Beaten and Blown By the Wind

Chapter Fifteen: When Life Hands You Strange Lemons, You're Gonna Get Weird Lemonade

Harry entered the common room after his chat with Lynn to find it mostly empty aside from his friends from the bus. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna were all waiting for him in chairs or couches by the fire chatting, dozing off, or trying to make up their mind between the two. Though at that point, Harry was ready to call it a day and wait until tomorrow to face his next year at Hogwarts, but his friends had waited patiently and deserved the explanation Harry had demanded from Lynn before realizing he had no need to shout.

"What's Luna doing here?" Harry asked, suddenly realizing why the scene seemed odd. Luna shrugged in response as if that were all that was to it. "You are a Ravenclaw, aren't you?"

"That's what they tell me," she said dreamily and Harry decided against pressing the matter, shaking his head and staring back at them all for a few moments of awkward silence.

"So?" Hermione asked as Ron jerked awake from his dozing as she spoke. Harry eased himself onto a couch next to Ginny facing his two closest friends.

"So?" Harry asked back.

"So why is she here? Why is she our new DADA professor? Why didn't she tell any of us?" Hermione asked quickly, frustrated already by Harry's answers.

"She's here because she's our new DADA professor, she's our new professor because Dumbledore asked her, and she didn't tell us because she didn't know she had the job until after the train left this morning."

"That explains Snape at the train station," Ron said as everyone but Harry and Luna nodded in agreement. Luna looked confused.

"Why is she really our new DADA professor?" Luna asked, unimpressed by Harry's answers.

"Harry just told us why. Dumbledore asked her," Hermione said kindly, happy to be explaining something, but Luna shook her head, looking a little frustrated with how quickly everyone believed Harry.

"Why else would she be our DADA professor?" Ginny asked. "She certainly seems qualified enough and she gets along well with Dumbledore and McGonagall. She even gets along with Snape."

"Because she didn't want the job. I asked my dad about her when it was put in the paper that Harry was staying with her. Mind you, I knew the basics from when she visited, but I asked my dad to tell me everything he knew," Luna hesitated, looking to Harry who didn't seem to care she was talking about Lynn, so she continued. "One of the things he told me was that Dumbledore has offered her the DADA position for years and she refuses every single year. She had agreed the beginning of my second year, but then changed her mind at the last minute. That's why Professor Lupin was brought in on the train. Well, that and Sirius Black. She apparently backed out and suggested Dumbledore contact Professor Lupin because he was between jobs and could do just as well. So that's what happened. She's been asked every year since and declined, including earlier this spring."

"If she denied it, then why is she here?" Neville asked looking to Harry confused as Harry looked at his feet, feeling a little guilty for hiding things right off the bat. Hiding things had become a habit he'd have to work on.

"She has to train me," Harry said quietly, not meeting anyone's eyes. Luna looked a little confused, but no longer indignant.

"Train you for what?" Neville asked, looking more confused than ever.

"Nothing, the future, it's going to be a tough world out there," Hermione covered quickly, Ron nodding as she said it as if to promote her cover story. Ginny looked at the floor and Harry looked at her with a strange look as if contemplating something.

"There's no need to lie to Neville and Luna, I don't think," Harry said, having come to terms with himself with his true identity. "After all, they've certainly earned the right to know why bad things keep happening to me."

"Are you sure?" Ron asked cautiously as Neville watched with a strange look bordering pride and Luna was suddenly incredibly interested in the conversation.

"That they've earned it? He'd better be sure," Ginny piped in. "But I think Harry can make decisions for himself and he has a good point. Like it or no, they're stuck in this now; I'm stuck in this now, if I wasn't before. We can all be identified as Harry's friends by notable Death Eaters and probably Voldemort himself. . Sorry Ron, but your private party of three has grown and there's nothing you can do about it."

Ron gaped at Ginny openmouthed for a moment before closing his mouth and nodding. Harry then proceeded to tell Neville and Luna about the legend he played such a predominant role in, plus Lynn and Sirius' roles, and swore them to secrecy, conveniently leaving out the fact that Neville could have been playing his part according to Trelawny's prophesy. Telling certain people that were, as Ginny said, unavoidably linked to him in a very dangerous way was one thing, but letting the whole school know he was the heir of Gryffindor was quite another. All six of them stared at each other after the story was finished knowing that they were caught up in something much bigger than they were that could make them heroes and somehow wishing they were different people, proud as they were to be themselves right then. Suddenly, as they all looked to each other solemnly, Luna started laughing.

