Chapter 20 - Purple
The night was clear, as it had been the day before. Yet the moon was still hidden, lurking below the horizon. Consequently, it was the perfect time for their first Astronomy lesson. Or so they had been told by their head of house. Apparently, magic that influenced the weather was merely the stuff of legends. Instead, they had to schedule their lessons whenever an opportune moment presented itself.
The astronomy tower was cold, but not as cold as you'd expect at the start of November. This was Harry's first time seeing Professor Sinistra. Beneath a tall pointed hat and checkered black robes with a golden trim, brown skin, dark hair, and brown eyes peered into the night sky, almost the same color as the vast firmament she studied. She spoke in a soft low voice, yet in the silence of the night, it rang crisp as a bell.
"As you gaze upon the night sky, it might seem like a vast and indifferent expanse, far removed from our earthly concerns."
Her voice mesmerizing, yet as he tried to comprehend the words, he was left wanting.
"Yet, the stars hold a profound power, a cosmic energy that has shaped our world and our understanding of the universe. They are beacons of knowledge, whispering ancient secrets to those who dare to listen."
No matter how cool this sounded, he somehow felt like he was listening to one of the fortune tellers he had encountered in the park next to St. Grogorys.
"Now to be clear. This subject is not be confused with Divination. Divining the future by utilizing the stars is nebulous at best, and its practice is primarily the privilege of the denizens of our forest."
Or... Not? Harry was confused now.
"The stars hold an influence over the outcome of many disciplines of magic. From Potions to Herbology, from Runes to Ritual, you will find that understanding the current state of the celestial might often not just prove beneficial, but even vital."
Why was this the first time he heard of this? Had he been doing Potions and Herbology wrong so far? Harry threw a glance at Iris sitting next to him, who was staring up into the night sky, apparently lost in her thoughts again.
"Now you may ask yourselves why, or rather how. How could the stars hold an influence over what we do here, especially a changing one, if they themselves are completely unchanging and static?"
Harry sat up. Yeah, that was a good question. It appeared that Iris had broken out of her thoughts as well, and her gaze was now following the professor.
"The answer is, they don't. Or rather, not directly. You see, the stars hold power, and they radiate it equally, unidirectionally into the vast cosmos. They are so far apart, that even though they are moving faster than we can even comprehend, they may as well be static in the frame of our lifetimes."
The professor turned from the class, gazing into the open sky.
"But the planets of our solar system aren't. They don't hold much power themselves, but they act as a sort of focus. Whether it is to do with their gravity, their inherent energy, or something else, even the most accomplished astronomers cannot agree upon. What is clear however, is that their relative positions to the stars influence how the stars' power affects us in turn. And that influence is something that can be measured, and calculated."
Harry wasn't quite sure he followed that completely, but it sounded plausible. He'd have to ask Hermione later. Or maybe Iris, she was the physics nut among the two of them.
The class proceeded into long and complicated instructions into how to set up a telescope for observation of a specific known stationary target. Both he and Iris were sharing a telescope for this. Their first assignment was to find and observe Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. This turned out easier said than done. They could have probably just tried with manual aim, if someone had pointed out the right star, but the professor instead had them calculate the exact angle they were supposed to point the telescope from a set of coordinates in the star chart.
To do this, they were handed a small mechanical device with several dials and gears. Iris eagerly snatched up the little thingamajig, and started playing with the dials, until she had the numbers from the star chart dialed into the ones labeled Declination and Right Ascension. Finally, she checked the small dial at the top, which was already set to the latitude Professor Sinistra had provided, and then spun the small knob at the side until the tiny watch face showed the exact same time that was displayed on the strange clock in the center of the astronomy tower, which the teacher had called a sidereal clock.
Meanwhile, Harry set to performing the second part of their task. Curiously, in order to find Sirius, they first had to find Polaris. After leveling their tripod, and adjusting to the altitude that the professor had provided, he started to slowly rotate the thing around until they finally had the north star in the center. Or rather, almost the center, apparently it wasn't exactly in the north. Then, he locked the bottom part in place and Iris proceeded to turn the dials to the exact values that the indicators labeled Altitude and Azimuth on the small contraption of gears and knobs had come to rest on. Harry took a peek, and there was a star. Hopefully, it was the correct one. He was straining his eyes, as he adjusted the focus to try to get the star as tiny as possible, which was easier said than done, especially with his glasses.
"Remember to keep adjusting as necessary to keep your target in view, in order to compensate for the planet's rotation."
Harry reached for the corresponding knobs and twisted gently, until the star was back in the center. However, it was still pretty blurry.
"Want me to try?" asked Iris next to him.
