Professor Law obviously hadn't been hired for his public speaking skills, and the woman in pink, who ever she was, obviously hadn't been hired for her sense of courtesy.

Professor Law's voice occasionally fluctuated louder than it needed to be but, the woman sitting in the front row, was constantly louder than she needed to be, as she drug her quill across whatever she was writing on, "hemming" and "hahing" and "oohing" and "aahing", in response to whatever their teacher happened to be saying at any point in time.

It was beyond rude, and it was driving Hermione crazy.

Normally, she didn't like to let little things like that bother her. However, having to sit behind someone noisy and impolite, and listen to them criticize an incredibly interesting lecture, under their breath, was starting to get a bit frustrating.

Ron and Harry, each sitting to either side of her, were both wearing equally annoyed expressions. They probably weren't nearly as interested in the lecture as she was, but constant high-pitched hums had the potential to be extremely irritating, regardless of the situation.

"Expelliarmus?" Professor Law said, nodding at the speaker. "Creative application, Mister Zabini."

"Hmm," the voice said, from just in front of them.

Ron wrote a note on the edge of his paper, and gestured for the two of them to read it. 'srsly! shut UP!'

Harry laughed quietly and Hermione quirked a small grin, before adding her own note.

'Don't be rude, Ron.'

'it's tru tho' Harry scribbled on his paper. 'this lady is driving me mad'

'absolutely bonkers' Ron agreed.

'Just try to ignore it.' Hermione wrote.

'i dont think thats possible' Ron replied.

'shes worse then a shrew'

'we should rename her Madame Mandrake'

'isnt her title Hogwarts Auditor of General Business?'

'something like that'

'we should just shorten it to HAG.'

'harry you are genius'

'Be nice.'

'dont be kiljoy hermione harys a genius'

'And your spelling is atrocious.'

"Professor Law, that's completely ridiculous."

"I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Madame Umbridge."

The trio's attention snapped towards the front of the room. The classroom had gone nearly silent.

Hermione's brow furrowed.

She'd missed something while writing notes.

Professor Law's expression was even more discontent though. He'd crossed his arms and was looking at the woman's row, with an almost imperceptible frown.

"Professor Law, I've let your lesson go on for quite a bit now. But, really, you don't honestly believe what you're teaching is all that important, do you?"

"Of course I-"

"-I mean, it's not like any of these students will ever truly be in a position to use the information in this class. I mean, who's looking to harm children-"

"-oh, I don't know," Harry hissed, angrily under his breath. "Voldemort, maybe?"

"What did you say, Mister Potter?" Umbridge replied, swiveling herself and her attention towards him.

At the front of the room, Professor Law's arms unfolded and he stood up, perfectly straight. He was watching the two with a wary expression, which, in addition to his obvious frustration, was quite possibly the most emotion Hermione had ever seen on him.

"You heard me," Harry said sullenly. He hadn't actually meant for his statement to be audible to anyone other than his two friends, but he wasn't going to recant it either.

"I'm quite positive I heard wrong, young man," she trilled, smiling widely. "Unless you were lying?"

"Lying?!" Harry yelled. "About what? Voldemort?"

Umbridge, and the majority of the class, flinched. (Professor Law didn't though, which was interesting. But, his non-reaction could possibly be attributed to the fact that he was from the States.)

"Do not say that name, Mister Potter!" Umbridge replied, somewhat shakily. "Regardless of what you might think, you are not special. And he-who-must-not-be-named has not returned!"

"So, what? Cedric Diggory killed himself then?" Harry said.

"Cedric Diggory was a tragic accident-"

"-Cedric was murdered! By Voldemort!" He stood up, and faced her fully.

"You listen here, Mister Potter, you are a delusional, attention-seeking, troublemaker. And I will be writing to the Minister about this. This sort of behavior is unacceptable, and changes. Will. Be. Made."

"That's hardly necessary," Professor Law cut in smoothly. "As Mister Potter will be spending the next few evenings in detention, with me. I apologize for the disruption, Madame, but there's no need to trouble the Minister over something so insignificant." He shot Harry a sharp look. "Sit down. See me after class."

Harry nodded mutely and fell back into his seat. His hands were shaking angrily, and he stiffly picked up his quill and hunched over his notes.

Umbridge smiled smugly from her spot in the back.

"I will not be tolerating any more interruptions," Professor Law said. The line was delivered calmly, but there was a hint of steel underneath it. "At this point, it'll be easier to just move on to the practical."

He waved his wand and the front of the room expanded backwards several meters. A few walls grew from the floor, to split the area into three long, narrow hallways and the lights in the room dimmed dramatically.

