Necromancy, the art of learning the future by asking the dead what they knew about it.

That was literally the definition of necromancy. Still, whenever Harry heard that word the first thing on his mind was dark magic, not spending your time asking some random spirit what tomorrow was going to be like.

"Divination is dark magic if we're honest for a second," Professor Mesmer replied. "Learning the future, going against the flow of time itself… Seers may look harmless to the profane wizard, that doesn't mean we are or that our powers cannot harm others if used incorrectly. What you've learned so far is relatively harmless, and I say relatively because even with tasseomancy you can cause serious damages if you're not careful. With other branches like astrology or necromancy now… It can get dirty very quickly."

Phineas frowned. "How?"

"When you use tasseomancy you're basically using your own instincts to divine the future," began explaining. "But when with necromancy you're manipulating souls and trusting the dead not to destroy you. Same with astronomy: the magic of stars, the resonance each of them has with its neighbours… Needless to say, the power at work is gigantic. Astronomical, in fact. How can you even think you're in control in front of such power?"

Phineas seemed to think about it a moment. "I've never seen it like that," he admitted.

Professor Mesmer smiled. "There's a reason why religions like the Order of Astoria were built around stars. As for necromancy… The very idea to trick death one way or another has always been taboo. So when a group suddenly decides to use the dead to get a glimpse of the future you can be sure the rest of the world will do everything to take them down." He shrugged. "A shame really, necromancers were such fascinating people. The lore they built around their art… You cannot really disagree with their logic when you think about it."

"I don't see how it's logical to use dark magic and summon dead people," Harry couldn't help himself from saying. "What's the point?"

It was clear the man had been waiting for this question because he started grinning. "Well to explain this one should go back to the very beginning of necromancy. The genesis so to speak. You see, at the very beginning there were three seers who on their way home met Death."

Phineas gave their teacher an unimpressed look.

"I know what you're thinking and, no, it's not that story, Mr. Black. Unless it is," he amended, "who knows. The important thing is that one moment they were looking at a dead body and the next a creature of nightmare appeared in front of them. A monster they back them believed to be Death itself."

Harry thought about it a second. "Wouldn't that actually be a Thestral?"

Phineas turned for his head. "A what?"

"A Thestral, Mr. Black," Professor Mesmer answered. "A dark creature that only those who have witnessed death can see. And yes, reading the description we've got there's little doubt in my mind that what they saw that night was actually a white Thestral. Still, the important part is that after encountering 'Death' these three relatively powerful seers were suddenly able to see things they didn't even know existed before. And these three seers started thinking a lot. Time, and Death… Could they actually be two sides of the same coin? Wouldn't time be meaningless if there was no beginning and no end after all? And the deceased… Now that they're dead, they should be outside Time itself, no?"

Phineas thought about it. "I guess?"

The man smiled. "That's the gist of it. The dead are outside time, and so they can see the past, the present, and the future. So if you were to communicate with them, then they should be able to tell you what you need to know. On paper the logic is sound. The problem, and that's where the necromancers' problems began, is that they just could not find a reliable way to summon the deceased. Considering all their attempts needed to manipulate souls one way or another, the greatest taboo of all, it was decided by profanes and seers alike that they needed to be stopped, at all cost. Officially true necromancers have been exterminated five centuries ago and all we have nowadays are stories and a few incomplete instructions on how to summon the dead."

"Officially", Harry pointed out.

He winked. "Well, when you happen to know the right person you know there were still necromancers not so long ago. To my knowledge, the last real necromancer died 30 years ago. Some woman named Lillian. There's also Trelawney who sometimes practices necromancy but her Sight is absolute so I wouldn't quite say she's a necromancer. She's just… good at everything."

He shook his head. "In any case, All Hallow' Eve is one of the rare moments when we may have a chance at making contact with the deceased and that's what we're trying to do tonight. I'm not going to lie: there's a chance this may not work at all. Still, I think that we have quite a good chance of succeeding, all things considered."

Harry and Phineas looking at each other, unsure if that was actually a good thing.

