A/N: Here I am! Back from my vacation in Croatia. Sunburned, kind of tired since this vacation had been pretty adventurous, but happy. I know I let you wait rather long for this one, but as I already said before, another story needs to be updated before I write chapter 16, so I didn’t want to let you wait too long for that chapter after I posted this one. The chapter for the other story will hopefully be written this week and then I have time to finally write again for this story.
For now I wanted to thank you for your reviews and I hope you have fun with this chapter. Reviews are, as always, highly appreciated. :-)
Chapter 15: Facing your Fears
“Bloody hell, Harry, wake up!”
Pulling the blanket over his head, Harry tried to will the pounding on his door to stop. He felt as if he had not slept at all and the only thing he wanted right now was to sleep some more, preferably until noon or longer without being disturbed by anything or anyone.
“Harry, classes start in about half an hour!” This time it was Hermione who tried to get his attention. Trust her to be the one calling on his conscience and letting him remember, what day today was. It certainly would not make a good impression, if he were late on his very first day as Defence against the Dark Arts professor.
“I’m up! I’m up,” he growled, as he pulled the blanket back and swung his legs over the edge of his bed, running a hand over his face to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He grabbed his watch from the nightstand and indeed, cursing under his breath, he noticed that there was barely half an hour left until classes started. Not enough time to get showered and have breakfast. “Go ahead,” he called through the closed door, at the same time gathering some clothes and heading into his bathroom. “I’m going to meet you at lunch!” The only thing he heard before he threw the door to his bathroom shut behind him, were one muffled Okay from Ron and one Don’t be late from Hermione.
When Harry was sitting in his new classroom twenty minutes later his stomach was protesting forcefully and he wondered, if it had been the right idea to skip breakfast. Then again, maybe his stomach would have protested even more at the sight of food, seeing as he was still quite nervous about this whole teaching thing. In less than ten minutes students “ fourth year Gryffindor and Ravenclaw “ would stream into this classroom, expecting him to teach them something interesting. He had not talked to Dumbledore about what he was planning and he hoped that the students would not freak “ too much.
Just as he was once again letting his eyes wander over the few notes he had prepared for this class, the first students piled into the classroom. Harry was pleased to notice that Bill Weasley was one of them and that they greeted him friendly. He smiled back, especially as they took their seats in the first rows, and then turned his attention back to his notes. Shuffling with some parchments, he tried to fight the nervousness and the queasy feeling in his stomach, as slowly more and more students filled the classroom until the last one was there and it was time for the class to start.
With a wave of his wand, Harry closed the door to the classroom and got up, taking a sheet of parchment, where the names of the students were listed. After having made sure that truly everyone was there, he put the parchment back and walked to the front of his desk, leaning against it, crossing his arms in a relaxed manner over his chest. If only he truly felt as relaxed as he wanted to appear!
“Good morning everyone,” he greeted them, feeling as if someone was choking him. “As your Headmaster already told you last night, my name is Professor Potter and I’m going to teach Defence against the Dark Arts this year. Today, I want to start with some easy stuff and then move on to something new. So I ask you to put your wands and books away. You won’t need them.” Noticing the confused looks the students were giving him, as if asking him, if he was really serious that they neither needed wand nor book, he turned around and walked over to something covered by black cloth next to his desk. Harry realized that they had every reason to be confused, since it was rather unusual in this class to not use any of those items. He smirked, anticipating their reaction to his first class, and pulled the fabric off, revealing a rattling trunk. “Can someone tell me what’s in there?” Several hands were raised and he picked a blond haired Ravenclaw. “Miss Hawkins, please.”
“I think it’s a boggart, Sir,” the girl answered.
Harry smiled at her, slowly feeling that his nervousness started to lessen. “That’s right. Could you also tell me, what a boggart is?”
Nodding, the girl explained, “A boggart usually prefers dark and closed places like trunks and closets. No one knows its real form, as it transforms as soon as it faces someone.”
