Chapter 3: Professor Century

The sun peeked in through a slit in the curtains splaying itself across the face of a dark haired, handsome man who was sleeping soundly in his large, four poster bed. Groaning, he rolled over but the ray of sun followed him, lazing across his eyes as if determined for the man to awake. The man in question merely grabbed a pillow and placed it over his face, effectively blocking out the piece of sun. However, Mother Nature was not one to give up easily.

A loud 'crack' resounded around the room causing the man in bed to bolt upright, fumbling for his wand, which was placed on the night stand, and point it towards the direction of the crack, only to find a small house elf wearing a clean white loin cloth.

"Sorry if Beanie scared you," the house elf apologised, "But Master Dumbledore asked me to remind you that you start lessons this morning."

Sirius lowered his wand.

"Sorry," he apologised. "You just surprised me."

Beanie bowed low.

"Sorry, Beanie didn't mean too."

Sirius shrugged.

"S'Alright," he replied with a yawn. "Thanks."

The house elf nodded before he disapparated with a loud crack.

Yawning and stretching, Sirius clambered out of bed and headed into the bathroom and into the shower. Washing his hair and scrubbing himself clean with some soap that had a lemony smell to it, he stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his middle and glanced at his reflection in the mirror.

He had small signs of stubble showing on his face and his hair was getting a bit long, but other than that he looked quite decent. Deciding to shave anyway, Sirius did so before exiting the bathroom and dressing himself in a pair of black trousers and a crisp white shirt that he found in his wardrobe before throwing his robe from yesterday on and heading towards the Great Hall for breakfast.

The Great Hall was slowly filling up with students as Sirius approached, a flash of red caught his eye and he turned to see a young woman with long, dark red hair talking to another young woman, she turned her head slightly and Sirius caught the startling green almond shape of her eyes. He felt his stomach turn as he realised he was looking at a seventeen year old Lily Evans, his best friend's wife and his godson's mother.

Even after she had sat down at the Gryffindor table Sirius found himself frozen in the middle of the doorway that led into the Great Hall and it wasn't until someone bumped into him that he realised he was still stood there, shaking his head from his daze, he strode down the length of the Great Hall and took his seat beside Professor Flitwick, piling his plate with food, his eyes darting every now and again towards where Lily was sat surrounded by her friends.

"I wonder what Defence will be like with Professor Century." Remus Lupin mused as he settled into his seat at the Gryffindor table.

Across from him both James Potter and Sirius Black shrugged before piling their plate with food.

"Don't know," James said as he spooned scrambled egg onto his plate, "as long as he's a good teacher, I don't really care."

"Yeah," agreed Sirius, piling bacon onto his plate, "Let's just hope he's better than Professor Mountain last year, he was a right bore."

Remus raised his eyebrow.

"He wasn't that bad," he said. "You just didn't like him because of the amount of detentions he gave you."

Sirius scowled at his friend from across the table just as Professor McGonagall approached them, timetables in hand.

"Well," James commented as he glanced at his timetable – Professor McGonagall having moved on – "we'll find out soon enough, we've got him first period." He tapped the timetable with his right index finger.

Both Remus and Sirius glanced at it.

"Excellent," Sirius said with a grin. "Time to find out if Professor Century can handle us."

Remus sighed deeply and tucked his timetable into his satchel.

"For once, Sirius," he said. "Could we just be nice to a teacher?"

The look Sirius sent him caused him to sigh deeply once more.

"Just don't drag me into this." He muttered before returning to his food.

After finishing breakfast, all four of them headed towards the Defence classroom which was located on the fifth floor, they were five minutes late and were surprised to find that the rest of the class were still stood outside the classroom.

"He's not even here yet?" Sirius asked, disbelievingly. "Well, that has to be a first."

"Agreed." Remus said nodding.

"I wonder where he's got to." James added, craning his neck to look for Professor Century.

