Chapter 4: Gold and Silver
It was Friday afternoon, and it had not come soon enough. By then, most of the Hogwarts student populous were tired and sore (from having to hold up their wands for extended periods of time) with burnt necks (mostly due to Snape glaring at the back of their heads, occasionally due to a misplaced charm). And they still had one more day of classes.
However, the fifth year Gryffindors had waited all week for that day. Defense Against the Dark Arts was their favorite class, and they wanted to know if it would be good this year as well. They had heard promising things from the other students but they had thought that Professor Lupin and Moody had been excellent as well (though, afterwards, they would admit that both Lupin and Moody had been good teachers, they just hadn't been completely human or sane and who they said they were, respectively).
Professor Merle was a sort of mystery to them. Aside from her name and her obvious animosity with Snape, nothing else was known about her. The students who had had her class would not speak; she, they said, instructed them not to talk about her until all of her class had taken place, lest she give them so much homework that it started coming out the ears, mouth, and other unnamed but implied orifices. Ron had mentioned once that he vaguely recognized her from somewhere and the entirety of the fifth Gryffindors had come down upon him to try to make him remember. Ron was eventually rescued by Harry and Hermione, the former laughing at Ron's dumbstruck expression.
Anyway, it was Friday afternoon and the Gryffindor fifth years were sitting in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. The professor and the rest of the class (for it was a double class) had yet to arrive, and music played loudly from an unknown source. Much of the class were finishing other assignments in this time; Harry in particular was finishing a letter to Sirius stating that yes, he was fine, no, he would-could not try to explain what exactly happened (as according to Sirius, reading his letter was like trying to decipher alchemic texts), and as much as he didn't like the Dursley, no, Sirius, you can not kill them on the grounds that it would make you feel better.
"Oh, shite," swore Seamus. Harry looked up from his letter to see the Slytherin class arriving, late. "Don't tell me we're having it with the Slytherins."
"Love to, but can't," said Harry as Ron groaned aloud. He turned away and tried to concentrate on his letter.
"Hey, Potter--" began Malfoy, about to say something, most likely uncomplimentary, when a side door opened with a bang! and the class jumped in unison. Out strode Professor Merle, in robes of startling less quality than the robes she wore at the opening feast; her robe was faded red with the sleeves ripped off, darns in several places, and huge tears up the skirt to reveal denim-covered legs.
"Welcome to Fifth year Defense Against the Dark Arts," she said, sitting on her desk. "Due to poor teaching in second year and the incorrect study of curses in fourth year, we will be covering mind-altering magiks and dangerous magical artifacts, along with reviewing for O.W.L.s, which are taking place this year for you. Throughout the year I will be reviewing for O.W.L.s, meaning that at any given moment I may decide to test you on knowledge learned prior to that moment. Yes, uh,…?"
Hermione lowered her hand, which had shot up during the middle of the speech. "Hermione Granger, professor. I have two questions, actually."
"Ask away," said Merle with a gesture of her hand. It was gloved in tight green dragon scales up to her deltoids.
"Is this Everclear?" was Hermione's first question.
Merle nodded. "Yes, this is their album 'Sparkle and Fade' playing right now. Next question?"
"The book you assigned doesn't contain information on dangerous magical objects and very little on mind-altering spells. Why did you assign this an something with information pertaining more to this year's studies?"
Merle laughed aloud. "Five points to whatever house you're in," she choked out.
"What?" blurted Malfoy. "Why does she get five points for asking a stupid question?"
Merle stopped laughing long enough to explain. "She gets five points because she was the first person to correctly guess the music, and she was the first fifth year to notice the book I chose. Or at least the first one to bring it up.
"Yes, I am aware that the book I assigned, A Guide to Self-Defense Against the Dark, contains little to no information on this year's subjects, but there is no book on dangerous magical objects, and the book on mind-alterers is far to expensive for normal purchase. I could only get it with the teaching grant Hogwarts gives."
"So we didn't actually have to get it?" asked Ron, feeling peeved.
"No, you did. It has some information on mind-alterers, and it's good review material. But I probably won't be using it much. Yes, Hermione?"
