Hogwarts Teacher, Myst Style Part 2 (Patreon)

Myst scowled at the handwritten notes he was trying to decipher. "Say what you want about Crouch's combat ability, his penmanship is almost worse than mine."

Dawn moved her neck over so that she could look at what Myst was working on. "So what you're saying is, you're not writing things on the board?"

"Pretty much," Myst replied as he looked over the list of spells that each year was supposed to know. "I don't suppose you have any spells that will burn knowledge into people's heads?"

"Not permanently," Xander replied, thinking about his collection of spells.

"That's unfortunate but probably for the best," Myst admitted. "So, we're basically going to need to burn through the first couple of years of education in a month then keep working on learning all of the spells so we can teach the students before they need to learn things."

"Or, we could just tell people that we'll give them extra points if they learn to cast the spell on their own and let the first person that gets it right demonstrate for the class," Dawn suggested half seriously.

"That sounds incredibly reckless and insane, let's do it," Xander joked, thinking about some of Willow's various mishaps with magic over the years.

"This might be a case where bribery works wonders," Myst mused, dropping the pages back on the desk.

Dawn turned her head to look at Myst. "What do you mean?"

"From what I recall, they typically show a spell then spend the class letting the students try to cast the spell, if they can't cast it they get homework. I'd rather flip that around so that we let the students know what we're going to be working on ahead of time and hand out prizes at random for correct answers," Myst suggested.

"So in other words, you want to give people pop quizzes?" Xander asked, trying to get an idea of the stranger's teaching style.

"No, I want to give people a chance to show off, maybe even cast the spell if they can, which should let us work with the rest of the group or free up time so that you can give them practical lessons on dealing with problematic demons and dark wizards."

"By that you mean ways to kill them, right?" Dawn asked, wanting to make sure everyone was on the same page.

Myst gave Dawn a smile. "What else did you think I meant?"

"Just checking," Dawn said, glad that she wasn't going to have to listen to another lecture on why killing dark wizards wasn't their job.

"I don't have a problem with people using magic creatively and sometimes you have to bend some rules to get things done, but the Death Eaters were in it for power and sadistic jollies, not magical research. As far as I'm concerned, things would be better without them and I'm certainly not going to blame anyone for killing them in self defense," Myst replied.

"Self defense?" Xander asked.

"Okay, for any reason at all, but we have to at least try to sell it to the headmaster," Myst pointed out.

"Fair point," Dawn admitted. "What were you thinking of using as bribes?"

"Ice cream, pizza, soda, copies of weird and unusual spells or possibly skill books if I'm feeling generous," Myst said with a grin. "Whatever it takes to motivate them."

"So, what's the plan for helping Harry?" Dawn asked, curious how much his life resembled the books.

"Assuming that he's not completely around the bend or secretly evil, I wouldn't mind giving him and Hermione a copy of Hagrid's durability and Dawn's learning perk and watching what happens," Myst replied with amusement.

"Assuming he's not evil?" Xander asked with a raised eyebrow.

Myst turned to look at Xander. "Dumbledore was desperate enough to summon Defense teachers from different worlds. I'm not sure if he's a genius or unstable, but it's enough of a departure from the books that it has me questioning everything else. We can’t assume anything will be like what we know from fiction."

"Yeah, for all we know Malfoy could be a decent human being," Xander said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

"It's possible but unlikely," Dawn said, thinking about some of the fanfiction she'd skipped over that involved Draco. "I can see several situations where he might have turned out better, most of them involve his father being dead."

"Or locked up in prison," Myst added. "Either way, we should have a better idea of his personality once class starts."

Dawn gestured towards the paperwork. "Any idea how we're supposed to deal with this mess?"

"Not particularly." Myst turned to look at Xander. "Do you have any spells to sort things?"

"No, but I can probably make a golem or doppelganger to do it while we work on learning magic," Xander mused.

"That sounds lazy, good work fitting in," Dawn teased.

"I'll have you know, it's going to take a couple of hours to create and enchant unless someone can figure out how to speed things up," Xander said, looking at Myst.

