[FFML] {HP] {XOVER] Drunkard's Walk VIII, Chapter 3

[Bob Schroeck]

Life has let up on me enough that I've managed to turn out another
Drunkard's Walk installment.  Enjoy.

-- Bob

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Bob Schroeck         http://www.accessdenied-rms.net        rms at eclipse.net
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.




                       DRUNKARD'S WALK VIII:
             HARRY POTTER AND THE MAN FROM OTHEREARTH

                       by Robert M. Schroeck





3.  School Days, School Days, Dear Old Golden Rule Days

Wizardry *is* choice.  All else is mere mechanics.
-- Diane Duane, "High Wizardry"

"It is among children, and as children only, that you will find
your healing and true wisdom for your teaching."
-- John Ruskin, from "Crown of Wild Olive"

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and
advantage.  He lives by makebelieve.
-- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Summing Up", 1938



    *Slytherin House
    Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
    2 September 1995*

    *Dear Father:*

    *Per your usual request that I keep you informed of matters at
    Hogwarts, I write to you with my impressions of the first two
    days of the term.*

    *The ride on the Express was uneventful.  As I'm sure you're
    already aware due to your position on the Board of Governors,
    Potter's Mudblood and blood traitor friends are the new
    Gryffindor prefects.  Isn't the very idea disgusting?  So for
    the first time he spent part of the ride there without them.
    Sadly, due to my own prefect duties I was not able to take
    advantage of this.  When I was finally able, as has been my
    practice, to seek Potter out during the trip, Weasley and
    Granger had already rejoined him and were sharing their
    compartment with several others.  Still, one does what one
    must, and after offering appropriate greetings I made another
    overture of alliance to him.  However, he rejected my offer
    once more.*

    *The start-of-term feast was equally uneventful...*

                              * * *

"I don't know, Ron," Harry said softly as they entered the Great
Hall.  "I think Malfoy was hinting that he knew something about
S... Snuffles."

"Even if he was," Ron said, his eyes fixed firmly on the tables
before them, "what could he do?  It's not like he has proof or
anything, is it?"

"Not yet," Hermione hissed at them, "but if you keep talking
about it, I can guarantee he *will*."

Ron glanced at Harry and rolled his eyes, but didn't say another
word.  Harry felt like chuckling, but suppressed the urge so as
not to irritate Hermione further.  Although at times it seemed
like the entire trip to Hogwarts this year had been calculated to
do nothing else, what with meeting Luna Lovegood and learning
about *The Quibbler*, Draco's annual visit-and-threat, and then
the strange dragonlike horses hitched to the carriages and having
to explain his reaction to those who couldn't see them.  Add onto
that whatever had happened with Draco during the Prefects'
meeting on the Express, and it seemed to him that Hermione was a
bit more prickly than usual.

Harry wracked his brains to find a new subject that wouldn't
aggravate her.  When his eye fell upon Hagrid's oversize -- and
very empty -- seat, he said, "Hagrid's not there," as much out of
genuine surprise and curiosity as out of a need to find a less
contentious topic.

"Yeah," Ron agreed as Hermione's annoyance visibly drained away.

She craned her neck to look about, almost if she thought that
Hagrid might be in a different part of the Hall, his immense form
somehow obscured by a student.  "Oh, I hope he's not hurt or
anything," she murmured.

"He's probably not back yet," Harry said quietly.  "From that
thing he was doing for Dumbledore."

She turned back to him, worry clear in her eyes.  "Oh!  You think
so?"

"Yeah," Harry said as much confidence as he could muster.  "I
mean, what could possibly hurt Hagrid?"

Hermione smiled, albeit a bit weakly.  "You're right, of course.
I'm sure we'll see him any day now, then."

"Right," Ron agreed with an encouraging grin.  "Hey, there's
Professor Sangnoir, up at the head table next to Snape."

"*Professor* Snape," Hermione scolded him.  "Of course he is,
Ron.  Where else did you expect him to be?"  She paused a moment,
and when she spoke again her tone was quieter.  "I'm still
wondering about what he did to Kreacher and the portrait of Mrs.
Black.  As soon as he left, the both of them went right back to
the way they were before he arrived."

"We know, Hermione," Ron muttered as he rolled his eyes at Harry.

"Professor Sangnoir?" Neville Longbottom's voice came
unexpectedly from behind them.  Harry'd thought Neville had
beaten them into the Hall.  "Who's Professor Sangnoir?"

"The new Defense professor," Ginny called back to Neville from
where she was walking in front of Harry.  With an impish grin,
she added, "He's a superhero."

"What's a super..." Neville began, but Hermione cut him off.

"Ginny!" she snapped.  Then she took a breath and turned back to
Neville.  "He's not a superhero, they're Muggle fiction.  But he
*is* impressive.  He stayed for a week the same place we were at
the end of the summer, and we saw him training.  He's very good."
In lower, more conspiratorial tones, she added, "And there's
something really strange about him that we're trying to figure
out."

"*Again?*" Neville demanded in aggrieved tones as they found an
open area at the Gryffindor table large enough for all of them.
As they took their seats, Ginny joined a group of friends from
her year further down the table.

"Yeah, I know," Ron replied sympathetically.  "Every year it's
the same thing, right?  And they usually want to kill Harry,
too."  Harry resisted the urge to drive an elbow into his best
friend's side.

"So what is it this time?" Neville inquired in more
conversational tones as he unfolded his napkin and laid it in
his lap.  Ron shot Hermione an expectant look which, to Harry's
private amusement, she failed to notice.

"We'll tell you about it when we get back to the Common Room,"
Harry said softly.  "Better that way."

Baffled, Neville nodded.  "All right, then."

"Hey, look!" announced Ron a bit too loudly.  "Here come the
firsties!"

                              * * *

For the last couple weeks as I settled into the school and got to
know the rest of the staff, I'd been bumming around in what
amounted to "business casual" robes -- the wizarding equivalent
of khaki slacks and a company polo shirt.  But now that the
students had arrived, I actually had to look like a professor, so
I broke out the stuff for which I'd paid the big Galleons at
Madam Malkin's.  Silk and fine linen, mostly in greys or dark
blues with subtle trimming.  And of course, all the options --
leather interior, bucket seats, power windows, the works.

Ahem.  I mean, comfort charms, sizing charms, permanent press
charms, self-cleaning charms, wash-your-face-and-comb-your-hair-
for-you-sir? charms.  By the time I'd finished with the
interminable fitting session I just threw money at Malkin and
took *every* option she had to offer, simply to stop the sales
pitch and get out the door that much faster.

(Charlie had later commented that he'd never seen anyone, not
even some of the real upper crust folks his father knew through
the Ministry, go that route to get out of the usual presentation.
In his experience, *no one* had ever bought *all* the options
that Madam Malkin offered.)

Showing up in my formal academic attire afforded me more than a
few appreciative looks from several of my female colleagues.  In
addition to an appreciative look, I had to dodge an appreciative
butt-pinch by Rolanda Hooch while we were still in the staff room
behind the high table.  Afterwards, as we filed out into the
Great Hall to take our seats for the start-of-term feast, I
grinned and wagged my finger playfully at her to show there were
no hard feelings on my part.  She gave me a saucy little smile
and head toss in return.

As I had each dinner for the last two weeks, I took my seat at
the far left end of the table, next to Severus.  He was more
scowly and growly than he'd been at any other meal since I'd
joined the staff, and his thundercloud-dark expression only
worsened when the first of the returning students sauntered
through the huge doors at the end of the Hall.  It didn't take
much effort to figure out why.

*Why am I not surprised that he hates children?* I mused to
myself with a quick glance to the heavens -- or the Hall's
ceiling, which was much the same thing.  *Why the hell is he a
teacher, then?*  "Buck up, Severus," I muttered out of the side
of my mouth.  "In only ten short months you'll be free of them
again."

The sidelong look he shot me mixed equal parts surprise and
suspicion.  I ignored it and him, and concentrated my attention
on the students slowly entering the Hall.  Flowing into it like a
vast, viscous wave, breaking into smaller streams that swirled
and eddied, pooling here and there as groups of friends met up
again after two months' separation, the student body gradually
filled the Great Hall like molasses pouring lethargically into a
bucket.  Bit by bit the four long tables filled as the various
cliques and gangs of each house settled into either accustomed or
newly-acquired spaces, jockeying for position both physical and
social.

The Slytherins were clearly more into the "social" than the
"physical"; their table was strictly organized by age, with the
seventh-year students closest to the High Table, and each year
below them taking its place as a bloc in order.  Within each
class there was oh-so-courteous but oh-so-cutthroat competition
for the best available seats.  Some students, like the sharp-
featured blond kid who looked like a 15-year-old Andy Warhol and
his pair of hulking BFFs, obviously dominated among their
yearmates and occupied their "rightful" places without dispute;
in other years it took longer to ascertain the new pecking order.

By way of a contrast, the Gryffindors were a cheerful, somewhat
unruly mob who rolled over and occupied their table like a good-
natured army.  While they, too, sorted themselves out by year, it
was in a broad, general way in comparison to the Slytherins'
precise, measured segregation.  I saw most of my young housemates
from Grim Old Number 12, along with a couple of friends,
cheerfully squeeze their way into a block of seats just above the
middle of the table, next to Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington,
the ghostly mascot of Gryffindor.  The little redhead -- Ginny
Weasley -- broke off from them to join her yearmates a bit
further down, while her twin older brothers headed the other
direction and seated themselves closer to the High Table along
with a dreadlocked black fellow their own age.  One of the main
group's friends, a slender girl with long dirty-blonde hair and a
strange, drifting walk, didn't join them at all, but instead
wandered on to the next group of students to catch my eye:  House
Ravenclaw.

The Ravenclaws were a strange mix of regimentation and
distraction.  Many of them were already carrying books -- I
spotted some of the volumes I'd put on the textbook list -- and
while they sorted themselves out even more precisely than the
Slytherins, it wasn't (entirely) by year.  Rather, it looked like
they were already forming up into study groups, judging by the
books and the parchment sheets they were stacking on the table by
their places.

Finally, there were the Hufflepuffs -- *my* house.  I watched
them perhaps more than the rest combined, simply because in a
very real way they were my responsibility.  Pomona had described
how the house "worked", so my observations were less about
discovery than they were about studying how the system, if you
could call it that, functioned.

The Hufflepuffs tended to cluster, like the other houses, into
groups of yearmates, but every group regardless of its size had
one or two older students who kept an eye on them and essentially
mentored them.  These mentors were members of their own little
bands, of course, and were (save for the seventh-years) mentored
by the students above them.  In turn every group offered
mentoring to a younger group, except (of course) for the first
years.

