New Professors
Everyone was exhausted after such a full day of practicing magic and having it capped off with a late night of Astronomy, so no one in the second year showed up to breakfast until the other years had finished. They all had a free period to counter the late night of Astronomy, so they took their time eating and spending a little more time relaxing before setting out to Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Their schedule for the class simply said, "Third Floor, Find Me." They found numerous other second-year students wandering around to locate the room, opening random doors and peering inside. Not wanting to wander around aimlessly and remembering the invitations to Alessandra Zabini's wedding, Lyra placed her wand on their schedule and cast the modified compass spell, which pointed the way. The spell directed them to the third-floor section that was under construction at the beginning of the previous year. There was a line of students outside waiting who had also discovered the location.
"It only lets three students in at a time," Shirley Baker told the new arrivals.
Just as she finished telling them, the door opened, and she entered with Ginny Weasley and Elisa Sweetleaf from Ravenclaw. The door closed after them. Lyra immediately latched onto Harry so they would stick together and looked around for a third. Most people already had groups, but Harry spotted Luna starting at a wall and talking to one of the suits of armor.
Harry pulled Lyra over to her, "Luna, do you want to join the two of us?"
She turned around and gazed at them with wide eyes. That went on for nearly a minute before she nodded and smiled widely.
"I would be delighted, Harry Potter, Lyra Black. It will be a grand adventure, I am sure."
When it was their turn, the door opened, and they slipped inside. The room was devoid of any furnishing, fixtures, paintings, or windows. Half the room was blocked by iron bars with nothing else behind them—just a small torch on their side of the room next to a trap door on the floor. With the rest of the room so dark, Harry pulled out his staff and used it to illuminate everything. There was no difference, and nothing new was brought to light. Luna started to advance to the trap door.
"Wait," Lyra put her hand in front of their third member. She drew her wand and incanted, "Serpensortia."
A three-foot-long cobra jumped out of her wand and slithered to the door. As it arrived, a pool of purple goo seeped out from the stones around it and stuck the snake in place. Moments later, it vanished. Lyra conjured another snake and made the approach, no purple goo this time. She wedged the door open with the snake and let it drop down the hole.
"It's gone," she told the others. "The snake spell vanished."
The three of them approached the hole, and Harry tried to light up what was below. It was only darkness. Whatever the magic below them was, the light of the Lampong couldn't pierce it. Deciding to go one at a time, they jumped down into the hole. Halfway through the fall, Harry felt his body get light, and he floated to a floor below. It was still dark, so he tried lighting up this room.
This time the light spread to every nook and cranny of the room to reveal it was another space without windows, but on the far wall was a large door with dark green vines covering it and most of the walls nearby. It seemed to be retreating from the light but had nowhere to go since the light was everywhere.
"That's Devil's Snare," Luna pointed out, "quite a large amount of it too."
Lyra smiled with glee, which the plant seemed to react to, and started to shrivel up even before she called out, "Incendio!"
Flames coated the wall where the door was. If a plant could look like it was screaming, the devil snare did as it was burned away. When it was all but ashes, Harry sent another snake to investigate the door. No traps this time, though it was locked. It took the three of them working together with unlocking charms to get through.
On the other side, the door closed behind them, and Harry lit up the room again just as he heard a flurry of wings.
"Doxies!" Luna said with a bit of fear as a mass of black, furry fairies flew in their direction.
Harry wasn't sure what they were, but seeing Luna's reaction, they must be dangerous. Lyra had wasted no time and was already casting fire spells at them as the swarm split up and tried to attack from multiple sides. Harry opted to push them back here and there while tagging them individually with punches of magic. Luna opened her bag and let loose the Cornish Pixie she had befriended, which went after them like a hobo on a ham sandwich as she cast a pinkish spell at them in a language Harry didn't recognize. Whatever it was, it seemed to stun them.
It took them nearly three minutes until they were all stunned or dead. While Harry began to investigate the rest of the room, Luna collected the dead ones as her pixie continued to gorge himself on the ones that were just stunned. To their questioning glare, she told them, "Lyra cooked them; I'm sure Murray will like them crispy if he tries them." She nodded to the feasting pixie that she must have named Murray.
The next room was through an already unlocked door and had a giant chess board in the center, though there was only one piece on the board. It wasn't even a chess piece, just a tall bronze monster, larger than Hagrid, with six arms, two heads, and a spiked tail. Each arm had a different weapon in it as it stood there, motionless.
Lyra readied a knife and her wand while Harry pulled out his new spear and used a sticking charm on his back to hold it in place while readying his knife and wand. While they were busy prepping for the fight, neither of them noticed that Luna had crossed the board and walked right up to the monstrosity until it began to move with the sound of grinding metal joints.
Harry and Lyra were both about to charge when Luna asked the creature, "Can we please pass by?"
Harry and Lyra froze in place as the giant metal warrior stood up and took three thundering steps to the side to reveal a human size door behind it. Luna skipped by, waved, and thanked the monster, though Harry and Lyra moved by much more cautiously. It still made no move against them.
The next room was a large stone amphitheater. Remus Lupin sat in a chair down in the center, reading a book, as those who had already finished sat around the room in silence. There were a few elves delivering treatments for burns and bruises and other various ailments to some of the other students. When Harry started to ask Colin how he did, Lupin looked up and made a shushing noise.
When the last group of students came in, Lupin stood up from his chair and addressed them.
"Everyone stand up." The whole room stood. "Sit down if you didn't make it past the first room." Nearly half of the class sat.
"The second?" Most of the remainder.
"The third?" Surprisingly, everyone who had passed the Devil's Snare had also passed the doxies.
"The last room?" Everyone except Harry's group sat down.
"Of course, Harry Potter beat that monster," one of the Slytherins spoke up.
Lupin just raised an eyebrow toward Harry. He and Lyra sat down together, leaving Luna standing alone.
"It was Miss Lovegood that was the one who got past the golem for her team. Five points for everyone who got past the first room, ten for the second room, and fifteen for the third. Harry Potter and Lyra Black also both will get fifteen points and twenty-five points to Miss Luna Lovegood. Would you like to share how you defeated that obstacle?"
She just smiled, twirled her wand, and stuck it behind her ear, then replied in a joyful tone, "I just asked it very politely to let us by."
The rest of the room looked on in shocked disbelief.
Lupin garnered their attention as he addressed the room again, "I am Professor Remus Lupin. I was a Gryffindor, Prefect in 5th and 6th year, class of 1978. I graduated Hogwarts with NEWTs in Defense, Charms, Runes, Arithmancy, Potions, and Care of Magical Creatures. Until Headmaster Dumbledore asked me to take the position this year, I was employed at a winery run by druids in Southern France as the Chief Warder for the property. My primary responsibility was to defend the grounds and surrounding countryside from malicious wizards, dark creatures, and werewolves. During the last eight years, we had not a single breach of the walls surrounding the property… though there were many attempts…"
He observed the room's reaction to his credentials, then continued, "As I am still employed at the winery, I will return there once a month for two days before and after the full moon to check the enchantments and maintain the wards. During that time, Professor Snape will take over your classes."
Harry and Lyra both shared a look of eagerness at their favorite professor teaching another class. Many of the other students groaned or started complaining. When Harry looked back at Lupin, he was staring right at him with a perplexed look on his face that he quickly shrugged off.
"Now, I see that you covered a lot of dark creatures with Gilderoy Lockhart last year, with one exception, Boggarts. That will be the first subject we will tackle in this class, and will take the entire month of September. Following that, we will study warding; from misdirection fields to basic blood protections. We will also cover combat spells, and I will be taking over for Lockhart to supervise the dueling club."
All of that garnered chatter through the room as he spoke, but he continued to teach, despite the whispers and side conversations. Most other teachers would shut down that kind of thing, but he didn't seem to care.
While people continued their own conversations, he pulled out his wand and levitated a large trunk out from the darkness behind him. Harry recognized it as the one that had been in his train compartment, wrapped up in iron chains. Now, on closer inspection, it also had three locks, similar to the one he had purchased for The Giver's Christmas present. When the trunk settled on the ground, it shook slightly, like there was something alive inside. The room hushed itself into a scared silence.
"Does anyone here not know what a boggart is?" No one raised their hand. "Great, I can skip the basics and just award all of you one point. Now that you are in your second year, I expect you will all start exploring the castle more, especially at night. I am not encouraging you to take advantage of your astronomy curfew breaks, I am just saying many of you might find yourselves in unfamiliar parts of the castle or random broom closets in the next few years, and you will probably run into a boggart at least a few times each year."
There were assorted giggles throughout the room.
"Who knows the first rule of dealing with a boggart?"
Both the Carrow twins raised their hands. When Lupin pointed to them, they had a quick Rock, Paper, Scissors match, and Flora answered, "Never face them alone."
"Correct, for the other Miss Carrow - Why?"
Hestia smiled, "Because they will be confused about how to scare you."
"Correct, two points each. However, a better answer would be that one person could be used to banish the boggart with a clear head while the other draws its attention."
"That's a Slytherin answer," someone in Gryffindor commented.
"That doesn't mean it is wrong, two points from your house," Lupin scolded him. "Now, from recent studies into Boggarts, there is a substantiated theory that they grow more powerful with age. Can any of you tell me the standard physiological reactions to frightening or stressful situations?"
There was silence across the room until Jason Middleton from Ravenclaw raised his hand and was called on.
"Fight or Flight, sir?"
"Three points, though there is one more. Anyone?" After a moment, he answered for everyone, "Freeze. Flight, Freeze, or Fight. You should all be writing this down."
There was a scurry for paper, parchment, and writing tools. When everyone had stopped writing, Lupin continued the lecture.
"Mr. Middleton said Fight or Flight; however, I said Flight, Freeze, or Fight in that order. This is because Boggarts feed on fear and get stronger with more feeding. Younger boggarts or ones that have been recently banished will seek to rebuild their strength. They will first seek to simply scare off their victims, drawing on a fear that will cause the flight response. More mature boggarts will try to shift into something that will cause a person to freeze, allowing for longer feeding. The most dangerous boggarts will try to engage you in a fight with your greatest fear, then feed on all three types of fear after you lose."
"Why would they try to fight with you?" one student asked.
"Normal spells cannot harm boggarts. By taking the guise of something that can be fought, they are trying to trick you into spending more time near them. Every moment you are perceiving a boggart, they are feeding on your fear. The longer you fight, the more they feed, though the longer you fight, the more likely it will be that you will realize that they aren't your greatest fear and merely an imitation. However, if you don't realize that they aren't your true fear, the futility of fighting against something invincible will only increase your fear of them. That is why only the strongest boggarts will seek direct confrontation."
"Can they kill you?" Toby asked timidly.
"They are non-corporeal, so they can't physically harm you in any form," Lupin replied. "However, continuous exposure to a boggart replicates some of the same psychological effects as a person who has been through other traumatic experiences for many years; such as people who have been abused, fought in wars, tortured, or seen someone they know killed. It will depend on the boggart, the length of exposure, and what it shows you. People who have experienced that kind of trauma in the past are also more susceptible to falling prey to a boggart in the present."
He watched the horror on all the children's faces before continuing, "This is why it is one of the most important lessons you will have this year. If it were up to me, students would have a refresher course on this every year of their studies. Now I know that some of you may wish to face a boggart alone so as not to reveal your deepest fears to others, but that will not be allowed. You must pick at least two of your other year mates to face each boggart with, and you may change with each encounter. I have three boggarts in this chest," he pointed to the trunk next to him and kicked it; it shook slightly in reprisal, "I have tested each one and shown them to be boggarts of flight, freeze, and fight. You will face each of them. However, first, you will learn three spells - the skurge jinx, the cheering charm, and the riddikulus hex."
When asked what the skurge jinx did, one student was called on to answer, "It's normally used to clean up residue from ghosts. Why would we need to learn that?"
"Two points for you. Since most spells do not affect non-corporeal beings, like ghosts, this is a good starter spell that does," Lupin replied with an eye roll. "Ghosts occasionally leave gunk behind when interacting with living objects, but that gunk is a part of their spiritual body, to begin with. The same goes for non-living beings like poltergeists and boggarts."
"What about dementors?" Harry asked.
"No," Lupin told him flatly. "It will affect them, but it would be like blowing in the ear of an erumpent. It's stupid and will probably get you killed." Facing the rest of the class, "The incantation is simply 'Skurge,' and the wand movement looks like a three-leaf clover."
He demonstrated for the class and shot a purple blast of bubbles at the floor, which didn't appear to do anything.
