I'll Stand Alone

-She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce-

-William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Lilika sat down and buried her head in her hands, rubbing her temples to try and take away the aching.

She'd spent the last three hours trying to teach frightened first years the basics of defense and attack- except they need to learn a lot more then that and a lot faster besides, in these times - second years and third years how to refine their basic skills and move on from there- except some of them barely know their basics and I think I know why - and fourth years were not until Wednesday, thank God.

But in just twenty minutes, the fifth years were coming in, and after them and after lunch came the advanced classes, the sixth and seventh years that planned to specialise in Dark Arts.

Well, hopefully they were planning to specialise in the Defense part and not the Dark Arts one.

Her head was still throbbing and she winced. She'd had a bad night of it, tossing and turning around, twisting her nightdress into little sweaty folds, finally jumping up to pace around her room, biting her lip in fury.

How could I have slipped like that? she'd raged. I've dealt with worse them him twenty billion times over and I never cried once.

You show your feelings and you make yourself a wide open target for your enemies, her father had liked to say. Lilika could almost hear his dry throaty voice repeating the words over and over, savouring each syllable before finally speaking it aloud.

Show those who torment you a smiling face and blast the bastards to hell once their backs turn.

She looked down at the notes she had made for her courses. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff first years first period Tuesdays and Thursdays, Slytherin and Gryffindor first years second period on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hufflepuff third years third period Thursdays. She tightened her lips. The first years seemed to be doubling up on the Dark Arts this year, unlike the other years. Small wonder, as they're the most vulnerable, but there's bloody little an eleven year old can do in case of a Death Eater attack, no matter how talented they are at curses.

Dumbledore had also added a few "little suggestions", as he called them, on what she should concentrate on. Lots of defense, very little attack. It did make sense, in a way.

The "Big Three" as Lilika was fond of calling them, were illegal and students weren't supposed to ever use them or even know about them until the sixth year, so naturally the Death Eaters preferred them to all others. She could teach them a few of the more unconventional attack curses, but some of them were quite difficult and others required a lot of time to properly cast. Though, the Petrifaction curses might be a good choice for the students. They had been a family favourite and she knew them like the back of her hand. Choose from total, partial or specific body parts and you had a lovely way to disarm your opponent. Lilika felt an almost savage grin rising to her lips, but she quickly suppressed it.

Teaching the words to a curse were easy enough, but actually practicing the spell itself...How could she do that? The Petrifaction curses were not life threatening, but they were extremely difficult to remove and the last thing she wanted was Madam Pomfrey chewing her out. The Temporary Blindness, the Shuddering Body and the Metamorph curses were all extremely effective attack spells, but the potential for damage if something went wrong in the hands of an inexperienced user was just too great.

Lilika sighed. Practicing on a dummy was also out of the question since some of these curses required an animate target or at the very least something with living flesh...

That was it!

Lilika sat bolt upright, grinning. If she could do it, that would solve her problem nicely and she wouldn't have to worry about anyone getting hurt. The only difficultly would be in procuring the ingredients and remembering how to build the damn thing, but it was the answer to her problems. Relieved, she went to back to reviewing her curses.

The Imperius could be fought and she planned to spend a lot of time on that with all her students. The Cruciatus could only be blocked, and that was extremely difficult. She doubted any of her students could master shield spells well enough to be safe from that, except maybe the most advanced students. There were techniques, however, that could be used to help resist the pain and keep one's mind clear and she would teach those as well. In fact, it was sort of her specialty.

Avada Kedavra... couldn't be helped, in any way.

There was something else Dumbledore had added, at the bottom of the list, almost as if it were an afterthought and her eyes had widened, then narrowed when she finally spotted it.

I remember him saying something about trouble from that quarter. It's a pretty tall order to try and fill though...even older and more powerful wizards have trouble with that spell.

Five minutes.

"Gryffindor fifth years," she said aloud, and smiled. "I finally get to see the famous Harry Potter in person, then?"

She leaned against her desk, tapping her wand into the palm of her hand as she watched the students file in.

A tall redhead, a frizzy-haired brunette and a boy with unruly black hair and glasses as round and black as Lilika's own. They had been the last to come in.

"Well," she said, breaking into the noises that always surrounded the last bits of settling into a class. "I suppose an introduction is order. My name is Professor Jardin."

They were looking up at her expectantly, a small ocean of pale faces in black robes.

"I am the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and I am here," she said, pacing back and forth in front of the room, "to teach you how to fight for your life and survive against Dark Magic. I'm sure you all know what conditions are like out there now. This course has become more important then ever before." She stopped pacing, a little embarrassed. She always tried not to pace when she talked, but she constantly ended up doing it anyway.

