a/n: a HUGE thank you to AFamiliarWitch for helping to bring this chapter into existence!

There was a forest in the castle.

No one knew where it came from. It was not there in the evening, but by the morning it had removed a significant portion of the fourth and fifth floors, putting in their place a large collection of tall, unearthly trees and shrubs.

Luckily, term would not begin for another few days, and there were no classes to cancel or relocate. But that also meant that they only had a few days to get rid of the thing.

It had been kind enough, in its suddenly coming into existence, to wedge itself perfectly into the confines of the two floors without breaking through to the outside. It made it easy to cordon off the area. All they had to worry about was repairing the catastrophic damage to the walls and classrooms it had caused once it was gone.

The staff was able to spend an appropriate amount of time examining the new small-scale ecosystem in detail, though they did not manage to solve the mystery. At first it was assumed that one of the students had executed an elaborate and impressive prank. But the way that the castle's ancient stone walls morphed so seamlessly into earth and roots was beyond anything any of them were familiar with, so a student managing it was unlikely. And Beery confirmed that he could not identify a single plant before insisting that, frankly, the whole thing was too unsettling, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

He had a point. When Tom had inspected the anomaly himself, the very air around it was heavy and humid and buzzed with unfamiliar magic. These things disappeared the moment he left the soft forest floor and stepped back onto the hard stone of the castle corridor. And the trees themselves looked… off. They had a bluish tinge to them, and the leaves were almost gray in color.

It was quite impressive in an infuriating sort of way.

There was really nothing to be done. Tyre had tried his best to dispel it with every enchantment known to wizardkind, but nothing could penetrate that odd, sparkling, vibrating fog that seemed to permeate the area.

"Know what this reminds me of?" Tyre had said to Grayson as they tried one last time to pry forest from stone with separation charms.

"Eh?"

"Reminds me of that thing in '07. What was it?"

"Ah. The Ooze."

"The what now?" asked Tom, who had been assisting them while also determining whether there was any chance the forest might be useful to him in some way (it wasn't).

"The Ooze," Grayson repeated. "Started as this stain - a water leak, like - on the ceiling of one of the seventh-floor classrooms. But there was nothing on the floor above. It was just… there. On the ceiling."

"Aye, and it spread. And spread. And everything it touched just melted into more Ooze. Three students we lost, I think, that year."

"Four," Grayson corrected. "And they had to completely reconstruct the seventh and eighth floors."

Tyre shook his head. "There was just so much of it."

Tom sighed. Killer ooze. Why not? The laws of magic obviously did not mean anything at Hogwarts. "Did you ever figure out what it was?" he asked, analyzing a leaf that had no right to exist.

The men looked at each other. "You know," said Tyre, scratching a horn, "I don't think we ever did. I just assumed it was a potion gone wrong."

"'Potion gone wrong,'" Tom repeated flatly. "And then what? Thrown up onto the ceiling for some reason?"

Both of them shrugged.

"Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen here," he said, thinking that it probably would.

"Oh, we'll have trouble regardless," Tyre assured him. "Any time you block something off, students will try their hardest to get into it. I predict we'll have a small colony of underage tree-dwellers hiding out here by the end of the year."

"Either that, or it kills them," Grayson said with complete indifference.

A new term started with (as everything did) a staff meeting. Hogwarts staff meetings normally lasted multiple hours, and actual information was provided only when Dippet had remembered to bring his notes, if he had made any. And they always ended in either angry shouting or a strained, depressing silence. They were becoming almost as insufferable as sitting through a Quidditch match.

Tom decided that if he ever managed to build a substantial cadre of followers, he would punish them with staff meetings.

This particular one became a nuisance before it had even started.

Early in the morning, he had opened his door to go down to breakfast and found the caretaker standing there, inches away from his face.

"'Bout time," the man said in a rough voice - the first words Tom had ever heard him speak.

"Have you been standing here this whole time, waiting for me to open the door?"

"Aye."

"Why didn't you just knock?"

"Aye."

