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Broken Universe

Chapter 10

Year One Earth-Unknown

Monday

Harry found the odd Defence against the Dark Arts teacher amusing. The man was whiter than white, quite literally, and yet he wore a huge crimson turban on his head as if that made him special or something because he was certainly no Sikh or anything. Then while walking back and forth in front of the class, his eyes were shifting as if moments away from a panic attack. Harry didn't like him at all, and he could teach the class better. The man supposedly got his turban from a prince in Arabia or something saving them from vampires, so why fear a class of underage-noobie magicians. Though, Harry supposed that was just a rumour, someone overstating facts; the truth being Quirrell likely bought the turban in the gift shop while on a package holiday.

Professor Quirrell was trying to give a lecture about the dark arts and its counter measures. However, even Harry was having a lot of difficulty understanding him when he was a stuttering mess, and not the odd slipped word, as he would expect, but everything. Observing the 'teacher' it became apparent that it was put on, and highly over exaggerated. He was faking it for some reason and doing a very bad job of it. He should certainly stay away from theatre.

It made Harry smile as he sat with Hermione and marvelled at her note taking ability, as she seemed able to decipher the stuttered words with minimal effort on her part. He supposed he could have too if the teacher wasn't also boring him into a stupor with what would have been a boring lesson without the stuttering. How could one man be that boring? It was supposed to be a class on monsters, hexes, and that sort of thing so should have been heller cool and all sorts of amazing.

Harry shook his head clear as he watched the shifty professor. He would have to keep a very close eye on him. He was obviously up to no good. Harry was certain that Dumbledore must know the guy was up to something. It could be something to do with that horrible death waiting on the third floor.

Dumbledore had warned them that the third floor corridor was off-limits to anyone not wanting to die a horrible death, or he might have said fourth floor. Harry wasn't paying attention at the time. He didn't know what Dumbledore would be doing putting something in the castle that might want to kill them. Then, nobody knew why Dumbledore did the stupid things he did.

Harry had to look out for whom he could, most likely cute girls. It was the least he could do while this was partially his home, and he was a God of Heroes, so he had to at least partake in some heroing, to do by example or something along those lines. Dumbledore maybe stupid at times but Harry was certain he had a reason for everything he did, and didn't want to hurt anyone. But if he thought for a moment that it was the right thing to do, he would do it no matter what others might think, and probably regret it later when it went wrong.

Harry was sure that Dumbledore would probably listen to him, (if only to try getting on his good side), but the old man most likely wouldn't tell him what was going on no matter what he offered. The old man was stubborn, that was for sure, and no amount of bribery would loosen his grin if he thought it was for the best. The old man likely had many regrets for that kind of stubborn behaviour, so it served him right to have his schemes backfire for the shear nerve and arrogance alone.

Sighing, Harry shook his head as the fake-stutter box finished a twenty-minute lecture in one hour fifty minutes leaving them to read the first chapter of their books while waiting for the morning bell to signal break, and it couldn't arrive quickly enough.

"He seems a little much," Hermione said once the talking started. She actually looked mentally drained, and she had been so happy and eager before the class started.

"You mean the fact he's boring or that he should play some taped lectures if he's going to 'stutter' every word?" he asked, using air quotes around the word stutter to make her know he thought it was all rubbish.

"Now you mention it that stutter does seem really put on," she agreed frowning as she looked at the teacher sitting nervously at his desk and watching them all like they were about to attack him, and they might have had he been slightly more annoying and boring. "There is something really odd about that man."

"I know, but what gets me is Dumbledore," he said startling her. She looked to him, confused. "I mean, I know we shouldn't discriminate against people with disabilities, but this is a teacher. Teachers shouldn't have such speech impediments as they need to talk to their students. This dams our education no matter how knowledgeable he might be."

She nodded her agreement after a little thought. "I think you're right. If he was in a wheelchair or something it would be perfectly fine, but having such huge communication problems should have been a red flag against hiring him. I would have thought that good communication would be a must for a teacher. I think it should be in the job description too."

"Yeah, but," Harry shrugged. "I don't know how the magical world works with this. Do teachers in the magical world even have to be qualified? Maybe Dumbledore can choose whoever he wants. Could you actually see Snape going to… umm… well-a-school for teachers?"

