Bound

Setting it Right

Potions class posed no surprises. Snape was his usual self, acting nastily and deducting points for no reason at all. While Harry was collecting the ingredients for the potion they were working on, Snape started berating the way he cut the roots, squeezed the juices and crushed the grains. Harry fought hard to keep himself from replying, yet he couldn’t mask the frustration on his face. That was enough for Snape to deduct “ten points for making inappropriate faces”.

Harry had enough. He stood up and declared: “You know that I should be addressed as Lord Potter by my lesser. I will no longer tolerate the disrespect you are constantly showing and would not allow you to continue deducting points for ridiculous reasons while giving points to your house for just as ridiculous causes.”

Snape was fuming. “How dare you? You’ll serve detention with me for the rest of the month!”

“No, I won’t! You have no right to treat me the way you’ve been doing for two years and it ends now!”

Snape’s complexion was becoming as red as uncle Vernon’s. “I’ll make sure you are expelled, Potter. Come with me to the headmaster NOW!”

“It’s Lord Potter for you, and I intended to go to the Headmaster to ask for your sacking anyway. Let’s go!”

Snape’s hand was trembling near his wand. He seemed to need all his remaining self control to refrain from hexing Harry. He failed to notice Hermione watching them closely with her wand ready and then collecting her things and following the two of them out of the class.

Dumbledore was as cordial as ever. “Good day Severus, Lord and Lady Potter. What made me eligible for your company this fine morning?”

Snape was so angry that he was unable to even talk coherently. “This brat... He has no respect... Just like his father...”

Dumbledore chuckled in dismay. “Severus, it is very unwise to speak that way of young Lord Potter. He’s a student here, I know, but he also controls a large portion of the magical economy, which you should know just as well, and as the head of A Most Noble And Ancient Family, he has a legal standing much surpassing yours and even mine. I would suggest you stay in his good books, although I doubt you’ve ever made it there.”

This muted Snape for awhile, letting Harry talk. “This so-called Professor has not taught us a thing about potions. All he does is present the recipe and then belittle every non-Slytherin student present, deducting points randomly and awarding points to his house for just living. I want to learn potions, so it is either Snape changes his behavior completely, which I doubt he can do, or a new professor for Potions. Either way, I can’t respect him until he proves worthy.”

The headmaster glanced at Hermione. “Do you have anything to add, Lady Potter?”

“I must say that Harry was using very mild terms describing the situation. I would have used much bolder ones.”

Snape looked paler than usual. The situation, which he had believed to have been in his hand, was slipping out of control and he didn’t like the direction it was heading.

“Well, Severus, care to explain your behavior?” the headmaster prompted.

Snape held his lips closed tight. He knew there was no justification for his behavior, although nobody had challenged it for almost twelve years.

Dumbledore studied him, as if trying to find more information by just looking at him. “Now, Severus. I’m sure you can give a perfectly good explanation for your behavior, can’t you?”

The silence stayed deafening.

“Oh, well,” Albus finally spoke. “I’ll have every point you deduct or award be checked by the other heads of houses, as well as any detentions. Any unjustifiable action will be reversed. As for your teaching methods... I believe we should discuss it later in private. Would immediately after dinner be acceptable?”

Snape just nodded and left the room.

“I think this kind of conversation is long overdue,” Hermione noted.

Albus sighed. “You’re probably right, Lady Potter, yet I had my reasons to keep him here. I should have paid more attention to his teaching methods, though. He’s still one of the most brilliant potion masters, you must know.”

“He may be, but that doesn’t necessarily make him an acceptable teacher.”

Dumbledore was thinking once again, realizing how much he let slip, not caring for the school the way he should.

“Are there other subjects I should have been aware of?” he asked in a small voice.

“Divination is a bad joke,” Hermione told him. “That professor and her class are a fraud, worse than our last year’s defense class. I don’t believe anything taught in that class is even slightly worthy. There may be something to Divination, but that teacher is useless in passing that information.”

