A/N: Thanks for the birthday wishes and reviews! I got the illustrated edition of Philosopher's Stone, Minerva's wand and two beautiful paintings of Albus and Minerva (my friends know I'm in a Harry Potter phase, though, I was never really out of it, truth be told). So I'm all set to keep writing. Hope you enjoy. :)
60. First Lessons
Last year the new term had started with Arthur Weasley telling them that Harry Potter had gone missing in a flying car. This year it was an owl from Remus Lupin informing them that the Dementors had searched the Hogwarts Express, scared the students half to death and left Potter in a dead faint.
Minerva wondered if they would ever get good news for a change.
They should probably count themselves lucky that Albus had made sure that Remus would be on the train with Harry. Meeting a Dementor for the first time was always a nasty shock, no matter when or where it happened. But this way, he hadn't been on his own at least. Once the students had made it up to the castle and Minerva had asked Poppy to examine Potter in her office, there was nothing physically wrong with him anymore. Or so he said, clearly embarrassed about the whole incident. Minerva would have told him that there was no shame in fearing a Dementor, but she didn't have a lot of time.
Because time was exactly what she wanted to talk to Miss Granger about. After Potter had left to wait outside, Minerva unlocked one of her drawers with her wand, removed the Time-Turner and put it on her desk.
"Do you know what this is, Miss Granger?"
The young girl looked disappointed that she didn't have the correct answer for once. "No, Professor."
"I didn't really expect you to," Minerva told her with a small smile. "This is a very rare and extremely valuable magical device that allows its owner to travel back in time."
Miss Granger's eyes widened. "But Professor, I read that all time-related magic is highly unstable and terribly dangerous."
Minerva nodded, pleased with that answer. "And so it is. Breaches in the laws of time can have catastrophic consequences. One could accidentally alter a person's life path in such drastic fashion that it could result in temporal anomalies such as un-births. Or one could create and get stuck in alternative timelines far worse than anything we're experiencing in the here and now."
"Then why would anyone risk that?"
"Well, for one thing, people love to do exactly what's not good for them," Minerva said, her nostrils flaring. "But the limited and controlled use of a Time-Turner can be helpful and justifiable if there is a specific and appropriate purpose – such as allowing you to attend all of your classes this year."
There was a pause while Miss Granger processed this. "You want me to time travel to get to class?"
"You still wish to study all of the subjects you chose?" Minerva checked.
"Yes, Professor," Miss Granger confirmed without hesitation.
"Then yes, this is the only way for you to do that," she told her. "The process itself is fairly simple. You just have to wear the necklace and the number of times you turn the hourglass corresponds to the number of hours you will travel back in time. You can only stay in the past for five hours at a time without risking serious harm. Since you won't need to travel back further than one or two hours, that shouldn't be a problem."
Miss Granger bobbed her head to show that she had understood. "Professor, is this something you do often?"
Minerva half laughed at that. "Definitely not. There are hundreds of laws in place to prevent the misuse of a Time-Turner. You have to swear to me that you won't tell anyone about this. And when you do travel back in time, you have to make absolutely sure that no one else sees you existing twice in the same moment in time. Many witches or wizards have gone mad or tried to attack their future selves in the most gruesome ways. Do you hear me, Miss Granger? This goes beyond breaking school rules or losing house points. We're talking about breaking Wizarding Law here."
The girl paled a little, but her voice was firm when she said, "I understand, Professor. I promise to be careful and I won't tell anyone."
"Not even Mr Potter or Mr Weasley," Minerva pressed.
She swallowed hard. "Yes, Professor."
"If you have any questions, you come to me – and only me – directly. Do not hesitate to talk to me. No use being shy when time is of the essence, quite literally."
"I will, Professor."
Minerva was satisfied that Miss Granger was being sincere and she was certainly clever enough to handle this responsibility. Otherwise Minerva wouldn't have suggested it in the first place. But a little warning couldn't hurt. "Good, because if you use this for anything other than getting to your classes, you and I will both be in serious trouble."
At that, Miss Granger began to fidget in her chair. "How do you mean, Professor?"
