They Told Him to Teach: An AiaW Oneshot

Disclaimer: This is fanfiction taking place in the Harry Potter universe created by JK Rowling. Well, technically it takes place in an alternate dimension based off of Harry Potter by JK Rowling, but we all know how our complete lack of ownership goes.

Harry scowled at the rows of laconic fifth years in front of him, glancing around the desks as he checked off the last stragglers entering the room. It had been one thing to teach the DA; not only was a pushy Hermione there to nag mightily at anyone who seemed particularly unenthused or troublesome, he had had a rather impressive backdrop of survival stories as a public resume. The only one – with the exception of Marietta Edgecombe – who had given him any trouble was Zacharias Smith and he was easily subdued by a hex or some form of Weasley bitch fit.

Sadly, having official teaching status restricted him from treating his class like a room full of Smiths.

One girl raised her hand, cutting off most of the surprisingly unsubtle conversations about the likelihood that Harry was related to Moody because of his appearance – genetics really needed to be taught in the Wizarding World – and how he was sure to be a pushover compared to old Auror.

"Miss Vane?" He called on her, vaguely wondering if this incarnation of Romilda had the same hormone-fuelled sociopathic tendencies of the one he remembered.

"Are you going to teach us the same way Professor Moody does?" She asked, and Harry raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to clarify. "Er—are you going scream at us and make us memorize counter curses, or are you going to teach us things that will actually be on the OWLs?"

Well, points for bluntness at least.

He paused a moment to consider her question, idly noting that many students had zeroed in on him with the aggressive intensity not unlike that which his class had focused on Umbridge once they realized actual magic hadn't been on the syllabus. One boy was still caught up in a Quidditch magazine and a trio of Slytherins were still gossiping in the back corner, but they would either learn to pay attention soon enough or he'd use them to demonstrate spells.

"I certainly won't be focusing on counter curses," he said, "but I can't imagine most of my class will be on your exams." He ignored the ripple of groans that went through the room at that. "The OWLs aren't really that important. Professor McGonagall would probably kill me for saying so and you're probably trained to think it's sacrilegious by now, but they're a waste of time. Most jobs don't require good test scores. For those that do, it's far more impressive if you prove that you don't need good grades to be an asset. I'd rather teach you something worth the time you'll spend on it."

He saw disbelieving despair on many of their faces and, with a small tendril of Legilimency, saw an overwhelming image of owls being anxiously sent home to parents. "But if you're that worried about it, your assignment for the day will give you an excellent opportunity to study with the best resources you could hope to get your hands on."

He smiled manically and half the class recoiled in fear while the other leaned forward in anticipation of getting a leg up for June.

"You're going to learn to break into the Restricted Section."

"Shit! – I mean, no!" He ran a hand through his hair in aggravation as the room filled with the sound of screaming. "Everyone, silence anything that has a face!"

The dim library filled with jets of blue light as the students complied. They had begun the class with a basic level of competency at the spell, but, as they tripped alarms and snuck past unimpressed portraits of past librarians, everyone's skill and speed had improved drastically.

"Churchwood, Murdoch, Stevens, and Sloper, you're on distraction duty. If Pince finds us, we're all done for,' Harry barked, choosing students at random.

Churchwood and Stevens immediately set about making a rather spectacular illusion to block the class from sight, one using his wand to copy a wide swath of another part of the Restricted Section and placing image over the erstwhile crime scene while his partner changed small details to make it more realistic. Murdoch directed a time-delayed bludgeoning spell toward a bookcase of the far side of the library while Sloper ran towards Pince's desk, screeching to a slow amble just out of her sight and smoothing down his robes.

"Good afternoon, Madam Pince. I was wondering—" he was interrupted by the tremendous crash caused by Murdoch's spell and the librarian's angry exclamation. "Oh dear, let me help you with that…"

Impressed by their improvization, spellwork, and, in Sloper's case, fearless schmoozing of the irascible Madam Pince, Harry turned back to his other students. They had silenced all of the screeching books and had returned to figuring out how to break past the last lock. One student cursed when her hand got too close to it and it tried to bite off her finger. Another student looked at the lock with a flash of understanding and jabbed her wand at it, making it inanimate again.

"It's safe to touch now," she concluded, "but I have no idea how to remove it. None of us know the locking spell."

"If you can't remove it with magic," Harry asked them, "can you remove it without magic?"