"All of you can try now. It won't affect each other or anything in this room, so have at it."
The next half an hour had the entire year throwing purple bubbles at each other. None of it did anything, though Harry felt a small tingle on his forehead when one student's spell hit him in the face. He shrugged it off and continued practicing.
Next, Lupin brought out a barrel of green sludge, identifying it as ghost residue from a deathday party. Ghosts had gorged themselves on rotten food and then left… residue… around the area afterward. Lupin dumped it around the room for the students to clean up. The spell worked just like the scouring charm, and took the class another fifteen minutes to remove all of it.
When it was all gone, Lupin went to his desk and pulled out a large paper bag, pouring it all out on the desk. There were all sorts of pranking materials inside, enough to last the Weasley twins a solid month.
"Oh, look here! Fireworks, dung bombs, and so much more!" Lupin called out to the empty air. "All soooo unattended and could be stolen by anyone who comes upon it!"
Then he just sat down and pulled out a novel to read. Whenever someone started to speak, he just held up his hand to silence them. Three minutes later, Peeves floated through the wall of the room, sniffing around like he was looking for something important.
He spotted Colin and yelled out, "CC! You're back!" flying straight towards the young photographer.
Colin whipped out his wand and cast a massive flash of light which made Peeves recoil and fall to the ground, flopping around like a fish out of water. Lupin started to laugh at the sight.
Peeves turned to the laughing professor, and his eyes widened, "You are back! Peeves has missed the big bagghkh…"
A multi-colored bandana appeared and shoved itself into Peeve's mouth, conjured by Lupin.
"No nicknames, Peeves, or no treats," he gestured toward the pile of pranks. Peeves coughed out the bandana and shoved it into a pocket before miming his lips being zipped up. His actions actually created a zipper across his lips as the action was performed.
Lupin addressed the class, "Peeves here is so old and strong that the skurge hex would affect him only slightly more than a dementor. Though he will be a nice test subject for a moving target for each of you to practice the spell on. In exchange, he will get this pile of pranks which will cause substantial chaos in the school over the next week or two. Is that a good deal, Peeves?"
"Peeves accepts," the zipper on his lips vanished as he spoke and nodded. Then in a deep and evil voice, "Kiddies attacking me later on will face my full wrath." After a pause, he burst into laughter.
Peeves proceeded to fly around the room as the class tried to tag him with their new spell. When it hit, his reaction ranged anything from a flinch to pretending like he had just died. Harry found it hard to aim the spell at first because it would arc over long distances and move slower than most spells they had learned so far. However, by the end of the class, he had it down. Professor Lupin seemed to be counting every hit that each student landed and writing them down on a checklist.
When Lupin called for the class to stop, Peeves wasted no time in scooping up the pile of prank products and vanishing through the wall. There was probably a reason for how he was able to take a corporeal object through a solid object, but Harry put it out of his mind as he wouldn't be happy with someone answering the question with "Magic."
As they started to file out of the room, Lupin called for their attention one more time.
"For your next class, use the door on the second floor below the one you entered this time. However, in the first class of the month, unless it is one of Professor Snape's classes, you will have a new obstacle course. Choose new partners each time."
Following lunch, they made their way to the new History class taught by Senior Undersecretary Delores Umbridge. Harry was dreading the situation because of all the warnings he had received and the reactions to her presence from those who knew her. Despite that, he did want to keep an open mind.
Every other room for their new classes was designed in some way to allow everyone to see the teacher. This new class did not. The room was narrow and had probably just enough seats for their entire year at six students per row. Each chair had a desk attached to it, with the nicer and larger desks near the front. There were a few students sitting at various places around the room, none of them looking happy.
Umbridge sat at the front of the room in a pink wingback chair with gold buttons. She had a house elf standing at attention next to her, holding a teapot. She smiled as Harry and Lyra entered the room and took a sip of her tea, and then lowered the cup for the elf to top it off.
As they didn't want to have one of the bad desks, they both cautiously approached the first row and sat down. However, as they started to take out their books and paper, their professor called for their attention.
"Hem, hem," she waited while they looked her in the eyes. "Those are not your seats."
Harry looked around the desk he was at and saw no markings for someone else.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"You will address me as Ma'am or Professor Umbridge."
There was silence for a moment before Lyra asked, "Professor Umbridge, would you please tell us where our seats are?" Harry could feel her eyes rolling as she spoke.
"Why, of course, Miss Black. Your seat is in the back row, and any will do. Mr. Potter, yours is in the sixth row, in the middle."
She was splitting them up and giving Lyra the worst spot in the room. They both stared at her for just a moment before heading to their desks. Lyra didn't seem to care, as she was just planning on using History to work on other classes or sleep. Harry focused on Snape's instructions that even teachers can be threats and what he should do about this one.
Other students trickled into the room, many getting the same treatment if they sat in a place the teacher didn't want them. When the room was full, it was very divided by house affiliation. Each section had some of each, though it was mostly Slytherins and Ravenclaws at the front, followed by Gryffindors, Scamanders, and Hufflepuffs at the back.
"Good morning, students," their professor greeted them. There was a scattering of responses in return. "No, no, that won't do at all. You all need to reply with 'Good Morning Professor Umbridge.' Again now, Good morning, students."
"Good morning Professor Umbridge," the class echoed back.
"Better," she said simply. "It is good that you all only had one previous year with Professor Binns and haven't fully fallen down the hole of endless goblin wars that he teaches. That is not to say that goblins aren't disgusting little menaces that cause constant chaos with their little uprisings that we have to put down every few years, but they are not all you need to know."
"My name is Delores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic. I am one of nine… Nine… Hogwarts students in the last thirty years to have received a NEWT in Magical History. That isn't that surprising with the abysmal teaching that Hogwarts has had in this and other subjects. It is for that reason that all of you will receive a crash course in both political and world history, starting with the Statute of Secrecy. One of you, give me a reason why the Statute is needed."
After her tirade, the class was silent. Professor Umbridge glared at everyone, trying to encourage one of them to speak, though no one wanted to be the first. A Ravenclaw near the back finally got the courage and raised her hand.
"Because of the witch trials?" she asked more than told their professor.
"No," Umbridge replied. "Two points from your house. Any witch or wizard who wanted to could stay clear of the trials and inquisitions. Maybe three hundred years before, it may have been a problem. In the 17th century, however, true wizards were organized enough that muggles couldn't touch us. At that point, they were just killing themselves and pretenders. Does anyone else have a guess?"
No one dared to answer now.
"Greed. The main reason was greed. Muggles are greedy and could start to see the benefits of using magic, on a larger scale, for their own purposes. They want everything instantly in ways only magic can provide. It was in our best interest to remove ourselves from a society that would try to take what could never be theirs and try to force magical society to further theirs."
Lyra raised her hand, only to be ignored.
"Who can tell me what is the biggest threat to the Statute of Secrecy?" Umbridge asked the room.
Lyra's hand was still up and was still ignored. Harry raised his hand and waited.
"Yes, Mister Potter?" Umbridge asked him.
"I believe my sister has a question," he replied firmly.
"And I chose not to call on her. Five points from Scamander for pointing out the obvious." She looked at the first row, composed of Slytherins, and asked, "One of you must have an answer to my question."
A boy with a unibrow raised his hand and asked as an answer, "Is it muggles, ma'am?"
"Close, one point for Slytherin. The correct answer is muggleborns."
There was an immediate noise of dissent from many toward the back of the room, which was met with the docking of points from their professor.
"Your interruption is without merit," she chastised them when finished taking off three points to each who had spoken up. "While you muggleborns might disagree, you are still wrong. You perform accidental magic as children before Hogwarts, which requires a substantial effort by the ministry to cover up, all so you can eventually be placed into our world later. When you go home each summer, you do little bits of magic which still need to be covered up and don't think we don't catch a few of your muggle parents bragging to their muggle friends about your achievements of doing magic. After you finish your schooling, it gets even worse."
"What happens then?" Hestia Carrow asked without raising her hand.
"Excellent question, Miss Carrow," Umbridge replied. "Five points to Slytherin. Many muggleborns try to use their magic to improve the lives of muggles. When they get caught, the ministries have to deal with them. How many of you know what the 'Chunnel' is?"
That rang a bell for Harry. He remembered Liz, who he went to the fun fair with, mentioning it. Though he still didn't know what it was. He had sent her one letter after that, thanking her for a fun time, and even though she had sent another one back, he hadn't replied. Other students near the back of the room raised their hands in recognition of the term. Their professor didn't call on any of them to explain.
"The muggles built a train tunnel under the English Channel and thought of the not-so-clever name of The Chunnel. The original estimates put the completion for next year, though it was finished a little over a year ago. How was this done? How did they defy expectations so greatly? Muggleborns decided to steal a government contract and perform the task with magic."
There was silence in the room as everyone, even the muggleborns, realized what a large breach of secrecy such an endeavor would be.
"You may look up this information yourselves. See, where the drills that the English used all had technical names, the French drills all had names of women. Those were, in fact, not drills; they were witches. Brigitte, Europa, Catherine, Virginie, Pascaline, and Séverine risked breaking the Statute of Secrecy to make money. All of them were muggleborns."
Professor Umbridge went on for the next hour and a half, telling them stories of various beaches of the Statute of Secrecy, committed by muggleborns, all of which had to be covered up by the local governments. In some cases, like one where an enterprising young man tried to sell magical healing salves on the open market, the International Confederation of Wizards had to step in and deal with that.
"I think that's enough for today," the pink woman addressed them. "You may all leave fifteen minutes early. Your assignment to be turned in on Thursday is to read the first chapter of When Muggles Attack and make a list of ten potentially dangerous encounters a wizard might have with a muggle that aren't in your reading."
Lyra waited for Harry as they left the room, with their teacher calling out, just as they left, "Miss Black! Do give my regards to your uncle."
Harry pushed her out the door before she could make a retort.
"If we are going to do something, it's not going to be here," he told his sister before she could yell at him. "So far, she's just put you at the back of the class and deducted points. Brandt told me that we just need to redirect her to a better target. She doesn't like Arcturus. We just need to aim her at someone she hates more."
Lyra thought for a moment, "She definitely hates muggleborns. That's why they were all at the back of the room with me. She already seems focused on them, and I wouldn't do something like that."
"It's only the first class, and we have plenty of time to deal with this." He spotted some of the other students from the class grumbling about class, "And it looks like we will eventually have assistance from anyone else who hates her too."
Lyra began to smirk at the idea, and her hair gave off a few sparks in recognition of whatever she was imagining.
"Fine, we can wait," she agreed. "I promised Whispers I would take him and Silvy flying. You need to practice with your spear."
He did need to do that, so as Lyra flew out over the lake with two silver animals on her broom with her, Harry set himself up on the shore to practice. Going through his forms and postures was pretty routine though he kept at it, feeling a squeeze from magic around his heart when he felt like taking a break.
He didn't have any weights for the spear like he used to have for his knife to increase the difficulty, but then he remembered something that Erayden had told him when he had met the boy in Turkey. The Lamassu in their family, Hamidreza, used to weaken them while training for more effective gains. This was the same ability that he used to weaken and intimidate people through his staff and the fang the flying lion chimera had given him.
Taking the staff from his pouch, he planted it in the ground and twisted it in the same way he did when he wanted to intimidate someone. He could feel the magic in the area, but it didn't affect him. After staring at it for a minute, he thought of something else. When he scratched himself with the tip of the fang, he would get a temporary boost of strength, so maybe the other end…
As soon as he rubbed the root of the tooth on the other side of the staff on his arm, Harry dropped to one knee at the sudden loss of strength. He was able to stand back up but was a bit shaky. Not knowing how to adjust how weak he became, Harry just picked up his staff and went through his forms again. Now it was difficult, and he had to stop and make adjustments each time to make them correct. After an hour, the effect finally wore off, and he received a large boost of strength which was actually just going back to normal. It was getting colder now, and he was covered in sweat, so he decided a bath was in order before dinner.
During dinner, Cedric informed them that as the newest Quidditch team, they had gotten the two worst spots for weekly practices, tonight at 8 pm and Friday at 6 am. For full light, they did draw the spot for Sunday at 10 am. Grumbles were heard everywhere, but Cedric refused to hear it.
"We will be the best-trained team through adversity. Games can happen at any time of the day, so we will have training in every light condition," Cedric told them. "We also have two weeks before the game that the Harpies chaser set up with her old school, and we need to make a good showing."
Cedric worked them until exhaustion that night, and when they finally got back to the common room, they were all ready to go to sleep. Guryon and Janaína Scamander had different plans. The team arrived to a fire blazing in the pit, and their two new heads of house were waiting for them with the few housemates who weren't starters, secondary players, or spectators at the practice.
"We've heard a few complaints about your new History professor," Guryon began once everyone was sitting.
"She's not the nicest person," Luna said with a tone of irritation.
"She's a bigot," Megan said louder and angrier.
A few more insults were thrown around, with even the first-year students chiming in a little before Guryon raised his hands for silence.
"We've heard from many of you, and despite her obvious preference toward wizards of established lineage… you still have to attend her class." He has to raise his hands again for silence before continuing, "She is not presenting factually incorrect information, just an incomplete story. What do you all think is a bigger threat to the Statute of Secrecy than muggleborns?"
Cedric raised his hand and replied, "Dark Lords."
"Yes," Janaína replied. "Criminals, in general, look to profit off those weaker than them. Most situations that Professor Umbridge told you about would be perfectly legitimate if there were no need for secrecy. Only a few of them were actually criminal acts outside of a potential secrecy violation."
"Many wizard criminals choose muggles to exploit because they can get away with their crimes with greater ease," Guryon told them. "Each one of those crimes against a muggle includes a possible breach of the Statute."
"She also told us muggles were greedy," Harry spoke up. "That this was one the primary reasons for the Statute to be established in the first place."
Guryon and his wife shared a quick look before he told them all, "It is. However, the largest push for the statute to be put into place came not from people who thought that muggles would take advantage of wizards but from people like me, Janaína, and my parents."
"What? Why?" Lyra asked, confused.
"Occasionally, for breakfast, you get served Diricawl eggs. Muggles believe they hunted these birds to extinction. They now live only in areas secured by wizards. Nearly every magical creature on the planet, from dragons to pixies, lives in areas governed by magical beings. We are entrusted with ensuring they thrive, as they wouldn't if they were out in the world where muggles would hunt them."
"That is ridiculous," Greg said with an air of superiority. "What could a muggle do to a dragon?"
"Mister Goyle," Janaína addressed him, "your father is a large man, is he not?" he nodded. "How many krups could he beat in a fight? 10? 20? 30? 100? Eventually, he couldn't win. Muggles fight in numbers, and dragons never retreat. It's one of their biggest flaws. Not even if they know they are going to die, they never stop fighting. Muggles also used to possess dragon parts to make armor and weapons. Every dragon they killed made the next fight easier. One of the biggest tasks for the Statute was taking back all the magic that muggles possessed from before secrecy was necessary."
"Not all muggles would do this," Guryon added. "Just like not all wizards become dark lords. Though with six billion muggles, there are nearly more bad ones than all wizards combined. It was enough 300 years ago for animal conservationists like me to push for the move to secrecy."
"We are getting off track here," Janaína tried to steer the conversation back. "We wanted to talk to you about your History Professor. She is biased, and she will teach how she sees fit. It will, unfortunately, be up to you to see if you want to supplement your education by determining how much more you want to know in the areas she is deliberately avoiding. She might be teaching an incomplete picture, but as long as it fulfills the requirements for the end-of-the-year tests, and it isn't factually incorrect, we cannot do anything about it."
She left that last part open as the two of them got up to leave. Just as people started to leave, Cedric called them back.
"Do your best in her class. Work hard, and if you want to study the subject outside of class, do it. If you have an issue with her, or think she is teaching something factually incorrect, bring it to me first. Do not confront her about it; let the adults handle the adults. I will pass it to the Scamanders if a complaint merits that level of action. Does everyone understand? Good."
Author's Note: I'm still here, just putting out what I can while I have a magical creature that is now running around my house on two legs and causing more chaos than a niffler in a glitter factory. I hope you like my introductions to the three most significant changes to life at Hogwarts this year. I made Lupin a bit different in his past and his teaching curriculum. I also had to figure out how I'm going to write Umbridge outside of trying to oust Dumbledore and take over Hogwarts as what happened in canon. Then finally, I have two OCs thrust into this story, for which I'm trying to drop tons of hints as to their background and personalities along the way.
I'm happy I finally got to write about Boggarts, as Lupin's lesson has been my headcanon about them for over a decade. What do you think everyone's Flight, Freeze, and Fight fears will be?