Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or its characters, but Sophia is lovingly mine. That being said…
I'M BACK!
Many apologies for being so late, but updates will be weekly now, no worries. I'm very sorry, please don't hate me too much.
I've also put up Harry Potter and the Prince of the Centaurs-give it ago.
Without further ado…
The sorting finally ended with Rinaldi Zerviski landing in Slytherin. The applause from the Slytherin table was great and Dumbledore stood up once more. "Wonderful. A new year has now been set into motion. One more announcement, I'm sure everyone is wondering who the new Head Boy will be. This was certainly a hard decision as that there are many seventh years that hold the qualities of the Head Boy position and yet we can only choose one. We have therefore decided: Ronald Weasley. The Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws burst into applause immediately while Ron turned a deep shade of red. Harry grinned at his best friend and slapped him on his back. "Good on you mate." Ron only nodded in return, casting the table an embarrassed and shocked grin. Meanwhile the Slytherin table sat glowering; everyone had thought Malfoy would take the role. Malfoy spoke loudly.
"Now now boys, I'm sure the Weasel holds some qualities that make him Head Boy worthy. I think we should all sing our anthem to the wonderful Weasel. Ready…one…two…." As he was about to say three he had taken a glance at the Head table, Snape was smiling coldly, but that Miller woman was glaring at him and shaking her head slightly. Draco faltered and Pansy looked up at him in surprise.
"Something wrong Drakey?"
"No, I just think it's time we rewrote the song." He declared as he sat down. Everyone at the table looked a tiny bit shocked but in the end they agreed. It was funny how many Slytherins were brainless idiots.
At the end of the feast, with Hermione and Ron heading to their separate dormitories, Harry walked up to the Gryffindor common room alone. He had not felt this bad since his fifth year when Ron got his Prefect badge. Now that they had their own dormitory, things would be a thousand times different. He continued to walk up to the common room and stopped at the portrait of the Fat Lady and realized that he didn't know the password. A female voice spoke behind him. "Fairy Flight." Harry turned around startled to find Ginny. She maintained her cool gaze but spoke. "Going in or not."
"Oh…right." Harry replied as he slipped into the common room. Everyone seemed to be hanging out in the room and Dean and Seamus gave a big wave. Harry grinned and walked over to the two boys. "What's up?"
Seamus smiled, "I think I've finally got the point of sockball."
"Football." Dean corrected under his breath.
"Right, football."
Harry nodded and then walked up to the stairs; he paused at the top to watch Ginny chattering with Neville and Colin, both of whom had changed drastically over the summer. Neville's face had rounded into quite a handsome one and Colin had grown what seemed a few feet. His camera sat on the table where Harry supposed Colin was finishing up his holiday homework, but somewhere he had lost the obsessed fervor for photography. Harry really missed Ron at this point.
Sophia was one of the last to leave the Hall and Severus Snape had grudgingly decided to escort her to her class room, office, and dormitories. He opened a heavy door and led her inside. "This is your classroom, through that door is your office, and through your office are your personal dormitories."
Sophia grinned excitedly at Snape. "Thank you." She stepped into the room and felt a chilling draft. Frowning to herself she muttered an incantation and the room warmed up at once. She lit the candles on the wall with a swish of her wand and went to work at decorating her classroom. It was a part of teaching she especially loved. She pulled out maps of Romania, Bulgaria, Scotland, Britain, Ireland, France, and a large map of Africa. One each map sat a different colored pin marking the place of a specific colony of creatures. Looking at Romania, she noticed a large number of red pins north of the largest Vampire colony. They were spreading out. She then began to pull out diagrams of the more well known Dark Creatures- Werewolves, Vampires, Grindylows, Merpeople, Kelpies, Hinkypunks, Red Caps, Banshees, Mummies, Trolls, Basilisks, Hydras, Kappas, and Hags, as well as other creatures she simply enjoyed- Phoenixes, Unicorns, Sirens, Griffins, and Kneazles. She then began to put up a few well-known Dark Art detectors (she hoped they didn't go off too much) and finally lined one wall with a hundred or so books all pertaining to Defense the Dark Arts in dealing with witches and wizards, creatures, curses, hexes, and jinks. There were a few about Voldermort and of course Harry Potter. Finally pleased with herself, she decided to decorate her office later and walked straight into her dormitories. She sighed with contentment.
Her room was decorated in blues and silvers. She jumped onto her bed face first and only one thought entered her mind, "It was wonderful to be back." She quickly changed into her pajamas and slipped into bed, the next day would be a long one.
At breakfast Ron and Hermione slipped next to Harry at the table. Ron leaned over, "If you want to stay with me in the Head dormitory you're welcome to do so-she's driving me nuts."
"I heard that Ronald."
"I hold no doubt about that Hermione."
Harry looked over at Ron, "Do you two always have to argue." Ron looked sheepish.
"I suppose so, it's just how our relationship is." He replied. Malfoy and Zabini walked by their table.
"If it isn't Potty and crew. Tell me Weasley, what did you have to do to become Head Boy. I'd ask if you paid them off, but your family hasn't the money."
"Shove off Malfoy." Ginny's voice spat from behind them.
