"Professor Rosamund, where are we going?"

"On Ravenclaw tower. My office is located there, and it's the perfect place to read books and sip tea."

"How nice." Alice didn't say much and continued following the Divination Professor. When they reached her office, Alice was taken aback by the amount of huge bookshelves yet the room, instead of feeling stuffy like the library, it felt more free and cozy. She concluded that it's because of the open windows, and the shelves stuck in the wall instead of being cramped towards the center.

The center of the room is a pile of pillows as the seats and a small but wide table. On the center of the table is Rosamund's crystal ball. The professor prepared a tray of tea and sat down on one of the pillows. She beckoned for Alice to seat across her, which she did so. Alice stayed silent as the professor poured tea into their cups, and she noticed that the professor's usual coldness morphed into comfort even for a little bit. She can feel her relax.

"Do you like sugar in your tea?"

"Yes. I like my tea sweet. Can I be the one to mix it?"

"Of course. Be careful though. It's hot."

Alice took her cup and added three teaspoons of sugar and poured milk on it too. She notices that her professor only added one teaspoon of sugar, nothing more. She felt awkward, but there was a comfortable silence as they stirred their teas, and Rosamund began the discussion.

"Once again, I would like to apologize for inconveniencing you. I find Slughorn's class an interesting subject, and so I didn't want you to miss your first class with him. I've already gotten his permission and you are excused to the class."

"It is fine, Ms. Rosamund."

"That's good to hear. Now, you might be wondering why you are excused from your class and is being summoned here in my office. It is regarding by the reason you were admitted here in this school, about the prophecy." The professor took out her wand and tapped its tip on the crystal ball, from there, images of war were shown, orchestrated by a brilliant yet cruel wizard. Death was everywhere, and it marked the success of a Dark Lord who orchestrated the first war in the wizarding world. The cruelty of the images shown sent a chill down to Alice's spine. Bumby's business of selling children to the black market was repulsive and downright cruel, but this war.. It was pure evil, and terrorizing.

"Miss Alice.. I assure you, we didn't want to cause you any trouble, and would rather really help. You know, Professor Dodgson is like my grandfather, and you were my childhood." Professor Rosamund gave Alice a warm, kind smile, completely different from her usual icy demeanor. "Alice in Wonderland had always been a favorite childhood book of mine, and I had always admired Professor Dodgson. He made learning arithmetic fun and he always helped out troubled students regardless of background, he's the kind of teacher I aspire to be. He always helped me out when I was still a student here in Hogwarts, and he continued helping me when I started teaching here. Even when he retired, I'd always drop by his place and give him company, since he didn't have any of his family visit him. His last few days were.. Particularly difficult. He said, you were one of his biggest regrets. He always wanted to help you, but he said he was too much of a coward to face you. He uh, he blamed himself for your family's demise and for what happened to you."

"What? But it wasn't his fault at all. It was all Bumby's."

"Well, he blamed himself, thinking if only he had helped sooner. If he dropped by the house to visit, maybe he would have prevented the fire. He was the one funding your bills on the asylum so that you wouldn't spend your parents' inheritance for you, and the nurse told him you were discharged and was off travelling around the world. He only learned the truth much later, discovering that the nurse took all of the money, and you were left impoverished and suffering at the hand of that disgusting doctor. When he finally resolved to facing you personally and bringing you to the wizarding world, you have gone missing."

Alice sighed deeply, her face darkened. She was relieved that Charles had been looking out for her, but she was also angry at that old bitch who stole all her money. She had to live her whole life as a penniless miser, when all along she shouldn't have been suffering financially.

"I'm really sorry, Miss Alice.. Professor Dodgson only knew about your true ability and whereabouts when he discovered your connection to the prophecy. He was relieved and elated to find you are still alive, but was also scared to involve you in the wizarding world's affair when you didn't even know it existed. He couldn't really ignore all the death looming in the future, and I bet he regrets that he wasn't able to see you again and help you through this. It's why I'm here, on behalf of Professor Dodgson, I will do my best to help you through this and let the old man rest in peace." With a kind smile, she held Alice's hand and squeezed it gently. She took her cup of tea and drank, and Alice followed suit.

