Disclaimer: Obviously, I own nothing. NO-THING. Except the story…and Lily, Andrew, and the twins…and some professors…and that nifty new Evening Prophet headline…but other than that I own NOTHING.
Mr. Fishy: Thanks.
A/N: w00t w00t double digits! Just so you know, the next chapter is going to sap up the time between, like, September 2 to mid-December just because I have nothing to do for that span of time, but it should be funny. And I want more than one review next time!
Previously: "Just be careful, Harry. Goodnight." He ushered Harry out of his office, leaving Harry with a growing sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. Please don't let them find out, he thought desperately to himself. Please.
.x. Having Heart Is Full Of Pain .x.
Shoot, I mean shoot!
Harry tossed and turned that night, but the previously worrisome thought of his first lesson tomorrow had been driven from his mind. When he had been with Ginny, he hadn't thought about the rest of the Weasleys. He tried to imagine their reactions—Ron would be furious and indignant and attempt to murder him, the twins would mutter darkly and plan some form of humiliating revenge, and Mrs. Weasley…he had no idea what Mrs. Weasley would do, but whatever it was, it would be horrible. Feeling a prickling in the pit of his stomach, he turned over in his bed. He couldn't imagine living a life without the Weasleys, the only family he had ever known, again. His worries churning, Harry at long last fell into a fitful sleep.
The next morning he awoke to a house elf sobbing on the foot of his bed. It had large bat-like ears and eyes like tennis balls; it was wearing the oddest assortment of clothes Harry had ever seen, including the most lurid socks he had ever laid eyes on.
"Dobby?" he asked incredulously.
"Sir! Dobby apologizes for waking Harry Potter, sir, but it is true! Dobby heard a rumor that Harry Potter was coming to teach at Hogwarts, but Dobby did not know. It is true, sir, it is true! Dobby knows that Harry Potter survived the Dark Lord again, sir, but Dobby never thought he would be able to visit Harry Potter again, sir!" The elf let out another loud wail.
"Dobby, calm down!" Harry cried, alarmed. "Er…it's good to see you," he said in a desperate attempt to stop the elf's crying.
"Harry Potter is a good wizard," he said with a smile and Harry felt his prickling sense of dread return. "But Dobby must get back to the kitchens! Dobby came to bring Harry Potter his schedule, sir."
"Thanks, Dobby," said Harry as he took the piece of parchment from him.
"Harry Potter? Could Dobby…visit you sometime?"
"Sure," Harry told him. Dobby cracked a wide grin and disappeared with a loud crack.
He looked down at his watch and saw that he had an hour and a half to be at the Great Hall for breakfast. He showered slowly and deliberately and took his time getting dressed before looking at his schedule—his first lesson was with the Gryffindor and Slytherin first years.
Breakfast was a much pleasanter experience than dinner had been the previous night. He now sat between Lupin and Luna, who spent the majority of the meal in a heated debate over whether or not Tonks was a part of the Rotfang Conspiracy.
"Luna," Lupin sighed, "I assure you, Tonks has nothing to do with the Rotfang Conspiracy!"
"But all Aurors are in on it!" she protested.
"No, I agree with Luna," Harry chimed in, amused. "I think someone should tell Mr. Weasley about this very important issue." He had to stifle his laughter at the look on Lupin's face. "You should have Tonks tell him about that."
"Oh, right away," Lupin responded, nearly laughing himself.
"You know, Harry, you were really cruel to Gabrielle from what she was telling me," Luna said. Harry had almost forgotten about her knack for speaking uncomfortable truths. He looked over at Gabrielle, whose eyes were distinctly redder than usual.
"Oh…" he said awkwardly. "Er, right."
"She looks really upset. Maybe you should apologize."
"Maybe later," said Harry, thinking that he would never apologize to Gabrielle willingly.
"I have some Nargle repellent you could give her if you wanted, it works wonders. I always spray it on the mistletoe around the holidays and I haven't seen a Nargle yet." Harry could only just restrain from telling her that the reason she had never seen a Nargle was because they didn't exist.
Breakfast was over too soon, and Harry found himself walking into his classroom before he would have liked to be there. McGonagall was already sitting in a corner of the classroom with a clipboard in her lap—a mental picture of Umbridge with her pink bow flashed before Harry's eyes.
"Good morning, Potter," she said gruffly, as though there was nothing she would dislike telling him more.
"Er…'morning, Professor." He said hesitantly.
"It is customary for the Head to attend a new teacher's first lesson," she told him. There was no hint of the friendly tone in her voice that had been there less than twenty-four hours ago. "For your probation, you and Miss Delacour will be meeting with me once a week, every week, for as long as I deem necessary for counseling sessions." Harry gaped at her. "Yes, Potter, counseling."
