I DO NOT OWN HETALIA NOR HARRY POTTER, THEY BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS
"U-um... Professor?" a voice quietly called out. "Ummm, Professor Kirkland? C-class was supposed to start five minutes ago..." the voice said, seemingly a little louder then before.
"Oi! Kirkland! Are you done day dreaming about your girlfriend?" A voice abruptly called out, and this snapped a certain professor to his senses.
"Who said that?" Arthur snapped with a slight hint of drowsiness in his voice. This seemed to be in vain as not one student awnsered, and the only response he got was silence. "I will repeat that again. Tell me who said that." He repeated with not an air of a question in his voice. A few hesitant hands pulled themselves up and pointed at one Malfoy.
"Ten points from Slytherin. I almost wonder if they are doing you any good. Now, onto todays lesson..." Arthur said with finality in his voice and walking up to the board for that days lesson. 'This is way too early for this...' He thought with a sigh.
That particular day had passed in a blur of obnoxious students and passing glances from teachers, and that formula did not equate to a good mood. That, and the fact that there was going to be a meeting consisting of what was most likely akin to childish banter than actuall productivity. 'It's not dissimilar to the world meetings.' Arthur mused as he sat at his desk, watching his students practice a minor severing charm on pillows. 'I cannot believe I'm thinking this, but I would actually prefer being there, at least then I wouldn't be accused of framing a student.'
He then shook himself out of his thoughts, right in time to see a spell shoot across the classroom.
A crash sounded across the room as a desk clattered into the ground, cut in two. Arthur shot up from his desk, a look of pure anger on his face as he swept the classroom in the direction the spell was cast. And as luck had it, Malfoy wasn't fast enough to get out of the area of suspicion.
"What. Was that." Arthur said with a fake calmness, his aura deadlier than a lion.
"U-um, what are you talking about?" He nervously said.
"Since your IQ is obviously that of a banana, I'll let your classmates inform you on what had happened." He replied, looking expectedly at the rest of the classroom.
A hand nervously raised from around the middle of the room. "Yes, Neville? " Arthur said.
Neville cleared his voice before speaking. "Malfoy had started a fight with Harry, and he had sent the severing spell at him." He murmured, flinching at the glare Malfoy had sent his way.
"Thank you Neville." Arthur said with a grateful smile, before turning back to Malfoy. "I revoke what I had said earlier." Arthur said, only to be greeted with a surprised expression. "Thirty points from Slytherin and two weeks detention." The look of outrage he got in return to his statement only made him smirk and say "Now I'm guessing you would like a month?"
Malfoy instantly shut his mouth and sulked back to where he was, shooting a glare at Goyle, who simply stared into space twidling his thumbs.
"Now, class is dismissed." Arthur said, and the students shot out of the classroom like rats, thankful that classes were now over for the day.
Arthur slowly slid down in his chair, head in his hands. He could feel a migraine coming on, but he slightly perked up when he thought of Malfoy's detention. A devious smirk suddenly played along his lips. 'You had better watch out, Malfoy...'
Meanwhile...
A chill ran across Malfoy's body, making him momentarily pause his walking towards the Slytherin common room. "Escuse me." He said, watching Crabbe and Goyle nod simultaneously.
"So, as I was about to say, Kirkland is an awful professor. Honestly, giving me two weeks of detention! And he said my IQ is that of a banana! My father will definitely hear about this." Malfoy complained, of which was greeted with nods yet again.
'I swear, they are almost like robots.' Malfoy thought, before he suddenly thought of something, something that would torture his mind for a long time to come.
"What is an IQ?"
"Why did I agree to this..." Arthur contemplated as he sat in his quarters, staring at the clocks hand tick ever so slowly around the face.
10:17
He would have to be at the meeting area at 10:30, and there he was, sitting in his chair with in his boxers, a comfy shirt, and loafers. Instead of actually getting prepared, he started questioning all of his life decisions that had led him to this point.
10:25
'Why did I read that paperwork about Sirius Black? Why did I yell at Dumbledore about it? Why did I ever even meet Dumbledore in the first place?' He rapidly thought to himself, though he knew fully well the answers to each question. It was then that he realized something. 'Wait... why the bloody hell am I thinking about this now?' He pondered before rapidly getting dressed and walked out the door.
