Lost Legacy Year 1 Chapter 6

Year One: Chapter Six
The Tutor

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James and Sirius returned to Gryffindor Tower grumbling indignantly to each other. They weren't daft! They didn't need any extra credit! Only idiots needed tutors! Wasn't it obvious to Rankin that they enjoyed his lessons? Sure, they weren't always on their best behavior during his class, but they understood everything he was teaching them anyway. They had grown up in the wizarding world after all, so they knew all about magical creatures already! The extra lessons he was forcing them to do were embarrassing and stupid. It was a complete waste of time!

Who did Rankin think he was anyway? Picking Lupin for their tutor? Rankin could have at least chosen another student older than them. James wasn't worried about Lupin revealing to everyone how stupid he and Sirius were for needing additional lessons. Lupin didn't have any friends to talk to anyway. Between his sickly appearance, his scars, and his overenthusiastic appreciation for everything at the school, Lupin was just weird and everybody knew it.

No, it was just going to be so embarrassing that their fellow classmate, someone they shared their dorm with, would think them idiots. James hated people thinking down upon him, he was always trying to impress others. But it shouldn't surprise him that Rankin would pick Lupin. Of course he would. Rankin and most of the other professors who weren't terrified of Lupin loved him. He was the ideal student: respectful, diligent, and clever. Lupin the golden boy…wait, Lupin!

James suddenly had an epiphany! Maybe he could convince Lupin to discuss with Rankin about revoking their addition lessons! If anyone could persuade Rankin, it might be Lupin!

James to hunt down Lupin to discuss his idea with him, but he never returned to their dormitory that night. James could have sworn he had seen him in their classes that day, but he was missing all night. And the next day. And most of the following day after that. By the time Lupin actually returned to their final class of the day (looking just as disheveled as the last time he mysteriously vanished), James had no time to share his plans for the upcoming lessons. Lupin had disappeared again after the Potions lesson was done that afternoon and James and Sirius could not find him anywhere. Finally, they decided to grab a quick bite to eat in the Great Hall before trudging back to Gryffindor Tower.

"I cannot believe this," Sirius grumbled, throwing himself onto the empty couch in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room. He crossed his arms and glowered sourly at the canvas paintings on the wall. The grandfather clock in the corner chimed five o'clock.

"I know," James sat down beside Sirius. They continued waiting for Lupin to arrive. James read through an abandoned copy of that day's Daily Prophet  and Sirius glared at everything in the room.

After twenty minutes of waiting, Sirius began vocally complaining again, "Where the hell is he? I don't want to waste my time waiting for him!"

"He'll be here, Sirius," James found another article that caught his interest and read.

HOGSMEADE HAUNTED
by: Ambrose Bede

Hogsmeade villagers reported hearing noises in their village this past Monday. This is the second set of complaints of strange disturbances to come from the quaint wizarding village, the first set originating almost one month prior.

"They kept me up all night! Screaming and howling the whole time!" says Goodwin Peterson, a villager. "They were coming from that shack on the hill!" Peterson pointed to a rickety old shack, which has been abandoned and uninhabited for decades.

"Ministry officials are looking into this disturbance. These seem to be particularly violent spirits, but their origins are currently unknown," says Evan Basil of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. "We will know more on a later date. In the meantime, the house has remained quiet and still. This is hopefully a sign that the restless ghosts have moved on."

Well that was certainly odd. Not the fact that Hogsmeade was haunted – hell, Hogwarts was, too. It was peculiar that these particular ghosts seemed to only appear at certain intervals and when they did, they definitely made their presence known and felt by every person in the village. James had heard of aggressive ghosts, but this was outrageous behavior! And they were uncomfortably close to Hogwarts. What if these ghosts decided to move to a nicer home at the school? "Hey Sirius, check this out," James handed Sirius the newspaper.

Sirius accepted the paper and looked at the page. "'Woman in St. Mungo's Gives Birth to Three-Headed Daughter?'" he read with a puzzled expression on his face.

