Chapter Text
Harry waited until all the students had taken their seats before speaking. He had done this five times already today, so his nervousness had faded and he was feeling more drained than anything.
Twenty pairs of fifth year students' eyes looked up at him, eager for him to start. His reputation had not dwindled and they were excited to have a celebrity hero teaching them this year. He had a crushing feeling that he was going to let them all down. He shook it off and forced a welcoming smile onto his face.
"Good Afternoon, as some of you might already know, I'm your new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor." Harry rounded his desk and underlined his name written on the board. It helped to have something to do. "Professor Potter."
When he turned back to the class, five students already had their hands in the air.
"I will not be answering questions about my duel with Lord Voldemort."
Three hands lowered back down.
"Or about my recent duel in Diagon Alley."
The remaining hands lowered and all the students looked disappointed.
Harry turned his back once more, holding in a sigh. They'd find a roundabout way to bring it up before the class was through. He took a piece of chalk in hand and wrote out Defense Against the Dark Arts, then ran a line through Against the Dark Arts .
"For the rest of the year, think of this class as Magical Defense. I will be teaching a more practical and broader approach to the class; beginning with common threats then venturing out to rarer threats as the year goes on.” He paused for a moment before continuing.
"Can anyone tell me the most common threat to witches and wizards?"
A couple of hands were raised with more caution than before. He looked at his seating chart as he called on a girl with straight blond hair in the front row. "Ms. Blees?"
"Dark wizards."
Harry chuckled and wrote dark wizards at the bottom of the board. "Dark Wizards, as you answered, are actually pretty low on the list, but 5 points to Hufflepuff for taking a guess."
When Harry turned back around there were two additional hands added to the remaining still up. "Why don't we shout out a few guesses and I'll write them down as I hear them?"
“Cursed Artifacts!” “Diseases!“ “Hexes!“ “Werewolves!” “Poisoning!“ “The Unforgivables!”
"Those are all good guesses," Harry said, "but none of them are the most common."
At the top of the list he was making, in large letters, Harry wrote. Ourselves.
"Magical accidents are more likely to send you to Madame Pomfrey or St. Mungos than any other cause. We hurt ourselves with improper casting, poor awareness, and bad preventive and protective measures."
A few grumbles went around the room.
Harry spoke over them. "Don’t be disgruntled, we will do the fun stuff too.”
“Is it true that you could cast a Patronus in fourth year? Are we going to learn too?” A red head asked from the back of the class. He reminded Harry of Ron even though his hair was less orange and he was half the size of any Weasley.
“Yes and yes.”
The class let out loud whoops.
“It is on the curriculum, but it is an advanced spell and will not hurt your grade if you aren’t able to cast it by the end of the year.”
“If dark magic isn’t that dangerous, why is there an entire class assigned to it?” A snotty little brown haired boy asked from the front row, his back straight as a board with a stern face. He reminded Harry of what V would’ve been like at that age and it made his heart hurt. He came here to help himself forget about V, not see him in every student, hall, and book he read.
“Dark magic is very dangerous,” Harry said to the confusion of his students.
“I never said it wasn’t dangerous. I said it wasn’t as common a danger as other areas and we wouldn’t be solely focusing on it.”
Harry looked out at their blank faces. He hadn’t gone into all of this with his other classes, but this class seemed more involved, so on a whim he asked. “Can anyone tell me what makes dark magic, dark?”
Harry pointed at the first person to raise their hand.
“It hurts or kills people.”
Harry shook his head and was already pointing at the next raised hand as he explained. “You can just as easily kill or hurt someone with a cooking spell.”
“It’s the intent,” the next student added.
“In a duel you can get creative; the intent doesn’t make it dark magic.”
The same severe looking boy from before was the next to raise his hand. Harry looked at his seating chart once more. “Mr. Palmer.”
“It has no other purpose than to harm.”
“That is the best answer I’ve heard to that question. 10 points to Ravenclaw.” The boy didn’t smile per say, but his mouth twitched with self satisfaction and Harry, despite himself knew he’d be one of his favorites.
“But incorrect. Believe it or not, some of the oldest and most powerful dark magic was created to heal or even bring back lost loved ones.”
“You mean Necromancy?” One student asked in a hushed tone, as if too scared to say it much louder.
“Yes. Necromancy is a form of ancient dark magic with the intent to bring back life, not take it. But by your reactions, it’s seen to be just as bad as the Killing Curse.”
This time the class fell silent, all eyes and ears on him. As if he was getting ready to discuss things that other professors wouldn’t. Perhaps he was. He had V to explain everything to him that no professor ever really did.
“The category of a spell is based on how it affects the soul. As you can guess, light magic helps strengthen and heal the soul, while dark magic damages it. Most spells are neutral, not going either way.”
“Have you ever done…dark magic?” Mr. Palmer had the nerve to ask, but at least with some hesitation.
“Yes, I have.”
The girl in the front row's eyes grew wide and Harry could hear her suck in a breath.
“So your soul is damaged then?” Mr. Palmer followed up asking.
“A soul will heal if given the chance. The problem is, dark magic is powerful and can be addictive. And if not given the chance, the soul will not only become damaged, it will become deformed and no matter how much healing, it can’t go back to what it was before. NñIt will become permanently changed. That doesn’t mean the person is evil or a monster, but they will have permanently lost a part of themselves and can never be what they once were.”
