Hiding Shadows
by
RunningInCircles
Summary: Voldemort's back, there's an eccentric new DADA teacher and some very interesting returns. Post OotP.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I do own what you don't recognize.
Chapter 2
Classes
When they arrived, they were the first ones there, and consequently the first ones to see the odd sight. Shadow was sitting cross legged on the top of her desk, cheerfully turning the walls bright florescent colors.
"Hi Harry, Ron, Hermione," she called with a grin as they headed for their seats, looking around. Ron and Hermione looked slightly startled at being addressed by name, as they hadn't met her one on one before. She made no move to explain her odd behavior, or even acknowledge that it had been odd behavior.
"Um… Professor?" Hermione started, "What are you doing?"
"Decorating!" she cried, as if it had been perfectly obvious, "This room has always been too boring. And just Shadow, please, professor sounds far too stuffy for my liking."
"Er… all right," Harry said as they took seats and watch as she proceeded to greet the rest of the class by name as they trickled in. They too were startled, but she only grinned at their varied reactions.
"Hi! Nice to see you all made it. Hmm. I suppose I should start by telling you my ground rules…" she said, then paused to think about exactly what those were, "Uh… don't leave class until I tell you, I guess. I don't assign much homework, but if I do, please feel free to do it on time. Don't bother raising your hands before talking, I love a good discussion… Eh, if I think of anything else I'll tell you- Oh! And don't you dare call me Professor. Shadow is fine. Oh! But If anyone can figure out my name by the end of the year, you'll earn a very good prize which will be announced tomorrow, just as soon as I finish it." She shrugged a bit as she looked around, apparently trying to remember what else she was going to say. "We're going to put a lot of focus on dueling, but we'll do other stuff too, promise."
"Like what?" Neville asked. She seem very pleased that someone had asked that.
"Oooh, lots of fun stuff! Curses and hexes and dark potions and detector spells for the paranoid ones among us," she grinned. There were groans.
"Don't we get enough potions in Potions?" Seamus called.
"You all just never learned the joy and chaos that can be potions," she said, with a fake sigh and shake of her head, "It's far too bad Sev- erm, Professor Snape had too many experiences with the more fun types of potions to want to teach them." They had to wonder what sort of experiences she was talking about, but none of them were really inclined to go ask Snape himself.
"So what are we doing today then?" Ron called out, rather liking the 'don't raise your hands' rule.
She grinned, "Well, for starters, we'll talk about dueling." Several groans followed along with the mutters of 'just talk?' She laughed, "Calm down, calm down, we are going to actually duel today too, don't worry. Noooow… can anyone tell me what the first thing you notice about your opponent?"
"Umm…"
"If they're scared or not?"
"How they're holding their wand?"
Shadow grinned, looking around, "You're all getting close."
"Whether they can talk to snakes or not?" Harry gave Seamus a look for that one, even if it had been muttered. Several others frowned a bit, thinking.
"What sort of power he's got?"
"How experience he is?"
"What you're all describing is your first impression of someone. And that can be very important, especially if the first impression is skewed," she grinned, "For example, what did you all think of me? Come on, be honest now, I'm not going to be insulted or anything." No one say anything for a moment. "Oh come on, this is a Gryffindor class, right? I'm giving you a chance to say whatever you want about the new teacher, and none of you want to take it?"
"Er… absent minded?" Harry said slowly.
"Nutters," Seamus called out. Shadow beamed widely at that, only confirming what he had said.
"Five points to Gryffindor for honesty. So, if you were going to duel me, how hard would you think I'd be?" she asked, grinning expectantly at them in a highly unnerving way.
"Not very," Ron said. She beamed again, apparently very pleased with that conclusion. The class looked nervously at each other again.
"I hope I'll change that opinion very fast," she grinned.
"Why don't I like the sound of that?" Dean muttered lowly to Seamus under his breath.
"Because she's nutters?" Seamus muttered back with a shrug. Shadow feigned oblivion; Ron tried not to laugh. Hermione gave them all looks.
"Now, we're going to work on some dueling basics- no groaning, if you don't know the basics, how are you supposed to do the harder stuff? We'll see how you all do with stunning and disarming, then I can figure out where to go from there. Pair up! Last one awake wins!" she called happily, turning a deaf ear to the alarmed muttering that sprung up. Neville ended up across from Harry, but he didn't seem as nervous as he would have been in years past. The DA had had a good effect on him last year, it seemed.
Shadow suddenly offered one more hint as they looked at their partner, "Distractions are wonderful things. Use them well."
"Well, let's get started then," Harry said, after giving her a puzzled looked, and looking around to see the other groups had already begun. Neville attempted to disarm him when both saw a stunner shoot across the room and stun Ron. When Harry looked in the direction it had come from, there was only Shadow there, who didn't seem to notice anything had happened. Instead, she was intently watching Dean and Seamus. Neville and Harry looked at each other and shrugged, before Harry attempted to stun Neville, who ducked just in time. Just at that moment, he saw a stunner shoot out and stun Dean from behind, but when he looked, Shadow's wand was no where in sight, and she was watching Hermione, who was looking rather confused at the stunned Ron. Moments later, Parvati and Lavender fell too, followed closely by Hermione and Seamus. Harry gave Shadow a confused look before he and Neville were stunned too. Shadow stood up and looked at her handiwork, grinning.
