Percy Teaches At Hogwarts

Struggles of a Teacher

Percy POV

My eyes shift around the room looking at my students' faces. My eyes linger on Harry Potter's. I see pain and suffering in his eyes, carefully hidden by an indifferent and challenging facade. He has tricked everybody into thinking that he is okay. He believes that he needs to be strong for everybody. 

I know the truth. One look in his eyes and I can see that the deaths from the war still weigh heavily on his conscience. He's taking his guilt and anger and pushing it onto me, I can see it in his posture, the way he looks at me. He's trying to pretend that everything is alright by pushing it to the back of his mind and creating a new problem to focus on. 

Me. 

He's using me as a distraction. 

I break myself out of my thoughts and walk to the centre of the room. The room is completely bare expect for two large trunks at the other end of the room, and the long carpet, about a metre wide, running beneath my feet. I turn back towards my students and look them in the eye. 

"I understand that you have just been through a war. Many of you were hiding, trying to help in some way. You probably have a favourite defensive spell which you have memorised from the number of times you've had to use it in the last year. I understand that not all of you were fighting, I understand that some of you were on the front lines. Protecting the wizarding world from Voldemort." At this my eyes flicker to Harry, Hermione and their red headed friend standing beside them. I assume that this is Ronald Weasley, the third person that I have been informed about. 

I continue my speech, "As your defense against the dark arts teacher for this year I feel that I have a difficult job. Their are some of you that know every spell in the book and I believe that when push comes to shove you will be able to defend yourself in the real world. There are many of you that are still shaking from nightmares that wreak havoc in your minds after dark. Memories haunting your every waking hour."

At this I look around again and see that everyone has a look of understanding in their eyes. Everybody lost something in this war, whether it was family or friends. These kids are still hurt and its my job to fix them. 

"This year I will be focusing on training you for the real world, both physically and mentally." 

I pause and walk to the end of the carpet in front of the two trunks. 

"Today we will be practicing spells that some of you can probably master, and some of you have only tried once or twice. My goal is to get everybody on the same level before moving forward with my lessons. So we will start with a patronus. To defend ourselves against the darkest creatures of all time, the dementors, we need to perform a patronus. Can anybody produce a patronus?"

Before anybody has the chance to put their hands up Harry steps forward and effortlessly produces a patronus. He smirks at me and steps back in the crowd as people exchange whispers of awe and excitement. 

Harry's eyes connect with mine. Is that all you've got? He challenges. I smirk slightly and turn to the class, brushing off Harry's smug attitude. 

"Yes, that is a patronus. Now I want everybody to go to a spot in the room, by themselves and practice achieving a patronus. I will be wandering around to help you. If you already know how to produce a patronus you will be working on producing one without words. Wordless magic is very powerful and is something that every one of you will be able to achieve by the end of the year."

They all dispatch and work on their spells for a few minutes. I look around and notice that most people are able to do the spell. I walk towards those who can't and give them pointers on how to do it correctly.