Disclaimer: I don't own any of the character I'm writing about. *Sigh*

AN: So new chapter and I hope you enjoy it! Have to give a thanks to my beta Barrel of Monkeys for helping me edit this. If a few characters seem a bit OOC in this chapter, don't worry. It'll be explained in depth soon.

Hope you enjoy!


Usagi stared down the hall, to the defense classroom, with a frown on her face. It was the first morning of classes and the first time that she would actually be going into the classroom.

She had spent the previous night at home, seeing as though she had forgotten some clothes and just decided to spend one more night at home. This was one of the concerns that she had when she first accepted the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

When Dumbledore had told her of the possible curse on the position, she had wondered what type it could be. Was it a curse on the name of the position? The room it was in? Or was it something much more complicated than that?

Well, now she had her answer. If anyone were to look they would see nothing more than the normal hallway towards the defense class. Usagi, however, had Luna and Artemis who could see something that others couldn't ordinarily see. It was something they had been teaching her to do.

Luna had wanted to call it Sailor Sight, but Usagi shut that idea down very quickly, for the simple fact that the name was so corny. Not to mention that there were no other sailor scouts now but her. She had shaken off that depressing thought quickly though.

When she had first started to walk down the corridor she couldn't help but notice a rather oppressive feel to it. She had been extremely sensitive to magic for years. If it hadn't been for Luna and Artemis shouting at her she might not have ever noticed the extremely tiny rune that she was about to step on.

She bent down to study it carefully, the two cats also coming to have a look.

She could tell that the second she stepped on it that it would wrap around her magic, making it so that she would be gone, in some fashion, by the end of the year.

She sighed before taking her wand out, which was actually her tier in the form of a wand, and blasted it with a concentrated form of pure light energy. It actually took more power to get rid of it than she thought it would, but she managed to get rid of it easily enough.

She started walking towards the classroom but was stopped again by Luna blocking her way, telling her to look again. She focused her sight only to discover at least one hundred more of the same rune covering the length of the hallway.

She paled as she realized what she almost walked through and couldn't help but wonder how Dumbledore could have possibly missed all of this, let alone the Ancient Runes Professor. She took a deep breath and began blasting at each rune. It was going to take her a while to do this, not to mention the fact that it would tire her out at the very least by the time she was done. Hopefully she would be done before the class of fifth years got here, or you know, by the end of the year.

XxXx

For Harry the day had started off on a bad note. It was obvious Seamus, who he had gotten into an argument with the previous night, was still angry with him. At least that's the way it seemed if you judged the situation by the way the Irish boy tore out of the room before he was even able to finish putting his socks on.

After meeting Ron and Hermione down in the common room, where she proceeded to try to get Ron to helping her stop Fred and George from testing their products on kids- to no success- they made their way down to the great hall.

They spoke for a moment, mostly about Hagrid's suspicious absence, what the daily prophet was talking about, or not talking about, and Quidditch tryouts, until Professor McGonagall came to hand out the schedules.

"Look at today!" Ron groaned. "History of Magic, double Potions, Divination, and double DADA! Binns, Snape, and Trelawney all in one day! Hopefully that new defense teacher knows her stuff, otherwise I'm going to Fred and George for one of those Skiving Snackboxes once they get them sorted out."

Harry tuned out the rest of the conversation as Hermione started to nag the twins who had just come over. He couldn't help but notice that the new professor was conveniently absent from the staff table this morning. He couldn't help but wonder where she was and what she was up to.

He was brought out of his musing when he heard Hermione ask the twins where they had got the money for their products form. He deliberately dropped his fork as he felt his face go hot, and proceeded to hide under the table until he could control his face. Not the best of plans, but it was all he could think of to go unnoticed by Hermione.

It wasn't long before they left for History of Magic, speaking about what careers they would take after school, both Harry and Ron going silent as Hermione started talking about S.P.E.W. and avoiding her eyes as they shot each other looks.

