Funnyface
Chapter Six
The DADA Professor
Monday morning was a sordid affair; alarm clocks rang before dawn, the hot water ran low, first years stumbled about, lost and confused, and most importantly, Sirius Black could not find his lucky boxers. "I packed them. I know I packed them."
"Sirius, they are a stupid pair of underwear. Put on a different pair, for the love of Merlin, we are going to miss breakfast." James moaned, rummaging through his trunk for the thirteenth time to see if Sirius had accidentally placed his boxers in the wrong trunk.
"But, Prongs… this week will go horribly wrong if I don't wear them," Sirius whined, pacing the floor in only his towel.
"Damn it, Padfoot! Put on some effing pants already!" Remus yelled as Sirius' towel dropped to the floor for the third time.
Sirius smirked, picking up his towel. "What Moony, you jealous or something?"
"I will never be jealous of your tiny package, Padfoot. Get over it."
After several more minutes of Sirius' whining, the other boys convinced him that he would be just fine without his lucky boxers. He didn't really believe them, but he didn't want to be late for his first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. She hadn't been at the Welcoming Feast, but the word in the halls was the new DADA professor was hot stuff. Naturally, Sirius wanted to be a charming student and that meant arriving on time.
Breakfast passed uneventfully, unless you count Peter spilling pumpkin juice all over Remus, but that was a pretty common occurrence. Jane's feet dragged as they made their way to the fourth floor and to the classroom. "I hope everyday isn't like this."
"No worries, Janie, it will be." Sirius clapped her on the back, beaming.
Lily looked to Jane, wearing a similar exhausted expression. "Why is he so chipper?"
"As if I know." Jane sighed before yawning hugely and rubbing her eyes.
Sirius took a front row seat to be quickly joined by James and Jane. Remus, Peter and Dorcas stole the desk behind them, while Lily and Derrick nudged into a desk with the only Hufflepuff in advanced DADA, Marlene McKinnon.
Five minutes after the tardy bell rang, the professor rushed in. She wasn't exactly what Sirius had expected. Pretty, yes, but in a freaky sort of way. She had messy short green hair, pale green eyes, a slender body draped with a bright blue linen dress that swayed around her legs as she walked. She was younger than he expected as well, possibly twenty-five, more like twenty-three.
"Fucking hell, couldn't have given me an office of the same floor as my classroom, could you, Albus?" Her thick southern accent sounded throughout the quiet classroom, though she was merely muttering under her breath.
"Ah, people, good. Nice to see you all managed to find the room." She sighed heavily and shut the door. "Okay, first things first, my name is Alexandria Tate. Call me Professor Tate, or just Tate, or Alex if you please. Call me Alexandria and I will curse you until you can no longer scream."
Sirius nudged James with his shoulder and they exchanged excited smiles. Jane rolled her eyes. Boys. Perching on the edge of her desk, Professor Tate glanced around the room. "You, there." She waved a hand at her own hair. "Red, you look smart enough, take the roll for me." She tossed Lily a list of student names and Lily stood up. "No, no, just look around and put a check next to their name if they are here. You have gone to school with them for six goddamned years; you should be able to match a name to a face." Lily stared at her for a moment before sitting back down. Sirius bit down a chuckle at the expression on Lily's face. James shoved him; silently telling him to be nice. Rolling his eyes, Sirius blew his hair out of his face and propped his feet up on the desk.
"Okay, so Minerva gave me these," her pale green eyes flicked to a stack of papers in her hands and she wrinkled her nose. "Surveys. To see how much of the curriculum you have actually retained. I don't like surveys." She tossed them into the rubbish bin. Peter grinned, finally a professor who liked paper work as much as he did.
"I was a student once. I know how surveys work. You," she pointed to Sirius. "Will tell me your previous teachers were all shit; which I agree with, but you will also tell me that you don't need this class because you are a brilliant student, who studied the book and taught himself the spells, which is complete bullshit." Sirius blinked at her in shock.
