Astra

XCIII - The New Generation

"Who, then?" said Harry, frowning at her.

Hermione heaved a very deep sigh.

"Isn't it obvious?" she said. "I'm talking about you, Harry."

There was a moment's silence. A light night breeze rattled the windowpanes behind Ron, and the fire guttered.

"About me what?" said Harry.

"I'm talking about you teaching us Defence Against the Dark Arts."

Harry stared at her. He turned to Ron and Astra, but Astra seemed to have brightened up with inspiration. 

"That's perfect!"

"What's perfect?" asked Harry.

"You," said Ron. "Teaching us to do it."

"But..."

Harry was grinning now, sure the pair of them were pulling his leg.

"But I'm not a teacher, I can't--"

"Harry, you're the best in the year at Defence Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione. "Well, you and Astra."

"Me?" said Harry now grinning more broadly than ever. "No, I'm not, you and Astra have beaten me in every test--"

"Actually, I haven't," said Hermione coolly. "You beat me in our third year--the only year we both sat the test and had a teacher who actually knew the subject. But I'm not talking about test results, Harry. Think what you've done!"

"How d'you mean?"

"You know what, I'm not sure I want someone this stupid teaching me," Ron said to Hermione, smirking slightly. He turned to Harry.

"Let's think," he said, pulling a face like Goyle concentrating. "Uh . . . first year--you saved the Philosopher's Stone from You-Know-Who."

"But that was luck," said Harry, "it wasn't skill--"

"Second year," Astra interrupted, "you killed the Basilisk and destroyed Riddle."

"Yeah, but if Fawkes hadn't turned up, I--"

"Third year," said Ron, louder still, "you fought off about a hundred dementors at once--"

"You know that was a fluke, if the Time-Turner hadn't--"

"Last year," Astra said, almost shouting now, "you fought off Voldemort again--'

"Listen to me!" said Harry, almost angrily, because the others were both smirking now. "Just listen to me, all right? It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff was luck--I didn't know what I was doing half the time, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and I nearly always had help--"

They were still smirking and Harry felt his temper rise; he wasn't even sure why he was feeling so angry.

"Don't sit there grinning like you know better than I do, I was there, wasn't I?" he said heatedly. "I know what went on, all right? And I didn't get through any of that because I was brilliant at Defence Against the Dark Arts, I got through it all because-- because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right--but I just blundered through it all, I didn't have a clue what I was doing--STOP LAUGHING!"

The bowl of Murtlap essence fell to the floor and smashed. He became aware that he was on his feet, though he couldn't remember standing up. Crookshanks streaked away under a sofa. Astra, Ron, and Hermione's smiles had vanished.

"You don't know what it's like! You--none of you--you've never had to face him, have you? You think it's just memorizing a bunch of spells and throwing them at him like you're in class or something? The whole time you're sure you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own--your own brain or guts or whatever--like you can think straight when you know you're about a nanosecond from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die-- they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that--and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up--you just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me, it would have been if Voldemort hadn't needed me--'