Disclaimer: Most of the characters in this belong to J.K.Rowling bar a character of my own creation. All the scenery belongs her as well *sobs*

Author's Note: I hope you enjoy it....please leave me some reviews.. :) I want to know if I should continue or not.... I don't really want people to flame me but if it is completely necessary then you've gotta do it. *sits fingers crossed.*

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To question her is to question yourself...

Who is She?

Next morning Snape walked out of his office to see a glistening stone on the floor just outside the door. When he picked it up, he noticed that it was part of a bracelet. He didn't even need to ask who had put it there. It had strange symbols on it. They were engraved in the silver behind the stone. He stormed off towards Stark's office thinking hat she had been trying to hex him.

When he reached her office, he banged on the door as loudly as he could trying to get her attention, but got no reply. He tried again accompanying that with a yell.

"I know you're in there!" he bellowed, but still got no response. He opened the door slowly and glanced around. He could hear her breathing and the sound of something being hit. However, with the creaking of the door all noise ceased from wherever she had been. The next thing he heard was a sudden rushing of the wind as he was knocked off of his feet onto her desk where she placed her hands about his neck, held his arms down with her knees and rested her left foot lightly over his groin ready to inflict pain upon him. Too shocked to move he held up the bracelet while looking blankly at the ceiling.

"Snape!" She shouted outraged. "What are you doing here?"

"B...b...b...!" He stuttered, looking at her then to his hand.

"My bracelet!" She exclaimed. "I wondered where that had gone!" She jumped off of him swiftly not watching where she was landing but still landing on her feet. She watched the bracelet and the different colours it made when it reflected the sunlight. "Where did you find it?" Snape still had his hands in the air and was frozen to the spot where he had landed.

"Snape?" She looked puzzled. "Oh, sorry," she said with a laugh, helping him to his feet.

"W...what do those symbols mean?" He asked hesitantly.

"Power through gentleness, energy and courage, knowledge by stealth, and...." she pointed at the centre most symbol.

"Magic used in moderation for good and honour," Snape finished.

"You know it?" she sounded impressed.

"Auror's wear these, female ones anyway," Snape looked at her trying to figure her out his black eyes were drilling into her head like bright light. Stark noticed a change in his appearance, a very subtle difference that you would only notice if you paid extreme attention to what he looked like. There were slight alterations to the levels of grime one his hair teeth and general being. It was like someone was doing slow spring-cleaning. She guessed that he wanted no one to notice that he was making an effort for once. "Were you ....."

"My friend was an Auror!" she said shortly. "She died!" Raine held the door open and looked out of it so that Snape would notice. "Good day, Professor Snape!" Snape didn't need telling twice. He hastily took his leave to the Great Hall and breakfast.

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"Our first lesson today is Defence Against the Dark Arts." Hermione said, trying to sound enthusiastic knowing that all her friends were dreading their potion's lesson that was coming up after it. "I wonder what our new teacher will be like. I bet she will be a really nice person," Hermione forced a little smile.

"Did you see her? Was it just me or did she have about as much warmth around her as the dungeons!" Ron said throwing Hermione a frustrated glance.

"She may be a little nervous as it was her first day here as a teacher," Hermione looked to Harry for support but he was less than helpful.

"She is not going to be that nice. No one, not even the prefects, know who she is or what she's called. It's really creepy," Harry looked at Hermione noting the that fact that she was a prefect.

They continued to make their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. They all looked around when they heard large, quick footsteps coming from behind them. It was Snape, walking like he had to be somewhere in a hurry. They split like bowling pins when Snape got closer and then rushed passed and into the Great Hall.

"Why was he in such a hurry?" Harry asked, as they each regrouped in their line, as they entered the Great Hall shortly afterwards.

"He looks slightly paler than normal. This can't be good," Ron said, taking a seat next to Hermione whom watched the head table for the whole of breakfast, while slowly chewing on some porridge. The new Professor was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is she?" She asked, looking at the table, confusion written over her face.

"Perhaps she wasn't our new teacher after all," said Harry, letting off a sigh of relief.

"Maybe you're right. We have never had a female Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher before. But if it wasn't her then who is the new teacher... It had better not be Snape!" Both Ron and Harry shared Hermione's horror struck expression.

"Oh my god, you don't think that's the reason he's so pale?"

"What do you mean?" Harry said.

"Well, think about it, he might have got the job he finally wanted and can't believe his luck. Might be the reason he's so stressed recently - trying to find some horrible creature to torture us with," Ron said, mimicking a monster with sharp claws and fangs.

"Oo, please don't," Hermione said. "You're making me queasy."

"Dumbledore'd never allow it though," Harry hushed his voice,

"Remember, he was once a Death eater?" Ron and Hermione nodded with absolute seriousness.


