Dark Legend of Potter, Chapter 58 (Patreon)

The day before the students’ arrival, Remus Lupin had spent an inordinate amount of time ensuring everything in his classroom was as perfect as possible, since he’d known he’d have time to plan on the train. He’d aligned each of their desks perfectly, ensured the classroom was spic and span beyond even what the house elves did, and carefully written his lesson plans on the blackboard. He’d gone over his notes, ensured he had the proper materials and specimens ready, and continuously practiced the various lessons he’d be teaching for each of the years just before the students arrived.

All that went out the window in his very first class, which had the misfortune to be the Second Year Ravenclaw and Slytherin students.

And no plan survived contact with Luna Lovegood. Or worse, Ginevra Weasley.

“Good morning students,” Lupin said, standing before them and giving his best professorial smile to them. “I’m Professor Remus Lupin.”

“So you’re the one who usurped Lady Aqua’s position,” Luna said, frowning at him. “Are you a dentist?”

Lupin had to do a double-take at that one. “Er, no, until recently, I worked as a Search and Rescue operator in Hawaii, as well as a volunteer, well, they called it a Kahuna, but they’re closest to Aurors. I’m afraid I don’t know all your names yet, but-”

“You’ll know Looney Lovegood soon enough,” Ginny said, actually blowing a bit of bubblegum and popping it loudly.

“No gum in class,” Lupin said sternly. “Well, I do want to get to know your names, so I’ll call roll and-”

“Are you a werewolf then?” Luna interrupted, blinking at him with her overly large eyes.

This so gobsmacked Lupin that he could only gape at Luna in astonishment, his heart pounding in his chest. Who had told her?

“Seriously, Luna, you’ve got to stop asking everyone if they’re a dentist or a werewolf!” Ginny sighed, taking her gum out and vanishing it with her wand. “The Rotfang conspiracy isn’t even real.”

“Er, I assume you’re Ms. Weasley?” Lupin managed. There weren’t that many red-headed students, especially not in Slytherin, and he had been warned about this one.

“Obviously,” Ginny said with a roll of her eyes. “Are you going to call the roll or not?”

Lupin managed to collect himself long enough to get the names of the background characters, before trying to move on to his lesson.

“Right, well, as you are second years, I thought I’d give you all a chance to show me what you know,” Lupin said, smiling at the class and going over to his desk to get out the case study for the day: several jarveys.

This was an animal that looked a bit like an overgrown ferret but was capable of speech. They were not intelligent, however, and would simply yell a variety of profanities and rude remarks. The best way to deal with them was to simply use some sort of spell that would impede their speech or stun them, as they were not truly dangerous.

Lupin’s intention was that his class would have to come up with a variety of ways to deal with the creatures in groups, then demonstrate to him. It was something that even a first year student probably should have been able to handle, but Lupin had not spent much time looking at what Aqua had taught the last year. If he had, he might have been prepared for what was coming.

“Places, everyone!” someone called, and there was a stampeding of feet and a rustling of clothes, and then someone hit the lights.

Lupin was left alone holding a jarvey’s cage, from which he had just removed the silencing charm. “Oi, fatass, what was that for?!” the jarvey called.

There was some giggling in the darkness, and Lupin frowned. “Now, I didn’t want to be harsh on my first day, but… Lumos!”

With a flash from his wand, Lupin illuminated the room to reveal twenty tweens split between boys and girls, the desks shoved to the back of the room. Ginny was out in front of the girls, while Justin Steele was out in front of the boys (look, he’s canon, just in the video games).

Then they all started singing.

Summer loving had me a blast

Summer loving happened so fast

I met a girl crazy for me

Met a boy cute as can be

All the tweens were dancing in sync, with Ginny and Justin singing the lead roles, the rest of them providing back up vocals. Lupin had spent enough time in the muggle world to recognize Grease when he saw it, though it took him several moments to place just what, exactly, was going on.

Summer days drifting away

To-ah! Oh, the summer nights

Well-a, well-a, well-a, huh

“Right, that’s enough, that’s ENOUGH!” Lupin finally cried, collecting himself enough to shout down the students. They slowly all stopped singing and dancing, then looked up at him, expressions of confusion or expectation on their faces.

Running a hand through his hair, Lupin let out a long heavy sigh. “Right. This is Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Not musical theater. What, exactly, was THAT?”

“Summer Nights,” Ginny said, in tones that indicated she considered Lupin’s brain to be very small.

