"It was just a few tiny mistakes," said Minerva.

"Coincidences, really," Tom added.

Dumbledore sighed, looking wearier than normal, and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Maybe he had been getting drunk and wandering about the castle in a daze. He appeared unusually stressed.

"Please walk me through it one more time," he said. "Slowly."

Tom and Minerva glanced at each other briefly before launching into the story once again.

Technically, it had started on Tuesday.

The castle had been permeated with an uncomfortable, frustrating, biting anxiety because, in less than twenty-four hours, the Ministry was coming.

Like an inevitable wave, an advancing army, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, they were coming.

And no one was ready.

Least of all, Beery.

Monday's explosion had apparently been the result of Beery trying to reorganize the greenhouses to be somewhat more logical in setup, even though it didn't matter where anything was in those disgusting boxes of floral death, because it would always look like someone had just thrown a mess of leaves and dirt onto the floor and hoped for the best.

He'd had a series of recent accidents, as it turned out, owing partly to his nervousness about the upcoming inspections, but mostly because he'd been neglecting his most dangerous and ambitious magical plants for some unknown reason.

First, he'd failed to prune some Dementor-like shrub that ate souls or emotions or something similar, and several of his students had ended up with serious bouts of depression and paranoia. Then there were the Mandrakes, who, upon being ignored for weeks, decided they would mount a revolution, and proceeded to scream at anyone that entered the greenhouse, nearly killing several people. Thankfully, they were still too young, their protesting shouts of freedom mere youthful ideology and not outright political action.

Then Greenhouse Two had exploded after he'd moved a plant that emitted poisonous gas next to a plant that emitted a slightly more volatile poisonous gas.

And now he was jogging down the corridor in front of the library, flagging Tom down and gesturing for him to wait. He made it to where Tom was standing, outside the library doors, and put his hands on his knees, breathing heavily, as if he'd just run a marathon.

"I need-" he huffed, "I need you to teach my afternoon classes."

"No..." said Tom.

"Please? I have to- there's a- look, it's not hard. Just write down the notes on the board and then-"

"No..."

Beery looked to his right, then his left, apparently making sure they were alone. Then he leaned in close and whispered, "look, emergency subbing is usually done by the newest member of staff. That's just protocol. An unwritten rule. You know, 'low man on the totem pole-'"

"No."

"-and, well, I need some time to repair Greenhouse Two before the Ministry gets here..."

"No."

"I know you have Tuesday afternoons free, Riddle. Come on..."

Tom stared at him.

"Fine!" Beery growled, throwing his hands up in frustration. "What do you want?"

"I want not to have to teach Herbology."

Beery walked away grumbling something about unwritten rules and seniority.

Had Tom been anyone but Tom, he probably would have felt some sort of guilt about refusing to help a colleague. But he hated Herbology.

In truth he hated a lot of things. However, he had a real, genuine disgust for Herbology. It was messy, tiresome, and ultimately useless. And the only things worse than the subject itself were the greenhouses. They were a series of low-ceilinged, glass-paneled torture chambers with poor ventilation that consistently smelled of either manure or dead bodies. On bad days, they smelled of both.

Thus teaching Herbology, even a single class, was an unacceptable scenario.

But that was just his first mistake.

Then, on Wednesday, everything fell apart.

The inspectors arrived that morning: four Spanish Inquisitors, dressed all in black and gray and looking like they'd just successfully conquered the world with bureaucracy and political correctness and refillable fountain pens. They never bothered to introduce themselves. Each one of them wore a smug look - the kind you wanted to punch off of someone's face when you saw it - as they casually announced that they would be "changing things up" this year.

"In order to maximize efficiency during this process," one of them explained to the teachers assembled in the staff room, "we are going to be conducting teacher reviews and site surveys simultaneously."

Wednesday was supposed to be their last day to prepare. Wednesday for survey, Thursday for reviews. Just as they had apparently done for the last four years. Why the sudden change?

They filed out of the room, knowingly leaving behind them a sense of foreboding and dread, and Tom could have sworn he saw one of them smiling.

Several minutes later, he walked into his classroom and she was already standing there, waiting for him.

She was a short, middle-aged woman, impeccably dressed and wearing a friendly smile that was carefully crafted and undoubtedly sat well within the requirements of Ministry policy. She looked him up and down as if she were already ticking things off of a checklist somewhere in her brain, and did so for almost a full minute before finally speaking.

"Good morning," she said congenially, "I am Inspector Jones. I will be reviewing your class today. No need to worry, I will stay out of the way, for the most part."

"For the most part?"

