"Good morning, class," said Marius, as he closed the dungeon door. A few moments passed, where he tried to sum up the third-year Gryffindor and Ravenclaws, while they, for their part, tried to analyse him, "I'm Professor Shill- head of Slytherin House, and the potions master – obviously, since we're in potions class. I understand that you've been instructed by Horace Slughorn before now. I've never met the man myself, but have heard he was a master of his art, so I expect you'll all be aware of the basics. This year, we're going to be looking at several recipes, including the draught of living death, and we start, in the third year, to do a general study of how such potions work, magically. Any questions so far? No? Good. Right. As I have no idea as to your general aptitude, please turn to page seven of Magical Draughts and Potions. The recipe for 'Pepperup Potion' is right there; you know where the potions cupboard is, and remember the golden rules; ask me if you're not sure, wear goggles unless you want scalding liquid in your eyes, and don't put anything in your mouth unless it's tastes good."

There was a smattering of nervous chuckles. Evidently, the class wasn't one hundred per cent sure he was joking. Amused, Marius didn't bother enlightening them. As they collected their ingredients, measuring the pinejuice to within a hair's breadth, the students' avid attention to the recipe dismayed him, slightly. He did not doubt that, given their inexperience, obeying the instructions to the letter would invariably produce better results than guessing, and sneakily throwing in extra ingredients (as he had at their age), but he did not feel much excitement, or any mischief. Not creative mischief, anyway. Typically, one bright spark found it hilarious to turn off his classmate's fires magically, which Marius ignored for a few minutes, before sighing and creeping up behind him; he whispered in his ear, "If their potions are spoilt, I shall make you drink them. Either that, or ten points from Gryffindor. Your choice."

This was typical. All day, Marius had set each class, except for first years, a different potion, according to their level. Truth be told, the most professional reason for this was the one he gave – to get to grips with the general skill-level of his students – but on a personal level, he'd been looking for that inventive, imaginative spark and, simply put, hadn't found it. He had known at the start of the day how optimistic he was being, but that did nothing cushion his disappointment, as he sank into a seat at the teacher's table in The Great Hall, whose enchanted ceiling poured greying light in from the artificial sky. An irish accent snapped him from his musings.

"Evenin'," Professor McQuinn sat next to him, and awkwardly reached a hand across his body to shake. Marius shook it.

"Good evening. I'm Mariu-"

"Marius Shill, yeah. David McQuinn. Nice to meet you," McQuinn had a breathlessness about him; a cheery impatience that spoke of a mature sort of excitement. Without looking at him (instead busying himself with the food as it appeared on the table), he continued, "How was your first day?"

"Ah, not too bad," he said, objectively, "Nobody died. What more can one wish for? And you? Today was your first day, too, wasn't it?"

"Well, technically, yes," as McQuinn turned to look at him, Marius noticed that his eyes were blank-looking, watery-brown and staring blandly. They didn't quite suit his demeanour, and gave him the impression McQuinn was only giving him half his attention, "But tonight's my first night."

Marius paused for a moment, confused, before, "Ah, of course. You teach Astronomy. I forgot."

"No worries, my man, no worries," he took a sip of pumpkin juice, before simply saying, "I'm not even going to pretend I remember what you're teaching."

"Potions."

"Ahhh, course. I forgot about potions. Never quite got the hang of 'em. All very hands-on and practical. Not my thing at all. By the way, I hope you don't mind me asking – that's not a native accent, surely?"

"Well, it should be," admitted Marius, "We moved to Germany, my parents and I, before it all kicked off over here, when I was done with my OWLs. I've been there since my NEWTs, well, their equivalent, the Magitur qualification. I must have picked up the accent there."

"Ah, so you're a Sternschwarz man? Good school, I heard."

"An excellent school. Much more practical than here, though, I think."

"You seem to miss it."

"Yes, I do, a little. But I've missed being here, as well. It's strange to be back."

"You're telling me."

"So?" Lenora jumped on him as soon as Richard got back to the common room that evening.

"So what?" he shot back, manoeuvring his way past her to his chair.

"The new potions master. What's he like?" she said, sitting opposite him.

"Oh, Shill, you mean? A bit brash, but he seems alright. I dunno," he admitted, "It's hard to say. All he did was get us to make Amorentia, to see where the class was at."

"Fat lot of good you are," just then, she spotted somebody on the other side of the common room, and waved to get their attention; Richard twisted in his seat to see Professor Lye, head of Hufflepuff, walking over. He was just within a greying hair's breadth of middle-age, but there was something about his spirit that was so incurably lively and youthful, the lines beginning to carve themselves into his forehead were practically invisible.

"Good evening, Terror," he said to Lenora, his eyes twinkling, "And you, Dick. Congratulations on Head Boy, by the way."

"Cheers Professor."

"Anyway," he said, "What do you want?"

"The new potions master."

"... what do you want to know?"

"Everything you can tell us, 'cause this lazy lump of a Head Boy," she jerked her head in Richard's direction in mock accusation, "wasted his time doing what he was supposed to, instead of finding out all the juicy stuff."

"Well, I don't know that much," Lye chuckled, "He used to come here, but left for Germany with his parents just before Voldemort's rise to power. I think he's been there since, basically, but felt like a change so came over here to teach for a bit."

"Did McGonagle say at the feast he's the new head of Slytherin?"

"Professor McGonagle did say that, I think," he said, a little bit sternly.

"But he's only just come?" she protested, "How can he be the head of a house already?"

"Well, think about it, Len. You're a clever girl," he said, "Slytherins have gotten themselves something of a reputation in the past few years. Some of it's deserved, some of it's not. Professor McGonagle wanted to avoid, naturally, any new staff with any histories they're not necessarily proud of, and you can imagine how hard that is to find with a Slytherin of my generation. Anyway, that's enough speculation. You're going to get me in trouble, one day," he turned back to Richard, "Dick, did Marco talk to you about Quidditch trials?"

