Chapter 3: Ravenclaw

Marcus Aurelius Butler carried with him the exhaustion that comes when someone spends years pouring all of their efforts into something, taking not nearly enough time for breaks. Of course, he refused to let anyone see how weary he really was, for it ruined his dignified expression. Nevertheless, today he had been totally free of activities, and aside from a brief visit to his American Manor, he had spent it all holed up in his office, finally getting in some time to work on that book of his. But he had reached a difficult point in his outline rather more quickly than he'd expected, and he'd have to owl an acquaintance in Austria about it. So here he was in the Owlery, wearing an old, faded t-shirt and similarly faded pants, his eyes sunken and his posture bent, attaching a letter to an old, brown owl. The bird flew off a moment later, and he turned around to discover Potter walking in.

Hastily, he backed into the ever-present shadows of the dimly lit room. It wouldn't do for a student to see a professor wearing such undignified attire. Of course, he should have known better than to try to hide from Potter, whose eyes were focused in an all-too familiar way, as if scanning every possible hiding spot before even walking into a room. Potter's wand was out as soon as his eyes passed over the spot where Marcus had hidden. "Who are you?"

Marcus chuckled lightly. "I'm Professor Butler, Mister Potter. You may have seen me hurrying into the Great Hall late?"

Potter nodded thoughtfully. "I do remember seeing you. What do you teach?"

"First, put your wand down, now." It came out even more snappishly than he had intended it to, and Potter's wand arm went down quickly. "I've been hired to substitute for teachers who are called away on business I daresay you know a little too much about. Furthermore, five points from Gryffindor for your cheek, and for pointing a wand at a professor, another fifteen points removed. And detention after lunch next Saturday, in my office. I'm in a good mood because it's the first weekend of the term, Mister Potter, or the punishment would have been far worse."

Potter's expression changed from suspicion to dismay. "That's not fair! I didn't know who-"

"Five more points removed for cheek. Would you like to try for ten?" Potter's mouth snapped shut. "Good. I see we'll get along fine."

He grinned cheerfully before leaving the Owlery, a gaping scar-faced Gryffindor standing behind him. He almost didn't notice the Headmaster standing in front of him, and he stopped hurriedly as he saw him. "Ah, Headmaster. I didn't see you there."

Marcus was growing deeply annoyed with that incessant twinkling in the old wizard's eyes, and yet he found that he was unwilling to attack the Headmaster about it. That long white hair hid many scars, Marcus realized, and all of them had been in the service of the side of good. He could be permitted his minor annoyances. "It is to be expected that you would not expect me, Marcus. There is little I would be doing up here. As it so happens, I wanted to talk to you. I was about to just send a message down to your office, but I also wanted to talk with Harry, and upon discovering that you and he were in the same place, I decided to take a little walk out of my own abode." Marcus nodded at that, but didn't speak. "In any case, I just wanted to inform you that Professor Flitwick will be indisposed for the next two days. Your skills will be required in his classes at those times." Marcus nodded again, and Albus passed him into the Owlery. Resisting his impulse to eavesdrop on what may have been a very important conversation, Marcus continued out, reminding himself to put on some decent robes before he spoke with Filius.

"Welcome to sixth year Charms." Marcus smiled at the thirty students arrayed in front of him. "But before we delve any further into that classroom material, allow me to introduce myself, as most of you do not know me. I am Professor Butler. I was hired to teach whenever professors were forced to be absent. For instance, because Professor Flitwick is indisposed today, I am teaching this class.

"Unfortunately," and here his smile became a grin, "I am not permitted to simply teach you whatever I wish or think most appropriate. Instead, I am following the notes of Professor Flitwick, who said that he traditionally reserves the first day for review of the previous year's material. On that note: who here knows what a charm is?"

Several arms rose into the air, and Marcus chuckled.

"Given that you've all had five years of this class, I'm going to assume that those of you who are not raising your hands simply do not wish to be called upon." He paused. "Professor Flitwick had his own rules, but in my class, in a NEWT-level class that required astonishingly good scores on your exams, I will not accept that any of you are stupid. Furthermore, Charms is a dangerous class, and I will tolerate no student in here who cowers in the face of a professor armed only with a question." Marcus looked around the room at the students, mentally adding some figures. "That's eight points from Hufflepuff and seven points from Gryffindor, one for each student who was unwilling to answer such an easy question." He shook his head, which gave him an opportunity to scan the students, whose faces held a mixture of anger and disappointment. "For future reference, the Ministry of Magic defines a Charm as 'any spell not implicitly intended to be harmful and intended for use outside of a combat situation.'

