Follow-up

Mrs Pince roamed the library like a jealous tiger guarding her pups, giving both Daphne and Harry resentful glances when they arrived. Having students in her holy halls on the first weekend of the term was already grounds for deep suspicion for the gnarly librarian – if not precautionary punishment.

Hastily, Harry led Daphne towards the corner where Hermione usually burrowed herself in neatly organised piles of books. This time, however, she sat in the centre of a gradually accruing enclosure of tomes, continuously handing Tracey and Leo little snippets with further books to gather.

'You've been busy,' commented Harry drily, carefully moving a few books from a chair to sit.

'Well, I thought we could get through a lot of reading in a group of five.'

'Please rescue me from this tyrannical bookworm, Daphy!' Tracey, just barely able to glimpse them over a tall stack she carried in her arms, looked at them imploringly.

'At least you have your labour force perfectly under control,' said Harry with a smirk, causing Tracey to glare at him.

'Oh, yes. We're about ready, I think. Leo and Tracey have been very helpful.'

'Well,' said Leo, neatly dusting a chair he'd set aside in an alcove, 'what did you find out?'

Daphne, who naturally stood next to Harry, looked around, but there was no other seat to be had unless she was willing to shift about two hundred books – and she clearly wasn't. Grinning, she shrugged in a theatrical fashion before she sat on Harry's knees.

'Er, Daphne?' asked Harry, struggling to keep a blank face.

'Yes, Harry?' She looked over her shoulder with an innocent smile. 'Would you rather sit on my lap?'

'I, er, I...never mind!'

Her genuine, disarming smile completely nipped his effort to tell her off in the bud. He leant back, carefully arranging his face to not reveal his discomfort. It was a bit like flying in the direction of the sun; you had the urge to shut your eyes or look away, but doing so would surely spell trouble down the road.

Daphne, meanwhile, happily brought up the topic of discussion he was currently too preoccupied to raise. 'Granger? You know any German?'

'German?' asked Hermione, her amused expression giving way to curiosity. 'I once did a workshop on it over the summer. Why?'

'There were these totally rude Auror dorks babbling in German.'

'Aurors talking in German?' repeated Hermione, interested.

'Are you sure, Sweetie?'

'Look, I didn't understand a single word, but the rude one called the other "Obst" or something. You know what that means, Granger?'

Hermione directed a questioning gaze first at Harry, who was still unblinkingly staring straight ahead and didn't react, and then reluctantly turned towards Daphne again. With an insecure little smile, she said, 'Obst, Greengrass? I think it means fruit.'

'Fruit,' repeated Daphne, aghast.

'Poofter, maybe?' guessed Tracey with a grin.

Hermione waved her hand in annoyance. 'That's not how languages work.'

'Are you sure that's the actual word he used?' asked Leo incredulously.

'That's what he said!'

'Ehm, one second.' Without another word, Hermione dashed into the depth of the library.

'He did say that, didn't he, Harry?'

'What? Oh, er, yeah.'

Only a few moments later, Hermione emerged with a massive, aged-looking tome titled The German Dictionary by the Brothers Grimm. She had trouble carrying it. With a resounding thump, she let the book fall down on the only free space on the table, causing the wooden furniture to creak ominously.

'What in the blazes is that?' asked Daphne, goggling like a caveman confronted with the splendour of Diagon Alley.

'A comprehensive dictionary. Greengrass, you, er, claimed they were Aurors?'

'That's what Harry said,' she said, pointing towards her back.

'Okay, so that bit is probably true, then,' muttered Hermione absent-mindedly, ignoring Daphne's annoyed expression and Tracey's sniggering.

'Maybe a title?' mused Leo.

