I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own Harry Potter.

"Please tell me you play quidditch," Harry begged. He had spent the past three hours showing Aderyn around the castle, and she had requested a tour of the grounds for some fresh air. Harry had, of course, immediately thought of his quidditch team when he heard this.

Aderyn grinned at him. "I saw your pitch when Filch was bringing me in. The one at my old school is way smaller. Made it kinda boring, actually."

"So you do play, then?" Harry, who had been enjoying Aderyn's company a good deal more than he had expected, found himself inordinately pleased at the news. "What's your position?"

"Chaser, but I can play seeker, too."

Harry had to refrain from doing a victory dance. A chaser! A chaser! "That does it! You're going to Gryffindor, no matter what I have to do to make it happen."

Aderyn pouted at him. "What if I wanna be in Slytherin, though?" she asked, with surprisingly convincing innocence.

Harry snorted. "I'm not above bribing you, if I have to."

Aderyn adopted a calculating look. "And what exactly do you have that I want?"

"Besides social power and money?"

"Well, I suppose those help."

By now, they had reached the quidditch pitch, and Harry was bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Seriously, though, I need some serious help with the team this year. There weren't any games last year, one of my chasers graduated, another can't play because she's pregnant, and neither of my beaters are any better than 'decent.'"

"Back up a sec, there, Harry. One of your chasers is pregnant?"

Harry frowned, but replied all the same. "My ex-girlfriend," he said distastefully.

"And now she's pregnant?"

"Yep. Hence the 'ex.'"

"I take it you and she never . . ."

"No, although she seemed to think that we did. Don't ask," he added hastily, seeing the confused look on her face.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't mean to pry or anything. It's just kinda . . ."

"Don't worry, I get it. Y'know, I've been acting all weird since we broke up."

"That's understandable," Aderyn cut in.

Harry smiled at her briefly and went on. "But I've been feeling better today. It's been fun having you around, Aderyn."

Harry noticed, or thought he noticed, her blush slightly, but he didn't comment. Glancing at his watch, Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. "We need to meet McGonagall in fifteen minutes! C'mon!" He grabbed her wrist and sprinted towards the castle.

Aderyn gave a few token protests about being perfectly capable of running herself, but decided to just let Harry do his thing. And it was lucky she did, because the path he took the the headmaster's office defied all logic. Harry ran through two solid walls, took six doors hidden by tapestries, and, at one point, jumped through a painting of a hallway, only to end up in the hallway shown in the painting.

By the time they reached McGonagall's office, both were breathing heavily and sweating slightly. Harry was just glad that the inside of the castle was always cool, even in the middle of summer. Since they had only a minute until they were expected, Harry gave the password to McGonagall's office ("gemino!") and the two of them were left to catch their breath as the spiral staircase carried them both up.

"Ah, Mr Potter, Ms Price. Please, sit." When they were both seated and had exchanged pleasantries, McGonagall began properly. "Now then, onto business: Ms Price, you will need to be sorted today; that way you be in your house dormitory before term starts. Mr Potter here can show you to any of the common rooms. I take it," she turned her attention to Harry, "that you do know where all of them are?"

"Yes, Professor."

"And you are also aware that you shouldn't know where any common rooms are located save your own?"

Harry grinned and said again, "yes, Professor."

McGonagall raised her eyebrows slightly, which Harry knew from experience was as close to a laugh as he was going to get, and turned back to Aderyn. "Now then, Ms Price. If you could put on this hat?"

Aderyn took what Harry knew to be the sorting hat (though Aderyn didn't; Harry had stubbornly refused to tell her how the sorting worked) and, after shooting Harry a confused look, put it on.

Judging by the look on her face, she hadn't been expecting the hat to strike up a mental conversation with her.

After about a minute of what Harry could only assume was a silent argument, the hat called out "Gryffindor!" though Harry noticed that it was a good deal quieter than usual, for which he was grateful. Considering that it didn't have vocal cords, the thing was surprisingly loud when it wanted to be.

"Looks like we got one of those chasers," Harry said happily. McGonagall gave a slight smile, and Harry wondered whether she would still be supporting Gryffindor during quidditch games. Probably not, knowing her.

"Well, that's sorted," McGonagall said. Harry and Aderyn both grinned at the unintentional joke. "Now then, if you don't mind, Ms Price, I'd like to borrow Mr Potter for a moment."

"I'll meet you outside, then?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, don't be too long. Thank you, Professor McGonagall."

McGonagall waved her thanks away and turned her attention to Harry. "I have a few things I'd like to discuss with you, Harry. Firstly, I'd like to offer you a formal position here at the school." Harry raised his eyebrows but didn't speak.

"It's no secret that the teaching of Defense Against the Dark Arts at this school has been . . . dissatisfactory-" Harry snorted "-and I was rather hoping that you could help solve this problem."

"Are you asking me to teach the classes, Professor?"

"Not at all, though I suppose it's something similar. You remember your club during your fifth year?" Harry nodded. "I'd like you to do something similar this year, only we will treat it as a class, rather than a club. We can work out the logistics later, but for right now we can offer you the position of Assistant Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Again, we can discuss what that means later. For now, just know that you'll be working closely with this year's Defense Professor, so be ready for that."

"Have you found someone, then, Professor?" Harry asked. He had been wondering who would teach Defense all summer.

"Not yet, unfortunately. Actually, perhaps you could help with that? We already have an extensive list of applicants; would you be willing to go through and interview them?"

"Of course, Professor. If I'm going to be working with them, I'd at least like to help choose who teaches."

