The morning of the first day of classes began with excitement in the air. Ron, no doubt, contributed to this excitement, though most certainly not in a good way. The moment he had spied Ginny walking into the Great Hall, he had risen from the Gryffindor table, fists clenched, and stalked across the room over to the Slytherins' side. There, he sought out Ginny and proceeded to berate her. After just a few seconds of this conduct, however, a Slytherin Prefect made her way over to Ron and evicted him. The whole sequence of events cost Gryffindor five Points before classes had even begun.
At the end of breakfast, Professor McGonagall went around and passed out timetables. The classes themselves were the same as the year before, though at different times and with different sections – Finding Magic was reduced to only three times per week, Charms and Transfiguration gained an extra practical lesson, and Defence Against the Dark Arts went from twice to three times per week. The weekly Flying session on Friday had been reduced in length from an hour and twenty minutes to fifty minutes and combined with a class titled 'Exploratory'.
Exploratory seemed to be the subject of a lot of questions as McGonagall made her way along the table, and when Parvati asked her what the class was about, McGonagall told her that an announcement will be given to everyone before they were dismissed to classes.
At just before nine o'clock, McGonagall finally took the podium and addressed the questions. 'You may have noticed a new class in your timetables called "Exploratory",' she announced. 'For first- and second-years, this class has been combined with Flying, and for third-years and above, added to the end of your timetable on a day of the week that corresponds to your year. All third-years have the block scheduled for Monday, fourth-years Tuesday, and so on.'
'Exploratory is not a class. There is no teacher, and you will not receive any marks. Instead, it is an opportunity to, as the name suggests, explore. There will be events scheduled throughout the year that will take place during this Exploratory section. Participation in these events is mandatory and attendance is treated the same as it would be for a regular class: failure to attend will result in loss of House Points and detentions for repeat absences. You will be reminded repeatedly in the week before an Exploratory that there will be one taking place, so "I forgot" is not an excuse. On weeks where no Exploratory session is scheduled, third-years and above should treat the block as a free period, while first- and second-years must attend Flying. Any questions?'
'If there are no questions, then good luck on your first day.'
Almost as one, the students in the Great Hall rose. Harry checked his timetable. The first class of the day was History of Magic, which he was quite happy about. The History of Magic classroom was located right on the first floor, just one flight of stairs from the Great Hall, meaning there would be no need to rush.
History of Magic this year saw the Gryffindors grouped with the Slytherins, something that seemed to deal a particularly hard blow to Ron, especially when Draco Malfoy mimed in front of Ron his own earlier behaviour towards Ginny. The two Houses split the room in two, with the Gryffindors and Slytherins each taking a side of the room, leaving a slit of unoccupied no man's land running down the middle of the lecture hall. At nine o'clock sharp, Professor Ross entered the room from her office behind a door at the front and took the lectern, bringing the class to attention.
'Good morning, class,' she said once the room fell silent. 'Welcome back to History of Magic. Last year, we talked a lot about the civilisations in antiquity, both magical and non-magical. I told you in June that we will be continuing with the history of magic in the classical age this year, but upon consultation with Headmaster Dumbledore, we will be temporarily shifting our focus and discussing a different – though no less important – theme this year. Can anyone guess at what our focus will be, based on the readings which you were assigned?'
There was silence. 'Goblins?' Lavender finally asked.
Professor Ross shook her head. 'No, though they do play a role in many events that we will discuss.'
'Modern history?' Daphne provided.
'We will be considering events in a more modern era, yes, but that will not be our theme.'
'Wars,' Hermione answered. 'All the books are about wars in one way or another.'
'Precisely,' Professor Ross said. 'Five points to Gryffindor for having diligently read ahead, Miss Granger. Yes, the focus of our class will be on wars in the modern era. Headmaster Dumbledore and I believed that given current events in the world, it would be fruitful for students to learn from the mistakes of history in the hope that you would understand how to avoid them if ever you found yourself in a position to make such decisions. We will start our survey of modern European wars with the Third Great Tremor of the 1700s, then discuss the Great Continental War. We will make a digression to discuss muggle warfare of this century before finishing the year with the war against You-Know-Who. Are there any questions?'
