As the bell for class finally rang, Neville jogged into the classroom, slightly out of breath.

"Excellent timing, young man," Professor Muto said with a bright smile and waited as Neville (who nearly tripped when he finally took notice of his surroundings) hurried to a seat.

"Now," he addressed them in a clear voice, "let's get started, shall we?"

Chapter 6

"As you all heard at dinner on Friday, my name is Yugi Muto, and I'll be your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor this year." The professor's tone had turned wry when nearly every student had raised a hand before he had finished speaking. "While I understand that you're all curious, whether about my appointment here or the class itself, I'm going to ask that you hold your questions for now."

As students lowered their hands with palpable disappointment, Professor Muto continued, an amused quirk to his mouth, "Seeing as this is a double period, after I take attendance, we'll spend the first part of class going over the syllabus," Harry was mildly impressed when the professor didn't falter (although the amusement definitely grew) after Hermione gave an actual- if contained- squeal of delight, "and the remaining time will be devoted to a more general Q&A." The class perked up at that.

"Now, when I call your name, please indicate that you are here, and after you have received a syllabus,"- he gestured to a stack of papers on his desk that Harry hadn't noticed in his inspection around the room- "I would like you to tell the class what your favorite and least favorite things about Defense are- whether you talk about the class itself or its real world applications is your choice- as well as one interesting fact about yourself. Your answers can be as simple or complex as you like. A good portion of your points in this class will be based on your participation in discussions, and since we won't have time to introduce a topic today, as long as you answer these, I'll consider you to have full points. Alright?"

After flicking his gaze around the room at the nodding students, the professor picked up the top sheet of parchment and what looked like a mix between a fountain pen and a featherless quill from the inkwell beside the stack.

"Lavender Brown."

"That's me!" Lavender gave a small wave from her seat in the second row. "Um…" Her nose scrunched slightly as she thought about her answers, seeming a bit distracted as one of the papers floated towards her. The professor gave her an encouraging nod after making a note on the paper in his hands, most likely marking her present. "My favorite thing was probably getting to meet a celebrity second year. My least favorite is that I don't really see Defense mattering much for my future career, and an interesting thing about me is…rabbits are my favorite animal." She finally decided on.

"Excellent," the professor said when Lavender finished, then paused when she tentatively raised her hand, "Yes, Ms. Brown?"

"Er, sorry sir, but this paper's blank." She said, holding up the parchment.

"Ah, I knew I had forgotten to mention something." He said cheerfully. "Don't worry, they'll fill themselves out as we go through them." He looked back down at the paper in his hands after she nodded.

"Next is Seamus Finnigan."

"Here," Seamus said from the third row. The semi-introductions continued through Hermione, Neville, and Parvati before it was Harry's turn.

"Er, over here," Harry said, raising his hand slightly when the professor's eyes didn't immediately land on him after saying his name and trying to ignore the surreal feeling he got when he realized he couldn't actually remember the last time he had had to introduce himself to someone who didn't already recognize him (and he really didn't feel like analyzing what that said about his person). "Ah, my favorite thing about Defense was, um, learning the Patronus," Harry hid a wince when some of his classmates started muttering about that, having forgotten that that particular spell hadn't actually been part of the curriculum, "Least favorite was-" 'attempted murder by every single one of his Defense teachers so far' probably wasn't the type of answer Professor Muto was looking for- "probably that it felt like we didn't really learn a lot in first and second year. Something about me, um-" he faltered, feeling like he had been caught flat-footed even though he had known this was coming. "I like to fly, I guess?" He finished, relieved when the professor nodded at him and moved on to Dean, and then to Ron.

After Ron had finished, Professor Muto addressed them again. "Well, since you all indulged me and introduced yourselves, I think it's only fair to give a short introduction myself. Let's see…I went to college at the University of Tokyo and earned my Master's in archaeology with a minor in psychology, and this past year, I earned my PhD in archaeology at Cairo University. A friend of mine convinced me to go through an accelerated program, so now I also have a Master's in business with a specialization in entrepreneurship. On the magical side of things, I am a Master Mage, which makes me fully qualified to teach this class. For work, before I was hired here, at least, I split my time between my duties as a Mage, tournaments, and often guest lecturing on the field of archaeology. For leisure, I like playing Duel Monsters, learning new games, and hanging out with my friends. I'm 23 and would like to open up a game shop sometime in the future." He gave them another smile, accompanied by a small bow when he finished.

"Now, I'm sure you're all as eager as I am to start on our syllabus." The smile resembled more of a smirk at the collective (minus Hermione) groan of the class. "The sooner we get started, the sooner we finish, you know," the professor admonished mildly as he exchanged the attendance sheet for another paper.

