Chapter 3: New Classes.
When the Hogwarts Express arrived at the village of Hogsmead the students disembarked and divided into two groups. One group composed of all the new students went off with Harry's good friend Hagrid to sail towards the castle of Hogwarts across the great lake that surrounded it. The rest of the students made their way to the castle in carriages. Last year the carriages had been pulled by nothing visible, perhaps only by magic itself. This year the carriages were hooked up to skeletal looking horses that had no fur, only black leathery skin and bat-like wings folded at their side. Harry thought they were rather creepy looking but there was a kind of nobility to them. No one else seemed creeped out by their presence though so perhaps these spectral horses were more common in wizard society than Harry thought.
The carriages got them all to the school without incident. Before Harry could get to the great hall for the sorting of the first years into their different houses and the welcome feast that followed, Harry and Hermione were called out by their transfiguration teacher and head of house: Professor McGonagall. She took them back to her office for a quick conversation.
Apparently Professor Lupin had told her about their dementor encounter and she wanted to make sure Harry was alright. Harry appreciated her concern but he found the whole episode rather embarrassing and so insisted he was fine and didn't need any help. After Madam Pomfrey, the school's healer, had had a look at Harry he was allowed to wait outside while Hermione and McGonagall had a chat about all the classes she wanted to take this year.
Luckily the two of them made it back for the feast, though they missed the sorting ceremony, when the first year students would get sorted into one of four houses based on certain inherent traits that a magical talking hat could detect within them. The bravest joined Gryffindor, as Harry had, the smartest went to Ravenclaw, the most loyal and hardworking went to Hufflepuff, and the most ambitious and clever went to Slytherin. Harry had missed the last sorting as well so he was a bit disappointed not to get to see it this year either. Still there was the feast to look forward to, so they took seats by Ron and Nevil and dug into the meal. Harry always loved the welcome feast at Hogwarts. More than anything else it made him feel like he had made it home.
After everyone was done eating Professor Dumbledore spoke. He reminded them that custodian Filch had a list of forbidden items that people weren't allowed to use, likely because they would be too much fun. That casting spells in the hallways or out of a teacher's guidance was discouraged. That the Forbidden Forest was as the name suggested forbidden to enter as it was quite dangerous to those not prepared to brave its depths. He also announced they had two new professors starting this year.
"Professor Remus Lupin will be taking the post of teaching defense against the dark arts this year." Dumbledore said to a smattering of applause mostly from Harry and the others who had seen him destroy a dementor already. "And he has promised me he will actually teach his students to cast spells that have proven to be effective at defense. So he already seems quite the improvement over last year's professor."
"Additionally," Dumbledore continued. "It seems Professor Kettleburn has decided to retire inorder to enjoy the rest of his life with as many of his fingers still intact as he has managed to save. Our own Rubeus Hagrid has agreed to take up the post in addition to his other responsibilities as our faithful Groundskeeper."
This met much more applause as Hagrid was already quite well liked by many students. Harry, Ron and Hermione were especially glad to see their old friend beaming with pride. The massive man, for Hagrid was taller than any man Harry had ever even heard off and almost as broad as he was tall at that, stood up and bowed to the crowd while smiling gladly at everyone. He waved to Harry and his friends in particular.
"Finally I must warn you all," The Headmaster concluded. "The ministry of magic has stationed a squadron of dementors around the school as an added security measure for the time being. I advise you all to avoid contact with them, allow them to go about their work and not to do anything suspicious around them such as trying to sneak past them in an invisibility cloak. They would see through something like that easily and be most annoyed by it."
After that the feast formally ended and everyone retired back to their house dormitories. Harry and his friends made their way up one of Hogwarts' many towers to reach the Gryffindor dorms, hidden behind a picture of a great fat lady who refused to move her picture aside unless they told her the proper password. Percy Weasley acting as Head Boy, the leader of the student prefects who helped enforce the school rules and provide aid to students in need, had already told them the password for this first term and so they made their way inside without issue.
Term started well enough for Harry. Since he had studied ahead in his transfiguration and charms textbooks he was well prepared for the early lessons, found it easy to stay on top of his homework and performed almost all of the spells expected of him without difficulty. In fact he soon found himself rated second best in school in those subjects just behind Hermione who still out performed him when it came to managing the theory, history and trivia minutiae that surrounded most spells and made up no small part of their assignments. But now she occasionally came to Harry for help when it came to actually casting something that seemed particularly tricky.