"No, not that one! This one!" James pointed to the correct article.

Sirius read. He cocked an eyebrow when he was done and handed the paper back to James. "Big deal, Hogwarts is haunted, too."

James rolled his eyes. "I know that! Listen, that shack had been uninhabited for decades. Why would a ghost take up residence there? Now?"

"I dunno. I'm not a ghost," stated Sirius matter-of-factly, shrugging.

James and Sirius jumped at the loud SLAM of six large, heavy books being dropped onto the floor in front of them. They turned and saw tiny Lupin standing there, very short of breath. "I'm sorry I'm late," he apologized hoarsely.

James had meant to ask him what had taken so long, but all he could find himself saying was, "We're not going to have to use all of those, are we?" He stared wide-eyed at the large stack of books.

"Huh?" Lupin looked down at the pile. Hurriedly, he shook his head. "Oh no! They're mine."

"Blimey! You're going to read all of those?" asked James, dumbstruck.

"Hopefully, at one point of time or another," Lupin shrugged it off as nothing as he picked up the book from the top of the pile and opened it to the first chapter. "'Grindylows,' you might want to take out some parchment for notes," he suggested, looking up from the book.

Sirius frowned, glaring at the boy. "What took you so long to get here? You're thirty minutes late. My time could have been much more valuably spent elsewhere."

Lupin blinked in surprise, but answered. "I was in the library g-getting books for the lesson."

James would have almost believed him – if he hadn't stammered. "That's not all you were doing, was it? It doesn't take hours to collect books."

Lupin turned very pale, his scars standing out starkly against his pallid skin. "I-I…. Look, it's really not my place to talk. Severus just needed someone to talk to and I-I was there," he stammered.

Sirius blinked in horror. "Wait…why would he talk to you?"

"Let alone anyone," James concluded in complete accord with Sirius's sentiments.

Lupin rubbed the back of his neck nervously with his bandaged hand. "Well…I sort of pressed the matter. He didn't want to talk to me at first. At all. But I eventually got him to open up. The last few days have been…rough for him to say the least."

James found himself intrigued. "What's the matter with Sni-Snape?" He almost didn't catch himself on the Snivellus slip-up, but if he hadn't and Lupin had heard the nickname, he would have never opened up about what was eating Snape. Somehow, James didn't think that Lupin would appreciate the moniker. James had been dying to know what Snape had been blubbering about all week anyway. Best to fake concern.

Lupin looked reluctant to reveal their conversation. "Well…he's been brooding to himself lately because his father left his family. His father seems to have reasoned that since Severus is in school and on his way to adulthood, there's nothing holding him back anymore. Severus has become older and no longer needs him. His father hates his mother, and was only staying at their house for Severus's sake, but now he's moved on apparently."

"Apparently…" James tried to hold back his snickers, but failed. "I still cannot believe you talked to him!"

Sirius snorted. "Tell me, is the grease contagious? 'Cos if so, I want a different tutor." He gave a mock-shudder. James laughed.

Lupin sighed dramatically, pinching the bridge of his nose to fight off an impending headache. He had finally caught onto their stalling tactic. "I'm here to teach you, not to talk about Severus," he completed disregarded their previous comments and picked up the book he had been reading from earlier. James and Sirius wiped their tears of mirth from the eyes and picked up their parchment and quill. "'A grindylow is a pale green creature that lives in the weed beds on the bottom of lakes. Grindylows have long, brittle fingers which they use to grip their prey, sharp little horns, and green teeth. Mermaids have also been known to domesticate them, and feed them….'"

James simply lost interest in what Lupin was saying. When would he ever need to know what a grindylow looked like or ate – unless it ate humans of course. Other than that, he couldn't see any real reason he needed to be there. He could be doing so many other things other than listening to Lupin ramble on about a grindylow's long fingers or whatever it was he was talking about.

