Remedial History

Chapter One: Mr. Newt

The Remedial History of Magic class had only seven students.

Theodore Nott, the last to arrive, slid into an empty seat on the left-hand side of the classroom, several rows behind the other two boys from his House, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. He hoped this was far enough away to discourage them from using him as a punching bag, as they sometimes did to work off the tension after remedial classes.

In the center of the room were two serious-looking Hufflepuff girls who also turned up in classes like this on a regular basis. Theo thought they were called Anna Horton and Polly Pritchard, but he was never very good at keeping students from the other Houses straight, and Professor Binns' habit of getting everyone's name wrong threw him into a state of utter confusion. Anyway, they were Muggle-born and therefore unimportant.

And two Gryffindors sat on the right side of the room. Neville Longbottom, who had cost Slytherin the House Cup at the end of Theo's first year, and - Theo looked at the last student in surprise. Why was he in this class?

In five years of school, Theo had never spoken to Harry Potter, but like all Hogwarts students he knew him by reputation. Potter wasn't meant to be clever exactly - not like Theo's best friend, Blaise Zabini - but he was the sort of person who did things. Theo, on the other hand, mentally classified himself as the kind of person things happened to. It was the second category of student who inevitably turned up in remedial classes.

Theo didn't have much time to consider this mystery. Professor Binns drifted into the classroom, looking pale, translucent, and very dead as always. Theo had never quite lost his nervousness around most of the Hogwarts ghosts, but by now he was used to the History of Magic teacher, who never did anything unexpected.

The professor began taking roll. "Mr. Letterhead..." (he meant Longbottom) "Mr. Blotter ... Miss Horsemeat ... Miss Pitchfork ... Mr. Cramp ... Mr. Gargoyle ... Mr. Newt." Theo raised his hand a fraction of an inch when this last name was called.

For the next hour there was no sound except the steady drone of Professor Binns' voice, the scraping of quills on parchment, and a few snores from Longbottom, who had fallen asleep almost immediately. Theo was not asleep, but nevertheless he couldn't remember much about the class when it was finally over, except that it had something to do with goblins and all the dates had been very long ago. He always looked forward to History of Magic because it gave him an opportunity to relax, unlike his other classes. You had to be careful in Herbology because so many of the plants had dangerous spines or tentacles - and Care of Magical Creatures was even worse - his grades in Divination were all right because he was good at imagining horrors, but he could never manage to forget them after he left the classroom - he was lousy at Transfiguration and Professor McGonagall's sharp tongue terrified him - all the constellations looked alike to him in Astronomy - he was always making mistakes in Potions as well, but at least Professor Snape was usually too busy sniping at the Gryffindors to bother with Theo. He was Theo's own Head of House, but he had never taken much interest in him. He was interested in Draco Malfoy, and very interested in Blaise. Theo worked very hard at being uninteresting. When Professor Snape did notice him, the results were never pleasant.

And Defence Against the Dark Arts kept Theo in a permanent state of anxiety. Almost as soon as he got used to one teacher, a new one would come along and throw everything off balance. He had been most comfortable with Professors Quirrell, Lockhart, and Umbridge, who had all ignored him most of the time. The other two had confounded him by having expectations of him.

Their third-year teacher had a kind face, but he didn't seem to know how to behave properly. For one thing, he usually looked vaguely amused at something, and Theo was never sure what was so funny. And he had invited Theo into his office for tea once, which was something normal professors never did, and talked to him almost as if he were an adult. It had been a strange conversation that filled Theo's head with questions that didn't appear to have any right answers. Also, he'd finished off the year by turning out to have been a werewolf the whole time. Theo found this unsettling.

Their fourth-year teacher had a habit of shouting "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" at random moments, making Theo jump, and he often kept the Slytherins after class for ... extra lessons. Lessons that scared Theo. Fortunately Blaise was the only one who got singled out for extra extra lessons, and Blaise didn't mind. "He's up to something," he said coolly, "and I don't think he's exactly what he seems, but I came here to learn, and he teaches."

That was how Blaise summed up all their professors. He respected the ones who taught and openly sneered at the ones who didn't. Theo, who had been raised to defer to adults, found his friend's attitude both shocking and liberating.

Professor Binns was definitely not one of the Ones Who Taught. At the end of the hour, Theo felt no smarter than before.

