Snakeskin (A Harry Potter Fanfic)

Chapter 9: History Lesson

Chapter 9: History Lesson

Rose found out about Remus. Everyone was worried that she'd tell Lily or someone else about it, but she didn't. The next time she saw Remy, she ran up and hugged him. I don't think I've ever liked a person more than I did at that moment.

**

For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris. During that time, Leo was finding that he was able to sleep somewhat better at night. His father and Sirius had both been right – keeping what happened locked up inside was doing him no good. The knowledge that someone other than Dumbledore – that someone he actually trusted and held in high regard – had heard his story and had not rejected him or treated him any differently was an added bonus.

Leo had been worried that McGonagall would act differently towards him after that night in her office, but she interacted with him the same as she had before she knew. She scolded him when he misbehaved, gave him stern looks when he was about to, and assigned him the same amount of homework as everyone else. Leo was disappointed at the last part.

The attack on Mrs. Norris had an effect on Hermione. It was quite usual for Hermione to spend a lot of time reading, but she was now doing almost nothing else. Nor could Harry, Leo, and Ron get much response from her when they asked what she was up to. Leo just assumed she was trying to find out more about the Chamber. He had already sent out letters to Remus and Sirius regarding that very thing and was expecting a letter from the former any day now.

It turned out he needn't have bothered. On one of the rare, few occasions he actually attended History of Magic class, he surprisingly learned something informative.

The class started out boring as ever. Binns opened his notes and began to read in a flat drone like an old vacuum cleaner until nearly everyone in the class was in a deep stupor, occasionally coming to long enough to copy down a name or date, then falling asleep again. He had been speaking for half an hour when something happened that had never happened before. Hermione put up her hand.

Binns, glancing up in the middle of a deadly dull lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289, looked amazed.

"Miss — er —?"

"Granger, Professor. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets," said Hermione in a clear voice. 

Dean Thomas, who had been sitting with his mouth hanging open, gazing out of the window, jerked out of his trance; Lavender Brown's head came up off her arms and Neville Longbottom's elbow slipped off his desk. Leo looked up from where he was doodling Lockhart getting chased by a werewolf, raising an eyebrow in interest.

Binns blinked.

"My subject is History of Magic," he said in his dry, wheezy voice. "I deal with facts, Miss Granger, not myths and legends." He cleared his throat with a small noise like chalk slipping and continued, "In September of that year, a subcommittee of Sardinian sorcerers —"

He stuttered to a halt. 

Hermione's hand was waving in the air again. 

"Miss Grant?"

"Please, sir, don't legends always have a basis in fact?"

"Well," said Binns slowly, "yes, one could argue that I suppose." He peered at Hermione as though he had never seen a student properly before. "However, the legend of which you speak is such a very sensational, even ludicrous tale —"

"So was the Soap Blizzard of 1378, but you still told us about it," Leo reminded him.

Binns was silent at this for a moment before he heaved a heavy sigh. Leo wondered how he did this, considering he didn't have lungs.