Chapter Two of 'Soldier's Welcome'- Meet The Teachers
Title: Soldier’s Welcome (2/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Pairings: Harry/Draco preslash, Ron/Hermione
Warnings: Violence (and plenty of it), profanity, references to sex, takes account of DH but ignores the epilogue, heavy angst.
Summary: It’s the first year of Auror training for Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and…Draco Malfoy, But with Hagrid, Snape’s second Pensieve, rogue Death Eaters, Auror classes, and someone trying to start a second war to worry about, Harry might not have the time to pay that much attention to Malfoy. At first, anyway.
Author’s Notes: This story is the first in a trilogy called Running to Paradise, which takes its title from a W. B. Yeats poem. Each story will be novel-length, and each will cover a year of Harry and Draco’s training as Aurors. Though there are a lot of fics out there about them acting as Auror partners, there aren’t as many about their training, so I hope to cover some original ground there. I’m indebted to a reader named SP777 for suggesting a training fic for me to write.
Chapter One.
Thank you for all the reviews!
Chapter Two-Meet the Teachers
A day should have been long enough to get his balance and feel somewhat at home in the Auror trainee barracks, Harry thought-especially because they had bigger rooms than the Gryffindor boys’ rooms at Hogwarts, and only two people had to share them. (He and Ron were together, of course). The barracks weren’t incredibly exciting, but they had carpet on the floors and no scenes of violent and bloody death on the walls, and that was enough for him. He didn’t know exactly where they were, since the only access was by Floo, and all the fireplaces he could find led straight back to the Ministry.
Not a very strange place, not one that would offer the answers to a lot of questions. The mysteries and the training would take place in the Ministry, and he should have been content with that.
But he still felt as though he’d lost his footing when he, Ron, Hermione, and a group of perhaps twenty other trainees stepped into the room that would hold their Hand-to-Hand Combat class. Maybe it was the way that he knew almost no one, and only Ron and Hermione’s bickering was familiar. Maybe it was the way that a lot of other people seemed tense and nervous and solemn, suggesting that he should take Auror training a lot more seriously than he’d ever taken the classes at Hogwarts.
Maybe it was the nightmare last night, he thought, and rubbed his forehead, and told himself that his scar not hurting was a good thing, and paid attention to the rest of the room.
The floor was a soft springy material that they could walk easily on but which, Harry thought, probably wouldn’t hurt to be thrown on, either. The walls were brilliant blue tile, with mirrors recessed into them and covered with protective, transparent wards. The light came from soft, drifting balls of silvery smoke that stayed near the ceiling and in fairly solid shapes. The better to avoid breaking them, Harry reckoned, and they took up less room than fireplaces or torches.
There were no chairs or desks. Harry saw Hermione notice that, look disappointed, and put away the parchment and ink she’d already taken out.
Then the door opened and their teacher strode into the room, looking around the crowd and appearing to count them with her eyes and recognize them in the same way, though Harry was certain he’d never seen her before.
She was a tall woman, probably in her late thirties, with ruffled brown hair that relaxed Harry a little. He recognized someone else with hair that wouldn’t ever be tamed. She wore Auror robes, but trimmed short so they wouldn’t interfere with her movements. Harry couldn’t see what color her eyes were from the middle of the room, but they were sharp, and that was enough for him.
And she moved as lightly on her feet as a tiger that had learned to dance.
She came to a stop and faced them with a motion that sent her robes swirling around them and which Harry thought even Snape could have learned from. When she tossed her head back, the muscles in her neck made a snapping sound. “My name is Auror Astraea Gregory,” she said, “and this is the class where you learn how to use your bodies and brains instead of your wands.”
Hermione stood up very straight, as if she wanted to prove that she could do that. Ron was looking at Gregory in admiration and nodded. Harry slouched down a little. He would be just as happy if no one noticed him.
Because Gregory was probably a sadist in her spare time, his movement drew her attention instead of deflecting it. She smiled and snapped her fingers. “Harry Potter,” she said. “I’ve heard all about your adventures.” She paused. “Most of them seem to rely on luck.”