"What has gotten into you?" Neville asked, stunned. "This is serious stuff!"

"It's just that when I came to Hogwarts, everyone thought Harry was the very person he was born to challenge!" she said, sobering up enough to speak. "Don't you find it funny that everyone was so close to knowing who he truly was, but couldn't have been further away at the same time? No wonder Dumbledore didn't take any action against Harry! He knew that out of every person in this school, Harry was the last person who could have possibly been the Heir of Slytherin!"

Everyone shared a moment of laughter at the irony of Harry's second year troubles before deciding to start up to their dormitories and get some sleep before their first day of classes. Harry remembered to warn them about the whole professor business when addressing Lynn in public before they all left and they headed up to bed yawning. Harry fell almost directly asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but not before he was struck by a weird feeling of dread for the coming year.

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When Lynn arrived in her office, she was dismayed to see her old friend Severus Snape, who had become almost a nemesis, sitting in her desk chair with his feet on her desk waiting. She hadn't had a lot of sleep the night before and wasn't keen on anything that wasn't her pillow presently, especially not another argument. The impudence he was so careful to display flicked a nerve somewhere and she was unable to stop her jaw from setting stubbornly before finding something to say.

"It took you an awfully long time to explain to him why you are his new DADA professor," the hook-nosed man commented almost lazily, looking up at Lynn, who was standing in the doorway to her office, looking rather peeved, especially since he had interrupted and taken the first word.

"It took you no time to decide you have a right to this impudence," she retorted, in the same lazy, disinterested tone, losing the set jaw, as she started across the room to the door behind the desk that would lead her to her coveted pillow. "But I'm in need of sleep, so I'll have to bid you goodnight and assure you that we can continue this tomorrow. You know your way, I assume?"

"Don't get impertinent with me," Snape hissed back, standing to block her path. Lynn sighed and looked up at him.

"What do you want, Severus?"

"I want to know why you agreed to this so easily."

"I want to be near Harry. He needs me here, he needs my help, and I need to be near him. He's all I've got left, Severus. I'm not letting him die on my watch and I'm the only one who can change that now. You know what I've been seeing. He's not ready and if I don't get him ready faster than I alone can do this, there's no hope. Why didn't you stop him when he went to get Sirius? I need him more than ever now," Lynn complained, moving past Snape to slump in the chair he had just jumped from. Conjuring a second chair she had yet to find for her office, Snape sat on the other side of her desk calmly yet straight, tall, and importantly as if at a muggle board meeting for some important company.

"Harry?"

"No, not Harry. Sirius is supposed to be helping me train Harry up. I need others to help me now. It's not in the legend, but the legend wasn't written this way. I have to rewrite prophesies now."

"Are you saying you need my help?"

"I'm not going to trouble you. You don't like being troubled and I'm not keen on bothering those who don't wish to be bothered. I have Remus..."

"Remus can hardly help him more than you. You are asking for my help."

"You wouldn't want to offer it and I won't beg. I may need others to help me, but I've pulled off miracles before and so has Harry. I wasn't even going to mention any of this to you."

"Don't you even consider asking me to be nice to him," Snape spat out the word as if it were a badly chosen Bertie Bott's bean.

"I'm not going to ask you to do anything that's damn near impossible. Imagine you being nice to someone!" Lynn laughed for a moment bitterly before getting to the point, ignoring Snape's insulted look. "I want you to give him lessons on the unforgivable curses. I don't care if you're nice to him, in fact, I'd prefer you to keep up the nastiness. It would not only be suspicious otherwise, but disliking you will help him with learning the curses. That's why you're important. You and Harry don't like each other. At all. Just try to be the tiniest bit more fair to both Harry and his friends. You know the strain they're under. I'm not asking complete fairness, just enough that he's not screaming about you to me," Lynn explained peevishly.

"They'll be able to track me, I'm being tracked because of..." his voice trailed off and he finally gestured helplessly to his arm where the dark mark had been burned into his flesh. "The Ministry will know I'm using unforgivable curses."