These thoughts of future careers were soon driven out of their heads as they suffered through Binns monotone lecture of the giant wars for an hour and a half, most of which Harry spent playing hangman with Ron while Hermione shot them both filthy looks. By now, Harry thought she would have been used to this type of behavior, but it seemed that Hermione was an optimist in that respect.

Afterward, on their way to Potions, they met Cho Chang, the girl who Harry just so happened to have a crush on, and managed to insult her. The insult of course coming from Ron who had no idea that he had done it in the first place. This eventually led to another argument between Ron and Hermione. So far a pretty normal day, well as normal as Harry's life got.

In Potions, they were brewing the Draught of Peace, one of the potions that would be coming up on their O.W.L.s. It was a potion that calmed anxiety and soothed agitation. Of course, with his luck, he managed to botch the potion, by not adding syrup of hellebore and skipping straight towards the fourth line. That, of course, explained why his potions was spewing dark gray steam.

Snape took great pleasure in handing out insults like they were candy before vanishing his potion and giving everyone twelve inches of parchment on the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion making.

After a small lunch, where Harry was wondering how his day could possibly get any worse, he left early towards Divination, after finally shouting at Ron and Hermione to stop arguing.

All they ended up doing was reading an introduction of The Dream Oracle before using the last ten minutes to interpret each others dreams. Before class ended they were assigned a task of keeping a dream diary for a month as homework. Ron grumbled as they made their way down the ladder.

"Do you realize how much homework we've got already? Binns set us a foot and a half long essay on giant wars, Snape wants a foot on the use of moonstones and now we've got a month's dream diary from Trelawney! Fred and George weren't wrong about O.W.L. Year, were they? Hope that Sue... whatever her name is doesn't give us anymore..."

As they made their way down the hall that led towards the defense classroom they were surprised by the crowd just standing there. They caught sight of Hermione's bushy hair towards the front of the crowd and pushed their way towards her.

"What's going on Hermione?" Harry said.

"Look," she said pointing further down the hall. Both Harry and Ron turned to see the new defense professor further down the hall casting spells at the walls and ceilings all the while muttering under her breath.

She was wearing a black sleeveless one piece that stopped at mid thigh with gray leggings and a white long sleeve shirt underneath the one piece with her hair in that same odd style as it was the night before. They stood there watching her for a few more moments until Hermione spoke up.

"Um, professor," she called out quietly. The blond haired woman stopped in mid cast and turned to her, waiting for her to continue. "If you don't mind my asking, what exactly is it that you're doing?"

She smiled before answering, "I'll explain when we get in class. Give just one more minute and we can go in okay?"

She didn't wait for a response before shooting more spells out of her oddly bright white wand. The rest of the students started to chatter amongst themselves while Harry, Ron, and Hermione only looked at each other.

A few moments later, she led them into the classroom, which was oddly bare, not like when the previous professors had added their own personal touches to the room. The only thing that was different was the two black and white cats that, for some reason, none of them had noticed before, sitting on the professor's desk. She motioned for them to take their seats as she began talking.

"Sorry about that, now, my name is Usagi Tsukino. Please call me professor Tsukino or professor Usagi, either one will do," she said in a light tone. She took out her wand before summoning a chalkboard and enchanted the chalk to start writing.

"This year is your O.W.L.s year, one of the most important years in your schooling. You will probably end up talking about this with the rest of your teachers but it's important enough that we all have to say it. Your O.W.L.s will end up determining what classes you will take next year along with the fact that how well you do will be a major factor in whatever careers you choose to undertake later on after school. I have gone through the material that you've studied with the previous professors and I can honestly say that it has been incredibly uneven. Truly, the only good professors you had were Mr. Lupin and Mr. Moody from the last two years. Even though the latter turned out to be an imposter. Of course, with that curse on the position it's completely understandable. Now," she paused as she saw a hand in the air. "Yes, Miss..."

