Baby Steps

My Voldemort Era

Jo's POV:

I shifted around in my seat, trying to get a good view of the board. It was my last class of the day, and I was fighting away daydreams of my bed as I tried desperately to pay attention.

"How do you handle your fears?"

Professor Waltham turned his back to us, raising his hand to scribble on the chalkboard. The word Fear appeared in sloppy cursive.

"In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle outlines the dangers of living with too much fear, as well as living without fear," the professor explained. I struggled to keep my pen moving in pace with Professor Waltham's chalk in a desperate attempt to take somewhat decent notes. "What are some of the dangers in mismanaging fear?"

The course, Advanced Writing, was a university-wide requirement, one that I had happened to put off until my senior year. As much as I enjoyed writing, if being an English major wasn't evidence enough, I dreaded the idea of trying to share my joy of literature with the rest of the student body. It was bad enough that the English department at Eden University was about a fifth the size of the science department, but combining the two species into one class? Dreadful.

The science kids seemed to hate our presence just as much as we did theirs. We found their contributions short-sighted and ignorant; they found ours dramatic and useless.

A student in the second row raised her hand. "If you have too much fear, you risk spiking your adrenaline, which can cause serious health side effects, like a heart attack" she said proudly. Definitely a freshie bio kid.

"True, but that's not exactly what Aristotle was getting at," Professor Waltham replied. "Let's think of the big picture. What does a society composed of overly fearful people result in? What about a society without fear?"

The class was quiet as students thought over the professor's prompt. Finally, a deep voice behind me spoke.

"If everyone was super afraid all the time, then none of society's problems would ever get solved. People would be too afraid to do anything about anything," the mystery speaker calmly stated. "Also, if people were never afraid, they would get too confident and end up creating problems."

I turned my head to get a look at the mystery speaker. The man leaned forward with his arms crossed on the desk, giving a perfect display of his broad, toned shoulders. A crop of golden hair rested perfectly tousled on top of his tanned, chiseled face. His deep brown eyes were focused on the front of the room, bravely displaying his intelligence by ignoring the notes in front of him. I felt my breathe catch in my throat. This man was simply a dream.

A number of heads turned around to look at our new star pupil. A few jaws fell as they took in the golden man, surprised that someone so pretty could even exist. Some of the guys began looking around the room with a panicked look, clearly intimidated by the attention this man was drawing.

"Good thinking," the professor congratulated. "I think that's more along the lines of what Aristotle was saying."

"For our next paper, I'd like you all to think about how you handle your own fears, and how Aristotle would likely respond to your approach." The professor returned to his desk and began shuffling papers. "Let's make this a 2,000 work minimum, due by the end of the semester. Class dismissed."

I quickly jotted down the assignment in my notebook before stuffing my belongings in my bag. I was never the type to linger after class - after all, time stops for no man. 

I joined the crowd of students exiting down the stairs, and lucky me, found myself behind golden boy. And oh man, he was even better up close.

He smelled slightly of burnt wood and cinnamon, reminding me of a warm summer campfire. A gold chain peaked out from the back of his tight white t-shirt, which clung tightly to his evidently muscular back. He towered over the rest of the class by a good three or four inches, making him slightly intimidating, but more so intriguing. I was careful to keep my distance, just in case he could hear my heart pounding in my chest.