Chapter 9: The First Day of Classes
Ebony had left Harry and his friends upon their arrival at Hogsmeade, but he soon saw her again, sitting to the left of Snape at the head table. She had somehow found time to replace her Muggle attire with witch's robes, though she still wore no hat. Her robes were unadorned black and of a sober cut. She was tall, he realized anew; Snape was less than a head taller than she. Ebony, like the Potions master, betrayed no emotions whatsoever, though her countenance was slightly less forbidding.
And, to Snape's right, there sat a figure at once familiar and nondescript (though, had he stood, he would have been quite conspicuous for his height). Zarekael, the Potions apprentice, himself pale and dark, sober and unwelcoming, sat calmly at his adoptive father's right, watching silently as the first years entered. Harry had briefly met Zarekael twice, once on Diagon Alley and again his second year at Hogwarts, and while the other seemed civil enough, Harry had needed no encouragement (though both Hagrid and the Weasley twins had given it) to steer clear of him. He and Ebony seemed to be on fairly good terms, though; as Harry watched, Zarekael said something that elicited a broad smile from Ebony and even a smirk from Snape. Ebony leaned forward to look past Snape at Zarekael and reply with a comment of her own.
"Three peas in a pod, they are," Ron remarked, mild disapproval dusting the words. "Looks like Ebony gets on pretty well with Snape."
Harry shrugged. "She treated us all right," he pointed out.
"Well, at least Snape likes the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Hermione said. "It's a refreshing change, I'd say."
"Maybe she's his cousin," Ron grumbled.
"Meaning what?" Hermione prompted, and Ron fell silent, obviously not sure himself.
Before another word could be said, the doors at the far end of the Great Hall closed, announcing that the last of the new students had entered. In watching the passing students, Harry happened to glance at the Slytherin table. He grinned; Malfoy sat between Crabbe and Goyle, still mouthless and in the worst mood in which Harry had seen him since they had served detention together as first years.
When all of the first years had been Sorted, Dumbledore made his customary start-of-the-year announcements, including one introducing Ebony, and finishing with one that was unusually non-threatening and even a little cheery: "This year, in place of a feast on Halloween, we will be celebrating with a costume ball."
That announcement drew cheers from most of the student body, and even the teachers seemed pleased by the arrangement.
Well, most of the teachers, Harry amended. The dark trio of Snape, Zarekael, and Ebony showed different reactions. Snape, predictably, wore a scowl, and his mouth had a turn to it that indicated a severe case of dyspepsia. Zarekael's frown was more thoughtful, but it caused his inhuman blue eyes to narrow in something akin to a blood-freezing glare, beside which Snape's countenance was by far preferable. Ebony, for her part, wore a neutral expression that Harry had learned to associate with deep and dangerous thought; she had usually worn it immediately before launching into a tirade about what a rotten, spoiled, stupid, useless, scumsucking lowlife Dudley (or one of his friends) was.
Occasionally, such an expression had preceded something fun, but that something had always been accompanied by something else—a something so alarmingly bizarre sometimes that the incident could later become a fond memory, but it was rarely an unadulterated pleasure at the time.
One memorable occasion that hadn't been so disturbing was a game of dodge ball at recess in which she, the teacher, had participated. At Dudley's complaint that the game was boring, Ebony had divided the teams in a much more interesting way: herself versus her twenty-five students. That had been good and well . . . and then she had added to the mix a basketball and two footballs, along with the usual bouncy balls.
Dudley had immediately risen to the bait, seizing both footballs and sending one at Harry's head and the other at Ebony's stomach. He missed with both, fortunately for the health of everyone involved, and then Ebony had started dealing out her blows. She never was hit, and she never used the harder balls, though she obligingly rolled them back when they came her way. Her aim was far better than Dudley's, with the result that, after a volley in which she had thrown perhaps thirty times, Dudley was the only student left in.
"At least you could say you were gotten out by a well-aimed throw!" she called. "If I were going to be nice to you, that is."
During her comment, Dudley had hurled the basketball as hard as he could, his aim even worse for his frustration. Somehow, though, Ebony got under it, her arms wide open, and as soon as she stopped speaking, she caught the ball soundly in her hands.
Ebony had a quirky enough sense of humor and a twisted enough mind that Harry could not help but wonder, and that very worriedly, just what sort of idea was taking form behind that bland, impassive face of hers. Halloween at Hogwarts was never boring . . . but this year he had no doubt that Professor Meli Ebony would make it thoroughly, perhaps even traumatically, interesting.