Still blinking in a rather confused way, he went up to his desk and began to look for his papers on what exactly Professor Armando had done on the first day of school last year. He cursed under his breath as the parchment rifled; he finally swore loudly. He was shocked to see his entire class staring wide-eyed at him when he looked up.
"Er…sorry." Needing to know what to do for class, he decided to review the syllabus. "Alright, well today we'll just be doing some basic things. We'll go over what I'll be teaching you this year, and then we'll try disarming—yes?" Harry asked, for a haughty-looking boy with pale hair had just put his hand into the air.
"Is it true you were the only one who could kill the Dark Lord?" he asked.
"Er, that's really neither here nor there…"
"Answer the question!"
"Well, yes, I suppose," he said.
"Well I don't see what's so special about you," he sneered.
"Just because you don't know anything about it doesn't mean it isn't with good reason!" Harry looked over to find Lily glaring at the boy.
"If you continue to disrupt the lesson I'll have to give you detention, and I really don't want to do that in my first class. What's your name?" he asked the boy.
"Acrux Malfoy," he said, and Harry nodded.
"Right, well, moving on, this year we're going to be covering some defensive spells and counterjinxes, standard dark creatures, and some history of the Dark Arts." There was a collective groan from the student body. "Don't worry," he said, "it's brief. So, now that we've gone over that, let's try a spell out. We have about half the class period left, so let's try some spellwork. Today, we'll be trying the Disarming Spell. The incantation for this is 'expelliarmus'—oh, shit!" He looked down at the floor, where his wand, which he had forgotten he had been holding when he said the incantation, had made a scorching hole. "Erm, I mean shoot. Shoot." He sent a look of panic in McGonagall's direction; she was frowning. "Okay, so everyone say it with me," he said setting his wand on his desk. "'Expelliarmus!'"
"'Expelliarmus,'" the class repeated dutifully.
"Great, so, erm, partner up with the person sitting next to you and see what you can do. I'll be around to check on your progress." He walked over to McGonagall.
"I—"
"You pass inspection, Potter," she said, "but next time try not to curse so much: I might have to hex you if I hear about it happening again." There was a ghost of a smile on her face as she stood up, shook his hand, and left the classroom.
Grinning and feeling as though the lesson hadn't been a complete disaster after all, he started to walk around the class. For ten minutes he fixed nearly everyone in the class's grip on their wand, and was trying to remember if he had had this much trouble casting spells on his first try when the frustrated voices were interrupted by a cheerful "I did it! I did it!" Lily was beaming as a mutinous-looking Acrux walked off to the back corner of the class to fetch his wand.
"Congratulations. Alright, we only have a couple minutes left so you can all pack up. Practice the spell, I'm going to see how much progress you've made next class."
When the bell rang, Harry slumped into his chair and made a mental note to himself to owl Ron telling him that Lily had managed to disarm Malfoy's son in her first lesson.
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"So how'd the first lesson go?" Lupin asked him later that afternoon. They both had the period before dinner off today and were spending it in Lupin's office, drinking butterbeer and discussing important matters.
"It was…well, it was a fiasco, honestly," Harry said and Lupin laughed as Harry told him everything that had happened.
"So, what's McGonagall doing for your probation?" he asked.
"She wants to give us weekly counseling sessions."
Lupin mused for a moment. "That's an interesting way of going about it."
"Going about what?"
"Getting you two to get along—or at least tolerate each other."
"But all I did was tell her to quit nagging at me!" Harry cried, indignant.
"There were better ways you could have done it. And besides, I think—though I could be wrong—that Miss Delacour told Minerva what happened between you two."
Harry cursed. "Fantastic…" Suddenly, he felt a sinking weight hit the bottom of his stomach as he remembered the look Fleur had given him. Gabrielle had told Fleur, and Fleur would tell Bill! "Er…do you know if Fleur told Bill anything?"
"No," Lupin said. "I managed to...er…persuade her not to mention your name in connection with Gabrielle ever, or your little slip up."
Harry felt an immediate rush of gratitude towards Lupin.
"Harry, you'll have to tell them sometime."
"Not necessarily."
"You know that feeling you have right now—Harry, it's no use lying, I know these things—that'll never go away. Not until you tell them."
Harry sighed; he knew Lupin was right.
"If you ever want to talk…"
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Harry was silent during dinner. He flipped idly through a copy of the Evening Prophet as Lupin and Luna debated over whether or not Crumple-Horned Snorkacks posed a threat to the Kelpie population ("Luna, Crumple-Horned Snorkacks can't pose a threat because they aren't real!). He glanced at the back page, and saw a small article that made him choke on his pumpkin juice in shock.
"Harry, what is it?" Lupin asked.
Harry laid the newspaper on the table for Lupin to read:
"Minister's Daughter and St. Mungo's Healer Start Family"A/N: So there you have it. Much quicker. The next chapter will be mostly nonsense revolving around the counseling. So yeah, happy, erm, week? :N/A