Harry looked at his sister, smiled and gave a nod. Honestly, he was happy to skip this part, he was kind of embarrassed about his glasses sometimes. Iris leaned over and took a peek, then kept gently adjusting the focus knob. Finally, she let go of the knob and gasped.
"What is it?"
"It's... kinda pretty!"
Harry cracked a smile. He leaned back over and took a peek. It was still a bit blurry, but he could definitely make out Sirius, as well as the stars around it as described. Nothing he'd call particularly pretty, but he wasn't going to dampen her enthusiasm.
Eyes still glued to the lens, Harry asked conversationally, "So, I've been meaning to ask... What's this about Professor Lupin being a werewolf?"
Next to him, Iris had stopped moving.
"Uh... Okay, promise not to be mad..."
Well, if that wasn't inspiring confidence.
"...What happened?" Harry asked, exasperated.
"Well, it's a long story... After you got knocked out, the creepy caretaker showed up, called one of these house elves, and you just disappeared, apparently to the hospital wing. Then he took both Malfoy and me to his office and locked us in for detention."
"Uh-huh," Harry replied dubiously.
"And... well, I mean, you were hurt! I couldn't just do nothing!"
Harry sighed. "What did you do this time?"
"Hey! Don't make it sound like that!" exclaimed his misadventure-prone sister indignantly.
"Anyway, I had to get to you, but we were locked in, and the only way out was through the shadows."
Harry took in a short breath.
"So I took the Weasley twins along because they were in there too, but we couldn't get out the front door, so we went through a hidden passageway in his office and ended up in a really weird part of the castle."
Harry raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
"And, well, turns out that's where Professor Lupin locks himself up during the full moon..."
"...Wait. You were actually attacked by a werewolf?" Harry hissed.
"Well, almost... But I managed to confuse it with the shadows and we got away! So it all turned out okay in the end."
"Okay? You heard the Defense professor! Werewolves are incredibly dangerous! You're lucky to still be alive, much less not having been turned into a werewolf... Wait, you weren't bitten, were you?" he asked carefully, eyes wide.
Iris shook her head quickly, then hesitated.
"Uh... yeah, speaking of our Defense professor, I kinda got detention with him for the rest of the year..." Iris said sullenly.
"Serves you right! What were you thinking! You know you're not supposed to let anyone know about the shadow thing."
Harry could already see her cheeks puff up, and he added, "And more importantly, you promised to be careful!"
That caused her to shrink under his glare. They kept looking at each other in silence for some time, until she quietly said, "...I'm sorry."
Harry held her gaze for a bit, before he looked down. "I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have lost it with Malfoy like that. Dumbledore explained how the Truce worked to me, and well... He was playing me for an idiot, and I did exactly what he wanted. It's just... the things he said..."
He caught Iris look, and averted his eyes again. "Right, sorry. I'll try to be better."
"I'll be more careful, too," Iris almost whispered.
Harry leaned over and wrapped her into a hug. He could all but feel the tension drain out of her, as he simply sat there and held her for a minute, beneath the uncaring night sky.
"...Luv' you, Harry..." came a faint mumble in his ear.
Harry felt something warm envelop him, and it wasn't just his sister's hug. She rarely said it, they both probably weren't quite sure what it really meant to them, but he treasured it regardless.
"Love you too, Iris."
~V~
Iris stood in front of the unassuming office door in the back of the Defense classroom. She had already knocked twice, but so far, nobody had answered. She turned and checked the classroom clock—her detention was supposed to start 5 minutes ago. Twiddling her thumbs, she paced around in front of the door, unsure what to do. Was he not going to show up at all? Was she supposed to just return to her dorm?
Her mind went back to the rest of her day. She had once again been searching the old detention wing for any trace of the twin's map. She had returned the next night through the shadows, but didn't find the map where they had left it, and had been forced to leave again by the appearance of someone walking down the hallway. When she had returned today during daylight, she had spent an entire hour, checking every corner of the abandoned part of the castle. Yet, the map had eluded her. Not only that she had been thinking about what she could have done with it, more importantly, without the map, she once again had nothing on the twins. She could only hope that they would actually keep their word.
At last, the door creaked open. From within, instead of her professor, a girl emerged. It was the strange girl she had traded rooms with. Without a second glance, the girl swept past her and left the classroom. Iris kept staring after her, lost in thoughts for a moment.