"The people in the Ministry who would do anything about it will not know anything. What they don't know won't hurt them. I will let the people covering up for you know when the two of you are working. You will be tracked normally otherwise."

"You're asking an awful lot of me, Lynn."

"And you have no choice but to do as I ask, you know that. If you want to get out of this alive, you have no choice," she said, looking at her feet as Snape considered her proposition. He sighed and the insolent sneer had disappeared from his face, being replaced by a solemn, tired look that betrayed his worry for the present and future.

"I suppose I don't. And the training must be hurried because..."

"I'm not going to give you answers you already know."

"You're not going to face the inevitable until you have no other choice, you mean."

"I do everything I do now by facing it."

"How long?" Snape asked, looking to his feet, getting back to the point, trying to sound casual about it.

"A few months. After Christmas, before the summer holiday."

"And everything happens at once?"

"Relatively. I go and then they face each other. You know that's how it was meant to be," she stopped and smiled a little. "Harry saw something."

"Did he," Snape stated more than asked, trying almost successfully to seem uninterested.

"He did. I win, he said. More specifically, she can't win every round," Lynn's smile didn't falter as Snape looked up at his childhood friend, pained by the idea that one of the only things that could bring her happiness was the death of her rival. He tried to see the friendly, smiling young girl who waved off both the fuming Sirius Black and sneering Lucius Malfoy like some pest every time the boy had tried to drive her away when she came to talk or study with Severus in the library after abandoning her Gryffindor friends. Finding her smile infinitely unnerving, he changed the subject to wipe it off her face.

"You should have told me about this prophesy sooner. I would have worked harder to get him ready if I knew he was that important before this year."

"You wouldn't have believed me. Besides, I didn't want to make everything very public. Until a couple months ago, Remus, Dumbledore, and I were the only ones who knew the prophesy and we thought we'd have a few more years and Sirius."

"I see," Snape said, looking thoughtful before shaking whatever he was thinking of out of his head and standing. "I will leave you to your pillow now."

"It's not polite to snoop around people's thoughts, you know," Lynn admonished, looking up to him.

"You should take heed of your own advice," Snape said back with a sneer that was probably meant to be a small smile. "Dumbledore sent word that Remus will be here before your first class."

"Good, I'm going to need him. I don't know how to teach," Lynn replied sheepishly and Snape actually smiled a recognizable smile.

"People who don't know how to be a teacher are either the best teachers or the worst. Hope for the former rather than the latter," he said before turning on his heel and leaving Lynn to the aforementioned pillow. He was just about to the door when he stopped and spoke again, not even turning. "He's not all you've got, you know. Some of us have been here a lot longer and don't take kindly to being forgotten," was all he said before continuing out of the room and towards the dungeons.

"Not forgotten," Lynn muttered after just staring at the doorway the tortured shell of her childhood friend had just left. She turned towards the door that would lead her to her coveted pillow and muttered sarcastically to herself a bit before closing the office door behind her. "Goodnight to you too, Mr. Smiles."

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The next morning, Remus arrived as promised before classes. In fact, foreseeing a problem Lily had combated while they were students; he arrived about an hour before breakfast and, after a brief greeting from Dumbledore, headed straight to Lynn's quarters beyond her office, opened the drapes, and pushed her out of bed.

"Holy Merlin!" she shouted as she hit the stone floor. "I swear, Sev, you may think I've forgotten you, but this is no way to get on my good side!" she yelled from the floor.

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm Severus," Remus said as he walked to the other side of the bed and helped her to her feet.

"Damn you, I was having a good dream for once," she grumbled.

"But you move slower than dirt in the morning and you have your first class in a few hours. Lecture, I'd daresay, they're sending you people in groups for the first week so that you can introduce yourself and your plans for the course. Your idea, I assume? I don't doubt you don't have a lesson plan or the slightest idea what you're going to say yet either," he scolded, looking through a trunk for something. "You wouldn't happen to have brought a teapot, would you? I always thought you a better hostess than this."

"Good morning to you too," she grumbled, pushing him out of the way, opening a different lock on the trunk and pulling out a few things. She shoved a teapot in his direction, gathered up the other things she had dropped on the floor in front of her and headed off to the bathroom grumbling something about his being too talkative too early.