Hermione shivered and looked like that would be an affront to her. "I don't know, but I hope they're qualified. I would be happier knowing that I have qualified teacher's thank you very much Harry."

He grinned and laughed. "Well, Dumbledore is an oddball."

"He's not that much of a…" she trailed off as she looked to Quirrell. "Okay, he might be that much of an oddball."

"See, I guess I'm rubbing off on you," he replied. "I think Dumbledore always has a reason for whatever he does, but that doesn't mean it's a good reason. I heard that this job is cursed, and for the past twenty odd years nobody has lasted more than a year."

"Well, whatever reason Dumbledore has let's hope it's over next year," she said rolling her eyes. "If the job really is cursed, I suppose we'll have another teacher next year, so we can hope he doesn't have an over the top stutter."

"We can only hope, Hermione, we can only hope," he said laughing. "But we might have some corny little poser next who would be stupid enough to set a bunch of mischievous pixies free on us without a hope of getting them back in their cage because he barely knows how to use magic."

She couldn't help but quiver at the thought while he laughed. "Harry, please, I would rather the stutter than incompetence."

He couldn't help but laugh more. In fact, lots of students were laughing and joking and ignoring their assigned defence books. However, the 'teacher' was just sitting with a shifty look as his eyes darted around in his head as if he was actually observing rather than fearful.

"Don't worry Hermione, I'm sure Dumbledore can't screw up two years in a row," he tried reassuring her but she looked as doubtful as he felt.

"But maybe the curse has scared any real teachers away?" she suggested in a hushed whisper.

"You have a point," he readily agreed. "I've noticed that the magical people can be very superstitious."

"Well, when you live in a world of ghosts and magic-," Hermione said with a small grin. "After a while I might even start believing in some freaky things, but then those freaky things might be real."

"They probably are," he said smirking. "I've already seen some ghosts and wizards. I wonder whether the lake has some merpeople, or the forest has centaurs and elves."

"Hmm, it might have," she said thoughtfully. "Oh wait, I read that centaurs live in the forest, but I can't remember any mention of merpeople in Hogwarts. A. History."

"Oh yeah, come to think of it I read that too," he agreed with a grin. "I had been reading that in the evenings before bed so I was a little drowsy sometimes, so I might have missed some bits or skimmed over."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You shouldn't read while sleepy, silly," she playfully reprimanded. "That's how you end up reading something but not fully taking it in. We're Ravenclaws. We have to keep up our reputation as the smarty-pants."

Harry couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Being smart isn't just about books and reading. It's about gaining knowledge and using that knowledge. It's about understanding and experimentation. But, we all have other qualities too."

She nodded as she thought that over. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she agreed just as the break bell rang.

The whole class was relieved as they dumped their books into their book bags and quickly got up while Quirrell was stuttering something that they ignored. If he couldn't gain their full attention why should they wait? Sure, he was the 'teacher', but if he couldn't control a few first year Ravenclaws then that was his problem.

Harry and Hermione were among the babble of other first years fighting to leave the class and in a hurry, which was unusual for Ravenclaw, but this wouldn't be the first and last class to flee on the bell of Defence Class.

Tuesday

Harry had not thought that a class could be any worse than Quirrell's class. However, that was before he was sitting in a class next to Hermione with an old ghost teacher droning on about something to do with goblins. The dead man seemed to be obsessed with them, and if he wasn't careful Harry was going to speak to Death about forcing the imprint of life to cross over or something like that just so he could get a better teacher because any class worse that Quirrell's, well you could imagine.

Harry was sure the goblins had every right to be angry with humans, so why was the ghost making out as if they were evil warmongers. Though, he had zoned out so many times that he was not sure the bell hadn't gone yet, but looking at his watch he realised it had only been half an hour. He wished Dumbledore wouldn't hire these 'people'. Life could not be this drab, and he was immortal so he hoped that he met lots of interesting people throughout his existence.

