The very first Defence class
When his second year class finally came in, Merlin scanned the faces immediately. His gaze fell on the boy in the back. His hair was mussed up, with bright green eyes and a nervous smile. Bingo, Merlin thought. This was Harry Potter.
‘If you could all take your seats’ Merlin said, attempting to channel Arthur’s ‘kingly voice’. He decided it wasn’t working. ‘Wherever you want for the moment,’ he said with a smile. ‘I can always assign seats, but for now we’ll see how this goes.’
The class all scrambled, grabbing friends and trying to get seats as close to the back as possible. Merlin smiled to himself at the hustle, kids never really change. He noted where Harry and his friends, an overeager girl with mousy brown hair and a ruffled looking guy with messy ginger hair sat down, near the middle of the classroom, if slightly off to the left.
‘As Professor Dumbledore mentioned last night at the feast, I’m Professor Myriddian Emrys, and I’m the new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher here.’
He scribbled his name onto the chalkboard from afar with his stick. Arthur had kept insisting he keep up pretence by calling it a wand, but Merlin had snorted, telling him that it was literally a stick, he may as well call it just that.
‘Defence against the Dark Arts is a terrible subject’ Merlin stated, matter of factly.
The class all frowned, whispering to each other in confusion.
‘In fact,’ Merlin continued with a grin, ‘I wish we didn’t have to teach it.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin saw the girl, Harry’s friend, scribbling away in her notebook, hanging onto his every word. He frowned, bemused at this.
‘If it were up to me’ He continued, despite the fact it probably was up to him, the old religion just didn’t seem to let him fix anything, ‘We wouldn’t need it. I hope you’ll all get to grown up and not need to use the things I teach you this year, and any years afterwards. But the unfortunate times we live in will probably stop that from happening. ‘ His eyes fell on Harry.
‘Some of you may use my training to save lives. Or to protect yourself. Or you may go on to teach others. Or even, and preferably, you’ll never need use it at all. But you need to be self-sufficient. To be able to protect yourself, or to ‘defend against the dark arts’’
He received a few chuckles at that and smiled, proud of his usually unimpressive humour.
‘So we’ll be starting with something easy that I’m hoping you guys will find fun. We’re going to be testing the power of your magical cores, which is effectively the source of your magic, and the determine of how long you’ll be able to be able to duel, or practice magic for. Think of it like a battery. You need to recharge after long periods of magic use, or else the exhaustion will overtake you.’
There were a few nods of understanding from the class, although Merlin did here a few mutters of ‘What’s a battery?’
Merlin then made the mistake of glancing to the back of the class, where three Slytherin’s were sitting. The boy in the middle reminded him of a young Agravaine, even if the two looked nothing alike. The boy had slicked back blond hair, pale skin and a sly looking demeaner. He was, Merlin couldn’t think of any other way to see it than flanked by two dim looking boys, clearly picked out because they looked like they could take any kid in the room down with one blow. What caught his attention however, was the extremely lude gestures the middle boy had decided it appropriate to make, gestures clearly about him and Arthur.
Merlin sighed silently, before sending out a little magic to check the boy’s name.
‘Mr. Malfoy,’ he said crisply. The boys head shot up in shock, knowing full well that he hadn’t told the professor his name.
‘If you have anything to comment on about my marriage to Professor Pend, please do share it with the rest of us.’
Draco Malfoy began to go a strange pink colour as he lowered his head, the whole class turning to stare at him. Merlin watched with a grin as Harry’s ginger friend snorted at Draco’s discomfort.
‘Sorry Professor,’ Draco muttered.
‘I’ll look past it just this once, but if it happens again, or I hear of more of such behaviour from you, you’ll find yourself in detention for 5 weeks. Is that clear?’
‘Yes Professor’ Draco muttered, cheeks completely red with embarrassment now.
‘Good’ Merlin said, a soft smile returning to his face. ‘Now back to what I was saying. We’ll be testing our cores using these.’
He waved his stick around slightly too enthusiastically to hide the magic simply flowing from his palm, and summoned the box of faintly glowing spheres from his office.
‘These are magical vessels, which will assign you a colour based on the power of your core magic. Don’t be disheartened if your core is low, you’re only second years, and your cores will only grown brighter with age and practice. It works on a scale. Blue is for the weakest, or least developed cores, Purple then Red for the medium ones, Orange and Yellow for powerful cores, and gold for… well whatever’s better than powerful!’
With another swish of his stick, each student found a sphere in-front of them.
‘So’ Merlin said brightly, ‘All you have to do is hold the sphere in your hands for a few seconds, and wait for the colour change.’
Merlin saw the students hesitantly glance and chatter, but all looking thrilled at the prospect of seeing the power they possessed. Merlin began to pace the room, looking at the spheres.
Most students had purple spheres, and a few, like a cheerful looking Gryffindor boy, looked very chuffed with this indeed, though a couple others grumbled. Merlin watched as Harry and his friends spheres changed. The girl- Miss Granger had a beautiful scarlet sphere, and she was looking down at it in wonder. Mr. Weasley’s was also red, though slightly more purple, but he seemed happy enough, looking at it from all different angles just to make sure it was correct. Merlin was pleased to see Harry’s go orange, the best in the class, and gave the boy a grin when he looked up at the teacher in wonder.
‘Professor Emrys?’ A Slytherin girl said with a raised hand.
He spun to face her, ‘Yes, Miss Parkinson.’