He waited a safe interval after Crabbe and Goyle left the room. Potter and Longbottom hung back as well, talking to each other in undertones. Theo fidgeted and spent an excessively long time gathering up his schoolbooks so he wouldn't have to face the awkwardness of speaking with them. Gryffindors were not friendly to Slytherins; this was one of the unspoken laws of Hogwarts that Theo took for granted.

He patted the pocket where Buffy, his toad, was sleeping. Toads had gone out of fashion years ago, but Theo was fond of her anyway. His family couldn't afford a cat or an owl, and his father owned a shop called the Happy Hippogriff Dead Rat Emporium, which meant Theo had seen quite enough of rats by the time he was old enough for a pet of his own. His dad's job was one of the many things that made Draco Malfoy and his gang laugh at Theo - because another unspoken law, at least among the Slytherins, was that you were only worth as much as your family. The very best people had parents who didn't work at all, like Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, but the next best thing was having family members high up in the Ministry. Mr. Zabini, for instance, was poised to become the next Canadian Minister of Magic - which was almost, but not quite, impressive enough to make people overlook the fact that Blaise's mother was not Mrs. Zabini.

Theo calculated that Crabbe and Goyle should be well out of range by now. He slung his sack of books over one shoulder and slouched out of the room. His footsteps echoed on the stones worn smooth by fifty generations of students. A gust of chilly air from an open window made the candle flames flicker, and he paused for a moment to watch the Forbidden Forest sway in the wind. Autumn had come early this year.

Halfway through the long trek to the Slytherin common room, he stopped and froze at the sound of Crabbe and Goyle's voices just around a bend in the corridor. They were waiting to jump him.

Theo turned and walked rapidly in the opposite direction. There wasn't anywhere else to go, so he wandered back toward the empty classroom.

Potter and Longbottom were still in the hallway. They were talking to ... That was weird. What was their third-year Defence Against the Dark Arts professor doing here?

Theo concealed himself in one of the many niches in the wall, behind a statue of Uric the Oddball, and strained to hear. He wouldn't have been able to explain why he wanted to overhear their conversation; it was just what he did. His father and his older sister Medea were strict in other ways, but they had never discouraged him from listening behind doors and around corners. At the age of sixteen, he had eavesdropping down to a fine art. It was his one talent.

"Believe it or not, she isn't," Professor Lupin was saying. "She seems to have taken it into her head that I am ... destined to inflict myself upon some unfortunate young lady. Matrimonially, I mean, not in the sense of attacking her."

"She predicted you were going to get married?" said Potter incredulously. "I thought she only did disasters."

"That depends on how you define a disaster. From the woman's point of view, I imagine it would be one. But yes, Sybill seems to be branching out these days. She says I'm also going to become head of the British Archives of Magic, and I forget what else, but it sounded quite pleasant, really. I must thank you for telling me she was fond of sherry. I brought her a couple of bottles, and I think that's why she's taken to me so much."

"Are you sure she isn't hitting on you?" Longbottom blurted out.

"She isn't doing anything of the sort," Lupin protested, sounding as if he were trying not to laugh.

"How do you know?"

"Because ... Well, she has an admirer of her own, and she seems to return his affections."

"Professor Trelawney has an admirer? Who is it?" asked Potter.

Theo inclined his head as far forward as he dared. This conversation had turned out to be worth hearing.

"The editor of the Quibbler."

"Luna's dad?" said Potter. "She told me once that he was interested in werewolf rights."

"Well - put it this way. His intentions are good. But he seems to have decided that I am some sort of poster child and he keeps pestering me for interviews - he's written an extremely melodramatic book called Hairy Snout, Human Heart which is riddled with mistakes, and he wants me to take credit for it - and to cap it all off, he can't actually spell 'werewolf.'"

Theo wasn't sure what phase the moon was in, but it occurred to him that hanging out in an empty corridor with a werewolf wasn't necessarily the safest way to spend the evening. At least Crabbe and Goyle never had fangs.

He slipped out of the niche and hurried back to his own dormitory.

* * *

The other Slytherin boys in his year were still in the common room, which suited Theo just fine. They seemed to be discussing something intently, and they barely looked up as Theo passed through on his way to the dorm. He threw himself on his bed and began doing his homework.

A voice from the two-way mirror on his dressing table called "Theodore Nott!" Theo sighed and picked up the mirror. "Hi, Medea," he said.

"How are your classes?" said his older sister without preamble.

"Fine. All pretty normal, except our first Defence Against the Dark Arts class was cancelled. The sign on the door said it was because of technical difficulties."