"Come inside, Miss Potter," came the smooth voice of her Defense teacher from inside the office. Iris jolted out of her thoughts, and hastily entered the office, closing the door behind her. There was a large and simple desk, completely clean safe for an inkwell and an empty sheet of parchment. The chair behind it sat empty as well. Instead, her professor was over in the other corner of the room. Three large bookshelves had been formed into a small alcove, which housed several leather chairs and a table bearing an oil lamp in the center. He was currently returning a book to the shelf, then turned and leaned against it, his purple robes slowly settling around him. She supposed the corner was intended to feel cozy, but it still felt a bit... too neat? She didn't know.
"Have a seat."
Iris glanced around the room again. There weren't any chairs in front of his desk, so she took the only available option and made to sit on one of the leather chairs in the book corner. She put her hands in her lap and kept looking around the room, not sure whether to look at the professor or not. The longer he stayed silent, the more awkward she felt.
"You'll be interested to know that your name came up during today's staff meeting."
Iris swallowed. Was this about her unplanned trip to the detention wing? Or maybe about what she had done to her housemates? Or-
"Minerva seemed quite vocal in her displeasure over the fact that you skipped her last class."
...Oh. She had almost forgotten about that.
She tried not to look too sheepish as the professor paused to look at her again, and then continued.
"This led to a—shall we say... interesting discussion with Septima and Filius."
Her eyes widened. They... had been talking about her broken magic?
"You should know that Septima, Severus and Minerva have been in talks as what to do about your future Transfiguration lessons, as how I understand it, they seem, frankly, entirely pointless."
He... he wasn't going to tell her off?
"I must confess that I was intrigued by what Septima explained. Pure aspect casting is something I had never even considered possible."
Iris finally looked at the professor and noticed that he was staring at her, leaning against the bookshelf.
"Yet that is not all you can do, is it? You seem to be quite the talented young witch, Miss Potter," he said with a smile, while tilting his head.
Iris felt her cheeks heat up a little. Nobody had ever praised her for her magical ability like that before. Or, at least, no grown-up had. Well, so far, most of her interactions with her teachers had been riddled with her failing attempts to properly use her strange magic.
"You showed a certain aptitude for a branch of magic only very few ever dabble in, let alone are able to master."
Iris frowned. What was he talking about? Was this about her light? Maybe because it was wandless?
"Do you realize what it was you did, back when you encountered Professor Lupin in the old detention wing?"
Iris froze. No. Was he talking about- But nobody was supposed to know! Had Professor Lupin told him? Had he told the other teachers?
His eyebrows rose and his face broke out in a small smirk.
"You do? Curious."
Oh crap, how had she given that away?
"In that case, you'll understand why I thought it wiser not to bring up what I saw at the staff meeting."
Iris blinked. He... What? But then, what was this about? She finally gathered her courage and answered.
"Uh... Well, I'm not sure what it is, but from what I've read, I suspect its some form of... polarized magic?"
Iris paused, unsure how much to tell him.
He shot an expectant look in her direction, and she continued. "D-Dark polarized magic, that is. Uh... I managed to call it when focusing on shadows, similar to how I use my light, but well..." she trailed off, unsure how to explain this part without it sounding too bad.
"It only works when I'm feeling the right... emotions? Like fear, anger, uhm... something like that..."
She really didn't want to admit that she mostly used the shadows by focusing on her hate for her relatives. That didn't sound like something you should tell just anyone. Or anyone at all.
"Did you know that this is something that takes grown wizards years of practice to do wandlessly? That is, if they can do it at all," he said, wearing that infuriating smirk. Iris couldn't help but blush.
"You have a very special talent, Miss Potter," he continued, causing her cheeks to start burning as she looked at him.
"Uhm... Thank you, sir?" She really didn't know what to say to that.
"Tell me, what made you attempt such a reckless move against something like a werewolf?"
Iris looked down. "Well, when I was in the res-... I mean the library, there were these strange dark books flying around..."
She could see a glint in his eyes, but it looked like he wasn't going to call her out on her near-slip.
"And they went and attacked me, and I accidentally summoned the shadows, and well, they kind of just ignored me. So, after you said werewolves are creatures of darkness, I thought it could work..." Iris said, stumbling over her words.
He kept staring at her for a bit, then smiled. "If we were in class, I'd have awarded you twenty points for that bit of reasoning."
Iris couldn't help but smile. This certainly wasn't what she had been expecting. He retrieved another book, pushed back from the shelf, walked over to one of the leather chairs across from her and sat down.
"So... I'm not in trouble?" she asked, hopefully.
The professor chuckled, and gave her a look from underneath his purple turban.
"You are in detention right now, Miss Potter."
"Oh, right..." she said as her expression drooped.
"However, given recent events, I thought it best to perhaps refocus your time in detention towards more... productive ends."
Iris' gaze snapped back at him. Was he saying that-
"Are you aware of what polarized magic is actually used for, Miss Potter?"
