Chapter 2 A Strange Bedroom

Harry still felt sleepy but he could see even without opening his eyes that the sun was streaming in through a chink in the curtains. Of course in summer that didn't necessarily mean that it was time to get up but after the previous day's events he rather thought that he had better get an early start.

Harry was lying on his front with the warmth of the sun shining down on his head, he felt relaxed and refreshed, he couldn't remember when he had last woken up feeling so wonderful. Even though he felt perfectly awake he didn't want to move, he wanted to just lie there and savour the moment.

Something was wrong however, Harry couldn't place it straight away but he knew that something was very wrong. He pulled himself up a little and opened his eyes, he looked at the pillow that had been supporting his head, it was soft and white, the cotton had a mercerised sheen to it, and the pillow contained within the cover was plump and firm and literally oozed luxury. He had never experienced a pillow so soft and yet so supportive.

Harry frowned, this was supposed to be his bed at the Dursleys and even the Hogwarts beds didn't have bed linen like that. The only pillowcases he was allowed to use at the Dursleys were the threadbare ones with the hideous seventies flower prints on them and they definitely weren't cotton, mercerised, starched or otherwise. The polyester bedding at the Dursleys didn't really wash that well and always had a permanently musty smell from when they had been stored in the loft; at least his did anyway. Harry flopped back down onto the pillow remembering it should also have been flat and lumpy and reached a hand out towards the bedside table but only found the expanse of more bed. He extended his reach as far as he could stretch and still he didn't reach the edge.

Harry pulled himself up again, he was lying on a nice pillow and he was in a double bed, he was alone but the pillow next to him bore the dint of a recently removed head, the sheets were disturbed on the other side too.

Harry smiled, it was the wishing potion, it must have worked, he thought, he had been transported into bed with another man over night, instead of suffering the Dursleys he would now be spending the summer with a lover. He would be spending the summer with a lover who owned a very nice bed in a very nice bedroom.

The next question Harry had was about who his lover was. He wanted it to be Ron but Harry couldn't escape from the fact that Ron's family couldn't afford expensive bed linen either. Draco could though; he didn't really want it to be Draco but would put up with it for the sake of a summer as long as he hadn't ended up in Malfoy Manor too as a result. Harry reached over to the other pillow and pulled it over. It was cold but there were a few hairs shed upon its surface, Harry tried to look at them to see if they were ginger or blonde.

Harry was dismayed; the hairs were short and dark brown, he wracked his brain trying to think of someone who had such hair and whom he had thought of in a 'go to bed' kind of way. He couldn't think of anyone no matter how hard he tried, and then he found the single grey hair amongst the others. Grey? Harry had a sudden bolt of dread shoot through his body, what kind of wishing potion would give him a lover like that? He was very sure he had never lusted after anybody who had grey hair!

Harry tried to turn over and didn't have much success, he managed to turn his body over but it seemed as if his legs had got tangled in the sheets. Something else was very odd too, the previous day's events had included Vernon Dursley throwing him down the stairs, Harry suddenly remembered, yet he hadn't been reminded of this by the pain in his ribs or his arm, there was in fact no pain at all. He was lying down, half on his back, with his head on a pillow and felt perfectly comfortable. He knew that he should have the pain from a broken arm and cracked ribs, that sort of thing just didn't disappear overnight. Even with a very strong pain potion he shouldn't have been able to turn himself over as far as he had not with his ribs being in the state they had been.

There were a number of possibilities, although he was definitely in a wizard household as there was a picture on the wall and it was moving. Harry tried again to complete the process of turning over by straightening his legs but nothing happened. He could see now that the sheet wasn't tangled at all but lay across him with barely a ripple, it was clear that he couldn't blame his inability to turn over properly on the sheet.

Harry swallowed and tried again, he couldn't even begin to contemplate what it all might mean, and he tried to move his legs again and again but nothing much happened.