He handed Tom a crumpled piece of parchment and then walked away.

The note was written in Dippet's shaky hand:

Pre-term meeting changed to 7:00

A nine o'clock meeting changed to seven, and it was currently half-past seven. Wonderful.

He needn't have worried about being late, however. Everyone was still waiting for Dippet to arrive when he got there, and Peggy was handing out muffins.

"I was woken up at seven for this?" Slughorn mumbled, looking even worse than he had at Christmas dinner. "Where's Dippet?"

"Asleep, most likely," Dee offered. "Writing all those notes probably took a lot out of him."

Ilania came through the door looking frantic, scanned the room, then hurried across to the opposite end where Tom was standing near the counter.

"Hide me," she said, ducking behind him.

"What? Why?"

"Kettleburn."

Kettleburn walked in a moment later – strutted in, to be more accurate – and greeted the entire room in a booming voice. "Good morning, fellow professors!"

No one responded.

"Miss Vance!" he called, pointing at Peggy dramatically. "What glorious, delicious, beautifully crafted delight have you brought us today?"

"Muffins," she said flatly.

"Excellent, excellent."

"May I ask why I am being used as a human shield?" Tom inquired as Ilania shifted him a bit to the right to avoid Kettleburn's gaze.

"Silvanus is… Well, he's nice and all, but..."

"But?"

She sighed. "He's been unusually obsessed with me recently, and it's just easier to avoid him. I have no desire at all to deal with his 'I've made love on seven continents; you won't find anyone better' speech today."

"You didn't seem too worried about talking to him at Christmas dinner."

"I had a giant table between us and a Minerva in case he needed to be incapacitated. I'm defenseless here."

He glanced in the direction of the fire, into which Minerva was currently staring. "I think Minerva would be a much better shield than me-"

"No," Ilania whispered, "she's got her own problems."

"What problems?"

She did not answer. She wouldn't let him move away, either.

"Don't you think this is a bit childish?" he muttered.

"No, Tom, it's strategy. But… now that I think about it, you may not be the best- Oh no, here he comes."

"Well, look at you two," Kettleburn said quietly. "I don't think I've ever seen anything so delicious this early in the morning. Except maybe these muffins. Ha!"

Dear lord.

Ilania came out from behind Tom and stood beside him. "Hello, Silvanus," she mumbled in a resigned voice.

Kettleburn's eyes darted between them quickly, like he was doing some sort of calculation in his head. "Oh," he said. "Are you two…? You're not…"

"What?" said Tom.

"Yes!" Ilania sang at the same time, looking like she'd been handed an unexpected gift. "Oh, yes. Sorry, Silvanus. I am taken." She grabbed onto Tom's arm tightly, either to sell her story or to warn him not to ruin it. Probably both.

He really needed to just stop coming into the staff room altogether.

Kettleburn looked genuinely surprised and disappointed, but it only lasted for a second. "Well!" he said, smiling brightly again. "My loss!" He wandered off to bother Grayson, who was fast asleep on the sofa, and Ilania finally released Tom from her painfully tight grip.

"Thanks," she said, sitting down at the table.

He glared at her.

"Oh, relax. I'm sure in a few days he'll forget about it. Either that or he'll try to proposition us both. He seems to have experience with that sort of… thing."

"He- both- what?"

She ignored his stuttering confusion. "I assumed he got the message after our date, but…"

"Sure."

"Now he seems convinced we're going to end up married for some absurd reason."

"Mm." He'd stopped paying attention. It was much less uncomfortable that way.

"…really quite persistent…"

He nodded absentmindedly as he watched Minerva on the other side of the room. She was looking particularly melancholy - upset, even - and he wondered if-

"Hang on," he said suddenly, "you went on a date with him?"

Ilania shrugged. "What? It's not like he's not attractive. And he'd had a horrible breakup with some Muggle researcher named Brian, so I felt a bit sorry for him. But then all I heard the entire length of dinner was how awful Brian was."

"Brian?"

