A/N: Another long one. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 3: Professor, Professor

The next morning at breakfast, Luna announced her presence at the Gryffindor table by dropping her schoolbag between Dean and Ginny and promptly following it onto the bench.

"I had a true dream last night," she said. Her eyes were wide and almost feverish. Dean and Ginny, knowing her quite well by now, didn't question her seriousness.

"What's a true dream?" asked Dean.

Luna blinked at him. "Don't you remember them from Divination? They're exactly how they sound: a dream of something that will come true, or that already has come true."

Dean looked confused. Luna turned to Ginny for backup, but the redhead was not paying close attention, instead concentrating on (and failing at) suppressing a great yawn.

"I think I had a weird dream last night, too," she said when she caught Luna's expression. "Didn't sleep well at all." Ginny squinted at Luna. "In fact, I think maybe you were in it . . ."

"I don't think so," said Luna, but Ginny decided to ignore this cryptic comment as she spooned eggs onto her plate. Luna shifted back to Dean and asked, "Did you dream last night, Dean?"
Dean shrugged. "I never remember my dreams," he said.

Luna seemed a bit put out by this comment, but before she could say anything more, they were interrupted by someone clearing her throat.

"Professor McGonagall," said Ginny, amber eyes wide as they followed the formidable professor's robes up to her face.

"Miss Weasley. Mr. Thomas." McGonagall's gaze landed last on Luna. "Miss Lovegood. I do believe it's time to pass out schedules." She shifted a significant look between the papers in her hand and Ginny's face.

Ginny watched, feeling as if she was missing something crucial. Then a vague memory of the list of Prefects' duties floated to the surface of her mind.

"Of course!" she said, shooting upright so fast that she jostled the table. "We'll help for Gryffindor, Professor," Ginny added, kicking Dean in the shin so he would get the idea.

"Very good," said McGonagall, though she didn't sound entirely convinced. "Miss Lovegood, go find Mr. Bardot and help Professor Flitwick do the same."

"Yes, Professor," Luna said. She stood up much more gracefully than Ginny had and crossed the Great Hall to the Ravenclaw table.

The Prefects, plus Ginny for Gryffindor and, she noted with narrowed eyes, Malfoy for Slytherin, made short work of handing out schedules to the students in their Houses. Though she was pleasantly surprised by her Prefects' efficiency (she didn't know when she'd started to call them her Prefects), Ginny didn't get a chance to look at her own schedule until the Hall had mostly cleared out.

Luna came back over from the Ravenclaw table, picking up her bag from beside Dean. She was slightly out of breath. "Did you see?" she asked. "We have Defense together!"

"Brilliant!" said Ginny. She liked classes with Ravenclaws: even if they were making you feel stupid, you could at least count on them to ask the right questions. It kept things interesting.

But Dean was frowning at his schedule. "Hang on, this can't be right," he said.

"What?" asked Ginny.

"It . . . It says we've got Defense with all four Houses," he said. "All seventh years at once."

(&)

The classroom had filled out pretty much exactly as Ginny would have predicted. Slytherins and Gryffindors hugged the desks at opposite walls, while a strip of Ravenclaws padded the Hufflepuffs in the middle from the green-and-silver ties on the right.

Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin. United, Ginny thought, with a sardonic twist of her lip. Luna, who had chosen a desk beside Dean's in the row behind Ginny, was about the only student not sitting with her House.

When Lupin strode into said classroom, Ginny watched him assess the layout, store the information, and move right ahead without hesitation. Just before he spoke, he caught her eye and winked, and she realized that even a classroom full of Slytherins couldn't ruin Lupin's teaching for her. She grinned back.