Umbridge's expression quickly turned more shocked than smug. But, Professors Law's advanced transfiguration skills had a habit of doing that to almost everyone.

"This practical isn't overly complicated," he said. "Because we are practicing offensive casting, that's what this exercise will be focused on. For the sake of safety, you'll be taking turns, in groups of three. Each of these hallways," he gestured towards his transfigured set up. "Is about the same size as a typical back alley. At the end of the 'alley', there will be a target shooting at you. All you need to do is hit it, with any spell, and it will stop. If you get hit more than five times before you've managed to cast back, then your turn will be over."

He stepped in front of one of the hallways and held his wand up. Within moments, a quintet of colored splats were caught on a rapidly conjured shield charm, and more continued to pelt it. However, a few seconds was all it took for a stupefy to shoot down the alley, and the bombardment of color on Professor Law's Protego came to an immediate halt.

"Holy-!" someone said, from the back of the room.

"Professor," another person said. "That's hardly fair. No one can cast like that. How are we supposed to defend ourselves from something that fast? I couldn't even see them coming at you."

"That's correct," Justin said. "No witch or wizard could cast spells that quickly. However, what will be shooting at you, is a muggle weapon, called a paintball gun. They are that fast."

"What?!" Malfoy said, from his spot in the back. "You don't honestly expect us to believe that?"

"Regardless of what your personal beliefs are, Mister Malfoy, muggles do, in fact, have weapons much faster than spells. In reality, paintball guns aren't even particularly quick or powerful compared to others they've created. But, that's a discussion for another day. I'm sure Professor Burbage could answer any questions you might have about that."

He went back to addressing the rest of the class. "Just so you're all aware, in real life, a paintball gun usually won't be life threatening. However, they can cause serious welts and bruising. In order to mitigate that, I've charmed the balls these ones are shooting to explode immediately on contact, with anything. So, they shouldn't hurt, but you will definitely get covered in paint if you're not careful."

"Hem, hem, Professor Law-"

"Are there any other questions?"

"Ahem, Professor Law-"

"Yes, Mister Malfoy?"

"Professor Law, hem, hem-"

"More dangerous variants shoot pieces of metal and can be quite a bit faster."

"Hem, hem! Professor Law-"

"Anyone else?"

"Professor Law! Hem, hem!"

"Yes, Madame Umbridge?" he asked, dryly acknowledging her. "What's your question?"

"What's my question?" she screeched. She tapped her quill a few times on the edge of her paper and sighed loudly. "What's my question, Professor Law? At this point, it would be more accurate to ask what I don't question about this lesson. Offensive casting? Practicals? From start to finish-"

"-is this practical too easy?" he asked.

"I have questioned-" she paused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Well, they are only muggle weapons, after all," he said. Enough was enough. She was testing the boundaries of his impressively large patience. (A necessity in his line of work. Running a branch of the DWMA was a constant exercise in keeping calm.) "I did worry that this exercise would fall below Ministry expectations. I'm sure a witch of your caliber would find it entirely too easy."

"Well, of course," she sniffed. "It's a muggle device. Anyone with half an ounce of talent could out cast it."

Too easy.

(Almost surprisingly so. Umbridge wasn't the type to let herself be so easily manipulated.)

Justin paused to consider his next line, not quite sure just how much to push, before continuing. "In that case, I'm sure the students would appreciate a demonstration. I, myself, would be extremely interested in seeing the abilities of a fully fledged, Ministry official. If you wouldn't mind?"

She puffed up a bit. The blatant flattery was obviously working. "That's hardly appropriate, Professor Law. I'd rather this lesson didn't continue at all." But not quite working enough.

"If that's what you'd prefer," Justin said, nodding politely. "Then I'll defer to your judgement. Like you've told me in the past, you are the more experienced one, when it comes to teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. There's no need to prove yourself."

"It's hardly a matter of proving myself, Professor," she replied sourly, glow from the previous compliments vanishing.

"No. Of course not. Apologies if I implied that. Obviously, if it isn't Ministry approved curriculum, then there's no reason you'd need to be able to beat a muggle weapon," neutral, polite grin.

"Ministry approved curriculum or not, there's no reason I couldn't beat a muggle weapon," she said caustically.

"I'm sure," he replied, nodding again, eyes closing as he grinned wider. He allowed them to open slowly and stared expectantly at her.

Her own narrowed in response. "Fine, Professor," she said. "In that case, I'd be happy to facilitate the learning environment. Thank you for the opportunity," she smirked. "And, after I pass this little 'practical', you and I are going to sit down and have a long discussion about what does, and does not, constitute an appropriate lesson, among other things."