"Now what?" Harry spoke to himself, the panic rushing over him. He began to doubt that the potion had been from Ron at all; he had received plenty of other presents from Ron, could it be that he had been unforgivably careless and it hadn't been a wishing potion at all. Had one of his enemies managed to snatch him away from the Dursleys?

He hadn't been beaten or restrained in any way yet he remained stranded in a bed in a location that was quite unknown to him and nobody presumably knew where he was. Quite ingenious of them really, if indeed he had been abducted. Had they expected it to take him longer to figure it out? Harry reached beneath the sheets and prodded one of his legs with a rough fingernail; he could still feel pain there, they just wouldn't move. The Death Eaters wouldn't have needed to torture him or beat him if they had found a way of drugging him into soundless compliance. With strong sedation they had taken him away from the Dursleys and immobilised him, Harry supposed, taken him whilst he was separated from his wand. Having obtained him in an unconscious state they had made sure that he couldn't get away from them no matter what he did. They had healed his wounds and put him to bed in one of their aristocratic beds content in the knowledge that he was helpless. He imagined that he might even find that the bedroom door was unlocked, if he could get there.

Harry began to think about the evidence of his bed companion in a different light, maybe they would not torture him as such but take advantage of him on a nightly basis; perhaps they had already. Harry examined himself but found that there was no tenderness, such strange captors; he felt no pain at all.

Maybe it would be best to try and figure out where he was if he could, Harry thought. He looked up as best as he could and observed the ceiling; it looked like a Hogwarts ceiling though it could have been from any wealthy wizard residence. It was a bedroom of a decent size but he didn't recognise it and the shut curtains obscured the view out of the window.

Somehow, Harry knew, he had to make his escape, he had to try, he had to beat his captors, he just didn't know how. It seemed like getting away from the bed was a good enough place to begin. Harry managed to get his legs untwisted by lifting them with his arms and he consequently noticed that he wasn't wearing the clothes that he had gone to sleep in and he wasn't wearing any pyjamas either. He tried to think what could have happened, had he been rescued from the Dursleys after all? This was just too nice to be abduction surely, but then why would somebody who had rescued him see fit to disable him in this manner, it didn't make any sense. The arguments went round and round in Harry's head and he got nowhere with them. He tried to move his legs again and his failure only served to frustrate and annoy him further.

Whoever had rescued, or abducted, him had also taken all of his clothes off, absolutely ALL of them, Harry noted as he took a quick look underneath the sheet and found that he was completely naked. Would Death Eaters do that to him if they caught him? It seemed equally unlikely that anybody else would have either.

Another thought joined the others and it didn't help clarify anything at all, his ribs and arm were completely healed and even in the Wizarding world such injuries were treated quickly but not that quickly. He would still have expected his arm to ache for a few days yet, even if the bone had been fixed with a wave of somebody's wand. There was also still the question of why he hadn't been put into a bed on his own, who was it that had decided that it was a good idea to sleep alongside him? It certainly wasn't any of his friends, not with that much grey hair. He didn't know anybody who had gone half grey from dark brown, including all of the Death Eaters of his acquaintance and he only knew one person whose hair had been that dark at all. And why wasn't he wearing any bloody pyjamas? He shook his head as if that might help, he knew his thoughts were going round in circles but he didn't know what else he could do.

Harry ran a hand through his hair and found that although it was just as messy as usual it was also several inches longer than he would have expected.

Harry froze with his hand still tangled in his tatty hair, longer hair changed things a lot; that wiped all his other ideas away in an instant. None of the scenarios he had come up with so far would have made his hair grow longer. Why would somebody who had rescued him or captured him or whatever, why would they do that? Well they wouldn't have done, so there had to be another reason for it.

Harry looked underneath the covers again; he had to know if anything else was different, it was then that he saw the scars. Harry dropped the sheet back down over his legs. Calling the scars on his legs 'scars' was a bit of an understatement.