"So, everyone, welcome to your N.E.W.T. level Defense class," he said, free of embellishment as always. "You're here, together, in this unusually large class for a few very important reasons." He stuck his hands down into the pockets of his rather scruffy brown robes. "First, you will be alternating between myself and one other professor—" the class burst into excited murmurs, over which Lupin raised his voice to continue "—for the maximum practical experience. Second, speaking of practical, you will be performing actual spells in a practice dueling scenario, and, naturally, the more partners you duel, the better you'll get." The excited murmurs rose to a feverish pitch. "And third," Lupin said, somehow managing not to shout, "you will learn to work with all three of the other Hogwarts Houses to battle the Dark Arts."

The murmurs fell silent. Ginny almost grinned again. It was really rather ingenious—an idea of which Dumbledore would be proud, she thought—but students were still a bit touchy about having the idea of Inter-House Unity pushed upon them so openly. After all, the War continued to be the giant, unacknowledged troll in the room: everyone thought about it constantly, but nobody discussed it. Everybody preferred to pretend that it had never happened so they could go on with their Quidditch and House Cup rivalries with as much passion as before. Ginny herself was no exception, although she'd be the last to admit it. There was something about having a family of peers—something about the belonging that Gryffindor gave her—that made it very hard to give up.

Lupin smiled at the now-silent room. Ginny snuck a glance across at the Slytherins and noticed Malfoy wearing the expression she had nicknamed "deadface." Pansy Parkinson looked about to spit poison.

"Well, now," said Lupin, "shall we begin?"
Everyone was shocked when a Hufflepuff—one of the Prefect twins, Ginny noticed. Sedanthe, was it?—raised her hand.

"Who's our other professor, Professor?" she asked, and a few Slytherins sniggered at her wording.

"Right, good question. What's your name?"

"Sedanthe Baker, sir."
"Baker. Well, we'll get to him. First, I need to divide you up for today's lesson." Ginny barely registered Lupin taking out his wand and drawing a line in the air that bisected the class. She was too busy wondering about their mystery professor. She remembered how Snape had introduced Lupin at the Welcome Feast—"one of your Defense professors." It had slipped her mind in the wake of the "Living With Malfoy" disaster. But who could the other one be?
The scraping of desks brought her back to the present. Lupin's line had not divided the Houses evenly down the middle, so that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff would be separated from Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Instead, he'd drawn it midway back through the classroom, dividing rear from front so that there were some students from each House in both groups. Ginny was disappointed to note that Luna and Dean had drifted apologetically backward, while she had to migrate to the front. Her mood fell even farther when she noticed Malfoy, Parkinson, and Zabini doing the same.

"Right," Lupin went on, oblivious to Ginny's blank stare as he pushed into the center of the classroom, between the two groups. "Now, here's what we're going to do."

Despite herself, Ginny was utterly fascinated by the lesson in the next five minutes, foul teammates or not. Lupin described a fake scenario to the groups. They were trapped on a magically sealed island, he said. A shield surrounded them. It absorbed any spells they shot at it. They had only enough food to sustain half their members for the rest of their lives. Certain members were given pretend skills—Ginny, for example, was cast as a Mediwitch, while Parkinson was a trained Herbologist—but there were drawbacks, because Ginny was also a werewolf.

"Now, you must agree as a group upon one solution to your problem. Majority rules," said Lupin.

The other Ravenclaw Prefect, the black haired boy named Bardot, spoke up at once from Ginny's group. "But how do you define a solution? Number of lives saved? Escape from the island? Sir," he added as afterthought.

Lupin gave what Ginny could only categorize as a smirk. "That is part of the exercise, Bardot. Now, first group—" Lupin gestured at the group opposite Ginny's "—get started in here. Second group, follow me."

He led them down the hall to a different classroom. Pausing outside the door, he turned to them.

"For this week, you'll be Group B," he told them. "You'll mostly be working with your new professor." He caught Ginny's eye again. "He knows about this exercise. You have forty-five minutes to agree, and we'll reconvene." Then he rapped his knuckles on the classroom door.

A second later, Harry Potter opened it, as if he'd been standing on the other side with his fingers on the knob.

