The Great Hall was buzzing as soon as they walked in. From the second-years on up, everyone was talking about the reappearance of both of them, Snape especially. They were divided on whether or not he was a good person, let alone a reformed Death Eater. Some of their parents read Rita Skeeter religiously. Others had loved the far-more-well-thought-out book that had followed. The one thing everyone knew, though, was that they were going to write their families as soon as they left. Several of them had parents who had been at Hogwarts when they taught there the first time. Many of them had fought in the Wizarding Wars on either side.

Minerva McGonagall led the new group of first-years in, going to take her customary spot next to the Sorting Hat. The Hat sang its song, but it was only halfway heard over the gossip that was making its way around the Great Hall. Before she unrolled her parchment full of names, McGonagall addressed the crowd. "Silence, please! As I am sure you have all noticed, we have two new members of staff this year. I would normally announce this later, but I will do so now so that you may quietly enjoy the Sorting Ceremony. After many years of living largely outside of the wizarding world, Professor Snape and his wife, Professor Ashmore, who will be going by that name to avoid confusion, have rejoined the Hogwarts faculty. I will remind you that both of them risked their lives for our cause for many years, starting well before all of you were born. I expect you to treat them both with respect. If not, you will be answering directly to me."

There was some murmuring in the crowd, but McGonagall silenced them instantly. "First years, when I call your name, you will come up here and put the Sorting Hat on your head. When you have been sorted, you will proceed to your House's table. There are four Houses here at Hogwarts - they are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. There you will find your new home for the next seven years. Alright, Scott Appleton."

Every year there were one or two first-years that everyone was waiting for. Sure, every child waited to see their younger siblings, but there were always one or two that the entire hall watched with interest. The last big sorting had been one of the Weasley children. This year everyone was watching the dark-haired girl who stood with a couple of friends from their coastal Scottish village. None of them were talking, instead wondering where they would end up.

One by one they were called up and sorted, their respective houses cheering as each new student sat down. Eileen watched some of her friends join the Ravenclaw table. One of them went off to Slytherin. Right after Joan Rockwood joined the Slytherin table, McGonagall cleared her throat. "Eileen Snape."

Hazel reached for her husband's hand, offering her daughter an encouraging smile as she sat down and McGonagall put the Sorting Hat on her head. The professors had been secretly taking bets all day. Most of them had gone for Slytherin or Ravenclaw, the obvious choices. A couple had placed long-shot bets on Gryffindor or Hufflepuff.

"Curious, very curious," the Hat said, Eileen staring out into the now-silent crowd. Teddy waved at her from the Hufflepuff table, screwing his face into a concentrated expression for two seconds before turning his nose into a duck's bill. At any other time, she would've laughed. Now, though, she was fully focused on what the Hat was saying. "Cleverness and curiosity, just like your mother. You know Ravenclaw blood flows through her veins?"

"Yeah," Eileen mumbled, staring out at the crowd. "She's told me."

"Resourceful and ambitious like your father," the Hat mused. "You have Slytherin blood too. Not from Salazar Slytherin's line but from a long line of Slytherins… and to deny the Head of House his daughter… But you do take after your favorite aunt, and she would love to have you in her House as well… A brave one you are, but… curious… quite the hard worker, patient, measured, fair, and very good with animals… You take after your grandfather. Perhaps to put you in his House… The Muggle one, well, we can discount him, but the wizard... perhaps..."

The crowd had started to talk again, but Sev and Hazel weren't paying any attention. "How long did it take for it to decide for you?" Hazel asked, leaning over to whisper as quietly as she could.

"Not this long. It thought about putting me in Gryffindor for a moment, but decided not to. Obviously. And then it was thinking of Ravenclaw, but... It took what, three seconds for you?"

"Just about." Hazel's sorting hadn't taken long at all. Almost as soon as the Hat touched her head, it had known. "Do you think she'll be an actual hatstall?"

"Who knows? For her sake, I hope not. There's going to be enough talk about all of us as it is."

There wasn't much longer to wait, though. The Hat frowned for a second longer before declaring in a voice loud enough to carry over the increasing chatter, "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Hazel and Sev shared a look before starting to applaud as Eileen hopped off of the stool and went to take a seat next to her cousin Teddy. The rest of the students were nearly ignored as everyone started talking, wondering why she'd ended up in Hufflepuff if her parents were so clearly entrenched in their houses. Eileen was all everyone could talk about during dinner. The professors and students alike were surprised at where she'd ended up. Nearly everyone was thinking it would be Ravenclaw or Slytherin, but this…

As the professors made their way down from the high table and the Heads of House went to corral the first years, Hazel wove her way through the crowd to where Professor Sprout was introducing the first-years to the Fat Friar. Eileen spotted her immediately, breaking off from where she was standing with Teddy to talk to her. "Mum, I don't know - I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" she frowned. "For what?"