"Excellent. Now, one last thing: Albus has confided in me your distaste for, as you call them, 'fangirls?'"

"Is the next part of this conversation going to be really uncomfortable, Professor?"

"I'm afraid so," she replied, though she gave a small smile.

"Yes, well, they were pretty bad two years ago, but now that I've gone from 'The Boy Who Lived' to 'The Man Who Killed?' And after what happened with Ginny, I'm worried some of them will do something drastic."

"How so?"

"Two years ago, at least four girls tried to slip me love potions over the course of three hours."

"Ah," was all she said as they both thought back to the time when Ron had accidentally eaten several Chocolate Cauldrons spiked with love potion. "At any rate," she said, pulling Harry out of his dark thoughts, "Horace has developed this," she held out a small phial for him, which he took and eyed curiously. "It is a general antidote to love potions," she said in answer to his unasked question.

Harry's eyes lit up at this. "Brilliant! I'll have to thank him for this tonight at dinner."

McGonagall gave a small smile. "Quite. Just give that bottle to someone you trust with the instruction to make you drink it if they ever think that you have been given a love potion. It won't expire, and he has made several doses, so you should be perfectly fine for the rest of the year."

She dismissed him several minutes later, having asked him to think about how to operate the new iteration of the DA, and he went downstairs to meet Aderyn.

"What was that about?" she asked as they set off again, though neither had a direction in mind.

"She offered to let me teach a class," Harry shrugged. "More importantly, though, she gave me this!"

Aderyn took a moment to decide whether or not to humor him before asking "what's in the bottle, then?"

Harry grinned maniacally. "A love potion cure-all. Professor Slughorn made it for me. I'm supposed to give it to someone I trust and have them make me drink it if they think I've ever been given a love potion."

"Why would anyone need something like that?"

"You might just be surprised by how many love potions I've managed to avoid over the past two years." And at how many I haven't, Harry thought bitterly. "Could you do that for me?"

"Me?" she asked, coming to a complete stop.

"Yeah, the only other people I'd trust with this are kinda spacey. Who's to say if they'd really notice?"

"But- but we just met today? Why would you trust me with something this important?"

"Seems like a good idea," Harry replied. "If you don't want to-"

"I'll do it!" she said hastily. "I'm just not sure why you'd let me."

Harry just shrugged and turned away. It was only then that he realised where they were. "Oh! My office is just a few doors down from here. Wanna go check it out?"

Aderyn followed without thinking, asking as she did, "You've got an office?"

"Like I said, McGonagall is letting me teach a class. The office comes with the job."

"What exactly are you teaching? And what does that make you in the school?"

"Technically, I'm an assistant professor. I'm also gonna be head boy and quidditch captain."

"Can you do all that?" Aderyn asked.

"Nope," Harry replied casually, pulling open the door to his new office as he did so. The room inside was actually larger than he had expected: it had a desk slightly in front of the wall opposite the door with a straight-backed chair behind it. There were two other, smaller though more comfortable-looking, chairs in front of the desk, and a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window directly behind it. Bookshelves lined the wall on the left while the one on the right had a large fireplace (built into the wall so that it wouldn't take away from the available floor space), about three quarters of the way down the room from the window.

The floor was covered in a deep blue carpet, which was surprisingly plush, and the walls had red wallpaper with gold trim. In front of the fireplace, there was a couch, long enough for three people to sit comfortably, with an armchair halfway between the couch and the wall, facing perpendicular to both. Halfway between the couch and fireplace, there was a low coffee table, perfectly matched to the couch's length.

All of the furniture was made of mahogany, which complimented the colour scheme quite well, except for the couch and chairs. The chair behind the desk was made of what appeared to be ebony while the two facing it looked to be ivory. The couch and armchair were both made of whatever couches and armchairs are made of, both of them crimson in colour.

"Wow," Harry muttered.

"Some office," Aderyn agreed.

Snapping himself from his daze, Harry sat down on the couch and motioned for Aderyn to do so as well. "So," he began, "I'm teaching defense next year-"

"They're letting a student teach defense?! Err, no offense."

Harry grinned at her. "Well, I'm not really teaching defense. More like an optional class to supplement the main course. The actual defense class will teach students about a whole bunch of stuff, but I'll only be teaching dueling, so that should make it a lot easier.

"Either way, though, I can't teach the class, help grade stuff for the real defense professor, be head boy, and captain the quidditch team." Harry thought for a moment. "Have I told you about Ron?"

"You mentioned him a few times, why?"

"Looks like we'll be busy for the rest of the day," Harry said, grinning from ear to ear as he said it. "First, let's get back down to the pitch. We can do a quick, unofficial, trial for you, then we'll head back here. We'll floo over to Ron's, I'll introduce you, and I'll offer him the captaincy. Then we'll floo back here and have dinner with the staff.

"Sound alright?"

Aderyn considered for a moment before, "yeah, alright then. We'll have to go upstairs to get our brooms first, though."

One very successful trial later, Harry and Aderyn were back in Harry's office, preparing to head over to The Burrow. Harry turned to Aderyn and grinned. "Ready to meet my family?"

AN: Three chapters in a day? Boo yah! Just try not to get too used to it; I'll be starting work pretty soon, and I won't be able to sit down for five hours and write continuously, as much as I'd love to. Also, anyone wondering why Aderyn says that they need to go upstairs, her stuff was moved up to the Gryffindor dorms by a house elf when she was sorted, and Harry already told her roughly where all the common rooms were. Regardless, thanks for reading! Duke out!