"If you pass it," Justin replied evenly.

"When I pass it," she retorted, walking towards the front of the room.

It was best just to humor him, she decided. She'd come in, hoping to get along, but, if he was going to be purposefully antagonistic, (in addition to his lessons being the worst possible scenario, for the Ministry's end goals) then she'd put him in his place first.

Because, even though the situation was frustrating, it had also confirmed something to her.

She really wanted him on her side. His magic was...incredibly powerful. And, perhaps more importantly, his reaction to Potter's outburst had been quick, and distinctly negative. It was becoming more and more clear, that she and he had very similar opinions, on some very important core issues.

He also had some talent for language. His attempt to manipulate her into doing what he wanted was fairly blatant, to anyone with half a brain, but, he was still doing quite a bit better than she'd expect most eighteen year olds to be capable of. With a bit of training, he could probably even become an expert.

"Which one should I stand in front of, Professor?" she asked, as she reached the front of the room, stowing her thoughts away for later.

"The middle is fine. Let me know when you're ready," he said, as she positioned herself.

"On your mark then," she replied, raising her wand.

A red splotch on her forehead, and a green blotch on her outfit, appeared almost immediately. She let out a little squeak of shock and took a step back, allowing another to hit her on the stomach.

"Pr-protego!" she yelled.

The shield shimmered into existence and caught three more splashes of orange, blue, and pink. However, two more slipped underneath her spell, which she had only conjured from head to mid-thigh (A bad habit Justin had noticed of wizards and witches, which was largely the reason for having the shots aim lower. The goal was to have it broken in his students by the end of the year.) and hit her on both knees.

"That's five," he said, waving his wand and bring the barrage to a halt. "Twelve seconds, good job, Madame. That's quite a bit longer than I expected the students to last."

She sputtered angrily as paint dripped down her face. "Professor Law-"

"I assume you'll want to go clean yourself off," he smiled. "That paint can't be vanished."

"What?! This outfit is silk!" she screamed.

"Then you'd better be quick about getting it cleaned," he replied.

Her faced turned bright red, she pointed angrily, "Now you listen here-" and then coughed as a drop of paint fell in her mouth. She shot him another fierce glare as she coughed a few times.

"Don't worry, this paint isn't toxic," Justin said helpfully, with a small grin in place. "Still, if I were you, I'd go wash my mouth out. I doubt it tastes good."

"No," cough. Cough. "It," cough. "Doesn't," cough. Cough. Cough. Cough.

She shot him another glare and whirled around to face the door.

"Feel free to stop in again," he said, as she starting walking out of the room. "I'm sure the students would appreciate future demonstrations."

She almost turned around and hexed him.

But, instead, she stomped her way into the hallway. She began walking towards her room, face still red, an equal result of anger, embarrassment, and paint spatters. A few students were loitering in the halls, but they were wise enough to recognize that getting out of the colorfully stained auditor's path, was the best possible choice.

How dare-! She nearly snarled out loud in the middle of hallway, as it was, she barely restrained herself to a loud, irritated huff of indignation. Her next show of anger was slamming the door to her living quarters open.

She instantly flicked her wand and blew apart the row of kitten themed plates hanging above her bed. Porcelain rained down on her mattress, and the sight of that pulled her a bit out of her blind fury.

Still! Her outfit, her bedroom, her job!

Professor Law had a special talent for ruining everything.

And she was sure there was a special place reserved for him in hell! Or whatever it was Catholicisms believed in.

She blew up another row of plates and took a deep breath. Her violent wand movements had splattered paint and glass across the room. And, for what? Because of an obnoxious teenager? She took another shuddering breath and lowered her wand.

She was, beyond angry, livid even, but she needed a shower. And a house elf. Hopefully they'd be able to fix whatever Law had done to her robes.

As for Law himself, well, she'd think about him later.

Harry watched as the last of the class walked through the veil of light Professor Law had conjured. His statement, that the paint couldn't be vanished using conventional means, wasn't a lie. But, luckily, he wasn't cruel enough to make them go to their next class covered in color, and had come up with an alternate way for his students to be rid of it. Anyone who walked through the shimmering curtain came out on the other side, stain free. (And the fact that he hadn't felt the need to tell Umbridge that, was mildly hilarious.)

"Well, that was intense," Hermione said, as she picked up her school bag.

"The lesson? Or the Umbridge/Law showdown?" Ron said, laughing.

"Both," she replied, looking a bit graver than her red-haired friend.

"I still have to go talk to Professor Law," Harry said, sighing irritably.

"Do you want us to wait for you?" Ron said.

