Ok, so I've finally decided to update. I'm sorry it's taken so long, but what with Father's Day, and my friends actually calling me and stuff, I haven't had time. I have camp next week too, which could cut back on my writing, but I should update at least once before then, and I'll try and update during then anyway. In other news: I've got this handy dandy little book written by JK Rowling about different magical species, and I need to put together a bit of a curriculum for the class in general to be taught. If those of you who are reading this could review me with different ideas of magical species or spell stuff or whatever, I would greatly appreciate it. Cheers, and as always, read and review! Oh, and before I forget, the italisided stuff inside the chapter is parseltongue. I've decided to change it now, in CH 5. Go figure.

-Pentagon Merlin

The Reason

Ch. 5: The First Day

"So I've got Defense against the Dark Arts this morning, followed by Charms. Damn, I have double Potions this afternoon. How about you?" Harry asked. He, Ron, and Hermione were sitting at the breakfast table eating toast with jam and bacon. It was their first day of 6th year and their schedules had just been passed out.

"I have the same. I've decided to drop arithmacy this year. It was just too much work," Hermione stated crisply.

"You still have twice as many classes as we do. I can't believe you decided to continue taking Potions. I couldn't wait to get away from Snape," Ron mumbled through a mouth full of toast.

"Really, Ron, you should swallow before you talk. Any good job you have to take Potions for, you know that," Hermione said.

"Stop acting like my mother," Ron grumbled, swallowing his toast. "You can get plenty of good jobs without Potions."

"Yes, but none of them are aurors," Harry grumbled, looking at the rest of the schedule for the week. It was a blur of classes, from Transfiguration to Charms to Potions to Defense against the Dark Arts. The one class he had that could even be considered a little fun was Care of Magical Creatures, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. "Are you two still taking Care of Magical Creatures?"

"Of course," Ron mumbled, his mouth full of toast again, gaining him a scowl from Hermione. "It's the good class. At least we don't have to take Divination anymore."

"I don't know why you insisted on taking it anyway. It's useless," Hermione said.

"Well it isn't as useless as taking Muggle studies when you're Muggle born," Ron argued.

"I told you, I find it fascinating how wizards look at Muggles!" Hermione said, rolling her eyes. She had told him at least a dozen times.

"I hate to interrupt your argument, but I think I have an extra class on here," Harry said, looking at his schedule. Sure enough, on Wednesdays and Fridays, right after dinner, he had an extra lesson, one that simply said, "See Professor Riddle."

"I'm sure Dumbledore has his reason for it," Hermione reasoned.

"Yeah, but it is weird, isn't it? Why would Harry have extra lessons with Professor Riddle?" Ron said.

"Well, maybe you could ask her after class today?" Hermione said.

"Or he could ask her right now," Ron pointed. Standing behind the teachers table, where at the moment no one else was, was Liz Riddle, looking utterly confuddled. (A/N: It's my own word, deal with it.)

Not able to help himself, Harry let loose a smile. Then, he stood and waved her over.

Liz stood behind the head table, unsure if she should sit down. If she did, she would be by herself, and eating alone was never fun. However, going and sitting down with some of the other students would seem like it was intruding. Even if she was their age, she was still their teacher, and she knew from experience that a teacher hanging around could ruin the fun.

Her problems were solved, however, when she saw Harry stand up from the Gryffindor table and wave her over. As little as he was able to keep himself from smiling, she couldn't help it herself.

"Want to sit with us?" he asked as she walked over.

"Sure. You know, this seating arrangement reminds me of elementary school, where they make you sit with your class, whether you like the people or not," Liz stated simply.

"I never thought of it like that before, but I think you're right," Hermione smiled. She had been surprised to see Liz in the room last night, but now, she was beginning to think that the girl could be an amazing friend, as well as a talented teacher.

"So, you're not going to show up in any of our classes today, are you?" Harry joked, Hermione having told him that Liz was bunking in the same dorms.

"Nope, only the one I'm teaching you guys," Liz paused for a second. "That just sounds weird, teaching people my own age."

"It's about time we got a teacher who could relate to us," Ron said.

"They're all so... tight. I'm assuming you've met Snape," Harry said.

"And they're rather old. This place is dim," Liz stated.

"Hey, she's already talking like us," Dean said coming up behind. "I thought I'd best introduce myself. I'm Dean Thomas. Anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to ask," he finished in a slick manor.

"Just curious, do students usually flirt with teachers?" Liz asked, giving Dean a look she had used on boys countless times before. Her curvy figure had seemed to attract far more guys then she would have liked.

"Impressive," Harry said as Dean backed away, taking the hint. "I have a question for you, though. On my schedule it says to come see you two nights a week. Do you know what that's about?"

"Oh, yeah, Professor Dumbledore said that you get into trouble a lot and for me to help you learn things to protect yourself," Liz informed him as she finished her toast. "Thanks for letting me sit with you." With that, she got up and left the hall.

"Why just Harry?" Ron asked as soon as she had disappeared.

"I don't know, it probably has something to do with the prophecy. We'd better get to class," Hermione said as she collected her bags. The boys quickly followed her out.

"You're going to do fine," Locke hissed from where he was curled up on Liz's desk.

"Oh, god, there are students in the class room. What am I going to do?" Liz hissed back, peaking out from her office door.

"You will go out there, and you will stick to the lesson plan you came up with, and they will love you," Locke hissed, sounding bored. He had, after all, told her this exact same thing about a hundred times in the past week.

"Oh, shove it, or I'll sick Nagini on you," Liz threatened. Her father's giant snake and Locke had met only once and it was clear they didn't get along.