The dark corridors, illuminated by the moon light, cast shadows upon the floor as Arthur strided towards the meeting area. The saying 'time flies when your having fun' halfway applied to the situation, with every minute he walked seemed like a second, and he definitely was not having fun. Before he could think, he was standing in front of the abandoned classroom, hand resting on the doorknob.
'What am I doing?' he thought to himself before taking a long breath and walking into the room.
The first thing he notice when he walked in the door was the atmosphere. The air seemed almost too thick to breathe, and the way the teachers were staring at him put him off edge. The next thing he noticed was that only the Heads of Houses and Dumbledore sat inside of the room, of which he did not expect at all.
"It seems like you finally decided to show up." Severus sneered, breaking the silence that had enveloped the room.
"Severus, may I ask you to refrain from speaking rudely to professor Kirkland, he is only running a few minutes late." Dumbledore reprimanded, placing his hands on the table. "Now, you may take a seat."
Arthur scanned the room, seeing no available seats aside from one next to Minerva near the head of the table, of which Dumbledore sat. He made his way to the available seat before sitting down, feeling the prick of being stared at on his neck.
"Well, now that Arthur has arrived, we can start this meeting... for a second time." Dumbledore declared, before scanning the room. "Now, let me start off with answering a question everyone must be thinking, 'Why aren't the other professors here?' to answer this, I only sent envelopes to the professors in this building that I trusted most. I am almost certain that none of you in this room put Mr. Potters name into the Goblet of Fire, although some of you may disagree." Dumbledore started, looking towards Severus at the last part, to which Severus sent back a pointed look.
"Now, before we start with the discussions, I am going to clearly state what the objective for this meeting is. We are here to discuss what we could possibly do to A) keep Potter safe and B) figure out who had put Harry's name into the goblet, not to blame it upon each other." Dumbledore said. He did not state it, but everyone in the room knew he was again talking about Severus.
"May I add that there is still a chance that one of us in this room could have still done it, so we cannot rule out that possibility?" Severus added, which was greeted with a few nods.
"And I am not saying it isn't possible, however I know everyone in this room well enough that they would not like to see Potter dead, which is what this whole incident boils down into." Dumbledore replied.
"Excuse me, but professor Kirkland has only worked at Hogwarts for barely a month, how could you know him well enough that you know he wouldn't do something such as this?" Flitwick stated, sending an apologetic glance towards Arthur.
"That is irrelevant to this discussion, how me and Dumbledore know each other isn't any of your concern." Arthur stated, to which he was replied with a few confused glances. "Didn't Dumbledore just state that he trusts me? Do you not trust his judgement?"
"They weren't saying they didn't trust his judgement, but remember what happened with professor Quirrel? He turned out to be a spy for he-who-must-not-be-named, and most of us in this room held our trust in him." Sprout commented.
"But did Dumbledore truly trust him fully? I highly doubt that, it would be odd that Voldemort was literally growing out of the back of his head, and Dumbledore never noticed." Arthur argued, feeling a headache growing in his head.
"I have to agree with Arthur on this one, it does not matter what a previous professor did. We may not know him enough to know that he didn't do it, but we do not know him enough to know that he did do it either. With Quirrel I could obviously see that something was off. Arthur doesn't seem nearly as off as Quirrel, if having a few... quirks in his personality is considered off." Minerva countered.
"But that does not mean that someone cannot put on a facade. Just because Quirrel could not to save his life, that does not mean that Kirkland is just as inept.' Severus sharply said, his aura becoming agitated.
"Yes, but-"
Minerva was cut off by Arthur suddenly slamming his fists onto the table, cracking the polished wood, which made a few of the professors gasp.
Arthur slowly got up, raising his head to look at the shocked professors who were halfway staring at him, and halfway staring in shock at the large crack in the table. "Fine, since everyone insists on straying off the task at hand, i'm taking matters into my own hands." he barely muttered, only loud enough that the people in the room could barely hear him, before walking out of the room and slamming the door behind him, a set destination in mind.