Pansy raised her hand. 'Why do we need to discuss muggle wars?' she asked. Several students murmured their shared questioning.
'Because it is important,' Professor Ross answered curtly.
'But why? Isn't this class "History of Magic"?'
'It is important because as you will find out in time, muggles have developed methods of killing so efficient that the equivalent of the entire population of magical Europe can be wiped out in a single battle, created weapons that can vaporise hundreds of thousands, or even millions in a split-second, weapons from which no magic can protect you,' Professor Ross replied sternly. 'They have learned to rase to the ground entire cities from thousands of Feet in the air. They have developed systems whose only purpose is to murder as many people as efficiently as possible. What you will learn about what muggles are capable of doing to one another may, in fact, be the most important thing you will learn all year.'
Pansy still looked sceptical and as if she wanted to scoff, but she held her tongue. 'If there are no more questions, then let us begin,' Professor Ross said after waiting several more seconds. 'Today's topic will be the Convict Dispute of 1719.'
Professor Ross lectured for the next hour and fifteen minutes about the dispute, in which the Ministry attempted to force Gringotts to free two wizards whom the goblins had arrested for trying to steal from Gringotts. The goblins then interpreted this as an infringement on their sovereignty as guaranteed in a series of treaties with the Ministry. Eventually, the Ministry backed down and the two men were sentenced to six years of hard labour, from which one of them died. Nonetheless, the incident increased tensions between the two sides and served as the first in a series of events which led to the outbreak of conflict four years later.
Harry found Professor Ross's lecture relatively interesting, certainly more so than the lessons on Mesopotamia that they had to sit through for much of September last year. Raul and Ron seemed not to think so, for they were busy playing Hangman, and the two of them cost Gryffindor ten points each after several issued warnings were ignored or completely unheard.
Immediately after History of Magic was Defence Against the Dark Arts. The first lesson with Lockhart was almost the only topic of discussion among the Gryffindors as they walked. Lavender and Parvati were talking amongst themselves excitedly in a whisper, perhaps gushing over how attractive they found him, while the likes of Ron and Raul were spinning ever more ridiculous plans at impressing him. Seamus, Dean, and Nura were speculating about what exactly Lockhart was going to teach them from his adventures. It seemed to Harry that the only ones who were not engulfed in the Lockhart fever were him, Hermione, and Neville, though Dean did seem less in awe of Lockhart than his conversation partners did.
Gryffindor had been paired with Hufflepuff for Defence Against the Dark Arts this year. Seating in this class proved to be more heterogeneous than the previous lesson with the Slytherin, but the Houses still roughly divided themselves along the centreline of the room. The Hufflepuffs, like the Gryffindors, were in a frenzy about their first lesson with Lockhart. Aakshansh and Trent Warmsley had joined Raul, Ron, and Sally-Anne's enthusiastic plotting, while Parvati and Lavender had been joined by Hazel MacTavish and Gerhard Edel, who, unlike his Slytherin twin, had quite the penchant for gossip.
Soon, it was ten-thirty, and the lesson should have begun by now, but still, Lockhart was nowhere to be found. 'Maybe he'd gotten into a fight with a Yeti,' Sally-Anne speculated to the laughter of many.
'A Yeti? Please,' Hazel said in a dreamy voice. 'That's only a quad-X creature. He's probably defeating a Chimaera, at least!'
Harry felt an urge to roll his eyes. Hermione actually did.
Finally, three minutes after the lesson was supposed to begin, Lockhart appeared, strolling casually through the room as if he were not tardy in the slightest. As he walked in, gasps and sighs could be heard around the room, and many pairs of eyes locked onto him, taking in the sight of Gilderoy Lockhart right in front of them. Lockhart did not seem to notice, or more likely, he did not care in the slightest.