There was the sound of hurried footsteps and the whole class turned to see Professor Century stride round the corner, his robes billowing out behind him.

"Sorry I'm late," he called, pointing his wand at the door so that it clicked open. "Everyone enter and find a seat."

The class did as they were told streaming into the classroom. James, Sirius, Remus and Peter bought up the rear, Professor Century behind them.

"Not had a very good start to the day, has he?" Sirius muttered as they made their way to the back for their usual seats.

Both James and Remus shrugged before the four of them settled into their seats as Professor Century turned and began writing on the black board at the front.

When he had finished he turned to them, rubbing his hands together.

"Welcome to seventh year Defence against the Dark Arts." He said, resting his hands on the back of the chair and leaning forwards. "Seeing as we neither know each other, I thought we'd go through the class and say our name before saying something interesting about ourselves, I'll start." He added. "My name is Harry Century and I love Quidditch." He gestured his hand to the front row. "We'll start right to left and make our way back." He said.

The class nodded and each person began to say their name as well as some interesting fact about themselves.

James didn't pay much attention to what everyone was saying until it reached Lily Evans. She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear before replying.

"My name's Lily Evans," she said clearly, "and chocolate brownies are my weakness."

Professor Century flashed her a smile.

"Understandable of course, Miss Evans," he said before moving onto the next person.

Eventually he reached James, Sirius, Remus and Peter. Peter was up first.

"My name's Peter Pettigrew," he squeaked. "And I live with my mother."

Professor Century nodded and moved onto Remus who smiled weakly.

"My name is Remus Lupin," he said, "and I love Honeydukes chocolate." He blushed slightly and a smile appeared on Professor Century's face.

"Don't we all, Mr Lupin," he said before turning to Sirius.

Sirius grinned lazily and tipped his chair back so that it was balancing on two legs.

"My name is Sirius Black," he said casually, "and I'm a trouble maker."

A ripple of laughter ran through the classroom as well as a sniff from Lily's direction. Professor Century's face remained impassive as he turned to James.

"I'm James Potter," James said, "and, erm, well, I didn't expect to become Head Boy." He offered, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

Professor Century nodded and clapped his hands together.

"Well," he said, "now that we've got introductions out of the way, let's get on with the lesson. If you wouldn't mind turning your book open to page forty seven, I want to do a quick re-cap of the use of defensive spells vs. offensive spells, and I suggest you read the text carefully as this will be your homework tonight, to write me at least a scroll of parchment on the use of defensive spells vs. offensive spells. I want to see quotes within the text from the book itself, but I don't want the whole section of the book re-written," He paused and looked at Sirius. "I want it in your own words."

The class nodded and began flicking through the book. Professor Century's eyes lingered on Sirius for a bit, making him feel slightly uncomfortable before Professor Century turned away and sat down behind his desk leaving Sirius to turn to his book, the words swimming before him on the page as he wondered why Professor Century had stared at him so much.

Sirius sat behind his desk writing up a lesson plan for the next time he had the seventh year class. He wanted to do a practical with them and was currently trying to figure out how best to partner them when a knock on the door caused him to glance up to see Lily Evans stood in the door way.

"Miss Evans," he said pleasantly, motioning for her to come in. "What can I do for you?"

Lily approached the desk and held out two roles of parchment for him.

"It's the homework you set us," she said. "I finished it early and thought you might like it."

Sirius smiled slightly, Lily had always handed homework in early, and usually on the same day it was set.

"Take a seat," he said taking the scrolls of parchment from her. "I'll mark them now."

Lily nodded and took a seat as Sirius unfurled the parchment, scanning through it.

The essay was good, her writing was fluid and appropriate quotes were used to support her thought and/or suggestions. Overall, it was rather an amazing essay and Sirius didn't think he could have written a better one himself. Smiling to himself, he scrawled outstanding at the top of the first piece of parchment and handed it back to her.

"Well done, Miss Evans." He said.

