"We've got Defense next."

"Let's hope this first lesson goes better than Lockhart's first lesson."

"Not that one could do any worse."

"Don't jinx us."

They headed down the corridor to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom with Professor Lupin. Upon entering, they saw the crowd of their fellow Slytherins standing in the center of the room, with all of the desks and chairs pushed to the side. There was a wardrobe standing in the middle. The piece of furniture shook and wobbled, like something was trapped in there and wanted to get out.

"Let's hope it's not Cornish pixies," Blaise muttered.

Lupin was standing there with a smile on his face – his clothes were still rather ragged, although they looked slightly better than the robes he wore on the first day.

"Welcome, class. I see that everyone is here. We will be having a more practical application today. Now, in that wardrobe, is a Boggart. Can anyone tell me what a Boggart is? Yes, Mr. Fowl, is it?"

"A Boggart takes the shape of one's greatest fear," said Artemis.

Lupin clapped his hand. "Absolutely correct! Five points to Slytherin. Now, we have a distinct advantage over this particular Boggart. Can anyone tell me why?"

Artemis raised his hand again. "Since we are fighting it in a large group, it will not be able to decide what form it should take."

"Correct. Five more points to Slytherin. As one can see, it is best to have company when dealing with a Boggart – it becomes confused. I once witnessed one try to take on the form of a severed hand and a rat at the same time – not even remotely frightening. Now, the charm to repel a Boggart is relatively simple; repeat after me first: Riddikulus!"

"Riddikulus." The mumbling Slytherins were obviously not quite as verbal as yesterday's Gryffindor class, but Lupin did not seem to mind. He kept up his cheerful, fatherly appearance quite well, despite his tattered clothes.

"This class is ridiculous," Draco muttered. He obviously was not very pleased with the new teacher.

"Why are you always so prejudiced? Did your father teach you that a teacher who can't dress well can't perform spells, either?" Artemis hissed.

Lupin continued speaking, their conversation having gone unheard. "Very good! The trick in defeating a Boggart is humor. This charm helps you force it to take on a shape that you find amusing. I want you all to concentrate on your greatest fear, and think of a way to make it funny."

Artemis' mind went blank. What was his greatest fear? Losing all of his gold? Discovery of his secrets? How was he going to make that funny? It was a practical lesson – they were going to have to face the Boggart in front of the entire class. He was not very keen on showing his fears to the world. Surreptitiously, he edged to the back of the crowd.

"Who would like to go first? Mr. Zabini, how about you?"

Blaise shrugged, then stepped up in a "Why not?" fashion. "Do you have your greatest fear?"

"Clowns," he said, to general amusement. "What?" he snapped, whirling around. "They're freaking creepy!"

Draco was still snickering into his palm.

Lupin smiled. "I don't blame you, Mr. Zabini. We all have different tastes. But don't think about how much you fear clowns, now; rather, think about how you can make him funny. Concentrate on that. I will release the Boggart, and you will point your wand at it and simply say the incantation I just taught you," Lupin said. "Ready? One – two – three!" He pointed his wand at the door of the wardrobe, and it sprang open.

There was a brilliant swirl of color, and a CRACK, and a tall, extravagantly dressed clown appeared in front of them.

"Riddikulus!" Blaise yelled. Suddenly, the clown's makeup melted away…revealing Lockhart's face. Everyone was laughing, and the Boggart looked around, confused. (Though that was Lockhart's usual expression, or at least when he wasn't trying to act like the was the greatest thing on earth since oxygen, anyway.)

"Millicent, you next!" A rather large, female-looking version of Vincent Crabbe stepped up. Her greatest fear turned out to be a disembodied head, which she made explode.

One by one, each member in the class went up. Artemis, however, lingered at the back of the line, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. It would be his turn, soon.

Theodore Nott's Boggart was the bloodied and beaten up body of his father.

"R-riddikulus!" There was another crack, and the corpse fell apart – it was a plastic mannequin.

Draco, not very surprisingly, had to face a troll, which he knocked out with its own club.

The class went up one by one against the Boggart.

Lupin only smiled serenely. "The point of this class is not to boast your fears, but to face them." It made sense – Lupin was actually not that bad. If the rest of his lessons were this good, then he should have no trouble gaining the respect of all of the students, considering the fact that they had begun the year with low expectations of him based on past experiences with their previous Defense teachers. Artemis was quite impressed. This was a perfect first lesson - simple in concept, but psychologically stimulating - perfect for getting a group of children into the right mindset for the rest of the year.

Still, a part of Artemis did not want everyone to see his greatest fear - whatever it was.

Soon, it was Pansy Parkinson's turn – the person standing in front of Artemis. He was going to be next. He hardly paid attention to her Boggart; rather, he was more concentrated on what he was supposed to do for his.

Before he knew it, though, Lupin clapped his hands, pushed the Boggart back into the wardrobe, and announced that class was over.

What just happened? He skipped me. Not that I mind, but it is strange. I suppose I could always find one later for myself and train alone, because this is a very important lesson.

Artemis shrugged and walked out with the rest of his House.

"Hey, Artemis?"

Artemis looked at Theodore. "Yes?"

