Chapter 9 (For real this time)
Apologies
"I was just trying to go to the library," explained Harry, upon being asked by Tonks what he was doing standing in the middle of the corridor with his wand pointed at Malfoy. "Malfoy was trying to hurt Colin, and I tried to intervene. I almost had everything under control, but then Colin misfired a spell. If it wasn't for the Disabling Charm, Malfoy would've done some really nasty things to me!" He hoped this bit of news would provoke Tonks to encourage Dumbledore to expel Malfoy from the school, or at least land him in detention.
"That's not true!" exclaimed Malfoy. "I was minding my own business, and Potter attacked me! Then Creevey here came by, but he wasn't involved in the fight."
Harry was completely surprised at this lie. It wasn't that he thought Malfoy was morally above the act of lying. Harry didn't believe Malfoy to be morally above anything. It just seemed like a useless action, because Harry could think of no way that Tonks would believe Malfoy over Harry. But Harry had not counted on Colin.
"Malfoy's telling the truth," claimed Colin, in a terrified tone of voice, looking at Malfoy. "Or at least, I believe he is. All I know for sure is that when I got here, Malfoy and Harry were pointing their wands at each other. And then Malfoy defended himself with a stunning charm. That's all I saw." Colin finished.
Tonks looked mortally confused. "Are you sure that's the story you want to stick with Colin? You know, you don't have to be frightened of Malfoy getting even with you if you rat him out. We can protect you."
"I told you what I saw," said Colin, fighting against revealing the fear that was still present in his voice. "If I changed my story, I'd just be lying."
"Well," Tonks responded, at great length, "as I didn't really see with my own eyes what actually happened, and all we've got here is circumstantial evidence, I can't really punish anybody."
Malfoy looked relatively pleased about this outcome, Colin still looked rather frightened, but Harry looked absolutely furious.
"Well," Tonks said, "Malfoy and Potter, you two ought to go your separate ways. I'll wait here to make sure neither of you start anything right now."
Harry went off toward the library. One minute after he got there, Colin came in as well, and sat down next to Harry. Harry considered getting up to leave Colin sitting by himself, but Colin immediately said, "I'm sorry, Harry. I was really scared that Malfoy would hurt me if I got him in trouble. And even if they expelled him, Crabbe and Goyle would be able to hurt me. And I figured you'd forgive me quicker than Malfoy and his friends would."
As angry as Harry was, he had to admit that Colin had a pretty good point there. Ultimately, Harry's characteristic good nature won out, and he decided that he would not do anything cruel like try to perform the Cruciatus Curse or something on him.
Soon enough, he was down in the Great Hall explaining the entire confusing episode to Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.
"That's it!" exclaimed Hermione after he was done telling the story. "That's the last time you go anywhere without at least one of us with you! Malfoy really could've hurt you!"
"All he was going to do was give me boils," Harry started to protest. However, Harry then reflected that he really didn't know whether Malfoy would've had worse curses in store for him if that one had gotten through. Besides, he didn't really want to be given the boils anyway, so he ultimately consented to being escorted around by his friends. "But I just want to make it clear that I'm only letting you do this because you really seem want to, and I don't want to risk my friendship over pride. I am not, however, actually scared of Malfoy. If I can take on Dementors, I can take on Malfoy."
"We know you're not scared," said Ron, "we just want to make sure Malfoy doesn't take advantage of that fact."
"Yeah," said Ginny. "We know that you're immune to fear!" Her tone of voice here was sarcastic, but Harry noticed, by something in her eyes, that on some level, Ginny really believed the statement to be true. Harry realized that this really was the reputation that he had built up for himself over the last 5 years. It was going to be one heck of a reputation to live up to.
Thus, the first two weeks of school were at an end. Everybody was beginning to settle into the weekly rhythm of school, even Hermione, who had ended up taking McGonnogal's maximum recommended number of courses, seven, which included all of the courses Harry was taking, plus Potions with Snape, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes.
When Harry asked her what possible purpose Ancient Runes could serve for someone who was planning to become a member of the Ministry of Magic, she had to admit that she wasn't really sure, but still enjoyed the challenge of the course, and claimed that it helped her to better understand language in general. Ron contended that she was simply a masochist.
On Tuesday night, Harry had his first detention with Tonks, which proved to be infinitely more pleasant than his detentions with Umbridge, the last DADA teacher.
"I see no use in wasting your time here," Tonks said at the beginning of the detention, "so we're going to practice DADA here during these detentions. Tonight, I want to test your dueling skills, so we will have a series of duels. In these duels, there are only 4 spells permissible: Disarming, stunning, petrifying, and a simple marking curse which I am about to teach you. This spell will simply put a black dot on the forehead of the cursed, but we will consider this the object of the duel, as this will lead to less actual physical pain than using real curses. The object here is more along the lines of working on your speed rather than on your range of curses and counter-curses. We'll work on that later."
So she taught him the marking curse, then they began a series of duels. There were 10 in all, and Harry was quite pleased at winning a total of five of these, which Harry decided was a decent accomplishment against a wizard so much more experienced than himself. After this, Tonks advised him to look through his DADA book to find spells that he wanted to practice during the next detention. Over all, the detention lasted an hour and a half, and Harry left fairly pleased with how Tonks was handling her teaching position.
"You almost seemed to enjoy this detention, Harry," she said as he was about to leave.
"Well, I really do enjoy working on Defense Against the Dark Arts," admitted Harry.
"There's no reason you should be rewarded for sneaking into my classroom," said Tonks. Harry was afraid for a moment that she was going to pronounce that his next detention would contain more serious punishments, but instead she said, "So to make sure that you're not getting any more opportunities than your well-behaved class-mates, maybe we should have a student-directed Defense Against the Dark Arts club here on Tuesday evenings. You could help lead the club. Of course, you have the option of simply fulfilling your detentions instead," stated Tonks.
"I like your suggestion better," said Harry at once, coming to the conclusion at that moment that Tonks was one of the best teachers Harry could have hoped for, on the level of Remus Lupin.
Apologies
"I was just trying to go to the library," explained Harry, upon being asked by Tonks what he was doing standing in the middle of the corridor with his wand pointed at Malfoy. "Malfoy was trying to hurt Colin, and I tried to intervene. I almost had everything under control, but then Colin misfired a spell. If it wasn't for the Disabling Charm, Malfoy would've done some really nasty things to me!" He hoped this bit of news would provoke Tonks to encourage Dumbledore to expel Malfoy from the school, or at least land him in detention.
"That's not true!" exclaimed Malfoy. "I was minding my own business, and Potter attacked me! Then Creevey here came by, but he wasn't involved in the fight."
Harry was completely surprised at this lie. It wasn't that he thought Malfoy was morally above the act of lying. Harry didn't believe Malfoy to be morally above anything. It just seemed like a useless action, because Harry could think of no way that Tonks would believe Malfoy over Harry. But Harry had not counted on Colin.
"Malfoy's telling the truth," claimed Colin, in a terrified tone of voice, looking at Malfoy. "Or at least, I believe he is. All I know for sure is that when I got here, Malfoy and Harry were pointing their wands at each other. And then Malfoy defended himself with a stunning charm. That's all I saw." Colin finished.
Tonks looked mortally confused. "Are you sure that's the story you want to stick with Colin? You know, you don't have to be frightened of Malfoy getting even with you if you rat him out. We can protect you."
"I told you what I saw," said Colin, fighting against revealing the fear that was still present in his voice. "If I changed my story, I'd just be lying."
"Well," Tonks responded, at great length, "as I didn't really see with my own eyes what actually happened, and all we've got here is circumstantial evidence, I can't really punish anybody."
Malfoy looked relatively pleased about this outcome, Colin still looked rather frightened, but Harry looked absolutely furious.
"Well," Tonks said, "Malfoy and Potter, you two ought to go your separate ways. I'll wait here to make sure neither of you start anything right now."