'Exactly! Or a rank.' Muttering to herself, Hermione bent over the dictionary. It didn't take long until she looked up, a certain amount of smugness playing about her lips. 'Here it is – Oberst: Literally meaning superior or supreme, the term in its military sense stems from the reorganisation of increasingly numerous regiments and the ensuing problems to efficiently direct them by captains alone...I think we can skip that bit...Ah, it's a term used in several central European countries to describe the rank of colonel. There you have it,' she said, with what Harry considered a bit of unnecessary bossiness directed at his cousin. 'Oberst, not Obst.'

'Is there even a difference? Obst, Ohou-bust.' Hermione winced at Daphne's attempt at pronunciation. 'Sounds about the same to me,' grumbled Daphne.

Hermione was about to open her mouth again, but this time Leo cut in. 'Still, colonel. That's some serious rank. If a captain is the squad leader, the colonel might well be the Head Auror in Germany.'

'Actually, it's not necessarily Germany,' said Hermione, raising her finger in lecture. 'It's likely that Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and possibly even some Scandinavian countries use similar terms. Luxembourg, too.'

'Anything else you can tell us about them, Daphne?' asked Leo.

'What? Er, one was really tall, and the other one even more so. And when I say tall I mean really tall. And, ahem-'

'Harry?' Leo looked at him, tuning out Daphne's underwhelming attempts to remember.

'Er, what?'

'Could you please stand up for a little while, Sweetie? We need Harry coherent right now.' Tracey grinned saucily at Daphne.

With a click of her tongue, Daphne stood up, looking displeased.

'Well?' inquired Leo again. 'You remember anything else, Harry?'

Harry, taking a deep breath, brought up one hand to support his chin. 'What? Well, the really tall one was about seven feet and half an inch tall, with long, sleek auburn hair that nearly reached his elbows. He was wearing a dark, thick and heavy-looking leather coat with a broad girdle. I don't think it was his uniform, though, as his colleague, who was probably his underling, was wearing simple, inconspicuous grey robes. That one was about six feet two, curly-haired and ash blond. Both looked extremely fit, and going by the speed in which the colonel turned, I'd say they're an elite detachment from the ICW.'

'Oh, I see. Thank you, Harry.' Then, to Harry's irritation and Daphne's superior elation, Leo said, 'You can sit down again, Daphne. In any case, I'm not entirely convinced this will lead to anything.'

'Hm.' Hermione chewed thoughtfully on her lip, her gaze wandering to the gigantic dictionary. 'Are there any magical creatures or criminals bad enough that the ICW would be required to deal with them?'

'None that I know of.' Leo sighed. 'But Britain specifically keeps most of the old treaties with the ICW under wraps.'

Harry tried to follow the conversation as best he could, but by now his mind was preoccupied with tuning out both Daphne and Tracey, as the latter kept shooting him gleeful looks at his current predicament – mostly, he suspected, because she was already bored with the topic at hand.

'How can they keep treaties under wraps?' asked Hermione indignantly.

'To keep people from abusing them,' said Harry, looking around his cousin's waist and trying hard to ignore her wiggling. 'They mostly deal with the management of magical catastrophes and the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy anyway. Not something that comes up in daily life unless you're an aspiring Dark Lord or incompetent on an epic scale.'

Leo crossed his legs, assuming a ponderous pose. 'Can you get your hands on them, Harry?'

'I don't think so. Grandfather is aware of them, of course, but he, like any other member of the Wizengamot, is sworn to secrecy.'

'I see. In that case, let's focus on the creature itself like we originally planned. We're looking for one or more native predators that could feasibly overpower a whole colony of Acromantulas.'

'Oh, joy,' commented Tracey. 'Why am I doing this again?'

'Because I say so!' returned Daphne from her throne. 'Without female supervision, all boys do is talk about base things and sort their acquaintances by the size of their rack and other irredeemably bawdy things!'

'I'm a girl, too, you know,' retorted Hermione conversationally.

'I suppose so, Granger. But you don't have the grit to stand up for us.' She scowled, her gaze following Leo's averted eyes. 'By the way, Leo, this would be a good time to assure me that you haven't done any such things – just saying!'