The class was so boring that he wasn't the only one looking as if they wanted to kill themselves, take a really long nap, or take up exorcism as a hobby. He sighed as he looked to his friend, Hermione to see her actually taking notes. Hermione was the only one, and he found it amazing. If someone had just thought to trap Voldemort in this class for a whole day, he would have killed himself, or became Mr. Sunshine Bunny-Pop with a new show for children everywhere to be made stupider.

If Harry was ever Headmaster of Hogwarts he would have just ignored this guy and gotten a new teacher. He would bet Dumbledore didn't even pay him. He also wondered why this ghost was so oblivious to the world around him when the others seemed to be very lively, more so than most of the living teachers. Binns was an unusual one for sure, and Harry wondered whether he had been drugged up to high heavens when he died and that translated as a teacher ghost whom OD'd and had to stay drugged up forever, or until a crossing, or whatever.

He shrugged, but that brought about other thoughts. Since ghosts were magical imprints on the world, did real spirits or souls ever linger? But then an imprint must be able to pass over and join the rest of its soul. He hoped not, but then Angel's of Death wouldn't have existed, and there were infinite over worlds where things like that would be certainly true with different rules of life, death, and rebirth.

He wanted to cry as he had enough to deal with, with imprints of boring old men droning on about goblins and wizards warring with each other that he didn't need to get involved with Death's job. Lessons hadn't been that promising yet, but he could only hold out hope. He turned to Hermione as she suddenly stopped writing notes with a frown as she looked over what she had written. He smirked as he realised that she hadn't been paying attention but just writing everything she heard for later review.

"Harry, umm…" she leaned closer looking concerned as she whispered. "He just went back to the beginning of the lesson and started all over again, again, I've written this stuff down twice, word for word."

Harry looked at her dubiously as he took her notebook and went to the beginning. If that was true then Hermione wasn't listening as he thought, or only half paying attention. Tuning into the teacher his eyes widened in surprise, but nobody else seemed to notice, as he was so boring. Harry would have burst out laughing if he hadn't been so surprised. The teacher had really been through the boring crap twice, as he skipped between Hermione's first lot of notes and the second.

"Wow," he whispered back, confused. "I didn't think a teacher could possibly be worse than Quirrell. You don't think he just repeats this over and over for all classes do you?"

She looked around at all of the sleepy and zoned out students before answering. "Well, if the other classes are this inattentive I wouldn't be surprised."

"No way," Harry said shaking his head, but he doubted his own doubt. "I'm sure somebody would notice if all he did was repeated the same predigest crap about goblins fighting us over and over, someone would have noticed, surely, but then I suppose if well-."

"He had almost made me completely zone out a few times," she retorted. "I only kept myself focused, writing almost on autopilot because I didn't want to admit that a class could be worse than Defence against the Dark Arts with Quirrell. But look. I hadn't been listening enough to notice the first time he started over. Maybe this was all he ever knew about magical history. Maybe he just never liked goblins or something like that and wanted to spread his hate or something?"

"Well, I admit that I would rather Quirrell's stuttering over Binns's racism," he said with a smile. "I can't believe this ghost, look; word for word… hey wow... you're really good at taking dictation."

"I wouldn't be if I bought those quills," she said rolling her eyes as she flicked him on the nose with her pen. "I'm glad I and the others forced that woman to take us to the decent shops or I would never be able to keep up, and maybe that is half the reason no one noticed, because they couldn't keep up and he doesn't stop to let anyone using a quill and ink write what he says, and he is speaking quite fast and fluidly. He must have practiced all of this for decades, and only gotten better at reciting it."

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "So, anyway, do you want to leave and see whether he cares? He didn't even take role call. I don't want to hang out in a class that doesn't teach me anything. I might as well hang out in the library and read some history books. I bet we've had cooler wars than an uprising with the goblins because wizards are racist jerks!"

"We can't just walk out Harry," she replied worriedly. "What if he does notice?"

Harry couldn't help but shrug while looking confident and packed up his schoolbag with his history book. She watched him stand up and walk across the room without the teacher making a motion that he noticed, and then opened the door and left loads of gawking Ravenclaws as they noticed him leaving the class as if the bell had actually gone, but to their horror they still had an hour until break. They checked watches and wished they had the gull to walk out.