When Lynn emerged from the bathroom, showered, dressed, and in a brighter mood than entering, she found Remus leafing through a book of hers with bits of parchment marking pages here and there. She had a smile on her face until she saw what book he was looking through. Throwing the shoes she had just picked up to put on to the floor, she stomped over and snatched the book out of his hands.

"Why are you going through my things?"

"That's not yours."

"It is now! Those markers were not for you!" she said, looking angry enough to cry.

"It's nothing incriminating, it's actually sort of sweet. I never thought him to be the sentimental type," Remus said, heading over to a small table in the corner of the room where he had started to make tea before noticing the book amongst the few things she had unpacked.

"There are things..."

"I know, I'm sorry. There are things meant to be between the two of you alone and I was snooping. Calm down, I won't do it again. I promise you I didn't guess what it was until just before you grabbed it from me. I didn't mean to invade your privacy, but it looked like any other book and I had seen it lying around at Grimmauld Place a few times," Remus assured her, pouring cups of tea for each of them. His apologetic tone calmed Lynn down enough for her to sit at the other chair at the small table, still looking miffed as she sipped her tea. "You know," Remus said after a few tense moments, "I had always assumed it was left there by someone."

"It was. I left it there the first time I visited you all there right before Harry came. I looked for it the next couple times I was there, but couldn't find it. He took it and was reading it, apparently. I found it in his room earlier this summer."

"Funny," Remus mused aloud, taking a sip of tea. "I never knew Sirius could read."

Lynn looked at him for a few seconds with her mouth open, half angry and ready to shout at him for saying something mean like that before realizing how ridiculous she was being. Her mouth snapped shut for another moment before she started laughing. She was still laughing and Remus was just sitting there smiling at his victory and enjoying his tea a moment later when Snape knocked brusquely on the door and let himself in.

"And to think, I missed another one of your witty jokes. Remind me to regret that later," he greeted Lynn dryly before turning to Remus. "I was hoping to find you here; Dumbledore said that you had arrived. Seeing that she can't even figure out what she should be teaching, I'll leave the class schedule with you."

"Hey! Why do you both insist on treating me like a child just because I've never taught before! Neither of you taught before you started here and you both did fine!" Lynn accused, her laughter ending abruptly.

"Even Remus here put hours of preparation into it beforehand. I looked through your desk last night while waiting for you. You don't even have an outline as to what you plan on doing today. When were you planning on thinking of this? Breakfast? If Remus hadn't come to wake you up, I doubt you'd even be awake for breakfast!" Snape scolded, sounding a lot colder and a lot more condescending than Remus had.

"I was just going to wing it," Lynn answered him, straightening herself and speaking with every bit of dignity she had. "And I will be just fine, who do I have first?" she asked, grabbing the schedule from Remus. "Oh good, sixth years today. Things should be fine. Now if the two of you would excuse me, I'm hungry and there's breakfast waiting in the hall," she said, not looking at either of them as they both had their mouths hanging open at the idea of not preparing oneself for a lesson. "Besides," she said over her shoulder as they began to follow, "Remus was the one with the joke, not me, and you would have found it terribly amusing, Sev."

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Gryffindor's new dream team with its three new members sat together at breakfast that morning, chatting merrily as Ron and Hermione excused themselves to pass out the Gryffindor class schedules before sitting back down.

"What do we have first?" Ron asked Harry as he reached for Ginny's uneaten toast.

"DADA," Harry answered.

"Brilliant. We're Lynn's first class!" Ron exclaimed through Ginny's toast.

"Bugger, we've got potions first," Ginny said, looking from her plate to Ron to find her missing toast. "Hey! Stop stealing my food!" she said, throwing her last bite of bacon at her brother before taking another piece of toast from a tray on the table and buttering it for herself.

"What's Professor Lupin doing at the staff table? He wasn't there last night," Neville asked and everyone looked to the head table and then to Harry who shrugged.

"I dunno, she didn't mention anything about him being here today, not even last night," he assured them.

"This should be an interesting lesson," Hermione said thoughtfully, tearing her eyes from the staff table and back to her food.

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"Good morning everyone! Has everyone found a seat? Very good," Lynn said brightly, flashing the class of every sixth year taking advanced DADA a bright smile. "Now normally these classes will have only half the students you see here, but I wanted to be able to introduce myself to everyone in a particular course for the first lesson. Since sixth and seventh years are in advanced DADA and there aren't so many, every sixth and seventh year will be here. The other classes will be meeting in the groups of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw and then Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Even when I was a student here, the houses were usually paired off differently and, after speaking with Dumbledore, he agreed that one class with a different house is a good idea. So once we start meeting normally, it will be in those house pairings."