Tracey exploded in laughter, pointing at the younger Lestrange. 'Really, Leo?!'

'It wasn't me, alright? I'm, well, I'm just a witness!'

Harry, content to be hiding behind Daphne's back for once, was extremely relieved to be spared the condescending, brutally judging looks of the girls. Sorry, Leo. You're on your own with this one.

'Pray tell,' demanded Daphne coldly. 'Who was it?'

'I really shouldn't say,' returned Leo stiffly, proving that he was perhaps equally more courageous and optimistic than Harry, possibly to the point of being rather naïve.

'I'm sure your big sis will be intrigued,' remarked Tracey with a mean glint in her eyes. 'Her own brother, slavering over th-'

'It was Draco, alright?' confessed Leo immediately. No honour among thieves. Ah well, if Amy were my sister, I'd probably squeal like a pig.

While Tracey grinned at the soon to be expected mayhem, Daphne and Hermione looked rather disgusted.

Harry averted his gaze like a bystander passing by a gruesome accident. Girls shouldn't be allowed to crack their knuckles menacingly like that.

~BLVoD~

Harry trudged towards the second floor, the Prophet in one hand, a bit of toast in the other, occasionally shivering in the cold morning air. It was about six a.m., and only an elaborate set of charms that had taken Harry about ten minutes to set up and twice as long to undo had assured that he actually awoke. Mindlessly, he scratched his arm, suppressing a yawn. Maybe the Stinging Hexes hadn't been the best idea ever.

'Aurors to guard Hogwarts under new security regimen!

Headmaster and Minister refuse to comment on foreign security detachments in Britain's heart of education!'

The lead article in question was, despite its rather typically confrontational headline, rather cautious and included, as far as Harry could tell, nothing but wild speculation and acerbic accusations that were generously shared between the secretary of the Minister, Dumbledore and the ICW.

So the Prophet is either authentically stumped, or they were put on a leash again.

It was at this point that Harry nearly crashed into another early riser – for the third time. Admittedly, walking the halls while half-asleep and reading the paper was probably also not the best idea ever.

'Hey, Harry! Up so early?'

Harry tore his eyes away from the article. Neville stood in front of him, clad in protective dragon hide and sporting many a smudge of dirt. 'Oh, I apologise. Morning, Neville. Breaking out so early?' he said, eyeing the trail of dirt Neville had left behind him in the corridor. 'Aren't you afraid your dad will catch you?'

Neville laughed bashfully. 'No, actually Professor Sprout asked me and a few others for help with a few plants that needed to be transferred inside. Yesterday night was relatively calm, so she made a split-second decision to get it done as soon as possible.'

'You're just coming back from that? Are you going to be okay with lessons today?'

'We're excused from lessons, but I'll see about that. Don't want to miss out on Defence or Herbology.'

Harry, slightly taken aback by this much dedication, knit his brow. 'Well, good luck with that. You might want to get away before Filch gets on your heels, though.'

'Yeah, good idea. He's been in a really foul mood lately. Take care!'

Harry raised his hands in farewell, once more paying attention to Skeeter's latest drivel.

Five minutes later, which included an incident of colliding with an open door he was sure to never speak of, he reached his destination, knocking on the door with a complicated expression.

'Come in!' Aenor resided behind her cherished desk, various pastries and refreshments arranged in a rather dainty fashion, waving a croissant at Harry by way of greeting. 'I hope you don't mind?' Her office was sweet with freshly baked cookies and exquisitely brewed tea. It reminded Harry of winter, when the House-elves would usually engage in the baking of those divine delicacies.

Harry took a seat and raised an eyebrow. 'You could've at least offered me something as well, you know?'

'I'm sorry,' she said, smirking and putting one arm on the table as a sort of boundary to prevent Harry from nicking her food, 'but I'm starved! I've only come back from my trip an hour ago, and my mood sours whenever I skip meals.' Gracefully bringing a finger to her lips, she added as an afterthought, 'You can have a cup of tea if you like.'

