Defence Against the Dark Creature

Chapter Four

Remus woke up to the faint sound of music behind his door. He strained his ears; a string quartet, allegro ma non troppo?

He opened his eyes blearily and, remembering where he was, gazed around the room. It looked just as cosy as it had last night. A soft breeze was coming through the open window, and he got up and glanced down over the garden.

Two weeks ago, he had taken a walk through it with Charlotte and had remarked to her how pleasantly wild it looked. He had never seen so many different plants in one place: palm-trees, Japanese cherry trees, wild rose-bushes, hyacinths... it looked as though someone had just thrown together all the plants and flowers they liked, regardless of the environment or of conventions. Charlotte had laughed, and exclaimed, `Well, that´s exactly what we did!´ Apparently everyone had `contributed´ the plant they liked best. The different choices of all the children and teachers made for an interesting mix. And apparently, all the plants had been charmed into flowering all year.

He yawned. Despite the fresh air, the comfortable bed and the relaxing evening before, he hadn´t slept too well. But then, he rarely did. A nice warm shower and a cup of coffee will do wonders. Walking over to the bathroom, he passed the door to the common room and paused for a moment, tilting his head. Haydn, perhaps...

Showered and dressed, and feeling much more civil, he entered the teacher´s common room and found Charlotte sitting in an armchair with her eyes closed, in front of a breakfast table set for six. The allegro was nearing its end, and the cello was playing what sounded like the beginning of an adagio, when it was joined by a lute. A lute?

"Rousset!" he exclaimed.

Charlotte started, her eyes springing open. At the sight of him, she smiled and gestured to the armchair next to her, decreasing the volume with a flick of her wand at the same time.

"Yes, Rousset. De l´héritage confondue. Bit of a standard piece, I know."

Remus sat down. "Actually I´ve never heard it." At her incredulous look, he added, "I´ve only read about it. He was the first one to combine Muggle and wizarding instruments, wasn´t he?"

Charlotte grinned. "Yes. That piece," she jerked her thumb upwards, "is actually quite legendary. Some say he even played it to contemporary Muggle composer Haydn." She laughed at Remus´ raised eyebrows. "Apparently the poor man needed a bit of time to recover from the shock of seeing a lute hanging in mid-air and playing all by itself."

Remus laughed, and Charlotte tilted her head. "So, did you sleep well?"

He nodded. It wasn´t a question he was required to reply truthfully to. "The room´s very nice."

"Well, it´s not much." Again that apologetic tone! Remus quickly opened his mouth to assure her that it was, indeed, more than enough for him, when the door leading to the staircase opened.

The short, plump woman who entered was in her forties - and dressed in jeans and a T shirt. For a moment, she and Remus looked at each other, equally surprised, then, following his gaze, she looked down at her clothes.

"Well you can´t expect me to put on that cloak with those temperatures we have outside!" Her remark broke off as suddenly as it had come, and she now looked shocked at having spoken so boldly.

"I´m Constance Jennings," she said, more timidly, approaching him awkwardly with an outstretched hand. Remus stood up and shook it, smiling.

"Remus Lupin. What about a light version of Frigido?"

She blinked. "Pardon?" Then, suddenly, realisation dawned on her face. "Oh! Frigid!" She looked over at Charlotte. "Some sort of Freezing Charm, I assume?"

Charlotte nodded, and smiled at the puzzlement on Remus´ face. They sat down, and Constance addressed Remus.

"You´re the new teacher, I suppose?" Remus nodded.

"Well, it´s nice to meet you," Constance said. "I´ve heard a few things about you." Heard a few things? Is that why she´s... "You, apparently, haven´t heard of me yet," Constance continued, and Remus shook his head, wondering where this was leading.

"No, Charlotte just told me that you´re the Muggle Studies teacher."

Constance nodded, her attitude still a weird mixture of confidence and shyness. "Well, you should know then that I´m not only the teacher of that subject, I´m also... sort of... its object."

