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beren_writesTitle: Defence, Pretence, Offence - Chapter 32/70 - How Much Trouble Can First Years Be?
Author: Beren (aka Tasha)
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Warnings: This story is canon compliant until the end of Order of the Phoenix and then goes AU. None of the HBP or Deathly Hallows plot will be used, or the Horcruxes for that matter since this story was planned before we knew the details about those things, and hence has it's own fanon. This includes birthdays and other information that have since been revealed on Pottermore and in further productions.
Summary: The threat of open war in on the horizon. The Order and the Ministry are of one accord and both know that where Harry Potter is, Voldemort will eventually be. Preparations are being made and this time the side of the light will not be caught unawares.
Summer classes, sabotage, revelations about Draco's father, teaching and the final showdown with Voldemort all await Harry and Draco in this exciting sequel to Gold Tinted Spectacles (LJ | AO3 | Wattpad).
Author's Notes: This is the second story in the Hecatemae universe. It starts up just after the end of the first instalment and I advice reading that one first so you understand the premise. Thanks go to my sister Sophie for the beta reading.
It has taken me 12 years to finally get around to finishing this, I very much hope everyone enjoys it.
Link to other parts: LJ | DW | AO3 | Wattpad
New chapters will be posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
They looked so small; that was Harry's overriding impression of the group of first years waiting for him near the broom sheds. At the sorting feast they had appeared young and over-awed, but up close all he could think was how small they were. It made him feel suddenly old.
[They look like they might break at any second,] he commented to Draco as he bolstered his courage and walked towards his first class.
[Wait until they start flying into walls and blowing things up,] his soulmate replied dryly, [then they won't seem so delicate.]
[How much trouble can they possibly be in their first lesson?] Harry replied with a laugh.
He had been feeling nervous all morning as had Draco, but his lover had been hiding it well behind snide comments and indignant silences. Now was a moment for a silence, but Harry found a mental image of 'the look' being projected into his mind. Draco had perfected 'the look' to say everything from 'Harry' in a disbelieving tone, to 'you idiotic Gryffindor prat' in a very cutting manner; this time he suspected his soulmate was aiming for somewhere in the middle.
[You have Gryffindors and Slytherins,] Draco said eventually, [because as usual Albus decided to have a senior moment when drawing up the timetable. Remember our first flying lesson.]
It was difficult to forget the whole swooping after the Remeberall, being dragged off by Professor McGonagall while thinking he was being expelled and then ending up on the Quidditch team. Possibly Draco had a point.
[Well you have Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs,] Harry tried to look on the bright side, [so it's unlikely they'll blow anything up in their first lesson.]
That earned him another mental image of the look.
[Over eager brain boxes and bumbling idiots,] Draco responded much more quickly this time, [I'll be lucky to survive half an hour.]
[You're doing a very good impression of Snape,] Harry said with a laugh.
[Thank you,] his soulmate replied, which made him laugh again.
He suddenly realised that he was almost at the broom sheds and their professor laughing at apparently nothing might be a bit unsettling for the first years, so he reigned in his amusement. Being labelled as a nutty teacher on his first day was not an idea Harry relished.
[Gotta go,] he said cheerfully, [wish me luck.]
[Hah, I need all the luck I can find on my side, get your own,] Draco replied, but the words were accompanied by a warm mental hug, which Harry quickly returned.
Putting his connection to his soulmate to a background level, he focussed on his class and gave them a cheerful smile.
"Good morning," he greeted warmly, "I do hope you are all ready to fly."
He was met by several smiles in return, a handful of nervous grimaces and a few hostile glares from a small sub-group of Slytherins.
"I suspect most of you know who I am," he continued chattily, "but to clarify, here I am Professor Potter ..."
"Assistant Professor," he distinctly heard muttered from the back.
Quite deliberately he stopped, turned in the direction of the sub-group of Slytherins and gave them Draco glare number five. It was nowhere near as affective as 'the look', but he had only been taking lessons from his soulmate for a year and Draco had had a life time to practice these things.
"As far as you are concerned, that is neither here nor there," he said in a disarmingly pleasant tone, "and next time I hear anything like that from any of you, Slytherin will be in negative house points before you have finished the last syllable."
He turned back to the rest of the class.
"As I was saying," he continued calmly, "here I am Professor Potter, I am not The Boy Who Lived, nor should it concern you what I may or may not be magically. Here I intend to teach you to fly to the best of my ability. Contrary to popular school mythology I do not have god like powers, nor am I insane, or a complete idiot with a Snitch where his brain should be, but I do have eyes in the back of my head."
Looking around there were a few more smiles this time.