Standing up and running a tiny hand through her uncombed green hair, she walked down the aisle, pushing Sirius' feet to the floor, before coming to a halt beside Remus. Patting his head, she continued with her speech, "And you will be polite, and tell me that they did their best, which, again, is complete bullshit." Remus attempted to look not offended, but the way his lips thinned into a small line gave him away.
Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she strolled back up to her desk. "So no surveys, ever." With a quick flick of her wand, the papers in the bin were set aflame. Dorcas almost died. Professor McGonagall had to have spent hours working on those.
"The next thing you need to know, is I want to be here as much as you do: not at all. I am here because I owe Albus a favor. I should be in Central American studying the ancient Mayans with my favorite professor in a once in a lifetime opportunity. So, remember that every time you want to complain about me. I should be soaking in the sun with sexy foreign men and I am stuck here teaching you. In. The. Cold." Hopping back on to her desk, she pulled a booted foot onto it and retied the laces. Sirius tilted his head to the side. If she would just move a fraction of an inch to the left…
"I am sure you have all noticed you didn't have a book on your list for this class. That is because all the Defense texts out there suck ass. Luckily, for you, I actually care about your futures and don't want you to get killed your first day out in the real world, where there just happens to be a real war going on."
With a tap of her wand, nineteen freshly bound manuscripts appeared on her desk. "These contain the best excerpts from fifty-four different Defense texts, along with commentary by me, several Aurors and a dear friend of mine who has no skills whatsoever in Defense but he is funny, so I let him write some things from time to time to lighten up the class."
James and Sirius exchanged grins; they were going to like her. Sliding of her desk, once more, Professor Tate grinned widely. "All right, then, on to the fun stuff. Pick up a book and follow me, please. And Red?" Lily looked up at her. "Bring that, you'll be writing down scores."
"Right," Lily answered with a nervous smile.
Arriving on the grounds, Professor Tate announced, "Okay, gang. Welcome to my play ground and your new hell," gesturing to a giant obstacle course spreading out across the entire Quidditch pitch.
"My pitch! What have you done to my pitch?" James wailed, dropping to his knees.
Tate rolled her eyes. "No worries." She looked to Lily. "Name, please?"
"Oh, James. James Potter," Lily answered with a smile.
"Right, no worries, James James Potter. Odd to have the same first and middle name." She shrugged. "Your pitch will be back to its stunning self by the end of the week. Unless you all are as hopeless as I have been told. Then I will have to find a new place to put my course."
Sirius helped James off the ground. "Prongs, mate, it's all right."
"But… but…" James muttered incoherently.
Laughing, Jane shook her head. "James, you are such a freak, it's just Quidditch." James scowled at her. Just Quidditch!
Professor Tate raised her voice a couple of notches to be heard over the chatter. "All right, this course is filled with every dark creature imaginable. With the exception of a Dementor, a vampire, and a werewolf, as Dumbledore said I wasn't allowed. This first semester you will learn to defend your self against each one of these creatures. You should already know how… but again, you previous teachers were shit. Next semester we will move on to curses, which is the real fun stuff." She looked to Lily. "Call the first name, then."
"Oh, right," Lily looked down to her list. "Uh, Sirius Black."
"Ah, the cocky bastard." Tate grinned as Sirius looked up. He hadn't been paying the slightest bit of attention.
O
The first DADA class like all the rest to come was a living, breathing hell. In the first week, only Sirius and James had completed the course without sending up sparks for help. However, that was only because they were too proud and luck was on their side (and they could both run pretty damn fast). Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Ancient Runes, and the others were just as difficult, if not quite as physical. With N.E.W.Ts on their way, the students' workload had doubled since last year.
Finally, Friday arrived and Jane flopped onto the big squishy sofa in the common room. "That was the worst first week ever," she complained to Lily and Dorcas.