This question earned him quite a few skeptical looks. "I suppose we could break it," Vane suggested dubiously. Harry waved his wand in a gesture for her to try it. She shot increasingly forceful spells at it, but the lock just absorbed them and remained stubbornly immovable.

"There was one thing the Weasley twins always used to do," one of the Gryffindors said. "Whenever they were trying to break into Snape's office and thought their magic might be traced, they would do something called lockpicking." He shrugged. "But they never showed anyone else how to do it."

"That's because the Weasley twins are professional showboaters and businessmen," Harry said wryly, coming forward towards the lock. "They'd lose their market if they shared their secrets."

He rapped the padlock with his wand, enunciating the usually silent Disillusionment Charm and focusing on making just the exterior invisible. He heard his students repeat it under their breaths. "You can use this spell on people, too, and it's fairly simple to cast silently. Now, make sure you can see the locking mechanism." He heard them repeat it a few more times, their interest in the spell clearly increased, as they gathered around him. Transfiguring two quills into metal tools, he pushed them into the locking mechanism and shifted them around in it until everyone heard a loud click.

"I can't teach you how to pick locks step-by-step," he told them as he removed the padlock, "because there's absolutely no good reason for a teacher to be giving you that information, but the unlocked closet near Filch's office has quite a few spare padlocks that no one would miss."

Harry turned to look at the class, stepping out of the way of the gate. "Now, who wants to be the guinea pig and see if we really did remove all the protective spells?"

No one stepped forward, and Harry chuckled. "Looks like Moody at least taught you 'constant vigilance,'" he chuckled, pushing open the gate and walking in first. "Now feel free to explore. Give me a list of any books you want to take out, but stay away from all the demon-summoning books. I'll know if you get into anything you really shouldn't."

The class immediately dispersed; even the students he remembered as being particularly inattentive at the beginning of class excitedly darted along the forbidden shelves. Noting their preoccupation, he walked towards the potions section. Most of the potion texts in the regular section of the library featured concoctions that were passively offensive at best. Even in Snape's class, the potions he and his classmates were required to learn were antidotes, healing potions, or potions that were deadly only when applied creatively. Given, over the years he had seen several different ways to turn those things into noxious explosives, but they were always unstable and unpredictable; what he was after was a large number of topical, dangerous potions.

Like smoke bombs, but ones that might turn Death Eaters inside out much like that one picture Ron had pointed out back in second year.

He pocketed Moste Pontente Potions, and glanced through the titles he was far less familiar with. Unfortunately, most of them had ominous but useless descriptions, and texts in the Wizarding World rarely had any sort of internal organization anyway. Sighing, he grabbed a couple of the more gruesome sounding ones and turned around to make sure none of his students were going for necromancy or soul-splitting or something equally deplorable that he'd have to deal with later.

Most students seemed to have picked a shelf at random to look through, enjoying their own daring without a specific purpose. Romilda Vane, however, was right in the middle of a section for love-related mind control and Harry scowled before walking over to her and flipping the book in her hands closed.

"No, Vane."

"But Professor, on the OWLs—"

"No, Vane."

She opened her mouth in protest, but closed it at his quelling look.

"There is nothing about love potions, love curses, or love anything on the OWLs or NEWTs that you can find the answer for in that book," he said. "But remind me to tell you an interesting story about Voldemort later. I think you'll find it… worthy of consideration."

She squeaked a bit at the name, and fled to another part of the Restricted Section.

He next saw a pair of Slytherins huddled suspiciously around a shelf dedicated to the Unforgiveables. Slipping up behind them unnoticed, he eavesdropped on their conversation.

"—no, what it attacks is more important, not how, Bulstrode."

"It's not like I'm disagreeing. But we could probably find that somewhere else. Only in the Restricted Section would we have a chance at finding out how the Cruciatus works."

"The how is probably creating electrical impulses, which we can only begin to block if we know where it begins. It's not like we can use it and find out ourselves."

"Yes,' Harry interrupted dryly, "I'd recommend against that."

The two jumped and spun around. The one Harry couldn't place started to quickly put the book back, while Bulstrode – presumably Millicent's younger brother – scowled. "What, you saw two Slytherins talking about the Cruciatus Curse and thought we'd start throwing it around?"

"No, I saw two students having an interesting discussion about how to block something considered unblockable," he answered. "Any ideas yet?'

They just looked back with blank stares.

Harry shrugged at them, raising his hands in surrender. "I'm not out to steal your Order of Merlin or brand you as Death Eaters. You seem to have a good reason for what you're doing."

