Rating:
PG
House:
The Dark Arts
Ships:
Remus Lupin/Sirius Black
Characters:
Remus Lupin Sirius Black Harry and Hermione and Ron
Genres:
Drama Romance
Era:
The Harry Potter at Hogwarts Years
Spoilers:
Prizoner of Azkaban
Stats:
Published: 12/03/2004
Updated: 06/24/2013
Words: 120,615
Chapters: 65
Hits: 86,935

Another Prisoner, Another Professor

Marauder

Story Summary:
AU. In Harry's third year he must learn the various truths about the new DADA teacher, Professor Black, and an escaped convict, Remus Lupin. SB/RL.

Chapter 41 - Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Summary:
Opinions on the werewolf school differ, Hermione has a plan about getting the blood magic book, and the morning of Buckbeak's hearing arrives.
Posted:
01/02/2009
Hits:
796


Hermione was less than pleased that Harry had defended werewolves to the entire Gryffindor common room. "Look, I don't mean that it wasn't the right thing to do," she said, rubbing one eye with her fist. It was the next morning at breakfast, and she looked exhausted. "But do you really need something more to deal with right now?"

"Probably not," Harry replied. As he reached to take more blueberries for his porridge, a group of first-years halfway down the table quickly turned their heads away and started whispering to each other. "It wasn't like I planned on saying it or anything - I think I just got sick of all the stuff I'm not supposed to say, really. I'm not supposed to have a go at Malfoy, I can't tell Black that I know he's - "

"You could, you know," said Hermione, but Harry just shrugged.

When it came to Black's opening of a werewolf school, opinions among the other Gryffindors were decidedly split. Seamus seemed to regard Black more warily than he had before, but Dean took Black's affinity for werewolves as more support for the fact that Black was the toughest, coolest Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Hogwarts had ever had. Neville's views of Black seemed mostly unchanged, but he did mention that, according to his gran, his Great-Great Uncle Priam had been killed by a werewolf back in 1874.

Parvati, much to Harry's surprise, was squarely on his side. "You're right, it's not like they choose to be werewolves," she said to him in the common room that night. "I mean, why would you choose to be a werewolf?"

"Well," Lavender said dreamily, "maybe if you were in love with a werewolf, and it was the only way you could be together..." Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I don't think it works that way," Harry said, raising his voice so it would cover Ron's sniggering.

Percy thought that it was very dangerous and irresponsible for Black to start a school for werewolves, which led Fred and George to declare that they intended to do the exact same thing after they finished Hogwarts. Though he was the twins' best friend, Lee Jordan still maintained that wanting to start a school for dark creatures was decidedly dodgy, which led to some noisy arguments in the common room. Ginny seemed to find the very idea of werewolves too frightening to talk about, while Colin Creevey decided they were probably misunderstood like hippogriffs. Angelina said she didn't care one way or another what Black had done before coming to Hogwarts, because he was a good teacher; Alicia thought teaching magic to werewolves would give them too much power; Katie told Harry that Black probably had good intentions, but she didn't think it was a very good idea; and Oliver Wood finally yelled one evening at Quidditch practice that he wished Black had never so much as met a werewolf, and if he heard anyone else talking about Black's werewolf school when they should be concentrating on defeating Slytherin, he was going to make them run extra reflex drills.

While the rest of the tower was preoccupied with the latest revelation about Black, Hermione had other things on her mind. "I need to borrow your invisibility cloak," she told Harry on Thursday night in the common room. They had just taken their blood magic test that afternoon - which, Harry thought gone much better than he had anticipated. "There's a Hogsmeade visit on Saturday and I'm going to get that blood magic book."

"Hermione, we just got done with blood magic," Ron said, sitting down on one of the couches and spreading out his long legs. "Okay, let's say you're right, there's something important about blood magic that Black's trying to tell us. It's not in that book, he doesn't even know that book exists. Probably nobody knows that book exists but us and that shirty old bloke in the shop."

"All right," Hermione said. "You go ahead and take that risk. You're probably right, books aren't dangerous if only a few people know about them - just ask Ginny."

"This book isn't - " Ron began, but Harry interrupted him. "What do you need my invisibility cloak for?"

"In case they won't let me downstairs," Hermione replied. "If they won't I'm going to go out of the shop, put on the cloak, go back in and sneak downstairs."

"You're going to steal it?"

"Not really - I'll leave a few Sickles on the shelf where it was."

