Ed didn't quite make it to Alastor's first class; he had a bad habit of losing truly massive stretches of time when he was absorbing new material. Ancient runes weren't too far off from alchemy, but arithmancy was like learning a whole new kind of physics.
Alastor didn't acknowledge him when he finally entered, so Ed parked himself against one wall of the classroom, about halfway back. The classroom was nearly full already, and Ed found himself fidgeting in his chosen seat, almost insatiably curious about what the lesson would look like. He'd never attended a magic lesson before, after all.
Looked pretty normal so far. There was a blackboard at the front of the room, currently blank. Alastor was sitting at a roughly organized desk, with a small stack of books, a few rolls of parchment, and a jar of quills. There was also a cage containing a large spider, half-hidden under a makeshift wooden shelter.
Hermione Granger and Harry Potter were both near the front of the class, and he thought that a few of the other students looked familiar too. Those same students were shooting him curious looks, though their attention was clearly drawn to Alastor as if magnetized.
At last, Alastor rose to his feet with a grunt, and started to take attendance. He tucked it away when he was done, examined the class, and said, "This here's a fourth year class, ain't it?" Murmurs of assent rose from the students. "Professor Lupin gave me a rundown over the summer. Let's see, fourth year... he tells me that the last three years have been damn near all about dark creatures, that sound about right?" More murmurs, and a few nods. "Not a bad foundation, but you're damn behind on curses, which could be a fatal oversight. Let's not have that."
Alastor turned away, and started writing on the board. Ed tilted his head to make out the lettering. THE UNFORGIVABLE CURSES. Alastor marked a decisive dash below that, and started the list.
"Lesson number one with dark curses," he said, "is, and always will be, the three Unforgivables. Hands up, who's heard of them?" About half the class raised their hands. "Right. The Ministry wants these to wait until your sixth year, but that's horseshit. The three Unforgivables are the most basic of dark magic spells, because they don't take a lick of skill to perform. All they take is hatred and malice. That means that every two-bit wannabe Dark wizard goes for them first."
He underscored the title decisively, and then turned to face the class again. Ed realized after a moment that he was leaning forward against the desk, as captivated by this course as the students in his class had been.
The blackboard said: Imperius, Cruciatus, and 'The Killing Curse.'
"First: the Imperius Curse. Who knows what it does?" Alastor's magic eye darted around the room, and a few slow, hesitant hands went into the air, most of them falling back down before they could go far. A redheaded student kept his high. "You- Ron Weasley, right?" The student nodded quickly. "I fought with your father in the last war. Not surprised you know at least one of these. Go on."
"It controls someone," Ron said, without looking away from Alastor. Alastor grinned at him.
"Five points to Gryffindor," he said. He turned toward the cage, opened it, and then lifted his wand and said, "Imperio."
Despite himself, Ed held his breath.
Nothing particularly showy happened at first. But after a moment, the spider crawled out from under its shelter, and then left the cage, scurrying along without any particular rush. It paused in the middle of the teacher's table, and then deliberately drew itself back, and jumped neatly onto Harry Potter's desk. Ron screeched and pulled away, but Harry just blinked at it in vague surprise.
The spider turned away, and then jumped onto the next desk, then the next, a series of calculated jumps no real spider would make. Without thinking, Ed brought his hand up to his mouth and bit his thumb thoughtfully, watching it make its way across the classroom. The urge to raise his hand and ask his questions was nearly overwhelming.
Instead, he tapped one finger on the enchanted quill and murmured under his breath, "What kind of feedback does the caster receive from the Imperius? How precise is the control? Is there a way to identify it from the outside?"
The quill immediately went to work copying the questions down. He couldn't help but smile, briefly distracted. That quill was definitely a favorite of his, as accommodations for writing went.
"The best known application of the Imperius curse is to plant spies," Alastor said gruffly, watching the spider make its rounds among the transfixed students. "It was a big old mess during the last war – lots of loyal Death Eaters in the ministry, lots of victims of Imperius, very difficult to tell the difference. Amelia Bones is one of the only ones we know for sure was under Imperius. Strong moral backbone, that woman, so as soon as she started letting people through the cracks, we knew she'd been cursed. For plenty of others, it wasn't so easy to tell."
Ed reached out to catch the spider when it jumped toward him, and held it up to examine it. The spider examined him back for a moment, and then jumped onto his face.
"Motherfucker!" With grudging care, Ed plucked the tarantula off his face and put it down on the desk. When he looked up, Alastor smirked at him, and the spider resumed its rounds.
"The Imperius curse can be used to give both general and specific instructions," Alastor explained. "It took one command to make it start jumping across your desks; I didn't tell it what order to do it in, but if I left the room, it'd keep doing it until it dropped dead from exhaustion." He nodded at Ed. "It took another command to make it jump on Elric, but not-" He pointed at the spider just as it reached Hermione's desk, and it turned to jump back onto the teacher's table. "To stop it before it reaches Weasley. Gave it that command already. You afraid of spiders, lad?" Ron nodded mutely. "There are household spells for dealing with spiders. You should look 'em up if you haven't already."
Alastor turned away, leaving Ron looking vaguely startled. The spider crawled back into its cage, and Alastor shut the door but didn't latch it.
"Second curse," Alastor said decisively. "The Cruciatus." A student whimpered. "Longbottom, you're excused. Someone'll be out to get you when we're done. I expect you know more about this curse than any other student here."
The student wasted absolutely no time scurrying out of the classroom.
"Now," Alastor said, when the door shut behind Longbottom. "Who here knows what the Cruciatus does?" Ed glanced around the classroom. There were a couple students who clearly knew, but all of them were keeping their heads down. After a while, though, Hermione lifted a slightly trembling hand, eyes downcast. "Granger?"
"The Cruciatus curse is a powerful spell that has been historically used for torture and interrogation," Hermione said, her voice just barely loud enough to carry.
"Textbook answer, good memory," Alastor said. "Tell the class that again in half as many words."
Hermione started, then pinched her brow together, and after only a moment, amended, "It's for torture and interrogation."
"Exactly," Alastor said decisively. "Five points. The Cruciatus is good for one thing and one thing only: inflicting pain. Watch." Alastor opened the cage back up, and coaxed the tarantula out. He tapped it with his wand. "Engorgio." The spider swelled to three times its previous size. Ed reminded himself again to look into magic and matter. "Crucio."
Alastor only held the spell for a second, but that was enough. The spider seized, immediately collapsing into a huddled ball as if it had died, except for how much it was twitching. Ed realized after a moment that his own heart was pounding in his chest even after Alastor lifted the curse, his nerves firing as if in sympathetic pain. It took a moment to shake it off with a shudder.
"The Cruciatus curse is the most painful thing a man can experience," Alastor said, face appropriately grim. "Worse than the rotting curse that took my leg and the blasting curse that took my eye. In small doses, it's the most powerful interrogation tool at a wizard's disposal. You-Know-Who prefers to administer it as a punishment." He paused. "In large doses, the pain can warp a man's mind until he can't tell up from down."
The spider unwound, slowly, but didn't attempt to move.
"Elric," Alastor said, when no one raised a hand. "Go get Longbottom, if he's still outside. Wouldn't blame him if he isn't."
Ed took a breath, then nodded and pushed himself to his feet. After a moment of consideration, he went to the front of the classroom and gently scooped up the spider, then headed out the door. It opened before he reached it, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Alastor putting his wand back in its holster.
Longbottom was still there, though he was huddled against the wall, crying quietly. Trying not to wonder what his connection to the curse was, Ed carefully lowered himself to one knee and held out the spider.
"The spider's fine," he said quietly. "Curse didn't last two seconds."
Longbottom jumped when he spoke, sniffled, and looked at the tarantula. Without a word, he took it with trembling hands, cradled it, and then carefully stroked its back. The spider stretched its legs, then settled back down, and Longbottom relaxed a little and wiped his eyes.
"Sorry," Longbottom mumbled. "I'm a mess."
"No big deal," Ed said, and hauled himself back to his feet with only a little bit of stumbling. Longbottom watched him until he steadied and then got up as well, and both of them returned to the classroom.
Alastor waited until they were both seated before he continued. He didn't ask for the spider, which Longbottom was still cradling in his hands.
"The last Unforgivable doesn't need any explanation," Alastor said. "The Killing Curse has one function, and it's to wipe the life from any living body it comes into contact with. The incantation is 'avada kedavra,' and not a one of you muggleborns is to make an 'abra kadabra' joke." A few students closed their mouths, visibly abashed. "You can block it, if you've got something on hand – a sheet of metal, a block of wood, a corpse. But not with any known spell... except whatever Potter's mother did to protect him."
Every eye went to Harry Potter. Interesting.
After that, the lesson turned more technical. Ed didn't have a textbook, so he focused on murmuring questions to his quill, noting them down as fast as they could occur to him. Finally, the bell rang, and the classroom burst into activity as the students packed up, chattering eagerly. Alastor beckoned Ed, who waited for the classroom to empty out before heading over.
"Any thoughts about the lesson?" Alastor asked him, both eyes intent on Ed.
"Yeah, I didn't want to disrupt anything, but I've got a fuckton of questions if you've got the time," Ed said, nearly bouncing on his feet with impatience. Alastor grunted. Ed decided to take it as assent. "Do you get any information feedback from casting Imperius? Does the Cruciatus cause any neurological damage? How thick does something have to be to block the killing curse? Is there a limit on how many commands you can give with one-"
Alastor gestured, and Ed bit his tongue, annoyed with himself. Right, people needed time to answer questions.
"So it's true, then," Alastor said thoughtfully, surprising Ed. "You're a Muggle."
Ed blinked, and then repressed the urge to roll his eyes. "A Muggle alchemist, yeah. What about it?"
"Interesting," Alastor said. "The lesson didn't intimidate you?"
Ed shook his head dismissively "Battle alchemy gets a hell of a lot more gruesome than anything you mentioned today – except maybe that rotting curse. Necrosis is nasty."
Alastor barked a laugh. "Sure is. Luckily, most Death Eaters aren't half that creative. But I've never faced battle alchemy."
Ed hummed. "It varies a little between state alchemists, depending on their specialty. My commanding officer would burn whole streets with a snap of his fingers. Another guy could turn anything into an explosive." He shrugged. "I usually just made a weapon out of any stone or metal that was handy and fought with that."
"Hm," Alastor said. "Any chance of a Death Eater picking it up somewhere?"
Ed snorted inelegantly. "Not a snowball's chance in the Colonel's office. You have to be a genius just to get to the point where you can use alchemy without calculating everything in advance, and it takes years of study after that to be able to do it quickly enough to be useful in a fight. And damn near every state alchemist I know of developed all of their own techniques, so they're completely unique."
"Techniques can be stolen," Alastor said.
"Alchemists write in code," Ed said. "Read straight, everything I've written on Dumbledore's request looks like discourse on stitching."
Alastor's mouth curved into another vicious smirk.
"You're pretty serious about this," Alastor said.
"Serious as an amputation," Ed said, and grinned when Alastor laughed.
Ed's first real lesson was on a Saturday, and though they could just squeeze into the dungeon classroom he'd been given, it was still a bit of a tight fit. Everyone seemed excited to get started. Ed suppressed the urge to grin.
"Mr. Harry Potter, sir! Mr. Harry Potter!"
Ed looked over in confusion, wondering what had Dobby so over the moon. Dobby was dancing around in front of one of the students – Harry Potter, evidently. Harry looked as surprised to see Dobby as Dobby was thrilled. Ed snorted.
"Out of the doorway, please," he called out, and let Dobby fawn over Harry while the rest of the students filtered in. When the flow stopped and Dobby showed no signs of even slowing down, Ed cleared his throat, amused despite himself. "Dobby, Harry will still be in the castle tomorrow, but I've gotta start class now."
Dobby deflated comically, but he obeyed, giving Harry one last sweeping bow before shuffling off toward the supplies Ed had set out. Harry and his two friends whispered to each other frantically, shooting Dobby unreadable looks.
"First lesson, like I said, is gonna be on transmuting stone to stone – specifically, a slab of stone into a figure. Dobby, can you pass out the chalk and everything – thanks- Yeah? Granger, right?" Ed glanced over his shoulder at Hermione, who had her hand held high and a stubborn look on her face.
"Yes," Hermione said briskly. "Sir, are you aware that all of the house elves of Hogwarts are enslaved without sick leave, pensions, or even pay?"
Despite himself, Ed felt a flicker of sympathy. Dobby cringed, moving faster as he distributed the chalkboards, chalk, and granite with little flicks of his fingers. (He gave Harry three of each – Ed figured there was a story there.)
"If you've got a better idea about how to hand stuff out with one arm, I'm all ears," he told her. Hermione turned pink. "Yeah. If you want, we can talk about it more after class, but the start of the first lesson isn't the time or the place."
"Yes, professor," she said almost meekly, putting her hand back down.
The rest of the lesson went off without a hitch. To keep their interest, Ed introduced the circle first, transmuted a block of granite into a rearing manticore, and only then did he get into the chemistry stuff: the composition of granite, the equations they'd need to balance, the visualization techniques. Eventually, he set them to draw their own circles on their chalkboards and write out the calculations, and told them all to have him check them before proceeding.
A couple of students didn't follow his instructions. Most of those students got burnt fingertips for their trouble.
"Nope, not quite," Ed told Luna for the sixth time, leaning down to look at her work. "Could you, uh, maybe label or color code the different parts of the equation so they're easier to keep track of? It looks like you keep forgetting which is which."
