A/N: This chapter was lovingly edited by the beautiful and talented Larxenne who enjoys spending her time editing my glorious yet occasionally typo-ridden story when not with her handsome and talented boyfriend (which, sadly for her but luckily for me, is a lot of the time).
Chapter 14: Lesson 1
"Every little thing she does is magic, everything she do just turn me on, even though my life before was tragic, now I know my love for her goes on."
Harry woke up to his musical alarm. He'd picked one of his non magical Muggle vinyl records at random, put it in the player, made the player work with magic, and set it to go off at seven. This morning, he'd woken up to the Police. He let the song run as he dressed.
Harry dressed in deep red robes with golden hems and began picking out which of his soul objects he would bring to the duel. To be at the top of his game, he needed some of them or he would be crippled, but he didn't want Dumbledore to be near any more of them than was absolutely necessary. He knew he would bring his wand; it was a necessary part of the duel and the center of his magic. The other object he decided to bring was the record. He wanted his reflexes sharp, and, though he hadn't experimented with the record much due to its other side effects, he thought it might lend him a clairvoyant edge if he did. He shrunk the record, protected it with magic, and put it in his pocket, then descended from the tower.
He attended breakfast. All of the heads of houses were busy distributing schedules to their house members. Harry was able to eat quietly by himself while planning for his first lesson. He had received his schedule, and he was slotted to teach the first year class first thing that morning.
He finished his breakfast and went quickly to his classroom with twenty minutes remaining before the start of class. He cast a disillusionment charm on himself and made sure all of the cushions were in place, and he waited. When he sensed the first students outside, he opened the door magically before they could even touch it. The two students filed in looking wary. Harry slammed the door behind them, invisible. The students looked around the room.
"Did you do that? I didn't do that."
"Don't joke with me! I didn't do it!"
"Maybe it was the wind."
They continued speculating nervously and sat down on the cushions. Three more students arrived and Harry did the same thing with the door. Some of the students sat down looking nervous. Others walked around the room, poking at the dark detectors and windows. Most of them were chatting nervously.
"The door did the same thing with us!"
"Have you seen Professor Crockett?"
"He was at breakfast."
"Maybe he's in his office."
"Where's his office?"
"I think it's behind that door up there."
"Does anyone know what time it is?"
"Are we early?"
"Should we go get him?"
"We can't leave!"
"Someone try the office door."
"I'm not doing it."
Harry sat watching the exchange. All of the students were now present, and Harry was looking at the Marauder's map committing their names to memory.
Ms. Dolores Umbridge got up from her cushion and put her hands on her hips. "Professor Crockett is late. That's very irresponsible of him indeed. I'm going to get him from his office."
Harry waited until she was past the blackboard and wouldn't be able to see its face, and then magically wrote on the board.
"1. Trying the door to a room with unknown contents is not wise, especially since your other exit is locked."
The students stared at the board. A few let out gasps, but none of them said anything. They all looked nervously at the squat girl climbing the stairs to Harry's office door. Dolores Umbridge reached out to the door, and when she touched it, she vanished. Harry had placed a disillusionment, silence, and immobulus charm on her.
A few of the students screamed.
He wrote more on the board underneath the first message.
"2. Neglecting to convey a warning to an ally is foolish, even if she didn't deserve it."
Harry disillusioned, silenced, and immobilized the rest of the Slytherins on the cushions for remaining silent when they knew of Umbridge's not-quite-peril. He could see on the Marauder's map where each of the invisible students sat, and he could sense their presence. In sweeping the whole classroom, most of the students were terrified, but two were distinctly amused. Harry didn't have to look on the map to know that they were the Prewett twins. They had put their red haired heads together and were whispering excitedly.
The other visible non-Prewett students had stood up and were looking around the room bewildered. Harry wrote a third message on the board.
"Please stand on one foot."
Harry felt the Prewetts auras alight with silent amusement.
The two other students looked around at each other.
"We'd better do it!"
"I wish Professor Crockett were here!"
All of the students except the Prewett twins tentatively stood on one foot and promptly vanished.
The red haired Prewetts, visible and not on one foot, both snorted as if to an inside joke and looked expectantly up at the board.
"3. Do not trust objects unless you can see where they keep their brain. Five points each to Gryffindor for Mr. F and G Prewett."
The Prewetts grinned. All of the students reappeared mobile again. Harry apparated back into his office, removed his own disillusionment charm, and came through the door. He came face to face (or face to mid-torso, as it were) with a very flustered looking Delores.
"Good morning Ms. Umbridge. Can I help you?"
"I—I" stammered Umbridge.
He wrote, "The stairs and balcony are off limits. There will be consequences for any trespassers."
When the class remained silent, he enlarged the words that said "2. Neglecting to convey a warning to an ally is foolish, even if she didn't deserve it."
After a beat, the Slytherins all lunged off their cushions shouting various warnings to Umbridge about standing on the balcony. As soon as Umbridge distinguished the meaning of the shouting, she nearly toppled down the stairs and took a seat on one of the cushions.
"Settle down," said Harry from the balcony, quieting the shouting Slytherins.
He magically erased the board and the words "Welcome to Defense against the Dark Arts" on the board, and as an afterthought, added "with Professor Crockett."Not that he was worried about them forgetting his name.