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville all looked around the classroom to see every sixth year DADA student doing much the same thing: either looking around at everyone a little unbalanced and incredulous due to the strange attempt at teaching or were whispering to their friends about it. Some whispers were just curious, some were positive, like Dean Thomas leaning over to Harry to say how brilliant his godmother was for keeping them out of another class with the Slytherins, but others looked lie they were already belittling Lynn's big idea like Draco Malfoy, who was whispering something undeniably nasty about the class to his toadies Crabbe and Goyle, judging by the snickers. Harry looked down at Lynn who seemed together, but he noticed a few of her nervous habits shining through the strict confidence she was forcing herself to believe she had. She looked up and caught his eye, so Harry gave her what he hoped was a supportive smile, but found himself just as nervous for her as she was. She preferred teaching, homework help, storytelling, basically everything, either one on one or in a small group.

"Having to talk to so many of us at once must be absolutely daunting for her!" Hermione whispered to Harry and Ron as if reading Harry's thoughts. Harry nodded a little and Lynn straightened again to continue.

"Now that I've explained why there are so many of you here today, I should probably stop to introduce myself. My name is Aislynn McGarret and I'm obviously here to teach you DADA. As the headmaster was kind enough to point out last night, I have had auror training, but have not been formally employed by the Ministry in several years. I was a student here at Hogwarts, one of the top in my year, and a prefect my seventh year. I know many of your parents, judging by the class list and some almost too-familiar faces out there, and I'm sure they'd only be too happy to tell you some interesting stories about me, but I'll let you ask some questions directly after I finish explaining how the class is going to work this year.

"We won't need to ask questions, we know all about you from the Daily Prophet," a drawling voice cut in as Lynn took a breath. She looked up a bit surprised and found the platinum haired ferret face that had interrupted and a strange half smile took the place of her initial frown at the interruption.

"You must be Lucius Malfoy's son," she said, looking to a piece of parchment on her desk and scanning it quickly. "Ah, here you are. Draco, is it? You're the spitting image of your father," she said as Draco nodded assent and then got an indecipherable look on his face that was quickly replaced with indifference. "It says here you did very admirably on your O.W.L.'s and you're in Slytherin too. He must be impressed. But unfortunately, I'm not. I knew your father and whereas he was never the kindest of people, he had dignity and respected his elders. I'll let this slide, but I will not tolerate blatant interruptions in my class. There will be plenty of time throughout the class for questions and discussion, but whilst I'm in the middle of explaining something, I'd prefer it if you held your questions and raised your hand before you speak. I am going to let this one slide because I don't know what's accepted in all your classes, but now that I've made it clear, I don't expect to be interrupted so rudely. If you wish to talk about the Daily Prophet, that will just have to wait," Lynn stopped and looked around to everyone with a truly serious look Harry hadn't crossed before. "That goes for everyone, might I add.

"First off, this will be your first year taking DADA with another house. This is because not every sixth year student is in this class and it is more efficient this way. Why, you ask? Because I will be implementing a teaching system that allows us to learn many things quickly and thoroughly. For this, a larger class is ideal. I will explain exactly how this will work starting next week when we break up into our smaller classes.

"Another thing I would like to emphasize," she said, pausing and looking to make sure she had everyone's full attention, "is that fairness will be the rule in this class. Everyone will be allowed to work at their own pace because the world you will face leaving Hogwarts will be very similar to the one I faced after I left this school. It will be important for you all to know many different defenses against many different elements of the dark arts, but it will be imperative that you all can perform them admirably and at a moments notice. A handful of quality defenses will be far more useful than an arsenal of partially successful hexes. Any kind of interruption or outburst, verbal or otherwise," she said, looking to Draco, Harry, and Ron before continuing, "will not be tolerated. And that goes for absolutely everyone. Tolerance of your classmates despite any previous disposition is the name of the game in this class. Despite what you may believe, I am not friend or a former member of any house in this room, simply your professor who greatly wishes to pass on knowledge without any problem. No house or person will be favored," she said with a resolution in her voice as unarguable as Snape's, causing a few mutters and whispers around the room that lead to looks at Harry, whose eyes Lynn skipped over for Ron while she said this, thankfully enough.