Ginny couldn't help herself. She gasped. Harry found her face immediately and beamed, but then his eyes scattered away across the rest of the group, who stood motionless and stunned.

"Hello," he said. "Thanks, Rem—Professor Lupin."

Lupin smiled, nodded, and walked back to their original classroom. Ginny heard his footsteps echo all the way down the hall, punctuated at the end with the click of the closing classroom door.

" . . . Professor Potter, but you can call me Harry when there are no other professors around," Harry was saying. A few students gave a weak laugh. "I'm here as a favor to the Headmaster . . ."

He went on to say some bollocks about how he was no expert, but he knew about the practical application of magic, and that's what he was going to teach, but Ginny stopped listening about halfway through. She was sure her eyes had glazed over and her face frozen in shock. Harry? Harry, a Professor at Hogwarts? On the one hand, she noted, this was no different from a DA meeting, not really, and Harry had proven himself more than capable of teaching Defense at those. On the other hand, this was Hogwarts. And Harry was her new professor.

And he hadn't even told her about it.

" . . . But you have an exercise to complete, don't you?" said Harry as he pushed his glasses up his nose. He stepped aside from the doorway and ushered them past him. "Come on, best get started."

Ginny, still barely able to move, ended up trailing the group and walking in last. Just before she reached Harry, she saw Malfoy brush past him as if he'd never seen the "new professor" in his life. Interesting, she thought, momentarily distracted from her jumbled emotions. Pre-Battle for Hogwarts, Malfoy would have jumped at this prime opportunity for Harry Potter mocking. She realized the blond Slytherin hadn't even interrupted Harry once during his introductory speech, and the realization actually made her pinch herself, wondering if any of this was real.

"Gin," said Harry in a very low voice when she drew even with him. He was smiling as if he expected her to be pleased. He thought he'd given her the grand gift of his company when before she'd have had to wait months to see him.

Ginny was happy, she told herself, forcing a smile onto her face. Here he was, just the person she'd been missing most—hadn't she?—right here, in the flesh, and now she'd get to see him every day until term ended. Until the year ended.

She was happy to see her boyfriend, she reasoned. Of course she was. She simply hadn't been expecting him to also be her Defense professor.

"Harry—" she began, but she glanced away from his face, not wanting to meet his eyes, and she noticed Malfoy looking back at them, wearing deadface again, and Zabini, over his shoulder, smirking. She cleared her throat. Harry followed her eyes and stood up a bit straighter, backing away from her.

"Right," he said, and she moved into the group, away from him. "Get talking!" he called.

She could feel his eyes on her as the class wore on.

(&)

Ginny's mood had not improved by the end of the lesson. In fact, she'd only gotten more frustrated and annoyed, even when her classmates didn't necessarily deserve it. It was a problem she had: when something that she didn't want to think about was in the back of her mind, upsetting her, she found other things to criticize so she could forget about the real problem. She knew she did it, which only made her angrier.

The buzz was just dying down from Group A about "Professor Potter." Ginny had valiantly struggled against her desire to roll her eyes when Lupin introduced him to the rest of the class. Harry had given a stilted yet meaningful speech. Luna was trying to catch Ginny's eye from across the room, but Ginny, jaw set with stubbornness, was ignoring the Ravenclaw.

"So," said Lupin, taking a cue to lead from Harry, who had faded into a corner of the room, "what have you come up with? Group A?"

Everyone looked vaguely around at the other group members, hoping someone else would speak.

After a minute of this, Luna stepped forward. She cleared her throat. "Well, first off, we think the exercise is a bit unfair, since we had no way of knowing the substance of the shield keeping us in." Luna's group members looked a bit concerned that she'd chosen to lead off with that, but a quick glance at Lupin confirmed to Ginny that he was suppressing a smile. "But we finally decided that we would draw straws to send someone across in an attempt to walk through the shield. Anyone except the mediwitch."
"And why is that?" asked Lupin.

