Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 3

"So where exactly are we going?" I asked.

"You will discover that in just a moment," Dumbledore said.

He stopped us at the end of the driveway and pulled out his wand from his robes again. With a quick swish of the wrist, the bags that Harry and I were carrying vanished from our hands. Although it lightened my load significantly, my answer still hadn't been answered and I still had no idea what was going on. Judging by the slightly confused expression on Harry's face, he didn't know what was going on either.

"Now, you two haven't passes your Apparition tests, correct?" Dumbledore asked.

"No..." I said while looking at him skeptically.

"That's what I thought," Dumbledore nodded. "So we're going to have to do Side-Along Apparition."

"What exactly does that mean?" Harry asked.

"Just hold on to my arm," Dumbledore said. "And I do ask that you are gentle with my right arm Harry - it isn't doing that well.

Since I didn't understand what he was talking about, my eyes immediately darted toward Dumbledore's right arm and hand to see what it was he was referring to. My eyes widened when I saw that my headmaster's hand was blackened and looking like it had just been pulled out of an awful fire.

"Professor - what happened?" I asked in disbelief. "What did you do to your hand?"

"That is a story that is meant for another day," he said quickly. "We have other business to attend to, and I'm afraid that the tale will take far too much time away from us."

He held out each of his arms toward us both with a smile on his face. I gripped onto his left while Harry did the same with his right.

"I suggest holding on very well," Dumbledore said. "We wouldn't want to have any complications. Since this is your first time, I do believe that I should warn you that you may feel a slight discomfort."

Fear suddenly flew through me. George told me that he had just passed his Apparition test with Fred and he went into great detail about what the feeling was like. Although he said it is very useful to use, it was highly uncomfortable when he first began learning to do it. This only made me feel worse about the whole situation.

"Okay, ready?" Dumbledore asked and looked from one of us to the other.

"Sure," Harry murmured.

Dumbledore nodded and then there was a loud pop noise that erupted in my ear. All at once I felt my body feel like I was inside of a large box that was quickly shrinking outside of me. I closed my eyes tightly and I probably would have screamed out in agony if the pressure around me hadn't been crushing my lungs to the point that I was not able to use them. Just when I thought my entire body was going to collapse around me, everything suddenly went back to normal as if it had never happened.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself looking around at a small village. From the looks of it, the town was completely vacant and looked like it had been deserted a long time ago. Maybe it was because it was dark, but something about this area gave me a bad feeling that made me want to run away from it.

"Miss Potter, there is nothing to fear," Dumbledore said. "I do believe that we are the only ones here."

It was then that I realized how tightly I was gripping onto Dumbledore's arm. I let go of him quickly and gave him an apologetic look before I grabbed onto my wand again. We all held our wands at the ready as we began walking through the square.

"So why are we here?" Harry asked.

"We're meeting with an old colleague of mine," Dumbledore answered.

"And we're here to see the lovely neighborhood?" I asked sarcastically as I saw another abandon and broken house.

"As you know, we are once again one staff member short," Dumbledore said. "So I was hoping that you all could help...persuade an old friend of mine to rejoin us at Hogwarts."

"How exactly are we supposed to help?" Harry asked.

"Well, let's just say that this man happens to big a fan of valuable possessions," Dumbledore said cautiously. "And that includes people such as the two of you."

"So you're hoping that this man will come teach at Hogwarts if he is aware that we will be two of his students?" I asked. "Isn't that a bit wrong of us to do?"

"I just think that it'll give him the push that he needs," Dumbledore said. "He is a very intelligent man and was a very good teacher in his day. My only hope is that he is willing to return again."

"But why do we need to persuade him?" Harry asked. "Why isn't he willing to come back on his own if he was such a great teacher?"

"I'm afraid that times have changed," Dumbledore explained looking grim. "That and I do believe that he has found great comfort in his retirement."

When we turned another corner, we all became silent once more. We reached a gate where we stopped and I felt my ice run cold when I saw a large, stone house. Anyone with sight could see that this house had been ransacked - and recently at that. Harry gave me a skeptical look as Dumbledore pushed through the gate and I found myself slowly inching over so I was standing next to my brother and behind Dumbledore.

When we made it to the front door, Dumbledore hesitantly pushed it open and had his wand pointed directly ahead of him as his eyes darted all around before he motioned for us to walk into the house.

"Something's happened here," Dumbledore said quietly as his wand lit up the darkness around us.

