Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Chapter 7

Some text borrowed from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.

*****

Dear Severus,

James regretted it as soon as he wrote it. Severus? Since when was he Severus? He set fire to the parchment, got a new one, and tried again.

Dear Snape,

No, wait. Snape would laugh if he read that. Snape wasn't dear to him. There was no Dear Snape.

Snape

Just Snape. That's how two bitter rivals would address each other.

But why shouldn't he be Severus? Why shouldn't he be dear? They talked, and they laughed, and that made them friends as far as James was concerned.

And he had fit so comfortably against James that night they fell asleep against each other...

James balled up the parchment, tapped his wand against it and watched it burn.

The classroom door opened and Professor Brodie pulled up short when she saw James sitting all alone at his table. "You're here early," she commented as she set her bag down beside her desk. "Where are your friends?"

"I don't know," he said. Still in the Great Hall, he presumed.

Brodie's perfectly arched brow inched up her forehead. It annoyed James a little; was it really so surprising that he was alone? There wasn't a bloody umbilical cord attached to the Marauders. They were all their own people.

Brodie folded her arms and leaned against her desk. "Professor McGonagall warned me about you, you know."

James looked up. "What did she say?"

"That you liked to cause trouble, but to be honest you don't seem like much of a troublemaker." Her eyes pierced through him. "You seem confused and unsure."

Confused and unsure. Yeah, that summed up his life so far this year.

"These are strange, dangerous times," she continued, pushing off of the desk and stepping forward. She placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "As you grow older, life becomes more complicated. The simple black-and-white thinking of childhood gives way to a world of grey. If you ever need to talk, you can always-"

The door opened, and Brodie pulled away. Sirius stood at the threshold, his eyes darting between them while Remus grumbled from behind, "What's the hold up?"

Sirius said nothing. He moved forward, taking his usual seat beside James.

"You have spent seven years learning to fear the Dark Arts," Brodie said as the rest of the class filed in. "But the Dark Arts is a tool, nothing more."

James froze. He could hear several of his classmates shifting in their seats. That statement bordered on criminal. She could get fired for saying that. James glanced at Sirius, and saw the muscles in his jaw tense. He hoped she wouldn't get fired. Brodie cared about her students, she was a good teacher, and that was a rare quality when it came to the DADA position.

"Any spell, whether classified as Light or Dark, can kill or maim. I could drown you with a scourgify. I could blind you with a lumos. Do not imagine yourselves as impervious to harm just because you have magic. Even Muggles can kill."

A few snickers broke out. Brodie smiled and lifted her brow. "You don't think a Muggle could?"

"Well, they've tried before, haven't they?" A Ravenclaw boy asked. "We've all heard about the witch trials, but the only people they managed to hurt was their own kind. A little bonfire is no issue for a real witch."