"Hermione Granger professor. I'm sorry but what did you mean by 'curse'?" she said with a furrowed brow. This piqued the interest of the rest of the class, some of whom had been too busy starring at the professor to really pay too much attention to what it was that she was actually saying. Usagi blinked a bit confused before saying, "The curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position of course."

At this, the students broke out into a panicked chatter.

"So there really was a curse on the position?" Hermione shrieked. They turned to see Usagi giggling softly before answering. "Well, there was. What do you think I was doing just a few minutes ago?"

"So you were getting rid of the curse?" Ron asked. At her nod, he asked, "How'd you do it?"

"Well, the cursed worked by someone planting a series of invisible and extremely tiny runes along the entire length of the hallway. The moment their target, the Defense professor, walked down that hallway they would active the first by stepping on it. That one in turn would activate the others and they would latch onto that persons magic and create an effect that somewhat mirror that of the Felix Felicis potion.

But instead of giving you luck, you'd be forced to leave the position of Defense somewhere near the end of the year. Sometimes in rather ironic ways. What I was doing was slowly getting rid of each and every rune that was in this hallway. I started this morning and am only just now getting done so please excuse me if I seem a bit tired. There were over one hundred of them there and they were all rather difficult to get rid of, seeing as they've been there for at least thirty years or more."

They all looked rather gobsmacked as she spoke, the fact that there actually was a curse was more than startling to them. Harry couldn't help but think that her comment about the teachers being forced to leave in ironic ways was somewhat accurate though.

With Quirrell, they all thought he was nothing more than a blubbering softy and he turned out to be possessed by Voldemort. Lockhart made his fortune by using memory charms on people and ended up losing his own memory thanks to Ron's broken wand. With Lupin, even though everyone liked him, it was no different. He spent the year teaching them about dark creatures and ended up turning into a werewolf and trying to eat them. And Moody, a decorated, paranoid, Auror, turned out to be a death eater in disguise that escaped from Azkaban only to be administered the Dementors kiss.

He had never thought about it until now. And it seems, judging by the look on everyone else face they hadn't either. There was something that stuck out to Harry and he raised his hand.

"Yes Mister..." Usagi said. They all looked at her as if she was from another planet. Who didn't know who Harry Potter was, they wondered.

"Uh, Harry Potter," he said slowly. "You said that the runes were invisible. How did you know that they were there?"

"Well before I accepted the position it was something that professor Dumbledore and I had spoken about. He wasn't necessarily sure how the curse was manifesting itself, even though he knew that it was there. He had tried different things to get rid of it but they didn't work. I, however, have had some experience with this type of thing.

I'm used to sensing and feeling things that are invisible to the naked eye so it was easy enough for me to see," she said while sitting down at her desk. "Are there anymore questions about the curse?" she asked. Many heads shook no, even Hermione's, who Harry could tell wanted to ask many more questions.

"Alright then," she said. With a wave of her wand she passed out books to everyone entitled The Dark Forces: A Guide To Self Protection. "I know that most, if not all, already have a book for this class entitled Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slikhard, am I right?" At their nods she continued.

"That book has to be one of the worst on defending one's self I've ever seen. It's incredibly dull and so horribly tedious that a snail would hold your attention better than that book. It's also speaks nothing about actually using defensive spells, which is something that you need to do if you really want to learn how to master a spell."

She stopped as she saw a raised hand.

"Yes Miss Granger?" she said.

"If those books are so bad then why were they on the school list in the first place?"

"If I'd had my way they wouldn't have been on there at all. No, these were the books that the ministry was planning on giving you. It just so happened that Professor Dumbledore hired me before they managed to put someone of their own choosing in this position. With this book who knows who you would've got as a teacher?"

The class murmured at that. What if they had another Quirrell or Lockhart? Some of them shuddered at the thought. Harry, however, was thinking something entirely differently. First the Ministry denies the fact that Voldemorts back, then they try to get him expelled from school all the while slandering his name, and now they want to stop them from learning how to defend themselves?