He took out the register of pupils from his pocket, returned it to its normal size and opened it at the correct page. There were a couple of students staring at him in awe and he noted which were likely the Muggleborns. He remembered all too well that feeling of seeing things in the magical world for the first time. Come to think of it, it still happened quite regularly.
The Slytherins were still whispering together and he gave them a glare before calling out the first name. There was going to be trouble from that direction, he was sure.
* * *
Draco turned his focus back to his own classroom after his brief conversation with Harry. He wasn't about to tell his soulmate, but Harry was right, the first years did look small. He wondered if he had ever look so silly as the Ravenclaw at the front with her pile of books that were way above her current level.
"Good morning, class," he said, standing up from his position behind the teacher's desk.
All eyes snapped to him immediately. There was the sound of something rolling and then a ting as one of the chopping scalpels hit the floor. The Hufflepuff who had been playing with it eyed it worriedly.
"Leave it, Mr Davidson," Draco said as the boy went to move from his seat.
Davidson snapped onto his stool, back ramrod straight, clearly terrified. Coming to a stop in front of his desk, Draco mentally congratulated himself on learning all his students' faces and names.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began, just as Snape had done every year; he knew a good opening when he had heard one. "There will be no silly wand waving here. Every move you make will be meticulous and precise, every action catalogued and in the given order. You will learn the finest form of magic and the most rigorous of discipline. Playing games in my class will result in detentions with Mr Filtch, and trust me when I say you will not like that. Are we clear?"
Every head bobbed as wide eyes stared at him.
"Good," he said, "now I will take the register."
As he turned back to the desk he heard another thud as something else hit the floor. Gritting his teeth he picked up his register and decided to ignore it.
* * *
Once Harry was sure he had all the students he was supposed to have, he led them over to the broom shed. It was the moment of truth.
"Right then, I want you each to take a broom and follow me," he said and opened the door to the shed.
Under his watchful eye they all piled in one by one to pick up the rather ratty-looking broomsticks. There was some shoving to get to the best brooms, but in Harry's opinion they were all a much of a muchness.
Someone really needed to go through and service the whole lot or replace them, but just at the moment they were all they had to work with. Once each pupil had a broom and he had extracted the small Gryffindor boy the Slytherins had seen fit to bury under a pile of spare broom handles (some things would never change), he led them towards the practice flying ground.
"Two lines," he said quickly as they milled around in the open space, "facing each other. Put your brooms on the ground under your wand hand and then wait."
The milling continued as the class jostled for position, and Harry began to think that maybe he'd have to borrow Madame Hooch's whistle. It was amazing how actually taking a class suddenly made him sympathise with the woman far more than he ever had.
"Now," he barked and suddenly there was life in the pupils. "Thank you," he said as everyone finally stilled.
It was not a surprise to find that all the Slytherins were on one side and the Gryffindors on the other, but he chose to ignore this for the moment.
"Now your first job is to connect with your broom," Harry continued, doing his best to appear supremely confident. "Put your hand out over the broom handle and concentrating on it, say 'up' very firmly."
As they moved to obey there was a cacophony of 'up's. Only two pupils' brooms jumped obediently into their hands.
"Miss Meadows, Mr Spagnal, very good," he praised, "five points to Gryffindor and five points to Slytherin."
Spagnal, the Slytherin in question, appeared flabbergasted that possibly the most famous Gryffindor on the planet had just awarded him house points.
"Don't look so surprised, Mr Spagnal," Harry said as his eyes moved around the rest of the class to see how they were doing, "the only place I play house favourites is on the Quidditch pitch, and that's only when I'm spectating."
Within a minute or so most of the class had their brooms in their hands, but there were three who seemed to be having trouble. Walking over to a very short Slytherin girl who was glaring at her broom as if it had insulted her parentage, Harry let down his barriers slightly to see if he could figure out what was wrong.
What he could see in most cases was a magical connection between pupil and broom, initiated by the charms on the magical objects. What he saw in this instance was a tendril of magic actively repelling the broom, which rather explained why it was squirming around on the ground as if it wished to get away.
"Miss Sellby, your frustration is repelling the flying charm," he said quietly, moving closer to the girl. "Try and relax and think of the broom as a dog; you want to command it, but not frighten it away."
"A dog?" the girl asked dubiously.
Harry nodded sagely, hoping that the hair-brained idea that had just come to him might actually work. It had just popped into his head and had seemed like a good plan when he had started saying it.
Very seriously the girl put her hand out again and frowned in concentration, which was of course what had been her trouble in the first place.
"You could always think of a snake if it makes it any easier," he whispered in her ear before she had a chance to try and command her broom.
