Chapter 51

Now that he stood facing a class, Harry felt extremely sorry for the teachers Umbridge had inspected so far. How did his dad make it look so easy? He kept the class' attention without even seeming to try, and could stop misbehavior with a look. As if Harry didn't have enough anxiety in his life without worrying about his family's safety, the mysterious door in his dreams, and his scar hurting again. At least thanks to Dobby they had a place to hold classes. The Room of Requirement was perfect, supplying them with everything from pillows to land on while practicing stunning to sneakascopes.

It was starting to feel official. Hermione helped that by having everyone vote Harry in as their teacher and suggesting they have a name. Ginny's suggestion, Dumbledore's Army, was quickly voted in. So far, so good. Harry hoped things would keep going that well once he actually started teaching.

"I was thinking we should start with Expelliarmus," Harry began, but Zacharius Smith interupted saying that wasn't likely to be of any use. After Harry pointed out that it had saved his life last year, everyone was more cooperative. He spent the rest of the hour watching his students- strange how quickly he came to think of them that way- disarm each other. Here he'd correct a wand movement, there a pronounciation. Little by little, they were actually improving. When it came time to send them back to their common rooms, everyone was excited and eager to have another lesson soon. Everyone had something good to say, and Neville had what were probably the most encouraging words of all.

"You might want to think about becomming a teacher Harry. I think you might be about as good as your dad."

Harry felt there could be no higher praise than that.

While things were getting better for Harry, in an unexpected way they were getting better for Remus too. It happened the morning after the full moon, when Remus reached out to help steady Mila as she transformed back to human. Being so little yet, the transformations took more out of her than they did the others. The night before hadn't been an especially bad transformation, but it was almost instinctive for him to make sure she'd gotten through the full moon without hurting herself. She always looked so frail, especially when recovering from transforming. It tugged at his heart to see her trying to get to her feet with an expression like a deer caught in the headlights. But almost as soon as she was standing she said "It's OK Dad. I'm not hurt."

Remus thought he must have misheard her for a moment. Always before it had been "Mr Lupin" or "Mr. Remus," the way a child her age would talk to a distant friend of their parents. But she turned to him in a way that showed she'd known what she was saying and he's heard right.

"Thank you," he said in a choked voice.

"You don't mind if I call you that then?"

"Mind?" Remus asked in disbelief. "I was hoping you would someday. You know I think of you as my own daughter. But I thought you were still missing your parents."

"I still do a little," she said. "But they won't be comming back for me." She gave a smile. "And I don't see why they should keep me from loving another Dad."

There was more acceptence than sadness in her voice when she talked about her parents. She was moving forward with her new life. Still, Remus wondered how long that could last. Legally, Mila didn't belong to anyone. Luckily the Ministry had no idea where Mila was living since werewolves weren't required to register until they turned eleven. But even so there was always the chance the Ministry would investigate where she was. They knew she was a werewolf since every werewolf bite had to be reported. And if they found her there, they could say that she had to go to an orphanage.

Remus didn't want to think how a werewolf would be treated there. And he knew he wouldn't be allowed to adopt again. They couldn't say he was a danger to her since she was a werewolf too, but they wouldn't want more than one werewolf in a group. The Ministry was being very anti- werewolf at the moment and it was bound to get worse.

Normally Remus wouldn't have worried Mila by telling her this, but she overheard him talking about it with Sirius one day. Both were quick to reassure her.

"Between Remus and I, we're devious enough to deal with those Ministry morons. Heck, your dad's devious enough to deal with me. You should have seen what he did to James and I when we were in school."

Luckily this had the desired effect, and Mila started focusing on what Sirius was saying instead of their problem.

"But I thought you were friends at school."

"Not at first, Remus explained. "James and Sirius met on the Hogwarts Express and were instant friends, but it took me a little longer to join them. Actually I was one of their favorite targets for pranks at first."

Sirius chuckled. "he was this shy, quiet, know it all bookworm. It was like he was begging to be pranked. That is, until the day we went too far. I forget what we did exactly."

"You threw an erumpant horn in the potion I was brewing and nearly blew apart the whole dungeon. Professor Slughorn thought it was my fault."

"Oh, right," Sirius said. They could laugh about it now, so he let out a laugh before continuing. "Anyway, your dad did the sneakiest, most sinister thing he could do."

"What?"

"Absolutely nothing," remus said innocently, but with a smirk. Mila looked confused.

"You see, he knew we expected him to get back at us, but instead of pranking us directly, he'd do things like pass us the food at meals with a smirk or his face. We figured he put something in it, so we were afraid to eat it. When Peeves was pelting students with water baloons down one hallway, he'd tell us about it. We'd think he was trying to trick us into going the other way and walk right into Peeves' trap. Things like that. James and I ended up doing worse to ourselves over and over again than anything Remus could have done to us. And we kept getting more and more tense wondering what he was finally going to do to us. By the end of the first week he had us jumping at our own shadows expecting something around every corner."

