Pip's existential crises were becoming more frequent these days.

The first one struck when she passed beneath Hogwarts' towering portcullis. In the distance, she saw the Whomping Willow whack an unsuspecting bird, the winged dot exploding into a puff of feathers with a thwack. Suddenly she was seventeen again, in Ravenclaw robes, probably late for class.

The second happened during her first staff meeting. Dumbledore had gone over the school's new security measures, while Snape had spent the entirety of the powpow dropping less than subtle insults about Pip's intelligence (or lack thereof). Addressing him and the rest of the teachers – her new colleagues – by their first names was unnatural to say the least.

The third was happening right now. Pip stood stock-still in her office, wondering how the fuck Dumbledore had talked her into this. Professor Bones. It had to be a bad joke. She was half waiting for the Headmaster to waltz in, announce he'd made a terrible mistake and send her on her merry way.

But it wasn't Dumbledore who popped into the square room. Filius Flitwick was wearing a spotted bow-tie for the Welcome Feast. Pip's former Head of House had adopted her as his protégé, though he was completely oblivious to his protégé's growing sense of panic.

His squeaky voice was actually quivering with excitement. 'Better head down, Pip! Or should I say, Professor. I'm off to help Argus at the gate but I trust you know your way to the Great Hall,' he chuckled.

Pip offered him a weak thumbs up. Not a minute later the unmistakable rumble of students pilling into the castle reached the office. The records stacked helter-skelter on Pip's new desk tumbled over. A glass of water trembled on the edge.

Was it too late to make a run for it?

Pip took a steadying breath, squared her shoulders and headed towards the stampede. What were a bunch of teenagers compared to Death Eaters? For some reason, she'd take another tumble with Bellatrix right about now.

On the journey down, Pip spotted the scarlet Hogwarts express docked at Hogsmeade station from an arched window on the second floor. She imagined she could make out Tonks down there too. She'd been stationed there for security, and Pip'd spent the last few nights confessing her apprehension to the depressed witch.

From what she gathered, Tonks had made a move on Lupin while Pip was touring the world. It hadn't gone as hoped. The two of them had miserable taste when it came to men...Pip shook the thought away. She didn't have time to mope over Sirius right now.

Hogwarts' Great Hall was as breathtaking as the first time she'd clapped eyes on it. Floating candles bobbed through the air, burning against the moon-beamed ceiling. The four house tables stretched the length of the chamber, dotted with golden plates and crystal goblets. Students were packed along them like Bertie Botts beans.

Pip automatically started towards the Ravenclaw table, only stopping when a bunch of students set their curious stares on her. She chuckled nervously and redirected her course.

'Pip!'

Pip traced the call to Susan Bones, who's hands were cupped around her mouth at the Hufflepuff table. Her cousin's auburn hair was plaited into braids, her smile toothy. Pip's stomach uncoiled at the familiar face. At least someone was happy to see her. She returned the smile and managed a wink as she claimed a spot between Professors Sprout and Slughorn.

She knew Sprout well enough but Slughorn was an enigma to Pip. A jovial Slytherin – it was unaccountable, unfathomable and overall unheard of. He shook Pip's hand, his bald head glistening in the candlelight. The buttons of his waistcoat threatened to pop open from the strain of his ginormous belly.

The head table gave a good vantage point for the rest of the hall. Pip scanned the student body, spying a familiar face here and there. Some, like Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom who she'd met in the Department of Mysteries, smiled in recognition. Others looked inquisitive, some outright disinterested.

Hogwarts had a reputation for burning through teachers. Pip wouldn't be surprised if there was a betting pool going about how long she would last. She'd partaken in a few of those as a student herself.

She finally spotted Ron and Hermione during the sorting. While the hat sang about unity and togetherness (Kumbaya and all) Pip worried where Harry had snuck off to. He shuffled into the Great Hall right after the hat's finale, caked in drying blood. The one braincell shared between himself, Ron and Hermione seemed to kick into gear as the lattermost leant over to clean him up but still, all eyes were on the chosen one; Harry was in for another rough year.

During the feast, Pip made small-talk with the rest of the teachers. She chewed on buttery potatoes and listened for the most of it. She was way out of her depth in discussions of pedagogical philosophy. She noticed with some amusement that any time someone brought up the war, Slughorn hurriedly changed the subject. He preferred, instead, to boast about his long list of impressive ex-pupils.