"Thank you, professor. For telling me all of this. It at least gave more clarity to my situation."

"It is no problem, because from here on out, expect me to always be there to help you in any way I can."

"I'm thankful to hear that. But Professor, how do I exactly fit in this prophecy? I'm already guessing that I need to jump into a student's wonderland, but whose? And what do I do exactly?"

"That.. I can't help you with. The ministry is already tied up dealing with Grindelwald, a maniac who wants to rule both the wizarding world and the muggle world. So we here in the academy are to prevent the rise of another dark lord who is much more sinister than Grindelwald. The problem is, we do not know who this future dark lord is. We are already lucky to find you Miss Alice since your abilities gave you away, but this student, their future is still yet to come. Our only hope is that we still can change this grim future laid out in front of us."

"So we are in the process of finding this student. Anyone on the list?"

"Yes. Here." Professor Rosamund gave her a sheet of paper with the names, houses and years of the students. There were only 7 people written down, and Tom was included.

"Tom Riddle? Who put his name in here?"

"It was Professor Dumbledore. You see Alice, it is difficult for us teachers to put our student's name in that list, much more so when the list is indefinite. We never want for our students to grow into such a malignant being, but the Dark Lord in the future is shown to be brilliantly powerful and cunning. Believe me when I say that almost everyone in the school admires Mr. Riddle, and that includes us staff. My class is always disregarded as an unreliable one, but Riddle aces it anyway. He is a charming gentleman who may have a troubled background, and I couldn't imagine him being that evil. Professor Dumbledore however said that he is suspicious of him and that we should look out for him." She sighed and rubbed her temple, then drank what's left of her tea. Alice however, isn't that surprised. People who hide behind gentle masks can be the most terrifying. Take Dr. Bumby as an example, a man regarded as a brilliant scientist in his society with a kind heart, only to be hiding a hideous monster inside him.

"I honestly find all this hard to take in, but I'm the one who foresaw the future. A student.. I truly want to help students, and guide them to the right path. I'm sincerely glad you're here to help, as I alone don't have the power to fully do it yet. I still am a new teacher, and so I lack experience."

"Don't worry Professor, I'll help you as you have promised to help me too. I'll start by looking out and observing those in this list."

"Yes please, thank you."

The bell rang, signalling the end of the class and the end of both the professor and Alice's discussion.

"Don't worry about the cups, I'll take care of it. You should head down for lunch, enjoy it with your classmates." Professor Rosamund smiled and took out her wand, waving the cups into the sink.

Alice nodded and sat up, taking her stuff with her. "Thank you, Professor. I had a good time talking to you."

"Oh, it's no worry. I enjoyed my time with you too. Miss Alice, after class, you're free to roam about. I'd like for you to rest on your first day on school, but tomorrow, we will be starting our tutoring. We wouldn't want to have you lag around in classes after all."

"Yes Professor. I'll see you around." And with that, Alice left her office and went to the dining hall.

"Alice! Over here!" Isla called Alice over their table, her hand waving and gesturing her to take a seat beside them. Alice smiled and waved back, taking a seat beside Lorna. Lorna greeted her, but was preoccupied with her food and with her notes.

"Where were you? Why did Professor Rosamund called you?" Isla asked as she was eating.

"Oh. Uhm. Well, we were discussing about my extra classes. Since I'm a transfer student, it'd be obvious that I'm going to lack on certain subjects, that's why Professor will be helping me with my studies."

"That's awfully nice of Professor Rosamund, but it's surprising since she is known to be strict and cold. Also, she's a Ravenclaw Head Teacher and you're a Gryffindor, shouldn't it be Professor Dumbledore's duty?"

Alice began filling her plate with food and muttered a silent prayer before digging in. "Ah. I see. I think Professor Dumbledore will be teaching me too, but contrary to how Professor Rosamund looks, she's a kind teacher. She wants to help me and the other teachers approved of her assisting my studies."

"Oh. Okay." Isla nodded, and the three of them ate in silence. Well, the silence was brief though as Lorna argued with Isla about a certain subject's assignment.

