Disclamier: You know how it goes. So I won't say it.

Chapter 10: Snape's Dance Lesson or Door Slammin' Fun!

Selene skipped down the stairs ahead of everyone else. Suddenly she stopped, sniffed the air, and jumped off the landing.

Hermione shrieked and ran to look over the edge along with everyone else, except Toren.

Selene had pinned a laughing Remus to the floor and was hugging the life out of him.

Harry chuckled and walked down the rest of the stairs to stand next to his godfather and mentor Sirius Black. Toren walked over and smiled at his sister then hunkered down to look his father in the face.

'How are you this morning pop?' the cheerful voice of his son echoed in Sirius's head. He yelped and stared at his son in shock. Toren just tilted his head, a gesture picked up from years of being around Selene, and explained.

'We can speak like this. Selene and I do it all the time at home, this is all we knew before Rowan taught us how to speak like humans, I think he called it telepathy.' He shrugged and continued to watch his father.

Sirius looked very confused. Toren sighed.

'Just think and project your thought toward me, I'll pick it up.' He said patiently.

'CAN YOU HEAR ME!' Sirius bellowed into Toren's head. Toren winced.

'You don't have to yell, just, think like you normally talk.' He gestured for Sirius to try again.

'This is amazing! Can you do this with anybody?' Sirius questioned. Toren shook his head. Harry watched the two with growing confusion

'No. Selene and I can talk to each other, and to every animal we ever met, but humans brain waves are different. They're blocked off, and we can't talk to them. At least not yet.' He said with a grin.

Sirius shook his head again.

'You are one amazing kid, ya know that? But then again, you are a Black, I wouldn't expect anything less.' Sirius said jokingly. Toren laughed drawing Harry's curious stare again then moved over next to his sister.

Remus had managed to pick himself up off the floor, with Selene still glued to his side.

"I see that you are doing very well this morning my little pup." Remus said with a large smile, rubbing at one of her ears. Selene tilted her head into her father's hand and smiled.

"Sure am! And I made a new friend last night too." She said excitedly.

"That's wonderful Selene." He smiled down at her, then his smile dimmed, Selene's ears drooped under his hand.

"What's wrong Papa?" she asked quietly. Remus pulled her into a hug.

"I have to go do a favor for Dumbledore, I wont be gone long I promise." He said. Selene stiffened.

"Your leaving me?" she said in a teary voice, then pulled back to give him the full force of her watery, puppy dog expression. Remus visibly turned to mush.

"No, no pup. I'm not leaving, not, forever. I'll keep in touch with you. We'll send letters every day, and I'm sure Harry will let you borrow Hedwig, right Harry?" Remus asked looking imploringly in Harry's direction. Harry nodded his head frantically.

"See, and "snuffles" will be here to, and so are Harry, Hermione and Ron. Don't worry, I'll be fine." He said hugging her and rubbing her back. Selene sighed and slumped her shoulders.

"Fine, if you have to." She said in a whisper. Then she pulled back and gave her dad a spine-snapping hug.

"But if you don't come back I'm gonna have to hunt you down." She said with a smile, ever the cheerful one. Remus smiled and promised to finish his task with all do haste so that she wouldn't have to come and track him down.

****

Breakfast went pretty much like normal, at least until a certain blond Slytherin happened to walk past the Gryffindor table.

"Draco!" a voice called out cheerfully, latching onto Draco's arm and dragging him down to sit at the Gryffindor table.

There was the soft, subtle sound of eyes glazing all down the table. Ron turned so pale his hair appeared to be glowing. Hermione was so still you'd have thought she'd turned to stone. Harry just gawked in open-mouthed shock.

But no one seemed to be more surprised than Draco himself. He sat were he had been put, looking like he'd been kicked in the back of the head.

Ron was the first to gather enough wits to speak, although he probably should have just kept his mouth shut.

"What do you think you're doing, ferret-face?" he sputtered out. Draco jerked and glared in Ron's direction but before he could open his mouth to defend himself an angry growl came from beside him, he looked to see Selene glaring and growling, simultaneously, at Ron.