A few people in the class tittered. Harry glared at her. He was reminded of Snape, except that he thought this woman was more impersonal than Snape had ever managed.
“Come up here and show me that you can do more than that,” she said, softly, tauntingly.
Harry sighed and made his way to the front of the room. When he turned around near Gregory, he could see Malfoy at the back of the group, staring at him without expression. Harry scowled. Of course Ron would have to be right, and of course Malfoy would have to be here to see me humiliated.
“I will teach you how to handle yourself in battle situations where you cannot reach your wands,” Gregory said casually, pacing back and forth in front of Harry. Harry watched her closely and tried to ignore the feeling that she could kill him with two fingers. “How to escape from your bonds using purely physical means. How to train yourselves so that you are a match for those criminals who are larger, stronger, and faster than you are by nature. How to-”
She whirled towards Harry, and lashed out with one foot, catching him in the kneecap. Harry groaned and staggered. Gregory took another step and this time curved her foot so that she him in the back of the same knee. Harry fell. He’d heard something pop, and he didn’t want to know what it was.
“Pay attention when someone is trying to distract you,” Gregory finished, without sounding as if she’d ever lost her place in her sentence. “And how to fall.” She looked down at Harry and rolled her eyes. “You’re already getting slightly out of shape, Potter,” she said. “We can’t be having that. On your feet, and this time, do your best to counter me.”
Harry shut his eyes tightly as he scrambled back up. He had known that life wasn’t fair from the time he was two years old. No need to start wishing it would be fair to him now.
*
“Welcome.”
Draco examined the Auror who had stepped into the front of the large, cool, grey room critically. He was hoping to see someone who fit the profession of teacher better than Gregory. Draco knew that one’s soul. She cared only about the subject and not about the way that she hammered it into her students’ heads.
By contrast, Auror Daffyd Dearborn, who taught Offensive and Defensive Magic, was a model of decorum. He wore muted robes and a single onyx ring on his right thumb that Draco knew marked someone who had taken high honors at the private Wizarding Philosophy School in Wales. He had a philosopher’s face, coolly inquiring, as he watched the class that Draco had been assigned to-which included Potter, of course-settle itself into the array of benches and desks in front of him.
“You are here to learn magical theory,” Dearborn said. “The Ministry makes distinctions between defensive and offensive magic that can seem arbitrary to most. They are not. They are simply based on systems and principles that are no longer widely taught or understood.” For a moment, the mild cousin of a sneer crossed his lips. “Once, they were part of the structure of courses at Hogwarts, but the Board of Governors in their infinite wisdom decided that such ideas were too difficult for tender young minds.”
Potter groaned under his breath and let his head slump down towards his desk as if Gregory had kicked him in the temple instead. Weasley looked bewildered. Granger was scribbling breathless notes.
Pleased that he would learn something interesting for once, about history and structures of power, Draco began to take his own notes.
*
“I know that you’re all expecting this class to be boring.” Hestia Jones held up one solemn hand. “So help me Merlin, I will do my best to make sure that you learn the rules and yet aren’t bored to death as it happens.” She grinned, showing dimples in either cheek. “What good will it to be to you if you come out of this class with a head full of cotton instead of rules because I put you to sleep? Doesn’t reflect well on me, or on the Ministry, either,” she ended, with a confidential wink.
Harry leaned back in his seat, grinning. This was more like it. He was sure Gregory was a perfectly capable teacher-when she wasn’t interested in intimidating her students-and Dearborn reminded him of McGonagall with the fun sucked out of her, but sometimes you wanted someone who was personable. And Hestia looked plenty personable.
He heard a soft sigh from behind him, and correctly identified the sound as disgusted and the person as Malfoy without even looking. He waited until Hestia was calling on other people and matching names to faces and then turned and glared at him.
Malfoy, who for some reason had taken a seat right at Harry’s shoulder, arched an eyebrow back. He looked from Harry to Hestia for a moment, and then a faint smirk touched his mouth. “What’s the matter, Potter?” he whispered. “Concerned for the honor of your little girlfriend?”
“Malfoy, Draco!”
