Looking over my student's faces, it was easy to tell they were all terrified. Some certainly did a better job of hiding it than others, but even the stout were shaking slightly.

"Relax." I said to the students on the open field before me. "Everything will be fine. I'm starting you off easy. Just avoid being swallowed and you'll all do great."

"What did he say about being swallowed?" a girl with brown hair asked the group. I really needed to get to learning everyone's names, but between all of my classes it was just a parade of faces.

"Good luck!" I said with a grin as I disappeared from their view, causing all of them to go bug eyed under the suspicion that I'd just left them alone in the middle of a field I was about to call monsters into. In reality, I was still right next to them under invisibility, and the 'monsters' were just illusions of monsters. They were still tangible though, so any wounds would stick.

With a small flex of my power, the ground around the students started to heave. More than one of them screamed uncontrollably and started to run in whichever direction they happened to be facing. Some though, some were made of sterner stuff.

"Does anybody know what it is?" Daphne Greengrass yelled as she cautiously stepped around the heaving earth, searching for any sign of what was causing the disturbance.

"I don't see any-Wait!" Harry Potter was thrown to the ground as the dirt in front of him exploded upwards.

As the beast exploded from the ground, even more students turned tail and ran, leaving a small number of them left to face off against my illusion.

Dramatically clicking my invisible pen - I was also silenced so the pen made no noise, but it was fun so there - I made a few invisible notes on my invisible clipboard, shaking my invisible head in invisible disapproval. Those visible kids needed to get their visible act together.

Maybe I was having a little too much fun with this?

My illusion gave a mighty roar as the silvery armored quadruped emerged from the burrow it had made in the ground. Even more students ran in the wake of its roar.

I made some more invisible notes.

"Bulette!" Hermione Granger screamed in fear as she recognized the creature.

"How do we fight it!" Greengrass screamed in a panic as she threw every spell in the book at the creature.

"I don't know!" Granger yelled back as she backed away from the monster.

Greengrass kept throwing spell after spell into it, but none of her spells had much effect against the creature's tough armor. All she really accomplished was drawing the beast's attention. "Oh, bloody hell." she breathed as the bulette charged her.

Rather than turning to run like I expected her to, she held her ground. Her eyes darted around the bulette looking for weak points, and I noticed a moment when her eyes lit up with an idea.

Pointing her wand at the ground, Greengrass used one of the spells we'd spent all of last class practicing to erect a mountain of dirt in between herself and the quickly approaching bulette. With her barrier up, she quickly ran out from behind it in a straight line.

Strangely, the bulette didn't turn to chase after her. Instead, it charged straight into her earth wall, smashing it into thousands of muddy lumps as it thrashed around trying to find her.

"It's field of vision is shite!" Greengrass called to the six other students who had stayed to help her fight. "Everywhere but right in front of it is a blind spot! Everyone split up and surround it!"

I silently clicked my invisible pen once more, and nodded my invisible head in invisible approval as I made more invisible notes.

While technically the bulette's field of vision wasn't nearly as bad as the students were led to believe due to the fact that I was controlling it and therefore anything I could see it could see, I was only using the eyes I'd conjured for the bulette to dictate where it went. So while I did see the young woman run out from behind her dirt wall, the bulette's eyes didn't catch her, so I had it behave as if it didn't know she was there.

The fourth years, those who hadn't run off anyway, did as Greengrass said and split up into a large circle surrounding the bulette, all of them flinging spells into the creature as they tried to figure out a way to hurt it.

Picking a student at random, I had the bulette charge towards Susan Bones.

The girl shrieked in terror as the bulette barreled towards her and shot a hurried spell into the earth in front of the bulette. A large pit opened up directly in its path, and it fell inside with a surprised howl.

Bones's eyes lit up triumphantly as she started shooting down at what she thought was a trapped opponent. Her entire being darkened in pure terror as the bulette just burrowed its way deeper underground, escaping her eyeline in mere moments.

"It can walk underground!" she shrieked, and turned to run after the others who were long gone by now.

"No! Don't move!" Granger yelled, holding her hands up towards her classmates to keep them still. "Bulettes can sense tremors through the ground. If you move, it will know where you are."

Everyone became a statue as they nervously watched the ground, tense for any sign of movement.

