Year Two - Chapter Twenty-One

There was something incredibly cathartic in watching the hunched form of Remus Lupin step into the room with as much of a puzzled look as the one I, and most of the class, gave him in turn. For some, this clearly was a step down from the fabled foppish wizard that was a fraud, even though they knew he was a fraud of sorts. On the positive side of things, perhaps this schadenfreude punishment would suit Lockhart well. He might grow from it. Or he might not, and end up dead in a ditch as soon as some very angry obliviated wizards came for their pound of flesh.

That was off my hands. What wasn't was the werewolf's presence. I reckoned Harry would be happy to get to know a friend of his parents so early. Well, that was if Remus Lupin actually spoke up about it.

"Good morning class," he said as amiably as he could. "My name is Remus Lupin, and I will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for the following semester," he coughed awkwardly. "I will be following professor Lockhart's study plan, because unfortunately it won't be possible to order new books until the start of the next year."

I quietly raised a hand. "Yes, Mister...?"

"Umbrus," I said. "Professor, since Lockhart was ousted as a fraud, could we perhaps have a proper curriculum and utterly ignore ninety percent of the fantastic driveling he wrote in his books? Even homemade jinxes and hexes have a higher chance of being practical than half the Pepperminsky Pepperoni that Gilderoy spoke of."

Remus' eyes widened ever so slightly. "Ah, yes, I see," he glanced at the assembled classroom. "Still, is the whole class-"

"Sure," Amanda piped in. "He broke our maidens' heart, that fraudster!" a few girls angrily agreed with Amanda. A couple of Slytherin girls agreeing just as easily. One even cried as she ripped Gilderoy's face off the cover of his book, sniffling in despair.

"Whatever," a couple of Slytherin boys muttered. Though others looked inherently pleased at being rid of the man.

"Well then," Remus said, "Let us start with the Rictusempra charm, a tickling charm designed to make the target laugh. We should clear the air of the sadness with some good laughter, wouldn't you all agree?" he smiled, and a few actually did smile. He'd have better chance in eliciting cozy feelings from the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors than from the Slytherin and Raveclaw camp, but we weren't heartless monsters, and in the presence of the Ravens the Snakes acted surprisingly subdued most of the time.

We could out-curse and out-jinx them, after all. At least, that was the theory as written on paper.

"I guess it's hard to throw a spell at a friend, even if it's such a simple spell," professor Lupin said as he realized I hadn't even attempted to cast the spell. I had been chuckling, and giggling, but I hadn't even tried to hit Amanda once with the spell in question. "But practice does make perfect, Mister Umbrus, and there's nothing wrong with some good laughter."

"Professor," I managed to wheeze out amidst laughter, "It's just...ahahaha...this is the best day of my life," I laughed even louder, snickering and shaking my head.

"Well, if that's the case I'll leave you to laugh a bit more, Mister Umbrus," professor Lupin remarked, before moving off to another pair of students laughing loudly in turn. It was thus after a lesson of laughter that I stepped into a lesson of unforeseen pain and anguish.

Professor Flitwick had said I would receive a punishment for endangering myself against a basilisk after all, and the half-goblin had kept his word, for the word of a goblin was quite the hefty stuff to live up to, apparently.

"So you're going to become the Care for Magical Creatures professor next year, Hagrid?" I said, feigning my surprise and my delight as the half-giant grinned brightly.

"Aye, old Kettleburn's going to retire, he's got few limbs and wants them all with him in his grave, 'er's gonna be a farewell party, and I wanted to gift him something special," as he said that, I felt dread rise from the bottom of my stomach to the top of my throat. We were headed deep into the Forbidden Forest, and in my mind I was already planning how much fire I'd need to conjure forth to get the trees to turn into matchsticks, and how much I needed to hate something to cast the Killing Curse at it.

Don't judge me, morality system of magic, I just plainly put don't want to die anywhere else but in my bed of old age in the arms of a hundred Veelas, or in any place where there weren't giant man-eating spiders and horrible creatures that devour your innards first, and the rest of your body over a slow month-long period.

"And what's that special something you're going to gift him, if I can ask?" I whispered.

"Ye gotta promise ye ain't gonna tell," Hagrid said, "Might spoil the surprise for him."

"I promise," I said, hand on my heart. If it dealt with the giant spiders, you could rest assured I would tell. I would tell the local exterminators. I would tell the hit wizards. I would tell a thousand Aurors and two-thousand Napalm bombers. Speaking about Napalm...I could make it.

I blinked at the sudden realization. I could make Napalm. I had access to it. I could make it. I could burn the forest down and laugh over its cinders. It was easy. It was so incredibly easy to make Napalm, how had I not realized it?

The forest would burn. I would make it burn. I would destroy it so utterly that-

"And that's why ye gotta wait here for a while," Hagrid said, going all hush-hush. "I'm leaving Fang with ye," he gave me the dog, who didn't seem keen on the idea. "That's cause they get startled easy if there's another with me, so you just stay here and wait for my return."

I gave a silent nod, and then watched the half-giant leave for even deeper in the forest. I looked down at Fang, who in turn looked up at me. We both began to whine pitifully at the same time.

We wanted out of Hagrid's wild ride. We both wanted to be left at the souvenir shop before the roller-coaster, and not forced upon it.

A twig twitched by our right side, and both Fang and I did the valorous thing. The dog hid his face beneath the shrubs, and I turned my wand in the direction of the noise. A large creature looked down at me. A large, loincloth-wearing creature with half a tree trunk as a club stared at me. It was a troll. Hagrid had left me in a forest with a frigging troll.

I pointed my wand up at him, and bared my teeth. "You near, I kill."

The Troll showed his broken, half-rotten teeth.

I swished my wand, crackling lightning forming over its tip. The Troll stopped. It looked at me, and I showed him my teeth again. "You near. I kill."

It took another step.

Lightning shattered through the creature's rib-cage, the impact sending the creature to sprawl on its back and stay there, eyes wide-open just like its mouth.

Meanwhile, Fang most courageously decided to bolt in an utterly different direction.

I did not whine. Whining would have been counter-productive.

I accio'ed the damn dog back and then tied him to the nearby tree. I'd use magic to give the troll a hole in the ground large enough to dump its body, and hide it there. That way, everything would be fine and dandy.

"Better hurry back, heard some thunder and it might start raining," Hagrid returned a few minutes later, happily holding in his hands an egg covered in webbing.

Flatly, I understood and acknowledged that Hagrid would gift poor professor Kettleburn an Acromantula's egg.

At the same time, it was none of my business...

...my business was with my happy place, my happy place in the back of my head.