Harry couldn’t have planned a retort half as good as Hestia calling Malfoy’s name right then. It made him have to sit up straight and answer politely, in a tone that said he had been distracted talking to someone else. Hestia gave him a skeptical glance and a small headshake that caused Malfoy’s face to darken at once. Pleased, Harry turned towards the front again and responded cheerfully when his name was called.
Hestia reached Ron’s name a moment later and nodded in pleasure as she laid down the parchment with the list on it. “That’s the lot, then,” she said. “Now, first of all…” She whirled her wand above her head.
Harry watched in delight as several pink strands coalesced together above Hestia’s head, creating an intricate series of images. Auror Gregory hadn’t used her wand at all, of course, and Auror Dearborn seemed to think that wands were only for putting increasingly long series of notes on the board. It was about time that they got to see some magic that other people outside the Aurors didn’t practice.
A small stick figure with wizard robes took its place in the center of the design. A moment later, it started running down a corridor, its robes flapping and its face distorted into a worried frown. Harry squinted and saw that it was holding a piece of paper in its hands.
“This is the kind of thing that happens when you don’t pay attention in Auror Conduct,” said Hestia, shaking her head ruefully. “Auror Jobs is on a case. He needs to get permission to investigate a Muggle area. It’s a matter of life and death, and time could be important! But his partner is sick, and the Head Auror is in an important meeting where he must not be disturbed. Where does he go?”
The stick figure reached the top of a flight of stairs and looked around in agony for a moment. Then its face brightened, and it started down one corridor of a pair that opened up in front of it. The next moment, it turned around again and scratched its head, looking longingly down the other corridor. It took one step back, then another forwards, and finally stood still in indecision, waving its paper over its head. Harry wasn’t the only one to laugh; he heard Ron, too, though Hermione was whispering something indignantly about “learning with pictures instead of words.”
“He doesn’t know,” Hestia said. “Maybe he should go to Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, because he suspects there might be a Muggle artifact involved in this case. On the other hand, Magical Catastrophes might have jurisdiction over this, since it’s a building catastrophe. And yet again, maybe the Obliviators need to know, because Auror Jobs is almost certain that magic is going to come into sight of Muggles soon. What to do?”
Auror Jobs bit his lip and darted off down one of the imaged corridors, vanishing from sight. A moment later, a series of scribbled words that dissolved before Harry could read them rose from both corridors at once.
“He chose the wrong Department,” Hestia said, shaking her head. “And now not only are the people he disturbed for no reason upset, but the Departments that should have been alerted are, too, and the Auror Corps are embarrassed-because this is the sort of thing Auror Conduct was designed to take care of.” She turned around and wagged her wand at the class. “Pay attention. Though no one will say it who’s high up in the ranks, this class is designed to cover your arse in the event of an emergency. It should be called Covering Your Arse, but then we’d get a whole bunch of people wanting to take it for the wrong reasons.”
Harry led the laugh this time, which was enough, at least for him, to cover the snort from Malfoy behind him.
*
“Good afternoon.”
Draco was relieved again. It appeared that Battle Healing, a class he thought should be taken seriously, was to have the input of someone almost as reserved as Auror Dearborn. The room where they met was large and white, covered with beds, reminding him of the Hogwarts hospital wing. A stool sat by each bed, which at least split Potter apart from his disgusting friends and ensured that he couldn’t whisper and giggle with them. Draco, as the first one into the room, took his seat and studied the teacher as the rest scrambled around.
She sat on the stool at the head of the semicircle of beds, turning her head from side to side slowly, as if she didn’t want to disturb the heavy braid of black hair coiled around her temples. Her skin was dark brown, her eyes black, her features aristocratic. She wore Auror robes slashed with Healer’s green, and the crossed bone and wand of St. Mungo’s on her left shoulder. A green scarf clung to her hair by what seemed like the tiniest wisps, which might be another reason that she moved her head so slowly.