"James!" Lupin stopped reading, pulling James out of his thoughts.

James stared back at him in dull surprise. "Huh?" Sirius snickered.

"Have you heard anything I've said?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of himself in slight annoyance.

"Of course I did!" James lied, trying his best to appear appalled by the mere suggestion.

"So tell me how you are to defend yourself from one."

Oh shit.

"You…uh…pick them up…." James stammered.

"And…?" Lupin raised an eyebrow.

"And…uh…."

"You clearly weren't listening," Lupin sighed again. He shut the heavy book with another loud BANG and set it atop the tall pile of books to leave. "I don't know why I bothered. Lily told me this would be a complete waste of time. I should have just listened to – "

Lily! Lily Evans! The girl from on the train! James instantly focused his attention on Lupin at the mention of her name. "Evans, you mean?" James quickly interrupted. Lupin was on first-name terms with her. Maybe…just maybe…if he went through this, she would talk to him…not think of him as a complete idiot…it drove him crazy that all of the other Gryffindor first-years accepted him except for Evans, even if she was weird for hanging out with Snape…and Lupin apparently since he used her first name…but then again Lupin did that with everyone now that James thought of it…. Anyway, James still wanted to be on good terms with all of his housemates, peculiar or otherwise…maybe….

"Yes…." Lupin looked thoroughly confused.

"Well you can tell her I'm not a waste of time," James spoke confidently. "Teach, Professor Lupin!"

Lupin failed dismally at hiding his goofy grin. "I…alright, I guess…" he shrugged. "As long as you're willing to work."

"Oh I'm willing," James grinned foolishly, trying his darnest to ignore the odd looks Sirius was giving him.

"Fine," Lupin opened the book and began to read to them again. All in all, he really knew a lot about magical creatures. He could answer almost every question James or Sirius had about them, even if the answer wasn't anywhere in the book. Sirius took a fair amount of notes while James was careful to take as many as he possibly could, much to Lupin's pleasure. Their lesson ended exactly one hour later, thereafter the three ran (Lupin limped) to their dormitory to play Exploding Snap far into the night.

James was woken rather rudely the following morning. He could hear someone distantly calling his name before he was suddenly being suffocated with a pillow.

James fought against the pillow, desperate for air, and jolted up in his bed like a gunshot. Although he could hardly see anything around him clearly, he could still identify a tall raven-haired boy standing over his bed, looking smug with his aristocratic Black smirk and pillow in hand.

"Sirius, you jerk!" James pushed him away grumpily and reached for his glasses on his bedside cabinet. He slipped them on, and saw that Sirius was still smirking. "What is it? Why didn't my alarm go off?"

Sirius shrugged. "You must have forgotten to set it last night, mate."

James groaned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "What time is it then?"

Sirius looked at James's alarm clock. His smirk grew wider as he stood there in his full uniform.  "Looks like eight fifty. We have to be at Professor Flitwick's in ten minutes."

That certainly woke James up.

James leapt out of bed, instantly sprung to life, and grabbed his uniform robes off the top of his trunk. There would be no time for a shower or breakfast today. Damn. "Why didn't you – " he stuck a leg through his pants, trying hard not to trip over and make a bigger fool of himself " – tell me earlier?"

"I had myself to get around. Besides, you looked so peaceful sleeping there like that," said Sirius, still leering as he watched James scramble to pull his robes on straight. "I didn't have the heart to wake you."

James glared at him before shaking his head in defeat. It wasn't worth an argument. Not now anyway. "Lets go." They ran down the spiral staircase together and out of Gryffindor Tower. They ducked as Peeves the poltergeist pelted them with tiny pieces of chalk and continued down to the changing staircases to the third floor, getting held up a few times when the stairs decided to actually remain stationary. Was the castle against him now, too?

The two stumbled through the Charms classroom door, apologizing to Professor Flitwick for interrupting his lesson. Flitwick probably wouldn't take too many points from Gryffindor, but they still didn't need to lose any.

