In Every Darkness
Chapter Thirty Eight: Classes Resume
9.9.1996
It took all of a week to fix the damage done by the Death Eater attack. There had been four of the fifty Death Eaters stunned and caught, these had been sent to the Ministry of Magic.
Tonks was up and about after three days, her wounds mainly healed, though she was low on energy for some time afterwards.
Throughout the course of the week, Harry more often than not found himself on teaching duty with the first and sometimes second years. By the end of the week he was teaching them a few simple curses.
That was what Harry was doing now. It was afternoon, and the work had finished earlier that morning. Harry was settled easily on a chair, watching as the first and second year students practiced the simple curses – like the tickling charm and expelliarmus.
He'd been teaching them a lot lately, and had been coming to know them quite well. There were several brothers and sisters in the group, some of them in different houses, which was good, because it would promote friendship between the houses.
The Slytherin students Harry had found to be quite nice. There was Simon Web, who could wait for something with the patience of spider waiting for a fly, and Byran Garlath, who's cool mind would one day make him a brilliant stratagist, Morgan Fallon, who had been talking to him on the first day, a nice, friendly girl, but with a sly turn of mind.
In these first year students, Harry saw what he had failed to see back when he had been eleven and just entering Hogwarts. The openness and willingness to be friends that the older students slowly moulded them out of.
Harry wondered why he'd missed this so often in the older years, but he pushed that wondering away – he didn't want to think about that now.
He remembered Ron's reaction to Harry's comment that Slytherins weren't all bad. "Of course they are, why were they put in Slytherin?"
There was no talking with the youngest Weasley male about this subject, though Harry and Hermione had had several talks on the idea, and when Hermione had met the Slytherin students to teach them some Transfiguration, she's agreed whole-heartedly with Harry that they should make friends with the Slytherins, at least from first year, much to Ron's disgust.
With the rebuilding and cleanup finished, Harry could say goodbye to his time teaching the students, which he'd found that he enjoyed – to an extent.
"Everyone, stop for a minute!" Harry called, not needed to raise his voice to much. Everyone stopped and turned to look at Harry.
"You know this is probably the last time that you'll be being taught by me," Harry began, and saw – to his astonishment and secret delight – that the younger students looked sad at the thought.
"Well, if you need me, I'll be in the Library most afternoons, with Hermione getting me and Ron to do our homework," the first years grinned a bit, they'd been taught by Hermione, and had met Ron once or twice, so they mostly knew what Harry was talking about.
"So if you need any help from me, just come then, or ask one of the Gryffindor students to come and get me, alright?" Thirty two heads nodded sombrely.
"Ok, off you go, dinner time!" Harry said, waving them out of the room. For a while, he stayed there, fondling Grypis's head.
"When I started teaching them, I never expected to enjoy it," Harry remarked to the griffin.
"I'm glad that you did. I enjoyed it too – it was fun. They are nice people," the griffin replied, stretching slightly. "But now I am hungry, and so are you. Come on, let's go eat."
Harry laughed at his griffin friends words and levered himself out of the chair. "Good idea," he replied lightly, stepping out of the room.
He would be happy to get back to classes, he thought. Michael had told everyone in the NEWT level potions class that they needn't hand in the first assignment, which had made Hermione and Harry both annoyed – she'd talked him into finishing it.
Lifting Grypis, in his cat form – as usual – to his shoulder, Harry wandered slowly through the halls of Hogwarts, thinking about the past week.
He'd met up with Sirius only once in dreams, but with the time difference between their locations, Harry wasn't all that surprised.
Harry glanced at the huge hourglasses that monitored house points.
Gryffindor was in the lead already, which seventy points, closely followed by Ravenclaw on sixty four. Hufflepuff and Slytherin were both under fifty.
Harry entered the hall with a smile. It was always good to beat Slytherin. He just hoped that they'd be able to keep the points like they were now.
Over on the Gryffindor table, Ron and Hermione were arguing, yet again. Harry wasn't sure what it was about, until Neville leaned over to whisper in his ear, "Hermione asked why Ron hadn't read a book yet, and he gave the reasons, then they started arguing about why and why not people should read different books."
"That's not what they are arguing about now," Harry pointed out.
"I'm not sure what they're arguing about now," Neville shrugged. "It changes every minute or so."
Harry smiled slightly. "Sounds like them," he replied, loading his plate with food to eat. He and DA would be meeting later, after dinner. Since no one had had homework all week, it meant that he and his group were meeting fairly often, every second night or so.
Two seventh years had joined the group, and had shown Harry a few new curses, which had become regular parts of training now. DA was getting very good.
The next morning, Harry woke early. Classes were back on and he wanted a chance to practice before he had to get ready. Creeping from the Gryffindor common room, Harry headed for the Room of Requirement.
Once there, he began a few turns, drops and rolls to limber himself up slightly, before throwing himself into a fairly intense set of kicks, punches and jumps.
An hour later, Harry headed back to the Gryffindor common room, sweating lightly but feeling better for the practice.
Up in the sixth year boys dormitory, people were just starting think about getting up. Harry gave his room mates beds a somewhat disgusted look, and promptly took over the shower.
