Broadcast #4: Mentor

Of course, I could only learn so much on my own. Books don't cut it. Trial and error sure don't cut it either, unless you wanna learn some bad habits. Eventually, I had to get back in classes. But this time was different, see, 'cuz I actually wanted to.

Different teacher. I couldn't face the same one as before. Too embarrassed. So I got a different one, and I'm real glad I did. Fella by the name of Eliot Penn. Another muggle, sure, but a real class act, Eliot. Taught me everything I know, and more important, taught me how to know. Taught me to get up in the mornin' even if I didn't want to, and to keep practicing even if my draw-arm was sore. Taught me to fight through it, you know.

You need someone like that. Even if it's not for this bow stuff, all that's important. Someone who knows what's best for ya.

—Rowland Macmillan, Archery Club EP. 12

Professor Pomona Sprout considered herself a hands-off type of teacher. She'd agreed to be Head of Hufflepuff House, sure, but she did it with the same philosophy her own parents had used to raise her: eventually, these kids will figure it out. That's what she believed. Children can't learn unless they're allowed to do it on their own.

It's the same philosophy Pomona passed down to her prefects over the years. Let the new ones mess up and learn from their mistakes. Don't be overbearing, don't use that badge like a mallet on their heads for every little trip-up. She thought she'd done well teaching that. So when Jane—her fifth-year prefect—had knocked on her door to complain about a couple of first-years, Pomona suspected it was relatively serious. When Jane told her that the culprits were one Susan Bones, niece to the head of Britain's Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and general wizarding world wonder, Pomona knew it was relatively serious.

When Jane told her that the two first-years in question had together cost Hufflepuff House a heaping fifty house points in the first week of classes, Pomona, for the first time in her many years at Hogwarts, regretted not being more stringent on her students. Hufflepuff House didn't even have fifty points to lose. Two students had singlehandedly sent her house in the negatives after just four days into the year.

But Pomona wasn't so insecure in her teaching style to change it over a single instance like this, even if it was rather extreme. So, she sat back and watched. Watched as the two first-years went to their joint detention sessions. Watched as Susan excelled in all her classes, and as Harry allowed himself to excel only in certain ones. Watched as Susan outsourced her friendships, forming many thin bonds across houses, and as Harry kept his circle small but close within Hufflepuff.

Weeks passed. After the second, their detentions had ceased. After the third, Susan had risen to the top of her year, second only to a certain Gryffindor girl who herself seemed to do nothing but study. After the fourth, Harry had proven himself a natural on a broom, and Flitwick couldn't seem to shut up about him.

Pomona herself had taken the opportunity of examining them personally during her herbology classes. Where Harry was quiet, Susan was outspoken. Where Harry was satisfied with a passing grade, Susan would accept nothing but a perfect one.

And yet, where Harry seemed to be having fun, always smiling at the magical plant life which to his newly-opened eyes must've been a wonder, Susan only glanced for long enough at it to do the assignment before moving onto something else. It was as if she were just crossing something off her list, as inconsequential as all the other small steps on her way to a full row of checkmarks.

Two very interesting kids indeed. It was about time to step in.

"Catch."

Harry fumbled with the toadlett he'd been thrown. The small, fist-sized creature wiggled in his fingers, like a goldfish suddenly dropped into a fishbowl after a lifetime in the vast ocean.

The boy hadn't so much as stepped into the greenhouse before getting roped into whatever it was Professor Sprout was up to. She told him to check the toadlett for black spots—marks of disease, the same kind of work they'd been doing in class.

Toadletts were tiny mushroom creatures, two-eyed and capable of walking on stunted legs. Much like other fungi, they relied on nutrients from the organic matter around them, but unlike other fungi, they were partially conscious, mobile, and therefore incredibly successful survivors. This Harry remembered learning over the last few days of herbology, the facts coming to him as he worked.

He and Sprout shared a table. On one end, a batch of toadletts scurried about, the same batch from which the two wizards would pick one out and check for marks. If the creature was clean, they'd simply throw it over to all the other safe ones. If it wasn't clean, they'd put it with the other unsafe ones, ready for whatever medicine Sprout decided to concoct later.

First, Harry turned the little guys over, then he checked under their mushroom tops. All along, the toadlett would squirm, and upon being released, would quickly join its fellow freed compatriots. There wasn't any need to keep them penned in—they were too small to cause much trouble, even if they hadn't been so docile in nature.

