The tower room soaked in the morning light pouring in from the windows, looked as if it were on fire as Harry opened his eyes. He had neglected to close his curtains the night before, and he could just see Neville through them. “No, he came in late last night,” his fellow Gryffindor replied, hushing his friend.

“And it is,” Ron began to point out, “the last day he can sleep in…” Harry woke the rest of the way with a start. The train was arriving in a few hours, and the sorting and feast would be just after that. The school year had begun. Ron grinned over at the friend he thought was sleeping only to see open eyes.

“Morning,” Harry yawned.

Ron stared. “Well get up then,” he called, throwing Harry’s clothes at him. Harry tumbled out of bed and pulled his clothes onto the appropriate body parts. He ran his hand haphazardly through his hair, trying and failing to achieve a less messy state for it. As he straightened himself out, he followed the other two Gryffindor into the common room.

Hermione and Ginny were already sitting by the fireplace, talking about the new school year when the boys trooped into the common room and clustered around them. “So,” said Ginny, “everybody ready for a new year?” She grinned, “And three new teachers?”

“And with Professor Snape in such a bad mood,” Hermione remarked to Harry pointedly. “Do you know,” she began, speaking to all of them, “that Professor Snape dragged Harry out of here last night, without even telling him why?”

She waited expectantly for some reason he might have been dragged bodily out of the Gryffindor common room and then returned so late. “McGonagall wanted to see me,” he explained. “The new Defense professor’s my cousin, she wanted to warn me.” His chest squeezed. Though Harry had become used to lying to his friends, and more accustomed still to deceiving them through omission, he had never planned it out, or told a complicated lie, or told a lie that wasn’t his own.

Even if Snape and he had devised the lie, even if it hid something that his friends didn’t need to know, he wasn’t used to it. For a moment, he almost wished he could tell them the truth, but the impulse evaporated when he remembered telling them the truth would mean telling them about Eileen and that he was somehow Snape’s father.

“Wait,” Ron asked, “isn’t Snape the Defense professor?”

Harry grinned sheepishly. “Exactly, McGonagall sacked him, and then sent him to fetch me.” Even Neville laughed a bit unkindly.

“So why did you only find out about this person now?” Ginny queried, genuinely curious about this sudden relative of her boyfriend well known for his longing for a family. “Who is he?”

“Well, he isn’t exactly close; he’s my great aunt’s son, I think.”

Hermione stared at him strangely. “That’s close, Harry.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Harry murmured. “Supposedly my great aunt didn’t speak to her family much after she married. She married Snape’s mum’s first cousin.”

Hermione’s mouth made a little O and Ron snorted. Harry suddenly wished Snape hadn’t wanted to keep his mother’s surname. After a moment of silence, Ginny spoke what the rest were probably thinking. “That must be weird.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully, wondering whether it was weirder that he was spinning this tale for his friends, or that he was Snape’s father, anyone’s father, the father of someone old enough to be his father. “He looks like me,” he blurted, and then added quietly, “a lot like me,” he was his father.

Leaning against the arm of Ginny’s chair, Harry ignored the conversation as it moved on, lost in his own thoughts. At last, he shook himself free of his secrets as the others were about to leave for breakfast in the Great Hall. “Hey Ginny,” he called to her, standing up, “are you ready for the new year and all the new professors?” It almost felt like first year.

Ginny whirled back to him and then spat to all of them, “After Snape and the Carrows, I’m ready for any new professor.” Somehow, her words soured all of breakfast.

~*~

It was Severus’ last chance to dine alone and in peace until the term ended, and he took full advantage of it. The house elves brought him Belgian waffles with cream, fruit syrups and berries piled on them, and sausages and enough food for seven gourmands in compensation for missing Hogwarts normal morning fare.

The knife and fork felt odd in his hands, changed from their ordinary shape, his fingers shortened and the rest of them shrunken. He had never thought that more might be different beneath the glamour than his face. Strange resemblances to the Potters, both of them, showed themselves all over his body, in his hands, his wrists, and the shape of his legs. If he had known that he would be walking differently without the glamour, he might have thrown a fit in Minerva’s office and told her he’d rather quit than wear a disguise. Though, she probably wouldn’t have believed him if he had.