Harry went off toward the library. One minute after he got there, Colin came in as well, and sat down next to Harry. Harry considered getting up to leave Colin sitting by himself, but Colin immediately said, "I'm sorry, Harry. I was really scared that Malfoy would hurt me if I got him in trouble. And even if they expelled him, Crabbe and Goyle would be able to hurt me. And I figured you'd forgive me quicker than Malfoy and his friends would."
As angry as Harry was, he had to admit that Colin had a pretty good point there. Ultimately, Harry's characteristic good nature won out, and he decided that he would not do anything cruel like try to perform the Cruciatus Curse or something on him.
Soon enough, he was down in the Great Hall explaining the entire confusing episode to Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.
"That's it!" exclaimed Hermione after he was done telling the story. "That's the last time you go anywhere without at least one of us with you! Malfoy really could've hurt you!"
"All he was going to do was give me boils," Harry started to protest. However, Harry then reflected that he really didn't know whether Malfoy would've had worse curses in store for him if that one had gotten through. Besides, he didn't really want to be given the boils anyway, so he ultimately consented to being escorted around by his friends. "But I just want to make it clear that I'm only letting you do this because you really seem want to, and I don't want to risk my friendship over pride. I am not, however, actually scared of Malfoy. If I can take on Dementors, I can take on Malfoy."
"We know you're not scared," said Ron, "we just want to make sure Malfoy doesn't take advantage of that fact."
"Yeah," said Ginny. "We know that you're immune to fear!" Her tone of voice here was sarcastic, but Harry noticed, by something in her eyes, that on some level, Ginny really believed the statement to be true. Harry realized that this really was the reputation that he had built up for himself over the last 5 years. It was going to be one heck of a reputation to live up to.
Thus, the first two weeks of school were at an end. Everybody was beginning to settle into the weekly rhythm of school, even Hermione, who had ended up taking McGonnogal's maximum recommended number of courses, seven, which included all of the courses Harry was taking, plus Potions with Snape, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes.
When Harry asked her what possible purpose Ancient Runes could serve for someone who was planning to become a member of the Ministry of Magic, she had to admit that she wasn't really sure, but still enjoyed the challenge of the course, and claimed that it helped her to better understand language in general. Ron contended that she was simply a masochist.
On Tuesday night, Harry had his first detention with Tonks, which proved to be infinitely more pleasant than his detentions with Umbridge, the last DADA teacher.
"I see no use in wasting your time here," Tonks said at the beginning of the detention, "so we're going to practice DADA here during these detentions. Tonight, I want to test your dueling skills, so we will have a series of duels. In these duels, there are only 4 spells permissible: Disarming, stunning, petrifying, and a simple marking curse which I am about to teach you. This spell will simply put a black dot on the forehead of the cursed, but we will consider this the object of the duel, as this will lead to less actual physical pain than using real curses. The object here is more along the lines of working on your speed rather than on your range of curses and counter-curses. We'll work on that later."
So she taught him the marking curse, then they began a series of duels. There were 10 in all, and Harry was quite pleased at winning a total of five of these, which Harry decided was a decent accomplishment against a wizard so much more experienced than himself. After this, Tonks advised him to look through his DADA book to find spells that he wanted to practice during the next detention. Over all, the detention lasted an hour and a half, and Harry left fairly pleased with how Tonks was handling her teaching position.
"You almost seemed to enjoy this detention, Harry," she said as he was about to leave.
"Well, I really do enjoy working on Defense Against the Dark Arts," admitted Harry.
"There's no reason you should be rewarded for sneaking into my classroom," said Tonks. Harry was afraid for a moment that she was going to pronounce that his next detention would contain more serious punishments, but instead she said, "So to make sure that you're not getting any more opportunities than your well-behaved class-mates, maybe we should have a student-directed Defense Against the Dark Arts club here on Tuesday evenings. You could help lead the club. Of course, you have the option of simply fulfilling your detentions instead," stated Tonks.
"I like your suggestion better," said Harry at once, coming to the conclusion at that moment that Tonks was one of the best teachers Harry could have hoped for, on the level of Remus Lupin.