"For not being in Ravenclaw like you and grandmum and Aunt Luna and Uncle Xeno," Eileen sighed, glancing back at her classmates. "Half our family was in Ravenclaw. We are Ravenclaws," she stressed. "I don't know how I didn't end up there."

Hazel shook her head, saying, "Your grandfather was a Hufflepuff, remember? His whole side of the family was. You're at least a quarter Hufflepuff, if not more. I think Mum had a couple of Hufflepuff relatives too. And your Uncle Rolf, Aunt Luna's husband? He was a Hufflepuff too. And your cousin Teddy. You're going to love Professor Sprout, and Professor Longbottom - he teaches some of the Herbology classes - he's wonderful too. He was a Gryffindor but he's always been partial to the Hufflepuffs. He married one, after all."

Eileen looked over to where her father was pointing the newest Slytherins towards the doors. The Bloody Baron floated close by, saying hello to the newest Prefects. "Is Dad disappointed that I'm not in Slytherin?"

"No," Hazel assured her, giving her daughter a hug. "He's happy that you're here. He's happy that you're with family. And he's happy that he'll get to see you in class, when I don't get you until your third year. We're both very proud of you. Now go on, Teddy's waiting." She watched Eileen run after her cousin, meeting up with the group of Hufflepuffs.

Though she followed Sev and the group of Slytherins down to the dungeons, she was ready for bed much earlier than he was. He'd stopped to show the first-years around, telling them how passwords worked and how to get to their first class the next morning. As the Prefects filled them in on more of the rules and clarified how house points worked, Sev left for their rooms, finding Hazel outlining her lesson plans on the sofa. She'd changed into her pajamas already, tying her hair back so she could work. "How are they doing?" she asked as he hung his cloak by the door.

"They seem like a good group. One or two of them are the usual troublemakers, but that can be sorted out in time." He disappeared for a few minutes, coming back to sit down next to her, having changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth. "How's Lee?"

"Still a bit surprised that she didn't end up in Ravenclaw or Slytherin, but I think she'll be alright. I'm glad she's got Teddy. He's dealt with enough about his dad... He'll be able to help her if anyone says anything about you." Hazel set her quill aside, leaning in to kiss him. "How are you feeling about it?"

Sev pulled her into his arms, watching the crackling fire in front of them. "If she's happy, I'm happy. I think it's for the best that she's not in Slytherin - after all, would you want your Head of House to be your father? And there would be so much for her to live up to in Ravenclaw, and she has a lot to live up to - or live down - already. Perhaps this is the best thing for her. It'll give her a little more independence than she would have had in Slytherin or Ravenclaw."

"Or Gryffindor," Hazel yawned. "Having Aunt Minerva looking over her shoulder all of the time… Honestly, Sev, I think you're right. This is the best thing for her. I should write Dad's side of the family in the morning and let them know."

"If she's not mentioned in what I assume will be tomorrow's front-page Daily Prophet article on our return - and my faking my death - I would be surprised." Word traveled fast in the wizarding world, and without a doubt many of the students had already written home to tell their families that not only was Professor Snape alive, his daughter was at the school now.

Hazel nodded, closing her eyes. "It is good to be back, though. I've missed it."

"So have I," he admitted as he ran a hand through her hair. "If we're here, and we make a point to go home for the holidays, I think we may still have a shot at a normal life. As normal as we can get, anyway."

The first-year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors made their way down to the dungeons right after breakfast, curiously looking around at all of the glittering jars that lined the walls of the Potions classroom. Eileen pointed some of them out to her new friends, taking a seat in between a couple of the Hufflepuffs. She could identify a lot more of them than anyone else in her class, that was for sure. There was a cauldron already simmering on the desk at the front of the room. "The Wiggenweld Potion," she noticed, taking a seat close by. "Cool."

"Good morning, everyone!" Professor Slughorn swept up the center aisle, stopping in front of the blackboard. With a wave of his wand, the day's notes appeared there, everyone rushing to scribble them down as he talked. "Welcome to Hogwarts. This is an excellent class to start with if I do say so myself. Over the next few years you will learn to brew anything and everything you can imagine, and I will show you even more potions than that. This morning we're going to start with the Wiggenweld Potion, which can heal most common injuries. Does anyone else know what it can do?"

One of the Gryffindors in the front row raised his hand. "It's an antidote to the Draught of Living Death and other sleeping draughts like it."

