THE SEARCH FOR LIFE AND DEATH

Chapter XXIII

The Defense Teacher

September 2nd occurred on a Friday that year and so the Gryffindor fifth year’s began their new term with Double Potions in the afternoon and nothing else for the rest of the day. Ron spent the day having a long lie-in and not bothering to get up until his stomach woke him for lunch. Hermione, predictably, was up early and in the Common Room, studying her text books, which she had already read at least once each time. Neville had immediately gone out to the greenhouses, forgoing breakfast entirely, while the Weasley twins hid themselves in a corner of the Common Room and plotted.

Harry, having grown accustomed over the summer to getting up early and working at the Crooked House and training with Remus and Sirius, made his way down to the Common Room and joined Hermione on the couch near the fireplace. He ignored his textbooks in favor of the Animagus book that Bill had given him. The potion was upstairs in his trunk, along with most of his other presents, with the exception of the Gillyweed, which Professor Sprout was temporarily housing in one of the greenhouses, and Zinnia, who was walking back and forth across the back of Harry’s chair, searching for a comfortable position.

The training manual for becoming an Animagus was fascinating. It didn’t just have directions on how the process worked but the theory behind it, and it delved into different controversies, like why a wizard’s Patronus sometimes matched their Animagus form, what determined whether someone gained a mammal, avian, insect, or other form, why there were so few insect animagus in comparison to mammalian animagus. It even briefly touched on the rarity of wizards and witches who had a magical animagus form, like a gryffin or a kelpie. It said that only The Three were known to be beyond the reach of an animagus transformation, though Harry had no idea what creatures The Three referred to and any curiosity he had about it was temporarily overshadowed by his surprise when he read that very few people had an Animagus form at all. The talent apparently ran in families, but most people did not have a form to turn into and some that did have a form did not have the magical strength to complete the transformation.

His father being an Animagus, Harry thought it was highly likely that he would have a form but he had no idea what that form might be. If he were an animal, what sort of creature would he most affiliate himself with?

He had no idea, but he did have the potion that would reveal his form to him. All he had to do was drink the potion before he went to bed and he would discover his form during a dream, if he had one. Harry desperately wanted to drink the potion and discover his form, but he also knew that Hermione was interested in learning to become an Animagus and discovering that Bill was one had peaked Ron’s interest. Hermione had planned to spend the weekend researching the potion that would reveal their forms, so she could make enough for her and Ron. Anxious though he was, Harry was willing to wait for his friends so they could take the potion at the same time.

He contented himself Friday morning with the Animagus manual, breakfast, the Charms text he had received from Professor Flitwick, lunch, and then Double Potions with the Slytherins. The class, which he had dreaded since that first class all those years ago when Snape had singled him out, went far smoother than anyone could have anticipated. Mis- Professor Morely was a fair woman who was clearly a perfect fit for a teaching position. None of them even touched their cauldrons during the first period, instead going over a review of different types of potions, the different ways to cut, mash, slice, and otherwise prepare ingredients, the varying strokes one needs to do with a stirring rod, like clockwise, counter-clockwise, turning a handle versus stirring, stroking, or whisking, though none of the potions they had used prior to this year had called for that last instruction.

Only once the second period started did Professor Morely assign a potion and what she assigned was a simple first year level potion. She wrote the directions on the board, told them what page in their texts listed the potion, and sat at her desk to let them work. When someone seemed to be having trouble, she would briefly visit with them and help them work through their struggle, but she otherwise remained quiet and kept a careful eye on her students. Surprisingly, the Slytherins didn’t try anything, perhaps waiting to learn more about this new professor, and Harry, pairing with Ron while Hermione paired with Neville, was surprised to discover that the review of various techniques for preparing ingredients had been very helpful. With quick hands accustomed to preparing ingredients for cooking, Harry dealt with the potion ingredients while Ron carefully stirred, turning, twisted, and otherwise manipulated the stirring rod.