When we stepped into the house, I immediately understood where Dumbledore's thoughts were coming from. The first thing that I noticed was a particularly large grandfather clock that was shattered to pieces. When I lit my wand up and looked further into the room, it was easily seen that there had been some sort of attack. Couches were shredded, paintings were torn, furniture was thrown all around, and there was blood dripping from the ceiling.

"We shouldn't be in here professor," I said quietly.

"All is not as it seems, Miss Potter," Dumbledore said as he walked into what appeared to have been a sitting room.

"What are you saying?" Harry asked.

"I do believe that we are not alone at the moment," he answered.

Dumbledore walked slowly toward a large, blue armchair sitting in the middle of the room. After one final curious look, Dumbledore suddenly jabbed his wand directly into the arm of the chair. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a loud yelp erupt from the piece of furniture that Dumbledore just poked.

"Well, there is no need for that!"

Suddenly, before my very eyes, a large man in blue pajamas sat before me where the armchair was sitting just moments ago. When he stood up, once I recoiled from the shock of the entire situation, I noticed that he had a particularly large mustache on his face. He also reminded me of a walrus that I once saw on the television, but I felt rude enough noticing that, so I just stared at him as though he were some kind of alien.

"How did you know that I was here?" the man asked.

"There was no way that this place could have been attacked by Death Eaters, Horace," Dumbledore said with a smile. "Wouldn't you think that people would have noticed that there wasn't a Dark Mark above the house?"

This thought never occurred to me before, but I suppose that I should have noticed. Then again, I believe that I might have been more focused on the complete disarray that the house was in, not to mention the completely vacant town that it belonged to.

"Well, I suppose that you aren't here as a threat to me," the man said. "Would you mind helping me to fix the place up?"

"Not at all," Dumbledore said.

Both of them pulled their wands out again, and with a flick of the wrist, everything in the house zoomed back into place. I stepped out of the way a few times as furniture flew past me and I had to duck once to make sure I didn't get hit on the head by a picture that came off of the ground. Once everything was back to normal and the two older men looked satisfied with their work, they set their wands back in their robes and turned to one another.

"Very nice house you've picked here," Dumbledore said. "Assuming of course that it isn't yours."

"No, you must have known that I've been moving around a lot," the man said. "I have been avoiding the Death Eaters - afraid they'll come after me like everyone else. I believed that the best way to do it was by going around to different Muggle homes that aren't being used."

Dumbledore nodded and looked around the house in admiration. It was a beautiful home, but there was something that was bothering me that I saw when I first came into the house.

"That blood that was on the walls wasn't real, was it?" I asked suddenly.

The man turned to me and raised an eyebrow. There was a crease in his eyes as though he was trying to decide who I was, but he didn't seem to catch on quickly.

"Er...no," he said hesitantly. "It was dragon's blood - very expensive stuff."

Dumbledore gave Harry and me a smile and walked over to usher us into better lighting before he decided to introduce us. Once we were there, I noticed a sudden realization in the man's eyes as Dumbledore began to speak.

"I would like to introduce you both to an old friend of mine," Dumbledore said. "This is Horace Slughorn. Horace - this is Harry and Emily Potter, students of mine at Hogwarts."

"Merlin's beard - these are the Potter twins!" Slughorn said with a smile as he looked from one of us to the other.

"Pleased to meet you," Harry said with an awkward smile.

"By god, you two look just like your parents," he said in amazement. "I taught both of them, you know? They were excellent students - very intelligent! I was so devastated when I got the news of their deaths - such good people..."

"I've heard," Harry said bluntly.

"Lily Evans was one of my favorites," he continued happily. "She was the best in her class, that girl was! How are you two doing in school?"

"We're both doing fine," Harry said. "We aren't anything like our friend Hermione Granger, but we do really well. Emily here is the best in our potions class, did you know?"

He smirked over at me and I had to stifle a laugh. I knew that he was just trying to get any sort of subject that this man had to speak about away from himself so be wouldn't have to deal with him.

"Are you now?" he said with a giant smile. "Like mother, like daughter you are! She could brew up any potion you asked her to - completely brilliant! I suppose that runs in the family!"

"I don't think it does," Harry said under his breath. "Just ask Snape."

"Severus Snape?" Slughorn asked. "He is the Potions Master there now I suppose. I remember teaching him as well - very intelligent student, but a bit curious if you ask me...always sneaking around in the hallways by himself...pitied him a bit, I did."

We all stood there in silence for a moment without knowing what we should say to him. Through it all, I tried to picture a young Snape hard at work at Hogwarts and I found myself smirking at the image. It was kind of funny to see him in our shoes as students and I would have to ask him what this man was like in his days as a professor at Hogwarts. After all, Snape did say that his favorite subject was Defense Against the Dark Arts and this man must have been the professor while he was there, at least that was what I was assuming.