"I win!" she said simply, before waking everyone up. Groans of 'what just happened?', 'what hit me?' and 'owww' could be heard as the students picked themselves up off the floor and looked around. Harry gave Shadow suspicious looks as she beamed at them from atop her desk, legs swinging back and forth. She apparently had something against her chair.
"Noooow, what have we learned?" she asked as they settled in their seats for the last minutes of class, watching her warily.
"Falling hurts," Seamus groaned, still rubbing his offended backside.
"Watch out for cheap shots?" Dean offered, trying to find his misplaced wand, then sighed in relief as Seamus handed it to him.
"Don't let the teacher have a wand," Ron said flatly.
"Take out your opponents as soon as you can," Harry said.
"You were all distracted," Shadow said, "And yes, that's right, Harry. Oh, and never play by the rules. I said to pair up, but I also said the last one conscious wins. I never said whether that was between you and your partner, or the entire class."
Ron grinned at Harry, and muttered under his breath, "Like we follow the rules anyway. Harry grinned back.
"But we were dueling our friends," Seamus pointed out, "And it's not like any of us really wanted to do anything to them. It'd be different if we were up against someone we didn't like."
"Five points to Gryffindor for bringing up that very good point," Shadow said, leaning forward a bit on her perch, looking startlingly serious, "Fighting a friend is something you never want to do, under any circumstance." She paused for a moment, "Well, almost any circumstance. But you won't always have the choice, and you need to do what you can to make sure you stay alive." An awkward silence filled the class for a moment, until she brightened again, "But I think you've all gotten the point. Class dismissed!"
"Well that ended on a cheery note," Harry said as they scooped up their belongings. He waited until the class cleared out, and told Ron and Hermione he'd catch up to them.
"Need something, Harry?" she asked without looking up, as he went over to her desk.
"I wanted to ask you about last night when you changed into the owl. Are you an Animagus?" Harry asked.
"Of sorts," she said evasively, "You guys will be learning about it soon enough- that's what we're doing after dueling."
"Oh, okay," Harry said, not any less confused then when he started, "I'd better go, I'll be late to Potions."
"No you won't, follow me," she said, going out the door. Though still a bit confused, Harry followed her. She stood just outside the doorway and tapped on a stone. Immediately a passage way opened up, and she pushed him through before he could ask what it was or how she knew it was there. He stumbled out in the hallway in front of Potions class, and hurried in, sitting down just before the bell rang and Snape swooped in. He barked at them to open their books and get started on the sleeping draught that was on the board. Hermione looked at Neville's nervous look, and partnered up with him. Ron and Harry looked at each other, then got started. After twenty minutes, they realized the potion that was supposed to be white at this point was bright pink.
"It's not supposed to look like that, is it?" Ron whispered, looking nervously at the bubbling potion.
"Nope," Harry said, looking at the book standing nearby.
"Add a little more water," Hermione muttered under her breath, not turning to look at them as she and Neville added the next ingredient. Exchanging glances, the boys added more water, and were relieved when it paled out to white. They bottled the liquid quickly, and took it up to Snape's desk. The Potions Master only glanced at it, and went back to what he was doing. Taking that as a success, they sat back down, and cleaned up their area. Harry pocketed a small vial of the potion while Ron was putting back the extra ingredients. Ron plopped back down and asked how much longer they had in the class. Glancing at his watch, he realized there were still ten minutes left. Hermione and Neville had already finished, with thankfully no major accidents, much to everyone's relief, and the rest of the class seemed to get through with no major problems. Harry stared out the door, waiting for the ten minutes to be up, when he saw a dark shape dart past the door. He looked around, but no one else had been paying attention to the door.
'What was that…' he wondered. The bell rang before he could puzzle it out anymore, or, at very least, figure out if he'd just been seeing things or not, and they grabbed their bags and headed to transfiguration.
Professor McGonagall got started right away on the beginning stages of learning to conjure, something she said would need a lot of practice, but in the end would be a very useful skill. Harry remembered his luck with the vanishing spell, and stifled a groan, knowing already this was going to be difficult. By the end of class, they were all frustrated, and more than ready to go to lunch, having made almost no progress. Hermione had gotten the closest, but this was expected by now, and she was frustrated too, which didn't help everyone else.
Ron dropped his head on the table, "This is going to be a long year if they're starting this hard now."
"Ron, we started the same way last year," Hermione said, reaching for a sandwich.
"Don't remind me," he moaned.
"We're going to have to have Quidditch tryouts soon, if we want to be ready for the first game," Harry realized suddenly. Ron nodded. Most of the team had graduated last year, and they had to do some serious rebuilding. They'd have to work out how they were going to do that soon.
They soon left for Charms, which went by fast, and History of Magic, which went by unbelievably slow. They walked to dinner in silence, still trying to get over the stupor the ghost professor had sent them in. A cat ran by them on their way in, and dashed up to the head table to jump on Professor McGonagall. She eyed it, but allowed it to stay. They looked around to see if Shadow was there, but she apparently hadn't gotten there yet, judging by her empty seat. Dinner went by uneventfully, though Shadow never did turn up.