Morning came too early in a school House decided, as the alarm he'd set went off at seven. He found a scroll waiting on a table by the door and found that he had a full forty students enrolled for the introduction to healing class. That was more than they had expected and would mean the class would need to be broken into two groups. He glanced over the schedule he'd been given for the Muggle Studies classes and suggested the open spot he had during the week, as well as a potential weekend class to accommodate the older years elective conflicts. He'd give it to McGonagall at breakfast and she could make the announcement. He was pleased to see that Draco had, as he'd said, signed up for the healer's course.

His first class of the day was the combined Gryffindor and Slytherin seventh years. This ought to be fun, he thought, having seen the clear tension and dislike between these two houses especially. They filed into the classroom and took seats, automatically segregating themselves. No, that just wouldn't do at all, he thought with a smirk.

He strode to the front of the class and slammed his cane down on the desk, effectively getting everyone's full attention.

"My name's Professor House. First thing you should know is I expect work to be done in my classes. Get here on time and pay attention. We won't be using the textbook in class but I will be testing you out of it, so read it on your own time. Second thing you should know is you leave all this house rivalry crap at the door. There is no house in my classroom but me," he proclaimed, drawing a smirk from Draco and Blaise.

"Now. Seating… nope just won't do. Everybody write your name down on a scrap of parchment, fold it up and put it in the bag," he ordered, walking down the aisles with the bag until he'd collected all the scraps.

"As I call role, come up and pick a name out of the bag. You get your own name you draw another. Yeah, I saw that sarcastic question coming a mile away, Malfoy," he added with a grin. Malfoy shrugged and dropped his paper into the bag. "Everybody stand up along the walls. Let's start at the end today, shall we? Zabini, Blaise."

Blaise came up to the front and pulled a slip from the bag. "Who's your partner?"

"Neville Longbottom," Blaise read out.

"Longbottom, join Zabini in seat number one," House said, pointing at the front left bench with his cane. Both boys sat down as House set their names aside and went back to the roster.

"Weasley, Ronald," he called next. Ron came up grudgingly and pulled a name, opening it like he expected it to explode.

"Daphne Greengrass," he read aloud, looking toward Harry and Hermione as if asking for help.

"Seat number 2, if you please," House responded.

Soon enough the class was seated again and surprisingly there were only two pairs of students that were from the same house but they were pairs that normally wouldn't sit or work together. Hermione was paired with Pansy Parkinson and Harry was paired with Draco.

Unsurprising to anyone, Hermione's hand was in the air as soon as the whole process was completed.

"Questions already, Miss Granger?" House asked with a smirk. "What is it?"

"Sir, what sort of material will we be learning in class, if you aren't going to teach from the textbook?"

"Culture. How wizards and muggles are the same but different."

The Slytherins and several of the wizard raised Gryffindors looked skeptical of that concept.

"I'll be handing out specific reading materials for class and others for homework as well. You'll also work on a project with your seat partner, a group project at Christmas and another as part of your final grade at the end of the year."

"The first thing we're going to cover is an overview of muggle history over the last 75 years and compare it to wizard history over the same time frame," House began. "And since this is muggle studies, Malfoy, you and Longbottom can pass out the material to each student, no magic."

Draco and Neville each picked up one half of a stack of packets and handed one out to each of their classmates before returning to their seats. As House began to lay out the basic timeline, the students opened their packets. The pages were divided into two horizontal timelines, one of muggle history and one of wizarding history, followed by several pages of reading material about each section of the timeline. Draco frowned and looked up at Harry, pointing out the first event on the timeline. World War One. One, he mouthed silently. Harry nodded grimly and pointed just a bit farther up the timeline to the words World War Two.

House began the lesson on history, laying out what was happening in the muggle world in 1914 and challenging them to correlate that information with what was going on in the wizard world at the time. Many didn't know either history to House's disbelief. If it weren't for Hermione and Draco, with an assist by Blaise, no one would have been able to answer his questions.

"I find the fact that here you are on your final year of schooling and you know nothing about your own recent history absolutely appalling," he pronounced. "History teaches us about ourselves; what went wrong, what went right. It shows us where we need to make improvements, as individuals, as a people. Don't sit there and think that the past has nothing to teach you, because if you don't let the past teach you," he said, writing World War One on the blackboard, "it repeats itself," he finished, writing World War Two beneath it. Next to those he wrote Wizard War One – Grindelwald and Wizard War Two – Voldemort, then added Wizard War Three – Voldemort. The class was silent.