Harry tried to force himself to carry on thinking. If he had had any fresh injuries, he could have attributed them to the Dursleys or could have assumed that Death Eaters had captured him and had inflicted them on him whilst he was unconscious; the scars on his legs were healed though. The scars were thick and deep, pink coloured valleys gouged in his flesh forever by injuries that had occurred a very long time ago. His legs weren't the same shape as they had been the day before; they weren't the same shape as each other. It wasn't just the flesh that was damaged; he could tell where the skin only just covered the bone, on his knees and lower legs, that the bones had been broken too. The fact that they were a little bit more hairy than he remembered was a minor detail that hardly seemed to matter next to everything else.

Harry had to wonder if the Dursleys had beaten him so badly that he couldn't remember what had happened and had been unconscious all of the time since he was rescued. If so, then why was he not in the hospital wing with Poppy attending to him. And why had the only injuries he remembered having, apparently disappeared? Had he been lying unconscious so long that everything had healed as much as it could? Whatever was he going to do about Voldemort in this state? He surely couldn't walk; he couldn't even turn over in bed with ease.

Panic engulfed him, Harry wanted to know what the hell had happened and he wanted to know immediately. There was no one around to supply any answers though. He was on his own and somehow he wasn't even himself any longer.

Harry wracked his brain trying to find out when it had all started to go wrong, he now knew that he hadn't been careless, he remembered that the present from Ron had been labelled in Ron's own hand and delivered by Ron's own owl, he had taken it from the claws of the owl and he couldn't believe that Ron would play a prank like THIS. He just didn't understand it. All he had wanted from the wishing potion had been a deeper relationship with Ron in the coming year and a bit of peace from his relatives, he hadn't asked for much. Harry decided that he officially hated his life; what now appeared to be left of it.

With great difficulty Harry managed to sit up and he pulled his legs over the side of the bed with his arms. Once sat on the edge of the bed with his feet touching the floor Harry tried to figure out what he was going to do next. He looked about the room but he couldn't see anything that would help him. He knew that Muggles used wheelchairs and crutches and he couldn't see any of those but he couldn't see what any wizard equivalent would be either. There was an armchair by his bed but it was too big to go through the doorway, even if he could get it to levitate.

On the chair however Harry found some clean clothes folded up and piled up in the order in which he should put them on. He leant over and pulled the clothes over onto the bed and pulled his legs back up onto the bed too, he didn't feel too safe leaning over to get dressed. He had decided to get dressed, at least then he wouldn't end up shuffling about on the floor completely naked.

As Harry pulled a white shirt over his head he noticed that his forearms were nicely muscled, they certainly weren't his. Harry inspected his body, his chest was rippled with muscles too and so were his upper arms, he had to entertain another possibility, that the potion had switched his body for somebody else's and vice versa. That however well meaning Ron was, he had got the potion very wrong, not too much of a stretch of the imagination now that Harry thought about it. Maybe Ron had been kidnapped and made to do it. The facts certainly seemed to fit that scenario more than any other so far. Whoever this body belonged to before he had ended up being temporarily trapped inside it, had at least kept it quite fit, well, apart from the obvious anyway. Harry noticed at this point that he could also see clearly without his glasses too.

Harry found a rather stylish day robe amongst the clothes, plain in colour but exquisitely tailored, at least that confirmed that he was still amongst wizards. He also found some underpants, some trousers and some long soft cotton stockings. Harry stared at these for a minute wondering where his socks had got to, he searched through the other clothes but there was no alternative. Harry pulled the stockings on first; he was forced to examine in detail the deep scars on his legs as he did so. He prodded one of his legs and found that there was no tone to the muscle there at all. He then pulled on the underpants, and then pulled the robe over the top of the shirt.