"Not right now, maybe when I have extra mana." Myst conjured a chocolate ice cream cone then burned the rest of his mana to increase his maximum mana. "At least my mana regeneration is a percentage and doesn't seem to be dropping."

"If you want to start working on making a skill book for yourself and Xander of my learning boost, I'll start trying to organize the notes into something we can use," Dawn offered.

"Sounds good to me," Myst replied, fairly sure he'd be done before Snape or Dumbledore saw fit to interrupt them. "Actually, do you have a way to look for invisible people?"

"Several, the headmaster?" Xander asked with amusement.

"Or Snape," Myst replied and sat down at one of the desks so he could start copying Dawn's skills and the skills he wanted to give her while he worked on eating his ice cream cone.

0o0o0

"What exactly are we looking for?" Dawn asked as they walked down the seventh floor hallway.

"A painting of an idiot," Myst replied with amusement as he saw a portrait of a girl riding a tiger through a forest.

Dawn glanced at a painting of a knight sitting on his horse backwards while drinking from a tea cup. "You're going to have to narrow things down, we're in the wizarding world."

"Let me guess, you've never heard of Umbridge?" Myst asked as they continued walking.

"Who or what is an Umbridge?" Dawn asked warily, having noticed the anger creeping into his voice.

"She's a sadistic and delusional bitch that believes the ministry should control magic and everyone that can use it," Myst explained.

"Fifth book?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah," Myst replied as he stopped in front of a tapestry of a man that looked like he was trying to talk four trolls into dancing. "The ministry basically forced her on Hogwarts by passing an annoying law where they could assign a teacher if the Headmaster couldn't find a reasonable teacher before a certain point in the summer. This is the one.”

"Lovely," Dawn muttered as she examined the weird tapestry. "Are we going to mention that this is a tapestry, not a painting?"

"Would you believe me if I said it was a painting in my world?" Myst asked.

“I’d pretend to and then we’d make fun of you behind your back,” Dawn offered.

“That’ll work,” Myst replied with a chuckle.

"Do you think Fudge is going to come after us?"

"Probably," Myst replied as he started walking back and forth in front of the portrait. 'Room of Lost Things.'

"Do you have a plan for dealing with the Ministry?" Dawn asked, thinking about Fudge's refusal at the end of the fourth book to even consider the idea of Voldemort being back.

Myst stopped pacing when a wooden door appeared in the wall across from the tapestry. "I have a couple of ideas."

Dawn examined the door. "Where does it go?"

"Room of Requirement," Myst replied as he reached out and opened the door, revealing a dusty storeroom filled with junk as far as the eye could see.

"Looks like an old warehouse," Dawn argued, fairly sure it shouldn't fit in the castle.

"Currently," Myst replied with amusement as he walked inside and glanced around. "This room is basically enchanted to be whatever you require. It's also called the Room of Lost Things."

"Room of Lost Things? Is that why we're here?" Dawn asked as she followed Myst into the room.

"One of the reasons. Voldemort found the room when he was a student and decided that it would be the perfect hiding spot for one of his soul anchors," Myst replied as he headed down the nearest aisle, looking for interesting trinkets.

"Let me guess, we can't actually kill him until we've destroyed his soul anchors?" Dawn asked in annoyance as she studied the massive stone room filled with junk.

"We can technically kill him, he'll just keep coming back," Myst complained as he picked up an old wand from a broken desk and stuck it in his inventory after giving it a quick glance with his Upgrade ability to make sure it wasn't cursed.

"Do you know where the rest of them are?" Dawn asked.

"More or less," Myst replied as he dropped two old brooms into his inventory. "The snake should be running around in Malfoy manor, the cup should be in Gringotts, the locket should be as easy as dropping Dumbledore or Harry a message for Sirius and the ring is buried under the Gaunt Family shack."

"Does that mean we get to rob Gringotts?" Dawn asked hopefully.

Myst laughed as he continued walking down the aisle. "You sound like a kid in a candy store."

