Harry Potter: This tale assumes events in Book 6 (and is consanguineous with them) up till Christmas. Naturally, the events depicted herein didn't occur, but nothing in this story directly contradicts Book 6, so while it's mildly AU, it's not entirely outside canon.

X-Men movies: It'd be good to have seen X-Men 2 and know what a mutant is; other comics knowledge optional. Events in X2 occurred five months before this story begins. Uses nothing from X-Men 3 (except a blue Beast).

ON TIMING: HBP takes place 1996/97; X-Men 2 early 2000s. Yet as the Wizarding World seems less tied to the mid-90s than X-Men 2 to post 9-11 events, I've moved the HP world forward in time to the early 2000s. Thus, some of the items discussed herein would not have existed in 1997. I'm well aware of that and ask readers to roll with it.

Notes: This is pure wish-fulfillment kink fic (no, not that kind of kink). I threw together two favorite characters from two very different fandoms to see what happened. There's no deeper motive than that, and no real excuse for this except my own entertainment. I'm well aware that electronics shouldn't work at Hogwarts, but I'm running with the assumption that Dumbledore is powerful enough - and skilled enough - to get around it. Other notes at end.

The first time Hermione Granger heard the word "mutant," it was spoken by her parents in hushed tones after her magical powers had first manifested. She'd been 10. She hadn't really known what the word meant, but listening at the crack of her parents' bedroom door while her mother had cried and her father had tried to be encouraging, she'd gathered that being a mutant was a Bad Thing. Shortly after, Professor Dumbledore had appeared on her family's front doorstep to acquaint them with the Wizarding World. Later that same night, her father had said to her mother, "Better a witch than a mutant, I suppose. At least there's some history and tradition there, and a place for her to learn to control it."

The second time Hermione heard the word "mutant," it was in her fourth year at Hogwarts. A Hufflepuff girl had suddenly begun evincing a unique and apparently non-magical ability with stone and crystal. She could feel the presence of any type of rock and even alter it. At her touch, coal might become diamond with no need either for alchemy or centuries of geological pressure. "Mutie" was whispered in the hallways, along with "mudblood freak." The girl had disappeared in late October only to reappear in late January - her special, geomorphic touch under control - ready to continue her magical education. Hermione had never talked to her, and though normally, she'd have been fascinated by such a manifestation, she'd had other things on her mind that year: Harry and the Tri-Wizard Tournament - not to mention Viktor Krum. By summer, the death of Cedric and the return of Voldemort had driven all recollection of a girl called Petra right out of Hermione's mind.

Until her sixth year, when she heard the word "mutant" for a third time.

"What do you mean I'm not allowed to take Muggle studies? I got an O in my OWLs!"

Miss Granger looked primly indignant, as if she might resort to stamping her foot in frustration -which amused Minerva McGonagall perhaps more than it should. "That's what he said, Miss Granger. I don't make the rules for another professor's class."

"But Professor Dumbledore . . . "

"- will agree. It was Professor Dumbledore's idea to hire him on a temporary basis."

"But why can't I take the class?" the girl cried.

"Because, Miss Granger, you are muggle-born. Our new professor was very specific - only students raised exclusively or almost exclusively in the Wizarding World may take the class - are, in fact, required to take it up until sixth year, at Professor Dumbledore's insistence."

Her lips pursed, but she wasn't about to reveal to a student her own thoughts on the matter - although she supposed that dealing with Hermione Granger wanting to take a class was somewhat better than Professor Snape, who had to deal with students desperately trying to get out of the same class. She hoped their new professor fully appreciated what he'd got himself into.

Nor was she convinced that this proposed new approach was a good idea, even for a half-year stint, yet she trusted Dumbledore, and he seemed to think it was. So they were getting a temporary professor (with disturbingly revisionist ideas) while conducting a search for a permanent teacher of Muggle Studies. On the one hand, it solved their unexpected emergency as to who would teach the class, while on the other, Albus' old friend in New York was getting a thoroughly spell-protected house. One headmaster to another.

Professor McGonagall still couldn't quite reckon why Dumbledore had felt obliged to cross an ocean in order to set a few ordinary Obscurification spells for a Muggle, no matter how well he knew him. But Albus had explained quietly, "Children were at risk, Minerva." But couldn't Muggles take care of their own against Muggles? It wasn't that she disliked them, but she feared that mixing the magical and Muggle world would simply come to no good - and had said so.