He had not wanted to be antagonistic. It was one of those situations where keeping one's mouth shut was the best course of action, and he thought he could handle it. He really did.

"Yes," she said simply, not bothering to explain. "If you don't mind, I have a few questions for you. Just some formalities, you know."

"Alright."

She flipped a few pages over on her clipboard, somehow managing to make the simple act appear menacing. "Name?"

"Tom Riddle."

"Subject?"

"Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"I don't remember seeing you last November. Is this your first year at Hogwarts?"

That was a relatively asinine question. "Yes."

"And... how old are you?"

"Why is that relevant?"

She looked at him like he'd just spat in her face. "Everything is relevant, Mister Riddle. Everything."

"Sure, but don't you have all of this information on file already?"

"What we have and don't have is our business."

"As is my age, apparently."

She stared at him. He stared right back. This would not end well.

At that moment, the bell rang, and children began entering the room, many of them glancing over at the inspector with worried looks. It was almost poetic that the class to be reviewed was the very first class he'd ever taught. Tilly gave him an encouraging thumbs-up from behind the inspector's back.

He had a good rapport with most of his students. This was because they appreciated his willingness to teach them Dark magic, which many of them knew was illegal (though, strangely, none of them cared). Because of this, he felt he could be straight with them about what was going to happen over the next week. So, during the previous week, he had made it clear to each class that the only topics they were to discuss were Hogwarts-approved ones.

Things started out fine. He began the lesson - a standard, safe subject - and the children were almost impressive with their questions and answers. They were really trying.

The inspector watched from the back of the room, her face blank, her Muggle pen flying furiously across the page.

Then, about halfway through the period, she held up her hand, interrupting him mid-sentence. "Forgive me, Professor, but I was hoping to speak to the students, if that is acceptable."

Without waiting for him to respond, she wandered over to a random Gryffindor and smiled her company-issued smile. "Tell me, dear, do you feel you've learned a lot from this class?"

Every word was loud and clear. Apparently, her one-on-one questions with the students would not be private.

"Yes," the boy said with confidence. "More than any other class."

Tom was rather surprised by that answer. They were really laying it on thick for him.

"Excellent. And do you feel you are able to ask questions?"

"Yes."

She moved on to a Hufflepuff. Meanwhile, the entire class watched her carefully in strained silence. "Do you feel that you and your classmates are disciplined appropriately?"

The girl nodded. "Oh, yes. We get loads of threats."

Too thick. Too thick.

"What do you mean, 'threats?'" the woman asked.

"Well, like, if we talk too much, we might get maiming. Or if we're caught passing notes, then hands cut off. Sometimes there's beheading, if we're really bad."

"I see..." She started to write.

Some of the other students must have realized the error. One of them spoke up. "We don't actually get punished, though. We usually calm down. It's a good system."

"Yes," said the inspector, looking at Tom, "fear can be a useful motivator. Though I find it more appropriate to dictatorships and organized crime than to the disciplining of children."

She moved on to the next child. "Tell me, do you feel your Professor is engaged enough with his students?"

The girl seemed confused by the question. "Yeah..." she said slowly. "Well, not engaged. But dating."

"I'm sorry?"

Tom tried to clarify before they went any further down that god-forsaken path. "No, she doesn't mean engaged. She means-"

"Let her speak," the inspector commanded, holding up a hand for him to cease talking. "Go on," she told the girl.

There was a dangerous rage building up inside him, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could stand this treatment before a beheading did actually occur.

"Well, he dated a student, but they weren't engaged, I don't think."

The inspector appeared genuinely surprised. "Dated?"

Tilly cut in, most aggrieved. "No, he did not date that cow. He asked but then changed his mind because he follows the rules." She smiled at him encouragingly.

He shook his head. "I have never dated a student. That wasn't-"

"It shall be investigated," the woman said simply, every single word somehow sounding dangerously threatening.

"Do you feel," she asked one of the Hufflepuff boys, "that your professor is dedicated to teaching?"

"He's very dedicated to teaching. He didn't even waste time learning our names! Just jumped right in!"

It was like watching a building collapse in slow motion.

"He doesn't know your names?" She turned to him again. "How are you evaluating these students without knowing their names?"

"I know their names, of course," he said quickly, wondering how the bloody hell he'd be able to prove it.

She did not believe him. "I had a feeling we would see this sort of poor performance from the teachers. Seems I was right to expect it."

"You're wrong!" Tilly yelled. "This is the best class in the year! We learn stuff here no one else will teach us."

"Is that so, dear? Like what?"

Tilly looked horrified, realizing her mistake far, far too late. "Er- stuff," she answered lamely.