"Muggle technology doesn't work inside Hogwarts," said Hermione, who had raised her hand yet again. "How can you be playing Everclear?"
Merle went behind her desk and heaved a large stereo system that was held together by duct tape. "I fished this out of a rubbish bin and got my friend to try fix it. When I brought it to Hogwarts it started playing the CD that was jammed inside it, and I dropped it, so it is now held together with tape. It works fine now, though."
"But you have no clue how it works," stated Hermione, deadpanned.
Merle laughed guiltily. "Yeah," she admitted. She brandished a roll of parchment with too much show. "Anyway, I want to know about all of you, so when I call your name stand up and introduce yourself. Likes, dislikes, extracurricular activities, whatever. And what house you're in."
Much of the class time went like this: the professor would call out someone's name, that person would stand up, stutter out a few things about themselves, and sit immediately back down. It was quite informative actually; Harry had learned several things including, but not limited to, Dean liking Japanese animation and having as many sisters as Ron did siblings, Malfoy almost getting sucked in by a jet intake (to which Ron and Harry exchanged looks ultimately saying that it would have been very nice if he actually did after Hermione explained to the class what getting sucked into a jet intake would do to a person; Harry and the few who had gone to a Muggle school had already known), and Lavender claiming she was a Johnny Depp fan. Hermione introduction also included an outburst from an unnamed part of the room of her being a 'know-it-all', to which Merle said that Hermione was allowed to explain things whenever she wanted as long as Merle was not talking.
"I like Quidditch, and my favorite classes are Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms," said Harry when it was his turn. "I also like Terry Pratchett novels but I've been having trouble finding his books so I've only read up to Moving Pictures in the Discworld series." He sat down abruptly and let Hermione explain what exactly a 'Terry Pratchett' and a 'Discworld' were. He began to get nervous when Merle said nothing and stared at him; not at his scar, but into his eyes with gray-blue eyes of her own that reminded him of stormy oceans and clear winter skies…
"I'd thought you'd have been taller," she muttered eventually before calling on Parvati, who snickered along with the rest of the class as Harry sulked; he had grown increasingly touchy about his (lack of) height.
She finished going through roll call, and Harry finished sulking. "Now, how many of you play Quidditch or are planning on trying out for your house teams?" she asked, tossing the roll of parchment aside. She seemed to have mastered a Clean Floor policy but had yet to grasp a Clean Desk one; how exactly she would be able to work at her desk was a mystery as every square inch was buried under parchment, quills, CD cases, and other miscellany.
Hands went up, Ron among them. Merle nodded. "OK, those of you not on the team yet, tell me when you are so I can note it. Yes, Hermione?"
"Why do you want to know?"
Merle smiled happily. "Do you know how much I would have given if just one of my professors would have let me hand in homework late during weeks of hard practice before a Quidditch match? I intend to be that professor."
Eyes widened in shock, then smiles spread over Harry and Malfoy's faces. "Are you serious?" blurted Harry, his eyes twinkling.
"Yes, I am. You're a seeker, right? You have the wrong build for anything else."
Harry nodded, and Merle giggled and clapped her hands like a pleased teenaged girl. "I was a seeker for my house team too! We won the house cup twice because of me."
"Who won the other times?"
"The only person who was good enough to get the snitch before me. Yes, Draco?"
"What house were you in?" he asked, somehow smug.
Merle giggled evilly. "Each house gets one guess and two questions each," she told the class. "But you can't ask any questions that are house-related because that's cheating. The house who guesses correctly gets ten points but if no one gets it then you both lose five points."
"What are you?" asked Parkinson.
"Homo Sapien, female, British, twenty-three, she who was voted 'most likely to have been dragged to the stake by a screaming mob if born three centuries before'--"
"I mean, are you a Pureblood, halfblood, or a Mudbl--Muggleborn," interrupted Parkinson, correcting herself before she said 'Mudblood'. It would not do to be on the teacher's bad side so early in the year.
Whether or not Merle caught her almost-slip-up she didn't say but replied, "Muggleborn. I was also seeker for my house team, if you weren't listening."
The class whispered amongst themselves, the Gryffindors and Slytherins who were separated from their housemates quickly joining the rest of their house.
