A/N: I'm sorry this is a bit late. Real Life is getting in the way a bit, and I didn't have any motivation this past week to do anything. Hopefully I can be back on top of my writing soon. And I also hope that my current mood isn't reflected in my writing. This chapter got away from me a bit and took much longer to write than I wanted. A lot had been added and taken away, and I hope it still flows the way I want it to.

TW: There is mentions of a werewolf attack. It's not in explicit detail, but I thought I'd warn you just in case.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Chapter 6: The Classroom

Hermione didn't sleep a wink that night.

At least, it didn't feel like she did.

She was in her element, Harry could tell, when she looked over the basic notes left for them to use as guidelines for their teaching schedules, so they knew roughly what to teach each year group. She was thankful that the teaching material didn't change once over 20 years and in different universes. But as they hadn't completed their seventh year as they should have, Hermione needed to know what they had to plan for.

And plan she did. She knew exactly what they were going to teach, what books they needed, what creatures they needed to borrow from Hagrid, and any other extra curricular activities that could help the students.

Like, if they needed extra duelling sessions or not.

Everything was planned to the minutest detail. It helped Hermione keep her mind off of the nightmares that she was sure would plague her sleep.

The ones that had Harry screaming during the night, only stopping when Hermione crawled into bed with him in their shared living quarters. She slept then, of course, but had only managed three hours before their alarms went off.

It was better than nothing.

"You didn't need to lose sleep over it, Mione." Harry told her as she paced back and forth in front of their shared teaching table in their classroom. They had been given a classroom on the fifth floor, large enough for two tables if they needed it.

Harry made sure it was big enough for duelling.

Hermione made sure it was big enough for around 3 chalkboards, to help when she was giving the theory lessons.

"I know Harry, but if this goes well, and we can't go back, I'd like to know that we've got a good reference to leave with." Hermione said to him as she pivoted on her heel and walked back towards him. "I'd like to know that if we can't stop him, that these students are prepared for the outside world. Like we weren't."

Harry stepped in her path and wrapped his arms around her. Within seconds, he could feel her shaking as she let out deep sobs into his shoulder. He didn't care that she was crying on him, potentially staining his grey suit with her mascara as it ran. He was quite fond of the three-piece suit he wore last night and was thrilled to see the House Elves had cleaned it up for him to wear that day, with a deep purple shirt to go with it this time. He felt like he fit the role, at least. Besides, a simple Scourgify would clean her tears in a jiffy. No harm, no foul.

"We can only do our best, Hermione," Harry whispered to her hair as he gently rubbed circles onto her back. With each passing moment he could feel her relaxing into his embrace. "That's all we can do."

"What if our best isn't good enough?"

"Then we keep fighting once we leave this school, so that they don't have as much to fight for themselves." Harry heaved a sigh, closing his eyes tightly. "I don't want them to fight, at all, if I can help it. I won't let the me in this universe lose his parents like I did. If there even is a me here."

"Then we'll do our best to make sure he doesn't lose anyone," Hermione whispered, her fingers gripping onto his lapels tightly. She rubbed her thumbs gently on the soft fabric, her eyes focusing on one of the purple buttons on Harry's shirt. If she could focus, he smelled the same as he did in their universe, and it calmed her greatly. She had to remind herself to run to Muggle London one day to see if she could find the cologne he used to wear. She hoped that they made it in 1977. "We will plot, and we will plan, and we will fight. I want Tom dead before he even thinks about going to Godric's Hollow."

"That's four years, Hermione." Harry whispered to her. He pressed his cheek onto the top of her head and breathed in her raspberry scent. She felt so warm and so small in his arms. "Four years to kill the bastard."

"We nearly did it in a year, without knowing where the rest of his Horcruxes were. As long as they are all in the same places, we shouldn't have a problem defeating him before this Harry is even conceived." Hermione said to him, her words a quiet promise to him. A shudder suddenly ripped itself through Harry, no matter how much he tried to stop it. "What?"

"Sorry, I just didn't need that image of my parents having sex, thanks."

