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Professor Monroe	By : Athey1024 Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 15724 -:- Recommendations : 8 -:- Currently Reading : 25
Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter. This is a work of fanfiction and no profit is being made. It is a for-fun endeavor and no infringement is intended.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
The Gryffindor Quidditch team held it's tryouts for the Keeper slot Wednesday evening. Ron was a nervous wreck the whole day, and his mood didn't improve much upon seeing the group gathered in the pitch for the tryouts. Harry tried to be the encouraging friend, but mostly he couldn't really do anything but stand back and watch.

In the end it was a rather brutal two hour tryout, and Ron had only barely done better than the second-best, Cormac McClaggan. Harry mostly found McClaggan a right arse, so he was double-relieved with Angelina declared that Ron had won the coveted keeper position and dismissed everyone else from the pitch. She then told the team what to expect of their practice schedule.

Ron's mood was notably lifted after that was finally over. In fact, he was down-right giddy. So giddy, he even managed to get into it when Harry and Hermione sat down to try and make as complete a list as they could manage of potentially offensive and defensive spells that could be chained together, in preparation for the following day's Defense class.

When Thursday came and Harry eventually made his way to Defense with his two friends, Harry felt pretty confident that he'd come up with a really complete list. The class itself was a huge open discussion where everyone was called upon to talk about some of the chains they'd come up with and try demonstrating them. There was open discussion on which ones were best, which ones could be improved upon, and which could be combined for even better results.

Then Professor Monroe went over three new spells and set everyone to practicing them in succession. Harry felt it was another fantastic defense class, and his friends both agreed, even if maybe not quite as enthusiastically as Harry did. Harry stayed after class and presented Professor Monroe with his notes from the book, but asked the man if he might possibly keep the book a bit longer since he was trying to make a more detailed translation of the book. Professor Monroe beamed at him and said he was thrilled that Harry was liking it so much, and would love a copy of the translation if Harry really felt like he was up tackling such a task.

He pointed out to Harry that this was his OWLs year, and he didn't want Harry over-stressing himself with extra-curriculars, but Harry shook his head fervently and insisted he was really fascinated by the content of the book, and really wanted to keep working on it.

Friday morning was another early morning exercise class, and Harry spent the jog keeping pace along side his professor and discussing things from the book, and class with enthusiastic interest. He even continued some level of discussion through the calisthenics, which seemed to amuse some of the others there.

One of the 7th year Ravenclaws muttered something that sounded like 'teacher's suck-up' as he passed Harry for the exit when the training class was over. Harry scowled at him and glared with narrowed eyes, but didn't say anything. As soon as the room had cleared out, a warm hand gently rest upon his shoulder, drawing out a quiet gasp from between Harry's lips as that electric jolt shot through him at the contact. Harry turned his head, looking with side-eyes up at his professor standing behind him.

“Ignore them. They're just jealous,” Monroe whispered with a conspiratorial smirk before removing his hand and heading for the door. “Have you written those letters to any of the solicitors yet?” He asked conversationally and Harry jogged to catch up and walk along side him as they left the room.

“I wrote letters to four different law firms, but I've only heard back from two of them so far,” Harry replied.

“Anything look promising so far?”

“Well, Bangs, Stetson, and Jennings, sounded like they'd probably be pretty likely to really get somewhere,” Harry said hesitantly

“But you're not sure how you feel about their reputation?” Monroe offered knowingly.

Harry grimaced and gave a one-shouldered shrug.

“Look at it this way, Harry – they have a reputation for successfully getting what is in their clients' bests interests, at all costs. If the client is the wronged party, they make sure that client is fully defended and compensated. If the client is a good guy, then what's wrong with that?”

“Yeah, but it's the fact that some of their clients aren't exactly good guys is what sort of what puts me off them,” harry grumbled with a grimace.

“Who is to say who are the 'good guys'? Good and evil are honestly very childish notions. As you get older you learn that the world really isn't nearly so clean cut; black and white. Things are never really that simple. You will find that very few, if any people ever do something for the sake of being evil,” Monroe said, exaggerating the word 'evil' comically, earning a small chuckle from Harry.

“True, there are some people who have a legitimate mental disorder where they cannot differentiate between acceptable and inappropriate human behaviors. People who are sociopaths, or psychopaths. People who have mental disorders and commit murders for the sake some sort of sick, perverse desire. Those people can probably be labeled as 'evil' by most rational people. However your average, sane, person can do things that some people would immaturely label as 'evil', but who are not 'evil' people.

“Say, for example, you hear about a wizard attacking three young muggle teens. He's apprehended and confesses to the crime without any remorse at all. Is this man evil?”

Harry frowned and stopped in his walk trying to think about the question rather than just jump to conclusions. “Did he say why he attacked them?” Harry asked cautiously.

“The three muggle boys beat and raped his daughter, and were never punished for it.”

Harry blinked and his jaw floundered slightly before he closed his mouth and swallowed. He shook his head. “No... he's not evil.”

“But there are some that would see this situation and assume it was an act of muggle hatred. Or they would think that his wizard considered himself superior to the muggles and was attacking them out of prejudice. There is history of wizards being persecuted by the public under these exact circumstances – them labeled as bigoted muggle haters by the press, when in reality the attacks they perpetrated against specific muggles, had very specific motives that had nothing to do with any bigotry.

“And yet, in the press, the story is spun in that direction to serve a politician's cause to gain support or sympathy for some bill or legislation they're pushing at the time. Always question the motives of politicians and any press that lives in a politician's back pocket. But also always question the motives of anyone accused of a crime. Is that person actually evil? Did they make a simple but unfortunate mistake? Or did they do the crime with intent, but for a reason? If you took the time to stand in their shoes, and understand their thinking; their motive for taking the course of action that they took – would you still think them evil? Would you really blame them for the crime? Might you even agree with them?

“Always remember – everything is complicated. Nothing is black and white, and the real world is very rarely as simple as good and evil. If you look at a crime and the only reason you know of for the person taking such an action is that they were 'evil', then you probably don't know enough about what actually happened.”

Harry nodded his head, seriously considering the wisdom in the professor's words.

“Of course, having a good reason for committing a crime doesn't necessarily make that crime okay,” Monroe continued on a beat later. “I'm not saying that we can excuse their actions, but we can explain them, and understand them. Human nature is a very complex beast. To pretend other wise only makes you naïve. Only the simple-minded man paints the world in black and white. Simple-minded men, and cunning-men who wish to control the simple-minded man.

– –

Harry took advantage of Ron's new dedication to Quidditch to spend a lot of time attending to his own newly developing interests. Ron had enlisted his brothers to toss Quaffles at him on the pitch so he could practice his Keeper techniques – the twins had agreed because it was a free pass to throw large balls at their brother's head. Ron had asked Harry to participate, but Harry had pointed out that he really didn't have a lot of experience with directed aiming with any of the Quidditch balls, outside of the snitch, and that was an entirely different sort of beast, so he was let off the hook.

Hermione talked Harry into going with her to the Library so she could dig out some wizarding law books in hopes of finding some more information that might help out Sirius. Harry started helping out with that as well, but got distracted early on as he came across some records on various bits of legislation banning the use of certain branches of magic and labeling them as 'dark'.

For the first time, his mind didn't just assume that this so-called dark magic was, automatically, dark magic. Because... what if it wasn't? What if it was like faerie magic, or the ritual magic that warded away crop pests, or protected sheep from wolves?

Or parselmagic that could help heal people and save lives.

That was what sent him off on a tangent, looking up records of other magics that had been banned for being 'dark' and then trying to look up unbiased information about what that magic really did. It wasn't easy actually finding any 'unbiased' information, he found, and over the next few days Harry spent quite a lot of time digging through the library stacks as part of his quest for the truth.

Hermione was so deeply embroiled in her own research, she didn't even realize that Harry was researching a different subject than her. She seemed intent that she was going to fill the void of knowledge that was her understanding of wizarding law. She had thought she knew a bit, after all the research she conducted trying to clear Buckbeak back in third year, but that had been a very focused study of magical law – the rights of certain magical creatures – and the law was a very wide and varied beast in the magical world.

Harry's evenings were once again dedicated to translating the book, but this time he was doing a more thorough job of it. He found that he wanted to have a copy for himself to keep, and the knowledge that he had to eventually give the book back to Professor Monroe, gave him added incentive.

-

Sunday was the first meeting of the debate club, and Harry found himself just as eager to go as Hermione was – although, mostly Harry was just excited for another opportunity to be around Professor Monroe.

The club was being held in a different room than their Defense classes were held in, and it was a room that Harry hadn't ever actually had any classes in. Upon entering, Harry found a room with six curved rows of seats, placed in front of a slightly raised stage with two podiums on it. Harry and Hermione sat down around the middle and watched as the room slowly filled. Ron had refused to come – insisting he needed the extra sleep and that he'd go out to the pitch with the twins when he did finally get up.

As more people filled the room, Harry found himself surprised by the shear volume of Slytherins present. It looked like nearly every Slytherin form third year and up was there, with only a few exceptions. The second greatest number of students were Ravenclaws. There were hardly any Hufflepuffs at all, and only a handful of Gryffindors. Everyone finally settled into seats and Professor Monroe came in and stood at the front of the room surveying the gathered students. His eyes fell on Harry and a small smile curled his lips. Harry felt his face heat up and he grinned back sheepishly.

“Thank you all for coming,” Professor Monroe started, addressing the room. “Welcome to the first meeting of the new Hogwarts Debate Club. While I know that the idea of a 'debate team' seems like a new or unusual sort of idea to some of you, but it is hardly anything of the sort. This may be the first time such a group has been organized at Hogwarts, but Debate Teams have existed in organized educational institutions for hundreds of years. As such there are a number of debating formats that have come into favor over the years so there were plenty of me to choose from.

“Debates are usually either held between two-person teams, two-on-two, or between two individuals in a one-on-one debate. We will do both in this club, but more often I will be pitting one student against another to debate a defined topic before the rest of the club members. There will be a panel of judges for each debate that will decide in the end which party 'won' the debate. The winner will earn his or her house a set number of points. In most cases, it will be twenty, but I have plans to hold a few special debates where the reward will be even greater.”

He grinned over the class as excited whispers broke out among some of the students.

“We will mostly be following the Parliamentary Debate system for our club, but with some modifications. I will be giving you the topic of the debates one week in advance, so you will still have the opportunity to do some research and gather some evidence. I doexpect a certain level of evidence collection for your arguments, however I do not expect anything as extreme as is often used in some of the other popular debate forms.

“The primary alternative to the Parliamentary Debate system is the NDT or the National Debate Tournament format. Four constructive speeches, four rebuttals, and four cross-examination periods. The NDT format is about evidence. Participants would sometimes come in with a box loaded full of collected evidence and they would spend their allotted time rambling off huge quantities of it at high velocity and with very little pretense or persuasion. This method obviously has value in teaching you to properly prepare and gather research materials and evidence, however it is not particularly useful for those of you with political aspirations, as politicians rarely bother with things like evidence when standing before their peers.”

There were snickers among some of the students and amused looks shared among certain groups – mostly Slytherins. Hermione's eyes narrowed and she frowned at them.

“The Parliamentary Debate system is named so because of it's vague resemblance to the debates that take place in our British Parliament, as well as our own Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot. The Parliamentary format holds its emphasis on persuasiveness, logic, and wit. Normally, in the Parliamentary Debate format, the topic isn't established until ten minutes before the debate, and the topic changes with each debate. Since the teams couldn't possibly be expected to research and gather evidence for every topic imaginable, traditionally no research or proof is required at all for that format.

“What we will be doing in this club, however, is a sort of combination of the two systems. You will be set into groups and told your topic a week in advance, so you do have time for research, and I will expect you to be able to provide some level of evidence for your arguments, but it will be your delivery and persuasiveness that will effect the outcome of the judges scores the most.

“During our debates, there will be one topic and two sides – the affirmative side and he negative side. The structure of the debates start with the affirmative side given a period of time for their constructive speech, then the negative side gets the same time for their constructive speech. After that the affirmative side is allowed a 2-minute cross-examination where the negative can respond to questions, then the negative takes control for another two-minute cross-examination against the affirmative side. After that the negative gets a five minute rebuttal speech, followed by the affirmative side getting a five minute rebuttal and closing speech. That is the format that we will use. If there are questions, I'll be providing a handout that lists it in more detail shortly.

They went on to discuss more specific rules like what a Point of Information, Point of Order, and Point of Privilege clauses were, and how a person uses them during the debates. Topics were the next thing discussed, and the group of students quickly got into the swing of suggesting things, once Professor Monroe had started giving examples and started asking for the student's opinions.

The topics, or 'resolutions' were all given from the affirmative view, and had to have an apposing side to the argument. They were structured like 'This House believes...' and would go from there. Each suggestion was written down on a slip of parchment and added to a box that they'd be randomly drawn from later.

It didn't surprise Harry in the least when Hermione raised her hand and suggested 'This House believes that keeping House Elves as slaves is unethical and immoral.' Professor Monroe cocked a single brow and Harry thought he saw a glimmer of amusement but the Professor added it to the list, saying it was a great debate topic and thanking Hermione.

The club drew to a close with a few people volunteering to participate in debates for the following week, then being placed in pairs, set to either the affirmative side or the negative side and then given their topics. Harry had felt tempted to volunteer, but his nerves stopped him from actually taking that leap. He wanted to try actually watching a few weeks of these debates before he tried jumping in and giving it a shot himself. Hermione had volunteered, but she hadn't been one of those selected.

When the topics were announced, Harry found that he wasn't even familiar with a number of them, and was glad that he hadn't offered himself up for the first round. Those topics he had heard of were things he didn't have much of an opinion on, but they were clearly issues that some of those participating did have opinions on because there were a few that didn't appreciate being on the side of an issue they'd been assigned. A few protested – insisting they'd rather be on the negative side or the affirmative side of which ever issue they'd been assigned.

“Ah, but that's the true sign of persuasive political speaking,” Monroe said with a sly grin on his face. “Being able to successfully argue a side to the point where the audience is persuaded to see your point, even when you don't agree with it, is a skill that few possess. However there are other motives behind my assigning people to argue a side of an issue they may not agree with. It is an important ability for those who find themselves in political office to be able to understand the opponents side of the argument. This is a skill even fewer possess – especially among politicians.

“People often get so deeply embroiled in their side of the issue that they lose sight of why someone might feel differently about it then they do. It is situations such as these that lead to people vilifying the opposition and losing sight of the fact that, even if someone disagrees with you, it does not make them evil. They are not picking the other side of the issue just to make you angry – in fact, it is far more likely that they honestly believe that they have very legitimate reasons for believing what they believe. If you take the time to understand that alternate side of the issue, it will make you and your opponent better able to reach a compromise that will actually benefit the people. And that is what is truly important in leading.”

Hermione looked pleased with this argument, and Harry definitely agreed as well. Several of the Slytherins appeared to be rolling their eyes, but they certainly weren't going to argue the point further.

– –

The following week passed in the blur of his standard schooling schedule. Classes, meals, homework, the morning jogging on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and time spent with Hermione in the library.

Ron was getting frustrated with the amount of time Harry was spending with books, and the fact that Harry was now consistently going to 'bed' early and pulling his hangings closed.

Now that all of the teams had had their tryouts, the various house teams were starting to book the pitch during the late afternoons and evenings, so he wasn't able to run off and try to practice everyday to keep busy, like he had the week prior. In earlier years, he would drag Harry off with him to do something 'fun', but now Harry was following Hermione to the library, and Ron had no choice but to tag along or find something else to do on his own.

