[Summary]
At the age of 25, after being deeply traumatized by a revelation about his past, Harry, on a mission, changes his face with muggle surgery and travels back in time- 1970's.
So, as is the wont, he gets a teaching job at Hogwarts under an alias. Naturally, the subject is Defense...
"Naturally, a talent like you should be teaching the understaffed Potions course!"
"What?"
"Oh, and the post of Deputy Head of Slytherin is vacant!"
"What?"
"Oh, and you do realize that a Deputy Head is, of course, in charge of student punishment, right?"
"Huh?"
A story in which Harry, with a purpose and a vague plan of his own, gets a job at (corporal punishment-practicing) Hogwarts as a Potions professor in charge of Slytherins after being transported back in time 30 years.
* Contains specific descriptions of corporal punishment. Caution.
* Translated from Korean.
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Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts, First Week of June, 1975
...
"Professor Henry Evan Peverell."
The headmaster called out the title of the man sitting in front of him with a twinkle in his blue eyes. The man replied with a faint smile.
"Henry is quite enough. Headmaster."
"Henry. It's of Frankish origin, but it's a good English name, a strong name, the name of a ruler, a king."
"Well, you might call me Harry, actually, but that makes me feel too young."
The headmaster laughed.
"Ah, well, at my age, you all look young if you don't have at least one-tenth of grey in your hair. Young professor Henry. I'm glad you have a simple name, by the way. It makes my old tongue twist when I call Minerva, Cuthbert and Sylvanus. Not that I can complain, with three middle-names of my own."
The man blinked, then flashed an odd smile.
"If you mean to get a feel for my lineage with my first name, then yes, Henry is rather a common name, often used by muggles. The Peverell is an old pureblood family, but I'm not a pureblood by the criterion of where I was born; I got my first name from my mother's side of the family."
"Aha. I see."
The Headmaster's sharp mind worked in full concentration. The young man in front of him was quite perceptive, aside from his good-natured expression. And the youth's skill at giving vague answers that could be interpreted in any way, while giving away minimal information, as opposed to his smiling and frank tone of voice, was reminiscent of an aged politician.
The wizarding world's standards for determining someone's blood status varied from region to region, so the man's answers weren't very informative. But Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, a man known for his opposition to pureblood supremacy, could not pepper him with questions of percentage of muggle blood in his ancestors, which would be considered rude even in conservative wizarding circles.
So, he was certainly a man to watch out for.
Henry Evan Peverell. A young man who had traveled to England from the Continent in the early spring of the previous year.
The Headmaster's own European networks were not as dense as those of the British wizarding community, so it was difficult to learn more about the young man's past, who, apparently, dwelled somewhere in southern and eastern Europe. The young man in his mid-twenties had attracted considerable attention within the narrow circles of the British wizarding community since his arrival a year ago; firstly because he bore the surname 'Peverell', a pureblood family name from a long forgotten past, and then because of the man's accomplishments.
Only twenty-six years old, the seemingly unremarkable young man had first been recognized by the Mystery Department of the Ministry of Magic as a master of combat magic, a Battle Mage, upon his arrival last year. After politely declining the Auror department's curious scouting of the young master, Henry has since unexpectedly plunged himself into the potions business, quickly inventing and registering a handful of simple potions with unexpected effects and low difficulty of preparation that defied modern potions scholarship.
The British potions community, which until then had eyed the newcomer with suspicion, finally capitulated this spring and conferred the title of Potions master on the man. It was an unprecedented honor for a 26-year-old to have the title of dual master, but it was his hand that released a new drug that no one had ever thought of before, a drug so difficult to prepare that no one but a master would dare to try it. After three British potionsmiths and two European potionsmiths spent over two months trying to replicate the potion, and two of them finally succeeding and proving its effectiveness, the wizarding world welcomed a new potions master, Henry Evan Peverell.
However, it was not the difficulty of the potion's preparation that concerned the Headmaster, but its potential to drastically alter the treatment of certain members of the wizarding community.
That was...
Henry spoke up, maintaining a calm smile.
"I accepted your offer because I thought it would be interesting to teach British students for a couple of years, even if the pay is low. But what subject would I teach? Given my Battlemage title, I think the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts, which is what you call here, would be a good fit; but from what I've heard, the position of Defense professor at Hogwarts is some way curse..."
Bang-!
