February 1944

February felt like the dreariest month of the year. Temperatures reached all-time lows in the negatives, and although it couldn't freeze the water vapour in the air, each breath felt like it was being dragged from your lungs, coated with the acrid taste of death and decay surrounding the castle.

Harry's nose was flushed red from the cold, and as he reluctantly pulled his hands out of his pocket to lay it on the table with a quill, he shivered while pondering the next exam questions before him.

The heating charm was quickly proving to be insufficient, so he took his wand, and recast it.

Even though the charm temporarily raised the temperature in the perimeter of his body, it couldn't expel the frost that quickly seeped through to his bones. Maybe the reason for his teeth chattering wasn't due to external factors; maybe it was emanating from the inside, exuding excess chill that made him feel colder.

He really hated winter. Harry cursed.

Professor Merrythought's Patronus filtered through the crack in the door, and when it opened its mouth, it spoke in a tired, elderly voice. It disappeared after delivering the words, "Harry, the weather is absolutely dreadful. I really must trouble you to help me with today's classes."

Today's Defence Against the Dark Arts had a class for the fifth-years and sixth-years each.

Harry got up from his seat, moving slow and stiff, listening with a wince as his joints made an audible clicking sound as he stretched - it was a bit painful, like he was an old man instead of his own age, but outwardly, he seemed just as sprightly.

Harry stretched his arms, wiggled his hands and feet, and stepped out of the office.

He didn't notice anything unusual.

It's just freezing cold.

But if Hermione was here, she'd probably suspect: rheumatism.

How could this geriatric disease exist in a man as young and strong as any youth in his twenties?

Maybe Hermione's keen thinking would raise her awareness to a sense of foreboding, maybe she'd frown and start theorizing about the most probable root cause of such a disease, or maybe she'd wonder with trepidation; perhaps there was some catalyst… Accelerating the decay of tissues under Harry's skin?

It's a pity she wasn't there.


"It's class time, hurry back to your seats." Harry placed the lesson plans down as the Gryffindors, who were laughing on the platform rushed back to their seats, and cleared his throat. "Um, last lesson Professor Merrythought had already introduced this lesson's material, so for this lesson… What would you like to learn?"

His tone was casual, but his expression wasn't.

Defence Against the Dark Arts wasn't just a joke to Slytherins; even among the other three houses, it wasn't regarded highly. If they were to learn incantations, the lessons would never be as structured or multifaceted as Charms; if they were to learn defence skills, the Headmaster and professors preferred to avoid the Dark Arts portion of the class and opted for a more textbook approach, vaguely reminding Harry of Umbridge's theoretical education methods and making him feel a faint sense of nausea creeping up his throat.

Defence Against the Dark Arts was on the edge of an ultimately grey area which teetered between dangerous and difficult. In this time period, Dumbledore wasn't the Headmaster yet, so opinions on the matter couldn't be altered.

But Harry was trying.

He was trying to get these students, who would become the backbone of society in two or three decades from now, to learn more about the Dark Arts, so that when they faced the subject by then, they wouldn't surrender to it in terror and fear or follow with unrestrained zeal and blind faith. Should they stay on their path to seeking freedom or chasing power, they would not push his child, his Tom, further away to the point of no return.

He was changing things, bit by bit - changing Tom, and changing the people around him.

"I want to know about Dementors!" Andrew, a Gryffindor familiar with Harry, called out with his hand raised.

"Alright," Harry paused, "but do you mind telling me why you want to learn about this creature?"

Andrew smiled, the boy's voice loud, "I want to be an Auror." And as anyone knew, Dementors were necessary opponents in Auror training.

Harry looked into the fifth-grade Gryffindor's glittering eyes, and couldn't help but think of himself from that year.

Unconsciously, just like now, students had already started to get in touch with the necessity of the subject - with its importance and its role. They've found a reason to understand it, master it, become familiar with it - not to use, but to resist, at the very least.

"Very well, let's talk about Dementors. Er, I think I'd need to demonstrate," Harry murmured, "and lucky for you, it just so happened that I've managed to drag Hagrid to go help me with a Boggart. He was good with it." Harry's classes were paced leisurely, and would, from time to time, get distracted. He was also a student once and understood how annoying a charged atmosphere in the classroom was. He wasn't slandering Snape, of course. Well, alright, maybe a little.

Harry flicked his wand and chanted softly before a chest flew out from the assistant's office behind the classroom.

"A Dementor is sort of like this." As soon as Harry waved in its direction, the lock on the box clicked open, and the Boggart that was initially kept inside instantly sprung out and transformed into a Dementor donning a ragged black cloak. Harry stood in front of it; the chill brought on by the Dementor climbed over his exposed neck, and some instinctive dormant fear festering in his bones seemed to instantly shake itself awake.

"Expecto Patronum." Harry used the Patronus Charm as a demonstration in front of the students, immediately driving the Boggart back into the box.

"The most effective way to deal with a Dementor is with the use of the Patronus Charm-"

Before Harry could finish speaking, a Ravenclaw girl sitting under the platform raised her hand.

"Yes, Sally?"

The girl pushed at her glasses. "Professor, how did you turn the Boggart into a Dementor? As far as I know," she fiddled with her quill, "Boggarts can only become the worst fear of the person facing it."

Harry spread his arms, uncaring for the statement, and smiled, "Exactly. What I'm most afraid of are Dementors."