“I am Battle Healer Maryam Portillo Lopez,” she said, when the last scrambling bug of a trainee was seated. She didn’t raise her voice; she didn’t have to to get attention, any more than Professor Snape did. Draco swallowed against a prickling of tears that he didn’t want to experience right now. Her words had a medium-thick overlay of a gentle accent, which Draco reckoned was Spanish. “I will instruct you in the arts of healing in a battlefield situation. None of you in this class will acquire more than the rudiments of the art, but I will make sure that they are graceful rudiments, at least.”
The young, unrefined Jones woman would have smiled after those words, and ruined them. Portillo Lopez did not. She spread her fingers instead, and a transparent dummy appeared on each hospital bed. Each one had a ragged wound in the left forearm-the exact place, Draco couldn’t help noticing, that someone would have a wound after trying to dig the Dark Mark out of his skin.
“I prefer to let students experiment on their own and then discuss technique afterwards,” said Portillo Lopez. She waved her fingers again, and bandages appeared next to the dummies. “Dress the wounds, and then explain why you have done so in that particular fashion.”
Draco picked up the bandages and applied himself to the task with a good will. Two things made this class his favorite immediately: the way Portillo Lopez trusted her students to act on their own first and tell her what they had done later-
And the way Potter hesitated, looking from the bandages to the wound, not seeming to have the first bloody clue what to do.
Wait, Draco thought in amusement, as he watched Weasley trying to wrap bandages around the dummy’s arm and soaking them with blood in the process. There’s a third thing that makes it my favorite.
*
Harry hesitated and looked up and down the large room that was supposedly the one they would have Battlefield Tactics in. There were balconies curving out from the walls, staircases that led up from the floor to the balconies-or looked as if they did, since all of them twisted halfway up-softly glowing stones set into the floor that he wouldn’t want to step on, and floating boxes and stones that made him want to duck. What there wasn’t was a sign of seats to sit on, or their teacher.
“This is different,” Hermione said, cocking her head back so that she could look up between the boxes and stones. “A teaching environment focused distinctly on the idea of practicality and motion. I think something like this would work better for Hand-to-Hand Combat.”
“Right, Hermione,” Ron said, in the tone that meant he was obviously humoring her and about to say something stupid. Harry turned around to intervene, but he wasn’t in time. “Because they should include all the things that belong in Battlefield Tactics in the Hand-to-Hand Combat class.”
Hermione turned around, glaring at him. “I know that we’ll probably learn to cope with different environments here,” she snapped. “But we’ll be using wands in this class most of the time. I’m just saying that I think we should also learn how to fight hand-to-hand in different environments, and that practicing on flat ground in the open isn’t the best way-”
“Catch!”
The cheerful voice came from a balcony above them and to the right, and the next moment, a weight was hurtling towards Harry from it, sliding along a rope that he hadn’t seen, so thin and fine was it. He didn’t have the time to move out of the way, so he lifted his arms, braced his body, and hoped for the best.
The weight crashed into him. Harry grunted and staggered, and then the knee that Gregory had kicked that morning tried to go out from beneath him. He managed to stand, but it was a hard struggle, and the weight that had hit him-which turned out to be a person unclipping himself from a harness attached to a rope-didn’t help, thrashing and turning as it was.
The person’s boots hit the floor at last, and he grabbed Harry’s hand and squeezed it happily. “Thanks,” he said. “You didn’t do bad as someone with no forewarning and no experience in this sort of thing.” Then he rocked back on his heels and studied Harry’s forehead, grinning when he saw the scar. “Or maybe you do have some experience in this sort of thing.”
Harry gave a reserved smile back as he examined the man, trying to decide what he thought of him. He was a compact black man, with some of the same grace and strength that Gregory showed, but a far more open face. His hair was short and dark, and he had blue eyes that darted in so many directions Harry took a subtle step away from him.
Of course, with his eyes moving so fast, the man noticed that and swept him a small bow. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “It can be overwhelming. But when you’ve done tactics as long as I have, then maybe you’ll look the same way.” He turned and saluted the rest of the students with a hand clapped to his forehead and an abrupt nod. “Samwise Ketchum, at your service.”