"I have an idea." Harry Potter said as he lifted his wand towards a large boulder nearby. With an expression of extreme concentration on his face, he flicked his wand up and the boulder rose with it. The next moment the boulder fell back to the earth, causing a minor quake to travel through the ground.

Clever boy.

The students watched in silence for several seconds. One of the kids whose names I haven't learned yet opened his mouth to say something but snapped his mouth closed when the bulette surfaced from the earth and closed its maw around the boulder like a shark leaping from the sea to catch a seal. It landed heavily on its back as its jaws smashed the boulder to pieces.

"It's stomach!" Granger yelled, already shooting spells into it. "There's less armor on its belly!"

Not needing to be told twice, every student still present started laying into the bulette's less protected belly with stunners, cutting spells and even a spell to cause indigestion for some reason.

The bulette shrieked in pain as its stomach started to bleed dark blue blood. With a final cry, it fled underground once more.

When the students couldn't see it anymore, I dropped the illusion and slowly allowed my invisibility to fade. If they knew the creature was an illusion, this whole training scheme I'd dreamt up would be a lot more difficult. I'd either need to send everything I had at them, or shell out money for actual magical creatures that weren't under my complete control. There was something about believing yourself to be in inescapable mortal peril that encouraged you to learn quickly, and I was taking advantage of it. I'd think that my instructors back in Guild Dimir employed the same tactic of using illusions to trick us into believing we were in danger, except the problem with that theory was that over eighty percent of us wound up dead.

"Well done, my up and coming master magi! All of you get a gold star. Everyone who ran away gets a frowny face." I said, now fully visible with my visible clipboard and pen visibly displayed.

The students looked at me like I was insane as they tried to control their chaotic breathing.

"Fine, don't smile at my joke. Although, it is American humor. Gold stars are important to us for some reason. I'll cut you guys some slack just this once. Now! What did you all think of our first test?"

"You're bloody insane!" Susan Bones bellowed as she tried to get her shaking arms under control.

"I mean, you're probably right, but the lesson is anything but insanity. Would you rather face an enraged, burrowing monstrosity under controlled circumstances with a master mage a moment away? Or try to fight one of those things in the middle of an open plain with no experience whatsoever?"

"Controlled circumstances! You weren't even here!" the boy whose name I knew not yelled.

"Well, I'm sorry. I forgot my clipboard and had to go back to get it." I said as I dramatically waved it around. "Jeez, if you guys reacted this strongly to today's lesson the next one will be a nightmare."

Laying flat on his back as he stared up at the slightly cloudy blue sky, Neville Longbottom said, "Well, at least it can't be any worse than that."

"Oh, but, Mr. Longbottom, that's where you're wrong. Every test will be progressively harder than the last. Can't have any of you growing stagnant."

"What could possibly be worse than that!" Bones shrieked as she pulled at her hair, her limbs shaking as I was fairly certain she was going into shock.

"First off, take a deep breath. Second, imagine that thing, but with wings."

Every student paled in response to my words.

"Oh, no." Greengrass vocalized for the whole group.

"Oh, yes." I said with a grin.

X

"In all my years I've never…."

You'd think that such a small woman would run out of air at some point, but Poppy Pomphrey had enough stamina to scream for an impressively long time.

"Students fleeing in terror and getting caught in earthquakes caused by a…."

Really, I didn't see what the big deal was. Sure, a few of the students had trampled over one another as they ran away from my scary monster, but if they had just stayed put they would've been fine. Ironically, the ones who fought the monster were the only ones who emerged uninjured, albeit a little tired.

"Professor Dumbledore, I cannot in good conscience keep quiet any longer." McGonagall said from her seat at this impromptu inquisition…. I meant cordial meeting. "This man's actions not only led to the injury of over a dozen students, but also mental trauma and the letting loose of a bulette on castle grounds. Any man so willing to endanger the lives of those in his charge is unfit to teach at this institution."

There were several nodded heads and murmurs of agreement around the table.

Flitwick stood from his chair and actually got shorter as he said, "Mr. Thomas came to me and informed me that Mr. Xarion was not even present during the events of his dangerously catastrophic class! Had the students fared any worse, they would likely be dead!"