"A simpler way of putting it is this: if you wouldn't attack someone with it, it's a charm." He paused. "Can anyone tell me what's wrong with what I just said?"

One hand rose quickly into the air. Marcus paused to make sure that no one else knew the answer. Noting the stripe on the raised hand, he nodded. "Ten points from Hufflepuff, and nine from Gryffindor. Once again, all of you should have known the answer, and I suspect almost all of you do." Marcus pointed to the student. "Name and answer, please."

"Hermione Granger, sir. You didn't mention nonverbal spells."

"Quite right, Miss Granger. The word I left out of the Ministry of Magic definition was 'verbal'. Of course, there are several nonverbal varieties of spells. Now, before those stupidest among you who honestly don't know what I'm talking about get your hopes up, I'm not talking about some cool, secret variety of magic that nobody knows about. I'm simply referring to some pretty standard form of magic. You have classes devoted to two of them here: Transfiguration and Potions, as well as, to a certain extent, Runes, which can often be embedded with magic power." He paused. "Of course, there are secret varieties of magic that I am aware of and which I'm sure none of you are, but those varieties have no place either in the Ministry classification nor in this classroom."

Marcus paused briefly. A few students were taking notes, for some reason, so he waited for them to finish, and then indicated a pile of books to his left. "These are school copies of the fifth level of the Standard Book of Spells. Unless you have a copy of this book on you, you will find a partner. Each pairing will have one book between them. You will work your way through the spells listed in the final section, beginning on page six hundred twenty-four. When you are confident you can perform a charm correctly, you will indicate it to me by casting the Lighting Charm, Lumos. I will check your ability to complete the spell, and then you will move on to the next one."

The students began to find partners, and Marcus sat down in his chair, hoping to rest a few minutes while they found their friends and turned their books. Of course, the first charm in that chapter was a ridiculously easy one, so he would be wandering about, checking on their success almost as soon as they had opened the books. And his suspicion was confirmed when, barely two minutes later, the first wand flickered brightly.

The grey-haired teacher took care not to allow himself to groan as he stood up - his aches were particularly bad today - before proceeding across the room to where the first two students, Granger and a red-haired Gryffindor he strongly suspected was the young Weasley Severus of whom Severus had spoken, had already completed their first spell. He watched with approval as the two demonstrated it, and he nodded. "Five points to Gryffindor for being the first to complete the first charm." They beamed at him, and he smiled back as he turned to wander around the room, smiling and nodding as students demonstrated their spells.

Sixty-four minutes later, Marcus had begun counting the seconds until the end of the class, when he would have a fifteen minute break before the fourth-years came in. He wandered around the room as students finished their last spells. He walked over to the closest lit wand, belonging to a Hufflepuff boy. "You have a spell to show?"

"Err, no, Professor. Actually, we were having trouble with this last spell, and I thought it would help if you could show us how to do it?"

Marcus looked at the boy sharply. How dare he? The boy had no respect - but then, it was his first class, so he should get off lightly. "Five points from Hufflepuff for your cheek."

The boy was defiant in an instant. "That's not fair!"

"Five more, and detention in my office tomorrow afternoon. I could assign a whole week's worth, if you'd like to try?"

To his credit, the boy shut up. The bell rang just then, leaving Marcus standing, fuming, as the students left the room.

"Professor Butler?" Marcus sat at what had quickly become his usual corner in the Professors' Lounge, reading, when a rather squeaky voice disturbed his thoughts. He paused, keeping his head looking toward the book pointedly, and then looked up.

It was the half-gnome, Filius. He smiled, checking the small man for injuries. He was favoring his right leg, and he had a scar on his cheek that Marcus did not remember seeing before, but he looked to be in quite capable shape. "Please, call me Marcus."

"All right. Marcus, then." The Charms Professor paused, and it was obvious that he was trying to find a diplomatic way of saying what he was going to say. "I asked several of my students what they thought of your teaching-" When Marcus' eyes narrowed, Filius interrupted himself. "Minerva asked me to, you understand. She wanted to know what you were like or something."

Marcus nodded resentfully, acknowledging that it was necessary to see how well he taught, but not the method employed. Encouraged by the smile, Filius continued. "There was a very wide range of reactions, frankly. Most of the students didn't like you, but that can be attributed to strictness." Filius grinned at that. "Working in this school, you get used to your students having strict teachers. So I can accept that."

Marcus nodded again, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "And some of my students seemed to rather like you. The smartest ones, and the braver ones did, anyway."

Marcus interrupted. "I do not know what your opinion is, Professor, but I don't tolerate idiots or cowards around high-level magic."

