She was silent.
He was about to try meditating when she responded, “Daphne Greengrass.”
He was glad he’d asked.
It might have led to .
.
.
difficulties as Uncle Kakuzu called it, if he’d gotten her name wrong.
Only Uncle Hidan thought that offending women was a good idea—well Uncle Kisame did when he was bored.
The tiny man came into the room, clambered up a stepladder and onto his desk.
The man had a good deal of chakra for someone so small.
Definitely not a child, despite his size.
He climbed a stack of books which finally put him at normal height for a standing adult male and took out a scroll of parchment.
Hari tuned out the man reading names until he heard, “Potter, Harry,” thump.
His eyes had been watching and so he saw the man read his name and proceed to slip from the book, slam his head into the edge of his desk and pitch forwards onto the flagstone floor.
“Well,” said Hari.
He stood up and walked over to the collapsed man and poked him with a toe.
“It appears class is dismissed.
I do hope this won’t be a trend.” He tucked his hands in his pockets and walked out of the room, whistling.
The Slytherins stumbled into the Transfiguration classroom to find Hari was once again sitting at a desk.
This time he was leaning back with his feet propped up on the book they’d been assigned to purchase for the class.
Also, why was there a cat sitting on the desk at the front of the room?
“Hello again,” Hari said politely.
His eyes were closed and he appeared to be napping.
“What kept you?” The bushy haired girl was glaring daggers at the ones who were apparently delaying her class.
The rest of her housemates seemed much less concerned.
Daphne sat beside Hari.
“We had to find our way here.
Some people didn’t believe the announcement and tried to ask for directions.
Instead of saying they didn’t know or wouldn’t tell us, they sent us to the dungeons.”
“Ah.
Sounds reasonable.” Hari nodded, smiling sagely.
“A good test to see if you can understand false information.
A little civilian, but probably good for you late bloomers.”
“What.” Daphne’s response didn’t have the inflection to it that made a question—it was too flatly confused.
He ignored Hari’s snicker.
A red-haired boy covered in grime stumbled into the room and collapsed into a seat.
“That bloody Peeves,” he grumbled.
“Good luck the Professor’s lazy.”
Hari almost fell out of his seat, clutching his stomach, his snorts muffled.
The cat jumped down from the desk, turning into a woman as it did.
“I think you will find, Mister Weasley,” the woman said in a voice as icily cold as Uncle Pein’s could be.
“That I am not, in fact, lazy.
I would ask if you woke up in time to get to your classes today, but I already know that you missed your first period to stuff your face in the Great Hall.
Your mother will, no doubt, have something to say about it in front of everyone come dinner time.
She will surely be glad that she is not shouting at her older sons for once, though I suspect they will manage that soon enough.”
“You know,” said Hari conversationally.
“Now I get why Uncle Kisame always looked a little wary near you.”
“What?”
“You’re a cat-woman.
He’s a shark.
I guess that’s why you kept looking at him like he was dinner.”
The Professor sniffed haughtily and drew her wand.
“I will be teaching the second most dangerous class in the castle.
Excepting Potions, where idiocy can not only kill you, but your whole class and endanger the rest of the student body, this is the class in which you risk death most often.” Her wand swept down and the desk behind her turned into a rhinoceros and back.
“For the moment, I doubt most of you can be trusted with sticks, let alone the wands you have.
Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to take them away from you to prevent the likely set of injuries that we will have by the end of the class.
We will, today, not be learning how to turn desks into animals.
I am hoping to minimize my first-day casualties by having you turn matchsticks into needles.
I expect only two visits to the hospital wing.
I will be most displeased if you lot manage to get more than that.”
Hari watched as she demonstrated how to do the spell with the detached air belonging to someone who had already practiced this a week ago.
When she let them try, he still hadn’t taken his feet off his desk.
On the other hand, there was no matchstick on his desk.
There was, however, a shiny, new needle.
It had little engravings on it.
“Mister Potter, you will take your feet off of your .
.
.” The Professor stared at the needle.
“.
.
.finished needle?
Did you finish?”
“Yes, Professor.” He still didn’t have his eyes open.
“I see.” She placed another matchstick on his desk.
“Can you .
.
.” before she finished, it had become a silver needle with a gold-plated point and little green scrollwork along the sides.
She blinked.
“Alright.
What are you doing now?”
“I’m reading my textbook, Professor.”
“You have it under your feet, Mister Potter.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have eyes on your feet?”
“No, Professor.
Besides, the book is closed anyway.”
“So how are you reading it?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Detention, Mister Potter.”
“I’ll bite,” Hari’s eyes were still closed.
“Why?”
“Disrespect, Mister Potter.”
“I said ‘thank you’, Professor.
Besides, you can’t give me detention tonight.
I’m already going to be not attending detention with Professor Snape.” He paused.
“I suppose I could work you in also, though.
I guess it’s not much harder to fail to attend two detentions than one.”