“From Grease,” Justin added. He glanced at the boys behind him. “We could swap roles if you want, Tim was my understudy.”

“I’ve seen Grease, what I want to know is why, when I said I was going to have you show me what you knew, you all decided to perform a musical number!” Lupin said, proving that he really was new at this teaching business.

Rule Number 1 for teachers: Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.

“Last year, Lady Aqua was our teacher,” Luna said, coming forward, hands clasped as if in prayer, eyes looking up towards the heavens. Though incidentally, Aqua was currently below and to her left in the History of Magic classroom. “Since all you need to do to defeat Dark Forces is faith in Lady Aqua and a bar of Axis Brand edible soap, she instead wisely instructed us in dance!”

That was, of course, one of the most insane things Lupin had ever heard in his life. It was not helped by the fact that it was entirely true (if a bit flattering to Aqua and Axis Brand Soap’s potency). “But…this is Defense! Didn’t Professor Aqua at least teach you some basic defensive spells?”

“She taught us how to tie knots one day,” one of the Slytherin boys supplied.

“And how to do shadow puppets and paper mache,” a Ravenclaw girl agreed.

“Sounds like your mate’s a proper plonker,” the jarvey commented in its shrill voice. Lupin silenced the thing, having had enough of that.

Lupin let out a heavy sigh, and glanced down at the cage, then back at the students. “...Right. I’m splitting you into groups of four. Sound off, starting at one. One…”

After grouping the students up, Lupin explained to them the lesson, and held up the jarvey’s cage. “Each group will get one jarvey. Can anyone tell me what sort of dark creature a jarvey is?”

Luna raised her hand, and against his better judgment, Lupin called on her. “Jarvey’s are a plant by the Ministry of Magic to corrupt today’s youth by teaching them poor vocabulary.”

This was so out of left field that Lupin was at a loss for words, and just stared at Luna.

With a sigh, Ginny raised her hand, and without waiting to be called on, said, “Jarvey’s are a lot like gnomes. They’re annoying little blighters that say a bunch of crude nonsense in an attempt to distract you. They’re not dangerous, unless your mum catches you trying to keep one in your room, in which case you’re in for it.”

“I…yes, Ms. Weasley,” Lupin managed, turning away from Luna’s vacuous stare. “Jarveys are entirely harmless, unless one happens to be a rodent, or perhaps a chicken. Your job as a group is to come up with a way to deal with your jarvey using your knowledge as a wizard or witch.”

After putting a jarvey at each table, Lupin took a moment to collect himself, as this very much was not how he’d imagined things going on his first day. He’d just had a quick drink (just tea), when he heard a loud clatter, and turned around. He raced over to Luna’s group, where their jarvey was thrashing about in its cage and foaming at the mouth.

“What did you do to it?! I said to deal with it, not kill it!” Lupin demanded, waving his wand over the jarvey.

“I did,” Luna said. She smiled down at the jarvey, a benevolent expression on her face. “Now, have you seen the error of your ways?”

“Bobs your uncle,” the jarvey gasped. Nothing was apparently wrong with it, though when Lupin looked closer, he saw a bit of a blocky white substance in the cage.

“Wait, did you-”

“I fed it a bit of Axis Brand Edible soap, since it was being a potty mouth,” Luna explained. “As explained in the Book of Awesome Things That I’ve Totally Done, it is the perfect cure for all manner of Dark Creatures and maladies, including a poor vocabulary. Now, you’ll speak properly now, right?”

The jarvey nodded, looking rather ill. “Cheers for that,” it rasped.

“Er, well, that is a novel thing to do, but it-”

Just then, Lupin heard the most foul string of expletives he could have possibly imagined, and whirled about, horrified. He’d personally trained these jarveys to say rude things, but nothing really offensive. This one had just said enough to start a bar fight in any pub he’d ever been in.

“Not bad,” Ginny said, nodding to the dark creature. “Taught that one to the gnomes last year. Now, I learned this one from Bill when he came back from Romania. It goes like-”

“Miss Weasley! Ten points from Slytherin!” Lupin snapped, striding over, just as the Jarvey began with, “Slap me arse and fu-”

“Silencio!” Lupin waved his wand, and the Jarvey went silent. He frowned at Ginny. “I expect better of you, young lady. I know your parents raised you better than this.”

“You should hear my mum swear when she thinks no one else is home,” Ginny said with a shrug.