The inspector thought for a moment. "Interesting. Fear of speaking up, and uncertainty about the course materials. This does not bode well, Mister Riddle."

But the other students were just as eager to defend him.

"He has way more experience in the Dark Arts than Merrythought ever had!" said one.

"Yeah, we learn about lots more than boring, old Defense," said another.

"And he shows us the real effects of Dark magic, too!"

"Yeah, the really nasty stuff!"

There was silence after that, during which the inspector took in the information, processed it, and then rounded on Tom. "Professor," she said, looking at him with suspicion, "are you teaching these students Dark magic?"

Never had there been a more perfect symbolic representation of a train wreck in the history of the universe.

And, strangely, it wasn't the students he was annoyed with.

Before he could answer her, the bell rang. The children left slowly, almost all of them looking back at Tom and the inspector with apologetic, worried looks.

When they were alone, she repeated the question. "Are you teaching your students Dark magic?"

"Of course not."

"Then why are they telling me, in no uncertain terms, that you are?"

"They're not. They just meant-"

"It's a shame," she said with feigned concern. "This will be the school's fifth failure in as many years."

"You've reviewed a single teacher. How do you know we're going to fail?"

"Let's be honest, Mister Riddle. Hogwarts has been sliding downhill for a long time now. It's no surprise they have some Dark Arts enthusiast teaching Defense."

"'Dark… Arts… enthusiast,'" he repeated in disbelief.

"We will have no choice but to reorganize."

"Reorganize? You can't do that."

"We can do whatever we feel is necessary. Don't you think it's time for a bit of change? This place is in dire need of modernization."

He glared at her. It was the kind of glare he reserved for enemies. For people he wanted to destroy. "If you think I'm going to let you-"

"'Let us?'" She smiled. It was the smile of someone who knew that they had absolute power over something and, as a result, feared nothing. "You better be careful, Professor," she said, her voice almost a whisper, "or you and your coworkers might just be looking for new jobs this summer."

It happened so quickly it was almost imperceptible. One second, she was eyeing him with that smug superiority she so expertly projected, just waiting for him to challenge her, and the next second, she was slumped over on the floor, unconscious.

"Well, shit," he muttered.

At least he hadn't killed her. A few more seconds of rampant arrogance and he would have killed her. Happily.

But thanks to his impressive self-control, he now had a serious problem. He glanced around the room, trying to come up with a plan. Disposing of bodies was one thing. Disposing of bodies that were not yet dead was another. Maybe he should have just done the thing properly and gotten rid of her altogether. She needed to disappear until he could decide what to do.

There was a closet in the back of the room that he didn't really use which, in that moment, was perfect for temporary victim storage. He levitated the inspector, opened the door, and placed her carefully inside.

"TOM!"

He slammed the door shut and whirled around to find Minerva standing in the doorway, breathing heavily with a look of terror on her face.

"I need your help," she pleaded.

"With what?" he asked, flicking his wand behind his back to lock the closet.

"I've had a- well... There's been an incident." She seemed almost frantic.

"Calm down and tell me what happened," he said while guiding her out into the corridor before the inspector could wake up and start banging on the door.

She took a few calming breaths. "I was being reviewed. First class! So early in the morning - how is that fair? Anyway, one of my students may have accidentally missed his target a bit, and…"

"And?"

"And, well, he transfigured the inspector into a badger."

Tom snorted. "I'm sorry?"

"It's not funny!" she yelled. "The damn thing ran off before I could transfigure it back and now I can't find it! Him. It."

"So, you need help looking for..."

"A badger, yes."

A faint groan sounded from inside his classroom. "Right," he said quickly, "let's go."

They scanned the third floor, then moved up to the fourth, where Minerva's classroom was. Then the fifth, then the sixth... and they found nothing.

On the seventh floor they came across Peggy, who was leaning against her closed classroom door, looking almost as pale and horrified as Minerva.

"Peggy, what happened?" Minerva asked, looking behind her through the small window in the door and into the classroom, where students were talking loudly and pointing.

"I made a horrible mistake," she breathed, looking like she was going to faint.

"What did you do?"

"I- I punched an inspector."

"Why?"

"Well, he was asking me questions - a lot of questions. And I was getting flustered. And then he asked... He asked why I thought it was a good idea to have a child and a career at the same time. And I just sort of... lost it."

"And you only punched him once?" Minerva asked, sounding disappointed.

"What if I fail?" Peggy cried. "What if I'm the reason we all fail again?"

"Somehow," Tom said, "I don't think this incident will be what makes us fail." He walked past her and opened the door. "I'll take care of it," he told them.

