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A couple hours later, Harry found himself at the head of an empty classroom. His classroom. He pictured every Defense classroom he'd ever walked into, and realized his was, in contrast, starkly empty, save for an ancient Muggle-style chalkboard, the students' desks, his large desk and seat, and the light streaming in through the tall windows.

He sat behind his desk, then, abruptly, dragged his uncomfortable wooden chair next to the desk. He drummed his fingers nervously on his lap. He shifted McGonagall's lesson plan, left, then right. He got up, manually wrote his name on the chalkboard.

'Professor Potter'

Ugh.

He hastily erased it.

'Harry,' he wrote.

Nope, no, definitely not. Harry erased that too.

Before he could etch out his name another way, Harry heard the chattering voices of students approach.

Well, here goes nothing.

While the students had been talkative in the hall, they were silent as they entered. McGonagall, hoping to encourage unity amongst the houses, had decided to blend houses in all classes for every year.

Harry pretended to look busy with his lesson plan, flipping hastily through the pages, not actually reading anything. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry watched as red, green, blue, and yellow-clad students, his students, he realized fearfully, found their seats.

Is this real?

He wished Hermione were by his side, like the D.A.

When it seemed as though all the students had arrived, Harry began roll call.

"Rachel Aborisco," Harry paused, but there was no answer. He noted some of the students rolling their eyes.

"Rachel Aborisco!" Harry called again. This time, a girl, dressed in Slytherin green, appeared in the doorway.

"Here!" She called breathlessly as she scurried to the only open desk in the room, in the front row. "Sorry," she mumbled, turning scarlet. Again, Harry noted more eye-rolling from some of the students.

"That's all right," Harry said, then continued roll call. He tried not to smirk, reminded of his own first year.

The predictable security of roll call ended, and the room was silent as the students, and Harry himself, waited for direction.

Right, Harry thought to himself dryly, thinking how awkward he must seem at this moment. Again, he wished Hermione were with him.

But she isn't. Harry remembered he'd accepted this position for a purpose, and he wasn't about to forget it just because he was afraid of a few eleven- and twelve-year olds.

"So… I'm Harry, but I guess you already know that," Harry shrugged, stating the obvious, but continued honestly, "I hope to learn who all of you are, too."

A Ravenclaw boy's hand shot up in the air. Harry wondered what he could possibly have to say so early in the lesson.

"Yes, er- Anthony, was it?"

"Tony," the boy affirmed, "Tony Rodriguez. What should we call you, uh, professor?"

"Harry. Or 'Professor' if you prefer… If Headmistress McGonagall or Herm- er, Professor Granger are around, you should probably call me Professor… unless you're aiming to lose house points."

Some of the students laughed.

Encouraging, Harry thought, emboldened. He leaned against his desk.

"Speaking of the Headmistress… she gave me your textbook," Harry gestured to the copy of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble propped open on Rachel Aborisco's desk, then continued, "And a lesson plan, here," Harry held up the thick binder for all to see, then dropped it back on the desk. Some of the students groaned.

"Let me finish, let me finish," Harry explained, smirking.

"According to lesson plan one, I'm supposed to review Lumos," Harry held up his wand as it illuminated, "and Nox." Harry's wand went out.

"Simple, but Lumos is more useful than it looks- it can repel Gytrashes and some evil spirits."

Some of the students began whipping out their notebooks and furiously taking notes. Harry chuckled internally, then continued, winging it.

"There's a lot of useful stuff in your textbook and this lesson plan, outside of both too, things you'll learn and practice in this class. Spells and information I hope you'll remember even after you leave Hogwarts. But McGonagall won't be the one teaching this class… I will. And you will too."

Most of the students had forfeited their notes by now, but some looked around questioningly at each other.

Noticing this, Harry elaborated, "In this class, we'll learn from each other."

"Today we have to learn about something more important than spells and hexes though- today I want us to learn about the War… and about each other."

The class was silent, rapt with attention.

"Fortunately, all of us here were lucky enough to live through it, but I'd bet fifty galleons we all know someone who wasn't so fortunate. It's important to remember the past, to honor the people who made those impossible sacrifices. The War is part of all of us, and it can help us move forward, together."

Harry paused, amazed the words were just spilling out, amazed he held their attention.

At least I think they're paying attention.

"Does anyone want to share something about their time during the War?"

Harry realized he was asking a lot. In fact, he knew he would've been horrified if a professor had asked him a question like the one he was asking now. Despite this truth, somehow, Harry knew it was the right thing to do.