'How very generous,' Harry returned sardonically, his eyes following her pouring him a drink for decorum's sake.

'Before we start, was it you who shrank Filch's cat?' She looked at him with a wicked glint of amusement in her eyes, chocolate-croissant temporarily suspended in mid-air.

'Yes? You didn't sort it out, did you?'

But Aenor only laughed, rising from her seat and striking a pose. 'Heavens – no! But Filius owes me money!' She took a bite, throwing him a steaming-hot gingerbread biscuit she seemed able to abstain from. Harry somehow got the impression that he was being rewarded for performing a neat new trick, but his stomach decided that he didn't much care. 'First and foremost, the magic I'm about to teach you is presumably way beyond your current abilities, as entertaining as they might be when it comes to charming abhorrent castle-critters. Nevertheless, I'd say it's something you wouldn't usually tackle until you're halfway into your mastery.'

'But you did promise you'd teach it nevertheless,' insisted Harry.

'But I foolishly promised I'd teach you nevertheless,' she repeated with a grin. 'First,' she waved her wand and a stack of twenty mouldy tomes floated from the corner of the room towards Harry, neatly stacking themselves in alphabetical order, 'you need to study these. They touch upon defensive magic, concealment, oscillation and all the other things that are necessary to even begin learning the spell.'

'I can do so in my free time,' said Harry at once, inspecting the old textbooks. 'Are they yours?' he asked curiously, opening the one on top of the first pile.

This book is the property of-

Twenty seconds later, Harry blinked, confused. 'What just happened?' he asked, slightly alarmed. He'd meant to read the last two words, but for some reason his eyes refused to concentrate on them.

'I suggest you don't dwell on the original owner of these books. They're cursed to do some really nasty stuff to anyone who tries to unravel the charms.' Conversationally, she raised her croissant again. 'I'm talking about the "your extremities fall off and start to eat you alive" type of nasty.'

With pronounced care, Harry put the book down again. 'Noted.'

'As I said, you need to study those, but I figured you'd like to do something more practical when I make time for you. I'm pretty busy right now, so you better make the most of it.'

Without looking up, she directed her wand to perform a complicated ballet of movement until the familiar and thoroughly humbling, softly shimmering barrier manifested itself - only this time it was barely three inches wide and high, floating in the middle of the room like the most bizarre and useless window in existence.

'Since you, astonishingly enough, don't seem to have a problem perceiving this totally invisible ward, you might as well start studying with a practical approach. Try to get a feel for the magic. If you don't understand the underlying principles or the nature of the spell, it won't work even if I tell you the incantation.'

'Alright.' Harry kneeled down until his eyes were level with the alien piece of magic that had, in a way, started his connection with this equally alien witch who posed as an educator. 'What's keeping you so busy anyway?' he asked offhandedly as he took a bite of the biscuit, softly brushing his hand against the smooth surface of the ward.

'Oh, you know! The usual stuff. But I've finally stumbled across an extremely interesting project this year. The opportunity of a lifetime, really.' Aenor looked, in Harry's opinion, like an explorer off on his next great adventure. 'Simply fascinating!'

'Even more so than exploding Boggarts?' he asked in good humour.

She laughed. 'Yes! I wish I could devote more of my time to my studies.'

'I'm so sorry to hold you back,' remarked Harry, prodding the field of magic. It hissed softly, and he could immediately feel his fingers being pushed back by equal force.

'It's not you who's bugging me the most,' she said tolerantly. 'No, it's the blasted lessons.' Harry looked up at her, rather surprised. True, from what he'd gathered, Aenor had always been more interested in her independent studies than teaching, but she was clearly more annoyed than usual to be wasting her time. 'I really hate uppity brats,' she added. 'And speaking of which; what kind of cursed abyss did your cousin crawl out from?'