At the end of the class, they had a perfect boil cure potion, much to his and Ron’s shock, and no one had melted a cauldron or otherwise done all that poorly. Professor Morely collected a sample of everyone’s potions and dismissed them, thus releasing the fifth year Gryffindors into their weekend.

Hermione spent the weekend as she had planned - looking up the Animagus Revelio potion. Ron and Harry alternated between playing chess, flying on the Quidditch pitch, and spending time in the library with Hermione or in the Common Room. All in all, it was a very pleasant start to the new school year, which by no means prepared them for the week that followed.

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione had returned to Hogwarts for their second year, they discovered that they retained the same schedule as they’d had the year before. Their third year consisted of the elective classes they had chosen at the end of the previous year and so was different. Unfortunately, after third year, the schedules didn’t stay the same every year that followed and so they were forced to memorize their new schedule at the beginning of every year.

Harry started off the year learning he was going to be dead by the end of it, and things just went downhill from there.

Like always, breakfast ran from six until nine in the morning. Monday consisted of Divination at ten, where Trelawney predicted Harry’s death, then lunch from eleven to one. Harry and Ron had a free period at one while Hermione went to Ancient Runes (they spent this playing Chess), and then the three of them met for Transfiguration at two, followed by another surprisingly pleasant Potions class. Dinner ran from five to eight at night, and then they spent most of the rest of the night in the Common Room until they retired to bed.

Like Friday, Tuesday was a very quiet day, with the only classes being Care of Magical Creatures at one and Astronomy from midnight until one Wednesday morning. Wednesday was slightly less pleasant, with another Divination class in the afternoon, stuck between Herbology at one and History of Magic at three. History of Magic wasn’t too bad, since Harry and Ron managed a rather pleasant nap, while Hermione struggled to pay attention but only succeeded in take notes for five minutes before her mind wandered.

With Professor Morely teaching Potions, the biggest issues were Divination and History of Magic. That was true up until Thursday, when they had Transfiguration right after lunch, followed by their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Not even Charms with cheerful Professor Flitwick, which followed DADA, could ease the discomfort the fifth year Gryffindors suffered in that class.

Dolores Umbridge. Harry had never particularly liked Trevor, Neville’s toad he got from his great uncle, but he thought referring to the woman as a toad was insulting to his housemate’s pet. That being said, there was little else he could think to describe the woman. Dressed all in pink, with mannerisms that suggested a patronizing attitude and (according to Hermione) a high-pitched, simpering voice, Umbridge gave off a vibe that triggered the desire within Harry to either draw his wand or run away. He couldn’t seem to decide on which one and, since both actions would get him in trouble, chose to do neither. Instead, he spent the entirety of the class with his shoulders tensed for bolting and his heart hammering in his chest while he tried to mentally talk himself down from doing something not-good.

He didn’t understand the reaction that she caused in him, he only knew that he did not like the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and he wasn’t alone in that.

Employed by the Ministry, Umbridge broke the news in the first class that they would not be learning the practical side of defensive magics. Instead, they would be taking notes word for word directly from the text book that they had been given, making DADA a joke on par with History of Magic.

By the end of the first week, all of the students having so suffered Umbridge, the students were very ready for the weekend and took advantage of the time they had to gossip about the awful new DADA teacher.

What they didn’t know what that this was mild in comparison to how very bad the woman could, and no doubt would, get before the end of the year.

Fifth year was likely going to be very interesting, and not in a good way.

Slytherin House was known as the House of Snakes for more reasons than the crest they bore and Salazar’s parseltongue abilities. Slytherin was home to a great many of the pureblood families of Britain, the old families, whose children were raised from a young age to know how to act in proper pureblood society, and how to understand and survive the politics that came with being an heir to a House.

Thus, it was no surprise to anyone who was sorted there that Slytherin House was a place that required one to learn to perform the political dance that would follow them all through life.

And there had been a shift in this year’s candidates. Draco Malfoy was no longer the Prince of Slytherin.

