The Cursed Staff

A clock chimed 30 minutes past midnight; however, for two students in a dungeon-level classroom--a pallid, scrawny Slytherin boy and an athletic, Japanese Ravenclaw girl-- this fact seemed to escape notice. The girl pursed her lips in concentration as she worked over her cauldron. "Damn," she muttered.

The boy, who had been examining a chart hanging on a rear wall with a bored expression, stalked over to her with an exasperated air of annoyance. "Let's see it, what've you done wrong..." She tried futilely to block him from looking into the cauldron, but he forced a ladle into it and dipped out a disgusting-looking substance. His voice dripping with contempt, he drawled, "Beige, Vance. Beige. It's a smashing success--if you were brewing day-old porridge. How many times do I have to tell you that it's 3 stirs clockwise? You're supposed to be making a potion, not putty!" The glob in the ladle flopped back into the cauldron with a hollow, defeated splash.

"Well, I'm trying!!! First of all, the book says two, clockwise, secondly, I've told you time and again to call me Akiko, and thirdly, I get the theory; it's just the damned exceptions and bloody guesswork that get me," the girl retorted, with a considerable bit of rage in her voice as she viciously stabbed a line in the book with her fingertip. Tall and willowy, she had thick, shiny black hair, braided into a complex tangle.

Their eyes narrowed, and they scowled at one another for a few moments, with the air of two equally headstrong tigers about to engage in a fight, before he snapped, "Let me see that," and snatched the book from her. A strand of lank, oily hair fell across his long nose, and he flipped it out of the way irritably. Suddenly, his superior attitude seemed to deflate. "'M'sorry, Akiko. You were right. The book does say two," he muttered, almost inaudibly. Then he added, more vociferously as though determined to assert his correctness, "But three works better." He pulled out a quill and scribbled over the offending line, then shoved the book back at her. "You can thin that," he gestured disdainfully to the cauldron's contents, "out with essence of rue. It'll be substandard quality, but that'll be nothing new."

"Whatever works," Akiko responded, reddening slightly. The room was awkwardly silent as she added the essence of rue, her lips pursed. After half a minute's stirring, she asked, in an impish--but nonetheless accurate--mimicry of the boy's natural tone of voice, "Other than the distinct displeasure of tutoring an utter imbecile like me, how's life with you?"

"I'm alive, that's all I can say for it," he muttered, his sallow complexion taking on the faintest hue of pink. "It'd be much better if you could keep your mouth shut for more than two moments," he added sharply, almost involuntarily, before biting his tongue. If he could only learn to keep his snarky comments to himself for the same duration, perhaps his own life would be significantly easier.

Akiko grinned roguishly without looking up. "You know I love the sound of my own voice too much for that to be possible," she replied smoothly and evenly as she continued to stir the cauldron. Her eyes widened and she threw herself up on tip-toes to take a better look. "It's thinning! YES!" she cried in triumph, pumping a fist in the air.

"Keep putting in effort, Vance. Eventually you might aspire to the level of 'mediocre,' " he drawled in languid bemusement; cursing himself inwardly for his sharp tongue. After an almost eternal pause of building up courage, the boy added, "You flew well--in the match yesterday, by the way."

The girl looked up from her work, clearly caught off guard. "You... came to my Quidditch match? But... Slytherin wasn't..." If she'd wanted to finish her sentence, she couldn't have. With all the subtlety of a blitzkrieg attack, the boy had leaned over and snogged her on the lips. Her eyes snapped shut in surprise; her hands flew up, startled, and accidentally tipped over a glass flagon. What seemed like hours later, it rolled to the ground and shattered, and the boy, shocked, broke off the kiss, turned away from her, and studied the flagstones. The girl's eyes opened wide, and she blinked, owlishly. "What...was that?" she asked, when she'd regained her breath.

The words came tumbling rapidly from the boy's mouth. "I'm sorry. It'll never happen again, I promise; please, don't mention this again..." He turned and fled from the room into the corridors. When he felt he'd put a sufficient distance between himself and the girl, he leaned a shoulder against the wall, dully thudding the side of his head against the damp stones over and over. He was so stupid, such a colossal fool, just like his father had told him time and again...and Potter and Black and their friends would mock him incessantly for it once they found out, as they inevitably would. Merlin's beard, why Akiko Vance? She was about as hopelessly unattainable as Lily...

