Relishing a moment alone is difficult when you can hear a couple going at it in the broom closet. My turn to patrol the halls and, of course, I actually find someone. I sighed, banging on the door to the closet.

"That's five points off each for every piece of clothing I find on the floor."

There was a mad scramble from inside and I unlocked the door wandlessly, yanking it open. I raised an eyebrow and sighed. Teenagers. How literal. There were robes and socks piled in their arms. I sighed,

"Slytherin, huh?"

I stepped out of the way, motioning them away from the closet.

"That's ten points from Slytherin."

They looked curiously around for what they had missed and I grabbed their arms, pulling the both of them out.

"Your shoes, dingleberries. Your shoes are touching the ground."

The groaned simultaneously and I increased pressure on their arms just slightly.

"Don't be that way. I should be docking loads of points and giving you detention. Instead I'll turn you over to your head of house who probably won't be as creative as I would have."

The boy, I should really learn these kids names, glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

"And why aren't you taking more points and handing out detention?"

We rounded a corner, nearly walking into a ghost as it disappeared through the wall to our left.

"Your smart ass response to my threat was amusing enough that I'll spare you this time."

One more corner and a black robed bat-like professor appeared from the shadows, dark eyebrows rising upon spotting us.

"What is going on here?"

I moved my hands to clap the students on the back, sparing a moment to be annoyed that they were taller than me.

"These two were in a broom closet. From the sound of it they were cleaning the place rather vigorously but it is after curfew so I'm afraid that had to end."

My faux sad expression was met with two incredulous looks and that damned eyebrow staying in the same place.

I sighed,

"Whatever, they're yours now, have fun."

I left, shoving my hands into my pockets, muttering about no one getting my sense of humor.

I was passing a darker corner,

"Sarcasm, I swear it's a dying art."

A voice from behind a tapestry whispered none too quietly,

"I'll say, second best -asm, it is."

I stopped, listening to the snickering fade as they realised I was still there. I drew the tapestry back, eyeing the red headed twins who put on a good show of looking surprised.

"Gred, would you look at that, we've been sleep walking again!"

"Indeed we have, Forge, I think we owe our dear Professor Swift a thanks for rescuing us."

"Of course, we'd have ended up in the black lake without her intervention."

I rolled my eyes,

"Follow me. The last people I caught had their head of house patrolling nearby, meaning their punishment was out of my hands. However, you guys are not so lucky. You get to be the first to get detention from me."

To their credit they weren't that far at all from the entrance to their common room. They had almost made it back. The portrait at the entrance started getting onto them. When she finally swung open I caught the backs of their robes.

"Not so fast, don't forget, detention with me Saturday right after lunch."

"But Professor-"

"this Saturday is-"

I cut in,

"Nothing important. No matches scheduled, no practice, no tryouts, no Hogsmeade. Exactly. And noon because I sleep in on weekends as well. Why the hell should I have to suffer too? Now get to bed, you're having a quiz in charms tomorrow."

"We are?"

"Shut up and get inside."

The next morning was a slow one getting started, and I clutched my coffee to me as if it might run away. Well, there was that one time when we were in that asteroid belt near-

My musing was interrupted when the chair next to me filled abruptly. I blinked slowly before turning to see Minerva, who looked slightly irritated.

"Lemme guess, you wanna know why your kids got detention and the Slytherins didn't."

She nodded sharply and I snorted,

"I handed 'em over to their head of house like I was supposed to. You were at the place for that thing you wouldn't give details about. Plus, with the Slytherins I knew what they were up to, with the Twins I still have to figure out what the hell they were doing."

The flurry of the post arriving gave me a chance to escape before more human interaction could be forced.

I had coffee in my hand for my first class, sitting on the desk once again, daring any of the students to comment. This was the day I had the third years. Harry Potter and his buds were in this class as well as one Draco Malfoy and his cronies.

