After the weekend, where I was trying very hard not to confront my potential growing feelings for my girlfriend until I absolutely had to, we had our first full week of classes. The front of my week was actually significantly lighter than Thursday and Friday for some reason, with seven free periods throughout. I wondered if Hogwarts ever considered hiring a few more teachers so they could overcome the chaos that was a schedule designed for each core class professor to handle a dozen different sets of students each week. I knew the place was strapped for cash, but it certainly wasn't hurting for extra classroom space, at least.
Monday afternoon, in one of my double free periods, my spell creation group met in our favorite of said empty classrooms. "I think we're just about there," Penny said, gesturing to the arithmancy diagrams we'd set out for the exorcism charm. "It's going to come down to figuring out the right emotion again, though."
Soulfire and hellfire had both proven to be extremely temperamental power sources. Unlike normal spells that you just cast, the Unforgivables and Apologies required you to feel a particular emotion. We figured it had to do with making your own soul a proper conduit, in the moment, for the energy to flow. "It's not random, at least," Alexis suggested. "It's so much easier to cast the patronus now that we know the 'happy thought' is really more about feeling safe or protecting others. And the pride you need in the target to cast the libertas also makes sense. So…"
"So we need to figure out what emotion corresponds to freeing a target of dark influence," Percy nodded. "That at least narrows it down."
"Well, show us the wand gestures and we'll get on't," Oliver suggested, ever practical. "Incantation is Excorio, innit?"
As everyone tried to match the diagrams of wand gestures required, I finally had a leg up on the group. I'd built my unicorn horn focus around the soulfire matrix, so it ought to be able to cast any of the Apologies (I was gradually winning everyone over on the name) with it just by pointing. It definitely worked for the two we'd already mastered. So as everyone else was practicing the elaborate gesture, I was just pointing at things, yelling, "Excorio!" and trying to feel different emotions.
Not that my head start mattered much. By dinner, we still hadn't landed on it. "Maybe it will only work if there's actually a valid target?" Penny suggested, getting frustrated.
"I guess we need to get on the headmaster's schedule," Percy agreed. While Dumbledore had agreed not to just go ahead and destroy Ravenclaw's diadem, which was currently haunted by a piece of Voldemort's soul, he wisely wasn't willing to let us experiment on it without his supervision. One moment of weakness and it could be loose again in the school, a clone of the dark lord's mind driving a student's body.
I hadn't really helped the headmaster with the explanatory tap dancing required to explain to my friends why the cursed object was basically haunted without reading them fully in on the idea of horcruxes, which Voldemort used for necromantic immortality. I thought they'd probably all more or less figured it out, anyway, and were just being polite about another of his secrets.
The next day, basically the same group had our first triple potions period. Oliver had dropped out after fifth-year, so we kept our partners for the class: Percy with Alexis, and Penny with me. Professor Belby had apologized for his attacks the previous year while under Voldemort's imperius curse, but his hair was still very short: the twins had hit him with something that he hadn't been able to get out without shaving his head. I honestly didn't think he really noticed or cared what his hair looked like. To wit, the inch of graying fuzz was especially interesting on that particular day, looking almost like a dragon's ridges from him wiping his potions-slimed fingers in lines backwards as a nervous habit.
Surprisingly, he started class by waving a copy of The Prince's Potions. "If you don't have a copy of this, I recommend it," he suggested. "It's better than the standard text. Moving on…" He probably didn't even know it was my work.
Well, it was Severus Snape's work: I'd just copied the improvements he'd made in the margins when I got his copy of the book secondhand. The wizarding world's complete inattention to copyright meant, with Remus' help, I was perfectly able to sell copies of the transcription I'd mostly made to share with my friends. Selling a couple dozen to NEWT students each year wouldn't be that much money in the grand scheme of things, but it was a nice bit of additional ongoing income, and I appreciated it.
"This year," Belby continued, "we're moving on to creation. Your ability to adjust existing recipes is adequate. The dirty secret is that 'creation' isn't that much different. Few potions are truly original. You'll mostly be trying to isolate concepts from known potions and combine them into something new."
"What about your wolfsbane potion, sir?" Trudy Stump, the Hufflepuff prefect, asked.