She folded her arms and gave him a judgmental glare. "Yes, Tom, men date men. It happens."

"I am aware of that, thank you." He just didn't care to think about it. Or anyone or anything else that Kettleburn might have had relations with.

"Anyway, I said we were better as friends and he seemed fine with it. But now-"

"Have you considered talking to him?" Why was he still having this conversation?

"Yes, but I'm extremely busy and in no fit mental state to deal with… that. There's a lot going on right now, and I don't…" She looked at him suddenly - again, like she'd been handed a gift - and smiled. "Tom, you know Minerva?"

What a dumb question. "Yes, I am vaguely familiar with that person."

"Well, she's asked me to assist her with a sort of… project, but I really don't have the time."

"That's nice."

"No, listen. Can you help her instead? I would be eternally grateful."

He thought for a moment. He'd yet to find the impostor Dumbledore, and the real Dumbledore seemed to be missing as well, though no one seemed to notice or care. In the meantime, he had considered pursuing some sort of investigation into what had happened with Minerva the night he found her talking to herself (if he had interpreted what he had heard correctly, then she was a potential threat), but he wasn't sure of a way to go about it. Perhaps this was the answer.

He'd started out the school year with a reasonably short list of important, relevant goals. He wondered what ever happened to that.

"What is the project?"

Ilania's smile faltered, but she recovered quickly. "Just some research for a new topic in her curriculum. She's really passionate about it."

Transfiguration wasn't difficult. How burdensome could a small amount of research be? And if slow observation became tedious, all he had to do was get her alone and pull what he wanted out of her mind himself.

"Fine," he said.

"Really? You'll do it? Promise you won't back out of it."

"Alright."

"Excellent. I'll let her know."

Dippet arrived, finally, looking like he had just woken up. "Morning," he said. "Start of term notices. Please note that, in addition to students, teachers are also no longer allowed to approach the Forbidden Forest until we can negotiate a diplomatic agreement with the centaurs."

"It usually doesn't take this long for Dumbledore to shut the man horses up," said Grayson. "What's the delay?"

"No need to worry," interjected Kettleburn. "Bane and I have a wonderful rapport. I'll talk to him for us."

Dippet sighed, along with several others. "Right. I'm sure that will go well. Anyway, our temporary Potions Understudy will be absent for a month or so to do… well… What is she doing, Horace?"

Slughorn shrugged. "No idea. I stopped asking."

"Brilliant. Anyway-"

"Sir," Tom interrupted, "where is Deputy Headmaster Dumbledore?"

Dippet looked at him, then stared off to the side for a moment, as if he were deep in thought. Or deeply confused. It was… odd. "He had to go away," he said slowly, like he was trying to recall something from a long time ago. "For a while."

No one seemed particularly bothered by that. Why wasn't anyone bothered by that?

"Anyway," Dippet continued, all sense of confusion having disappeared, "that's all I've got. If there are any questions…"

Silence.

After a few minutes Ilania asked, "are we not going to talk about the forest? We should really talk about the forest."

More silence.

The amount of anxiety-inducing magical disasters they had experienced year after year had desensitized most of the staff, and a forest that should not have existed just was not worth getting upset over, apparently.

"It's really more of a grove than a forest, isn't it?" Tyre suggested.

Ilania rolled her eyes. "Does that really matter? We don't know where it came from and we still can't discern what properties it has. What if it spreads and-"

"I thought a grove was less than ten trees," Fogg cut in.

Tyre shrugged. "Did anyone count the trees?"

"I think there are more than ten," said Beery.

"I suppose 'forest' works, then," Tyre concluded.

Ilania sighed. "I hate you all."

"Right," said Dippet, "well, everyone have a wonderful term."

The room went quiet. Nobody moved. It was as if they were avoiding leaving because, once they walked out the door, they were going to have to start a new term, and no one wanted that. At all.

The Muggle Studies classroom was on the fifth floor. When the forest had shown up, Fogg was forced to relocate, and the place he chose to relocate to was the empty third-floor classroom right beside Tom's.