"I'm a dragon and I don't have a hoard," Dawn complained. "Speaking of hoards and cursed items, what are we actually looking for?"

"We're looking for an ugly bust with a diadem on it," Myst explained as he tossed a damaged wand into his inventory. "We should be able to screw with Voldemort using it."

"Sympathetic magic?" Dawn asked as she scanned the area for the bust and diadem as she walked down the path.

"Basically," Myst agreed. "We should…" he trailed off when he spotted a bust that was wearing a diadem. He used his Upgrade ability to check the diadem and smiled when he realized that he'd found what he was looking for. "Found it!"

"Is it cursed?" Dawn asked.

"Not enough to matter," Myst replied as he glanced over the various ways he could upgrade the diadem, looking for the right angle.

"What do you mean, not enough to matter?" Dawn asked as she made her way over.

Myst glanced at Dawn. "I'm not planning on touching the diadem or wearing it before Xander has a chance to break all of the curses and none of the curses work at range."

"Do I need to find a poking stick?" Dawn asked.

"Wouldn't hurt," Myst replied as he found an entry that he should be able to upgrade. 'Sixteen point three seven percent of Voldemort's remaining soul is contained in the diadem. Lily's protection should keep this from killing Harry on the off chance that removing the soul fragment isn't a good thing,' he told himself as he burned through half of his mana, pushing the percentage up.

"What did you do?" Dawn asked, having felt the surge of mana.

"I cheated," Myst replied with amusement as he used his Food Conjuration skill to conjure a mana restoring chocolate chip cookie. He took a bite of the delicious cookie. "Every soul anchor contains a fraction of Voldemort's soul, I just upgraded the percent."

"Which would have pulled bits of his soul out of the rest of the anchors, right?" Dawn asked, eyes lighting up.

"Ding, give the girl a prize," Myst said cheerfully as he spent the rest of his mana to push the percentage up to twenty two percent. "With any luck, Voldemort won't even notice until he's waking up in Hell."

"Good," Dawn agreed. "How long do you think it's going to take?"

"About twenty minutes," Myst took another bite of his cookie, "I'll have to eat a couple dozen cookies to get enough mana."

"That gives us plenty of time to sort through some of this junk before Xander finishes enchanting his golem," Dawn mused.

"Knock yourself out or don't, I don't really want Xander having an excuse to shoot me," Myst admitted then went back to eating his cookie.

"Probably just as well," Dawn agreed as she continued walking, looking for interesting items for her hoard in the various piles of forgotten items.

Myst finished the cookie then conjured another cookie and dumped his remaining mana into upgrading the percent of Voldemort's soul in the diadem. "Twenty four…" he trailed off as the number jumped from twenty four to thirty two percent. 'Six percent? That's probably the broken fragment in Harry's scar or maybe Voldemort's soul is just falling apart,' he mused as he worked on eating his cookie.

0o0o0

"I'm sorry about not sending a letter, Dumble-" Hermione stopped talking when Harry's scar burst open and a mangled and screaming ghost exploded out of it.

"Shite!" Ron cursed and stumbled back as something silvery darted past him and tackled the ghost as it lunged for his face.

Remus watched intently as his patronus drove off the spectral figure. "What exactly were you working on?!" he demanded as Sirius rushed over to tend to his injured godson.

Hermione glanced over at the door where Professor Lupin was standing. "I was apologizing about not sending a letter then his scar exploded and something came out of it," she explained, not sure what the hell was going on or how he'd managed to cast the spell that quickly.

"Let me take a look," Sirius said as he leaned in to get a better look at Harry's scar. 'Looks like someone took a knife to it,' he anxiously thought as he waved his wand over Harry's forehead and cast a silent spell that detected dark magic. 'Almost nothing, is that because the scar exploded?'

"Is he going to be okay?" Ron asked, wondering when the blood would stop oozing out of Harry's scar.

"He'll be fine," Sirius assured them as he pulled his flask of firewhiskey and a handkerchief out of his pocket and poured some of the liquid on the handkerchief. He handed the flask to Harry. "You might want to take a sip Harry, this is going to hurt."