"If the person going across is injured by the shield, we'll need her to do some healing," said Luna, as if she were explaining to a small child.

"And what then?"

"If we fail to cross the shield?"

Lupin nodded. Luna went on to describe an elaborate plan of spells to check the origin of the shield (cast by the Charms expert), along with work on producing food by the Transfiguration expert and the Herbologist. In the end, they were determined to lose none of the group, and had not come up with a failsafe plan in case their spells did nothing to help.

Lupin turned to Ginny's group.

"And you?"

Bardot stepped forward immediately. "We took it for granted that the shield would kill those who tried to cross it," he said.

Lupin raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. After a pause, he nodded for Bardot to go on.

Ginny noticed that, over Lupin's shoulder, Harry was leaning back against the stone wall, arms crossed in a casual manner belied by the intent expression on his face. He was interested in what they chose, she realized, more so than he'd been in the other group. She assumed it was because of her, and she felt a rush of annoyance again, telling herself (despite an inner voice that said she was being unfair) that this kind of treatment was exactly what she'd dreaded when she'd first seen him open that classroom door.

Bardot hesitated. "In the end, we voted that some would sacrifice themselves by walking into the shield, so that the others might live."
Lupin's eyebrows rose even higher. Harry pushed off from the wall, hands falling to his sides.

"Who?" Harry asked, and several students jumped as if they'd forgotten he was there.

"Well—"

"Were you one of them?"

Bardot was looking a bit flushed. "Actually, no, but—"

Harry cut the boy off again. "I want to see a show of hands. Who?" Ginny was shocked by his eagerness now. Bardot's expression soured at being interrupted by a professor—twice. The dark-haired Ravenclaw glared around at his group members as if it was somehow their fault.

Slowly, lazily, wearing an expression of extreme boredom as if to maximize the impression that he really didn't care a whit for what was going on around him, Malfoy raised his hand. His eyes shifted to meet Harry's, and the bland expression he wore was a challenge in itself: See? He seemed to be asking. Bet you weren't expecting that.

Parkinson and Zabini raised their hands, as did a Hufflepuff boy and two Ravenclaws whose roles Ginny couldn't remember. Ginny had argued that she should join them because of the whole werewolf bit, but they'd forced her to stay because of her Mediwitch training. They could always magically bind her during full moons, they'd argued.

Harry's face hadn't moved since Malfoy had raised his hand. Not turning from the Slytherin boy, he asked, "And would you care to explain?"

Malfoy, hand still in the air, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Didn't want to live the rest of my days on an island with these idiots, did I? Think I'll take death, if I've got the choice."

Harry's jaw twitched, but he had no answer for that. The silence lengthened, awkwardness expanding through the classroom as if someone had started blowing up a balloon and it was stretching, stretching, about to burst.

"They made the decision voluntarily," said Bardot at last, still sounding a bit miffed. "And those who chose to live could survive off the food."

"Well!" Lupin clapped his hands together and everybody gave a start. "This has been interesting, very interesting. I hope you learned a bit more about yourselves and about each other from an exercise like this." His eyes were alight with the unique mix of humor and seriousness that Ginny had always appreciated in him. "For homework, please write ten inches on what you personally will take away from this lesson. Off you go!"

The students stayed frozen for an instant, not really registering that they'd just been dismissed, until something clicked and everybody starting moving at once, except Bardot, who raised his voice to ask, "You mean, that's it? We don't know who was right?"
"It wasn't a matter of right and wrong, Bardot!" Lupin called, before pushing through the bustling students to Harry. Ginny saw them bend their heads together—Lupin's, slightly graying, dipping low to hear whatever Harry was saying over the din of departing students. She watched them for a few moments, but Harry didn't look over, so she turned and went to retrieve her bag.

Not paying attention to where she was going, she almost walked face first into Malfoy, who was about to pass her on his way to the door. They both froze, Ginny cutting off an instinctive apology that she would have given to anyone else for almost bowling them over.