Theo knew from previous experience that Medea would want to know about anything new or strange. Bits and pieces of the last few days flashed through his mind as he looked into his sister's eyes in the mirror. Potions ... Transfiguration ... Divination. Well, there was something out of the ordinary about Divination: All of the Slytherins were in Professor Firenze's class this term.

"That's odd," Blaise had commented. "The other houses are all split up - third, fifth, and seventh years with Trelawney, and the others with Firenze."

"Are you complaining?" Theo asked. Blaise had never made any secret of the fact that he thought Sybill Trelawney was an incompetent fraud.

"No. Just think it's funny, that's all."

Blaise didn't have a high opinion of Professor Firenze either, but Theo enjoyed his classes in a vague way. It was comforting, somehow, to have one subject where nobody was expected to know the answers.

Theo's mind flashed forward to their first class this year, which he described for his sister. The students lay on the floor of the classroom and gazed up at the star-studded ceiling as the centaur began to speak. "It takes many years for centaurs to become proficient at reading the wisdom of nature, and some of the stars' secrets are hidden even from the wisest of our kind. However, the angles of the stars and planets at this time have certain strongly marked features that nearly always suggest a definite meaning. They portend an age of division, a time when love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. Discord, mutiny, and treason are on the ascendant; the bonds of kinship crack; sons make war on fathers, and fathers against children."

Theo snickered, remembering Blaise's comment on this speech. "What a load of dung," he had said through the corner of his mouth. "Nice convenient way for people not to take responsibility for their own behavior, isn't it? 'Oh, I didn't pick a fight with my brother, the moons of Saturn made me do it.' 'Sorry I had to betray you - planetary influence is a bitch sometimes.' 'Well, we need someone to take the fall, so let's blame everything on Uranus.'"

Medea didn't seem to appreciate Blaise's sense of humor. "Has anything else ... unusual happened since the beginning of term?" she asked sharply. As if she were reading his mind, she added, "Have you seen anyone in the school who shouldn't be here?"

Theo told her about the conversation he had overheard in the corridor that evening.

She listened intently but didn't comment. "Good night, Theodore," she said when he had finished. "Study hard and stay out of trouble."

He'd got off easy this time, he thought. Usually she asked many more questions; he had expected to be pumped for gossip about the staff members, personal details about other students, a short summary of Professor Dumbledore's opening-of-term speech. Thanks to her brother, Medea Nott knew more about Hogwarts than most of the current students.

Theo never concerned himself with why she wanted to know these things. In his experience, the safest way to deal with adults was to keep his head low and give them whatever they wanted.

* * *

Blaise also seemed curious about the incident in the corridor. "I'm going to ask Snape what he's doing here," he said.

"No, don't tell him," Theo pleaded. Any mention of Professor Lupin usually put their Head of House in an indescribably foul mood. It was easy for Blaise to say he'd ask questions; he was the one student whom the Potions Master showed signs of genuinely liking.

Theo had become adept at reading adults' emotions in years of trying to slip under their radar, and he knew beyond a doubt that Professor Snape did not like Draco Malfoy and his crowd, for all he favored them and handed out house points to them at every opportunity. But Theo had seen him watching Blaise with a sort of fierce tenderness that reminded him of the way his father looked at Medea, although he hardly ever called on Blaise in class or drew attention to him. Professor Snape was a puzzle.

Students from the other Houses often wondered why Theo and Blaise were friends. They were both dark-haired, and these days they were almost the same height, but the resemblances ended there. Theo was still unused to the six inches he'd grown during the past year; people usually described him as stringy or weedy, and he carried himself awkwardly. Blaise was the good-looking, graceful one, and even after five years at school in Britain, his accent intrigued girls. Theo had noticed both of the Greengrass sisters eyeing him hopefully. And Blaise could crack jokes other people found funny, and talk to strangers without getting nervous and stumbling over his words, and do well in his classes without studying.

But it was no mystery to the Slytherins why they stuck together. Neither of them fit in with the others.

For a few days last spring, after Theo's father was arrested at the Department of Mysteries, he had felt a brief moment of solidarity with the other sixth-year boys, but it didn't last. Draco Malfoy's father received a light sentence for trespassing and was out of prison in a matter of weeks. Jephthah Nott, along with several of the other men, broke out of Azkaban just before Theo returned to school. His cheeks were hollow and he walked with more of a stoop than before; he refused to speak about his experiences. Vincent Crabbe's father was still in prison. In the end, the class distinctions and social rivalries that marked the House of Slytherin had changed little - and Blaise, a foreigner who made no secret of his contempt for Malfoy, continued to hold himself aloof.

* * *

In Potions class on the following day, Theo forgot to add the dragon scales to his Restorative Potion, which turned bright pink and sticky. As usual, as soon as he made the first mistake, he got nervous and ended up spilling the cauldron's contents all over the floor. He tried to use a Vanishing Charm before anyone noticed, but the pink stuff stuck fast.

Professor Snape contemplated the damage. "You seem to have inadvertently produced a stomach remedy, Nott. Pity you didn't leave any in the cauldron to combat the nausea that your incompetence usually induces. See me after class."

Theo trembled as he approached the professor's desk. Argus Filch came in to scrub the pink substance off the floor, grumbling to himself all the while.

"Pay close attention to Mr. Filch's methods, Nott. Unless your work improves immeasurably over the next two years, that will be your job after you leave school." Professor Snape settled into his chair and lowered his voice. "Blaise Zabini told me a very peculiar story about a conversation you witnessed in the corridor last night. Tell me exactly what you saw and heard, and do not omit a word."

Theo told him.

"So ... he risks everything for gossip with his teenage fan club," Snape muttered. (Theo was confused until he realized Snape had to be talking about Professor Lupin. He'd never had a teenage fan club, himself.) "Every time I think he has attained the height of foolhardiness, he continues to astound me." He looked sharply at Theo. "You will not tell anyone else about what happened last night, even your own family. Is that understood?"

Theo wasn't about to mention that he'd told his sister already. "Yes, sir," he said, avoiding his Head of House's eyes. To his relief, Professor Snape released him. He bolted through the underground tunnel that led to the Slytherin common room.

The room was filled with a dim greenish light from the lamps that hung from the low stone ceiling. Blaise, who was already stretched out in his favorite chair by the fireplace, waved to him. Theo ignored him and settled into a private nook at the other end of the room. He felt annoyed that Blaise hadn't kept his mouth shut; his friend's most frustrating characteristic was his need to poke his nose into everything. Besides, Draco Malfoy was also sitting by the fire, and Theo always tried to avoid Draco.

He tried to get a head start on his homework for Monday's classes, but he found it hard to concentrate on the reading assignment for Transfiguration. The words seemed to blur together on the page. It was a relief when Tracey Davis interrupted him.

Tracey had brown hair and freckles. Theo liked her when she wasn't being Pansy Parkinson's best friend. This position seesawed between Tracey and Daphne Greengrass, and the girl who held it at the moment was usually less than friendly to everyone outside of their clique. The fourth girl in their year, Millicent Bulstrode, was excluded from Pansy's social circle, but she was a very aggressive person who had no difficulty being unfriendly all by herself.

"Could I talk to you in private for a sec, Theo? I wanted to ask you something."

Theo's heart beat fast. Was she about to invite him to the Three Broomsticks or something? No, that couldn't be it; their first Hogsmeade weekend was almost two months away.

"Draco and Pansy are starting a secret organization," Tracey said. "It's just for people like us - purebloods - and they want as many people to join as possible, so we've all got to bring a guest to the next meeting. I was wondering if you'd be mine."

Theo was both flattered and suspicious. He remembered the time Daphne had asked him to the Yule Ball, and then laughed in his face when he said yes. That had been Draco and Pansy's idea too. But Tracey wouldn't do that. Tracey was his friend - most of the time.

"C'mon, we're all going," she said, seeing him hesitate. "Even Millicent - Goyle invited her. And Draco's just asked Blaise."

"Blaise said yes?" Draco had occasionally tried to befriend Blaise ever since their first year, but Blaise responded to his advances with polite disdain.

"Of course I did," said Blaise, who had come up behind them almost silently. "It'll be a laugh, seeing Malfoy try to run a secret society, and it wouldn't be much fun hanging out in the common room by ourselves, would it?"

Actually, Theo thought he and Blaise, and maybe Tracey, could have had a lot of fun hanging out in the common room by themselves - but if the others were all going... "All right," he said.

"We're going to meet at eight o'clock on Tuesday night," said Tracey. "Draco knows a place - he says it's called the Come and Go Room. It's up on the seventh floor, opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy."

"You'll have to help me out - I'm in remedial history, remember?" said Theo. "Who's Barnabas the Barmy?"

Blaise laughed. "You can't miss it. He's the one giving trolls ballet lessons."