~*~

As the students who had arrived on the train streamed into the Great Hall, their fellows were already seated, gazing expectantly at their empty plates. Harry glanced again at the head table at the new professors and wondered if Snape was going to give himself away with the hideous glare he was wearing. Ron followed his eyes and looked up at Snape. “He looks like his mother was Madam Pince.” It wasn’t the most flattering description of Eileen Harry could imagine, but the expression on his face did bring to mind the carrion resembling librarian. At least Ron hadn’t thought of Snape.

The new first years, which because everyone was repeating a year was for once not redundant, filed in behind Flitwick. Their nervous giddy chatter poured across the house tables as Flitwick set the hat on its stool and read in his squeaky way, “Ackerman, Victoria.” But as she shot up to the stool, which happened to be taller than Flitwick himself, the assembled students fell silent. The sorting had begun.

By the time Zeller, Xerxes was sorted into Hufflepuff, Ron was eying the plates with an expression suggesting he could eat them instead if the food didn’t appear on them soon. Ginny, seated beside Harry, had turned her face into a picture of highly suspicious innocence. It was the sort of expression that the twins had worn only when they were bored and plotting mayhem.

McGonagall stood up to make her first attempt at addressing the student body as headmistress. “Welcome to Hogwarts,” she began, safely. “Before the feast commences, I have a few announcements. First, I would like to welcome four new staff members, Blenheim Stalk, who will be teaching Muggle Studies, Emeric Switch, who will be replacing me as Transfiguration professor, Damocles Belby, who will be teaching Potions, and Sebastian Prince, who will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts.” Between each, the students clapped, for some names more enthusiastically than others.

“I’m pleased to note that Professor Flitwick is our new deputy headmaster,” the Ravenclaws erupted into cheers. “Professor Switch will also be taking over as Head of Gryffindor house, and Professor Stalk will be taking over as head of Slytherin house.” The Slytherins stared at her and then their new head of house horrified while the other houses laughed and cheered.

Ginny grinned at Harry, her brother, and Hermione. “At last the Slytherins have a head of Head of House who shares their interests and concerns.” Hermione directed her giggle into her hand and Harry clapped, snickering.

McGonagall’s eyes swept the room. “Our caretaker, Argus Filch would like me to inform you that Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum is now not allowed in the castle or on the grounds.” A small, almost unnoticeable smile curved at her lips. “Without further ado, let the feast begin.”

Food appeared abruptly on the plates in front of them, and for a short while, no one said anything, being as they were too busy trying to fill their mouths. When Hermione had at least taken the edge off her own hunger, she turned to Harry, and speaking around Ron, who had a bit of gravy shining on his chin, she told him, “Your cousin looks quite a bit like you, Harry.”

It took a moment for Harry to realize what she was talking about. “Yeah, I know, it’s weird.”

Ron nodded his agreement, “but I still say he looks like Madam Pince.”

“That isn’t very nice, Ron,” admonished Hermione, swatting his hand.

As Ron cried out, more from surprise and indignation than anything else, Ginny smirked. “To who, our new Professor, or Madam Pince?”

~*~

Severus had a difficult time deciding who was more deserving of his glowers, Potter, or Belby. In his opinion, Belby was no better than Lockhart, if perhaps more subtle. All throughout school, Damocles Belby had stolen the work of other students in a regrettably shrewd manner. He had become the wunderkind in several subjects by claiming the accomplishments of the students least likely to complain, those like Severus who were also working on more illicit projects, as his own. He had no doubt that Belby had continued the pattern after graduation. As far as he had been able to determine, the man had very little inventive talent at all. Whoever had invented The Wolsbane potion, it certainly wasn’t Belby.

Though Belby still deserved the blame for patenting and releasing the formula.

Fortunately, Minerva had the excellent sense to ensue they were not seated in close proximity to each other. Instead, he had been seated between Filius and Switch, both of whom were feeling sociable.

“So, Sebastian, at least you and I aren’t alone as new professors,” Switch exclaimed, “misery loves company after all.” Severus decided he didn’t like him. “Tell me, I haven’t heard of you, what have you been doing have you been abroad?” Severus decided he outright disliked him.

“Yes,” he said simply, hoping Switch wouldn’t press.

He didn’t have good luck in that matter, however. “Oh? Where?”

