Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Did you hear?”  Hermoine hissed across her desk at Harry.  “We’ve got a new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher!”

               Harry rolled his eyes.  “Don’t we always?”

               “It’s not Snape, is it?” asked Ron, shooting the girl a pleading glance.

               “No.  I’m not sure who it is, but it’s not Snape.  It’s supposed to be a foreign wizard of some kind, but I didn’t hear where exactly…”

               The door BOOMED open.  Half the class turned to behold a weathered old man hidden behind a tangled grey beard and an enormous pointed hat.  He was clad in a mud-spattered, bedraggled cloak, and leant heavily on the oak staff at his side.

               For a moment silence hung over the scene, until Draco Malfoy decided to make the worst mistake of his life.  “The beggars entrance is over on the South side of…”

               “Beggar!” snorted the old man.  “Beggar indeed!  I’ll beggar you, if it comes to that, young man.  What’s your name?”  He demanded, striding over to Malfoy’s desk and towering over it.  “Come, speak up!”

               It appeared Draco had an irrepressible suicidal instinct today.  “I don’t see how it’s any of your business, but I’m Draco Malfoy, and when my father hears of how you’ve spoken to me…”

               “When your father hears of it he’d better bloody well accept it, or the thrashing I’m about to give you will be nothing to the one I give him!”  And, just like that, the old man gave Malfoy several sharp raps on his head with the enormous staff.  “There!”  He nodded, satisfied.  “Report to my office after hours, Mr. Malfoy!”

               “Office?” groaned Malfoy, hands rubbing his aching skull.

               Harry blinked as realization set in.

               “Office!” demanded the old man.  “Don’t know what I’ll use the bloody place for, but I’m supposed to meet students in it, or so they tell me.  Small, cramped space.  Got a little gold plate on the door, reads ‘Professor Gandalf’ on it.”

               Ron was gaping.  “Y-y-you’re… our new… professor?”

               “Of course.”  Professor Gandalf seemed a trifle mollified.  “What else should I be doing here?  You ARE the Defense against Dark Arts class, aren’t you?”

               The class seemed divided as to whether they should admit this or not, but the majority nodded.

               For a long moment, Professor Gandalf studied the class.  “All of you children…” he muttered, as if to himself.  “Well.  I AM Gandalf, and Gandalf means me!  Pah!  To think I should live to be tutor to a pile of wet-eared children, as if magic were something that could be taught rather than learnt…  But nonetheless I shall be, or at least am supposed to be, teaching you how to defend against the Dark Arts.  Now, please… what is that?”

               Neville Longbottom gulped nervously under Professor Gandalf’s penetrating glare.  “It’s, er, it’s, er, it’s my…”

               “It’s WHAT?”  Impatiently, Gandalf swept up the offending article and dangled it in front of his eye, stroking his beard thoughtfully.  “A quill?  A baton?  Some kind of… good luck charm?”

               “It’s… it’s… it’s my wand, sir.”  Neville managed.

               Gandalf merely lifted a bushy eyebrow.  “Wand?  And what should you need a wand for, my good boy?”

               This time the question seemed merely to confuse Neville.  “Um… to do magic with?”

               “What?  With this?  Bah.”  Turning, Gandalf threw the magical weapon over his back shoulder, oblivious to Neville’s cry of alarm.  “This, my good boy, is not what one uses for making magic.  No…”  Sweeping back his cloak, he brought up his staff and thumped it on the floor.  “…THIS is.”

               The sky outside suddenly grew dark.  Thunder boomed across the landscape and Professor Gandalf loomed large and terrible in the sudden gloom.  An unexpected crackle of lightning lit the classroom, etching the scene in stark black and white—the students, the desks, and the grim old man in the tattered cloak with the enormous staff.

               And then the storm was gone and the sun was shining through the open windows again.  “Now,” continued the professor cheerfully, as if nothing had happened.  “Perhaps we should begin lessons for today.  If you would all draw your swords and proceed to the front… yes?”

               Vincent Crabbe had cautiously raised his hand.  “Ah… supposing we don’t have a sword here, sir?”

               “What!  No sword!?”  The professor stamped up the row toward Crabbe, students shrinking from his path.  “Your name, sir?”