Hermione let out a brief, started laugh. Ketchum grinned at her. “You’ve read The Lord of the Rings too, then? My parents liked it a little too much for their own good.” He rolled his eyes. “At least Samwise shortens acceptably, and at least they thought he was the real hero of the book and not Frodo, because he resisted the Ring.” He clapped his hands together and spun around so that he was looking at the rest of the class. “Before you can ask, yes, I’m Muggleborn, and yes, I’m your Battlefield Tactics teacher, and yes, I will expect you to learn everything I teach. I’m certain that you all can.”
Harry wondered whether he should laugh or shake his head. Most of the class was doing both. Malfoy looked as though he had swallowed the world’s largest pickle.
Ketchum swung around, sweeping a hand grandly up towards the balcony he’d swung from. “We’re going to start with indoor environments,” he said, “since statistically we confront more Dark wizards in houses and other buildings. I want you to find the fastest route that you can up to that balcony-keeping in mind that you could be seen from up there, and so you’ll need to think about cover as well. I have several assistants, second-year trainees, who will be more than happy to launch hexes and jinxes at you in case you forget.” He grinned and jumped back. “Off you go.”
Harry selected the first staircase he saw and placed a foot on the bottom step, looking up cautiously. He thought he saw the edge of a trainee’s robe and cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself without even thinking; it had become an automatic reflex after the last several months of the Horcrux hunt. A Tripping Jinx flashed past him in the next moment, confirming his decision.
“Very good, Potter!” Ketchum called, as the Tripping Jinx hit Malfoy. “No one said that you couldn’t use magic,” he added, probably because the rest of the class was staring.
Harry grinned and started up-
And a second Tripping Jinx caught him and rolled him down the rest of the stairs with a jarring thump.
“Oh, well,” Ketchum said, “no one said that my trainees weren’t good at seeing through Disillusionment Charms, either.”
*
Draco groaned as he dropped into his seat at the front of the next class. After the disaster that was Battlefield Tactics-he had four new bruises and a swelling on the side of his face to match Potter’s swollen knee-he had hoped for a normal teacher for Observation. He was taking both that class and Battle Brewing, having decided that he needed instruction in both.
Instead, the man at the front of the classroom had flyaway grey hair, spectacles too big for his face, and an expression that reminded Draco of Dumbledore’s customary befuddled one. Not only that, but he was examining a leaf through a magnifying lens. Draco shook his head and leaned back in the chair as the rest of the class filed in behind him. Fuck, all I wanted was a quiet year, and it doesn’t look like I’ll get that at all, what with a crazy Mudblood in Tactics and this man, who’ll probably have us watching leaves.
The professor waited until everyone was seated-or else he just didn’t notice they were there. Draco knew which one he was willing to wager was true. Then he turned around, blinked mild grey eyes at them, and held up the leaf. “My name is Francis Pushkin,” he said, “and I want you to tell me what you see.”
Draco squinted at the leaf. He waited for someone else to say something, but they all stared with their jaws hanging open, as though the leaf was the most wondrous sight ever. He sighed wearily and raised his hand. When Pushkin nodded to him, he said, “It’s a large green leaf, of an oval shape, with equally large veins. And by the way that it shines in the light, it would be useful in a limited number of Potions.”
Pushkin had been nodding along, but he paused when Draco finished speaking and raised an eyebrow. “And is that all?” he asked.
Potter snickered. Draco closed his fingers tight on the wand and thought again of the way that Potter had rolled down the stairs in Tactics and utterly failed to match Gregory in any noticeable way in Combat.
A few other people added tentative observations, and each time Pushkin didn’t seem to hear what he’d expected. He sighed at the end and said, “I shall teach you to observe everything, and then to make sense of your observations.” He waved his wand, and a glass case at the front of the room opened. Twenty other leaves, exactly like the one he held, floated out and landed on their desks, accompanied by magnifying lenses. “Now, you will examine your leaves for the next hour and create a list of one hundred facts about them.”
Draco stared at Pushkin. Given the mild, stubborn expression on his face, it seemed that he was entirely serious.
Draco groaned piteously and turned to his task. It seemed that he should have taken just Battle Brewing after all.
Chapter Three.