She started shifting in her seat.
"Well, I read it has to do with... empowering spells?"
"That is certainly an appropriate description. But do you know what that means?"
"It... uhm... makes them stronger?"
He rested his chin on a hand propped up on his armchair, and gazed somewhere across the room.
"You might call it that, but I fear you've missed the point."
Iris said nothing. Any other ideas she had she wasn't sure if she should say.
"What is Wingardium Leviosa without the Control aspect? It's not quite the same thing, rather, it alters the intent of the spell, more so than its function."
"A Light polarized spell will cause its intent to become more aligned with Light emotions, changing its effect accordingly. The same goes for Dark polarization. Some spells will only work when properly polarized in the first place. Others can't be polarized one way or the other, or even both ways. Most, work with any polarization. For example: A Light polarized stinging hex might cause pleasure instead of pain, where a Dark polarized leg locking jinx might actually fuse your legs together and be much harder to reverse."
Iris was listening with rapt attention. The book hadn't gone into any details regarding the actual spells. Harder to reverse sounded like it could be useful. If she wasn't able to cancel any of the jinxes on her, then neither should her enemies.
One question was still burning on her mind, ever since she had read the book.
"Uhm, but... How would one actually cast a polarized spell? Er-" she paused, unsure how much to tell him.
"Well, I tried casting a polarized Depulso by summoning the shadows and then using blue light, but it just did a regular spell... I think."
There was a gleam in his eyes.
"That, I'm afraid, is the hard part. Anyone can summon the shadows through the use of the Tenebris spell. But drawing on them to cast a spell requires a very special mindset, much like summoning them wandlessly would, yet still quite different."
Iris sat up straight at that.
"While summoning Darkness is a truly arcane act that is mostly based on emotion and power, drawing on it to cast spells is an exercise in control."
Was he actually going to teach her? Was... wasn't that illegal, or something?
"Yet, it is also very dangerous. While the only danger in summoning the Dark is in rigorous overchanneling, far beyond the requirements to cast most spells, the danger in utilizing polarized magic, Light or Dark, lies within its incompatibility with the human body."
Iris brow furrowed at that. She had never had any issues when she summoned a lot of shadows, except when—oh. Was that what he was talking about?
"The way to cast a polarized spell is to draw the polarized magic into your wand, before casting your spell. The reason it is done like this, instead of just using your own magic like other spells, well... If you were to attempt to draw polarized magic into your body instead, the incompatibility with your own magic would tear your body apart inside out. That's why we utilize our wands for this. It is also the reason why it is impossible to cast polarized spells wandlessly."
Iris swallowed. She hadn't known what to expect, but that hadn't been it. It really didn't sound like a good idea to try something like that.
"I thought it wise to use these detentions to instruct you on that particular technique, lest you attempt it by yourself and accidentally get yourself killed."
Iris looked at him wide-eyed.
"Y-you would?" she asked in disbelief.
He smirked. "Unless you'd rather be scrubbing cauldrons or dusting the trophy room?"
"N-no, sir! I want to learn!" she exclaimed eagerly, almost slipping into her puppy dog look for a moment.
He chuckled, and kept looking at her with a slight smirk, but said nothing.
"Sir?"
"Oh, you just reminded me of someone for a moment."
~V~
Elation had quickly turned to frustration again. Once he had spent some time explaining how one would go about said process, he had her summon shadows and attempt to draw them into her wand. However, to no avail. She had never done anything with the shadows once they had been summoned, and she had no idea how to go about doing that. As much as she focused, the shadows just kept wrapping around her, where she had summoned them, but remaining stubbornly outside her wand.
"Can you show me how it's supposed to work?" she finally asked, feeling defeated.
He stared at her for a second, then another. Finally, he spoke up.
"Regrettably, my current health condition prevents me from summoning any polarized magic myself."
Her eyebrows raised at that. Health condition? He looked perfectly healthy to her.
"However, I still feel quite capable of teaching the process to someone else. Seeing it would only help you so far anyway. What you would see is all the shadows and darkness slowly getting pulled inside the wand, until none of them remain outside of it. Only then, you'd cast the spell."
Iris sighed. Well, she had already understood as much before, so that wasn't really all that helpful. She once again raised her wand, thought of the Dursleys and pulled forth more shadow. Then, she stopped, closed her eyes again and focused. She tried to feel for the darkness around her. She could definitely feel something, but whenever she tried to reach for it, it just felt like it would slip through her fingers. After yet another minute of desperate focusing, she released a sigh and opened her eyes.
He stood there, purple robes wrapped around him and gave her an unreadable look. She didn't think he was annoyed with her lack of progress, but he hadn't complimented her again, either.
"Well, nobody is born perfect, Miss Potter, you will just have to keep practicing."
Iris frowned and resolved to keep practicing later. As if the professor could read her thoughts, he added, "And you will not do so unsupervised, in case you have forgotten the danger of what you are attempting."
Iris glared at the purple robes of her professor, as if trying to burn a hole in them. Why did everyone keep insisting she couldn't handle herself?
Just what kind of stupid color was purple anyway?
"It looks like our time has come to an end regardless. I will see you here again the first Saturday of December. And I will know if you tried to practice on your own in the meantime."
Iris just automatically nodded and walked out of the office. She hadn't even really been listening.
Something about her last thought had trapped her mind in a circle. She kept stumbling down stairs aimlessly, passing hallways, paintings, without looking where she was going.
What kind of color was Purple?
It wasn't quite Violet, it also wasn't Red, but somehow close to both. However, the spectrum ended at Violet. This wasn't making any sense.
Almost like they had known all along, her feet had carried her towards the Slytherin common room, and she wasted no time in traversing the maze to her dorm room. As if it had been expecting her, her physics book came busting out of the cupboard and came to rest in her hand. Moving on auto-pilot, she made her way to her bed and sat down while flipping the book back to the section on colors.
The big drawing on the bottom of the page confirmed what her mind had been telling her the whole time. Purple wasn't on the spectrum of light. But how then? It was definitely a color! She had been staring at it for the past four hours!
Iris frowned and focused. Just like she had done in Privet drive, when she had been practicing using the colors from the song instead of the book, she called her light and tried to turn it Purple. And again, like back then, her light just wasn't cooperating. It just kept slipping into either red or violet, the moment she lost her focus for even a second. Iris narrowed her eyes, tightened her grip and forced the color to change. It was still burned into her mind, she just had to make her damn light replicate it. When it finally reached that exact stupid shade of Purple she had been staring at the whole day, she frowned, and looked back down at the book. Something was definitely off about this color. It wasn't on the spectrum, and it was somehow a lot harder to produce.
Keeping the light in her right hand, she folded over the page to the other side where she had read the information about the color White. There it was, in a small section titled Non-spectral colors.
And right underneath it-
No way.
Iris' eyes went wide as she read the second entry. She scrambled around on her bed, turning towards the other side of the room, and held her breath. As she had done so many times over the past month, she narrowed the purple light into a beam and swung it across the room, until it was pointing right at her prism.
The purple light shone in a straight beam, struck her prism dead center, and split.
Into two distinct beams of Red and Indigo.
She was staring at the wall in disbelief. That... was that really... She had been so stupid! Purple wasn't on the spectrum; it was a mix of Red and Indigo. In fact, it was the only mixed color between the three colors human eyes could see—apart from White—that couldn't be found anywhere on the spectrum.
Had she actually done it? Could she test it?
Iris elation dampened for a second. No, she couldn't. She didn't remember any spells that would use both Destruction and Mind, and even if she did, that didn't sound like a spell she wanted to try on anyone.
Still. This had to be good for something. She was this close, she just had to figure out...
Hang on, she had been changing around the shade of Purple before, what would that do to the spectrum? Iris focused again, and started shifting the light's color closer to Red. The first few attempts, this just caused the Indigo beam to dim. Iris frowned. That wasn't what she needed to happen here. She tried a few more times, until she instead tried another approach. She shifted her light to Green, and then slowly let it fade over to Yellow, Orange and then Red, following the beam along the wall as it refracted at ever different angles. Then, from Red she would slowly shift it to purple. And there it was. The Red beam continued moving, as it was slowly diverging from another, unmoving Blue beam. Then, carefully, she reversed it, and kept it moving. Over from Red, across Orange, and finally to Yellow. Iris held her breath, sweat forming on her forehead. She could have never done this without her prism. Her hand was now glowing in the very distinct Green of the Life aspect, yet the colors behind the prism showed both Blue and Yellow.
This was it! She had better not mess this up!
With shaking hands, she slowly moved her glowing hand down, letting the light slowly collapse back into an orb, but focusing as hard as she could to try keeping it the exact same color. It still felt as difficult as Purple, so she hoped she was doing it right. Inch by inch she reached out, until her fingers finally clasped around the obsidian handle of her wand. Her wand immediately lit up the room in a brilliant Green, which caused the air to shiver in anticipation. Taking a deep breath, she pointed her wand at the first thing in front of her, which just so happened to be Salem, swished and flicked and incanted "Wingardium Leviosa!"
"Mrow?"
And the confused feline slowly rose off the bedsheets, and started to float.