"Let's start with office hours." He made a motion at the syllabi on his students' desks.

Harry looked down at his paper to see words forming at the top.

.

~oo0oo~

Defense Against the Dark Arts, Year 5

Instructor: Yugi Muto

Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:00- 5:00, Wednesdays 3:00- 5:00, and by appointment

~oo0oo~

.

"As I said earlier, I do have duties as a Mage, so there will be times when I will be unavailable for my office hours. The Mage Court is aware of my position as your professor, so if anything unexpected comes up, I'll hopefully be given a few days' warning if I need to be somewhere in person, and will be able to let you know when I'll be unavailable rather than just disappearing on you." Several more sections of text showed up as Professor Muto continued.

"Course Aims, Classroom Environment, and Codes of Conduct are in line with Hogwarts's school policy, so I think we can skip over those for now and I'll let you decide if you need to read them over to refresh your memory."

Harry blinked.

"We have course aims?" Ron said quietly, bewildered tone coinciding with Harry's own feelings, and echoed by a few other students around the room.

It was the professor's turn to blink. "You weren't aware?" He asked them, growing increasingly bemused as the majority of the class only shook their heads. Even Hermione could only offer up, "I knew each class has some sort of course aims, but we've never had a teacher go through them."

Professor Muto gave a small hum. "Well, I suppose I should at least give you a quick run down of the Defense course aims. It could certainly help when you're deciding what to focus on in preparation for OWLs next semester." His expression turned mildly apologetic. "I'm afraid I can't help with your other subjects, though I'm sure your professors would be happy to go through them if you ask." Harry absently wondered if the newest professor had ever actually had a conversation with Snape. Given their interaction at the feast, it seemed highly unlikely.

"For Defense Against the Dark Arts, each year has a slightly different focus. The first year is an introduction to defensive and offensive magic for the students. The lessons are mostly theoretical and focus on proper wand waving technique, the differences between hexes, jinxes, and curses, and an overview of common hexes. Any practical lessons would involve simple spells to counter these common hexes. You shouldn't need to spend very long reviewing the material from this year. As long as you understood the textbook, you'll be fine.

"Second year lessons are meant to involve slightly more complicated spells. These are still mostly centered on defending against hexes, although the hexes aren't quite as common as the ones in first year, but common jinxes should also be overviewed. An ambitious professor might even discuss simple defensive measures for a few common magical creatures. The class should also have showcased some prominent figures related to the field of defense such as famous aurors, dueling champions, or dark lords. It isn't unheard of for some professors to go over dueling etiquette and let students simulate a few duels."

"You mean that guy actually kind of followed the school curriculum?" Dean said under his breath, voice somewhere between awe and horror. Professor Muto raised an eyebrow at that, but continued.

"Third year should have focused almost entirely on common dangerous magical creatures and how to use magic to defend yourself against them if need be. Fourth year lessons are meant to delve more deeply into jinxes and start introducing some common curses, although it looks like you guys focused more on curses than usual.

"This year is meant to be a review of past material, or to teach anything that may not have been covered in previous years for whatever reason, and should have a much heavier focus on the practical applications of the course.

"And finally, the curriculum for sixth and seventh year is geared towards students who wish to become aurors. They cover curses extensively, go over what to do in different practical situations, and discuss work relations between the ministry and the DMLE. With permission from a professor, students who don't wish to become aurors, but still want to further their Defense education can self-study for these years." The professor paused after the short lecture and swept his gaze around the room once again, taking in the blank eyes sported by a majority of the class. Harry couldn't blame them- he had begun to zone out around the explanation of the third year curriculum, and had only forced himself to tune back in with the knowledge that every plot he had been involved in could in some way be traced back to his Defense teachers. Harry held onto the hope that having some warning about the curriculum for his upcoming years would give him a needed edge in future schemes (yeah, he didn't really believe it would work, either).

"Everyone follow that?"

"Yes, professor." Came the somewhat dazed response from the students. Professor Muto clearly didn't believe them, but nodded anyway, "Right, then let's move on to what you'll be graded on," he said, causing the students to shake themselves and turn back to their papers.

Harry's brow furrowed slightly. 'Didn't this use to be shorter?' He thought, bemused. As the parchment had filled with writing, it looked as though the paper had elongated to accommodate for space, and each student was now staring at a small scroll. Harry unrolled the bit at the top that had started to curl, and the paper once again shortened, showing the amount of writing that would fit on a single sheet. Rolling the top back up once again elongated the bottom of the page and revealed the newest sections of writing. He blinked. 'Huh. Useful.'

