How could nobody point out that Gryffindors had Astronomy on Wednesdays (not Fridays) in Philosopher's Stone?! Oh god I feel like such an idiot. It's fixed now. Please feel free to let me know what you think — the better-liked I think a work is, the more I'm motivated to keep writing!


Sarah swept into her Muggle Studies classroom just a few seconds after the students had gathered. The door closed after her, causing a pair of Ravenclaws to jump. The class's lone Slytherin looked at her with wary interest.

"Good morning," Sarah said, on her way to the board. "Welcome to your first term of Muggle Studies. In case any of you have forgotten me, I'm Lecturer Williams."

They all looked patiently at her. The Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and Slytherin all took out rolls of parchment and their quills. The Gryffindors watched her with unabashed curiosity.

"Right. Put that parchment up. Quills, too. We've got way too much to cover for you to be painstakingly scratching on paper. Everybody gets two spiral notebooks and some ballpoint pens."

Sarah reached under her desk and pulled out two cardboard boxes.

Nobody moved.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "What, do you want me to levitate it to you? Come on up and get your supplies. Two spiral notebooks and a pack of pens."

The Gryffindors came up first, followed by a couple of Ravenclaws. When they'd reached inside the boxes without anybody getting their arms bitten off and withdrawn the notebooks and pens, more students moved up quickly.

"Please keep in mind that I won't accept any assignments on parchment. Use your notebook paper, okay?"

Nods all around.

"If you run out of paper, just let me know. I'll be happy to get you more."

More nods. Frankly, they were all looking at her like she was potentially dangerous and a little terrifying.

Sarah nodded. "Alright. Are we all ready to dive in?"

More nods. Students opened the notebooks, uncapped their pens — two or three managed this faster than some of the others — and looked up at her.

"Then the first thing I'm going to tell you is that we will not be using the word 'Muggle' ever again inside this classroom. This is important; write it down." Sarah turned to the board, tapping it once with her wand. As she spoke, words appeared on the board.

"The word 'Muggle' is a jargon term that creates an exaggerated sense of division between magical and non-magical people, leading to a false dichotomy and sense of distance. We'll call non-magical folk what they are: non-magical people."

Silence as the students scribbled down her words.

"Now, let's start with the key differences between non-magical and magical people, and why they don't matter..."


"Alright," Sarah said. "That's all for today. Go on, get out of here. I'll need those essays by Friday. Slip them under the door if I'm not in."

The bell rang. The students put away their new notebooks and pens. She saw several of them tuck the pens behind their ears, grinning. A few others joined into groups, talking in hushed tones.

Realizing that they were talking about what she'd said, about her methods, was a truly bizarre feeling. She wanted to lift her chin to let her pride show — and hide the worry that they thought she was nuts. Or worse, boring.

Sarah checked her watch. She didn't have another class until late afternoon. What to do with her time?


Sarah was making notes for an idea when the next class shuffled in. She looked up brightly, then waved a hand. The doors closed. Nobody jumped. Good; a less skittish class.

"Alright, everybody. I'm Lecturer Williams, and this is Muggle Studies. Go ahead and put away your parchment and quills."

Somebody raised a hand. Sarah nodded, and they asked, "Wands, too?"

"Absolutely," she replied. "Now, up here I have boxes of spiral notebooks and pens. Everybody gets two notebooks and a pack of pens. Come on up and get your things. We've got a lot to cover."


They'd asked more questions, too. Which had been fine, right up until the end of class.

A pug-nosed Ravenclaw raised her hand. She had dark blonde hair, drawn into a short, messy braid.

"Fire away, Evans," Sarah said.

"Profess — I mean Lecturer Williams. Who was that man with you at the feast last night?"

She should have known this was coming. It had been a spectacle, and kids were always on the lookout for anything that made their teachers more interesting.

Her face felt hot. She was pretty sure she'd just gone bright red. She tried to figure out what exactly to call Jareth. 'The Goblin King' would be met with incredulity. Just saying 'a friend' would start the school rumor mill (and the way she'd just gone red-faced, no teenaged girl was about to believe that Jareth was just a friend).

"Someone I've known for a long time," she said at last. "His name is Jareth."

"Why did Professor Snape draw his wand on him?"

Sarah took a deep breath and raised an eyebrow. "What would you want your professors to do, if somebody just appeared out of nowhere?"

"How'd he do that, anyway? There's no Apparating on Hogwarts grounds." This came from another student. Ryan Carrick, according to her seating chart.

"You'd have to ask him." Sarah raised her hand, palm out, to forestall further questions, "And that's all I have to say about him. From now on, you keep your questions to class-related materials, okay?"

Dutiful nods, but there was no hiding the speculative looks on their faces.

