The Arrival of BeaxBatons and Durmstrang
“Hello Harry, it is nice to see you again.” Matthew smiled at him. The man had just entered the quarters and he was still a bit on edge due to it having been a while since his last appointment. “No need to look so nervous, my rules haven’t changed since we last spoke, we will only talk about things you are comfortable talking about.”
“Sorry, it will just take me a minute to get used to these again.”
“That’s ok, everything will be done at your pace so just tell me how you want to do things today and we will go with that.”
“I already have my art supplies out, so I guess we can just go straight into the issue. Did Severus mention why we were meeting today or will I start from the beginning?”
“Severus mentioned something about a class bringing back memories but nothing more than that.”
“Ok, well I will start from the start then.” He picked up his pencil and took a deep breath before starting to talk and letting his hand move unconsciously over the page. “We were told that there was going to be a tournament held at the school this year, the tri-wizard tournament and that the champions will be drawn on Halloween. This has put me on edge as everything in my life seems to go wrong around Halloween time and to be honest I don’t think I would be able to cope with being a part of some type of death tournament. Draco and Severus managed to calm me down enough from that but then things just got worse yesterday when we had our first defence lesson with the new professor. He was teaching us about the unforgivable curses and demonstrated them on a spider in front of us. I tried to look away when he sent the killing curse at the creature but I didn’t get the chance before I seen the green light. It brought back the memories the dementors made me see. The voices of my parents and the green light that hit my mother, it all came back. But then if that wasn’t enough, he then made me and Neville try and resist the imperious curse. I managed to do it but when I was under it there was this silence that felt completely and utterly wrong and once the spell was broken all the noise returned but worse. The memory of my parents, the years at the Dursleys all the pain I have went through came back once the curse was lifted and it hasn’t went away. I didn’t get to sleep last night at all despite Severus staying with me and even now I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t really know what to do to help it and I was hoping you would.”
“I do have a few ideas on what we could do to help you with putting the memories back where they came from but I’m sorry I can’t think of a solution that might help with your tournament issue, other then someone in charge being smart enough not to run a death tournament in a school.”
“Yes I already knew that was kinda inevitable, but what are your ideas for helping me sort through my head.”
“The first option I have is that you talk through what the most prevalent memories are and that once you have spoken them they won’t be as distressing or the other option is a sort of guided meditation where I talk you through placing everything in an imaginary filing cabinet or if you have some other way you like to organise. Normally I would recommend talking everything through to be the most effective option but you already have talked through the majority of your time at the Dursleys and you have spoken about what the dementors made you see so the filing method is also an option.”
“I think I would prefer the filing method, I have already spoken about these things and normally I can think of the one singular event and be fine, it is just the green light that signifies that spell and then the imperious curse that has brought everything to the surface to fast and it is kind of overwhelming.”
“Alright then, you will need to stop drawing for this so you can sit back comfortably and close your eyes.” He followed the instructions and sunk into the couch cushions a bit more. “Good, now what is your best method of organisation?”
“Probably a binder with little tabs separating each thing.” He didn’t really use any other types of organiser but he liked the muggle binder Hermione had shown him for separating subjects.
“Ok, so picture this binder clearly in your head and once you have it there let it open. Now that it’s open I want you to have 4 tabs in it. One for the Dursleys, a second one for your parents, a third one for your run ins with You-Know-Who and a fourth one for other and tell me when you have that.”
He concentrated on picturing exactly what Matthew told him, even going as far as to give each tab a different colour until he was happy with what he had. “I have done that.”
“Well done, now I want you to sort through everything that is running through your head right now and I want you to put them in the binder in the correct section as if they were pieces of paper.”
He slowly went though everything that had been brought up by the recent lesson until there was a big stack under the Dursleys tab, a smaller stack under his parents, a medium stack under Voldemort attacks and a couple sheets under other.
“Once you have finished, I want you to close over the binder and place it into a desk drawer and nod once you have completed that.” He nodded once he had placed his filled binder in a replica of the top drawer in his desk at home. “Good, now use a key and lock this drawer and then place the key onto a little hook above the desk and then you can open your eyes.” Matthew waited quietly as he finished this next part and his eyes opened to look back at the man. “The memories are now locked in a place where you can access them if you ever wish to, but they can’t be released without you opening that drawer and sorting through the binder, it is a visual way of telling yourself that these memories can’t drown you because you are in charge of when they can be replaced. You and no one else. Do you understand what I am meaning?”
“Yes, and my brain is already quieter although now it isn’t running a mile a minute I am now feeling just how exhausted I am.” He yawned widely.