"I will not tolerate any laziness in this class, nor will I tolerate anything less then total devotion to your studies. I may sound harsh, but the burden of your lives is on me. Voldemort and his followers need to exploit any weaknesses you might have in order to overcome you. I am going to make sure you have no weaknesses."

As soon as the word "Voldemort" left her lips, everyone in the room became a little paler. Lilika saw that and winced.

"Maybe the first thing we need to do is get over this "You-Know-Who thing," she said calmly. "You're just feeding his image, you know, by refusing to say his name. Makes him feel stronger, knowing he's got a whole bunch of people too damn scared to call him what he is. He's not going to swoop down on you if you say 'Voldemort'. It's not like he can hear his name spoken from anywhere in the world. In fact," she stopped and slapped both of her hands down on her desk, startling the class badly, "maybe we should start calling him what he truly is. Pathetic."

"I can't believe this," she heard the redheaded boy mutter from the back of the room.

"BELIEVE IT!" The class jumped and a pale, moonfaced boy let out a cry of terror and tumbled beneath his desk.

Turning her wand in agitated fingers, she faced them once again. "I don't know about you, but I can't be the only who's suffered because of Voldemort. I refuse to give him anything more that what he's already taken, and should I ever meet the crazy bas... louse in person, I will very happily try and rip him apart with my bare hands." Her fingers seemed like they were trying to pull her wand apart. She clenched them. "I'd even eat him if that's what it takes to get rid of him." Lilika didn't suppress the angry smile rising to her mouth this time. "Snakes supposedly taste just like chicken, after all."

Lilika stared at the students while the students stared back. Most looked worried, and not a few looked like they were watching a lunatic.

Harry Potter, in the back with his friends, looked only slightly less pale and tense then the rest of the class. As she turned to look at him, his eyes met hers and she shifted her eyes almost immediately, shying away from his gaze. Lilika felt a little ashamed for getting so carried away in front of her class. After all, it wasn't as if it had happened just yesterday; it had been eleven years now and she was supposed to be rational and mature enough to be calm and objective.

She wasn't.

She looked back at Harry once more out of curiosity, met his eyes again, and was jolted by how calm and searching they seemed. Of course, this is probably all old hat to him, she thought and reddened slightly. He was still the most vulnerable any way you cut it, and she envied the resolve she could see in his green eyes before he looked away again, looking slightly flustered as he did. It looked like resolve, anyway.

"Alright, let's get to work," she called, getting their attention once more. "Let's have a little discussion on the most common types of attack and defense, ne?"

"Longbottom, if you melt another cauldron, I will personally have a word with your grandmother, and I can only imagine how pleasant that will be," Snape said silkily, watching the boy turn a dull red, then white. "Detention for you."

"Dismissed!" he threw at the rest of the class.

He didn't bother to watch the students out. Most seemed to be muttering angrily under their breath and a few of the bolder ones were shooting their darkest and most evil looks at him, trying to burn him with their eyes. He snorted a little. If they honestly thought their pathetic rage was enough to frighten, affect him or move him...then they were even more hopeless then he thought.

He turned and went into his dank, chilly and dismally appointed office, meaning to start a list of increasingly difficult potions his students would have to master for this year. Most, of course, wouldn't be anywhere up to the task. He sneered slightly as he sat down and took up a quill and parchment. Blind fools, most of them. He grunted.

There was a soft scratching scrape on the stone floor by the door, and he looked up just in time to see the tiny Dark Arts teacher step into his office and shut the door firmly behind her.

"Get out," he said casually, returning to his list. "I have no interest in speaking with you."

"I need some things from you," she said. He could tell she was still by the door.

"I don't care and I'm not under any obligation to help you in whatever bit of mischief you're planning. Now, get out of my sight."

Silence for a few moments, then Snape looked up again to see that woman still by his door, her enormous blue eyes hard and narrow. Underneath her black hat her ridiculously pale pointed little face seemed to disappear entirely in shadow.

Except for her eyes, which were almost glowing with hatred. He watched her comfortably. Hatred was as familiar to him as cauldrons.

"Don't you get tired of being an asshole?" the woman said almost as softly and smoothly as he could.

That did it. He slammed the quill down on his desk and got up to throw her out bodily, only to find her already in front of him, a roll of parchment thrust in front of his nose.

Jardin looked up at him with wide, steady eyes.