"It's been a long journey," Dumbledore said suddenly. "Would you mind if I used your bathroom?"

"Go right ahead," Slughorn said and pointed one of his fingers towards another room. "It's down the hall - just over there."

Dumbledore smiled and walked quickly and quietly down the hallway. We were all silent until he finally disappeared behind the bathroom door. It was then that Slughorn looked over toward us with an annoyed expression on his face.

"I know what he's trying to do," Slughorn said irritably. "He's trying to get me to come out of retirement - I won't do it! I've told him time and time again that I don't wish to leave the comfort of my home."

"Not to be rude, but you haven't exactly been staying in your home, have you?" Harry asked.

Slughorn narrowed his eyes for a minute and then shook his head. He couldn't deny that Harry was right because he had mentioned only moments after we arrived that he was on the move ever since Voldemort's return. He was just as paranoid as anyone else in this world.

"No one is forcing you to return," I said gently. "But we are in need of a professor and I've only heard wonderful things about you. It would be nice to have a good teacher at the school after all the ones that we've been through over the years."

Slughorn went red in the face and looked away from me at once. I wanted to curse under my breath - since when was I one to brown-nose a person to get what I wanted? Well, this was for Dumbledore after all, and I knew that this man must be of great importance if he had gone through all of this trouble to get to him.

"You've heard about our last professor, haven't you?" Harry asked. "Dolores Umbridge?"

"Oh yes," he said as he found a seat behind himself. "Never really much of a fan of her myself. Seemed a bit rude - at least that's what I thought of her."

"I think we would have to agree with you on that one," I smiled. "She didn't care for us either. I'm sure that had to do with us opposing the Ministry of course."

"I'm sure of it," he nodded. "The woman would stand up for anything the Ministry tells her to. I'm sure she didn't even want that job at Hogwarts - she only took it because Fudge wanted her to watch over you all."

"Well, she's definitely not coming back there," Harry said. "Especially after what happened to her."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"She was carried off by some centaurs in the Forbidden Forest," I explained. "They weren't great fans on what she had to say about their 'near-human intelligence.'"

"She was asking for it then, wasn't she?" Slughorn chuckled.

"She definitely deserved what she got," Harry said. "Maybe now she'll think twice before she talks down to people...or centaurs."

"Either way, we still are one teacher short," I said trying to bring us back to the original conversation. "And I think that we need one that knows what they're doing."

Slughorn shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He didn't want to talk about this anymore, but I knew that it was what Dumbledore came here for in the first place and I couldn't just ignore that.

"You're as bad as Dumbledore, you know that?" he said quietly. "I don't want to go back to that school - especially at times like this. It's far too dangerous..."

"Not with Dumbledore it isn't," Harry said. "You would be safer there than you would be running from house to house."

"I don't know..." Slughorn mumbled.

"We would appreciate it very much," I said. "And wouldn't you like to come out of hiding? It must be incredibly exhausting."

A frown went across his face and I could tell that we were getting to him through our persuasion. Maybe it was a good idea for us to do this. Sure, I felt like it was wrong, but I couldn't see him giving in at all if Dumbledore did the same thing to him.

"Was it awful teaching at Hogwarts before?" Harry asked.

"Well...no," Slughorn said.

"And I'm sure that you would be welcomed back into the school as an old friend," I said. "I'm sure that the staff would be happy to see a familiar face after all the change that's gone on for the past few years."

Slughorn went silent once more and looked as though he was having an internal debate with himself. We were both pushing the subject further than needed, but maybe that's what this man needed. I just hoped that this was really something that Dumbledore wanted.

We all jumped when a door flew open from down the hall. It was Dumbledore and he was walking slowly down the hall giving us all a curious look like he was wondering what it was we could be talking about.

"Okay, are the two of you ready?" Dumbledore asked.

"W-what?" Slughorn stammered as he stood up. "You're going?"

"There isn't much point in sticking around, is there?" Dumbledore asked. "You know what I'm here to ask and I can already tell what your answer is going to be."

"It was nice meeting you," Harry smiled at Slughorn.

"It's a shame that you couldn't help us," I said with an exaggerated sigh. "But I do wish you the best of luck with your travels."

Slughorn looked as though he was going to collapse on the ground in shock and confusion. We were all making this hard on him and we knew it too. The only thing we could do now was walk away and hope that he would stop us before the door closed behind our backs.

"Goodbye Horace," Dumbledore waved. "Come on you two, we need not intrude on this man's time any longer."