That he had been before had only been by stint of his family name - all of Slytherin knew that, including Draco himself. With his father’s sundering of Draco from the Malfoy family, that name was gone and all of his status with it. Draco was lower than the lowest of the Slytherins, lower even than the little Mudblood firsties that everyone pretending they either didn’t hear or didn’t know was the sort of filth that shouldn’t be allowed in Hogwarts.

His arriving to the castle before any of the other Slytherins and claiming a bed made no difference to them. His stuff was removed from the bed he had chosen and dumped unceremoniously in a corner of the room. His bed was disassembled by some higher year’s crafty wandwork and Draco was given a child-sized mattress in his corner of the room, and a ratty blanket he was no doubt lucky to have been graced with.

He was not permitted into the bath before all the rest of the boys in his year, and some of the other years, had gone. He was not passed food at the table in the Great Hall if he requested it and was often shunned from the presence of all in the hall and took to filching meals and eating them in an abandoned classroom or a quiet part of the castle corridors. Sometimes, he would leave really early and get to breakfast before anyone else, but this required him to forego showering since the other boys were not finished with that task and the occasional curious look from the other Houses often had him avoiding that option.

Sometimes his housemates were cruel to him, hitting him with spells or jinxes, tripping him in the halls or stealing his things. Draco had taken to keeping anything he thought precious on him at all times, for fear of it being taken or broken. Much to his relief, he was mostly ignored by his fellow Slytherins, who viewed him as less than they and thus not worth their time. This was a vast change in his life from the previous year and Draco found himself adrift in uncertainty much of the time, but the shunning was preferable when it involved people not bothering to even look his way, as opposed to being randomly attacked.

The only person who made it a regular habit of speaking to Draco was Crabbe. Vincent. Draco hadn’t used the boy’s first name, yet - rarely did he speak at all - but when Crabbe spoke to him, he addressed him by his first name. This was natural, of course, for he had been stripped of his surname and thus calling him Malfoy could get Crabbe ostracized at best, and at worst, killed.

Every morning, Crabbe greeted Draco. When he sat at the house table, Crabbe sat with him. The same in the Common Room, whether he sat on the couch (a rarity, as that was a favored place of his housemates) or at a table. Crabbe would walk with him to class, keeping up a quiet but steady conversation, almost always one-sided.

It was the most that Draco had ever heard the other boy speak. He had heard more words come out of Crabbe’s mouth in the past week than he had heard in all four of his previous Hogwarts years. And Draco was learning more about the other boy than he had thought there ever was to learn.

Crabbe’s father, a Death Eater like Draco’s (this, Draco had known), was the only child of two Swedish fisherman. His grandfather, one Pontus Crabbe, had died in a fishing accident when a krakken destroyed his ship and, presumably, ate all of the crew and most of the wreckage. His grandmother, Sigrid Crabbe, continued the fishing business, which she had inherited from her mother, who had inherited it from her mother, because Crabbe’s family was matriarchal, as opposed to the common patriarchal family of Britain.

This had fascinated Draco (not that he said so), because he had grown up being dragged by his parents to events of the wealthy and well-to-do, where the men ruled the family and the women were to be seen and not heard, unless spoken to first by a man. Granted, some families, even those of the older lineages, allowed more freedom for their feminine members, but never enough that the family might become ruled by a woman.

Vincent, Draco learned, would not inherit his grandmother’s fishing business, just as his father would have only held it as regent, not inheriting it. The business would pass, as the family would, to Crabbe’s younger sister (nine years old and at home with the family servants), Lovisa. Crabbe’s mother had died giving birth to the younger girl and, as his father was far too busy licking Draco’s father’s boots, Lovisa was being raised by the family servant, Svea, an old Swedish woman who had being a servant of the Crabbe family since she was a child and who treated Vincent and Lovisa as if they were her own children.

