Chapter 2: When Your Teachers Attack, Part I
"Sorora, I know you came for a short visit, but could you possibly stay on as our Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor? I mean, since you have had some obvious experience as an Auror, even though you have been retired from your post for some time? And understanding your lineage-"
"Depends. How far into the term are you, that I could slip in and teach, Minerva?" Sorora interrupted quickly.
"We've just started. Your first class is at 10:00 this morning. You will be well paid, and your meals are well provided for. You will stay in your old room off the Astronomy Tower, so that you can come and go as you wish, and as you need. But be careful, as times have changed since you were once a young Slytherin. The students have grown more…"
"Vicious? Bloodthirsty? Barbaric?" Sorora said teasingly.
"Somewhat…" Minerva said with a smile.
"Don't worry…I know they will be positively Purrrfect…" Sorora said licking her lips with a feline prowess.
"You know the rules, Sorora, so obey them," Headmistress Mc Gonagall said, and turned back to her office.
Sorora walked off to breakfast, not knowing that someone was pursuing her.
Snape watched as she walked off, and smiled like a devil on holiday. He would talk to his students today, because he had a plan…
At breakfast, Sorora chatted with Nearly Headless Nick, who welcomed her back warmly, and she kissed him on the cheek after he offered to show her around, but she insisted that she was fine. Nick blushed, and turned a bright crimson.
"Like I said long ago, Sorora, you were the only Slytherin I ever bothered to care about!" Nick said with a friendly grin.
"Oh Ha Ha!" Sorora said sarcastically.
The two friends cut short their conversation about the good times when she was at Hogwarts when Headmistress Mc Gonagall sat up at the staff table. Sorora rushed quickly to take a spot between Mc Gonagall and Professor Flitwick. Snape eyed her coldly, but curiously, because most of the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professors sat next to him.
"I guess after what happened this morning, she doesn't want to get within five feet of me. Good," he thought with a sneer. He sat attentively, listening to the announcement of the strict Headmistress.
"Please excuse this early morning announcement, but I have some excellent news to deliver to you. I have found a replacement for the post of our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Now, this young, enthusiastic woman was once a Slytherin prefect and Head Girl here at Hogwarts, and one of our top students here at Hogwarts, before a Miss Hermione Granger came along. So I request that you show her the same respect that you have shown either Professors Flitwick, Sprout, Snape, or even I, in the past. Please welcome new to our staff, Professor Sorora Nightshade."
Sorora stood, and whistles, catcalls, and lots of applause erupted from all over the Great Hall. But oddly, none came from the Slytherin table, which sat silent and cold from the farthest part of the room. Then soon after she sat down, the noise stopped, and the school was dismissed to go about their daily tasks and to get to their first class, at 7:45 am. Sorora had nearly two and a half hours to set up the classroom, to her fancy. A cold shiver of excitement rippled down her spine. Then, she could create her welcoming speech, and practice her first lesson, which she had already planned.
But her plans, which she began shortly before breakfast and finished during that time period, had her caught in herself so much that she temporarily forgot where she was going, and she ended up colliding with a rather moody professor that everyone knows and that not everyone loves. She realized this only when it was a little too late…
"Ooff!" He said, and she ended up hugging his chest, and all her stuff a jumbled mess on the floor. For a moment he was temporarily dazed, then he seemed to realize he had bumped into her.
"Professor Nightshade, would you please remove your arms from my waist, and watch where you are going!" Professor Snape said with an expression of disgust.
Sorora pulled away quickly, and glowered back with an equal look of disgust. Gently brushing herself up, she collected her papers, and replied with, "Really, Professor Snape, if you think that I would indulge into fancies beyond those of colleagues, I believe that there you are quite wrong. Unless you are living in a world of psychotic fantasy, I don't understand why you would even think of such things,"
"I don't, I merely thought that today's episode would…" Severus started, but did not finish before a fist as quick as lightning and as strong as a 20-pound brick came crashing into his jaw. He slipped back into the wall with the force and pain from the blow, and flinched.
"Ass! You need to learn when to shut that jaw of yours, before you end up getting it broken!" She said, and turned to the direction of her classroom on the Seventh floor.
"Professor Nightshade, true to your name, it appears to me that you have an edge rougher to the touch than even mine. Pardon me, but I need to prepare for my first class," He said, sulkily rubbing the left side of his cheek. He stalked off towards the dungeons. By that time, Sorora was long lost deep in thought…
The woods comforted her, like the scents of home. She was tired, and weak from her last Quidditch match against Gryffindor. Lily and Sirius had put up a fight, and she was weary from her classmate's poor choice of decisions. She never was involved much with the dark haired, pale, greasy boy that they had picked on since the moment they arrived at Hogwarts. Just today they decided to hex him with an odd curse that made his nose grow larger. She felt sorry for him, yet she did not wish to help him because he was a sulky, odd, reminder of the world's cruelty.
She remembered that day long ago when Dumbledore had allowed her to spend the day with her neighbor, who volunteered to baby sit for her. Sorora's dark past came to her in memories; the neighbor had invited her in, and trusting him, she followed. At the time, she was only seven years old. He had stripped her of her valuables, her pride, and her dignity, all in the same day. She wept every night when her father happened to leave the room at night, praying that the angel she had lacked would protect her, and never allow that event in history to repeat itself. It took a while for her to feel "normal" again.
