As always I do not own Harry Potter.

Also a huge thanks to Kitenpride for being the first to review. I tried to make this one a bit longer for you :)

Enjoy!

"Good morning fifth years, my name is Professor Cavannah. First I will ask each of you for your names, after that we will get into our lesson and talk about the O.W.L.s." Phoenix announced to her first class that Monday. As the children gave their names one by one she noticed two empty seats in the rear of the room on the Slytherin side.

When the students got around to that area she asked, "What are the names of the children that belong in those seats?"

A Gryffindor girl, who had identified herself as Rose Granger-Weasley, shot her hand into the air, "They are my cousin Albus Potter and his best friend Scorpius Malfoy."

"Thank you, Rose" she said, suddenly realizing she had already met her two missing students.

"Alright I will talk to them later. For now lets move on to the lesson"

The rest of the day continued with two more classes before it was finally over. After not seeing the boys all day Phoenix became concerned that she would have to write Harry about his son being missing.

Phoenix had planned a fun class for the following morning, each of the students would be brewing a potion of their choice. The rules were simple, brew the most difficult potion that you think you can successful pull off. She was fishing to see the average skill level of her students. Phoenix was pleased to see that Albus and Scorpius bothered to show up for class that day. Wondering if Harry's son would exceed his fathers minimal skill in the art, she gave the assignment and watched them work, assessing their technique.

When time was up she gave the homework assignment and dismissed the class. She collected the potions and was disappointed to see that Albus's was no more than a poorly made antidote to common poisons. There was no way he was that awful at potions she decided. Maybe he was having an off day and needed another chance. She was mildly surprised to find Scorpius had brewed a beautiful draught of living death, maybe he would become prince of potions like his father.

Over the next few weeks she planned, taught, graded and stressed more than a person should. Who knew teaching would be so hard? As she graded her fifth year classes homework she was taken by surprise at how well done Scorpius's work was. She had expected him to have the one good day then transform into an incredibly smart but also incredibly lazy sod like his father. The fact that he was not making others do his homework for him was a pleasant thought for her. His work actually showed slight boredom, as if what she was asking of him was below his skill level.

The next day she asked him to stay after class, wanting to find out if her assumptions where true.

Once the other kids were gone she turned to him, "Are you bored with my assignments Mr. Malfoy?"

The way he squirmed under her gaze was enough to make her give away an amused smile. Good thing he didn't see it.

"No…No Professor! Of course not" he protested.

"Relax and please don't lie. I can see it in your work; it's exceptional but reads bored."

"Am I in trouble?" He asked quietly.

"Dear Merlin no. If you'd like I can give you more challenging assignments. Rose is already receiving more complicated homework. It wouldn't be a problem to give it to you to."

"Really Professor? I'd love that!" he exclaimed.

"Forget the assignment from class and work on this. Same due date," She said giving him a piece of parchment with the instructions for the assignment.

"Thank you" He said hurrying out of the classroom.

With Halloween fast approaching and many papers to grade Phoenix was not impressed to receive a letter from McGonagall on October first. She was in the middle of a stack of poorly written essays from the first years when an owl swooped in and scared her half to death making her spill ink all over the paper she was grading. "Bullocks," she growled grabbing her wand and cleaning up the mess.

The letter read:

Dear miss Cavannah,

This letter has been sent to inform you of the Halloween Ball that will occur on the 31st of October. I ask you to please inform your house of this news. The parents of all students will be here to celebrate with us and I am hoping to forge deeper bonds between families. On the following page is a list of items the students will need to get for the ball. I have arranged a trip to Hogsmeade this weekend for the children to shop. Because the first and second years are not permitted to go to Hogsmeade on their own the teachers, staff and any prefect volunteers will escort them. Also one last thing, If you could assist me in teaching the students how to dance after classes on Thursday that would be most helpful.

Sincerely,

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall

She finished reading the letter and went to make copies of the second page for each student in her house when Carina stubbled through the door starling her for the second time that morning causing her to bump her head on the desk which she was kneeling under.

"I am zo zorry Nix, I did not mean to be late. Yesterday was zo exhausting and I overslept," She said in a bit of a frenzy and quite worried for her friend who looked a little nauseous.