Harry was curious to know if he had a wand or not, he hadn't seen one amongst the clothes or near the bed so he searched through the pockets of his robe. A long and straight pocket yielded a wand although, as he might have expected, it wasn't his own wand. In another pocket Harry found some miniature items, there were two leg braces, two mahogany elbow crutches and a little wheelchair. It at least resolved one thing Harry had been trying to figure out. He now knew how the original owner of his body got out of bed and out of his room and that meant that he could too.

Harry returned the wheelchair to the pocket where he had found it; he wasn't quite ready for that yet. He placed the other items down on the bed and they expanded to full size without even a touch with the wand. Harry was very glad that the miniatures at least knew what they were doing. He picked up one of the leg braces and when it came into contact with his leg it magically jumped into action and fastened itself in place over the top of the stocking. He did the same with the other one and pulled his trousers on over the top. A pair of shoes then came out from underneath the armchair, jumped up onto the bed, and pushed themselves onto his feet.

Harry now felt reasonably confident, this body must at least be used to walking with the crutches or there would be no point in him having them, he dragged his legs over the side of the bed again and pulled himself up onto his feet leaning on the crutches, the knee joints in the braces locked into place as his legs straightened.

Harry couldn't actually move his legs still, but his strong arms and the magic in the braces helped him a lot, he tried a few tentative steps forward by using the crutches to lean forward and push himself up, allowing gravity and a bit of magic to help bring each leg forward. It was hard work even with his nice new arm muscles and he certainly wasn't looking forward to spending the whole day doing it, but he was out of bed and able to go somewhere and it would have to do.

Harry managed to walk through a doorway and into what seemed to be the living room in the apartment that he now found himself in. Here the curtains were already open and Harry noted that the view out of the window looked remarkably similar to the view at Hogwarts but that could just mean that he was somewhere in Scotland, there weren't any unique landmarks.

Harry went through another doorway and realised with a shock where he was, he was in the DADA Professor's quarters, he remembered this part of the accommodation very well. Either he was the guest of the DADA Professor or he was in the body of the DADA Professor himself. Harry sighed with relief as he realised something, at least he was at Hogwarts and whoever had taken over his body would soon be waking up with a broken arm. It was no more than they deserved, Harry thought, even HE thought it was a bit early in the school year for the Defence professor to be messing up his life.

It was bound to happen sooner or later though, somebody mistakenly believing that it was great to be the-boy-who-lived and finding a way to have a go. Harry hoped that the fact that his life was far from wonderful would bring about a switch back to normal very soon. Though, Harry had to admit, he wasn't exactly having much fun dragging himself around on crutches either, maybe the new DADA Professor wouldn't want his body back. Maybe he had thought that he would be better off taking his chances with the Dark Lord, just to be young and fit again. Maybe he thought that Harry Potter would rather be pretending to be a Defence Professor than living life at the top of Voldemort's hit list. Harry might have been tempted to agree had it been remotely possible that he could still play Quidditch. As it was, unless he figured out how to reverse his predicament, his broomstick days appeared to be well and truly over.

Harry consoled himself with one thing, if whoever it was didn't want their body back, then it would be fairly easy for the Order to bring 'Harry Potter' to Hogwarts and then the situation would be resolved very quickly indeed anyway. All Harry had to do, he thought, was find a friendly face, perhaps Albus Dumbledore, convince him of what had happened and who he really was, and that would be that.

If Harry remembered correctly, the door out into the corridor was right behind him and it was breakfast time, the Headmaster would certainly be easy enough to find. Harry turned carefully and then reached for the doorknob. He then remembered all the stairs between the floor he was currently on and the Great Hall. Well, Harry thought trying to cheer himself up, the real Defence Professor must have been managing somehow, and all he had to do was figure out how. He hoped that he would meet somebody on the way and they would do or say something that would give him a clue. Or maybe somebody had installed an enchanted elevator over the summer and he could find it.

Harry managed to get the door open and he stepped out into the corridor beyond. Then he froze as he realised something, what if the first person that he came across was Professor Snape, he wondered if his life could actually get any worse. He could only take comfort in the fact that Professor Snape would not know that it was him.