               “C-C-Crabbe, sir…”

               “Then take that, Mr. Crabbe!”  And Professor Gandalf once again fetched the boy several sharp raps against his head.

               “Er… sir…”  Hermoine, against her better judgment, spoke up.  “Generally students are given demerits for bad… behavior…”  She faltered in the face of Gandalf’s glare.  “Um… what I meant was…. Were swords on the syllabus?”

               Gandalf’s bushy eyebrows knit in puzzlement.  “Syllabus?”

               “It’s just that… well, I didn’t bring a sword.”

               “Me neither,” said Ron quickly, backing up Hermoine.  “Never even held one.”

               Harry couldn’t leave his friends alone.  “Um… I’ve held one before… but I didn’t actually bring one to class.”

               Once the famous Harry Potter had confessed, the rest of the class felt justified in their lack of weaponry and hastened to make the same confession.

               “What?  NONE of you brought a sword?”  Professor Gandalf threw his hands up in exasperation.  “How could you not bring a sword?  A sword is the most basic, most elementary form of defense against the Dark Arts!  Any idiot knows enough to bring a sword!  Why don’t you?”

               “Because… we’re not idiots?”  Ron ventured.  “Wizards don’t need swords… do they?”  He glanced about for support.

               “Indeed!” snorted the old man.  “And tell me, Master Wizard, how would YOU deal with a horde of goblins?  Smack it with your wand?”  He spat out the last word.  “Or what if you had to deal with a pack of wargs, what would you do then, hm?  Or supposing you ran into a thirty-foot spider…”

               “I’ve met one of those, actually.”  Harry heard himself say.

               “Have you?”  Professor Gandalf turned and regarded him with something approaching interest.  “And how did you kill it?”

               Trying to ignore Ron’s shocked yelp, Harry shrugged and answered, “We just, uh… talked to it.  We didn’t actually… kill it, you know.  It’s still out in the woods.”

               Suddenly Professor Gandalf wasn’t the only one staring at Harry.  There was a long, slow silence as everyone digested the revelation of a gigantic arachnid in the adjoining woods.

               “Field trip, class!” announced Professor Gandalf, raising his staff.  “We shall venture forth to the forest and slay this evil beast that Mr… Potter, right? has so lamentably left unchallenged.  A short stop by the armory, perhaps, to acquaint you all with swords.”

               “Hang on, the spider’s not evil!” Ron protested.

               “What’s that?”  Gandalf threw Ron a withering glare.  “Don’t speak foolishness, boy.  ALL spiders are evil.  Thirty-foot tall ones more so than most.”

               Harry couldn’t exactly bring himself to disagree—the spider HAD just about left Ron and he trapped in the forest—but at the same time he felt that Hagrid would object to such a field trip.  As would most of the students, for that matter.  There were a great many white faces and sweaty brows evident around the classroom.

               “Sir.”  He began carefully.  “We have… ah… a wizard in the school who… already takes care of those things.”  Brilliance hit him.  “Yes.”  He continued, as Gandalf leveled a glare at him.  “Yes, we have a wizard at Hogwarts specifically trained to handle any dangerous beasts and spiders in the schools ground.  I believe he’s already dealt with the… ah… spider.”

               Professor Gandalf studied him sharply for a few moments, and Harry had the uncomfortable impression that the man saw through the little deception.  Then he turned away with a snort, and Harry felt himself relax.  “Bah.  Very well.  Far be it from me to meddle in the affairs of other wizards.”  He stormed back up to the front, grumbling.  “A pretty state of affairs, this.  No swords, no proper staffs, and no proper knowledge of thirty-foot spiders.”  Rounding on the podium, he swept the room with a fiery glare.  “Call yourselves wizards, do you?  I wouldn’t be seen traipsing around the Shire with the best of you, that’s all I can say.” 

He fumbled in his cloak for a moment and brought out a pipe, which lit itself as he stuck it into his mouth.  No one, even Hermoine, dared to mention the school’s policy on smoking.  Instead, they sat in terrified silence as Professor Gandalf sucked moodily on his pipe, sending the occasional smoke ring amongst them.

“There’s one thing I have to say,” muttered the new professor at length, sending a last, brilliantly green smoke ring dodging through the candlesticks.  “And that is, if this affair continues, I will fail you all.  Do you hear me?” He roared, starting to his feet.  “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”