Chapter Seven

Defense Against the Dark Arts

Hagrid's first lesson with Charlie went rather smoothly. Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown were giggling and whispering through the whole thing, which annoyed Harry until he heard Lavender whisper to Parvati, "He's so good-looking, and you can tell that's just what Ron will look like in ten years!" They looked at Ron and burst into giggles again. Harry glanced over and saw that Ron had heard them, as his face was now as red as his hair. Hermione sighed impatiently.

Harry and Ron dragged themselves reluctantly to Defense Against the Darks after their short break. Hermione was walking a few paces ahead of them, calling over her shoulder for them to hurry. "Honestly," she said irritably. "You'd think you were on your way to a full day of Potions or something!"

Just outside of class, they ran right into a group of sixth-year Slytherins. "...really cracking. Pucey said she'd probably make a bloody good snog," Draco Malfoy, Harry's least favorite schoolmate, was saying to his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, as he turned a corner and ran smack into Harry. They both stumbled back. "Watch where you're going, Potter!"

"What was that you were saying, Malfoy? Planning on snogging your mother?" Harry replied viciously.

Crabbe and Goyle clenched their massive fists as Malfoy reached for his wand. Before he could get it out, Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley of Hufflepuff rushed past. "Best get good seats!" Ernie called to Harry and Ron. "We hear the teacher's a real dish!"

"Hope this new teacher's fond of famous scarheads, eh, Potter?" Malfoy leaned toward Harry, "You're going to pay," he whispered. He glared at Harry's friends. "For everything. I'll get you when you haven't got your friends around to save you." Malfoy's father was in Azkaban Prison after Harry's fight with Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic.

Malfoy shoved past Harry as Crabbe and Goyle trudged off to their class—Harry was pleased to see that they did not score well enough in O.W.L.s to be in this class.

The only seats available when Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered were at the back of the room. Harry was not used to having class with more than two houses present—but in an N.E.W.T. class, the number of students from each house was very small. Malfoy, Millicent Bulstrode, and Pansy Parkinson were the only Slytherins. Harry was pleased to note that every sixth-year who'd learned Defense Against the Dark Arts from him last year was present. Hermione had organized the secret Defense Association—or Dumbledore's Army—in response to Umbridge's resistance to teaching her students practical Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry had been the teacher.

Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, and Neville Longbottom of Gryffindor, and Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein, and Michael Corner of Ravenclaw were all sitting eagerly at the front of the room. The rest of the class—Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Parvati and Padma Patil, Lavender Brown, and a handful of other girls from the three houses—was sitting in the back of the room, looking much less excited. Hermione, Ron, and Harry settled into three seats in the back corner.

Everyone was talking loudly and excitedly, but nonetheless heard Pansy Parkinson say crossly, "Well, she can't be that pretty!" when Malfoy edged his desk forward.

"I wonder what sort of O.W.L. grade you needed to get into Tabitha's class?" Hermione murmured. "I mean, Care of Magical Creatures still goes by house, but I know Potions will be more like this. I mean, how many people actually got an O in Potions?" She caught Ron's expression. "Sorry, Ron. You still did really well."

"I think a lot of people here got Os," Harry said quickly. "At least, I hope everyone form the DA did. But maybe there are some Es?"

"Where is this bird?" Malfoy said irritably.

As he spoke, a brilliant black raven swooped in through the window with a piece of parchment in its mouth. The bird perched itself on Tabitha's desk and deposited the paper by her chair. It looked around the room with large black eyes and stared right at Harry for a moment.

In an instant, Tabitha was sitting on the edge of the desk where the raven had just been. The class instantly hushed up. "Quiet," she murmured. "Just as a class should be." She looked around at her twenty-five students, half of whom (including some of the girls) were staring at her with open mouths.

Tabitha was indeed very striking. Prettier, in fact, than Cho Chang, the girl Harry had had a crush on until last year. She was dressed very smartly as well. Harry could see at once that Lavender Brown and the Patil twins approved of Tabitha's attractive appearance. She caught Harry's eye, and he thought again how familiar her eyes were.

"Good morning, class." She barely paused, but the class instinctively replied, "Good morning, Professor," as they had done with Professor Umbridge. "Well-rehearsed, I see," she said lightly. "My name is Tabitha McNoira, though you will all know me this year simply as Professor McNoira." She cast a quick glance at the three who knew her simply as Tabitha. "And before you ask, yes, I really am quite experienced in the field of vanquishing the dark arts, though I was a student here at Hogwarts not long ago. I may be young, but I am probably more qualified than four of your last five teachers."

