the end, again - tom riddle

chapter eleven

November 22nd, 1951.

Mara found that she grew bored of grading papers quickly. Extremely quickly.

She hadn't had high expectations for herself in the first place. In fact, she was proud she'd gotten to the end of November.

But if she had to force herself to read one more bloody paper with the same answer in a different way or an answer she was sure her students had pulled straight from their arse, she thought her insanity would start to progress much faster than it should have.

So that brought her to where she was today. With a classroom full of students waiting nervously for her directions. She loved keeping them in suspense. It was some of the only pleasure she got lately.

Mara let three more minutes pass of her staring down each of her students while they nervously shifted in their seats before she began.

"Good afternoon, fourth years." she greeted finally.

"Good afternoon, Professor Vaux." they chorused.

Mara allowed herself a small smile. "I'm sure you're all wondering why class has not yet started and I think I've kept you waiting long enough. I do not have a big announcement for you today, I am simply informing you of a change in how my classroom will run."

Mara hopped onto her desk so that she was more level with the students, idly swinging her legs. "You see, I find myself growing tired of grading every worksheet and test that you turn into me. So instead, we will grade all of your worksheets and review the material you missed the day before a test while in class. I will grade your tests as usual, but I will no longer waste my personal time trying to interpret your lazy scrawl and answers."

As always, every eye in the classroom was on her. Students watched her with rapt attention, excited at the prospect of possibly being able to cheat their grades in her class.

Mara smirk grew wicked. "Now, some of you may be asking yourselves, 'But Professor Vaux, how will you prevent cheaters?' It is a fair question and one I have an answer to. Before I do so, would anyone like to guess?"

"And give you ideas?" a voice called from the back.

Mara chuckled along with the rest of the class. "Perhaps, Mr. Jones. Or maybe I simply want to see what you all think of me."

The class was still quiet, uneasily squirming in their seats. "Go on. Tell me what you think." she prompted.

A timid hand in the back of the classroom raised itself. "Ah, yes Miss Courdon?" Mara called.

"Would you, maybe, give them a zero on all of the worksheets we grade that day?"

Mara grinned widely, hopefully encouraging others. "Exactly, Miss Courdon! Excellent thinking. Ten points to Gryffindor. Who's next?"

"Cleaning the toilets?" A voice hollered.

"Scrubbing the owlery?"

"Cleaning the creature's pens?"

Mara nodded and waited for the students to quiet themselves. When they were settled again, she continued, "Wonderful ideas, everyone. I suppose it would be unfair of me not to tell you the punishment for any sort of cheating, wouldn't it?"

"Yes!" came her student's response.

"Alright then. To begin with, I'll tell you how difficult it would be to cheat in the first place, so as to disuade the stupid few of you who would try. I will place an anti-cheating charm on the stack of parchments before magically handing them out to you. This charm makes it so that you can't erase any writing already on the parchment and will immediately mark wrong any answers you do try to change. This, too, is unchangeable."