Once they were gone, Sarah sat at her desk, waved her wand at the doors — shutting them once more — and buried her head in her hands. She had zero doubt that by the end of the day, the entire school would be convinced that Jareth was some kind of very powerful wizard who was completely in love with her. She didn't even care to think about what kind of fanciful explanation would be offered for Snape drawing his wand on a non-human stranger who'd apparently appeared out of nowhere.

Problem was, five years ago, at least one of those rumors would have been almost true.


There were only forty-five minutes to dinner and Sarah had retreated to her office and her bewitched boombox (and her David Bowie mix tape) when small hands knocked on the door.

"Come on in," Sarah called.

The door opened and the face of a girl with bushy brown hair poked in. "Lecturer Williams?"

"It's after hours, Hermione, and I'm not your teacher, anyway. Call me Sarah. What can I do for you?"

"Miss Sarah," Hermione said, as if testing the words. "I heard you have notebooks and pens?"

Sarah laughed. "Do you want some? I can always get more; it wouldn't be any trouble."

At Hermione's nod, Sarah hauled out the cardboard boxes. Flitwick had been only too happy to cast the Geminio Charm on a stack of notebooks. He'd looked at the spiral notebooks curiously, as if wondering what those clever Muggles would come up with next.

That kind of attitude made her grit her teeth, but she'd see about repairing it in the next generation. Flitwick meant well enough; it wouldn't do to go off on him.

It was the same attitude, she realized, that Cameron Rowe displayed. No wonder he'd unsettled her. And she wasn't nearly as sure that Rowe meant well as she was about Flitwick.

"Here. Oh, hey. I have some graph paper. You have astronomy one night a week, right?"

"Yes, on Wednesdays. Why?"

"You don't think graph paper could be helpful charting stars and planets and whatever?" Sarah raised an eyebrow.

Hermione's eyes lit up.


Rowe was waiting for her when she made her way to the staff table. He wore an expression that trod the very fine line between 'smug' and 'supercilious,' and mostly she just wanted to wipe it off his face. She clenched her fists for an instant, then smiled.

"Cam," she said. "How was your first day of teaching?"

He gave her a toothy grin. "Oh, it went quite well, I think. How was yours?"

"I think the kids and I had some fun, and I'm pretty sure we'll have more on Wednesday."

Snape coughed. Sarah ignored him; Snape had his own ideas about teaching. She'd leave him to it. After all, she didn't have to deal with twenty or thirty children in a dungeon full of cauldrons of things that could explode if they messed up.

Quirrell volunteered, "F-f-fun c-c-c-c-can be a g-great t-t-teaching tool."

The look Snape gave him could have melted the castle walls. Wisely, Quirrell stopped talking after that.

Sarah decided, for once, to keep her head down and focus on dinner. Socializing could wait until not everybody was riding the 'first day teaching' emotional roller coaster.

She wouldn't have admitted it even on pain of death, but she actually kind of wished Jareth had been at dinner tonight.


Sarah changed into a long-sleeved shirt and jeans and headed down to the dungeons after dinner. Snape was in a moderately better mood than he had been during the meal, though he glared at her for a moment when she knocked on his office door.

"You're ready to begin, I take it?"

"Ready when you are," she said. She tried to sound more confident than she felt.

Snape raised an eyebrow. But instead of simply tapping the board to convey instructions, or telling her to turn to a particular page in her text, he handed her a scrap of parchment.

So Sarah set up her cauldron and grabbed the ingredients listed. Then, painstakingly, she began to follow the instructions.

Softly, Snape asked, "Why do the instructions specify which direction the flobberworm larvae should face when you insert them?"

Sarah looked up. There was no helping the smile that curled across her mouth. "According to the text, it's to control the introduction of secretions into the solution."

He folded his arms over his chest.

"But Philosophy of Potions suggests that focus, intent, and ritual are as much a part of potion-making as simply following directions."

Snape nodded exactly once. She'd given satisfactory answer. Sarah almost wanted to throw a party at the fact that he hadn't nastily corrected her.

Once she'd brewed the potion, Snape bottled and labelled it. He nodded with satisfaction and set it in one of his store cupboards, then turned to her.

"Have you read Introduction to Occlumency?"

Sarah continued to clear up her potions supplies. When she no longer had 'cleaning' as an excuse not to answer, she admitted, "Only the first two chapters. I've been focusing solely on potions and transfiguration."

To her surprise, Snape simply nodded and said, "Occlumency may be taught without the use of a text, but I suggest, Williams, that you read it soon. It will greatly enhance your understanding of what I wish to teach you."

"I thought you didn't trust me as a teaching assistant and didn't have time to instruct me in potions?"

Snape said nothing, only stared flatly at her.

Right. Time to stop arguing. And Occlumency did look interesting. So Sarah shrugged her shoulders and asked, "Alright. I'll read it during my first spare moment. Should I find a place to sit down?"

Snape merely indicated the door. They headed back to his office. Snape moved to his desk chair. Sarah took a seat across from him. The chair was surprisingly comfortable. She crossed her legs at the knee and looked around.

A fireplace in the far wall. Lots of rugs on the floor, lots of tapestries. She'd heard the dungeons went deep enough that they were under the lake, but there was no real sign of moisture. No sign that this was actually a dungeon, either; it looked more like a stone sub-basement.

"The key to basic Occlumency," Snape said, very softly, "is to clear the mind."

"You mean like meditation?"

He nodded. "A Leglimens will attempt to invade your thoughts. You must maintain a clear, empty mind throughout the process."

Sarah nodded back. Then she closed her eyes, trying to silence her thoughts.

She heard Snape's voice murmur, "Leglimens."

And then she wasn't alone in her head. It was a sense of pressure, like someone was squeezing down on her chest, leaving her unable to breathe. It was a skull-splitting sensation.

Sarah fought not to think, to cast words aside. She tried to imagine a blank gray slate.

"That is not an empty mind," Snape said.

She didn't care. She'd use anything and everything she had to keep him the hell out of her thoughts and memories and —

It's further than you think, Jareth said and Time is short.

Gray slate. Wordless tranquility.

The Labyrinth sparkled under an eerily golden sun. She traced markings on cobblestones in red lipstick, a gift from Irene, and was hatefully glad to ruin it.

No. Deep breath in. Clear the mind. Be empty and still.

I ask for so little, Jareth said. Just fear me, love me, do as I say —

Sarah opened her eyes and pushed herself out of the chair. She staggered away, towards the door. It was difficult to move with Snape's weight in her brain, but she managed to cling to the doorway.

After a moment, the weight was gone. Snape looked at her from his chair, eyes glinting.

It felt like being ripped open and mocked. It felt like he'd dug his hands inside her ribcage and begun tugging at viscera, poking and prodding at her lungs.

That memory had been hers. Too private even to be used to guard her private rooms.

"I'm going to get some sleep," Sarah said. Her voice came out ragged. "I'll return the book in the morning."

"One failure, and you quit? And here I thought you were the type to thirst for knowledge."

"My thoughts and memories are mine. They're private," she said, aware that she was precious close to snarling. "And I don't want you digging around in them."

"You don't realize, then."

"Realize what?" She hoped Snape would come out with it quickly. She was hurting and on the distant, shredded edge of her patience. She wasn't sure what she would do if he tried to stall her, or, God forbid, tried that awful spell again.

"Your thoughts are near incomprehensible from the outside."

"What?"

"I was able to view fragments of memories, but they were hazy. Vague. Your thoughts were even more difficult to interpret." Snape paused. "Williams, I have only ever encountered one mind that operated in the same fashion as yours."

"And whose was that?"

"The Goblin King's."

That floored her. It almost distracted her from the feeling of invasion, was almost too much to process. He thought she thought like a fae? Like Jareth?

When had he even —

"You read Jareth's mind?"

"No," he said shortly. "Though I tried."

That was probably why Snape wasn't gibbering in a corner somewhere. She couldn't imagine Jareth taking kindly to someone trying to invade his privacy.

"Don't try again," Sarah warned. "With him or with me. I'll return the book in the morning."

WIth that, she turned on her heel and headed upstairs.


She made it to her chambers, shucking her shoes and socks, before the tears started to really build. She touched her hand to her mirror and said, voice thick, "Ludo, I need you."


She had a private transfiguration lesson the next day. It had come so easily over the summer that she had advanced a couple of years in her theoretical studies.

Strangely, the practice was easier than the theory.

Sarah shut the door before she turned to the Deputy Headmistress. "Good evening, Minerva."

Minerva looked up from a stack of summer essays. "Ah. Sarah. Good evening."

"How have classes been going?"

"Quite well. I think most of my new students will progress nicely." Minerva gave her a thin smile. "I saw you Conjure a chair at the Feast."

Sarah shrugged. "Well, I couldn't ask Jareth to give me my seat back. He'd decided it was his throne."

Minerva shook her head. "I see. You didn't know that Conjuration is a NEWT-level skill?"

"Really? It didn't seem that hard."

Minerva set down the essays. She laid her quill down, tip resting on a blotter, and looked long and hard at Sarah.

Sarah didn't say anything. It hadn't seemed difficult. Or at least no more difficult than any other transfiguration.

"I suggest," Minerva said at last, her tone just a touch strained, "that you study the theory before we advance any further with practical transfiguration. Go on ahead and read up until the fifth year textbooks."

Sarah nodded and went to gather spare fourth and fifth year texts from Minerva's bookshelf.

"Will that be all?" She asked, still reeling from the way Minerva had distanced herself.

