Suspicion

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Summery: Harry is one of the top agents at the Order of Pheonix. Years of difficulties have turned him into a dark, brooding, pessimist, and terribly alone. He has now been assigned to protect a special Gryffindor student with a past a dark as Voldemort's himself.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Harry Potter books…yadi, yadi…Can we get to the story now?

A/N: Woah… I'm actually writing something! After a six month hiatus I have decided to post another chapter! I do intend to continue this story, though I'm not so sure about Ashes. Ashes has started to really bug me. =) yeah, so on with the story!

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Harry could have really gone for a few shots of something really strong right then as he watched the second year students of Gryffindor and Slytherin file into the class. He never realized how incredibly difficult it was to stand up in front of a class of students to actually teach something.

Harry was clueless.

He sat on the edge of his huge desk and smiled grimly at the students sitting before him. They peered up at him waiting to judge him. This just made Harry pale a few shades lighter and turn an off shade of green. The students just watched curiously.

You can do this. You've given seminars for grown men twice your age for god's sake! You can do this.

The voice in his head was beginning to sound like the little engine that could, really annoying. He grumbled a quick "shut up" to the voice before addressing the class.

"Er…Hello," Harry tried to lick his lips, but by this point in time his mouth was completely dry. He took to biting his lower lip instead. "I'm Professor Basil, and I'll be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year. Would a-anyone care to inform me of what they have already learned?" A petite girl in the front with bushy auburn hair raised her hand high in the air with a few "ooh, ohhs!" Harry didn't even need to look at the chart to know who this was.

"Yes Miss Weasley?" and she continued to spout off everything they had learned. When she had finished Harry nodded approvingly. "Ten points to Gryffindor. You definitely learned more in your first year than I did when I was here." He said ending softly so that he didn't think anyone would hear. With that he walked over to the chalk board and wrote down notes for them to take on Boggarts. The class groaned whispering about he was another McGonagall. Only one was visibly taking notes, and you can guess who that was. Harry rolled his eyes.

"I see that you're all ready to skip the notes then?" He said erasing the notes from the chalkboard with a wave of his wand. "Then lets go directly to the Boggart!" He said enthusiastically inwardly grinning evilly. The students stared. They didn't even know anything about the creature! Harry stood at the doorway.

"Are you coming or not?" He asked with a glint in his eye as the students got up and filed out of the classroom after him. As he walked through the corridors he noticed the child he identified as a Weasley was talking to a sandy haired boy with dark toned skin that looked oddly familiar. Seamus' son?

He finally stopped in front of a closet in a rather dark corridor in the west wing.

"Alright students! When the boggart comes out of this closet, I expect you to be able to defeat it, because I know all of you are so advanced and already know the spell. Lets count this as a quiz and because this should be a breeze for you all. An easy A." Harry said opening the door and backing off to the shadows to watch. Now the evil grin that had been growing within him was spread on his face.

Out popped a large man with a funny blue hat on his head and an evil look on his face. Harry could have sworn he had seen it before. It was the Quaker oatmeal guy? He could see one of the boys from Slytherin cowering as it walked for him. One of the Gryffindors distracted it and then suddenly it turned into a woman with her hair pulled tightly in a bun and a wooden spoon in her hand yelling obscenities at him.

As Harry watched amused in the shadows and was just about to come out to end it all, he saw Miss. Weasley's eyes light up. She had remembered. 'Just as bright as her mother' Harry couldn't help but think. She began whispering to the students beside her and the looked at her happily and spread the news. She then directed the boggarts attention from the Gryffindor boy being hit with the wooden spoon.

The boggart turned into Professor Quirrel? Hermione and Ron had obviously been telling bed stories to the girl frightening the wits out of her. Harry couldn't help but smile at that. Hermione then waved her wand and yelled "Riddikulus!" and suddenly Quirrel's turban turned into a top hat, his clothes turned into a black and white striped suit and he had a cane in hand and him (and his Voldemort counterpart) started singing and tap dancing to Blue Skies. Half the class started to chuckle.

Then a boy from Slytherin directed the boggart's attention towards himself, and it turned it into a man with black robes on and a mask on his face calling for the boy to join the death eaters. The Slytherin took a deep breath and called out "Riddikulus!"  And suddenly the man's robes were bright red and the mask had a beard of white hanging off of it and it started going "Ho, Ho, Ho!" and its now prominent stomach jiggling. The class giggled at the American Santa Claus. Unfortunately no one was getting roars of laughter to stop the Boggart. Harry was beginning to wonder where the kid's sense of humour went.

Harry got the boggarts attention and it turned into a spindly woman in wild clothes holding a large chessboard in front of her. She was whispering something to Harry that was indistinguishable to the students. Harry paled as she pointed at him but lazily said "Riddikulus" changing the woman's body into that of a female gorilla cartoon with a scanty bikini on and she started muttering random things about gorilla mating habits. The class (mostly the boys in the class) seemed to find this rather funny. Finally Harry forcefully said "Riddikulus" again and chuckled and the boggart burst into a wisp of smoke.

When the class had settled down again. Harry turned to them.

"Next time I want no complaints over notes. You are not to speak unless spoken to, or else house points will be taken. Understood?" The class nodded grimly. "Ah yes, and twenty points to Miss Weasley for remembering the spell, and performing it. And another ten to everyone else who performed it also." He looked at his watch. "It seems that class ended five minutes ago. You may all leave now." Harry said and the students all rushed off to their next class, Harry glided quickly through the hallway for he too was late for his seventh year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class.

Stepping behind a seemingly random tapestry, he disappeared.

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Harry had made it not only through a day of teaching, but a week! He now completely understood Snape's methods to teaching. His method wasn't much different, except that he wasn't biased against the other houses (not very much at least), and didn't take off points unnecessarily. He at least managed to get half of the school liking him. The other half absolutely hated him to the very fiber of his being. Harry didn't really give a damn.

Walking down the halls towards the Great Hall Harry began thinking back to his assignment. So far, all that Harry had gathered about the boy was that he was rather quiet and tended to stay in the back of the classroom. Everyone seemed to get along with him fine, but he seemed to have no close friends.

Harry took a right turn and ran right into, you guessed it, Timothy Fairfeild. A second later there was a tangled mess of books, papers and bodies. Harry managed to quickly pull himself out of the mess and helped Timothy pick up his books and papers.

"Sorry sir. I didn't see you there." Timothy said almost monotone. Harry forced a smile and shook his head.

"Don't worry about it." Finally all the items were picked up from the floor and Timothy nodded and hurried away. Harry stood for a little while afterwards staring after him.

Eventually Harry turned to move when a piece of parchment that had slid precariously off to the far side of the corridor caught his eye. Harry picked it up and unfolded it.

On the sheet of parchment was three words--- They are watching.

Glancing back to where Timothy had left from, Harry couldn't help but wonder what this meant. Continuing his walk towards the Great Hall, Harry decided to think about it later, though throughout dinner it stayed with him.

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"Michael… Michael? MICHAEL?!" Harry's head snapped upwards as his alias was whispered quite loudly at him. He had been off in his own world. Looking towards where the voice came from his eyes met with Professor Pam Sinistra the astronomy teacher's. Blinking once to clear his eyes he replied with a grumpy: "What?"

Professor Sinistra seemed slightly taken aback at his irritableness, but spoke up nonetheless.

"Well, you were just sort of sitting there staring off into space, twirling your mashed potatoes until they were just mush so I figured---" she was cut of by her neighbor, Professor Flitwick clearing his throat and muttering something in her ear. Professor Sinistra turned back to Harry and informed him of the news that there was to be a teachers meeting at ten that night.

Harry nodded in thanks and turned back to his now quite soggy food watching as it disappeared marking the end of dinner. He had missed dinner and now he would have to go to the kitchens later. Sighing, Harry got up from the table and left.

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Harry's quarters were quite spacious and comfortable. It contained one small study, his bedroom, a bathroom and a common room (of sorts). There was a blazing fire that had a temperature control on it (so as to not over-heat his room) and many plush loveseats and sofas. The colours of the room (which were meant to change to match the resident's personality) were forest green and silver. To any other former Gryffindor this might be shocking, but Harry had come to face his stronger Slytherin traits and having Slytherin colors portray his personality didn't bother him in the least. Harry actually kind of preferred them comparatively to the loud red and gold of Gryffindor.

At the moment Harry was asleep on his black leather couch in his study with a book on his chest and many others piled around him. Harry had found that he rather liked sleeping on this couch than in his bed. He also preferred the dynamics of the study compared to his room. From the study Harry could always tell when someone was entering, and could face the one door, while in the bedroom there were two doors making it less secure.

Old habits always seem to diehard.

And so Harry slept rather peacefully until his security charm went ringing off. Black hair tousled (more than usual) and quite in a state Harry pulled out his wand from its holder on his hip and got into his stance. Realizing that he wasn't wearing his disguise, Harry quickly pulled the necklace from his khakis pocket and slipped it around his bare neck where it hung coolly on the bare chest of what was now Michael Basil.

Stealthily coming out of the study Harry quickly realized there was no one in the common room. Quickly checking the bathroom and bedroom Harry tensely made his way towards the entrance of his chambers where there was a charm so that he could see anyone outside his quarters but they could not see him. Peering out he saw a rather aggravated Snape standing there muttering at tapestry of the Goblin Revolts trying to get in.

Harry narrowed his eyes and opened the entrance and let Snape in.

"What do you want?" Sneered Harry as he closed the door to his study. There were many things in there that he didn't want others to see. He would have to remember to place an automatic locking charm on the door. Snape scowled and turned his nose at Harry's bare chest.

"Headmistress Granger had sent me to remind you of the meeting tonight. She said she wasn't sure if you received the message at dinner as you seemed to be rather preoccupied." Snape said spatting out Headmistress Granger showing his apparent dislike of Hermione. Harry's eyebrows rose. He had completely forgotten about it!

"Thank you for relaying this to me, and even though I just love your company, would you mind leaving my humble abode while I get ready?" Snape just sniffed and strode out the entrance. Harry looked at his watch. It was nine-fifty. He was going to have to hurry to get there in time.

He quickly put his wand back in its holder and pulled a shirt over his head. Checking himself for a moment in the mirror and giving up on his now quite messy light brown hair, he rushed out of his chambers towards the teachers lounge.

Skidding into the teachers lounge he was met by a few amused smiles at his disgruntled appearance and lack of wizarding apparel. Harry had never really like robes anyways, they tend to get in the way during battle. Sitting down in the last remaining seat (which happened to be beside Snape, go figure.) he muttered an apology for being late.

"Well, now that we are all here, we can begin the meeting. As you all know, Voldemort's forces, though weakened by the Order of Phoenix (Harry smiled grimly at the mention of the Order), are still very powerful and a great danger." Hermione pulled out a large map of Britain spotted with black and white flags.

"The black tags as you all know, show the areas of strong points of Voldemort's forces, and the white are our strong points. As you can see, over the past few weeks, a few of Voldemort's forces have been breaking off and have been slowly making their way towards Hogwarts. Because of this, I have decided that we need to take extra precautions in case of attack." Hermione pulled out another map, this one of Hogwarts. There was a large area in the dungeons marked off as the safety zone for the younger students and other stronghold areas for people to be placed to defend.

"I have decided to start running drills on the students where students third-year and under go to a secured location by portkey and the older students take arms to help defend the school. Obviously our students are not well trained in matters of this so I have decided to form one more mandatory class that will start next week. It will be a dueling class, in which the students will be taught how to properly duel. I know that each of you have very busy schedules so I have decided to split the classes into two groups. First years through third years will be taught on Wednesday and Friday nights and fifth years through seventh years on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Although the younger years will (hopefully) not be fighting if an attack occurs, they should be prepared for anything." Hermione sighed and returned to her seat.

"I had hoped that we would not have to come to this, but it seems to be quite inevitable. And so now I must ask for volunteers to teach these classes." Harry sighed. He knew that out of all the teachers he was the most experienced in dueling and so would have to teach. The kids need to be as well prepared as possible. And so with that Harry told Hermione he would teach.

A few minutes later the teachers had come to an agreement as to who would be teaching dueling. Apparently not everyone believed in his dueling capabilities so after many arguments and revisions to the plan, it was decided that Snape and Harry would teach ALL of the classes together. Harry had no idea where he was going to find the time to do this and make sure his mission was a success, but decided not to complain.

And so, many hours later, Harry was provided with his new timetable and was sent back to his chambers while the more prominent of the teaching staff (IE Hermione, Snape, and Professor McGonagall etc) discussed more important matters. Harry knew that the real reason why he was thrown out was because it was a known fact not to trust the defense teacher until you REALLY knew if they were who you thought they were. Harry didn't hold it against them considering that every single defense teacher since Harry's first year has only lasted one year before they were killed, found out to be a dark wizard, or had some other horrible secret.

Shaking his head, Harry entered his chambers ready to pass out for the night. Teaching a bunch of adolescents certainly can take a lot out of a guy.

In his half awake state, Harry failed to notice the figure hiding behind the door of his study. So completely out of it he was, that he didn't notice until the mysterious figure had him pinned on the floor…

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A/N2: It feels real good to be back! Yeah, so this chapter is a little bit longer than the others though kind of more boring. Ah well, the fun begins next chapter where the cliff hanger concludes itself. I will be sure to have the next chapter out by tomorrow!

And like before, if you want me to e-mail you when I update, leave your email address in your comment!

-Hugh McDougal

Rose@fanged-duck.net