"They'll know it was you," Ron said. "A girl comes into a shop to ask about a book, the shop won't let her have it, and later that same day the book disappears?"

"I don't care," Hermione said. "They'll never be able to prove it. Once I've got it I'm going to transfigure it into a dental retainer and keep it with my toothbrush."

"Wait a minute," said Ron. "You want to use Harry's cloak to steal something - "

"I'm not really stealing it, Ron - "

" - but you still don't think he ought to go to Hogsmeade? Even though he's got a signed permission form? I don't know, I think stealing something's a lot worse..."

Hermione looked flustered. "Well, we can't do both on the same visit," she said. "Either Harry goes to Hogsmeade under his cloak, or I take the cloak and use it to get the book."

"Not necessarily," said Harry. It had been nearly two months since he had been off the school grounds, and the warming weather was making him restless. "I put on the cloak, I take the Marauder's Map and use that fireplace to get to Hogsmeade. We go to the Three Broomsticks and I go into one of the toilet stalls. Once I'm in, I take off the invisibility cloak and give it to Ron - "

"Yeah," said Ron, seeing where Harry was going. "Then I go out of the loo while Harry stays and give you the cloak, and once you're done stealing the book - "

"I'm not stealing - "

" - and once you're done taking the book without permission and leaving money so you feel better about it, I bring the cloak back to Harry and he puts it back on. Look, Hermione, either you don't steal a book and keep the right to tell Harry off about sneaking out to Hogsmeade, or you steal a book and can't really say anything about Harry sneaking out to Hogsmeade because you did something worse yourself."

Hermione made one final attempt in her defense. "We all broke into Black's office - "

"Because Harry was going half mental trying to figure out what was going on," Ron said; Harry thought of objecting to "half mental", but changed his mind. "The only time we've ever actually stolen anything was when we made the Polyjuice Potion - oh, wait, we didn't exactly steal it together, did we? That was you - "

"That was all of us," Harry said, before Hermione could protest. "We all planned it, Hermione was just the one who did it. Ron's right, though, Hermione - sneaking into someone's shop and stealing a book is a lot worse than going to Hogsmeade when you've got a signed permission slip. I'll help you, but you've got to lay off about the Hogsmeade thing."

There was nothing new about the Malfoys in the paper that night.

Buckbeak's hearing was the next day, and Harry, Ron and Hermione skipped breakfast to run down to Hagrid's hut and wish him luck. Colin was already there, feeding Buckbeak dead ferrets and looking quite unconcerned about the congealed blood dripping down his arm.

"Buckbeak's going to get off," he said cheerfully, holding a ferret by the tail as Buckbeak leaned forward to snatch it away. "If they don't let him off, they'll have to overturn about five other cases from the last twenty years, and they won't do it because they won't want to admit they were wrong. That's what Brutus told Hagrid, anyway."

"Brutus - Brutus Swift?" asked Hermione, surprised.

"Yeah, him!" Buckbeak swallowed the last of the ferret and stumbled off on his chained legs to a bowl of water near the front steps. "He's a really good wizard lawyer, Hagrid says - he can't be there in court, but he gave Hagrid loads of advice. Oh, and he read all my research, and he says that if I'm this good now, he wants to hire me once I finish school! He was just here a minute ago, you could have met him if you'd got here before. I don't know why he can't be there in court - he and Hagrid aren't telling me. He really said he wants to hire me! I told you I took good notes, didn't I, Harry?"

"Yeah," said Harry, his voice faint. He wasn't sure which, but one of two things was true: either Brutus Swift was out of his mind, or Colin Creevey was a lot cleverer than Harry had given him credit for.

Hagrid came out of his hut, wearing a repulsive hairy brown suit with a purple tie. "Black loaned you his lawyer?" Harry asked quietly as Colin ran inside and came out with a pile of papers.

"Yeah," Hagrid said. "Tol' me he didn' want ter risk Brutus speakin' fer me in court, but he thought I'd do fine on me own. Got ter be better off than I was before, at any rate...Sirius was here las' night, stayed till midnight. Loads on 'is mind, but 'e still thought ter help me out..."

"Hagrid, it's eight o'clock!" Colin said, running up and handing him the papers. "You've got to be there by nine to get through security in time, remember what Brutus said?"

"Righ'," said Hagrid, and went to unchain Buckbeak. "Get back teh school, the lot o' yeh."

"Best of luck, Hagrid," said Ron.

"It's going to be fine," Colin assured him. "And if it's not, there's always the appeal. I've already started researching just in case."