"Don't do that," a soft voice interrupted his thoughts. He could barely stand to glance at her.

"I don't need your pity, Vance," he snarled to the wall, hot-faced. "Look, I know I'm a git, alright, and that I've not got a chance. So just leave me alone and we'll forget..." He felt soft fingers gently touch his cheek and turn his head.

"Severus?" she interrupted him, with the mildest hint of exasperation as she leaned toward him, her dark almond eyes twinkling. "Shut it." She pressed her lips against his, forcing him to comply with her order. Something on the order of a minor explosion began rocketing about inside his midsection...

At half-past midnight, in his private study at Spinner's End, former Hogwarts Professor Severus Snape emerged from his Pensieve.

Snape sat forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his desk, and forced the heels of his palms into his eyes as far as he could, kneading them with abrasive fervor as he lost himself in reflection. Why, after almost 18 years, were his mind and memories settling repeatedly on Akiko Vance? The silvery-white glow issuing from his desk poured into all the hollows of his face, making him look rather terrifying to the observer. He emerged from behind his hands and glared at the Pensieve apprehensively, harboring the briefest of suspicions that the etched stone bowl was conspiring to cause him grief. He'd pay for his moments of reverie with the Dark Lord the next day; after all his years of Occlumency, memories of his only happiness were the sole thing he was incapable of concealing.

She was dead. He knew that, he'd killed her himself, an action that had ripped his heart from his body and left him with a range of emotions encompassing only contempt, hatred, and rage. Yet, in the four years that he had loved her, he'd been the happiest that ever he had been in his lifetime. Daydreams of those days brought him the odd errant smile: once the school had found out that that she was involved with him, there had been a renewed interest in jinxing him within an inch of his life, led by James Potter, who never stopped suspecting that he had slipped the girl a love potion. He didn't care. They could have hexed him from head to toe and it would all have been worth it.

He paused again. He had three options at this point: to go to sleep, which would more than likely not come until a few fleeting tosses and turns just before dawn; to leave his study, which would mean dealing with Wormtail, (equally if not more unappealing as an option), or, to descend into his Pensieve again...while a waste of time, it far outstripped the other two options at his disposal. He tapped long, slender fingers on his desk for a brief moment, then, resignedly, bent forward, his hooked nose descending closer and closer to the surface of the dancing, liquid-white light, until he somersaulted into another memory.

He and Akiko were wandering down a darkened corridor at Hogwarts, Kiko bounding and skipping ahead in her characteristic, exuberant way; he slinking along, warily. Judging by height, he had to have been a sixth year. His younger self whispered, "Muffliato," and slid his wand back into his bag. "We shouldn't have done this, Akiko," he complained.

" 'Course we should've. Besides, Slughorn likes both you and me, so we're fine," Akiko replied. "C'mon, you've gotta skive off class at least once before you graduate."

"Well aren't you just cherry blossoms and happiness today," he drawled, with a mordant twinge in his voice. Snape reckoned to himself that he must have been about sixteen, just past the holidays when--he recalled with a cringe--his father had excoriated him daily for growing his hair into a ponytail.

"Ever so," Akiko responded distractedly, searching the corridor wall with her eyes for something.

His younger self shivered, and asked, "Where're we going, anyway?"

"We're alllllmost there, I can feel it," Akiko murmured, "Sirius told me it should be riiight about..."

The boy cringed a little. "Kiko, it makes me nervous when they're around you all the time. I don't like it."

"I know you don't, Sev, but if I did everything you told me to, I wouldn't be your girlfriend, would I?" the girl responded cheekily. "No. I'd be your house elf."

Outside the study at Spinner's End, Peter Pettigrew was sitting on the stairs, stewing in an intensely private fury. Snape had gotten the best of everything he'd ever wanted: better N.E.W.T. scores in all his subjects, better position in the Dark Lord's hierarchy, and, most nettlesome and unforgivable of all, the girl whose favor he'd coveted since the age of thirteen. Exotic where he was bland, outgoing where he was shy, skilled on the Quidditch pitch where he was hopeless, Akiko Irene Vance hadn't turned the heads of many at Hogwarts. Often outstripped in attractiveness and skill beside her fast friend, Lily Evans, Akiko was kindly, sunny in disposition, and generally well liked, but not the sort of girl that boys tended to take to the Astronomy Tower.

