AN: I do not own anything from the Harry Potter series. It all belongs to JK Rowling. I am in your debt for creating such a wonderful series. Please don't sue me!!!!

AN: Revised for your reading pleasure.

Chapter 3: A New Year and an Enigma

The traces of summer were steadily diminishing: the sun setting earlier in the evenings; the giant squid in the lake was splashing about less; and the sound of hundreds of owls beating their wings, being sent off every morning with a letter gripped tightly in their claws, with name written in emerald green ink.

The office was a wonderful place to escape the incorrigible summer heat and unwanted conversations with the other professors. I took the summer to catch up on my research of non-diluted bundimon secretions. I would let the cauldrons boils and bubble in the evenings when the air was cooler and the heat forgotten by the sheer chill of the night, and in the mornings and early afternoons I would write down my results of the previous night's experiment. I had collected about 3 volumes of notes over the summer and had made some progress with a potion that could weaken Lord Voldemort. However, it was far from complete. First, it was still easily detectable and had an antidote that could be completed in a few short hours. Secondly, the potency needed to be last longer so that there was ample time for Dumbledore and the others could attack while Voldemort was still weak. So far my months of research had made it so that the potion was colorless, tasteless, odorless, deathly, and so potent that one only needed to touch it to have it work against their body. However, that wasn't enough. I would need to spend most of my free time this school year working on the potion between grading papers and teaching those dunderheads, with each passing moment who knows what the dark lord was planning, killing, hurting, laughing...

I lied back in my comfy office chair, pinching the space between my squinting eyes, trying to forget that demented man's face, trying to forget such horrible times, the sins I have witnessed. Thankfully this is my last year with the damnable Harry Potter and the likes. Thank the Heavens. But perhaps the fact that he's still here for another year, along with that menace to cauldrons everywhere Longbottom, cascades a shadow over this joyous thought.

Okay, maybe I'm just hallucinating.

This year's going to be hell.

That four footed flea bag werewolf, Lupin, has decided to stay to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, receiving no complaints from the year before. The thought of brewing all those wolfsbane potions for the rest of eternity bugs the hell out of me.

It was late in the evening, the first week of classes. I still had a stack of parchment as tall as my desk to grade, I didn't feel like going through the papers of those idiots that the staff call I didn't want to see hastily scrawled words across the parchment, obviously without much thought or effort. I didn't want to read the Granger girl's long, tedious, and boring parchment on the uses of erumpent horns. I didn't want to read Zabini's parchment which was always an attempt at humor. I didn't want to do any of it. But it had to be done. I grumbled and squinted one last time before I began to attack the parchments with a vengeance. I grabbed my black quill and dipped it in a pot of red india ink, writing in corrections and scathing remarks across the students' homework. I could get this done in an hour or so if I didn't read too much into any of these papers, it's not like they put a lot of effort into them anyway. I wondered if anybody than possibly Miss Granger would pass the NEWTS and OWLS this year. I would need to keep them on their toes this year, those students were not types to study potions for intrinsic motivations, I would need to punish them, extrinsic motivation was better than none. I finished the stack of parchments and put them off to one side of my mahogany desk. I glanced at the small scraps of papers, notes from the other professors. Sprout had left the mandrake leaves in my store room, McGonagall was asking me for a few vials for her next class, a friendly note from Dumbledore reminded me to attend a staff meeting, among other things.

The year started out normal enough. Or should I state just as horribly normal? The sorting hat ceremony proved that we would have a new bunch of dunderheads for those we had finally shooed out of this institution. I always find it interesting that the sorting hat is able to always divide the students evenly among the four houses, no one house having an excess of students. I wonder if the sorting hat does it out of convenience or that it is destined for Hogwarts to accept a set number of certain students that would go into each house, even before the hat sorts them. Also, I am noting with annoyance, that the terrible twins of Weasley have opened shop in Hogsmeade during the summer. I passed by it once and saw the sign was magicked to shoot out sparks every once in a while and the shop was filled with shelves upon shelves of their mischievous magical blunders. It also was filled with customers; sadly, it seems they won't be out of business anytime soon. I think I will need to confiscate more Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes contraptions and canary creams than all the time they were here at Hogwarts. Far from a joy, I assure you. I can only imagine what disaster will happen if one falls into my cauldrons.