Lockhart stopped at the front of the room behind his rather disorganised desk, on which parchment was strewn everywhere and an empty bottle of ink lay overturned. Instead of addressing the class as Harry had expected, he searched the table for some time, apparently looking for something, pulling a slip of parchment from underneath a book. Having found what he was looking for, Lockhart finally looked back up at the class and cleared his throat.
'Now, class, good morning,' he said. 'As you know, my name is Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Second Class. I will be your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this year. I'm told that I have to perform a roll call at the start of each lesson. I'll do that now.'
As it turned out, the piece of parchment that Lockhart had lost was precisely the class roster. He read down through it, calling out names. Most students, thankfully, answered with a simple 'here', but Hazel nearly fell out of her chair at hearing Lockhart call out her name, while Raul made a performance of jumping up out of his chair, standing up as straight as a pole, and shouting the loudest 'present' Harry had ever heard anyone shout. Harry wanted to bury his face in his hands, and it seemed like most students did, too – with the exception of Ron and Sally-Anne. Lockhart, as ever, did not seem to care at all, simply continuing to read down the list in the same bored voice.
When Salley-Anne Perks's name had been called, Harry knew and dreaded what was coming next. To his very pleasant surprise, however, Lockhart simply read out the name 'Harry Potter' in the same half-hearted voice as he did the rest of the names. He said nothing, either, when Harry replied with 'here', except to move on mechanically to the next name on the list.
'Now, as you know, you are in Defence Against the Dark Arts,' Lockhart continued when he finished the roll call and put down the parchment in his hands. 'In this class, I hope that I will be able to impart upon you some of the knowledge that I have gained from my battles against dark forces. You may not be able to leave this classroom with the skills to defeat a pack of rogue werewolves, or slay the manticore terrorising Isfahan in two and a half hours of consecutive combat, or subduing a flight of dragons like I did recently in Russia, but my job is to prepare you with enough knowledge to protect yourself against, and more importantly, avoid, any dark creatures that you may come across in your life or travels.'
Between each of his own accomplishments that Lockhart listed, Harry heard more gasps, 'oohs', and 'ahs' from around the room. Lockhart, as he recounted his experiences, finally seemed to break a genuine, though small, smile. He grew visibly more animated, and the rest of his introductory speech was delivered in a tone that sounded to Harry at least a little keener.
'You can throw out your textbooks,' Lockhart said near the end of his speech, and Harry thought he heard Hermione gasp scandalously. 'I had to assign a book, and I chose one which you may find interesting for reading on your own. The book, however, is useless for this class. You will not be fighting hydras and chimaeras anytime soon, or hopefully ever, and it's a waste of time to plainly teach you facts about them, facts which are irrelevant, especially in combat.'
'We will not start big in this class,' he continued. 'I did not start with hydras and chimaeras, but with the simplest of spells. Today, you will learn the Freezing Charm – Immobulus. This charm has the ability to freeze moving things in an area in front of you if they're small and not too magical. This is useful if, say, you're facing a volley of arrows and you can't use a Shield Charm because that would instantly reveal your position. The Freezing Charm buys you enough time to move without it being too obvious to a not-so-careful observer. It's also useful if ever you're attacked by a flock of birds or perhaps magical creatures like pixies – sometimes dark wizards use them as a distraction. The Freezing Charm is useless against large or extremely magical objects. It's useless on a Golden Snitch, for instance, and you would have to be stupid to use it against a dragon.'
Professor Quirrell had taught them the charm last year, but over the summer, Harry had let its exact mechanics slip from his mind. He was glad, then, that Lockhart explained to them again how to perform the charm. Lockhart's teaching was, contrary to any predetermined notions he had had about the man, quite good, and Harry found his explanation, devoid of fancy, textbook-style language, very intuitive to follow. By the end of the brief lecture, he felt ready to perform the spell on his own, standing in stark contrast to the result gained from reading spells out of a book last year.
Lockhart himself, though, seemed a little more sceptical about the class's abilities. 'Everything I just told you is useless on its own,' he told the class after his brief lecture. 'I will have wasted my time if you do not practise what I just taught you. Wands out.'