The Marauders had adopted her as a sort of mascot before they ever arrived at Hogwarts; a lot of other first-year girls had occupied a big compartment together, but she and a pretty, red-haired girl had roamed the joined a forlorn-looking Remus Lupin in a compartment, a compartment which he'd been drawn toward joining and which was later crashed by a pair of show-offs, James Potter and Sirius Black. The merry, outgoing girl had prattled with both Lily and the boys incessantly. Well, not with them so much as at them at first, but eventually they grew to be fond of the "Japanese chatterbox," as Lupin had called her. When she alone, of the six of them in the compartment, was sorted into Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor, she'd looked disappointed, but accepted it nonetheless and continued to remain a fast friend of theirs. James and Sirius came to regard her as a little sister, and when Pettigrew had, late one night in third year, admitted that he fancied her, Prongs, Padfoot, and Moony had made it their mission to see to it that no one else had a chance, by relentlessly sharing her company almost around the clock, a fact that worked to James's advantage in the long run.

No one else, that is, except Snivellus, Pettigrew recalled, his lips curling into a rueful sneer. They all knew the stringy, unattractive Slytherin really wanted to be with Lily, but if he couldn't have her, or if his blood prejudices wouldn't permit him to, why not settle for her best friend, whose blood status was completely unknown? Peter remembered how the friendly girl used to bedevil Snape in the corridors by calling, "Hullo, Severus!" cheerily at the very top of her prodigious lungs every time she saw him, which never failed to cause him to cringe and turn a fiery crimson; he wryly recalled how Akiko would mutter, under her breath to whomever she was with at the time, about what a standoffish little git he was, asserting with a gleeful snicker, "He hates me."

But Snape got his revenge, during O.W.L. year, when he tutored Akiko in Potions and began slipping her Amortentia. Soon the pair of them were sickeningly inseparable; the day-bright Quidditch player and prefect found his dark, taciturn, night-like silence to be the ideal audience for her animated prattling in the back of Potions classes. Pettigrew crushed a splinter in his metallic hand, reducing it to fine dust with suppressed anger at the recollections. Just as rapidly as the splinter had fallen victim to his silver fingers, the Marauders' loyalty to Akiko had outweighed their interest in making Snape's life a nightmare at every available chance. True enough, in Akiko's (and pursuantly, Lily's) absence, their rivalry escalated to all-out, full-scale war, but the moment that either Akiko or Lily showed up, wands disappeared and hasty excuses were made. Lupin had tried, for a brief stint, to head off Lily or Akiko whenever they approached such altercations, but the girls rapidly learned to sidestep him in the corridors. Eventually, Snape and Potter had realized it was in their mutual best interest to leave one another alone, and reluctantly reached an uneasy armistice. He remembered the day the truce had been reached:

Akiko and Lily had come sprinting up to the lakeside, Prefect badges bouncing awkwardly on their chests, in a whirlwind of black, bronze, blue, red, and gold. Their book-filled bags thudded to the ground as they discarded them, still running, and whisked out their wands.

"You tossers; you promised!" Akiko spat venomously at Sirius and Peter as she tore past the tree against which Sirius was leaning nonchalantly and under which Peter was watching, in his perpetual role as the cheering section, having only just hidden his wand behind his back.

"You know, Wormtail, if I didn't know better I'd say she was mildly peeved with us," Sirius drawled. "And I can't imagine why." Just then, Lupin came running up, and skidded to a halt, bending forward with his hands on his knees.

"I...I tried to head them off...." he panted to Sirius as Lily and Akiko leapt between Potter and Snape. "But I couldn't...."

"We'd had that bit out on our own," Sirius said dismissively, still watching the two black-haired boys trying to get around the girls standing between them, now hurling insults instead of hexes.

"Sod off, Evans! Would you two get out of the way?" James called in flippant irritation, without taking his eyes off Snape.

"If you don't stop this... contemptible behavior, I'll--I'll have points from Gryffindor," Akiko threatened in a trembling tone of voice, her lower lip quivering.

"Crib that line from McGonagall, Kiko?" Severus asked her derisively as he nursed a prolifically bleeding cut on his right bicep.

Lily whipped around to glare at the stringy boy, adding, "And I'll have points from Slytherin."

