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Professor Adom Tutman had sharp features and wore long robes made from a rough tan material. He had gold earrings and thick, dark eyebrows that seemed to stand off of his deeply tanned face like great fuzzy caterpillars. He stood at the front of the classroom, arms crossed over his chest as he watched them file in and sit down with appraising, bright green eyes. There had been quite a bit of talk in the Great Hall about Professor Tutman. Apparently this was his first year teaching at Hogwarts. He’d been hired on after the last Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had quit without notice at the end of term the year before. In fact, according to Bilius, he had had a different Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher every year he had been attending Hogwarts and he’d heard it had gone on longer than that, even, way back into the 1950s. “They say the job’s cursed,” he had whispered across the Gryffindor table. But Adom Tutman looked like he could not only take on a curse, but that he would win against even the most powerful of them.

His eyes swept over the lot of them and down to his roster. “Such a small class,” he muttered. He had a thick accent that they couldn’t place.

“We’re missing one,” offered Sirius. “He’s ill, up in the hospital wing.”

“I see.” Professor Tutman nodded, his finger on the roster. “Well, then, you’re all here, let’s begin.” He withdrew a long gold-looking wand from a funny little holster on his hip and waved it at the door, closing it right, and he turned back-to the students. A large chalkboard hovered behind his desk and he flicked his wand again and a piece of chalk leaped out of the tray at it’s base and began scribbling notes frantically across it in powdery white letters. “The Dark Arts is what we call magic of a negative nature, the stuff that would be used against you by a dark wizard. The purpose of learning defensive magical theory is to protect you against attacks that you may face. In this level of the class, we shall learn simple tactics of disarming, stunning, and otherwise stopping your opponent in a duel.”

On the chalkboard, several spells and their purposes were being written out. They all quickly copied down what it was saying, muttering the spells under their breaths. “Expelliarmus, stupefy, protego, protego duo, protego maxima, salvio hexia, revilio incantantum, revilio huminus…” The list was quite long, the purpose of most of the spells was to cast a shield that protected from dark magic of varying degrees of horribleness in small and large areas and opposing skill levels. Professor Tutman nodded and paced as he listened to the scratching of their quills on parchment. “You just never know when you might need these spells,” he said, “You never know when you could be attacked. The purpose is to be always on the lookout, always ready, always capable of protecting yourselves from danger… for it is out there and it is getting stronger.”

Sirius and James shared a look.

“What do you think he meant ‘it is getting stronger’?” James asked a couple hours later as the four Gryffindor first years made their way down to the Great Hall for lunch after the Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson was over.

Lily, who was close enough to hear the question came to a stop and turned around. “Dumbledore said it at the start of term feast, didn’t he?” she said, “There’s some mad politics going on and, I don’t know about the wizarding world because I wasn’t raised in it like you were, but, in the muggle world, mad politics means a bad leader. That can lead to a war. Professor Tutman obviously has been told to instruct us in ways to protect ourselves in case the political situation gets even worse.”

James looked surprised. He hadn’t expected Lily to turn around and actually speak to him. He hadn’t even been talking to her when he’d asked. He’d actually been talking to Sirius, who now looked just as surprised as James felt at the sound of Lily’s voice.

“You’re right,” he stammered. “Of course you’re right.”

Lily stared at them a moment, all stopped in the corridor at the top of the stairs into the entrance hall where the boys had done their performance the night before. For a moment, there was a strange feeling that seemed to surge among them - something none of them could explain but that all of them felt. It was as though the prospect of a future fight had momentarily unguarded and united them.

Then a heard of Slytherins, coming down from their classes in the halls above, came trooping by and Lily spotted Severus among them and she scrambled to get away from James and Sirius before Severus could see her with them, running over to greet him.

James looked at Sirius, who shrugged, and they trooped off after the Slytherins into the Great Hall.

“Are we still going to visit Remus in the hospital wing after this?” James asked.

“Yes,” Sirius answered, “As soon as we’ve eaten we’ll go up. We can knick a couple treacle tarts from the table for him if we stick around for dessert.”

“No need to,” said Peter, pointing to the Gryffindor table.