"Why do you think he didn't have you fight the Boggart?"

Artemis looked away. "I do not know. I suppose that I shall have to ask later. Now, however, I must catch up on some homework for History – Professor Binns has just assigned a three-foot-long essay on yet another goblin rebellion."

"Oh, yeah, I have to do that, too," Blaise said absentmindedly. He was still joking about the clown Boggart and Lockhart. "It's not as if I changed much. I mean, that guy is a complete fool, and his clothes are so flaming ridiculous that he might as well splash on some makeup to compliment it."

They encountered Potter and his friends in the library. The Slytherin boys sat off to one table, but Artemis decided to sit with Potter to ask him more on Lupin.

"What do you think of our new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor?" he asked.

"Do we even need to say anything?" Weasley said. "He's bloody amazing! Lupin's definitely the best teacher we've had in ages!"

"I agree with Ron," Harry said. "I'm actually looking forward to Defense classes this year. He didn't let me tackle the Boggart, though. He was afraid that Voldemort would appear."

"Do you fear Voldemort?" Artemis asked. Was that why Lupin had not given him a chance to fight Voldemort, either? Because he had thought that Artemis' worst fear was Voldemort? That would have been completely false – Voldemort may have been a dangerous wizard, but he felt neither charisma nor intimidation from the man – disgust, absolutely – but nothing more extreme than that.

"Kind of. But not as much as that thing on the train. The Dementor," Potter confessed. "I hate them…they're worse on me than everyone else because apparently I have more traumatic memories."

"He didn't let me try, either," Hermione said. "But I have no idea why."

"How odd. I was not given a chance to 'face my greatest fear,' either."

"Maybe we should ask him together," Hermione suggested.

No. No. Just – no. He wasn't going to have Lupin explain his ideas about Artemis' greatest fear in front of another person.

"Perhaps next time. I have an essay on goblin rebellions to work on," Artemis said.

"Oh, me too," Hermione said. He wasn't going to be able to get rid of her, was he? "See, in 914 A.D…"

At least Hermione was smart.

From that point on, Defense grew to be everyone's favorite class – though Draco still stuck to Potions. He grudgingly admitted through constant badgering from Blaise that yes, Lupin was a good teacher, but he was more used to Professor Snape.

They still spent some time in the dungeons with the Potions Master, as a matter of fact, but the meetings were becoming less common because they were no longer so necessary now that they had a competent teacher for once. Also, their mounds of homework had drastically increased due to their new elective courses.

Ancient Runes had been quite easy for Artemis, who was already naturally used to foreign languages, but now, their teacher was piling on more and more homework. The translations were easy enough, but also extremely tedious. Occasionally, Artemis would also come across a new symbol, and he would have to look it up. He had transcribed the entire textbook into his magically-powered laptop to make things go faster, but the work was still very time-consuming.

Arithmancy, on the other hand, was the equivalent of mathematics for wizards. The only problem was that the math that Artemis was used to – multivariable calculus, linear algebra, et cetera, had nothing to do with the subject. Muggle sciences were an exact thing, but when magic was added, new twists would appear, completely skewing his normal idea of how even basic arithmetic was supposed to work. The closest thing that he could compare to Arithmancy was Number Theory.

To make the time pass more quickly, he decided to do his homework in the library with Hermione. She was an efficient worker when it came to studies; while she did not approve of copying, she ended up giving out a lot of answers unintentionally. Artemis wrote them down, of course, to save time, and repaid her by giving out a few answers of his own. True, he could look up who discovered that 7 was the most magically powerful number, and why 42 was the most versatile (and it was not because A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy said so) all by himself, but he could also use the time that he spent finding the answers to research Riddle's diary if he accepted Hermione's…help.

He noticed more papers sticking out from underneath her many books. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a worksheet on Muggle electronics.

"Muggle Studies homework," she said.

Wait – what? "Why are you taking Muggle Studies? You're Muggle-born!"

"It's interesting to learn about them from the magical point of view," Hermione said. A thought struck Artemis.

"How are you taking a third elective course?"

"The teachers let me," she said, vaguely.

Now that she mentioned it, Hermione looked constantly tired. Her back was bent from carrying so many papers, and her hair was more frizzy than usual – she obviously hadn't slept well. Taking a peek at her other papers, he saw that she had also enrolled in Divination.

"How are you going to fit every single possible elective into your schedule?" he asked incredulously. "Isn't Runes and Divination at the same time?"

"Yeah. Oh, look at the time – I have to run, bye!"

She scurried off.

"That's a strange girl you got there, Fowl," Marcus Flint yelled at him from across the library (the Quidditch captain actually frequented libraries? It was the end of the world!), much to Madam Pince's annoyance.

Strange indeed.

A/N: For those of you who are curious about Artemis' Boggart, don't worry. You'll get to find out what it is exactly later in this book. And according to the Harry Potter wikia, Lupin didn't let Hermione and Harry face the Boggart in the book because they correctly answered those questions he asked the class beforehand. So I'm just using this same reason for Artemis not being allowed to face the Boggart. Lupin doesn't really know Artemis that well yet, after all, so he doesn't have a specific reason.