"It was your own fault for not trusting me," Remus said, grinning.

Everyone had a good laugh and Mila asked "So how did you become friends?"

"Your dad got us out of trouble when he could have gotten us into it. McGonagall caught James and I out after curfew. At least she was fairly sure it was us. We ran back to the dorm as fast as we could, and she came after us ready to deduct points and probably give us detention. But Remus spoke up and said we'd been there the whole time. James and I couldn't believe it. After all we'd done to him, he saved us. Well naturally, McGonagall believed the ultra- teacher's pet and we got off completely. After that, we felt pretty bad about what we'd done to him and started treating him like a person instead of a target. Lucky thing for us too. He got us out of almost as much trouble as we got into. He's good at figuring out stuff like that."

"And I'll figure out some way to keep you with us too, Mila. That's a promise."

Along with the DA meetings, Harry had the first Quiddich match of the year to look forward to. Ron wasn't anywhere near as excited though. Panicking was more the right word. He was letting the taunts of the Slytherins, something Harry had long been used to, get to him. Luna's Gryffindor lion hat brought a smile to their faces temporarily, but it was hard to keep Ron's confidence up when the Slytherins started singing "Weasley is our king." The singing got louder when Ron missed his first goal. And his second.

Even so, twenty to nothing wasn't so bad. As long as Harry caught the Snitch, they's still win easily. But when the score changed to fourty to nothing, Harry became more focused on finding the snitch then he'd ever been before. Finally he saw it. Malfoy did too, but couldn't catch up to Harry, who silently thanked Sirius again for the Firebolt.

The game was over and Gryffindor had won, so Harry shouldn't have had to keep an eye out for bludgers. He never saw the one coming at him until it hit him hard in the head. Harry flew back several feet, but couldn't feel any broken bones. He got back to his feet and was about to join his team in celebrating when he heard a cold voice behind him.

"Did you like my lyrics, Potter?"

Poor Ron was headed to the changing room alone.

"We couldn't find rhymes for fat and ugly. We wanted to sing about his mother, see. We couldn't fit in useless loser for his father either."

It was then that Fred and George heard what was going on. Angelina was restraining Fred while Harry had to grab George.

"But you like the Weasleys, don't you Potter? Can't see how you stand being in such a hovel. But then I suppose compaired to your dad even the Weasleys seem rich. Has he found a job yet? Or is he still living off your blood traitor godfather? Or maybe you moved in with the Weasleys. I suppose the stink reminds you of your mudblood mother."

That was the breaking point. He'd tolerated his family being put down long enough, and in a second it became a contest to see whether Harry or George could hurt Malfoy worse. Each of them was punching as much of him as they could, and it took Madame Hooch casting an Impediment jinx to get them to stop. Harry and George were sent to McGonagall's office, and and they knew she wasn't going to be happy with them. Harry knew his dad wouldn't have wanted him to act like that either, and was feeling (just a little) ashamed of himself as they explained why they'd attacked Malfoy. Things didn't seem like they could get worse.

"Hem hem."

Oh no. No no no no no.

OK, now things at Hogwarts couldn't get much worse.

"I don't believe this. Fred, George, and I banned from Quiddich for life. Our brooms taken away. And Umbridge having the final say over punishments from now on!"

Harry beat his head against the wall in frustration a few times.

"I'd be better off leaving here and just being taught at Phoenix House. At least then I won't be getting other people in trouble."

"Don't you dare!" Hermione said. "We still need you to teach the DA." But it was more than that. She wouldn't let him sink into self pity. And he was grateful for that.

The DA and Hagrid finally coming back were the only good things at Hogwarts anymore. But Harry and his friends heard Umbridge hint that she knew Hagrid had been on a mission from Dumbledore. Whatever the mission had been hadn't gone well, Harry could tell. Hagrid looked like someone a lot bigger than him had slamed him into a wall a few times.

When Umbridge inspected Hagrid's first lesson back, she acted as if he didn't have the intelligence to understand what she was saying. Harry was about to tell her to stop it when she turned to him.

"I suppose Hagrid is one of your favorite teachers, is he?"

"Yes," Harry answered.

"But then, you have a fondness for half breeds, don't you?"

Harry clenched his hands inton fists and said "You and I have different definitions of what humanity is. And Hagrid knows about magical creatures."

And this lesson had been going so well, Harry thought. True, he couldn't see the thestrals who were happily munching on the cow carcass, but they were still interesting. And not dangerous, especially by Hagrid's standard's. But of course, Umbridge twisted anything good anyone said about Hagrid and delighted in writing down anything bad. She'd already put Trelawny on probaton, and it looked like she'd be doing the same to Hagrid.

Meanwhile, the twins were not taking things quietly.

"She's twisted," George said.

"She's foul," Fred agreed."She's going down," they said together.