Hermione rolled her eyes and stepped away from him as the clock on the far wall chimed. Her eyes were drawn to the small grandfather clock, proclaiming the time to them in nine chimes. It was time for their first class. Butterflies erupted in Hermione's stomach as she heard movement from outside the door.

"I can't do this." She could feel her heart rate increase with each passing second. Her lungs began to work overtime as she struggled to catch her breath. Quickly sensing her panic, Harry stopped walking towards the classroom door and returned to Hermione. He put his hands on her shoulders firmly and tried to catch her eye. He held those honey eyes with his emerald ones as he tried his best to ground her.

"Of course you can, Hermione. You're going to be the best Defence teacher these students have ever seen." Harry said to her firmly. He began to rub small circles into her shoulders with his thumbs. "You're going to teach them like they've never been taught before. You're going to kick arse. We've been through much worse than this. You've got this."

Hermione stared into his eyes, his hands a heavy yet not unwelcome feeling. Tiny jolts of electric shot down her arms and to her fingers with every circular motion Harry's thumbs made onto her bare skin. She didn't know what compelled her to wear the strapless, knee length dress, but the teal dress called out to her that morning. It was a simple dress, no pattern on the fabric, and she liked that. It fell to her knees, fitting snugly at her hips, as if it was made for her.

She had a sneaky suspicion that the House Elves were to blame, but she didn't have it in her to complain when she saw the dress hung up in her bedroom after her morning shower. She was just thankful that she had something to wear, seeing as her wonderful beaded bag had yet to make an appearance.

No, feeling his warm skin on hers, she knew there was no way that she would regret wearing that particular dress that day. Even if the castle was particularly chilly that morning.

Hermione blinked slowly, feeling herself being pulled away from her thoughts. She managed to smile shakily at Harry as her breathing evened out and her heartbeat slowed to its normal pace.

"Yeah, we've got this." Hermione agreed with him and stepped away. Her eyes snapped to the classroom door as heavy knocking sounded on the wooden door. "I think it's time."

Harry offered her a small smile and turned to face the door. He watched from the corner of his eye as Hermione moved over to the desk on the right-hand side of the classroom, the one that she commandeered for herself, and hopped onto it. She leaned backwards, bracing herself on her arms. Her ankles were crossed, the black heels from yesterday trying to desperately add some height to her tiny stature. She was trying to look relaxed, just like they had spoken about earlier when they were finalising their lesson plans.

If they were relaxed and tried to get along with all of their students, maybe they would earn their trust and stop a certain few from going dark. After all, they were only a year older than their students. It didn't sound right to them to act much older and much stricter than the other professors in the school. No, they had to act their age – within reason – and gain the trust of all their students.

That was the theory anyway.

Harry walked to his desk on the left-hand side of the classroom and leaned back against it, his ankles crossed too. He shoved his hands into his pockets after flicking his wrist lazily at the door. He didn't know what to expect when he did that, it was something he saw their professors do when they were students and tried to not act surprised when the door opened for him.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, and he smiled back sheepishly.

"I didn't think that was going to work." He admitted quietly as the students started to filter into the room. Hermione rolled her eyes at him, a soft smirk on her lips.

Of course Harry could do non-verbal wandless magic and not even think it would work.

She wondered if she could do the same but pushed the thought to the back of her mind. It was something she could think about later when she didn't have a class to teach.

Hermione and Harry both watched as the students talked amongst themselves as they all fought for the best seat. Quite a few of them fought to sit at the front of the classroom, which amused Hermione to no end. There was no way anyone but her wanted to sit right at the front, but here was twenty or so seventeen-year-olds, fighting to be at the front of the class.

It took around five minutes for the students to settle in their seats and pull out the required text for the class from their deep school bags. Hermione noticed that there were five empty seats at the back of the classroom. She raised an eyebrow at Harry, nodding towards them. He took note of the students that were in his class, then nodded once at her. The Marauders and Lily were missing.

It was probably for the best. It took a bit of pressure off Harry knowing that he wouldn't be in the same room as them just yet. He had time to get used to the fact that he was going to be teaching his parents.

