ONE

Miss Catherine Reed,

It is with deepest pleasure to accept your application and offer you a position as Potions Mistress at Hogwarts. I am happy to see you have followed your heart back to where it belongs. Please report to the grounds no later than two weeks from today at three o'clock.

Minerva McGonagall

After eight years, I was back. I was back at Hogwarts. It had been my home for seven years, and I was so glad that it would be my home for many more. After Slughorn retired as Potions Master, I had jumped at the chance to apply for the teaching position and McGonagall had graciously accepted. She knew how I felt about Hogwarts. It had been my sanctuary and my refuge, and now I would be able to share my love for it with students. It was a wonderful feeling.

During the sorting ceremony I sat to the right of the Headmistress, Professor McGonagall—who, to my girlish delight, told me to call her Minerva—and ate sparingly, in a daze. I had gotten to the school a mere day before the students, and it had been a hard, solitary job, getting the dungeon ready for students. Now that everyone was here, I felt disconnected having been alone for so long.

"Do you eat like an owl all the time?" Came a voice from my right.

"More like a hippogriff, usually," I replied. When I looked up, I saw a beautiful specimen of a man looking at me with deep chocolate eyes. They were warm and inviting and mismatched adorably with his pink-tipped ears.

"You're funny. The students will love you, Professor Reed," he smiled.

"I didn't tell you my name." I stopped chewing, disconcerted.

"Oh! Where are my manners?" He chuckled quietly to himself and scratched his head of close-cropped auburn hair. "I'm Matthew Hawthorne, the History of Magic teacher. I took over for Binns when he finally figured out he was dead."

I laughed. "I'm Catherine Reed, but it sounds like you already knew that."

He looked at me a moment longer and then nervously looked back at his food. Thankfully, McGonagall had gone to fetch the Sorting Hat and had brought it out at just the right time. I continued to eat as inconspicuously as possible.

My mind raced all through the sorting. I had to recheck the inventory, go over the week's lessons again, get enough sleep, eat a balanced breakfast...

Then I heard something that made my heart stop in my throat and my breath catch:

"Malfoy, Scorpius!"

I gasped audibly and Professor Hawthorne looked over at me. "Know the boy?"

It seemed like ages before I could think coherently again. "I knew… I knew his father."

BEFORE

It was my second year in college when the secret scandal occurred. Draco Malfoy, bored with his former girl toys and no longer avidly sidetracked with his Death Eater obsession—and after he sidled out of a sentence to Azkaban—decided to run after a girl who longed to be a teacher at her alma mater, a girl whose hair was cut short and her eyes as sparkling as a child's: yours truly, Catherine Reed.

I had been out on my broom taking a nice ride around the campus when a figure zoomed past me, almost knocking me off.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" I shouted, hoping he would hear.

He did. He flew right up to me with a disgusted look on his face. However, once he got closer, his grimace faded.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Catherine Reed."

He looked displeased. "Aren't you going to ask me my name?"

"Why? You almost knocked me off my broom!" I said, irritated. "Honestly I wasn't planning on a conversation."

"Let me apologize and make it up to you," he said. "I'm Draco Malfoy. Let me take you out. I know a great place we can get to know each other better—"

"I'd really rather not, Mr. Malfoy. I've got a lot of studies to attend to." I pulled down my shirt decidedly and started to fly away.

"I'll race you."

I turned around, intrigued. "Why?"

"We race to the doors of your dormitory. I win, I get to take you out this Saturday." He ran a hand through his white-blonde hair. "You win, you get to study."

"No; I win, you pay me ten Galleons and leave me alone," I said, crossing my arms.

His smirk subsided. "Fine."

I raced off without another word, hoping my headstart would get me there in time. I had noticed his Firebolt, while I had a Nimbus 2001 from my first year at school. It had sat in my closet, as I had never had a knack for Quidditch. I was, however, quite fond of flying for leisure. I hoped my old Nimbus would get me there.

I was surprised by how quickly he caught up to me. I turned, flustered, just in time to see him wink and slow down. He sank out of sight. I was a hundred yards to the finish, confident in my win, when Draco Malfoy whizzed past me and landed gracefully on the ground.

"Cheating aside, Miss Reed, I'll see you Saturday." He grinned and walked away, victorious.