"Don't talk to my friend like that." She said baring a set of impressive fangs in Ron's direction.

Ron gaped like a fish with lock-jaw. "F-fff-f" He could bring himself to make the word come out.

Harry caught his breath and gave it a shot. "Selene," he wavered. "You do know that he's a Slytherin, right?"

Selene cocked an eyebrow at him. "Howzat?" she said.

"A Slytherin!" Harry squeaked. "One of them!" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the table of students in green and silver.

Selene turned and gave the table a long leisurely look. Then she turned and gave Harry a look of serene incomprehension. "Okay." She said. Then turned back to her plate, the implication obviously lost on her.

Harry shook his head in bafflement and let her get away with it. Ron was almost apoplectic with indignation. "You don't get it!" he brayed. "He's a Slytherin! They're evil!" He said waving his arms in the air frantically.

"Oh yes, all Slytherin's are evil, just like all Gryffindors are courageous and good and brave right? Hello! Longbottom!" He scoffed waving a hand in Neville's direction. Neville put his head down in shame. Ron turned a fascinating shade of vermilion, and steam looked to start pouring out his ears, Harry opened his mouth to defend his fellow Gryffindor, but again a growl rumbled from Selene. Ron looked at her, expecting her to agree with Draco, and saw that she was glaring at Draco.

"That wasn't nice Draco. Say your sorry." She growled. Draco looked indignant.

"I most certainly will not!" he said and started to stand up. Selene grabbed his arm and dragged him back down into his seat, then thumped him in the back with her invisible tail, Draco's eyes widened.

"Apologize." She said again, showing fangs. Draco grit his teeth and managed to spit out a "Sorry Longbottom." Through thin lips. Selene smiled and nodded her head.

"Good boy, now eat." And with that she shoved a piece of toast into Draco's mouth. The rest of the Gryffindors were to shocked that Draco had even apologized to make a fuss over the fact that he was still sitting at their table. Breakfast continued on, pretty much, like normal after that.

Suddenly Selene inhaled sharply and went ramrod straight. She grabbed Daco's arm with a grip like the jaws of a tax collector. Draco gave her a look of ill-concealed confusion.

"He's got my tail." She whispered to low for Draco to hear. Draco bent his head closer.

"What?" he whispered back.

"Harry's got my tail!" She said a little louder this time. Draco raised an eyebrow and looked over her shoulder to see Harry Potter fondling what appeared to be a piece of air with a puzzled and fascinated look on his face. Draco looked back at Selene.

"Oh." He said in amusement, then went back to eating his toast. Selene growled low in his direction.

"Help me." She said, getting angrier when it looked like he'd start to laugh at any minute. Draco gave a sigh and got up, pulling Selene up by the arm next to him. Harry looked like a kid that was just told his puppy had been run over, and kept feeling around for the missing fuzzy piece of air.

"We are going to potions." Draco announced in his most regal manner, pretty much like he usually announced everything.

Toren waved goodbye to his sister with his piece of toast, almost knocking Colin out in the process. Ginny grabbed his arm in time to prevent a serious injury from occurring, namely to Colin. Harry and the others got up and followed Selene and Draco a couple of seconds later.

****

As per usual potions was a dismal affair, at least for the first half. As Snape droned on and on about how useless they all were (Pretty much like he always did) Selene began to fall asleep.

A look of unholy glee settled upon Snape's face at the site of a student sleeping in his class, and a Gryffindor at that. He walked over and stood right next to her, trying to decide what would be the most satisfactory way of waking her, while Harry, Ron and Hermione watched in growing apprehension, they all knew how much Snape hated Gryffindors.

Finally he seemed to have made a decision, and reached his hand out to rudely shake her awake before publicly humiliating her. Just as his hand came into contact with her shoulder however a growl rumbled out loudly from her throat and she thrust her hand out in Professor Snape's direction will muttering something none of them understood. A blinding light lit up the dark Potions classroom and Snape was sent flying across the room to land with a bang against his desk.