Not everything became easier this year though. History of magic lectures still proved a struggle to remain awake through thanks to the exceedingly boring and plodding lecture style of the ghostly Professor Binns. The fact that the history of magic textbook was Esharry's second least favorite textbook didn't help. He thought the thing was using its boring style to gloss over uncomfortable facts if not outright lie about them. Harry just thought it was oversimplifying things in an overly complicated way.
Take the witch burnings of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. The book said that very few witches and wizards were affected by them thanks to being able to use magic like the flame freezing charm to avoid injury and execution. But Harry had talked about these events with the surprisingly knowledgeable owner of his favorite ice cream parlor who had directed him to some dedicated writing on the subject. Turns out this was only true of burnings that happened as a result of witch trials, when the local nobles decided to rob the unpopular and distrusted people in their territory by getting them convicted of witchcraft, executed and their property confiscated. A wizard could easily avoid this kind of trouble with disillusionment spells, memory altering charms or indeed faking their own deaths at the burning itself.
But other witch burnings were harder to avoid even for powerful witches and wizards. Some were caused by cases of mass insanity that broke out after plagues, marauding armies or famines had made the people desperate to lash out against anything they might be able to blame for their troubles. If a wizard didn't read the wind as it were and got out of dodge real quick they could find themselves facing down a mob of a few hundred angry muggles. By the time they were done with a wizard and ready to throw them into a fire they wouldn't be able to speak let alone cast a flame freezing charm. Assuming they hadn't already been hung and stabbed with a scythe a few times by that point.
The worst witch burnings were those organized by either the Catholic or the Spanish Inquisitions. Those knew when they were after wizards and knew about other magic creatures that could help them fight against magic. Goblins, dwarves and high elves often believed in Catholicism at that time and had little reason to love wizard kind and so were more than willing to provide magical protection for the inquisition. And that was when the Catholic church wasn't willing to call upon their holy orders of werewolf knights to take on the wizards they were after.
The idea of separating the magical and mundane world gained a lot of traction after the second attempt to mind control the Pope not only failed but was found out by the muggles and damn near led to the end of magic in Europe.
But that was some pretty heavy stuff for fourteen year olds so Harry didn't mind the book glossing over it. Esharry took any attempt to hide information from him as a personal affront. Either way it made slogging through both book and class a real chore for the both of them.
Potions was another class that Harry still had trouble with. Not because the work was hard, although Harry found the detailed instructions of potion brewing much more complicated than any spell craft, but because the class itself was not taught very well. For starters how the book called for a potion to be brewed sometimes was not the same way Professor Snape wanted it brewed. So Harry reading ahead in the book often didn't help. The other problem was Snape himself. The man loomed more than taught. His presence was a constant source of stress and intimidation. The fact the man seemed to have it out for Harry didn't help matters.
Snape seemed to think Harry loved attention, had an overly high opinion of himself, and thought rules applied to other people. So he took it as his responsibility to give Harry as much bad attention as possible, prick his ego at any chance, and bring the rulebook down on him whenever the opportunity presented itself. It was especially infuriating because Harry hated being a celebrity and found it embarrassing, didn't think he was anything special and only ever broke those rules that stood in the way of him helping his friends.
His performance in the class did improve. Two minds were better at keeping track of what to do next than one was. Plus whenever Professor Snape loomed too close and tried to get under Harry's skin he just let Esharry take over management of his limbs so his body could divide his attention between Snape and the potion. The first time his arms kept moving back and forth while he verbally sparred with his professor Snape had worn such a sneer, certain Harry had messed his potion up but it turned out near perfect.
"It seems your work improves when you leave it to random chance Potter." Snape declared after that project worked out well enough.
"Or perhaps it's that if you weren't here I could ace this class with my eyes closed." Harry shot back.
"Five points from Gryffindor." Snape condemned. "And I better not see you adding ingredients without paying the closest attention to what you're doing again. I don't need my whole classroom destroyed by your arrogance."
So pretty much the same as ever if Harry was honest.
This year Harry had three new classes. His first was Divination, which Harry had taken because it seemed easy from what he had heard. Even just finding the classroom was difficult though. Harry, Ron and Hermione had to ask a portrait of an irascible knight called Sir Cadogan for directions. The man was obviously a little bit crazy but he got them to the classroom on time.