Since Lupin knew perfectly well that Molly Weasley nee Prewett had indeed had a mouth like a sailor back in her Order of the Phoenix days, it was rather hard to argue with that. So instead, he resorted to the teacher’s primary tools: Bribery, blackmail, and extortion.

“If you show any more cheek, it’s a letter to your mother to explain what sort of vocabulary her daughter is using, in addition to the points deducted and a detention,” Lupin snapped, glaring down at Ginny, who shrugged.

“Yes, sir. Won’t happen again, sir,” she said, managing to sound contrite.

“It had best not,” Lupin said firmly, then strode over to make sure that the other groups were not doing anything too insane. He missed the smirk and the silver sickle one of the Ravenclaws passed Ginny under the table.

The rest of the lesson passed without too much incident, and Lupin dismissed his class with the assignment to write half a foot of parchment on the various silencing charms and their uses. Then he had ten minutes to collect himself, having a nice cuppa as he ruminated on how the lesson had gone, and just what sorts of monsters middle schoolers are. Which as an experienced educator could have told him is quite simple: the most vicious breed of all.

Then his class of Fourth Year Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students arrived, with Lupin greeting them at the door. He had high hopes for the class, until one Gryffindor girl approached him.

“I’m very sorry sir, but I needed to resize my tap shoes and there was a bit of an accident, we won’t need them today, right? I’ll have them sorted out by next class.”

Lupin’s lesson, which had been on how to deal with XXXX creatures, and a practical lesson with dealing with Streeler slime, went right out the window.

“Right… let’s start with, what is Defense Against the Dark Arts, and why it doesn’t involve singing or dancing. At all.”

“Welcome, everyone to Care of Magical Creaturesss. I am Sssylvia Ssslytherin, your new Professsor.”

Unlike the rest of the classes, Care of Magical Creatures was not held indoors, but outside near the Forbidden Forest. An awning had been set up to keep off the warm sun, and there were stables and a pasture with a heavily reinforced fence nearby.

Sitting at the front of the class, Yunyun smiled encouragingly at Sylvia, who was sweating nervously and fidgeting as she stood in front of the class. Next to Yunyun sat Lavender Brown and Tom, who was smirking at Draco, who was sulking next to him. Darkness was on the other side of Lavender, though aside from those three girls, the class was almost entirely boys. And no, not because they would be working with a variety of terrifying beasts, but because everyone had already gotten a good look at Syliva.

Or, well, they thought they had, anyway.

“With my today isss my assssitant, Mr. Rubeusssss Hagrid,” Sylvia said, gesturing to the giant that overtopped her human form by a good three feet, despite Slyvia being six feet tall herself.

“Just Hagrid, Miss Slyvia,” Hagrid said, an enormous woolen cap in his hands as he blushed and smiled at the students. “The students all know me, don’t yeh?”

“Hello Hagrid!” Yunyun said, waving happily. The other girls called greetings as well, while the boys all glared at Hagrid with barely disguised jealousy. Except Draco, who was still frowning at Tom. For his part, Tom knew what Sylvia was, and that just made her more interesting because he was certifiably insane. Even by wizard standards.

“It isss important that the hatchlingsss remember to-” Slyvia trailed off as Yunyun and Darkness made frantic “X” gestures with their hands, with Yunyun mouthing “students”.

“Ah, yesss, that the ssstudents remember that they should treat their eldersss with ressspect. In my classssroom, they will refer to you asss Mr. Hagrid,” Sylvia said sternly.

“Ah, well, yer rules and all,” Hagrid agreed, looking even more nervous now.

“Now, Hagrid and I had a long disssscussssion about which creaturessss to start you off with, but ssssince you are hatchlingsss, I desssided we would sssave the hippogriff for the upper classssses.”

“Are we going to get to see dragons?!” Dust burst out, popping up from behind Yunyun. “I really want to see a dragon!”

“Assss thossse are rated as Wisssard Killersss by the Minissstry, I am sssaving those for Ssseventh Years,” Sylvia said gravely.

“Aww, do we have to start with the boring ones then?” Dust asked, clearly despondent.

“Don’t worry yer head, Goyle,” Hagrid chuckled. “We’ll get to the cute little critters, never you worry. Professor Sylvia just wants teh make sure yeh start with somethin’ appropriate.”

“We shall begin thisss lesssson with a mossst tasssty beassst, the Porlock,” Sylvia said, and motioned for the class to rise. They went over to the stables, which instead of magical creatures, were filled with the horses that Hagrid used to bring up supplies from Hogsmeade at times. Outside the stable however, were several creatures, about two feet in height, with a horse-like face fringed by a mane, reddish brown fur covering their bodies, and two cloven feet.

