Asking someone for a favor can form a powerful bond.

- Lucius Malfoy

Draco slept through lunch and the first half of History of Magic. Cutting class was a non-problem, students routinely answered roll call for each other. As long as you didn't say 'present' twice in a row, Professor Binns never noticed. Given his full load Draco had already considered ditching History of Magic anyway for the full year. Draco respected history and its lessons; but, Binns was worthless. He could probably pass all the final right now and use the extra time to study Runes. He didn't need to waste hours each week listening to Binns drone on and on about Goblin Revolutions. He could sleep, like the other students, but it wasn't nearly as comfortable as his bed.

(Only Binns could make Goblin Revolutions boring. History tutoring started even before magical tutoring at Malfoy mansion. Draco's bedtime stories, like all great fables, taught lessons.)

Stretching awake, Draco pulled out his schedule.

3pm – Intermediate Muggle Studies (All Houses). Professor Asimov. (New Annex).

Draco blinked. Intermediate? He hadn't signed up for intermediate. Had Harry adjusted his schedule? He'd asked Harry, on the train, about tutoring. Draco walked through the dungeons, navigating automatically. Left - past the picture of Mad Witch Matilda - laughing as she burned in a bonfire. She'd enjoyed it so much Muggles 'caught' her dozens of times in the 1500s. Up the Squeaking Stairs, air no longer cool as Draco arrived in the main levels. He headed for the Great Hall, taking the long way instead of risking a shortcut. Headmistress had told them directions to the Annex, from the Great Hall.

The schedule allowed plenty of time between classes, especially for the first week of school as students discovered changes over the summer. Walls stood in the middle of hallways, pits and spring-loaded traps would launch you onto a balcony. Last December a shimmering gateway - a bright orange oval - had appeared in the wall underneath Mad Matilda. Anyone stepping into it would step out of another gate, identical to the first but blue, a mere minute from Potions. Slytherins grumbled bitterly when it disappeared a few days later, it had cut out a good ten minutes of walking. Each way.

Draco came to the Great Hallway and walked down the new set of short, black stairs, wide enough for only a single person. Fortunately a second set crossed over the first, enchanted so that students could only go up. The grooves on each stair, coupled with the graceful curve of the vertical side reminded students of the the black Elbonian ridgeback dragon, and the name had stuck.

Draco stepped off the Ridgeback and turned left, hearing the matching giggles. He pulled out his wand and quickly aimed it at Flora and Hestia Carrow. Hestia, straight hair in a ponytail, square glasses that actually looked quite fetching, served in Diggory's army last year but Flora had finished her O.W.L.S. He aimed at Hestia on instinct and stepped back, to get some distance.

"Do we scare you, Malfoy?" Flora swished her wand with a flick of the wrist left right left right making little tsk tsk cutting noises in the air. All the Carrow girls were short, but she stood taller than Draco, probably would for the full year. Hestia's wand never wavered off him.

Draco breathed deeply while speaking. "No, although I wonder where your sister has wandered off to. A falling out?" Draco's eyes never left Flora, but he shifted his head slightly to adjust his peripheral vision. Draco didn't see anyone else. He'd been early, but other students should be following in a few minutes.

"Going to study the ikky Muggles, Drakey?" That would sound silly if Flora said it, Hestia pulled it off.

"No, I'm just Steleus!" Draco shouted the hex out and threw himself to the right to avoid Flora's stupefy, cast almost at the same time. Hestia handily blocked his curse but Flora doubled over sneezing. Hestia's Stupefy went wide and Draco flipendo'd Flora to the ground, going for the easy hit and removing her from the fight before she recovered. Flora tumbled backwards, still sneezing and Draco ran left (so his right hand wasn't blocked by his own torso). He blocked Hestia's drill breaking hex and tried his own Expelliarmus when he heard a screeched Ventus Tria. Draco dived for the floor as the jet of wind rushed over his back, but still got thrown sideways by the blast. He hit the ground rolling, hard slippery cobblestones digging into his shoulder blades and the world was upside-down when he spotted Sheila, the cow. Draco kept rolling then slapped the ground with his left arm to stop, his right arm pointed back

"Tarantallegra!"

