Summary - Lily Potter is tense about being the newest professor at Hogwarts, but the word doesn't even seem to cover her feelings when she meets her colleague Scorpius Malfoy. A new, chaotic era filled with betrayal, revelations and perhaps a little romance, promises to spice up her first year of teaching. LPSM, DH spoilers.

Disclaimer – I don't own Harry Potter or any affiliated characters or trademarks. If I did, I'd be rolling in my piles of money instead of writing fanfics on my crappy computer XD

Invisible worms seemed to wriggle under the skin of Lily Luna Potter. Feeling rather nauseous and clammy, the young witch had resigned to keep her eyes firmly focused on the table in front of her. This was the only strategy she had come up with to prevent the butterflies in her stomach from escaping onto the floor of the Great Hall.

"Welcome, to another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

If the anxiety hadn't already kicked into her system, this would have been the clincher. For the first time, since she was a student there, Lily looked out over the Great Hall. It was odd to see things from a different perspective; this time she was looking out from behind the teachers' desk, rather than from her house table. All the students here seemed so much smaller, now that she was grown up… she had never believed in a million years that she would have would up coming back to this place, let alone as the newest Potions professor.

Headmistress Vector, looking much the same as Lily had remembered her from her own schooling years, stood at the podium to deliver the routine start-of-year speech. Septima's voice was mostly drowned out by the panicky voices inside Lily's head, but a few sentences were clearly audible: "Now, to some notices on staffing. Madam Hooch is currently ill with a dreadful case of spattergoit, and will be indefinitely replaced by Professor Tristan Saunders." said the tight-lipped witch, indicating a tall gentleman with greying hair. He stood up and nodded curtly to the crowd of onlooking students, then sat back down.

She continued: "We congratulate Professor Horace Slughorn on his recent retirement and also welcome our newest staff member, Professor Lily Potter."

The bottom of Lily's stomach dropped at this, the moment she had been dreading. Whispers broke out throughout the room; undoubtedly, the students were questioning whether she was really the daughter of the famous Harry Potter. Almost frozen to the spot, Lily looked at Professor Flitwick on her left, for direction. A nod from him signalled her to stand up. Looking up at the crowd of students for the first time, she stood, giving them a weak nod and feeble smile before immediately retaking her post.

After the speech she chatted to the various Professors, all of whom were friendly and quite eager to give her tips on how to control students. Lily spent most of the feast listening diligently to her colleagues, the feeling in her stomach growing worse as they explained in detail, the horrors of their first year of teaching. But they all brushed it off, insisting, "It gets easier," when they saw the terrified expression on her face.

Halfway through a sip of pumpkin juice, Lily realised that the seat to her right was vacant. A small frown creased her brow as she wondered who had replaced her old Transfiguration teacher. Shrugging it off, she supposed she would meet him or her tomorrow.

Tomorrow. That was when the thought struck her… the very next day, she would be teaching her first class of students.

Lily stood in front of the oval mirror of her quarters, examining her appearance from every angle for the millionth time. Finally pulling her hair into a loose bun, the young woman decided it wasn't going to get any better than this. In appearance, Lily was almost a carbon copy of her mother, Ginny; Lily was rather short, though not as stocky, and had those same chocolate coloured eyes. Her pale complexion meant she burnt easily in the sunlight, but luckily she was more of an indoors person anyway.

The only way in which she didn't resemble her mother was her wavy ebony hair. Naturally it was the same colour as her mother, but she had been the subject of much ridicule for her trademark Weasley locks that she had used potions to change it since her first years of Hogwarts. Her parents never understood why she wasn't comfortable with herself the way she was; like her mother she was a reasonably attractive girl. But since she had also inherited the stubbornness of both her parents, Lily always had to have things her way.

With a deep sigh, and some muttered, last-minute reminders to herself, Lily decided she couldn't stall any longer. If she didn't hurry up she was going to miss breakfast, not that that would be a bad thing, considering her nerves at the present time.

Briskly, she made her way to the Great Hall, avoiding the curious eyes of students as she took her seat. "Good morning, Professor Flitwick," she greeted one of her colleagues with false cheer, hoping that maybe if she appeared confident the students would not prey on her fear.

Flitwick saw through this feeble defence in about a millisecond. He proceeded to repeat everything he had said to her about his first year. Finally, after she had spent about five minutes poking her poached egg rather than, eating it, he said something that interested her. "But that was a long time ago… this evening I'll introduce you Scorpius, the Transfiguration Professor." said Flitwick, nodding to the empty seat beside her. Scorpius? Why did that name have a certain hint of familiarity about it? "He was just as nervous as you when he started, a couple of years ago. I'm sure he'd be glad to give you a few pointers."