Harry tuned back in as the professor continued, "As I mentioned earlier, discussions will be a large portion of your grade. 25%, in fact. I know that number sounds daunting now, but we will be having two discussions almost every week, so there will be ample opportunity to earn those points. These discussions will be centered around practical applications of whatever that week's topic is. I'm not expecting any groundbreaking discoveries here; as long as your comment or question contributes to the topic we are discussing, you shouldn't have any problems.

"Next, we have homework and assignments, worth 25%. Discounting this week and your exam weeks, every Monday, I'll expect you to hand in two papers. One paper will summarize how the previous week's lessons apply to real life; you will be allowed to draw ideas from that week's discussions, but do not copy someone else's thoughts down word for word, or I will consider it plagiarism. The second paper will be a summary of what you learned and the practical applications of said lessons from the field trip we took the previous week. We'll discuss the field trips in a few minutes," he deflected when several students raised their hands. The class reluctantly turned back to the syllabus as Professor Muto continued.

"For every two or three topics we cover, we'll have a quiz. I've designed them to function like miniature versions of your OWLs in order to get you all used to the format, and, while it won't be graded, your midterm will be a cumulative version of these quizzes, and much closer to what your actual OWL exam will look like.-" Harry was pretty sure Hermione was making plans to build their newest professor a shrine at this point. "- These quizzes will be worth 15% of your grade.

"On the subject of your OWLs, your Defense OWL will also be worth 15% of your grade in this class. And for the final 20%, I will expect each of you to write a paper, which will be due about two weeks before your finals." Professor Muto gave an amused huff at the dramatic groans coming from his students. "I'm giving you all year to work on it, and your other assignments are pretty much the bare minimum I can give you while still making sure you're prepared for your OWL," he told them unsympathetically.

"Now, for this paper I want each of you to choose an aspect of the Magical world and study it from the perspective of Britain's Wizarding world, and at least one- but no more than two- other culture of your choice. You will need to consider and explain in depth how this piece of the Magical world affects you and the world around you as you are currently familiar with within your own culture, and then you are to examine it again from the lens of the second culture. Then, I want you to research and explain why any significant cultural differences, or lack thereof, exist for the topic you chose and make a case for the pros and cons for the manner in which each culture handles your topic. You can be as opinionated as you like for this part of the paper; I won't begrudge any of you your thoughts so long as you have sufficient supporting evidence to back them up.

"I am not putting any restrictions on what you are allowed to choose for your second culture; as long as you can research your topic effectively, I see no reason to limit your options. Choosing another Wizarding community is perfectly acceptable, but I encourage you to branch out beyond the Wizarding world.

"The topics you can choose from are slightly more constrained. I won't outright ban anything, but I will be making sure what you choose to study is focused enough that you won't have problems writing about it. I'll meet with each of you for about ten minutes during my office hours the first week of October to discuss what topics you might be interested in and possible research avenues, and I expect you finalize this with me two weeks before your Christmas break at the very latest," he stressed, "The sooner you finalize your topic, the sooner you can begin researching, and then writing you paper. I'll check in with all of you once more around Easter, and, as I said earlier, the final paper will be due mid-May."

Professor Muto sighed at the mixture of panicked and giddy (Hermione) looks he was getting from his students.

"Calm down. Like I said, you have all year to work on this. As long as you break it up into chunks to work on it, you'll be fine. If you put this off until the last minute, however, it will not end well for your grade." Professor Muto gave them all a very stern look as he said this.

"I am also perfectly happy to meet with you on a more regular basis than what I'm requiring. That's what my office hours are for, after all." The stern expression was replaced with a reassuring smile as the class gave a collective sigh of relief.

"The requirements such as length and the writing structure I expect you to follow are listed on the syllabus, and I'll have you read those on your own to save us some time."

The professor chuckled again at the looks of disdain most of the students had begun to direct at the paper in front of them. "Don't worry, we're nearly done now; the grading scheme was the worst of it."

He looked back down at the paper in his hands. "Let's skip down a little to the very bottom of your syllabus, where there should be a calendar. This calendar will automatically record any assignments I give you, so I will not accept any excuses about forgotten due dates," Professor Muto gave them another strict glance as he said this, "It only shows one month at a time and is preset to the current month, so if any of you want to look ahead into the year, just write the name of the month you want to see directly over where the current month is listed at the top, and it will change. The calendar will reset itself to the current month whenever you put the paper away. It will also record anything you write down until you cross it out, so feel free to use it like a planner if you like. At the end of each month, your updated grade in this class will also automatically be shown at the bottom of the page."

