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When Harry, Ron and Hermione arrived at their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class before lunch on Monday, the new teacher hadn't yet arrived. Where she was, nobody knew so the whole class just sat and messed about until she appeared as if out from thin air from the back of the room. Ron whispered to Harry that he wished the classroom hadn't been moved from upstairs; down in the dungeons reminded him too much of the painful potions class they had been to that morning, and also there were no windows letting in natural light, which spooked Ron because he could swear that he saw something move in those shadows in the corners.

After a few surprised yells from the back of the class, people began to realize there was somebody else in the room, and quickly silenced themselves. New teachers were to be treated with caution - to underestimate a teacher's sense of discipline was a fatal mistake to make. The tall woman who was now draped in a long black cloak that looked a bit too long even for her, moved very slowly down the middle aisle too her desk, curiously watching her pupils without moving her head. Turning around and leaning against her desk, she decided to speak to break the mounting tension in the children's faces. But first she smiled a peaceful, well practiced smile.

"Don't be frightened, I certainly don't intend to hurt anyone in their first lesson. My name is Miss Zirconia. I believe I'm here to teach you all protection for. blaa blaa blaa." Waving an arm carelessly to her side, the class gasped. "You know the story. Anyway, I feel that before you can learn how to defend yourself against the Dark Arts, you need to trust or a least respect your teacher and know that they are qualified. So I plan to break you all in with a class where you may ask whatever questions you wish, and perhaps I will show you a few tricks." At this everyone was stunned, but now curious at the devious smile on her face.

Hermione was first with her hand up. "Have you ever had to defend yourself against the Dark Arts?"

"Yes I have on numerous occasions. Is your name Hermione Granger?"

"Uh.yes it is.how do you -?"

"I am skilled at Occulmency and wandless magic. I also brew Potions occasionally on request, though I don't claim to be better than your Potions Master." Nebula stated carefully, as many students gaped or shot up their hands.

"Hello Mister Longbottom. How's your family?" The woman walked over to his desk, crouched down to his level and asked him quietly, with the utmost sympathy in her voice. Harry was waiting nervously for the moment when she turned round to him and landed him with 'Oh my and here we have Mister Potter! Savior of the Universe!' But it never came. She wandered around the class conversing calmly with people, and a few suggested that she should be our new divinations teacher, leaving Parvati and Lavender looking mutinous. Miss Zirconia walked back to her desk, swept off her cloak then flung it over the comfortable, stuffed chair behind it.

"Oh no, I can only read the pasts that you have all seen, but the future is far too complicated to comprehend. True Divination is almost impossible."

When questioned about wandless magic, she said little on the matter.

"It is very hard. It takes a lot of time and concentration to become fluent at it because it involves the magical powers within us, not the immense supply within our wands. This power is something that everyone sitting here has, but not all can use it. Only certain minded people can release it from within to say, move objects," with a flick of her finger, Neville's book flipped over on his desk. "Interact with people's minds," Suddenly Dean's now red face buried itself in his arms, while the teacher stared at him amusedly as if they had just shared a joke that only they would understand. "Cause spontaneous combustion," Two large burners at either side of the teacher's desk exploded into flame, setting some of Ron's parchment on fire in front of her desk, "whoops! I always get carried away with that one..and well, much, much more."

"Wow! She's so." Harry breathed in awe, but she heard him.

"Cool, isn't it?" Smiling sweetly, she winked at him as if she knew something he didn't. This unnerved him. Was this a set up? Nope, he didn't think so. "You are Harry Potter. The teachers were talking about you to me - don't worry, it was all good. They say you're quite a feature in this school, and that this is your best subject."

Nodding curiously, he wondered why she didn't mention anything about Lord Voldemort. It was as if she didn't know anything about it. "It is, Miss. Excuse me, but should we not be calling you Professor?"

"Oh well, probably but I'm not fussy. I don't really think it sounds right. 'Professor Zirconia'.well whatever you want I don't mind, as long as it isn't anything horrible!" Giggling slightly she swanned around her desk, made her cloak float over to a hook on the wall, and sat composedly in her chair until Hermione shot up her hand again.

