Ohayo! I know that a lot of you probably thought that this was dead, but it lives! This is one of my favorite fics, so most of the problem is in deciding what to put in here.

OMG! I GOT REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, now that I've got that out of my system....

Nicoletta: Ohmygod. You're one of my favorite authors! I love 'Blood Prince'! Sorry I made you wait so long, I had a lot of stuff going on, and this chapter was coming really slowly. Molasses-in-January-type slowly. And thanks, I always thought that it was kind of silly that JKR had them learning all kinds of ways to defend themselves with magic, but never anything without. What if your wand gets lost, or you're in a situation where you can't use it? What are all those spoiled little purebloods supposed to do then? Thank you for the words of encouragement, and I will try to update more often.

Raylee Fox: YAY!!!!!!! My best friend reviewed, my best friend reviewed, yay! And yes, there will be lots of blood, especially in the later chapters, when I don't have to worry about development anymore and can just unleash the carnage. Don't worry. All of the slaughter will have a purpose, and there will still be a plot. But the slash will be very non-graphic.

Okay, that's done, ONWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Question of Humanity

Severus Snape was worried. Very worried. He was, in fact, near panic, but he wouldn't let anyone know that, of course. He had a reputation to keep, after all.

But the undeniable fact remained that several rare potion ingredients were missing from his private stores. The substances and the amounts taken pointed to any number of illegal and highly complex potions, all of which had extremely nasty effects. The only legal potions that they could possibly be used to brew were healing serums.

The disturbing thing about this fact was that the said healing potions were all toxic to humans. The potions were used specifically for non-human creatures going through their equivalent of 'puberty'. They were most commonly used when the creature was hiding in a human civilization and could not afford to be discovered.

He had done extensive research on the subject as soon as he had discovered the thefts. He had learned that veela, werewolves, vampires, fairies, and halfbloods were the breeds that used it most often. A werewolf who was bitten would not need the potion, but his children would. And the 'changes' had to manifest fairly late for the potion to be of any use at all.

Snape sighed. One of the most aggravating things was that everything was so old, from the time that non-humans were only beginning to be viewed as inferior and possibly even dangerous. Since then, most inhuman societies had withdrawn from wizarding culture, preferring their own kind, or even muggles. The various myths and legends tangled up in the records did not help, either. Every wizard out of childhood knew that dwarves, elves, demons, and other such fantastical creatures were long extinct, if they had ever existed at all. Snape was amazed that the recipes had even survived, considering that they had long become all but useless.

But that brought him back to the original issue. How on Earth was he going to tell Dumbledore about all this?

ยงยงยง

It had quickly become obvious that the Ministry of Magic was not going to let Albus Dumbledore spread his 'horrendous lies' to a large population of innocent schoolchildren. Not without monitoring the lies that he was spreading. The upshot of this was that there were several restrictions placed on the school. The most annoying, and obvious, manifestation of these new rules arrived about a week before Halloween.

Dolores Jane Umbridge, Undersecretary to the Minister and newly-appointed 'Hogwarts High Inquisitor', had apparently been delayed due to a sudden surge of Muggle-baiting, and the paperwork that went with such incidents. As High Inquisitor, she was allowed to take or give points and hand out detentions. Almost all of the school grew to loathe her within the first day of her stay at Hogwarts. She quickly replaced Snape as the Most Hated Person in Hogwarts, and as such became the first candidate for any likely-looking pranks.

Another side of her appeared when she began some of her 'official duties' the next day. One of her responsibilities was apparently to sit in on classes, to make sure that the teachers were covering 'age-appropriate, Ministry-approved material'. In Hagrid's class, she mercilessly grilled students and teacher alike, obviously looking for flaws. When Harry asked Hermione, she had scowled and said that Umbridge had a long history of human-supremacist views, and looked on half-breeds as inferior. This was very much vindicated by what happened a few weeks later.

Harry and his friends had arrived early for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and saw Umbridge in the classroom, talking to Seiji and Ryo. The three of them had obviously been talking for several minutes, and while Umbridge looked eager, Ryo looked irritated, and Seiji was bordering on enraged. The Gryffindors stayed quiet, hoping to hear more about their strange professors.

"So you deny the stories?" Umbridge's little-girl voice was smugly dangerous.

"Madam Umbridge, yes, there are old, pervasive, and well-founded rumors that our families are not entirely human. But I must point out that no one has ever discovered any proof. Over the centuries, several of our ancestors and relatives have obsessively combed the family records, and no one has ever found anything beyond slightly eccentric relatives, who seem to have their places in every family. Yes, our families are strange ones, and our ancestors were extremely good at what they did, but no evidence has ever been found to suggest that they were anything other than extremely skilled warriors." Ryo's voice held the slightly-too-patient tone of someone who had said this many times and was quite bored by the entire situation. Harry found this unfathomable. If someone had accused him of not being entirely human, he would have been much more agitated. But then, they were probably used to it.

Umbridge looked as though she wanted to speak, but before she could do more than open her mouth, Seiji boiled over and began ranting.

"Umbridge-san, I really must protest. Are you so fixated on ridding the world of halfbloods that you go chasing down centuries-old rumors? Any inhuman blood that we have would have long since thinned to the point where it could hardly be perceived. Several people, in both of our families, on both sides of the issue, spent decades going through our families' records, written and oral. Yes, there are old legends about demons, veela, vampires, et cetera, marrying into the family line and tainting the gene pool, but if any did, they were extraordinarily good at hiding their tracks. No one has ever found any proof either way. And besides, we can't really do anything about something that may or may not have happened several centuries ago." Seiji looked ever-so-slightly indignant. "We came to this country and took these jobs because we were asked to by both our families and Dumbledore-san. We did think that we might possibly get away from the silly gossip about our ancestry. Who cares if our several-times-removed grandparents were human or not? We haven't for centuries, and we're really the only ones who matter." Ryo gently touched Seiji's elbow, and the blond man grudgingly subsided.

"And you say I ramble too much when I get angry." Ryo's voice was soft and gently teasing, defusing the situation.

Seiji smiled ruefully. "Sorry." He then looked at the old clock. "If you will excuse us, Madam Umbridge, we have a class to teach." Harry looked around and saw that most of the class was gathered around him, watching their teachers in avid fascination.

Umbridge, seeing that the conversation was now closed, slunk to her stool in the back with ill grace. The students, seeing that the coast was clear, dispersed to their seats. Unsurprisingly, one of the first questions asked in that class was "Is that true? Are you really not human?" The entire class looked eager for a response.

Seiji sighed. "No, as far as anyone knows, we are completely human. There are a lot of rumors to the contrary, but they can't even agree on what we are hypothetically descended from, let alone when whatever-it-was married into the family. No one has ever been able to prove anything either way. Now please open your textbooks to page 593, on Kitsune demons, and silently read the first five pages of the chapter. You have fifteen minutes." The class resignedly opened their books, knowing that they weren't getting any more out of their reclusive professors.

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