Draco had not known any of this about the boy who had followed him around since they entered Hogwarts together - since before they even boarded the train. He had known almost nothing, he was beginning to realize. Crabbe had so rarely spoken, often only grunting at whoever spoke to him, that Draco (and everyone else) had so often mistaken him as an imbecile. He had never bothered to pay attention to him or Goyle during classes, too busy being the prince of the Slytherins and leading them with whatever story or game he chose to play at the point in time.

Speaking little as he did now, Draco was beginning to see many things that he had ignored before. Instead of attempting to be in the spotlight, he watched people, and he was coming to see its appeal. Was this why Crabbe had so rarely spoken? Was he just watching people, discovering all that there was to learn? People revealed so much without apparently ever realizing the amount of information such simple actions were telling those who were watching.

One of the most interesting things Draco found to watch was the dynamic in the rest of Slytherin House. With his fall, there had been a great shift, culminating in the entire House splitting into factions.

On one side, you had the Death Eater children who clearly followed in their father’s footsteps, flaunting the wants and ideals of pureblooded wizards seeking purification of wizardkind in total.

On the other side, you had the wizards and witches who didn’t seem to care overmuch about the blood status. They didn’t stand in favor of immersion of Mudbloods with the rest - not openly, at least - but many of the faces that Draco saw in this faction belonged to those who were not purebloods.

And there was a third faction that Draco just couldn’t quite figure out. Smaller than the others, this faction seemed to be led by Blaise Zabini, of all people. The quiet Slytherin, the one who said almost nothing but moved like a shark, his face like a hawk’s, was at the head of a faction that did not outright reveal their intentions. In fact, they almost seemed to be holding back, as though they were waiting to discover who had the better argument, or who the winner would be, before they chose sides. It was this group, Draco thought, that was the most Slytherin of them all.

He was surprised to find he could not place himself. Certainly, he was not part of the Death Eater crowd, but he didn’t think he would fit in well with those that opposed him. While waiting to see who would win had its appeal, Draco wasn’t sure he would be accepted into any faction with people who would look at him and see one who had lost their name.

Crabbe, too, kept his preferences quiet, only staying close to Draco, as though that was his faction. It was a loyal move and one that flabbergasted Draco. The train had been one thing, but Draco had not been surprised by Goyle’s abandonment. He had expected Crabbe to follow suit and still found himself stunned to listen to the boy as they walked through the halls, being spoken to as though they were equals.

As though they were friends.

This was a new concept for Draco, who had had servants and minders and muscle, but never friends. He couldn’t decide how he felt about it because his emotions were as wild as his mind was frenzied, but there was certainly emotion there - beyond the confusion and the uncertainty. Beyond the fear, Draco thought there just might be… something else.

Because he had always followed his father’s instructions, always done as he was told, always tried to be the perfect son, the perfect little Malfoy heir, there were a lot of things that Draco had never experienced before. The rebellion of youth, the pride of being told he’d done a good job, the embarrassment of his parents making fun in front of his friends. Because he had never truly experienced it before, Draco could not place that this emotion hidden behind his fear was happiness, but given time, he would learn.

Ron sucked in a sharp breath as he opened his eyes. The scarlet bed hangings of Gryffindor dangled above him, but Ron found nothing about them reassuring. He threw the covers off himself and crawled out of bed, moving over to Harry’s bed. Grabbing the curtains, he thrust them aside with no concern over whether he woke any of the other boys.

For just a moment, Harry’s skin was charred black and his whole body was covered in blood. Ron shook his head, dashing away the nightmare.

Harry was asleep, his face pressed into his pillow, mouth half open and breathing quietly, as he always did. Ron slid the hangings shut with a relieved breath. He turned around, staring longingly at his bed, but he knew there would be no more sleep tonight. If he did manage to doze of, his mind would only be filled with fire and blood and he would wake again gasping in terror for the life of his best friend.