"Professor Mesmer said Trelawney does it from time to time," the Slytherin whispered while their teacher was lighting the candles on the round table in the middle of the room. "Surely it cannot be that bad? And I doubt he'll let any harm happen to us so it should be alright. I mean, what's the worst that can happen?"

And just like that, Phineas jinxed it.


"Is that an ouija board?" Harry asked when he saw what Mesmer had just put on the table.

Mesmer looked pleased. "So you have heard of it. Yes, it is indeed an ouija board. Pretty recent invention, it's not even ten years old, so no necromancer actually used it to my knowledge but that's how Trelawney does it and that's the only thing that isn't going to get me fired." Seeing Phineas' disappointed face he raised his eyebrows. "Were you expecting me to make inferi Mr. Black?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I thought that maybe you were going to use a resurrection stone or something."

He smiled. "Well then, sorry to disappoint. Though there are records of a few necromancers attempting to make one if you want to know. So you're not completely wrong there. Unfortunately, we have to settle with what we have."

"Do you really think this is going to work?" Harry asked as the man started lighting the candles on the table.

"I don't," he admitted. "Like I said I have very little talent in necromancy and it would have been better if four souls had participated in this ritual. Still, all the other parameters are fulfilled so I'd say this is our best shot."

"And what are these parameters, sir?"

He considered the question. "A prerequisite is that one of us must have witnessed death." Harry flinched and Mesmer raised his eyebrows. Also," he continued, "there should be a connection between us and the soul we want to summon. For that one I'll let you decide who you want us to summon, Mr. Black."

He raised his eyebrows. "Me?"

"Yes, you. I want to point out that the deceased should have a strong enough connection with one of us to bother coming here so your choice is going to be very important. Is there anybody you were close to that you'd want us to summon?"

He spluttered. "Well, no. I mean, it's not as if I've got any dead parents I knew well."

"It doesn't have to be a parent, just somebody you have a strong connection with: a friend, a teacher, a role model..."

"Sorry but I've got nothing. Maybe if you ask Potter-"

"I'm afraid Mr. Potter cannot help us here. It has to be you."

Phineas grimaced. "Salazar Slytherin?" he tried.

The man blinked. "I'm… not sure that's going to work. Yes, we're from his house and we are in Hogwarts but I'm not sure that'll be enough. A wizard like Slytherin… I may be wrong but I don't think he would come for just anybody. Is there really nobody else?" Seeing Phineas hesitating he insisted, "It's really important we summon the right soul so are you certain there's nobody you can think of?"

Phineas' eyes were begging him to save him but Harry shrugged. An orphan he might be, the fact that his parents had yet to be born was most certainly the reason why the seer wasn't bothering him.

When Mesmer asked him again if he really couldn't think of anybody, the Slytherin snapped, "What about you, sir? Don't you know some dead seer who'd help us?"

Mesmer flinched.

For a long time, the man just looked at a paling Phineas, his face utterly blank. Finally, Mesmer murmured, "Let's go with Slytherin."


The man didn't say anything for the rest of the preparation. It was only when the three of them were sitting around the table and he saw Phineas' face that he sighed.

"I shouldn't have insisted that much. Your idea of summoning Salazar Slytherin is sound, Mr. Black. We can only hope the man will decide to help us. Now pay attention: I will explain how we're going to do it."

The ouija board was composed of numbers, letters, a few symbols, and common words such as "yes," or "no". They were to hold hands during the seance and think about their connection with the spirit they wanted to summon. If this worked, the summoned spirit should normally be able to move the planchette around the board and point toward specific letters if he wanted to talk with them.

"Naturally Lord Slytherin is not going to be very talkative," he pointed out. "You cannot expect real sentences, just a string of words and it'll be up to us to find out what he actually meant. If you want to ask him anything, try to make close-ended questions if possible, understand?"

Phineas nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Mr. Potter?"

Harry looked at the palette, uneasy.

The other two may believe the connection they had with Slytherin was tenuous at best, Harry was aware that his connection with the spirit was actually pretty strong: a Parselmouth, a man who fought his heir again and again… If Slytherin were to come, it was most certainly going to be because of him, and Harry seriously doubted that'd be a good thing.