Before he walked off, he faintly heard arguing from inside the room, much to his annoyance. 'Idiots, someone could have been listening in.' He thought, fed up with everything for today as he cast a muffliato on the door before walking away to his destination.
On his way back to his quarters, he stopped by the DADA classroom, and picked up a particular essay that he would need. Once he got back to his quarters, he sat down at his desk and rested his head against the back of the chair, sighing.
'I swear, I would prefer to be at a world meeting five times in a row than be in there.' Arthur thought to himself. He had previously thought there was nothing more irritating then world meetings, but he just proved himself wrong.
'Well, I suppose its time to get started.' He thought as he got up and pulled out a large sheet of paper out of his bag, along with some chalk. He pulled out a Dark Arts manual, and skimmed through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
Pain Sensory Rune
This rune is one of the most useful runes that beginners of the Dark Arts will learn. It is used to let the person who made this rune know when a person of their choosing is physically harmed. Two of the most common uses for this charm is for military purposes and for the 'interrogation' of criminals in some magical communities. The only items needed are chalk, a wand, a spell book, and an item that has the chosen persons DNA on it. You will draw a rune onto a flat surface, taking up an area of around three feet.
See below for step by step instructions for this rune...
For what seemed like eternity to Arthur, he drew the rune onto the paper that he had pulled out of his bag. Once he was finished, he placed Harry Potter's essay in the middle of the rune, and then stepped inside himself with the rest of the supplies.
He raised his wand into the air, and a faint glow emitted from the tip. The spell book he had tucked into his arm flew in front of him, and he started chanting what would have been random gibberish to anyone else.
"Santo Rita meata mater Ringo Jonah tito marlon Jack la toya Janet Micheal Dumbledora the Explorer," Arthur started chanting, faintly wondering for the millionth time why Dumbledore's name was in the incantation.
"Santo Rita meata mater Ringo Jonah tito marlon Jack la toya Janet Micheal Dumbledora the Explorer, Santo Rita meata mater Ringo Jonah tito marlon Jack la toya Janet Micheal Dumbledora the Explorer!" He finalized, and the runes on the large sheet of paper glowed vividly, before finally fading down until it barely shone. Arthur stepped out of the circle cautiously, half expecting Russia's head to come out of the rune, but nothing of the sort happened.
He let out the breath of air that he had been holding, and a feeling of relief came upon him as he put the rune back inside his bag, making sure that there were no creases on the delicate paper.
Arthur slouched back down at his desk, feeling exhausted from the precariously long day. He had not been resting for long when he heard a knock at the door.
"Come in." He said annoyedly, wishing that the day would just end already.
Minerva walked into the room, carrying a book that she had with her at the meeting, but it was ever so slightly dented on the cover. He then decided that he didn't even want to know what had gone on once he had left.
"Oh, hello Minerva." Arthur said politely, glad it wasn't one of the other Heads of Houses.
"Hello Arthur," she started, walking beside his desk. "I had just came here to check up on you, those nim wits wouldn't stop arguing so I... persuaded them to let me leave early." Minerva said bluntly, and Arthur decided that what happens in the meeting room, stays in the meeting room. Even more so then how it already was.
"Thank you. So, what did you come here to say?" Arthur said, glad he had finished the rune earlier in the evening.
"Right to the point, I suppose. Well, as I said before, I just wanted to check up on you. I really didn't need to speak about anything in particular. I suppose I will take my leave now." She said, heading for the doorway. Before she closed the door, she looked back him with the tiniest hint of a smile. "While they did have a point back at the meeting, I truly do not believe you would do such a thing." The door closed shut, leaving Arthur still sitting at his desk.
A small smile made its way across Arthur's face as he stared at the doorway. 'For the first time since I came here, I might actually be able to have someone I can trust.'
Woah! I really am sorry for the ridiculously long wait. It's been almost a whole month! To say sorry, this is my longest chapter so far. So what do you guys think of the chapter? I hope its good, even though it's pretty all over the place. If you couldn't tell already, I probably wrote a sentence a day for about three weeks before I finally got out of my writer's block, which for those of you who don't write, is like the plague is to a person as writers block is to an author. And, no, i'm not exaggerating, I wish I was. Thank you everyone for putting up with the wait.