Upon hearing the students approach, the porlocks all vanished into the stables, and Sylvia gestured to them. “Thisss is a mossst ussssful creature. The porlock will guard horsssesss againssst mossst of their natural predatorsss, and even help the animalsss find food and shelter. They are shy, but can be coaxed out with care.”

Peering into the stables, Yunyun could just make out the forms of the porlocks, hiding amongst the straw and horses. She waved timidly at them, but they all scurried out of sight and she sighed.

“The bessst way to befriend a porlock isss to feed them. They mossstly eat grass, asss they are a prey animal. But, they have a ssspecial fondness for radishesss. Who would like to try feeding the porlocksss firssst?” Sylvia asked, taking out a bucket of radishes.

Most of the students raised their hands, Yunyun shyly doing so amongst them. Slyvia beamed at Yunyun and Lavender, nodding to them to step forward. They each took a radish from Sylvia, then were helped over the fence by Hagrid.

“Easy does it now, girls. Don’t go scarin’ ‘em. Porlocks are shy little critters, yeh know.”

“More like boring,” Draco complained. “I thought we were going to learn to take care of proper creatures. Why can’t we see a hippogriff?”

“Becaussse you are foolish and recklesss hatchlingsss, who-”

“Pssst. Humans don’t come from eggs!” Tom hissed to Slyvia. “Ixnay onway ethay atchlingshay.”

“Oh, yesss. Well, you are young yet, and need to learn  how to properly interact with creaturesss. I remember how you reacted to the basssilisssk, Mr. Malfoy. If you ssscream and try to hide behind Darknesss, you will only get attacked.”

That brought sniggers from the class, and a blush to both Draco and Darkness’ faces.

“That was Kazuma, not me!” Draco protested.

Yunyun ignored him as she and Lavender approached the stable, holding out their radishes. They crouched down by the doorway, extending the vegetables to the creatures within.

“H-here, d-do you want to be my friends?” Yunyun asked hopefully, holding out the radish.

Next to her, Lavender held out her radish as well, making a pspspsps sound, despite the porlocks manifestly not being cats.

After a few moments, two porlocks timidly came forward, their large noses snuffling softly. The one that came up to lavender used its little hands to grab the radish, then let her pet it before scampering off. However, the other took a second look at Yunyun, made a disgusted sound, and scampered off. Despite Yunyun’s best efforts, none of the other porlocks were willing to even approach her, leaving her feeling alone and dejected.

“Hmm,” Sylvia said, glaring at the porlocks. “Thessse onesss ssseem very rude. Ssstill, the ressst of you may try.”

All the rest of the students were able to feed the porlocks, with Dust actually getting one to ride on his shoulder. He trotted over to Yunyun, who was standing dejectedly over by the fence with Lavender and trying not to cry.

“See, this one wants to be your friend, Yunyun!” Dust said happily.

However, upon getting closer to Yunyun, the porlock let out a disgusted grunt, then hopped off of Dust and ran away.

“I-I guess they don’t like me,” Yunyun sniffled.

“I don’t like porlocks either,” Draco declared, standing up and tossing his radish away, striding over towards Yunyun. “They’re stupid and boring creatures. Who would want one anyway?”

“Yeah, we should beat them until they realize the superiority of the Soviet Yunyun!” Tom declared, stomping over himself.

“T-thank you, b-but don’t hurt them for me, t-they’re cute,” Yunyun sniffled, drying her eyes.

Sylvia watched the byplay, and frowned into the stables. She licked her lips, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

The next time the class met, all the porlocks instantly rushed to Yunyun and gave her a big hug. They were so excited, they were trembling.

“O-oh!” Yunyun gasped happily, beaming happily as she hugged the porlocks back in return. “Thank you, t-thank you so much! I-I’m so glad to make friends!”

Hagrid frowned down at the porlocks, his lips moving as he counted them. “Weren’t there more of the little blighters before?”

“The bad onesss mussst have run away,” Sylvia said, smiling at the porlocks. “Thessse onesss mussst be the good ones.”

All of the porlocks hastily nodded their agreement, their eyes wide as they regarded Sylvia. They were definitely Yunyun’s friends.

Or else.