Draco didn't wait, waiting got you hit, he'd already shoved both arms under him and he was scrabbling forward, crawling as he climbed into a run. Sheila went down in a tangled mass of her own two legs, but Hestia was behind him. Draco juked and heard several jinxes but didn't see anything. He glanced over his shoulder and she was aiming and shouting. Just shouting, not actually casting. Waiting for a good shot. Draco spun around, stumbling, and fired off a Maledictonum, which just caused stuttering and twitching and was more prank than hex, since it only affected normal speech and not spells. But it sounded dangerous and he'd won three fights by firing off random spells and having his targets dodge wildly in fear. Last November, Hannah Abbot jumped into the lake to avoid Draco's magical hair grooming. Hestia stood her ground, either recognizing the spell or seeing that he'd fire wide, and her carefully aimed Colloshoo hit Draco squarely in the chest. With his feet stuck to the ground Draco's momentum bent him awkwardly the waist and he felt the blinding light as his head impacted the cobblestone.

Then darkness.

"Ennervate!"

Anxious faces looked down at Draco. Students milled past them, peered in, giggling, gasping, laughing and shouting. A hand was reaching down to help him up and Draco focused on it, grabbed it. As he started to pull himself up he realized he'd been kicked hard in the sides and pain shot through him. He couldn't pull himself up and the hand easily pulled him to his feet, steadied him, and Draco finally looked at the face.

"Thank you, Robert," Draco gasped. His left knee almost gave out and Susan Bones slipped herself into his side as Robert cast more spells.

"Episkey. You still look terrible," Robert said. "Your face is worse. You should go see Pomfrey."

"I'll be fine. I've already missed one class today." Draco looked around and saw that, apart from Robert Jugson, the huddle had been Susan, Padma, Neville and a particularly worried Vincent. Draco cocked his head. Vincent understood, but the throbbing pain Draco felt made him think it would have been better to ask.

"They were kicking you pretty hard," said Vincent, "something might be broken. We were heading back from Muggle Studies but they ran off once Robert saw them." Vincent didn't need state the obvious, Gregory had chased after them, to confirm who was involved and enact any retribution.

"It was the Carrows."

"I saw at least four people around you, but only one kicking." said Padma. There was disagreement, Neville thought it was just three. Robert offered that Shelia had gotten a few boots in. Draco put a bit of weight on his knee. He could walk, gingerly. Vincent latched on to the side opposite Susan.

"Thanks for getting them off me. That could have turned ugly." The general opinion was that it had gotten ugly. Robert mumbled a goodbye and walked off. By now there wasn't much of a crowd going past out of class, but a small trickle of older students were descending the Ridgeback while Draco, supported by Susan and Vincent, made the slow walk down the hall. Draco fumbled for his wand and pointed it to his sides and mumbled Te Manawa. The pain eased. Draco shifted the wand towards his face and cast Tango Karawarawa. He didn't have a mirror so he cast it again until Vincent nodded.

Malfoys collected spells that improved your appearance.

After being lowered (gently) into a seat in the back row Draco numbed his knee, which he hadn't dare do while walking. A few other glamours improved his appearance and fixed his clothing. Most students would hear the gossip, but at least Draco didn't look like someone who lost a fight.

The Professor spoke into a device that apparently functioned like a Sonorus spell. He also had sheets of paper.

"Good afternoon, class. I am Professor Asimov. As you may know, I've recently been hired to teach at Hogwarts. Forgive me for not knowing your names, although I have a class list here with pictures. Since I am a squib, I ask that you keep your actual appearance and not take this opportunity to prank the new teacher. We will focus on Muggle society trends instead of simple facts. However, since your prior classes were hogwash I'll summarize the facts, at least for the English Speaking Muggle world. As we progress I'll be interested to hear what topics you'd like to cover, and we will move towards a dialogue. Today's topic will be a brief history of the Industrial Revolution, and the impact on the Muggle beliefs in magic..."