‘I was just wondering’ she continued, briefly glancing down at her red-purple orb. ‘What colour would Professor Dumbledor’s core be, if he held this orb?’
Merlin smiled at her, ‘An excellent question! I supposed it would be a yellow, perhaps even a light gold’
‘And He-who-must-not-be-named?’
Merlin sighed loudly. He had known this would be coming.
‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘By calling him that, you give him power. You send a message, saying that you are afraid of him’
When the class simply stared at him in silence, he sighed again.
‘I believe Voldemort’s orb would be orange at best’
Shocked faces stared back at him, although he wasn’t sure if it was because of the use of Voldemort’s name or the revelation of the weakness of his core.
‘His use of dark magic would weaken his core, corrupting it, killing it slowly. Think of it like a lung with smoking’
The boy who had been making lude gestures spoke up from the back.
‘And what about you, Professor,’ he drawled. ‘What colour does yours go, then, if you touched one of these?’
Merlin was caught off guard, and Draco saw it. Once Merlin pulled himself together, he gave a shaky smile.
‘Oh,’ he said with a tinkling laugh, ‘I’d be a pleasant red colour, I suppose’
Merlin turned away, not noticing the nod Draco gave one of his goons, but spinning round at the yell of ‘Catch!’ from Pansy Parkinson.
He grabbed the flying thing immediately, but dropped it as soon as he possibly could, realising he had just touched an orb.
But it was too late.
‘Shit’ he swore in the language of Camelot, as the sphere stopped in mid-air, starting to change to a dark gold, filling up the whole room in blinding light.
‘Duck!’ he yelled in exasperation as the sphere exploded outwards, somehow glowing brighter than ever before, Merlin closing his eyes and stumbling back.
Once the smoke cleared, Merlin waved his stick, causing the fragments and dust to disappear before looking around the class in concern.
‘Is everyone ok, no one’s hurt?’ His eyes scanned the room, sighing with clear relief when he saw everyone looked ok. Slightly shaken up, but ok.
Hermione raised her hand shakily.
‘Yes Miss. Granger?’
‘With all due respect Professor Emrys, how did that happen? You said Dumbledore himself would only get a yellow, or maybe light gold.’
Merlin inwardly panicked, trying to think of a fool proof excuse.
‘Those were student spheres!’ He said, slightly rushed and wavering, but firm. Luckily the bell rang before the eager student could press him further.
‘I want you all to go away and do some research on magical cores and sources. Just create a short fact file, no more than a page long. Due next lesson! Oh and 30 points from Slytherin for that trick you just pulled!’
There were a few groans, but nothing too horrendous as the class filed out, already forgetting the lesson, focussing on ‘more important things’ like the quidditch try-outs and that Gryffindor boy in the year above.
Merlin sighed, sinking onto his desk. Maybe this teaching thing would be harder than he expected.
Out in corridor, Hermione dragged her friends to the side.
‘Ow Hermione! What are you doing, we have potions next, Snape’ll crucify us if we’re late,’ Ron said, yanking his arm away from her and rubbing it gently.
‘Shut up Ronald’ she hissed. ‘It’s about the new Professor!’
‘What is it Hermione?’ Harry asked with a brief glance up.
‘I don’t trust him, ok!’ I think he’s up to something’
‘I don’t have time for this’ Ron said with a roll of his eyes, walking off towards potions.
Harry and Hermione simply walked briskly next to him.
‘Look, didn’t you follow the news over the holidays? It was all over, pronouncing that Gillderoy Lockhart, famous author and explorer was going to be the new DADA teacher here! Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, these two new teachers were hired instead, don’t you find that suspicious!’
‘Not really’ Ron replied.
‘Maybe they just had more experience’ Harry offered.
‘Not possible,’ Hermione hissed back, ‘Look, this morning, I went to the library, did at little research’
Ron stared at her incredulously. ‘You’re mad,’ he said, ‘Completely barking mad. It’s day two and you’re already researching our teachers!’
‘Be quiet and listen to what I found!’ She paused.
‘Well?’ Ron prompted
‘Nothing’ she replied.
‘What? Well then why’d you feel the need to have this whole meltdown in front of us then??’
‘It’s impossible Ron, Harry.’ She said, exasperated. ‘Myriddian Emrys and Arthur Pend don’t exist. There’s all these rumours of the Emrys family being the oldest pure blood family ever seen, but there’s not been a single record of them for hundreds of years. If our new Professor’s have so much experience, then where is it? It’s like they never existed! I’ve checked everywhere, even logs of every birth of witches and wizards in the last 100 years. How can they have more experience than Lockhart, I mean you’ve read his books. No one can leave no trail, no one!’
Harry and Ron looked at each other in shock, stopping in their tracks.
‘By god,’ Ron said softly.
‘Oh Hermione, you’re right!’ Harry said.
‘There’s nothing we can do though’ Hermione said, almost mournfully.
‘We could go to Dumbledore,’ Harry offered up thoughtfully.
‘With what evidence? All we have is the lack of it! No, there’s nothing we can do. We’ll have to wait, to lay low, collect evidence and keep a close eye on Myriddian and Arthur.’
‘Right!’ the two boys chorused.
And the three walked off together towards potions, with Ron bringing up ‘How weird that thing went when the Professor touched it’ and the other two nodding in agreement.
It didn’t matter at all when Snape snapped at them for being late and took 30 points from Gryffindor. Because the golden three were back at Hogwarts, and now, they had a purpose.