It still felt surreal.

Barely three weeks ago, he was about to sacrifice himself to Lord Voldemort to end the war.

Now, he was stood with Hermione in a Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, in a different Universe, about to teach his parents – who were currently younger than him – about the Dark Arts.

It was enough to give anyone a headache.

How he hadn't had a breakdown before now, he had no idea.

"Welcome," Hermione began with a bright smile. She spoke softly, not raising her voice above the chatter in the classroom. They still managed to hear her as they all promptly stopped talking and gave her their undivided attention. "I believe some introductions are in order. My name is Hermione Wilkins."

"I'm Harry Potter." Harry spoke up, just as the classroom door was thrown open and banged on the stone wall. All the eyes in the classroom were drawn to the back where the missing students wandered in. Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Lily Evans had the decency to look sheepish as they sat down at an available desk quickly, but James Potter and Sirius Black walked in with a swagger and ego that didn't look pretty on either of them.

Hermione slowly raised an eyebrow as she watched Sirius slide into a seat next to Remus and winked at Marlene McKinnon, who was sat in the chair in front of him.

"Sorry," Remus muttered, dumping his bag at his feet. He glared at James and Sirius. "Someone assumed we were still using the sixth floor for Defence this year and wouldn't listen when I told them that the correct classroom was clearly stated on the timetables."

"Don't worry about it. We haven't started anything serious just yet." Harry said to him, his eyes finding Sirius as he began to smirk as he opened his mouth to speak. "Please, no puns Mr Black."

James snorted in amusement as Sirius looked affronted at Harry's accusation. He opened his mouth again to argue that he wasn't going to make a pun in relation to his name but closed it as soon as he accepted that he was going to make the pun Harry warned him against.

"Now, as we were saying. We're your new Defence teachers this year." Harry said, looking out at the Seventh Years. He noticed that they had students from every house in this class, despite the small class size. He wondered if there was a reason that there was so few students doing the class – there were roughly fifty Seventh years – and made a note to as McGonagall about that later.

Lily raised her arm from the back of the classroom. Harry swallowed nervously, seeing curious wonder in the eyes that were so like his own, and nodded at her to ask her question.

"I'm sorry, Professor, but I have to ask," Lily began, twisting a ring on her left hand anxiously Harry was surprised to hear the soft Yorkshire accent as she spoke. "How old are the both of you? And why is there two of you? We usually have just one teacher per class."

Hermione smiled at Harry as he found himself suddenly unable to speak. She began to lightly swing her legs back and forth as she pushed herself to sit straighter. She gave him a look, as if to say Don't worry, I've got this, then turned her attention back to Lily.

"That's quite alright, I would be curious too if I were in your shoes." Hermione gave her a soft smile and watched as the tension left Lily's shoulders. She knew that she'd be worried about a professor's reaction too if she asked them such personal questions. "We're both eighteen. We've got a certain set of skills that's helped balance the other, keeping us both alive in many different situations since we were children."

"Let's just say, we've had a bit of experience with what's going on beyond these castle walls, and we're here to help you survive past it." Harry said, finally finding his voice. He gave them all a tight smile as he looked briefly into every student's eyes. His gaze landed on Severus Snape, sat at the front of the class in front of Hermione. There was no possible way that the hooked nose, steely black eyes and limp greasy hair belonged to anyone else. There was, however, a curious glint in Severus' eye that Harry wasn't expecting to see from him. "The things we've seen and experienced is enough to give you nightmares. We're here to help stop that."

It felt a bit peculiar, how the tables had turned. He currently had two of his ex-DADA professors in this class as his students. There was suddenly too much to come to terms with.

"Harry is more practical, so he will be taking your practical classes." Hermione said, bringing Harry out of his thoughts once more. "I shall be teaching you the theory. We will usually be at class at the same time, so if there was anything that either of us could help you with, we're always within reach. I wouldn't ask Harry any advice on your essays however, I helped him with his own on more than one occasion." She winked at Harry.