"No, it's fine. I'll catch up later."

"Okay, we'll see you in a bit then," Hermione said.

"Yeah. I'll see you," he replied.

Harry watched, as the two left, and then walked towards the front of the room.

Professor Law was moving his wand around and spelling the transfigured class back to normal, but he stopped, and turned around almost instantly, once Harry came within easy conversation distance.

"Um, you wanted to talk to me, Professor?" he said, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. In his mind, getting a detention, for what he had said in the lecture (the truth!), wasn't fair.

Professor Law nodded and Harry realized it was the first time he had ever talked one on one with the, only slightly older, teacher. Up close, he noticed that the other teenager had a weird eye color and white crosses on his sleeves, in addition to the one he always wore around his neck. His wand too, was odd looking. It was colored more like a knife, than a piece of wood, and it had a stylized skull between the handle and the rest of it.

Really, he didn't know what to think about the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher. Professor Law was a good teacher, with interesting lectures and exercises, but, also a very strict, and a very serious one. Which was a bit of a turn off. Plus, the events of the class had left Harry a little confused. Was Professor Law in favor of the Ministry, or firmly against them? He'd agreed with Umbridge at first, and then proceeded to humiliate her in front of the entire class.

It painted a very unclear picture.

"That's right, Mr. Potter," he said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "When would it be convenient for you to serve detention with me?"

"Sorry, sir?" Harry said, not quite knowing what the professor meant.

"My evenings are usually open," Law replied. "Just pick a few days that work for you, and bring something to do for an hour or two."

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't understand-"

"I'm not looking to punish you, Mister Potter. Voldemort is back."

Harry's eyes widened.

"And, even if your Ministry doesn't want to hear that, it doesn't mean I'm going to abandon one of my students to them either-"

"-You were protecting me from the Ministry? From that Umbridge lady?" Harry blurted out, interrupting the Professor.

Professor Law paused awkwardly for several seconds before continuing, looking a bit embarrassed. "...I guess you could look at it like that."

"But, why?" Harry said, incredulously.

"It's," another pause. "...my job. To watch out for you, the students. I'm a teacher now," he trailed off again.

"Most of the of the other professors don't see it that way," Harry muttered cynically, in response to the few moments of silence.

Justin stifled a sighed and inwardly scrambled for the right thing to say...dealing with teenaged angst was not in his repertoire of skills.

"I think you'd be surprised. Most of the teachers at Hogwarts care very much about their students."

Harry snorted. "Sorry, if I don't really believe that. The adults in my life haven't been very helpful lately."

Really not in his repertoire.

"Well, anyways, it was no problem, Mister Potter," he said, looking to change the subject. "If Umbridge was a real threat, I wouldn't have wasted class time pelting her with paintballs."

"Genius, by the way," Harry replied, with a small grin.

"That woman could test a Saint's patience," Justin murmured, mostly to himself.

Harry laughed.

He continued, slightly louder, "But, like I was saying, if she was a real issue, I would be a bit more cautious in dealing with her. However, she's not. So, don't worry too much about it. She can't really do anything to hurt you and, even if she could, I think I was successful in stopping her from trying to, for the time being at least. Just, be a bit more cautious in the future, and you'll do fine."

"I-thank you, Professor," Harry said, still a bit shocked.

Professor Law looked embarrassed again. "Really, it wasn't a problem, Mister Potter."

Huh. So, Professor Law actually had a soul underneath all the militant efficiency. Harry grinned gratefully and decided to answer the teacher's original question.

"Monday, Tuesday, and Sunday evenings are probably my least busy," Harry said.

"Alright," Law said, looking a touch relieved as the conversation turned. "Then we'll plan for this Sunday, after dinner. My office is just next door, you can meet me there."

"I'll see you Sunday then. Thanks again, Professor."

"Clean this mess up," Umbridge said, gesturing both at her discarded, paint streaked clothes, and the shards of glass littering various areas throughout her room.

"Yes, Madame Auditor," the house elf (disgusting creatures) said, bowing low.

"And be quick about it, or I'll have your ears ironed," Umbridge replied, sitting down at her desk and taking a sip of the tea the elf had brought.

"Yes, Madame," it said, disappearing with a sharp crack.

It was smarter than most of the elves that came to her room. It knew how to speak little and leave quickly. There was nothing more annoying than a slave that liked to loiter. ("Do you need anything else, Madame?" "If I needed anything else, I would have told you." "Deepest apologies-" "Tut, tut, that's not going to cut it, dearie.")

She smirked a bit, if she didn't have work to do, she wouldn't mind blowing off some steam via punishing Hogwarts' resident house elves. As it was though, she had more important things to worry about.