"You will give me the ingredients I need for my class, or I will take a very earnest delight in trying out my favourite hexes on your body, and I will tell the Headmaster just how exceedingly unhelpful you've been."

Her words were bad enough, but the small, vicious grin she was wearing was enough to almost drive him over the edge to physical violence. He clenched his fists.

Jardin's smile became a little more pointed.

Snape could feel a vein throbbing in his temple, ready to explode and he yanked the parchment from her hands before she could say another word, causing her to stumble as she was knocked off balance. He smiled.

"Let's see," he said, sitting back down and unrolling her list. She leaned over his shoulder to watch, and he gritted his teeth, trying to keep himself from wrapping his fingers around that little neck and throttling her until she was blue. He concentrated on trying to read her loopy handwriting instead.

"Bat blood, extract of black mandrake, the nail clippings from a baby hedgehog...why I believe these are the ingredients for a very illegal type of Dark Magic. Something the Ministry would no doubt love to know, as they need all the Dark Wizards they can catch over there." He looked up at her, and bared his teeth in a smirk that usually made most people weak-kneed with terror.

"I'm sure a year or two in Azkaban would do wonders for that proud attitude."

"Isn't illegal," she said calmly, pointing to a spot on her list. "If you'd bothered to read further instead of insulting me, you'd noticed I have no nightshade on my list. I'm not planning to let it move around on it's own. And it's not illegal if it can't move around on it's own."

His lips thinned and he threw the list back at her. "Be that as it may," he spat, "I wonder why you even bother to keep up this farce, when you're so clearly intimate with Dark Magic." He stood up so he could lean right into her face and watch those flat blue eyes, watch her reaction and try to pull her secret out of their blank depths.

The professor looked angry and tried to move back, but he merely followed her, not willing to let her get away. Cornered by the wall, she reached up and took hold of his shoulder. "Get away!"

It startled him badly, but he refused to show it or move. The woman's thin fingers were digging painfully into his shoulder and with a growl he yanked her hand away.

"Don't you ever presume to touch me again," he hissed.

"Then don't come so close, you great bullying git," she bit out in return.

Her eyes were narrowed and completely empty of anything except loathing.

Pure and simple loathing. He stepped back, but she stayed where she was.

"You and I both know you're hiding something and once I find out every sordid little detail," he whispered, "I will personally and with great pleasure hand you over to the Dementors."

Her face changed the instant he said the Dementors. She looked almost like she'd been struck and he savoured it.

"Don't ever mention those horrid things again," she spat suddenly, her eyes getting even larger. "What do you know?"

But she said the last in a rather subdued voice and as Snape looked at her, he could feel his own eyes widen. She was rubbing her left arm.

"You stay here," he snapped, turning quickly to cover the rush of elation he felt. "And don't touch anything."

She nodded rather limply and Snape went off to his private stores to get her ingredients, wearing an unusually wide grin all the while.

He waited until it was very late and the castle entirely asleep before sneaking into her room.

Snape knew all the secret passages of Hogwarts almost as well as Filch and it was something he prided himself on, his knowledge of all the ins and outs of the school. It could turn out to be critical for Hogwarts at some point, this knowledge, so he had no qualms about taking it, even without rights.

It was a small and simple matter to slip into Ravenclaw and ever so conveniently, there was a passage that opened out right by the room she was staying in.

He stepped inside and closed the door quietly, his eyes on the figure curled up in the blue four-poster. Her soft breaths told him she was fast asleep, but just to be sure, he pulled out his wand and lightly touched it to her forehead, muttering a Sleeping charm.

Her breathing became deeper.

Now.

Snape moved around to the left side of the bed and pulled her arm out from underneath the tangle of cover, rolling back the sleeve of her white nightdress. He'd show everyone he'd been right all along about this stupid little girl. Voldemort really needed to find new ways of getting into Hogwarts, instead of constantly using the DADA professors. It was getting a bit played out. He ran his fingers lightly up her left arm, enjoying his victory.

The skin underneath his fingers felt unusually smooth and he yanked her arm up, squinting at it in the moonlight.

There was nothing there.

Snape felt his joy turn to ashes, his mouth tasting of metal. It just couldn't...the way she'd been acting...it just couldn't...

He tried every method he knew of to bring a Dark Mark to light, but her skin stayed stubbornly, annoyingly, pure.

"You bitch," he hissed finally, frustrated beyond all measure and swept out of the room, nearly slamming the door behind him.

As he left, Lilika turned over and smiled in her sleep.

And from the shadows, where she'd been watching the entire time, the Grey Lady let out a memory of holding her breath and vanished.