Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 1 : Introductions

The new professor sat behind his desk and surveyed the room. He had been privately tutored, so had never even seen the insides of Hogwarts before, and the sheer absurdity of the place still astounded him. From the moving staircases to the talking portraits to the massive Whomping Willow guarding the grounds, there was something unexpected around every corner. Of course he would never show how new he was finding everything. No, he was too well trained for that.

He'd spent the morning arranging the room to just how he liked it. The walls were slightly off-white, with almost no variation in colour to be found anywhere. The desks were all lined up in neat little rows, and unlike before he had arrived, the bookshelves were all cleaned and had their books all standing upright. The only personal touch to the room was a small muggle photograph, propped up behind a moderate pile of books on his desk. In it was the face of a smiling girl who could not have been any older than about eight.

He took a quick glance and the picture and smiled. He could hear his first class arriving, so he took a quick sip from his flask, and stood up to start his lesson.

"So what do you think Harry, another Umbridge?"

"Oh erm maybe," he replied. Truthfully he was hardly listening. It struck him as odd that Dumbledore would suddenly announce there would be a new compulsory subject for 5th years and up. He had to admit the new professor looked a little strange as well, even though he wasn't quite sure why. There was nothing so remarkable about his appearance. He had short brown hair, blue eyes and gave off the impression of being rather well off. Sitting next to Dumbledore his robes made him look slightly out of place; they were just plain sky blue. The other staff were all wearing a wide range of colours, except Snape, and this made the strange new professor look slightly… odd. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The new subject was called "Magical Basics" and was supposed to incorporate History of Magic with Defence against the Dark Arts, and a little bit of other subjects as well. Dumbledore had said that it wasn't very often anyone was able to teach it, and even Hermione had said that she hadn't heard of it before.

Harry was the first to enter the rarely used Charms classroom on the second floor, and was greeted by the careful sounding words of the new professor.

"Good afternoon everyone, if you'd kindly take a seat somewhere. Anywhere will do…"

Harry moved towards a seat at the front of the class and sat down, with Ron and Hermione sitting on either side of him.

"…I'll certainly have you all moving round eventually anyway. Right then is everyone here? Raise your hand if you're not… Nobody? Good, good. Lets get on with it then. I'm your new professor for Magical Basics. Hopefully this class will teach you all something new, and very different…"

Harry could see out of the corner of his eye that Hermione had already got her hand in the air.

"…from anything you learn in your other subjects. Yes, Miss err…"

"Granger, sir," replied Hermione, always the first one to raise her hand about anything. "I was just wondering what we should call you Professor…" She paused as if expecting him to continue with his surname.

"Just Professor will do. Or Sir I suppose. I rarely go by any other name these days. Any other questions?" He looked around the room a few times, and Hermione looked as though she were about to burst with another question, but managed to control herself.

"Perhaps if I start with a small demonstration it will help you to understand better what I am going to try and explain. Usually I will spend the first half of the lesson telling you about things, and explaining them to you, and then in the second half I will give you a chance to give it a go for yourself. There won't be a NEWT exam on this, and I won't be giving you any assignments to do, but I do expect you to at least try and practise these things occasionally. Anyway here we go."

The Professor drew his wand and pointed at one of the lights on the wall; "Nox."

It was still early in the afternoon so none of the lights were turned on, but they all suddenly flared up brightly, even more so than the light coming in through the windows. He waited for a few seconds before pointing his wand at another one of the lights and announcing, "Lumos".

The lights dimmed back down again and went out. The professor looked around the room at the puzzled faces, and permitted himself his second smile of the afternoon, remembering his own first thoughts when he was shown a similar thing all those years ago.

"Before you all start looking for hidden triggers and things I will tell you that all the magic you just saw came from me and my wand. You see with enough focus on a certain spell, it doesn't matter what you actually say at all. It is what you think that counts. I want you to all have a quick practise at this before we go any further. If you would all come and collect a small candle off the front here and light it."

He stepped back as everyone ambled up to the front, collected a candle, and stared to light them with the tips of their wands.

"Here, let me get that one for you Mr… Longbottom is it? Stupify." A flash of light burst from his wand and Neville's candle lit. "Right then, I want everyone to try and put out their candles, but you may only use the word 'lumos'. Ok? Go for it."

He took a moment to take another sip from his flask and watch the class. To say they weren't having much success would be an understatement, but he fully expected it.

Nobody ever manages to do it first time, he thought, especially with a spell so common as that. People are just too set in their minds about what they expect to happen.

Granted, Hermione's candle was looking slightly darker than the rest, but it certainly not going out. Every few seconds there was a phut and a small flame leapt into the air as a normal lumos charm hit a candle.

"Ok, ok. Stop there for a minute. You can't do it can you? I'm not surprised really, not many people would be able to at all, let alone on their first try. You all know what should happen when you cast that spell, so no matter how much you try and convince yourselves the candle will go out, it just won't. It goes against everything you have been taught. Even magic itself has a vague idea what should happen, but I will explain more about that next time. Anyway, here is something I think you should all be able to manage with a bit of practise. It is a spell I made up myself.

"Bibble."

With a quick wave of his wand, all the candles in the room went out. He paused for a moment and then continued.

"Bibble."

All the candles lit back up again, exactly the way they were.

"My favourite word that, Bibble. I wouldn't have gotten where I was today without it. I'm sure none of you will have used that particular spell before, so I want you to imagine it as a sort of toggle spell. Say it once, the light goes out. Say it again, and the light comes back. You will still need to think very clearly about what exactly you want to happen, but you should have a little more success this time. If you still haven't got it before the end of the lesson then I want you to make sure that you can before next time. You simply must grasp the basics before we can even hope to do anything more complicated.

"Right, off you go, and I'll walk round and see if there is anything…."

"Bibble."

The cold, harsh word echoed around the empty dungeon.

"Bibble!" shouted Snape again, pointing his wand and a single candle on his desk. "Bibble, Damn you, Bibble!"

The candle just remained there unchanged on the desk, its flame fluttering about slightly, almost mocking him. Snape slammed his wand down on the desk and glared. If the candle had been a student it most certainly would have been trembling by now under one of his famous glares. But it wasn't. It was just a candle, so it continued flickering away merrily in the relative darkness.

Curse that Dumbledore and his ideas. 'It would be most useful Severus…', '…rest of the staff should become aware…', '…the new professor…' All this foolish wand waving is giving me a headache. I must have a potion for that somewhere.

The sound of 'Bibble' could be heard echoing well into the night.