He’d been having trouble sleeping all summer. If he was honest with himself (Ron often wasn’t), the nightmares had started during fourth year. His realizing he was a great fat prat of a friend happened at the same time.

Ron stood in the center of the Common Room, having left the dormitory as quietly as he could, and frowned around at the couches and chairs. None of them were occupied, but he was too strung up to relax and the idea of sitting down repulsed him. There was a humming of nervous energy in his blood that he desperately wanted to shake. He thought briefly about the broom closet on the Quidditch grounds but he was sure it was rigged to alarm a professor if a student broke in at whatever insane hour this way, so flying off his troubles was out.

Turning Ron eyed the portrait hole consideringly. At home, most everyone was a heavy sleeper by necessity. During the summer when he had woken in the early hours of the morning, Ron had taken to wandering the Burrow. The only person that had woken up to his wanderings and come to check on him had been Ginny, who of course knew of his nighttime movements and their reason. She and his father were the only two light sleepers in the family (asides Bill, but he no longer lived there).

If his dad knew of Ron’s nighttime ramblings, he said nothing, which Ron felt was a relief. A discussion of a nightmare to help Harry was one thing, but these bloody dreams were caused by his own stupidity. He had no one else to blame.

With a final glance around the deserted Common Room, Ron left Gryffindor Tower, climbing through the portrait hole in the hall beyond. The Fat Lady snored after him but Ron ignored her. He moved down the stairs, turned in a direction at random, and began what was likely to be just one of many nighttime wanderings of the halls of Hogwarts.

There was a strange tower in the distance that never seemed to get any closer no matter how far Hermione walked. The rest of the world around her was white - undetermined but for that tower. She wanted to reach it to have something around her that was more than this endless landscape of white that was so disconcerting for reasons she couldn’t quite illustrate.

She was still angry with herself for forgetting about Cor and the Realm. It was clear everyone else had forgotten, as well, but she didn’t think that excused her own mind. She could remember almost everything else that she dealt with, recalling nearly every word that she had ever read, but this eluded her? Frustrating was not the term she would use.

Besides that, she had no idea how she should disguise herself. When she had initially thought that they needed to disguise themselves as existing people, it had been difficult enough, but Luna had proved that it could be any disguise of the imagination and Hermione didn’t know what to do. There were too many choices that her mind couldn’t settle on even a few possibilities, never mind a choice. The lack of a proper disguise was making her anxious. Along with her concern over forgetting once she fell asleep again, this had Hermione in a right state of nerves.

If she could remember this in her conscious moments, she could research different possibilities of disguising, and look into more about the Realm. But she couldn’t if she couldn’t remember!

Stomping as she walked, following the throbbing call of her artifact, Hermione struggled to calm down or she’d probably wake up in a tizzy having no idea why she was strung up so tight.

The tower stood firm in the distance, made of black stone, turrets gleaming against the white sky. Hermione focused her own on that and determinedly moved forward. She would reach it. That tower was where she wanted to be and if she couldn’t work on this artifact business outside of her dreams, then she would at least accomplish what she intended while here!

The Gryffindors and Slytherins filed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom with grim faces and clear reluctance. The rivalry between the two houses had, amazingly, dimmed in the face of mutual dislike for the Defense teacher. Neither of them had any illusions that this was fostering peace between them, but within the walls of this classroom, they could at least focus their ire elsewhere.

Umbridge, swathed in pink as usual, smiled at them all as though they were five and not fifteen, her hands clasped before her. A few of the Muggleborn children thought that a bonnet and a crook could go a long way toward making the toad look eerily like a heavyset Little Bo Peep.

“Good morning, class,” Umbridge called when they had all settled into their seats.

There were a few people who grumbled but the class remained silent for the most part.

“Now, now, that’s not the way to start the day,” she said, ignoring the fact that it was two in the afternoon. “Repeat after me. Good morning, Professor Umbridge.” She waved her hands as though conducting an orchestra.

“Good morning, Professor Umbridge,” the class repeated dutifully.