This would not have been a problem if it were any other class.

But Muggle Studies students spent a considerable amount of time playing records and riding bicycles and, for some ridiculous reason, running Hoovers over bits of carpet.

So for Tom, the first day of classes was filled with gruesome, detailed explanations of various elements of the Dark Arts interspersed with upbeat music, loud humming, and laughter.

Almost everyone was distracted.

"Dammit, Smith. Did I not tell you to practice with non-physical hexes only? Now Balsley is missing a leg."

"Sorry, sir, I didn't hear…"

"It will grow back, sir, won't it?" Balsley asked, standing up and balancing on his remaining leg.

"Eh- sure," said Tom. "Possibly. Smith, take him to the Hospital Wing. Good lord."

This term was off to a wonderful start.

After three more equally chaotic lessons, he had finally reached his limit. He walked over to the other classroom and opened the door without bothering to knock.

"Professor Fogg-"

He stopped when he realized what he was seeing.

The children were huddled around Fogg and a boy who appeared to have his hand stuck inside the bottom of a Hoover. They were trying desperately to remove it but did not seem to be getting anywhere.

"Ah, Professor," Fogg breathed, "I'll be with you in one… minute…" The amount of pulling he was doing on the child's arm looked painful.

Tom cast a spell that broke the device into pieces and the arm was free.

"So, you see," Fogg said to the rest of the class, "that is why the bottom stays on the floor. Thank you, Professor." He nodded at Tom.

The children left and Fogg stared down at the sad remains of his Hoover. "That was my only one," he lamented.

"How unfortunate. Anyway, I really must insist that you control the noise that-"

"Oh, sorry about that. My old classroom had silencing charms around it. I forgot to put them up here."

Well, that was an unexpectedly easy conversation. "Brilliant," he said, and turned to leave.

"Before you go, is there any chance you can fix this wireless for me? I've been trying to remove the back, but-"

"Shouldn't you know how to fix all of these… objects? How do they even work inside the castle, anyway?"

Fogg shrugged. "Simple field neutralization charms. And I've never been very adept at the mechanical side of things. But ask me about the history of anything here, and I can tell you."

"How pertinent." He examined the back of the wireless and removed the screws. The panel popped off effortlessly and he handed it to Fogg. He had all the wires reattached before he realized what the hell he was doing and backed away from the thing.

"Do not ask me to do this again," he said quietly.

"But you fixed it! I don't even know how to-"

"Do not ask me to do this again," he repeated, the threat in his voice unmistakable.

Fogg recoiled slightly. "Alright…" he said quietly, looking concerned.

Tom made to leave but turned around just as he reached the door. "Why do you even bother with these things?" he demanded. "Are there not more important topics to discuss? Like how dangerous and destructive Muggles can be? Or how their primitive politics affect us? You know, things that students might actually need to be aware of?"

Fogg made a "tch" sound. "I know what you're getting at. And I find it hard to believe that you would subscribe to Muggle-hating pureblood ideology when you are clearly Muggle-born."

He had to stop and review the words in his head before he fully comprehended them and the man's audacity to say them.

"You do not know anything about me," he spat, a familiar sense of rage and disgust taking him over. "Why would you assume-"

"Because you knew what a wireless was without me having to tell you, and you can fix them better than my father, who used to sell the things."

It was like being slapped in the face. "I am not Muggle-born," he stated, his voice growing louder.

"'Muggle-born' doesn't just refer to blood. It's to do with the environment in which you are raised, too. Even purebloods, if ever born and raised in a Muggle environment, would have the same knowledge as Muggle-borns."

Fogg was unexpectedly clever. Even so, he was completely wrong and had no idea what he was talking about. And furthermore…

The next Monday, Fogg reported to his classroom on the second floor which, as far as he remembered, was the only classroom he'd had so far this term.

All he had wanted to do was find the Room of Requirement.

Despite being busy with classes, he was determined to accomplish at least some of the goals he'd had at the beginning of the year. And now, unlike the last several months, he felt an odd sense of urgency about it.