"Of course, ignore my comment about the Frigido then," he said, trying to adjust quickly to the situation before it became even more embarrassing. "I´m sorry, I´ve just never heard of a wizarding school with a--"

"Muggle teacher," Constance filled in, smiling now. "You can say the word, I won´t run screaming."

"You´ll have to excuse our new professor," said an unpleasantly familiar voice from behind Remus, and he turned around to see Pablo Gómez standing in the doorway to his quarters, looking at Remus with that indefinable, closed expression. His tone was deceivingly neutral. "He´s just never heard of a wizarding school that has to resort to hiring Muggles."

The room´s temperature seemed to have dropped a few degrees from the moment the Transfiguration teacher spoke. He moved over to a chair and sat down without another word, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Charlotte smiled and cocked her head at him, as if he were teasing a good friend.

"Any offence to present Muggles unintended, of course," she said. Gómez looked at her, looked over to Constance, nodded without smiling, and helped himself to some bread.

Charlotte smiled vaguely at the other two. Remus made sure not to show any outward reaction, as he felt Constance looking at him, probably trying to see what he thought of the other man´s behaviour. He had no intention of creating a bad atmosphere between them from the start.

Charlotte, as usual, engaged everyone in small talk, and after a short while Madam O´Connor joined them -Angela, Remus reminded himself- and sat down in the chair next to Constance.

"Do we wait for Teri?" she asked, checking her watch before turning hungry eyes to the breakfast table again. "She's late."

Charlotte shrugged. "I suppose she's stuck with Babbling Barry again," she said, and all three women laughed. Gómez raised his eyebrows, looking sour, but said nothing. Remus looked inquiringly at Charlotte, but the Matron started explaining it herself.

"Babbling Barry is the man responsible for the Floo and Portkey Station in Salem, Massachusetts," she said. "That's where Teri lives, and Barry's office is where she has to pass four times a week."

"Apparently, the good man is one of those unfortunate people who like to hear themselves talk," Charlotte added, grinning.

Remus nodded gravely. "Ah yes, I know that sort all too well." The women chuckled, and Remus decided to ask questions later. He had so many questions, and they were increasing by the minute - how Charlotte had come to know a witch from the other side of the world was one of them.

"Now, we can have a look at the timetables," Charlotte said, when they had been eating quietly for a while and the fifth teacher still hadn't appeared. "Nothing changes for Teri anyway." She handed a slip of parchment to everyone, and Remus studied his silently. It was a detailed timetable, not just listing his classes, but all of them. The children only appeared to have classes for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, and they seemed to be divided into two groups. Yet it appeared that he was teaching Defence four times a week.

"Cha-" he looked up and broke off, seeing that Charlotte had already been waiting for him to finish and smiled. "A few explanations, Remus. We've divided the kids up into two classes, depending on age, level and experience. You'll find that group one -hang on... you're teaching them Monday afternoon- has less experienced, but not necessarily younger students. The Kolnikov brothers are in group one, for instance, while Sofie Bradley and Samuel Harris are in the other group. You'll meet them tomorrow. Sofie's 12, and Samuel 14, but they're both very advanced. Two of our most studious, most ambitious students in fact." She handed him another slip of parchment. "Here, I've copied down the distribution for you."

Remus quickly glanced at the different names, a part of his brain registering the information (María Aciano, the shy little girl from Chile, was in the first group, while her two friends, or protectors? were in the second, he wondered whether that was such a good idea?), the other part still swarming with questions about the timetable.

"So both groups have Defence twice a week?" he asked, looking again at the timetable. "And Transfiguration and Muggle Studies too, as I see."

Gómez looked up at him. "We don't have many classes, in case you haven't noticed, Lupin," he said, his voice low. "So there's time left during the week. Transfiguration is an essential subject and can't be taught often enough."

"So, of course, are the others," Charlotte continued, looking slightly sour at Gómez' implied suggestion that her subjects weren't as important. "But I had to set priorities. The children haven't been taught Defence for two years now, and they have a lot of catching up to do. I'd like them to have double Charms too, but Teri's only available twice a week.

