"Wendy! Darling! Light of my life!"


The next day Harry arrived early — hours and hours early — twelve-fifteen A.M. — for his class with Professor Quirrel, but Professor Quirrel was already there, drooling into his pillow. Harry wondered briefly how early in the morning he'd have to get up to arrive first; the answer was probably to go without his supper and not go to bed at all.

Gradually the room filled with students. A lot of students. All the students, all three hundred of them.

When the last seat had been filled the Professor's head snapped up, and he ascended to the top of his desk.

"Posit!" he said. "You are being attacked by a Hungarian Horntail and a Mountain Troll, each armed with a bowl of fresh fruit! What do you do?

"Don't waste your time answering, the answer is AVADA KEDAVRA!"

The class gasped.

"Yes!" said the Professor, with a charming grin. "The universal solvent! The unforgivable, completely effective Killing Curse!

"Which I will not be teaching you!

"So! Not sure why I mentioned it, other than it's my favorite spell!" The Professor attempted to clap his hands and missed. "Since I won't be teaching that, we'll move on to the only other reasonable response to being attacked by a Hungarian Horntail and a Mountain Troll, each armed with a bowl of fresh fruit —

"Apparation!

"Which I will also not be teaching you!

"This brings us to your remaining option, which is the first thing I will be teaching you today — the art of running away!"

With a wobbly wave of his wand the Professor opened the doors to the classroom, and then conjured up a Hungarian Horntail and a Mountain Troll, each armed with a bowl of fresh fruit.

He waited. Everyone stared at him.

"NONE of you running?" he roared. "ARE YOU ALL TOO STUPID TO LIVE?"

"I ran, sir!" said Harry, waving from the hallway.

Harry, still sitting at his desk, quickly threw on his Invisibility Cloak and thanked Wells for Time Turners.

"At least SOMEONE has a rage to live!" said the Professor. "But of course a rage to live won't keep you alive! You also need the urge to kill, or you won't be able to when you need to! So we'll be working on that today. Your first exercise: punching each other in the face!"

Harry immediately ran over and punched his future self in the face.

"First blood!" said Quirrel, as future blood sprayed wildly from Harry's future nose. "Excellent!" He pressed his wand to a small white paper bag, which began making internal popping noises. "Many a great battle has begun where no one knew who threw the first punch, not even the man who threw it. One house point for every drop of blood spilled this day in terrible and glorious combat! Give into your hate, my young apprentices!"

"Spread out!" shouted Darko Malfoy, and backhanded his minions Crabbe and Goyle, who were sitting to either side of him. They in turn backhanded the students next to them, and soon the room was caught up in an orgy of violence, which Quirrel observed dispassionately while making valuable suggestions and comments with the aid of small robot sock puppets.

This is the single greatest human to ever live, thought Harry as he crawled under a desk and picked up discarded popcorn, salting it from his bloody nose. By the end of class all the house point counters will have run out of jewels. He's not just teaching us Dark Arts, he's teaching us how to reform Quidditch!

...Wait, I haven't learned about Quidditch yet! Which Harry AM I?!