The next moment, the revolving staircase leading to the Headmaster's door, which was supposed to be a leisurely ascent, began to move at a phenomenal speed, as if it had been transformed into a centrifuge. And the heavy door swung open. The next moment, a mass heavier than the door, a human being, rushed into the Headmaster's office, light as a feather.
"Master Peverell! My dear potions master! I'm sure you remember me, Horace Slughorn. I was just in front of you at the Spring Potions Seminar and Diploma Ceremony last month!"
Harry lost his calm expression for a moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, then reluctantly spoke.
"...Professor Slughorn... Yes... Of course I remember. Shook hands with me..."
"Five times, patted you on the back ten times, gave you a congratulatory hug three times, and I even remember the menu for the celebration dinner. I wanted to go to a sauna with you, if only I hadn't forgotten to invite you!"
"Uh... yeah..."
"Don't feel bad, of course, Hogwarts has a sauna for professors only."
"Uh, I... Professor... that's..."
"There's nothing like a little male bonding, now that you're going to work closely with me as the associate professor of Potions and the deputy head of Slytherin!"
Dumbledore blinked. That fat fraternizing sneaky snake!
"Horace!" he reflexively wanted to say, but the Headmaster held back at the last minute. He saw the age-appropriate chaos and panic flicker in the green eyes of the young man, who up until now had remained remarkably calm fit for a 62-year-old rather than 26.
"...Uh, um... Potions? Slytherin...?"
Henry froze. The young man reflexively looked back at the headmaster with eyes that silently cried, "Please save me from this crazy professor!"
Dumbledore barely suppressed a chuckle at the sight of those eyes.
Sometimes accused of being more of a politician than an educator, or of ignoring his duty focusing on the big picture, Dumbledore's philosophy was unwavering. The future of the wizarding world was all very good. The greater good was important as well, but even more important was the greater love, and just as important was the greater fun (an obvious priority, wasn't it? Dumbledore always wondered why there were so few people in the world who understood it).
In a ruthless judgment based on values, Headmaster Dumbledore turned away from Harry and stared at the ceiling. Harry's eyes no longer looked like those of a twenty-six-year-old, but of a sixteen-year-old nearly on panic.
In those green eyes, Dumbledore realized that he liked this young man, Henry Peverell, whose past he knew nothing of.
A good man.
A suspicious young man, certainly, but a good, solid one. He seemed to have an inevitable twist in his head somewhere, but Dumbledore had a hunch that he was fundamentally a nice person at heart.
And Dumbledore was a man who trusted his instincts. His blue eyes sparkled deeply.
"Horace, it is not in your place to make this decision hastily. Our vacancy is in the Defense post, after all."
With a feather-light flick of his wand, Horus Slughorn summoned an armchair to fit his size, and with an equally feather-light motion, he plopped down into it.
"For the record, you and I have both been working at this damn school for half a century, Albus, so don't weigh in like it's a big deal that there's a vacancy at the end of the school year." Slughorn growled. "You know that Jackson is resigning as she's taking over her mother's apothecary this year. That leaves just me and Associate Professor Rowle, and I don't suppose you mean to tell me that two of us are going to be running the Potions department only by ourselves?"
Henry looked a little dumbfounded.
"Uh... excuse me for interrupting, but what's the big deal about two professors teaching one subject? Does Potions require as much as three professors?"
Slughorn laughed softly and looked back at the young man. He was supposed to be so bright, but he was young, understandably clueless about managing a number of classes.
"Not counting those who have dropped out the Potions since OWL, there are nearly a thousand students in theory and practical classes every week. How can only two manage that? Plus, we also have to supply potions for the school's infirmary. With Hogwarts' dwindling enrollment these days, it takes just two professors to cover most subjects and one to cover electives, but we need to keep at least three for Potions."
Henry ran the math in his head and nodded in agreement. Then he muttered under his breath, "Overworked... no wonder..."
He seemed to be mumbling something, but Dumbledore pretended not to notice and opened his mouth to address the Slytherin in front of him (the most senior professor in the school, with intraschool political power, the one whose life's No. 1 ambition was to minimize work and maximize liaising!)
"Even so, the most urgent need is in the Defense Against the Dark Arts. There's no one there at all."
Slughorn, lord of connections and networks, had an answer ready.