"That was you?" blurted nearly everyone in the class. Harry twirled his wand in his fingers.
"Mmm yes," he replied. "Though you will have a thorough demonstration of defensive and offensive magic this afternoon in the context of a duel, I thought it would be prudent for you to experience a situation where you were in an unknown and potentially threatening situation. It is important to be accustomed to your fear and know how to override it. But, of course," he looked at the Prewetts and smirked, "It seems I will have to try harder with some of you. Mr Fabian Prewett, would you care to tell me how you knew you weren't in real danger?"
"Well, sir," said Fabian confidently, "We knew the door was locked, but we checked the windows and they were all right. We thought that if something horrible was attacking us, it would have locked the windows."
"Indeed," said Harry. "That was very smart of you to check the windows. They would prove useful as they aren't far from the ground. And why did you choose not to stand on one foot, Mr. Gideon?"
"Well, actually, sir, we sort of wanted to be vanished," said Gideon enthusiastically.
"But we were pleased when we go the right answer, of course," finished Fabian.
"Firstly, technically none of you were 'vanished.' I used a combination of spells, but none of them was a vanishing spell. Can any of you tell me what I used? You, there, Ms. Black."
"I know you used a silencing charm on me," she said, "I couldn't talk or make any sounds."
"That is correct, Ms. Black. Five points to Slytherin. Anyone else?"
None of the first years had any more answers, so Harry answered himself.
"The spell that made you invisible was called a disillusionment charm. It's quite advanced and you won't be learning it until your fifth year. The spell that froze you in your place was the immobulus curse. It's quite useful indeed, along with some simpler spells that work similarly. You might learn those this year.
"Today, however, we are going to start by learning how to get help in a dangerous situation. You haven't learned any magic yet, and would be no match for any dark witch, wizard, or creature so it is important for you to know how to alert someone to your situation. Can any of you think of something that might accomplish this? Yes, Ms. Umbridge?"
"Excuse me, Professor, but I think it would be better if we learned to defend ourselves first. I mean, there's no one here that's going to attack us. We're in a school. You certainly weren't going to hurt is; you're our teacher. You're harmless."
"Ah, Ms. Umbridge," Harry sighed, "If you are willing to trust that none of your new classmates might want to try out their new spells at the exact moment they are passing you in the hall, you may leave this class and skip this lesson. As for me, my first Defense against the Dark Arts teacher spent the year trying to kill me. I suggest that you have at least some means of conveying distress besides whining in case you find yourself in a similar position."
Some of the students looked horror struck. The Prewetts looked between each other and Harry with awe.
"Can anyone think of a way?" One of the Slytherins raised his hand.
"Could—could you make a loud noise?"
"Yes, thank you. That is one way to do it. However, can anyone tell me what a disadvantage of that would be?"
The boy raised his hand again sheepishly. "I suppose it would be hard to make it last long enough for someone to find you."
"Exactly," said Harry. "Five points to Slytherin. Can anyone think of something that you would only have to do once? Something that would mark your position for longer?"
A Gryffindor girl raised her hand. "Maybe some sort of symbol floating in the air above you?"
"Very good," said Harry, "But for now we're going to work on sending up different colored sparks with our wands, and making them stick in the air. Eventually, we will add sound so that more attention can be attracted to your spell."
Harry lined all of the students up in front of the mirror, and asked them to produce sparks from their wands. Despite a well chosen wand's tendency to shoot out sparks jubilantly with one wave, some of the class managed to mess up by trying too hard. Umbridges robes caught fire when Andromeda's wand shot quite a few more sparks than she'd intended. Harry put them out with a glance.
Umbridge's wand did nothing, on the other hand. Eventually, Harry managed to coach her until a few feeble sparks shot out the end.
The Prewett twins were sending sparks into the air, but, whether purposefully or not, each shot was accompanied by a deafening bang. He suspected it was intentional, though, because after Harry shot them a reapproving glance, the noise subsided.
Eventually all of the first years were able to make a stream of sparks shoot into the air all the way up to the ceiling. Next, Harry taught them how to change the color.
"The color is important. Generally, wizards who see red sparks will associate them with distress, whereas green might easily be celebration."
The class went through the same process of trying to fix their sparks. One of the Gryffindor girls made streams of bubbles any time she tried to make green sparks, but could make red ones quite well.
By the end of the class Harry was very impressed with the improvement. All of the students had managed to create red and green sparks with an accompanying noise. Albeit, Umbridge's sparks were always mixed with pink and some members of the class had only accomplished pops to go with the sparks, but the Prewett twins managed to shoot showers of sparks that stuck to the ceiling with a deafening series of bangs. Harry awarded them another five points each.
"Your homework will be to practice your sparks and try to make them stay in the air above you. I will test your progress next lesson. I will see you all this afternoon."
The students, who were chatting excitedly about the lesson, made their way to the doors, except for the Prewett twins who edged suspiciously to the window.
"Really boys," said Harry, "I think you'll find that the door will be a better way to exit the classroom. It is unlocked."
"No!" said Gideon enthusiastically, "Look outside!"
And Harry looked.
It was clear what the twins were looking at. He could just make out the Quidditch field from the window, and over it, house-sized objects seemed to be moving. Dumbledore was setting up for the duel.
Harry gulped.
Credit to the Police for the lyrics at the beginning of the chapter. It's from the song "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic."