Chapter Eight
Guest Instructor
Courtney walked through the corridor with the other Hufflepuffs toward Professor Lochram's class. It was Friday, the first day this year that they were in a shared class.
They would be spending this Defense lesson with the first-year Gryffindors.
After the schedule had first been made available, Courtney had made a habit of looking over it to see when they'd have classes with Ravenclaw. To her surprise, it seemed like the schedule was quite random, though still regular enough that every class looked like it appeared with the same frequency over the year, and Genale and Lucas assured that it was the same in every year.
But the first time that first-year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw shared a lesson was not until the end of the month, for Herbology.
By the time the doors opened, the crowd of students from both Houses was completely surrounding the entrance to the classroom. They entered and took their seats.
"Greetings, all," Lochram welcomed dramatically. "This class shall be somewhat different than previous ones. Though we have all seen Darkness at some point or another, and I am certainly old enough to have seen my fair share, few have faced and conquered the Dark in its purest form. One person, here today, has."
"Oh, no," whispered a Gryffindor boy sitting not that far from Courtney. She recognized the boy from the Sorting - Albus Potter.
"What's wrong?" Courtney muttered back to him as a figure suddenly appeared out of thin air. He was tall, with short, messy, dark hair. He wore a pair of spectacles over distinct-looking green eyes. But the most noticeable trait about him was the thin scar on his forehead, in the shape of a lightning bolt.
"Mr. Potter here is an Auror," Lochram said. "In addition to playing a pivotal role in the War against the Death Eaters not twenty years ago, to this day he tracks and defeats even more Dark wizards. Yet still, he finds the time to come here a few times each year to assist the Defense Against the Dark Arts class."
So this was the Chosen One. The Boy Who Lived. The hero of the wizarding war who had killed the dreaded Lord Voldemort. Albus's father.
"Professor Lochram has told me where you all are," Potter said. "It's still early in the year and you're all learning the basics on how to identify Dark magic. What he hasn't told you is the most important rule for now - when you get older it won't be as much of an issue, but for now treat it as the biggest: Always assume Dark magic, or at least acknowledge the possibility. If you don't know whether magic is Dark or not, you do not try to work it out with cleverness, you do not test it to make sure, you especially do not actually use the magic to see if the results are bad. You find an expert, like Professor Lochram, or Longbottom, or Carroway, and you get the answers from them. Don't take unnecessary risks."
"Indeed, any of the professors here can provide the answers," Lochram pointed out. "Longbottom, Carroway, and myself are simply more well-versed in knowledge about the Dark Arts than any other current professor."
One of the Gryffindors raised his hand. "What about when there are no experts?"
"Then you find one or wait for one," Potter said. "In a life-or-death situation, use what you know to protect yourself and keep what you don't know in your mind so you can ask later."
Courtney noticed that Albus was silently mouthing the words as Potter spoke. Something told her that he had heard this many times before.
She tried focusing on Potter's words. If you don't know what a certain form of magic is, always assume the worst and avoid it until you do know. That seemed obvious enough, but Potter was speaking about it with so much force and urgency that Courtney had to guess it was not as obvious as it seemed.
Well, of course, she realized. Potter's an Auror; who knows how many Dark wizards he'd faced who simply had no idea what they were doing. It probably was important to drill it into children's heads in first year so that they wouldn't make mistakes like that in the real world.
"Now that this is out of the way," he continued. "Many curses affect objects they hit. I brought with me a few cursed objects that the Auror Office has agreed are safe to be around. Some of the objects were damaged by curses, while others were damaged nonmagically. Professor Lochram has assured me that, by this point, all of you should know this material well enough to be able to find which ones were cursed and which ones were not."
"Indeed," Lochram boomed. "There are seventy-five items here, enough for every student in this room and then some! Choose wisely, for your ability to determine their curses will be reflected on your final scores for this year…"
At Lochram and Potter's beckoning, the students each took one of the objects Potter had brought with him. Courtney took a small circular necklace with an hourglass in the center and touched her wand against it, just as Lochram had instructed.
When nothing happened, Courtney continued moving the wand all over the hourglass, muttering the spell words in a slight whisper.
"This was never cursed," she said. She was not the first to answer, or the second, or even the twelfth, but she got the answer earlier than most.
"That's right," Potter said when he reached her. "This thing broke from a simple fall a few years ago, no magic involved whatsoever."
Courtney waited as the other students finished detecting the curses. She noticed that the ones who figured it out fastest tended to be Gryffindors - in the end, the last student was Desmond working out a candle with the Gemino Curse.
When class ended, Lochram and Potter both bid the students farewell as they departed.