"That's right. We'd better get moving or we'll be late. Either teacher looks venomous, kill me for saying this but I think I'd rather have Snape than that woman. What's her name anyway?"

"Dunno," they shared silent thoughts of their inevitable torture and left at a rather faster pace than normal.

"God if we get there late! He's going to kill us, you know what he's like when we get to class late," Harry said as they all entered the empty classroom. "There's no one here!" He exclaimed, as he Ron and Hermione marvelled at the empty desks and took their own seats, waiting for the room to fill slowly as people trickled in as groups, they had all assumed the same thing and thought it safer to enter the room in groups.

"Well, it can't be Snape!" Ron said as he looked at the empty desk where the teacher should have been.

"Well, we are all here now, and whoever is taking us isn't," Hermione looked
slightly annoyed as she didn't want to go through a day without learning anything.

"Well, I plan on making the most of it. We don't often have free lessons. A nice change I think!" Ron leaned back into his seat and put his feet on the desk as there was a slight clicking in the doorway that made him jump and move his feet back to the floor and made his face look alert- ready to learn, just in case. There was nothing there however. Just the wind, he thought as he moved his feet back to their previous position.

Malfoy was poking his nose around in the small wardrobe in the back of the classroom. Small pots of tiny creatures and funny smelling liquids were all he found. Leaving a lid loose on the bottle reading 'highly dangerous', he slunk back to his seat, displeased by the fact that he had found nothing interesting to set on the class. He continued his discussion with Crabbe and Goyle about how useless the school was and how if Professor Snape was the Head teacher it would be so much better.

There was a small wheezing sound from the back of the room that caused everyone to look around only to see that the bottle and its contents had smashed upon the floor. Malfoy sat back looking smug as ever as the liquid rose to a more powerful form. Malfoy didn't bother to look at the large Manticore standing behind him.

"Ron, when do you suppose...." Hermione was about to ask when the member of staff was about to show up when the whole class went berserk and ran crashing over the desks towards the door as they all saw it.

Malfoy, who had only just noticed the large towering beast standing behind him, its scorpion tail swishing slightly like a cat ready to pounce. As it drew itself to its full height Malfoy tried to sink as low to the ground as possible eventually cowering in a corner as finally the Professor arrived to take the lesson.

All the students were trying to get out of the classroom as Raine was trying to get in. It was a no go situation. She stood back as about twenty pupils were trying to force the door open without any luck.

"Get out of the way!" she screamed her voice so piercing that even the Manticore stopped making any sound - it had been crooning above Malfoy who now looked even paler than Snape, his eyes glazed. "Can you hear me! All of you step away from the door, NOW!" She yelled, taking a run up and knocking all of them away from the door as it flew off its hinges.

Harry and Ron, who had been at the back of the group trying to escape, took the brunt of the weight flying back at the desk, them being at the bottom of the pile. Hermione stepped away from the middle as Stark rushed into the classroom, brandishing her wand like a sword. She however didn't do anything to start with. She looked at the Manticore that looked back at her briefly before changing into something that confused the entire class - Lucius Malfoy.

"Father?" Malfoy exclaimed, the colour slowly flushed back into his pale cheeks.

"Ridikulus!" Stark shouted as he turned into a Muggle wearing a hideous pink tracksuit and began jogging on the spot. Stark laughed sarcastically as the jogging Lucius looked exhausted before she let out one last cruel laugh before it exploded in a puff of smoke.

"Thus I win!" She said placing her wand back into her robes. "Now what I would like to know is how that boggart got out!" Her last words were sharp and commanding as a sea of explanations were washed over her, she looked at Malfoy who was sitting in the corner trying to catch his breath.

"It was Draco, Miss! He was looking in that wardrobe at the back," a Gryffindor offered, as Stark approached Malfoy slowly her steps slow and powerful.

"What were you doing in that wardrobe, Mr Malfoy!" She said her voice cutting through the air.

He put his hands over his head and didn't sound at all smug as the dark eyed witch glowered at him.

"I didn't mean it, Miss!" he whimpered. "I was just a little curious..." He raised his grey eyes up to her looking for some sort of forgiveness - he found none.

"Twenty-five points from Slytherin, Mr. Malfoy!" She swept away to her desk, slamming her flat palm on it. "Sit down!" She barked. The class did not object and were sitting readily for their first lesson of the year barely a minute later.

"We have lost..." she glanced up at the clock. "Twenty minutes of my lesson, I know I was late, but I had to go over a few things with the Headmaster. That does not mean you have the right to go rummaging through my wardrobe! Mr Malfoy!" Draco leapt from his seat and hid his bright red face in his arms. "Sit up straight! All of you!" The room echoed with the shuffling of feet into position like a well-ordered military academy. Ron was fighting the urge to laugh the loudest he had ever done before, his lips were curling and his face was bright red. Hermione, Harry and the rest of the class sat in complete silence, watching the teacher's hawk-like eyes scan the classroom as if she was a ticking time bomb.

