Straight from one gem to another, this is a great year, and especially month, for video games. A single day after I finish platinuming Neo: The World Ends With You, proving once and for all the world does in fact begin and end with me, Psychonauts 2 comes out and god damn is it wonderful. It's a trip in the best kind of way, the levels are incredibly well done, and going back to find all the collectables and figments doesn't make feel like pulling hair out in frustration! 8.5/10, only held back by the surprising number of vomit and burp jokes, but hey, the rest of it?

Well worth your time, money, and mental stimulation.

Anyway, enough shilling about products I enjoy and who could care less about me, this chapter is dedicated to FICTIONAL teenagers who couldn't care less about me! Totally different.

Chapter Interlude 9: The Students

OR

MEANWHILE, IN SOME OTHER BRAIN! *Flush sound effect*

Professor Forshaw was, without a doubt the oddest Professor Harry Potter had ever had, and that was a wide list.

Granted, he hadn't made any attempts on his life yet, but as far as bars were to clear, they didn't tend to get much lower than that. So, Harry to rely on what he heard from rumors to compare with what he saw himself. Most of which was...just so odd.

Both the rumors AND the Professor in question.

Most older students willing to take the time to give their piece boiled down to 'drop the class at the first opportunity you get', or 'the best time you'll ever have'. Which, granted, the latter opinion was held solely by Fred and George, but that worked more as a detractor than a plus in this case.

"Professor Forshaw? Ah, the man's a blast! Sometimes literally. He gets a lot of bad rep, but he's always down to help a person with problems if you bring them to him. Plus, he always gives the weirdest gifts to the kids he likes, it's great! You know he keeps getting me and George bouquets of edible ears? Only the left ones though, keeps saying we'll need extras if we keep working around explosives. And he gives this one Ravenclaw girl different birds of prey, I think she sends back Christmas cards where she's covered in them all or something." Fred snickered to himself as he tried to pry his twin from where he was plastered face-first to a classroom wall by some unidentifiable orange goo.

After getting their side of the story, Harry had beat feet before he was roped into helping with clean-up, or being 'volunteered' for addition product testing, to go and find a source closer to home. Namely, his fellow year mates in Gryffindor.

And the results of those...more so met the ones he had already gathered.

"Oh man, I've been waiting for this since we started school! Sure, its considered a bit of a joke class, but it'd definitely one of the most fun! You know if you stay on with it till Fifth Year, he lets you into a course on holding your liquor? It's supposed to be because you might learn things you shouldn't let slip, but dad told me most take the course and treat it like a mixer, then drop the class after that. Well worth the time, if you ask me." Seamus easily admitted with a grin as looked away from his game of Exploding Snap, only to curse as his fingers were singed by a banger of a card.

"Hmph! I was super excited when I heard about there being a Divination course, but after meeting that sorry excuse of a Professor? No way am I going back. I told Professor McGonagall about his deplorable behavior, but she just grimaced and said that's 'how he was'! What a joke!" Lavender sniffed with disgust, evidently missing Harry's expression due to the insinuation she had had no problem with any of her other teachers.

The less said about Hermione as well, given that when he tried to get her piece on the new Professor, she literally growled at him before crouching back over her essay, muttering rhymes under her breath with the same intensity most people reserved for cursing. Alongside a few actual curses. So that was an issue Harry was more than happy to leave to her own.

So, while mildly entertaining to hear all the different opinions of the same person, it also did a whole lot of squat to help Harry try and get a grip on what to expect from the man.

That just left him with what he had personally seen, and that...also didn't really help.

Really, how DOES one react to a man who wonders why you weren't carrying around ceramics of any kind? Who outright admitted he chose his last name just to make a pun? The sheer, insanity, that the man for lack of a better term exhibited just made him incredibly hard to categorize, even with just one class behind him.

At the minimum, he hadn't attempted to kill him yet. As far as he knew. So, he was at least above some standards.

...Wow, when he thought about it like that, it was actually somewhat depressing. This teacher at least hadn't tried to kill him yet as far as he knew. Hmm.

Well, at least he was learning magic. Now to see if he could adequately write down how he'd love to make a Dementor punch itself in its face until the whole thing crumbled to dust over a few paragraphs...

END OF CHAPTER

This isn't exactly all I wanted it to be, but it is what it is for now. Still fun though. And, in unrelated news, over the course of writing this chapter I started and then platinumed Psychonauts 2, which was...just a blast, for the reasons I listed at the top of this chapter. Man, I'm so damn proud of myself.

So, leave your little comments, likes, all the love, and I'll be back with the second Glory Days in a little while, after I update some of my other fics.