“Why don’t you have a nap right now, and I can sit here to make sure the meditation task worked or I can leave if you would rather be alone?”
“No I would rather you wait, just for the now to make sure it worked.”
“Of course, I will be right here if you need me.” Matthew smiled putting him at ease as he took the blanket from the back of the couch and curled up falling to sleep pretty much straight away and thankfully the sleep was not disturbed by any unwanted thoughts.
***
“Can I have everyone’s attention please.” Dumbledore called silencing the entire hall. “Thank you, now as the majority of you already know the new schools will be joining us today for dinner. The whole school will gather in the courtyard for them arriving to greet our guests so if everyone could be there no later than 5.30 it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time, you may now go back to your breakfasts.
“Ughhh today is just full of fun isn’t it, we are going to have another defence lesson and merlin knows what he will do now that everyone has been under the curse and then after that horror and finishing the rest of our classes, we are going to have to wait outside on the cold to greet a bunch of students from what sounds to be fancy schools.” He groaned.
“Maybe they won’t be bad, technically this is a fancy school.” Blaize offered.
“I heard that the foreign schools are a lot better than here and beauxbatons and Durmstrang are the top schools in there country.” Pansy said.
“Not helping pans.”
“No she is right though, a fancy french school and a fancy Bulgarian school can’t end well”
The bell rang signalling that they had to head to their first class, defence, and he sighed deeply before following his friends up to the classroom. When they arrived, Moody was already there and all the tables were positioned at the side of the room and they were instructed to line up in front of the desk again.
“Today class we will be having a mini practical assessment on breaking out the imperious curse and then in our next lesson we will have a theory assessment on the first five chapters of the Defence against Curses book we have been working on for the past few weeks. You will all have three attempts to resist the curse and you will be graded on your best attempt. Mr Potter why don’t you come first so you can show the class how it’s done again.”
As soon as the details of the assessment had been mentioned he had known he would be used as an example having been the only student to successfully break out of the curse but he also knew that Severus had already went off on Moody for casting the spell on him once and had warned the man against doing it again. His guardian technically couldn’t do anything due to the ministry and Dumbledore agreeing to the lesson plans but the man couldn’t care less about the rules when it came to him so knowing this was what lead to him making his next move.
“No I will not be coming out to show anyone how to resist that curse because I will not be allowing you to put me under that curse again.” He said confidently with his head held high.
“Well I’m sorry you don’t exactly have a choice in the matter if you don’t want to be failed on this assessment.” Moody questions gruffly, the fake eye boring into him.
“I don’t care about the assessment, I care about the fact I am not being placed under an illegal curse that ends in a lot of painful memories coming back to me. So if that is all you can move onto the next person and fail me on this part.”
“I will not be accepting this cheek in my class, just come out to the front and get it over with, if you had come out when I originally asked you would already be done so please hurry it along so I can get through everyone.”
“I already said no, I am happy to accept an F and you can move on and get through everyone else.”
“Come out here or I will just cast it on you where you are now and you can deal with the consequence of banging into something if you fail to resist.”
“I told you no, I am not letting you do it.” He shouted his control breaking now.
“Imperious.” He heard the shout and didn’t have time to move out the way before the spell hit him and everything went quiet but this time he knew what that silence meant and the anger he had previously been feeling grew even stronger and broke through the silence. “Move out to the centre of the room.” A voice called in his head which he latched into with the full strength of his anger and then shoved against the intruder at the same time as he shouted “No.” Two things happened at once, he broke out the imperious curse completely and Moody went flying back into desks lining the back wall with a grunt of pain, the fake eye rolling around the floor having fell out its socket.
He felt a hand grasp his lightly but he shook it away and started running, he needed to get out this room before Moody became aware enough to realise the full extent of what he had done. He ran all the way to the dungeons and straight into the potions classroom not caring that there was currently a 6th year class in the room.
“Harry, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in defence?” Severus asked concerned.
“Moody tried to cast it on me again and I refused. I told him he couldn’t do it but he tried it anyway and I got so angry that I used that strength to break out the curse but also managed to fling Moody across the room into desks. I ran here without really thinking about it because I was worried what he would do to me when he got back up.” He rushed out breathless from running all the way downstairs and his adrenaline was running out.
“Class dismissed, vanish your potions then you are free to go wherever.”Severus told the class before turning to him. “We are going up to that classroom and sorting out this situation now. Although let me get Remus and Sirius through since they were so upset to miss the last meeting.”