"Well, thank you very much for your advice, Professor Flitwick, I'll keep it in mind. If you'll excuse me, I think I'd better do some last minute preparations for my first lesson." said Lily politely. In truth, she just wanted to get away in case he repeated his stories again; though he had been one of her favourite teachers when she was at Hogwarts, Lily had to admit that Flitwick was becoming slightly senile in his old age. Plus, the sooner she got to her first class, the sooner it would be over with. She had the first years first period; with any luck they would be just as scared as Lily was.

Her first day had gone reasonably well, Lily thought. There were minimum injuries, and her first year class had given her confidence that she was capable of doing this job. Second year however, were a rather rowdy bunch, and a rather clumsy boy named Liam Archer had somehow managed to knock over his cauldron of… well, whatever it was that he created.

With a contended sigh, she made her way to the Great Hall, but was soon distracted from her thoughts by the call of one of her fellow Professors. Oh god, Professor Flitwick isn't going to ask me about my first day again, is he? He already asked three times before lunch!

Spinning around on the spot, the petite Potter saw that Flitwick was accompanied by a tall man with blonde hair, grey eyes and a rather pointed face. Something about him reminded her of her parent's school album, but she couldn't quite pick the resemblance.

As they drew closer she realised that the man who had to be the Transfiguration Professor, was rather attractive. The word rather being an understatement. And just like that, the butterflies had returned. Although compared to those of yesterday, these had to be killer butterflies. "This is the one I was taking about, Scorpius! Since you're the newest staff member aside from Lily here, I supposed you'd have some pointers for her. Now if you'll both excuse me, I need to find Septima…" Flitwick trailed off dottily, turning a corner and leaving the young Professors alone.

"Hi, I'm Lily…" said the young witch, a slight crimson occupying her usually pale cheeks. Suddenly she felt rather like a student again, with some schoolgirl crush on the mysterious boy on the other side of the room… Well, it's not like I'm an old woman or anything… she thought to herself, trying to justify this sudden onset of immaturity. At 23 years old I reserve the right to having stupid crushes!

She extended a hand to the man, who probably wasn't half as taken with her as she was with him. "Hi, I'm-" Really really hot? Lily thought to herself with a snicker, filling in her own blanks. However she scolded herself mentally, thinking of how mortified she would be if he could hear her thoughts.

At that very second, before he had had a chance to properly introduce himself, her hair went a violent shade of red; her natural colour. Lily blushed crimson; perhaps today wasn't the best time to be trialling some new colour change potion that she had been trying to invent… Scorpius, however, seemed amazed.

"Wow, are you a metamorphmagus?" he questioned, impressed. "I've always wanted to meet one."

Oh, she thought to herself, crestfallen; Lily thought he was amazed by her. It wasn't that much of a far stretch, was it? How silly, she thought to herself. He's the transfiguration professor, of course he's going to be interested by something transforming without any magic...

"No," Lily replied, "I was just testing this potion I tried to invent… see, all the hair colour-changing potions I've used stop working after a couple of days… so I tried to invent my own… pretty stupid, huh?" Her cheeks had still not lost their reddish tinge.

"No, I think it's fascinating… Potions may not be my forte, but I'm – well, I'm fair decent at Transfiguration-"

"More than decent, I'm sure, otherwise you wouldn't be here." she interjected, blushing even redder if possible. What is wrong with you? Why don't you just scream that you've developed some stupid schoolgirl crush on him, you're already that obvious?

"Thank you, you're too kind… but anyway, I'm sure Transfiguration is involved at some stage… if you want help with your Potion I'd be glad to help." offered Scorpius with a smile. Unfortunately, charm was not a quality he was blessed with; certainly if he had been, he would have chosen this moment to use it. He too, had noticed that his now co-worker was rather striking. However she seemed to like him, so Scorpius supposed he could risk being his dorky old self.

They began walking toward the Great Hall together. "That sounds great. I've almost run out of ideas, to tell you the truth."

"Well, I'm sure I could help you with some research. Oh, but I forgot to properly introduce myself." They stopped at the entrance of the Great Hall. "I'm Scorpius, Scorpius Malfoy."

Author's Note - Ooh, cliffie! How will she react to this new development? Will it be Harry and Draco rivalry all over again? Anyway, I hope things are moving along rather quickly, I hate stories with no action XD And I have many plans for the future… oh yes; family issues, humour, romance, betrayal, to name a few. So tell me what you think in a review… if you do, I'll post the next chapter quicker :)