Dumbledore's speech was the life-preserver that dragged Pip from the conversation. 'The very best of evenings to you!' He smiled brightly, brushing off the sea of gasps that sounded at the sight of his cadaverous hand. 'Nothing to worry about! Now...to our new students, welcome! To our old students, welcome back! Another year of magical education awaits you!'

He churned through the quintessential spiel; there was a blanket ban from Filch on Weasleys Wizard Wheezers products, Quidditch sign ups were in the hands of house captains, the Forbidden Forest was off-limits to anyone who valued their limbs etc. etc. While Pip was pondering if anything had changed since her own school days, Dumbledore determined it was time for introductions.

'We are pleased to welcome new members of staff this year. Professor Slughorn is a former colleague of mine who has agreed to resume his old post of Potions master.' Slughorn stood up, ignorant to the murmurs. Heads were snapping between him and Snape while Dumbledore attempted to drown out the muttering. 'Professor Snape, meanwhile, will be taking over the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.'

Pip took a hasty sip of pumpkin juice to supress a snicker at Harry's brazenly loud outraged cry. He was so much like his godfather. Along the head table, Snape was smirking triumphantly to the Slytherin's applause. In the uproar, no one seemed particularly interested in Pip's introduction. She wouldn't have had it any other way.

'And finally,' Dumbledore pressed on, 'I would like to introduce Professor Bones, who will be taking on Professor Burbage's post as Muggle Studies teacher.' Here, Pip gave a half-salute. 'I trust you will all make our new teachers welcome!'

Silence was at last achieved as the Headmaster, with the weight of solemnity in his eyes, concluded his speech with a dark warning. The air thickened, the student's subdued into stillness by the mention of Voldemort. 'I cannot emphasise strongly enough how dangerous the present situation is, and how much care each of us at Hogwarts must take to ensure that we remain safe.'

Dumbledore proceeded to send them off to bed with a chipper pip-pip. The Great Hall was filled with the scrape of benches and a hundred whispered conversations. Pip couldn't remember any welcome speeches from her own Hogwarts days so fraught with strain.

Maybe things had changed since she was a student.

The following morning, the booming toll of the Hogwarts clock tower rang through Pip's head. She sheltered her ears with a downy pillow, snuggled into the soft cocoon of her bed sheets and dozed off again. Three seconds later she darted upright, heart skipping.

'I'm late for class!'

Remembering that she had, in fact, graduated seven years ago, Pip exhaled and sagged back into the mattress. Another second passed.

'I'm the teacher!'

Pip sprinted around her room with a foaming toothbrush wobbling between her teeth in search of clothes. She ripped out a knot in her hair and burst forth from the office half-dressed. On the third floor, she stopped to balance against a hump-backed witch statue and tie up her shoes, spitting out a mouthful of minty toothpaste as she did.

She was breathless by the time she reached the Muggle Studies classroom. Pip doubled over, clutching the brass doorknob and holding a stitch in her side. Hurtling through a couple dozen staircases had taken its toll.

Someone cleared their throat. Pip peeked up at her students, each one of them sizing her up. Bewilderment, consternation, amusement – a whole range of emotion was reflected back at her. With some relief, she spotted Susan smiling in the second row.

Okay, as first impressions go probably not the best...but sixth years...I can do this.

Pip straightened up and made towards a dusty green chalkboard. It shadowed the teacher's wooden desk, both of which looked out onto the students. The chalk screeched against the board as Pip, cringing, wrote her name.

There it was again, that Professor Bones rubbish. It looked as wacky in writing as it tasted on her tongue. With a flick of Pip's wand, the white chalk was erased and she perched on the edge of her desk, casting about for the right words. She felt like an insect pinned under the student's stares. 'So...Muggle Studies...is the study of muggles.'

Wow, Pip, groundbreaking. How profound.

The students exchanged bemused looks. 'You know what,' she said, sidestepping. 'How about you tell me your favourite facts about muggles. Something you've learned over the last couple years.'

Pip forcibly restrained herself from hugging Susan as she raised a hand. 'Muggles don't use owls,' Susan said matter-o-factly. 'They use emails and telephones to communicate.'

Pip hadn't a clue what email was but she beamed at her cousin. 'Brilliant, Susan. Five points to Hufflepuff.'

More hands went soaring into the air when the students realised house points were going free. Pip survived the hour in that fashion. She doled out house points, scribbled down student's names and made note of whatever the fuck it was they were on about with firemen, electricity and the internet.

