I am myself

I change my all

I cannot pass your test


For her fourth day of tests, she was beginning to feel exhausted again. She had not expected that Hogwarts was going to be difficult, but apparently they did not study the same spells she did. Even potions, which she had studied extensively, she was not performing as well in as she had hoped. While the potions themselves her father deemed 'adequate in usage', her theory was apparently 'erratic' and 'all over the place'. She assumed it was supposed to be 'all over the place' since she had studied potion making in many different forms - however as Snape had been quick to point out, almost all of them were 'archaic' or 'volatile'.

"I do not want to use the gnat wing." She mumbled, slowly growing aware of cold counter against her forehead.

"That is good to hear." A low voice hissed from behind her. "Gnat wing is a terrible addition to a cough suppresent."

"I am sorry!" Sheranaqua shot up, sitting strait and running up against Professor Snape's torso. She guiltily turned to face him, rubbing the sleep from her face and pulling the hair out of her eyes.

"This is quite an inauspicious start to the school year, don't you think?" Snape glowered down at her.

"It won't happen again, I've just been really tired lately, I don't know why."

Snape was rather at a loss for words. The girl really did change a lot when she was tired. She was stammering, flushed, and even looked ready to cry. Part of him really wanted to investigate further, but there was something else that was bothering him as he watched her pick at her wavy bangs. "That scar, where did you get it?"

"Oh." Sheranaqua looked down, letting her hair drop. "I've had it a while I guess. I don't know."

"Really?" He leaned in, cupping her chin with one hand and forcing her to look at him. He still couldn't read her eyes, unfortunately, but her body language was enough.

"Really." She said haltingly.

Fear. Abject fear. He would have to get her tired more often. Snape took a step back. How did that even make sense. Maybe a potion? Could he get away with drugging a student for the sake of curiousity? "Interesting." He said at last, reaching to gently brush the hair aside and give the lavendar mark a long glance. "That is unfortunate. Few things could make such a unique scar."

"So they say." She laughed nervously, turning away quickly to finish her potion.


The sleeper watched his charge, curled up on a bench in her office. He had warned her that it was too soon for her to reenter the world at large; he had warned her that there was still much she had yet to learn. In the end, his wishes had been ignored. Sometime in her teenage years she had put two and two together and realized that though he was her teacher, she was his queen, and he was bound to her orders. In her mind, this was black and white. It was up to him to carefully balance the nuances of the situation, of when obedience to her was less or more needed than obedience to country or doing what was best, or whether her learning took precedent over her desire. Yet where she stood firm, he by necessity felt the imperative to give in, and she had been insistent that she go to Hogwart's without delay and interactive with 'real people'.

He knelt down beside her, not yet waking her. Words could hurt, but never for long. She was his queen, and he would serve her. And there was much in this awful place she had come to that he needed to protect her from, especially with her youthful blunders.

"Sleeper?" She stirred, looking up into his face, inches away. "Dream?"

"No. I came through subspace. This office allows adequate privacy." Sleeper stood.

"What about the wards?" Sheranaqua sat up, curious.

"Subspace itself is unaffected by the wards." Sleeper lectured, as if it were obvious. "But you should never use it here. Not even if alone. The magic that activates the subspace realm can leave a traceable residue that spreads quickly if you do not know how to erase it, and you do not want that mess caught up in the wards. In point, I would prefer you rely on subspace travel as little as possible even outside of Hogwarts. You have aroused far too much suspicion already."

"But apparating is so barbaric."

"Relax." Sleeper chided. "You are not allowed legally to apparate until you are seventeen, so it will not often be asked of you."

"Then how am I supposed to travel?" Sheranaqua asked, wide-eyed.

"If you are with people, walk." Sleeper shrugged, pacing the office. "Do your best not to give out anything about your true heritage. Not to Dumbledore, not to your father. Distract them with the mystery of your sordid birth, if you must, but I did not allow you the freedom to come here merely to let you destroy millenia of work in a single week."

"I am sorry." Sheranaqua hung her head. "Father knows some of Atlantis, I think. It is hard to hide it from him."

"I can send you to a different school, if this is too difficult."

"No." Sheranaqua shook her head. "I feel - it has to be here."

"Your feelings are a poor basis to jeapordize the future of your country. But as you are queen, I will accept them, for now."

"Thank you." Sheranaqua sighed in relief, leaning her back against the wall and closing her eyes.

Sleeper crossed over quickly, placing a hand on the back of her neck and assessing her general health. Her eyes fluttered open, startled, but he did not release the grip. "I apologize." He said after a few moments. "I have been remiss in my duty as protector. You are not well."

