lollipops with him.

The last letter (he probably knew that if the tone did not alter somewhat, I would no longer accept parchment from Charon, anymore) listed Arithmancy textbook suggestions. Was there any field he wasn't somewhat well-versed in?

I am quite sure that the last suggestion was most likely mentioned to make me do more work and torment me. I can't forget his visit to my office when I first received it from Dumbledore. But why all the inquiries about where I was? Did he not realize that my little excursions over the break were to look for the exact textbooks, according to student year, that I wished to use? I had visited some old co-workers from Gringotts and caught up with them and told them all about my new experiences as a professor. I had met some new contacts in both Arithmancy and Charm fields and even did a bit of research on curse-breaking, because I was a bit out of the loop when most of my time was spent in indentured servitude as his mentoring subject. Well, that was over. I had my own classes and a lot more time to continue with studies in my field, which I had always done before last year.

I had loved working at Gringotts…the excitement…the analyzing and rush of being on your toes and being efficient and effective. However, it was dangerous, it scared my parents to death, and I felt I would like to do other things as well. Also, I heard of an opening at Hogwarts which didn't happen very often and knew there was a shortage of seventh years that were interested and entering the field over the last decade or so, or even had an interest in the mathematical side of Arithmancy. It required years of study or they just thought it was plain boring. I had entered the teaching field hoping to assist in changing that a bit…and working with students was something I wanted to do as well.

On a good day, I had to admit that I sometimes missed our battle of wits, ok, low brow insults. Maybe the bloody moron was now just part and parcel of the Hogwarts I now knew.

However, the Hogwarts I knew, that I loved, would never truly be the same.

Not since the events of the last few months of school…