"Mr. Potter?"

Harry startled and looked at his teacher's extended hand, dumbfounded. "Sorry, sir. I just-"

"You're hesitating," his teacher finished. "You're hesitating because you're scared."

"I'm not scared," he protested, pride wounded.

Slytherin died centuries ago. There was no reason for Harry to be scared of what was going to be less than a ghost. That feeling in his chest was not fear, in fact, it was closer to what Harry had felt when Slughorn had informed him what he wanted them to study for the defence project. And if Harry had told the boy they had to keep pushing then there was no reason for Harry to get cold feet now.

He took the seer's hand and intently looked at the palette.

'Hey Salazar, are you there?' Harry viciously thought as the seance finally started. 'My name is Harry Potter. I'm the man who killed your basilisk, and I want you to come here and answer our questions."


Phineas gasped when the palette slowly moved. "I can't believe this actually works," he whispered.

Professor Mesmer's face darkened. "It does, and it looks like I'm not the one conducting the seance. I suppose I should have seen this coming. This is your doing, isn't it Mr. Potter?"

Harry gritted his teeth. Almost immediately after his taunt, Harry had felt something slipping in his mind, not unlike one of Snape's legilimency attacks. "There's someone in my head."

"Don't try to fight it yet," he warned. "He's not actually in your mind, he's only borrowing your magic to make the pallet move. Focus on the seance and everything is going to be fine. See this… See this as yet another way to practice occlumency: focus on what you're going to ask him and then once we're done you will banish him like you'd force a legilimens out of your head. Got it?"

Harry sharply nodded.

"He can only listen to your questions, so you've got to repeat what I'm going to say: Is he really Salazar Slytherin?"

"Are you really Salazar Slytherin?"

The palette spun around, and pointed toward 'YES'.

"Good, good. You're doing very good, Mr. Potter. Now, ask him if there is somebody here he wants to talk to."

"Is there somebody in this room that you want to talk to?"

Once again the pallet spun around, and pointed toward 'YES'.

"Who?" Harry asked.

This time the palette moved and started pointed toward specific letters, spinning once to repeat the same letter.

R-I-D-D-L-E

Phineas raised his eyebrows. "Riddle? Slytherin wants to play a riddle with us?"

Mesmer seemed just as puzzled. "We'll try to understand later. Focus for now. What does he want to say?"

Harry didn't want to say anything yet the words left his mouth as if they had been said by somebody else talking: "What do you want to say, great Salazar?"

The palette moved once more and Harry's heart stopped when the first letter picked was a P. His worry however turned to confusion when other letters got picked.

P-U-P-P-E-T

Phineas and Mesmer looked at each other. "Are you sure this is working, sir?"

"You know what? I'm… not sure."

Harry snorted and started chuckling.

What had he been expecting? How could he even think for a second that Salazar Slytherin himself would somehow talk to him from beyond the grave? There was nothing after death, nothing. All these parlour tricks were just there to trick the gullible minds too weak to even take their fate into their own hands and this so-called Salazar Slytherin was just some fake-

In the distance, lightning struck.

The palette madly moved, as if the one controlling it was angry, and started pointing toward different letters, so fast it was sometimes difficult to see where it had been.

R-I-N-G-B-O-O-K-M-I-N-E-C-U-P-C-R-O-W-N-Y-O-

There was a scream, so terrible everybody else screamed as well at the sound of it and took their hands off each other.

It took a moment for Harry to realize that that scream had come from him.

How? How could he? How could he know? There was- There was no way this could be - It was- It was that fraud! That freak tricked him! But how did he do it? How? How?

Terror. Terror like he had never felt before, one so all-compressing Harry couldn't even breathe.

And the scariest part in all this was the realization that this fear and these thoughts were not his.

There was no other choice. He had to kill him. He had to kill all of them! He was going to make them tell him how they knew and then he'd show them all that one should never play tricks with Lord Voldemort.

Somebody raised his wand and Harry knew no more.