"I am just somewhat tired." Sheranaqua confessed. "Ever since I came here I have been getting very sleepy."

"You would appear to be replenishing."

"Replenishing?" Sherenaqua blinked. "As in my magic?"

"Give me your wand." Sleeper took it from her hesitant hand. "Wands are crutches, horrible inventions. One could say that our people were the first to master their construction, as easily as one could say they led to our demise. You could say a wand makes a wizard powerful, but a wand truly makes a wizard weak."

"Is that why you never allowed wands?" Sheranaqua asked as Sleeper perused the runes. "I remember you were not fond of my shop wand I used over the summer, but you did not forbid it."

"That was barely a toy." Sleeper hissed. "For the normal witch or wizard, a wand focuses their power and magnifies it. Without a wand, it would take great skill and concentration to cast spells -although the reward for performing flawless wandless magic is the most deadly and powerful warlocks in history. For someone like you, a wand will not magnify your magic, but rather pull from it as much as it can to redirect. The more powerful the wand or spell, the more magic will be pulled. Your body will seek to restore the balance, and compensate by shutting down other systems it deems unescessary. Alertness, reason, and the like."

"But why would I be different?" Sheranaqua wondered why Sleeper had never spoken of this before.

"You know that spells are encoded onto the fabric of the universe through a mixture of etheric and scientific principle. England's Ministry of Magic has departments dedicated to 'discovering' new spells, which are simply old spells that had been lost to time, and other departments dedicated to creating new ones. The creation of a spell is truly no more than determining the desired effect, putting together the components which will form it, and encoding upon that a word or phrase which will activate it when called."

"Yes, that is fundamental." Sheranaqua nodded.

"The average witch or wizard calls upon their book of spells and activates a spell, say, Lumos." Sleeper cupped a ball of light in his hand, "The dormant etherium around the wizard is activated as that invisible formula we call magic is calculated, based on the wizard's power and wand strength and design. The etherium in turn calls and catalyzes the spell's components - whether it is a chemical reaction, nanites, elemental forces, or a further compounding in the etherium itself." He paused. "At Hogwarts, they will not teach this, they can only theorize as to magic's true nature. So pay attention, even if you think you know this well."

"Of course." Sheranaqua tried her best to stay awake.

"You are not like that." Sleeper ran his finger's along her wand. If only she knew what her wand meant; for a wand, it was a particular wand. One that confirmed his suspiscions and gave hope to his plans. "You do not activate spells catalogued in the etherium."

"How do you mean? I can do spells, even the one's at Hogwart's, it just takes a few more tries." Sheranaqua insisted.

"Yes, you can perform magic." Sleeper smiled a strange half-smile. "But you make spells. That is why I first taught you to do magic in Atlantean. One can instruct with any word choice you wish, making your request of the etherium, and the etherium will activate. In comparison, the spells this school you have chosen asks you to perform are crude at best. But you must understand, you are not performing their spells. You are performing new spells, which only have the same effect because you want them too or think they will."

"Lumos!" Sheranaqua stared at her palm, satisfied as a tiny ball of light appeared. "They seem to work."

"But you could just as easily use the Lumos spell to make fire, or your hand glow, or anything in regards to light. Do you understand?"

"I think, perhaps." Sheranaqua thought a moment, back to the mishaps she had often experienced with her spells. "Is that why spells sometimes do what I am thinking in the moment more than what I am saying?"

"Precisely." Sleeper handed her back her wand. "And you must be careful not to overdo it until your body acclimates. The power it takes to craft a spell is far greater than that to cast a spell."

"I will try." Sheranaqua sighed again. "I have more tests tomorrow though, and studying left to do."

"And you had best get back to your dorm." Sleeper motioned, "Before someone misses you."

"Yes." Sheranaqua stood, finding her balance and shaking off the remainging drowsiness.

"But remember, "Sleeper cautioned as she turned to exit, "Caution. If you become a liability here, I will bring you back to Atlantis."


"Good, good!" McGonagall almost clapped. "You turned it into a footstool!"

Sheranaqua relaxed and allowed herself to smile. It had only taken two tries, but she had finally managed to use the 'proper' transfiguration spell to configure the offending eraser that the professor had sat before her into an old-fashioned footstool. When McGonagall had given her the charm to use, after forbidding from doing it 'her own way', Sheranaqua took Sleeper's advice and imagined that the spell would do what she wanted and turn the eraser into a beautiful footstool.

"You are vastly improving." Ms. McGonagall passed her a cup of tea. "But I still can't recognize the spells you try to use. You do realize that once class begins, you will be expected to catch up and learn from the standardized list of spells?"

