Without Warning

Draco Malfoy stared across the Great Hall as the new first year students were brought in by Minerva McGonagall. This was to be his first year teaching at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If the knowledge of that fact wasn't intimidating enough, there was the fact that he would be only three or four years older of the eldest seventh year students.

Another intimidating fact would be that one of the seventh years would be Harry Potter. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. Draco snorted at the ridiculous nickname the wizarding world in Great Britain had given to the infant hero. But now it seemed as if Harry Potter was well fitted for the Britain's praise and gratitude being that he had been the one to off Voldemort earlier that year.

But that was beyond the point. The point was that Draco Malfoy who was known by all his former classmates and professors from the numerous magical academies he had studied at to always remain calm, cool, and collected was terrified of the prospect of teaching. Especially since Albus Dumbledore had stated that this group of students were one of the collective most talented he had seen come through Hogwarts—the seventh and sixth years most of all.

After the Sorting was finished, Draco waited nervously as the headmaster stood up to make his announcements and introductions.

"Welcome, students, to yet another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Let us hope that with the fall of Lord Voldemort that this year may be better than the last. Luckily the battle last year resulted without any casualties from the students." Whispers and cheering could be heard around the hall. Draco finally found his gaze was suddenly locked on a group sitting towards the center of the table to the far right, Gryffindor, he remembered Dumbledore telling him. Just then, one of the students looked up directly into his eyes. Emeralds were the first thought to cross his mind after seeing those eyes. Draco met the eyes defiantly with his own silver-gray eyes feeling as if he was being judged and cross-examined.

"I'd like to introduce our new professors this year. First, I am sorry to say that Professor Rubeus Hagrid has decided to resign from teaching Care of Magical Creatures, choosing to instead stay on as groundskeeper because of his injuries from during the war."

Draco watched as the student turned, breaking eye contact and nodding an answer to a question that a tall, lanky red head had asked him. Perhaps wanting to know if Harry knew of the news of Hagrid retiring from his teaching position. Draco, of course, knew that the man (he couldn't really consider him a boy being that he was probably only three or so years younger than him) was Harry Potter. He had noticed the scar. Draco had excellent, above average observation skills that had been drilled into him personally because of experiences that he had had to deal with because of his father and the various schools he had studied at.

Green eyes turned to look at him again as Dumbledore continued on in his speech. "To take Hagrid's place is none other than Charlie Weasley who has decided to leave his occupation as a dragon handler in favor of a less demanding, at least physically, job as he also recovers from his injuries."

Draco turned and smiled at his friend as he got up from his seat to wave to the crowd of students below. Charlie said a few words before sitting down again and saying, "It'll be alright, mate," to Draco. They had been acquainted for about five years, as at one point in time Draco's schooling he was enrolled at an institute near the dragon base and had spent quite a bit of his free time there.

"And since Professor Kingsley Shacklebolt sadly did not survive the war, I would like to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Draco Malfoy." Draco stood up, not to applause but rather to heated whispers. He turned his head and smirked at Charlie with a knowing look in his eyes. This was pretty much how everyone reacted to his surname.

Draco cleared his throat in a sign to become silent. "I would just like to say that although I may be only a few years older than some of you, I am fully prepared to bring as much knowledge as possible into my classroom. I, however, will not stand for any insults and slanders placed against me and my name due to the fact that my father was a well known Death Eater. I am stating now that I had nothing to do with any Death Eater activities before, during, and after the war being that I was at those points in time either in school, working, or helping in the fight against Voldemort. Questions of my location during the war will also not be tolerated and all that I will say on the matter is that I was usually out of the country, continuing my education. Any insults against my mother, Narcissa Black Malfoy, will also not be tolerated. Anyone in violation of those set barriers will be faced with detentions." He promptly sat down after his speech.

Charlie leaned towards him. "Are you trying to start the gossip and rumor mills?" Draco just laughed quietly in answer.

"So tell me about your brother and his friends and what to expect from them," Draco said as he started to pile food onto his plate as the feast appeared. "I've heard quite a bit about their adventures, shall we say, during their years here."

"Well, my brother is Ron. He's the tall redhead at the Gryffindor table as you probably know. If I hadn't talked to my brother already about you being here, I would think that he would be the first to go into one of your detention regimes."

"Why so?"