Forget shrine, if Professor Muto declared himself a Dark Lord, intent on world domination in the next five minutes, Harry was absolutely certain Hermione would sign up as his right hand woman, with enthusiasm. He shuddered. Thinking about 'Hermione' and 'world domination' in the same sentence was, frankly, nightmare-inducing. Not that he thought Hermione would be an inhumane ruler or some such rot. The terror came from how very aware he was of how capable she would be at it.

Harry shook himself as Professor Muto continued. "For most of the year, the weekly schedule will be the same. The exceptions are this week, next week, and your exam weeks. This week, I need to find out exactly what it is we need to focus on for review before your OWLs. Which is why on Wednesday, I'll be giving you a test," he ignored the groans once again coming from his students, "Since I am only trying to evaluate what you are in the most need of reviewing, this test won't count towards your actual grade. The first half of the class will be a written test, and I'm making it open notes," the professor laughed good-naturedly as the students' groans gave way to cheers.

"Now, that doesn't mean you don't have to prepare for the test at all. If you have to look up every question, you won't even get halfway through before your time's up. The second half of class is going to be a test on practical spell work and I'm not going to allow notes for that, so don't slack off too much," he warned with a grin. "And remember, the better you all do, the less we have to review, which will let us focus on what you really need help on." He chuckled again at the resigned nods from his students.

"I'll grade your tests and have the review schedule for this class drawn up by next Monday. That will also be when we go over the results for this," with a wave of the professor's hand, the remaining papers that were stacked on his desk was distributed amongst the students.

"A survey?" Parvati asked.

"Exactly," Professor Muto confirmed, "This year will be the year you all decide on what upper level classes you want to take. Unless you want to take all of them and keep your options open, the upper level classes you each take will coincide with your career goals. While that's all well and good, you're all only fifteen. You haven't seen enough of the world yet to have more than a vague notion of what you might want to do. I want to mitigate that a bit by offering you the opportunity to explore.

"So, these surveys have a list of some common and some not-so-common career choices. Of course, we won't be able to thoroughly go through all of these, so I'd like each of you to number each choice based on how much you want to explore said career. If you do not see a career you would like to look into, just add it to the list. When you number the choices, 'one' would be the career you most want to explore, while the career you least want to explore would have the number equal to however many choices you have on the page. The careers with the lowest score will be the ones we'll look into more closely. If one of the careers that you want to look into doesn't fit this criterion, I'll help you research it on your own, but this is a pretty small class and we'll be looking at at least fifteen to twenty of these, so I don't think that's likely to happen."

The professor paused briefly, thoughtful. "Feel free to include non-magical careers, as well. It won't be difficult to set any of you up in a program where you can take your GCSEs if that's what you want, and I'll be happy to write letters of recommendation if you'd like to continue on to University, afterwards."

"What's this bit about house points at the end?" Dean cut in when the professor paused again.

"Ah, that." He looked faintly amused. "I was a bit skeptical when I was told this school still uses the gold star system to reward good students. So, I decided to let each class decide how they want to be rewarded. As Mr. Thomas pointed out, at the end of the survey there is a question addressing this. If you still want house points, that's fine, but if you want something more tangible such as extra credit points, make sure you mention that, and we'll discuss the results at the same time as the rest of the survey," Professor Muto seemed to examine them briefly for signs of confusion. Finding none, he continued on. "The surveys themselves will be due Friday, which will also be our first field trip day. And which we'll discuss as soon as I go over our usual weekly schedule," he deflected a second time, chuckling when some students actually pouted.

"For this schedule: on Mondays, we will go over theory for the first half of class, and in the second half, we will have a discussion on how our topic has practical application in our lives; for the first half of the class on Wednesdays, we will do practical work- usually spell work, but if we get caught up on what you need to review, there are plenty of ways beyond spells to defend yourselves and I'll be more than happy to teach them to you-, and then we'll have another discussion, this one more centered on how we can improve your skill set in regards to the technique we're learning, and its…combat effectiveness, for lack of a better term; and finally, as I'm sure you all could guess, on Fridays, we'll be going on field trips.

"Which brings us to our final topic on the syllabus."

Wow, this is late. Sorry about that; life kinda socked me in the face. Sorry if this chapter is a little boring. Apparently, I can't write about school without actually writing about school. Can you tell I started writing this at the beginning of my semester? Next chapter should hopefully be more interesting, though.

Also, had so much trouble getting the last chapter up, I apparently didn't check if it was my final edit. That's fixed now. If you don't feel like re-reading it, you won't be missing anything essential; I basically made a small part of the explanation Yugi gave Hermione a little clearer (I hope), and then fleshed out the ending a little more.