From his third-year to now, it never changed. What scared him weren't so much the Dementors, but rather, his happiness being completely sucked away, leaving him with nothing but despair.


Dementors, they whispered, Assistant Potter is most afraid of Dementors.

The words soon reached Tom's ears.

From the wizarding perspective, although Dementors could wipe people's consciousness, and even take their lives, they only served as a mild threat, especially when against a powerful wizard who could cast a corporeal Patronus Charm. So having Harry's fears embodied into the form of that creature served to be a bit anticlimactic for some.

"From what my younger brother said, he didn't show any fear," a Ravenclaw calmly pointed out.

"But there is no denying that Boggart became a Dementor."

Tom appeared to hear nothing as he walked past the two Ravenclaws and headed straight towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

In the face of weakness, not everyone would show fear. The more afraid you are, the more you have to hide your emotions, and the more you have to uphold the pretence of strength.

With a smile, Tom placed his book down at his seat like usual and sat down quietly as he leaned over and read while he waited for the professor.

Harry's... Weakness.

Tom's vision seemed to be glued to the book, but the words 'Harry's weakness' were pressed carefully under his tongue and seductively savoured. Just two simple words yet they were as addictive as poppies (1). With this revelation, Tom's pupils dilated and he felt an intense excitement take him over.

Even he didn't know why he was overcome with this sort of emotion. It probably originated from his genes; much like a beast's instinct when it breaks its prey's throat, and madness is evoked by its blood.


When Harry stepped into the classroom, the first thing he saw was Tom sitting quietly reading in the middle of the classroom.

The boy seemed to feel his gaze and looked up before directing a beautiful, almost wholesome smile at Harry, reminiscent to that of a beam of light shining through a crevice of leaves in the summer. But only Harry knew how Tom suppressed the undercurrent ferocity in his expressions, hiding it behind the flickering of blood-red in his eyes just then.

Harry smiled at him, knocked on the table, then began the lesson.

"Turn to page 243 of your textbook. I'll be following the outline of this course, and talk about Sacrifice." Harry glanced at his lesson plan and began to write on the blackboard.

"Although the ritual sounds Light, Sacrifice is indeed Dark magic," Harry pointed to the picture conjured on the floating screen, "When it comes to the delimitations of Dark magic, though I don't quite agree, I must admit it - the reason why human Sacrifice is Dark magic is that its lethality is no less than its ability."

A Hufflepuff raised his hand for a question, "Professor, what is sacrifice? Last lesson, Professor Merrythought didn't answer my question." The boy looked to be a little unhappy and put out.

Harry shook his head helplessly. Since Mylene and Myrtle died due to Dark magic, the Professors who were already avoiding the topic were now more afraid than ever before.

But it was better to be informed than to be ignorant of it.

"Sacrifice, generally speaking, is to repair. It can repair anything, whether it be something as tangible as a broken palace, a mutilated body, or something as intangible as a life, a soul; even an occurrence that had already happened can be repaired and supplemented from Sacrifice." A hush settled over the class.

"It's very powerful, but you need to pay a greater price than what the ability of the spell is worth. Your strength, soul, longevity, life, and so on. It's an exchange. Magic cannot be created, only redirected. And the price you would need to pay to fulfil a successful sacrifice ritual is why it's listed under Dark magic."

Harry swept through the classroom; Tom, who was sitting in the centre, was naturally the one he noticed the most.

His head was bowed solemnly as he took vigorous notes.

"But Professor," another student called out, "this spell isn't scary, though, is it? I mean, its purpose isn't to destroy."

Harry looked at the person who spoke - a Slytherin girl.

Harry shook his head and glanced over at Tom again, who was still quietly taking notes with his head down.

"No. I once… was a witness to Sacrifice," Harry said, his voice a little dry, "Sacrifice isn't limited to self-sacrifice. For example… A child who, in order to obtain a complete body, would use their father's bones as a sacrifice. This, without doubt, is very malevolent Dark magic."

There were exhales heard from under the podium, and some Hufflepuff girls even clenched the hands of their boyfriends seated beside them.

For them, who have yet to step out into society, their fathers were still their most reliable source of support. The thought of killing their fathers was still abhorrent.

"However," Harry continued, "though there are children who'd shape their bodies with the bones of their father, there are also mothers who'd sacrifice their lives for their sons. The key difference lies in their purpose."


Two lessons in a row; Harry was almost unable to bear it.

He felt really cold.

The effectiveness of the heating charm was waning, but out of a sense of propriety, he didn't draw out his wand to interrupt the classes by recasting the charm.

Harry shuffled his feet, rubbed at his reddened fingers, and was preparing for the trek back to his office. It wasn't as warm as the Gryffindor common room, but at least he could sit in the closet for a while.

He was freezing, and though he was wearing a thick-quilted pullover, he couldn't manage to warm up at all. His body was like an ice cube wrapped in cotton.

It was visible to the naked eye how his physique was weakening, but he didn't seem to be aware.

"Harry." Someone caught up from behind, frowning, and held his cold hands. "Do you want to come with me to the Prefects bathroom? The water there is still quite hot."

Harry's hands were completely numb, unable to feel the temperature of the child's palms, but his intuition told him it was warm.

He nodded.


Footnotes:

(1) Poppies - Opium (a highly addictive drug) was derived from opium poppies (Papaver somniferum L.)