We all waved to him as we walked towards the door. As soon as Dumbledore's hand grabbed onto the doorknob, I saw a smirk go across his face when Slughorn spoke from behind us.

"Fine - I'll do it," he said. "But I expect a pay raise, Albus."

"Wonderful," Dumbledore said. "I shall see you on the first of September."

With one last distraught look from Horace Slughorn, we all found ourselves walking past his doorstep and out of the gate that led to the town square. I had to take a moment to think about what just happened before I looked up at my headmaster.

"You two did a brilliant job in there," Dumbledore said proudly. "Though I think you could have skipped over the minor detail about what happened to our previous employee."

"Wait, what did we do that was so brilliant?" Harry asked.

"You two persuaded him to rejoin the Hogwarts staff," Dumbledore said. "I couldn't have done it without you."

"All we did was try to make him feel as uncomfortable as we possibly could," I said.

"Which was effective in the end," Dumbledore said.

"I'm not sure if I like this man too much," Harry said. "He's a bit odd..."

"Everyone is a bit odd if we catch them at the right moment," Dumbledore said.

"He really cared for our mother, didn't he?" I asked.

"He spoke very highly of your mother during her time at Hogwarts," he said. "I do recall him saying that she would be a model student if it wasn't for her being a Gryffindor."

Both Harry and I eyed Dumbledore with a curious look.

"What house was he in?" Harry asked.

"He was Head of Slytherin house during his time," Dumbledore explained.

"Oh," Harry said shortly.

"Don't let that define him for you Harry," Dumbledore said. "He has a lot of knowledge to offer you as a professor."

"Being a Slytherin doesn't always mean you're a prick," I said.

"Yes it does," Harry mumbled.

We walked a ways before we came to the spot that we originally appeared in this small, unknown town. Dumbledore smiled and held out his arms for us to grab once again with an apologetic and knowing smile.

"Apparition shouldn't be as bad the second time around," Dumbledore said.

"Might as well get it over with," Harry sighed.

We both grabbed onto his arms and I closed my eyes in preparation for what I knew was going to be horrible. As soon as I began to wonder if it was ever going to come, my body suddenly began to feel like it was being pushed into a box that I clearly couldn't fit in to. Even though I recognized this feeling of being crushed, I still couldn't wait for it to go away.

Then there was a loud POP and I suddenly found myself able to breathe again. When I looked around, I found myself in an empty clearing with only one thing in sight from where I stood - it was the Burrow, the only place other than Hogwarts that I could consider myself at home.

"A couple more things before you run off to join your friends," Dumbledore said as he looked from Harry to me. "I am very proud that you two have been able to find your own ways to handle what happened at the Ministry this past year, but I only ask you one thing: please do not let it come between you. You both need each other at a time like this, especially with what the prophecy said about what your future holds - don't stray from each other."

We both nodded and Harry gave me a sort of awkward look. Maybe it was supposed to be apologetic, or maybe it meant that he wasn't so sure if he could fulfill Dumbledore's wishes with that - I just couldn't tell anymore. The depressing mask that my brother wore made it impossible to tell what he was thinking right now.

"Furthermore, I would like to tell you that you will be receiving lessons from me this upcoming year," he continued.

"From you?" Harry asked in surprise.

"What about the ones that we got from Snape?" I asked.

"I decided that it was best if you did not continue those," Dumbledore said. "Emily, I am aware that you are on good terms with your potions professor, but I cannot say the same about your brother - I believe that it is best that we allow Professor Snape to continue his usual duties at Hogwarts..."

Something about the way his eyes left ours when he said that last bit got me curious. There was something that he wasn't telling us, that was no secret at all judging by his expression.

"But what if we wish to continue those lessons with him?" I asked slowly.

"If he wishes to continue with either of you, I suppose that you could continue," Dumbledore said. "But you must know that Professor Snape is a busy man, especially at times like this."

I nodded and Harry gave me a quizzing look. Dumbledore looked from one of us to the other and then gave us both a smile.

"Now, I do believe that you both wish to join the Weasleys now," Dumbledore said on a happier note. "I do believe that I received several anxious letters from a Mister George Weasley regarding the time of your arrival..."

A smile went across my face when Dumbledore's eyes flickered over to me. Without another word, we quickly made our way across the field towards the Burrow where I could finally find myself at peace.

...

Thanks for reading - sorry that this is up so late, I meant to get it up earlier. There was a lot of things going on at home that I had to attend to and I hope that you can all understand! The next chapter should be up sometime between Friday and Saturday!

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