The Divination classroom was laid out like a comfortable living room. The chairs were large recliners, there was a roaring fireplace with a tea kettle over it, one wall held a collection of china cups, and there were side tables scattered about the room with doilies on them. Also the air was heavy with the smell of burning incense. Professor Trelawney was certainly an eccentric woman. She swept into the room like she was flouncing on stage, she moved with exaggerated grace and spoke like she was proclaiming dark secrets.
"One of our numbers will leave us before the end of the year." She pronounced.
"Our second term will be delayed when I come down with a bad flu in January."
"That thing you are dreading will happen in October." She said to one girl.
"When you have broken your first tea cup please take your replacements from the blue ones." She said to Nevil.
Their first lesson was on reading tea leaves. Take a cup of tea, hold it for a few minutes, drink it quickly and then hand the cup to a partner to interpret it based on the common shapes laid out in the book. Simple enough. Although between the hot tea, too warm room, thick atmosphere and comfy chairs it was very difficult to remain awake.
Unfogging the future was Esharry's least favorite textbook and he held the opinion that this class was a waste of Harry's time. It wasn't that Esharry didn't believe the future could be predicted. Quite the opposite really. But everything in the book seemed vague to him. Too open to interpretation. But his opinion changed after class had begun.
Look at his hands. Esharry told him, and when Harry looked with his psychic sight there did seem to be some small amount of power leaking from Ron's hand into the cup. Something from Ron was affecting the tea leaves.
When they finished their cups they switched, flipped their cups over onto their saucers and let the remaining tea drain away, then they could study the leaves. At first it looked to Harry like a load of soggy brown stuff. But with his psychic sight his eyes were drawn to two spots that did actually look like things. One was kind of like a bent cross, or maybe like a person sneaking up behind someone else. The other like a large dot, maybe the sun?
"Let's see." He said. "According to the book this could be a bent cross which means you're going to suffer. But this looks like the sun which means you're going to have good fortune. So things are going to start out bad then get better later."
Shouldn't the sun be related to revelation or new beginnings? Esharry wondered. Good fortune is what the book says, Harry responded in his head. The book makes little sense to me. It assigns definite values to things that should be open to interpretation while being vague about methods and techniques. Personally I think this means someone is going to betray him, or he's about to discover something long hidden from him.
Ron's predictions of Harry's leaves didn't make much sense either. But they did attract the attention of Professor Tralawney who saw something else entirely in Harry's leaves.
"My dear!" She exclaimed, "The Falcon! You have a deadly enemy."
Which was true as Hermione pointed out. Lord Voldemort wanted him dead at least. So that prediction was as safe a bet as that Nevil would do something clumsy.
"The club! You are going to be attacked, this is not a happy cup." The professor continued ignoring Hermione. "And this last, it's almost too terrible to mention. The cup has a grimm in it, a great black dog that haunts churchyards. An omen of death and a terrible one at that!"
Hermione thought this was all ridiculous and Tralawney didn't appreciate her doubting attitude. Ron said that grimm were serious business, one of his uncles had died after seeing one. Harry was inclined to perhaps agree. He had seen a large black dog just before the Illithids nabbed him. So maybe they did indicate that bad things were about to happen.
Most of the class seemed to agree with Ron and were treating Harry like he was a dead man walking. Luckily Professor McGonagall dispelled most of that when she revealed during their next class that Tralawney predicted the deaths of at least one new student every year and so far none of them had died. Harry guessed that McGonagall and Trelawney didn't get along well with each other.
Harry's next new class was care of magical creatures with his old friend Hagrid. Hagrid was the first person that had ever treated Harry with any kindness or respect. Harry loved him for that and would always stand by his side.
Harry drew quite a few eyes with his monster book perched on his shoulder, occasionally affectionately nuzzling at him. Most everyone else had their books chained, or strapped closed. Harry had told Ron and Hermione about how to open their books by tickling their spines, though Ron hadn't believed him.