She'd put some serious thought into the situation, and it was time to accept that she had failed. Professor Law obviously wasn't interested in teaming up anytime soon, and she didn't have enough leverage on her side to make him.

He was a crafty little brat. That much was even more obvious then before. Somehow he'd managed to find a neat little niche for himself, both at Hogwarts, and even in the wizarding world as a whole. (After only one conversation!) His presence was like a carrot on a stick, dangling in front of the noses of some very powerful people.

A very talented, intelligent, and connected carrot.

Though, carrot or not, her inability to keep her thoughts to herself, during his lecture, had cost her a potentially very useful ally. Hmph, she'd probably lost him even before that, really. She'd wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts position so badly, she'd alienated him from the start.

For now, becoming allies was out of the question. He wasn't interested, and she was angry. That meant, when it came to him, her only other option was going back to attempting to remove the young professor from the school entirely.

Unfortunately, she wasn't sure that was even a possibility anymore.

If she put some work into talking him into it, the Minister would probably support any attempts on her part to get rid of Law. But, Dumbledore would fight to keep him, as he would for any of his staff, and Malfoy was a bit of a wild card. His son seemed to like the class, (and Malfoy senior never missed an opportunity to spoil his son) and, if she had recognized the potential gain in making friends with the DWMA alumnus, it was likely that Lucius Malfoy had too. Whether or not that was enough for him to kick up a fuss when it came to getting rid of Law, she didn't know. However, she couldn't entirely factor out the possibility either.

And, well, while she didn't personally care for his teaching style, (hated it, in fact) he was still...competent. If she submitted his lesson for review, it wouldn't be enough to get him thrown out. The Board of Governors might even be in favor of his unorthodox teaching style.

In general, there were too many factors to consider, and too many burned bridges, if she failed. The last person she wanted to go toe to toe with, in the political sphere, was a Malfoy, and even Professor Law had the potential to be a big player in the years to come. The last thing she wanted was to antagonize him and have it come back to bite her five, ten, fifteen years from now, when the only thing he remembered about her was the fact that she'd lost him his first job in the UK.

So, it was time to step out of that particular game. She was sick of playing against such bad odds. Professor Law was just going to have to remain that. Professor. And she was just going to have to accept that they weren't going to be friends anytime soon, because, at the end of the day, she hadn't come to Hogwarts to parley with a single foreigner. She'd come to gain intel on Dumbledore and his people, a group Law barely fit into, if at all. He was a problem, but hardly her greatest, or most pressing one.

There were bigger, more important things for her to work on.

It was time to regroup and refocus on what actually mattered.

The Italian took a sip of his coffee and smiled widely at the large structure across the street.

"Gringotts is incredible, Lukas," he said, speaking German in an attempt to ward off potential eavesdroppers. Their conversations were purposefully casual whenever they were out in the open, but, 'better safe than sorry', was their team motto.

"I suppose," his partner replied, taking a drink of his own beverage. (Water, the rifle was vehemently opposed to anything overly sweet or addictive, which ruled out almost everything but.)

"I'm thinking of transferring all of my assets there."

"You trust it that much?"

Giuliano laughed. "Well, we should probably test out their security first."

A/N: Hello! Sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I always think I'm going to be super productive over the winter holidays, because of all the free time I'm supposedly going have, but it never seems to work out that way, haha. On the other hand, it's pretty long, so I hope that makes up for the wait.

Anyways, I am having some problems with my email. Some reviews either haven't been showing up in my inbox, or don't show up until days after the review has been posted. And, while I've made some effort to keep up on them, just by checking fanfiction, I may have missed a few. If so, I apologize if I didn't respond to you.

Because of that, I'm rethinking my deleted-scene sharing policy. For now, I'm going to keep it as is. If you leave a signed review, then I'd be happy to send them to you. This chapter has 700+ words of outtakes. The problem seems to have recently fixed itself (fingers crossed), however, if it crops back up after this update, then I will come up with another way to get them to people. I currently have a poll up on my profile to see what the public opinion is on that, please check it out if you're interested, and sorry again, if I didn't get back to you last chapter!

Also, can I just say that Umbridge's (rather skewed) logic is hilarious. "Oh look, this naive little punk is trying to manipulate me. So obvious. Mwahahaha. Let me walk right into his trap just to prove I'm superior." She thinks she's so smart, it's incredibly fun to write. Although Justin learning how to deal with feelings, is equally entertaining to watch play out.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a review on your way out!

(And big shout out to 1000 Faces of Pain, Lilliparadox and MarvelousWonders for beta-ing this chapter!)