The students are just about to arrive and Gwen is settling into her new office and going over the lesson plans for that school year. She receives a lovely present "welcome to the staff" present from Dumbledore and gets to watch the sorting take place from the staff table.

Gwen has reached the first weekend of the autumn term and is feeling a bit more lonely that she expected to, so she goes to spend some with Ashlar - a horse with mysterious origins and is not an ordinary horse. On Sunday afternoon she has a talk with Dumbledore and receives some much needed advise

The tension between Professor Archer and Professor Snape gets even worse when Gwen receives a visit from a forest creature that she knew when she was taking the Care of Magical Creatures class. Later, she is fianlly forced to swallow her pride and apoligize for her actions...as well as requesting Professor Snape's assistance.

Gwendolyn finds herself have a series of rather disturbing dreams about the object of her annoyance and goes to Professor Trelawney for a dream interpretation.

Professor Archer makes an effort to extend an olive branch to the Potions Master, and to her surprise, they begin to talk about the time when they were both students at Hogwarts.

At long last, Professor Snape and Professor Archer declare a truce, but not before there are some embarrassing revelations and awkward moments.

Gwendolyn's nightmares eventually cause her to become ill with the autumn flu, memories of the night her parents were killed begin to come back and a startling secret about Narya Prewitt comes out.