"Now, if you would all settle down a moment, I have very pleasant news for you all as well. Once I get past this, you can ask whatever questions you want," Lynn promised, her smile returning, and everyone shut up with the prospect of asking questions. "Very good, thank you. Though he is not currently with us, he will return from his visit to Dumbledore shortly, a close friend of mine has agreed to help us all learn as much as we can as quickly as we can. He has more teaching experience than I do, which is not difficult at all seeing as I have never taught a formal class of students in my life and you are all familiar with him, I assume," Lynn said, her eyes twinkling with excitement almost reminding Harry of Dumbledore at the big feasts. Harry's mouth dropped open, but he closed it enough to smile almost immediately. Ron and Hermione were also smiling, knowing what she was about to say. "Professor Lupin will be returning to us this year to help with these large class sizes," an excited mutter rippled through the crowd as Lynn raised her voice to speak over them and quiet them down.

"I daresay you all remember Professor Lupin and can assure you he is very glad to be returning. I think we can all benefit from his knowledge and undying patience in such trying times, and Dumbledore agrees. I only ask that you consider him your DADA professor as much as me," she told the class as the whispers again ran through the class. She paused to wait for them to die down, sending a smile to Harry, Ron, and Hermione that clearly said 'you didn't think I'd forget him, did you?' before turning her gaze to the rest of the class. "That's all I have to say about the class for now. Are there any questions about myself or the class?" she asked as the hands of half the students in the room shot up like rockets. Lynn pointed to a person near the front at random. Lavender Brown blushed a little at being picked first before asking her question.

"You said you were a student here. I understand that you're not going to favor one house over another, but out of curiosity, what house were you in?"

"I'm sorry, I forgot to mention it, but could you all please tell me your name with your question? I'm sorry to interrupt you..."

"Lavender. Lavender Brown," she giggled and Lynn smiled.

"Thank you, Lavender. And I was in Gryffindor while I was a student here," she said, bringing smiles to the faces of all the Gryffindors. Just then the door in the back of the class opened and Remus Lupin walked in, slowing a little and looking a little like a rabbit in headlights as everyone turned to look at him. "Oh good, you're arrived. You all know Remus here was also a Gryffindor while at Hogwarts. In fact, he and I competed for the top spot in our year the entire seven years we were here. Our biggest competitor outside of Gryffindor was none other than your potions master, Professor Snape, was he not, Remus?"

"Could anyone who knows him doubt it?" Remus said pleasantly, leaving Lynn to answer more questions.

"Mr. Malfoy? Since your inquiries are so important, what is it you would like to know?" Lynn said smiling to him. Harry marveled at Malfoy's ability to simply smile and enjoy the spotlight whereas he would be quick to turn red and stutter.

"I was wondering how much of the Daily Prophet's report was truthful, Professor. There were an awful lot of things it claimed that would cause me to question you as my new professor," he said, smiling the whole time as his Slytherin counterparts smirked.

"You take that back you slimy ferret!" Ron yelled, standing in his seat, but Lynn held her hand up to Ron to silence him, taking her gaze from Malfoy. She looked cross at his outburst.

"Five points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley. I've already warned that I will not tolerate outbursts such as that," she said, trying to decide how to answer Malfoy, the insufferable git.

"That's right Weasel, I never thought your face could ever be as red as your hair!" Malfoy snickered as Lynn rounded on him, reminding both Harry and Ron of Snape, catching the immediate and full attention and interest of the class.

"You have already been warned, Mr. Malfoy. Your father and I never got along, but this kind of low class rudeness is not worthy of your name, five points from Slytherin. Now what exactly did you want to know about the Daily Prophet article?" Lynn asked her flashing eyes calming to cold steel as a smile made its way to her face. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville were completely taken aback while Remus seemed to be trying to hide a smile.

"I - I was just wondering about the Potter thing. If he is your student and godson, there would be apparent issues of favoritism, which seem strangely negated. So you had auror training, did you? Why haven't you been working as an auror in times like these?" Draco asked, barely losing hold of his dignity despite his face going, if possible, whiter. Lynn's smile reached her eyes a little as she answered, and the class calmed with her. Remus, however, seemed all the more amused at this.