"Come on, come on." Hagrid urged everyone on to a pen set out behind his hut near the edge of the forest. "Got a special lesson to start ya all off with. These creatures are a bit advanced so pay close attention and be careful. Now open yer books-"
"How?" Draco Malfoy interrupted with a sneer. Harry and Draco had never gotten along well with each other. Harry had rejected Draco's friendship when he realized the man was a stuck up overinflated git who looked down on people just because of who their parents were. So far this year Draco had spent the last few days implying that Harry had fainted just because a dementor had come close to him. Which was partially true. But Draco was such a coward he couldn't stand to spend more than a few minutes in the forbidden forest and ran at the first sign of trouble.
"Couldn't you even figure that much out Malfoy?" Harry shot back, "Just stroke the book like you would any pet. Honestly if you can't even handle a book I don't know what you're trying to do training magical beasts."
"Don't be that mean Harry." Hagrid tried to calm Harry down, but Harry really wasn't having it. He never had much patience for Draco's nonsense and even less so these days. "But there are quite a few tricks to figure out about those books. It looks like Harry's already figured out a few of them. Fur instance you can get the book to open by tickling their spines. Once the book likes you it can actually find topics fur ya just by asking it."
"I encourage all of ya to try and get to know those books and their secrets." Hagrid encouraged them as people began stroking their books to open them up. "Them books got tricks to em, just like any magical creature out there. Tricks that if ya learn can make even the most nasty and dangerous seeming beasty into a lifelong companion. I been working with dangerous beasts for longer than most folks been alive and I'm still alright cause I treated em all with respect, learned their tricks and kept em in my mind while dealing with em. Treat them books with respect and care and ya might just get a faithful and useful companion out of it."
"This all would be so much easier with a normal book I could just read without having to worry about my fingers." Draco complained. "What possible use for a book could there be besides reading it?"
Harry clicked his tongue to get his own monster book's attention, shook his head in Draco's direction and said, "Sic em."
The monster book leapt from Harry's shoulder where it was perched and cleared a good ten feet by flapping its cover to stay airborne before it hit the ground. With a second bound it was on Draco before the blond boy could even get his wand out. With a snap it closed on his robes, latched in place and swung Draco around with its momentum dragging him to the ground while Draco gave a quite unmanly cry of fright and put his hands around his face to shield himself.
Hagrid gave a loud whistle which made all the monster books freeze and turn their attention towards him. The giant man gave another signal with two quick claps of his hand, one quite high pitched the other very low. At the signal all the books snapped shut and went still, though Harry's made its way back to his side before it did so. Esharry noted that Hagrid had some tricks of his own for the books which even Harry hadn't worked out yet.
"Bad form Harry." Hagrid scolded, though Harry thought he might be one step short of laughing. "I think I'll have to take a few points from Gryffindor over that. No attacking other students with yer school supplies."
"Sorry Hagrid." Harry apologized.
"Right that settles that then." Hagrid nodded in acceptance. "Where was I? Ya got yer books, now ya need the magical creatures to go with 'em. I'll go get 'em."
Hagrid vanished for a moment but soon returned bringing a number of strange horse-like creatures with him. They had the back ends of horses, with fur, tails and hooves, but their front ends were like those of some great bird. With great wings, claws on their forelimbs, beaks on their faces and feathers on their chests. Hagrid chained most of them up to posts in his paddock, but he led one of them over to the group.
"Hippogriffs." Hagrid declared. "If ya look in yer books you'll see they are rated as a five on the danger scale, just one below a manticore, same as a proper griffin. And they deserve it too. Their claws can do a real number on ya and they can be quite fierce. But as I said there's a trick to em, and if ya know it they'll never be a threat to ya."
"There's this thing called the laws of hospitality." Hagrid went on. "Means being polite, respectful, complementary and a good guest. And as long as someone is that way ya have to take care of em, so long as they stay with ya. Lots of fey, most elves and quite a lot of creatures abide by them rules, so ya should learn em when ya got the chance. Hippogriffs follow something like em."
"Hippogriffs are proud ya see." Hagrid continued. "Insult them and ya had best start running cause they'll hound ya to the edge of their territory fur even the least bit of rudeness. But treat them with respect and they respond in kind. Can't hurt someone who's been polite to ya, thems in the laws of hospitality. So all ya got to do to be safe around a hippogriff is this. Approach them straight forward, look em in the eye and then bow. Once they've bowed back, yer good and safe. If they don't bow then back away calmly, find something to give em as a gift, like red meat for a meal, and then try again. Who wants to try it first?"