It had been five years since Harry had last sat in Professor Ebony's class, and that had been in a Muggle school. He had only a few remembrances of specific occasions, and he recalled nothing at all about her teaching method. That he had learned a great deal when she taught was an indisputable fact, but his fondest memories were of her disciplinary methods and the torments through which she had regularly put Dudley.
Professor Ebony proved to be vastly different from every previous Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Harry had had, and yet she seemed to share important traits with both Professors Lupin and Moody. She gave the class her name, then immediately launched into a lecture. Less than a minute in, every student was furiously scribbling notes, and within three more minutes, Ebony was firing off pointed questions to which she expected informed answers. Fortunately, it was all review, but summer break had allowed a great deal of dust and cobwebs to settle over pixies, hinkypunks, vampires, and werewolves.
Ten minutes into class, Ebony abruptly stopped, straightened her duster sweater (she had traded in her witch's robe for black jeans, a blue blouse, and a black hooded duster), and leaned back against her desk, a faint smile on her face. "Got your attention now, have I?" she said lightly, drawing every eye to her. "Since you're all now familiar with my method of lecture, I needn't waste any time explaining it to you. Those of you who read and comprehend on schedule should have nothing to worry about."
To Harry's left, Neville Longbottom started to sweat.
Ebony, perhaps aware of this, continued smoothly, "And for any who have trouble with the material, I am available in between classes, and I'll remain in my office until dinner. Seek me out at your own convenience; anonymity will be preserved, naturally, if such is your pleasure. Only don't suffer in silence." Her smile turned sardonic. "I'm a Gryffindor myself—I understand the compulsion to be a martyr. Please allow me to suggest, however, that martyrdom is both more useful and more honorable on the battlefield than in the classroom."
Light ripples of laughter rolled through the class, and even Neville cracked a relieved smile.
"Now," Ebony resumed, "our subject matter has always been intriguing, but perhaps some or all of you may find it to be even more so in these uncertain times." Her eyes narrowed. "I caution you from the beginning: While you should never treat any of this as theory, do not treat it as practical offensive weaponry. Some of you have had contact with practitioners of the Dark Arts, and what you've learned in this class in the past has served you well. Keep in mind, however, that the title of this class is Defense Against the Dark Arts. What you learn here is learned for defense. Leave offensive strikes to the Aurors, no matter how your courage and bravery might tempt you to act." She paused, looking each student in the eye before continuing. "Believe me, if He-Whom-You-Do-Not-Name is around for long, you will get much more out of what I teach you if you use it defensively rather than offensively."
She stood upright once more and resumed her lecturer's air. "The first step in any mode of defense is to think," she stated. "You analyze the threat, and you devise the best possible defense against it. Only afterward do you act. This can be an almost instantaneous process. For example!" She swooped down on Seamus Finnigan like an attacking harpy. Seamus nearly tumbled over the desk behind him in an effort to dodge her.
"There!" Ebony said triumphantly. "Well done, Finnigan. Five points to Gryffindor. You saw me coming at you, you perceived that I could knock you over, and you determined that the best way to prevent it was to get out of my way. All of that in the blink of an eye!"
Seamus did not look any less startled or ruffled for this hearty congratulation. Ebony, however, had already returned to the front of the classroom and to her lecture.
"Reflexes serve us well," she told them. "But it is the threats for which we need more than reflexes that require the most preparation. Thought must take place ahead of time, and it is these reactions which most matter in the end." She turned sober eyes briefly to Harry, then away. "Magic is of little, if any, assistance here. It is who we are, what we value, and why we hold certain beliefs that determine if we will fall or stand against a wielder of the Dark Arts. If you do not know what you believe and why, you will flounder and fall when it is called into question—and it will be called into question."
She turned, pointing her wand at the air above her desk. "Tabula rasa." A clear, shimmery surface appeared where she had pointed. "I submit for your consideration the following assertion," she said, busily writing across the surface with her wand. "'There is no such thing as good or evil. There is only power and those too weak to use it.'" When she stepped away, those same words glowed green in the air above her desk.
Something twisted in Harry's stomach. He had heard those words before, but they had been stated as fact, and they had come from the mouth of Voldemort himself.