This resulted in Ron doing a lot of whinging, which got on Harry's nerves more often than not. It was one thing when, in the past, Ron would talk Harry into going off to play Exploding Snap or chess, when the only thing Harry had to do otherwise was homework, and he really didn't mind putting that off a bit longer. But now he actually had something he wanted to do – something he found really interesting and important, and he just wanted Ron to stop nagging him and let him be.

Harry certainly never would have expected studying history or politics would have ever been thing he would willingly do outside of some sort of horribly boring and mandatory assignment, but now that he was starting to really look into things, he was finding it surprisingly fascinating. More than that, though, was that he was finding the quite a few of the banned magic he was discovering were all very, very interesting. Perhaps it was the fact that they were supposedly 'forbidden', but part of it was also the fact that these were things that were being hidden from him for blatantly dubious reasons. It wasn't right. And it was like people didn't even realize that these things were being withheld from them – they'd forgotten! Lost track of their heritage and history, and entire branches of fascinating magic, all because of political maneuvering that, in most cases, wasn't even valid or important anymore.

The biggest reason that Harry was finding Ron so annoying of late was that a very bit part of Harry seriously felt like the things he was researching were important. Far more important than running off to play exploding snap with Ron. But Ron didn't understand that – mostly because Ron had no idea what Harry was doing, but still – Harry had told him it was important, and Ron just couldn't understand that.

In addition to time spent in the library, Harry had also exchanged a few more letters with the suggested law firms, as well as another letter with Sirius. Harry finally settled on the Bangs, Stetson, and Jennings as his law firm. It was Mr. Jennings who was personally going to be taking on Harry's defense against the slander and libel from the Prophet, which Harry learned from Professor Monroe was a pretty big deal since he was one of the firm's partners, and Harry could have easily been shoveled off onto one of the junior lawyers that the firm employed.

Harry had signed the papers necessary to have the retainer fee transferred from his vault – a sum that made him rather nervous until Professor Monroe suggested he request a full statement of his holdings from the goblins. That had arrived the following morning at breakfast and Harry had nearly choked on his orange juice when he saw the numbers. Ron had asked Harry what it was and he had flushed and quickly hidden it, saying it was just more stuff from his lawyers. The last thing Harry wanted was to stoke Ron's deep-seeded jealousy and financial insecurity by letting his mate discover just how wealthy he apparently was.

Harry had known, on some level, that there was a lot of gold in his vault, but he'd never put a number to that thought, and now that he had, he was feeling a bit overwhelmed. But what he wasn't feeling, was bad about sending the retainer to the solicitor. It didn't seem nearly as big a fee now with things put into perspective.

It also made Harry wonder suddenly if Sirius might need some help with paying the retainer fee on his own solicitor and sent off a letter to the man asking if he wanted help with that since Harry was eager for things to get started on that front. Sirius had written back sounding rather offended, saying that even if he did need money, he certainly wasn't going to be taking it from his fifteen year old godson's trust account. But then he reassured Harry that money wasn't a problem at all for him because he'd inherited the whole of the Black estate after his mother had died, and while he couldn't personally set foot in Diagon Alley or Gringott's bank, the goblins themselves didn't give two knuts if he was a 'wanted man' by the Ministry – he was still a customer and the owner of a rather substantial account with them. He had to do all of his dealings via secured post, but he still had access to his money.

This did reassure Harry some, but he still felt out of the loop as far as Sirius' attempts to legally clear himself, since Sirius hadn't been willing to talk much on that subject.

With the end of the third week of term drawing to a close, Harry couldn't help but feel like his schedule was considerably more packed this year than it had ever been before. He wasn't sure if it was because of all the extra stuff he'd taken on, all on his own, or if it was just because it was his OWLs year and the teachers were all piling on the work as if their lives depended on it. But one thing Harry knew for sure, he was looking forward to a good night's sleep, and maybe some more pleasant dreams.
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Professor Monroe