Remus dismissed his patronus and cast a detection spell on the library, trying to figure out which curse they’d stumbled over or old Black family trap they'd triggered.

Harry brought the flask up to his lips and took a sip, promptly regretting his choice as it felt like he'd inhaled liquid fire.

Sirius worked on cleaning Harry's scar, trying to get the black crud out of his open wound so he could heal it. "There should be a better way to deal with curses," he grumbled as he stole his firewhiskey back.

"Would be nice," Hermione agreed.

Sirius took a drink. "Did you feel anything weird before your scar exploded?"

"It felt like a weight I hadn't even noticed was lifted off my head then it felt like a giant zit popping," Harry admitted, not sure how else to describe the feeling. "Why did a ghost come out of my scar?"

Sirius took another drink as he considered his response. "No clue, I'm going to have to ask Dumbledore.”

“On the plus side, my head feels a lot better,” Harry said as he slowly stood up. “I feel… good,” he noted in confusion.

“Well, most of, if not all of the dark magic that was in your scar was evicted, so I imagine that’s got to make a difference,” Sirius said thoughtfully.

“Are you sure?” Remus asked, casting a detection spell. “Huh, when I talked to Dumbledore he said cursed wounds like that were almost impossible to cleanse of dark magic, but it’s all but gone.”

“I just had a horrible thought,” Ron said with a shudder.

Everyone turned to stare at him.

“If the dark magic in your scar came out as a screaming phantom from something in this room, what would happen if Moody came in here?” Ron explained, getting several wide eyed stares.

“Yeah, best to keep him away from the library for the moment,” Sirius agreed.

0o0o0

"You're a cheating cheater, you know that right?" Dawn asked as she watched Myst finish the skill book he was working on.

"I'm aware," Myst replied as he opened the skill book and picked up the ability to speak Parseltongue. "Speaking of cheating, did you find any phoenix core wands?"

"No clue," Dawn admitted as she pulled a cup filled with broken wands out of her inventory and set it on the desk where Myst was working.

"How is Myst cheating?" Xander asked as he walked over, trying not to stare at the warehouse filled with magical items he wanted to study.

Myst glanced at Xander then turned his attention back to the cup of wands and started scanning the broken wands with his Upgrade ability. "I'm using Voldemort's soul as a link so I can copy his Parseltongue and Wandless Magic talents."

Xander gave Dawn a smile. "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

"Exactly." Myst sighed in relief when he found a used wand with a phoenix feather core as that meant he wasn't going to have to get creative. He focused on the core he could feel and pulled up his skill book ability so he could look at the abilities he could copy. "Fire Immunity, Flame Travel, Healing Tears, Immortality, making objects lighter and magical song." He quickly skimmed through the description for the listed abilities. "Yeah, we should probably skip the Immortality and the Phoenix Song, the immortality comes with a burning day and the song requires a certain purity of heart that we don't have."

"Life cycle?" Xander asked thoughtfully.

"Every five years," Myst admitted. "We'd be stuck as children unless we Upgraded it and I'm not sure we could change things enough to make it worth it."

Xander glanced at Dawn. "We've got time."

"Do you want copies of everything else?" Myst asked Dawn.

"Hell yeah," Dawn replied without hesitation.

"Is there a limit?" Xander asked.

"No, I'm just checking," Myst replied with amusement as he started creating a skill book for Fire Immunity, not surprised that they wanted copies of everything.

"What have you been working on and how did you manage to target Voldemort's soul?" Xander asked, figuring he'd leave the rest of the questions for when Myst wasn't making skill books.

Dawn gestured towards the diadem resting on the bust. "He left a piece of it in a cursed diadem as part of an immortality scheme. Can you break the curses he left so we can trade it to Harry for Slytherin's locket?"

"I'm going to need an actual explanation at some point but sure, I'll take a look," Xander replied as he opened his virtual spellbook and started flipping through his detection spells.

0o0o0