Disclaimer: Excluding the ones I made up myself, none of these characters belong to me. Aight?

Stuff: Any fragment sentences are intentional. Believe me, I only make them if I think they should be there. Otherwise, they tick me off. Haha :3

Quick Pre-Chapter Author's Note: I have fixed the espan~ol in this chapter. Thank you, Spanish Gal, for your extremely helpful input! :) *showers her with candy and flowers and what not* You are the best!

1 The Half / He Lacks 2

Chapter One: How It Starts

It was a new year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and summer vacation had come to an end, its tone of terror still hung in the air. Lord Voldemort was back now, and everyone knew it due to the occurrences of the previous school year. Everyone had left Hogwarts, no longer anticipating the summer now that the threat of the Dark Lord was omnipresent.

But now the students were back. They poured into the Great Hall as a seething mass of various colored flesh, and yet, somehow, order came to them all as each individual found his or her place at one of the four impossibly long tables. The sound unending soppy steps of soggy shoes was overwhelming. Each head of each being bobbed as each conversed back and forth with each other. It almost disgusted him how they all appeared so pleased and excited with the chaos of it all. One moment.... Never mind. It did disgust him.

"Good evening, Severus," said a very old man on his far right as he took his seat at the center of the adults' table.

"Good evening, Headmaster Dumbledore," he replied, nodding slightly in respect.

"I trust you had a pleasant summer vacation?" the headmaster inquired pleasantly.

Severus Snape's lip curled in a smirk as his mind flooded with sarcastic thoughts. The months of June, July, and August had been filled with projects concerning the enemy, all of which he was playing traitor on the foes' territory, at the heart of their matters. He never knew whether he was to be found out and killed one day or the next; he never knew whether his lying mask, his deadly charade would fall apart on its own or if someone would shatter it himself. In short, it had been an extremely and undoubtedly unpleasant summer.

Fortunately, Dumbledore was Snape's truest ally, and he knew all this already. This was one less lie he must tell.

"Pleasant enough, Headmaster. And you?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled sadly and almost mischievously. "My vacation," he said after a moment, "has been a little of everything, I'm afraid. I almost have difficulty making heads or tails of it."

Snape turned away from him, the smirk still playing across his pale lips. Albus Dumbledore was always one to give ambiguous answers to simple questions. And sometimes the not-so-simple ones.

"You'll be pleased to know we have an influx of first years," Dumbledore continued with a smile that held some knowledge of the why and incentive of this fact. It was, as he knew, because so many parents were now aware of Lord Voldemort's return. Hogwarts was well known to be a place he could not set foot for fear of Albus Dumbledore.

"Yes," Snape mumbled. "I'm simply ecstatic." He taught Potions, a required course for all students. More first years meant more students for him to deal with.

Dumbledore was close to saying something else when someone caught his eye.

"¡Buonas noches, Senorita Silva! Que alegria verla de nuevo," he greeted fluently.

Silently, Snape turned away and began to glumly visualize his classes for the coming year. He was very gifted at Potions, but his only goal in life other than dying a slow, cruel death by Lord Voldemort was to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. He prided himself for his skills in that area, but Potions was where he was to stay for the time being, it seemed. Potions wasn't as dull as it sounded, he had to admit. There was always some sniveling student who botched his overly simple potion and caused harm to himself in some grotesque way. Like that Longbottem git. Or those morons of morons, Crabbe and Goyle. If Snape were daft, he might wonder how that simpering Malfoy boy could stand the pair of them, but Snape knew from experience that a bully's best companions are raving idiots.

Snape was interrupted from his hateful thoughts by Professor Flitwick, who was quite eager to talk about his great niece, who was starting into school as a first year.

"She just turned eleven, you know. She says she can't wait for Charms lessons. Oh, I know I shouldn't favor her over the other students, but I'm afraid it will be very difficult. She's such a sweet little girl."

Attempting to be polite, Snape managed a small smile, but to be completely truthful, it would have made a baby cry. Flitwick grinned and continued his blabberings.