'Amy?' he asked with a smile.

'Never in my life had I thought I'd be so tempted to pull my wand on a fourteen-year-old girl.'

'She can be a bit of a handful,' admitted Harry.

'A bit of a handful? She set my desk on fire, challenged me to a duel, tried to curse me behind my back and kept pointing out that she thought I looked rather like some Muggle addict she'd seen near King's Cross.' Aenor sighed, resting her head in her hand, and stared outside. 'And that was just the first lesson.'

'Well, on the upside, as long as you don't do anything to purposely annoy her brother, he won't be a problem.'

'Didn't seem like a troublemaker to me.'

'If you say so.' Harry relaxed his eyes a bit and examined, once more, the ward in front of him. This time, he could pick up on the thousands and thousands of almost invisible, orange lines of magic flowing through the 'window' like a netting. 'It's just that, if unprovoked, he usually ends up causing problems for his friends most of all.' Experimentally, he sniffed. He thought he could make out the smell of cold, frigid nights of winter, snow endlessly falling, days never seeing the light of the sun. Harry frowned. Was that even a smell?

While his fingers slowly stroked the ward, he opened another textbook, browsing through the pages for anything interesting to see. The texts were all in modern, plain and British English, which he found suspiciously odd, considering one of the texts had a publication date of 1683.

His eyes shot towards Aenor, but she didn't seem to be paying him any attention, rummaging choosily in her basket of some nameless baker's master-works. Well, she had given him the books to read, hadn't she? Even though Harry would have been prepared to give an arm and a leg for the opportunity to study the ward not a few weeks ago, he found himself absorbed in the idea of finding out more about the mysterious woman nobody really seemed to know.

If the script was English, the text had to be charmed. He concentrated his sight on the textbooks again, easing up on his constant efforts to restrain his additional layer of perception – and nearly dropped the book in his hand. Each one of them, even the thinnest little booklet, oozed with the impression of overwhelming death; foetid blood red and miasmic runes the colour of coal, so tiny he could barely spot them but impressive, insurmountable, unavoidable all the same. Six dozen, ten dozen – too many curses and charms to count were layered and layered upon each other as if he held the mythical Box of Pandora in his shaking hands that now felt uncomfortably clammy.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Aenor still pointlessly agonising over the decision of which snack to sample next.

Mesmerised, Harry opened a haply chosen, tarnished and torn notebook from the very bottom, skipping pages as if each crumpled, faded sheet was made from poisoned glass.

And he couldn't believe his luck; notes in the margins of the very last page!

Harry's heart nearly skipped a beat, and he bent over, trying to decipher most of the now unreadable handwriting. Two authors seemed to have scribbled all over the page, though most of their messages were teasingly faded.

The first writer had written in a neat, angular foreign script Harry had problems deciphering. The fading contrast didn't help either. Only the very last words were still visible enough to even attempt a reading.

'...g elsker di...'

The other author seemed to have either chosen a better ink or had been a more recent addition. Whatever the reason, this time Harry could make out half a sentence of the curly, seriph-infested script.

'...Es muß derhalben unser oberstes Gebote seyn...'

Harry's eyes were glued to one particular word. He had no clue whatsoever what any of those fragments could possibly mean, but here, bold and undeniable, he beheld the one word that made up his whole mnemonic dictionary of the German language.

A faint, alluring breeze of daffodil caused Harry to turn his head. Leaning over his shoulder, cockiness radiating from eyes that were as deep as any ocean, was Aenor. 'Feeling a bit nosy, are we?'

~BLVoD~

Hermione looked just as confused as the rest of the class when Harry entered the classroom with their teacher in tow, both engrossed in their conversation.

Tracey, who sat next to Hermione (as both the Muggle-born and Daphne refused to sit anywhere near Draco for the foreseeable future), was staring daggers at their professor, scowling menacingly. Hermione was kind of glad that Greengrass was blocked from view, at least.