One of those goals had been to find the Room of Requirement. The magically augmented space would serve as an incredibly useful asset, should he manage to locate it. So, he set out to do so late one Tuesday evening, after the castle was asleep.

He was certain the room had appeared on the sixth floor, and when he located the familiar spot, he paced back and forth, willing the door to show itself.

And it did. An arched doorway appeared, smaller than he remembered, with a heavy wooden door set inside it. On the knob was hung a small sign that said "occupied."

That was new.

He opened the door anyway. Should have known better.

Inside was a small, dark closet. Two older Ravenclaw students were only partially dressed and quite far along on their hormone-addled adventure.

"S- sorry, sir," the girl said, scrambling to stand while the boy looked for his shirt.

"Yeah, sorry, Professor. We were just-"

"I don't need to know what you were 'just' doing. Enjoy your detentions."

"But- but sir," the girl stuttered.

He went to shut the door but stopped himself. He was curious about something. "Hang on," he said. "I don't want to give you detention."

"Really?" The boy looked relieved, almost hopeful.

"Yes. Instead, I'm taking a hundred points from Ravenclaw."

And, sure enough, this prospect seemed to horrify them far more than detention. How about that.

"Sir," said the girl, "we'll take the detentions. Please, can we just take the detentions?"

The boy tried to reason with him. "Come on, Professor." He smiled. "You were young once too, weren't you?"

Tom slammed the door shut and locked it. He walked away to the sound of them banging on it from the inside. Suddenly, he remembered: seventh floor. The Room of Requirement was on the seventh floor.

He wondered what the highest acceptable number of lost points was for shagging in a magical closet. He probably could have gone higher.

He arrived at Minerva's office that Friday night, after she had sent him a cryptic note via owl that simply said:

My office. 8. Come alone.
-MM

It had the ominous vagueness of a Killbliviator message.

"Ilania says you offered to take her place in our little project," she stated the second he closed the door.

"I did."

"Brilliant." She pulled a stack of books out of seemingly nowhere and dropped them on the desk between them. The book on top had two very naked people on the cover and the title read: Reproductive Health Education: A Guide for Teachers.

Well, that was not transfiguration.

"What is this?"

She sat down and sighed. "I recently found out that one of the seventh years is pregnant."

"And that is relevant to us how?"

She glared at him. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

"But I really don't see-"

"I'm-going-to-pretend-you-didn't-say-that," she repeated through gritted teeth. "Anyway, this is the third time in two years, and it has become clear that we need to do something about it."

"Do what?"

She ignored him. "Now, strictly speaking, what we're doing isn't exactly, well, legal. But I have it all worked out."

"Have all what worked out?" Where the hell was this going?

"And actually, I'm glad you're here because I really needed a male teacher to cover the other side."

"Other side?"

He looked at the pile of books in front of him, then glanced at Minerva, then looked at the books again.

"No."

"Tom-"

"Absolutely not."

"Look, I don't like it either, but it has to be done."

"Why? What business is it of ours whether students are... liaising?"

Minerva sighed. "Because school is about more than just classes. Students need help with all sorts of things. Would you not have benefited from sex education when you were a student?"

He did not know how to answer that. "I don't think- doesn't really- hardly relevant-"

"Oh boy," she muttered, shaking her head. "I can tell you won't be the one leading the discussions."

"Brilliant. Let me know when it's over."

He got up to leave but she raised her wand and the door sealed itself. "We shall suffer together," she commanded.

"Minerva, I will curse my way out of this room if I have to," he said, a bit more forcefully than he had intended.

"You promised," she sighed with an expertly executed look of disappointment.

He had promised. Like an utterly foolish and naïve idiot, he had promised. But there were favors and then there were favors.

The situation needed to be rectified, desperately. They were already alone, but he couldn't… possibly… It would be incredibly risky to...

The Curse was cast before he even realized what he was doing. She stood there, completely still, eyes unfocused, her mind waiting for him to tell it what to do.

