High above the earth Kirke watches her daughter climb back onto her chariot along with Beth and two unknown mortals. When Selene's chariot clears the tower, Kirke is able to see that the female mortal is holding a cup with a faint red fire burning in the bottom of bowl.

With a smile she turns her own chariot towards home. That smile turns into a frown as she resolves to start working through the bundles that

Athena sent her, as well as releasing the three goddesses she was sent.

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As Lamia brings her chariot to a halt on the courtyard outside the fortress, the warrior woman drags the old man, that was hiding the cup, off the deck, much to her relief.

Just as she's about to send the chariot into the sky, Beth steps off the deck and tugs Lamia's arm. With a frown she slithers off the chariot after the other woman.

As they enter the fortress once more, her mother's ingrained instructions cause her to automatically pull in her tail and walk on two legs.

Already the almost deserted building has become a hive of activity, with their trained warriors walking around and giving the two of them wary glances. Fortunatily for her peace of mind, none of them have their weapons drawn, not even at the legendary phoenix that is now perched on the back of one of the thrones.

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Beth sighs with relief when Lamia allows herself to be led into the school rather than taking off.

As she's scanning the Great Hall, she spots the deputy headmistress walking out of a side door with the Minister, and turns to head over to her.

"Professor McGonagall!"

Minerva looks up at sound of her name, relief clear on her face at an excuse to stop talking to the idiot beside her. "Miss Babbling, it's good to see you in good health."

Beth nods, "Thank you, do you know where my trunk is?"

Minerva glances at the Minister, "Excuse me Minister Fudge, but I need to show Miss Babbling to the rooms she's been assigned."

Fudge looks confused, "Why? Doesn't she have her own quarters?"

Before Beth can say anything else, Minerva quickly interjects, "If you remember, she's one of two professors that quit before you made it known that Mr Dumbledore was going to be arrested. As she's no longer a professor in the school, she's been assigned guest quarters."

Fudge nods, and then looks at Lamia, "And who is this lovely young woman with you Miss Babbling?"

Beth glances back at Lamia, who is currently alternating between looking at the ceiling thoughtfully, and scanning the assembled witches and wizards for weapons, "This is Lamia Potter, adopted daughter of Circe daughter of Helios."

At the sound of her name, Lamia looks over at Beth, and then continues to look around as it's clear that Beth isn't moving or looking at her.

Fudge looks at Lamia and takes off his green bowler hat as he bows,

"It is a pleasure to meet you Miss Potter."

Beth shakes her head, "She doesn't speak English Minister. Merlin, she doesn't speak any modern language for that matter. And for Morgana's sake, do not draw a wand around her as she believes them to be weapons that can be used as tools. Something that yesterday morning cemented in the minds of her family."

Minerva's eyes widen noticeably, "How could she possibly think that?" Beth pointedly looks around at the Aurors that are swarming around the Great Hall, half a dozen of which are watching the headmaster and the phoenix while three of them carefully search the old wizard for any magical items. "I see, come, I'll show you to your room, and maybe see about ensuring that Miss Potter has her own rooms."

As Minerva turns back to the side door, Beth calls "Lamia." Before pointing through the door.

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After walking down several different corridors, down one fight of stairs and up two flights of stairs, Beth begins to frown as she starts to recognise the paintings in this part of the school, "Professor, are you leading us to my old quarters?"

Minerva looks back with a smile, "Why yes, yes I am."

Beth shakes her head, "But weren't they on the 4th floor?"

Minerva nods, "They are indeed, however with the schools defenses active, the corridors become a maze for those who aren't used to them."

Beth glances back at Lamia, who has stopped to look at a landscape painting that has a crowd of people staring back at her. "But I resigned."

Minerva sighs, "Beth, the school doesn't have a headmaster at the moment, and he's the only one that can accept your resignation. On top of that, we need you here." She stops in front of a portrait, "We haven't changed your password."

Beth sighs as she looks at the portrait, "Hello Sebastian, can I come in please?"

The portrait of a gentleman doffs his hat before swinging open.

As Beth steps inside, she turns around, "Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?"

Minerva looks up and down the corridor, before nodding, "I shouldn't, but if it keeps me away from that idiot for another half an hour, then sure."

Beth nods, "Lamia, this is my home."

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Lamia turns away from the animated painting at the sound of her name. With a smile she follows Beth and the mortal through a doorway that was hidden behind another painting.