"Yes." Sheranaqua agreed.

"And the Headmaster has suggested that because of this, you should perhaps not take quite as heavy of a course load as you might wish. Because there are some courses you seem to be farther ahead in, such as the history of magic, would you feel comfortable skipping that class this year, or for at least a semester, in order to focus on the classes you are behind in?"

"I do like history." Sheranaqua frowned, considering her options. "But it probably would be for the best."

"Very well." Ms. McGonagall looked at the footstool with pride. "It is going to be wonderful having you in transfiguration, especially if you can channel that natural talent into the standard spells.

Sheranaqua nodded. "I will do my best."


The door to the Potion's classroom never got easier to open, even though this was her last day of tests. Despite her efforts, her father did not seem to be warming up to her. She had even bought a potions book and been reading through it, trying to correct her previous errors.

Snape looked up as she walked in. "You managed a decent potion yesterday, finally. After your first attempts I was beginning to despair of your training."

"You still have not told me why my first potions did not work." Sheranaqua got out her things and sat.

"It is not a matter of whether they would work or not." The professor began to write on the board. "If it is not a ministry approved potion, I cannot test it properly, except to theorize that from your supply list and brewing instructions they were possible solutions."

"You did not say I had to give you ministry approved potions." Sheranaqua thought. Had she ever consulted a list of ministry approved spells and potions? This was a serious oversight on her part and Sleeper's.

"Of course, all other potions are not legal for human consumption, except under strict supervision in the realm of theoretical research." Snape went back to his desk. "Your potion yesterday was acceptable, since it seems you finally have deigned to follow instructions."

"I still do not understand why it should matter." Sheranaqua got out her quill. "Following a textbook just means I memorize well, but there are not always textbooks when you need them in the real world, are there? If everyone had to follow approved spells and potions, they would never have what they needed."

"And this is why you are the student and I am the professor. If everyone did what they wanted, the lot of you dunderheads would get us all killed." He rubbed his temples with his fingers, leaning his elbows on his desk and staring at her again in agitation. "Write a foot and a half on the effects of the potion I wrote on the board, when brewed incorrectly."

Sheranaqua could barely read his handwriting the way he had scrawled it out, unusual given his usually neat script, but he had chosen one of the harder potions from the fourth year textbook. That was unfortunate, for she had not read the whole book, as she had spent too much of the afternoon playing quidditch. To add to that, the textbook had not said all that much about adverse affects.

She took out a piece of scratch parchment, writing down the ingredient list and instructions that she remembered from the text, and taking notes on the possible interactions that mixing wrong quantities or innacurate brewing times would most probably lead too. It was a fairly quick potion to brew, and none of the reactions that she guessed were possible looked more harmful than giving herself warts or perhaps an extra toe, easily taken care of, so she set about setting up her workstation to brew a few test cases.

"I said write about it, not brew it." Snape came up behind her, looking over her shoulder.

"I have never made it." Sheranaqua admitted. "And the textbook said little beyond that it was a tricky brew that should be tended to carefully. While I theorize that forgetting the acorn shavings would destabilize the mixture and cause the potion to emit aggravating fumes much like an onion before it broke down, or that adding too much raven's beak powder would likely give one warts if the potion made contact with the skin rather than the potion granting one a temporary tougher skin like intended, and many other possible reactions, I cannot confirm how the ingredients relate without at least one or two test brews."

Snape laid his hand on her left shoulder, jerking it back when he realized what he was doing, staring at her paper of hypotheses. "Carry on." He growled, marching back up to the desk. "Are you trying to torment me, Ms. Selene?" He muttered, grabbing papers to grade.

"Selene is not my last name." Sheranaqua glanced up from her work at her father's mumble.

"Then what is your last name?" Snape stared her down. "And don't say 'Smith'."

"I -Smith was the name they gave me at the orphanage." Sheranaqua finally said, at a loss for what to tell him.

"Fine then." Snape forced his gaze away from her. "Nevertheless, you know your name is a point on every written assignment. I will only be able to give you half credit for your name, if it is not your real one."

Sheranaqua was a little piqued. She touched the fifth gem on her necklace.

Snape looked back at her intently, then blinked. "However, I am sure your work will make up for it." After a moment his eyes narrowed, looking her over. That had been a strange interaction, as if he had felt the sudden compulsion to be softer? fairer?. He knew well enough when someone was using magic on him. He was going to have a talk with Dumbledore about this girl sooner or later, no matter if the old codger didn't want anyone to 'badger the poor girl with questions'.