Malfoy opened his mouth as well, and Ginny braced herself for what she knew was coming—Bet you'll earn your Defense marks this year, eh, Weasle? Or something along those lines. But before he could speak, Pansy came even with them, touched him on the elbow, and whispered something in his ear that Ginny couldn't catch. At her words, Malfoy smiled, a knowing sort of smile that showed only the very tips of two very white, ever-so-slightly crooked canines. Then he stepped aside and gave Ginny and ironic bow as she passed.

Feeling truly angry now and annoyed at everyone without reason, Ginny wrenched her bag from her desk and marched right past Dean and Luna, leaving them to stare after her before sharing a significant look that they were lucky Ginny couldn't see.

(&)

The rest of the morning's lessons helped Ginny cool off a bit, and Dean and Luna were wise enough to leave her alone at lunch. She'd propped a book open with a fork and was studiously ignoring anybody who bothered to sit down near her.

Had any of Ginny's brothers been in the vicinity of the Gryffindor Table, they would have taken one look at her with her face pressed to the book as she ate and given her a wide berth. The "concentrating on my book" tactic was one she'd used often at The Burrow, when she'd been caught between the desire for a meal and the equally as strong need to be left alone by her caring yet sometimes overbearing family. Ginny didn't actually need to read the book, although often she would. On the occasions when she didn't, she would simply use it as a decoy, something to pretend to be focused on while she sorted through her thoughts or enjoyed the privacy of her own head.

This was one of those times when Ginny wasn't reading the book.

She'd gotten over the irrational anger that had flooded over her in Defense, but it left her with a sad, disappointed feeling that she couldn't shake off. Whether she was disappointed in Harry or herself, she couldn't say. She knew she should be glad for him, and she knew he'd make a great professor. But a part of her felt crushed, like he'd taken a good thing and found the fastest way to ruin it. She'd finally gotten a year of Hogwarts on her own terms, no Trio, no War. She'd even begun to have friends of her own, close friends, like she hadn't had since before—well, since ever. She wasn't the type to open herself up to best friends, thanks to Tom Riddle. He'd taught her that.

And Harry had to come along, completely unassuming and kind and good, and take everything out of her control again. He was always doing that.

"Afternoon, Miss Weasley," came a laughing voice, and Ginny's stony-faced look of anger at being interrupted melted away when she saw Neville coming toward her.

He laughed at her expression. "Only called you that to get your attention," he said, "and so you wouldn't hurt me for intruding."

Ginny smiled back. Neville had a way of making everyone feel at ease now, a shocking consideration when one remembered his stuttering, nervous pre-War self. "I wouldn't dare hurt a professor," she told him.

"Of course not," he joked, and then sobered. He threw down a bit of parchment on the pages of her book. "Note from Harry," he said in a lowered voice. "Didn't want to come down here himself, you know . . . draw attention, and all that."

Ginny's eyes shot to the staff table, where Harry sat towards the end, between Lupin and Hagrid. He was looking right at her. She slid her eyes back to Neville and nodded. "Thanks," she said.

He grinned again, but walked off without saying anything else, distracted by an argument breaking out across the Hall.

Ginny, knowing Harry would still be watching her, opened his note very carefully and read it, then, without looking at him, gathered her things and left the Hall.

Within minutes, he was trotting toward where she stood beside the lake, autumn sunlight flashing off his glasses.

"Gin," he said, breathless by the time he reached her. He laced his fingers in hers and tugged her along the lake path.

His fingers felt familiar in hers, but she found herself struggling to find words. "I—I can't believe you're really here," she said at last.

He was smiling. "I know. Weird, right? I can't believe I'm a Hogwarts professor." Their feet crunched on the gravel path. "But Hermione's right," Harry added. "It's just like the DA . . ."

"Of course," said Ginny. "You're a natural teacher."

Harry's grin widened, but then it faltered and he looked suddenly pensive. "Only—in today's lesson, your group was a bit strange, wasn't it?"