On a subtler note, an enigma of sorts has joined the staff this year. Her name is Neoma Mortar, a previous student to Hogwarts. She is teaching a new class entitled Wizarding Economics. Hopefully a government class can follow so the Ministry can be have SOMEONE qualified for some of the positions. She walked in a few weeks before classes started, her luggage blocking the entrance the day before she came. I did not see her until the staff meeting before the students arrived at Hogwarts but she had dark brown hair that was put into a bun with the ends splayed across her shoulders and is now the youngest staff member, replacing myself, Lupin, and Vector. She is about 26 or so, far too young for a witch like herself to teach. She was conservative in dress, a large pleated navy blue skirt danced with the ends of her black robes touching the floor, she wore a stiff white blouse and a navy blue blazer that matched her skirt. The only thing she showed of her skin was her hands and her face, a refreshing thought after seeing all the hormone crazed young girls at Hogwarts were wearing tacky skimpy clothing, believing that they were mature. She looked calm, quiet, and smiled when she walked into the room. She took a chair near the window, looking out into the deep blue of the sky, her hands folded at her lap, her mind obviously elsewhere. Trelawney waltzed in later, carrying in a scent of expired incense, expressing about her inner eye sensing that the meeting would start late anyway. She caught sight of Professor Mortar and tried to introduced herself. Professor Mortar's expression hardened after a while, a frown forming at the ends of her lips. She did not respond to Sybil's questions, not that Sybill noticed anyway with her insistent babbling. When Trelawney tried to predict Professor Mortar's future Professor Mortar icily told her that she was already destined to die like the rest of humanity and tension filled the air. Trelawney was silent for the rest of the meeting and Mortar was fidgety for the rest of the meeting and dashed out of the room when the meeting broke up, a frown still on her lips but her face as white as a sheet.

Later that evening at the staff table she was clutching a small boy's hand. He was about eight, had red hair that could match any of the Weasleys' and had piercing green eyes. He looked defiant but held to Mortar's hand tightly and glared at every face at the table. Mortar smiled her original cheery smile but her eyes and the angle of her head apologized for the boy's suspicions. At the head table he sat between Hagrid and Professor Mortar, after the meals appeared he lost all emotions of being suspicious but was filled with simple joy as he ate his chicken legs. He smiled and wolfed down the food and Hagrid smiled at the boy; there seemed to be some conversation between the three of them. I'm confused as to why Professor Mortar would have a child at this age. Perhaps someone took advantage of her, for she seems the sort that would not be able to fight. Far too young to be a mother. Later I noticed him walking behind Professor Mortar after the first day of classes. I wonder why he follows her around all day and not going to a proper school. So far I have never heard him speak either.

When classes began she created a stir among the students. She smiled and talked calmly but is just as capable of being strict, as she as deducted over 100 points over the course of the first week. She also has some strange ideas and contraptions, as she now has something the muggles call white boards and writes on the boards using colored markers that dry when one writes with them and then is easy to erase. She also has an air of mystery, as she has been going to the owlery and sending several owls a day with small packages tied to their talons. Although it was hard for others to talk to her after the incident with Sybill, Lupin has found her to be an amusing conversationalist dripping with sarcasm, novel ideas, and bubbly laughter. I have not conversed with her myself and perhaps that is why I do not overly dislike her yet. She will be a fine professor as long as she will have a firm grasp on her students. They still do not know whether to love her or to fear her. Unlike myself, where I don't give them an option.

I got out of my chair and walked around the desk, walking over the various patterns of a persian rug. I blew out the last of the tall dark green candles in the office, turned off the brightly burning gas lamp on the edge of my desk and headed toward the door the door, clutching a glass lantern rimmed with black. I locked and warded the door and headed toward my chambers. I hoped I would be able to sleep tonight. Even though I didn't want my nightmares to haunt me, my night terrors to tire my already tired body. I remember each person, each of their screams, each of their faces contorted with pain and fear.

My dark mark still burns at times, sometimes painfully so, but I know he will kill me if he ever catches sight of me again after I betrayed him once, if not twice. I however have new hopes for his destruction as Draco has graciously offered his services despite going behind his father's back. I feel sorrow for the boy for having to experience such pains at such a young age.

I know what it feels like.

Draco will be our eyes and our ears and Dumbledore will be the brains.

Myself, I will be the faithful servant and scientist with hopefully a potion that would rid of the world of this evil.

Goodness knows I have experienced and created too much of that evil.

AN:(2/28) Once again, credits to the Harry Potter Lexicon. I will revise chapter 4 saturday and hopefully I can update with chapter 7 on sunday. Hope you enjoy the story so far. Please REVIEW!!!!!!