"No way she's a Slytherin. She said she was a Mudblood."
"Perhaps she's a Hufflepuff. After all, she is still pretty proud of her house."
"Pride and loyalty aren't the same, dimwit. Though that's probably the best guess."
"Ron, Ron," said Harry, waving a hand in front of his best friend's face. "Hello? Earth to Ron."
Ron, however, continued to stare as he had for much of the class at Merle with glassy eyes, as though his mind was trying to piece something together. "I know that name," he muttered, running his hand through his hair. "Where have I heard it before?" He continued to stare at the new professor until he stopped slouching in his seat, sat up, and looked at Merle with the expression of a archeologist who had just discovered the lost city of El Dorado. Then he pointed a finger at Merle and began saying, "You… you… you're…"
"Yes, Ron?" said Merle pleasantly. Her tone would have been more believable if not for the wide smile.
"You'rethatcrazySlytheringirlCharliewroteabout," exclaimed Ron in one breath. The class, Harry and Hermione included, stared at him in shock. Merle, on the other hand, laughed loud and hard.
"Ron, that had better not--" reprimanded Parvati but was interrupted by a loud whoop from Merle and bang! from the end of the woman's wand. Gold and silver stars shot out of the tip; one landed on Harry's cheek and prickled slightly.
"Ten points for Gryffindor," cheered Merle waving her wand about haphazardly, showering the class in tingling stars.
The class was silent before, in one voice, said, "What?"
"A Slytherin, I am," said Merle, still waving her wand about; the stars were now red and green but still prickling on contact. "Mostly by process of elimination, though."
They blinked and asked her, in strained voices, to elaborate.
"The hat said I wasn't Ravenclaw or Gryffindor material," explained Merle, stopping the stars, "and if I had gone with the Hufflepuffs, I would have killed them in a fortnight."
"So you were sorted into Slytherin because you didn't have qualities of the other houses?" said Harry, unsure what to make of the new professor now. A Muggleborn Slytherin just seemed impossible, but there was the living proof. Maybe the Sorting hat wasn't aware of the almost-prerequisite hatred of Muggleborns of the Slytherin house. What was it doing putting a Muggleborn in Slytherin? That was like placing a lamb among wolves.
"Sort of. I can be manipulative when I want something. But really," she said, sitting on her desk again, "everyone has qualities of every house, I've learned. And when you leave Hogwarts for a few years you tend to forget house rivalries."
"How did Weasley know who you were?" asked Malfoy, looking unsure how to treat the new professor, as an ally, a traitor, or a lesser form of life.
"I was best friend's with his brother Charlie," she said simply, sending the class into another state of shock. However, the bell brought them back to reality. "Now get out of here, and read Chapter 6. Harry and Ron, stay."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione stopped, turned around, and waited by her desk. She had disappeared back into her office. A few minutes later she appeared again, with several books.
"You said you like Terry Pratchett, didn't you, Harry?" she said, handing him the stack. On the top of the stack was Reaper Man. "That's some of Discworld that you've missed and Good Omens, which he wrote alongside Neil Gaiman.
"Ron, Charlie says 'hi' and not to get in trouble, and also not to send requests to pick up illegal dragons anymore, whatever that means," she said to Ron, whose ears flushed red.
"How exactly do you know Charlie?" asked Ron, skeptical.
"Like I said," said Merle, "I was best friends with him at Hogwarts and still am. I worked with him in Romania for the last three years, till I took this job."
"Oh," was all Ron could say. "Uh--"
"Now you may leave." Merle gestured to the door. "I expect you want dinner."
They nodded, and turned to leave.
"Harry."
Harry, who had not quite left yet, paused. "Yes?"
"Are you alright?"
Eh? An indecipherable expression crossed Harry's face, before vanishing as it had never been. Bright green eyes met gray-blue. "Yes, Professor, I am."
The professor stared at him until he closed the door. "If you say so, Harry," she muttered, before going back into her office. She had a few people to write to, including a worried werewolf.
------
Yes, I am still alive.
Yes, I am still writing. I will keep the plot bunnies from eating all of my brain.
Yes, Professor Merle knows more than she lets on. I might let you know how much later on.