-11.

"Why are we taking this class again?" Ron whined as he, Hermione, and Harry headed up to the West Tower for what was sure to be sheer torture (at least by Ron's standards).

Hermione rolled her eyes for the fifteenth time that day. "Because, knowing about Muggles is part of living in a world with Muggles in it."

Harry wasn't thrilled about this either. "But why me? I grew up thinking I was a Muggle, doesn't that count for anything?"

"C'mon, if I'm doing this, you are too," Ron huffed defiantly.

Hermione shook her head, ignoring Ron, "Yeah, but know you gotta learn about them from a wizard's point of view. Two completely different things."

Ron knew that there was no wavering Hermione, but he still didn't favor this at all. Hermione was practically controlling them! He wasn't just going to keep quiet. He turned his head to give a death glare, only to turn hurriedly away at the warning in her own determined look, which was much more forceful than his own. Why did she have to be so smart?

Harry trudged up the stairs behind his two faithful friends, chuckling for a moment about the glare contest between them. He knew them too well, and that after each fight they will always, always remain friends.

Why are boys such babies? Hermione thought menacingly, regretting for a moment that she even put them up to this. One day, they would thank her, she knew it; someone had to keep them in line, otherwise they would go nowhere. To be honest, she liked it, it made her feel…needed. She glanced again at Ron, his sour face glaring at the steps and couldn't help but smile.

"Where is this class?" Harry asked after a few more flights of the stone, spiraling stairs. He could feel a charlie-horse forming in an unseemly place, and by now Hermione and Ron had gotten over their angry silence.

"Just up one more floor," she promised, secretly glad that she had so much self-control, otherwise by now her two best friends would both have bloody noses.

When they entered the room, it seemed only the desks were organized in rows; everything else was thrown here and there. Piles of books, packets of papers, bunches of quill pens, and bottles of ink layered themselves on any flat surface. Ron immediately felt at home, while Hermione had to refrain from picking up anything disorganized in sight.

They exchanged bemused glances, they thought they were going to be late, but no one else seemed to be there, and Hermione called out, "Hello?"

A little teetering man came out from the office in the far left corner, popping his head from behind the walnut door. His face was a little pink, and he had a shiny bald head that reflected the sun coming through the only window like a rounded mirror. The man was holding a few colorful notebooks, the papers all shuffled inside of them and the corners sticking out.

"Yes, yes, just a moment!" he called back before ducking back into the room, his voice cracking only slightly. Harry, Ron, and Hermione shrugged and set their stuff down in the front corner of desks.

"What do you think-?," Ron started, but the little man came back and Ron decided it would be most polite if he didn't talk about the man while he was there; especially considering he was sitting next to Hermione. Fewer bruises equaled a happier Ron.

The stout man walked up to the desk sitting in front of the blackboard, first clearing a spot before setting down his pile of notebooks on the center of the desktop. He turned towards the blackboard, then crouched down a little bit, that was all he needed, and began to examine the chalk tray, inspecting it carefully.

Ron looked over at Harry and Hermione and twirled his finger near his head, motioning a suggestion about the man's sanity. Hermione shot him a look, and he quit it only because the man had stopped studying the chalk tray after finding a piece of chalk that fit his standards.

He was raising the chalk up to the board, only he hesitated and turned towards his three students. "Should I write my name?" he asked them, his face turning a darker hue of pink.

Hermione nodded, feeling sorry for him. "That sounds like a good idea." The man nodded and began to write in his chaotic and scrawled handwriting, 'Professor Krehope'. Ron mouthed 'Suck up' to Harry before Hermione could catch him, but was too late and he received a pelt on the arm as Harry stifled a laugh and Hermione pertinently raised her hand.

"Yes?" Professor Krehope questioned nervously, his eye closing a little as if expecting a similar slap.

Hermione asked in a kind voice, "Professor Krehope, where is the rest of the class?"

He rummaged through his shuffled papers, only taking a moment or two to find the right one. "Well, I suppose that they are still trying to find the class. Who are you three?"

"Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, and Harry Potter." Ron answered lazily after massaging his arm, leaning back in his chair and rocking it back onto the back two legs.

"Well, yes, that would leave an absent nine people." Professor Krehope announced, triggering Ron to almost fall and possibly acquire more bruises.

"We only have eleven people in this class?" he asked incredulously.

"Actually, that would be twelve," Harry corrected, knowing what Ron was about say.

Ron turned towards Hermione, " 'Knowing about Muggles is part of living in a world with Muggles in it?' That's rich, considering that only nine other people in the entire school who think so."

"Well, it was this or Divination again," Hermione replied as she tried to block the recollection of the fraud that somehow became a teacher.

Ron scoffed. "You're right, which would we rather get? An old bat telling us that Harry's going to die at any moment, no offense Harry,-"

"None taken."

"-or people that barely relate to us?" Ron continued, causing Hermione roll her eyes for the sixteenth time for that day.

Professor Krehope stopped what he was doing and stared at the three, his usual pink-colored face now growing darker at his cheeks and rising to his ears. " 'People that barely relate to us?' These people are not magically gifted, that's true, but they have been here as long as we have, they're not extinct."

Ron's ears began to match Professor Krehope's as the teacher continued, his steam building up and preparing him to go on for days: "Any people, race, or gender deserves the right to be recognized as equal, whether they meet up to someone's expectations or not." He walked back to his pile of papers and, pulling two or three out from the middle, sat down in his desk and began to vigorously write on them.

Ron put all the legs of the chair on the floor, his shame growing as his head lowered. Harry and Hermione were about to comfort him, but the rest of the class burst in.

"Got lost! So sorry!" a few proclaimed as they barged in and slammed their books down on the desks.

Professor Krehope just acknowledged them with a nod and stood up, his hands sweating and shaking. He had never taught a class before, how would they treat him? Will they let him live?

He had spent the previous week reading Muggle books based off of teenage behavior. It was amazing how accurate they sounded. He didn't know if they were even true, but right now it was comforting to think he had prepared for this, this chaoticgroup of kids. He gripped his hands together nervously, trying to not show his obvious fright.

A flash of his own adolescent years came to him, reminding him of how many times he had been mocked, of how many days he had wished he wasn't short, how many weeks he had been shunned by what he had thought were friends, and how many years he had spent studying his life away, hoping to become a positive influence on kids like this. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure that this is what he wanted.

But he was stuck with it. He sucked in a breath, held it tightly in his gut, and began his first what was sure to be a mortifying class.