"Professor, have...no offence meant or anything.but have you taught before?"

Half the class glared at her ashamedly whilst the rest waited for the response, not knowing what to expect if she was angered. After a long and calculated pause, staring slightly suspiciously at Hermione, pondering her perfectly innocent question, she replied quietly but firmly, so that the walls couldn't even hear,

"Yes. I taught.I taught at Durmstrang for 10 years." Not taking her eyes off the young girl sitting beside Ron, she continued smoothly, as if to say 'this matter is closed for discussion.' "Well I think you had all better do some work today. My list of topics that you are to cover for this year is long, and your first one is Weedles, but I doubt that should take long, so I've decided to do a bit of revision of hexes with you. If everyone would pair up please, we shall begin."

Harry had a feeling that this year would be rather strange, having its normal ups and downs of course, but also that this teacher would play a bigger part in their lives than she should. She was weird, creepy too. Why did she seem to buckle up when asked about her past? And why did she seem reluctant to voice 'Durmstrang'? There was a lot to be discovered about her. Perhaps a little investigation with the Invisibility Cloak sometime wouldn't be amiss.

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"She can't have been at Durmstrang for 10 years, think about it. I mean she only looks about 26 or 27, and she's by far the youngest Hogwarts teacher. That would mean she was about 17 when she began teaching there.no way, it must be lies." Hermione said suspiciously.

"Or else.Flip! She must be really good."Ron added with awe.

"I doubt even she's that good, Ron. Unless.unless.no." She started but let the thought trail off as she couldn't see a good enough reason why. But now she'd got them all interested, she had to continue.

"Well she did mention that she made potions, didn't she? Well unless she.I don't know, made herself a 'youthening' potion or something.but I think it's very unlikely."

After their last class on Friday, and before dinner, Harry, Ron and Hermione congregated in the library to discuss matters of great importance - who really is their new D.A.D.A. teacher? Harry had thrown in his suggestion of poking around her classroom at night in the Invisibility Cloak, but Hermione insisted that she would only agree to that if it was their last option. But she hadn't yet opened her letter from her beloved pen pal, Viktor Krum, though. That was going to change things.

All tucked away out of sight from everyone else behind two bookcases, they sat scheming, until Hermione remembered her letter and opened it, expecting nothing of relevance, except perhaps some information of Ms Zirconia's past teaching there. What she read, she had to read again then pass it to Ron to clarify.

"He must be joking, that can't be right! C'mon she's not.no way! Here Harry, you take a look. What d'you think?" Ron had as much trouble handling the information has Hermione first had, but she recovered much quicker.

Harry scanned the lines for the relevant information, reading past all the other garbage Krum was spewing out to her, trying to win back her heart. Whatever. He saw nothing until he came to near the end, then a sentence caught his eye,

'Yes, Miss Zirconia was a teacher at this school, but she couldn't be teaching at Hogwarts now as you say! She taught here for ten years, yes, but that was 113 years ago! And then she taught the Dark Arts, not the Defense.'

"That is weird. Maybe he forgot and put too many 1's on? Ok ok, look only I'm trying to think of all the possibilities here." This was definitely not good news. Hermione's earlier suspicions had been almost confirmed - she was a lot older than she looked. The only other possibility was that she was a vampire, but she didn't show enough of the signs. Yes, she was very seductive; had a good set of teeth; creepy, stone cold eyes that seemed to draw in all the light around them when she was annoyed, as Hermione noticed on Monday; hasn't yet set foot in direct sunlight, has the ability to appear out of nowhere.alright well, at least she hadn't shown any signs of bloodlust yet.yet. And of course Dumbledore wouldn't subject them to an unnecessary threat of harm, would he?

So after Ron had convinced them all she was a vampire anyway, they began to plan what to do about it. Harry was now even more enthusiastic about the Invisibility Cloak idea; he was desperate for another small adventure in his dad's old cloak. But then he remembered that many of his last little adventures in the cloak had ended in grave danger to his, or his friend's lives. But this time will be different of course.

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