The small professor's eyes hardened, and Marcus reevaluated his initial estimate of his counterpart's ability. "One particular student informed me that he had asked you to demonstrate how to perform a spell - the trickiest one of the day, actually - and not only did you refuse, you took off points and assigned him detention."

"The boy was being cheeky."

"I asked several others to confirm that this had actually happened, and their recollections do not indicate any sort of 'cheek'."

Marcus frowned. "Enough. If you do not trust me to substitute in your place, you may speak to the Headmaster about it. I am sure he will be able to come up with an appropriate solution. If you wish to allow me to continue when you are called away, you will have to trust the decisions I make."

Filius smiled, a tiny hint of viciousness showing in his face. "Then I will have to inform Dumbledore that I would rather you not teach in my class."

Marcus nodded. "Do that." Filius stomped away, and Marcus looked back down at his book, pretending to study while thinking to himself. His hopes of making allies with every Head of House had been dashed. Nevertheless, Filius would make a very poor enemy if he could reconcile Severus and Minerva soon...

A week of classes had passed, and thankfully Marcus had been required to teach for only two days of them. With more luck like this, he'd be able to begin writing of his first drafts before the end of the year. Of course, it needed to be airtight - the book was sure to be controversial when it was released, and Marcus knew that the book needed to be able to withstand the pressure that could be brought to bear using several of the skeletons that had refused, try as he might to exit his closet.

He had managed to help Severus out with a few potions, quickly shoring up into what was going to become a most interesting friendship. Marcus wondered idly at the competing traits of loyalty and selfishness that warred in the Potions Master's mind, but he'd already been through this line of thought several times, and he already knew the answer - Severus was a Slytherin, after all, not a Hufflepuff. Though it might have solved some problems if he had...

As for Minerva...well, that was just as troublesome, if in a different way. Though Marcus had a promising lead regarding Minerva and firewhiskey, the plan 'get her drunk and hope everything works out' sounded like it needed more work. And every attempt he had made so far to crack her severe exterior had been met by that cold exterior that said 'I know what you're trying to do.'

And finally, there was Sprout. The old, overweight Herbology Professor presented a completely different conundrum from that of the other Heads of Houses. She had seemed friendly enough, and more than willing to make friends, and Marcus suspected that this was precisely the problem. As hard as he tried, he could not seem to make himself like her. Even his best impressions of friendliness had felt like crumbling facades, and he'd had to make excuses to leave before they gave his disgust away.

Marcus had long ago decided that the one thing he simply could not deal with was innocence. He could tolerate it in the young, who deserved to have a few years before they were forced to join the real world that everyone else lived in, but Sprout's unfailing innocence revealed a life that was more than sheltered - it was self-isolated from the rest of the world, as though she had looked at the world, disliked what she'd seen, and isolated herself from as much of the negative part as possible. Marcus shook his head at the thought. Evil was to be confronted, not to be ignored. The part that made the least sense was how other people showered her with compliments. Every time they called her a good person, Marcus shuddered. A good person would take pain themselves to relieve it from others. Instead, Sprout had done the exact opposite, and because she'd managed to remain happy and carefree, the other teachers all trusted her. He shook his head a second time. Obviously finding friends among the Heads of Houses had been a failure.

But there were promising leads from the rest of the teachers. Bill, as he'd insisted on being called, was rather more studious and intelligent than his looks indicated, and could prove to be a good friend. Albernicus - who refused, under any circumstances, to be called Al - had proven to be an excellent friend. Veronica Vector, the Professor who taught that math course with the weird name, and Alexis, who taught Ancient Runes, were both intelligent, if over-bookish, people, and if Marcus had not become exactly friends with them yet, there was certainly a likelihood of there being one soon. As for Rubeus - well, he was kind, courageous, and strong, but he lacked the central quality - intelligence - that Marcus prized most. Certainly, it would be good to have Rubeus on his side, but a friendship with him would be impossible.

Sybil, on the other hand...of the four traits he had just used for Rubeus, Sybil had none. Despite her frequent predictions of doom, she seemed just as oblivious to the problems of the real world as Sprout, and had reacted the same way, to a greater extent. She had become a virtual hermit, coming out only to perform a function that only the most cynical would call teaching. In fact, it seemed she had a rather parasitic relationship with Hogwarts, taking Hogwarts wages in exchange for basically zero contribution back to the school. There was some secret there, something that made it worthwhile for the Headmaster to keep her around. Marcus scratched his cheek idly and decided not to become too involved in the deep layers of this structure. Better if he just added another structure, a stronger one, on top of it. A structure he had already started to build.

There were only three minutes until lunch ended. Potter would be here soon.