For his first class, Harry had seventh year Slytherins and Gryffindors. Why did they always insist on putting Gryffindor and Slytherin together? It was a wonderful combination if you wanted a brawl to start every day. And to top it all off, Harry had to teach all about the unforgivable curses.
At precisely half past eight, Harry Jameson strode into his classroom, which was already full. A hush immediately fell, and he was greeted with many pairs of curious eyes. He took a deep breath and stepped forward; he half expected to be tripped or jinxed in some way, with the Marauders in the room, but he walked without any problem up to his desk and sat down.
"Seventh year Gryffindors and Slytherins, right?" His question was answered by several people nodding. Harry nodded slightly, more to himself than anything and began:
"My name is Harry Jameson and I will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year. If you lot have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them."
James Potter's hand went into the air immediately.
"Yes... Mr. Potter, is it?"
James nodded.
"How old are you?"
Harry grimaced slightly.
"I'm eighteen."
The most of the class gasped and Sirius blurted out, "How'd you become a teacher so young? How on earth are you qualified to teach students who are practically the same age as you?"
Remus leaned over and whacked Sirius in the arm.
"You shouldn't be rude!" he reprimanded. Sirius made a face of mock pain and rubbed his arm.
Harry took a deep breath. "I've had loads of experience with dealing with the Dark Arts… much against my better wishes."
The haunted look on his face did not go unnoticed by any of the more observant students.
Lily Evans's hand went up into the air.
"Yes... Miss Evans?"
"What will we be learning this year?"
"Well, I was actually thinking about asking you the same question. What did you cover last year?"
There were several murmurs around the room. Remus spoke up.
"You see professor, we didn't have the best teacher last year. All we did was read about the history."
Harry nodded because he completely understood the position the class was in, having Umbridge as a teacher himself.
"Well, then, we'll start at the beginning; learning basic self defense spells. Then we should move onto more advanced defense. If any of you have something that you want to learn about, don't hesitate to ask me about it."
Lily's hand went up into the air again, only this time with a little less confidence.
"Miss Evans?"
"Professor, do you think you'd be able to teach us about the unforgivable curses?"
Several people gasped.
"He can't teach those!"
"They're illegal!"
"He's not allowed!"
Harry raised up his hands to signal for silence. "Actually, Professor Dumbledore already spoke to me about the Unforgivables. He wants me to teach you about them and how to possibly save yourself from them. He believes it is vital information with the current state of affairs."
The classroom was dead silent.
Harry sighed, reached into his desk, and pulled out a glass jar containing a spider. He got up from his desk and walked around to the chalkboard and asked,
"Can anyone name one of the Unforgivables?"
Several hands slowly went into the air.
"Mr. Black?"
"The Imperius Curse."
"Very good. Do you know what the Imperius curse does?"
"It's a mind control spell. The person who's under it will do whatever the caster commands."
"Very good, Mr. Black. 10 points to Gryffindor. The Imperius curse is a spell in which the caster has complete control over the victim. However, it is also the easiest of the curses to survive. It is possible to overcome the Imperius Curse. The teacher who taught me about the curses put the Imperius on every one in the class until we could all fight it."
Some of the class gasped. "I will not be doing this to you. I will be demonstrating them for you, however."
He picked up the jar with the spider in it and opened it.
"Engorgio." The spider immediately grew to about three times the size it was. "Imperio!"
The spider began to tap dance across Harry's desk. It stopped and took a bow, and then it began to perform a series of acrobatic tricks. The class began to laugh; it was quite a sight to see, a performing spider.
"You think it's funny?" said Harry. "What if I made it walk into a fire, or drown itself? Would you be laughing then? You have to remember what a serious matter this spell is. Many people have claimed to only work for Lord Voldemort because they were under the Imperius Curse."
The whole class gasped because Harry had spoken the feared name of Voldemort.
Harry was used to this and simply ignored the looks he was receiving.
"Can anyone tell me another one of the Unforgivables?"
Severus Snape's hand was the first Harry saw. "Yes Mr. Snape?"
"There's the Cruciatus. It's a torture spell."
"Very good. 10 points to Slytherin. The Cruciatus is indeed a torture spell and a very, very painful one at that. The only way I can explain how it feels is that it feels like every bone in your body is on fire."
Bellatrix Black's hand went up. "Yes Miss Lestrange?"
"My last name's Black not Lestrange, and how do you know what Crucio feels like?"
Harry mentally kicked himself for the little slip up. Hopefully, he thought, they would just credit it to him being a new teacher. How was he supposed to know their names by heart on his first day?
"Well," Harry began and he could have sworn he heard Sirius say 'that's a deep subject,' but he ignored it and moved on. "I have had the misfortune of being under the Cruciatus. Although, unlike the Imperious, my teacher didn't put me under it. It was sometime later I was exposed to it."
He paused for a moment to see if there were any more questions. He noticed they were almost out of time so he decided to cover the last spell quickly.
"Anyways, moving on. The last Unforgivable is the most deadly. Avada Kedrava is the killing spell. There is no escaping it or its effects."
Harry had to smile to himself as he was saying this. He had escaped it several times and lived through it hitting him twice, but of course he didn't plan on telling them that.
The bell rang and seemed to knock the room's occupants out of their trance. They slowly got up and began to file out of the room.
"Well, I suppose that's all for today, class. I'll see you tomorrow." Harry said as they were leaving.
Harry sat down in his chair and thought 'It's going to be a very long year.'
oOo
As soon as they were out of the classroom, Sirius began to talk.
"Can you believe he's only eighteen?! How can he be teaching? I can't believe Dumbledore!"
"And he's performing the Unforgiveable curses for us!" James added.
"Yes but did you notice he only demonstrated the Imperious for us. He just skipped over the other two," commented Remus.
"He said you-know-who's name!" Peter squeaked.
James, Sirius and Remus nodded in agreement.
"There is definitely something odd about him," said Remus thoughtfully. "Maybe we should give him a chance, though. He could turn out to be an amazing teacher. He must know a ton about Defense Against the Dark Arts if Dumbledore hired him so young."
"You're right, Moony. I guess we should at least give him a chance. But he's still rather suspicious. I say we keep our eye on him until we find out more," said James as they entered the Transfiguration classroom.
oOo