"Three guesses as to who was the best," Ron muttered. Harry grinned. Lupin had been their third-year professor, and he was indeed the best they'd had.

"I expect full cooperation from all of my students at all times," Tabitha said sternly. "Especially my N.E.W.T. students. Your O.W.L. grades tell me that you are quite capable of handling the creatures that we will be studying, and you will be encountering some dangerous creatures this year. I will show very little pity if your stupidity or inability to follow directions gets you hurt." She glanced briefly at Malfoy. Harry's insides clenched in anger at the memory of Malfoy's trying to get Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak, executed after Malfoy provoked Buckbeak into attacking him.

"Ron," Harry whispered suddenly. "What happened to Buckbeak this summer?" Since enabling Sirius' second escape from the hands of the Ministry, Buckbeak had stayed with Harry's godfather, even living with him at 12 Grimmauld Place.

"Mr. Potter," Tabitha said suddenly.

Surprised, Harry looked up. Tabitha was staring at him sternly. "Yes, Ta—Professor?"

"As you were busy chatting with Mr. Weasley, you no doubt missed my saying that I expect my students to listen to me at all times. If you don't listen to what I have to tell you, you may just find yourselves in danger." Tabitha shot him one of the foul looks she was used to giving him. Malfoy smirked and whispered something to Pansy Parkinson. "Mr. Malfoy," Tabitha said, without taking her glance off of Harry. "Thirty points from Slytherin." She turned around and sat at her desk.

"Thirty points? But Potter—"

"Should have taught you a lesson not to speak while I am."

"That's not fair!" Malfoy burst out.

Tabitha narrowed her eyes. "Another thirty, Mr. Malfoy, and I can keep going if you can." Malfoy's face was red with anger. Harry could see him clenching his fists under his desk, restraining himself. "Now, everyone please take out your books and turn to chapter one. We'll be studying part-human creatures briefly before moving on to graphorns."

They read silently about werewolves, vampires, centaurs, and merpeople until just before the bell rang. Harry's mind kept wandering to Sirius. He kept feeling as though his godfather was somewhere close by.

"All right, books closed. Practical lesson will follow on Thursday. There will be no homework tonight, except for Mr. Malfoy and his two friends." She glared at the Slytherins. "For talking when you were supposed to be studying, I want an essay on every spell and potion that can be used to defend oneself from a dangerous part-human creature. You can hand that in to me tomorrow morning at breakfast." The bell rang. "Have a good day. Harry? Would you come here, please?" She fixed him with a cool stare. "Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger can wait for you outside."

Ron gave him a supportive look while Hermione said cheerfully, "Sure, Tabitha ... er, Professor McNoira. Harry, we'll wait for you at lunch."

Tabitha waited until they had shut the door to begin speaking. "Professor Dumbledore will meet you in this room directly after dinner," she said. "You and I will meet at the same time beginning tomorrow. I may not be as accomplished at Legilimency or Occlumency as Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore, but it will be enough to keep you practicing."

"Is that all, Professor?" Harry said.

"You may go." Harry's hand was on the doorknob when Tabitha added—quite kindly, actually—"And Harry?" Harry turned around. "Buckbeak was returned to Hagrid, but you mustn't tell anyone. Mr. Malfoy, especially." Harry nodded and let himself out.

He walked down to Great Hall alone. No one was in the corridors—he supposed they were already at lunch. He scanned the Gryffindor table for Ron and Hermione, but they weren't there. He sat down between Ginny Weasley and Seamus Finnegan.

"Harry, I'm glad you're here," Ginny said, sweeping a long piece of red hair behind her ear. "When are you holding Quidditch tryouts? I've asked Ron, but he's useless. Says he's leaving that up to you."

"Er." Harry hadn't actually thought once about Quidditch since arriving at Hogwarts. "Well, I have to talk about it with Ron."

"Well, let me know. Since Dumbledore lifted the lifetime ban Umbridge put on you, I'm not Seeker anymore. I'd like to try out for Chaser though, now that Angelina and Alicia are gone." Ginny grinned. "I've got to go. I'm meeting some people by the lake. See you!"