The room remained silent, and Harry sighed.

If you're asking them to share, you should too, a voice that sounded an awful lot like Hermione's said.

"Me first then. My friend Dobby released me from imprisonment, just as I was starting to lose hope of escape," Harry shivered at the memory of Hermione's tortured screams, the thought of which managed to continue to keep him awake at night.

Harry took a breath and continued, "Then, as if that wasn't enough, Dobby gave his own life to save mine… and Professor Granger's too. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."

The room was quiet again. Then, a girl in Gryffindor cautiously raised her hand. Harry simply nodded for her to share.

"My Uncle Bill, his mum, my grandmother, was Muggle-born. He loved Quidditch, he was a beater. He loved breaking the rules on the pitch and in life," the girl laughed sadly, "That's what we wrote in his obituary."

She continued, "When Snatchers started capturing people, he hid them. Always had a knack for disillusionment charms. But they found him, they found everyone. They imprisoned all the people he was protecting, but Uncle Bill, they-"

A Ravenclaw girl reached over to her friend, put her hand encouragingly on her shoulder.

It wasn't long before another student raised their hand to share. This time, it was a Hufflepuff student. Again, Harry nodded encouragingly.

"My dad, he worked for the Ministry. He refused to give the names of Muggle-born co-workers. Death Eaters tortured him, then when they were done with him, sent him to Azkaban. He's still at St. Mungo's… over Christmas break he finally remembered my name."

"I thought I saw you at St. Mungo's over break," another Hufflepuff gently chimed in, "I was seeing my sister. She was here last year, it was her third year. Her doctor said she might be able to come back in September."

The students stopped raising their hands, but the stories continued, more as a conversation. Although Harry was overjoyed at the response, he was saddened to empathize too well with his very young students, what they had been through, what they continued to go through, who they had lost.

Harry'd always felt there weren't many perks to being Harry Potter, but he wondered if perhaps because the students knew the greater part of what he'd been through, it helped them find a common ground with him, and allowed them to feel more comfortable in his class, to share their experiences.

I hope so, anyway.

The conversation reached a peak, students sharing, and even more supporting one another.

"We should go to St. Mungo's together next time," one student said determinedly to another.

"Your sister sounds like she was brilliant, let's ask Flitwick about making a plaque for her in the Common Room," a Ravenclaw encouraged a classmate.

"We should organize a memorial ride around the pitch-"

It went on and on. Harry didn't say much at all, he didn't need to. After some time, the conversation naturally slowed.

As Harry was just about to address the class again, a girl in Slytherin, Rachel Aborisco, the one who'd shown up late to class, spoke quietly, tentatively, as if just to Harry.

"My mum and dad were killed- and my older brother too. I live with my great aunt now-"

"You have no right," a boy in Gryffindor, Raj Wilson, interrupted. "No right to share your "story," he seethed.

Before Harry could interject, a Hufflepuff girl also said, "Your parents were Death Eaters, and you too I bet, junior Death Eater. How can you even show your face in this class, at this school?"

Rachel's face paled as she hung her head in shame. The other Slytherin students looked away.

"Stop," Harry took a breath, "I want this class to be an open place, and an honest place, but I won't stand for that kind of prejudice," he continued, firmly, seriously, his eyes visibly darkening. He felt something swell inside him.

Nonverbal, wandless magic, Harry thought. He tried to calm himself before someone got hurt.

The students retreated into their seats, the room deadly silent. Raj only huffed and crossed his arms in defiance.

"I loved my brother," Rachel said tearfully, never lifting her gaze, "he never wanted it- any of it. He stayed to protect me… I hate what my parents did to him, what they did to him."

"I'm so sorry, Rachel," Harry all but whispered, remembering stories of Sirius' upbringing.

"Sorry? For her? How can you defend her?" Raj now shouted. "You're sticking up for Death Eaters and Slytherin!" The boy said in disgust.

"So what you're saying, Raj, is that you think Rachel's family deserved to be killed? You think she deserves to live the rest of her life without her parents and her brother? That sounds an awful lot like what Voldemort and his followers thought Muggle-borns 'deserve.'"

"What? No-" Raj blubbered. Some of the students shifted their silent gazes toward the Gryffindor.