He had time to nod before Severus was sweeping out the room all the way to their office to Floo-call the two marauders who arrived within seconds wands in hand. They all started heading up to the defence classroom so fast that he had to pretty much run the distance again. Severus didn’t even knock before all of them went bursting into the room causing Moody to spin around wand raised and Seamus , who had been the unfortunate student under the imperious curse, to fall to the floor disorientated.
“Severus, you should know better than to sneak up on a person with your years as a spy. Remus, Sirius I don’t remember seeing you two within the school this year.”
“Mess with Harry and we will be here within an instant.” Sirius replied as Severus started ranting, taking charge.
“I don’t care what I should know better when I have just been informed that you didn’t have the decency to listen to my son when he said no. Why, may I ask have you went against both the wishes of myself and him when it comes to this curse?”
“I would answer that question carefully if I was you because the full moon isn’t far away and the wolf is far more present around this time.” Remus pretty much growled.
“Mr Potter has to learn like the rest of his class how to resist one of You-Know-Who’s popular curses. I am teaching defence against the dark arts so he will need to be able to defend himself against all curses even if they make him uncomfortable.”
“There is a difference between uncomfortable and causing him to relive traumatic events from his past, so unless you can promise me right now that you will not place him under this curse again he will not be returning to this class.”
“I cannot promise that he will not be placed under the curse because it is an essential skill for these kids to learn and I have permission from the ministry and Dumbledore to do this for all students in fourth year and up.”
“Well you do not have parental permission for Harry to be placed under it and knowing you will go against this, Harry will not be returning to this class as long as you are teaching it. Good day to you.”
Severus took his hand and led him out the room and down to the dungeons once more, but this time to their quarters instead of the potions classroom. Remus and Sirius following behind looking regretful that they hadn’t done more to Moody back there.
“How am I supposed to pass this year if I don’t go to class.” He asked worriedly.
“You have all the materials you will need and I can help you and if you need more help I’m sure Remus will be more than happy to help you. Don’t worry, we will figure it out I just didn’t want you to have to worry about being unsafe in that classroom because of a paranoid auror with what’s seems to be a superiority complex.”
“I, of course, am happy to help you with Defence this year because under no circumstances are you going back to that class.”
“Thank you, for standing up for me against him.”
“You don’t need to thank us, we will all stand up for you a million times over but It shouldn’t have been necessary, he should have listened to you originally.”
“What will I do now for the rest of the day?”
“You can stay here or you can go to class, whatever you feel better doing.”
“Can I just stay here, I will do all the work I would be doing in class, I just don’t want to deal with all the gossip that will be going around the year.”
“Of course, I will need to go and set up for my next class, but will be back to lead you up to the courtyard later.”
“We can stay until then if you want, keep you company.” Sirius said already sitting next to him, Remus taking the other side.
“You just want to steal some of the cookies I made the other day don’t you?.”
“Nope, definitely just wanting to help you with your essays, no ulterior motives.” Sirius said mock innocently.
“Hmm right.”
***
The time flew by with him going through work on with Remus’s help and Sirius making random unhelpful comments and soon enough Severus was there to lead him up to the courtyard. They didn’t say anything on the way up, both just enjoying the comfortable silence before stepping out into the courtyard which was filled with overlapping voices from the hundreds of students lining the place.
“Alright everyone, our first guests should be here any second and they will wait in the entrance hall until our second guests arrive soon after. We will then go into the great hall and the schools can pick which table they wish to sit with.” Dumbledore informed them all. The headmaster hadn’t been lying about how soon the school would arrive because within literal seconds gasps were going around the crowds as they all watched winged horses flying towards them towing an ornate carriage. The horses landed just outside the courtyard and about 30 beauxbatons students exited the carriage with a woman taller than Hagrid holding the hand of a blond girl around eleven years old following behind them. Dumbledore shook the woman’s hand and pointed her in the direction for the entrance hall as they all politely clapped. Just as the last student from beauxbatons entered the castle, another round of gasped went round the students as a huge ship emerged from the black lake and a plank stretched out to the shore. Another 30 students exited this time with a strict looking bearded man following behind. Dumbledore once again shook the hand of the professor as everyone clapped politely, although whispers were going around at the realisation that one of the students was Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian seeker from the World Cup.
The whispers continued as they all took their seats in the Great Hall, the other houses staring at the Slytherin jealously as Durmstrang decided to sit at their table, Ravenclaw also receiving the same stares when Beauxbatons sat at their table.
He refrained from following the student body in staring at Krum knowing he hated the way people took his fame as a reason to ignore common courtesy of giving a person space but silently he was happy that maybe the attention could be brought of him this year with the addition of Krum. Maybe these guests wouldn’t be as bad as he originally thought if it meant he got a year of peace.