A deep-dive into the school library was desperately needed here. Pip had some research to do. Maybe she should owl Arthur, he was mad for muggles.

'Professor?' Susan's deskmate, a squat boy in canary yellow Hufflepuff robes, gingerly raised a hand. Pip smiled at him to speak. 'Is it true you were at the Department of Mysteries battle last summer?'

Pip confirmed she was, slightly confused.

'Can you tell us about it?' He let out a puff as Susan elbowed him in the ribs, his hands raised in exaggerated innocence.

'Er...what was your name?' Pip asked, fighting back a grin. The class was watching her with newfound interest, no longer the blundering teacher but someone who'd fought Death Eaters. In all likelihood the bunch of them had wildly overestimated Pip's abilities here.

'Ernie,' the boy supplied. 'Ernie Macmillan.'

'Right. Well Ernie, I think the Headmaster would prefer it if I don't fill your head with bleak war stories for now.'

Ernie deflated in disappointment and the rest of the class copied. Pip did laugh at that. She chose to throw them a line. 'I will give you some advice, though. Don't forget to bring your wand to a duel. Take it from somebody who knows.'

Despite the little hiccup, Pip persevered through her first lesson relatively unscathed. The sixth years trudged out of the classroom, a couple glancing back at their odd new professor with comical expressions. Right as Pip was congratulating herself on a disaster averted, Susan edged towards her desk.

'How'd I do?' Pip asked uncertainly. The class probably thought she was mental.

'It was...interesting,' Susan proffered. She passed Pip a curling roll of parchment. 'I made a copy of my work from Professor Burbage's classes. Thought it might help.'

'I owe you my life,' Pip murmured as she scanned Susan's detailed notes. What the fuck was a walkie-talkie? With a sigh, she dropped the parchment on the wooden desk and rested a hand on Susan's shoulder. 'How are you? How's your mum?'

'I'm alright. But mum doesn't leave the house most days, not after Aunt Amelia...'

Pip squeezed her cousin's shoulder, mirroring the sad smile she wore. 'I know.'

The outburst in Paris had done Pip good; it had opened up the floodgates to all the taut emotions she'd bottled up. The mention of her aunt still constricted her chest and made Pip's throat scratchy with grief, but the anguish had transformed into a buried sort of anger she would stoke until she got a chance to unleash it on someone who deserved it.

Amelia Bones would be avenged with a well-aimed curse at a Death Eater. She would've wanted it that way, Pip thought.

Meanwhile, Susan had suddenly brightened. 'Sorry about Ernie,' she said. 'I told him not to ask. He drove Harry Potter nuts last year with questions.'

'Boys will be boys,' Pip remarked, reading the fond gleam in her cousin's eyes as she spoke of her friend...or perhaps more than friend? Pip would have to investigate - meddling would make an entertaining pastime. She only hoped Susan's love life was less complicated than her own.

After a few minutes, Pip turned to prepare for the coming class but caught Susan giggling halfway out of the class-room. She quirked a brow.

'By the way,' Susan said. 'Your shirt is inside out.'

Pip's teaching career was off to a rip-roaring start.

Pip's new lodgings were on the fourth floor.

The two rooms were attached by a concealed entrance built into a bookshelf, the office overlooking the sprawling castle grounds and the stone-walled bedroom with a view of the glistening black lake. Both smelt of the Honeydukes caramel candles Pip had stationed around the place, which made up most of the rooms' sparse decorations.

In a corner across from Pip's double bed sat the one thing she'd salvaged from Grimmauld Place. Sirius had said she could take whatever she wanted but Pip had only claimed the ill-tempered mirror. She'd grown strangely attached to it.

With a smile at its perpetually screaming mouth, Pip ducked through the bookshelf towards her desk. She was flipping through a stack of dusty books on muggles which she'd ransacked from the library. The vulture-like Madam Pince'd lurked through the shelves the whole time.

As a teenager, Pip had a habit of snacking in the library, which Pince (being Pince) considered a mortal sin. The spindly old librarian, it turned out, was not the type to forgive and forget.

As Pip brushed biscuit crumbs from an ancient tome, she ran a finger across another book's rough pages. She reached for some ink and scribbled down another new word: escalator. These muggles were a surprisingly inventive lot. The scratching of her quill intermingled with Leonard Cohen's poetic lyrics in the background.