'Harry, over here! I saved you a seat!' It was becoming rapidly apparent how Greengrass clearly considered the subtle approach obsolete, and she waved wildly to get Harry's attention. With one last shared glance, Harry walked over to Greengrass, who engaged him at once with furious whispers and barbed looks.

'Good morning,' Professor Rose greeted them, smiling and taking a seat behind her desk.

'Good morning,' the class replied. Well, most of them. Tracey had substituted the 'good' part with a few choice words that caused Hermione to blush and poke at the petite girl next to her.

'She's so vile!' Hermione's seatmate snarled rather louder than necessary or prudent.

Hermione didn't share the resentment of the fellow Slytherin girls. In truth, Rose's personality was, if at all, a tertiary concern of hers. No one could deny that she was competent and willing to teach, and her methods had proven to work, so what was there to complain about?

Still, Hermione thought as she nibbled on her lip with one ear listening to their teacher laying out the plan for the year, this was a bit, well, unusual. Last year, she'd brushed all the rumours aside. So what if Harry and Rose had danced – what's the big deal? True, she's a teacher, and it probably wasn't appropriate, but Professor Prewett viciously attacking Harry's family or Professor Snape's all around vitriolic attitude could hardly be called appropriate either, right?

'...and when you've thus finally learned your first really useful bits of magic that might possibly help you survive an attack on your person, we might as well end the term on a cheerful note while covering Vampires, Werewolves, Boggarts and Banshees.'

There'd also been that ridiculous rumour of Harry being engaged to Professor Rose, of course, but the very notion is so over the top that it isn't even worth considering – or is it?

'So, without further ado, let's start with our practical part of the term.' Professor Rose stood up and began marching up and down in front of her desk. 'Since we're in luck and actually have a few people in this class who might be able to attempt a duel without dropping their wand, how about we start with something fun again that might serve to prove a point.' Rose smirked, her eyes locked with Harry's as if she was enjoying an inside joke.

Well, she does seem friendly with him. I hadn't really noticed... Intrigued, Hermione leant a bit forward in her seat, looking at Harry, who coolly responded Aenor's gaze in kind.

'Let's engage in a hypothetical battle. Mr Black, if your area of expertise was, theoretically speaking, charms and defensive magic, how would you estimate your chance of winning a fight against a witch specialising equally in offensive magic, curses more specifically.'

Harry regarded their teacher with blatant annoyance. 'Extremely bad to the point of inadvisability.'

If Professor Rose was bothered by his attitude, she didn't show it. Smiling serenely, she addressed the rest of the class. 'Correct. Much of what you'll learn as offensive magic is, technically speaking, a charm, conjuration or even transfiguration. Now, you might jolly-well ask what's the difference between casting the Disarming Charm and a curse aimed to thoroughly incapacitate? Well? You, Miss Parkinson, have a guess.'

'Curses usually inflict harsher punishment, obviously.'

'True, but – again – I ask you what difference would it make in this situation. Being wandless or dead makes little to no difference in most lethal one-on-one duels. So, the question stands; what is the difference between charms and curses used in combat?'

Here she was again. Last year, Rose had famously educated them about the benefits of sneaking up on people to deliver a knock-out punch in the most cowardly way possible, and now she was, well, advertising the use of curses. Now that I think about it, the first lesson was extremely similar last year. Maybe she does follow a structured plan after all?

'Miss Wright, you try your luck.'

'They're more dangerous, maybe?'

'Yes, but how so exactly? As I said already, sudden defeat or helplessness makes hardly any difference in a duel.'

'There's wandless magic, so it might make a difference after all!' proposed Tracey from Hermione's side.

'And I'm sure you wish to entertain us with a showing of your grand, hitherto undisclosed wandless magic, Miss Davis?' Their teacher smirked at a grumbling Tracey before she turned away again. 'So, if the essential difference doesn't lie in the effect, even though curses doubtlessly are more...flashy than charms, what other distinction is there to be made?'