"Mr. Black, Mr. Potter! Please take you seats," squeaked Flitwick. Their sudden appearance seemed to have startled him a bit. James and Sirius hardly took their seats and the bell rang for their next class, Transfiguration.

"Oh dear," sighed Flitwick. "We shall pick up on this tomorrow."

"We missed the lesson completely," huffed Sirius in the corridor.

"I know," replied James.

"I can help you if you want," a small voice interjected behind them. They both looked over their shoulders and saw tiny Lupin standing behind them. "With the Charms lesson I mean."

"Sure," nodded Sirius, shrugging nonchalantly. "That sounds alright." The three met again later that evening, first for a Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson and then a Charms catch-up lesson.

"Alright, Wingardium Leviosa is the spell of levitation and one of the most useful you'll ever learn," began Lupin, pulling out his wand and pointing it at his Defense book. "Wingardium leviosa." The book rose in the air and he directed it to sit on top of the stack of books again. "Now you try. Apply the swish and flick we learned earlier and you should have no problem," he instructed, picking the book off of the pile again and dropping it to the floor. "And pronunciation is very important," he added quickly as an afterthought.

James nodded and pointed his wand determinably at the book. Swish and flick! "Wingardium leviosa!" The book levitated once more. James was so surprised that the incantation had worked so instantly that he broke his concentration and the book fell again.

"That's no problem, it was good! It was your first try anyway. Have at it again, but this time concentrate more on what you're doing," suggested Lupin.

James nodded and pointed his wand at the book again. "Wingardium leviosa!" The book rose once more, but this time, James concentrated more on keeping it up in the air while he directed it to sit on top of the pile of books. It collapsed onto them and didn't move anymore.

"Yes, that's it! Marvelous! Sirius, you have at it now. Wingardium leviosa," the book rose from the pile and Lupin brought it back to its place on the floor. He stepped aside and Sirius walked forward.

"Wingardium leviosa!" Sirius easily lifted the book and set it down again on the stack.

"Wonderful, Sirius! Great, really great, both of you!" encouraged Lupin.

"Yeah it was!" James grinned along with him.

"You're going be a teacher someday, you know that?" stated Sirius.

Lupin beamed with pride.

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Not long afterward, they formed a friendship with the strange Remus Lupin and the three spent all of their free time together. James and Sirius's scores in Defense Against the Dark Arts increased substantially, and they no longer needed to be tutored. They still met every evening, however, whereupon they would learn new spells and charms from each other that they had not been taught in their lessons yet. James and Sirius became interested in learning more, and they would often put their own input and learnings into these lessons.

Meanwhile James, Sirius, and Snape were almost constantly dueling each other in the corridors between classes if they had the chance. After the first few times of being caught and punished with detention or the loss of house points, James and Sirius became very competent at stealthily disappearing from the scene before any professor could peg the fight on them. Everyone knew they were responsible for it, but the professors needed concrete proof that they were fighting before they could punish the pair. James and Sirius were usually the ones to start the conflicts, too, but it never ceased to amaze them the sheer amount of curses and hexes Snape knew. They would definitely have to learn more spells fast to keep with him, and the extra meetings with Remus were helping them. Snape in the  meantime was rapidly acquiring a reputation for knowing a great deal of Dark curses. The older Slytherin students still did not associate themselves with the greasy first-year, but they didn't seem quite so embarrassed of him anymore either.

Two weeks later, the older students enjoyed their first trip to Hogsmeade village that year, while the first-year and second-year students were left behind at the school.

The first Quidditch tournament of the year was played the following day on. Sirius and Remus tried their darnest to contain James's overenthusiastic excitement for the match, but were doomed to fail from the get go. Remus did manage to restrain James from painting his face red and gold though. They didn't know if the paint would come off for their classes tomorrow.