"You know my friend Fowler, the retired auror. He's planning to emigrate across the Atlantic at the end of next year, and before he goes, he wants to take a risk and add a pretty page on his resume. He contacted me yesterday and said he'd teach for a year if you'd give him the Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts chair."
"A chair?! He's new to teaching, only offering me a year, and dare to ask for the title of chair?"
Slughorn waved his hand in annoyance.
"It's DADA, and what difference is there if he's a one-year adjunct or a full professor? The title of a chair is a reasonable risk allowance; you should be grateful to have a sucker with auror experience who's willing to take the death-trap. Oh, and, dear Harry, if this old hack has offered you less than a full professor title with DADA position, you've been definitely scammed."
"Ah, I see, professor... Even so, you also talked about the deputy head of a house, which is something I hadn't planned to..."
"If you're a single, family-less professor in a boarding school, it's close to a order of nature that you hold a position in a dorm. Oh, and the extra pay is pretty good, of course."
The sneaky snake's mouth worked freely.
"There has been a vacancy for a male deputy head of Slytherin. The headmaster hasn't filled it for over four years now. Since you're going to be my associate professor in Potions, shouldn't you also be my deputy in Slytherin?"
Harry, still inexperienced in the intra-school politics of the senior professors, blinked, open-mouthed and dumbfounded. With the appointment seemingly sealed in hustle and bustle, the Headmaster hastily interrupted the snake.
"You do realize, Horace, that each house has been assigned only one deputy, of a different gender from the head, due to school finances for more than five years. You already have a female deputy head, and if I am to assign two deputies for Slytherin, it would be seen as special treatment..."
"Special treatment? You? For Slytherin?"
Slughorn rolled his eyes. He jerked his head toward Henry, bringing up a topic seemingly completely out of place.
"The potion, by the way, that you recently invented."
"As I said in my thesis, it's more of an application of an ancient medicine, but..."
"Don't be so modest. The new drug is 100% your invention. A werewolf inhibitor!"
Henry threw up his hands in a mixture of embarrassment and a bit of shame.
"Again, it's not really my invention, and besides, it's not even complete yet."
"Ah, yes. You mean the limitations that it only works on infected children under the age of ten, or on new werewolf infections that are less than two months old, so you call it incomplete."
"Yeah. And it requires stupidly long a time to brew."
Henry looked downcast and hung his head, as if he really (truly!) was disappointed with himself about that. Slughorn looked at the young man in disbelief and patted him on the shoulder.
"Yes, alas. To tell you the truth, our dear headmaster also felt disappointed about it. Quite presumptuous of him, I say."
"Horace."
Dumbledore's warning notwithstanding, Slughorn continued.
"Yes. So at Hogwarts, as a potions professor, you might be able to find a way to improve the potion. The potions laboratory is underground, at your disposal if you accept the position, and the Slytherin deputy head's office is also underground. If you can improve the potion so that it can be consumed by adults and... teenagers who have been infected for a long time, a lot of people will benefit. I mean, all the houses, including Gryffindor, will..."
"Horace."
Dumbledore warned through clenched teeth. The Slytherin had crossed the line of school politics and was outright threatening him.
This would not do. Dumbledore was a firm believer in guarding secrets until it was completely and absolutely necessary to release them. Lupin was a nice, mild-mannered boy that anyone would like if they get to know him unprejudiced. Recruit him as a professor, preferably as a Gryffindor deputy head, and get him close to Lupin, and Peverell will find himself favoring him without difficulty. At that point, it would be best if Dumbledore himself dropped a hint about Lupin's unfortunate condition. But one should not prejudice him with unnecessary prior knowledge...
Henry nodded. "I will do my best to perfect the potion, of course."
The young man kept calm without a hint that he'd noticed something fishy. His expression was one of certainty and determination. Dumbledore's mouth dropped open slightly at the sheer will in those words, the sincerity of them devoid of any trickery or bargaining.
Slughorn's eyes narrowed for a moment, mirroring his headmaster's, before he spoke.
"So, I'm asking you to take on the roles of associate professor of Potions and the deputy head of Slytherin. The Headmaster won't object, will he, Albus?"
"Mm-hmm!"
Looking alternately at the headmaster, who was groaning in discomfort in lieu of an answer, and at the fat sneaky snake, who looked thrilled at the prospect of having an A-class slave under his wing, Henry shook his head.
...