To my professionally-trained eye the system looked a little like
a revolutionary cell network and a little like a military
organization (with each group being a fire team and each year
being a squad).  The mentoring was completely voluntary -- my
observations later in the term suggested that second-year 'Puffs
gradually "adopted" groups of firsties as they formed during the
first few months of school and maintained the relationship until
they graduated.  Pomona had admitted the process wasn't entirely
hands-off -- there were always the shy, the terrified and the
stand-offish among the first-years, and it took some gentle
encouragement on her part for them to bond with both their
yearmates and an older student or two.  But overall, the process
-- ingrained after decades of tradition -- happened pretty much
automatically.

I found myself thinking of the whole arrangement in terms of the
"kohai-sempai" relationships I'd seen in the Japans of so many
universes, starting with my home Earth.  The whole system of
informal yet interlocking responsibilities and relationships was
deceptively simple but bound the house together into a mutually
self-supporting network.  You literally could not be in
Hufflepuff and not have someone to turn to for anything you might
need, be it relationship advice, help with homework, or an extra
hand to move an inconvenient corpse.

And I haven't even gotten into the work ethic yet.

I could see this network of mentors and mentored spooling up for
the new school year right there on the floor of the Great Hall,
with the sempai seeking out and checking on their kohai and
re-establishing connections grown dormant over the summer (if, in
fact, they had).  I was well aware by that time of Hufflepuff's
reputation as well-meaning but dull duffers who faded into the
background compared to the far more flamboyant Slytherins and
Gryffindors and the rather intensely brilliant Ravenclaws, but
when I looked at them I saw an army in the making -- not of
conquerors or invaders, but a corps of engineers who built and
maintained the culture that gave the flashier houses a backdrop
against which to play their games.

As far as I was concerned, the 'Puffs were ultimately the real
movers and shakers of the British wizarding world.

Anyway, in the midst of all the activity in the Great Hall, the
translucent grey forms of the various castle ghosts drifted to
and fro, holding forth with various students as they passed.  The
House ghosts orbited their tables and restricted themselves --
for the most part -- to the students of their Houses, but they
were far from the only spectral inhabitants of Hogwarts.  Pomona
had told me there were dozens, including a few bound to specific
locations in the castle, and it seemed like all but those
unfortunate few had turned out for the feast.  Even Peeves was in
attendance, oddly restrained in his behavior according to Pomona;
but the little imp caught my eye and waved to me, so I had my
suspicions as to the reason for it.

Above this bubbling panoply of pre- and intra-adolescent
politicking and socializing, the ceiling of the Great Hall
reiterated the starless black of the overcast sky outside.  But
even if clouds had not been blocking them, I doubt the stars
would have been visible past the glare of the hundreds --
possibly thousands -- of white taper candles that floated about
two-thirds of the way up the height of the Hall.  It was a
veritable swarm of hovering tallow, and it flooded the room with
a warm golden light that seemed to creep into every corner and
banish all but the smallest and most persistent of shadows.

I had to admit, what the Wizarding world may have lacked in
technological sophistication they often made up for in sheer
style.

Behind me, I heard the door to the staff anteroom open and shut.
Glancing along the length of the table, I saw Wilhelmina slipping
into that monster of a chair at the other end.  Having been
briefed on the script for the evening, I knew what that meant --
the festivities were about to begin.

Moments later, the doors from the entrance hall -- the same ones
through which I had passed with such trepidation only two weeks
earlier, and through which the upper classes had just streamed --
swung open once more, and Minerva appeared, her posture
absolutely ram-rod straight and her expression as severe as I'd
ever seen.  (Quite a contrast to the Minerva I'd gotten to know
in the weeks before school started, a Minerva who liked to put
her button-shoed feet up on the table in the staff room and laugh
like a braying mule over a tumbler of whiskey and a bawdy story.)

In her hands she held a battered wooden stool, on which rested
His Millinery Majesty, the Sorting Hat.  Behind her, in two
fidgety lines, were forty or fifty eleven-year-olds in plain
black robes and pointy hats, looking for all the world like
peewee-league participants in some Halloween-themed team sport.

As the chatter that had filled the Hall dropped to nothing with
an unnerving suddenness, Minerva marched her tiny charges right
up the central aisle between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, then set
them up in a line in front of the high table, facing the rest of
the student body.  Stepping back along the aisle about three
meters, she carefully positioned the stool so that the Hat's
"face" was looking at them.  Then she stepped back expectantly.
A palpable air of anticipation filled the Hall and I wondered
what was going to happen next.  This was a whole lot more pomp
and ceremony than *my* Sorting had involved, but it was obvious
that everyone here save for two score or so eleven-year-olds and
Mama Sangnoir's Favorite Son knew what was coming and were
eagerly awaiting it.

There was a long, long moment of teasing silence.

Then the rip just above its brim which served the Hat as a mouth
opened, and the damned thing began to sing!

                              * * *

The Sorting Hat's song this year seemed normal enough at first --
a dozen verses or so retelling the story of the founding of
Hogwarts, another dozen describing the Founders themselves and
what they looked for in students, and a bit more about the
Houses.

And then it got ... different.

"Oh, know the perils, read the signs," the Hat sang as it drew to
a close.

      "The warning history shows,
       For our Hogwarts is in danger
       From external, deadly foes.
       Beyond them far, though, can be found
       Both hope and allies great
       And ordered chaos comes to change
       What might have been our fate
       Though strong and wise, such friends as these
       Who're called on in the night
       Cannot alone stand forth and hold
       Our Hogwarts in the light
       Attend their words and learn them well
       And by their side then stand
       The music of the madness then
       Puts power in your hand
       Unite with them for Hogwarts' sake
       Or we'll crumble from within
       I have told you, I have warned you...
       Let the Sorting now begin."

The Sorting Hat then went still.  The Hall burst into applause
leavened with whispers and muttered discussions about the Hat's
strange warning.

Her heart pounding a mile a minute, Hermione looked down the
Gryffindor table to find Ginny looking back up at her with wide,
surprised eyes that Hermione was sure matched her own expression.
As Ron turned to Harry and said, "Branched out a bit this year,
hasn't it?", Hermione slowly mouthed "friends who're called on in
the night" to the younger girl.  Biting her lip, Ginny slowly
nodded.

"Too right it has," Harry replied as Hermione and Ginny continued
to stare at each other, the same thought running through their
heads:  had their midnight ritual all those weeks ago been more
successful than they had thought?

"Tonight," Hermione mouthed, and Ginny nodded again.

                              * * *

I managed to suppress my start of surprise when the Sorting Hat
sang out the line about "the music of the madness".  Although I
chose to spell my codename "Toons" instead of "Tunes" to avoid
trademark issues with Warner Brothers, it's pretty obvious what
my intent was and still is.  Further, the translation that the
Japanese of my Earth use instead of lowering themselves to speak
English -- *Kyoki no Kyoku* -- doesn't beat around the bush:  it
literally back-translates into "Tunes of Madness".

(I suppose it should go without saying that the very rigid and
orderly, not to mention xenophobic, Japanese of my home timeline
find my metatalent frighteningly and disturbingly chaotic, almost
borderline demonic -- the antithesis of everything they believe
about the way the world works.  Which was one reason that even as
a rookie I was never assigned to Beta Team in Tokyo.

The other being that Hexe didn't want her brand-new loose cannon
that far out of her sight.)

Anyway, if there was one thing I was intending on doing with my
classes, it was putting as much power in my students' hands as I
could.

So the Hat was obviously -- well, obviously to me (and, no doubt,
Albus) -- referring to yours truly.  I suppose it might have
pulled the info it needed for the song from my mind while it was
sitting on my head.  As far as I could tell, though, it hadn't
attempted to breach the mental defenses which Psyche had
painstakingly drilled into my thick skull during my first few
months with the Warriors.  (And thanks to him, I've been able to
detect, and repel, some fairly subtle telepaths over the years.)
So... was it prophecy?  Having been a house guest of the Norns
for a year or so, I wasn't about to discount the possibility.

And I have to admit I was curious about what "strong and wise"
friends had been called on in the night, and by whom.  Because it
certainly wasn't me, on either end of that equation.  And I
wanted to know if it was something that had happened already, or
something yet to come.

After all, if they were prophesied allies, I wanted to identify
and approach them as soon as I could.

                              * * *

    *...the Hat recited its usual meaningless doggerel before
    winnowing the worthy from the dross...*

                              * * *

The Sorting itself took a surprisingly short amount of time,
compared to my own experience with the Hat.  Sure, a few of the
forty-odd eleven-year-olds took as long as or longer than I had,
but most were Sorted in thirty seconds or less, and a couple were
assigned Houses pretty much the moment the Hat landed on their
heads.

I suppose it only makes sense.  Eleven years of life experience
is easier -- and faster -- to analyze than ten times that.

I made a point of memorizing faces, names and Houses for all the
first-years as they proceeded through the Sorting, from fearful
little Euan Abercrombie (Gryffindor, despite his obvious terror)
through the Martinez triplets (one in each house except for
Slytherin) all the way to Rose Zeller (the last Hufflepuff to be
Sorted).  These were the students I had the most hope for, the
ones for whom I would *not* be a holy terror if all worked to
plan.  If I could lay the right groundwork with them, then I
might be able to ameliorate, if not entirely then partly, the
effects any future *bad* Defense teachers might have on them.
"Give me their minds when they are young..." and all that,
y'know.  Because I wouldn't be here to guide them all the way to
their graduation, I had to build a solid foundation on which they
could progress, unguided and alone if necessary.

In the course of memorization, I noted one little statistical
factoid that I had actually anticipated:  the kids were Sorted
pretty much evenly between the four Houses.  And a quick glance
around the Great Hall at the older students confirmed that, more
or less, the Houses were all of a size with each other.  Which
said to me that at least part of the requirements for House
assignment were clearly bogus.  The Hat had to be jiggering
things so the distribution was always equal, or close to it.

I decided then and there that I needed to have another talk with
the Hat.  On several topics.

                              * * *

"Talbot, Marcia!" Professor McGonagall read from her scroll, and
another first-year made her way to the stool on which the Sorting
Hat rested.

"Look at him," Hermione whispered to Harry and Ron as the little
girl placed the Hat on her head.

"Who?" Ron muttered.  "Malfoy?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.  "No, Ron.  Professor Sangnoir.  He's
so... intense.  Like he's studying every one of the first years,
memorizing them."  She shook her head.  "He's nothing like he was
back at... at where we were staying this summer."

"Ravenclaw!" the Hat announced, to the cheers of that house and
the applause of the others.

"He wasn't a teacher then, was he, though?" Ron observed as they
clapped.  "It's like Professor Lupin -- he didn't act like a
Defense professor when he was at... that place with us this
summer, right?"

"Walther, Peter," called out McGonagall, and a little boy, dark-
haired and slender, approached the stool.

Hermione absently worried her lip.  "I suppose.  It's just, it's
strange seeing it the other way.  I mean, after watching him with
Charlie and the twins and with S... Snuffles, I kind of started
thinking of him as, well, not quite professor material despite
all the mystery around him."  Focused on articulating her
feelings, Hermione missed seeing both Harry and Ron smirk at each
over over the latest resurgence of her current obsession.  "But
now... he looks almost as intense as Professor Moody."