"Now, as interesting as I find both Potions and History of Magic," she smiled sarcastically at Gómez, and Remus was glad to see she had regained her humour, "History isn't a priority in daily life, I'm afraid, and Potions - well, Potions poses a bit of a problem for them, as I'm sure you know."

All eyes were on him; as if they had never met an adult werewolf they could ask this question of. And so they probably hadn't, Remus thought with a bit of surprise, and nodded. "Yes, it's a bit of a strain. Two hours a week are really enough."

He suddenly remembered his first Potions lesson at Hogwarts, when he had entered the dungeon for the first time and had been met by such a horrible stench that it had almost knocked him over. Not just one smell, dozens, hundreds of different smells combined hung in that classroom, and Remus had found it one of the hardest things to force himself to walk in there and sit down, without anyone noticing his nausea.

Charlotte nodded, satisfied, but it wasn't a nod that implied she knew the experience. Neither did anyone else, Remus decided. Well, that answered that question.

"As for Muggle Studies," Charlotte continued, "it has a special importance here." She paused and looked at Constance, who turned to Remus.

"I don't know whether you ever did Muggle Studies at school?" she asked him, and he shook his head.

"I do teach them the wizarding view of Muggles," Constance explained, "Which, by the way, is fascinating." A grin flitted across her face and lingered in her eyes before vanishing. "But I also teach them how to live among Muggles; how to work electrical equipment, how to cook, wash, do housework without magic, and not least, how to dress properly. That takes up quite a bit of time."

Remus nodded slowly. That made sense - these children were being prepared for life among Muggles, since it was possible that they would never find a place in wizarding society. Something in his stomach turned. He ignored it. "Very sensible," he said instead. Constance nodded.

"So, what happens in the afternoons, from four to six?" he inquired, trying to distract the others as well as himself from his unease. "Study and homework, supervised by two teachers?"

Charlotte nodded. "As some subjects just aren't taught here yet, we try and work the basics out together. None of us is an expert in Herbology, for instance."

"Or Ancient Runes for that matter," added Angela O´Connor, and Constance chuckled. "Philip Hornby might be soon, though. He could teach the others."

"You've got to be kidding, I'll eat my broom if he ever says a word in class."

Constance shrugged. "Good point. He's not exactly a born teacher, is he?"

The Matron grinned. Gómez looked very bored indeed. "If we could get back to the matter at hand..."

Charlotte nodded, while Angela and Constance exchanged a glance; then, again looked at Remus expectantly as if to see how he would react. He ignored their little excursion, while a part of his brain memorised the details about a boy he hadn't even met yet, and he turned to Charlotte again.

"So these two hours consist of working out things together," he said.

"It's difficult to plan, though," the Headmistress said, as if she were guessing that this was an important bit of information for him. "What you do during these two hours varies depending on what interests the children most at the moment, how they're getting on with their homework, whether they have any questions about what they did in class... and sometimes, these two hours become a fairytale lesson." She leant back, winking at Constance.

Remus looked down at his timetable again. He was to work with the children on Mondays and Thursdays. He wondered what their preferences would be. One boy was apparently becoming an expert in Ancient Runes. Would they share his dislike for Divination?

He looked up again. "What happens on w-"

BAM. He had been too absorbed to hear the door opening and flinched at the sound of it slamming shut, behind a very large woman who was obviously fuming.

"That stupid, pathetic freak!" she bellowed, stamped over to where they were sitting, and fell into the remaining armchair with a groan. "I can't believe that sorry little excuse for a government official kept me for almost an hour!"

"Babbling Barry?" asked Charlotte, and Remus was surprised to see that neither she nor anyone else was smiling now, as they had before at the mention of that name.

"Oh yes," snarled the woman whose name was most probably Teri. "Foul, Stinkin' Babblin' Barry." Angela and Constance exchanged a glance again, and Charlotte looked uneasy, as if she didn't want to ask; but Teri was talking on loudly anyway.

"You know what he asked me?" She was pouring herself a cup of coffee, but her hands seemed to be shaking with anger, and Gómez quickly took the cup and mug with a consideration that Remus wouldn't have expected from him. Teri hardly seemed to notice.