"Shit."

It was a bit like one of those moments when you accidentally stun a Ministry employee and shove her into a closet for safe keeping, as people often did. Only this time, there was no closet, and Minerva wasn't going to be disappearing back to London after the fact, never to be seen again. He would have to deal with the aftermath of whatever he did next, so he proceeded with extreme caution.

More or less.

Legilimency was a delicate, finicky process. It had its requirements, and it had its limits. There was a reason why so few wizards were able to master it properly.

Despite what Muggles and most ignorant wizards assumed, the mind did not lay all its contents out flat for easy reading. True, a brief and superficial glimpse into a victim's current stream of consciousness was possible, if one knew how to do it. But regardless, the mind was a dense, complex network of ideas, impulses, memories, desires, and many other things that worked in concert with one another to create a functioning human psyche. This made interpreting it immensely difficult.

The key was knowing how to allow the various parts to guide you through the network. A desire might lead to an idea, which in turn could lead to a memory. You simply needed a starting point.

That was where the Imperius Curse came in.

"Minerva," he said gently, "tell me who you were talking to in the staff room a few weeks ago, in the middle of the night."

He did not expect a direct answer. The Imperius Curse was not Veritaserum. If she was afraid, or if something was subconsciously keeping her from answering, she would not answer. But she might, instead, give a hint.

"I can't," she mumbled, struggling to get words out. "She'll... she'll make me..."

So it was fear, then. Fear, a woman that sounded like her, and all the odd, nonsensical things he'd heard during that conversation. There was plenty to use.

Carefully, and with expert precision, he prodded the depths of her strangely well-organized psyche. It did not take long to find the fear. Now he just needed to figure out where it came from. He had not performed Legilimency this complex in a long time, and it was nice to be reminded of how effortlessly he was able to-

"Why are you on the floor?"

He was lying on his back and Minerva was standing over him, looking somewhat concerned.

"I don't- what?"

He had no idea what had happened. One moment he was seeing an image of a face, and the next, he was hit with a stabbing pain and everything went black.

"Should I get Madam Sable?" she asked.

Well, this was moderately embarrassing. "No. I'm fine." He stood up quickly and immediately regretted it. The pain in his head was still there.

"Don't think you can get out of this by having a psychotic episode, Tom."

Like Dumbledore, there was something very wrong with Minerva. Had he not been in immense pain, he would have attempted the search again immediately. But he could barely focus. And repeated invasion carried the risk of permanent damage. But mostly, he could barely focus.

The long game, then.

It was fine. He could handle it. All he had to do was teach children about sex.

How difficult could that be?

Yes, this was a reasonable strategy.

It wasn't like he sought petty symbolic revenge on a colleague's subconscious for embarrassing him and was willing to endure the painful prospect of sex education in order to get it, or anything. He was above such childish retaliation. He needed information, and this was currently the best way to go about getting it.

More or less.

He could not think of a worse way to end his night.

So the universe came up with one for him.

On his way to the stairs he passed the blocked-off entrance to the mystery forest, which was emitting an unusually sensual series of low moans. He was relatively certain forests did not... do that. Though he wouldn't have put it past this one.

It did not take him long to find them.

"Why is it," he asked the familiar Slytherin and Hufflepuff Slug Club members, whose names he should probably have learned by now, "that when some terrifying and possibly dangerous new object shows up, the first thing students think to do is find a way to fornicate in it? Or on it? Or with it?"

"Sorry, sir," one of them mumbled as they attempted to clothe themselves.

"I would say, for this, a month of det- No. Two hundred points will be taken from each of your Houses."

"Points, sir?"

"YES, POINTS!" he shouted. "I take away points now. Leave, and do not annoy me again."

As they ran off, he realized that it was possible the student body did need something to curb their rampant hormone-fueled idiocy.

And he was going to have to figure out what that something was and teach it to them.

He felt nauseous.

No, he could do it. He was more than capable.

It will be fine, he reminded himself for the second time in ten minutes. Perfectly fine.