"Slytherin!"  And little Peter made his way to that table to the
accompaniment of considerably less cheering than little Marcia
had received.

"Merlin!  I hope not!" Ron declared, scowling after the latest
recruit for the house of Death Eaters.  "Two professors like that
in a row..."  He shuddered.  Harry suppressed a snicker when
Ron's stomach audibly growled, as if in agreement.

"Zeller, Rose!"

Harry snorted.  "I think you're both off.  We *know* what he's
like.  There's no way that Dou..."  Hermione glared and opened
her mouth, and Harry swiftly corrected himself.  "...that
*Professor Sangnoir* is going to be as bad as Moody.  Even the
fake Moody."

"Hufflepuff!"  And they stopped to clap and cheer for the last of
the first years.

As the applause faded away and McGonagall carried off the Sorting
Hat and its stool, Dumbledore stood up from his seat at the
center of the head table.  Harry suppressed a surge of anger at
the headmaster for ignoring him, barely even acknowledging his
existence, once his hearing in front of the Wizengamot had
concluded.  For a moment he was inclined to forgive Dumbledore
for snatching away the care and closeness he'd given Harry for
four years; for this one moment, when everything was the way it
was supposed to be.  He closed his eyes for just long enough to
bask in the *rightness* of it all, then opened them again.

Spreading his arms wide and smiling broadly, Dumbledore looked
out over the student body and declared in a clear and carrying
voice, "To our newcomers, welcome!  To our old hands -- welcome
back!  There is a time for speech making, but this is not it.
Tuck in!"

And the food appeared.

                              * * *

"You know," Nearly Headless Nick said not much later, "this is
far from the first time the Sorting Hat has issued a warning."

"Really?" Harry asked as Ron mumbled something through a full
mouth that was probably the same word.

The ghost nodded -- carefully, by bending slightly at the waist,
so as not to dislodge his head from the stump of his neck.  "Oh,
certainly.  Whenever a time of great crisis for Wizarding Britain
has been imminent, particularly one that threatened Hogwarts
itself, the Hat's song has carried a clear warning, and has
always encouraged the Houses of Hogwarts to stand together,
unified, to face it.

"What is unusual," he continued musingly, "is its mention of
allies from *outside* Hogwarts.  Yes."  Unseen by Nick, Hermione
and Ginny traded meaningful glances once again.  "It is the first
time, at least in my experience, that the Hat has not *only*
advised that we stand together and be strong from within.  I
wonder whether it bodes well or ill."

"The first time?  Really?"  Hermione leaned toward him, intent,
Harry thought, out of all proportion to the question.

"In *my* experience, yes," Nick confirmed.

"How about for the other ghosts?" Ron asked between forkfuls.

Nick considered this.  "I'll have to ask," he finally said.  "In
fact, I think I'll do so now."  He drifted up out of the seat he
occupied until he hovered well above the table.  "I shall return
shortly," he called down before floating over to the Ravenclaw
table and the side of the Grey Lady.

"So... bad news, you think?" Ron said with a knowing smirk after
Nick had left the table.

"Only a little," Harry said with a levity he didn't really feel.
It was pretty obvious that the Hat had been referring to the
return of Voldemort at the end of the Triwizard Tournament.

Hermione wrinkled her nose at them in disgust.  "You two think
you're so funny.  This is serious."

"Of course it's serious, Hermione," Harry sighed.  "But is it so
wrong to want to find a little something to laugh at in the
middle of it?"

Hermione's pique deflated, and she shook her head.  "No, I guess
not.  I just didn't want you to be making light of, well,
everything that happened at the end of last year."

Harry suddenly felt a surge of irritation at that, and tried to
stomp it down.  "Believe me, Hermione, I haven't forgotten just
how awful it was, and how awful it's *going* to be," he snapped.

She blanched.  "I didn't mean to..."

Before she could finish, Nearly Headless Nick reappeared and
drifted back into the seat he had been occupying.  "That's it,
then.  According to the Grey Lady, the Hat has never before
advocated working with anyone outside of Hogwarts during a
crisis."

"The Grey Lady?" Ron asked, looking up from his plate.

"Oh yes," Sir Nicholas replied.  "She's been here the longest of
any of us, except perhaps for the Baron.  She dates almost all
the way back to the Founding, I'm told."

"Really?"  Hermione's eyes began to shine.  "That's not in
*Hogwarts:  A History*!"

"Well, it wouldn't be, would it?" Nick pointed out.  "It's a very
personal thing to a ghost sometimes, you know -- when we died...
and how.  Some of us don't want to talk about it at all."

"And some won't shut up about it," Ron whispered to Harry, who
had to stifle a snicker lest he insult Sir Nicholas.

                              * * *

Dinner was, simply put, sumptuous.  Within the confines of
pseudo-Victorian British cuisine, of course, but jokes about
English food aside, that still allowed for quite a number of
dishes that were quite good.  Of course, the selection was
strongly tilted toward the tastes of teenagers, so there was
nothing *really* exotic to hand, but still I enjoyed myself
thoroughly.

Suppressing a burp, I wiped my mouth with my napkin then laid it
down on the table where my plate and silverware had been only
seconds before.  I was just wondering what was going to happen
next when Albus stood up again.

"Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I
beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term
notices," he announced, his surprisingly stentorian voice easily
carrying throughout the Great Hall.  "First years ought to know
that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students --
and a few of our older students ought to know by now too."

Over at the Gryffindor table, some of my young housemates from
the summer were sharing smirks -- including what's-her-face, the
one with the Shakespearean name that started with an H --
Hermione, that was it.  I'd've thought she would've been a bit
more of a priggish swot given the way she'd acted most of the
time while I stayed at Grim Old Number 12.  But judging from that
shared look, she was a secret trouble-maker, along with her two
male friends.

To quote Arte Johnson, "Veeeery eeeenteresting."

Albus had meanwhile gone on to relay a number of notices and
warnings from Argus -- stuff like no magic in the corridors and
the existence of a list of banned items pinned to his office
door.  I suspected that Argus's less-than-sunny disposition did
quite a bit to discourage comprehensive awareness of that list's
contents among the student body.  I had to admit that I was more
than a little curious what was among the four hundred and some
items on that list myself, though, so I made a mental note to
drop by and check out the broadsheet when I was next in that part
of the castle.

My drifting attention was suddenly yanked back to Albus'
continuing after-dinner speech when he said, "We have had two
changes in staffing this year.  We are very pleased to welcome
back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical
Creatures lessons; we are also delighted to introduce Professor
Sangnoir, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

As a rather fragmentary and entirely obligatory-sounding applause
dribbled out of the student body, I stood, smiled and gave the
room a little wave.

"Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the..."
Albus droned on as I sat back down, but I tuned him out while at
the same time putting on the earnest-new-employee face I used to
wear while zoning during Warriors meetings my first year or so on
the team.  I stayed that way until the feast officially ended --
helped immensely by Severus's non-existent social skills on the
one side, and Sybill's complete space-out of her own on the
other.

Not for the first time I reflected on how I'd had better
co-workers in other jobs.

When the rest of the staff took their leave of the table, I
followed them out of the room and back to the staff wing, at
which time we parted company.  In my case, I bid them goodnight,
politely declining an invitation to join the latest round of the
cut-throat floating poker-like game the staff played at least two
nights a week using Tarot cards.  Between the old Stephen Wright
joke and the simple fact that I had yet to master the blasted
game's complexity, I decided I didn't want to risk it -- at least
not that night.

Besides, I'd already lost my first week's salary to Pomona, who
behind her motherly exterior was actually a vicious card-shark.
And Minerva was just as bad.  I wasn't too keen on losing
*everything* I'd earned so far at Hogwarts.

I also declined Rolanda's offer of a nightcap in her quarters.
Retreating to my rooms as quickly as I could politely manage --
not that, what with Severus on staff, anything but the most
monumental rudeness on my part would even be *noticed* -- I
closed and locked the door behind me then breathed a comically-
exaggerated sigh of relief at escaping her wiles once more.  I
simply *had* to find that woman a romantic interest who wasn't
me, if only so I could stop having to dodge her.  Even the
knowledge that I was married didn't slow her down.

Once safely ensconced in my quarters, I went back to my cultural
familiarization efforts.  That night's program covered recent
Wizarding history, in particular the shadow civil war that
Voldemort had prosecuted some two decades earlier.

The books I read didn't actually *call* it a war, but come *on*,
people.  Class conflict, ethnic cleansing, intent to overthrow
the legal government, battles in the street, the Ministry of
Magic all but recycling old Winston Churchill speeches -- it
*was* a war.  Calling it anything else was disingenuous at best
and deadly self-delusion at worst.

The real kicker was how the whole conflict ended.  In an incident
that was so unreal as to be practically mythic, Flight-of-Emo
basically nuked himself.  On Halloween 1981, he went after a
family who had gone into hiding, killed the parents, and then got
taken out by an unprecedented magical backfire when he tried to
kill their toddler with a no-miss, no-fail death ray spell.  Of
course, because Voldemort had his death-avoidance plan in play --
Albus was pretty sure Lord Emo had used partial soul anchors and
had made at least two -- he didn't die from this, but Wizarding
Britain didn't know (and didn't *want* to know) that.  His body
got vaped by the backlash and he ended up discorporated in the
usual manner for those with partial anchors, neatly terminating
(for the moment) his campaign, his threat, and his ability to
scratch his butt.

While what was left of Flight-of-Emo's immortal soul buggered off
to parts unknown but purely terrestrial, the toddler, one Harry
James Potter by name, became the Wizarding World's equivalent of
Jesus, Spartacus and Shockwave all rolled into one lisping,
diapered package, simply by virtue of having *survived* where
Voldemort didn't.  Someone with a good sense of theatre but not
much imagination tagged him with the moniker "The Boy Who Lived",
but not before the kid vanished into folklore -- according to my
texts he hadn't been seen since that night.

As I sat on the floor, my back against the side of my bed and all
those history books scattered across the throw rug under me, I
leaned my head back against my mattress and thought about it.
That had happened in 1981, fourteen years earlier.  Frowning, I
checked the publication dates.

The most recent of my texts was dated 1990.

Hm.  A lot could happen in five years.  This Harry Potter would
be 15 now -- I wondered if he was still missing, or whether he'd
shown up at one of the Wizarding schools when he'd turned 11.  I
made a mental note to ask Albus.  If he didn't know, no one did.

Oh, and the war?  Without its prime mover, Voldemort's army had
all but collapsed.  A few die-hards apparently kept trying to
fight for a few weeks to a couple months more, but without the
Big Bad Bogeyman to scare the poor Aurors, the Ministry actually
made a decent effort at rounding up Flight-of-Emo's soldiers.
Most of them ended up either executed or imprisoned in a place
called Azkaban.  (Azkaban didn't get much of a description, but
from what I could gather by reading between the lines, it
apparently made the Bastille look like a luxury resort.)