"As many of you have probably heard by now, I am Professor Swift. You can call me Professor or Professor Swift, but there will be no 'mam' directed at me, or I'll have you writing "My teacher is not old enough to be called 'mam'" until your quills fall apart."

Hermione was here, on the front row, with Lavender beside her, Harry and Ron behind them. Hermione, bless her soul, was taking notes already. I refrained from commenting.

"Now, this is a history class. This is nothing like your History of Magic class in many ways. The first is that if you fall asleep in here I shall not restrain myself from drawing a mustache on your face in ink that won't leave for several days."

Some sniggered, some glanced at each other warily.

"I'm allowed to do that, I checked the rules. I am not allowed to bring turkeys into the classroom though, and I'll give twenty points to whoever can find out which poor idiot caused that rule to be put in place. It sounds like a glorious story."

Hermione was making another note, and I was almost positive she was going to be the one to find out which idiot snuck a turkey into class for whatever reason.

"The second difference between the two history classes is that this focuses on the Muggle side of things. I wanted to call it 'what the muggles think actually happened' but the Headmaster said that would not fit in the box on your schedules. But that name does sum it up. Most, if not all of you, know the part of wizards in World War Two, and how it was brought to a halt by our Headmaster dueling a dark wizard. What you don't know about are the weapons of mass destruction utilized by muggles to end their side of the war. It's things like that, but also much, much more that we'll be covering. For example, does anyone know which muggle King and Queen paid for the journey of Columbus that discovered the Americas?"

No one. Not even Hermione, though if she thought any harder steam might come out of her ears.

"King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, though Columbus was actually from what is modern day Italy. Nitpicky things like that will be mentioned, but doubtless you won't remember them. I do expect you to remember things like Columbus proved to everyone that the world wasn't flat. That was kind of a big thing for everybody."

Someone snorted, judging from the direction, most likely Weasley.

"I'm getting ahead of myself. We're starting at the beginning. The very beginning. There are two dominant Muggle theories about how the Earth was created. Involved in these theories, and in most other aspects of this class, there will be terms that are unfamiliar. Ones I think you might not know I will explain. If I don't explain something and you don't know what it is, or what it means, then feel free to ask. It may be slang that I forgot you won't get, or another language that I forgot to translate. And for the love of all that is holy, do not snootily point out to me that I am pronouncing something wrong. I am American, I understand some things sound funny to you guys, it does not mean I'm wrong. I will dock points if I say cookie and one of you raises your hand and looks down your nose while saying biscuit."

Someone giggled and I ignored it, uncrossing my legs and setting my coffee to the side,

"I've had protests already about what people believe muggles capable of. I'm going to point this out once and only once. While in my classroom you may think as you like, you may speak as you like, but disrespect is not welcome. Wizards and witches still belong to the species known as 'humans'. Muggles do as well. Both cry tears, both will bleed red. Both feel fear, pain, loss, and on the other side of the spectrum there is joy, love, happiness, and exhilaration. Just as there are Dark Lords and Light Wizards there are good muggles and cruel ones. Because both muggle or magic, they are people, and a good person and a bad one are separated by the choices they make. If you look at muggles there were those like Nero who burned cities to the ground and Elizabeth Bathory, who tortured young women and bathed in their blood thinking it would make her younger."

There were expressions of disgust, and few unkind things said about muggles. I snorted,

"Oh, that's rich. Yes, muggles are the root of all evil are they? Merwyn the Malicious, Herpo the Foul, Grindelwald, and the pinnacle of it all would be the one who called himself Voldemort."

Flinches all around, and some wide eyes. Oh, yeah. They don't say the name yet.

A small voice came from the front row,

"What do you mean, 'called himself'...that?"

I turned to Lavender, raising an eyebrow and smiling slightly.

"Well, if it were his actual name it would explain a lot of the 'evilness', the bullies in school would have been all over that. And which mother exactly chooses a name like that? No, he chose it himself. Most likely because he felt the french translation of the name was aligned with his goals."