"It was originally based on the other mental potions," he admitted. "In fact, why don't we break that down? This week's essay will be an analysis of which elements of the draught of peace, the calming draught, the wit-sharpening potion, and the memory potion are still present in the recipe for wolfsbane. I'll provide a current copy of the recipe. I've actually managed to improve it a great deal over the summer."
Remus had been telling me that working at the school with Belby had been a boon for both of them. They'd managed to get the potion dialed in so it substantially reduced Remus' "hangover" after a transformation. They were currently working on getting it to be less volatile; having to be consumed almost immediately after brewing for full potency was a real drawback. I had my own ideas about how to solve that problem with enchanting, and was currently working on a "stasis thermos" to give Remus for Christmas.
Belby interrupted my thoughts with, "But, also, start planning out what you might want to do for your creation project. Ambition will be rewarded in final grades for this term, and even if you fail, the lessons will serve you in good stead for your NEWTs. I don't want to see another 'original' potion that's just 'cure for boils, but for acne.' It's been done. Your skin will clear up on its own soon anyway." He paused, then barked out, "Dresden! You're bound to have an interesting idea! What do you want to work on?"
He wasn't really putting me on the spot. I'd already bugged him about my idea before class, so he knew I was ready. "Some kind of counter for opponents with enhanced speed, sir," I said. "Over the summer, we had a run in with a vampire who moved so fast she was almost impossible to target." There were several shocked looks from kids around the room, but with Percy and Penny nodding along, it was clear I wasn't exaggerating.
"Perfect. New, but attainable," Belby said. "You'll also likely use wit-sharpening as a base. Invigoration draught and strengthening solution may also be a good compliment so you can move as well as think faster. Also consider elements of felix felicis, since that one is as much about improving your intuition as it is about altering your luck. Next… Flinton!" he began going around the room.
Percy had an even better idea than I had, and wanted to see if he could brew a solution that would basically absorb and denature dark magic. It would be good both for potentially cleansing cursed items and for using as a thrown weapon against the undead.
Penny wanted to figure out how to come up with a primer potion that would give an imbiber enough magic for healing potions to work better on them. She claimed it was for use on wizards who were magically exhausted, but most of the class seemed pretty clear that it would also allow muggles to benefit from potions (they normally didn't have enough innate magic for most of them to do much).
Alexis kind of jokingly suggested a perfume that would get her boyfriend's mind off of quidditch. Oliver did have a tendency to be distracted by his obsession. Belby thought it was an excellent idea, though, since it would be both less unethical than love potions and potentially more useful in a general sense. Honestly, though she seemed embarrassed by getting stuck with her joke, it would probably make her a million galleons if she could get it working.
Tuesday out of the way, on Wednesday morning Madam Hooch was clearly surprised to see me at the open flying period for seventh-years. The literally-hawk-eyed coach raised a gray eyebrow at seeing me show up, "Mr. Dresden, right? Of the students I'd never expect to see out here, you'd be near the top of the list. To what do we owe the pleasure?"
Oliver grinning at my discomfiture, I asked, "Can you… please teach me how to ride a broom without falling off? In case the recent problems with long-distance apparition don't get fixed and stay fixed, I figure I ought to have flying as a backup transportation option."
Also, being fully immersed in the magical world since before my 16th birthday meant I still hadn't had the opportunity to learn to drive a car. That was probably something I needed to figure out how to resolve soon after graduating. And I'd have to do it in Britain, where they drove on the wrong side of the road, where I wasn't technically legally present enough to get a muggle driver's license, and where I'd struggle to afford a decent car with a sturdy enough electrical system that I wouldn't immediately hex it into failure. Maybe I would have to content myself with a bus pass.
"Fair enough, Dresden," she nodded, smile looking predatory due to her avian eyes. "Let's see if we can get you to the point you're not a danger to yourself. Wood: you're on spotting duty for your roommate."
"Yes'm!" Oliver grinned. "C'mon Harry, I finally get t'teach you somethin'!" He led me over to where Hooch placed a school broom, and joked, "You start by holdin' out your hand and commandin', 'Up!'"
This was going to be a long year.