Tracey and Professor Rose really didn't get along, though Tracey seemed little more than an inconvenience for Rose, whereas her petite classmate bristled after every little crosstalk. I really don't get why Tracey dislikes her so violently. I mean, she's nothing like Greengrass, that's for sure. Greengrass is jealous, and that's not very hard to understand for anyone – with, perhaps, the notable exception of Harry. Then again, Greengrass' fixation on Harry is a bit creepy; like how she was gushing about how she envisioned her marriage last year. True, she didn't outright say with whom but...

Hermione replayed the scene in the theatre of her mind. Harry, too, had visibly flinched when Greengrass had started babbling about all the different customs and all such nonsense. Wait, he couldn't-

'No more volunteers? Alright, look at it this way-'

Hermione's eyes widened as she gaped at Professor Rose. But the rumours couldn't be true, could they? Engaged? Well, she did defend him that one time, and Bones did lose a stunning number of points for bad-mouthing Harry...

'Charms and transfigurations can be, by any right, deadly; it's just a matter of application, or, shall we say, creativity? Curses, of course, are primarily intended to harm a person, which is why some backwoodsmen had the ingenious idea to call them "dark". Preachy, ignorant and moronic – a dangerous combination you should do well to be wary of. Shouldn't charms be dark then, if I were to levitate you over a cliff? Shouldn't we be cautious of transfigurations because I could turn your blood to wine? The real difference, lo and behold, is that curses are more difficult to defend against! Most curses are hard to deflect and have fewer counter-curses. The arguably most quintessential curses have none at all.'

Hermione blinked her way out of her stupor. Most of her classmates were apparently not catching up or not paying attention, to begin with – but Hermione was, even if her thoughts drifted off every now and then. Did she really just say that?

'The point I wished to make at the start of the lesson was how equally powerful charms and curses, when pointed at one another without outside intervention, will practically always result in curses overcoming charms. They were developed to be that way, after all. There are, of course, exceptions, but they are few and far between. However, please do remember that we are speaking only of direct one-on-one contact of spells, which will, in reality, almost never happen.'

Hermione's eyes were still tracing her teacher's every move, even as the lecture slowly departed from captious topics.

~BLVoD~

Hermione, her mind still racing, followed the rest of the clique (sans Draco) on their way to History of Magic.

'Are you going to actually attend, Daphy?' Tracey had probably meant it as an innocent, off-handed question, but she seemed to realise her mistake the very next instant, both of her hands flying towards her own mouth.

'No,' Greengrass snapped, her mouth a thin line Professor McGonagall would have been proud of.

'I've made our position clear to the headmaster. I'll never sit that lunatic's lessons,' Harry stated categorically.

Hermione watched them attentively. She was, in her own more or less humble opinion, a fair observer, and Harry and Greengrass were extremely interesting objects of study. Though Harry usually seemed unwilling to put much effort into resisting most of Greengrass' whims, it was these presumably intensely charged moments that saw the usual dynamic switched – the proud, loud and confident blonde almost hid behind Harry's back.

Hermione bit her lip and suffered the silence. Tracey tried to start a conversation with Greengrass again, but the words fell into the deep conversational hollow the topic of Professor Prewett had brought and left Tracey's voice ringing shrilly in the cold corridor. 'So, er, are you guys headed for the common room again?'

Harry simply nodded.

Tracey cussed softly, but she didn't give up so easily. 'I sure hope the staircase doesn't mess with us again!' Tracey laughed awkwardly, desperate to bridge the gap in conversation.

She failed. The stairs from the second to the first corridor aligned perfectly with the timing of their arrival, though – a small mercy. Hermione couldn't help being glad for it, too.

'What do you know!' Tracey exclaimed in a strained sort of voice. 'Sometimes you just get lucky!'