"Wait! Have you seen Ron and Hermione? I was supposed to meet them here."

Harry thought he saw a faint pink blush appear in her cheeks. "No ... er, maybe they stopped by the dormitories to change or something." She hurried away.

He was hungry, so he started eating without them. Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan were discussing Tabitha. "Pretty, and powerful to boot!" Seamus was saying. "Right, Harry?"

"Sure, Seamus."

"And the way she handled Malfoy! Gryffindor's finally got a Snape for itself," Dean said happily. Snape always favored Slytherins over the other houses. Even if Tabitha didn't like him personally, Harry was glad that she favored his house.

Ron and Hermione appeared a few minutes later, running and a bit out of breath. "Where have you been?" Harry asked.

"Talking to Charlie," Ron said. "We ran into him on our way here, and he took us out to Hagrid's to show us, er ... "

"The graphorns that we'll be studying with Tabitha," Hermione said quickly. "They have three right now. Charlie says they're having a right old time keeping them under control."

"Yeah, graphorns," Ron echoed. "Right nasty creatures. I'm starving." As he dove into the piles of food in front of him, Hermione said quietly, "What did Tabitha want?"

"Just told me when my Occlumency lessons will be," Harry replied. "My first one's tonight with Dumbledore."

"You'd better practice for real this year, Harry," Hermione said wisely.

Harry sighed. "I know. It'll be much easier with Dumbledore, though."

After lunch, Harry, Ron, and Hermione split up. Ron was off to Potions, while Hermione had Arithmancy and Harry had Divination with most of the Hufflepuffs and Dean Thomas, who had also managed an O on his Potions O.W.L. Divination was the same as ever, though Professor Trelawney seemed to be savoring every moment. She was happy to be teaching again. Harry and Dean paired up over a crystal ball—"Not a single student passed this part of the O.W.L.," Professor Trelawney told them. "But as I knew that before you even sat the exam, I had planned to start with the orb long before I received your results."—and pretended to be seeing dark, foreboding things when Professor Trelawney passed by them. They spent most of the rest of the class in silence. Harry and Dean had never been very close, but Harry suspected they would be soon, having to endure Trelawney's class together everyday.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had a long break until dinner, but Harry had no homework to do. Hermione had a bit for Arithmancy, and poor Ron had to write ten inches on the magical properties of werewolf fur.

"I ought to send Lupin a letter. Maybe he'll tell me ..." Ron said hopefully.

"It's not very difficult, Ron. I'm almost done, all right? I'll help you in a minute," Hermione said as she put the finishing touches on her homework. They didn't notice when Harry slipped up to the dormitory to flip through his photo album. Something was bothering him.

He looked through the same photos over and over again. He didn't know what he was looking for. Nothing jumped out at him. He was relieved when Ron came up to say that they were heading down to dinner.

"Rough time with that essay?" Harry said.

"What?" Harry pointed silently to Ron's rumpled hair.

"Oh, yeah. Didn't get much done."

Ron ate quickly and returned to the common room to finish his essay, followed closely by Hermione. Harry finished eating and walked up to Tabitha's empty classroom. He sat at a desk, looking around for a moment until he spotted a piece of parchment lying on the floor by Tabitha's desk. He only meant to place it back on her desk, but he saw that it was signed "Charlie." For a moment he debated whether or not to read it. Just when he'd decided it to put it back, unread, Professor Dumbledore let himself in. He smiled warmly at Harry. "Ready to begin?" he asked.

I have no idea how the British school system works, so I don't have much of a grasp on JKR's system for Hogwarts. For now, I'm going to assume that, starting in the sixth year (when N.E.W.T. classes start), there is more mixing of the houses. Snape only accepts O-level students into his N.E.W.T. Potions class—if only 3 Gryffindors and 4 Slytherins score Os, will he only have seven students in that double class? So my version of JKR's system combines the houses starting in the sixth year, but only when necessary. I have a sketchy schedule for Ron and Harry, but this system may well end up leaving a hole in the story, so take all class schedules with a grain of salt, please! (I changed a bit in Ch. 6 when Harry, Ron, and Hermione discuss their schedules in order to follow the new schedule I came up with.)

I knew that Terry Boot was a Ravenclaw in Harry's year (from SS), but I checked the HP Lexicon to make sure that Michael and Anthony were indeed in Harry's year. According to the HPL, they are (evidence comes from OotP).