Severus tried not to snarl something foul. “I was schooled at Durmstrang and resided in Greece thereafter. I haven’t done anything that would be noted outside of Eastern Europe.”

Switch stared at him nonplussed. “Then why were you appointed?”

Severus could have said a few choice words about his former colleagues in the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, but he refrained with difficulty. “I am an expert in the theoretical study of the Dark Arts and their defense,” he growled. “I’m more than qualified.” It occurred to him to wonder if being a Death Eater qualified as theoretical study.

“I hope you will teach your students practical defense as well,” Switch remarked suspiciously.

Severus’ eyes narrowed, “Of course.”

Eager to end the discussion, he turned to Filius to congratulate him on becoming deputy headmaster. “Thank you Sebastian,” he replied, voice penetratingly high pitched, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, since you do look so much like him,” Severus felt his stomach sink into his knees. “Are you by any chance related to our Harry Potter?” Severus decided he didn’t much like Flitwick either.

~*~

Ron dropped his schedule after a cursory scan as if the paper were attacking him. Harry ignored his plate of fried eggs to take his own schedule. “What’s wrong?” he asked before reading it.

“It’s cruel really cruel to give us Potions and Transfiguration on the same day,” Ron moaned, shuttering.

“Just remember we don’t have Snape,” Ginny intoned, as if it were her own personal chant, “just remember, we don’t have Snape.”

Harry felt too relieved that they were all at Hogwarts and going to classes again to feel too upset that he had two difficult classes on one day (“a Monday too”, Ron was griping to his sister, because Hermione wouldn’t listen). He was too relieved in fact to even feel strange that Ginny’s new favorite sentence was what it was.

“Just remember we don’t have Snape,” Ginny repeated.

“They’re new professors; they could be worse than Snape.”

Hermione had finished eating, but stayed to watch them. Ron’s histrionics occasionally entertained her. “Not possible,” Ginny informed her brother confidently. “It’s Snape.” Ginny of course knew better, having endured the Carrows, but barring the ghost of Bellatrix Lestrange, there was no possibility of finding a worse professor than they.

Uncharacteristically, Hermione felt the need to add her own thoughts on their worst teacher. “Umbridge.” Even Harry dredged up a shudder at her name. Ginny stabbed her fork ruthlessly into a sausage.

~*~

On all of the tables in the Transfiguration classroom sat overturned glasses with butterflies fluttering beneath them. As the class filed in, Hermione grabbed Harry and Ron’s arms to pull them to seats in the front of the class. Professor Switch, a freckled man with wiry blond hair and an upturned nose, wrote notes on the board as he waited for his students to settle down. When they had all chosen a chair, he turned around and smiled at them. His eyes and mouth crinkled at the corner, the wrinkles revealing he was older than he first appeared.

“Since this is a seventh year class,” he began, “and you have had an admirable teacher for your earlier education, I thought I’d start the year with something challenging.” Ron and Harry, who like most students found everything about Transfiguration challenging at the best of times gazed sympathetically at each other behind Hermione’s back and groaned silently.

“You’ll be changing these butterflies and their glasses into potted buttercups,” he told them, before launching into a long and complicated lecture on transfiguring insects into plants and transfiguring two objects at once. Hermione listened with rapt attention, as did Harry, taking page upon page of notes, but he only understood about half of it. Before he set them to attempting the transfiguration, he smiled. “Because this is a difficult transfiguration, I will award the first to succeed ten points.” Harry watched Hermione who was bouncing out of her chair with excitement thinking that at least the points would go to Gryffindor.

By the end of class, only Hermione had succeeded in transfiguring her butterfly and glass. Dean had actually cracked his glass and had to ask for another one. Professor Switch didn’t seem disappointed however. In fact, he appeared thrilled that anyone had managed it at all. Harry himself felt quite good about the lesson, because his glass had taken on an opaque quality, and his butterfly’s wings had become leaves. While it wasn’t pleasant to have an essay from his first class of the year, he escaped feeling slightly less like an idiot than usual.

In the hallway, Ron started muttering threats of bodily harm as Hermione regaled them nervously with how her buttercup looked too much like a daisy. Harry just shook his had in amazement that she was worried about such things.

