"Sorry, Aunt Petunia."

Chapter 16: Detention

Professor McGonagall’s detention was… well, suffice to say, they had all survived it.

The teacher may have spent quite a long time lecturing them about the irresponsibility of what they had done, but it hadn’t been the worst.

Still, by the twentieth time she had broken into a spontaneous rant, even Hermione had looked annoyed. Mostly because it had been distracting her from writing the essay, which she had already been outlining.

Harry had decided to spend the time finishing his actual homework, but then again, Hermione had probably already finished it all on the very same day it had been set.

Detention with Professor McGonagall was nerve-wracking, but they knew what to expect. Many others had had a session or two and did not hesitate to complain about it.

But detention with Professor Quirrell?

The man barely gave points in class - or deducted them, for that matter - let alone gave out detentions!

They had been offered a full minute of silence when they’d broken the news to their House.

That… had not given them much confidence.

They entered the classroom on Monday afternoon with their hearts in their throats.

Somehow, their anxiety made the room feel far more oppressive than it usually did, even though nothing about it had changed.

Professor Quirrell was already in the room, once again grading essays. These ones were written on standard parchment rather than the neon ones they’d seen last time. Personally, Harry thought he would have preferred the colorful ones. It would’ve been less repetitive, that was for sure.

It must’ve been boring to read twenty essays on the same thing, right?

“Good, I’m glad you managed to get here without any trouble,” Professor Quirrell said, looking up at them from the papers. “It would have been unfortunate if you had gotten lost again.”

Harry had a feeling that they wouldn’t be hearing the end of that anytime soon. Not with how amused Professor Quirrell seemed at Ron’s red face, Hermione’s puffed up cheeks, and Draco’s fidgeting. Only Harry and Neville had had no reaction to the jibe.

Harry knew why he hadn’t reacted - doing so in front of the Dursleys would have had terrible consequences, if not an outright death sentence - but that Neville hadn’t either was slightly worrying.

“Please, sit down.” Professor Quirrell motioned. “As this is your first detention with me, I would like to go over the rules first. It seems they have changed since I was a boy.”

“Did you get many detentions when you were our age, sir?” Ron forgot about being embarrassed long enough to ask.

Professor Quirrell stopped to look at him, baffled.

“...No, not really.”

Harry thought he looked like how Hermione would have, if they hadn’t involved her and she also managed to avoid detentions throughout her entire school career.

Like he was offended that anyone would even consider that he could have gotten a detention.

“In any case...” Professor Quirrell shook his head, standing up once they were all seated. “The rules.”

Hermione scrambled for a piece of parchment and her quill, eager to write them down. Harry didn’t blame her - it wasn’t like you could find them in any book.