“Good. Five points to Ravenclaw. And now, does someone else know, what kind of form the boggart takes, when it transforms?” Again, Harry could see many hands in the air, but this time he picked someone from Gryffindor. “Mr. Weasley.”
“It depends. A boggart usually becomes what people fear the most.”
“Five points to Gryffindor. Has anyone ever seen what his boggart looks like?” Harry asked next and was surprised that most of the students shook their heads. “But you covered boggarts last year, didn’t you?” This time, they all nodded. This puzzled him greatly “ he had read the curriculum of each year for Defence against the Dark Arts and knew that the students should usually face their first boggart in third year. “Why didn’t your last professor show you one?”
“I think he was scared,” a timid looking pale Ravenclaw boy with brown hair answered almost in a whisper. However, as the class was incredibly quiet, Harry heard it.
“Why should he be scared of a boggart?”
Suddenly feeling the attention of the whole class on him, the boy seemed to try to melt into the shadows behind his desk. “M-maybe because h-he thought that- that o-our worst f-fear would be…” His voice dropped to an extremely low level, as he mumbled the next words. “You-know-who.”
“Excuse me… Who?” Even though Harry had heard perfectly well what this boy had mumbled, he thought he had finally found the best way to breach the topic he had wanted to talk about during this class. He knew he was being somewhat cruel of putting him through this, but he had set himself a goal that he wanted to achieve, so he needed to push the students a bit.
“You-know-who,” the boy repeated, louder this time. However, when the boy saw the confused look on his professor’s face, he was starting to become irritated. “He-who-must-not-be-named, you know?”
Harry shook his head, trying to keep the grin from his face. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea, who you are talking about.”
“But everyone knows You-know-who!” a girl from Gryffindor with long, chestnut brown hair who was sitting next to Bill exclaimed. “How can you not know him?”
“Does this you-know-who have a name?” Harry asked, noticing with a self-satisfied inner smirk, how some of the students recoiled.
“A-a name?” another student, a Ravenclaw, stuttered.
“Yes, you have a name, your classmates all have names and I have one. So, why shouldn’t he have one, as well?” Some students started to whisper excitedly to each other, but Harry didn’t think that anyone of them would be brave enough to say what he wanted to hear, yet. Looking around the classroom, he also noticed some students that had shrunk back in their seats, as if trying to become one with the shadows to not be called upon by him, but then he saw him, the same shy and somewhat mousy Ravenclaw boy from before, slowly and hesitatingly raising his hand. “Yes… What was your name?”
“B-Benjamin,” he answered. “B-Benjamin Linford, Sir.”
“Benjamin, can you answer my question?”
All heads turned towards the boy, as he nodded ever so slightly. “I-I read in a b-book, b-before I came t-to H-Hogwarts, that h-he was o-once known a-as T-Tom R-Riddle.”
Harry flashed him a genuine and encouraging smile. “You’re Muggleborn, aren’t you?” Once again, Benjamin only nodded. “I’m impressed. You’ve really done your homework. That’s really brave, especially since Muggles are his main targets. Ten points to Ravenclaw for this.” Turning back to the rest of his class, Harry continued, “Now, as you’ve probably guessed, I knew from the beginning, whom you were talking about. I just wanted you to speak his name, which Mr. Linford did, at least one of his names. Yes, Tom Marvolo Riddle is the man who later was known as the one you fear so much - Voldemort.”
Every single student in this class winced, when he spoke the name, and some of them couldn’t suppress a small shriek or dropped something. This was a reaction he had expected and wanted to lessen, if not get rid of completely, in his classes. In his own time, it was still a too common reaction, no matter how hard he or the others, who dared to say the name, tried to convince that fearing this name was useless.
„Voldemort (again, everyone flinched) was once a normal boy, who got his Hogwarts letter and then came to this school, just like you. But I assume you know that already. However, what you probably don’t know, is that Voldemort isn’t a pureblood as everyone presumes. No,” Harry clarified, as most of his students looked at him in disbelief, “Tom Riddle’s father was a Muggle and his mother a witch, making him a half blood. His father left his mother, when he found out that she was a witch and his mother died during childbirth, leaving her new born son in the care of a Muggle orphanage. Tom hated it there, hated his Muggle father and came to despise Muggles in general. I think he saw his magic as a chance to escape, to prove that he was better than any Muggle and to help him avenging everything the Muggles had ever done to him.”