The work carried on in silence for a good ten minutes. Of course, Harry was curious to know why Sprout had called him by owl if it was for something as seemingly menial as this, but as the time passed, and as he got back into the same routine he'd built during class—twist, turn upside down, throw, pick up the next one—Harry began to smile. It was funny how the little creatures shimmied in his hands, and how happy they seemed to rejoin their friends once the check-up was done. Sprout had said that toadletts held a very simple mind, incapable of culture and memory, but to Harry it looked as if they were dancing with communal joy.

"Your birthday is during the summer, isn't it, Mr. Potter?" Sprout said, still working, eyes looking down at her hands.

The question broke Harry out of his reverie. It had been long enough by then that he'd just assumed she wouldn't say anything, and if she did, he certainly hadn't imagined it to be about his birthday of all things. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes, now more confused than ever. "Yeah, July 31st," he said.

Sprout bowed her head slightly, eyes closed, and stopped working. Harry thought he could almost hear her brain humming inside her skull. "Sun, Leo. Moon… Pisces." she said, a small smile blooming on her face, as if she had finally found the answer to some riddle, the sheer certainty of her knowledge taking on a sort of glow that straightened her aged shoulders and smoothed her wrinkled face. "What an interesting combination."

She continued her work, as if having said nothing. Harry forced himself to turn to her, fighting back the urge to keep quiet and move along as he had. It was difficult, but his being there made too little sense to ignore. "Professor Sprout," he said, slowly, considering every individual syllable. "Is there a reason you called me?" His face dropped, suddenly very tired. "I'm not in trouble again, am I?"

"Heavens no. Used to trouble, are you?"

"… I'm not sure I want to answer that."

Sprout threw her head back and laughed. "Well, you're honest enough for a Hufflepuff, I'll give you that," she said, although in her mind she thought he was being just a bit disingenuous.

The careful approach that Harry took was too calculated to be honest. It was a very cunning strategy, to act so mild-mannered on purpose, but to what end? Pomona now knew that the answer to that was the reason Harry had been assigned to Hufflepuff in the first place.

She'd spoken with Susan the day before. The girl hadn't had the patience that Harry did, calmly but immediately questioning her purpose there. Stray, inconsequential questions of birthdays hadn't led her off the path. Insights of astrology had only annoyed her, even if Susan had been too polite to admit it.

"Lancelot was a knight in King Arthur's court," she said abruptly. Harry made no reply, and Sprout waited for him to interrupt her, to at least ask what that had to do with anything, but he didn't. He only listened. "He picked his own title before he was ever inducted into the Round Table. Le Chavalier Mal Fet. French for the Ill-Made Knight. You've heard of Lancelot, I bet?"

Harry nodded, but didn't say anything. He was watching her intently, and Sprout was pleased to see it wasn't just submission on his part. There was a depth to his eyes, and Sprout knew he was replaying her words in his head, trying to figure them out. He asked nothing because he didn't think she'd tell him the truth, Sprout knew. Like he thought she was tricking him in some way. Sprout let him believe that.

"The greatest knight in Camelot," she said. "Famed more than any other as Arthur's right-hand-man. As virtuous as a saint, as strong as a giant, as skilled as a god. But he had one flaw, or so the stories say."

Here her voice lowered. Harry heard the shuffling of the toadletts abandoned by him now, his attention entirely taken by his head of house. "He took pleasure in causing pain, you see. Hurting their feelings, defeating them in combat. I suppose you could say he liked proving that he was better than others." Sprout had gotten through the rest of the fungi-based creatures. Her wand glided up from inside her sleeve, and with a wave, she brought all the sick into the air and floated them into a basket on the floor. "It's really no different from any regular person, but Lancelot took it rather personally. He wanted to be a great knight, after all, with chivalry and purity and all that. He locked those evil desires away, and he became the best precisely because of how aware he was of them. Do you catch my meaning?"

Harry furrowed his brow, thinking. Eventually, he gave up with a pout. "Not really, no. But it sounds important."

"It certainly is." Sprout bent down and grabbed the basket. With a heave, she picked it up. "Well, don't mind me, rambling about all that nonsense," she said. "I suppose I only wanted some company while I did my chores."

That was a lie and they both knew it, but Harry nodded and smiled.

"Have a good day, Mr. Potter. See you in class."

"You too, professor."

Pomona watched him go, and as she did, she couldn't help but picture a lion being swallowed up by a mighty fish.

I feel like this one might just be too confusing. Even I have a hard time fully understanding what I just wrote down, to be honest.

Follow, favorite, and review.