"There aren't many Time-Turners in existence and most of them are in the possession of the Ministry. In order to convince them to let me have one, I had to vouch for you. I told them that you're one of my best students and that you can be trusted with something of this magnitude. I probably don't have to tell you that I don't give my word like that lightly."
Miss Granger looked a little awed, but also pleased. "Thank you for doing that for me, Professor."
"There's no need to thank me. But I expect you to study hard."
She seemed positively excited at the prospect. "Of course, Professor."
"Then this is yours for the time being. And now we should really get to the start-of-term feast before it's over."
Minerva felt just a little bit nervous when she actually handed over the Time-Turner and walked back to the Great Hall with Potter and Granger. She trusted Granger, but accidents weren't always completely avoidable. Especially here at Hogwarts. With that in mind, Minerva spent the next day waiting for disaster to strike.
And it did. It just had nothing to do with the Time-Turner or Miss Granger.
After Minerva had finished her last class of the afternoon, she distractedly made her way to Albus' office without really meaning to.
"Oh my, did you not have a good first day of school?" he asked her upon her entrance.
Minerva blinked. "It was fine. But I'm not the one who's going to die soon."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Oh, you know, the Gryffindor third-years had their first Divination lesson and of course Sybill had to do the old 'predicting a student's death to impress them' charade." Minerva dropped into a chair with a huff. "Would you like to guess which student she picked? I can give you a hint. He nearly died a handful of times already since coming to this school and is currently being chased by a convicted murderer. As if he needed such nonsense on top of everything else! You should really talk to Sybill about this, Albus. It's bad enough that the students are scared of the Dementors and Sirius Black. Their teachers should support them, not tell them that something even worse is coming for them!"
Albus sighed. "You're right. That wasn't a very kind thing to say. Did Harry really believe her, though?"
"I tried to talk him out of it, but the whole class was pretty shaken. They didn't even appreciate my Animagus lesson."
"Ah," said Albus, an amused grin spreading across his face all of a sudden.
Minerva narrowed her eyes at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. I just understand now that what you're really upset about is that they didn't applaud you when you transformed for them."
"Well, I only get to do it once with every new group of students," Minerva said defensively.
"And you've been doing it for over thirty years now," Albus pointed out.
"So?"
"So I think it's adorable that you're usually the least vain person I know, except when it comes to showing off your Animagus skills in class," he teased her.
Minerva pursed her lips. "Don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same if you could have."
"Clearly I didn't need to because you fell in love with me anyway."
After a surprised pause she burst out laughing. But only until they heard a sudden commotion on the stairs leading up to the headmaster's office. There was more than one person coming and they were unmistakably upset.
Minerva sobered quickly, got up and moved out of the way before the door opened and three people entered – Hagrid, who looked utterly distraught, Severus, who seemed merely annoyed, and Lucius Malfoy, who was seething with rage. It didn't add up to anything good.
"Back so soon, Lucius? I seem to recall that your last visit to Hogwarts was only a couple of weeks ago," Albus spoke first. If he had hoped to take the wind out of Malfoy's sails that way, it didn't work.
"Believe me, Dumbledore. I wish I didn't have to be here. But I must demand retribution for the appalling injury my son suffered because of the gross incompetence of that oaf of a man!" He raised his walking stick and pointed the sharp end at Hagrid.
Before Albus could respond, the gamekeeper beat him to it. "It was an accident! Buckbeak didn' mean ter hurt him. It's jus' they're very proud creatures, Hippogriffs, yeh see, an' I told the class not ter..."
"I don't care what you told them!" Malfoy cut him off. "What you did was to set a savage beast on my son and I will make sure that you and that monster of yours pay for your actions – permanently! Dumbledore can't protect you this time!"
"I would like to decide for myself what I can and cannot do," Albus said sharply and put a stop to the heated exchange. "First, I need to know exactly what happened."