Everyone held his or her breath as Professor Snape picked himself up off the floor. Then they blinked in confusion as he climbed up onto his desk. What Snape did next was so utterly bizarre that it took them a minute to learn to see it. When they finally realized that Snape was, in fact, doing an Irish jig atop his own desk the combined laughter of the students nearly shook the stones from the dungeon ceiling.

Ron fell right out of his seat and onto the floor laughing, looking as though all of his dreams had come true at once. Harry was banging his fist into the desktop and laughing so hard it hurt and tears leaked out of his closed eyes. Draco laughed so hard, the hand supporting his head fell away and he smacked his face against table, but he didn't stop laughing. For once the Gryffindors and Slytherin's agreed on something. That watching Professor Snape 'River Dance' on his desk was the funniest damn thing they'd ever seen.

And what did Selene think about this? Well not much seeing as how she was still asleep.

Ron accidentally bumped into Selene's chair while he was rolling around the floor in hysterics. The minute Selene opened her eyes the spell seemed to be broken and Snape climbed off his desk and gave them all a glare.

"What are you all looking at? Get out, class is over." And with that he walked off into his office. Everyone had gone silent the minute he came out of it, but it seemed that he didn't remember. Well they certainly weren't going to inform him. Ron managed to keep his guffaws in till he got out the door, then he burst out into laughter again and stumbled down the hallway while Hermione kept him from bumping into anyone.

Selene walked out with Harry and Draco, who both couldn't stop laughing.

"What's so funny guy's? What'd I miss?" she questioned in confusion. Everyone else had already left and as they were leaving Harry held the door open, like the good, Chivalrous Gryffindor that he was, and shut it right after Selene had gone through.

"AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!" she shrieked, her hair practically standing on end. Harry stared in concern and confusion, Draco looked around behind her at the door and winced, then gave Harry an accusing glare. It was normal for Draco to glare at him but it was usually him doing the accusing glaring, and besides he didn't even know why he was being glared at (Not that Draco usually needed a reason to glare at him, but this seemed different.)

Toren came screeching around a corner and barreled into Crabbe and Goyle, sending them flying into opposite walls. He stopped and stared at his pole-axed sister and looked confused for a moment before he too looked at the door and winced. He reached over and opened the door then helped his frozen sister walk off down the hall, whispering comforting nonsense to her.

Draco gave Harry one last accusing look before sauntering off to his next class, leaving poor, confused Harry standing there and wondering what it was that he just did wrong.

****

Their next class was Defense Against the Dark Arts, with, curiously enough, the Slytherins this year. As Harry made his way to the classroom, he suddenly remembered that they still had no idea who their new teacher was. Lupin had told them he wasn't teaching, but there had been no new faces at the head table the night before either. Oh, well, he supposed they'd find out when they got there.

The teacher wasn't there when they arrived at the classroom. Students were taking their seats, arranging their stuff, talking quietly to each other about who the new teacher might be. By some segregative instinct the two Houses arranged themselves on opposite sides of the room. Harry, Ron and Hermione sat up near the front of the room, on the left side with the rest of the Gryffindors. Draco sat nearer the back, and Selene sat next to him. With the Slytherins. It was almost a mirror of the breakfast situation that morning. The Slytherins stared frankly at her as she arranged her stuff on he desk. She ignored them magnificently.

Finally, the door flew open as their teacher arrived, and the class had a whole new set of surprises.

"G'day, fifth-years!" she piped in a strong, clear Australian contralto. "Sorry to be late."

She was barely four feet tall, dressed in baggy robes and enormous boots. As she dumped her bag on the teacher's desk, Harry could see that she also wore dark skin and her hair magicked purple. Her large eyes scanned the class, and as they passed over him, Harry could see that they were of an odd fiery color, like the skin of a blood orange. But strangest of all, she seemed barely older than the students, perhaps fifteen at most.

"Welcome again to Defense Against the Dark Arts!" she said grinning hugely. "I'm you new Professor this year, my name is Bindi Bunyip. But the first person to call me Professor-anything gets a hex right up the nose! Just call me Bindi."