So the lesson proceeded, no-one spoke a word out of place, they listened carefully and attentively to her talk of more horrible curses and filed out of the classroom quickly and silently. They still didn't know her name.

"What the hell is that woman on?" Ron gasped, speaking the general view of everyone else.

"She did right though, to punish Malfoy like that," Hermione said. "We have
potions now..."

"Oh, God," Harry and Ron said in unison.

"How are we going to get through it?" Harry sighed.

"Come on you two - Snape's old news. We can handle him."

"You're right, Hermione," Ron put his arm around her and their spirits rose as they made their way down to the cold - but strangely comforting - dungeons that Snape dwelled in.

"Sit down. Sit down!" Snape grumbled. The Gryffindors and Slytherin students took their places and laid out their cauldrons and ingredients. "We will not be needing liver of toad today, we will be making a Fungus potion, be careful not to get any on yourself as I will not be escorting your sorry mushroomed nose to Madam Pomfrey," he drawled as he smoothly wrote the method and ingredients in his elegant script onto the board. "I will be marking some of my first year tests so be quiet and try not to make any mistakes," he shot a piercing glance at Neville. "And I will be coming round to examine your creation before the lesson is over. Everyone will be graded on their tidiness and skill. Begin," he narrowed his eyes and watched everyone for a few moments get on with the work before seating himself down in his chair and taking out a new quill from his drawer, and began to grade the tests.

The door was knocked on half an hour later, and in flowed Professor Raine Stark with a huge pile of parchments in her arms. She jangled with every step towards Snape's desk, her robes breezed behind her like beautiful black waves, her hair gently drifted behind her with a few wisps falling in front of her dull green eyes. She still had the look she had adopted last lesson - Malfoy hid behind his cauldron.

"Professor Snape," she said curtly. "Here are the test results from last year's fifth

year pupils," the moment her strong gentle voice finished the sentence, something very fast whizzed across the room bouncing off the far wall by Crabbe's head - the boy was so dense he didn't notice. It shot from there onto the opposite wall to the ceiling and then down to the floor, zooming under the cauldrons and then finally spiralling round Stark's beautiful body, it wheezed and whistled as it flew round her head sending more strands round in her face, she stared unimpressed at the thing as he shot past her eyes, across the other side of the room and into Harry's potion. The room was silent as it watched the potion bubble and slurp over the unknown object.


The potion fizzed... And exploded.


The first sounds were heard by Raine, they were muffled and confused though she was, Raine stepped onto the dry spots of the floor towards the destroyed caldron. Harry stood in the same position he had been in before the blast - a carrot in one hand, a shattered bottle in the other - everyone else looked bewildered and dumbfounded by what had just happened, they blinked slowly coming back to their senses. Everyone was covered in fungus. All the exposed parts of their flesh was furry and covered in mould. Apart from a few Slytherins at the back of the room who had been hiding behind their cauldrons, including Malfoy - and Professor Stark. A few boys from Slytherin began to slowly smirk and laugh at the Gryffindors and their own housemates, but Snape had not moved. He sat directly in front of Harry and so he, Ron, Hermione and Neville had got the full brunt of the potion. Their faces and clothes were sprouting mushrooms and fluffy moulds, they didn't laugh but stood silent and repulsed at their current affliction. Stark slowly bent down, created a leather glove on her hand with her wand and picked up the dripping wand of Severus Snape.

"I believe this is yours?" She laid the steaming wand in front of him. With all the fluff he looked like the rat he had been called all these years. Stark whispered quite casually.

"Do try to control yourself, Snape, you might want to put a lead on that," she stepped back to the door, pulled out her wand and said: "Dimestious!" The room was suddenly cleared of all broken cauldrons and dripping potion. "I believe you will all be just dying to go to the medical wing, so I'll warn Madam Pomfrey shall I?" She grinned, and as she was opening the door someone spoke.

"Professor Stark -"

"Yes Fluffy? -Whoops!" Snape's furious expression could not be seen underneath all the mushrooms that circled his eyes like a pair of goggles, Stark quietly giggled and walked out leaving everyone totally amazed at how funny Snape looked for once.

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Author's Note: I hope you like it.... I've gotta say a big thank you to all the people who check this over for me...


THANK YOU! *Smiles sheepishly* Thank you to Ashley who checked my appalling grammar. I'm finished with chapter 3 but I await some reviews before I put it in. :)

Bye.... :)

I.C. Fire

silver_shadow54@hotmail.com