I felt pretty fully outmatched. Whatever the Winter Court was up to, they were so many steps ahead of me it wasn't even fair. After consulting with Bob—my skull-bound spirit/research assistant—I was pretty sure I could unweave the binding Maeve had put on the Room of Requirement. Except I couldn't figure out what she'd wished for to get that particular room. And maybe she'd just used her control to lock it out as an option for me, regardless.
My attempts were pretty limited, in general. Once the staff found out the room could be used to generate doors to seemingly anywhere in Hogwarts or even near the grounds, they got very particular about scheduling access. Some new portraits were hung in that hallway, as well as a couple of suits of armor (which I hadn't confirmed could animate into castle guardians, but seemed pretty likely).
At least my first substitute day for Remus was a distraction from my failure to prevent fae plots. Since most of my classes were self-paced anyway, it wasn't a big deal for me to miss my own classes one day a month. So on Friday, the first of October, the sixth-years were surprised to find me sitting at Remus' desk when they showed up for the first period.
Well, Mathilda wasn't surprised, and the other Gryffindor NEWT students weren't, but the rest of the class didn't seem to have realized that I was going to be the substitute their professor had mentioned. Fortunately, Maeve didn't seem to be in this class. I suspected she had dropped all of her practical magic classes after OWLs, if I was right that she couldn't really do magic in the wizarding style. Faking it would be a lot harder at the NEWT level. Based on the moon schedule for the year, I was likely to wind up subbing for the sixth-years a lot, and I was pleased to get to see my girlfriend and not my nemesis.
"Who wants to work on soul magic?" I asked, surprisingly more comfortable at the front of the classroom than I'd expected. It helped that Mathilda was giving me a thumbs-up from the front row. "I know the patronus is technically beyond NEWT level, but with the dementors floating around, it would be good to know. Rem– I mean, Professor Lupin figured I'd be a good choice to focus on that with you guys, since my friends and I have had a lot of luck getting it to work. And once you've got that down, I can start teaching you the new charm we developed that can break the imperius curse."
My biggest limitation was going to be wand gestures, but fortunately Mathilda had those down despite not having a ton of luck on a corporeal patronus so far. She could at least get silver mist consistently. I kind of figured that, like I'd been, she was stuck on finding the right memory. And maybe she also needed a dangerous enough situation to force it.
"With soul magic," I explained to the group after she'd demonstrated and they'd tried it to very little success, "the biggest problem is getting your emotions right. As near as we can figure, you're basically setting up your soul to resonate with the magic and open a channel for the energy. Unlike most magic, it comes from outside of you. I'll leave exactly from where up to the more religiously inclined. You're not really looking for a happy thought, but one where you're feeling safe and protected, or where you realize that you're needed to protect others. For most people, that's a time when you were happiest. And the memory has to be strong."
The group of teens slightly my junior let me natter on about our research into soul magic for the rest of the period between attempts. A couple of the students managed a mist by the end of the class, including one Nerys Orpington, former Slytherin prefect. Maybe she really was better off letting Maeve steal her prefect duties and promise her a cushy job after Hogwarts so she could devote more effort to study.
The next class was the Ravenclaw and Slytherin second years. That was an abrupt switch from super advanced casting to nearly the basics, but at least Luna was in the class so I'd have someone to relate to. I didn't know anyone else from that year outside Gryffindor.
"You're doing mostly dark creatures, right? Has Professor Lupin given you a higher-level discussion of how to fight them yet?" I asked. I definitely wanted to avoid having to try to teach spells to second-years. I wasn't even sure what the wand motion was for the disarming charm.
"Like, how to fight them once you're better at magic?" one of the Ravenclaw kids asked. Was he a muggleborn that knew about fantasy games? I might have to keep an eye on him.
"No, sorry, high-level like the big picture that you'd see if you were way high up. Not like your fighting level is high," I corrected. "Basically, an annoying number of creatures are resistant to magic. Your best spells just wash right off. In the last couple of years, I've had that problem with ogres, trolls, leucrotta, werewolves, and a basilisk…"
"Tell us about the basilisk!" one of the Slytherin kids demanded, excited.
"Fine. But! During story time, I want everyone to think about what we wound up having to do instead of just relying on spells. Because if you encounter a creature that's magic resistant, you need to get creative with the environment and your other tools. You should probably not get too reliant on your magic in general to solve all your problems."
Third period was my own year. We didn't really need a professor in class for most of the stuff we were working on anyway, so everyone just broke up into groups to discuss their own projects. "Day goin' well so far?" Oliver asked.
"I never realized twelve-year-olds had so many questions," I answered. "At least Luna didn't ask me about blibbering humdingers until after class."
I was glad I was able to eat lunch before I had to deal with the Ravenclaw/Slytherin fifth-years. That year was most of the Slytherin quidditch team, including Flint's former stooges Pucey and Montague that I'd had standoffs with in the past before their former captain got expelled. Fortunately, Mortimer Lindquist, the "ectomancer," was also in that class, so I managed to fill the period by engaging him in a discussion of the differences between ghosts and wraiths, as well as helping people on their essays that they were pleased to discover they got another weekend to work on.
Finally, in the middle of the afternoon I got my biggest challenge. "Harry! Where's Professor Lupin?" Hermione demanded as soon as she entered the classroom.
"He had some business to take care of with his muggle career," I told them the lie we'd rehearsed. It wouldn't be long before someone taking defense against the dark arts noticed if he was "sick" after every full moon. I personally thought this lie wouldn't last too long either. The kids took an astronomy class, so they had to keep track of the full moon. But at least it was plausible. "He's going to try to schedule it for the weekends, but when he can't, I'll be subbing for him."
The bushy-headed prodigy nodded, apparently buying it, but I thought I saw Neville, of all people, give me a suspicious look. Hermione gushed, "Well that's good, because we've been talking about red caps and I was thinking that since you actually fought some this summer you could tell us more about them?"
"Thanks, Hermione. Yeah, that's the plan. Now the thing about red caps is that they're vicious…"
The final period of the day was the same combo of Gryffindor/Hufflepuff, but one year higher. The fourth-years were still on curses, so I got to basically steal Quirrell's speech about categorizing curses and unforgivables. But I also put my own spin on it with less moral equivocation: the Unforgivables were actually using hellfire, and using magic to torture and kill actually damaged your soul.
I wasn't totally sure everyone believed me, but it was a much better argument for not using them than just, "they're too good at getting through shields, so got outlawed," which was basically Quirrell's position. I expected he'd believed that even before he got possessed, which was probably why he wound up serving as Voldemort's spirit horse in the first place.
After dinner, I just collapsed on one of the Gryffindor sofas. Teaching was exhausting. "You did such a good job today, babe!" Mathilda told me, sitting on the arm of the couch and touseling my hair. "So good! In fact… everyone thinks you were better than Quirrell and Lockhart. Maybe not as good as Lupin. So if the curse isn't really over… and you're going to need a job next year…"
"Woman! Don't you put that juju on me!" I tiredly exclaimed. The "curse" that had prevented most defense professors from lasting more than a year had turned out to be the consequence of the fortunamancy wards dumping bad luck on the current defense professor whenever they saved a life. "I need those fortune wards trying to save me! If they turn against me, I'm toast." We both giggled at the thought of me without any kind of safety net.
But, seriously, Dumbledore better have fixed those stupid wards.