That made her giggle and Harry could not help but smile as the repelling magic dissipated.
"Up," she commanded and the broom jumped into her hand.
"Good," he patted her on the shoulder and moved on to the Gryffindor on the other side who still had his broom on the ground.
While he had been dealing with Miss Sellby, the other Gryffindor who had been having trouble had managed to coax his broom into life.
"Mr Wiles," Harry greeted quietly as the boy looked around and became aware that he was the only one with his broom not in his hand, "I promise it will not bite."
The boy did not appear to believe him as the child continued to eye the broom warily.
"Muggle raised, right?" Harry asked conversationally, and Wiles nodded hesitantly.
Before he could continue there was snickering from the sub-group of Slytherins.
"Stupid Mudblood," he heard and his reaction was instant.
He whirled on the group, easily identifying the boy who had spoken, and even if he did say so himself, carried off a fair impression of Professor McGonagall when one of her pupils had done something incredibly stupid, life threatening and insulting all at the same time.
"Fifty points from Slytherin," Harry did not yell, but his voice carried like a knife across the courtyard. "Mr Tainer get out of my class and do not return until you have a civil tongue in your head. You will go straight to Professor Snape and you will explain to him how you embarrassed his house on your very first day. Do I make myself very clear?"
The boy almost cowered, dropped his broom and ran back towards the school entrance, and all of his friends had gone horribly white.
[Is everything all right?] Draco's concerned voice filtered into his head and Harry realised he was still glaring at the Slytherins.
[Yes,] he replied quickly, shaking himself out of the anger he was feeling, [nothing I couldn't handle. Sorry to alarm you. One of the Slytherins decided to call one of the Gryffindors a Mudblood and I think I just scared him into civility.]
[You'll have to show me later,] his soulmate replied in an amused tone. [And there I thought I would be the one with the reputation.]
The link dropped back again and Harry turned back to his floundering pupil with a smile on his face.
"Sorry about that, Mr Wiles," he said pleasantly as the boy looked at him in shock, "now where were we? Ah yes, I was Muggle raised myself, and I can understand how all these magical things can be a little intimidating. The secret is not to be afraid and to show them who is boss; can't have the appliances dictating to us, can we?"
That drew the first glimmer of a smile from the boy and Harry knew he would have them all flying sooner rather than later.
Of course once he got them all in the air his troubles would really start.
Author: Beren (aka Tasha)
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Warnings: This story is canon compliant until the end of Order of the Phoenix and then goes AU. None of the HBP or Deathly Hallows plot will be used, or the Horcruxes for that matter since this story was planned before we knew the details about those things, and hence has it's own fanon. This includes birthdays and other information that have since been revealed on Pottermore and in further productions.
Summary: The threat of open war in on the horizon. The Order and the Ministry are of one accord and both know that where Harry Potter is, Voldemort will eventually be. Preparations are being made and this time the side of the light will not be caught unawares.
Summer classes, sabotage, revelations about Draco's father, teaching and the final showdown with Voldemort all await Harry and Draco in this exciting sequel to Gold Tinted Spectacles (LJ | AO3 | Wattpad).
Author's Notes: This is the second story in the Hecatemae universe. It starts up just after the end of the first instalment and I advice reading that one first so you understand the premise. Thanks go to my sister Sophie for the beta reading.
It has taken me 12 years to finally get around to finishing this, I very much hope everyone enjoys it.
Link to other parts: LJ | DW | AO3 | Wattpad
New chapters will be posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
They looked so small; that was Harry's overriding impression of the group of first years waiting for him near the broom sheds. At the sorting feast they had appeared young and over-awed, but up close all he could think was how small they were. It made him feel suddenly old.
[They look like they might break at any second,] he commented to Draco as he bolstered his courage and walked towards his first class.
[Wait until they start flying into walls and blowing things up,] his soulmate replied dryly, [then they won't seem so delicate.]
[How much trouble can they possibly be in their first lesson?] Harry replied with a laugh.
He had been feeling nervous all morning as had Draco, but his lover had been hiding it well behind snide comments and indignant silences. Now was a moment for a silence, but Harry found a mental image of 'the look' being projected into his mind. Draco had perfected 'the look' to say everything from 'Harry' in a disbelieving tone, to 'you idiotic Gryffindor prat' in a very cutting manner; this time he suspected his soulmate was aiming for somewhere in the middle.
[You have Gryffindors and Slytherins,] Draco said eventually, [because as usual Albus decided to have a senior moment when drawing up the timetable. Remember our first flying lesson.]
It was difficult to forget the whole swooping after the Remeberall, being dragged off by Professor McGonagall while thinking he was being expelled and then ending up on the Quidditch team. Possibly Draco had a point.
[Well you have Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs,] Harry tried to look on the bright side, [so it's unlikely they'll blow anything up in their first lesson.]
That earned him another mental image of the look.
[Over eager brain boxes and bumbling idiots,] Draco responded much more quickly this time, [I'll be lucky to survive half an hour.]
[You're doing a very good impression of Snape,] Harry said with a laugh.
[Thank you,] his soulmate replied, which made him laugh again.
He suddenly realised that he was almost at the broom sheds and their professor laughing at apparently nothing might be a bit unsettling for the first years, so he reigned in his amusement. Being labelled as a nutty teacher on his first day was not an idea Harry relished.
[Gotta go,] he said cheerfully, [wish me luck.]
[Hah, I need all the luck I can find on my side, get your own,] Draco replied, but the words were accompanied by a warm mental hug, which Harry quickly returned.
Putting his connection to his soulmate to a background level, he focussed on his class and gave them a cheerful smile.
"Good morning," he greeted warmly, "I do hope you are all ready to fly."
He was met by several smiles in return, a handful of nervous grimaces and a few hostile glares from a small sub-group of Slytherins.
"I suspect most of you know who I am," he continued chattily, "but to clarify, here I am Professor Potter ..."
"Assistant Professor," he distinctly heard muttered from the back.
Quite deliberately he stopped, turned in the direction of the sub-group of Slytherins and gave them Draco glare number five. It was nowhere near as affective as 'the look', but he had only been taking lessons from his soulmate for a year and Draco had had a life time to practice these things.
"As far as you are concerned, that is neither here nor there," he said in a disarmingly pleasant tone, "and next time I hear anything like that from any of you, Slytherin will be in negative house points before you have finished the last syllable."
He turned back to the rest of the class.
"As I was saying," he continued calmly, "here I am Professor Potter, I am not The Boy Who Lived, nor should it concern you what I may or may not be magically. Here I intend to teach you to fly to the best of my ability. Contrary to popular school mythology I do not have god like powers, nor am I insane, or a complete idiot with a Snitch where his brain should be, but I do have eyes in the back of my head."
Looking around there were a few more smiles this time.
He took out the register of pupils from his pocket, returned it to its normal size and opened it at the correct page. There were a couple of students staring at him in awe and he noted which were likely the Muggleborns. He remembered all too well that feeling of seeing things in the magical world for the first time. Come to think of it, it still happened quite regularly.
The Slytherins were still whispering together and he gave them a glare before calling out the first name. There was going to be trouble from that direction, he was sure.
* * *
Draco turned his focus back to his own classroom after his brief conversation with Harry. He wasn't about to tell his soulmate, but Harry was right, the first years did look small. He wondered if he had ever look so silly as the Ravenclaw at the front with her pile of books that were way above her current level.
"Good morning, class," he said, standing up from his position behind the teacher's desk.
All eyes snapped to him immediately. There was the sound of something rolling and then a ting as one of the chopping scalpels hit the floor. The Hufflepuff who had been playing with it eyed it worriedly.
"Leave it, Mr Davidson," Draco said as the boy went to move from his seat.
Davidson snapped onto his stool, back ramrod straight, clearly terrified. Coming to a stop in front of his desk, Draco mentally congratulated himself on learning all his students' faces and names.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began, just as Snape had done every year; he knew a good opening when he had heard one. "There will be no silly wand waving here. Every move you make will be meticulous and precise, every action catalogued and in the given order. You will learn the finest form of magic and the most rigorous of discipline. Playing games in my class will result in detentions with Mr Filtch, and trust me when I say you will not like that. Are we clear?"
Every head bobbed as wide eyes stared at him.
"Good," he said, "now I will take the register."
As he turned back to the desk he heard another thud as something else hit the floor. Gritting his teeth he picked up his register and decided to ignore it.
* * *
Once Harry was sure he had all the students he was supposed to have, he led them over to the broom shed. It was the moment of truth.
"Right then, I want you each to take a broom and follow me," he said and opened the door to the shed.
Under his watchful eye they all piled in one by one to pick up the rather ratty-looking broomsticks. There was some shoving to get to the best brooms, but in Harry's opinion they were all a much of a muchness.
Someone really needed to go through and service the whole lot or replace them, but just at the moment they were all they had to work with. Once each pupil had a broom and he had extracted the small Gryffindor boy the Slytherins had seen fit to bury under a pile of spare broom handles (some things would never change), he led them towards the practice flying ground.