Holding on to a roll of parchment, Dumbledore sat under the Potter Invisibility Cloak at the back of the amphitheater where the History of Magic class met. Things were a little different this year: instead of every year being combined in one big class, they were split up into more manageable groups of two houses each for the lower years, while the NEWT students were in smaller, more focused groups.

This was one of the Seventh Year classes, with the students slowly filing in. It was the smallest class, with Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater two of the only students here already, and only eight others to join them. These students were either here for the Easy O, or because they wanted a job that required a NEWT level History of Magic Course. Both Miss Clearwater and Mr. Weasley wanted Ministry jobs, many of which required a History NEWT.

It had been merry hell to plan out a new schedule with all the extra courses, but they’d managed it. Dumbledore had known that most students had slept through History of Magic, but the budget had just balanced so much more nicely with a professor who’s going rate was “Free,” not to mention some very tricky tenure laws and some binding magical contracts that had since been changed meaning he couldn’t actually replace Binns.

Well, the good news was, Dumbledore seriously doubted that Aqua could be a worse instructor than Binns had been. Though she had surprised him before.

About five minutes after class was supposed to start, Aqua breezed into the room. Instead of her robes, or even the popstar garb, she was dressed in a patchwork tunic of many colors, had on fur boots that came up to her knees, and had a crown of lilies braided about her head. In her hands, she had a staff made of a willow branch, moss and blossoms growing along it, a seven spoked wheel at the top carved from driftwood.

“Good morning, everyone!” Aqua said excitedly, bouncing up to the podium at the front of the room. She looked Dumbledore right in the eye, and waved to him, which just about made his heart stop. He was under Death’s Cloak. There was absolutely no way she should have been able to see him.

Maybe he should give this old thing to Megumin after all. Then again, maybe he should get his head examined. She caused enough trouble without also being invisible.

“I was talking with Binns last night, and he told me all he ever covered were stupid wars and boring political treaties!” Aqua informed the students.

“Well, yes, we’ve learned about all the Goblin Rebellions, but those are important because-” Percy Weasley began, but Aqua interrupted him.

“Goblins are stupid and ugly! We’re going to learn about something interesting!” she twirled about, beaming at the students. “Do you recognize my outfit?!”

“Uh, you look like you’re wearing your grandmother’s quilt,” Penelope offered.

“Nope! I made this myself! Do you really not recognize it? Come on, you’re 7th years!” Aqua said, looking around.

At last, one girl raised her hand. “Um, it looks like a really old costume or something…are we doing a musical?”

“Not today! Seriously, it’s only been 2000 years, don’t you recognize I’m in my Coventina form?” Aqua demanded.

That got Dumbledore’s attention. Coventina had been a figure from even before Merlin, supposedly a powerful water nymph who had taught various healing spells to early druids. Was she actually going to teach some real history?

“Who?” Percy asked, frowning.

Aqua sighed heavily, then floated up into their air, her hands extended forward in greeting. “Beannachtaí daoine, is mise an bandia, Coventina. Táim anseo chun beannachtaí a bhronnadh ort. Tar! Seinn i mo uiscí, agus freastal ar mo amhrán.”

Dumbledore’s mouth actually fell open.

Greetings mortals, I am the goddess, Coventina. I am here to bestow blessings upon you. Come! Play in my waters, and attend my song.

That was a very old inscription on one of the oldest tomes in Hogwarts’s library, supposedly the first words that Conventina had spoken to the Elder Druid upon rising up out of her pond.

“So, you guys know what this is, right?” Aqua asked, holding up her staff.

The students all shrugged helplessly.

“Seriously?! Ugh, I know wands are all modern and popular now, but this is a magic staff, imbued with druidic magic! They were used by mortals for thousands of years! The first one was made by Cathbhadh like, uh, 2500 years ago or something. I dunno, I’ll have to ask him later.”

The students all blinked in shock, while Dumbledore felt like his head was spinning.

“Should we…should we be taking notes?” Percy asked.

“I dunno, if you can’t remember this you should definitely be writing it down, this is like, super important historical stuff!” Aqua huffed. Immediately, there was a great deal of shuffling parchment and digging out of inkwells, even as Aqua continued.  “I should know, I was there. Anyway, the old druids would use staves like this ‘cause they didn’t know about wands and stuff yet. They’d also dance for their rituals! I’m going to teach you how to make your own magic staff, and we’ll do a fun ritual! Don’t worry, Dumbledore! I won’t teach them the fertility one, even if it is the most fun. We’re doing the one for making ale instead!”