"He said, 'Are yah goin' back to the little monsters again, Teri?´"

A very uncomfortable silence hung in the room, only interrupted by Teri's fast breathing. She took an obvious effort to calm herself and took a sip of her coffee. "If he hadn't been the first person in that position who's never given me any problems passing, I swear I would've-" She stopped short in mid-sentence, her eyes resting on Remus for the first time. "Who're you?"

He stared back at her for a few seconds, surprised by such an outright question. Charlotte cleared her throat. "New teacher, Teri?"

The Charms teacher stared blankly at her for a moment, then nodded. "Course. Sorry, I completely forgot about that," she said to Remus, who nodded. "Remus Lupin, isn't it? I'm Teri Longbottom."

"You were at Hogwarts before, weren't you?" she asked, in a quiet voice that seemed unusual for her. Remus nodded, and the other women looked at Teri closely, but she had started eating breakfast, obviously hungry, and her face didn´t betray any emotion.

"Good," said Teri after a quick glance at the schedule. "That should work. If I get through Barry's office, that is. Maybe I should leave the house at five in the morning? Hey-," she turned to Remus again, "are you good at flying?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Er - I used to practise with a friend who played Quidditch, but I was never particularly good at it."

"Excuse me, Teri!" said Charlotte, sounding outraged, but judging from what Remus knew of her, she was just acting. "Are you suggesting that my flying skills aren't enough to help out when you're late?"

Teri raised her eyebrows. She looked very much like Gómez at that moment. "Well I'm sorry, Charlotte, but that mid-air somersault..." She grinned, suddenly, and Constance and Angela laughed out loud.

"Right," said Charlotte briskly, clasping her hands together. "Let's get back to the actual subject of discussion - the children." She looked around. "I'm glad to say that Larry Levine has agreed to come back this year to teach María, and Rachel and Anne-Laure have expressed their interest to start learning with him too."

Angela snorted. "Well, of course they would..."

"... since the piano is just such a beautiful instrument," Constance chimed in, and both women laughed, while Pablo and Teri looked at each other with raised eyebrows and Charlotte pretended not to have heard anything.

"He will also be starting to teach Felix Rosenstrauch, who's been playing the violin for a couple of years," she continued, and this time Gómez was the first to react.

"Multi-talented man, isn't he, Levine?" he muttered, and Remus looked at him in surprise. That's got to be the first time the man makes something resembling a joke.

"Oh Pablo, you're just envious," prompted Angela, and Constance giggled again, although her look at Gómez suggested that she wouldn't have dared teasing him like that.

"If we got that settled..." said Teri, in her usual loud voice, and the laughter died down. "I've found a woman in Salem who's agreed to come here once a week and help out a little with art lessons. The name's Julie Montgomery. Don't worry," she added, seeing Charlotte's worried look, "she wants to do it free of charge, and she knows about the kids. Caring, lovable old grandmother she is."

"Excellent," Charlotte said. "As far as I know, Jun, Robert and Aimée would be very interested in lessons. Perhaps she can teach them together if she doesn't have a lot of time. Okay, what's new to report on the children?" She looked around expectantly, apparently waiting for someone to begin. Angela took up on the silent demand.

"Nikolai Kolnikov has a sprained wrist," she began. "His right one, unfortunately, so mind you don't let him write anything. Anne-Laure Dauphin," (Remus noticed with amusement that she pronounced the name 'Dough-fenn') "tried that ridiculous pimple-repelling spell again and promptly succeeded in covering her face in green blisters. They're gone now, of course, but..." She paused, looking at Teri and Pablo who were exchanging a rather amused glance.

"Yes, I thought so, you two," Angela said exasperatedly. "Try and hold yourselves back for once and don't address her about it, okay?" Teri and Pablo both stared at her accusingly, but then nodded as one.