"Very good. Five points to Gryffindor." Slughorn pointed his wand at the board, replacing the notes with a list of ingredients. "Some of these are standard things you may have heard of - billywig slime, a stewed Mandrake, sloth brain mucus, ground unicorn horn, things like that. For our Muggleborn friends, there are a few recognizable ingredients too - a sprig of mint, honey, lionfish spines, perhaps you're even aware of wolfsbane, if not its properties. Can anyone tell me what the Wolfsbane Potion does?" He surveyed the class, picking out the dark-haired girl in Hufflepuff robes. "Miss Snape, perhaps you know."

"It allows a werewolf to keep its sanity when it transforms. They're able to transform into a regular, if very tired, wolf, and won't attack anything. It's very complicated, and must be taken for an entire week leading up to the full moon," Eileen recounted, not looking away from Slughorn.

"And do you know who invented it?" he ventured with a smile.

"You. And my dad," she beamed. "Published under the name 'Damocles Belby', though everyone who knew you figured it out pretty quickly."

"Excellent, excellent. Five points to Hufflepuff! Now there are a few basic things we should go over before we ever start thinking about brewing potions…"

Defense Against the Dark Arts was in the afternoon, right after Charms. Eileen set her books down on her desk, talking animatedly with Olivia Sanders, who had been sorted into Hufflepuff right before she'd been called up. Francine Viscaria sat on her other side, wondering if they were going to start with beasts or defensive spells. Everyone fell silent when the door swung open and an imposing figure in a black cloak strode in, commanding their attention without a word.

"Good afternoon," Snape said, his dark eyes sweeping over the classroom. Eileen offered him a small smile, which he quickly returned. "And welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts. The Dark Arts are varied, ever-changing, and eternal, something to adapt to or be consumed by. In this class you will face frightening creatures and spells that can do more damage than your young minds could possibly imagine. It is my job to teach you to fight them. Before we begin, however, I must be honest with all of you."

He rolled up his left sleeve, showing them the faint grey Dark Mark that would forever be burned into his skin. If any of them hadn't been paying attention, they certainly were now. "There is no doubt that your parents have written by now to tell you what they think of me, if they hadn't mentioned it already. Yes, I worked for the Dark Lord. Yes, I turned spy for the Order of the Phoenix. Yes, I killed Albus Dumbledore." This drew some rapid whispering from the crowd. It wasn't the first time he'd given the lecture that day, and whispering about him was nothing new at Hogwarts. "Yes, I was once the Headmaster. Yes, I pretended to work for the Dark Lord and yes, he thought I was loyal until the very end. Yes, I faked my death. Yes, I am married to the Ghoul Studies professor. Make of all of that whatever you would like to make of it. Perhaps the next few years will change your opinion, for good or bad. All I ask is for your respect."

"We will be starting," he said as he wrote on the board, "with a couple of common creatures. As you cannot take Ghoul Studies until your third year - a class which I highly recommend, by the way - we're going to cover the very basics of such creatures to give you a solid grounding in them. Besides, there are plenty of them around the castle, and you should be familiar with them. They will also certainly be on your O.W.L.s. Who can tell me the difference between a ghost, a ghoul, and a poltergeist?" Turning back to the class, he locked eyes with his daughter. "Eileen?"

"A ghost is a spirit of a person who is either afraid of death and what lies beyond or has a deep connection with the place they died or something they want to see done. A ghoul is a beast that kind of looks like a small ogre. They're generally harmless but generally pretty annoying. A poltergeist is more like a ghost, but they usually don't have physical forms - except for Peeves and a few others," she clarified, the first-years already having seen Peeves make a mess of the entrance hall that morning, "and they like to cause trouble. They'll throw things or slam doors or knock over all of the suits of armor in the corridors."

Sev couldn't help but smile a little. "Your mother's taught you well. Three points to Hufflepuff. There are a few other spirits and non-beings that we will be covering this term…"

When the bell rang, Classroom 3C emptied quickly, Eileen stopping to say goodbye to her dad and waving at her mum, who taught in the Ghoul Studies classroom down the hall. She had to be off to Care of Magical Creatures, which she'd been looking forward to all day. While his fifth-years were filing in, Sev went down the hall to Ghoul Studies. "Hello," Hazel said, her eyes trained on the book in front of her. "Just a second." She made a couple of notes, getting up to properly say hello as soon as she'd set her quill down. "How's your first day back going?"

"It's good to be back. Our daughter is just as brilliant as her mother," he said, pulling her into a kiss. "I don't know what I ever did to deserve the two of you."