"Is there," Ebony asked, tapping her chin thoughtfully with her wand, "anyone here either who accepts these statements as true or who is willing to play the devil's advocate?"
The question was greeted with stony silence.
Ebony raised her eyebrows. "Cautious Gryffindors," she observed. "How refreshing." She smiled daringly. "Then is there anyone who would like to vocalize opposition to the assertion in question?"
Hermione slowly raised her hand. "I will."
"Very well, Miss Granger." Ebony gazed steadily at Hermione, with all the appearance of a predator considering her prey. "You oppose this stance. Why?"
"Because there is right and wrong," Hermione replied.
"How do you know?" Ebony countered. "How do you know that good and evil are not the inventions of leadership figures who use such concepts as a means for furthering and consolidating their own power?"
Hermione was taken aback. "Well," she stammered after a moment, "my conscience tells me there's right and wrong."
"Ah, yes. The conscience." Ebony smiled. "But the conscience is a product of socialization, and if you have been socialized by the very people who invented the concepts of good and evil, your conscience cannot be objectively relied upon as proof, can it?"
Ron now leapt in to the rescue. "But Dumbledore's the most powerful wizard of our time," he declared stoutly. "And he doesn't flaunt his power; he knows the difference between good and evil." This elicited murmurs of agreement and approval from the rest of the class.
"Most powerful wizard, you say?" Ebony cocked her head to one side. "If he's so powerful, why is He-Whom-You-Do-Not-Name still a threat? You will answer, doubtless, that it is because Dumbledore has a conscience. He withholds his hand because the actions necessary to decimate his enemy require use of the Dark Arts, which has been deemed evil?"
Ron nodded stubbornly.
"Does he not do a greater evil by allowing that enemy to live?" Ebony countered. "By withholding his hand, Dumbledore permits this menace to go unchecked—perhaps even, one day, to take control. If such things as good and evil exist, is this not a great evil?"
"There are other ways of defeating Voldemort," Harry heard himself say. All of the students recoiled at his use of that name, but Ebony turned to face him fully, a triumphant light darting through her eyes almost too quickly to see.
"I'm listening," she said.
Harry swallowed, deeply regretting having spoken. His thoughts were in complete disarray. If there was anything Ebony had proven so far, it was that evidence mattered just as much as
assertion . . . but what did he have in the way of evidence, after all?
Before he said anything, Ebony smiled. "Very good, Potter. Get your thoughts together first."
Harry forced a smile, and as he did, one thought came to the fore. "Some things are more powerful than Dark Magic," he stated. "A willing sacrifice can turn back even the Instant Death curse."
"And why, do you think, is such a sacrifice more powerful than the Kedavra curse?" Ebony asked softly.
He shook his head. "I don't know," he replied. "I haven't figured it out exactly; I just know for a fact that it worked."
Ebony looked measuringly at him, then broadened her attention to the whole class. "When faced with this test," she said deliberately, "there are two things only on which you can rely: facts and indisputable experience. Experience is most compelling when it is also backed by facts, rendering it more objective than subjective. Logic and rhetoric, in the end, are the tools of confusion, not clarity. When all is said and done, the very foundation of everything you know, believe, and stand for must be basic, inarguable facts. If you don't understand the facts behind your experience, it is imperative that you study to discover them; experience will get you so far, but you must understand why it worked."
She smiled again. "Ten points each to Weasley and Miss Granger for courage and fortitude in the face of a very difficult teacher who delights in flummoxing students. Ten also to Potter for helping me to illustrate the point of this exercise."
There was only time then for her to give out their reading assignments before the bell rang. Harry couldn't help wondering as he left with Ron and Hermione just how much thought Professor Ebony had put into opposing Voldemort's assertion and if she had ever actually battled it out with a Death Eater.
Double Potions, the class immediately after Defense Against the Dark Arts, promised to be better this year, if for no other reason than the fact that Snape would not be teaching it. Since beginning his apprenticeship the year before, Zarekael had been responsible for teaching the three upper levels of Potions. Snape supervised his apprentice's teaching, it was true, but the job of tormenting students (or not, as he chose) fell to Zarekael.
When compared with classes in which the teacher was openly pleasant, Potions still ranked low, but Zarekael was so little disposed to favoritism of Slytherin—and so little disposed to point deductions—that Harry considered it his best class of the day. The Potions apprentice was every bit as dark and forbidding as the Potions master, all the more so because of his height and evident physical power, but his silence was a blessing for every Gryffindor present.
Malfoy, unfortunately, was not so silent. His mouth had been restored to him sometime before classes started (though Harry suspected that Ebony had not been a part of that act of mercy) and now he made far too much use of it. He had a snotty comment for everything and everyone on the Gryffindor side of the room, and only an icy glare from Zarekael motivated him to pipe down.
Snape came out of his office and into the classroom near the end of the period, and then Malfoy made a very serious misstep.
The snide Slytherin, having gotten to a point where he could stop monitoring his cauldron, stood up and walked over to Snape, a gleam in his eye that told Harry he was up to no good. Harry nudged Ron and Hermione, who looked up just as Malfoy arrived at his destination.
Snape raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Is there a problem, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked.
"Yes, sir." Malfoy smiled ingratiatingly. "Do you think it's right for a teacher to single out a student for the purpose of persecuting and humiliating him?"
Something like amusement touched the Potions master's mouth, and his eyes flicked to Harry, then back to Malfoy. "Your point, Mr. Malfoy?" he prompted dryly.
"Ebony did that very thing to me!" Malfoy replied indignantly.
"And yet for all the persecution and humiliation you claim to have undergone, the lesson seems to have been in vain because it has not taught you to shut up!" Snape countered, his voice raising slightly in volume. He glared at Malfoy, something which Harry could not remember Snape ever having done to any Slytherin. "Now I am going to ask you a series of questions, which you will answer promptly here and now."
Malfoy, his eyes wide, nodded just a touch too quickly.
"First, Mr. Malfoy, if you have a legitimate concern to bring to the Head of your House, when would be the best time to do it—while he is supervising a class, or when he is free to talk with individual students?"
Malfoy gulped. "The . . . latter, sir."
"And, moreover, should you do it privately, or in front of a number of people who have little or nothing to do with the issue?"
"Privately . . . sir."
"And if that concern requires you to speak to your Head of House about one of his colleagues, would you do better to speak of that colleague respectfully, or disrespectfully?"
By now, Malfoy's ordinary pallor had taken on a tinge of sickly green. "Respectfully, sir."
Snape's eyes had narrowed to burning slits. "And lastly, Mr. Malfoy, when presenting a concern to your Head of House, should you go about it humbly, or with a repulsive, cocky arrogance that shows your concern to be nothing but the petty politicking of a pathetic and prideful little prat!" He waited a moment, watching Malfoy go from sickly to faint, then said, "You don't have to answer that.
"In future, Mr. Malfoy, I suggest that if you have a problem with Professor Ebony, you take it up first with her. If that fails, or if you prefer to come to me, behave properly or be prepared to suffer the consequences." He paused again, then shifted his attention to include the entire class. "The Slytherins will please note that thirty points have been deducted for your classmate's reprehensible stupidity. You may take some comfort, however slight, in the fact that he will also be serving a thoroughly unpleasant detention, as well."
With that and a stiff nod to Zarekael, Snape exited the room once more, leaving Malfoy to return miserably to his seat, the eyes of everyone in the room riveted on him.
The bell rang five minutes later, and immediately whispering erupted all over the room. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stowed implements in their bags, their heads close together to facilitate conversation.
"I never thought I'd ever see something like that!" Ron breathed. "Snape dressing down Malfoy—and for a Gryffindor who's got the job he wants, no less! Do you think Snape's sweet on Ebony?"
"Well, they're friends, anyway," Hermione allowed. "But I don't think it was just because of Ebony that he went off like that."
Harry looked sidewise at her. "You think it's because of Malfoy?"
She shrugged, then closed and shouldered her bag. "Do we know that Snape ever liked Malfoy?" she countered. "He'll favor Malfoy over us because we're Gryffindors, but if Malfoy by himself pushes Snape too far, or if Malfoy sets himself up against one of Snape's friends . . ."
Harry nodded as the pieces fit together. "Boom."
"Exactly."
"Well, it's more comforting to think of that than of Snape being sweet on . . . well, anyone," Ron conceded. "And it was nice to see Malfoy get his due for once."
They stepped out into the corridor, past a group of muttering Slytherins. Harry glanced at them, then back at his friends. "I have a feeling Malfoy's going to get a lot worse behind closed doors," he whispered. Hermione nodded her agreement; Ron just smiled.