Remus was sitting at the table, looking pale and tired. “Blimey he looks like one of the house ghosts,” muttered Sirius as they approached. He flung himself onto the bench beside Remus. “Well look what Mrs. Norris dragged in,” he announced. “Are you feeling better, then?” he asked.

“Better?” Remus asked, looking ‘round as the three of them sat down around him.

“Yeah, from the hospital wing?” James prompted, “Professor McGonagall told us you were ill and Madam Pomfrey was tending to you.”

“Oh yeah,” Remus nodded, “Much better, thank you.” He stared down at the plate of chips he was eating with a roast beef sandwich. His hands were shaking slightly as he devoured the food and he had some sort of smelly drink he was washing it down with.

“What’s that?” Peter asked, eyeing the drink.

“A replenishing potion,” Remus answered. “Dumbledore gave it to me, said it would help me feel better. I didn’t really eat while I was… sick.”

James frowned, “My mum usually makes this brilliant soup when I’m sick,” he said, “You should’ve eaten soup. Always makes me feel much better.”

Remus shrugged, “I didn’t have soup.”

“I’m sure Madam Pomfrey would’ve gotten you some if you asked,” Sirius said.

Remus shrugged again.

“You missed a brilliant Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Sirius said, changing the subject since Remus obviously wasn’t wanting to talk about it. “Bilius was right, Professor Tutman seems really cool.” He reached in his bag and pulled out the parchment with the notes he’d scribbled down on it, “You can copy my notes. We started learning expelliarmus today. Lily Evans took Professor Tutman’s wand with the spell, but she’s the only one that got it. James almost got mine, it sort of tried to wriggle away from my hand but I just held tighter and stopped it going.”

“You could’ve let it go and made me look good,” James said ruefully.

“And look stupid myself?” Sirius asked, shaking his head, “No way.”

The boys finished lunch, filling Remus in on everything that he had missed since he’d been gone and then it was time to go out onto the grounds for Herbology in the greenhouses. Since Remus had missed the first Herbology lesson of the term, the other three had to fill him in on what they’d learned about Puffapods and warning him against the Venomous Tentacula that had a nasty habit of sneaking up on the students with its long vines when they weren’t looking. Twice it had tapped Professor Viridi on the shoulders during their last lesson and she’d had to chase it off of a Hufflepuff boy it had taken a fancy to.

Sirius looked as though he were paying attention in Herbology that afternoon, but the truth was that he was still thinking about the Defense Against the Dark Arts class and the spells they’d learned there. One of the spells - the protego maxima - had specifically said it was strong enough to block off an illegal curse called the cruciatus curse. This had bothered him because he was fairly certain that this was the dreaded ‘crucio’ his mother had often cast on him and his brother as punishment - several times over the summer he’d laid prone to the torturous curse on the carpet of her library, twitching in pain as she administered it, shouting at him for annoying her. But if it was the same curse, then what she was doing was not just painful and harsh parenting but actually truly illegal, and not only that, but was, in fact, dark magic.

It bothered him to think about the idea that his mother would use such a curse on her children and it occurred to him to wonder if that was what she was doing to the people she was supposed to love then what was she doing to the people whom she hated? The idea struck him hard - was his father aware? Was he a dark wizard, too? Was that uncomfortable pit in the bottom of his stomach he’d been feeling all summer, that rebellious streak that had grown stronger and stronger in him since getting out of the house he’d grown up in, was that all the result of learning, slowly but surely, that his parents were actually dark wizards?

He didn’t dare mention any of this to the other boys, afraid they’d think that he might be dark, too. He wasn’t sure if darkness was something one inherited like one might inherit their parent’s features or tastes. Suddenly, more than anything else he’d ever done, he was very proud of himself for being sorted Gryffindor.

That night, they sat in the Gryffindor common room taking turns playing Exploding Snap and taking it in shifts to study when they weren’t one of the ones playing. Peter Pettigrew was quite good at the game, but James insisted that he was cheating somehow and Sirius was pretty sure he’d seen Peter bewitch a couple of the cards to stick together when James wasn’t looking. He worked on memorizing the defensive spells they’d learned, thinking they may be useful next time he got in trouble at home.