"Severus has mentioned to Albus..." Minerva gave her a long look. "Severus mentioned to Albus that your mind seems to operate rather like the Goblin King's."

That was what was bothering her. Far more than Sarah's mixed-up skill at Transfiguration.

Sarah sat opposite Minerva, then leaned forward. Quietly, gently, she said, "We may think in the same language, but we don't think the same things. Any more than you think the same things as Sybill Trelawney."

That drew a faint smile from Minerva.

"Minerva, I... I probably think the way I do because I'm a Champion of the Labyrinth. I know I grew up while I ran it. It may have left its mark on me in other ways. But I swear, so far as I've ever been able to tell, I'm completely human." Sarah spread her hands. "I don't snatch children, I don't re-order time, I don't turn into an owl. I'm just me."

It made Minerva feel better. And Sarah felt better, knowing that Minerva wasn't wary or afraid of her.

So why did she resent having to swear that she wasn't fae?


The days passed in a blur. Sarah handed out some very basic non-magical textbooks and assigned the students to read them and journal. At night, she read her transfiguration texts.

September Sixth wound up engraving itself in Sarah's memory.

It started out fairly normally. Someone had left autumn flowers on her dresser, pushed halfway out of her mirror, which Sarah tucked into her braid on her way down to breakfast; the students in her morning class traded journals and books and had a very lively discussion about the merits of science versus magic — a discussion in which nobody took too patronizing a tone. The students in her afternoon class were even livelier.

After class, she took her transfigurations and potions texts down to the lake and read while sitting on the shore. She only went back in when she could no longer read without casting lumos.

Unfortunately, she'd read straight through dinner and had no chance to change into something with sleeves that didn't hang low. Not if she didn't want to be late to the private lesson with Snape.

it would be their first since she'd walked out on the Occlumency lesson. Her heart rate sped up as she descended the stairs. She trailed her hands on the stone wall, trying to make very sure she kept her balance as she went down.

The stone was cool and faintly damp against the pads of her fingers.

Snape was waiting for her when she entered his office.

He didn't look happy to see her. In fact, he rose sharply from his desk and swept away toward the potions classroom. He didn't say a word.

She followed.

Snape rapped his wand against the blackboard. Instructions appeared on the board, white marks stark against black in his cramped handwriting.

"You have two hours," he said. "Come find me when you're done."

"Professor —"

"Wear more practical sleeves next lesson," Snape added. "McGonagall would never forgive me if you set yourself on fire."


Two hours later, when Sarah handed in her completed potion, Snape nodded its acceptance. He didn't praise it — he never praised much of anything — but he did nod in satisfaction.

"I see you have failed to set yourself on fire. Congratulations, Williams; you may yet make a witch of yourself."

Sarah ground her teeth and said nothing.

He poured the potion into a few vials. As he did, he murmured, "You do at least have more skill with potions than cousin Linda ever did."


Sarah made her way back to her chambers in a daze.

Her mother hadn't always been Linda Williams. In fact, before she left Britain, she'd been, legally anyway, Eluned Carrow. Sarah had always known that; had always known that her mother had a love-hate relationship with her given name and had, in her early twenties, jumped at the chance to rename herself "Linda."

Just like she'd always known that her mother had hated the family she'd left behind. Linda had never talked about them except to say that she was glad they were in England and she was in America.

Sarah hadn't known that every pure- and half-blood wizard was somehow at least distantly related. Just as she hadn't known that Carrow was a well-known name in wizarding Britain.

She turned the final corner into what she liked to think of as her neighborhood. Jareth was leaning against the wall outside the door to her chambers.

"Valentine evenings," Sarah said, and watched Jareth's eyes widen when the door opened.

He seemed smug for a few moments after they had stepped into her rooms, but by the time the door swung shut, the smugness was gone.

"My mother is a witch," Sarah told him. Her voice sounded thin and bleak, even to her ears.

"She is." Jareth settled himself in one of her armchairs. He rested an elbow on the armrest, then rested his chin on his hand. He regarded her with an expression that could just as easily have been fascination as concern.

"She left with Jeremy Michaels two weeks after my eleventh birthday."

Jareth nodded.

"My mother thought I was a failure." Sarah crossed the room to sit at his feet. She landed heavily on the rug, jarring her tailbone, but the sting of it didn't seem to matter. Not in the wake of this revelation.

Jareth slid from the chair to sit beside her. He reached for her, his hand entangling with one of hers, one arm wrapping around her shoulders. He made vague shushing noises; some distant part of her wondered where he'd picked up that trick. Wondered why he was using it right now. He seemed more the type to try to distract.

The rest of her felt like she'd been dragged away by the undertow.

"I was always so sure," Sarah whispered, "that she left because of me. Because there was something wrong with me, because I wasn't good enough, wasn't enough like her."

"Sarah, don't —"

"And I was right. I was absolutely right."