"Two lines," he said quickly as they milled around in the open space, "facing each other. Put your brooms on the ground under your wand hand and then wait."
The milling continued as the class jostled for position, and Harry began to think that maybe he'd have to borrow Madame Hooch's whistle. It was amazing how actually taking a class suddenly made him sympathise with the woman far more than he ever had.
"Now," he barked and suddenly there was life in the pupils. "Thank you," he said as everyone finally stilled.
It was not a surprise to find that all the Slytherins were on one side and the Gryffindors on the other, but he chose to ignore this for the moment.
"Now your first job is to connect with your broom," Harry continued, doing his best to appear supremely confident. "Put your hand out over the broom handle and concentrating on it, say 'up' very firmly."
As they moved to obey there was a cacophony of 'up's. Only two pupils' brooms jumped obediently into their hands.
"Miss Meadows, Mr Spagnal, very good," he praised, "five points to Gryffindor and five points to Slytherin."
Spagnal, the Slytherin in question, appeared flabbergasted that possibly the most famous Gryffindor on the planet had just awarded him house points.
"Don't look so surprised, Mr Spagnal," Harry said as his eyes moved around the rest of the class to see how they were doing, "the only place I play house favourites is on the Quidditch pitch, and that's only when I'm spectating."
Within a minute or so most of the class had their brooms in their hands, but there were three who seemed to be having trouble. Walking over to a very short Slytherin girl who was glaring at her broom as if it had insulted her parentage, Harry let down his barriers slightly to see if he could figure out what was wrong.
What he could see in most cases was a magical connection between pupil and broom, initiated by the charms on the magical objects. What he saw in this instance was a tendril of magic actively repelling the broom, which rather explained why it was squirming around on the ground as if it wished to get away.
"Miss Sellby, your frustration is repelling the flying charm," he said quietly, moving closer to the girl. "Try and relax and think of the broom as a dog; you want to command it, but not frighten it away."
"A dog?" the girl asked dubiously.
Harry nodded sagely, hoping that the hair-brained idea that had just come to him might actually work. It had just popped into his head and had seemed like a good plan when he had started saying it.
Very seriously the girl put her hand out again and frowned in concentration, which was of course what had been her trouble in the first place.
"You could always think of a snake if it makes it any easier," he whispered in her ear before she had a chance to try and command her broom.
That made her giggle and Harry could not help but smile as the repelling magic dissipated.
"Up," she commanded and the broom jumped into her hand.
"Good," he patted her on the shoulder and moved on to the Gryffindor on the other side who still had his broom on the ground.
While he had been dealing with Miss Sellby, the other Gryffindor who had been having trouble had managed to coax his broom into life.
"Mr Wiles," Harry greeted quietly as the boy looked around and became aware that he was the only one with his broom not in his hand, "I promise it will not bite."
The boy did not appear to believe him as the child continued to eye the broom warily.
"Muggle raised, right?" Harry asked conversationally, and Wiles nodded hesitantly.
Before he could continue there was snickering from the sub-group of Slytherins.
"Stupid Mudblood," he heard and his reaction was instant.
He whirled on the group, easily identifying the boy who had spoken, and even if he did say so himself, carried off a fair impression of Professor McGonagall when one of her pupils had done something incredibly stupid, life threatening and insulting all at the same time.
"Fifty points from Slytherin," Harry did not yell, but his voice carried like a knife across the courtyard. "Mr Tainer get out of my class and do not return until you have a civil tongue in your head. You will go straight to Professor Snape and you will explain to him how you embarrassed his house on your very first day. Do I make myself very clear?"
The boy almost cowered, dropped his broom and ran back towards the school entrance, and all of his friends had gone horribly white.
[Is everything all right?] Draco's concerned voice filtered into his head and Harry realised he was still glaring at the Slytherins.
[Yes,] he replied quickly, shaking himself out of the anger he was feeling, [nothing I couldn't handle. Sorry to alarm you. One of the Slytherins decided to call one of the Gryffindors a Mudblood and I think I just scared him into civility.]
[You'll have to show me later,] his soulmate replied in an amused tone. [And there I thought I would be the one with the reputation.]
The link dropped back again and Harry turned back to his floundering pupil with a smile on his face.
"Sorry about that, Mr Wiles," he said pleasantly as the boy looked at him in shock, "now where were we? Ah yes, I was Muggle raised myself, and I can understand how all these magical things can be a little intimidating. The secret is not to be afraid and to show them who is boss; can't have the appliances dictating to us, can we?"
That drew the first glimmer of a smile from the boy and Harry knew he would have them all flying sooner rather than later.
Of course once he got them all in the air his troubles would really start.