"So basically the Ministry doesn't want us to learn how to defend ourselves?" Harry said not bothering to raise his hand. The class turned to look at him with odd expressions on their faces.

Even Ron and Hermione were looking at him oddly. He didn't care though. His attention was focused solely Usagi, who looked just as confused as everyone else.

"Well I don't really know what the Ministry was thinking when they made that decision, so I can't really say," she said carefully. "I think they may have wanted to have the class be risk free, but that-" she was cut off by and angry voice.

"What use is that?" Harry said loudly. "If we're going to be attacked it won't be risk free!"

Usagi frowned.

"Mister Potter, I understand you're upset by that type of logic. To be honest I agree with you because I've been in situations where I need to use defensive magic," Usagi said with a light smile, attempting to calm the angry teen.

She noticed a hand towards the back of the room and she motioned him to speak.

"Dean Thomas, and, well it's like Harry said, isn't it?" said Dean. "If we're going to be attacked it won't be risk free will it?"

Usagi sighed.

"No it won't," she said clearly exasperated by the fact that they kept taking what she said out of context. She really couldn't blame them though, they had some crappy before her so she guessed it was a good thing that they were being so cautious. Even if it irritated her.

"But that's what you just said-" Harry began before she cut him off.

"No, you misunderstood me. I know from personal experience that the ability to defend yourself from outside threats is irreplaceable. However, for now, in this classroom there's nothing that's going to attack you, I promise."

She heard a scoff and raised her eyebrow.

"Do you disagree Mister Potter?"

"Yes actually. Because I know for a fact that someone's out there that would attack us anywhere. Even here."

"Mister Potter, does what you're about to say have anything to do with defense?" She said clearly becoming exasperated with the topic.

"Yes it does," Harry said. "Does the name Lord Voldemort ring any bells?"

Ron gasped; Lavender Brown uttered a little scream; Neville slipped sideways off of his chair and almost everyone else flinched. Usagi, however, didn't. She held back a sigh and began to pet Luna to relieve some of the tension she was feeling.

"Mister Potter, while you do have a valid point, one that I agree with, I don't understand why you're lashing out at me. I've said absolutely nothing to deserve it," she said before closing her eyes. She was tired from dismantling the curse, one that had been there for at least 30 years or more, she was hungry seeing as she hadn't eaten all day, and had an angst filled teenager yelling in her face.

She was really starting to appreciate her parents the more this class went on as she recalled her teenage days. She sighed before speaking again.

"As it is, I'm going to take five points from you. Please, refrain from raising your voice again. I really don't like doing this whole taking points thing."

The class was silent, everyone either looking at Harry, who had a furious expression on his face, or Usagi who still held an expression. Even the two cats, who had gone unnoticed this whole time was watching with rapt attention.

"Now, I'll only say this once and we'll get into the lesson. Whatever you choose to believe-" but again she was cut off.

"Like the fact that Voldemort is back?" Harry said angrily. Ron and Hermione, not to mention the rest of the class, were looking at him as though he had two heads. They really couldn't understand why he was antagonizing the Professor when she hadn't even done anything.

"Mister Potter you have already lost five points. It'll be detention if you speak out of turn again." Usagi said, her irritation starting to showing. "Again, as I was saying. No matter what you believe, you need to know how to defend yourself by the time that you leave school. Right now, from your previous teachings from, hmm, less than adequate teachers, you only really know how to recognize and defend from Dark Creatures."

It was silent for a moment and every thought that was the end of it. That was until Harry stood up.

"Harry, no!" Hermione whispered in a warning voice, tugging at his sleeve, but Harry jerked his arm out of her reach. "What about Cedric Diggory then? If I just believe that he didn't die, he'll walk through that door fine as can be?"

There was only silence in the classroom; the students had an outraged expression on their faces. Usagi, however, had a calm look on her face as she wrote out a small note, seemingly ignoring Harry, further increasing his outrage.