And the rest?  Well, Voldemort's richest, most aristocratic
supporters claimed to have been under mind control, the local
version of which was a spell called the "Imperius".  How
successful they were at getting acquitted because of this seemed
to have a very odd correlation with how rich and politically
connected they were.  (Very odd, that is, unless you're a cynical
old bastard like yours truly.)  Of course, none of the books
actually *said* that, but I'd been living in the Wizarding World
long enough now to know the names of the families that the
average British wizard crossed at his peril -- names that kept
reappearing on the lists of Imperius "victims".

In the immortal words of Bill Cosby, "Riiiiiiight.  What's a
cubit?"

I groaned and rubbed my eyes.  I did *not* want to work myself up
into a fit of impotent anger at the rich sons of bitches who had
escaped justice by throwing money at the corruptible.  If I let
myself stew on that subject I'd end up doing something dramatic
(or, as Hexe would put it, "grossly stupid") to get rid of that
feeling of impotence.  I needed to change my focus.

I gathered my history texts up into a neat stack and set them
back on the shelf where I'd been storing them between my few
chances to read.  The same shelf where lived a certain cardboard
box with three large, looping "W"s written on it.

I'm sure if anyone had been watching me at that point, they would
have seen my face completely recapitulate the "wonderful, awful
idea" sequence from "How The Grinch Stole Christmas".  I took the
box in both hands and, still smiling that wide, evil smile,
carried it to the bed, where I carefully placed it on the covers
before seating myself before it.

Trusting the twins to be good to their word, I simply lifted off
the lid.

And when I saw what was in it, my smile grew even wider.

                              * * *

    *...that oaf Hagrid appears to have been sacked and replaced
    for good by Grubbly-Plank, which I'm sure upset Potter and his
    friends.

    As you requested, I have been watching the new Defense
    professor; Sangnoir is to all appearances another self-absorbed
    fool like Lockhart, smiling smugly at us while dressed in robes
    of a quality above his station.  I shall give you more of my
    thoughts about him later in this letter, but first I must ask,
    can you tell me what more you have learned about him through
    the Board?  Any number of rumors are circulating, from the
    plausible to the utterly ridiculous.  By turns he is supposed
    to be an American Auror, an escaped convict, an Unspeakable,
    or even some kind of exotic Muggle adventurer.  I have even
    heard claims that the man killed a dragon with single blow,
    without magic!  Please pass on to me anything you have learned
    so that I can end this annoying speculation and return my
    housemates' attention to more important matters.*

    *After the start-of-term feast concluded, we retired to the
    Common Room, where we ensured that the first years knew their
    proper place in the House...*

                              * * *

Gryffindor Common Room.  September 1, 1995, 8:00 PM

Harry, Ron and Hermione chose not to follow the majority of their
housemates upstairs and into the dorms upon returning to
Gryffindor Tower after dinner.  Instead, they took their
accustomed places on the loveseat and the pair of armchairs near
the monumental hearth which anchored one entire wall of the
common room.  Neville followed, all but dragged by Ginny, and the
two of them sat down as well.

"All right," Neville inquired as everyone settled in, "what's up
with the new Defense professor?"

With many false starts, tangents, loopbacks and "hey, you forgot
this"s, and many, many interjections from all sides, the four of
them eventually told Neville everything they knew or suspected
about the new Defense professor.

After they had finished, Neville sat for a long moment, his head
tilted to one side, as he considered everything they had told
him.  "You're serious," he finally said.

Harry briefly considered making his godfather's favorite joke,
but realized in time that Neville wouldn't get it.  Not without
telling secrets he couldn't tell, at least.

"Yeah, mate," Ron said in the meantime.  "I mean, Hermione's a
bit overboard on it and all, but yeah, Professor Sangnoir's...
he's..."  Ron searched for the words for a moment before giving
up and shrugging.

"Some kind of crippled superwizard from a mysterious land of
superwizards nobody's ever heard of, who lives like a Muggle and
can't use a wand..." Neville shook his head.  "It's only because
you guys have hardly ever been wrong before when you said stuff
like this that I don't just laugh in your faces, you know?"

Hermione leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and gazed
intently and sincerely into Neville's eyes.  "We know, Neville,
and we appreciate it, we really do."  She sat back and slumped a
little.  "It's not just that it sounds strange.  It's that
nothing about him adds up, and there are more than a few blatant
impossibilities around him."

"The Headmaster trusts him, though, right?" Neville pointed out.
"Surely that must count for something."

All three of them stared at him, while at his side Ginny was
briefly seized by a coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like
"snapesnapesnape".  Not being totally thick, Neville thought
about what he'd just said.  "Oh, right," he mumbled sheepishly
after a moment.  "I guess we should keep a close watch on him,
then?" he added in a stronger voice.

Ginny elbowed him gently and with a smirk asked, "'We'?"

Neville sat up straighter.  "Yes, *we*," he said with surprising
determination.  "I mean, we're just going to observe, right?  So
what could possibly happen?"

As Harry winced and Hermione sighed, Ron slapped a hand over his
face and groaned, "Merlin, now we're in for it."

Next to Neville, Ginny just giggled.

                              * * *

Some time later, Ginny and Hermione faced each other from
opposite ends of Hermione's bed.  The curtains were drawn
tightly.  Had either of them known any spells for ensuring that
they would not be overheard, they would have been cast.  As it
was, they had to depend on the continued absence of Hermione's
roommates for their privacy.

"So," Hermione said as she settled in with her pillow cushioning
her back against the headboard, and wrapped her arms around
herself.

"So," Ginny replied from where she sat, Indian-style, at the
foot of the bed.  She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and then
opened them again before saying softly, "'Friends who're called
on in the night'.  Strong and wise ones, yet."  She gave a
lopsided grin.  "Y'think the Hat's a seer?"

"It *could* just be a coincidence," Hermione whispered.

Ginny shrugged.  "Maybe."  She peered closely at Hermione.  "But
I don't believe it.  Even if nothing seemed to happen, I think
maybe something *did* happen -- something big."

"But what?" Hermione whispered.

                              * * *

September 2, 1995, 6:48 AM

"It's hard to say what Defense is going to be like," Natalie
McDonald, second-year Gryffindor, replied offhandedly in response
to a question from one of the first-year Gryffindors she was
leading down the stairs to breakfast from their tower dorms.
"Hold on."  Warned by a faint vibration, she interrupted herself
and held out an arm to stop Euan Abercrombie from stepping onto
the landing below them.  "The staircase is about to move."

Behind the little band, Ginny smiled approvingly.  Natalie was a
good kid, pure Gryffindor through-and-through.  Despite her
Muggle origins she had adapted well to life in the castle and
now, at the start of her second year, she was the old hand
imparting her years -- well, *year* -- of wisdom to the newbies.
Sure enough, the staircase swung away from the landing and to
another.  After a moment, Natalie dropped her arm and led her
charges along the new route to the Great Hall.  "You always have
to be careful," she admonished.  "If you're not careful, you
could fall right off..."

With a loud flapping of cloth, a figure in deep blue robes
plunged through the open air next to the staircase.

"...the steps!" Natalie finished with a squeak of surprise and no
small amount of terror.  She dashed to the balustrade, followed
closely by Ginny and the younger Gryffindors.  They looked over
the railing just in time to see the robed figure spin around a
wooden beam and launch itself back up into the air.  A moment
later it passed the staircase again, where it was revealed to be
a blond man -- and one Ginny recognized, at that.

Professor Sangnoir grinned and waved at the gobsmacked students.
"Good morning, kids!  Heading to breakfast?" he asked as he
slowed to a halt just above their heads.  "Good!" he continued
without waiting for a response as he began to fall once more.
"Most important meal of the daaaaaaaaaay!" he trailed off as he
disappeared below again.

Ginny and Natalie exchanged looks, then stuck their heads back
over the balustrade.  The first-years swarmed around them to get
their own looks, as well, some even sticking their heads out
between the individual stone balusters to see.

The professor was proceeding to the ground level in a series of
stupendous leaps and acrobatic tumbles. More than once they were
sure he was going to miss a grab or a landing and break his neck,
but one long, long, nerve-wracking minute later he was safely on
the ground floor of the castle.  Natalie and Ginny shared a
giggle when they saw him bow flamboyantly to the applauding
paintings at the base of the stairs.

"Who was *that*?" Natalie asked as the staircase shivered and
then began to swing back to its original position.  Around and
behind her, the first-years chattered excitedly amongst
themselves.

Ginny snorted.  "*That* was the new Defense professor."

                              * * *

Defense Classroom.  September 2, 1995, 8:00 AM

Although I'd been coming to it daily for about two weeks now, I
still had to stop for a moment upon entering and admire my
classroom.  It was half miniature cathedral, half Ripley's
Odditorium.  Stone construction that reminded me again of
Princeton, but with a tall, vaulted ceiling, from which hung both
an iron chandelier and the skeleton of what looked like a wyvern.
The chandelier was a little worse for wear; I suspected it had
come falling down, Phantom-of-the-Opera-style, a couple times in
its life.  Until the next time it did so, though, it held candles
that lit the room with magical flames that never consumed their
wax.  The banks of benches and desks, centuries old and darkened
by both design and age, took up most of the floor and -- back to
the cathedral imagery again -- reminded me of pews.  And at one
end I even had a pulpit.

Well, actually it was a landing of sorts in the middle of a stone
staircase up to my office proper, but it projected slightly out
over the floor of the classroom and was somewhat cylindrical in
shape; it reminded me of more than a few pulpits I'd seen in
cathedrals, like Saint Patrick's in New York City.

Huge windows allowed the determined Scottish sunlight to
illuminate the room, at least during the scant daylight hours
available at this latitude -- clear glass, not stained, but made
of leaded panes.  Again like McCosh 10 in Princeton.

Unlike Princeton *or* a cathedral, though, was the bric-a-brac
that had littered the room when Albus first showed it to me.  It
had been about as eclectic as might be expected given the annual
turnover in the professorship; I suspected that each of my
predecessors had left behind at least one item to contribute to
the collection.  These ranged from optical instruments to African
sculptures to seashells to a mushroom-covered skull in a bell
jar.  Several shelves of ancient, decaying grimoires surrounded
the table under the "pulpit" that served as my desk/lectern.

I got rid of most of the junk by the simple expedient of shoving
it off on the house-elves to dispose of, but I kept some of the
more interesting or decorative pieces.  Like the unlabeled marble
bust of some ancient Wizarding dignitary, which I'd moved to the
table on the day I'd first visited the room and had been using as
a helmet perch since.

One thing I didn't keep, though, was a metric crapload of books
written by a bozo named Lockhart.  (Said bozo having been one of
my esteemed predecessors about three years earlier.)  I swear,
there seemed to be a couple of them in every nook and cranny in
the room.  They all had titles like "Hobnobbing with Hobgoblins",
"Nattering with Nifflers", and "Wallowing with Wombats".  After
browsing through them a bit I relegated his entire body of work
to the same category as Wilbert Slinkhard's treatise on avoiding
combat by preemptively embracing defeat.  Which is to say,
worthless junk completely undeserving of a place in a Defense
classroom.