"Harry is my godson, his mother, Lily, named me as such. He has spent the summer with me, as have his friends Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, and young Miss Ginny Weasley. You're correct in assuming the favoritism is not an issue. I did have auror training, took a damn long time as well. I also was trained and inducted as an Unspeakable, but was...sacked, so to speak, which is also why I decided to fall back upon my family's money and stop bothering the world."

"Why?" Malfoy asked, obviously having not been briefed by his Azkaban ridden father before meeting up with his new professor and betraying his interest that he usually kept behind a sneer.

"Why was I sacked?" Draco nodded. Harry leaned closer in mutual interest. She never mentioned she was an Unspeakable. "I put up a little bit of a...um...let's call it a demonstration when fellow aurors took Sirius Black to Azkaban. I knew that the Potters had switched secret keepers and that Peter Pettigrew was an illegal animagus. Unfortunately for the world, at this point, no one would accept that there was any truth other than the apparent."

"Unfortunate for the world?" Draco continued, leaning forward in his chair. Lynn got a strange smile as she continued.

"Surely neither side of the imminent battle is keen on letting the long period of relative peace go, Mr. Malfoy. If Pettigrew had been rightly sentenced rather than Black, the battle would not be quite as imminent."

Lynn answered several more questions about the class and menial things such as her favorite subjects in school before the class ran out. She then looked around and said that it was too large of a class to begin lessons with, so that they were free to go. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Neville watched everyone file out of the class talking excitedly about their free time and new professor. The four moved to go chat up their new professors in the front of the room when they realized that they had been beaten by none other than Draco Malfoy, who seemed to be in serious conversation with Lynn, judging by both of their expressions. Remus distracted the four until Draco decided he should leave and Lynn came over, fell into a seat and buried her face in her hands.

"This teaching thing is not for me, I don't think. Maybe you can teach, Remus, and I'll just help with examples and the whole learning process," with that, everyone started talking at once.

"No, no, that was a great lesson! Everyone liked it! Really!" Ron was quick to tell her.

"It may not have been the most informative, but it was interesting and a very good start, especially considering your time to prepare," Hermione told her as the others nodded and muttered their agreements. Lynn looked up at them incredulously.

"Do you know what I have planned for next week?" Lynn asked. Remus got a strange smile that was smothering a laugh. The students looked at her and shook their heads. "Neither do I, I was hoping you could help."

"What are you supposed to be teaching us?" Hermione asked, a little appalled, but determined to have a good training in DADA.

"That's the thing. No one knows. Every student in this school has had a different DADA education as of yet, or at least every class has. Look at all of you! Almost no practical knowledge from Quirell, no knowledge at all from Lockhart, that is, unless you want to know that his favorite color is lilac, of course" she added as Hermione turned bright red and Harry, Ron, and Neville tried to stop the snorts of laughter that were inevitable. "Remus taught you as much as he could, but you should have been farther and would have had he not had to first try and fill you in to your first two years, and the fake Moody caught you up to speed, but Umbridge did no practical examples. Knowing theory is very important, I agree, but you don't have a chance of it being useful to real life if you're not taught how to do the things you're reading about," she sighed exasperatedly.

"What's your plan?" Harry asked and she looked at him strangely. "You have to have a plan or some kind of idea. You always do. What's your gut feeling on this?"

"Teach the whole class everything you need to learn and tell concerned parents, board members, and people from the Ministry to deal with it. I'm not going to allow anyone to do anything above their skill level, but I'm not about to leave out the opportunity to teach you how to handle yourself and get you strong enough to face Voldie without it looking terribly obvious."

"Why would people have a problem with that?" Hermione asked, looking eager to start learning.

"Some people don't want their children to know advanced spells and such. I don't intend on telling anyone they can't perform a complex spell. Look at Harry, he can produce a patronus just about as good as my own, but there are simpler spells that you have to help him with for hours for him to get."

"Hey, it did take me a long time to learn the patronus!" Harry interjected.

"Yes, but you were alright at it without much improvement and then -POW!- you had it. Yes, I know the situation demanded it of you, but sometimes things like that happen. Some people have a propensity for certain spells, charms, and hexes the same that they would for different school subjects or everyday talents. Take Sirius for example. He was quite the decent flyer, but he had the worst troubles apparating," she explained and Remus let out a snort of laughter.

