my little note -
hello everyone! this is my first ever fic so please r&r - help me improve :) anyways, i don't own the story or characters so please don't sue me!
okay, the jist of the story is as follows - harry is a teacher. draco is a student. it's not supposed to happen, but it does.
eventually.
winks
edit: is anyone else not seeing paragraphs on this?? I tried to separate them with ampersands but they keep disappearing and reappearing. If anyone know how to fix this, please let me know...
"i'd say you make a perfect
angel in the snow
all crushed out on the way you are
better stop before it goes too far
don't you know that i love you
sometimes i feel like only a cold still life
that fell down here to lay beside you"
- Prologue -
St Rowling's Mixed Boarding School was a place of contradiction. It catered for the sons and daughters of rich
men, who would take everything but their last breath for granted, and for the sons and daughters of the poor, who
had earned their place through intellect and the strongest of catalysts - anger.
Draco Malfoy, the richest son of them all, had, from inception, spearheaded a campaign against the
indignity of having to share St Rowling's with 'the scholarship scum', as they were most commonly termed. His
campaign had successfully served to reinforce the longstanding silent segregation between the two factions, and
had cemented his status as a Malfoy to be reckoned with, towering over his contemporaries through the power of
excessive beauty and forcefully bone-headed arrogance. The teachers did not acknowledge the divide, though
they knew it was there. It hung always over their heads, flashing invisible in the halls. Rich did not speak to poor.
This was the way it had always been, and would always be - until a young teacher decided to change it all, as the
young so often do.
The story I am about to tell has been, is being and no doubt will be relayed over countless dinner tables,
to countless tipsy ladies, through countless restless mouths, all hungry for details, eager to pore over the facts and
fictions surrounding the barely-believable events of January. The tipsy ladies will have their fun speculating, but
they will never know the truth. The truth is in the hands of a friendly omniscient narrator, you the reader, and, of
course, Malfoy and the young teacher in question - with whom the tale shall begin.
- 1 -
Harry Potter - too handsome to be a teacher. These were the words that jostled through the staff rooms, the
classrooms, the corridors. Everyone had seen him - the startling green eyes, the endearingly ruffled black hair, the
slim, subtly muscular physique, the nervous yet friendly smile he gave to them all. Oh yes, the talk was true -
Harry Potter was definitely too handsome to be a teacher, though the thought would never even occur to him,
modest as he was. Harry believed in one thing and one thing only - integrity. It was etched in him, in the way he
would hold open the door for everyone, the way he treated everyone from Queen to dustman as equal, the way
he would go out of his way to help purely through empathy, never pity. He believed, above all things, that all
humans were born to live, in the true sense of the word, and the best way to help people truly live was through the
opening of their minds, through education. Yes, I suppose it could be said that Mr Potter was something of an
idealist.
&
Harry's introduction to the strange world of Rowling's came in the form of an incredibly brief 'meeting'
with Cornelius Fudge, the newly appointed and insufferably pompous head of admissions. Fudge had looked
Harry up and down sharply, exclaimed "YOU. Are a man of GOOD. BREEDING," then continued with his
paper work. Next had been Mr Severus Snape, a man as sharp as his name. He did not suffer fools. Matter of
fact, he did not suffer anyone. He had shown Harry to his new desk (the smallest in the room), with all the grace
and charm of a shark eyeing its prey. In between all this, Harry had to contend with several untactful students
giggling as he walked by, or simply stopping dead in amazement. Harry had wondered if there was something on
his face.
And now, sitting outside the headmaster's office and waiting for his final briefing, Harry was nervous. More than
he had been since Tom and the... he didn't like to think about that. He breathed in. Looked at his hands. They
were shaking, of course. Harry's hands always shook when he needed them to be steady. He looked
ahead, at a reproduction of Van Gogh's Wheatfield With Crows on the wall. Its inky black, swirling sky never
failed to draw Harry in whenever he saw it, and today was no different.
"Isn't it lovely?" a male voice breathed besides him. Harry yelped, startled. The man next to him laughed.
"The same to you," the man said. Harry looked at him, smiled, then stopped. His eyes narrowed. Harry
recognized him. The blond hair, the grey - no, silver - eyes, the somewhat dangerous air about him...