She gazed around at row upon row of students blinking stupidly at her.

"Now," she continued. "This year we will be learning something a little bit different. And the best way to explain it is to demonstrate. You, lad." She pointed at Neville Longbottom. "Come on up here."

Too amazed to be really nervous yet, Neville did as he was bid.

"Please hand me your wand." She said in a friendly sort of way.

Neville handed it over, confused.

"Right," she said. "Now I'm gonna curse you into next Tuesday. What're you gonna do about it?" She pointed his own wand at him, a dead bead between the eyes.

Neville hit the ground with a hearty thunk! Out cold.

"Alright!" Bindi piped to the class. "Now, why do you suppose he did that?"

Silence so total you could hear the wood aging.

"He did that because he was not prepared to defend himself without his wand. Let's have another go; you there, come on up." This time the victim was Draco Malfoy. Selene smiled encouragingly at him as he slunk up to the front of the class. Bindi held her hand out with a grin, and Draco placed his wand in it. She backed up a few paces and took aim. "Well?" she said.

"I'll probably dodge." He told her.

"Righty ho!" Bindi said, delighted. "Let's find out. Ombra!" A bolt of white light erupted from Draco's wand. Draco did make a bona fide dodge, but the bolt hit him in the right shoulder.

Something was now different about Draco. It took a few seconds for Harry to figure out what it was. Draco now had no color. His hair, his skin, his eyes, and his clothes were all in shades of gray. Draco looked down at himself and let out a startled squeak.

"Nice try." Bindi said with genuine praise. "But you can't rely on speed to help you too much in a magical attack. Magic is faster than meat." She handed Draco back his wand and gave him a pat on the back. Draco wandered back to his seat, still reeling a bit.

"Now for something a little different." Bindi said. "Selene Lupin, come on down!"

Selene blinked, but gamely got up and went to the front of the class. Bindi picked up Neville's wand again. She took aim and cocked an eyebrow at Selene. Selene just grinned back. Bindi raised eyebrows, smiled, and emitted a strange high whistle. A bolt of bright orange energy erupted from Neville's wand. Selene flung her arm upward, batting the spell back at Bindi like a handball. It was a wicked serve and caught the miniscule teacher squarely in the torso, sending her flying. Bindi landed in a heap behind her desk.

Selene sucked air through her teeth. "I didn't mean to hit it that hard." She said.

After a few seconds Bindi wobbled back up to her feet. The class gasped when they saw the Bindi now had six or seven dandelions sprouting from her head.

"Bravo!" she crowed, her voice dizzy. "This is what we are going to learn. How to defend yourselves against magic without any esoteric equipment. Miss Lupin here was raised to use magic that way, Now we are gonna teach you all to do the same. Ten points to Gryffindor, Miss Lupin. And five more for Neville, for giving it a shot. And five to Slytherin as well, Mr. Malfoy! Class dismissed."

There was actually a bit of applause as the class left the room. Followed, of course, by the usual rooba-rooba of students reflecting on this most unusual of teachers. Ron was in a state of something like incredulity. "Could this day get any weirder?" he said to the world at large. Hermione wore a confused scowl on her face, and when Harry asked her what was wrong she only muttered "Most irregular," and shook her head.

Harry wanted to ask Selene about her performance, so he made his way over to her desk, where she was gathering up her books. She was talking to Draco, whose color was just beginning to fade back in. He stopped just next to her, with his mouth open intending to speak, but before he could even draw breath for it Selene let out a SQUAWK! She immediately clapped her hands over her mouth and spun her head around to stare at Harry with wide and terrified eyes. She whimpered slightly. And then looked down at his feet. Harry followed her gaze but saw nothing. It did feel kind of like he was standing on a rope or something though.

Draco gave a long-suffering sigh, then pushed Harry away.

" Hey!" he yelled in indignation. Draco just scoffed and helped Selene to her feet. They both went out the door and didn't look back one. Harry just blinked at their retreating backs in confusion.