Albus felt as if he was punched in the face. He should have known better. He knew Professor Trelawney was no good as a teacher, even if she had prophecised once or twice. He wasn’t quite sure these prophecies were real.

“Then there’s Muggle Studies,” Hermione continued. “It’s even worse. The muggle world they discuss there has ceased to exist long ago. It has no relevance to current technology and lifestyles in the muggle world.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“First: the teacher is a pureblood who had not spent a single day in muggle world. The books have been outdated even before I was born and there’s practically nothing in them still relevant to modern life.”

“Are you sure? I don’t remember seeing anything much different to those books when I last visited Muggle London.”

“When was it?”

“Shortly after defeating Grindewald, in the forties.”

“Fifty years ago? That’s two generations of rapid changes that you’ve missed. Are you aware of supersonic aircraft? Of high-speed trains? Of highways? Of advanced Electronics? Of computers?” Hermione was now in her lecture mode, with so much conviction in her words, that her body was magically glowing. Dumbledore was almost frightened by the raw magical power exhibited.

“We really need to update that lesson as well. I’ll have it checked and revised as necessary. Anything else?”

“Yes. Professor Binns. His lessons are as dead as he is. I believe he should finally realize that he no longer belongs here and let somebody more substantial teach us history, without making everybody fall asleep.”

“He was quite a good teacher when I was a student,” Albus noted.

“He was also alive at the time, wasn’t he?”

Albus smiled in agreement. “I’ll need to tell him to go on, start the next big adventure. Anything else?”

Hermione calmed down a bit. “Well, Astronomy has also advanced a lot, although I’m not sure how much of it is relevant to our courses. It would still be helpful to give the teacher some experience with modern astronomy and find some advanced textbooks for her on the subject, even if these have no immediate effect on the lessons.”

“I’m sure she would like your idea,” Dumbledore said kindly. “Now. If there’s nothing else you want to discuss, I believe you’ve given me enough to occupy me for quite awhile.”

Harry recognized the dismissal and they both left.

The news about the confrontation with Snape traveled like fire in dry woods. Snape could not be seen during lunch, making the rumors rise higher, nor during dinner, when everybody was whispering and pointing at the Potters, most with admiration.

Albus was feeling awful. Ever since the Potters’ bonding he was discovering how badly he’d been acting in his roles as headmaster and as chief warlock and he was very displeased with himself. He was constantly thinking of how he should have acted instead. Now, this new event was really bothering. He should have actually been expecting it. Minerva was telling him for years of how badly Severus was treating the students, yet he put it all to her dislike of the man. He should have paid her more attention and he should have checked the way each teacher was awarding and deducting house-points. While each had their preferences, such blatant discrimination was not allowed. He had already interrogated several students about the potions class, as well as Divination and Muggle Studies. They only confirmed and enhanced what he had heard earlier, giving him practically no choice but to act.

He first talked with the Astronomy teacher. This was easy, really, as she was eager to learn about all the advances in muggle astronomy and even added her own suggestions. They decided she would spend a day each week with her muggle counterparts and she was also allotted some funds for a few new astronomy books. She was very pleased when she left the room.

The muggle studies teacher wasn’t as cooperative at first. She found it hard to believe that muggles could have changed so much, as the magical society was practically the same as it had been a century earlier. Albus had to send her on a forced vacation for a week in a muggle resort, advising her to first have a few conversations with muggle-born students so she could blend in a bit easier. The prospect of a paid vacation was too much to resist, of course.

Severus was a different ballgame. He was too smart for his own good, being excellent at devising excuses for his inappropriate behavior, yet Albus couldn’t just sack him. Despite being a deplorable man, Severus had played a crucial role during the war against Voldemort, and Albus felt he had a debt of honor to care for Severus. Yet this could not be allowed to happen on the account of the innocent students. Albus had checked all the records of point management and of detentions for the years since Severus started teaching, wondering why he hadn’t done it more routinely, and was no longer surprised to find that the complaints didn’t even show the true level of discrimination exercised by the potions teacher.