The end result of my efforts was a room that had enough curious
doodads to pique the interest of the students, but not so many as
to distract them unduly, with enough space available to explore
some practical work when needed.  And I intended on exploring
practical work for *every* year.

Anyway, I rushed through breakfast that Monday morning, barely
trading nods of greeting with those of my fellow educators eating
at the same time, before all but running to my classroom to do my
last-minute preparations.  Don't get the wrong idea, though -- I
wasn't the least bit nervous about my first day.  It wasn't the
first time I'd been a teacher, after all.  And if you're
affiliated with the Warriors and/or have been reading these
journals of mine in their proper order, you'll know that.  And if
you haven't shame on you for skipping.

To start with, at the time of my exile I was one of the primary
combat trainers for the Warriors' powered infantry corps.
Skilled soldiers and volunteers all, from the militaries of every
member nation of the U.N., these were the guys who served as our
ground troops, doing everything from security at the Mansion to
backing us up on the really *big* operations.  I was one of the
Warriors tasked with getting new troops up to speed on using
powered armor to combat metas, and with keeping the experienced
troops in fighting trim.

In addition to that, like every other Warrior I had taught the
occasional class at Warriors Academy, our in-house private school
for kids with early-manifesting metatalents.  The only real
difference I could see between Hogwarts and the Academy was the
class size -- a half-dozen students at the most in an Academy
class vs. twenty or so here.  And none of the Hogwarts students
would call me "Uncle Doug" like Nina, Ruth and Gracie did.

Okay, and the subject matter was a little different, too.

After being ejected from my home timeline, teaching naturally
became one of the ways I chose to support myself.  Over the past
75 years, I'd have to say I've been a teacher of one stripe or
another more often than any other single occupation.  Hell, it
was the way I initially earned my keep in Velgarth, the first
world I was stuck in after I fell through that damned teleport
gate in Piccadilly Circus.  Starting with Alberich, their
existing instructor at the Collegium at Haven in Valdemar, I
taught unarmed combat to Heralds who were interested -- and it
kept going from there.

So while the particular subject matter may have been new to me,
at least in part, the profession certainly wasn't.

Which leads me to my first class.

The voices of children echoing down the hall drew me out of my
musings, and I quickly positioned myself behind my desk.  I swept
my hands down the front of my robes to straighten them, glanced
at my helmet to make sure it wasn't going to fall off Old Marble
Head, and reassured myself that my wand was still in its holster.
Then I smiled as I watched the children stream into the room and
take their seats.

When the last 11-year-old (Euan Abercrombie, dashing in all out
of breath and toting a bookbag nearly half his size) had found
his place, I nodded approvingly.  "Good morning," I then said as
I strode down the aisle that ran down the middle of the room.
"I'm Professor Sangnoir," I added as I gently shut the door.
"Welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts."

                              * * *

Forty-five minutes later, I leaned back against my desk and
watched with a little satisfied smile as my students exited the
room, excitedly chattering amongst themselves about the first
lesson.

That had gone well, I thought.  They'd seemed thoroughly engaged
with and engrossed by the material.  Good.  I wanted them
thinking and discussing.

Hogwarts had a very simple schedule -- the basic layout was three
one-hour periods in both the morning and the afternoon, with a
longish lunch in between.  Some classes -- like one of my
upcoming afternoon sessions -- actually took up two slots and
were called, naturally enough, "doubles".  According to my fellow
instructors, these were intended to be as much labs as lectures
(to use college terms).  I intended to use them as often as I
could for that practical work I mentioned earlier -- and it would
be *very* practical work.

Which reminded me that I needed to make a quick jaunt back to
London soon to pick up some martial arts training supplies for my
upper years -- things like padded mats, sparring gear and wooden
weapons.  With Albus' knowledge and approval I'd been evolving my
original syllabi, changing the upper-year programs to be a bit
more rough-and-tumble, more challenging, with the goal of
actually teaching real combat techniques to the fifth-year and
older students.  But to do that I needed the right equipment.
Chalk up one more thing on my "to-do" list.

                              * * *

September 2, 1995, 12:08 PM

Harry gritted his teeth as he dropped onto a bench at the
Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.  Between embarrassing himself
in front of Cho between classes this morning and then Snape being
an utter bastard to him in Potions as usual, Harry was hard-
pressed not to alternately pound his head against the table and
lash out at those around him.  His mood was darker than the
stormy sky that was mimicked by the ceiling above and visible
through the rain-lashed windows.

The relative quiet of the weather was vaguely disappointing;
some overly-dramatic part of his mind wanted the rain to be
ripped through with lightning and thunder, the better to mirror
his anger and inner turbulence.

Some other part of him had the good graces to be vaguely ashamed
of the first part and its desire for overblown theatrics.  Which
just added to his disgust at himself and his life.  Which made
him want the theatrics all the more.  Which made him more
ashamed, and so on in an endless feedback loop.

It was a good thing, he thought, that the silverware was stronger
than he was, otherwise it might become difficult to eat neatly.

Perhaps fortunately, the other Gryffindors seemed to detect the
dudgeon he was in, and gave him a wide berth -- when Ron and
Hermione finally caught up to him he was alone, with empty seats
across from him and for ten or fifteen feet to either side.  He
all but ignored them as they sat down, preferring to focus all
his attention on his shepherd's pie.

Taking her own share of lunch, Hermione tried to console him.
"Professor Snape was terribly unfair to you, Harry."

"She's right, mate," Ron said as he took his own share of the
shepherd's pie.  "I mean, did you see Goyle's potion?  It set the
flagon on fire when he tried to pour it in."

Harry closed his eyes and counted slowly under his breath before
replying.  "It's not like he's ever been fair to me, has it?"  He
stabbed his lunch viciously before scooping a forkful into his
mouth.

After a long moment of silence that Harry took as tacit
agreement, Hermione looked up from her plate.  "I had hoped that
he'd be a little better this year," she offered softly, "what
with... "  She glanced around to confirm that they were still
effectively alone.  "What with him being in the Order and all."

Ron snorted.  "Not bloody likely.  Poisonous toadstools don't
change their spots."  He shoveled another portion of the
shepherd's pie into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.  "'Course,
I've always thought Dumbledore's barmy, trusting Snape.  I mean,
what proof is there that he ever really stopped working for
You-Know-Who?"

"Ron!" Hermione immediately snapped.  "I'm sure that the
Headmaster..." she began, only to be cut off by Harry.

"Please.  Don't," he said quietly.  "Just... don't.  Last thing I
need right now is the two of you going at each other again."

That silenced Ron and Hermione very effectively, and neither said
more than a word or two more for the rest of lunch.  Finally,
Harry finished his meal.  Without saying a word to either of his
friends, he shoved his plate back roughly, sending his fork
clattering away in a thick spray of brown gravy.  Then he stood,
swung his schoolbag over his shoulder and departed, leaving them
sitting there, stunned.

When Ron caught up with Harry in the Divination classroom in the
last minutes before the first class of the year was to begin, he
hesitated a moment before dropping heavily into the seat next to
him.  "You all right, mate?" he asked as he stowed his bookbag
under the chintz-trimmed chair.  Behind them, Professor Trelawney
drifted through the room with a stack of books in her arms,
placing one in front of each seat.

Harry just looked at him for a second before glancing away.

"Because Hermione and me, we're worried about you.  You're not
usually this... touchy.  Even with Seamus and Snape and
everything, it's like you're taking everything harder than last
year."  As Harry opened his mouth to respond to that, Ron added,
"And we're not fighting, her and me.  We're trying not to, at
least.  We know you don't like it."

Harry closed his mouth and thought about that for a moment.
"Thanks," he finally said.

"Right," Ron replied, as he picked up the leather-bound book that
had already been at his seat.  "'The Dream Oracle', by Inigo
Imago," he read aloud from cover.  "More rubbish.  How long d'you
figure before she predicts your death today?"

"Not helping, Ron," Harry muttered.

"Come on, Harry, what else can you do but laugh about it?" Ron
protested.  "It's all ridiculous, anyway."  He leaned in
conspiratorially.  "A Sickle says it's in the first 10 minutes of
class."

"Good day," said Professor Trelawney in her usual misty, dreamy
voice, and the two of them looked up in surprise.  The classroom
had filled up while they had been speaking, and the period had
obviously begun.  "And welcome back to Divination.  I have, of
course, been following your fortunes most carefully over
the holidays..."

"Sure you have," Harry muttered, and Ron stifled a snort.

"...and I am delighted to see that you have all returned to
Hogwarts safely -- as, of course, I knew you would."

"Sure you did," Ron muttered in return, and despite himself,
Harry felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.  Okay, so
maybe Divination wouldn't be *all* bad.

                              * * *

Several minutes before two, Ron and Harry met up with Hermione in
front of the Defense classroom.  "I've been listening to people
who've already had classes with him," Hermione began without
preamble or greeting, "and I'm not quite sure what to make of it
all."

"And hullo to you, too, Hermione," Ron said with a smirk at
Harry, who looked like he couldn't decide if he was annoyed or
amused at this manifestation of Hermione's latest preoccupation.
"'Him' who?"

Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes.  "Professor Sangnoir!  Who
else?"

"Who indeed?" Harry murmured, though not too softly for her to
hear.

She scowled at him for a moment, then returned to her original
topic, undeterred.  "What people think of Professor Sangnoir
depends on what year they're in.  The first years who had DADA
this morning love him.  He apparently introduced himself to them
as the 'Defense Against Boring Classes' professor."

Ron guffawed, and despite his dark mood Harry smiled, as much at
Hermione's obvious disapproval of the idea as at the idea itself.
With a sniff she continued.  "They say he follows the book, but
he makes it interesting and engaging, and he already had them
doing practical work in their first classes.  And he tells funny
anecdotes about his own experiences that are obviously made up
but have an immediate connection to the material."

"Made up?" Ron asked.  "Like what?"

Hermione looked somewhat disgruntled.  "Like a story about how he
and some of his friends fought a woman who could change into a
dragon, and how they defeated her by putting an inverted
Bubble-Head Charm on her."

"An inverted Bubble-Head?" Ron asked, his brow furrowing.

"It cut off her air and she passed out," Hermione explained.  "He
used it as an example of how clever uses of apparently harmless
spells can completely turn around a battle."

"Huh."  Harry nodded slowly.  If it had actually happened, it was
a pretty cool stunt.

"Obviously he just made up the story," Hermione continued.  "I
mean, really, what was she supposed to be, a dragon Animagus?
Ridiculous!  Still..."  Her tone softened.  "It's a good way to
teach a lesson like that."  Then her expression hardened.
"Anyway... anyone who *isn't* a first year who's had a Defense
class today isn't nearly as happy about him.  Apparently
Professor Sangnoir wasn't impressed by the last few Defense
professors, and he's determined to make up for all their
failures -- in one year."