****

That night Harry sat in the common room, in a chair near the fire, and thought back on the happenings of the day. He couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong. Maybe Draco had cursed her to feel pain whenever he came near? No, Draco may be a bastard but he wouldn't do that to a friend, would he?

A low sounding thunk woke Harry from his reveries, and he looked around the common room in mild surprise. 'Must have been spaced out longer than I thought.' He mused while looking around the empty room. Everyone else had obviously already gone to bed.

A motion out of the corner of his eye caused him to look over and discover that he was not, in fact, alone. Selene was curled up and quite asleep on the couch. Harry stayed seated for fear of hurting her again, should he come to close. He started brooding on his thoughts again, watching Selene's tail swing back and forth with lazy eyes.

Wait, tail?

Harry's eyes snapped open and locked onto the fuzzy new appendage on the Lupin girl. Yes, that was in fact a tail. He trailed his eyes up and discovered a pair of soft looking black ears twitching around on the top of her head. A strange impulse assailed him, and always being a person who acted on emotion Harry didn't question it. He reached a hand out and lightly touched one of the ears. It twitched away from his hand. Harry smiled and started to pet the ear carefully, the rumbling noise came back and this time Harry could identify what it was. Purring.

He watched as Selene yawned and opened one sleep clouded, silver eye and trained it on him. She sat up and scratched at the ear he's been playing with and looked at him in confusion.

"Harry?" she asked in an inquisitive manner.

" What are you?" the minute that came out of his mouth he wanted to smack himself, how could he ask such a stupid question. Selene didn't seem to under stand and rather eloquently asked.

"Huh?"

" I mean, why do you have ears and a tail, a you part werewolf like professor Lupin?" He tried to elaborate. Selene just cocked her head to the side.

" I guess. I don't really know, I've just always been this way. It doesn't bother you does it?" she asked looking a little scared of his answer, ears lowering and puppy eyes coming into focus. Harry melted into a puddle of useless goo faster than butter on a hot skillet.

"Oh no, it doesn't bother me at all. I think it's brilliant!" he hastened to reassure her. Selene smiled and nodded her head.

"Ok." Then she got a serious look on her face. " But you can't tell anyone, my dad doesn't want me to be treated like I'm different' or something like that, ok. Promise?"

"I promise." Harry said seriously. Then decided to ask the question that had been bugging him.

"How do you keep others from seeing them though?"

Selene blinked, then looked at her hand and squeaked.

"My ring!" she exclaimed, then began to frantically search the couch. Harry remembered hearing something hit the ground earlier and so looked on the floor, sure enough there it was right under the couch. He picked it up and handed it back to Selene.

"Here ya go."

She looked very relieved, then slipped it on. Immediately the ears and tail vanished, and Harry was disappointed. Selene saw the look and grinned.

" Oh don't worry their not gone, just invisible. You can still feel them, I certainly do, you kept stepping on my tail all day long." She said jokingly. Harry winced.

"So that's why you kept screaming whenever I came near you? I was stepping on your tail? I'm so sorry!" he said franticly. Selene laughed and assured him it was all forgive as it was an honest mistake.

"So Malfoy knows about you then?" Harry asked just a little jealous that Malfoy had known before him. Selene nodded her head. Harry sat in thought for a minute then looked over at Selene shyly.

" Um. Can I uh. Touch your ears again?" Then he went bright red and started stammering. " You don't have to let me if you don't want to or anything. They're just so soft. And um ok I'm making a complete ass of myself, so I'll just shut up now."

Selene just laughed and grabbed his hand, placing it near her ears. Then she lay her head on his lap and curled up purring and fell asleep. Harry sat petting the ears for a while, but the gentle vibration and sound of the purr lulled him into sleep soon as well.

Harry had no nightmares that night.

****

Hello all! Sorry this took so very long, but I was recently in a car accident. I'm ok, just a blow to the head, scrambling my already scrambled mind. Who knows, maybe it knocked something back into place. Well I hope you all liked. Let me know what ya think. Later.