Avenging everything the Muggles had ever done to him… Harry knew this longing all too well, but he had always resisted the lure to use his magic against the Dursleys, knowing that it was not just wrong, but also knowing that probably the only thing the Dursleys deserved was pity for being a really poor excuse for Muggles. But deep in his heart Harry knew that he would have most likely become another Tom Riddle, had it not been for Ron and Hermione, who had helped him through everything ever since his first day at Hogwarts. Voldemort would have had a field day, Harry thought grimly. The only one, who is able to defeat him, on his side, fighting for his cause…
“As you see,” he continued after a moment’s hesitation, to let the information sink in, “Voldemort is just a wizard “ a powerful one, I admit “ but he’s still just that. He had been wronged more than once in his childhood and this formed the man you’re now afraid of. I’m not saying that you don’t have to fear him, but by fearing his name you only give him more power over you!”
“But he killed so many people, wizards, witches and Muggles alike,” a black-haired girl in Gryffindor colours objected.
“That he did and he will kill more. Until he is stopped, more people will die,” Harry told her bluntly, before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Has anyone of you ever heard of a man called Hitler?”
“Wasn’t he the Muggle who lived during Grindewald’s reign of terror?” a female voice in the back asked.
“Yes, that was him, but do you also know that at the same time that Grindewald terrorized the Wizarding World, Hitler was at war with a large part of the Muggle world, where this war is known as World War II, and therewith responsible for hundred thousands of deaths of soldiers and innocents, much more than Voldemort had ever killed? Adolf Hitler’s main goal wasn’t so unlike Voldemort’s. He was convinced that only one race, the Aryan race, was fit for survival, so he ordered the death of everyone not being Aryan, his main target having been Jews. He deported them to so called concentration camps, where the men and the women were told to work. The old and children, who had been deported, were killed in gas chambers, as well as everyone saying anything against Hitler’s regime was ordered dead.”
Harry was pleased to note that the class was paying close attention to him, some of them even taking down notes. He just wanted to open his mouth again, when Benjamin Linford’s hand was again in the air. He nodded at him, encouraging him to say whatever he wanted to say.
“But why Jews?”
“Because he was afraid of them,” Harry only answered. Upon the bemused looks he was getting, he gave them a sad smile. “When he had been a child, he had been afraid of them, because they were different. They mostly wore black clothes and the men more often than not had long beards, making them stand out. He hadn’t understood them and this, in addition to their appearance, had scared him.”
Sitting down on his desk, he looked thoughtful for a moment, before he added, “You see, impressions of other persons or races can form a person, help him become what he is now. This has happened with Hitler and this has happened with Voldemort. They are truly more alike than you think, with one major difference. I don’t know who started it, I doubt anyone does, but contrary to the Muggles, who endured so much under Hitler’s dictatorship, wizards and witches are afraid to use Voldemort’s name. Even while Hitler was still alive, people feared him, but not his name. They didn’t call him You-know-who or He-who-must-not-be-named and because of this, they have become stronger. They have learned from their past mistakes by facing their fears and hopefully something like World War II won’t happen again.”
The whole class was silent, not one dared to say anything or even to move. Harry jumped down from his desk, this time with a serious and determined look on his face, and, as his boots collided with the ground, most students looked at him startled.
“This is the topic of our first lessons,” he told them with a strong and firm voice, “facing your fears and this one in particular. I swear, in one month all of you will be able to say the name Voldemort without wincing or stuttering! As homework I want you to work in pairs, the best would be one pureblood and one, who is at least part Muggle, to find out as much as possible about Voldemort’s and Hitler’s life and reign and compare them. I want you to get some insight into their personalities, if possible, so that you can understand them better. Understanding something is the first step of getting rid of that fear. You have one week for this task and you won’t get any other homework from me this week.”
