Chapter 2
Albus walked into the mostly empty history of magic class, the only other person there was the ghostly Professor Binns. Albus got his attention by asking, “You said you wanted to see me Professor?”
Binns answered, “Yes, I wanted to talk to you about your essay.”
Albus smiled, he had been afraid he was in trouble again but this was something he was excited to talk about, he had worked really hard on this essay and it was on an interesting topic he enjoyed learning about.
Binns began, “Your parents already graduated Hogwarts.”
Albus was surprised he wanted to start with unrelated small talk rather than just get strait to the point and talk about the essay. Albus wasn’t great at small talk but he didn’t want to seem rude by asking the professor to get to the point so he said, “Actually my mother graduated, but my dad just got an honorary diploma, he never actually went back to redo his last year.”
Binns shouted angrily, “Don’t get sassy with me you disobedient little troublemaker!”
Albus flinched back in surprise and hurt, he always tried his best to not get in trouble or make people angry with him but he always seemed to fail no matter how hard he tried.
The professor continued, “If you get your parents to write another essay for you I’ll throw you in detention for an entire month!”
Albus was shocked, “I didn’t! I wrote that myself!”
Binns scoffed dismissively, “You obviously did, this essay is very good, you aren’t smart enough to have written this.”
Albus wanted to argue that he wasn’t stupid but then it caught up to him that it hadn’t been unrelated when Binns said he wanted to talk about the essay and then said Albus’s parents already graduated. Albus was stupid to have not realized what he was being accused of. There was no way he was going to convince Professor Binns of the truth.
He felt his face burning in shame, he swallowed a lump in his throat and managed not to cry as he nodded in agreement.