Happily for Harry, Romulus's wife had eventually returned home and had politely excused Harry-or at least had provided Harry with an excuse to leave-but not before Romulus had mentioned his season Quidditch tickets and any free time Harry might have in the near future. Harry departed, arrived back at Hogwarts late and went to bed, vaguely wondering if anyone had noticed his absence from the castle.
Saturday and Sunday involved Harry grading the homework of his students and attempting to concoct his lesson plans for the coming week or so. Unfortunately for the students, Harry was forced to conclude that the best way to teach them about certain properties of potion brewing involved assigning them essays.
Harry, however, did not know enough about Potions to structure the most effective essay prompts for each of his classes. This necessitated library research, and Harry added that to his list of things to do in the library. The first opportunity for Harry to visit the Hogwarts library came on Monday night.
As soon as Harry had finished with his evening meal, he made his way to the library debating with himself on the way as to whether he'd prefer to do the necessary potions research first or find a couple of new spells to learn. Pragmatically, he realized that the potions effort might be very time consuming and thus resolved to get the spells out of the way first.
Upon entering the library, Harry came face to face with a much younger version of Madame Pince. He couldn't help but stop and stare. Younger she was, but her countenance and composure were no different than they had been in the future.
"Did you want something?" she asked, eyeing Harry suspiciously.
"Err… I thought I'd just come on in and look up a few things," Harry replied, having a very hard time remembering that he was, in fact, a professor.
"Right. You're the new professor aren't you?" the librarian said before launching into a detailed explanation of where everything was located in the library.
Harry supposed that she was trying to be helpful, but his previous knowledge of the library made the librarian's extended speech seem to last an eternity. Consequently, he didn't pay it close attention. Eventually, Harry was free to wander. He did so, trying to avoid eye contact with the students present. He wasn't entirely sure what the proper protocol was for teachers and students interacting in the library.
Maybe I ought to ask Bellatrix, Harry snickered to himself. I'm sure that's just the sort of thing she wants to help me out with.
Finding the literature and wand movements for two new defensive spells proved to be quite simple. Harry wrote down the information on a small sheet of parchment and tucked it away in his robes. He would practice the spells before going to bed. With any luck, he'd be ready to return to the library for two more before the week ended.
Harry was quietly thumbing through a NEWT preparation guide when he saw two girls approach Madame Pince. They produced a piece of parchment and the sour looking librarian reluctantly left the desk and retrieved a book from the Restricted Section. It was at this point that Harry realized that as a professor, he had access to the Restricted Section of the library.
Hermione would have killed for that privilege, Harry reminisced. Ron and I would have just used the books to get into trouble. Harry was soon fondly thinking of all the things that students would have been able to do with the knowledge in the Restricted Section. It only took a few moments before his thoughts settled on his situation and he realized that he did have a valid need to access the Restricted Section.
Harry soon decided that assigning his students essays could wait a day or two, or even a week. It wasn't as if they were going to complain about Harry being lazy in that department. They wouldn't do the essays until the last minute no matter how early he assigned them. He tossed the book back onto a return shelf and approached the librarian again. "Uh… excuse me. I was wondering if I could browse the Restricted Section."
Madame Pince looked annoyed. "Yes, you may. I already told you that. The school's magic recognizes your status as a professor. Thus, you may go into the Restricted Section anytime."
"Right, just double checking," Harry said, trying to save face.
He strolled over to the shelves and was soon looking for books on time travel while self-consciously pretending that he was only browsing casually. Eventually, he realized that not only did no one care, but also that no one was even paying attention to him. Further, the books were charmed to return to their places on the shelf. Even if Harry left time travel books strewn all over the place, no one would notice because no one would actually be shelving them.
With his newfound courage, Harry strode over to the card catalog, looked up time travel, and soon had a list of books to check. Not long after that, he had a broad collection of books having to do with time travel spread all across a table he had successfully commandeered from a retiring study group. Unfortunately, Harry's anonymity and privacy was destroyed by the arrival of someone who did care about what topics he was researching and what he was doing in the library.
"Decision time, eh?" Bellatrix said by way of greeting. She picked up ones of the books and flipped through the pages before dropping it back on the table. "I wouldn't bother with that author. Even if he did know something about time travel, I doubt he'd be able to explain it in coherent sentences."
Harry grabbed the book and flipped to the back to check the author's biographical information. "How do you know anything about him?"
"He's written all sorts of books about the Dark Arts," Bellatrix replied, shoving Harry's books to one side of the table and setting her satchel down. "They're all utterly useless. My mother and aunt spend a lot of time reading and critiquing stuff like that. I don't see why she wastes her time. Learning the Dark Arts requires having someone to perform them on."
"Whatever," Harry muttered, wondering if he ought to figure out if there was an established authority in the field of time travel was. Unfortunately, it was probably some anonymous Unspeakable.
Bellatrix sat down and started sorting through Harry's selection. "Wow, you really raided the Restricted Section! I bet we can figure out what we're doing in no time."
"No," Harry declared. "I'll figure out what I am doing."
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