The entire school went out to the Quidditch Pitch. The field was surrounded on two of its sides with tall walls and stands for spectators. The different walls and stands were all draped with a separate house color and symbol. James, Sirius, and Remus stood together with the rest of the Gryffindors. Everyone stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they were anxious for the game to begin. The rest of the students stood with their own respective houses and the professors in the staff box.

The match was to be held between the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams. The Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws sported the bright red and gold colors. The Slytherins, all sitting together, wore green and silver robes and waved Slytherin flags and banners.

"Hello and welcome to the first Quidditch match of the season. It's Gryffindor versus Slytherin!" Tilden Toots, a second-year Gryffindor, announced overtop the cheering crowds. "And with the start of a new Quidditch season, lets introduce the players!"

The door on the far side of the pitch swung open and the fourteen players flew out. The crowds cheered louder than ever as they flew circles around the field.

"For Gryffindor, there's Terry as Team Captain and Keeper! Wassner, Dearborn, and Newman as the three Gryffindor Chasers, Murphy and Thierheimer are the Gryffindor Beaters, and introducing the lovely Miss Flynn as Gryffindor Seeker!"

The blonde girl with the ponytail blushed from high on her broomstick.

"Mr. Toots!" everyone heard Professor McGonagall chastise him over the loudspeaker.

"Of course, Professor. And for Slytherin, there's Swithen as Keeper and Team Captain. Wickham, Aston, and Ockley as the three Slytherin Chasers, Foss and Everard as the two Slytherin Beaters, and Nab as the Slytherin Seeker," Tilden Toots didn't sound nearly as excited about the Slytherin team as he had been about the Gryffindor team, but that didn't stop the Slytherins from cheering loudly for their team.

The fourteen players flew down and stopped to hover close to the ground. Professor Sykes spoke to them about sportsmanship before throwing up a red ball, the Quaffle. The fourteen brooms flew up again and they were off.

"And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Acamar Wickham for Slytherin, passes to Cassiopeia Ockley, to Lucida Aston and back to Wickham! Wickham's flying like an eagle, he might score – saved by Gryffindor Keeper Jerome Terry! Gryffindor is now in possession of the Quaffle! Cassidy Dearborn has the Quaffle now and is moving fast across the field – OUCH! Hit in the back of the head with a Bludger sent by Slytherin Beater Castor Foss, that must have hurt! Aston has the Quaffle now and is heading back toward the Gryffindor goal posts! Oh! But Adam Murphy has sent a Bludger at her – he misses, but she fumbles the ball and drops it! Nice catch by Michael Wassner and back to the Slytherin goal posts! He passes to Linda Newman, she passes back, Wassner passes to Newman again, she takes the shot – IT'S IN! GRYFFINDOR SCORES!"

Loud cheers erupted from the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws while the Slytherins moaned and howled. Katie Flynn squinted around for a glimmer of the Snitch, but none was to be found.

"Slytherin back in possession. Ockley races down the court – just narrowly misses a Bludger from Monty Thierheimer, takes her shot at the Terry – Oh! And he misses! Score is ten-to-ten!"

The Slytherins roared with excitement. Katie Flynn froze atop her broom. Near the Hufflepuff stands was the Snitch, glittering off of the sun's bright rays. Leaning forward on her broomstick, she zoomed full speed toward it.

"It looks like Katie Flynn's seen something!" Tilden Toots shouted into the loudspeaker, unconsciously tipping Slytherin Seeker Izan Nab to follow her. She shot down and flew just above the Hufflepuffs' heads, almost crashing into a tall prefect before swerving out of the way. The Snitch was right in front of her, all she would have to do was reach out and grab it! But when she was just about to grab it, she slipped off of her broomstick and toppled hard into the group of Hufflepuffs. A great hush fell over the stands as everyone waited in avid anticipation.

Flynn's hand shot up triumphantly trapping the struggling Golden Snitch in its grip. The Gryffindors cheered loudly, the game won quicker than anyone had anticipated.

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