Harry ended up going first with a hippogriff named Buckbeak. After a short delay the beast did indeed bow back to Harry and he was free to pet it. He even got to ride on the thing through the air. It wasn't as good as riding his own broomstick but it was good enough that Harry could see himself getting used to it and coming to quite enjoy it.
After Harry successfully interacted with this giant eagle horse without being savaged by it the rest of the class joined in without trouble. Nevil couldn't seem to get his hippogriff to bow but as soon as he backed off it calmed down. Everything was going well, until Draco ruined it.
"By God these are dumb birds!" Draco's voice shouted but it seemed to be coming from Harry. Harry turned quickly to see Draco with his wand pressed to his throat. He was using a ventriloquism spell to make it seem like Harry was insulting the hippogriffs to get him attacked. But he underestimated just how smart these hippogriffs could be.
While several of them did turn to regard Harry with open hostility; the one he had been helping Ron and Hermione deal with just looked puzzled. It knew what Harry sounded like and so knew that wasn't his voice that had insulted them. Unfortunately for Draco he had been working with Buckbeak who knew what Harry sounded like and had learned what Draco sounded like.
The hippogriff moved in an instant, Draco barely had time to react before the clawed forepaws came down on his arms. There was a flash of crimson and Draco was on the ground crying in pain. As fast as Buckbeak had moved Hagrid had moved even faster and before the Hippogriff could strike again, the gentle giant was right next to it. Hagrid wrapped his arms around Buckbeak's chest and lifted him up and back away from the fallen student.
"Wingardium Leviosa." Harry chanted and cast a levitation spell on Draco lifting him up and quickly away out of the pen. Buckbeak calmed down with the target of its ire away from its territory and Hagrid got it tied up to a post away from Draco. Then the giant man grabbed Draco and carried him into the castle to see the school healer. This ended the class.
"What an awful creature." Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl and one of Draco's hangers on, said as they left. "I can't believe that man thought it was a good idea to study such things. He should be fired."
"Draco should be expelled for that." Dean Thomas, a fellow Gryffindor, countered. "He tried to set the whole flock of them on Harry with that trick he only got what he deserved."
"How can you say something so tactless?" Pansy shot back. "Draco was almost killed just now. Who knows how terrible that wound might be?"
"Madam Pomfrey will cure it without any trouble." Harry declared. "And maybe that will teach Draco not to meddle with things he doesn't understand. If a creature is smart enough to know when it's been insulted then it would likely know when it's being tricked."
"Quite the exciting first lesson you have to admit." Ron added which only upset the Slytherins even more.
That evening Harry and his friends visited Hagrid who had been quite upset by the day's events. The board of governors who oversaw Hogwarts had to be contacted about a student being injured. Hagrid had come under fire for starting off with something so advanced and now he was worried about his job. After some encouragement they managed to lift Hagrid's spirit by promising to stand up for him and Buckbeak.
When Hagrid finally pulled himself back together he got quite angry with Harry for being out of the school after dark. Harry guessed he was worried about Sirius Black and so didn't argue and allowed himself to be escorted back up the castle. Though he still didn't see what the big deal was. Everyone was acting like there was going to be some inevitable showdown between him and the former Voldemort supporter.
Even Draco seemed to expect it. The next day he had turned up for their potion class with his arm in a sling as if a hippogriff's claws contained some kind of magic resistant curse. The wound he had taken had been significant and Harry had felt sorry for him when it happened. But Madam Pomfrey was an excellent healer so it was clear that Draco was just milking the situation for all of it's worth.
Even that would be fine. Harry could understand someone playing up how dangerous a situation had been or how badly they had been hurt to get sympathy from their friends or a girl they were sweet on. It was understandable, if a little pathetic in Harry's eyes. Personally he didn't like getting too much sympathy, it made him uncomfortable. But Draco claimed that since he couldn't move his arm he needed someone else to cut up his potion ingredients for him.
Snape ordered Harry and Ron to do so which put them behind on their own potion. This left Draco free to talk. Rather than talk to his own friends he found time to needle Harry a bit more.
"So is Hagrid shaking in his boots yet?" Draco sneered. "He should be. I told my father about what happened and he figures that if such negligence led to a lasting injury then the oaf should go."
"Ye gods Draco." Harry stared at the man in a cold furry. "How much of a prat can you be? Your prank goes wrong and you're trying to spin it into something that destroys a man's job? Hagrid's never done anything to you, why do you hate him?"