"Don't worry Carina, it happens to the best of us," Phoenix sighed, rubbing the fast growing bump on her head.

"McGonagall owled us this; I need you to post an announcement on the bulletin board in the common room that there will be a meeting tomorrow morning. Also could you please take a stack of these essays? I feel like my head is going to require some ice and I could really use a shower," Phoenix said.

"Zure," Carina said gently. She couldn't believe how much stress her friend always put herself under.

After handing all the essays to Carina, Phoenix got dressed in a casual pair of jeans and an old Guns-n-Roses t-shirt, grabbed her beloved firebolt and ran down to the quidditch pitch. She was glad none of the teams were practicing this morning, she needed the peace and quiet. She mounted her broom and flew into the air, racing toward the the goal hoops she threw the quaffle she borrowed from the shed as hard as she could. It went through the middle hoop and she caught it on the other side. she repeated the process multiple times with the different hoops until she had scored at least three times in each.

She used to be the best chaser on Slytherin team when she was in school; she was also proud to say she was the first girl to be allowed in the team in a century. Sometimes she wondered why she chose to become an Auror instead of play for one of the national quidditch teams. She flew around the pitch, the wind whipping her hair behind her, thinking about events that led up to the career choice she made.

"Take this you bloody hag! Sectumsempra!" Phoenix screamed as she launched herself off the astronomy tower to avoid Alecto Carrows killing curse. They were in the heat of the battle of Hogwarts and Phoenix had defied McGonagall and her Uncles orders for any student under year six to leave. She'd been running as fast as her legs could carry her away from the Carrow siblings all the way up the spiral staircase and across the top of the tower. Her heart sunk as she realized there was no way she'd live through this. Deciding she was too stubborn to die at the hands of a death eater she turned, cast the worst spell she knew and pitched herself off the astronomy tower. Just as she thought she was going to hit the ground someone grabbed her out of the air and onto their broom. As it happened Ginny Weasley had seen it all happened and had rushed to save her. Phoenix would forever be in her debt for that.

She snapped out of her memories when she heard a noise coming from the forest. Looking over she saw what she thought was the shadow of a person but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and she couldn't be sure. She flew back down to the pitch and put away the quaffle she had borrowed, grabbed her broom and walking toward the spot she thought she saw something.

She studied the area closely looking for any signs someone had been there. Finding nothing on the ground or at eye level she examined the trees and immediately noticed how sick the closest one looked. She walked deeper into the forest looking for anymore signs of sickness and disease in any of the foliage, needing to know if this was isolated or widespread. The forest had become much darker than it had been when she was in school and she was appalled to discover the farther she ventured in the worse whatever this sickness was.

Cursing to herself about not knowing much about plants she started making her way back to the castle hoping Neville might be helpful. She didn't notice the shadowy figure that watched her just out of her line of sight concealing themselves from her expertly honed senses.

Monday came and the students gathered in the common room awaiting their head of house to make the announcement they had been hearing about all weekend. Phoenix walked in and used the amplifying charm to make her voice louder.

"Attention students! This year there will be a Halloween Ball for you and your parents. Everyone is expected to attend and as such McGonagall has comprised a list of all the things you will need to purchase if you don't already have them in you possession. This coming weekend will be your only opportunity to go to Hogsmeade before the ball so I suggest you take advantage of it. For anyone under third year you will be escorted by either a teacher or a prefect. If you are a prefect and would like to assist please write your name on the list that will be attached to the board. There will also be dance lessons this coming Thursday after classes. If you do not know how to dance I expect to see you there; if you do I expect you to be kind to your fellow house mates that don't," she said eyeing them dangerously.

She wasn't going to take any chances with having to deal with in house bullying while she was head of Slytherin.

"Are there any questions? No? Alright you are dismissed to your classes."

The week dragged on for Phoenix. Her and Carina taught their classes, graded papers, taught kids how to dance, and assisted with the Hogsmeade trip.

By monday she was becoming increasingly concerned about Albus and his lack of enthusiasm for her class. Missing homework assignments, not showing up for class on time and lazy work were becoming highlights of the boys time in her class.