"And what exactly might those goals have been, Professor?"

Harry Potter. I should have known. I turned my eyes to him, tilting my head, thinking on it.

"Hmmm, I wasn't planning on psychoanalyzing a dark wizard today in class, but schedules never were my thing."

I crossed my legs again, bracing my hands on the desk beside me and leaving back slightly.

"Alright, well, this guy always seemed to me as the type to obsess with immortality. Many witches and wizards have felt the lure of such things and almost all have fallen deeply in the arms of the dark arts. Morgan le Fay being one of those. She was known as a healer, adept at healing spells and keeping her people healthy. However she went a little too far and wished for eternal health, yada yada, things happened, people died, bad luck all around."

Hermione looked affronted that I wasn't going into detail, and she wasn't the only one. However several looked relieved that it seemed like I was just going to get to the point.

"Some are content to leave their names as feared, widely known, letting their names and their deeds live on in infamy. To keep this short and relatively age appropriate I'm just going to say that by taking experience with muggle psychology, and accounts of his actions, it is simple enough to determine that this 'Lord' Voldemort didn't plan to stop. He began by playing the long game, the political one and quite simply for reasons no one has been able to detect he lost his effing mind and began the whole torture and kill everyone in his way thing. His goals may well have started out noble for all we know. Some of the original policy makes sense if you squint and tilt your head at a certain angle. But whatever happened that caused him to snap ended that. A charismatic and ambitious individual went absolutely batty and lost sight of his goals, losing himself to the power he sought. My personal theory, with a few scattered bits and pieces of evidence here and there, is that something happened to him, and he realized that he wasn't going to be around forever. This caused him to the think that the long game, the political way, the legal way of takeover was going to take longer than he liked. So in an attempt to speed things up he abandoned logic and tried to strong arm his way to the top of the foodchain. Needless to say this failed. Moral of the story, stick to the plan, follow the law, don't be an idiot, I don't know, something like that. Don't murder people, that's definitely one, and torture is bad, avoid that too."

Seamus spoke up from the back,

"So you're saying You-Know-Who wasn't so bad?"

I snorted, choking slightly before it turned into a snicker. When I got my breath back I answered.

"Of course not, that guys brain was a bag full of cats, you could probably smell the crazy on him. I'm saying that politically he could have been a powerhouse and if he hadn't started going evil and killing people he might be emperor of the world or some shit and we'd never know he has a fetish for the dark and illegal."

"Has?"

One of the Slytherins asked that from the middle of the group, probably louder than she had intended.

I shrugged,

"There was no body, and I always expect the worst. If the worst happens then I'm not caught off guard, if the best happens I am always pleasantly surprised. This is not the kind of thing you want to catch you unawares."

I moved rapidly, standing in the blink of an eye and going around to face the blackboard, chalk in hand.

"Now, enough about old moldy shorts, we've got things to cover."

I covered the same clock, about the time humanity had spent on Earth compared to the life of the Earth itself. One Draco Malfoy was writing furiously so I went quiet, winking to the room at large and holding up a finger in front of my mouth to call for silence. I crept forwards silently, too much experience sneaking around unfriendly places making sure I wasn't detected. I leaned over his right shoulder like I had seen Crabbe do several times already, reading over his shoulder. The snickers from the Gryffindor side were only barely contained. A letter to his father about the ridiculousness of this class and how it was unnecessary as one of the required classes. Well.

I pointed over his shoulder at one of the words.

"You spelled 'abysmal' wrong."

He jumped out of his skin and I resisted the urge to cackle,

"See, it's a 'y' not an 'i', easy mistake to make."

I tapped it with my finger, changing it nonverbally and without a wand, causing him to go still.

"There you go, much better."

I stood up straight, making my way back to my desk resisting the smile fighting its way onto my face at the sight of Ron and Harry hanging off each other and fighting for air.