"Come on, we both know that I wasn't the one reliant on your help with our essays." Harry said with a roll of his eyes. The comment instantly made him think of Ron, and he was overcome with guilt. He hadn't thought of his other best friend once since they arrived in this universe.

Hermione gave him a sad smile, wishing that she was sat next to him so that she could squeeze his hand or give him a tight hug. Now wasn't the time for feeling guilty and melancholy. They could do that later, in the privacy of their shared rooms.

"What happened to your leg?" Someone who neither of them recognised had asked loudly.

All at once, each student sat higher in their chairs and leaned forward curiously.

Everyone in the school wanted to know about the scars on Hermione's leg. Rumours about them had already started to spread like wildfire, and they were about to learn the truth straight from the horse's mouth.

"Hmm?" Hermione hummed in askance, her brows frowning slightly. She stopped swinging her legs and held her right leg in front of her. She twisted her ankle back and forth, looking at the four deep scratch marks at different angles. The skin was red and inflamed slightly. The scratches started from the outside of her knee and came curving down to the inside of her ankle, creating a devastatingly beautiful curve in her skin. The welts were raised and hot to the touch. The bleeding had stopped, thankfully, but the exposed skin and muscle still had a lot to do to heal. Hermione was thankful for Madame Pomfrey and her many pain potions and stasis charms, or she would not have felt the confidence to leave her bedroom until the wound had healed fully.

That could take weeks.

"Oh this?" She wiggles her feet at them before she lowered her leg to cross her ankles once more. She had the attitude of nonchalance, as if it was an old injury that she had gotten over, but on the inside she was panicking.

Hermione could see Lavender Brown stretched out in front of her, desperately reaching for her wand that had been thrown away by Greyback when he began his assault on her body. Tears were streaming from her crystal blue eyes. Her hair was no longer blonde, for it had been stained by her blood, dust and dirt a long time ago. Her fingernails were dry and cracked from desperately trying to claw her way to her fallen wand, in her desperate attempt to defend herself before Greyback could do worse.

What that worse thing was, though, Hermione dreaded to think. He had already sliced her open on her legs as he tried to drag her body back to him, his teeth covered in her blood from where he bit her on the shoulder in his initial attack.

Thank Merlin it hadn't been a full moon that night.

Hermione blinked and Lavender disappeared from her vision. She gave the class a tight smile once again. Harry tried to catch her eye, to see if she was okay, but she was looking straight ahead at Remus, whose own eyes were filled with fear and dread.

As if he knew what she was going to say.

As if her admission was going to oust him as a werewolf too.

"How about instead of me giving you the direct answer, we can see how well your previous Professors taught you." Hermione said to them with a bright smile. Harry could tell that it didn't reach her eyes and realised that she had been reliving the moment she had gotten scratched. He itched to reach her and comfort her. They hadn't talked about it to each other properly yet, and here she was about to admit it to a class full of ghosts.

"I'll give you all a basic fact or two about it, and we'll see how quickly you can piece the puzzle together. I'm afraid the truth might not be up to the standard of rumours I've heard have been going around." Hermione winked at them. She went to lean back on her arms again, but first pulled her wand from her hair, where it held her brown curls in a messy bun. She then flicked it lazily towards the nearest chalkboard. A piece of chalk hovered in the air, awaiting her instructions. She decided to keep a hold of her wand and leaned back on her arms again.

"I received it about three weeks ago." She told the class above the squeaking of the chalk as it wrote down the words she spoke onto the chalkboard in numbered bullet points. "It is still not healed, even though the bleeding has stopped. It looks worse than it is."

"That's all you're giving us?" James asked with a scoff. He rolled his eyes when Lily turned and glared at him. "How are we supposed to work it out?"

"You're NEWT level students. You should be able to distinguish different magical wounds from each other by now." Harry told him with a frown. He noticed how stiff Remus was in his chair. He must already have worked it out. Could he smell the curse on her? The tiny bit of werewolf DNA coursing through her veins. "It's not that hard, if you know what to look for. Or, what to ask for."