At the end of the lecture Draco waited for the room to clear before removing the anesthetic spell on his knee. He used the chair's hand-rests to push himself up, then extended his left leg to the ground. It held.

"Why don't you use magical healing?" Professor Asimov, walking down the aisle towards Draco.

"Healing spells require raw power. I'll have to be older before I have it. They don't even start theory for a few years." Draco started out the door and the Professor walked with him.

"You are younger than your classmates, but not a Muggle born, so why are you in my class … Draco?" The professor had rifled through the sheets and found a picture of Draco. He'd done that several times to call on students during the class.

"I figured you'd know, sir." Draco moved slower than strictly necessary, but it made his walk seem less like a hobble.

"The Headmistress didn't say, and you needn't be so formal, Draco."

"Of course. Although if you don't mind some advice, you are too informal in lectures. You should stick to Mister So-and-so and Miss whoever." Draco paused and thought. "Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if that's a national difference or a Muggle/Wizarding difference. Is there a word for that?"

"Not that I'm aware of. My apologies, then Mr. Malfoy."

"None required, as I knew it was an innocent mistake. But some students don't."

"And that must be why you were in my class." The Professor stopped at a small doorway. Draco realized it was a Muggle door you might see in a home, gaudily painted, two small squares inlaid, one atop the other. "This is my office. Do you have a few moments?"

Draco followed Professor Asimov in. The room was lined with shelves, books stacked a dozen high on the desk, leaving only enough free space for a manual typewriter, some paper, and several legal pads. Draco squeezed past the visitor chair to look at the closest shelf.

"You wrote all of these?" All the books said "Asimov" or "Isaac Asimov." Many titles read as gibberish but some were science books. There must be hundreds of books, all four rows were written by his Professor. Draco found a title and picked it out.

"Mostly just that bookcase. I'm afraid that book isn't what you hope, Draco." Draco put Young Witches and Wizards back on the shelf and continued browsing.

"Just Muggle fiction, I'm afraid. The majority of my books are fiction, although I wrote general interest pieces on current scientific knowledge. Current for the time, I suppose." Draco spotted a picture on the back of one book's outer paper wrapper, which showed the Professor as a much older man, gray hair, skin dropping, but still the same glasses and general look. Draco judged the man in the picture to be roughly 100, firmly middle aged. He put the book back.

"So, they made you younger."

"I imagine I'd be dead in a few years if not. I'm grateful that Headmistress McGonagall offered me this position. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something, Draco."

"Of course, Professor Asimov." Draco kept browsing. His training told him to sit, he could hear his tutors screaming. But Harry Potter had clearly hand-picked this Muggle and Draco had heard you can never have too many books often enough. Such a prolific author and scientific expert deserved study. Anyway, expressing interest in a Ravenclaw's writing surely exemplified politeness. Probably. For Muggles, too. Maybe.

"Are you OK? I mean, I gathered from the other students that you'd been in a fight with several older students, and given what you told me about raw magical talent...well." Isaac Asimov watched the young boy examining the books stop and consider. He stood almost straight, although his weight was obviously on one leg. He'd spoken well, partially due to how refined British English sounds to an American ear, but the boy had an aristocrat's bearing.

"I am OK, in the sense that you just offered to help and I am declining. I surely don't know how things like this are handled … outside. But you damage us both if you publicly interfere. But, I thank you for the offer, Professor Asimov." Once Draco started speaking he'd gone back to browsing books titles. They may reveal something, but he only understood a fraction of them.

"Please, call me Isaac. And I don't understand how you can let them do that, and others can stand by, it's just not natural."

At this Draco sat. "To answer your question, first of all that happened to be a reasonably fair fight. Some magic is about raw age, but not most of it. As to your other question, I'll answer, but I need to know how much you understand. What did they tell you about us and about the relationship between our worlds? About last year?"

"Well, Magic was real. I'd seen a little bit, here and there, as a child. A talking cat scolded me for almost getting run over on 5th Avenue, when I was, oh, around eight years old. I'd see a doorway nobody else could see. Things like that. So, for a while I'd believed in magic, but never found any evidence, so I just dismissed it as being young and foolish..."