"Homework, due next Monday, correlate the history of both muggles and wizards from 1910 to 1930, noting similarities and possible areas of crossover, where a wizard event might have been covered by the Ministry and seen as something else by the muggles or a muggle event that had a dramatic impact on the wizard community. For next class on Friday, pick up one of these books on the way out and have it read and ready to discuss in class. Dismissed."

The class trailed out of the room and separated again, heading off to their next lessons.

Ron stuffed the book into his bag and groaned. "I can't believe I have to sit with Greengrass. At least I didn't get stuck as bad as you two," he said.

"Malfoy was fine," Harry said, nudging Hermione who was reading the back cover of the book they'd been given to read.

"You should be careful Ron," Hermione added, putting the book in her bag. "He isn't going to tolerate house rivalry and grudges. And even I wouldn't want to get extra work or detention from him."

"I can't believe he gave so much already. A comparative essay and read a book, oh and there'll be tests on the text book which he isn't going to teach in class at all. How are we supposed to study for that?" he complained.

"I guess you'll just have to read ahead for once," Hermione teased.

By Wednesday supper, all of the students had had their first muggle studies class with Professor House. The class, and the professor, was quite the topic for discussion. House had tailored the lessons to appropriate age level topics and workload expectations but he was certainly setting the precedent of being a hard taskmaster. McGonagall was planning to attend each year level class the following week to be sure things were going well, but from what she was overhearing from the students and directly from the other staff, she was pleased. The class had done little to help wizard raised children, most especially purebloods, understand muggles before. This might be just the thing to change that. Surprisingly enough, for all of his demand for work, she overheard that many of the students of all ages liked him. She made her way up to the headmaster's quarters, to take a cup of tea with Severus.

"Good evening," she greeted him, when he allowed her entry. "How are you?"

"Not much different for a few days' time," he answered hoarsely. "Pleased to be away from the hospital."

"Yes, it's hard to recover in hospital once you've progressed past the acute stage of care," Minerva agreed, pouring tea for them both that the house elves brought up.

"I thought you'd like to know that Professor House is giving you a run for your money when it comes to work assigned. Already this week, he's assigned each class an essay due next week, a book to read for Friday's class, oh, and informed them all that he'll not be teaching the text but will be testing out of it, so they should read it on their own time," she added with a chuckle.

Severus gave a huff of amusement; he didn't dare laugh yet for fear of triggering a coughing fit.

"He made them all draw names for seat partners and split up the houses in class as well. Between him and Professor Weasley, the rest of us teachers may as well be invisible this year," she added with a smirk.

"I'm not surprised about Bill, werewolf scars, cursebreaker and all," Severus whispered, sipping the honey and lemon tea cautiously. "I am surprised that House has managed to integrate so well, so quickly."

"As am I, truth be told," Minerva agreed. "Although years of teaching graduated healers seeking advanced training have given him quite a foundation for teaching, I didn't think he could adjust to young children so easily."

"By the way, he asked to be sorted. Slytherin, I'm sure you're surprised," she said dryly as Severus smirked.

"The House rivalries?" Severus questioned after a moment. He was greatly concerned at how Slytherin would be treated now, since they had already been judged harshly before the war.

"Still strident, I'm afraid, but none of the staff is giving any leeway to any house that starts an incident," Minerva replied. "As long as we stay vigilant and harshly reprimand incidents, I think it will fade back to the competitive family it was meant to be from the beginning, perhaps even by the end of this school year."

Severus sighed and shook his head, making it clear that he thought Minerva was being overly optimistic.

"Tomorrow is the first healer's class. I'm planning to attend, as I'm quite interested to see how he will approach teaching an area he is highly overqualified to teach. I hope he'll be able to relate healing at this basic of a level," she confided.

"I am curious too," Severus said. "He's nothing like I remember him but then, I suppose I'm nothing like he remembers either."

"What was he like at thirteen?"

"His father was military and very strict to the point of abusive. House hated it but toed the line his father drew when necessary. Short haircuts, respect and courtesy, neatly turned out. He rebelled only when he was certain he could get away with it. But he also never tolerated a bully, even then. And he was smart. Way too smart. More than anyone I've ever known. He was gone before I left for school in the fall. He wrote me twice, once from Spain and another that said they were going back to America, to California. That was the last I ever heard from him."

"Well, I'm very glad you let him in on his heritage that summer, Severus," Minerva said. "I think he's going to have quite the influence on the wizarding world."