“Very good,” Umbridge simpered. “Now, I hope everyone did the required reading for today’s class. Who would like to start us off with a review? Yes, Mister Finnegan,” she called on Seamus, who had raised his hand.

Instead of reciting a summary of the homework chapter, Seamus put down his hand and asked, “Why aren’t we learning anything we can use to protect ourselves?”

“Protect yourselves?” Umbridge asked, flabbergasted. “Whatever would you need to protect yourself from?”

“Attackers,” Seamus said, as though talking to an idiot. “Magical beasts. Death Eaters.” He ignored Umbridge’s grimace. “Whacked out Azkaban escapees. Defense teachers who try to kill us.”

“Now, now,” Umbridge said, cutting him off before he could add anything more to the list. “While it is a very rare possibility that you might encounter an attacker in the streets, that can be avoided if you take the proper care to avoid unsavory places. The same with mindless beasts. Stay away from areas where they frequent and you should have no trouble.”

“What if you want to go into Dragon Handling as a career?” Ron called out.

Umbridge turned her gaze on him. “If you’re stupid enough to go into a career that will obviously lead to your early death, then it’s really your own fault you’re in that mess.”

Hermione, who had been quietly listening, felt her mouth drop open at this and Ron himself stared. Umbridge had just called his brother a suicidal idiot, along with every other dragon handler in the world.

“As for Death Eaters,” Umbridge continued on, giggling in a high-pitched tone that made many of her students wince, “there are no such thing. There haven’t been Death Eaters about since the first war with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. They were all destroyed when he was and so are no concern.”

Ron opened his mouth to make a comment, but Hermione grabbed his wrist in a clear shut-up motion and he refrained from saying anything. There was a nervous energy in the classroom that hadn’t been there at the start, though, as something was just waiting to come to light.

Harry was sitting quietly, eyes on his journal as he followed along with the conversation. Making his own opinion known wouldn’t work as well with him reduced to writing it, so he didn’t bother to offer it. He was more than a little concerned, however, with this woman’s obvious dismissal of Voldemort and his Death Eaters as a threat - or any dark wizard who might choose to attack others. He knew the Ministry had hired her, but he hadn’t realized she was an idiot on par with Fudge!

“No one can escape from Azkaban prison,” she said, talking over Ron, who had tried to speak again. “This incident with Sirius Black was a hoax and has long since been proven as such.”

WHAT?

“And a Defense teacher would never try to kill you. We’re here to protect you. You don’t need to learn to defend yourself, because that is what the Ministry is for. If you ever have any sort of problem, you can go to them and they will help you. The Ministry can be trusted.

“There will be no more relying on school children to defend the world against the monsters under the bed.” Harry looked up in time to see Umbridge staring right at him as she said that, her eyes suspicious. “Now open your books to the chapter you read for homework and let’s go over what we learned. Mister Finnegan, begin.”

“I can’t believe that idiotic toad of a woman!” Hermione shrieked, stomping into the Common Room and throwing her bag at the couch furiously. “She’s just so… so… argh!”

“Go on, Hermione. Tell us how you really feel,” Ron said, grinning at her temper.

“Oh hush, Ronald.”

“I don’t think she likes me,” Harry wrote. “She was glaring at me through half the class.”

“Well, you did announce that Voldemort is back last year and obviously she wants to pretend that didn’t happen,” Hermione huffed, sitting down on the couch.

“She and the Minister both,” Ron muttered. “We’re not going to learn anything in this class.” He shook his head. “I wish we had Professor Lupin again. He was the best Defense teacher we ever had.”

Hermione sighed as she leaned back against the couch cushions. “You got to train with Professor Lupin and… Snuffles all summer,” she said wistfully to Harry. “I wish we had been able to do that.”

Harry stared at her words in his journal, his mind racing. With Sirius in hiding and Remus on a mission, it wasn’t possible for the two of them to train his friends, but… maybe that wasn’t the only option.