Introduction

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep..."

From The Tempest (IV, i, 156-157)

Chapter One: September.

Day One

Saturday Evening

So. First day at Hogwarts.

My brother Gary Stu sent me this journal as sort of a "congratulations on your new job" gift. I feel a bit guilty, because things aren't going as well for him. To read his letters, you'd think everything that went wrong on the Enterprise was his fault. I've never met anyone so angst-ridden – unless it's my other brother, Larry.

But back to me.

I have about a day to get settled in – the students arrive tomorrow evening. It's been fun getting caught up with Sev, but I really have to spend the rest of the time finalizing my lesson plans; All the classes below seventh year have had a different Defence teacher each year, and two of those were working for Voldemort. Ironically, those were two of the better ones.

From what I understand, the years of Lockhart and Umbridge were complete wastes, so I have to review a lot of territory, which I'm hoping to cover in the first two weeks. Flourish & Blotts didn't have any books comprehensive enough, so I've spent the past two weeks writing one. Just picked it up from the printer this morning. Then I remembered how irritating it was to use a textbook written by the professor. I should have used a pseudonym.

Why am I writing about all this when I need to be actually working on it?

Monday Evening

Teaching is too hard. I'm going back to being an Auror. Dark wizards are no challenge at all compared to 11-year-olds.

Tuesday Evening

Got a pep talk from Severus last night. That helped a lot. He's such a sweetie-pie.

Things are coming along, although I don't think I'll ever learn to cope with the youngest ones. Maybe I just need to teach them to "stupefy" and then sit back and let them practice on each other.

I forgot to mention, my niece, Marie Suzette, is here for a year from Beauxbatons. She's extremely talented, and I'm worried the others will be jealous of her, but she has such a sunny personality, I'm sure she'll get along. She's sixth year, and living in Gryffindor House. Today was my first day with the Gryffindor sixth years. Marie must have already known all the material I covered, because she spent the whole time watching the back of Harry Potter's head and being glared at by Hermione Granger.

The Slytherin sixth year class is fun – I've got Lucius and Narcissa's kid, Draco, in that class, and my, he is keen on the Dark Arts. Heh. Can't imagine where he gets that. I wonder if he knows I'm the one who broke his father out of Azkaban.

Hmm. Note to self: Put encoding charm on journal.

Thursday Afternoon

Whew! I finally got an owl from my sister, Mary Lou, in Romania. I was getting worried, what with her working with Dragons for the first time, and being the youngest person ever to be assigned there and all. It seems they really took to her, though. In fact, Charlie, the guy training her said he'd never seen Dragons take to a person like that before. Sounds like Charlie's taken to her too, although when she fancies a guy, she's awfully good at making it sound like he's the one pursuing her. Then when she finally has him in her grasp she always comes up with some tragic yet lame excuse for leaving him. Always keeping her options open, that one.

Look at me – ragging on how the girl runs her love-life when two minutes ago I was worried she might have been eaten by a Tasmanian Macetail.

Friday Afternoon

Friday, thank god. Gods. Whatever. Classes are done for the week. Now to get on with my real work.

I'm already late to meet Lucius, but I wanted to make a note that Marie came to me after class and told me she has a premonition "something dreadful" is going to happen to Potter this year, but she doesn't know how to prevent it. Silly girl, something dreadful happens to that boy every year. I've heard all about it. But she does have a point – it's rather suspicious that we've had an entire week of school with no attempts on his life.

…That I've heard about.

Sunday Evening

A fun weekend but not especially productive. Was unable to discover any information about any plots against Potter, or any plots involving Hogwarts in general. This in itself is worth investigating. I'll tell Marie Suzette to keep her eyes open, too.

On second thought, if I say anything to Marie Suzette, she'll more than likely whip out her invisibility cloak and start trailing Potter everywhere. Oh, who am I kidding – she's probably already doing that anyway. Nosey kid. She's lucky she's cute.

Severus just told me about Lockhart trying to start up a dueling club when he was here. I have no idea why – it's not as if Guilderoy had ever fought a duel in his life. But I, who have fought quite a few, am thinking of starting it up again. Why not take advantage of the school being temporarily monster-free to set the kids at each other's throats? Severus thinks it's a bad idea. He really has no sense of fun. I'll just go run it by Dumbledore ...

Wednesday Evening

So far everything is going to schedule. I should have the students caught up on their missing years by the end of the week.

The dueling club was approved and started last night. I started off teaching them to disarm, of course, but they seem to be of the misapprehension that they already know how to do that and started throwing curses at each other all willy-nilly. I had to scare them with my Patronus to get them to shut up and pay attention. Brats. Potter's the worst – he thinks he's already done it all, but he seems to forget that has never actually fought a full-grown wizard, the one thing he's most likely to have to do.