Finally Flitwick's tongue was put to rest, though only temporarily, as the first years filed into the Great Hall and marched nervously to the front of the professors' table. Indeed there were several of them. Snape heard Sprout murmur to Trelawny that she counted sixty-one heads in total. He quickly did the math mentally. Sixty-one students would mean on average at least fifteen to a house, and two houses in one potions class would mean at least thirty students. Chaos was sure to ring true in the dungeons this year.

The Sorting Hat was then brought out and placed before the first years. After a new version of its annual song, the sorting began. The eager Flitwick was literally on the edge of his seat, peering anxiously down upon his young great niece. Snape sighed, crossed his arms, and sat back for the long and dreary wait. Sorting sixty-one students was no swift task. In fact, it took an entire hour and a half for it to be completed. Flitwick, who was quite disheartened that his great niece had been put into Gryffindor instead of his house Ravenclaw, had been quiet and slightly dejected since the I's had been called.

When the last student, Jonathan Whimpleton, had been sorted into Hufflepuff, Dumbledore rose from his seat to give his beginning-of-term speech.

"First, I should like to welcome you all to a new and -for some of you- first year at Hogwarts." He paused and smiled to the person on his right. "As all of you know, Voldemort -several first years gasped in fright- has returned. None of you should feel threatened by this. He cannot come here, so, for the time being, you are all safe." He smiled. "For safety precautions all trips to Hogsmeade have been canceled for this year."

This caused a small uproar with the students, but Dumbledore hushed them with a wave of his hand.

"To make up for this, we have formed a council to organize various events for the entire student body. You will all learn more of this later. I have but two more items of information for you all before we eat."

Because Dumbledore was standing, Snape could not clearly see the two people rising on his right.

"We have two new teachers this year. First is Professor Silva. She has come here from Argentina, and although she is bilingual, she has not spoken English for some time. She is quite out of practice, and I trust that you will all help her in understanding the ways of our school."

Snape heard Professor Silva take her seat.

"Our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is Professor Burgoyne. She graduated from here quite some time ago and has been working with the Ministry of Magic till now. Now with that all said..."

Dumbledore summoned the food, and everyone began to dig in with gusto. Soon the entire hall was again filled with the sound of voices. It was so loud that one could barely hear the person next to them. Snape didn't mind this. Flitwick was going on and on about something while Trelawny was predicting the end of the world or something of that nature.

It was past ten o'clock when the first group of students headed off to bed. Prefects then took the still lively first years off to show them their dormitories. Snape could see Harry Potter with his two friends Weasley and Granger as the two lackeys led their sheep, as their badges required them to do. Potter looked thoroughly pathetic. Snape was well aware of Black's death, and he couldn't honestly say he was pleased about it. No matter how much he loathed that miserable git, he never truly wished for his death. Not because he cared, mind you, but because the teased-and-humiliated-to- the-point-of-torture-school-boy lives mostly so he might one-up his adolescent antagonists. Black's death caused the same feeling in Snape as that James Potter's had. Snape always wanted to prove himself, to somehow make them feel like they had made him feel. But now that they were dead, he was powerless. All his hard work had been for nothing, and he was consequently humiliated yet again. If they hadn't been so fond of living, Snape would have suspected that they'd planned their deaths just to spite him more.

Hollow with hatred and filled with food, Snape left the table and the Great Hall. The only thing he wanted at this moment was to sleep.

But things weren't going to go his way tonight.

The dark mark on his arm was telling him he had a meeting to go to.

Author's Note:

I hope you enjoyed this rather piddly first chapter. I don't know about you guys, but I am not a big fan of set-up chapters. On the other hand, I don't think it's very realistic to just jump into a plot, so y'all got a set-up. The next chapter is to be posted soon since this one was short and relatively dull for a fanfic. Please stick with me. I promise each and every reviewer good things, too. ;) Haha. Also, if you have any suggestions or requests, you can e-mail them to me, and I promise to consider all of them (unless they're mean. I have such tender feelings, after all *puppy eyes*).

Good day and be safe!