"Oh, but this isn't mixing the magical and Muggle world, but the magical and mutant world."

"There's a difference?" McGonagall had replied crossly.

"Quite," Dumbledore had replied, "as you'll see."

Scott Summers - better known as Cyclops when wearing black leather - hit the generator switch and held his breath. There was a brief stutter, then the lights all around the room went on. Real lights, not candles or lamps or torches or God knew what else they used in this archaic, cold-as-hell castle.

He'd been promised that this special room - located high in a west tower - had been spelled so as to shield out interference from magic. Otherwise, none of his equipment would work.

He snorted. Magic. Even if he'd seen spells performed with his very own eyes, he just couldn't quite bring himself to say the word without laughing, and it annoyed him that Xavier had sent him over here despite his own protests. "It'll be for just a few months," the professor had promised. "A chance for you to get some distance."

So he'd been offered up like a sacrificial lamb in exchange for spells set on the school to prevent another invasion like the one Stryker had mounted. While he might have been willing to do about anything to protect his students, he just couldn't take 'magic' seriously . . . even after meeting Albus Dumbledore. Yet, here he was in this drafty, old Scottish castle that had no electricity, phone, or cable lines, in order to teach a rather different sort of 'gifted' teenager.

Well, at least the generator worked, and that meant he could operate the rest of his equipment. He'd just sat down in front of his laptop (which required a satellite connection out here in the back of nowhere), when a sharp rap on the trapdoor to his classroom made him start. Rising, he strolled over to the door and lifted it, looking down the ladder into the face of a girl with bushy hair. "Hello?"

"Are you Professor Summers?"

"I'm Mr. Summers, yes." He didn't bother explaining that the title 'professor' was sacrosanct in his own mind, and belonged to Xavier.

"I need to speak with you, sir," she said, pulling herself up into the room, even though he hadn't invited her. Standing and brushing dust off her robes, she glanced around at the computer stations, movie posters, PSP stations, DVDs and iPods that he'd imported - but not with wide-eyed ignorance. She'd clearly seen all these things before. "Professor McGonagall told me that you're not allowing anyone Muggle-born to sign up for your class. I've come to . . . well - not to be rude - but to lodge a formal protest." She gave a little nod of her chin, as if satisfied with that phrasing. He resisted smiling. She reminded him of a strange cross between Kitty Pryde and Jubilee.

Instead of giving her a direct answer, he pulled his cell phone off its belt holder and handed it over. Baffled, she took it. "What is that?" he asked.

"A mobile," she told him. "But it won't work here. The magic at Hogwarts -"

"I've heard the lecture," he said, cutting her off. "But this phone won't work here because there are no cell towers anywhere close enough. Otherwise, in this room, it would." Then he crooked a finger at her and led her over to his laptop. "Turn it on," he ordered.

With a glance that told him she suspected his sanity, she bent over to open the top and hit the power button. When the blue lights came on and the screen lit up, she appeared startled, but said only, "It's on."

"Name the Beatle who was shot."

"John Lennon."

"Who're John Steed and Emma Peel?"

"I assume you mean the characters from The Avengers, not actual people?" Her expression was truly puzzled now.

"What's a Blue Peter?"

"A really long-running children's programme? But what does this - ?"

"What does James Bond drink?"

She just blinked at him. "I've no idea. I detest James Bond films."

He grinned. "He drinks martinis; shaken, not stirred." And he crooked his finger again to cut off further questions, leading her over to his desk and pointing to a DVD there. "Seen that?"

"It's The Wizard of Oz; I'd have to have lived in a cave not to."

"Or lived in a different world - like most of your classmates. You don't need to take my class. You can handle all this equipment already and know pop culture."

"That's what you're going to be teaching? How to turn on computers and, and" - she waved at one of the posters on the wall - "watch Star Wars?"

"That's right. I'm teaching technology and a crash course in Western pop culture."

She blinked, almost owlishly, and stared around the room at the desks with their plethora of equipment. "But why?"

"Because they're useful things to know."

She just blinked again. "But in the Wizarding World -"

"I'm not interested in the Wizarding World. I'm interested in teaching wizards and witches how to survive in my world if they somehow get stuck there. That means learning how to operate a phone, at the very least."

And that won an unexpectedly impish smile. "A friend of mind keeps calling it a 'fellytone' and shouts into it, as if it were a tin can on a string."

He answered her smile. "By the end of my class, he should be able to text-message you instead of yell." He tilted his head then. "You asked my name but didn't give me yours."

She shook back her bushy hair and held out a hand, almost formally. "Hermione Granger, sixth year and Gryffindor Prefect. A pleasure."

He shook the hand, "Glad to meet you, Hermione."

"You're a Muggle, right?"

"By your terms."

"You do realize you're quite the controversy right now, with students and parents? There was an article about it in The Daily Prophet. No Muggle has ever been hired to teach at Hogwarts in the school's entire history - not even for Muggle Studies. How do you know about wizards? Is someone in your family . . . " She trailed off, jaw dropping.

While she'd chattered, Scott had pulled a quarter out of his pocket and tossed it into the air with one hand, while, with the other, he'd tilted his glasses down just a fraction so that a thin beam of red sliced out and through the center of the quarter, which he caught now and offered to her.

"I'm a mutant," he said. "In the current political climate, a lot of us are forced to hide our abilities, too."

The girl examined the quarter, holding it up to her eye to peer through at him. "That still doesn't explain how you know about wizards though."

He grinned. She was sharp. "My headmaster knows your headmaster."

"He's a wizard?"

"No. He's a telepath. It's hard to hide much of anything from Professor Xavier - including supposedly concealed magical places. He met Professor Dumbledore when he was a student at Oxford back in the Forties right after the war - stumbled over your world by accident." Or that was the story Xavier had told him when he'd first introduced the elderly man with the ZZ Top beard, Merlin hat, and funky robes, sitting in Xavier's study and sipping tea. Scott had simply blinked in surprise when the man had pulled out a stick, waved it in the air and another teacup had appeared right in front of Scott's nose.

"You're a telekinetic?" Scott had asked.

"No, Mr. Summers. I am a wizard."

He'd gaped (privately wondering when Xavier had begun entertaining psychotics), and Xavier had launched into his story of how and when he'd first met Albus Dumbledore, and been introduced to the existence of another group of specially gifted human beings who also had to hide their gifts from the general populace.

Now, the girl Hermione appeared unexpectedly curious. "What sorts of mutant powers are there?"

"Probably more than you can imagine. We're still running into mutations we've never seen before. But they come in two basic types - physical and psionic, that is, changes to the body or to the mind. My mutation is physical. Professor Xavier's is psionic."

"And at the school you come from, all the students are mutants?"

"That's right."

"So why did you come here?"

And Scott blinked, mouth shutting with a snap and throat too tight to speak. It hit him that way sometimes, the grief - as sharp as a blow, incapacitating, even after five months. He turned away and stared at his new desk, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. "An exchange," he said finally. "It's a long story, but it boils down to the fact my school was attacked - trained black ops troops against teenage kids. Not exactly a fair match, even if the kids are mutants. They wanted to capture them."

There was little point in going into the whole mess with Cerebro and Stryker and his insane plot. "After the Blackout last spring, the number of hate crimes against mutants has gone through the roof, and my headmaster wants to be sure an attack doesn't happen again, so he called in a favor from your headmaster. Anyone who tries to invade the school now will face not just our security systems, but whatever your Professor Dumbledore set up." Scott turned back. The girl's eyes were wide.

"I'm afraid Professor Xavier didn't take well to my suggestion that we install razor wire and laser trip triggers," Scott went on. "He's afraid one of the students might accidentally get hurt. Whatever Dumbledore set up, it's apparently able to distinguish between mutants trying to sneak out after curfew and non-mutants trying to sneak in." He couldn't keep from snorting. "But I don't know that it'd do any good against a squadron of Apache helicopters and a full assault squad."

The girl's stunned expression turned sly. "You might be surprised," she said then, face serious, asked, "Did any of your students die? In the attack?"

His throat tightened again, and he couldn't answer for five heartbeats. "No. No students died."

She was watching his face. "Did anyone else die?"

He swallowed, unsure whether he should say anything. But if he didn't usually volunteer personal information, he'd never been an advocate of concealing the truth unless necessary - at least not if he were asked point blank. "Yes."

"I'm sorry," she said with the kind of solemn seriousness that told him she'd said it before to someone who'd lost a friend or loved one. "Who?" He looked away, and she added, "Never mind. I'm prying. I'm rather bad about that sometimes -"

"My fiancée," he interrupted. "She sacrificed herself to save the rest of us." He had no intention of going into all the mixed feelings he had about that; it wasn't anyone else's business, least of all a student's.

"She sounds very brave," Hermione said.

"Yes, she was."

Hermione turned and headed back to the trapdoor. "Thank you for seeing me, Professor Summers, even if I can't take your class." She paused with the door open and herself halfway out. "Good luck. And please let me know if you, er, need anyone who grew up a Muggle to help tutor. There are some of us around."

"I'll keep that in mind," he replied.

When she was gone, he collapsed in a wooden chair near one of the windows and stared out at the Black Lake whose waters reflected the setting sun - all red to him. He should go down to dinner, but didn't especially want to. He had a hard time, these days, bearing company or crowds that weren't entirely anonymous. The students would stare at him, he knew, and he didn't feel up to being stared at, so he stayed in the seat until long past sunset, his room a steady yellow with the glow of artificial light. At some point, he heard a noise behind him and turned, but there was no one there - just a plate and bowl and glass. Apparently around here, if one didn't come to supper, supper came to him. Rising, he walked over to see what his unseen guest had delivered.

"There is still the matter of the Weasley twins' swamp in the fifth floor, east wing corridor - " Severus was saying when the door to the staff room opened and all the instructors turned to look. The man standing there didn't appear to be much older than some of their students, and Minerva pursed her lips at the uncanny symmetry of his face. Gilderoy Lockhart had made her skeptical of anyone with looks like that.

"I apologize," he said as he approached and seated himself in the remaining empty chair, laying out a yellow legal pad in front of him, and twisting open a mechanical pencil. "Tardiness isn't typical for me. I need a map of this place."

Severus was glaring - perhaps at being interrupted, perhaps at the new teacher's inability to find his way to a meeting, or perhaps just because he was Severus and his face had frozen in that expression at some point ten years ago - but Dumbledore merely smiled at the newcomer and nodded. "Welcome, Scott. I believe myself the only one here to have had the pleasure of meeting you in person" - which was, Minerva thought, a gentle reprimand that their newest teacher hadn't bothered to attend either the Welcome banquet or last night's supper - "may I present your new, if temporary, colleagues." And he went around the table, introducing everyone, starting with Minerva herself on his right. The Muggle didn't blink at any of them, even professors Flitwick with his tiny size, Hagrid with his height, Hooch with her cat pupils, or (most of all) Firenze. Minerva gave him mental points for that.

Once the rest of them had been introduced, Albus said, "And may I present Mr. Scott Summers, lately of Westchester, New York, where he taught mathematics and . . . 'shop,' I believe you called it?" Summers nodded. "I trust the rest of you will make Professor Summers feel welcome." Most of the staff nodded politely or offered smiles, though a few seemed a bit skeptical (Minerva suspected her own expression might place her in that category), and Snape openly sneered.

"As I was saying," he went on in that sepulchral voice, "we seem to have a swamp - "

"It's barely a yard square," Flitwick interrupted, "up against the wall where no one's likely to step in it. The magic it took to generate, not to mention the service rendered" - he grinned - "deserves a little tribute."

"So you would encourage troublemakers, then? The departure of the Weasleys has already gained near apocryphal dimensions."

"For now," Dumbledore interrupted, "the swamp may stay. Shall we turn our attention to more pressing matters, such as coordinating our end-of-term exam timetables before the Christmas holidays? I trust that all of you have brought your requests. We'll go around the table . . . "

Parchment rustled as timetables were withdrawn and smoothed out on the table. Summers just flipped pages, earning a few glances. Organizing exam schedules sometimes went smoothly . . . and sometimes didn't.

"I'll need the first, second, and third years for an afternoon," Summers said when the turn came around to him, "and fourth and fifth, plus any older students, for a 24-hour period - not on the same day. I'll need transportation for the older kids to London - a field trip. Does your school have buses?"

Dead silence met that. "Buses?" Madam Hooch asked. "You mean like the Knight Bus?"

And Madam Vector leaned forward to inquire, "Why are you taking our students to London?" She glanced at Dumbledore. "Is that safe - right now? With You-Know-Who . . . ?"

"It's for their exam. I can't give it to them here. And trust me, they'll be watched over."

"Watched over? By Muggles?"

"By X-Men," Summers replied. "And this is a practical exam. I have to take them to London."

Before that could elicit more protest, Dumbledore said, "I'll see what can be arranged in the way of transportation, although -" he glanced down at the master timetable he was making - "this field trip may require us to move your exams slightly ahead of the others by a few days?"

"Fine with me."

"Then let's move on."

When the meeting broke up, it was clear that Summers was in a hurry to gather his things and get to the door as if avoiding them all, but several of the teachers - apparently oblivious to his lack of interest in socializing - had collared him. All were female, including Hooch, Vector and Sinistra.

"I see that Professor Summers is already reaping the rewards of his good looks," Severus muttered softly - but loud enough that Minerva caught it.

"Thinking of Gilderoy?" she replied.

"Among other things, including how long a Muggle will survive his magical students." Severus' dark eyes had narrowed. "He's rather smug, isn't he?"

Minerva raised an eyebrow. In fact, she hadn't found him particularly so. "A bit standoffish, perhaps, but not smug, Severus." Then she found herself adding (to her own surprise), "I believe he may feel out of his depth."

"As well he should, if he can't even find the staff room."

"It usually takes our first years a while to learn their way around, too," said a voice behind them. Dumbledore, of course. "He was never a student here. Do not underestimate him, Severus, or his ability to survive magical students, as he survives mutant students on a regular basis."

Snape's sneer was now more pronounced than ever. "One-trick ponies," he said. "Mutants are not wizards. And I do not see the point in the course of study he has proposed."

"So you've said," Albus replied lightly. "Several times, I do believe. In any case, I wanted to forewarn both of you that I will be departing again tomorrow night and may not return for a while. Minerva, you remember how to contact me, in the event of an emergency?"

"Of course."

"Then I shall leave you to your first-periods."

"Wands out."

Ginny Weasley suppressed a start, but did as their new professor said, pulling her wand from her robes and wondering what on earth he wanted her to do with it. Wasn't he a Muggle? Certainly, he was dressed like one in street clothes, not proper robes. (And what was that on his face? It appeared to be some bizarre, dark metal contraption with a single long slit in the front.) She traded a glance with Neville Longbottom - one of the few older students to have signed up for Muggle Studies voluntarily. She suspected that he, like her father, harbored a bit of a fancy for them.

Picking up a can from his desk, their teacher began to circle the room. Unlike most classrooms at Hogwarts, this one had tables around its circumference with . . . stuff on them. She was pretty sure that was a computer in front of her, given what she'd learned from Dean. Now, holding out the can to the four at the first table, their professor said, "Please deposit your wands in here. You can collect them at the end of class."

The four students appeared surprised, but did as instructed, and he moved on, collecting wands, and speaking as he went. "My name is Scott Summers, and while I know it's customary at Hogwarts to refer to your teachers as 'professor,' where I come from, that title's usually reserved for college-level instructors, so 'Mr. Summers' will do for me. You'll find that I'm hard, but fair, and I don't play favorites when it comes to grading. You'll get the grade that reflects your industry."

"'Industry?' Demelza Robins whispered from across the table, "What does he mean 'industry'? Who talks like that - 'industry'?"

"He means if you work, you'll get an O," Ginny replied, sighing.

"I know," Summers continued now, "that about half of you - maybe more - don't want to be here, and don't see the point. You live in the Wizarding World, so why learn to use a computer or a cell phone? Hopefully, by Christmas break, you'll have decided that learning to work a computer is pretty easy, and worth your time."

He'd reached a table full of Slytherins now. All four were slouched in their seats, arms crossed, wands not held out to go in the jar. He stopped in front of them, can still outstretched. "Your wands, gentlemen."

"Didn't anyone tell you, Muggle, that you don't try to take a wizard's wand?" Adrian Pucey asked. His chin was up and he wore a snide expression that came near-perfect to copying Draco Malfoy, his hero. Ginny wasn't impressed; Pucey was a follower who wanted to be a leader.

