And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Chapter 16: Lateral Thinking
The enemy's gate is Rowling.
As soon as he walked into the Defence classroom on Wednesday, Harry knew that
It was, for a start, the largest classroom he had yet seen at Hogwarts, akin to a major university classroom, with layered tiers of desks facing a gigantic flat stage of white marble. The classroom was high up in the castle - on the fifth floor - and Harry knew that was as much explanation as he'd get for where a room like this was supposed to fit. It was becoming clear that Hogwarts simply did not
Unlike a university hall, there weren't rows of folding seats; instead there were quite ordinary Hogwarts wooden desks and wooden chairs, lined up in a curve across each level of the classroom. Except that each desk had a flat, white, rectangular, mysterious object propped up on it.
In the center of the gigantic platform, on a small raised dais of darker marble, was a lone teacher's desk. At which Quirrell sat slumped over in his chair, head lolled back, drooling slightly over his robes.
Harry had arrived at the lesson so early that no other students were there yet. (The English language was defective when it came to describing time travel; in particular, English lacked any words capable of expressing how convenient it was.) Quirrell didn't seem to be... functional... at the moment, and Harry didn't particularly feel like approaching Quirrell anyway.
Harry selected a desk, climbed up to it, sat down, and retrieved the Defence textbook. He was around seven- eighths of the way through - he'd planned on finishing the book before this lesson, actually, but he was running behind schedule and had already used the Time-Turner twice today.
Soon there were sounds as the classroom began to fill up. Harry ignored them.
"Potter? What are
One of the lads standing behind Draco seemed to have rather a lot of muscle for an eleven-year-old, and the other was poised in a suspiciously balanced-looking stance.
The white-blonde-haired boy smiled rather smugly and gestured behind him. "Potter, I introduce to you Mr. Crabbe," his hand moved from Muscles to Balance, "Mr. Goyle. Vincent, Gregory, this is Harry Potter."
Mr. Goyle tilted his head and gave Harry a look that was probably supposed to mean something but ended up just looking squinty. Mr. Crabbe said "Please to meetcha" in a tone that sounded like he was trying to lower his voice as far as it could go.
A fleeting expression of consternation crossed Draco's face, but was quickly replaced by his superior grin.
"You have
Draco's smirk grew wider. "I'm afraid, Potter, that the first step is to be Sorted into Slytherin -"
"What? That's not fair!"
"- and then for your families to have an arrangement from before you were born."
Harry looked at Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle. They both seemed to be trying very hard to loom. That is, they were leaning forwards, hunching over their shoulders, sticking their necks out and staring at him.
"Um... hold on," said Harry. "This was arranged
"Exactly, Potter. I'm afraid you're out of luck."
Mr. Goyle produced a toothpick and began cleaning his teeth, still looming.
"And," said Harry, "Lucius insisted that you were
That wiped the grin from Draco's face. "Yes, Potter, we all know you're brilliant, the whole school knows by now, you can stop showing off -"
"So they've been told their
Draco winced.
"- and what's worse, they
"The boss told ya to shut it," rumbled Mr. Crabbe. Mr. Goyle bit down on his toothpick, holding it between his teeth, and used one hand to crack the knuckles on the other.
The two looked a bit sheepish and Mr. Goyle quickly put the toothpick back in a pocket of his robes.
But the moment Draco turned away from them to face Harry again, they went back to looming.
"I apologise," Draco said stiffly, "for the insult which these
Harry gave a meaningful look to Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle. "I'd say you're being a little harsh on them, Draco.