"He doesn't belong here Potter." Draco shot back. "He had his wand broken, he doesn't understand how our world works, he's an oaf and a fool. He's only got a job because Dumbledore takes some weird delight in making fun of the old ways and trampling over traditions. Well Dumbledore won't be able to keep him safe from this."
"His wand was only broken because he was framed for a crime he didn't commit." Harry shot back. "And that fool knows more about magical creatures and beasts than any ten other wizards you care to name. He walks calmly through places you couldn't even take three steps into without pissing yourself in fear. God I swear it's like you don't think anyone other than you and your family are even real people."
Draco looked like he was ready to shoot something back but the both of them were interrupted by Professor Snape coming down on Nevil in a way guaranteed to make the poor boy too nervous to do his work properly. Nevil had somehow turned his potion yellow so it was probably already a write off. That was no reason for Snape to threaten to poison Nevil's pet toad though with his own potion. Luckily it looked like Hermione was going to help him set it right. Dean Thomas interrupted Harry before he could go back to arguing with Draco.
"Did you hear there's been a sighting of Sirius Black?" He asked while Snape was distracted. "Some poor muggle woman saw him not too far from here. She called the hotline and so it took a while for the ministry to hear about it and by the time they got there he was gone."
"You don't think he's coming here?" Ron wondered.
"He would have to be mental with all the dementors around the school." Dean said.
"Have you got something to add, Malfoy?" Harry asked when he saw the other boy looking at him.
"Are you planning to try and capture him, Potter?" Draco casually inquired.
"Yeah sure." Harry said sarcastically.
"I would." Draco pressed on. "If he had done something like that to me and mine I wouldn't rest until he was brought to justice. In fact I might have done something about him while he was still in Azkaban.
"What are you talking about?" Harry asked, Draco was going on like there was something personal between Harry and Black.
"Don't act like you don't know." Draco said infuriatingly. "Still if you want to leave it to the dementors that's all well and good. But I wouldn't have thought that was a very Gryffindor kind of thing to do."
Before Harry could press for more information Snape called their attention back to the front of the class. Hermione had indeed saved Nevil's potion which Snape actually deducted points for after accusing Hermione of showing instead of leaving a friend's pet to die. After class Harry asked her and Ron what they made of Draco's strange belief that Harry should be the one to take Black down. They both dismissed it thinking that Draco was just hoping Harry would go off and get himself killed. Harry supposed they were right. Honestly nothing about Black should have anything to do with him.
Harry's last new class wasn't really a new class but rather a class with a new teacher. Every defense against the dark arts teacher they had had approached the topic in a different way. Quirrel had been quite knowledgeable but very technical and with the bad stutter he affected it was very hard to follow him. Lockhart had mostly taught about himself, there were a few useful things he had sprinkled in amongst his lessons, but not many.
Lupin it turned out, put a fresh spin on their defense lesson by actually being a good teacher. Rather than a boring lecture he gave them all a chance to confront a dangerous creature for his first lesson. He had captured a boggart in the staff room. Boggarts were a kind of shape shifter that kept itself safe by instantly transforming into whatever a person around it most feared to scare them away. This could be quite startling and dangerous but they had an advantage in how they approached it.
"Since there's a group of us, the boggart will be confused, it can only become one of our worst fears at a time and it won't know which one to focus on." Harry said in response to a question as Professor Lupin skillfully drew the knowledge he wanted out of the class.
"We also know what our own fears are." Hermione pointed out. "So if we consider it carefully we won't be surprised."
"That is correct." Lupin agreed. "Now the spell that best deals with a boggart is riddikulus and it's cast with a motion like this." The professor demonstrated. "But the real trick to the spell is to imagine the boggart either looking funny or acting funny. Not only will this help you overcome your fear but it will confound the boggart and make it panic. If the boggart fails to scare us enough times it will burst apart into pieces and flee away from us. Eventually it will reform in some dark and forgotten place but it will do so far away from you."
"Now you there, Nevil, tell me what do you think that boggart will change into if it comes after you?" Lupin asked, moving the lesson along.
"Probably…." Nevil said hesitating before he settled on being honest. "Professor Snape. It will change into Professor Snape."
Harry wasn't surprised. Snape hated Harry but he seemed to delight in tormenting Nevil. The fact that Nevil was absolute pants at making potions didn't help.