Summers didn't look impressed, either - or worried. Ginny could see his expression side-on from where she was sitting. "I have special permission," he told Pucey. "If you don't like the rule, take it up with Professor Dumbledore."

"Ooo!" said the kids at that table and the one behind, adding a few hisses. "Why don't you try taking it?" Pucey taunted Summers.

Ginny glanced at Demelza and rolled her eyes - but she had to admit, someone had been bound to challenge Summers eventually. He just continued to smile, can held out. "Last chance to play nice," he warned.

"You have got to be kidding me," Pucey replied.

"I was afraid you'd say that. Dumbledore warned me it might come to this."

Turning, he walked back to his desk, where he set down the can. Assuming victory, the Slytherins laughed and clapped, and Pucey actually stood up, wand drawn and raised. Ginny (among others) gasped. He wouldn't actually attack a teacher, even a Muggle teacher, would he?

Summers turned so fast, Ginny barely credited it. His hand rose to the side of his head and a red light arced out from the front of that odd face-screen, catching Pucey's wand and knocking it from his grasp. "Ow!" Pucey shouted, shocked and frightened at once.

"Now what are you going to do?" Summers asked him, calmly. Abruptly two more boys from the table leapt up . . . and the scene just repeated itself. Two more rapid blasts of red, like automatic fire, and their wands went flying, too.

No one else stood, and the students who still had wands hastily tossed them on the table, whether Slytherin or not.

"Now, I ask again, Mr. . . ." he raised his eyebrows at Pucey in query.

"Pucey. Adrian Pucey."

"Well, Adrian Pucey, you have no wand. What are you going to do next?"

Pucey's mouth dropped open a little as Summers advanced on him, hand still at the metal contraption on his face. If Ginny had initially been gleeful to see Pucey put in his place, now she was starting to worry. Summers looked . . . menacing. When he reached Pucey, he abruptly grabbed the boy by one arm and spun him around, twisting the arm up behind Pucey's back and bracing his other across Pucey's neck in a choke hold. Students gasped and a few glanced towards the door, apparently weighing the possibility of escape while their lunatic Muggle professor was busy with Pucey.

But from where she was sitting, Ginny could see that he wasn't holding Pucey that tightly; there was sunlight between their bodies. She relaxed back into her seat.

"Now," Summers said again, "What are you going to do?"

"I . . . I . . . if I were a real wizard, you wouldn't have had a chance!"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I'm a pretty quick shot. But you're a fifteen-year-old boy without his wand and I'm your almost-thirty-year-old attacker. If this were a back alley of London instead of a Hogwarts classroom, would you know what to do next?"

It was starting to dawn on the rest of the students that Pucey wasn't in any real danger, and Pucey's face flushed from scared white to humiliated red as he twisted in Summers' grip, trying to kick backwards. Summers just turned sideways a bit and yanked him more tightly. "That's not going to get you far. Now, let me tell you what you should do - and everyone listen. This is your first lesson in Muggle realities. First, you start shouting, got it? At least if there's anyone else around. Even if your attacker says he has a knife or gun and will kill you if you don't go quietly, that doesn't matter. Scream anyway. You may still wind up shot or stabbed, but the noise and the fear of being caught will upset him and possibly throw off his aim. You're likely to survive it. But the chances of you surviving if you do go with him are very low.

"Second, if you're not trained in martial arts throws - and you're not - instead of attempting to strike his body, which just puts you off balance - step on his foot. Especially if you're female and happen to be wearing heels. Come down hard on the foot, and start yelling at the same time. The combination of pain and surprise will confuse him and, hopefully, give you a chance to get away. If you do get free, run like hell. Do not try to play macho and pull your wand. You're not James Bond."

"There's a lot of 'maybes' in there," said one student at the same time another asked, "Who's James Bond?"

Summers let Pucey go. "Boy, do we need to do some pop culture education. And as for the comment about maybes - life offers few certainties beyond death and taxes, just bets that are better or worse. Life's a crap-shoot."