For another half hour, they discussed various details about the children, ranging from Leonid Dimitroff's constantly snuffly nose, to Philip Hornby's obsession with Ancient Runes, Sofie Bradley's snobbish behaviour, and many other things, ending with

Later, when they were sitting back and talking about their summer holidays, when Teri was complaining loudly to Pablo about some people in Salem and Angela was explaining a Healing Charm to Constance in an equally loud voice, Charlotte moved her chair closer to Remus and bent over.

"There you are, then," she said, quietly. "I know you'd like to hear more, but I really want you to form your own opinion about them. You'll meet them tomorrow, one way or another."

"What strikes me-" Remus began to say, then stopped himself, wondering whether he should talk to her so openly; but she was looking at him expectantly, and he smiled. "What strikes me is how very similar to... well, normal children they sound, and yet how very different."

Charlotte laughed silently and leant back. "My dear Professor Lupin, you just summarised what we all have taken two years to realise."

~~~~

He was getting used to waking up in the strange room. Remus lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. The dim light coming through the window and his inner clock told him that it was far too early to be awake, but he knew he wouldn't be able to go to sleep again. He sat up, stretching tense muscles that hadn't eased during the night, thanks to another one of those dreams.

Remus got up, and his feet took him automatically to the window. He gazed over the garden and breathed in the cool air. The clock (he hadn't been able to resist looking on his way) had said six twenty-three; that wasn't so bad. He looked at his bed again, contemplating whether he should lie down again - but he frowned at once at the thought. He detested lying around and staring at ceilings, there had been too much of that in earlier years.

Making a quick decision, he got dressed, and found himself in the garden a short while later. He walked along the narrow paths, absently wondering who would choose hyacinths, as they smelt so very strongly; and finally sat down under one of the Japanese cherry trees. They were in full bloom; somehow he had the feeling they would be all year.

But still, twenty-one! He couldn't stop repeating the number to himself. A feeling of shame and guilt had been nagging at him for a while now. Why had he never, ever thought of this? How selfish he had been!

A snowy owl landed right in front of him interrupting his train of thought and patiently stuck out its leg, which had a letter attached to it. Remus took it off carefully and gave the owl a respectful pat on the beak. It hooted once, then stretched its wings and set off again, as if it knew perfectly well that the letter asked for no reply.

Remus unfolded the letter, quickly scanned the few words, and smiled, a warm feeling spreading through his body.

~~~~

Breakfast passed very slowly. Remus tried to eat as much as his nervous stomach would allow, under the gaze of twenty-one children. Thankfully, a bit of the tension was broken when Tinh Shanyong, a tiny boy sitting between Felix Rosenstrauch and Madam O´Connor, tried to eat and drink while staring at Remus and spilled half of his pumpkin juice over his jumper. Felix, a cheerful looking boy from Germany, burst out laughing, and half of the table followed suit. Most of them still threw anxious looks at Remus, and the laughter ceased very soon, but at least he knew now that they did, in fact, laugh.

All the while, he felt not only the children, but also the adults gazing at him, as if they were trying to see through his smile and find the nervous, terrified little bundle that he was. Their expectant attitude made him feel as if surviving the first day with the children equalled battling a dragon.

Half an hour later, having passed Sir Tony ("Good luck to you, Master Remus") and Hedda and Jedda ("FRIDAY´S-HERE-NOW-DO-NOT-FEAR!"), he entered his classroom to find it already occupied by a girl and boy in two of the front seats, who were both reading, quill and parchment lying neatly next to their piles of books. He wasn´t sure what their names were, although he was sure that they both started with the letter S; but when the girl looked up at him over thick spectacles and said, matter-of-factly, "Good morning, Professor", something clicked in his head. This was the infamous Sofie Bradley. And the blond boy next to her had to be Samuel Harris, who had secretly been introduced to him as Sofie´s all-time faithful study companion.

"Good morning, Sofie, Samuel," he answered, moving to his desk and taking out his book. He had, naturally, been thinking and thinking about how to organise his first lesson. The practical approach he had taken two years ago had pleased the Hogwarts third years greatly, he knew it; but there was no Boggart here, and he had no idea as to the magical abilities of the children. It was unwise to confront them with such a creature from the start when he didn´t even know whether they could handle the simplest spells. (Quite apart from that, he wasn´t even sure the Boggart would have had a hard time adapting to the respective fears of the children.)