Once strong memory charm and a few calming words later, Tom and Minerva were back on the hunt for the missing man-badger. They performed a few locating spells to search the upper floors, but they revealed nothing. Eventually they ended up outside.

"You would think a man that was transformed into a badger would still have enough intelligence to seek out help instead of running away," Tom wondered out loud.

"I have found that the general shock of suddenly becoming an animal tends to push rational thought aside for some time until they come to terms with their new state. Or they go mad and lose their humanity completely."

That was horrifying in a fascinating sort of way. He never realized before how much psychology was involved in turning people into animals.

After several minutes of searching outside, they found it next to one of the greenhouses, sniffing and digging at the grass. When it saw them approaching, it hissed and growled and raised its hair at them.

Minerva raised her wand to transfigure it back, but without warning, one of the other inspectors came walking down the hill toward them. Tom kicked the badger into the greenhouse and slammed the door shut.

She gave him a look of disbelief.

"What? At least we know where it is."

The non-badger inspector approached them and smiled. "Ah, Professors. Have either of you seen Inspector Jones? I cannot find her. Or Inspector Harden, for that matter. They were supposed to meet me here at ten o'clock to survey the grounds."

There was a loud growling noise coming from inside the greenhouse.

"No, sorry," said Minerva, guiding him away. "But perhaps we can accompany you on the survey?"

"Oh, well... It's not protocol, but I suppose, if they don't make an appearance..."

They walked with him through the grounds and toward the Forbidden Forest, and he asked an array of obnoxious questions along the way, which Minerva answered expertly.

"...but we are very strict about student access to this area," she was saying. "It is forbidden for all lower classes to even approach this side of the grounds."

"Brilliant," the inspector said, inching his way past the tree line. "It really is quite dark in there, isn't it?" He wandered further inside to explore.

That was the moment one of the greenhouses decided to explode.

"What was that?" the inspector asked, turning his head toward the top of the hill.

In what he thought was quick thinking on his part, Tom threw a loud, nasty curse deep into the forest, which made a sound like a cannon, threw a considerable amount of trees into the air, and pulled the inspector's attention away from the massive greenhouse fire that blazed like a bright, glaring beacon of failure.

Minerva looked like she wanted to slap him. "What the hell are you doing?" she hissed as the inspector scanned the interior of the forest for the source of the noise.

"Did you want him to see the giant, flaming destruction of school property that is currently filling the skyline? Because we can turn right around and show him, if you prefer."

She shook her head. "Tom, all you did was cover up an explosion with another explosion. Either way, we look ridiculous. And he's going to see it anyway when we go back."

"Oh." He hadn't thought of that.

"God," she muttered, staring at the greenhouse in horror, "did we just kill a Ministry inspector?"

"Well, technically, I think we killed a badger."

The distraction proved useless, of course.

"What in the world is going on up there?" the inspector demanded, making his way out of the forest and back across the grounds.

They could do nothing except follow him and wonder vaguely how much this was going to bring down their rating.

Beery was standing outside the remains of Greenhouse Four, a look of utter confusion on his face. Once the inspector was out of earshot, Minerva rounded on him. "Herbert, you arse, what did you do?"

He shook his head, utterly confused. "I moved those plants after the first explosion! They were safe!"

"What plants?"

Tom cut in. "Please tell me you're not talking about those ridiculous poison gas plants."

"Yes! After they blew up Greenhouse Two, I moved them!"

"Did you move them away from each other?"

"Yes!" he shouted, clearly annoyed that they thought he could have been so foolish. "I put them on opposite sides of the building. They were nowhere near each other. Something must have knocked them over."

Something like an angry and traumatized badger, most likely. "Maybe you shouldn't have put them in the same greenhouse at all," Tom suggested casually.

"Well, if I'd had some help yesterday," he said bitterly, "I might have thought it through more carefully." He walked off toward the castle, cursing and muttering to himself.

The inspector reappeared, apparently finished with his survey of the destruction. "Does this… happen often?" he asked, pointing to the rubble that was Greenhouse Two on one side, and the dying bonfire that was Greenhouse Four on the other.

"Not often, no," said Minerva.

"Well, at any rate… I think I should return to the castle. I must figure out where my colleagues have disappeared to."

Once he was gone, they searched the smoldering remains of the building, fully expecting to find dead badger bits, or perhaps dead human bits. But miraculously, the badger was lying a few feet away from the destruction, unmoving. Still a badger, but very much alive.

Minerva transfigured the thing immediately before it could move again, leaving in its place a peacefully sleeping civil servant.

Before they could deal with what turned out to be Tom's second unconscious body of the day, a loud horn sounded across the grounds. It was followed by the thundering of horses' hooves.