As Alice looked around, her gaze fell upon the Slytherin table. Sure enough, she quickly found Riddle in the middle of unabated attention. He was talking to his peers with a charming smile on his face. The boys and girls around him seem to hang on to every word he said, and it made her curious what he was talking about with them. When Riddle began to eat, the others didn't disturb him and he was left alone, eating in silence while his peers chatted away.

'He's quite a mystery.' Alice mused. Then, she remembered about the list. First on it was someone named Antonin Dolohov, one of the four Slytherins listed.

"Isla, Lorna. Do you know Antonin Dolohov?"

The twins face immediately scrunched up in displeasure. "Oh. You mean that git?"

"He's an insufferable slytherin, it still exasperates me that he's a friend of Riddle." Lorna groaned.

"He's a show off, that Dolohov. He's part of the Quidditch team, likes roughing up against us Gryffindors, and Hufflepuffs even more. Not only that, but he harassed a lot of girls. Dirty bastard. Yet despite how despicable he is, he's actually pretty good academically." Isla sighed. "It's our 6th year already, I wish I could just play everyday instead of studying. Soon, I'll be finally free from school!"

Lorna raised two thumbs up, nodding at what her sister said. "I share the same sentiment sis."

'Hm.. A boy with despicable reputation yet good grades, no wonder he is in the list.' Alice mused. 'But how do I know if he's the future dark lord?'

Alice remembered about the teachers mentioning Legilimency, a spell to read minds. She'll ask the next professor later. She finished her food and head on to her next class, Transfiguration.

Alice was excited, yet also nervous. Dumbledore has advised her to buy a lot of books, although she would've bought a lot anyways. He guided her to which books she would need and over the course of a week, she may have not fully read all of them, but due to ample time she had, she was able to atleast grasp basic knowledge on the core subjects. It wouldn't compare at all to her classmates, but she'll need whatever she can learn. Alice had always slacked off her schooling, in a way, she's trying to compensate for it now that she was given a second chance.

Transfiguration, as she has read, is a difficult subject that requires diligence, logic and hard work. It wasn't a subject that she would breeze through, and it was apparent when she tried a few transfiguration spells. She couldn't learn it alone easily and was excited to learn more at school, however, sixth years are already at an advanced level of transfiguration, and that deeply worried her. She can't possibly catch up with their years of practice. She feared making a fool out of herself.

"Good afternoon class. I am glad to have you back again at school." Dumbledore greeted, heading towards his desk. Alice sat along with her Isla and Lorna, who chose a spot near enough to easily gawk at Riddle. "Alice, I'm hoping you are enjoying your classes so far?"

"Yes, professor." Alice nodded.

"Good, good. Today is the first day of school, so I won't delve into the lessons to deep for now. I will be recapping our lessons last year, and introduce you to a whole new level of Transfiguration." Dumbledore then began writing on the board and started the lesson, and Alice was relieved there will be no practical exercise like their have been on the charms class earlier. She listened diligently, but found her gaze drifting off to Riddle and his gang. As usual, Riddle is the epitome honor student, but he seemed less interested and looked even a bit disgruntled. How was she able to tell? One time during the class, Dumbledore asked Riddle to show an example of what they have learned last year and explain it since he was the first one out of the class to pull off a difficult intermediate level configuration. He scowled when Dumbledore called him, and had an annoyed look throughout his explanation. It was subtle and others wouldn't have noticed at all except his friends, but Alice noticed. His face stiffened when he was annoyed but his hands gripped his wand a bit tightly. She wouldn't have noticed it if she wasn't keeping an observing eye on him and Dolohov. Dolohov on the other hand, was half-listening to the class, half chatting with his friends, and half checking up the girls. He noticed Alice's gaze earlier and mistook it as an interest in him, which he seemed to welcome with a flirty smirk and wink. Alice groaned and immediately turned her head away. She sees why the twins hate him.

"That is all. I expect you children to read ahead so you'll be able to grasp a better understanding. Be careful when you are practicing too, immediately go to Madam Longbottom when you encounter an accident. See you again on wednesday."