"You wouldn't dare," the stringy Slytherin barked, scandalized. Lily crossed her arms and favored him with a truculent scowl, her green eyes narrowing to the size of buttonholes. He raised an eyebrow, and admitted reluctantly, "All right, perhaps you would, then."

"You'd never let her have points from your own house, Evans," James Potter exclaimed indignantly.

"If it'd teach you a lesson about harassing each other senseless, I would double it," Lily retorted.

James Potter cast one last glower at Severus Snape, then finally lowered his wand. The other boy did the same, and both wizards stowed them in their bags, grumbling.

While Prongs benefited from this arrangement, however, Wormtail failed to see how that situation held any advantage for him. James got Lily, Snape got Akiko, and he got the occasional condescending pat on the head. He longed for the power to right this imbalance of justice, longed so much for it that he couldn't refuse Dolohov and Rosier's offer of power beyond his wildest dreams if he became an informant in the ranks of the Dark Lord. Peter snorted contemptuously. If lurking outside Severus Snape's library in this god-forsaken Muggle town was their idea of power beyond his wildest dreams, clearly someone's dreams were lacking in scope and imagination. And now, here was Snape, gloating over the memories of the woman that Peter knew should have been his. He was sickened.

Suddenly, there was a brighter flash than before; Snape had disappeared into the Pensieve again. Peter had been awaiting the chance to lock it back in the cupboard while Snape was still in it for quite a while. Telling the Dark Lord what one of his top advisors was doing would, perhaps, buy him greater favor, or even--he grinned with glee--bring down Severus. He pushed open the hidden door and crept out into the library, a now hidden expression of glee on his face. His hands had just rested on the edges of the bowl when suddenly, a deafening bang echoed through the room, throwing the chubby, bald man to the ground. When he rolled over and looked up, he saw Snape towering over him, a dangerous glower on his face. "I don't recall asking you into my study, Wormtail;" he snapped angrily, his wand raised.

"I-I-didn't...realize....I was... clearing up..."

"You may have languished in desuetude as a house pet for thirteen years, but don't assault my intelligence," Snape hissed silkily. "Even the thickest of wizards can tell when a Pensieve is occupied." A bright yellow spray of a curse flew at Pettigrew, and he dodged it, followed by a hail of curses that he knew Snape was merely permitting to miss him in order to propel him from the room. You'll regret not hitting me with a few of those, Snape, Pettigrew thought angrily.

"Five first years, blimey; they don't really need us prefects, do they?" Ron said under his breath as the first years marched in for sorting with Professor Flitwick, the new Deputy Headmaster. After what Hermione pointed out was the shortest sorting ceremony recorded in Hogwarts: A History (in which Kevin Creevey [a third Creevey brother] and Elise O'Connor, a wide-eyed Muggle-born, were sorted into Gryffindor), McGonagall rose to her feet at the staff table to say a few words. Harry noted grimly that a few of the staff, in addition to Snape, appeared to have departed with equal haste as the majority of the student body. Slughorn had returned, surprisingly, although he continued to steal furtive glances at McGonagall as though he hoped to slink off while she wasn't looking. Only one new face had appeared, a woman who looked slightly familiar but whom he couldn't place.

"Due to the dangers inherent in having so many students outdoors, Quidditch has been cancelled," McGonagall added, snapping Harry's wandering attention back to her with a jolt.

"Oh, come on; you can't say you're surprised," interjected Hermione in a dismissive whisper, and he nodded tersely.

"As you may have noticed, we now have had several changes on the staff in light of recent...losses. I am now Headmistress, but I shall continue to teach Transfiguration as usual," she stated.

"Thank heaven," Hermione breathed.

"Professor Flitwick of Ravenclaw has taken on the position of Deputy Headmaster, and Professor Slughorn has graciously accepted the responsibilities of Head of House for Slytherin House." Slughorn smiled, a grim, forced leer that suggested that either dinner hadn't agreed with him, or that his acquiescence to McGonagall's request was anything but gracious.

"We have also retained, for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, Professor Sakura Uzume, late of Wazuma Daigakuin Daigaku of Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan."