"In one year?" Harry asked, incredulously.

Hermione nodded vigorously.  "According to one of the third-years
he says he's racing the DADA curse to get us where he thinks we
ought to be.  And that means he's teaching as much as he can, as
fast as he can, and he's not going to be very forgiving."

"Well, isn't that just bloody great," Ron spat.

"It's not like he's as bad as Snape, though, is he, Hermione?"
Harry asked.

"*Professor* Snape," Hermione chided automatically, and then
continued, "No, it doesn't seem so.  He's not unfair, he's
just... *demanding*," she finally said after searching for
several seconds.  Then she brightened.  "I'm actually looking
forward to it!"

"You would," Ron muttered, and Harry stifled a snort of
amusement.

"Ron!" Hermione objected.

"Out of the way of your betters, Granger."  They turned to see
Draco Malfoy smirking nastily.  His two goons, Crabbe and Goyle,
stood at their accustomed places at his sides.

"Malfoy," Harry snarled and began to lift his wand.

"Potter," snarled Malfoy as he did the same.

"Children!" came a warning voice through the door.  Harry glared
at Malfoy before turning on his heel and entering the classroom,
followed closely by Ron and Hermione.

"Come on in, no need to crowd around the door."  Professor
Sangnoir's American-accented tenor rose above the noise of the
students taking out their books and settling into their seats.
"C'mon, c'mon, I don't bite."  There was a brief pause, during
which Harry caught a glimpse of him through the crowd, and then
the professor added, "But while I may not bite, I do claw and
scratch when necessary."

Quiet laughter bubbled through the class as they finished seating
themselves, and Harry got his first close-up look at Professor
Sangnoir since he'd left 12 Grimmauld Place two weeks earlier.
He was dressed in deep indigo robes trimmed with a twisting
Celtic knotwork design in a darker blue, barely visible from
where Harry sat.  He was perched rather informally on the desk at
the front of the room, which hiked up his robes enough to reveal
that he was wearing blue jeans and motorcycle boots under them.
Harry briefly wondered if the professor was also wearing one of
the apparently infinite supply of T-shirts he seemed to own as
well, and if so, what it said on it.  To the right of the desk
was a largish slate standing on an easel; written on it in white
chalk was, not unexpectedly, "Professor Sangnoir".

The professor smiled and nodded approvingly as the class fell
silent, then hopped off the desk.  His boots made a solid "thunk"
against the wooden floor.  Harry was not surprised to spot his
wand laying on the desktop; if the twins' report on its behavior
was to be believed, Harry supposed the professor would try to use
it as little as possible in class.

"Good afternoon, everyone," the professor said, "and welcome to
Interpretive Dance 101.  I'm very pleased to see such a large
turnout, and so many young men, too!  Far too many teenage boys
think that dance is somehow effeminate..."

As a confused murmur rose from the tables, the professor chuckled
and raised his hands placatingly.  "Just kidding.  Welcome to
fifth year Defense Against the Dark Arts, double session for
Slytherin and Gryffindor Houses.  I'm the latest installment of
your annual instructor subscription, Professor Sangnoir."  He
gestured to the slate.  "I wanted to start us off with a little
humour because, I am sorry to say, there won't be a lot to laugh
about in this class."  He began striding back and forth.  "Your
previous instructors have, for the most part, been...
inadequate."  Harry glanced over at Hermione, who smirked at him.
Then he smiled to himself; based on the conversations he'd
observed between Professor Sangnoir and Professor Lupin during
the time the former had spent at 12 Grimmauld Place, he had a
pretty good idea how few had been considered "adequate".

During his distraction, Professor Sangnoir had continued
speaking, but his manner had quickly lost its familiar joking
tone and grown serious, even harsh.  "Compared to what your
curriculum *should* have been, you -- and most of Hogwarts'
current generation of students -- have been cheated of a proper
Defense education.  I intend to correct that to the best of my
ability in the time we have.  This is especially critical for
you as fifth-year students, since you are facing your O.W.L.
tests at the end of the academic year."

He stopped pacing and stood with his arms folded behind his back,
looking out over the class.  Harry realized with a shock that
although his robes hid it well, the professor was standing in a
very military -- *Muggle* military -- parade rest stance.
"Unlike some of your previous years, this will not be an easy
course.  I will be pushing you to the edge of your ability and
beyond.  I will be driving you to excel.  And I will not accept
failure from any of you."  He closed his eyes for a moment, then
opened them again.  "Because sooner or later, your lives will
depend on what I will teach you.  And if I do not teach you to
*my* satisfaction, then I will share in the guilt for every one
of you who is injured or killed in the coming years."

The room was deathly silent for a long moment.

"If you think Arithmancy is hard," the professor finally said,
breaking the silence, "believe me, it will have nothing on
Defense as I will be teaching it to you.  You *will* hate me,
but perhaps you will someday thank me for it."  He clapped his
hands suddenly, startling a couple of girls in the row ahead of
Harry.  "Well, let's get started.  As a wise man once said, 'We
come into this world naked, covered in our own blood, and
screaming in terror -- and it doesn't have to stop there if you
know how to live right.'"  He smiled, not entirely reassuringly.
"I'll see to it that you know how to live right."

Harry and Ron traded worried looks.

"But first, I have to take attendance."

                              * * *

So Harry of the messy hair from Grim Old Number 12 was the famous
Harry Potter of recent history.  As I took the roll, I wondered
how I had missed that, but then, thinking back, I realized that
no one, not even the adults, had ever used his last name around
me.  He'd always been just "Harry", just as the brown-haired girl
had always been just "Hermione".  Come to think of it, I'd only
known the Weasley kids' last name because of Charlie.  Still, I
couldn't help but suspect that maybe they'd deliberately kept
Harry's name from me to give him a little privacy.  Especially
with how he was getting savaged by the "Daily Prophet".

And no, I didn't think he was some kind of lying attention-
seeker.  I know a hatchet job in the press when I see one.  And
the "Prophet" might as well have been handing its stories about
Harry to little Georgie Washington and pointing him at a cherry
tree.  Especially since just about everything written about Harry
before his return to the Wizarding World had (as I've already
noted) painted him as the second coming of Christ, only with
glasses and a flying broom.

During the week I'd spent at 12 Grim I hadn't interacted with him
very much, but what I'd seen when I had, had been neither a
crazed anarchist nor the Savior of the Wizarding World -- just a
fairly normal teen-aged boy with a pretty loyal gang of friends.
And based on the "Prophet"'s campaign against him and a few
overheard bits here and there, it was also obvious to me that he
was Albus' "young man of impeccable character" who had witnessed
Flight-of-Emo's resurrection.  I was going to have to have a
private chat with him at some point because unless I missed my
mark, he was likely to find himself at the center of a lot more
attention, much of it even more malevolent than the press was
giving him already.  And I could offer a little advice on how to
cope with it.

                              * * *

"So," Professor Sangnoir said as he closed the book that held the
roll.  "Let us begin.  I will start by noting that much of what
you have been taught over the past four years has been
*reactive*."  He stepped around the desk.  "By which I mean, you
have been taught mostly along the lines of 'if in situation X,
use response Y'.  This is well and good for beginners, but if you
want to ever *stop* being beginners, you need to approach matters
from a higher level."

The professor stepped to the slate and picked up a piece of
chalk.  "What we're going to cover this term starts with these
points -- you might want to note them down, as they're key
concepts," he added in an aside, at which twenty quills hovered
over twenty sheets of parchment.  "First, the nature of evil, and
the difference between 'dark' and 'evil'.  Second, evil and
magic.  Thirdly, strategy and tactics."  He scrawled each topic
on the slate in an unrestrained hand, underlining each one, then
turned back to face them.

"This is *not* going to be a 'recipe class'.  You are not going
to learn a list of 'if-thens' here -- 'if confronted by a blue-
tailed eyebiter, then throw salt at it.'  You are going to learn
about evil, how it works, how it thinks, why it does what it
does.  You are going to learn how to identify it at work even
when it's disguised, how to spot its tools and deflect or break
them.  When it comes specifically to evil magic, you will not
learn just simple counter-charms.  You will learn how to defend
against *any* evil magic, without knowing what it is.  You will
gain reflexes against it, become able to react and defend before
you consciously know you've been attacked."  He leaned forward
and raked his eyes over each and every one of them in the class.
"I will teach you not only how to defend against evil, but how to
hunt it down and *destroy* it."

The room was absolutely silent.  Then a single voice in the back
ranks whispered loudly, "Cor!  All that in one year?"  A wave of
laughter crashed over the room, releasing the tension that had
grown during the professor's monologue.  Even the professor
himself laughed, Harry noted with some relief.

"I'll try, at least," he said, still chuckling.  "Which means we
need to get started right away."  He clapped his hands together,
raising a small cloud of chalk dust.  "Right!  Before you can
defend against evil, you must be able to identify it.  So.  What
is evil?  Define it please..."  He searched through the students,
ignoring Hermione's vigorously-waving hand.  "...Mr. Malfoy."

Draco Malfoy smirked.  "The opposite of good, sir," he answered,
the barest hint of mockery in his voice, and Harry scowled.

Professor Sangnoir apparently caught the faint mockery in Draco's
voice.  He raised one eyebrow.  "I see we're a sophist, Mr.
Malfoy.  That was a classic no-answer answer.  While technically
correct, it is devoid of meaning and thus unacceptable."  His
jovial tone suddenly chilled.  "Smart-aleck responses will gain
you no favour in this class, Mr. Malfoy.  Minus three points to
House Slytherin."

The Slytherins in the class fumed, while the Gryffindors giggled,
murmured and chuckled among themselves.  Behind his glasses,
Harry blinked.  He glanced at the Slytherin boy.  Malfoy's usual
reserve cracked and a look of pure fury blazed across his face
for a moment; then he noticed Harry watching him and recomposed
himself, and returned Harry's interest with a baleful, reptilian
stare.  Harry snorted and returned his attention to the
instructor.

The professor's voice had gone back to being friendly.  "You'll
find I'm easy to get along with, if you understand this:  I am
here to teach you things that will save your lives, the lives of
your loved ones, and possibly the lives of untold innocents.  But
I only have a limited amount of time in which to do so.  I don't
mind wrong answers, if they're sincerely offered.  I *do* mind
disruptive behavior, sniping at myself or other students, and bad
attitudes.  I will penalize these according to the level of
disruption, starting with points and ranging up to and including
expulsion from this class."  His voice went cold again, and Harry
realized that his eyes rested solely on Draco Malfoy.  "Do I make
myself understood?"

"Yes, sir," the class replied in a chorus of desultory murmurs.

"Good.  Now, where were we?  Right.  The definition of evil.
Does anyone else have any *useful* ideas?"

Hermione's hand was waving so hard that Harry thought it could
drive a windmill.

"Miss Granger?"

"Evil is selfishness," she said primly.

