All Hail the Dark Lord, Or Something Idiotic Like That

The Black Family Tree pt6

A/N: Not my story! Original available on ao3

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Harry smiled at Neville. "This is Persephone, but I call her Sephie," he introduced his friend to the inferius cat in his lap.

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"I can't believe I haven't thought to ask this, but with all the insanity going on...who is our DADA professor this year, Harry?" Hermione asked him.

"And will they try to kill you?" Ron asked when the carriage they'd claimed just the three of them began to slowly climb up to the castle, the thestral trotting along happily in the stream of the other carriages.

Harry gave them a huge smile. "I honestly don't know. I'm looking forward to finding out though. Hopefully if they try to kill me it's imaginative and not already been done a million times. Some of the attempts are just getting old."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Hermione frowned in concern. "You've lived this year before. Who was the professor?"

"And you better be kidding about the murder attempts," Ron frowned, not seeming to be able to tell if Harry was joking or not...he wasn't.

Harry just grinned at them even more. "My partner has been a bit busy while I've been lazing around Grimmauld with you lot...this year's DADA professor was frankly the worst of all my years, and he knew I'd probably kill her...well, most definitely would kill her, if she showed. So, he took care of it for me. The ministry will appoint someone to replace her since they want a presence in the school this year. I have no clue who though. It'll be interesting to see if this one wants me dead too."

"How could they be worse than Quirrelmort?!" Ron asked incredulously.

"What do you mean by 'took care of it?'" Hermione asked at the same time with a concerned frown.

Harry looked out the window at the castle in the distance, trying to shove down the ghosts of his past that was trying to force their way to his attention. It felt like he was missing something on this trip to the castle. There was something or someone that was supposed to be there his fifth year...he had avoided Malfoy's normal taunting by warding his compartment after Ron and Hermione joined him and Neville, so maybe that was it...something still felt like it was missing. Oh well...nothing he could do about it at the moment until he remembered.

"Right, so DADA professors...I actually rank them from worst to best as: This fifth-year one, then Lockhart, then Quirrelmort, then Snape, then Fake-Moody, then Lupin...Remus was definitely the best."

"Snape taught one year?" Ron asked in surprise.

"That was only six," Hermione counted. "And you still didn't answer my question about what taking care of them meant."

"I didn't attend my seventh year," Harry turned back to them with a sad smile. "It is a very long, sad story that thankfully ends with Voldy's death. I did attend for a few weeks of an odd eighth year option we had going until future Hermione made me drop out and self-study for my own mental health. I didn't spend enough time with that DADA professor to rank them."

"Merlin...this is not going to go well," Ron sighed, taking in the fact that Harry hadn't been able to stay the last time he'd been at the school.

"As for taking care of the situation...don't ask questions you don't want the answer to, Hermione, because I will answer you," he warned her with a dark smirk. "Just trust that this was entirely necessary, and you would have been one of the first in support if you'd have lived through this year. This was not something you wanted to experience for this year or for the lasting impact it had on our society."

"Considering you ranked a Death Eater as our second-best DADA professor and the one with Voldy in the back of his head wasn't the worst...and I don't disagree with you...I think I'll believe you if you say this one was one we didn't want to experience for ourselves," Ron winced at the implications.

"Merlin...we've had some messed-up professors, haven't we?" Hermione sighed, not letting it go, but willing to push it aside temporarily.