This boy, the pain they shared, it seemed similar in a way. Though he probably wouldn't admit to grieving over it like she had. She and he were like two trees found in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, each weathering the trials of life, with broken, knarled branches, both reaching out to something better that they knew existed. So many secrets that she kept from her public life, and even her mother. Her mother! Sorora had even changed her name to hide where she came from and who her parents were. And what had happened in America was yet another story to be told.
She knew then that she wasn't alone…
Sorora jumped to find that she was already done with decorating the room. She smiled. 'Let's just say,' she thought to herself, 'That the room definitely has an enchanted wilderness look'. Ten minutes until class starts, and she was nervous. But she knew just what she was doing. She groaned, and began to grow and change, skin turning fire red, legs and arms extending, and then she could feel the ripping and tearing of muscle tissue growing, stretching, and realigning itself. It burned, but she knew it was a pleasant burn, one of pleasure and delight. She soon sprouted long, red fur and a lion like tail. The end result was a huge lion like animal that had gigantic paws and sinewy muscles. Then she hid and waited for her students to appear, one by one. The room had a forest look, with plants draping from the ceiling and covering the walls and floor. Desks were carved ornately with werewolves, nymphs and other such creatures on the legs of them.
Soon, the whole class had taken their seats, or tried to.
She growled, low and deep in her throat, and stared from on top of her desk. The class saw her, and they screamed. Then she jumped off the desk, turning human as she did. "Boo," She said with a purr, and she walked around the room.
"Class, I am your new professor. You will address me as Professor Nightshade, or in the event you find favor with me, which will be very difficult to do, you will be allowed to call me Sorora. However, I am a very strict teacher, and I would prefer to be addressed as Professor Nightshade. Now, class, can any of you tell me what that creature I had just changed into was?"
None had raised their hand. Except a bold Ravenclaw girl named Sally White.
Sorora glanced in her direction and nodded.
"You were a Lionex, a mix of a tiger, lion, and wolf," Sally spoke up, with a little more confidence.
"Excellent. I will award 10 points to Ravenclaw, and a Snickers bar to Miss Sally White of Ravenclaw. Thank you so much for showing enough courage to step up to the challenge," Sorora said, tossing the girl the candy bar from her robe.
Sally smiled, "Wow. Thanks Professor Nightshade!"
"No problem. Now, I am going to teach you about hunting down Dark wizards, Darker Creatures, and things that go bump in the night. You will need your wits, skill, and intelligence if you are going to survive in this world. And that is what all the teachers here, including the old bat Professor Snape, are trying to accomplish. So that you don't leave this school with brains of fluff, like what the sorting hat had at one time mentioned. So I want you all to complete your homework, stay focused, and work hard in this class. If you do, then I will grant you an incentive; you will have Fridays off from homework. But, should one of you decide to stray from the focus of hard work, you will all receive detentions to be served cleaning toilets or some other embarrassing chore, or listening to a lecture provided by me, and I will make you do 50 pushups that double for each offense, plus the number of pushups will be added on to the principle push up numbers. Plus I pile on more homework. I am sending around the room my expectations and syllabus for the time that you spend in this room with me. Your homework for tonight is to read them. Quiz tomorrow," Sorora said with a smile. The class groaned. She smiled.
"Now, I will move on to the lesson. Let's start with this question, 'How many ways can a Dark wizard present themselves, and in how many forms?' This is all human psychology, if you catch on. You can also tell if someone is lying about being under the Imperious curse in this way also. This can help you identify the wolf in sheep's clothing from the actual sheep, as a great man used to tell me. Someone tell me what these forms are, please," She said. Most of the class raised their hands. She picked on a girl in the front row to answer the question.
"Um, Passive, Aggressive, and Undetermined," She said nervously.
"Correcto, chica!" Sorora said, and gave her a candy bar.
She then led the class into a huge discussion about these forms. The class started to like her a lot in the few minutes that they had known her, and she had them as well. The class finally ended, and the students left. She then had the next period to relax. She had just about slipped into a short catnap when someone had approached her. His shadow was very unnerving for her.
"I hope that the students did not frighten you, otherwise I would hate that we would need to hunt for another person to fill up the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor," He said with a fake chuckle. Sorora looked up, and frowned.
"Oh, it's you again, Professor Snape. I rather hoped you would have drowned in the lake, but that was just a silly fantasy," She said with a glare.
"I am not amused, Professor Nightshade," He said pulling a chair to her desk.
"Then why are you pulling a seat next to my desk?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I wanted to see how poorly a teacher you are. What's this?" He said turning to the piles of Expectations and Syllabuses lying on top of her desk.
"Exactly what the titles of the papers say they are. I figured I would explain just what they were getting themselves into with my class. I have a zero tolerance level for sarcasm to a teacher, not doing homework, missed attendance in classes without a note, among other things. I would expect that you would know all about teaching at this point, so I won't go into gross details," She said casually.
"Interesting," He said, folding his arms, and crossing his legs in his chair.
"Is that truly all you have to say to me, Severitis?" She said with a look of inferiority.
"Don't call me that, Sorora Dumbledore," He said turning away, and she got up after laying her lessons on the table.
"I have changed my name, long ago that was what my name was. And I don't know why a half-blood like you had to defile it by speaking it aloud," She said walking out of the room without another word.
'Damn,' He thought watching her go. Another evening he would spend in his office alone. No wonder, he had always been the first to strike a person's vulnerability before he gave them a chance. That was just his way...