Over the next hour, Aqua not only gave the students their own staves and went over why historical druids would select different ones based on their various properties but how it was important to adorn the staff with certain totems to imbue it with the proper magical energies. They didn’t get to the ritual, but Aqua told them to “look up all the old druid rituals and pick out your favorites, we’ll talk about how to do them! Tee-hee, maybe if the Headmaster isn’t watching, I’ll teach you the fertility one! Mortals always like that one!”

The students all filed out, talking excitedly about actual historical magical rituals and how they could have led to modern spells and chants. Dumbledore got to his feet slowly, then pulled off the invisibility cloak. Aqua just smiled at him, her hands on her hips.

“Well, what do you think? Was that a super great lesson or what?! I made Binns help me plan it out, but I told him no stupid wars. Wars are dumb and boring! We should be learning about Magic’s history, not just people fighting!”

“That was…” Dumbledore searched for the right words, but finally just smiled and said, “An excellent lesson, Professor Mizu. I think you’ve found your subject.”

“Great! Will you stick around? I have the cute little firsties next! I’m teaching them about how ancient druid robes were influenced by Roman togas and Egyptian tunics, and led to the evolution of modern wizarding fashion!”

“That sounds…like a most excellent and interesting lesson,” Dumbledore admitted, as Aqua pulled out several sketches of various wizarding garb over the millennia, along with different costumes for her to show off to the students. “I regret that I have other things to do. Keep up the excellent work, Professor Mizu.”

“You got it!” Aqua said, saluting and grinning. “Oh boy, I wonder who the firsties are! I don’t remember who’s in this year…but I bet they’re all super cute!”

Feeling like he needed to lie down for a bit, Dumbledore exited the classroom just as the first-year students, still wide eyed and goggling at everything, entered. He made his way to his office, where he sat down and began filling out the evaluation form the Board had forced on him.

“Well?”

Looking up, Dumbledore found a very smug-looking Severus before him. “I am feeling well, Severus. Lemon drop?”

“You know I can’t stand sweets. I mean Mizu. How badly is she failing?” Snape asked silkily, stroking his beard.

“I just sat in on a most fascinating lesson,” Dumbledore began, which prompted Snape to grin like a cat who’d just got the mouse. “One that went over in extensive detail the history of magical staves, and how they evolved into modern wands, as well as homework for the NEWT level students to research ancient druidic magic rituals.”

As Dumbledore went on, Snape’s grin drooped until he was scowling like he’d tasted something sour. “You can’t be serious.”

In Tonks’s office, Blackie sneezed.

“What’s that, boy?” Tonks said, looking up from her paperwork. But Blackie had already laid back down and was snoring again, the lazy lump.

Meanwhile, back in the Headmaster’s Office, Dumbledore was still briefing Snape. “Entirely so, I’m afraid. Another most interesting development was that I wore this,” Dumbledore held up the Cloak of Invisibility, and Snape frowned at it.

“So, she wasn’t just showing off for you, then.”

“I’m not certain. She could see me the entire time as if I were not wearing it,” Dumbledore mused. “It is said this cloak could hide you even from Death itself…”

“Hogwash. She must have had a charm that detected you. That old fable is nonsense,” Snape snarled. “That lesson had to be a fluke.”

“Go and see for yourself,” Dumbledore directed.

With a hiss, Snape strode out of the headmaster's office, his robes billowing like batwings about him. He stalked down to the History of Magic classroom and poked his head in.

“-and that’s why linen fibers were used, and in your modern robes, we use cotton! Plant-based materials are way better for conducting magical energy! If you try to use synthetic cloth, it can interfere, and it can’t be machine-made! Only hand-woven, or on a magical loom!” Aqua was saying to the enraptured group of first-year students, as she modeled an ancient druid ritual robe. “You can even get special robes with different materials because they all conduct magical energy in different ways! For example, flax-”

Severus had heard enough. He whirled about and stalked back down to the dungeons.

“GREETINGS, PROFESSOR!” Megumin bellowed, standing up on her stool. “BEHOLD, I HAVE RETURNED ONCE MORE TO-”

“Five points from Gryffindor. We use our indoor voices, Miss Potter,” Snape growled, stalking up to his desk and glaring at the third-year students until they were thoroughly cowed. He felt slightly better, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone fundamentally wrong.

How on Earth could Aqua actually be a useful professor?

Author’s Note:

I think this is one of the signs of the apocalypse.