Harry Potter ne're belongèd to me,
Rather, he's partial to J. K. Rowling;
And sure as Helios sets o'er the sea,
Haply this tale may fin'ly get going.
~~~
Dumbledore tapped the side of his crystal goblet with a teaspoon. The hall grew quiet, expectant, as he prepared for the opening of the year oration. His face was grave as he rose, and the twinkle that nearly always lit his eyes had faded. They still burned, but in a new way; the bright eyes shone with the fire or sincerity. It blazed there, sullen, somber, throbbing; not a student in the hall dared to make a noise.
When he spoke, his voice surged with power and conviction, but he spoke evenly, as though he had mulled over this many times and it was now no more interesting than the weather. His voice did not waver.
"I've always taken pride in being a straightforward man, and it would go against my morals to beat about the bush or to abandon you in the dust. What I am about to say regards the Dark Lord's return. Several new policies have been enacted, most of which you will become aware of later. One of them, though, you must be told about right now; this is because it concerns you directly, and you will need any length of time to get used to the concept. In this area you have already been cheated; you have only six days. I do not think it is fair to deny you this knowledge any longer.
Students, for safety measures, all pupils will be transfigured into a fellow member of the student body. While our Minister of Magic refuses to concede the resurgence of the Dark Lord, I feel that I have to. And therefore must do everything within my power – or in some cases beyond my power – to protect you. Once you have been transfigured, you will continue to act as that student acted; this is to inhibit the Dark Lord from cultivating any suspicions. I will not permit any breaches of security whatsoever. Once the transfiguration is in place, you will all be charmed so that you may not write or discuss the topic. This should prevent the explicit, or even inadvertent, revealing of your true identity. I am not going to lie and say that this will be stress-free or unproblematic. You will keep your own persona – this is the burdensome part. You must all try your absolute hardest to act like the person to whom you have been assigned. A highly competent board of well-suited witches and wizards has been selected to make the decisions regarding who becomes whom, and know that just because you have become someone does not necessarily mean that they have become you. In fact, this is highly improbable, if not implausible.
The transfiguration will be in place for the duration of the school year, beginning next Tuesday. You will be given the day off from classes in order for you to gather your bearings in your new body; sometimes it is challenging to adjust to being someone who is proportionately dissimilar to you. The day off will also be used to exercise your acting skills. I know that this is a serious affair, but perhaps we could make a game of it. The student who acts most like the one he or she is pretending to be will win five hundred house points for their real house – that is, the one they were truly sorted into – at the end of the year. Which brings me to another point. Students will not necessarily become a fellow member of their own house, nor will they stay within the domain of their own year. You will become the person it is thought that you could best portray, and that is that.
All students are required to do this. Your parents have already been informed, and most filled in a letter of consent. The few whose parents rejected the notion must obey nevertheless, simply because it is the easiest method of safety that will necessitate the least ongoing work. Anyone who tries to notify his or her parents will be stopped by the blocking spell. Anyone who really must – and this is only if it is an absolute requisition – send a message to his or her parents can come see me in my office, and I will assist you. The supervisors will lift the transfiguration at the end of the year banquet, and not before. No exceptions. Hopefully this will be very effectual, and we can all have an exceptionally pleasing year."
There was not a face in the whole of Hogwarts that looked at home with this plan. Pained, uncomfortable expressions swept through the hall like the pestilent pandemic in medieval Europe. The plague of adversity was so potent it was respirable, and the fumes caused one first year Hufflepuff to faint dead away. Madam Pomfrey, apparently on hand in case something like this happened, carted him off on a floating stretcher.
Dumbledore continued on with the usual announcements about Filch and ground restrictions as though everything was perfectly normal.
A/N: The little iambic pentameter poem is mine, so don't take it. The title, Alexicacon, is a forgotten word, though it is English. It is defined as 'a preservative against, or remedy for, evil; a panacea sought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The word is from Greek alexein, to keep off, and kakon, evil. ' Appropriate title, don't you think?