He shot Hagrid a questioning look and the gamekeeper answered haltingly, "I was introducin' the third-years ter Hippogriffs. Thought they'd make a good first lesson 'cause they're such fascinatin' creatures an'... uh... anyway, Harry volunteered ter work with Buckbeak – that's one o' the Hippogriffs – an' he was doin' really well. Even got ter ride him. Then Mr Malfoy's son took over an' he, er, well, he called Buckbeak an ugly brute an' he didn' like that. It's like I told 'em at the start o' the lesson. Yeh can never offend a Hippogriff..."
"Are you saying it's my son's fault that that untamed beast attacked him when it was your responsibility to keep it under control?" Malfoy bristled.
"Buckbeak's not a beast! He bowed ter yer son an' everythin'. If yer son had bothered ter listen when I told him how ter act around a Hippogriff..."
"Listen to you?" Malfoy sneered. "How can anyone be expected to listen to you when one can hardly understand a word of what you're saying?"
At this, Hagrid lost his courage to defend himself further or to open his mouth to say anything at all.
Albus held up a hand. "How is Draco?" he asked, looking at Severus this time.
"Madam Pomfrey saw to the wound the Hippogriff inflicted. It was bleeding profusely," said the Head of Slytherin House. It was an obvious attempt to justify Malfoy's outrage. "But Madam Pomfrey managed to heal it," he was forced to admit.
"Draco says that he's still in a lot of pain," Malfoy argued immediately. "He can't use the arm to do anything right now – and it's his wand arm. If there's any permanent damage, his entire future could be in jeopardy. I won't tolerate this, Dumbledore! I insist that you expel that man from this school once and for all!"
Hagrid cringed and he was too far away for Minerva to comfort him in any way. Meanwhile, the familiar warmth in Albus' blue eyes had turned to ice. "That man has a name, Lucius. His name is Rubeus Hagrid – Professor Rubeus Hagrid to you – and he gave your son and his classmates clear instructions on how to conduct themselves in his lesson. Your son chose not to follow those instructions and suffered an injury that is certainly very regrettable but also the logical consequence. His teacher bears no responsibility for his careless actions."
"Then you refuse to dismiss him?" Malfoy asked incredulously.
"I'm not in the habit of letting parents, or anyone else for that matter, dictate the way I handle my staff," Albus replied coolly. "And even if I were, I can see no wrongdoing in this case other than your son's failure to listen to his teacher."
"I suppose I should have known," Malfoy hissed. "But we shall see what the governors will have to say about this. Rest assured that I will lodge my complaint directly with them so you can't stop them from agreeing with me."
"You may find, Lucius, that they're not as willing to listen to you as they used to be before you were asked to… step aside. They're still surprisingly upset about your recent attempt to threaten members of their families. Nevertheless, I agree that they'll have to be informed about this unfortunate accident."
Malfoy took two quick steps forward until only the desk was separating them. "This was no accident! This was the direct result of your insistence to hire the kind of despicable riffraff that shouldn't be allowed to teach our children or have any other place in our community!"
Albus stood and to Minerva he appeared twice as tall and intimidating as Malfoy. "You're concerned for the well-being of your son. That is your right as a parent. Insulting my teachers, however, is not. Hagrid has explained what happened, Madam Pomfrey has seen to your son's injuries. If you wish to sit with him for a while, that can certainly be arranged. If not, I must ask you to leave now. I'm sure you remember the way from two months ago when I warned you not to enter my school with the wrong kind of intentions ever again."
The room was ominously quiet for a moment.
"This isn't over, Dumbledore!" Malfoy spat eventually, turned around with a flourish and stormed out.
Severus still looked annoyed that he had to deal with all of this and followed more slowly.
There was a loud crunch when Hagrid slumped into one of Albus' chairs and it nearly collapsed under his weight. "I'm so sorry, Professor. I never meant ter cause yeh all this trouble. I reckon Malfoy's right. I don' deserve ter be a teacher – havin' an accident on me first day!"
"That's complete and utter nonsense!" Minerva spoke for the first time since this mess had started. "I had a student in my class today who made his eyebrows vanish and then reappear on the back of his head and another one who caused his best mate to trumpet like an elephant – and that was only before lunch."
Hagrid and Albus both looked at her with varying degrees of surprise. "I thought you said your day went fine," the latter reminded her.
"It did. Because even those students learned something. There's no other way to teach them magic, Hagrid. They have to be allowed to make mistakes and there are plenty of those in my classes, too. So either I don't deserve to be a teacher any more than you do or we've both been doing the best we can to protect the students while they're trying to learn," Minerva explained.
The frown on Albus' face eased into a smile and he turned from Minerva back to Hagrid. "Couldn't have put it better myself."
"Thank yeh fer sayin' that," Hagrid sniffed, but he still sounded dejected. "What's goin' ter happen now?"
"I'll have to speak to the governors as soon as possible and they'll probably want to talk to you as well. So perhaps you should take a little time to collect yourself," Albus suggested.
Hagrid gave a slow nod. "I'll go tell Buckbeak that yer on his side." Looking as downhearted as Minerva had ever seen him, he shuffled out of the office.
"Malfoy won't give up easily," she said quietly. "If the governors won't listen to him this time, he'll try to go over their heads."
"I know," Albus agreed gravely and briefly squeezed her hand. "But where would we be if we gave up hope on the very first day of school?"
"I've never seen you give up hope no matter what day of the year," she replied, squeezing his hand right back.
He smiled softly. "Still, let's hope our second new addition to the staff has a happier start to the school year."
He most certainly did.
By the end of the first week, Remus Lupin had become everybody's favourite teacher. Certainly among the Gryffindors and as far as Minerva could tell most of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were just as enamoured with him. Only Slytherin students could still be heard making snide remarks about Lupin's patched robes or his tattered bag. But they were being mean on purpose to distract from a certain story that had spread like wildfire through the entire school – namely, the story of the Head of Slytherin House wearing a grandmother's dress. It had only been a Boggart version of him, but Minerva had to admit that she would have paid good money to see that.
She wasn't stupid enough to say that, though, when she found herself alone with Severus in the staffroom on Friday afternoon. They were both content to stick to their separate corners of the room without talking to one another. Considering the foul mood Severus seemed to be in constantly these days, it was the safest option.
It hadn't stopped raining since this morning. The raindrops beating against the windows was the only sound in the room while they worked in silence. When the door opened and Remus entered, he smiled at Minerva in greeting and walked over to the wardrobe to hang up his raincoat.
As soon as Severus looked up to see who had come in, the air between the two men felt suddenly charged. Minerva didn't want to wait for anything to ignite the tension and quickly turned towards the Potions master to distract him.
"Severus, I've been meaning to ask you how Mr Malfoy is doing?" That was at least partially true. She had been wondering how long Severus would allow the boy to miss school, even though Poppy had declared him to be perfectly healthy.
"He returned to class yesterday," Severus replied curtly.
"That's good to hear," Minerva said while Remus sat down next to her. "I was..."
"I appreciate your sudden concern for my students, Minerva, and normally I'd love to stay and listen to your opinions on how I should be leading Slytherin house. But I fear I'm allergic to this putrid smell of wet dog, so you'll have to excuse me." He pushed back his chair with a smirk and left the room.
Minerva stared after him for a few seconds before she turned to face Remus. "I can't believe he just said that! I'm so sorry, Remus."
"Don't worry about it, Minerva. It's fine," he brushed it off.
"It's most definitely not fine," she contradicted, apparently angrier on his behalf than he was.
"Perhaps not. But I've been called a lot worse and when we were back in school, calling him names was not the only cruel thing we did to him either," Remus admitted with a small and sorry sort of smile.
"But it's been years!"
"I don't think there'll ever be enough water under that particular bridge – too much bad blood." He shrugged helplessly. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something else. Since the students handled the Boggart so well, I'd like to show them Red Caps and Kappas next. And then I thought we'd move on to Grindylows and Hinkypunks."
Minerva needed a moment to process the sudden change of topic. "That sounds like a sensible lesson plan. But why are you telling me this?"
"I thought I needed to get permission from you or the headmaster before bringing magical creatures into the school," Remus replied uncertainly. "Isn't there a new rule about that?"