"Mister Potter," Usagi said when she finished writing on a small piece of paper and handing it towards the black cat on her desk. "Please come to my office tomorrow for your first detention at five o'clock. You can leave my classroom now. Please follow Luna to Professor McGonagall's office."

He turned on his heel as Luna walked ahead of them, and left the room, not even looking back at Ron and Hermione, and slamming the classroom door.

She watched as he stormed out of the room and wanted to bash her head against the desk. But she couldn't do that. Instead, she took a deep breath and started class.

"Now, on to the first thing you need to know," she said. "What to do in case you do find yourself in a dangerous situation."

XxXx

He walked very fast along the corridor, the cat, Luna, just ahead of him, the note in her mouth. He ran into Peeves who antagonized him by singing a ridiculous song until he shout loud enough to alert McGonagall that he was there.

"What on earth are you shouting about, Potter?" she snapped as Peeves flew out of sight. "Why aren't you in class?"

"I've been sent to see you," he said stiffly.

"Sent? What do you mean, sent?"

He looked down at the cat who held the note by her tail now and was handing it towards McGonagall. She took the note and with her wand stretched it out and began to read. As she read, Harry could see that her eyes narrowed the closer she got to the bottom of the page.

"Come in here Potter."

He followed her inside her study, the doors closing automatically behind him. Luna, having slipped in just before they closed jumped on McGonagall's desk.

"Well?" she said. "Is this true?"

"Is what true?" he said more aggressively than he meant to. "Professor?"

"Is it true that you shouted at Professor Tsukino?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"You called her a liar and said that You-Know-Who was back?"

"Well..." he said quietly.

McGonagall moved to sit at her desk, casually stroking the now purring Luna.

"Have a biscuit, Potter?"

"Huh?"

"Have a biscuit," she said irritably. "And sit down."

McGonagall set down Usagi's note as he sat and helped himself to a ginger newt, before looking at him seriously.

"Potter, you need to apologize."

Harry swallowed hard. Her tone was stern and low, as though she was disappointed in him.

"The way you spoke to her was completely undeserved, and I agree with her about the detention and loss of house points."

"But Professor-"

"Potter use your common sense," she snapped. "If Dumbledore personally hired her then why would you yell at her about what the Ministry is doing? It says here she's given you detention every evening this week, starting tomorrow," she said looking at the note again.

"Every evening this week?" he exclaimed. "But Professor, couldn't you..."

"No I couldn't," she said. "She's your teacher and has every right to give you detention. You will go to her room at five o'clock tomorrow for the first one. To be honest, if it were me, you would've gotten at least two weeks and thirty points taken away."

"But I was telling the truth!" he said outraged. "Voldemort's back! You know he is. Professor Dumbledore knows he is..."

"For heaven's sake Potter!" she snapped. "Didn't you hear what I just said? Professor Dumbledore personally hired her. With Fawkes recommendation, I might add. Don't you think that she knows that You-Know-Who is back?"

"Well, then why-"

"Because she knows that there are students in the classroom with parents who work in the Ministry. She has to be careful about what she says, otherwise, what she says will easily be traced back to the Ministry and they would try to do what they did this summer again. As it is, she's already taking a big risk by even talking about the Ministry in any way that's not positive."

"What..." he said "What did they try to this summer?"

"Have some horrible woman come in and spy for the Ministry while pretending to teach you all defense."

He sat back, properly chastised. He groaned quietly as he thought about it. He really had gone too far and she hadn't even done anything to really deserve it. He really didn't know what had come over him to be honest. It was as if someone had suddenly shoved all of their anger onto his shoulders and he let out on the first authority figure he saw when it became too much.

"I take it you've seen you error," McGonagall said still petting Luna. "Have another biscuit."

Harry sighed as he took another. He would have to apologize. He just didn't know how to go about doing it.


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