CHAPTER 9:

JENOVA'S FIRST CLASSES

"This ought to be fun," Jenova said with a smirk.

McGonagall looked at Jenova disapprovingly. "Transfiguration is a serious matter, Miss Calamitas."

"Only to one who needs to learn how to do it. I have an instinctive control over my cells. And a desire to prank someone. You share it too: why else would you disguise yourself as a cat? Or for that matter, tolerate the Marauders?"

"I only let the Marauders go so far," McGonagall said icily. "At times, I wish I didn't let them get as far as they did."

The two of them were preparing the Transfiguration classroom for the first class of the term, and coincidentally, the first one for Harry. At ten minutes before classes started, McGonagall shifted into becoming a cat, while Jenova smirked, and let her skin revert to its blue colour, her hair to silver, and her eyes becoming slit-pupilled. "I look so much more beautiful like this, don't you think?" she purred to McGonagall, who merely looked askance at the alien entity, but didn't so much as meow.

Jenova pouted, and muttered, "You're no fun."

Hermione was one of the first to arrive, Jenova noted. Eager to learn, no doubt, though a bit too reliant on book learning. Hermione saw Jenova, who gave her a friendly smile.

The various students trickled in, though Jenova noted to some small concern that Harry wasn't present. She connected herself to him, and found that he was, with Ron, running along the corridors of Hogwarts, trying to get to the class. They had gotten lost.

Jenova sighed to herself. The castle was bloody labyrinthine, and changed its architecture on a regular basis. Many parts did remain the same, true, but even so…

Ron and Harry burst through the door. "Professor Calamitas is here," Ron gasped, breathless. "But where is Professor McGonagall?"

Jenova smirked again as McGonagall leapt off the desk, and shifted back into her human form. Ron and Harry's eyes widened. "That was bloody brilliant," Ron breathed.

"Why thank you, Mr Weasley. But perhaps I should transfigure one of you into a pocket watch or a map, so you can get here on time?"

Jenova chuckled. She shifted her appearance back to normal. As Ron and Harry took their seats, Jenova said with surprising gravitas, "As you noticed, Professor McGonagall is an Animagus, while I am a Metamorphagus. These are both feats of Transfiguration of no small skill."

"Indeed, Professor Calamitas," McGonagall said. "But make no mistake: Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you can ever learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. In order to demonstrate why, Professor Calamitas has a personal anecdote, a warning by example."

"Indeed I do," Jenova said. "Not long ago, I had someone who considered themselves a student of my work, a man called Hojo. He used the title of Professor rather loosely, and while an intelligent man, considered himself to be far more a master of Transfiguration than anyone who ever lived. Unfortunately, he made an extremely bad mistake while Transfiguring his own body."

A small puddle of Jenova cells, hidden in a nearby bucket, suddenly grew and sprouted, becoming a vast, misshapen mess, a tower of bruise-coloured flesh. Leaning over to one side on a grotesque paw, another limb growing bone spikes, the mouth opened in a grotesque, elongated silent scream. Indeed, there were more than a few screams from the class.

Harry was one of those who didn't scream, though he didn't like seeing Hojo in his first mutated form again. He remembered the creature pursuing them through the Shinra Headquarters, as well as the sleeker and deadlier creature that Hojo transformed into after this one was destroyed. Unconsciously, he touched the bangle on his right wrist, and the Materia he had there.

"SILENCE!" Jenova shouted. Once she got it, she said, "This creature is what Hojo turned into. This is what may very well happen if you try Transfiguration on yourself. I doubt any of you wish to look like this, do you? His life wasn't very long after he ended up like this. He died mere minutes later." Which was technically the truth. Of course, it was Jenova who killed him, ripping him apart and bathing in his blood, but the students didn't need to know that, obviously. Besides admitting to homicide, it was better to let the kids believe that a bad Transfiguration could prove lethal. Which indeed they did, as Jenova knew from perusing the texts.

"Thank you, Professor Calamitas, but would you kindly remove that hideous thing?" McGonagall asked.

Jenova nodded, and made the simulacrum of Hojo's mutated form melt away. "Remember this, children. Magic does not care about your intelligence, or your skill, or your pride, or your ancestry. It is a force like gravity or magnetism. It can be directed or commanded, but it is impersonal, and if you get things wrong, it won't care about who or what you are. It will mess you up all the same. Now, on a lighter note…Professor McGonagall?"

McGonagall, a little miffed at being upstaged, nonetheless got the attention of the class back by transfiguring her desk into a pig, and then back again. The students were suitably impressed, though they were less so when they were made to take a copious amount of notes for the first hour. And then had to try and transform a matchstick into a needle. Hermione was one of the better students, something that got her glares from the Slytherin contingent, Jenova noticed.

She wasn't just at Transfiguration, either. She was currently helping Quirrell with his first Defence Against the Dark Arts class, using a copy of her body (if anyone got curious, she would say it was a special illusion spell she had mastered). And he was a bloody idiot, or at least playing the fool, which when teaching children, was dangerous. He stuttered and stammered, reeked of garlic (and was that carrion she could smell as well?), and evaded questions that would have been pertinent to the class. In fact, he demurred to Jenova many a time, which was fine, as she wanted to show off her knowledge. But she could tell that there was an act. Oh, he was a marvellous actor, but she could see the greasepaint and costume, so to speak, the cracks in the performance and the mask.

As it happened, his first class for the year was teaching the fourth year students, namely Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, about the Unforgivables, and when he finally stammered his way to it, he allowed Jenova to take over.

Jenova folded her arms and glared at the fourth year students. "We will discuss the three Unforgivable Curses. While I won't actually be casting them, I am skilled enough with magic to show imitations of the spells and their effects. Keep in mind that you should never think of these curses so lightly, let alone consider casting it. Voldemort and his Death Eaters may have been the most prolific casters of these spells, but they are far from the only ones. So, can anyone here tell me what the three curses are?" She chose a handsome Hufflepuff boy. "And you are?"

"Cedric Diggory, Professor Calamitas. The curses are the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Killing Curse."

"Indeed. Take ten points to Hufflepuff, Cedric. Of course, many curses and spells can have lethal effects if misused. A simple Cutting Curse can, if it hits a vital artery, can kill within seconds. With enough power, it can sever someone's head from their body. But these curses are exclusively used for malevolent purposes, and using them on another person will mean imprisonment in Azkaban, which I hear is far from a pleasant holiday destination." Nervous titters arose from the class, before Jenova silenced them with a glare. "The curses were legal until 1717. The Imperius Curse effectively brings people under control. It requires a small but significant amount of concentration to continue it. The incantation is Imperio. While it is perhaps the least of the Unforgivables, it is nonetheless a violation of someone's free will. Even Confunding someone only has an immediate effect."

Taking out her wand and toying with it, tapping it against her palm, Jenova said, "Then, we have the Cruciatus Curse. It inflicts agony, directly stimulating the nociceptors of the nervous system. Nociceptors, by the way, is the Muggle scientific term for pain receptors. So perhaps we should call the spell a nocigenic spell. It requires hatred in order to work, but it has terrible consequences: due to the sheer amount of pain, some victims who had undergone prolonged exposure have been driven permanently insane."

"Like the Longbottoms," one Ravenclaw girl said.

Jenova nodded. She had been told about the Longbottoms' fate by Sirius. "From what I have read, the permanent effects of prolonged Cruciatus exposure causes what in Muggle terms could be considered dementia. Of course, there are differences. The incantation is Crucio. Finally, we come to the Killing Curse. Many a spell can have lethal effects. Only one is exclusively used for such a thing. There are no known countermeasures to the Killing Curse, at least magic-wise. Your best bet is to put something solid between you and the curse. Only one person is known to have survived the Killing Curse: Harry Gainsborough, or Harry Potter as you may know him better as."

She noticed Quirrell scowl very slightly when she said that. Almost unnoticeable, but she saw it. "Of course, it's doubtful that an unknown, innate ability saved him. The credit should probably go to one or both of his parents, who may have found a magical countermeasure. But Harry is, to date, the only survivor of the Killing Curse, and I doubt that he'd survive a second attempt. Your best bet is to get the hell out of the way, or make sure that something solid is between you and the caster. The curse has a distinctive pale green light, and the incantation is Avada Kedavra." She tapped her wand against her palm again. "It requires a large amount of magical power to use, of course, and like the Cruciatus spell, it requires a strong desire to see the person dead. Hatred, antipathy, anger…anything that makes you want another person to cease to exist."

She had their attention now, and she looked down at them all. "Remember that knowing how to perform magic to kill someone is the same as giving a Muggle a gun. While a gun may not kill a person without someone firing it, it makes killing much easier. Many a Muggle has snatched up a gun and fired upon a friend or family member during a heated argument, only to regret it later. This is why, for example, I am not showing you how to perform these curses. When you kill someone, you take away their past, present, and future. It is not something to ever be done lightly."

Jenova knew that she was something of a hypocrite for saying this. She had killed, and casually, even after meeting Harry. But she was beginning to change after learning of her origins, and while her morality was considerably more flexible than Dumbledore's, she would at least follow his party line for the moment.

The class went quickly after that, more or less, with Quirrell managing to stutter his way through the rest of the material. Jenova resisted the urge to roll her eyes with difficulty. If it weren't for the fact that he stank, she'd be amused, or annoyed enough by the stammer to smear his face across a good part of the wall.

After the class was dismissed, Quirrell said, "An in-in-in-interesting lecture on th-th-the Unforgivab-b-b-bles, P-P-P-Professor C-C-C-Calamitas."

"I did my research. Besides, it's a good attitude to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst," Jenova purred.

"And y-y-y-you said th-th-that P-P-Potter may have been p-p-p-protected b-b-by his mu-mu-mother."

Jenova suppressed a frown. It sounded very vaguely like he very nearly said something else at the end. And there was his choice of which parent. "I said either or both of his parents may have found a protection for him. I mean, it's far more likely than some innate ability. I swear, some people badly lack common sense. Oh, and remember, it's Harry Gainsborough now. He doesn't mind being called Harry Potter, but he was adopted some time ago by Aerith's Muggle mother. They both are." She deliberately said that to needle Quirrell, or at least the falsely timid man's master. "He hates his fame. It was for something he didn't do."

"F-f-fame is a f-f-fickle thing," Quirrell said quietly. "I w-w-wanted to sh-sh-show everyone wh-wh-what I c-c-could do."

Jenova looked at Quirrell with some…shock, to be honest, though she kept it off her face. It sounded like one of the most honest things he had ever said. "And what did you do?" she asked.

He chuckled, ruefully. "G-g-got sc-sc-scared out of my w-w-wits!"

"Believe me, Quirrell…if you've seen the things Harry, Aerith and I did, it'd be even worse." With that, Jenova swept out of the room, ready to go for lunch.

Sharing Quirrell's body was not a pleasant experience, Voldemort considered. He hated sharing the body of another, acting as a parasite, when he deserved a body of his own. But teaching with Professor Calamitas was another matter entirely. She reminded him a lot of the Malfoys, particularly Narcissa, but with an intelligence far above those two snobs. And she radiated power.

The newcomers who had come with Harry were a dangerously random element: Madam Gainsborough and Professor Calamitas, along with their talking toy, Cait Sith, whom he had seen at breakfast. The former a Halfblood like Harry (and like Voldemort, though he didn't think about that), the latter claiming to be and acting like a Pureblood. But they were on Potter's side. He didn't care about the name change, as Harry Gainsborough was forever Harry Potter to Voldemort.

The boy was different, too. What little he had learned from Quirrell suggested the boy was supposed to be staying with Muggle relatives, not adopted by a family of mages. The boy seemed confident, if a bit on the shy and self-effacing side. And his eyes seemed older, more haunted, than they should have been. But he had been Sorted into Gryffindor like his accursed parents.

He wondered whether Dumbledore had told the boy about the prophecy. Probably not. The old fool liked to keep his cards to his chest. He was going to avoid bringing attention to himself, though, at least at first. He'd need to make sure that he did it while avoiding too much attention. Perhaps at a Quidditch match, he could collapse part of the stands, or send a Bludger at Potter(1).

Of course, he would need to be sure that Dumbledore took no overt action against him. An old fool he may be, but he was still powerful, and it was prudent to make sure that when he did destroy Dumbledore, it would be from a position of strength.

There was one thing puzzling Voldemort, though. He could sense the Dark Mark on his Death Eaters, as long as they were in close proximity to him. And yet, he could no longer sense the one on Snape. Had the canny Potions Master found a way to shield the Dark Mark from detection? Or had he managed the impossible, and removed it? Either way, Snape would be punished, especially if the Dark Mark had been removed. But first, he needed to get back to his full strength. Even Snape could be dangerous in a duel.

But there were two things that mattered most: obtaining the Philosopher's Stone, and taking the life of Harry Potter. Once Voldemort did those things, then all else was assured…

CHAPTER 9 ANNOTATIONS:

Jenova plays around with her students, as well as being deadly serious. And Voldemort plots and plans. Oh, and Quirrell shows a bit of his true self: I read on Pottermore that he went to find Voldemort in order to prove that he wasn't a joke. It didn't end well for him, as everyone knows.

I tried finding the scene where McGonagall transforms in front of Harry and Ron, but it doesn't seem to be in The Philosopher's Stone book. In the film, it happens. So I decided to keep the scene. While this is based more on the books than the film, I'm not going to reject certain scenes or nuances because they didn't happen in the books.

Next chapter, the first Potions class, and Hagrid!

1. In The Best Revenge, this is what he does: because Harry isn't a Quidditch player in that fanfic, he sends a Bludger at the stands instead.

CHAPTER 9 SOUNDTRACK:

Voldemort's Theme: Sharaz Jek, from Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani, composed by Roger Limb. If this is the music I am thinking of, it's a good one, as it has a very snake-like feel, with lots of rattles. Ironically, though Sharaz Jek is a deformed lunatic, and bloody creepy to boot, he's not truly evil, especially compared to Voldemort.