Professor Sangnoir nodded.  "Good answer."  Hermione sat back, a
familiar satisfied look on her face.  "Anyone else?"

"Bullies!"

"Murderers!"

"People who hate!"

The whole class began shouting out all manner of despicable
behaviors, and Professor Sangnoir nodded at almost all of them.
Harry kept silent, thinking about the evil he'd come face-to-face
with over the past few years, and tried to figure out if there
was a common element to it all.  Next to him, Hermione hmphed in
annoyance as the answers offered began to dip into the trivial
and silly.

"Objects," Harry suddenly blurted as something occurred to him.

"What was that, Mister Potter?" Professor Sangnoir asked.

Harry started; he hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud.  He tried to
ignore the flush of embarrassment he felt climbing up his face.
"Um.  Objects, sir.  All the really evil people and creatures
I've ever met treated people like... like *things* you could use
up and throw out like garbage."

An approving smile flickered across the professor's grim face.
"Exactly.  One key identifying characteristic of evil is that it
sees other living creatures -- sentient beings or not -- as
*things* to use, abuse, and discard in order to achieve its
goals.  Empathy is alien to it; it has no care for the feelings
of other beings except when it delights in their manipulation.
An evil person may have exceptions to this general perception,
but that's all they are -- exceptions.  Uncommon cases somehow
special and different from the vast bulk of humanity."  He looked
about at the class.  "In any case, most of the other attributes
the class was suggesting, especially Miss Granger's suggestion,
are *symptoms* of evil.  Very good, Mister Potter.  Five points
to Gryffindor."  Harry couldn't help but smile slightly; Ron and
Hermione were less restrained.

"Let me just add here," Professor Sangnoir continued, "that one
does not have to be actively delighting in the harm of others to
be evil.  Evil can be banal and routine, like a guard in a prison
camp convinced that an entire group of people are somehow less
than human and thus undeserving of basic rights and dignity.  He
is not a sadist, but he will torture and kill them without a
qualm because to him they *do not matter* -- any more than an
insect or a stone would."

The professor then asked, "There is another key attribute of
evil.  Any guesses?"

The room grew silent as twenty youthful faces frowned in intense
concentration.  Harry, without realizing it, was among them.  He
dug through his memories of his confrontations with anyone he
thought of as evil, from Lord Voldemort in all his guises over
the years, to Lucius Malfoy and the other Death Eaters, to even
someone as petty in their evil as Rita Skeeter, and tried to find
something all of them had in common.

"Anyone?" the professor asked of the quiet classroom.

Harry bit his lip as he thought of a possibility.  Hesitantly, he
raised his hand.

"Mr. Potter?"  The professor's tone seemed slightly amused, but
not mocking.

Harry swallowed.  His answer didn't seem to make sense, but it
fit the facts...  well, some of them.  "Evil...  it seems to
think it's *Good*, sir."  He winced.  That hadn't come out the
way he wanted it to.

To his surprise, the professor gave him another approving nod.
"Very good, Mr. Potter."  He turned his attention on the rest of
the class.  "Evil -- *true* Evil -- is very often convinced it is
Good or acting for the good of others.  It is, in fact, *far*
more certain that it is Good than Good is -- and that's how you
can often tell the difference.  Good doubts itself and the means
it uses to accomplish its goals -- it's a necessary mechanism
that *keeps* it Good.  Evil never doubts itself, its motives or
its methods.  It deludes itself, or lets itself be easily deluded
by others, that it is always in the right, and that whatever
action it chooses to take can be justified by its goals or its
ideology.  It is always convinced that what it does is Good.  Of
course, it usually redefines 'Good' to mean whatever *it* wants."

He sat back down on the edge of the desk.  "If you ever have
doubts about the rightness of a course you have set yourself on,
you are at the very least redeemable.  Only the irredeemably evil
are ever *absolutely* sure of their actions."  He held a finger
up to his nose for a moment, an odd gesture in Harry's opinion.
"Now some of you will object that you have read about villains
who delight in their villainy, who rub their hands and cackle
about how eeeeeevil they are."  The professor suited action to
words, hunching over and miming so stereotypical a villain that
Harry had to join his classmates in laughter.  "Ooooh, arrrrr,
I'll be eatin' me some babies this mornin', I will, an' then at
10 o'clock I have me weekly oppressin' o' the peasants."

The professor straightened, shedding the persona instantly, and
the laughter evaporated into an uneasy quiet.  "They do exist,
but such behavior is more a symptom of insanity than of evil.
The two *do* intersect, but we'll cover that in a bit more detail
later in the term.  True evil *rarely* gloats about how evil it
is.  It's more likely to sound like this."

Again he changed his posture and bearing, and for a moment Harry
was sure he was looking at Lucius Malfoy in the hallway outside
Dumbledore's office, two years earlier.  "You must understand,"
the professor said in cultured and sophisticated tones that
sounded completely unlike his American-accented speech, "that
these are dangerous times.  Certain... concessions must be made
to guarantee the safety of the average witch and wizard in the
street.  Mandatory weekly Legilimentic examination of every adult
in Wizarding Britain is the only way to guarantee that the
disruptive elements among our population are identified and...
rooted out.  No, no, of course members of the Wizengamot will be
exempt."  Then with a faint, not-quite-smug smile he added, "As a
matter of fact, I have several associates quite skilled in
Legilimency who would be willing to act as examiners for only a
token fee."

Harry shivered, and risked a glance across the classroom at
Malfoy.  The Slytherin was absolutely stock-still, his lips
pressed into a tight line and his eyes narrowed.  *This*, Harry
thought, *is going to be interesting.*

                              * * *

"Finally!" Hermione exclaimed as they left the classroom almost
two hours later.  "A decent Defense professor.  *Another*," she
hastily amended herself when Harry cleared his throat.
"*Another* decent professor.  The first since Professor Lupin,"
she added with an apologetic look at Harry.

"Decent?"  Ron stopped and stared at her.  "We didn't do anything
the whole class other than listen to him talk about philosophy.
Now, I'll admit he made me laugh here and there but, bloody hell,
woman..."

"Language, Ron!" Hermione snapped reflexively.

"He did say we'll be starting practical work in the next class,"
Harry pointed out.  "And he'll be evaluating our wandwork during
the next double class on Thursday."

"What I want to know is what happened to the bloke who spent his
time drinking and joking with S... Snuffles," Ron grumbled.

"He flew away on his motorcycle and we haven't seen him since,"
Hermione sniffed, then strode off.

Ron stared after her, and then turned to Harry.  "Did she just
make a joke?"

                              * * *

    *I must agree that despite his foppish demeanour at the
    start-of-term feast, Professor Sangnoir does appear to be as
    troublesome as you had indicated to me the night before I
    left.  He is clearly hostile to the Dark Lord's cause and
    given to mocking his betters.  Combined with his inexplicable
    charisma and skill at holding a class's attention, this makes
    him potentially very dangerous.*

    *His hostility to our cause may be in part because I suspect
    he is a Squib.  Although his wand was visible on the desk at
    the front of the class, I have yet to see him even touch it,
    let alone cast a spell with it.*

    *For that matter, have you been able to find more information
    on his family history and blood status yet?*

                              * * *

September 2, 1995, 4:28 PM

"You wanted to see us, Professor?" one half of FredAndGeorge
Weasley said after knocking on my open classroom door.

It was a few minutes after the last students from my final class
of the day had finally departed.  I was beginning to wonder
about my assumption that my second-years and above would hate me.
Some very definitely did not like the intensity at which I was
teaching, but others seemed to warm to the challenge -- mostly
Ravenclaws, which from what I'd been told was practically a
foregone conclusion.  But there were a few in every House who
seemed to come alive in my classes, and who hung around at the
end of the period to ask questions.

I'd just shooed the last of the most recent bunch out of my
office, almost half an hour after the final period of the day had
ended, and had been shaking my head at the incredible enthusiasm
they'd shown.  I was going to be putting them through something
almost as challenging as a Warrior's probationary period, and
they were looking forward to it.  Weird.

The arrival of the twins (in response to a request I'd passed
along via their brother Ron) was what I needed to kick me out of
my mental loop.  "Come on in, guys, and shut the door behind
you."

They traded raised eyebrows but did so.  "So, what can we do for
you, Professor?" said the other half of the pair.

I looked up at the arched stone ceiling with a grin.  "Word on
the street says you two are the ones to go to for certain...
wagering opportunities."  Said word being uttered with fond
exasperation by Minerva and a few others on the staff.

"A lie..." said one.

"...and a base canard," said the other.

"What's a canard, anyway?" muttered the first.

"A lie, or a small wing on a Muggle aircraft," I said.  "It's
also French for 'duck'."

"Right," said the first.  "It's a lie..."

"...and a base duck," finished the other.  They shared a grin and
a nod.  "I like that.  Has style."

"Ducks are always in style," I agreed.  "So, then, no truth at
all to the rumor.  Pity."  I took out a Galleon coin, flipped it
into the air with my thumb, and caught it when it came back down.
"I had some money with nothing to do with its time but ride on a
wager.  It'll be so disappointed."

Thing Two held up a finger.  "Now wait a moment, let's not be too
hasty here."  The pair of them then shared another look, this one
longer than the first.  The *hell* they didn't read each other's
minds.

Thing One disengaged and switched his gaze to me.  "We *do*
sometimes facilitate practical research into probability
distribution for select members of the student body."

"Ah," I said, flipping the coin again.  "You do.  In that case,
I'd like you to facilitate research into the chance I'll last
all the way to the end-of-year feast in June.  20 Galleons' worth
of research."

"Sold!" they said in unison.

I dug into my sleeve and pulled out a sack of Galleons I had
bagged earlier in the day.  "Oh, and five more on 'Fired by
Halloween'."

And after they gave me the stubs for my wagers and took off for
dinner, I cornered Minerva and placed the same bets in the
*faculty* pool.

                              * * *

September 2, 1995, 7:33 PM

"Professor?" Harry Potter said as he entered the Headmaster's
office.  "Professor McGonagall said you wanted to talk to me?"

Professor Dumbledore looked up from his desk, but his gaze never
came near Harry's face.  "Yes, Harry, please come in and take a
seat."

Harry did so, taking note of the objects that occupied the center
of the Headmaster's desktop.  The large, low stone bowl with
runes engraved around its rim was familiar enough from his
experience with it just a few months ago, although today it was
empty, no silvery contents emitting shining white light; it
merely garnered a curious glance.  The blackened, ink-stained
book with a hole more than an inch wide punched neatly through
it, however, actually caused him to falter and nearly miss his
seat.  "Is that..."

Dumbledore nodded without looking directly at him.  "Voldemort's
diary, yes."  He sighed.  "I have been studying it in order to
answer a question of grave importance.  But I find that in order
to determine that answer, I must ask a favor of you, Harry."