"Mr. Potter," Phoenix said sternly as he was trying to not be seen leaving with the majority of the class.

"Bloody hell," he said turning to scowl at her. Not impressed at all with the way he was treating her, she commanded him to sit and when he refused she used a spell to make him.

"All I want from you is a reason for your lack of respect for my class and for your lazy homework. I will also need the assignments you skipped if you feel like taking your O.W.L.s at all."

"I hate the way you teach, your homework assignments suck and no I will not turn the assignments in and if you bare me from my O.W.L.s I'll tell McGonagall," He said cooly and stormed out of the room.

Phoenix was left speechless by her students behavior. This was Harry's kid for Merlins sake, she'd been friends with the Potters since she became an auror. There was no reason she could come up with for Albus to suddenly hate her. That night she decided to work in the class room instead of her office because she didn't want to be bothered by Carina. She needed a spot away from everything to think and to decide whether or not to get Harry involved. As she sat there grading papers there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," she said; to her surprise Scorpius Malfoy entered the room and sat down at a desk across from her.

"You're a girl right?" he asked paying very close attention to the wood on the desk. When he looked up and saw the confused and shocked face of his professor he quickly continued speaking. "I wouldn't normally talk to a professor about this but I don't have any friends that are female and Albus is really not helpful right now. He's dealing with…stuff," Scorpius said, he was back to his previous task of carving something into the desk with his fingernail.

"Sure, what's up?" She asked kindly, after all this was part of being in charge no matter what her personal issues were.

"I want to ask a Gryffindor to the ball, I've liked her for years but all she sees me as is the best friend of her cousin. How do I make it out of the hate zone and into, at the very least, being friends?" he asked.

"Are we talking about Rose here?" Phoenix asked Slyly. "My advice would be keep trying to just be her friend. Houses don't matter after you leave Hogwarts, you'd be surprised how many former Gryffindors and Slytherins are friends out in the real world. Maybe I could mention that in class one day soon. it might make her a little less icy toward you."

Scorpius stared at the desk for a moment before responding, "Are you friends with any Gryffindors now? or anyone from different houses?"

"Yes, I am. The Potters and I get along quite well and I dare say Neville and I are friends. Things get better if you let them Scorpius," She said.

"Thanks Professor" he said giving her a smile. "Oh, here's the homework assignments that you gave me today. No use in me holding onto them when you're right here."

With that he left and Phoenix was alone with her thoughts again. She picked up the homework he had given her and started looking it over. As she read his essay on advanced potions an idea popped into her head. She gathered her things and raced back to her office.

"Carina!" she yelled as she barreled into the room. "I have a brilliant idea. Grab some parchment and write this down for me please."

There was a frenzy of paper as Carina rushed to find a quill and some ink. Their office was overrun with essays, books, spare pieces of parchment and other random things. Neither girl was particularly good at keeping things tidy. Carina found what she needed and cleared her desk awaiting Phoenix's idea.

"Im thinking an advanced beyond N.E.W.T.s level class and an advanced beyond O.W.L.s class for next year. We pick two or three students from each year except seventh and form these classes for the particularly bright at potions. For the first class I want Rose Granger-Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy from fifth year. From sixth year I want Philip Creavey, Amanda Flint, and Reese Longbottom. Since you do most of the work with first through fourth years you pick who you want. What do you think?" She asked her eyes sparkling. She didn't know why she was so excited about this, there was just a feeling that great things would come from these classes.

"I zink itz a great idea Nix. We can work on the detailz and launch it next year; first i'll work on picking students I think are most likely up to the task," Carina said, she was quite excited for this too, it would give her more of an opportunity to refine her teaching skills before she took over entirely.

I'm sorry this chapter took so long. I honestly had no idea how to write it and building blocks bore me. Kind of like how everyone thinks the first movie in a series is total crap and boring. This is like that, the good stuff comes lately. So you all should know that this is the fourth draft of this chapter and I still think it's trash. I promise you are going to like chapter three, our favorite asshole finally makes his appearance.

I'm also going to randomly share stories I'm currently reading that are absolutely fabulous:

Title: Hogwarts Needs Wifi

Author: Nahannah

Please follow, favorite and review.

Cheers!

-Kikira