Harry remained calm as he stood resolutely at the front of the room, addressing the entire class now, "Like I warned before, I won't tolerate this kind of prejudice, and neither should all of you. We all have light and dark inside each of us, it's what we chose to act on that makes the difference. If you think someone is born pure evil, or you think they must be evil because they're in Slytherin, you have a lot to learn. I might've reacted like Raj not all that long ago, but I've learned… I'm still learning."

"And that's why you're here, at Hogwarts, in this class. To learn," Harry wasn't sure how his words were coming so fluidly, so clearly. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so articulate.

He couldn't help but wonder if Hermione would be proud of him.

"Voldemort wasn't born an evil monster. He was born human, like the rest of us, orphaned as a baby, then a neglected child. I'm not making excuses for him, but he chose evil…"

"The sorting hat wanted to put me in Slytherin, it said I could do great things in that house. Out of prejudice, I begged it not to. I was a fool. Severus Snape was a Slytherin student, eventually Head of House. His choices were… complicated, but he was one of the bravest men I ever knew."

The class was rapt with attention, even Raj Wilson.

"My parents were in Gryffindor, and one of their best friends, Peter, too. That rat gave them up to Voldemort, cowered in fear for years, and then followed him to the end."

Harry then remembered the Malfoys, how even though Draco had clearly recognized Harry's battered face at Malfoy Manor, he'd chosen not to out him. Harry remembered Narcissa Malfoy's lie, the lie that saves Harry's life, and the War.

"During the War, I witnessed two Death Eaters defy Voldemort, one directly to his face. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here. Voldemort would probably still be alive."

Some of the students gasped audibly. Rachel and Raj looked on in silent shock, wide-eyed.

"The point is, we all have a choice, whether you're in Hufflepuff , Slytherin, Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw. We can choose prejudice and hate, or we can choose to try to understand. If the War has taught me anything, it's that we need each other, not just in the fight against the Dark Arts, but to live."

Again, Harry thought of Hermione. How many times had she told him the same thing? How long did it take before he believed her?

"In this class, I'll talk about spells and jinxes, strategy and tactics, but the most important thing I hope you'll learn is how to work together."

Harry eyed the clock, class was nearly over. The room was silent, no one moved. Harry returned to the seat behind his desk.

"I'm sorry!" Raj blurted from the back row. "I'm sorry, Rachel, I didn't mean-"

Rachel turned in her seat and sniffled, "It's okay…"

"I really am sorry, Harry," Raj said again, now looking to Harry for reassurance. Some of the other students nodded encouragingly. A few others, Harry noted, still looked on in shock. Harry nodded silently to Raj.

It's a good start… I hope.

"I think that'll do for today. See you all tomorrow."

The students rose slowly from their seats, some frantically whispering to each other as they filed out. Harry noticed Rachel lingering behind, alone.

Spurned by recollections of his own first year, the memory of his godfather born into a family he despised, the understanding Dumbledore had given Malfoy, Harry said quietly, "Headmistress McGonagall reminded me I need to schedule office hours. I dunno officially when they'll be yet… but my door is open, too all students."

"Okay…" she replied timidly, unable to meet his eyes.

"I hope to see you," Harry said sincerely, encouragingly.

Finally Rachel met his eyes, her own filled with tears. Harry wondered if this was the first act of kindness she'd received at Hogwarts.

"Thank you, Professor."

When he was sure all the students had left and were a safe distance away, Harry let out a sigh, dropping his forehead flat on his desk. He noticed his heart thumping. He was exhausted, he was excited, relieved, he was… proud?

Will every class be like this? Harry wondered.

"I've been listening," A sharp voice shattered the silence and his thoughts. It was McGonagall. Harry jolted upright and gulped when he saw McGonagall standing resolutely in the doorway, arms crossed.

"I see you did not follow the textbook, nor my lesson plan," the Headmistress said flatly.

"Headmistress, I-"

Harry was too busy conjuring an excuse to see the smirk spreading across her usually stern mouth.

"And I couldn't be more proud, Harry," McGonagall interrupted, the twinkle, a rarity, in her eye reminiscent of Dumbledore's.

"Oh- uh, thank you?" Harry said, unbelieving.

"It's clear to me I owe Miss Granger a great debt," McGonagall said sincerely.

"You and me both," Harry agreed, smiling, thinking of the endless debt he owed his best friend.

Not that I mind.

"Don't you mean Professor Granger?" Harry corrected coyly, emboldened by McGonagall's praise.

The Headmistress could not contain her laughter, nor the joy she felt at seeing Harry succeed, "Quite right, Professor."

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A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing!