Chapter Text
Audrey Jackson, a seventh year Hufflepuff, looks up as the Great Hall fills with owls delivering the morning mail. Valentine’s Day brings in more mail than usual as friends, families, and lovers send post to those up in Scotland. She watches a bit idly as a cloud of owls flock around Professor Potter who is gamely trying to get his godson, five year old Teddy Lupin, to eat his breakfast. But Teddy appears he wants to turn himself into an owl based on how feathery his hair looks. The steadfast determination of the professor to pretend like he isn’t being swarmed by owls is rather impressive, she thinks.
“Every year the number of admirers sending mail just seems to grow,” Blaire Colorway, one of Audrey’s best friends, observes as she watches the other professors trying to shoo the owls away. “It must be nice to be wanted.”
She goes to agree when she pauses. There is something resigned in the way Professor Potter stares at the mountain of mail now that Teddy is eating his food. His wand passes over it, scanning it most likely for curses is her guess, and his mouth thins in a way that Audrey has never seen before. She wonders what that spell did and what it revealed to him. It couldn’t have been good based on the brief look of something she saw. She has to push it out of her mind, or she tries, as she reminds herself she could be reading into the situation. So Audrey turns away to butter her toast as the warning bell goes off reminding students they have fifteen minutes before the school day begins.
As she follows her friends to their first class, she realizes what she saw is still bothering her. Professor Potter is a wonderful instructor and he is always so patient with his students. She hates that someone or many someones made him look upset.
Audrey had been a first year when Professor Potter had been a sixth year. She hadn’t seen much of him due to being younger than him and in a different house, and then she didn’t see him at all during the height of the war for obvious reasons. A year after the war he had arrived back at Hogwarts and he had taken up the teaching position for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Everyone had watched him with a bit of starry eyed wonder, even her, but it soon went away when they saw how uncomfortable the professor got with the hero worship or questions about the war. The awe held towards him morphed into appreciation, though, as they all learned he is a wonderful teacher. It probably helped that he’d teach, in his first year as a professor, with his godson in a sling talking about wand work. It had made him look rather human in her opinion.
Their professor, despite his fame, is a rather down to earth person as everyone in Hogwarts soon learned. He has an open door policy to help those with questions, either about his course, other courses, or just needing advice. All four houses are rather fond of him because he isn’t biased towards any of them, even if he is the Head of Gryffindor. Overall, he is friendly and kind with his students, he encourages a positive atmosphere in his classroom where no one feels silly for asking the smallest or simplest questions, and for that it has made some students feel a bit protective of him. It is common, almost tradition at this point, to hear someone grumble about a relative who tries to use them as a connection to meet the professor. The audacity, everyone agrees, that others had thinking they had a right to bother their professor when all he wants to do is teach.
So now, instead of paying attention to the class lectures, Audrey keeps thinking about how maybe those who do not know the professor, like how the students know him now, still idolize him. It makes her think about the fervor her muggle relatives have towards the royal family. She used to have it too. But then her mum made a passing comment how it was unhealthy to be obsessed with people you don’t even know, and her crushes on both princes shriveled up and died from embarrassment and mortification.
By her third class, Audrey has stewed with possibilities about what could have been in the mail. Her friends have started to notice her mood as it continues to sour. The more she thinks about it all of her theories keep getting worse, because Audrey knows of only a few reasons as to why you need to scan your mail and none of them are good.
“What has had you in such a snit?” Blaire asks her at lunch.
“I keep thinking about what I saw at breakfast,” Audrey tells her. She glances up at the head table to see if the professor is there, but he is absent. It isn’t unusual, however, she feels a bit worried. “Professor Potter scanned his mail, and well, it bothered me.”
“Why would it bother you?” Crystal Eckert, her other best friend, sat across from Audrey wonders curiously.
“Well, it was his reaction that I saw that upset me and I’ve been thinking about why he needs to scan his own bloody mail!” Audrey exclaims a bit huffily as she takes an angry bite of her sandwich.
“His reaction?” More of her Hufflepuff friends scoot closer to listen in.
“He looked so, so defeated,” she explains, trying to find the best way to describe what she had seen. “Like he should have known better or something, and that must be why he has to scan his mail, right?”
“Well, he is still a celebrity to this day,” Blaire says slowly, picking at her sandwich. “Maybe he had been hoping to receive a Valentine from someone he cares for, but it was only fan mail?”
“Is there a spell to determine what all is in his mail?” Someone asks quietly.
“Possibly as there are detection spells for curses and such,” Blaire offers. She turns to look at the head table, and Audrey glances up too.
Still no Professor Potter, and the other professors give the Gryffindor head’s spot worried glances. Those around Audrey and her friends begin to exchange looks. She wonders if they are all starting to realize there’s something going on and their Defense professor is at the center of something malicious, not Dark Lord starting a war malicious, but still bad as it upset one of their favorite professors. She hopes she has just been reading into something that is not malicious.
But once they sit down in their NEWT Defense class, Audrey wonders if her worst theory will be the right one.
***
“Today, we’re going to learn how to cast detection charms in case you think someone is trying to prank you or, worse, douse you with a love potion or poison you,” Professor Potter announces to their NEWT class.
Tristan McIntyre, a seventh year Gryffindor, blinks and looks at his friends. The rest of their classmates shift in their seats with curiosity oozing out of them. This wasn’t the lesson planned for today. They were supposed to be reviewing chaining spells together. But the professor continues on as he begins a lecture on the spells they can pick from, their uses, and his suggestions on when and where to cast such spells.
“Why the change?” Tristan can’t help but wonder quietly to himself and his best friend Chris.
“Maybe the professor found out it will be part of the NEWT exam?” Chris mutters to him as they begin to work on the wand movement of the first spell on the board.
“Maybe,” Tristan replies slowly because Jackson, sitting right behind him, is whispering something interesting to her seat mates.
He listens with one ear about how the Hufflepuff thinks it is connected to the amount of mail the professor got today. Tristan wonders about it. He has seen his head of house always receiving a hefty amount of mail each day. If Jackson’s theory is to believed, what changed for Professor Potter to decide they need to learn about detecting potions and curses?
His curiosity grows as their professor passes out goblets with pumpkin juice. Each goblet is different with a harmless, he stresses, potion in it. Tristan stares at his pumpkin juice with a bit of unease now. He recalls how the start of the lecture talked about pranks and love potions being in your drink or your food. Pranks are one thing, but the idea and talk of love potions always makes his stomach turn. He lifts his arm and begins to practice the first spell listed on the chalkboard when he hears Jackson again.
“They all were probably trying to love potion him,” Jackson whispers to her friends.
Tristan swivels in his seat to look at her, after making sure the professor isn’t near enough to hear them. Chris also turns quickly to stare at the badgers.
“What?” Tristan hisses out.
Jackson glances to the other side of the room, where Professor Potter is correcting another student’s wand form, before looking back at him. Her eyes sparkle a bit with anger, and maybe tears with how shiny they look. “This morning, he did a similar detection charm like the one we are practicing. He, I couldn’t figure it out then, but on the way to class I realized he looked upset…almost resigned by the mail. And it must be because it’s so exhausting to receive mail from strangers trying to potion him every single day.” She glares down at her goblet that she is supposed to be practicing on. “People are trying to drug our professor just because he’s famous and helped win the war.”
The girls all look disgusted, and Tristan is vaguely aware they are a mix of muggleborns and halfbloods. Is there something out in the muggle world that is vile to have them think love potions are the same as this drug? Chris leans in, looking just as confused as he feels, and asks what that word means.
“In the muggle world, drugging someone can mean one of two things. The first, which is fine, is when a medical professional needs to put you on heavy drugs for dealing with pain or for when you have to have a surgery. But what we’re talking about is something far worse,” Jackson explains in a low voice. “Drugging someone, like what love potions do, is to take away a person’s ability to give consent. It’s pretty much used for sexual assault. It’s disgusting.”
“I never thought a boy or a man would have to worry about being drugged,” one of her friends murmurs, looking sad. “Poor professor, he’s sacrificed a lot over the years, and he’s done so much for our country. It feels so slimy that people are trying to remove his consent, to force him to love them. That’s not love.”
The unease he has felt bubbles angrily inside of him. Tristan knows about the dangers of love potions. It’s something his parents drilled into him when he turned thirteen that they are dangerous and disgusting, and that he is never to use one on someone ever. He has never thought there are people out there in the world who would be so bold to use something so vile. They always seemed like something that only gets used in his sister’s romance novels by the villains. But now, now Tristan wonders about why his parents had been so insistent about the topic when he started to look forward to the idea of dates and Hogsmeade weekends. He gets it finally.
Love potions are still used by actual, living people. Why else would his parents heavily stress to never use them, and here is the slap in the face he needed to understand what thirteen year old him didn’t get.
Why is it still okay for people to get away with sending love potions to a war hero? Sure, Tristan hasn’t seen Professor Potter as the famous ‘Boy Who Lived’ and the other stupid title he got from the end of the war in years. But he is still aware of the fame his head of house carries when he sees witches and wizards trying to talk to him in Hogsmeade.
Tristan’s mind slows down with the realization that the professor is harassed by fans, then, inside and outside of the school.
“Is there anywhere the professor isn’t bothered by these creepy people?” He asks quietly.
Tristan realizes a second later more people have leaned in to listen, and Jackson’s face settles into a stubborn look that soon their classmates mirror. He wonders if the annoying fans are about to be confronted by angry students ready to defend their professor.
***
Harry pauses cleaning up his classroom when he sees two of his students lingering by their desks. He wonders if they are worried about the fact he didn’t teach them a bit more on chaining spells together. Maybe he should offer an extra office hour time for those who want help with making sure they understand the technique.
“Um, professor,” Audrey begins a bit hesitantly, “I was just wondering if everything’s fine?”
He blinks, not expecting that line of questioning. “Not bad, all things considered, I’m sorry I did deviate from the originally planned lesson. But I’ll offer in the next class to have some time set aside to help you all master chaining spells together.”
“Oh, thank you for offering that,” she mumbles out, looking a bit frustrated as if that’s not the answer she wanted.
“Just, Professor Potter, if there’s anything we can do to help you out could you let us know? We can help with tutoring or babysitting Teddy or sorting the boring paperwork for you,” Tristan, one of his lions, pipes up a little hopefully. He gives Harry a patented wide eyed look of innocence and he’s not sure he trusts it. “We just noticed you seem a bit busy, and we don’t want our favorite Defense professor getting overwhelmed.”
A small snort escapes Harry. “I’m your only Defense professor.”
Tristan merely smiles at him.
“I agree with McIntyre, Professor Potter, if we can do anything to make life easier for you, please tell us how we can help.” Audrey clasps her hands together while smiling at him as well. Harry wonders if they’re going to prank him later and they’re trying to play the long con on him. “I’m pretty confident in chaining spells, so I can definitely help out during those extra office hours you mentioned!”
Harry nods slowly. Maybe they noticed he seemed a bit overwhelmed by his mail this morning and assumed he needed help sorting that. He will never ask for help with it as that is not his students’ problem, just his to try and deal with until hopefully all those idiots stop bothering him.
“I appreciate the offer and I’ll let you two know if I do need anything. For now, I think you need to start walking or you will be late for your next classes.” Harry shoos them off.
Once he closes his door he wonders if he needs to train up on his Occlumency again if his students are worried about his wellbeing. But it had been sweet of his two students to try and offer their own help with what they can do. Usually, Harry doesn’t give much thought to match-making or making bets like the other professors on who might end up with who, but he kind of thought those two standing next to each other so earnestly had been cute. Those two have rarely interacted with each other, and yet they had just teamed up due to their concern for him.
Maybe Harry will stop by Minerva’s office to place his own little bet before dinner starts.
***
When his students first filed into the greenhouse, Neville had thought that the stress of the approaching NEWT exams had finally gotten to them. They had all looked to be deep in thought or downright annoyed about something. Therefore, logically, NEWT exams had been his initial assumption for the initial distraction. So he began his lecture thinking it would all soon blow over and his students would focus on the very important lesson material, material he suspects will be in their Herbology NEWT. But when Neville looks up from his demonstration on how to prune Twilight Ivy, he realizes his students have not been listening to him at all. He has only been teaching for a few years, but he knows what it looks like when one student isn’t listening. It’s just mind boggling that none of them have been paying any attention to him.
“Alright, what’s got you all distracted?” He asks, dusting his hands off on his apron.
Elaine Wright, one of the few lions taking his NEWT class, shifts uncomfortably in her seat before she seems to steel herself as she looks up at him fiercely. “Professor, do a lot of people try to love potion Professor Potter?”
He closes his eyes. It must be getting bad if the students are catching on that the fan mail Harry gets is fairly malicious. Oh, many witches and wizards would claim they don’t mean anything untoward to Harry, but that’s because the magical community is fairly behind the times when it comes to understanding consent and the ethics of love potions. Sure, love potions have fairly strong laws to protect purebloods and Harry should fall under the same protection due to inheriting the Potter and Black estates, but his famous titles seem to blur that legal line to everyday citizens and even their own government.
Hermione and Susan are doing their best to get better laws in place. However, as the speed of the government only moves so fast it feels like nothing will happen to keep Harry and the other war heroes safe, which feels like a slap in the face for those who know Harry has sacrificed so much. Minerva and the goblins are working on far stronger wards, but the tenacity of people desperate to have Harry’s attention seem to get around what should be iron tight protections.
“Unfortunately, are you all realizing the terribly awful area love potions fall under in our community?” He asks tiredly. He flicks his wand at a stool so he can sit down. His lecture and activity on pruning and repotting Twilight Ivy will have to go on hold for this sensitive topic.
“Yes, and it seems so unfair that people don’t see how they’re harassing Professor Potter,” Tristan answers with a vicious curl to his mouth, as if it all leaves a bad taste.
“It is, and sadly, ever since the war and since Professor Potter reached his majority it has only gotten worse.” Neville rests his elbows on his knees as he leans forward a bit. “You see, as we age slower than muggles, the older generations who are still in the government don’t see much wrong with the use of love potions to get the attention they want of the person they are interested in. So the younger generations who are trying to move up the ranks to make change are finding push back from trying to shake up the status quo. The older generations don’t like being wrong, especially after two wars within fifteen years, and so they have dug in, in petty retaliation, really, that using love potions isn’t that bad.”
“Surely there are some laws to protect him better until change can be made, like line theft,” Elaine asks a bit desperately.
Neville can’t help the pressing of his lips to hide the frown he truly wants to show. There are still bigoted factions who are willing to use every obscure law they can find to undermine such a very valid reason to go after those sending Harry love potions. It is one of the reasons he hasn’t talked to his Gran in a year because of an explosive argument he had with her over the topic.
She agreed using love potions on Harry is bad if it is attempted line theft, but, she had said, there was nothing wrong with a witch wanting to get the attention of the wizard she fancied. After all, Molly Weasley had done it to Arthur Weasley and it had resulted in a happy marriage and a large family.
Neville had left his ancestral family home with everything of his he wanted to keep, moved his parents to a healing ward in France with strict instructions his Gran is not allowed to be near his parents ever again, and finally he removed his Gran from being his proxy for the Wizengamot. He’d learn what he needed to know on his own as he no longer trusted his Gran with voting for him. After he got settled into a townhome he had bought, seeing he had no plans to return to the Longbottom manor, he had then gone straight for the Weasleys he knew to demand if they agreed with their mother’s actions and stance on love potions, or if they understood how awful and exhausting it was for Harry to deal with the onslaught of people trying to bewitch and harm their friend. They had all experienced some level of fan worship in the first two years after the war. But none of them had the same level of fervor that Harry goes through to this day. He had also needed to know their stance so he could council Harry, if sadly needed, that his childhood friends could not be trusted.
What had followed, at the Weasley gathering without their parents, was a defining moment that caused an irreparable rift between the siblings.
Ginny hadn’t seen anything wrong with what their mum had done. But Ron and the twins had been grossed out by the story Hermione ended up sharing, one that she had heard right before their third year, of how Mrs. Weasley explained how she had used a mild one on their father. Ron especially voiced his disgust towards any love potion. He cited the incident from their sixth year. He shared he had been aware, like being under an Imperious, that he didn’t love Romilda Vane, but he had lost control of himself as if someone else was stringing him along like a puppet. The twins looked guilty because some of their products during their first year of business had had love potion qualities to them. They had promptly pulled those products after Ron had eaten the love potioned candies, even if they weren’t products of the twins, meant for Harry.
There had then been a shouting match over the ethics of love potions when Ginny stood her ground even after hearing her brothers’ thoughts and opinions on them. Bill and Charlie had arrived to find an all out brawl had started with hexes being cast. They got everyone to stop so they could find out what was going on. Ginny found herself once more outnumbered by her siblings as they all vehemently exclaimed that what their mother had done was not okay. A dark look had crossed Bill’s face, and he had Harry call on the life debt Ginny owed him from the Chamber of Secrets incident to not use any kind of magic or potion to bewitch Harry into liking her.
Neville had watched, feeling a bit guilty he had started this mess as a result of his own anger, as Harry quietly told Ginny they should stop seeing each other after he called on the life debt. She swore on her magic that she hadn’t done anything to make him interested in their sixth, her fifth, year. But her words and vow did nothing to change the upset painted across Harry’s face.
“Ginny, do you know how many love potions are sent to me? Every time I think I’ve found a way to stop them, people find a way around my protections,” Harry had said quietly. “I can’t, even with the vow, I can’t trust you won’t try to manipulate me now. When you had been obsessed with me as a teen, would you have used a potion on me if you hadn’t listened to Hermione’s advice to just be yourself around me?”
A guilty look had crossed Ginny’s face, damning her, and her brothers tossed her dark glares. Neville felt uneasy as he had once had a crush on her during fourth year. He had also been aware she still liked Harry even when she had dated other boys. Neville liked her as a person, so he had looked the other way and at the time he had assumed he wasn’t close to Harry in school to point out Ginny still had a crush on him—she just didn’t blush or stutter around him anymore. He figured Harry would like her for her. Now, in hindsight, he can see how it was a bit manipulative in a way in how she had gone about getting Harry’s attention. Ginny probably had had no ill intent about it, she had just been a girl in love. But after Neville himself had gotten exhausted with receiving love potions he will now question the intent of a person approaching him for a relationship. He could only imagine what was going through Harry’s mind scrutinizing every interaction he had had with the youngest Weasley.
“Love potions are a form of assault, Ginny, and if one of your Quidditch fans gave you one and then slept with you—without you giving them your actual consent—would you still think there’s nothing wrong to use a mild love potion to have your crush like you back?” Hermione explained with a pained look.
She had paled in realization, as if finally getting that love potions are bad. But the damage had been done. Hermione told Neville, a year later, that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley still don’t know why their children are a little stilted around each other—mainly Ginny.
In hindsight, he should have cooled off before going to the Weasley siblings about the debacle of love potions. The conversation could have gone differently. They could have helped Ginny realize sooner how bad love potions can be before her relationship with Harry broke into something that could never be fixed.
Neville sighs, realizing he has been quiet for too long, and his silence has essentially answered the question.
“Just because we won the war, doesn’t mean old ideas and prejudices towards halfbloods and muggleborns have changed overnight. So that route of claiming people are attempting line theft, which should protect Professor Potter, keeps hitting roadblocks, sadly,” Neville explains tiredly. “If you read up on the Daily Prophet, past copies are kept in the library if you’ve missed an issue or two, you can track the progress and see where Hermione Granger and Susan Bones keep running into bigoted fools who do not see anything wrong with the use of love potions.”
“If, if Professor Potter hadn’t adopted his godson, would those bigoted idiots not block the line theft argument because of the estates he inherited?” Tristan asks him in a tight voice.
He winces. There had been an explosive article about Harry adopting Teddy after Andromeda’s passing four years ago. Teddy’s birth parents had been publicized, they still don’t know who leaked that to the press, and people did not like the ‘Boy Who Lived’ raising a werewolf’s child. Harry had sued the Daily Prophet and any publicizing group for slander of his character, Teddy’s character, and Professor Lupin and Tonks’ characters. He had also set his lawyers to go after everything published about Harry since he had lost his parents to show wizarding Britain he was done with people making up stories about himself and his loved ones.
“Sadly, yes, the same bigoted idiots who don’t like halfbloods also do not like anyone like Teddy or his late father, Remus Lupin,” he answers. “So Professor Potter’s famous reputation only goes so far sadly, for when it only is convenient for the public.”
Murderous looks sweep over his NEWT students. Neville feels warmth spread through the tired ache this conversation created. The Hogwarts students all adore Teddy as many a student has seen Harry lecture with Teddy strapped to his chest in a sling. Or, when visiting him for office hours, Harry had had his godson on his lap idly playing with Teddy’s hands while answering his students’ questions. It had been a slow thing where one day, Neville had looked across the Great Hall and saw students letting Teddy sit with them when he escaped from the head table. Even the students who don’t like kids don’t seem to mind him, merely staring in amusement at the boy who would claim he was just a really, really young student.
The old guard might be in trouble, and he didn’t mind at all. Seeing and hearing his students gather around this injustice gave Neville hope that the future would be far better.
He should probably warn the others about what will be happening within the school walls. As he imagines seventeen year olds will only come up with plans that could be considered borderline illegal. Or maybe only he and his friends fell into that category, which to be fair they had been at war at their age.
***
Audrey grabs McIntyre’s arm to haul him away towards the lake after Herbology ends. Their friends trail after them, but she wants to talk to him as he’s popular and he understand things are wrong. So if she wants to fix this issue for Professor Potter, McIntyre is going to be her co-conspirator in fixing the mess the bigoted adults will not fix.
“You’re well liked by the other houses,” she begins, dropping his arm as she turns to look at him. He gives her a bemused squint as if he disagrees with her. “I need your help in gathering anyone from our year who is interested to help plan what we are going to do.”
“I think you’re more popular with the other houses, but I can help spread the word,” McIntyre responds slowly. “What are you thinking we should do?”
“I don’t know, as all my ideas right now will land me in prison and I don’t want to upset Professor Potter,” Audrey grouches out. She crosses her arms as she glares at the lake. “So the more minds the better in finding ways to at least deter senders, or to make sure the professor stops getting fan mail. The best I’ve come up with so far is to just steal the mail before it even gets to him, but I don’t know how to even pull that off.”
“Yeah, we might need to cool down a bit before leaping into action. The professor is always going on that us lions need to stop and think first. But I know how to help pull off a mild heist.” He holds his hand out to her. “Call me Tristan.”
“Audrey.” She accepts his hand with a grin. Their friends are still silently watching, not interrupting. Maybe she and Tristan are the headstrong friends of their friend groups that can’t be corralled. “Let’s tell Wizarding Britain to piss off and to leave our professor alone.”