It took Hermione a few moments to catch up with Harry with her book bag. She was out of breath with a look of amazement on her flushed face.

"I-I can't believe he didn't even acknowledge us leaving," she said with a look as if she had committed a Las Vegas casino robbery and gotten away with it Ocean's Eleven style. "I-I've never bunked off of a class before," she said looking around shiftily for teachers to catch them bunking off to give them a week's detention.

"Hermione-baby," Harry slurred in a 60's American gangster accent. "Don't be so dramatic. What's the worst that could happen? A stint in detention...? Ah, forget about it!" he said with some wild gestures.

She couldn't help but burst out into laughter. "You are one crazy wizard," she said smiling while he chuckled.

"One person's crazy is another's interesting," he retorted with a cocky smirk. "Anyway, come on, that ghost could kill with his boring-factor. I'm surprised students and parents haven't complained, but then I would have to wonder whether Dumbledore would do anything."

"I don't know," she agreed. "Maybe no one had cared too much. He makes history so boring that they might just like the nap."

"Well everybody likes a nice long nap," he replied smiling at her. "But I would also like to learn something about history," he said leading her into the library. "This is the best bet for getting some real education when the teacher is a moron or inattentive and repetitive."

Hermione looked nervous as the librarian looked over. The stern woman gave them looks of suspicion but otherwise left them to pick out some history books and find a table so they could read together. Harry had been tempted to look up something on the truths about Camelot or other such awesome stuff, but changed his mind. He didn't want to jump ahead of himself, and ruin all of history by giving himself too many spoilers, which could be a load of bull crap. Though, he wanted to see whether these goblin rebellions were really that special that the history ghost would repeat them over and over.

It turned out that the goblin rebellions were just as boring as Binns made them out to be. In fact, they were even more so. Though, looking at the book he realised that the author was not very good at writing, as he skimmed to some other conflicts. He hoped that it was just a very few history writers that were boring or he would have to give up and go and live the history for himself and write something interesting for kids to enjoy history; wizards live in the 'past' anyway so they should enjoy the past.

"Maybe we were being too judgmental," Hermione agreed with his thoughts looking over a book just like his. "This rebellion does sound like it could drain the life out of someone. Maybe that's how Binns died," she said grimacing as the librarian 'shushed' them.

"I wouldn't be surprised. It was either that or he really did OD, which would explain why he doesn't 'see' people," he replied, amused while he lowered his voice, and she nodded in agreement. He didn't get why the librarian cared about talking when nobody else was around to disturb, and he wondered whether she would tell on them later, but he was unconcerned.

Hermione smiled as they settled down to read. This way they could claim to have actually been working if caught, and they could still tell any teacher about Binns's repeat lessons if they needed to defend themselves, and then the teachers might get rid of him, if Dumbledore let them.

Wednesday

This was more like it, Harry thought in relief. It was a good first class of the day. It was transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. She talked about her subject for twenty odd minutes before she was happy to have them draw their wands for some practical application. Everything in her class was spiffing as they finally had a really good teacher who knew what she was doing.

She handed out matchsticks to everyone in the class, and they were to use the spell she showed them to turn it into a silver pointed sewing needle. Harry found it quite amusing as he watched the other students trying and failing. However, Harry listened intently; it seemed to be the pronunciation that was failing them, or something like that, not that he was doing much better.

He figured for an ancient people who mainly used Latin for magical casts that they would have Latin classes to help with things like that, but that seemed like too much to ask when they had a useless class like History of Magic, and so many useless teachers.

Harry had been hopeful that he would get everything straightaway, like the pro he knew he had to be. However, it took him three attempts before he did get it down only because of his freaky know every language 'EVER' ability he had going on.

Hermione had given him an annoyed look as his matchstick changed into a perfect silver coloured sewing needle. He couldn't help but smirk at her in smugness as he helped her say the word correctly, concentrating on Latin so he got it right for her. She was close by the end of the lesson. He was the only the only one who got the whole thing.

They left together, Hermione pouting at him. "Don't be such a sore loser, Hermione," he reprimanded her playfully. "I can, umm, just read the Latin better."

"I wish I could," she mumbled with a sigh.