I meant to write an update for my Hatz quest first, but my dice roller wasn't working for some reason and I couldn't be assed to go into my cabinet and grab some real ones, so here we are. Never say I'm not productive.

Chapter 5: Want To See A Dead Body?

OR

I Hope You Said Yes, Cause The Morgue Told Me 'So Long, Sucker'

Sixth year is when I actually started teaching magic things. Before now was mostly just half personality tests half randomly formed thoughts structured into a lesson plan, but even those had their purposes.

You could tell a lot about a person by how they acted around others, and what they did when you handed them new toys, or what they imagined as stymying you from new toys. I saw who wrote themselves as shy or confident falter in the face of talking in front of their peers or secretly plot revenge with the new spells or lesson they learn first. Some were devious little bastards, some put up tough fronts, but they were all generally good kids, if a bit too sheltered for my tastes.

So, I think everyone was pleasantly surprised when I rolled in from a side room in my little swivel chair with a cadaver trailing behind me on a gurney. I could tell cause of all the joyous screaming they let loose on seeing todays project! Kids still screamed to show they were having fun, right? Probably.

"Good morning class! Now, who here is ready to root around a dead body!" I cheered with my hands in the air, the small shot of confetti I was keeping in my wrist having already mostly fallen out as I scooted to my normal center position, leaving a colorful trail to mark my passing. Hey, maybe I can get Dumbles a set of robes that do that for Marti Gras, I'm sure he'd love that...

The children long turned teens in the front seats looked sick with joy and anticipation, and I could see Macgulicudy shaking to get started what a good student!

"Did...did you kill a man professor?" A witch who's name I never bothered to learn over her two year stint in my class muttered a little too loudly, making my crooked smile fall into confusion.

I looked around for someone to pipe up the obvious that, no, the teacher did not just murder a man for a lesson, but they all kept glancing between me and Dave the Cadaveric Model, and I just gave a huff of disappointment.

"Some of you have had this class with me for years now, do you really think I would kill a man just for lesson? uh? HUUUHHH?"

The students glanced amongst themselves again, before more muttering came.

"I mean..." "I could see it." "There was that time he told us about those shallow graves." "Who knows what he'd do.." "I heard he had a purple monkey do the deed with a dishwasher."

My hand was cradling my face.

"You ungrateful little shits, I told you about those graves in confidence! Also as a lesson in case someone decides to half-ass killing you! No I didn't kill this guy, I just got him on loan for a week of lessons!... Also to break in my shoes, but that's for later.

The class went quiet, before, hesitantly, the tiny Ashley Ways raised her cute little hand, and asked in her deep, booming voice,

"Why?"

After the room settled and she demurely sat back in her chair, content to let me answer.

I shuddered as the voice reverberated down my bones, but carried on as well.

"Well, as most of you should know, this is a Divinations class-It is?- Shut the fuck up Darrens, don't make me throw this Griffin Door at you! I made them extra pointy, just for the wordplay!-Yes sir!-Anyway, right, Divination. So, see, none of you precious mistakes are full blown Seer's, and thank any divine being not sticking its dick in crazy for that, because it means you get to do this the hard way!

Divination as a school of magic falls into two separate categories, the physical and the purely magical. The first is the diagnosis of physical attributes and effects, most often used in medical offices to find out why and how someone was poisoned or cursed, what is wrong with them, do they need a new liver, plenty of fun stuff. The magical side is much more abstract, and mostly relies on reading things like auras, voodoo-esce connections to help or hurt others, and divining information about shit you don't even know. During the next year you'll be experiences both sides of this equation to find if you have any kind of affinity, or are particularly horrendous at something.

You're also probably thinking this is a shitload of work to dump on you in your second to last year, right? That's its totally unfair and you'll never be able to get it all done? Well congratulations, you've all seen the future! You won't get this all done. Hell, I'd be shocked if any of you got even a third of this done. Why? Cause this is REALLY. Damn. Hard. Also completely perspective based. Some of you might be able to see hundreds of thousands of miles away with a crystal ball as easily as you would close your eyes, while those same people might not be able to diagnose a papercut from genital warts.

This is NOT an art for everybody, nor should it be. With luck, you might be great at one or more of what we're trying. If you aren't, but still want to see how far you can go down this particular road, then hopefully I'll have helped you narrow down your potential focus a bit.

Now, who wants to be the first one down here to find out Dave the Cadavers real name and or cause of death! Eh, eh, I even got a nice poking stick~" I enticed by picking up the nice birch stick I had on my desk, carefully engraved with 'Poke Em' on it. I loved giving jobs to House Elves, before the rest of the staff banned my demands options from being followed.

The class, much more eager to begin after finding out I wasn't just fucking around with a dead corpse, shot their hands into the air. Over the course of the day I even only had to catch Dave's eyes and balls three times after some particularly hard pokes.

Ha, I made the right call waiting to save the dancing corpse for the second years! Learning is fun.

END OF CHAPTER

BEHOLD! A practical application of Divination. Spells caused a death, meaning no left behind murder weapon? Just call up a diviner to try and see the scene based off residual energy left around and on the body! Also, poor Dave; got caught cheating, and BOY were his Wife, Secret Wife, and Mistress not happy to stumble upon each other in the same hotel, on the same night.