Centaurs.

They flowed out of the Forbidden Forest like water, dozens of them, lining up near the tree line and taking aim at the castle with their bows. A particularly muscular centaur moved forward and called, in an impossibly loud voice, to the castle and its residents.

"Hogwarts!" it shouted. "Know this! You have oppressed us, demeaned us, and today you felt fit to attack us!"

"What is he talking about?" Tom asked in confusion.

"I think he means your curse of distraction. You know, the one you shot randomly into the Forest like an idiot?"

Well, that was unfortunate.

The lead centaur continued with its needlessly dramatic war speech. "We centaurs have waited an age, and many an age more, to wage this just and necessary war against wizardkind."

"'Many an age more?'" Tom repeated. "Who talks like that?"

Minerva shushed him.

"Now that you have struck first, we shall take action. We shall show you the might of the centaur race in all its glory."

"Oh, please."

"Hush!"

"But we centaurs are fair and just. Bring to us your leader, the figurehead that speaks for you, and we will provide an opportunity for you to surrender. Do this now, or the kingdom of Hogwarts will experience our mighty wrath."

"Thank god the children are in class," Minerva whispered. "Hopefully they stay there. Maybe if we ignore the centaurs, they'll go away after they realize there's no one to fight."

"Either that, or they'll advance on the castle itself and attack everyone in it," Tom offered.

"Ah!" said the lead centaur suddenly, "a leader approaches!"

"What?"

They watched helplessly as another inspector - the one whose memory Tom had removed - meandered drunkenly onto the newly christened battlefield, offering the massive centaur army a friendly wave.

"What did you do to him?" Minerva asked Tom.

"I removed his memory. That's it." Apparently, he must have overdone it a bit.

"Looks like you might have overdone it a bit," Minerva commented.

He sighed. "It's been an extremely stressful morning."

"Greetings, chaps!" they could hear the inspector saying. "I do believe I'm supposed to conduct a survey here, somewhere. Have you seen my partners, by any chance?"

The centaur William Wallace shook his head. "No. The time for surveys is over. This is war!"

The delirious inspector shrugged and smiled. "Fair enough!"

"Do you accept our declaration of war against the men of Hogwarts?" the centaur demanded.

"Sure!" he said happily.

"Then so it shall be."

Minerva made an impressively quick move with her wand, and before the centaurs managed to fire their first arrow, she yanked the addled inspector across the grounds and threw him over the greenhouses to the safety of the castle wall as she and Tom took shelter behind the still-smoking remains of Greenhouse Four.

"Well done," said Tom as arrows flew over their heads, each one a tiny, violent diplomatic disaster. "What are they even shooting at? There's no one out here but us."

Minerva was oddly silent.

"Do you know any Dark magic?" she asked suddenly. "Centaurs hate Dark magic."

He knew plenty of Dark bloody magic, but nothing that he cared to share with his new coworkers any time soon.

Unfortunately, it seemed he had no choice.

The shooting stopped, presumably so the lead centaur could pontificate at them some more, and he took his chance. He cast a spell that was so massive and powerful that it incapacitated every single centaur on the grounds and pushed them back across the tree line like leaves blowing in the wind.

Minerva stared at him.

"What?"

She kept staring.

"What?"

"Er- nothing. I think all the inspectors are safe now."

There was no doubt that they would all require memory modification. Substantial memory modification. "We're going to have to... adjust their memories," he said delicately.

"Well, obviously," Minerva spat back, once again showing off her slightly terrifying side. "We just need to get them all in the same place. Wasn't there a fourth one? I haven't seen her."

He gave her a look that was not difficult to interpret.

"Tom, where is she?"

"In... a closet."

"WHAT?"

"It made bloody sense at the time."

"Jesus Christ!" Minerva moaned.

"At least she's still human," he said defensively.

She glared at him.

"So, really," Tom said in conclusion, "it's all Beery's fault."

Dumbledore was silent for a while.

"You know," he said after staring at them for several uncomfortable minutes, "it's odd, if you think about it, that the inspectors did not appear to be at all worried about the events that occurred here this morning. Almost as if they'd completely forgotten about them."

Tom nodded. "Very odd."

"What's even stranger," he continued, "is that they have deemed Hogwarts passable for the first time in several years. They did not have a single complaint to make about us."

"Strange," Minerva muttered.

He looked at them both with that characteristically condescending Dumbledore Stare, then smiled a characteristically mocking Dumbledore Smile. Surprisingly, however, his words were neither condescending nor mocking. "I suppose we should not, as they say, look a gift horse in the mouth. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an exceptionally angry Chief Centaur to apologize to."