“Then why would anyone do it?” the Hufflepuff girl asked.
“Like I said, it’s powerful and some people are willing to risk the consequences. By the time they realize the harm, it’s too late or they’ve changed so much they don’t care anymore.”
Harry could see hundreds of questions dancing in their young eyes. Perhaps this was why professors didn’t breach this topic. He was probably going to receive dozens of angry owls from parents. He looked up at the clock.
“Since it's the first day, why don’t you partner up and practice your shield charms. Expelliarmus only,” he warned.
He heard more groans, but he didn’t care. They could use more exciting attacks once they weren’t rusty from months of not doing magic. He walked around to observe and get an idea of the level of competence he was working with. It varied, and he took mental notes of which students were struggling and which were advanced.
“Alright, it's close enough to the end of class. I want you all to read up on the difference between shield charms and protective charms before next class. Class dismissed.”
Once all the students were out the door, he allowed himself to really breathe. His first day was over. One day at a time. He slowly erased the board by hand, finding the motion relaxing. Hogwarts was his first real home, but without V here with him it felt less like home and more of a house haunted by memories.
A light tap and the clearing of a voice drew Harry’s attention away from the chalkboard.
“The students seemed to enjoy your lesson today. It was all they could talk about during mine,” Snape said.
“I was nervous, but then I reminded myself, ‘I can’t be worse than you.’”
Snape didn’t even look abashed.
“I thought we were past you trying to get a rise out of me.”
Harry put his eraser down with a small thump and cloud of chalk dust.
“I’m here,” Harry said. “I’ve put pants on for twenty days straight and I’m going to go to the great hall and eat a plate of whatever is being served up tonight. Don’t ask anymore from me.”
“Did you enjoy your first day?” Snape asked as if he hadn’t heard anything Harry had just said. His magic flared around him and Snape’s expression finally changed, if only fleeting.
“No.”
“But you didn’t not enjoy it.”
“I suppose.”
“I will see you at dinner then.” Snape was already turning on his heel and marching from the room before he was even finished with his sentence. Leaving Harry alone once more.
Out of the corner of his eye he thought he caught sight of a familiar figure, but when he turned his head it was nothing but a dueling dummy. He hated how his mind played tricks on him. The second of hope, making the reality all that much crueler when it came crashing back. He leaned on his desk for support and to feel the weight of something solid under him.
A knock sounded at his door, forcing him to straighten and pretend that everything was alright.
A doe eyed girl was standing at his door, oblivious and bashful. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I think I left my bag at my desk.”
Sure enough, the happiest blue and yellow striped bag with an assortment of different fruit patches scattered across the flap, was sitting in the second row. Seeing a patch of bright yellow bananas dancing seemed to help, and Harry felt the pain begin to dissipate.
“Where did you get those patches?” he asked.
“My patches?” She slung the shoulder strap over her head. “My sister made them for me last year. She got a book on fashion transfiguration. Do you like them? I can have her make you some. She also makes some vegetable ones with puns.”
“They're really good, but I don’t have anything to put them on.”
“Professor Potter?” She stopped at the door and Harry waited for her to ask her questions. “You were a curse breaker weren’t you?”
That’s not what he was expecting.
“I only ask because I was thinking about going into curse breaking after school. It sounds thrilling, but not just in an 'all male macho way,' like being an Auror. More like in a 'traveling and using your brain,' sort of way.”
“I was,” he answered.
“Did you like it?”
“I loved it.”
“Then why did you quit?”
“It was time for a change, but I might do it again. Someday.”
“I bet you were really good at it,” she gushed, then blushed.
“I had an experienced partner. She taught me more protective spells than all my years at Hogwarts. That’s why I’m going to be focusing more attention on them. Curse breaking is eighty percent proper safety measures and twenty percent actually breaking the curse.”
She appeared to be hanging on his every word.
“I’m sorry I had a lot of new students today. What was your name again?”
“Haley Johnson.”
“Ms. Johnson, are you still in potions and runes?”
Her fingers trailed to a patch sporting an orange with a large smiley face on it and picked at the edges. “I’m in potions, but I‘ve never taken ancient runes. My sister said it was only for really smart students and that you don’t use it in real life.”
“I’d recommend switching out a class and at least getting in the basics.”
“With a bunch of third years?”
Her nose scrunched up at the indignity of it, managing something few had achieved recently, a smile.
“If you're serious about curse breaking then, yes,” he told her. “Think about it and if you decide to, let me know. I’ll write a transfer approval for Headmistress McGonagall.”
She looked like she wanted to ask a million more questions, so Harry cut her off.
“One more question, and then you need to run along; it’s going to be dinner time soon.”
She screwed her face up, as if this was an important decision to make. “What was the most interesting curse you had to break?”
Harry didn’t even have to think about it. “The Mirror of Daerd.”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“There is a book about it in the library. If you read up on it, and can tell me about it, I’ll give you ten house points.”
She perked up and headed for the door. “I will. Thanks Professor!”
He knew he should follow her out of the door and head for the Great Hall, but his mind was too twisted with an overwhelming number of thoughts and memories. Instead he pulled out a piece of parchment and began writing.
The True Hero. I’ve never liked being called that, but now… I despise it. I’ve never acted the hero. I’ve never wanted to be one. I just wanted to be Harry. And for a short period of time I was.