"I'm sorry, have we met?" Harry asked. The man shook his head, then checked his nails.
"No. You might have seen me in the society pages of Tatler though - or Harpers & Queen, that sort of
thing..."
"Lucius Malfoy's son?"
The man looked terribly peeved at this.
"Draco Malfoy. I'm no one's son, not even my father's."
"Oh... okay."
"Anyway, who are you?"
"I'm Harry. Harry Potter. I'll be teaching here from tomorrow."
"Oh! What subject?"
"English"
"Ah, you look the sort."
Harry laughed.
"Yes, I suppose I do... what do you teach, Draco?"
"Teach! Do you have any idea how much my father earns? Teaching's for the poor - or the hopelessly
deluded. I'm a student here," Draco said haughtily.
Harry looked at the man - boy, even - amused. He had never met anyone so self-assured in his life - he didn't
think people like this existed. Although Draco had proven himself amusing enough, Harry silently prayed that he
would not be teaching him this year. Arrogance was not an appealing trait.
"... not that you're poor of course, sir..." Draco trailed off. He seemed to have realised a little late that the
twenty-something next to him was, on paper at least, his superior.
The awkward silence which ensued was broken by Draco.
"Mr Potter?"
"Yes?"
"Which English group are you teaching for upper sixth?"
"The higher tier, I think."
"Oh, that's mine," a faint trace of excitement lay buried in Draco's drawl. Harry groaned with all his heart.
"Well. You'll get to put up with my hopeless delusion for a whole year," Harry smiled.
"I should think you're worse off, sir - there's so much ship scum in my English class, its teeming with them --"
"-- Ship scum?"
"Oh, you know, the scholarship kids," Draco lowered his voice, " - though I think scum is more fitting." He
smirked conspiratorially at Harry. Harry felt his blood run cold. His jaw tightened in anger.
"I should think there's far better words to describe people than 'scum," Harry barked. Draco's eyes
widened in indignation.
"What?"
"You heard me, Malfoy."
Just then, a woman poked her head out of the headmaster's office.
"Mr Potter, Albus is ready to see you now"
Harry smiled at her, and wordlessly left Draco's side. Draco scowled. Deeply.
&
One could easily be fooled into thinking that Albus Dumbledore, with his long grey beard and kindly
wrinkles, was a soft touch. This was not the case. Dumbledore was gifted. He knew the score in a way no-one
else ever could - through some freak twist of nature's law, some divine accident, he could see lies in colours. This
was particularly handy in Dumbledore's profession - school often teaches children to lie in order to save
themselves, and the headmaster's gift meant that the path of truth was the only path the children in his care could
take. Right now, Harry Potter screamed blue. Blue was pure truth, and Dumbledore knew he had made the right
choice for the coveted English teaching position. His eyes twinkled in soft sunlight, which seeped in through the
skylight. He watched Harry talk; words flowed out of him like water from a gushing tap - he spoke of integrity,
equality, and various other meaningless concepts. Dumbledore was old enough to know that resistance to the
order of things was, more often than not, futile. The world was unfair - Harry did not realise this yet, but he would
soon enough.
" -- and I just think that the labelling of children clever enough to get scholarships as 'ship scum' as the
Malfoy boy suggested is, well, it's something I'd like to change." Harry finished off.
"Thank you, Mr Potter, for that impassioned speech," Dumbledore smiled softly. Harry blushed.
"However..." he continued, "... there is one thing you must remember, before you begin your mission. I
came to this school in 1945. 1945. That's an awfully long time ago. In my entire tenure at Rowling's, I have tried,
Mr Potter. I have tried long and hard to shift the divide between the children, from bonding days to awareness
assemblies - every trick in the book, you name it, I have tried it. But something you have to understand is that
however much control we have over the children, their parents have more. That is how the strongest hatred is
born - from the mouths of mothers to the mind of the child. I cannot erase that type of hatred, and neither can
you. You can try. You will fail, but you can try."
Harry wasn't sure what the best response to this entirely disheartening speech should be... He settled on, "That I
will do, Mr Dumbledore."
Dumbledore smiled.
"Go."
Harry nodded in acknowledgement and turned to leave.
"One more thing I forgot to mention..."
Harry turned back.
"Good luck. You'll need it."