"No?"

"Well, he wants to start them as soon as possible. He's still gutted about last year,"

"And don't we know it," butt in Lenora.

"So he really badly wants to put together the team ASAP. Well, obviously, you'll be playing beater again, but he's gone to book the pitch for Thursday already, but he wants you to give the message."

"Oh, does he now?" said Richard, with good humour, getting to his feet, and pointing his wand at his throat, "Sonorous. Good evening Hufflepuffs!" the charm magically enchanted his voice, so that it amplified, echoed, and reverberated around the room – the people closest to him covered their ears, "Just a quick message to all of you Quidditch fans out there on behalf of the Hufflepuff Team Captain, Marco Deltrus– try-outs are this Thursday, six o' clock after class. The spots available are seeker, two chasers, a beater and a keeper. Six o' clock at the pitch on Thursday. Thanks all. Enjoy your evening. Quietus."

He prepared to sit down again, before looking at the big grandfather clock in the corner of the room and jumping to his feet with a start, "Sugar! I've got to go – Astronomy calls."

"Get me some information this time!"

"Sorry I'm late", he panted, slamming the door shut behind him. He had forgotten the horrendous trip from the Hufflepuff basement to the Astronomy Tower, and with the stairs changing their minds halfway up, it practically doubled his journey. There were only four in the NEWT-level Astronomy class, himself included. Richard had always loved Astronomy. At OWL-level, it hadn't been that great – it was just learning things by heart, patterns, names of stars and shapes of constellations. At NEWT, though, things were different. It wasn't about just learning facts any more: it was about taking the patterns, taking what you expected, and applying the theories to hypothetical galaxies they couldn't even be sure existed. Lenora told him he was bonkers on more than one occasion.

"Good evening," said McQuinn, ignoring his lateness, "You must be Richard. Welcome, welcome. Now that we're all here, let me introduce myself properly. I'm David McQuinn; I was born in Dublin, studied at Hogwarts under Professor Sinistra, like you guys, and I've been studying Astronomy ever since," McQuinn's voice was gorgeous: soft and silky, but it bounced over the consonants with a certain glee. His telescope was a curious affair; it was a little bronze tripod with an extremely thick and quite a long scope, but with no eyepiece. Instead, a little silver antenna poked out of the centre, "Now, don't get me wrong; Aurora Sinistra was an amazing woman, but, well, she lacked imagination. Fortunately, last year, she worked you hard, or so I understand, which means this year, we can do something more enlightening."

Without a further word, he flicked his wand at his telescope. It made an impressive whirring noise for a few seconds, before an invisible little bell somewhere on its structure chimed. McQuinn then pointed his wand at the areal pointing out of the side, and a stream of golden sparks rushed from the silver stem toward him, grouping around his open hand.

"Professor, what-"

"Hold on. All in good time. Everybody grab a broom," he gestured to a quintet of broomsticks sitting in the corner of the room, "and follow me."

He led them from the top room through a poky little door to the outer turret of the tower, surrounded by the night, clear and thick like a deep quilt. Despite the altitude, Hogwarts was protected from the wind by some sort of enchantment, and so, on McQuinn's request, they mounted their brooms without difficulty, and, lit by wandlight, swooped silently over the lake until their teacher had found the right spot. All the time, the little golden shimmers were still swirling around his hand.

"Are you ready?" he jerked his hand upward, and the golden sparks jumped off, and grew. It hurt their eyes at first, the explosion of light in the dead night, but when their eyes adjusted and they could see properly, they found something they weren't expecting. Spheres of light danced in midair, whirling around one another; reds and blues and silvers and earthly browns all twisting together and all glancing off the dead black surface of the lake. It took the students a moment to spot that the lights weren't moving randomly, but in fixed patterns. It was hard to gage how large the illusion was, but from what seemed like the centre of it, Richard could make out spinning lights over one hundred metres away.

"Is this what I think it is?"

"And what, Richard Caswell, do you think it is?"

"It's... a galaxy."

"Which?"

"Circulasia, isn't it?"

"Ten points to Hufflepuff. Well, I don't know what you're waiting for. Explore!"

Richard had never seen anything more beautiful. Picked out against the lucid sky and the matte forest somewhere at the back of it all, the planets and suns were just gorgeous, and in incredible detail; Circe's Whorl ravaged the surface of Lominia just as they had learned last year, and the whole conceit revolved mightily around his head. His hands were sweating slightly against the wooden handle of the old broom as he explored the system. Every time he climbed just a little higher, the whole thing morphed before his eyes into something else completely, each planet swinging round its sun in an entirely new way. His mouth hung open in wonder, and he lost all track of time as Circulasia's glory swallowed him in every direction. It could've been minutes, hours, or days, and he wouldn't have known, but at some point, it vanished suddenly, leaving black, empty sky behind.

"Lesson over."

"How did you do that?" said Richard, back at the Astronomy classroom, putting away the brooms.

"The telescope. I built it when I was at the Ministry," McQuinn said, factually, "I hope you liked it. Now, theoretically, I shouldn't have this bit of kit, and I certainly shouldn't have shown this to you, so don't tell anybody what you've seen. Our secret?"

They swore their silence, before departing. Richard, Circulasia still turning in his head, practically swam down to the Basement again, his dress shoe's slapping hollowly against the wooden stairs. A few of the portraits gave him a glare, but he was completely oblivious. Time passed in fluid, like sugar through a sieve, and he was in total ignorance of the time when he got back to his dorm. Without bothering to so much as take off his shoes, he half-slumped, half-threw himself onto his bed, and his eyes drooped closed before he landed.