Ginny shrugged, staring out across the Lake, which was calm as a mirror on the fine day. "It was Malfoy's idea."

Harry stopped walking, and the sudden movement pulled Ginny to a halt one step in front of him. "You're joking! Malfoy came up with all that sacrificing nonsense?"
Ginny quirked her lip. "I thought you'd be pleased. I know you love sacrifice . . ."

Harry rolled his eyes at her, but he didn't laugh or even smile, and she realized she may have offended him. The War became fresh again in the oddest of ways, in the quickest of moments.

She was facing him now, the sun lighting up the gold tones in her eyes as it shot up, reflected off the water. Harry took her hand out of hers and moved his palms to rest on her shoulders. He was a few inches taller than her, that's all. He moved a step closer.

"Harry," Ginny said, pulling away just a fraction so that his hands slipped and fell to his waist.

She could tell he was hurt by the ways his eyes turned sheltered, hooded. "You're not—are you upset?" he asked, confused. He sounded afraid to be wrong and afraid to be right.

Ginny sighed. "I can't go around kissing my professor, Harry," she told him. Her voice was low, as if someone were nearby to eavesdrop, but it was only because it was difficult to say the words.

Harry looked as if he might laugh. "Come on, Gin, there's no one around—"

"That isn't the point!" she said, and then she stopped and took a breath. "Look. I'm so glad to see you, really, and I think you'll be a fantastic professor. But I can't—I can't date you, not out in the open, not while you're teaching me and everyone's around us to watch. I don't want to . . . to be ridiculed. Can't you understand that's how it will be?"

He seemed rather thrown by her speech, but he could tell by the set of her jaw and the fire in her eyes that she was dead serious. And then, seeing that, Harry's face changed, and Ginny watched as the dawning of realization came into his eyes and then the sad turn of his lips, the slump of his shoulders.

"You're right. You're right, of course. I can't very well go holding your hand between classes and . . . Well." He gave her a lopsided smile that managed to make her knees a bit wobbly, despite how annoyed she was with him still. "I guess I didn't think that one through."

"Oh, Harry." She reached out and touched his cheek, and he covered her hand with his hand. "When do you think anything through?"

He laughed, and their hands fells apart as they kept walking again, this time with space between them. Ginny couldn't help but remember a different time they had broken up, for a very different reason, only that time had been much more dramatic and noble and she had been the one objecting to it. This time, she felt light, she felt free, and she knew there was nothing to worry about. If they could get through the last time, this was nothing but a pleasant break, a blip, nothing more.

Ginny chatted about being Head Girl, about sharing a dormitory with Malfoy (Harry scowled), about Snape as Headmaster. She talked about anything and everything, and Harry chipped in or listened by turns, and it felt good. By the time they'd doubled back to where they'd started, she felt content.

Harry grabbed her hand and squeezed it one last time. "There's always the Christmas holidays," he said.

"Yeah. Christmas holidays." Ginny smiled. "Listen, thanks—"

Harry cut her off. "Oh! And I almost forgot." He dug in his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a thick rectangle of folded parchment. "Letter from Hermione."

Ginny dropped his hand to take it. She would open it later, in her room, when she could savor it without interruption. She sighed. "Thanks," she said.

"I'd walk you up to the castle, but . . . I want to visit Hagrid. Do you mind?" said Harry.

"Not a bit," said Ginny, and a few moments later she was waving him away, feeling a little sad after all.

(&)

A/N: Okay, so, a couple of notes on this chapter. First, not finding much evidence in canon on how one becomes qualified to be a "professor" at Hogwarts, I decided that, if anyone were considered naturally qualified to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts by wizarding Britain, it would be Harry Potter. His youth could be overlooked in favor of experience . . . and because it's important to the plot, that's exactly what happened. :) Second, there's lots more Draco/Ginny interaction starting in the next chapter, and those pesky gods and goddesses come back into the picture, too. Please review!