Man Is The Measure

Another day, another Galleon, another year's worth of lessons to plan. Sometimes I tired of the tedium.

Teaching is a largely thankless job. I have taught thousands of students--many of my current students are in fact grandchildren of my first students. Not that they ever told me that; I had to find out for myself. Never had a student written her after graduation to tell her of the birth of a child or grandchild. Never had I been informed of a wedding. Rarely had I been informed of a funeral, and then only twice in my memory--once when James and Lily had been killed, once when Amelia Bones had died. Numerous times I had opened a paper and discovered a funeral for a student--students I never thought I'd outlive--but only those two times had someone actually approached me and said I needed to be at the funeral, that it was on a particular time and place and would I please come. I always did.

Still, sometimes I wondered if it was all worth it. Had I actually touched any of my students' lives? Did they carry anything away from my class other than the theories and spells relentlessly driven? Did any of them remember me at all? If they did, did they remember me as anything more than a hard, cruel woman? Somehow, I doubted it. I doubted if any of my students would remember me at any point in the future.

Sighing, I continued working on the lesson plans. The seventh years were doing quite well. It was likely they'd be one of the better classes I'd graduated. The Gryffindor third years were a little behind; I'd have to really work them to get them up to standard for their exams. I do not believe in easing up on students who were just gathering new electives. If they can't handle it now, what makes them think they can handle it later? Perhaps that was why they think of me as cruel--because I work them hard. But I had to do it--if I didn't, I didn't know who would. Despite having been appointed headmistress after Albus Dumbledore's death, I continued teaching Transfiguration simply because I did not trust anyone else to do it.

"Professor?"

I looked up in surprise. Harry Potter stood in my doorway, holding something in his hand and glowing with barely contained excitement. He had graduated the previous month, following a horrific battle on the Hogwarts grounds itself, and while I'd expected to hear of him in the papers from time to time I certainly hadn't expected to actually see him again, not this soon at any rate. "Yes, Potter, can I help you?"

Harry held out the letter in his hand. "I got accepted into the Auror program. I just thought you'd like to know."

Part of me wanted to jump up and give him a hug, to congratulate him and tell him I knew he could do it, but I beat that back down. "Congratulations, Potter. It's been some time since anyone has been accepted."

A grin--the first sincere smile I had seen from Harry since Dumbledore's death--crossed his face. "I wanted to thank you, Professor."

"Thank me?" I repeated, genuinely confused.

Harry nodded. "You were the only person who believed in me from beginning to end. You stuck with me and made sure I stayed on top of my work, made sure I could handle everything. Thanks to you, I not only got accepted into the program but survived that fight against Voldemort last month. It's meant a lot to me that you didn't give up on me, even when it seemed like the rest of the world had, so for that, thank you." He crossed over to my desk and gave me a hug.

I was momentarily surprised, but after a moment I hugged him back. "You're welcome, Potter. And thank you."

Harry stepped back and grinned. "Oh, wait, I almost forgot." He pulled a small parchment envelope out of his pocket and handed it to me. "We were going to mail it to you, but since I was coming by anyway I thought I'd deliver it in person. Hermione and I would be honoured if you'd come to our wedding next month."

I took the wedding invitation with a slightly trembling hand. Looking at Harry, I saw not only the eager young man realising his dream but an exhausted and bedraggled seventeen-year-old emerging from the Chamber of Secrets with the news that Voldemort was dead, a sixteen-year-old looking lost and helpless as he tried to explain what had happened to Dumbledore, an angry and hurt fifteen-year-old standing amid the wreckage of Dumbledore's useless gadgets, a tired and injured fourteen-year-old standing next to Dumbledore over Barty Crouch's son, a determined thirteen-year-old casting a Patronus charm to save his life and that of the two people he cared about most, a filthy and bleeding twelve-year-old in my office with the Weasleys and a possessed diary in his hand, an eleven-year-old boy with a heart of gold and the courage of a lion. If I looked harder, I could see an eager and confused eleven-year-old standing in the throng, sitting on the stool and pleading internally with the Sorting Hat not to put him in Slytherin. And if I looked really hard, I could see a one-year-old baby, wrapped in a bundle of blankets, lying on a doorstep in a pool of light with a letter clutched in his tiny fist. That baby was harder to see than anything--not because it was so long ago, but because Harry had no recognisable signs of his babyhood left. The first year of his life had meant next to nothing. His life really had begun that awful Halloween night seventeen years before.

But in the here and now, he was finally about to be happy, happier than he ever had been in his life. And he wanted me to be there to share it. "Of course. I'd be honoured to come."

Harry grinned again. He seemed to do that a lot more these days--like it was easier to be happy when he didn't have to be some big hero anymore. "Thanks, Professor. We'll look forward to that." He pushed his unruly hair out of his eyes. "I'd better go...I have to tell Remus I got accepted into the program."

This surprised me more than his thanking me had. "You haven't told him yet?"
Harry shook his head. "I wanted you to be the first to know because you worked so hard to help me."

That made me feel really good. "Thank you for stopping by, Potter. I'll see you in a month, then."

"See you, Professor. And thanks again." Harry gave me another warm smile and left.

I returned to my lesson plans, but I didn't get started yet. I was too busy thinking. Harry had never been one of my best students. In fact, for the first couple years he was just barely hanging on. I had never voluntarily helped a student; if they came for help, I helped them, but I never offered it willingly. Dolores Umbridge had sat in on Harry's career consultation session in his fifth year, when he had tentatively put forth thoughts of being an Auror. Privately, I thought that he of all my students that year stood the best chance of becoming an Auror, but logically I knew he had quite a few obstacles to surmount, such as his Potions grade. Dolores made me so furious when she said she didn't think he could do it in that sickly sweet way of hers that I snapped--I told Harry that if I had to tutor him after school for the next two years he would become an Auror. I had never expected him to remember that moment of passion, but if he had a question about any of his schoolwork over the following years he would come to me privately, ask me to explain a concept, simplify a theory, take him through a wand movement. It hadn't occurred to me that he had come because of my vow during that career consultation, but he had. And now he had been accepted, he remembered that seemingly minor event two years ago, he remembered the concepts and theories and movements I had aided him with, and he had come to thank me.

I returned to my lesson plans with a new heart. I could make a difference in these children's lives after all.

If only I could get Dennis Creevey to transfigure his hedgehogs into pincushions and not cacti.