"Oh," Minerva gave a little half laugh, "no, I made that up last year so Gilderoy Lockhart wouldn't lay waste to the entire castle. You can plan your lessons any way you like. Should any of your creatures get out, I trust that you'll be more than capable of handling the situation. Though, preferably, there'll be no need for that."
"Er, thanks, I think," Remus said with a wry grin.
Minerva looked at him more closely. "That was supposed to be a compliment," she clarified. "The students are obviously enjoying your classes. What about you? How do you like teaching?"
"Oh, it's great fun. I probably shouldn't have favourites, but I guess since you're Head of Gryffindor House, I can tell you that teaching the Gryffindor third-years, being around Harry..." He paused. "It's extraordinary. He looks so much like James, except for the eyes, of course."
"Is that difficult for you?" Minerva asked softly.
"I thought it would be. Seeing Harry every day is certainly different than just knowing that he survived. But it's actually better. It makes me feel hopeful. I'm really happy that he's alive and doing well here."
"As long as you're not consulting any tea leaves," Minerva couldn't help saying. Apparently, that still irked her.
Bemused, Remus furrowed his brow. "I don't follow."
"Our Divination teacher – Sybill Trelawney, you haven't met her yet because she rarely leaves the North Tower – she likes to greet new students by predicting someone's death," Minerva explained. "Naturally, Potter was her first victim this year. He has proven to be quite resilient, but I think that prediction got to him a little."
"She told him he's going to die? And here I was worried that giving them homework for the weekend might have been a bit too cruel..." Remus muttered.
Minerva laughed. "I would argue that not giving them homework would have been a lot crueller – because it would've made the rest of us teachers look even worse. I always give them homework, over the weekend especially."
"I remember," said Remus, laughing softly as well. "And I rather liked that." Minerva shot him a dubious look. "Really, I did. Getting good marks from you always meant something. It meant that I had studied really hard. Of course, that might have been because things never used to come easily to me. Not compared to James. He was a natural, obviously, or he wouldn't have been able to..."
When he suddenly broke off, Minerva quirked an eyebrow in question. "To do what?"
"To inspire the rest of us," Remus finished, but he sounded unhappy. "I'm sorry. I don't usually talk about all that. Seeing James in Harry must have made me sentimental."
"Did you not talk about it because you didn't want to or because you didn't have the chance to?" Albus had mentioned how lonely Remus had seemed to him when he had visited him over the summer. This was the closest Minerva dared to get to pointing that out. "Either way, you don't have to apologise. I didn't know James and Lily as well as you did, but I think I was as close to them as I could have been as their former Head of House. So if you ever do want to talk about them..." Minerva's voice trailed off. She didn't want to push, just put the offer out there. She understood the need for privacy, but Albus had taught her the beauty of sharing the load sometimes.
Remus smiled at her in thanks. "It's funny, returning to Hogwarts as a teacher, seeing everything from the other side. Of course I never imagined myself becoming a teacher. For obvious reasons. Do you remember when you gave me career advice back in the day?" He laughed and didn't wait for her to answer. "I've thought about that a lot lately. I walked into your office and told you that I hadn't looked at any of the brochures because nobody was going to hire me anyway. You got so angry with me. You said they'd be right not to hire me if I didn't even bother to try. And you insisted that as long as I applied myself and kept believing in myself, somebody would give me the chance to show my true potential." He slowly shook his head at the memory. "I have to admit I didn't really believe you. But I should have known that somebody would be Albus Dumbledore."
Now that Remus mentioned it, Minerva did remember saying that to him. "I'm glad he proved me right. And I'm very pleased to have you here, Remus. So perhaps stay away from any strange jinxes. We wouldn't want to lose you again."
"Mm, perhaps I should talk to this Sybill. She sounds like she might have some insight into my future."
"Only if you wish to hear that you'll die a horribly painful and embarrassing death like getting strangled by a Grindylow, choking on your pork chops at dinner or having a gargoyle dropped on your head – all equally plausible, I'm sure."
Remus' eyes were dancing with amusement when he said, "Dumbledore told me that some things hadn't changed here at Hogwarts. I see that making sure to stay on your good side is one of them."
Minerva snorted. "I should bloody well hope so."