A/N: We-ell…left off at an awkward point soooooo this has been a bit hard – I apologise for the wait. Here goes:

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"There will be silence in this classroom if you value your little mortal lives."

Twenty pairs of eyes snapped to face the front abruptly breaking off the idle gossip and chatter that occupied the class for the initial minutes of all but a few lessons. However professor Kittson was not at the front of the classroom. Hermione's eyes narrowed with disapproval when the demonic woman finally made her appearance, beaming like the cat that had spent all morning in a dairy.

"I see we have an extra large class for Advanced Defence Against the Darks Arts this year, hardly surprising."

She waved a hand and a sheaf of parchment materialised before each student.

"If you would take a glance over the handouts you will see a list of recommended reading for the term. There are some muggle books on the list, which I believe will also be particularly salient to you, especially if you find yourself in a wandless situation. They have been placed in the muggle studies section but you should be able to find a book in the library by now."

Draco was bored already. Looking down the list he noted a few of the titles. It appeared a theme was developing:

Defensive Techniques in Offensive Magic – Joskine Dorflowe

Defence through Offensive and Tactical Magic – Iorik of Noskheim

Martial Magic for Self-Defence – Grand Sorcerer Xiang Long

Note that the following books have been placed in the Muggle Studies section of the Library and are written for MUGGLES – but they will be useful so be patient with them.

Tae Kwon Do for Beginners – John Bradshaw

Teach Yourself Ju Jitsu – Ken Hagitani

You Can Learn Judo! – Haruka Jameson

"Mr Malfoy, if you do not pay attention you will not learn. Is it that you have not had enough sleep or is it rather the arrogant streak that runs in your paternal bloodline manifesting itself?"

Draco slowly raised his eyes to meet those of the professor, coolly holding her hypnotic gaze but not falling into its trap.

"The former, professor. I had a detention from professor Snape relating to the latter suggestion."

Gold eyes glittered with silent laughter, "Ensure that you refrain from provoking professor Snape in the future, thus ensuring that you are not kept up for detention the night before my classes. Shall we move on?"

The class found themselves being instructed to turn to the second leaf of parchment in the roll. There were slight groans at the realisation that it was a test. A long, complicated looking test.

"This is not a quiz about point scoring or grades. This quiz is designed to test your perceptions about the Dark Arts and the use of magic in general. You have fifteen questions and forty-five minutes in which to answer them. Begin now!"

Hermione stared desperately at her question paper. She had whizzed through the first fourteen questions with positive glee but now as the final question revealed itself on the page she pulled up short in horror.

Question 15: Review your answers to the fourteen questions above. How many people have died and how many of these deaths were necessary?

Frantically she scrabbled through her answer sheets to re-read the questions and her answers in a new light. On the left hand side of the room, the only bit she could really see without looking like she was peering at her neighbours' papers, the Slytherins were scribbling away with relative calm. Draco was smiling as if he had seen the question coming right from the outset.

What was she going to do? She understood now, in hindsight it was all too obvious. These were questions of ethics and necessity, nasty little situational ethics. There was no longer a black and a white to rely on. There was no right answer. Slumping with an audible sigh of despair onto her desk she realised she had just flunked the whole thing completely.

"Your time is now up. Miss Granger will you please sit up so your paper can be levitated in with the rest? Thank you. Remember this a test for you, not for me. You will not be graded on the results, it was merely to encourage you to think."

Following up with a string of teacherly waffle, it would almost be easy to forget professor Kittson was any different from any other of the bland, waffling professors that made up a medium percentage of Hogwarts staff. This illusion was shattered in an instant…

…When she announced their homework she resembled Snape.

"I know we still have another forty-five minutes of this lesson remaining but I would like to give you your homework now as opposed to later. It is going to be a significant factor in determining your predicted grades for N.E.W.T.s so please take this very seriously. This piece will be your main focus outside lessons for the rest of this term, although I will still expect you to continue to prepare small tasks in between lessons and keep up on the book list.

The title for this assignment is; 'Good and Evil: What are these concepts and do they exist?' You should discuss and analyse this question as you see fit. If you have any questions, ask them now as I expect this to be done wholly independently."

A few nervous hands were raised; then a forest of hands.

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Ginny ran to catch Hermione as she headed straight for the library after lunch.

"How was the new demon prof? Evil enough for you?"

"Different to what I had expected. Sometimes she almost seems normal but then she'll just do or say something and you realise that she's nowhere near human. For half the lesson she could have been on some kind of autopilot as if she was just going through the motions."

"And the rest of the time she was a manic creature from hell? Interesting…I've got her tomorrow. So what did she have you doing?"

Hermione eyed the petite and rather maniacally bouncy looking Ginny next to her.

"What's got into you all of a sudden?" The fiery-haired girl was practically skipping there was so much spring in her step and the smile on her face was broad enough to rival the scarily satiated grin of professor Kittson.