At least Draco paid attention. He pays attention to everything I say actually. I'm starting to think ... Well, no. Students get crushes on teachers all the time, but with the way he stares at Potter, I really don't think I'm exactly his type. He probably just thinks if he sucks up to me enough I'll teach him some really good curses. Of course, what I do teach him is going to hinge entirely on how dedicated he is to Voldemort. I told the Malfoys I'd watch out for him, and I will, if not the way they intended.

Saturday Afternoon

Received a letter from Larry today. He's on a break from his Jedi training, and went to visit Carrie, who is still lurking about in the Shire. Apparently, Carrie is expecting all hell to break loose at any moment. Our cousin Aragorn has been sneaking in and out of all the pubs and half the elves are making a break for the coast. Some days my job seems cushy.

Larry's long been infatuated by the Master's sister, Leia, but just before he left the academy, he just met Leia's daughter, Jaina (who at least is his own age, thankfully) and has decided that she's the real love of his life now. Men. A new True Love every week. I don't know where they get the energy.

(Later)

Heh. I guess Larry got Carrie to write too, because I got a letter from her this evening. Mostly gossiping about people I don't know – some scraggly little group of Hobbits (what the hell is a Hobbit?) that Aragorn is out looking for. One of them has the One Ring. She's told me all about the One Ring. She reads a lot for a Ranger.

Wednesday Night

Draco stayed after Dueling Club to talk to me this evening. He was trying to find out if I knew about his father being out. I'm surprised it took him so long. It hasn't been in the papers; the Ministry did a good job of hushing it up. They looked pretty stupid after last year, so they're not taking any chances.

Anyway, he started off by hinting that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to be teaching Muggle-borns to duel. That kind of talks makes me angry, but I'm used to it. I laughed at him, and said, "Yeah, maybe we shouldn't teach them any magic at all. Maybe we should just let Muggle-born wizards roam about the country with no training at all. I'm sure that wouldn't cause any trouble."

Being a Malfoy, Draco had a solid foundation in sarcasm. "Well, you have a point there, but teaching them to fight? What if they turn against us?"

"Us?"

"Us. Purebloods."

"Draco, there are hardly any purebloods left. You've seen our family trees; you know that. If it weren't for Muggle-borns, we'd have died out by now. And if it weren't for fanatics like Voldemort – oh, don't flinch, that's silly – If it weren't for him, I doubt anyone would even still be making a distinction between purebloods and Muggle-borns. Stand up straight." He had adopted a sulking pose.

He started to argue. "The Dark Lords says that we can – "

"Stop right there," I said sharply. "Draco, look at my arms.

He looked. The practice room had been sweltering with all the students in there, and I was wearing a sleeveless shirt and hadn't put my robe back on yet. "Er… You have very nice arms," he said hesitantly. The boy can be dense.

"Draco. Look at my arms." I held out my forearms.

He finally got it, and his eyes widened. "No Dark Mark."

"That's right. Now listen. If you want to take up a life of servitude to this Dark Lord of yours, that's your decision to make. But do not tell me about it, because if you do I'm obligated to turn you in. Do you understand?" I waited until he nodded before continuing. "I also want you to think about where serving Voldemort landed your father."

Ha. My use of the words serving and servitude had successfully rankled him. "My father is out of Azkaban. He'll be back!"

Good. Since he'd blurted that out, I no longer had to pretend ignorance. I gave him my most enigmatic smile. "So you think so? He's a wanted man. Do you think the cause means more to him than saving his skin? Or do you mean that he'll come back because otherwise Voldemort will kill him?"

Draco flushed with anger, but I'm enough of an authority figure that he was trying to keep his temper. He finally came up with, "I thought you were our friend."

"I am your friend," I told him. "That's why I'm trying to keep you from getting involved in this. Your family and mine go back a long way, and so do your father and I, but that doesn't mean I'm going to cover up for his bad judgment." He was deflating, going back to sulking as I spoke. "Draco, take my advice and stay out of this fight. Your family doesn't expect you to become a death-eater until you graduate, and that's almost two more years. Maybe we'll have this all sorted out by then."

He was scowling at me. "You mean maybe they'll have killed Voldemort by then."

"Yes. That's what I mean."

Draco averted his eyes and started towards the door (I think he thought he was storming out, but it looked more like slinking) but I called him back.

"Draco… Have you heard from your father?"

He paused with his hand on the door and glanced back at me. "Do you think I would tell you now, if I had?"

"Thatta boy. You'll get the hang of this." He scowled harder, if possible, and left. He's not going to get the hang of this.

Author's note: Well, I've been sitting on this for like two years. Finally decided to clean it up and post it. I can't promise it will ever be finished. Feedback appreciated, good or bad.