"Mister Malfoy isn't it? Well, I would appreciate it if you would pay attention in class, rather than use it as time to write your letters home. It's strange that you're writing at all, I was under the impression that you were injured. In any case I admire your determination to power through the pain, but I'm sure the letter can wait."

I glanced over the homework I was planning on sending with them and sighed,

"Well, we didn't get to what I wanted to assign the homework on and frankly I can't be bothered to think of anything else. It's a waste of my time to grade something spur of the moment and useless to your education, and it would be a waste of your time to work on it. Therefore nothing this time, unless you want to research the thing with the turkey. It bothers me, honestly...anyway, think over what you learned or something, don't let it float out of your brain. You still have about five minutes, so if you have any questions I'm here for you, if you want to leave then go for it, I don't care. However, if you're caught I will not stand up for you. Gryffindor head of house scares me and Slytherin head of house reminds me of a man from far away who I owe a significant amount of money, so seeing him makes me jumpy. You can sit in here if you like, just don't get too loud, I have detention for a certain two hellions to plan."

I waved a hand and the chalk marks vanished from the board and the chalk reordered itself in the tray, my muggle pen floating in from my office, coming out through the gap under the door.

I grabbed it from the air, about to write something down when I noticed a hand in the air. Hermione.

I gave a half smile.

"Miss Granger?"

She looked surprised that I knew her name but continued anyway,

"Where did you attend school?"

"America." I deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. She floundered for a second,

"I-I mean, did you attend the Salem Institute?"

I shrugged,

"Pass, next question please."

Seamus chimed in,

"Why are you here?"

I snorted,

"Well, thats either rude or very deep. Do you mean here, as in alive and the reason behind existence of humanity as a whole? Or why-"
"Why are you teaching here, instead of in America?"

"I was in the area and qualified for the job, the Headmaster told me I was a teacher and I couldn't escape."

My blunt answer caused a few raised eyebrows in the Slytherin section so I continued,

"And that's the story of why you poor, poor children are stuck with me."

A few snickers, I was feeling kind of smug that someone finally got my humor.

I went back to my papers and the Golden Trio put their heads together for some reason or another and everyone broke off into their respective social groups. There was a low buzz of conversation and someone stamped Ron's foot,

"SHIT!"

"Five points from Gryffindor for language, Mr. Weasley, if I'm not allowed to curse here, you aren't either."

There were murmurs from the Gryffindors at that and I didn't bother to look up. I know I slip up sometimes, whoops. When class ended they filed out quietly and I went back to my plans for the twins. No one stayed behind. I was starting to worry about that. The only ones to ask for actual help were the twins, and I had to wonder if there was something wrong with the way I phrased the offer or something. But then again, it was only the first week.

I snuck into dinner in the Great Hall long enough to grab some random food a dog might like before retreating outside. The dog was waiting for me, right beside the Whomping Willow. I grinned,

"I have ham!"

There was a doggy grin in return, and his tail was wagging.

I sat down in the grass, holding out a piece of meat which he snapped up quickly.

"At least someone here appreciates me. I had the youngest of the children I'm expected to teach today. They're one of the few here that appreciate, or even understand, sarcasm. My language seems to be a rarity here, it's sad really. The little creatures managed to get me rambling for half the class about something that had nothing to do with my subject. At this rate Binns teaches more than I do."

I fed the dog steadily with whatever I had managed to grab, basking in the presence of someone who wouldn't argue with me, no matter what I said in the next few minutes.

"For all that I didn't get done today, I still feel accomplished. I told a class full of death eaters children that Voldemort's mind was a bag full of cats."

The dog actually choked a bit before pausing in eating to look up at me.

I raised an eyebrow at him,

"What? Well, he wasn't exactly all there at the end of it, was he?"

The dog went back to eating and I had to wonder what the hell he was thinking. Maybe it wasn't such a good thing that he couldn't talk.

~TimeLordOfPie