Minerva filled Severus in on a few other inconsequential things about the first week of school and such, staying for just an hour then leaving him to rest.

Thursday morning the first Introduction to healing class met. Both Pomfrey and McGonagall were at the back of the classroom but House ignored both of them. He would have been nervous in the muggle studies classroom but here, with medicine, he couldn't be intimidated in the slightest. He called the class to silence and took a quick role call.

"What's the most important skill or attribute you should have to be a healer?" he asked sitting on top of the desk and looking out at the class.

"Granger?"

"Knowledge of diseases and spells."

"Wrong. Information can be looked up on a case by case basis if need be."

"Fetchley?"

"Compassion?" the hufflepuff answered.

"Wrong." That set the class to buzzing and frowns of disapproval on both Pomfrey and McGonagall's faces.

"Malfoy?"

Draco contemplated House for a moment, trying to figure out what the man was looking for. "Observation skills?"

"Close but wrong. The most important attribute to becoming a healer is a fervent desire, obsession to find the answer. All those other answers are good, worthwhile to aspire toward. But if you don't have an overwhelming desire to find the answer, don't bother becoming a healer. If you just want to take care of people, become a nurse. If you want to provide comfort, become a mind healer. If you want to help people in crisis, become a medic or a counselor. Healers have to want to know the answer to what's wrong with the patient. Then you have to want to know the answer to fix it. That's got to be what drives you if you want to be a truly great healer. Never, ever, stop searching for the answers."

"Of course, in order to understand the answers you'll need to treat patients, you have to first understand how and why the body functions. What's normal and what isn't. So this class is going to teach you just that. Anatomy is the study of the structure of the human body and all its various components. Biology and chemistry will teach how those components function. This you need to know before you can understand why a potion affects the body the way it does, not just what it does. This class isn't about just knowing what, it's about knowing why."

House handed out two extra books along with the book from St. Mungo's. "We'll be using all three of these books simultaneously in this class. Open up to the first chapter of Gray's Anatomy."

House ran through the basic first anatomy lesson with the class, then assigned them the first chapter of the healer's guide from St. Mungo's to read for homework. He also showed them how to make flashcards and warned them there would be an oral quiz each subsequent class on what they had learned so far. "Memorizing isn't anybody's favorite thing to do, so for the last few minutes of class, you can play 'stick the label on your classmate' instead of the diagram."

The class erupted into laughter as they began to do just that and soon everyone had bits of parchment labeling body parts from the first lesson on them, even House, whom Draco had dared to label.

House grinned and awarded points to those who had labeled correctly and tossed Draco a piece of candy for 'belling the professor' before dismissing the class and sauntering up to Minerva and Pomfrey.

"I'm not certain that the obsessive search for an answer is truly the most important attribute for a healer, Professor House," Pomfrey stated tartly.

"I am. That's how I had a 97% cure rate. How I found the potion shift that brought Snape out of his coma. Compassion is all fine and dandy but it gets in the way of finding the answer. And I didn't have the knowledge to find the answer for Snape until I went searching for it. You know why he was still in that coma? Because the healers were more concerned with treating the symptoms than finding the answer," House told her bluntly.

"And if your patient dies for lack of knowledge and compassion?"

"You keep digging until you find the answer to why they died and you use that to save the next one," House answered immediately, defiantly. "This is my field of expertise. I know what I'm doing. Step back and let me do it."

"Of course, Professor House," Minerva answered, putting a restraining hand on Pomfrey. "It's just a radical approach, one we'll have to get accustomed to. Good day to you," she said, drawing Pomfrey away to the infirmary with her.

"Minerva! How can you let him teach that idea?"

"Poppy, he's introducing them to the basic anatomy and function, not actually training healers on the floor. Besides, considering Severus' case, he may in fact be right. Why should a muggle doctor, no matter how good he is, be able to come in and in one day find an answer that St Mungo's healers hadn't come up with in six weeks?"

"Because they had more than just Severus to care for!" Poppy retorted. "They didn't have the luxury to devote the time to finding an answer to just one patient."

"And so they choose to let that one patient die rather than put in the time and effort to find the answer? I say that House has a point. You can't search for an answer without gaining knowledge and despite his general disdain for the idea, House has shown he's capable of compassion by taking in Mr Malfoy and his mother when they needed a place to stay. I'll stand by him for now and wait to see the results of the lessons he's teaching on anatomy."