Draco sighed internally. Most people, when asked a question, told a personal story instead of giving an answer. Ninety percent of politics involved feigning interest and Draco kept nodding. But to listen to someone who'd written literal bookshelves of relevant knowledge spout on ….

("That must have been hard on you," said Draco) ...was particularly frustrating.

"I don't know, my experience nourished my sense of wonder, made me question those around me. It may have kept me from following those foolish beliefs that captured so many of my friends, although my father helped. They didn't believe my stories, why should I believe theirs? And I see those like me, squibs, born into your world and they seem bitter. Better to glimpse these visions than stare at them too long. You don't risk staring at the sun, not before you have the right tools. Fortunately we only have one, not six."

"What?" Draco didn't know exactly what would happen if more suns appeared in the sky. Maybe you could deal with a second. OK, but hot. More sounded dangerous, especially if there was a water failure, and there would probably be a panic...

"Sorry. Just a phrase. Anyway, I was shocked to find out I hadn't been imagining it. They offered youth and health for teaching, and of course I jumped. Even without that I'd have done it, just to learn. I know about the Statute of Secrecy, of course. I'm sworn to keep that. Not that I'll be allowed to leave the campus for several years, until things get settled."

"You aren't being coerced? Did you actually swear to any spell? Or just give your word?" Draco asked.

"I haven't had any magic done to me, apart from the healing." Professor Asimov seemed confident.

Not that you know. But even a Muggle would recognize an Unbreakable Vow as magic.

"And how we view your world?" Draco asked.

"I know that most of you don't really give it much thought, but those who do don't think well of us."

"As you said: facts first, then implications. So, the facts. They told you the polite version. For the other houses you basically don't exist, or are maybe some exotic rarity. For my house, Slytherins, Muggles are sub-humans, not even worthy of pity. How Muggles might treat people of different colour a century ago, as Harry Potter explained it to me."

Professor Asimov interrupted, "Harry who?" Draco didn't pause, but just filed the information away. Either Harry is busy, or worried about some appearance of impropriety. He'd think about it later.

"Oh, just my room-mate. Raised by Muggles. I haven't examined his books closely but I suspect he owns several of your books. I'm surprised he hasn't asked to talk to you. But anyway, you heard about last year? About the murders? Yes, then the fallout also affected Slytherin. Most victims and Voldemort, the murderer, were Slytherins. Voldemort preached hatred of Muggles. He's dead, but still has followers."

"So … this is not simple bullying then."

"No. I insist you do not get involved, for your own safety. I know it must sound odd, to hear this from a child." Draco looked abashed, but sounded firm. "But I suspect you'd get the same advice from the Headmistress or teachers. Stick to teaching your lessons, and learning about us. Let the situation cool. Even your presence is provocation enough, to some. I got ambushed by three witches because they fear me. They fear what you represent, but they don't fear you personally. I suspect that's why you can't leave Hogwart's. The wards aren't perfect, but if you wandered without protection..."

"Thank you for the advice, Mr. Malfoy." Professor Asimov sounded unconvinced, but solemn.

"Of course, Professor ... Isaac. If you don't mind, I'd like to continue these chats. I believe we can both learn quite a lot. I know that I have so many questions."

Author's Note – When I came up with DMPOR and added a Muggle professor of Muggle Studies, I decided to only consider people listed on the Wikipedia Category "Muggles who Died in 1992." I kept looking after I saw Isaac Asimov's name (it felt silly to give up without even finishing the As) but he really is the perfect choice and after I got halfway through the alphabet I finally admitted it.

According to Muggle History he died in April of 1992, which is prior to Harry getting the stone. This is not important to the plot, but it's a nit I choose to ignore.

It has also been pointed out that Gilderoy was a Ravenclaw in canon. Yeah, that's another divergence. So, when I say I'm trying not to diverge from HPMOR, I'm not trying hard, especially on little details. (I am not diverging from Multiple-Hypothesis Testing, at least I don't think so, but I'll let that speak for itself.)

Update #2 - It has been pointed out that Matilda is just Wendelin the Weird, whom I probably vaguely remembered. Oh well.