"So, a creature did that to you?" Sirius asked her, twirling his wand between his fingers. He quickly took the hint that Harry gave them. They would get the answers they needed if they asked the right questions.

"Yes, I was attacked by a magical creature, Mr Black. I'd say it was more for defence for a fellow witch than a random attack, however. If I hadn't gotten there and did what I had to do, she wouldn't have survived the needless assault on her person." Hermione's eyes tinged with sadness as the dread at thinking about what could have happened to Lavender tried to seep into her mind. "I would gladly take that sort of injury again, knowing that an innocent life had been saved."

Harry beamed with pride from his table next to hers. Some students looked at her with curious amazement, others looked at her befuddled as they tried to piece together Hermione's secret. The rest were annoyed that she was making them work for their answers.

"Has anyone figured it out yet, or do you need more?" Harry asked the class.

He was slowly finding it easier to speak to them all, especially as his parents and the Marauders sat at the back of the classroom, so it was harder to catch their eye than if they were sat nearer the front. He needed that distance from them. It helped him to breathe, to separate them from the people they are now, and the people they would become. The distance was good. For now.

"I think I know what attacked you, Professor Wilkins." Lily spoke quietly from the set next to Remus. She froze as she felt all eyes on her, except for one.

Instead of looking at Lily, curious to hear her theory on Hermione's attacker, Remus was glaring down at the Defence book that stared up at him on his table. He had already worked it out, he could smell it on her, but still he feared the reaction of everyone else in the room at knowing that there was a werewolf among them.

One who wasn't shying away from it.

"Oh, please, none of that Professor nonsense." Hermione said to her with the soft smile that Harry loved. "We're only a year older than you, remember?"

"What do you think happened to Hermione, Lily?" Harry asked her, the whole class waiting quietly to hear what she had to say.

"Well, for your injury to still look like that after three weeks, you would have had to have been attacked by a creature that was dark and cursed." Lily began, tucking a strand of dark red hair behind her ear nervously. She hated that everyone's eyes were on her, judging her. "While there are many dark creatures out there, there aren't many who are cursed as well. It looks more like claw marks, not bite marks, so you haven't been attacked by a vampire. They don't claw at their prey. It wasn't a Lethifold because you wouldn't have survived the attack. There are many other darks creatures who could have attacked you like that, but only one whose wounds have to heal without magic."

Hermione's eyes twinkled as she listened to Lily ramble during her explanation. She'd heard about the intelligence of Harry's mother, but to see it in front of her felt like a privilege. One she was glad that Harry could witness with her.

"Yes, Lily, but I need you to say it out loud. Just in the off chance you are incorrect, which I highly doubt."

"You were attacked by a werewolf."

It took all of six seconds for the class to be in an uproar.

There was shouting from all sides, from all Houses.

There were accusations being thrown around about her capability as a teacher while she herself was a dark creature.

There were accusations of her not being safe. What if she turned in the middle of class and killed them all?

There were accusations of McGonagall finally losing her mind.

"Honestly, letting a werewolf teach classes? Wait until my father hears about this!"

There were accusations that she wasn't attacked by a Werewolf.

Accusations that called Lily Evans stupid, that Perhaps Hermione was attacked by a Chimera.

How could she be allowed here, to teach children, if she was a werewolf?

The Marauders stayed oddly silent as their fellow classmates yelled and screamed at each other and at the Professors.

"While Lily was correct," Hermione said loudly over the shouting, "In that I was attacked by a werewolf, your lack of knowledge on these creatures and starting prejudice towards them makes me really disappointed in all of you."

"You're all still missing some vital information, I think Lily had perhaps jumped the gun as it were before revealing her theory." Harry said, not unkindly. There was a quiet rage burning behind his eyes.

How dare they say such things about Hermione.

They didn't know her, nor did they completely know the situation.

And here he was thinking that he had poor Defence teachers.