Lily's cheeks flushed red with pleasure as she read the mark he had given her.

"Thank you, Professor," she said.

Sirius smiled at her kindly.

"No problem, Miss Evans." He replied.

Lily beamed at him before pocketing the parchment in her satchel and heading out of his office and towards his next class.

Sirius watched her go before glancing at his watch and sighing. He supposed he should get ready for his next class too.

Grabbing his wand he headed out of his office and into the classroom. Opening the classroom door he was surprised to find that his sixth year class was already lined up outside waiting for him. They turned to face him expectantly when he opened the door.

"Come in," Sirius said, stepping back.

The bunch of sixth years trailed in and took their seats waiting for him to start. Sirius had to admit they were a lot quieter than the seventh years; he supposed it was because they didn't have his younger self in their year, who had amused himself by rocking back on his chair every now and again.

Clearing his throat, he began the lesson the same way he had with the seventh years before asking them to put their books away and stand away from their desks. They did this quietly and with a wave of his wand, the desks were piled to the side of the classroom leaving an open floor on which to duel.

"Non-verbal spells," he said to the class. "Can anyone tell me the advantage of a non-verbal spell?"

A few hands rose.

Sirius looked round at them all before picking one, a young girl with dark brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail; she had the Gryffindor symbol emblazed on her robes.

"Because non-verbal spells are non-verbal, the opposition has no warning about what spell, curse, hex or even kind of magic you are going to use." She said. "This therefore gives you a split second advantage above your opponent."

Sirius smiled at her.

"Excellent, Miss…"

"Briar." She replied.

Sirius nodded before facing the class once more.

"I want you to pair up and practice non-verbal spells," he said. "Start with the shield charm, I take it you all know how to do a shield charm?"

The class nodded and split off into pairs. Sirius noticed that the dark haired girl who had answered his question earlier had paired with a brunette Hufflepuff girl who grinned cheekily at her. The dark haired girl returned it.

Sirius walked round the class noticing that many of the sixth years kept their lips pressed tightly together to refrain themselves from muttering the spell out loud. As he observed the class he also noticed that the sixth years were slightly more relaxed in who they partnered with. Not one of the houses had paired with another person from their house, however, the feud between Gryffindor and Slytherin was still intact as not one person from Gryffindor was partnered with a Slytherin and vice versa.

Ten minutes later, and still no hexes had been fired or deflected and so Sirius called the class to a halt.

"Perhaps a demonstration is in order," he suggested. "Would anyone mind being an assistant for a while?"

The class looked at each other, muttering before a hand appeared in the air; it was the same girl from earlier. Sirius nodded and she stepped forwards.

"I'm going to send a simple disarming spell at you," he told her.

The girl nodded while Sirius stepped back before sending a red jet of light straight at her, the girl moved her hand slightly, bringing it up to her chest, and the spell bounced harmlessly off thin air.

Sirius blinked in surprise before a smile crossed his face.

"Well, that was a surprise," he grinned before getting into stance. "You hex me."

The girl eyed him before shrugging and raising her wand. She chewed her lip momentarily as if thinking of a spell to use and then she looked at him.

Sirius was taken aback by the intensity of her eyes. They were rather a vivid blue, and reminded him of the sea at night. He was so taken aback by the young girls' eyes that he completely missed the spell she sent at him and found himself flying backwards, his wand slipping from his grasp. He landed hard against the wall.

There was a collective gasp from the class.

"Professor!"

Sirius glanced up to see Miss Briar running over, a concerned look on her face, in her hand she held two wands.

"Are you okay, Professor?" she asked, chewing her lip.

Sirius nodded.

"Fine," he said, standing up and dusting down his robes before turning to smile at him. "Twenty points to Gryffindor, Miss Briar." He said.

The young girl's cheeks heated up as she smiled.

"Class Dismissed." Sirius called.

And with that, the class filed out of the classroom chattering to one another, leaving Sirius alone with his thoughts.