They glanced at each other, but continued to say nothing. He stared back; McGonagall had always been able to outwait all of her troublesome student even at their most reticent. Maybe he had the same power now.

He didn't.

Or he may have, but an ear-piercing shriek made everyone whirl around to see a furious Madam Pince glaring at them with bulging eyes. "Disgraceful," she shouted in a whisper. "Students roaming at large in the Restricted Section. Students talking. An assistant professor breaking into my library."

She took a threatening step toward him, and he backpedaled instinctively, resulting in a few suppressed giggles from his students.

"Now, Madam Pince, this was an educational activity—"

"Wait until Headmaster Dumbledore hears about this!" She hissed. "I want you all out! Out!"

En masse, the students quickly but carefully placed whatever what they were holding back in its place and bolted. "Back to the classroom," he called over the din, making Pince twist her face even more frighteningly at him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bulstrode begin to slip the book into his robes. He snatched it from him, raising what he hoped was an authoritative eyebrow while slipping the book into his pocket. "We'll talk later," Harry said, and motioned for them to precede him out of the Restricted Section.

When he entered the classroom, the fifth years were chattering in a hyper mix of excitability and terror.

"Professor!" Stevens exclaimed. "What are we going to do?"

"Nothing is going to happen to you," Harry said reassuringly, extending the message to the whole class when they turned worriedly towards him. "You all did remarkably well, even though we did get caught. What can we do next time to prevent that?"

There was an undercurrent of incredulously muttered, "Next time?" but when Harry showed no signs of joking, one student raised her hand.

"Someone will have to stand watch."

"Why don't we just go when Pince won't be there?" Another student called out. "Then we don't have to worry."

"But then there are all the spells over the library at night. They alert whatever Professor is patrolling," the first student argued back.

"And then Snape might catch us!" A third student interjected, and this caused another wave of fearful muttering.

"Are you even serious, Professor?" Vane asked, sounding still put out about being stopped earlier.

"Of course I am," he said. "If you can break in somewhere but get caught, you've learned only half the lesson. Plus, you all probably haven't explored half so well as you would like."

Pausing, he took a step closer to them and stared at them menacingly. "But make no mistake. I'm treating you like rational adults and am willing to take the heat for something any of you could easily abuse. If you take anything I teach you as a chance to do someone harm, that treatment will end. As well as most things you find pleasant about Hogwarts and life more generally."

Once he had met each pair of eyes, he leaned back. "So – homework. Come up with a plan that you think will work. Research the spells protecting the library, look up how to lock pick, whatever it takes to make your idea work. We'll discuss them next time."

They all began to pack up their things, and Harry beckoned Sloper to his desk. "Here's a pass to the Restricted Section: twenty minutes, no checking out, and you can't use it past Friday. You took a bullet for the class, and not giving you the same access to the prize will only discourage you from doing that in the future." He ignored Sloper's confused look, figuring it was for the best that he not recognize Harry was tacitly encouraging sacrificial heroics. They had a history of working, when used properly.

"But no demons." Harry said emphatically, and Sloper's look turned into one of amusement. "Really," Harry emphasized, "don't do anything that will get us both sent to Azkaban, or I'll send all the Dementors your way."

"So," Lily began at supper that evening, sitting next to Harry, "how were your first classes? They didn't run roughshod over you and break school rules did they?"

"Not any I didn't break right back," Harry answered.

"That's not the most reassuring response I've ever heard," McGonagall said from Lily's other, leaning in severely. "You're not exactly my first choice for a teacher or role model, Collins."

"Nobody died," Harry said dismissively, deliberately continuing to give ominous responses. "Nobody even got physically injured."

"From what Irma told me," Moody interjected quietly, "that's supposed to change shortly."

Nobody else had heard him, Lily and McGonagall creating their own conversation, and Harry crossed his arms defiantly. "It's good for them. I also wanted to see what books they would be interested in."

"I'm more curious about what books you wanted access to," Moody rejoined suspiciously, and Harry rolled his eyes as if he hadn't stolen several books and hid them under the floorboards of an abandoned classroom.

"If I wanted to read anything not approved for all audiences, I would just sneak into Knockturn Alley rather than have an entourage of fifth years in the Restricted Section."

Moody grunted distrustfully and turned back to his food.

Harry focused on his own meal, but glanced up to look at Bulstrode and his friend. He'd have to watch them to make sure they didn't too anything too illegal, but their attempts to find a way to block the Cruciatus Curse might actually work out.

If nothing else, their focus was sure to have an interesting backstory he could use in the future.