As Harry tried to remember which way to go he realised something else, this was clearly a potions mishap, if Ron's potion had been tampered with, and would therefore come to Snape's attention before it was solved anyway. Snape would probably be the one that he would have to explain it all to and there was no getting round it. Yes, Harry thought, this really was about as bad as it could get.

"Hey!" A man's voice called from behind Harry.

Harry tried his best to turn round as quickly as he could, "Hey," He replied since it had clearly been a morning greeting between friends.

The man had long dark hair tied back in a ponytail and was about thirty as far as Harry could estimate. He wore wizard robes and a smile. He was quite tall and thin, Harry didn't recognise him at all but it was obvious that they were friends. Harry had to wonder what Dumbledore was doing, Harry already knew that their new DADA Professor was up to something and the Headmaster had his best friend already living at Hogwarts too.

Harry took a moment to look the best friend over; the new DADA Professor was clearly sleeping with the wrong man. Harry thought that this friend was likely to be much tastier in bed; he was quite good looking for an older man and Harry had to doubly wonder what he was doing sleeping with a man with grey hair when there was such an attractive alternative on offer. Maybe this friend just wasn't inclined that way. Maybe, Harry pondered with distaste and horror, the owner of the short grey hair in his bed hadn't been a man.

"Are you ready then?" The man asked brightly.

"Ready for what?" Harry asked dumbly and without thinking, he was still lost in thought over what HE could have done with this friend had he been ten years younger and had he himself been in a state of more robust physical ability.

The man rolled his eyes, "Don't drink on a school night, honestly, the first day of the school year or had you forgotten?"

"Oh that!" Harry replied, recovering quite well he thought, "Oh yes, I'm ready for that."

The man smiled, "Good. Where is it then?"

"Where is what?" Harry asked failing to look anything other than thoroughly confused.

"The wheelchair! Really, what have you been drinking?" The man complained, he reached a hand out and took the miniature wheelchair out of Harry's pocket and placed it on the floor, it expanded to full size.

The man placed the wheelchair behind Harry in just the right position for him to sit down into it. Harry was pleased that at least the morning was progressing in a fairly self-explanatory sort of way. Harry lowered himself down into the chair and shrank the crutches back into his pocket. The Defence Professor's friend began to push for him and soon solved the question of how he was going to get down the stairs when he pushed the wheelchair over the edge of the first step and it hovered a foot from the surface of each step as they made their descent. When they reached the ground floor the chair sank back down onto the floor and the wheels resumed their duty.

It was the first day of the school year, Harry remembered the man's words as he was pushed towards the hall for breakfast, somehow he had managed to lose a month or else the Professors counted the start of the year from the point when they began to prepare lessons. He was supposed to be prepared for something; he wasn't going to worry about what just yet, though Harry assumed that meant he must be the DADA Professor for sure. Harry decided that he would try not to be worried about the time lapse until he could be sure that there really was more of a problem.

Harry at least knew where he was headed now; they were making their way towards the back entrance to the hall where the teachers often came in. Dumbledore would no doubt be there and Harry would pick a moment to talk to him. Snape would probably be there as well, Harry thought, unless he was still hanging around the Dursley's house. Well, he decided, he would try to ignore Snape until he no longer had a choice in the matter.

"I need to use the bathroom," Harry decided to announce before they got too close to the hall. The need had come upon him suddenly when he realised that he could be imminently facing Snape at the teacher's table.

Harry's recently inherited friend changed direction and headed for the corridor where Harry knew there were staff facilities. To Harry's relief his friend and helper remained outside the door when they reached their destination.

Harry went inside and found that there was plenty of room and handles in all the right places to hold onto. Still, by the time he was finished Harry was thoroughly irritated and a bit worn out already. He hadn't even got through breakfast; never mind whatever else was in store for him. He wondered if things were going to keep on getting worse or if he was reaching some sort of plateau. Harry allowed his friend to resume his duties and they continued on to the hall.

"Can I push now?" Harry asked suddenly as he realised that they were nearly there, he wanted to appear as capable as possible.

"If you want," the man replied, "Got to keep up your image I suppose."

The wheelchair operated like a Muggle one on the flat and Harry managed to push it along the remaining corridor easily enough. The man held the door open and he even managed to navigate the doorway without clipping the chair on the ancient wooden door frames.

When Harry glanced down the hall all the tables were full with children quietly and patiently waiting for their breakfast. Harry could only stare at them in horror; it really was the first day of school. The sorting ceremony must have taken place the night before and there they all sat, the first years all looking up at the teacher's table with wonder and enthusiasm in their eyes. It appeared that his problems might only just be beginning, what a thought that was.

There was a place set at the teacher's table that didn't have a chair in front of it and Harry wheeled the wheelchair over to it knowing that it must be his place. The man sat next to him on one side and the Headmaster's chair remained empty on the other.

Harry was pleased, he was going to be sat next to the Headmaster, which would make it easier to start a conversation and discuss his current problem, without drawing attention to himself from the students or the other staff.

Harry looked around, there were no more free places at the table and he couldn't see Snape, he wondered if he had been lucky enough to encounter the first year that Snape wasn't teaching, maybe he was devoting all of his time to standing outside of the Dursleys' house and somebody else would be taking Potions. Maybe that was why the DADA Professor had a friend sat next to him. Harry had a quick look for a man or woman with short half grey hair, hoping to spot his mysterious lover but nobody present appeared to fit the description.

Harry was snapped out of his daydream by the sight of a tall, bat like figure striding down the centre of the hall from the student's entrance. With a sinking feeling in his heart Harry realised that it was Snape. It was unmistakably Snape, the same clothes, the same nose, and the same jet-black shoulder length hair that looked as greasy and lank as ever. Snape reached the teacher's table and swooped round, he came to sit at Harry's side in the Headmaster's chair.

Harry could hardly breath, he knew there was something very wrong with his current situation, he didn't think it could get much worse but it was becoming more awful by the minute. Had something happened to Albus? Why else would Snape swoop confidently into the Headmaster's seat? At least, Harry thought trying to think positively, he hadn't been put into the body of the new Potions Master with Snape as Headmaster, which would have been truly hideous. Harry wondered if his friend had that illustrious position. Harry was suddenly very nervous and feeling all the things he always felt when he had to talk to Snape, the Snape who was probably still furious about the Pensieve incident no matter how much time had passed.

"Good morning and welcome to another year at Hogwarts," Snape's voice suddenly thundered across the hall, "I have the pleasure of announcing that Gryffindor House have lost five points already due to late night wanderings, quite an achievement even for them. There are no other announcements this morning. Lessons will commence at 9am sharp."

Harry resisted the urge to shake his head, Snape was indeed Headmaster but he still spoke as if he were the Head of Slytherin House, Harry was missing Albus already even though he wasn't even a student here anymore.

The breakfast was served and it was the usual Hogwarts fare that Harry was used to. He tried to eat as much as he could, savouring the taste of the food; it was something that he had almost forgotten about when he was at the Dursleys for the summer. He might have felt too sick to eat if it hadn't been for them starving him.

Snape ate his breakfast in silence and then stood to leave long before anybody else had finished. Harry thought that he would get away without having to communicate with him but before Snape left the hall he turned to face him. He was purposely standing up and towering above Harry, which, he thought was a bit rough considering his circumstances, even by Snape's standards.

"Late again this morning Professor," Snape criticized.

"How would you know?" Harry found himself snapping back.

"I think you will find that I miss very little," Snape said haughtily.

"I think you will find that I no longer care," Harry imitated Snape's tone. Harry had to marvel at the fact that Snape harassed him even when he didn't know that it was him.

"Could you meet me in my office at lunchtime?" Snape asked Harry though Harry could tell that it was a command, "There is something we need to discuss."

"What is it?" Harry asked.

Snape gave a trademark sneer, "You will find that out when you attend," He snapped.

"Fine," Harry snapped back.

"Professor Meier," Snape nodded in stiff greeting to Harry's friend and then swooped away without another word.

"Oh dear," Professor Meier said with a snigger, "Somebody is in trouble."

"Tell me about it," Harry agreed, "What's new," He added.

"And somebody has also got first year Slytherins and Gryffindors in his first class," Professor Meier added merrily.

"Oh goody," Harry responded, "Let's see if we can get the points off to a good start this year." Harry added thinking of all the points he could award the Gryffindors to make up for their early misfortune. No doubt it was still Snape's habit to stalk the corridors after dark just to make sure Slytherin stood a chance of winning the House Cup and he would make a point of ensuring that he didn't get away with it.

Of course a combination of Harry's nerves and Snape's speedy exit had meant that he had not got round to telling anybody about his problem. Harry glanced at Professor Meier and wondered if it was a good idea to try and tell him anything.

"So what is up with you today?" Professor Meier asked as he finished off the last of his morning coffee.

"Nothing," Harry replied, deciding that it was too soon to try telling somebody he had never met before. Besides, for all Harry knew, Professor Meier was in on the plan anyway.

"Right," Professor Meier said not believing a word of it, "What have you been drinking? You can tell me, we have no secrets."

"I have not been drinking anything," Harry protested.

"Well what is going on then?"

"Nothing, really," Harry tried again but then realised that it wasn't going to work, "I've been feeling weird, like all this isn't real."

"Muggle drugs?"

"No! It's like I am not me, it's like I'm sixteen again, or seventeen, I have just had my birthday after all. I don't know what I am going to do with this class, I can't think."

"Merlin forbids, that you should end up like you were at sixteen again!" Professor Meier stared at Harry for a while and then smiled, he smiled in the way that a sane person might smile at a mad one, "Repeat after me," He instructed.

"What?"

"It's quite understandable; the prospect of new first years has a similar effect on me. Repeat after me, 'I am the DADA Professor at Hogwarts, I am the best DADA teacher that Hogwarts has ever had'." Professor Meier instructed.

"I am the DADA Professor at Hogwarts, the best one they have ever had," Harry repeated with a smile.

"'I am the only DADA Professor to last more than one year in who knows how long'. Quite an achievement, you have to admit."

"I am the only DADA Professor to last more than one year," Harry said feeling very impressed with his alter ego for a moment. Then he realised what had been said, "A YEAR?" he burst out before he could think better of it, he had been teaching for over a year.

"Yes, more than a year," Professor Meier confirmed with an exasperated expression, "'I am a mean bastard and I am going to show those first years exactly what they're letting themselves in for'."

"I am mean and I will show those first years!" Harry repeated enthusiastically.

"And you're going to give all the points to your own house. Right, you have class in half an hour; I suggest you work out how to look sober."

"I am sober!" Harry protested again.

"Right, whatever. It would certainly be a first." Professor responded with a disbelieving smile.

Harry gave up; he supposed that he must have sounded a bit unhinged. He would take the class and the one after that and then he would just have to be brave and tell Headmaster Snape what had happened when they met at lunchtime.

Professor Meier went to his own lessons after breakfast and Harry made his way over to the Defence classroom leaving plenty of time to inspect his office before he had to begin teaching. Harry wasn't too daunted at the prospect of having to teach, he had after all been doing it on a smaller scale for his DA meetings only that year. It was the lunch meeting with Snape that really had him worried, it was the ideal time to tell him about his predicament but what if Snape didn't believe him and he was stuck where he was forever, stuck lunching with Snape every day for the rest of his life, knowing his luck.