"Yes. Hermione was attacked by a werewolf. But you are all missing some important facts to this. The first being this; Hermione wasn't bitten, she was scratched. There is a massive difference between the two, something your teachers should have taught you in third year." Hermione's enchanted chalk wrote down the points Harry was making on another chalk board. "When she was attacked, it wasn't a full moon, it was barely a crescent moon. Werewolves can only be turned by the passing of their saliva to their victim's bloodstream. No bite, no full moon, no werewolf. Honestly, what did they teach you?"

"How could she have been attacked by a werewolf then if it wasn't a full moon?" A student in the middle of the classroom asked.

"He had become more animalistic than human," Hermione said quietly, her eyes staring at a spot on the cobbled floor. All of her confidence and excitement about teaching these students had disappeared. If this was how the Seventh-year students reacted, she wasn't looking forward to the rest of the school from finding out. She had hoped that the students had been taught better about werewolves and other magical creatures, but it seemed that Harry and Hermione had a lot to work on with them if this was their reaction to a werewolf scratch.

How had they even made it to NEWT level if they didn't know the difference between a bite and a scratch?

"He became so in tune and intertwined with his wolf counterpart, that a full moon only became a technicality to him. He was basically a werewolf outside of the Moon, except for the inability to fully change and to pass on the curse to his victims. That means that while I am not technically a werewolf, due to not being bitten, there was enough of his curse within his claws to pass something on. A permanent reminder that I will never be just a normal witch."

"She has werewolf DNA in her veins, but at such a small concentration that she basically isn't one. But the cursed wound speaks volumes to those who care." Harry said to them. His hands gripped the edge of the table tightly as he tried to reign in his anger. He shouldn't be angry at them, he knew that. He just still couldn't believe how much they didn't know and didn't understand. "She will have some wolfish tendencies around the moon. Heightened senses, increased mood swings. She'll also be eating her meat rare from time to time, but that's nothing to worry yourself over. This still doesn't negate the fact that Hermione is an incredible witch and is more than capable of teaching you Defence Against the Dark Arts. She is still human."

"Call it extreme PMT if you have to," Hermione said, earning a small laugh from Lily and a dark chuckle from Remus. "I wouldn't be here if I was a danger to you. All I want is to help you stay alive during this war once you leave the safety of this castle. I want you all to learn from my mistakes, be better than me. I promise you, you won't be able to tell that there's something wrong with me except for my limp and mood swings. Like Harry said, I'm still human."

Most of the class still didn't look convinced. Hermione heaved a heavy, sad sigh. The reaction from the class wasn't unexpected, but it did make her worry and feel self conscious. She wondered how long it would take before parents started to demand her resignation.

She hadn't been scared about telling them about her situation, seeing as they should be adult enough and clever enough to recognise a threat. Instead, they acted like scared children who didn't know any better.

Even in another world, Werewolf Prejudice was rife.

"I'm not a werewolf, even though I was attacked by one. I am extremely disappointed in your prejudice and lack of knowledge on werewolves." Hermione frowned at them, still failing to make eye contact with them. "I have to say though. You all asked about my injury, and I was honest with you all. If you hadn't been so nosy, you would have been none the wiser about all of this."

"If I hear anyone speaking badly about Hermione or treating her any differently, you will instantly receive a points deduction and a week's worth of detention with Filch." Harry said sternly. He realised, upon seeing their suddenly scared expressions, that he shouldn't have been so forceful. But Hermione didn't deserve their treatment of her. "If you have questions, you ask Hermione. If you have any worries, you ask Headmistress McGonagall. We are still your professors, and you will treat us with respect."

The students sat quietly, staring at Harry and Hermione. They could tell from the fire burning in Harry's eyes that he was completely serious. They all still wanted answers to their questions they had about Hermione and her cursed wounds but recognised that now wasn't the best time. The air was thick with tension, and Harry was one negative comment away from snapping and issuing them all with detention. Sirius slowly raised his hand.

"Yes, Sirius?" Hermione asked weakly, finally making eye contact with the heir of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.

"So, Harry's a Potter. Any relation to James?" He asked, trying to clear the air.

Harry smirked at him.

"Wouldn't you like to know."