Even if Peeves the Poltergeist had overcome his fear of the Bloody Baron enough to venture into Slytherin, we wouldn't have required his services; we had Dumbledore Minor.

Aberforth Dumbledore liked this future. For one, his housemates would talk to him. Tiny Christopher Farryll seemed to like him a lot, which was a new concept for Aberforth. Magical people in his experience didn't like him – they tolerated or harassed him (or in Marvolo's case made him work with Belcore, which was harassment of another sort).

The Slytherin first-years were in History of Magic, nervously discussing Professor Lott while waiting for their own professor. Arete Snape, who thought an awful lot of herself and resembled Lott more than a bit, was trying to explain what he'd done with the Dementor. She was wrong, but Aberforth didn't want to out and tell her – he thought she was pretty, and didn't want to treat her like Julius treated him. Besides, he hadn't the slightest idea how it had been done, only that it couldn't have been done like she said.

He wondered who the teacher was – he hadn't wanted to ask Julius to read his schedule to him, figuring he would follow his classmates around until he figured out what was what. His teacher back before all the really strange things had started happening was Binns, but Aberforth hadn't seen any of the rest of his Masters (thankfully, in the case of Jigger). He had liked History of Magic, and Binns – though trying to play along without the knowledge of family history that other Slytherins seemed to have automatically was a bit hard. People had had to talk to him then, his fellow classmates – and his role was always on the top, playing a Marvolo. It was certainly more fun than Professor Jigger constantly yelling at him and Hal Weasley in Potions, or Professor Switch being mean to him in Transfiguration.

An aged and translucent Professor finally floated through the wall, and Aberforth yelped (as did a couple of the other Slytherins, thankfully). Not another ghost! The Bloody Baron past and present seemed to take a perverse delight in harassing him, much to the amusement of his former classmates, but this one was new to him. He still hadn't gotten completely used to the ghosts in the castle, but what really bothered him was that this one looked weirdly familiar. Was it…wait…it couldn't be! Binns was an actual person! He wasn't supposed to be a ghost! Greatly daring, Aberforth shuffled up to the ghost nervously, trying to tug on an intangible sleeve.

"Professor Binns?"

The filmy and translucent eyes focused on him slowly. Binns finally creaked, "Abernathy Minor?"

"Aberforth, sir." A bit bashful, suddenly, Aberforth looked down.

"What is it? Speak up, Alastor!"

"Err…Professor? You're, uh…dead."

The creepy eyes kept looking blankly over the class, before blinking. "Er. So I am…"

This wasn't the way things were supposed to be going. Aberforth blushed suddenly, wishing that he had never got himself in this awkward situation fervently. Everything he did seemed to come out wrong somehow!

Binns blinked again, his long-unexercised mind whirring slowly into gear. "Well. Bugger –this- for a lark then."

He disappeared. The other Slytherins gaped. Aberforth once again got the feeling he had done something wrong. He didn't mean to!

"Er." he said, looking where the ghostly Professor had been, then to the door, where Professor Lott was looking in. He went pale. "I didn't mean to! It just happened!"

Gesius Lott's mouth twitched, as he wondered what the thrice-damned boy had done this time. And just when he had been getting somewhere with that hag of a headmistress, too…

***

It was surprising how normal the class was, at first. Of course, if one was Albus Dumbledore at his first Herbology class, normalcy seemed to be relative. Albus quite sensibly measured strangeness as relating to his arrival here some months past. Where the scale was based on performing one's own last rites, everyday oddities were put in perspective. Albus was given a wide berth by the other Gryffindors, as they didn't know quite what to make of him. Of course, he didn't know quite what to make of himself either - but he had stopped worrying about it. Industriously examining a formidable magical weed choking an immature bulbotuber, he barely acknowledged Professor Sprout's hurried departure - Aberforth, again. His mind was thinking on another level entirely, though he did begin to take more of an interest in what the fellow students Sprout had left under his care were actually talking about.

Marvolo's dark-haired cousin, Lucretia Valery, lounged against one of the tables, having attracted a curious crowd of girls. She was reveling in the attention given her as she detailed the character of Professor Lott. Aside from the gender of the participants, this was nothing particularly new. The man was emotionally shallow, manipulative by nature, and devoid of any empathy whatsoever. He had very few redeeming qualities, though he could appear as the most agreeable person imaginable if he was inclined to do so. He was a Dark wizard of extraordinary power, a Master of his craft, and he killed emotionlessly - Professor Switch had taken Albus to see him duel once, and he had never forgotten what he had learned there.

Dumbledore had encountered a term in this library that described Lott quite aptly: 'sociopath'. Except that he wasn't quite, as such- he was superbly in tune with the 'norms' of the lapsed world of the wizard nobility…where the rules were what one made of them. He was completely and utterly Slytherin in his methodology.

However, he had a pretty face, and for some, that was enough to excuse anything. Dumbledore shook his head, and stealthily
Transfigured a weed into a Golden Snidget, surreptitiously watching the shimmering globe of a bird zoom out the door with a smile.

Valery was expounding on Lott's supposed sexual prowess now without any apparent shame – evoking nervous giggles from the
Hufflepuff girls and an "Oh, honestly!" from his fellow Gryffindor prefect, a sensible girl with a good head on her shoulders.

Lucretia tossed her head, smiling at Miss Granger. "Well, dear, you have to realize that Lord Lott is a Master of the Arts of Love – one of the few wizards who actually –bother-…which makes him quite a catch, even without the other factors."

Some of the pureblood wizards and witches blushed a bit, and a Hufflepuff tittered. Enough was enough.

"Miss Valery, if you aspire to be Lord Lott's latest conquest, do spare us the details…"

"Who said he would be doing the conquering?" smiled Lucretia.