"Anything, sir.  I'm happy to help in any way I can," Harry said,
frowning at the way that the Headmaster refused to meet his eyes.
"Professor, is there something wrong?  Why aren't you looking at
me?  Ever since the hearing last month..."

The Headmaster sighed again.  "I mean no insult to you, Harry,
nor should you take it as anger or disapproval on my part; it is
merely a... precautionary measure that I'm afraid I cannot
explain to you at the present time.  I do promise that I will
explain as soon as it becomes safe; will that satisfy you for
now?"

Harry's brow furrowed in confusion.  Was half an explanation
better than none, if it left him just as confused?  "I suppose
so," he said doubtfully after several moments' thought.  "I was
just worried that... well, with the hearing and the dementors and
all..."

Dumbledore shook his head, a sad smile flitting across his lips.
"No, Harry, you need not fear any growing distance in our
relationship.  In fact, I am extremely proud of how well you have
held up under the stresses of the last few weeks."

"Thank you, sir."  Partial relief, if not total, washed over him.
He'd been worried that he'd been losing the closest thing he had
to a grandfather; Dumbledore's reassurance dispelled that fear.
"So, what is it that I can do for you, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore smiled and gestured at the stone bowl.  "I'm sure you
recall my Pensieve."

Harry returned the smile.  "Yes, sir, I certainly do."  Then he
made a sudden, intuitive leap, and asked, "Do you need to see a
memory of mine, Professor?"

"Indeed I do, Harry, although you may of course choose not to
share it with me."  Dumbledore's eyes grew distant.  "It is, I am
sure, *not* one of your happier memories, and I would not blame
you if you did not want to revisit it even to the minor extent
that is needed to transfer it to the Pensieve."

Harry frowned.  "Which memory is it?  If it's to defeat
Voldemort, I'll help any way I can."

Dumbledore closed his eyes, then opened them again.  "If you
would be so kind, Harry, I would like to see your memory of
Voldemort's resurrection."

"Certainly, sir," Harry said without hesitation, though the
thought did fill him with some trepidation.

The process, Harry discovered, was simpler than he had feared --
visualize the memory then draw it out of one's mind with the tip
of a wand as though it were a string pulled by a buttonhook, and
then deposit the memory within the Pensieve.  The Headmaster then
gave Harry the option of *not* viewing the memory along with him,
but Harry refused, and they both plunged their faces into the
silvery contents of the bowl at the same moment.

Some time later, they returned to the Headmaster's office.

"My dear boy," the Headmaster said after they spent several
seconds recovering.  "I must apologize profusely for my part in
what you experienced."

Harry shook his head.  "You didn't have anything to do with it,
Professor!"

Dumbledore chuckled sadly, still not looking at Harry's eyes.
"Oh, but I did.  Had I tried harder to find a way to release you
from the hold of the Goblet, or had I noticed my old friend
Alastor was not quite himself, I might have been able to spare
you the horrors of that night."  He shook his head.  "Instead I
doomed you to suffer through so much last year, and helped bring
Voldemort back to the ranks of the living as surely as though I
performed the ritual myself."

Hesitantly, Harry laid a hand on the older wizard's arm.  "I
think you're being too hard on yourself, Professor."  Desperate
for something to change the mood, he asked, "Did you find what
you were looking for in my memory?"

"What?"  Dumbledore looked up, almost meeting Harry's eyes before
wresting them away again.  "Oh, yes.  Indeed, my boy, I did, and
I thank you."

"What was it you were looking for?" Harry asked as he drew back
his hand.

"Ah."  The Headmaster nodded, more to himself than to answer,
Harry thought.  "I had thought I'd known the means by which
Voldemort had managed his resurrection, but Professor Sangnoir
offered other possibilities and thus raised some doubt in my
mind.  Being able to see the exact ritual used on that terrible,
terrible night...  I am glad to say my original suppositions were
correct."

"And that's good, sir?" Harry ventured.

Dumbledore smiled sadly.  "It is perhaps not the *best* of the
possibilities, but it is the one about which I know the most, and
consequently with which I am best prepared to deal.  So yes, it
is good, Harry, for a cautious sense of 'good'."

                              * * *

After dinner I had another tutoring session with Septima Vector.
As I had feared, I had been finding that anything beyond basic
schoolboy Arithmancy was annoyingly difficult; I'm not all that
mathematically-inclined, which made it worse.

"But you're a programmer and an engineer," I hear you, O
Hypothetical Reader, objecting.  "Not to mention a mutant genius
with semi-eidetic memory.  How can you *not* be a master of the
most complex mathematics?"

Because I'm not, okay?  Despite my general genetic awesomeness,
there are more than a few things I suck at.  Among other things,
I can't surf (yeah, California boy, go figure), I can barely
swim, and I *don't do math*.  I only learned as much as I needed
for my chosen profession(s) as of my college years -- which is to
say calculus and just a bit beyond.

Arithmancy firmly trod on ground more than just a bit beyond, and
that made my lessons with Septima more than just a bit
interesting.  But I will gladly acknowledge that she was a very
talented teacher *and* quite gifted in her chosen field of study;
she did more to lead me into advanced mathematics than any
professor I ever studied under at Princeton.  I was learning far
more than I had expected from her, and not just about the
mathematics of Wizarding magic.

Then again, as little as I wanted to admit it, Septima was
learning as much as -- and arguably more than -- I in return.
She had (as I've noted) decided to take up what she thought of as
my personal notation system for mathemagics, and for those first
couple weeks, at least, it had been giving her fits -- because in
order to really grasp it she had to abandon all pretense that the
wizards and witches of this world possessed the Ultimate Truth of
Magic, and she still hadn't realized that.

I would have been more comforted by the feeling of smug
superiority this could have given me if she still hadn't been
picking it up a whole hell of a lot faster than I was picking up
Arithmancy.

Dammit.

That evening's lesson was the turning point where she left me
behind in the dust, and at the same time blew all my own pretense
out of the water.

"So," Septima said as she settled into her seat at the table
where we held our tutoring sessions.  "You've been hiding
something from me, Doug."

Well, yeah.  Got something specific in mind?  "I have?"

She looked at me through narrowed eyes.  "I know your level of
mathematical skill, Doug.  Our work over the past couple weeks
makes it pretty clear what your limits are."  She pulled out the
bound stack of parchment sheets in which she had made all her
notes.  "And this 'personal notation system' of yours extends
into areas that are far beyond your capabilities.  Once I saw
that, and applied certain Muggle mathematical principles to it, I
had a moment of epiphany.  And *that* led me to a quite
comprehensive understanding of the system.  At which point I
realized two things."

Ah, shit.  I tried to look nonchalant.  "What're those, Septima?"

She flipped open the crude "book" and paged through it.  Damn.
The last time I'd seen it, it hadn't even been a third full.  Now
well over half the sheets in the bundle were covered with
Septima's elegant longhand.  On both sides.  "First, that this
'personal notation' of yours is too complex and too complete to
be the ad-hoc creation of an Arithmantic innumerate like
yourself."

"Hey!" I protested, only half-seriously.

She ignored me.  "Someone else -- someone far more skilled in far
more abstruse mathematics than you have demonstrated yourself
capable of -- created this system you've claimed as your own."
She paged further through the book.  "Secondly -- and I found
this almost impossible to believe at first -- it is ultimately
not for describing Wizarding magic.  Or at least not *only*
Wizarding magic."  She held out the book to me, and I looked at
the page she'd chosen.

It was a generic description of a basic light spell -- the spell
designer's equivalent of "Hello World" -- in her handwriting.
Following it were translations into executable spells for
Wizarding wand-magic (with the incantation "lux" instead of the
usual "lumos"), something that looked a little like a Hermetic
ritual, and something that seemed to be utterly random and based
on the stuff you might find on a teacher's desktop.  Next to each
one was one word -- the same word, three times, in her elegant
writing:  "Works".

"Um," I said, completely flabbergasted.  The woman had to be a
genius, maybe even on my scale.  How else could she have gotten
that far in the two days since our last session?  Especially with
all the start-of-term stuff going on?  She'd taken what I'd been
able to teach her about the UTM and its notation, and raced far
ahead of me, reconstructing the parts I didn't know and couldn't
use from what I'd given her combined with sheer mathematic
inevitability.

"This notation system can't possibly be your work, Doug.  So
please tell me," she continued in low, silky tones, "where did
you find a system that describes magic using Muggle mathematics
in such a way that it can be used to define not just Wizarding
magic, but any other kind of magic one can imagine -- and make
it all *function*?"

I sighed, rubbed my hand down my face, and said, "We need to talk
to Albus."

Long story short, we told Septima where I came from.  It took
both Albus confirming my story and me demonstrating some of my
metatalents to convince her, but with the evidence in front of
her she was quite rational about the whole thing and didn't freak
out about it.  On the contrary, she just nodded and said, "Well,
that makes perfect sense."

And since she was in on the ... well, it wasn't really a secret
so much as just a thing I wasn't talking about, but once she was
in on it, there was no reason not to bring her in on the
dimensional magic research as well.  So now there were three of
us working on getting me home, one of whom now had the dual grasp
of both Wizarding magic and the UTM which Albus and I had been
working toward.  Which was very good indeed.

                              * * *

    *...all in all, Father, I feel the prospects for our cause are
    excellent this year.  Of course, I shall continue to watch
    both Potter and the Defense professor, and will report to you
    anything that strikes me as significant about either of them
    or their actions.*
    
    *Give my love to Mother, and please reassure her that I am
    eating properly.*
    
    *In the service of our Dark Lord, I remain*
    *Your son,*
    *Draco*



END OF CHAPTER THREE

------------------------------------

This work of fiction is copyright (C) 2014, Robert M. Schroeck,
and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The Harry Potter universe and the settings and the characters
thereof are the property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury and Warner
Brothers, and are used without permission.

Some of Dumbledore's dialogue during the start-of-term feast
along with several lines from the Sorting Hat's song were taken
verbatim from "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by J.K.
Rowling; I do not believe the selections I employed were beyond
the bounds of Fair Use, but if someone more knowledgeable than I
in the legalities of the matter says otherwise, I will gladly
correct it.

"Douglas Q. Sangnoir," "Looney Toons", "The Loon" and any
representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Robert
M. Schroeck.

For a full explanation of the references and hidden tidbits in
this story, see the Drunkard's Walk VIII Concordance at:

	http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dw8conc.shtml

Other chapters of this story (when there are any), along with
other parts of the Drunkard's Walk saga, can be found at:

	http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dwmain.shtml

The Drunkard's Walk discussion board is open for those who wish
to trade thoughts and comments with other readers, as well as
with the author:

	http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com

Many thanks to my prereaders on this chapter:  Christopher Angel,
Kathleen Avins, Nina Avins, Nathan Baxter, Ed Becerra, Andrew
Carr, Kevin Cody, Logan Darklighter, Shaye Horwitz, Helen Imre,
Eric James, Josh Megerman, Berg Oswell, Peggy Schroeck and Amanda
Stair-Duran.

C&C gratefully accepted.