"Aw wittle Weasley taking up for her big brother." He scrunched up his face in a sickeningly sweet way and then immediately dropped it looking rather disgusted. "How repulsive."
"It's good to know you've learned to fight your own battles Malfoy, did you just get tired of the two trolls?"
"And where pray tell are your friends? Oh it slipped my mind for a moment, you haven't any."
Ginny only shrugged her shoulders. "Your insults are growing lame, perhaps you do need Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum by your side." And with that she took a seat on the other side of Hermione and began to eat.
"I would watch my step if I were you Weasley."
"I told you once Malfoy-you don't frighten me. Now run along and eat." She said dismissively, pointing to his table.
"You need to learn how to speak to your superiors."
"You aren't my superior."
"The hell I'm not."
"Listen Malfoy, if having a disgusting brand burned onto my arm is what it takes to make me superior to the rest of the world, I think I'll pass." Malfoy looked as if he wanted to say more but instead disappeared in a huff, Zabini laughing at his side. Once they got to their table, Zabini leaned over.
"She got you mate."
"Shut up." Malfoy muttered. Across the hall Ginny gleamed.
The Gryffindors and Slytherins walked down to the Defense against the Dark Arts room. Harry, Hermione, Ron took seats up by the front and Sophia smiled softly at them. The bell rung and everyone sat down silently, waiting for her to begin. "Happy to be seventh years?" A collective Yes filled the room. "I thought so. Well seeing as how this is your last year it is my duty to insure that you are as prepared as possible to face the reality outside these walls. I see most of your teachers in the past haven't been the best source of candidates to fulfill this obligation, but you are not as disgustingly behind as I had feared. The first three weeks will be a quick review over the past six years, and then after that…" She paused raising an eyebrow, "well you'll just have to wait and see. Any questions? Yes Miss Granger?"
"Professor, do you think three weeks is enough time? I mean we're pretty behind on human-like creatures, we only got through werewolves completely and read about vampires and such and I was just hoping that perhaps-"
But Sophia cut her off, "I have full belief that you will be able to understand everything needed to know in three weeks, and if it takes longer, well that isn't a problem. But I do expect all of you to work hard in this class. Malfoy stop passing love notes to Mr. Zabini please." Malfoy immediately stopped and narrowed his eyes but a smile from Sophia told him she meant no offense. "Any other questions? Yes Mr. Finnegan is it?"
"Yes ma'am, I was just wondering, where do you come from. I mean you already stated yourself that our past teachers haven't been adequate in teaching, what should make us believe you are any different?"
"Well, I attended Hogwarts for five years and certain…er…events caused me to leave. I finished my education at a magical school in the states and then began teaching English Literature at a muggle school, I've been doing that ever since." Another hand went up, "Yes Mr. Weasley?"
"What type of events-ouch!" Ron asked as Hermione nudged him in the ribs.
"If she wanted us to know, she would have told us in the first place." Hermione muttered.
"Give it a rest Hermione." Ron responded.
She raised an eyebrow and grinned at the two, "That's enough. During my years at Hogwarts, Voldermort began to first rise to power, he murdered my family and would very much like to see me burn. Any other questions?" No one raised a hand. "Good, then we can begin. Open up your books to page twenty-Banshees…can anyone tell me about them?" A few hands went up. "Splendid."
The rest of the day went smoothly for Sophia but at the end she was longing for a long bath and a pint of chocolate ice cream. Instead she received an owl to report to Order Headquarters at Grimmauld Place. "Perfect." She muttered. As she was leaving her room she found Severus Snape waiting for her.
"I'm to show you the apparition point." He said tonelessly.
"Hello to you too Severus." She replied. He looked sharply at her and Sophia held her tongue. "Lead the way master."
Snape caught her sarcasm, "That tongue has always gotten you into trouble hasn't it Sophia."
She grinned wickedly, "Of course it has." They walked a few steps in silence, and then Sophia asked. "Why did you come over to Dumbledore's side? Was it because Voldermort fell and you were too much of a coward to take responsibility for what you had done wrong? Or am I way off base?"
"Way off base Miss Miller, but you always had a special assumption for me."
"You held an equally blind assumption about me Severus."
"Look at whom you hung out with." Severus spat.
"Likewise." Sophia retorted.
"Why I came over to Dumbledore's side is between Dumbledore and myself alone." He finally said coldly. "But to ease your prying conscience a bit, I came over before Potter stopped Voldermort."
Sophia looked at him quite surprised, "Then I did have the wrong measure of you Severus." She admitted.
He looked over at her and the two stopped. His dark eyes appraised her for honesty in her words, he found them. Finally he admitted, "Your measure wasn't too far off Miss Miller…"
"Sophia." She interrupted. Severus paused.
"Sophia then. I did do awful things to your family."
She bit her lip and looked away. "That you did." She whispered.
"I can't take back what I did back in my Death Eater days, but I am sorry for them. I can't do much else."
"It's going to take some getting used to being on the same side as you Severus."
"I still have trouble doing so Miss Miller."
"Sophia." She reminded.
"Er…Sophia."
"Come on, we'll be late for the meeting, and I'm really looking forward to the party favors." The two walked out of the castle in silence while a boy looked down at them frowning.
A/N: And thus ends Chapter Seven. Review.