As the painting swings closed behind her, Lamia's eyes quickly dart around the room taking in the features. The cooking fire set in one wall, a couple of thrones set in front of it. A kitchen table, and some drinking bowls and pots for herbs. On the floor is a finely woven blanket showing just how wealthy Beth, or the owners of this fortress are.

As soon as it's clear this is a living space, she removes her bow and quiver, before looking for somewhere to store it. In the end she settles for just leaning it against a cupboard that's sat beside the door.

Satisfied, she carefully walks around the blanket to the table where Beth and the mortal have sat down.

As Beth draws her wand, Lamia finds herself doing exactly the same thing her mother did every time she came in without taking her bow off, and plucking the weapon out of her hand and sending it to the top of the cupboard with a flick of her fingers.

When the mortal draws her own wand, Lamia does the same thing.

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Beth winces as she watches the expression of anger build on Minerva's face after both of their wands have been gently taken from their hands. Quickly, she raises both hands in a placating gesture, "Professor please remember she doesn't understand our culture."

Minerva turns 40 years of teaching experience on the young woman,

"Miss Babbling, she just stole my wand, and you want me to stay calm?"

Beth nods, "Yes professor, I want you to stay calm as she didn't snap your wand like she did the headmaster's wand."

Minerva eyes widen in shock, "She did what?"

"Professor, he was pointing it at her and her family don't use wands. I'm just going to dig out the kettle, as I'm sure I saw one when you first assigned me these quarters."

Minerva shakes her head, "Til…" she's then cut off by Beth leaning forward and clamping her hand over her mouth.

"Professor, do you really think calling a house elf is a good idea? At the moment Lamia thinks this is a fortress and training camp. Do you want to give her any reason to keep thinking that?"

Once Beth removes her hand, Minerva scoffs, "Of course it's not a training camp, it's a school. What sort of barbarians don't know that?"

Beth looks at Minerva with a solemn expression, "The sort that can enchant chariots to fly faster than any broom, and go higher than any bird. One that teaches their children to use wandless magic, or didn't you notice that your wand was levitated to the cupboard over there."

As Beth turns away to look in the cupboards below her tea set, Minerva turns around to look at the two wands that are indeed neatly laid side by side on the cupboard surface. "How? It takes a powerful wizard decades of study to even do small things."

Pulling a heavy cast iron kettle out of the back of the cupboard with both hands, Beth says rather acidly, "Lamia's mother is Circe, and they speak a dialect of Greek that hasn't been seen for over 3,000 years. What do you think?"

As Minerva sits back to think about that, Beth struggles with the kettle as she walks towards her on-suite bathroom, until Lamia takes pity on her and takes it from her hand as she stands up.

With a smile she leads Lamia into the bathroom and demonstrates how to use the taps on the bath to get cold water.

Once the kettle is full, she lets Lamia return to the living room while she opens her trunk and pulls out three hefty books.

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When Lamia comes back into the livingroom, Minerva shakes her head to clear her thoughts and instead watches as the young woman carries an unweildy kettle over to the fireplace as if it weighed as much as a teapot.

When the girl kneels down and starts rubbing her hands together, Minerva's curiosity gets the better of her, and she stands up to see what she's doing.

As Minerva gets closer, Lamia looks up from where she's rubbing her hands together, the way she would with a block and dowel. As soon as smoke starts to rise from her hands, she opens them slightly and gently blows a small amount of fire onto the wood in the fireplace.

As the fire quickly catches, Lamia looks up and says, "Θανάσιμη μαγεία. Μάθετε πώς να το κάνετε χωρίς μαγεία και, στη συνέχεια, χρησιμοποιήστε μαγεία για να το κάνετε χωρίς εξοπλισμό."

At that moment, Beth comes back in with some books and a planning slate, "Lamia."

Lamia smoothly stands up and walks back to the table leaving Minerva to stare at the fire while glancing back at table occasionally. A squeal of happiness causes her to really look back at the table, where Lamia has her palm against Beth's arm as she flicks through a large muggle book.

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A few hours later, after Minerva has left, Beth and Lamia have both moved from her rooms to the workroom where she has more supplies.

After a hesitant start, Lamia has taken to the existence of books like a duck to water. Beth briefly looks up from her 5th attempt at making an acceptable clay tablet to look at the three books that Lamia has open in front of her, the largest of which is 'A Greek-English Lexicon: With a Revised supplement', an English to Greek Dictionary, and 'The animated book of Myths and Legends'.