Lily looked down at her and dropped her books on the floor. "It was the same as every first week, Jane. You are just choosing to forget how hard the past first weeks have been."
"No, the Bird is right. This week was exhausting," Sirius said loudly, hearing the girls' conversation as James, Remus, Peter, and he entered the common room. "We didn't even have time to pull a prank," he added as an afterthought.
"So business as usual for our first Friday night then?" James asked before everyone ganged up on Lily and Dorcas, who would be the only two that did not believe this, was the longest first week ever.
Sirius excitedly waved his wand and muttered a spell. "Most definitely!" All the chairs and sofas gathered around the fireplace vanished, causing Jane to land with a loud thump on the floor.
"Oops, sorry Janie." He had a smile on his face that made him look like the cat that caught the canary. Jane looked up at him, but did not reply. She was too busy planning revenge. Holding his gaze, she stared into his soul trying to unnerve him. It wasn't working very well, but she at least had to make an attempt.
"All right everyone, to your places." James' voice interrupted her thoughts and she was forced to break eye contact with Sirius. Now stage one of the plan was ruined. Damn.
The group of seventh years all sat in a circle in the now empty space in front of the fireplace. "Jaybird, you can have the honors 'cause I dropped you on your bum," Sirius said, tossing Jane a small ball; it looked like a brightly colored golf ball except for the shimmering, magic dust that floated after it.
Jane caught it in one hand. Without really thinking, she said, "The consequence for not paying the bet – a dare of the winner's choice – is to kiss Severus Snape," she stopped and smirked. "Passionately." Little did Jane know she would soon be paying dearly for the consequence she placed on this game.
The tiny ball made a noise like a baby's burp and the shimmering dust covered Jane. As the dust faded, Jane tossed the ball to Peter, who tossed it to Dorcas, who passed it to Lily, who threw it at Sirius, who threw it behind his back and over his head to James, who handed it back to Jane. "And so the game is set."
For the three hours the group played high-stakes games of muggle Scrabble. As tradition, the seven students held a mini tournament with a muggle board game to welcome the first weekend of term. To make the game more interesting, the gang added in the bet ball; it made sure the loser of any bet paid or faced consequences. The bet ball was a nifty little device that compelled the loser to perform the consequence if the dare went undone.
Tallying up the scores again, Lily jumped up off the floor. "Yes! Finally, I WON! After five long years I won!" She danced around for a moment, her long red hair flying everywhere. James watched her in amazement, letting her win was so worth it. Breathing heavily, she finally stopped. "Jane, the ball, if you please."
Jane reluctantly handed over the ball. She had the lowest number of points no matter how many times she forced Lily to recount. Lily won. Damn it, one of the boys would have had her do something stupid like break into Filch's office and steal something, but Lily? Lily would come up with something cruel.
Lily smiled, oh yes! They had chosen this game specifically because Jane had the worst spelling on the planet. Lily had told the boys earlier that day while Jane was still snoozing if they picked this game and let Lily win, the bet she would set for dear Janie would be wonderful for all. They had agreed quickly, after all, this was the closest thing to a prank they had gotten to all week.
"Jane, for a full twenty-four hours, you must dress like a girl," Lily said calmly and surely.
Stunned, Jane tried to talk her way out of it. "Lily, I don't own any girl clothes, and your stuff won't fit me. Where do you propose I find these girl clothes?"
"Yes, you do. The outfit you brought at Madam Malkin's," answered Lily, grinning.
"The whore outfit!" Jane shouted, outraged.
"It is not a whore outfit, it's really cute." Lily's grin faded and she said seriously, "You have to do it, Jane."
Jane looked like she was going to be sick. Nevertheless, she held out her hand to catch the ball and seal the deal. The boys exchanged wide grins; they should have listened to Lily ages ago.
Author's Note
: If you found any mistakes, have any questions, enjoyed the chapter, or disliked the chapter let me know in a review or PM. All feedback is not only welcomed but embraced.