"Remember after James and Lily's wedding when he decided, despite you screaming at him and me trying to plead with him to think, to apparate back to the flat?" Remus said between laughs as Lynn joined and the students that had known Sirius smiled a little, waiting to be told the rest.

"He was completely smashed, but in the greatest of moods. You think he was stubborn under normal circumstances? You should have seen him when smashed and completely elated. There's no arguing with him," Lynn laughed a little harder before calming down enough to tell the rest of the story. "So the reception's over and he gets it in his head that there's still more party, so he invites everyone back to our flat, as if we had any kind of food or drink or anything in the house that neither of us had bothered to pick up for the past week or anything. So I tried to get him to go by floo because he usually ended up off target when apparating sober, but he wasn't having it. Said the tux was too nice and rented, that he wouldn't do anything that might ruin it. So I tried to talk him into a portkey or something, but he brushed me off and apparated right then and there."

"What could we do then but hope that he had gotten to the right place or go wait for him if he didn't?" Remus added in, shaking his head.

"But he wasn't there when we all got there. James, Lily, Remus, Dumbledore, Molly, Arthur, my sister, myself, the rest of the Order, and about ten or eleven other people there or coming and Sirius is nowhere to be found."

"Lynn was throwing a fit, you should've seen her. She was screaming and yelling and throwing things and vowing that he'd never drink again in her presence...it was hysterical...not even Lily or her sister could calm her down, but I suppose it didn't help much that they were trying not to laugh at the same time," Remus laughed some more, getting smiles from everyone.

"So people are coming and going to their homes and whatever stores were open so late so they could eat and drink because I hadn't been shopping and we had almost nothing in the place, literally, there were some stale crackers, orange juice, and half a pot of coffee sitting there for who knows how many days, I think. After about an hour and a half of me tearing my hair out, more pissed off than I can ever remember being in my life to that point, party in full swing without me, someone come up and grabs me from behind saying, 'Come on beautiful, you owe me a dance,' and wouldn't you know there was Sirius as if nothing had happened!"

"Of course, Lynn doesn't take well to surprises and only barely missed him with her hand as she jumped a mile when he came up behind her. Then after he spoke and she knew it was him, she spun around, slapped him right across the face, and started screaming at him right then and there," Remus said, forgetting all pretenses of being the solemn, collected man they knew as a fantastic DADA professor and laughing hysterically.

"He deserved it! Who knows where the hell he was, but he turned up after an hour and a half with all sorts of food and booze. I was so mad at him right then - he could have apparated onto train tracks or halfway across the country and gotten himself hurt or killed and no one would have known where to find him! Damn stubborn git," she swore as Remus laughed louder. His laughter was strangely contagious and everyone started chuckling a bit.

"You should have seen him! He got this entirely confused and hurt look on his face and didn't know what in the world her problem was. She stormed off because she was too angry to yell anymore and he yelled after her something like 'What? I may not have gotten here the first several tries, but I'm here now! And look! I brought all kinds of food and stuff! I brought a party with me!' and she just rounded on him and told him he'd better as hell not be hung-over when she got back, if she came back," Remus and Lynn laughed, but everyone else was a little confused at how that was funny.

"But you did go back, right?" Harry asked, confused.

"Yeah, I went back," Lynn said with a smile.

"About ten minutes later with Severus, who hadn't been invited to the wedding because of James, but seeing as the party had moved to her flat and she was angry as hell at Sirius, it proved to make her point," Remus assured them.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. It worked out half alright too. Sev's never been one for parties, so he left pretty quickly after Sirius found it in himself to apologize," Lynn shook her head before noticing the clock. "Merlin! You'll be late for your next classes! Go go go! Now! Move it, I can't be making you late, and they'll never forgive me! Please tell me you don't have McGonagall or Snape!"

"We've got potions next," Harry said, looking to his schedule, "Well, I do."

"I've got herbology," Neville said, looking panicked. He'd never make it to the greenhouses in time.

"Ok, here's the deal," Lynn said, weighing her options. "Remus, you go with Neville and make up some excuse, Sprout likes you better. The rest of us will run down to the potions room and hope to make it in time. If not, I'll see what I can do about Snape. Now go!" she yelled and they were all off.