"Okay," Luna agreed cheerfully, apparently unbothered by her sixth failure in a row. She already had a whole rainbow of inkwells lined up in front of her, and she dipped her quill in the first, and started writing the equation out again, starting with a brilliant fuchsia.
Despite his temptation to hover, Ed left her to it and moved on. Hermione had gotten it on her second try, having needed only to redraw the circle to be more precise, and was working on making her figurine more and more detailed. As it was now, Ed could just make out the ugly start of a cat's facial features, but her progress seemed to have been slowed as she helped out her two friends next to her.
"Anything you need help with?" he asked, stopping to look. Ron and Harry both shook their heads, but Hermione brightened.
"Yes, I've been-" She gestured. "Harry is Muggle-raised as well, so he's quite familiar with math, but Ron's a pureblood and he... really, really isn't."
Ron made a grumbling sound of protest.
Ed made a sound of comprehension. "And this isn't exactly counting on your fingers, gotcha. Alright, why don't I go to the front of the class and run everyone through the basics?"
Hermione nodded earnestly, and Ed disappeared toward the front to explain the equation more carefully, breaking down the math of it step by step.
That moved the kids in the right direction, and by the end of their allotted time, most of them had at least managed to activate their circle. No one managed to make a full figurine, but that wasn't a surprise; it was pretty good progress just to be able to carve transmutation marks into the block.
A few stragglers stayed past the end of the session, too absorbed to quit now, and Hermione was among those, quietly pushing her granite block into an increasingly catlike shape with repeated transmutations.
When the last student besides her had gotten their calculations cleared and left the room, Ed went to sit beside her. She stopped working immediately, and Ed reached out and picked up the cat to study it. Each transmutation pushed the granite a little more into place, molding it like clay; Hermione had managed to form it into a four-legged shape, with triangle ears, a rough muzzle, and a waving tail.
"Pretty good for a first try," Ed said, impressed.
"Yours was photorealistic," Hermione muttered, looking self-conscious. Ed shrugged.
"I've been studying alchemy since I was a toddler. It's not exactly fair to compare our work. But you wanted to talk about house elves, right?"
Hermione forgot about her transmutations immediately in favor of bursting out, "Doesn't it bother you?"
"The whole idea was kind of weird to me, yeah," Ed admitted frankly. "But I'm new to the wizarding world, so there's gonna be stuff I don't get. You're, what was it, Muggle-raised?"
"Muggleborn," Hermione corrected, and then blushed. "Sorry, I-"
"Muggleborn," Ed amended, making a mental note to ask about the details of the difference later. "So you're not used to wizarding culture either, are you?"
"I'm getting there," Hermione said defensively, and then deflated. "But... there is rather a lot to learn. But I mean- just because it's normal doesn't mean it's good. Human slavery was normal once."
Ed softened. "Yeah. Anyway, I'll tell you what Filius told me, which is that the house elves work in exchange for room and board for themselves, plus about fifty other house elves that live here too – children, sick, and elderly, he said." Ed nodded at Dobby, who was hiding behind the desk to listen. Dobby squeezed and ducked out of sight, and Ed heard a bang. "Hey, stop that! You're allowed to listen!" To Hermione, "Filius said Dobby is the only elf on staff that would accept pay, so he gets a little extra to help me with anything that calls for two arms. Does that help?"
"...A little," Hermione mumbled, and then perked up. "Oh! But if you've thought about it so much, would you maybe be interested in joining SPEW? It stands for Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare. We have badges and everything! Our long-term aims include-"
Ed listened as she explained her idea in all earnestness, and he had to fight down the desire to laugh. She was fourteen, alright.
"I've got a lot on my plate right now," he said, when she'd finally wound down. "So I'm gonna have to say no. But Hermione, have you talked to the elves about this yet?" Hermione tilted her head, looking confused, and Ed elaborated, "Have you asked them what they want?"
"...Wages?" Hermione suggested uncertainly.
"Filius told me that Dobby was the only elf on staff that would accept pay," Ed repeated, a touch exasperated.
"They just don't know better!" Hermione said stubbornly.
"Or," Ed said pointedly, "they're a different species, from a society neither of us is entirely familiar with, and they have different ideas of work and compensation that we won't understand unless we talk to them."
Hermione opened and closed her mouth, and Ed winced at the slow spread of humiliation across her face. He suspected that she was not particularly used to being corrected. He reached out and squeezed her hand.
"You've got the right idea," he said. "Just make sure you're actually doing what they want, okay? Pick a time and I'll even come with you."