“I’ve been covering your deeds for too long, Severus. I should have not done it at all, to be true, but I can’t continue doing it. You don’t have to like the students, although that may help, but you must start teaching in earnest, explaining why certain things happen and how to properly prepare ingredients, to name just two topics. You must also control your temper. These are children who know nothing to start with. It is your duty to teach them, not to expect them to know beforehand and certainly not to berate them for being who they are – children who need to be taught. Am I clear?”

Severus only nodded. While he still loathed that insufferable brat and his mudblood friend – now wife, he knew his feelings were unjustified. Harry wasn’t James, yet he couldn’t control these feelings, not that he had tried much.

“I believe you are an excellent potion master and it would be a pity if you’ll have to leave your position, but if you want to keep it, you must change and become the great teacher you can be. I’m sure you can make them see the challenges in potion brewing, the glory it can bring them and the usefulness of many potions. You can make Potions become a class they will gladly attend, but you must change your attitude in order to achieve this. Will you do it?”

Snape crunched his teeth. “I can only try.”

“You’ve faced harder tasks than this. You can succeed, I’m sure,” Albus told him encouragingly. “I suggest you take the rest of the week off, think about the changes you will do and recall your promise to protect Lilly’s child. I hope to see you back Monday morning with a new determination and attitude.”

Severus only nodded. He knew that Albus had been generous. He could have sacked him without a second thought had he wanted to. As a marked death-eater he was lucky to be free, and even as an ex-spy, nobody owed him anything by now, so he was glad he was given another chance. He wasn’t sure he could take it, though.

By the time Professor Trelawney reached the headmaster’s office, she was in no state for a conversation. She had already drunk too much to be able to understand what he was talking. He just told her that she should quit drinking while not on vacation and that he needed to talk with her once she was sober. He then ordered the house-elves to remove any liquor from her quarters,

He left sacking Binns last, feeling uneasy about telling his own professor it was time to leave, yet this proved to be easier than expected.

“I’ve noticed that most students find your lectures extremely boring,” he told Binns.

“They all fall asleep. Only Miss... Graner, I think, manages to stay awake just barely.”

“You mean Miss Granger, the new Lady Potter, I believe,” Albus corrected him.

“Yes, that one. Well, I can’t use my voice the same way I’ve been doing it while I still had a body. I do believe my usefulness here has come to its end.”

“What do you mean?” This was a new attitude coming from the ghost.

“I suggest you find a new History Professor, and then I’ll be free to go and join my ancestors.”

Albus was quite glad that he didn’t have to sack the ghost professor. “Thank you, Kuthbert. I think I’ll follow your advice.”

“Next Friday we have the first Hogsmeade weekend!” Harry told Hermione after glancing at the announcement hung near the great hall entrance.

“We didn’t give my parents the papers to sign!” Hermione was heading into panic mode, but Harry stopped her.

“We’re emancipated, don’t you remember? We are our own guardians in the magical world.”

She was back to normal now. “Of course, we are already married.”

“Don’t you feel like we’ve missed something?” he asked.

“What?” Hermione was somewhat bewildered.

“Courting, dating, the excitement of the first date...”

“We had more than our share of excitement,” Hermione noted, “and even as a couple we still had the excitement of the first time we shared bath and bed, our first kiss, our first...”

“You forgot the bond itself, which is also a unique experience,” he smiled at her.

“Well, you can see that whatever we lacked in one direction we more than compensated in others. Why have you even raised the subject?”

Harry smiled sheepishly. “I was thinking... We may just pretend to be dating when we go to Hogsmeade. We won’t have any doubts about our feelings, but it may make our dating even better. What do you say?”

“I love your idea, Lord Potter. I think I may agree to date you...”

He could sense that she wanted to kiss him, but it was inappropriate there and then, so she just took his hand and brushed it against her lips.