I just leaned back in my chair and let out an irritated sigh. This was the sham to end all shams. The only real silver lining here was that if Dumbledore fired me the contract he'd signed for me became null and void so I'd get to keep the single paycheck I'd received. On the downside, I wouldn't get to use the Room of Requirement to make anything and I would lose access to the library. I hadn't been able to get through all the spellbooks yet, so losing access to it would suck.

"Professor Xarion, is there anything you would like to say to defend yourself?" Dumbledore asked kindly from his seat at the head of the table.

Ignoring the heated glares of everyone else present, I looked Dumbledore in the eye and said, "The students were never in any danger and I was right there the entire-"

"Lies! Blatant and flagrant lies!" Flitwick said, straightening his back and regaining the height he'd lost when he stood up. "Mr. Thomas was quite clear that-"

"Mr. Thomas believed exactly what I wanted him and every other one of my students to believe." I said, cutting him off. If he was going to be rude, I would be rude in kind. "The students believed there was a bulette intent upon their untimely demise and they believed I had abandoned them to face it alone. I needed to know how they would react in a life or death situation they hadn't been prepared for. Now I know."

"Mr. Xarion, I must insist that you dispense with these false-"

"Okay, I'm going to talk and all of you are going to listen." I said, turning to face McGonagall with a glare. I was actually starting to get a little mad. I must have been off my game. "Let me run through exactly what happened so we can put this witch hunt to bed. First there was a…. Behind you!" I screamed in feigned terror as I pointed towards the door of the meeting hall.

The teachers followed my gaze and all but Dumbledore and Snape leapt to their feet, raising their wands to combat the bulette that had just appeared out of nowhere.

The bulette disappeared and several spells flew through empty air to blast large chunks out of the stone wall beyond.

The teachers took on puzzled expressions as they turned back to the table only to find me missing.

"He's run off!" Flitwick cried. "He must be trying to escape before we learn of his-"

"Ahem." I said as I rematerialized right next to a smiling Dumbledore.

The teachers all looked at me with gobsmacked expressions.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, "It is exactly as I said. I was there the whole time. And there was no monster. If I was able to make fools out of all of you, with the notable exceptions of Snape and Dumbledore," I added quickly with a nod to each man. "Then how easy would it be for me to fool a bunch of children?"

The teachers refused to meet my gaze as they began to realize how easily I'd played them.

"Now, none of you can tell the students about this because if you do my illusion trick won't work anymore and I will be forced to bring in actual monsters which I will do with your approval or not. Keep your mouths shut, if not for my sake, for the students." I turned to Dumbledore who still had a bright smile on his face. "Can I leave, yet?"

"Given that there is no problem, I believe you can, professor. Do have a lovely day." he said with an eye twinkle.

Walking past the teachers, I stopped at the door and looked at Snape. "Professor Snape?"

Looking up for the first time since the meeting started, he said, "Yes?"

"While I am quite adept in most forms of magic I am worse than most novices at potioncraft. Would you be willing to school me in potions in exchange for my teaching something to you?"

The man's eyes narrowed and his nose shot up as he regarded me with disapproving eyes. "That would depend on the nature of what you would trade."

"How about this?" I said as I summoned a spell circle above my palm. "This wandless magic trick isn't unique to me. So long as you know what you're doing, it can be taught."

The eyes of everyone in the room widened, even Dumbledore's.

"For such a price, I would be willing to tutor you." Snape said as if he was giving me the ark of the covenant. The man seemed to have a bit of an ego problem, but so long as he didn't accuse me of abusing children he should stay firmly on the 'Alright" list.

"Great. We'll work out the details later." I turned back to the other teachers who were practically salivating as they stared at my spell circle. "And no, none of you can join Professor Snape's lessons. I'd lie to spare your feelings if I cared at all, but I don't. The truth is, I just don't like any of you. You've been nothing but asholes since I showed up. Now, I really need to be going. I have a Studebaker's worth of cursed mail to render harmless before some poor student accidentally wanders into my office and has their skin flayed off of them. Good day." I spun around and left without another word.

X

"Lame. Boring. Not very original. Oo! This one is fun." I said as I picked up an envelope. Rather than the standard curses on all the others, this one would exchange the amount of water in your body with the amount of muscle tissue. I had no idea how whoever had dreamt this spell up was able to actually get it to work, but I was definitely making a spell circle for it later.

A dull, almost quiet knock sounded on my office door, and I put aside my new discovery as I raised my eyebrow.

"It's unlocked."

A few seconds passed and the door was slowly pushed open, revealing the person on the other side.

"Miss Greengrass. I can't say I was expecting you. Please be careful not to touch any of the paper in this office. A good ninety percent of it is cursed mail from some rather upset parents and I really do not want to have to explain to Professor Dumbledore how one of my students ended up with hands for eyes. Now what can I do for you?"

She stared blankly at me for a moment. "What was that you said, professor?"

"What can I do for you?"

Shaking her head to get over her shock, she said, "Professor, did you really leave us this morning?"

"Well, I needed my clipboard and I was certain you would all do fine." I said, not saying a single lie.

The girl's eyes narrowed as she stared at me. "Why did the bulette attack Susan instead of charging at me again? Susan was standing directly behind it and I was the only one it had seen attack it. It doesn't make any sense, sir."

I cringed slightly. "Okay, first off, please don't call me sir; professor feels weird enough. Second, had you considered that perhaps it sensed her through the ground?" I was fairly certain I was made, but I was going to see what she'd pieced together herself before giving the game away.

"I did, professor, but logically it doesn't make sense. While I'm sure it could feel her presence through the ground, its attention should still have been on me."

"So what do you think caused it to spin around and attack someone completely different?"

Greengrass straightened her back, exuding confidence as she said, "I believe that you were testing us. The bulette had already charged towards me and you had seen how I reacted. You wanted to know how the others would react as well, but we bested your monster before you could target anyone else."

Raising an eyebrow at her, I said, "You're saying I was in control of the bulette the whole time? What evidence do you have to support that theory?"

"I returned to the field after classes finished for the day." Yep, I'd been made. "While I saw several other areas where the bulette had surfaced, likely during the other classes you taught today, I noticed something strange about the area we faced it in. I remember quite clearly where it fled us, yet when I searched the earth around where it burrowed down, I only found the beginnings of a tunnel. In order for the bulette to have returned above ground to participate in the other classes, it would have had to surface immediately, leave behind another tunnel as it surfaced elsewhere, or somehow extricated itself backwards without disturbing the soil above itself. The tunnel was pristine, so it could not be the third, and there was neither an extension to the tunnel nor any evidence the beast surfaced immediately."

I had a pleased smile on my face as I said, "And all of this leads you to believe…?"

"That there never was a bulette. We were fighting you the entire time, professor."

"Ten-thousand points to Slytherin."

The girl's eyes widened at the truly absurd allotment of points, but I didn't give a rat's ass about balance and fairness. If you saw through my charade, I was going to give you the credit you were due. Also I thought the point system was dumb and it amused me to see Flitwick blow a gasket every time he saw the staggering amount of points I threw around every class.

"What exactly is your hypothesis as to how I was fighting you?" I asked, curious. "The way you phrased it, it almost makes it sound like you think I'm a bulette animagus."

Greengrass nodded and said, "That was my belief, professor."

"Good guess, but incorrect. You were right about your opponent, wrong about the weapon."

Greengrass frowned, and I could see cogs turning in her head as she thought.

"The only other way you could have been controlling the bulette was if you conjured it, but that's impos…." she trailed off as she saw the cocky grin on my face.

"Let's go ahead and add another one-thousand points to Slytherin just because I feel like it."

Greengrass's jaw fell open, though this time it had nothing to do with the point allotment. "How? The control for such a spell alone would take decades to develop. Then the power requirement would leave most wizards unconscious after a few short seconds. You did this in every class you taught all day. How?"

"If you'll recall the first day of class I said some things that got me some disbelieving looks and snorts as people thought I was joking. Allow me to reiterate one thing I said then; I am one of, if not the most powerful mage on this entire planet. I am scary good at what I do, and what I do is inherently better than what everyone else does."

"Your wandless magic." Greengrass surmised with widened eyes.

"You've got one hell of a brain in that head of yours, Miss Greengrass. Make sure you use it to its fullest potential." Picking up my newest project, the cursed letter that somehow switched out body mass for pints of blood, I absentmindedly said, "Was there anything else, Miss Greengrass? Or did you merely wish to confront me about sending an enraged bulette charging at you?"

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish for a moment before she quickly blurted out, "What would it take to become your apprentice?"

Looking at her over the cursed letter, I said, "One more time please?"

Now looking extremely nervous, she said, "I will pay any price. I am the heiress of the Ancient and Most Noble house of Greengrass. There is very little I am unable to offer you. Merely name the price of an apprenticeship and I will-"

"Okay, stop that." I said, waving my arms as I put my letter back down. "First of all, I have never had an apprentice and the idea has never crossed my mind, so I would need time to digest it before even considering it. Second, you can't buy me. If you want me to teach you, be someone I'd want to teach. Money, books, magical artifacts - there's not much that I can't get on my own given enough time, so I'm not going to jump at any offer whose main sticking point is a payment of some sort. Thirdly, you're in my class, aren't you? Am I not teaching you already?"

She flinched slightly before saying, "You are, professor, but I would like to receive personal instruction. You saw how the majority of the class reacted to the bulette. Their presence will inevitably slow the progress of the class as a whole, and while I appreciate your instruction, I would also like to inherit your magic."

Blinking uncomprehendingly, I said, "You're going to need to explain that inheritance part. I'm guessing it has something to do with some tradition in Britain? I'm not from around here so anything I couldn't find in the library doesn't exist in my brain."

"Of course, professor. An apprenticeship to a single witch or wizard is viewed as the witch or wizard who will continue their master's work, be it runecrafting or potion making. Apprenticeships have slowly gone out of practice due to the prevalence of Hogwarts, but…"

"But you want to piggyback off of my power and hopefully learn everything I know in the process?" I finished for her.

"In so many words, yes."

"I'm going to need to do a lot of my own research before getting back to you on that, but from how I'm thinking it works right now the answer will likely be a resounding no."

Her shoulders slumped and she looked down at the floor dejected.

"However, I am not opposed to you coming in during free periods or whenever else you have time to get ahead. I'll probably open that opportunity to anyone interested actually, though I doubt many will show up. Good enough?"

"More than enough, professor. Thank you." she said with a polite nod as she turned to leave.

"Oh, and, Miss Greengrass, two more things."

She stopped at the door, turning to face me.

"Number one, please do not tell your classmates about my conjured monstrosities. If they all believe them to be fake I'll have to start getting real ones to bring the life or death factor back in."

She paled. "No one will learn of them from me, professor. And the second thing?"

I smirked at her. "You're a good actress, but you live in a world with people who can read minds. It kind of ruins the act if you outwardly play the beaten down, dejected girl on the brink of tears because she just lost out on an apprenticeship while inwardly cursing the, 'stupid, low-functioning psociopath'."

I didn't know it was possible, but somehow she got even paler.

"Relax, I'm not going to hold it against you, I encourage it, in fact. Use whatever tools you have available to become as strong as possible. Let the people who fell behind complain about how your methods were unfair. In the spirit of such…" I pulled open one of the drawers on my desk and retrieved a book on occlumency I'd copied from one that was hidden behind a false wall in the restricted section of the library. Occlumency and legilimency were nothing compared to the mental magics of Ravnica, but they were definitely a good starting point, and a must to protect the sanctity of your mind if you didn't have anything better.

I held the book out to her. "I wouldn't let anyone see this. I am not supposed to have it. I imagine you have some semblance of an idea of what will happen to a student found in possession of it?"

Greengrass swallowed heavily as she walked forward and took the book. "What is it?"

"I'm not going to give you all the answers. What's the point of giving it to you if I just tell you everything inside it?"

"Why should I spend time reading it when I could get my information from the source and let others complain about the speed of my progress being unfair?" she said with a challenging look in her eye, she'd completely dropped the act.

Grinning, I said, "Smart girl. Keep that attitude and you're going to go places. Now you should probably leave. The other professors aren't exactly my biggest fan. The last thing I need is the rumor mill to start on about how I'm having clandestine meetings with my female students late in the evening when they should be anywhere but here."

Greengrass's eyes shot wide as she realized the implication, and she practically flew from the room, throwing a hasty, "Good night, professor." over her shoulder as she slammed the door shut behind her.

Smirking to myself as I picked up my letter, I couldn't help but wonder what that girl was going to get up to. She had the potential to be a major player if she kept focussed. Time would tell.