Mad Politics

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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.

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