Sitting down, Pucey appeared nonplussed, and angry, but the rest of the class (even some of the Slytherins) seemed a bit more respectful as Summers walked back to the desk. Picking up the can again, he returned to collecting wands - and no one opposed him now. Demelza Robins even hopped up from her seat to fetch the three that had been blasted across the room. When Summers was done, he set the full can on his desk. "Every time you come into my classroom, I'll expect you to come up to the desk and deposit your wand in this can. As you leave, you can retrieve them. Oh - and by the way, the wands wouldn't do you any good even if you did keep them." He grinned at the table of resistant Slytherins. "The room's been spelled so that magic doesn't work here - which is why my generator and machines do. So you could have waved your wands till the cows came home and it wouldn't have mattered."

"So why did you do . . . that?" Neville asked, then blushed at having drawn attention to himself.

"To prove a point. Without your wands, you're virtually helpless. I know all about that." He touched the contraption on his face. "You need to learn how to function, and maybe even fight, without the wands. Just like I had to learn Braille, and how to live blind, because without the visor, I have two choices - shut my eyes and get by without sight, or leave them open and destroy everything in the path of the beams. Shutting them usually seems like the better idea. So - "

"Pardon me?" Ginny raised her hand, a little tentatively.

He stopped in mid-sentence and nodded to her. "Yes? And you are?"

"Ginny Weasley. But what - exactly - are those things you shoot out of your face?"

"They're called optic blasts. At full power, they pack the equivalent of ten tons of TNT." Even Ginny knew what TNT was, and sucked in her breath, impressed. "In short, I could level this entire castle in five minutes or less. There's a reason I keep the visor on." He tapped the black metal across his eyes.

"But my main point is that living with the visor 24-7, I'm all too aware of the vulnerability inherent in depending on an external aid. You're dependent on your wands - maybe a little too dependent. I think wizards tend to assume that if they're stranded outside the Wizarding World, all they need is their wand to be rescued. Maybe so. But what if you don't have your wand?"

He straightened from where he'd been leaning back against his desk. "I'm here to teach you how to get by in my world without a wand. I'll also teach you some basic awareness of Muggle culture, so you can go out in public wearing clothes that were actually meant to be worn together instead of pajama bottoms, a raincoat, and a lime-green bowler hat."

There were a few giggles at the glancing reference to Ex-Minister Fudge's famous hat.

"Now that the little pissing contest is over and I've proved to you that I'm not helpless" - which brought more giggles - "let's get to work. Your very first lesson for today is simple recognition . . . " And class began.

Ron caught up to Ginny later at lunch. "So," he said, plopping down beside her with a full plate, "how's the new teacher? And why haven't we seen him?"

"The new teacher is . . . interesting," Ginny replied as Hermione and Dean joined them. "Right now, class seems to be about recognizing and naming things correctly." She glanced at Dean. "I might need your help. I confess, I'm not sure I can tell the difference between a cell phone and an iPod."

"He's got an iPod?" Dean asked, interest piqued.

"Well, at least you know what it is," Ginny retorted as Harry approached to join them as well, settling in quietly to eat his casserole. His mind seemed to be elsewhere and he was only half-listening to the conversation.

"I heard there was a fight in his class," Dean said now. "Or that's what Neville told me."

"Not exactly a fight," Ginny replied, and she related what had happened. Dean and Ron seemed taken aback.

"Fellow's a bit scary, if you asked me," Ron said.

But Hermione was shaking her head. "He diffused a challenge to his authority and turned it into what's called a 'teaching moment.'" She gave a little, satisfied nod. "Given that, I'd say he's fairly qualified."

Ron was staring at her. "What's with the admiration society?"

"Not an admiration society," Hermione retorted, though her cheeks had flushed. "But yes, I think he knows what he's doing - whatever the Daily Prophet says about a Muggle teacher at Hogwarts."

Ginny took a sip of juice to conceal her grin. Hermione had certainly sounded admiring to her, and when the boys had departed for their next classes, leaving Ginny with Hermione in the Great Hall, Ginny leaned in to remark, "I didn't say in front of them, but he's rather attractive, too."

Hermione's flush returned. "Perhaps a bit."

And that cinched Ginny's suspicions. "So you've seen him, then?"

The blush deepened. "I went up to talk to him - to protest," she added hastily, "when Professor McGonagall said I couldn't take his class." Ginny resisted laughing. Only Hermione would complain because she wasn't allowed to take a class. "I told him that I'd help tutor, though - if any students needed help."

"Given how bad we all were this morning, I have a feeling he might take you up on that."