"He had a personal hatred towards your father. So does the rest of the group and most of the school actually. Your father, however, did try to kill him and his friends quite a few times. That has to do mainly with the fact that Harry Potter is the unspoken leader of that entire group. And also, the fact that Ron's girlfriend, Hermione, the girl with the long, brown, curly hair is his girlfriend as well as a Muggleborn contributes to the hatred against your father."

"He called her Mudblood."

"Yep." Charlie continued. "Ron's not a bad guy. He just has a rather hot temperament. He's Quidditch captain this year. Harry was last year but since he got Head Boy he decided that he wouldn't have enough time to do both and he said that Ron was way more of Quidditch fanatic and tactical person than he is.

"Now Hermione Granger is Head Girl and everyone has known that she would be it since her first year. She is known as the smartest, brightest witch in her year as well as the 'Walking, Talking Library' and 'Know-It-All'. Call her any of the last to names and she'll curse or hex you before you can say dragon."

"And Harry Potter?"

"Ah!" Charlie said brightly. "What's to say about Harry? He's powerful, rich, handsome, and famous. He hates his fame, would give his money to my family if we would accept, and has no plans to take over the world. He's truly a remarkable person who really has matured and grown into himself. And from what I've heard everyone say, he's a great friend, confidante, and leader, although he hates being known as the leader quite a bit of the time. I've also heard that he's quite the innocent in matters of sexual and romantic origin. My brothers, Fred and George, find this hilarious being that he has a fan club numbering into the thousands. Apparently, he's only been on one date and the girl cried. I guess he was just too busy with other matters such as Voldemort to ever really get into the romance scene again."

Draco looked up and locked eyes with Harry Potter again.

"So what do you think about the new professor, Harry?" Seamus Finnegan asked from his seat two places down from Harry.

Harry broke eye contact again with those eerie silver eyes. "Well, Charlie, you know Ron's brother, said that he and Prof. Malfoy were actually friends. Apparently they met when Malfoy was going to school in Romania. Ron would probably know more about him than I do."

Everyone within the hearing vicinity at the Gryffindor table turned to look towards Ron who was busy stuffing his face with food. "Ah, well," Ron paused to swallow his food at Hermione's glare. "Charlie says he's alright and a pretty cool chap. Don't know much more than that. Although, it had to be hell having Malfoy, meaning Lucius Malfoy, as a father."

"He a great mystery, don't you think? No one really knows much about him at all except that he went to various magical academies around the world." Hermione stated as she neatly cut her meat on her plate and ate in a more sedate manner than her boyfriend.

"Well, that and the fact that he's bloody gorgeous." Seamus had to cut in. Hermione glared at his inappropriate thoughts while the others just agreed.

"You should be worried about your studies than how good you think he looks, Seamus Finnegan. Besides, it'd be completely improper to be in a student-teacher relationship of that sort.

"I do have to wonder what his classes are going to be like though. Will he be like Crouch Jr. and curse everybody or like Remus and teach thoroughly, showing specimens as examples but not going into nitty-gritty details... Or like Quirrell and Lockhart and be totally useless. Or maybe..." Hermione continued on.

"We can't judge until we've had at least one class with him, Mione." Harry stated, interrupting her ramblings.

Draco's first class to teach was the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor first years. It went as well as can be expected with most the class terrified of him. The following classes, he found, were rather easy and somewhat enjoyable one the students got over their preconceived misconceptions of him—or at least, decided not to show them so obviously. Then it was time for the class that Draco was both dreading and anticipating—the NEWT level seventh years.

A/N:

Well, there's that. That story idea had been running though my head since I read a (US) Queer as Folk story, Professor Kinney by Heather.

I'm sorry to say that neither new chapters for Light of a Single Candle or Stars in the Moonlit Sky are done although I have started on both. I reached a block on SMS but I've been working on it. I'm not planning on giving up on it anytime soon.

I also have to state that I am computer/technology stupid. And I have this stupid website that pops up called superspider, I believe, that won't allow me access to my email and the preview page after downloading a chapter (so if there's something wrong with it). And if anyone knows how the hell I can get rid of the website I'd be FOREVER in your debt. (Ad-aware and SpyBlaster hasn't been able to get rid of it.) I'm about ready to scream.

I hope y'all's lives and computers are better than mine right now.