The dungeon was gloomily familiar as Harry and Ron took revenge on Hermione for choosing seats at the front of Transfiguration by finding the three seats in the back of the chamber. Unlike Professor Switch, Professor Belby was almost late to his own class. He burst through the door, a stack of notes in his arms, only to slam them down upon the desk. It quite worried Harry. If he said one word about “foolish wand waving”, Harry swore he would withdraw from the class.

Fortunately for Harry’s future as a student brewer and eventual Auror, Belby began the class with different words. He raised his eyebrows and attempted to smile at them from beneath his mustache. “You’re all in your second year of N.E.W.T. level Potions, so I hope I can safely assume that you all know that brewing is more throwing the right ingredients into a cauldron and hoping the result isn’t poisonous sludge,” he spoke, leaning against his desk. “The potion on the board is one that you have encountered before, but I would like to know which of you can recognize and brew it without knowing what it is. No potion can be properly brewed unless the brewer knows exactly what it is supposed to be.” As he spoke, he ran his fingers through the short brown fuzz running along the back of his head and nowhere else. “You have until the end of class.”

Harry smiled at the ingredients, suddenly thankful that Snape, who was Eileen’s son at least in this, was so creative in his brewing. He remembered the potion from sixth year as an elixir to induce euphoria, and he even remembered most of Snape’s adulterations.

He stopped smiling when Professor Belby loomed over his head to watch as he brewed. Harry almost spilled his ingredients, and he even had Hermione dropping the wrong ingredients into hr potion, only to franticly correct her potion as soon as he had ceased his watch. Harry didn’t like him. The man seemed too eager to see them make a mistake.

A lot of the time Harry should have spent concentrating on his potion, he spent instead watching Malfoy. He hadn’t seen the Slytherin since the final battle. The months spent as a virtual prisoner at the school hadn’t been good to him. His hair was lank, and his skin, which couldn’t become paler, had instead taken on a yellow cast. Harry had heard that the adult Malfoys had been moved to a ministry holding cell just before school started to await their trial. Sympathy warred in him with satisfaction. Malfoy was still a slimy git.

~*~

The air in Blenheim’s office was chill as he addressed a select group of his new charges. The rotund man with the proud grey fuzz beard likely didn’t intimidate any of them, but he didn’t intend to intimidate. He intended to offer some advice, and possibly, a bit of redemption. Malfoy, Nott, Goyle, Parkinson, and others, all with suspected ties to Voldemort watched him warily.

“I’m not here to punish you,” he reassured them, “I just wished to inform you as your Head of House that it isn’t too late for you to change your schedules, and that I would gladly have any of you in my N.E.W.T. class.”

Malfoy, the usual leader of the group spoke first and with his typical imprudence. “I don’t think any of us have any desire to change our schedules to accommodate a Muggle Studies class.”

“It is of course your choice, but I thought that as fellow Slytherins, you might grasp the implications of taking such a course and the effects it might have on your future plans.” The looks they favored him with as they continued speaking revealed their contempt and skepticism, something he would have to change if he wished to establish himself as their Head of House. “In the current political climate, individuals with your histories will be looked on with suspicion wherever you seek to make your living.” He paused for a moment, to let it sink in that he wasn’t trying to glorify Muggles in their bigoted eyes.

“Some of us,” Parkinson informed him loftily, “don’t intend to make a living.”

It was an attitude he had expected, and he surmised from the way she clutched Malfoy’s arm and the way he rested his hand on hers that they intended to be married and perhaps retreat to the Malfoy estate to shield themselves from their disgrace. “Be that as it may, unless you each find some way to rehabilitate yourself to the Wizarding World, you will have none of the influence you are used to having. If you have any ambition at all, I would advise you listen well.”

For the first time, Malfoy had begun to look interested, and Blenheim thought that if he could just win Malfoy, the rest would follow. “None of you can rely on pure blood to assure you political connections anymore. It counts for nothing with most witches and wizards, many of whom are tired of pure blood arrogance. It certainly counts for nothing with Kingsley Shacklebolt, the new Minister of Magic. Since Voldemort and his followers preached an ideology profoundly anti Muggle, it would do each of your images good to be seen taking a Muggle Studies class.”

“Ladies, gentlemen, I’ll leave you with that thought. You need to show the Wizarding World that you are willing to change.”