“Wait a second,” Bill Weasley almost interrupted him. “You want us to lose our fear of Vol- You-know-who?”
Shaking his head, Harry smiled. “No, not of Voldemort. Fearing the person is alright, because he has done terrible things, but I want you to lose your fear of his name.”
“And what about the boggart?” Bill prodded further.
“You will face him, eventually, someday this month I assume,” he informed them. “But before you go now, I would ask of you one last thing. Please repeat what I say. Voldemort.”
No sound was to be heard, as all students looked at him, somewhat shocked. They obviously hadn’t expected him to do this, yet.
“Come on!” he called, trying to ease them into this with a smile on his face. “It’s just a name! He won’t jump out of the shadows and attack you, when you say it. I’ve been saying it, ever since I first heard of him and as you see, I’m still alive. So, once again: Voldemort.”
This time some quiet and some stammering reached his ear, whereas others remained silent, but some of them actually had, with huge effort, managed to say the name, at least partly.
“Not bad, but remember, by the end of the month I want all of you to be perfect at this. Class dismissed.”
When the last student had left the classroom and the door was thrown shut, Harry slumped against his desk and heaved a deep breath. This had truly been a lot better than he had thought his first class would be. His nervousness had passed completely, once the class had started taking interest in what he had been talking about, and he now could hear his stomach protesting loudly. Unfortunately there was still one more class until lunch “ first years Hufflepuff and (he cringed slightly) Slytherin.
~*~
When Harry finally stepped into the Great Hall for lunch, his stomach churning painfully to remind him of his hunger, the murmuring and talking at the tables intensified and many students started to stare at him in respect and some even in awe. It seemed as if the fourth year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had quickly taken to spreading the news of their first lesson among the other students.
Whispers were following him through the whole hall and once he reached the staff table, his friends also only stared at him, as well as some other teachers. Hiding his smirk at Hermione’s fidgeting hands, as if dying to ask what was on her mind, he filled some vegetables and meat on his plate and started to eat, almost sighing in relief, as his stomach finally stopped protesting. Note to self: Never sleep in anymore!
Harry patiently finished his first portion, before he once again reached for the bowl to refill his plate, the whole time completely ignoring his friend. Hermione herself, having obviously noticed that Harry wasn’t going to react just yet, had also returned part of her attention back to her plate, but kept glancing at him every so often, as if checking, if he was finally finished. Only Draco and Ron were fully dedicated to their lunch, trusting Hermione to start the conversation that would confirm or disprove the rumour they had heard.
So, at the same moment that Harry leaned back in his chair, after having finished his second plate, the question just blurted out of her. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” Harry asked, only teasing her slightly, with a grin on his face, as he noticed that he now also had the rapt attention of every other teacher at the staff table. Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled at him mischievously and Harry was kind of relieved that the Headmaster apparently didn’t hold a grudge against him for his topic in his first lesson.
“Harry Potter!” Hermione hissed, not wanting to cause a scene in front of the students, but still much too curious about the rumour. “Don’t play dumb! You know exactly what I’m talking about! Is it true that you are training the students to say Voldemort?”
Some of the present teachers recoiled upon hearing this name and Harry smirked. “Yes, I am. Kind of. I only want them to overcome this fear, so I’m not exactly training them. I think this should have happened a long time ago, seeing as even adults, who should know better, are afraid of a name.”
“But…”
“No buts, Hermione,” Harry lowered his voice, so that only she could hear him whisper, “In our time the whole Wizarding World panics as soon as the name is mentioned somewhere and this gives Voldemort power. I want to change that, if only by teaching my students that a name isn’t something to fear.”
“Alright Harry…” The young woman sighed. “I understand you, but I ask you not to push the students too hard… Almost their whole life they have been taught to fear it, so teaching them otherwise might prove to become difficult.”
Harry grinned at her, as he finally reached for the dessert. “I managed it with you and Ron, didn’t I?”