"So what you need to do is imagine Professor Snape in a way that makes him seem laughable instead of looming and dangerous. Can you do that Nevil?" Professor Lupin asked and when Nevil eventually nodded he turned to the rest of the class. "Take a few moments to practice the spell and think about what the boggart might turn into for you. Don't worry about the boggart itself. While boggarts possess some of the abilities of what they change into they are never as powerful as the real thing. Plus I will be here to help if anything goes wrong. But I'm certain all of you can do this."
As the class prepared Harry got a bit worried. His first thought was that this boggart might change into Lord Voldemort who was certainly frightening enough to be anyone's worst fear. But Harry realized he wasn't actually worried about that. He had escaped from Voldemort three times and beaten him twice, in Harry's opinion it was his mother who had beaten him that first time, so he wasn't scared of Tom Riddle. In fact Harry thought Voldemort was actually rather silly. His title as an evil wizard was an anagram of his full actual name Tom Marvollo Riddle. Which means the man had chosen out the letters to make 'I am Lord' and then just rearranged the rest until he had something pronounceable and vaguely scary sounding. His name could just as easily be Dam Lori Dolemvort and it was impossible to find him intimidating after realizing that.
What Harry was really worried about was if the boggart changed into the utterly alien Elder Brain or the Ulitharid that had so casually considered murdering Harry to study his corpse. Or even one of the dementors that could force him to hear what he was certain had been the dying words of his own mother echoing in his head. How could he make any of those things seem funny or laughable in the least?
It won't come to that. Esharry reassured him. This boggart must be able to read minds to find out what it should change into. We can use our own powers to feed it false information. Then we can trick it into starting off as something creepy but harmless, like an Intellect Devourer.
A what? Harry asked inside his head. Oh you must have seen them. Esharry insisted. Back in the colony? Those adorable little brains with legs running around everywhere. They're so cute and cuddly but they freak most people out, so you could deal with that quite easily. Harry did remember seeing something like that. This would work. But afterwards he would have to have a serious conversation with Esharry over what the words cute and cuddly actually meant.
Once Professor Lupin was certain everyone was ready he threw open the door to the cupboard that the boggart was contained within. Sure enough a towering Professor Snape came out since Nevil was standing closest to the cupboard. Just as the boggart Snape began to berate the clumsy boy, Nevil shouted "Riddikulus!" And cast the spell.
With a crack the boggart Snape changed so that it was wearing an old worn dress, was carrying an overly large and paisley pattern handbag and was wearing an enormous hat with a stuffed vulture on the top. It was the kind of clothes worn by Nevil's grandmother who had raised him and the boggart Snape looked ridiculous in them. Nevil laughed at the sight and the boggart backed away from him as if struck.
After that each student took it in turn to face the boggart and ward it off. Parvatti got a mummy which she made trip on its own bandages. Seamus got a banshee which he made to cough and rasps as if it had lost its voice. Dean got a hand that crawled about on its own until Dean's spell left it trapped in a mouse trap. Ron got a giant spider which he forced to lose all its legs as they flew off in different directions so it was left rolling on the ground.
The legless spider came close to Harry and Harry felt the boggart reach towards his mind with a thin wisp of mental power. Harry was ready to feed it the image of a skeleton that he could easily make fall to pieces when Professor Lupin got between him and the boggart so it switched targets. With a crack the boggart became a white disk surrounded by thin mist hanging in the air. Lupin almost lazily used the spell that dropped the boggart to the ground as a cockroach.
Finally Nevil faced it once more and when he had once again forced the boggart Snape into his grandmother's clothes he gave it such a mighty laugh that the boggart exploded and fled.
The class was a resounding success as far as everyone was concerned. Though Harry wondered why Professor Lupin had stopped him from facing the boggart. He worried that the man thought less of him since he had collapsed from just being in the same room as a dementor, perhaps he thought Harry just wasn't up to facing much. His friends reassured him this couldn't be the case. And indeed in subsequent lessons as they moved on to Red Caps and Kappas, Professor Lupin gave Harry just as much chance as anyone else to brave these challenges. He was even quite impressed when Harry showed how a wizard could use the descendo charm to make a kappa bow and thus briefly paralyze itself as the water spilled out of its head
All and over, Harry was quite glad to be back at Hogwarts and was looking forward to the rest of the year.