Lesson planning was an interesting business. While Pip had survived her first week at Hogwarts on dumb luck, it was going to become harder to conceal her incompetence if she didn't pull it together. She didn't want to wind up in a competition between herself, Binns and Snape for Hogwarts' worst teacher.

Pip continued to scrawl, one hand blindly searching through her desk drawer for more parchment. The drawer rattled open to the sound of Pip's emergency supply of alcohol clinking together.

One of Dumbledore's rules was that she cut back on the drinking while surrounded by impressionable teenagers. While she'd already had a few surreptitious visits with her new drinking partner Hagrid, Pip had to admit she looked more herself again now she wasn't downing firewhiskey like it was water.

Pip half-shut the drawer but hesitated as she did. Booze wasn't the only thing hidden away in there.

Chewing her lip, Pip reached into it, her fingers sliding over glass bottles and closing around a thin, cool chain. She pulled Sirius's necklace free, considering it with longing.

She missed him. And at the same time, she couldn't bear to face him. Which was what she was supposed to be doing in about ten minutes at the first Order meeting since she'd returned.

Over the summer, while that Sirius-shaped hole in her heart mushroomed, Pip had imagined their reunion a thousand times. At first, these fantasies were of the muggle romance novel vein. The sun would be rising and Sirius would emerge from a romantic mist. Sometimes he would be riding a white horse. He was frequently shirtless. Once (and for inexplicable reasons) he was soaking wet. However, he would always swing her around with a melting smile, while Pip - in immaculate makeup with luscious, flowing hair - would bask in his in his adoration.

But as time stretched on, Pip's visions became less hopeful. Her current rendition went something like this: Sirius would be leaning against Grimmauld Place's kitchen table with his typical careless grace. He would glance up at Pip with indifference, examine a hangnail, and thank her for setting him free.

'You were right,' the dream-Sirius drawled. 'Were not right together, Pip. You're such a mess! And I'm so charming and handsome! Have you seen my abs! It's like they're chiselled by the gods! Remember touching them? That's not happening again. Please get out of my house.'

Okay, so maybe her imagination had run a little wild on that one...

But Pip simply couldn't figure how, now that he'd had a taste of the world, it could go any other way. At Grimmauld Place she was a side-show attraction, something to distract Sirius from the tedium of life. But now, Pip was no longer the shiny new toy that could keep him entertained.

He would let her down easy, she guessed.

And what if he didn't? What happened then? A relationship? Monogamy? Commitment? Did Pip have the maturity for such an undertaking? She was like a dog chasing a car. All about the chase, disappointed if it got away, and unsure what to do if she got it.

Pip's current technique of steering clear altogether was no longer feasible. Not with the harbinger of fate currently rapping against her office door. Pip slammed Sirius's necklace down, palm covering it like a shield, as McGonagall entered.

She regarded Pip's chaotic desk and a rare smile dawned upon her features. 'Dumbledore informed me you were hard at work.'

Pip let out low chuckle. Clearly Dumbledore had no idea about her propensity for daydreaming. 'Lesson planning, that's all.'

McGonagall's gaze shifted to Pip's messy writing, tartan hat dipping. 'If you are too busy, I can relay the Order's news later. I and the other teachers often do this when work becomes overwhelming. And the work is usually overwhelming for new teachers.'

Pip's words tumbled into an unintelligible series of noises with how vigorously she seized upon the suggestion. 'Really? That would be brilliant!' She cleared her throat and gestured at the mountains of parchment. 'You know, because I'm so busy. Would love to go but the students...

McGonagall studied Pip with shrewd eyes, the latter running her tongue across her teeth, trying to play it nonchalant. The senior professor finally resolved to drop by afterwards and Pip slackened as the door swung shut.

Maybe this teaching business wasn't so bad after all...

With a curious combination of relief and guilt, Pip detached her splayed fingers from Sirius's necklace. Her throat bobbed at the sight of it. She ran a fingertip along the star pendant and after a moment, replaced it back into the drawer.

Sooner or later, she and Sirius would have to have a thorny talk. But with her head as clouded as it was, Pip chose later. With later, there was time to think.

Poor, neurotic Pip. I promise that the reunion is incoming, no matter how much she wants to put it off. Also wanted to let you guys know I've made some minor edits to other chapters, nothing too major and nothing that changes the story (grammar, basically). Thanks again for all the likes, follows and reviews!