As she looks back at the lump of clay she's working, she grimaces as it lifts into the air and over to the waste basin. "Πάρα πολύ νερό"

With a sigh she carefully measures out some more powdered clay into a wooden bowl and starts mixing again, as she's starting to get an idea of what that phrase means.

While she's slowly dribbling water into the bowl, the door to the workroom opens hesitantly, and Granger and Lovegood both stick their heads around the door.

Seeing that she's there, Granger asks, "Um, Professor, do you mind if we study here?"

Beth looks up and shakes her head as she kneeds the water into the clay, "Come in. It's not like I'm a professor here anymore. Anyway, call me Beth, the woman at the workbench is Lamia."

At the sound of her name Lamia looks up curiously before looking back at the book.

Beth is about to dip her hand in the water bowl again as she's talking, but Lamia gives a sharp, "Οχι" before walking around the work bench and takes the clay from Beth's bowl and starting to kneed it in her hands, "Δεν φτιάχνεις γλάστρες, πλάκες κάνεις. Ένας σχιστόλιθος πρέπει να είναι σταθερός και στεγνός."

Granger stares at Lamia's brusque attitude and says, "Um, if this is a bad time we can just go."

Beth shakes her head as she watches, "No, not at all. I'm just learning how to make writing tablets. If you still want to work in here, then I want you to put your wands on the bench by the door. Lamia hasn't had the best experience with them."

Lovegood smiles and quickly puts her own wand beside Beth's wand and Lamia's bow, before bouncing into the room. Granger takes longer as she glances at the corridor for several seconds, before relinquishing her own wand.

As Lamia finishes making the tablet, Granger makes her way over to look at the clay tablet, "Professor, how comes you're teaching Lamia how to make Cuniform tablets?"

Beth can't help it as she starts to laugh, "I'm not, she's teaching me how to make them."

Lamia frowns at Beth as she finishes kneeding the clay to the right consistancy and forming it into a tablet. Looking around, she grabs a stylus before grimacing at the quality of the wood and cut. Pulling out her dagger, she sharpens both ends properly before writing, #What are you laughing at?# Then she points at each of the two words individually as she says, "giati gelas?" [Authors note: I am using modern greek rather than classical greek so that you, my readers, can translate things yourself.]

Beth takes the offered tablet and stylus, before writing #Miss

Granger assumed I was teaching you to make slates.#

Lamia laughs as she reads Beth's writing aloud, "I despoinís Nkréintzer ypéthese óti sas máthaina na ftiáchnete plákes."

Granger stares at the tablet hard as she tries to understand what's written, "Professor, what did she write, and how did she do it so quickly?"

"Miss Granger, Lamia grew up learning Ancient Greek the way you grew up learning English. She wanted to know why I was laughing, then I wrote that you thought I was teaching her how to make clay tablets."

Granger chews on her bottom lip for a few seconds, "Could I write something?"

Beth nods and hands over the stylus.

Slowly, Granger carves out #Call me Hermione.# As she finishes she taps the name and says "Hermione."

As she's writing, Lamia winces at the uneven angles Hermione's writing with, angles that make what was written hard to read. None the less, she dutifully repeats "Hermione" a few times as Hermione corrects her. Once Hermione nods, she takes the stylus and uses the flat end to erase Hermione's writing, before writing, #Write it again#

Beth's eyebrows raise as she translates the writing, and Hermione takes the stylus back.

As Hermione's about to make her first stroke, Lamia grabs her hand and forcefully adjusts the position of her hand and the stylus. As Hermione's hand repeatedly shifts to the position she'd use with a pencil or quill, Lamia becomes increasingly frustrated, until she finally storms over to one of the windows and calls for her Chariot.

Beth's eyes widen as she realises what Lamia is likely to do, and she hurries over to open the window rather than have a repeat of the headmaster's office. She then has just enough time to grab her wand and use it to summon, pack, and shrink her trunk, before Lamia has managed to pull Hermione out of the window and onto the chariot.

Lovegood, on the other hand, just skips over to the bench and grabs the bow and two wands before skipping back to the window and walking calmly onto the deck of the chariot.

When she sees Beth coming back in, Hermione, wrapped gently in Lamia's tail, shouts, "Professor! Help me!"

Beth grimaces, "Hermione, remember what Lamia did to the Aurors.

Just close your eyes and you'll be fine." Matching words to actions, Beth steps onto the crowded deck and takes a white knuckled grip on the edge of the chariot.

A crack of the reigns sees the Chariot disappear off into the afternoon sky just before Minerva runs into the room with a group of Aurors hot on her heels.