"Oh nothing – but…" Suddenly Hermione found herself being dragged off balance by a squealing Weasley clinging to her arm with unbounded joy, "HermioneprofessorSnapejustgavemedetentionwithDraco!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Finally extricating herself from Ginny's violent attack of hugging and squeals the flustered sixth year stared at her companion with quirked eyebrows,

"You're hyper because of that? Ginny, you know it's not going to be just you and Draco in that detention, don't you? He's been in such a foul mood he's given practically everyone detention, so many that even Filch can't think of enough individual punishments."

Ginny fell silent and examined the floor as she walked. Hermione couldn't help but wonder what was going on in her head these days. They continued in silence to the library. Much as she had tried to dig up some dirt on what Isla Kittson had been like before being possessed by the demon Me Tis she had been largely unsuccessful. Looking through the old records for the school she had been able to see that the young Isla Kittson had been moved up a year and had been in Slytherin with Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy and a few others who had gone on to become notorious Deatheaters. Her marks had always been excellent, Hermione even finding herself envious of some of them. Her potions marks surpassed those of Snape, which in itself was surprising enough. No wonder he was a bit stiff around her, she could have been threatening his current job as well as his aspirational one. However, there were no awards to her name, she was never a prefect and her name did not appear on any club records. Then there was the yearbook. She was barely in it at all, save for a couple of photographs. One was a group picture of the graduating year group in which she could see the Marauders on the extreme left and Lucius Malfoy with his posse on the extreme right. She was standing at the back on the end of the last row. While most of her fellow students smiled and waved, or at least occasionally looked to the camera, Isla Kittson stubbornly stared off to the right, ignoring the hat throwing and celebratory antics of her peers. She almost seemed lost, or rather unaware of what was going on around her. Strange, she thought, that in a place like Hogwarts a person could become so isolated. Then she remembered Harry.

"I thought we were headed for the library." Ginny's comment brought her up short, "What were you thinking about? 'Cause if you're bothered about this Draco thing then…"

"Ginny, if you want to pursue Draco that's your decision. Just don't go getting yourself hurt, you know the rumours."

Ginny stared at her, "I'm not going to be fooled by anyone, not again. Anyway, aside from that, how did Harry's chat with Kittson go? I heard Ron mention she'd asked him to stay behind after class."

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The demon Me Tis looked through Isla Kittson's eyes and mused silently to herself. Teaching was unbelievably dull, but then she'd known that even before she had formulated this plan. Better to let hard knocks and experience do the teaching rather than to waste effort and time on something so boring and repetitive. Then again, time and effort were so cheaply expended for a being of her power and longevity. This thought pleased her, as did most thoughts regarding the magnitude of her power and the length of her life and experience in comparison to these mortals surrounding her. She did enjoy being a demon; it was infinitely more fun than being human anyway. She could hardly remember even being mortal, but she did remember it hadn't been much fun, but then again if she hadn't experienced all the unpleasantries that had made up the bulk of her mortal existence she would never have had been able to make the transition from mortal to demon in the first place. Becoming a demon was a complicated process, but definitely worth all the agony. Even now her mortal host was slowly beginning the metamorphosis, although she didn't know it. She could sense the seeds of embryonic demonic consciousness within many of the people surrounding her. Most would never develop, maybe none. The demonic soul fed on pain, hatred, rage, and all the emotions of extremes. It thrived in brooding darkness, bloomed in moments of gut-wrenching loneliness and sent its sinister tendrils creeping into the hearts of the resentful and unloved. In Isla Kittson it gorged itself on her stifled anger at being used like a puppet by her possessor. It grew bloated on her unrequited love for the man who she so hated and loved for what he had done and for the person he was. Being possessed was certainly helping that thorny little seed to develop. Isla was of course utterly enraged and sickened by the way Me Tis had overthrown her attempt to talk to Severus and then gone on to temporarily possess him. In Isla's mind it was rape, to Me Tis it was the easiest way to get to know the man. He would get over it, as would Isla – eventually. Anyway, it wasn't as if she wasn't going to be nice to Isla's intended – in fact she was going to be very nice to him by volunteering to take over Potter's Occlumency lessons from him. The boy intrigued her. She could see why people disliked him, but he didn't have to be likeable to be intriguing. She could see he knew what Severus and Lucius had done to poor little Isla Kittson not long after Voldemort had killed his parents. His fear was palpable and delicious, Me Tis had always adored the scent and taste of fear. She could sense a good amount of power in him – but untapped. Poor thing was too inhibited in his thinking. That was the thing so often with mortals; they had too many stupid ideals about how the world should work. Unfortunately those ideals instead of making the world sweet and fluffy made the flaws, (and more often claws) of the mortal world so much harder for them to bear. When would mortals finally just accept that the world was a nasty place and get on with things rather than batting around stupid ideas about so called 'good' and 'evil'? Me Tis was resolved in her plan, teach Potter that it was 'beat Voldemort or take on someone worse' and then a little bit of playtime with the opposition. She was so glad she had taken on this possession – it was turning out to be the best fun she'd had for millennia.

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Well – there you have it. Took me long enough as well…

Anyway, expect a similar wait for ch. 10 because of nasty exams and coursework crap happening right now. Hope this is ok.