Greengrass had, Hermione noticed, at some point gingerly taken hold of Harry's robes, trotting along, her head lowered and her long glossy hair falling around her like a brittle armour of golden strands. The eyes of every portrait, every person seemed to follow their sullen entourage, the sounds of their steps like lonely flaps in the halls of an empty cathedral.

Eventually, even Hermione's perseverance wavered. 'That was some strange lesson just now, wasn't it, Tracey?' she asked, her voice unnaturally lively.

'Oh, yes indeed, Honey!' Tracey agreed wholeheartedly. 'Oh, no...'

'What?' asked Hermione, confused.

Wordlessly, Tracey pointed towards the corridor that held the History of Magic classroom. Outside, swaggering and garish, Professor Prewett greeted his students, grinning boyishly and jesting with a few other arrivals. Next to him stood a man Hermione now saw for her first time, though she immediately knew who it was: black leather coat, overly long auburn hair, and a stature that towered over lesser men.

'Let's just slip by and be on our way, Daphne,' Harry proposed in a low voice, his wand groaning with the pressure of his grip.

Greengrass nodded, her hand tightening on his robes.

Tracey looked straight into Hermione's eyes and jerked her head pointedly. After a brief moment of confusion, Hermione sped up and walked up next to Tracey, so that – hopefully – Harry and Greengrass could slink away.

Sadly, that was not to be. 'Ah, Miss Greengrass, Mr Black? Jolly good! It seems you've come around after all. Be seated inside, I've just been telling my coll-'

Professor Prewett's somewhat artificial but relieved expression cracked like a log under the woodman's axe. Bewildered, Hermione looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

The professor, too, seemed under the impression that he had imagined things as he started again, clearly intent on making up for his blunder. 'As long as you behave and be civil, we won't have to make this more awkward for any of u-'

'Out of my way, Prewett.'

This time, Hermione barely managed to hear Harry's whisper. But for all its lack of volume, his voice seemed to rip the corridor in two. He stood in front of Greengrass, staring down Prewett, his wand in his hand and for all to see, not at all like Hermione was accustomed. Greengrass stood close to Harry, her face averted.

Prewett nervously licked his lips, glancing at his foreign colleague. 'Now, Mr Black, I'm sure we don't want to make a scene, and I am a teac-'

Harry's wand shot up, and the smile slipped from Prewett's face to reveal a nasty scowl. The giant seemed rather surprised by this open show of disobedience and straight up revolt, and it was possibly this that caused Prewett to try again. As Harry had proven to be unbending, Prewett now focused his attention on the apparent weak link.

A bad move if ever there was one to make.

'Miss Greengrass, I never quite got around to speaking face to face to you, and I really want to tell you how dreadfully sor-'

Harry's wand erupted with a bang, and the floor next to Professor Prewett exploded with a crash.

'Oh, crap!' Tracey eloquently described the situation.

'Harry, no!' cried Hermione.

The giant man had his wand in his hand, but he looked down at Prewett and then at Harry with something like vague interest.

Harry, holding hands with Greengrass who looked as shocked as Hermione hoped she didn't, walked over to the glowering man who now eyed Harry's wand much more closely.

Harry, by contrast, looked at his teacher as if a ball of slime had just rolled over his favourite carpet. 'Don't waste your breath.'

'I'm still your teacher, Black, and you will address me as such!' the man roared, goofy smile long forgotten.

Harry raised his wand again, followed within the blink of an eye by both Prewett and the foreign Auror. 'A murderer is what you are, you bloody bastard. If you dare talk to Daphne one more time after what you did to her family, I swear I'll visit your quarters the very next night to get the revenge for Regulus that you so rightly deserve!'

'Harry!' Hermione shrieked. 'Don't descend to that level! Please...'

'I'm not descending, Hermione,' Harry said as he turned away, Daphne following silently. 'I'm just being honest for once.'