The woman seated in the Defense Against The Dark Arts Professor's chair rose to her feet beside McGonagall and waved, a rather cheeky gesture in Harry's judgment. She wore resplendent, high-necked robes of teal brocade, and her thick, shining black hair was pulled back into a high series of buns and swoops, laced throughout with cherry blossoms and black enameled chopsticks. She had merry-looking, slanted brown eyes, and what little skin they could see looked like fine china, making her resemble an extremely lifelike and incredibly fragile porcelain doll.

"That's Sakura Uzume? The Sakura Uzume? The Japanese witch Charlie brought to the wedding?" Hermione whispered.

"Yeh. They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one," Ron muttered.

"Ron, don't you read Advances in Defense against the Dark Arts? She's one of the world's foremost experts in combat magic; she's written loads of innovative articles," Hermione replied with a hint of exasperation.

"Rita Skeeter's written a load of innovative articles, too, but they're not necessarily useful," Ron retorted. "She can't be that strong in Defense, can she? Just a little tiny Japanese lady."

Hermione stared at him, incredulous. "Haven't you learned anything, Ron? Outward appearances are deceiving! I mean, look at the people we know, like Sirius--" she backtracked, knowing it was a sore subject with Harry, "erm, like your mum! She looks like a happy sweet little lady, but she really can give you what-for!"

"C'moff it, Hermione! She looks like she'd break if you dropped her!"

"Oh, you're hopeless," Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes.

While they had been bickering, Harry's mind had wandered back to where he had last seen the Japanese witch. Mrs. Weasley, Ron, and Hermione were sitting across the table from him; Bill and Fleur had already left the reception and the torches were burning low. "Dear, you have to return to Hogwarts, at least until the holidays. We'll all be ever-so-worried," Mrs. Weasley was fretting. Her words washed over him uselessly.

"There's no place else that Voldemort wants to break into more--oh, for Heaven's sake," Hermione had said exasperatedly as both Mrs. Weasley and Ron flinched. Harry hadn't noticed, he was looking over their shoulders to where Charlie Weasley was standing, with three witches who were speaking in hushed tones with several members of the Order: a short, slender, merry-looking one with honey-colored braids that he had recognized as Lee Jordan's elder sister Saundra; a tall, angular, sharp-edged one with severe-looking, peppermint-green eyes and deep crimson spiral curls, so dark they were almost maroon; and a willowy, merry-looking Oriental witch, with thick black hair and a blue satin kimono.

Finally, he had to add something to the conversation. "Ron's got a point, Hermione. We've never had a competent woman professor in Defense Against the Dark Arts," Harry commented.

Over the summer, Harry had learned to take their bickering in stride, appreciating it as a bit of an art that was entertaining to watch, but even more entertaining to prod in the directions he wanted it to go. This time, Hermione took his bait and drew herself up to her full, seated height, her bushy hair quivering. "Just because Dolores Umbridge was a pea-brained hag, that doesn't mean that all witches are."

"Well, she's assigned Umbridge's book, didn't she?" Ron accused. "Defensive Magical Apathy, by Wilbert Slimehard, World-Class Prat. Oh, that's going to be a really thrilling class. Ripping. Brilliant. And first thing tomorrow morning, too. I might skive off the very first day, honestly."

"Ronald Weasley, YOU. ARE. A. PREFECT." Hermione enunciated each word as a separate sentence. There was a dangerous pause, after which she tutted dismissively, "Besides, the bookstore probably got it wrong."

"When has Flourish and Blotts ever got anything wrong?" Harry asked. Hermione pointedly ignored him, applying herself to renewed vigor to listening to McGonagall, who was now going over new security proceedings.

"In the absence of ... our former headmaster; there are many who believe that He Who Must Not Be Named and his followers will be attacking with renewed fervor. The Ministry of Magic has made some...modifications...to Hogwarts in an effort to ensure your safety." Harry noted the disdain in her voice, and, recalling the last time the Ministry had made any modifications to Hogwarts, gulped. "In order to cut down on unnecessary time in the halls, a team of technicians from the Ministry has installed an internal Floo network inside the castle so that students may Floo from their common rooms directly to their classes. Students are not to use the corridors unless absolutely necessary. We've put further shields and wards on the school; however, I must warn you that under no circumstances is any student to attempt to take on You-Know-Who or any of his followers." McGonagall peered severely over her spectacles at the full table. "Failure to comply will result in severe penalties to yourself and your House."

Well, Harry thought to himself, there's yet another rule I'll just have to break.