Harry headed down to breakfast with his friends, no longer needing to wait for the first years, who by now knew their way around well enough to get down the Great Hall in time for breakfast.
Harry settled at the Gryffindor table, watching everyone else file into the hall. Ron was looking around with bleary eyes, having still been in the process of waking up when Harry had dragged him out of bed to go to breakfast.
"Oh Ron, grow up," Hermione told him, glaring. "Actually, wake up. And stop glaring at Harry. Would you have rather had to go to classes without having breakfast?"
Ron made a face, but made more of an effort to wake up, and actually smiled briefly at Harry. Hermione consulted her time table. "Harry, we have NEWT level charms first off," she told him.
"I've got OWL level Arithmancy*," Ron said with a sigh. He didn't like not having all of his classes with his friends. "But I'll see you in Defence afterwards."
The three friends nodded to each other and parted ways.
Flitwick was waiting when the class reached his room. Around him were stacked pieces of parchment. "Today we are going to learn how to charm different things onto parchment," he informed them.
Harry knew that his teacher had gotten the idea from the Marauders Map. "But first, I'm going to explain how difficult this is …"
By the end of the lesson, Harry was feeling a great sense of awe for the Marauders intelligence. They hadn't always been particularly nice, certainly, but that map … From what Flitwick said, it was almost impossible to create.
Hardly concentrating, Harry headed towards Defence Against the Dark Arts. Draco Malfoy, slipping up behind Harry, thought that Harry wasn't paying any attention at all, and promptly tried to trip him.
Reflexes taking over without a thought, Harry stepped over Malfoy's sweeping foot and turn, ready to kick or punch an enemy.
"Halt!" a voice yelled. Arabella Figg, with a cat perched on her shoulder and two more twining around her legs, strode down the hall. "Mr. Malfoy, I would have thought that you'd have enough of polishing trophies without magic. Obviously I was mistaken. You will join me tonight in the greenhouses, harvesting bubotuber puss. I hope that it will help you learn manners. Five points from Slytherin."
The woman strode past them, not giving Malfoy a chance to speak. "Well, that was an interesting start to the lesson!" A voice called out cheerily. Tonks stepped into view with a slight grin on her face.
Her hair, Harry was interested to note, was a dark shade of blue today. Few of the rest of the students were aware of Tonks's metamorphmagi talents, and were therefore surprised to see this.
"Ask McGonagall – the Transfig. Teacher – to teach you about metamorphmagi some other time," Tonks told them. "You are going to be learning some new spells today. I want everyone in this class to be up to the standards that Harry set last week, helping fight the Death Eaters …"
"What happened to you?" Harry asked, voice whisper soft in Tonks's ear as they headed inside the classroom.
"I listened in on Minnie's lesson. I'm giving her way of teaching a go … I don't think I like it though," Tonks replied, also softly.
Harry grinned slightly. "You'd like Snape's less," he replied.
Tonks shuddered. "Don't even speak to me about that … person," she returned, tripping over a desk leg and tumbling to the floor. With the ease of long practice, she stood up again and dusted herself off, waving off the students asking if she was alright.
The lesson was interesting, as Tonks told them about various different curses that Harry and his friends had used to help stop the Death Eaters the week before.
Harry and the members of DA that were in the class were called on to perform some of the spells that Harry had taught to them, much to the apparent disgust of the Slytherin students, since they weren't among the demonstrators.
The lesson ended, and the three friends headed to the Library to do some of the homework they had. Flitwick had given Harry and Hermione some homework, which looked to be difficult, and Ron had a little bit of Arithmancy to do.
"I don't know why I picked it," Ron moaned as he looked at the homework he had to do. "It's so hard."
Hermione looked up at him disapprovingly. "No it isn't," she told him. "It's simple, look."
Harry went to a different table to concentrate on his homework, leaving his two friends to argue it out.
Harry heard footsteps approaching and looked up. There was no one there. "Hello?" he asked, voice soft, uncertain.
"Hello Harry," it was Dumbledore's voice.
"Professor Dumbledore? Why are you invisible?" Harry asked, keeping his voice down and bowing his head slightly, so no one could see him speaking.
"There's a dragon in my office, and he would like to speak with you," came the reply.
Harry paused for a moment, fighting to understand Dumbledore's words. Then it clicked – dragon, Tatsu.
Harry hurriedly packed up his things and stood. "Just follow me Harry, I'll let you in," Dumbledore told him, still invisible. "I trust you can hear my footsteps well enough to know where I'm going?"
"I know the way to your office anyway," Harry replied. "But yes, I can hear your footsteps fine anyway."
"Good, because our friend dragon has some news that you'll like to hear."
*you can take OWL level subjects in sixth/seventh year if you don't take them in 3-5. You can also try and catch up with the rest of the class over the holidays and in your spare time, which is what Harry did with most of his subjects.
***
There. A little bit shorter than usual, but I wanted to update. I'm at my dads house, and I always type slower down here for some reason. Sorry that's it taken longer to update!
~WolfMoon~