So, he had resolved, not without a bit of hesitation, to not plan the first lesson at all; to let it happen as it would, test them on their basic abilities and answer any questions.

Sofie Bradley and Samuel Harris, the study duo, were the youngest children in the class. Rachel Fitzgerald and Karolka Wyszinski were always seen together, and came closest to resembling the normal female teenager; the giggly sort he had failed to comprehend as a boy and still found hard to work with as a teacher. They were completely different from Nora Hartfield and Jun Li, the two girls who seemed to enjoy each other´s company because neither of them talked very much. And finally, there were Jorge Guerrera and Gabriel Hernández, the two boys from Colombia, Olivier Mbomo from Morocco, and Robert Parsons, a very tall, extremely introverted boy from Birmingham who had arrived the night before.

Remus started leafing through his first grade book, smiling every now and then at students coming in. His eyes on the book, he still remarked very consciously the furtive glances they threw at him and the tables they sat down at - he found this was always an interesting little detail about a student.

Rachel Fitzgerald and Karolka Wyszinski, nodding at him eagerly, joined Sofie and Samuel in the front row and took out their books as well. Jun Li and Nora Hartfield sat down behind them; Olivier Mbomo arrived so quickly after them that Remus had to smile, and the boy sat down next to Jun. And finally, the last row was occupied by Gabriel Hernández, Jorge Guerrera, and Robert Parsons.

The clock struck nine. Remus, glad to be released from the attentive, thick silence that hung in the room, stood up.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly, his eyes wandering from face to face. "As you all know by now, you are here to learn Defence Against the Dark Arts. Now, seeing as most of you will have no experience with the subject, I have decided to dedicate this first lesson to an overview of what will be awaiting you, a small test of your general abilities and any questions that you might want to ask.

"Now, I think we should start with the-" He stopped. Karolka Wyszinski was raising her hand, timidly, but decidedly. All the others looked back and forth between her and Remus.

"Yes, Karolka?" he said, doing his best to get the Polish pronunciation right.

"Professor, if you don´t mind," Karolka said, her accent clear, but her tone very calm and confident. "I wonder if you could tell us what made it that you chose this special subject."

"Above all, it´s a fascinating subject," he said, smiling, "as I´m sure you will all agree very soon. As for my personal motivation, well... ever since my classmates played a trick on me in first year involving a baby Kappa and a rather large amount of pepper," (Olivier and Sofie were actually smiling faintly), "I´ve considered it vital to arm myself against curses, hexes and-" he hesitated for the split of a second. "Dark Creatures."

There. He had said it. Oh Shit. Two words that would have caused vigorous nods and perhaps a few anxious looks in any other class hit this room like a bombshell. Remus was uncomfortably aware of his hands starting to sweat, which they never did. While desperately searching for a way out of the situation, he held the children´s stares up at him.

They weren´t looking fearful, or sad. They were looking grim, as if hurt, but determined not to let anything show. And somehow, that felt familiar.

"Shall we proceed?" he asked into the ringing silence. "If you´d take out your wands..." He realised, with a small jolt, that he didn´t even know whether they had wands; he was relieved to be proven wrong.

For the next half hour, they went through various protective spells and Shielding Charms. He was surprised at how little they knew; spells that seemed natural to him now, that most first years at Hogwarts had known. And why? Because they learned them at home from older siblings or friends. Jorge, Gabriel and Jun proved to be the most experienced of the group; Sofie and Samuel knew most of the spells, but seemed to have difficulties using them.

All the while, he felt that no-one was really concentrating and that most of them could have done better. He had been determined to pull through with the test, but when Olivier had tried a basic Hex-Deflection Spell for the umpteenth time, staring fearfully at Remus, and ended up shielding his table from view instead, something clicked in Remus. This was pointless. He marched back to his desk and sat down.

"All right. What do you want to know?"

Half a dozen hands shot into the air.

***