"Oh be good, or I will bite you," Locke threatened back. They both knew he would do no such thing. She was the hand that fed him after all, and it was ill advised to bite that.

"Ok, ok. I will go out there, stick to my lesson plan, and they will love me. How do I look?"

"Beautiful, but I thought the party girl image was behind you," seeing her eyes widen, he quickly added, "kidding."

"I'd say bite me, but..." and with that, she walked out the door, and into the classroom of loud 16 year olds, 16 year olds who went quiet as soon as they saw her. "Damn, you've already been scared into submission. There goes my lesson plan today," she said to a few laughs. "Ok, not so funny. I've talked to your previous teachers. You all seem to have a decent grasp on curses, magical creatures, and far too much book work for my liking, so today we'll be going over magical symbols and signs, two branches of the same tree, I guess you could say. Please take out your book and turn to page 347. Good. Now, these are signs that Dark Wizards have used as their trademarks throughout the ages. For some reason, they seem to be into snakes, skulls, and spiders. No, they aren't all parsel mouths, and being one isn't necessarily a bad thing. Also, some are, or were, really afraid of spiders," Liz held back a laugh of thinking about how her father had come across a spider in the garage the summer before and nearly had a heart attack. The man who had killed so many people had to have his wife come and kill the spider for him. "Now, they do all have skulls, however, I'm pretty certain that most good wizards have skulls too, so we're out of luck when it comes to figuring out why they use skulls. Theodore the Mad as he's now called was a powerful dark wizard back in the 1700's. His symbol was a globe with a hand inside. This follows none of the standard rules as to what Dark symbols tend to be and when his ghost was asked why he chose the symbol, he said it was because he was sick of skulls, snakes, and spiders. So, now turn to page 392..."

45 minutes later found Professor Liz Riddle standing on a table in the front of the room trying to reach the top parts of the board to write more information in the only blank space available, the top where her 5'5" figure couldn't reach. Much to her delight, no one in the class had fallen asleep yet and they were all sitting in rapt attention. Whenever she asked a question of the class, at least a half dozen hands shot up, and for whatever reason, be it that they were truly interested in the subject, or she simply had a ton of energy, Liz couldn't help but be enthused on the subject.

"Ok, the next dark arts symbol is curse scars. Yes, I know, the person who has them isn't necessarily evil, often times they just fell into a situation where dark arts was being done and they, the uncontrollable victim is left with a nasty scar. Normally," Liz said, jumping down from the table, "the scar is just that, a scar, nothing more, nothing less. They tend to take interesting shapes, such as lightning bolts or tear drops," she told them, pointing to her right hand where a tear drop lingered right underneath the first knuckle on her pointer finger. "I got this a few months ago when an ex-boyfriend decided that the reason he couldn't get any dates was because I had cursed him, and not because I had decided to tell all the girls in our grade what a manipulating son of a bitch he was.

"Anyway, like I said, normally curse scars are just that, scars and nothing else. However, sometimes they become more, a way to link the victim and the person who issued the curse. This is called a linking curse scar, and they're very rare. These scars can tell the people involved what the other person is feeling, what's going on in their lives, things like that," she reached over and tapped on Harry's forehead. By this point, she was roaming the isles and had come to him, despite the fact that he was sitting in the back. "These occurrences usually occur when one person is feeling a certain emotion strongly, for instance they're feeling hate to the point where they kill a person, or ecstasy during sex, or even during a first kiss, which I'm told is an interesting thing to experience when it's your enemy doing the kissing. These linking scars are usually caused by a very powerful curse, such as one of the unforgivable ones."

As Liz turned around to walk back up to the front of the classroom, the bell rang. "All right, ladies and gentleman," she said, sitting down on the table, "your homework is to find a magical symbol and tell me what it is, draw it, and who's used it. You are not allowed to use the current Dark Mark, but be creative. This shouldn't take you long. Next time we will be going over accidental marks and such." She had decided that keeping who she was, and the mark on her back, a secret just wouldn't work. They had to whose child she was in order to believe anything she told them when the truth finally came out. It had to be on her own terms, and the decision she had been wrestling with since she found out about the job was decided. It had taken her a little over a month to decide, but after meeting her students, she knew it was necessary. She'd be part of the next lesson.

"You did well," Locke hissed as he slithered up her outer robe. "You're going to tell them aren't you? I know that look."

"It's the only way," she hissed back, looking up to see there was one student still left in the room.

"Tell us what?" Harry hissed, seeming unable to control the fact he was talking in parsel mouth.

"You'll find out later. I do know what we're going to work on though, getting you to be able to talk in English when a snake is around. It's a life skill."

"Fine, don't tell me. He's right though, you did do well. You're a good teacher," with that, Harry swung his bag over his shoulder and walked to the door where his friends were waiting. Only by the look on their faces was he able to tell that the brief conversation he'd just had took place entirely in the language of snakes.

"You should tell him first," Locke stated. "He is your father's enemy."

"That's what I'm worried about. More then anyone else, I want him to like me. How'd you know what I was thinking?"

"I know you. You raised me. I also know that out of all your other boyfriends, you've never cared if any of them cared about you or not, and he's not even your boyfriend."

"I'm changing. Who knows, maybe I'll find someone that is to me whatever Dad is to Mom."

"Good luck with that. Now, do you have any mice? I'm hungry."

Allrighty then. I hope you all liked it. Like I said before, I'll try to update soon, but my life is kind of hectic, for once. Please do me a favor and review, plus answer my question, because I need help. Gratsi.