As the students drew their wands, Lockhart set down on his desk a large wooden box. 'Inside this box are what's known as Headless Snitches,' he revealed. 'Standard Army basic training equipment, useful for practising many different types of skills. When I release them, they will zoom around the room aimlessly. This particular set has been enchanted for this class to drop to the ground if stopped magically in mid-air. Your task is to stop all of them before the end of this lesson by any means you can think of. An obvious hint: this task should be simple with properly-used Freezing Charms. Your challenge is to perform them – under pressure. We will begin on a count of three. One. Two. Three!'
With a flick of his wand, Lockhart opened the box. Immediately, a torrent of balls, all approximately the size of a Golden Snitch, shot out into the air. Instinctively, all the students ducked behind their desks, shielding their faces in anticipation of impact, their wands hanging uselessly in their hands and their task forgotten.
'You're all dead!' Lockhart shouted, sounding angered by the class's collective response. 'If you were actually being attacked, you'd all be dead by now, every single one of you! A curse to your legs and you're dead, just like that! Stop hiding! Get up and protect yourself!'
Slowly, Harry peeked up over his desk. The balls were shooting all around the room, crashing into desks and chairs, and occasionally people, leading to shrieks of pain and surprise, before bouncing off to continue their mad flight. Just as one narrowly missed Harry's shoulder, he raised his wand. After taking a deep breath, he recalled the characteristics of the energy field that Lockhart had mentioned in his lecture and did his best to recreate them. When it felt right, he twirled his wand in a small circle before jabbing it forward, crying the incantation as he did.
The balls zooming around him did not stop, but the trajectories of a group of balls, which had been on course straight for him, suddenly bent in mid-air. The balls continued their flight, but instead of hitting Harry and giving him what would have probably been several minor bruises, they swerved off to the side, impacting around him and ricocheting.
'Focus!' Lockhart yelled. 'You need to learn to block out everything going on around you and focus on your cast, or you're as good as dead before you even get into any fight!'
One by one, other students began to come out of hiding. Hermione and Neville took the lead, attempting Immobilisation Jinxes of their own, which, like Harry's, also did little to stem the onslaught. Harry raised his wand and cast again hastily. Perhaps as a result of him rushing to cast, his spell performed even worse than in his first attempt, not even succeeding in deflecting the path of the balls around him.
Despite the students' struggles, Lockhart seemed to be enjoying the exercise – certainly more so than Harry had ever seen him enjoy anything else. He barked out instructions and reprimands to students, who, still spooked, seemed to be committing every error possible. 'Stop blindly shouting incantations, Harry Potter!' he called out after seeing Harry's failed second attempt at casting the Immobilisation Jinx. 'If you don't calm yourself and focus before you cast, you can shout "Immobulus" a thousand times and nothing will happen except you get killed! Focus! Shut it out!'
Try as they might, neither Harry, nor any of the other students, seemed to be capable of ignoring the whizzing of the balls around them, or the banging noises of them impacting the furniture around the room. Lockhart, for his part, was not exactly helping, either, as his constant reminders of how they all would have been long since dead and buried did little to calm them and boost their confidence.
'You'll not get anywhere blindly casting individually!' Lockhart shouted, sounding frustrated, after more than ten minutes of fruitlessness. 'Stop shouting "Immobulus" and expecting the best! Work together! Use the environment around you and find a way to stop fighting at such a disadvantage!'
Nobody seemed to heed his advice, however, for students all around the room continued to madly shout 'Immobulus' in the hope of one of their spells working. Justin Finch-Fletchley, immediately to Harry's right, even managed to catch two spheres right to the stomach in a stroke of spectacularly bad luck, causing him to fall backwards and knock over his desk.
Justin's fallen desk, however, had an unexpected benefit for Harry. The onslaught of balls from Harry's right, which had previously forced him to constantly use his wand hand to swat balls away from himself or protect his own face, suddenly nearly completely ceased – save the few incoming at extreme angles which were easy enough to avoid – deflected by the slab of wood of the desktop. Inspired, he quickly turned over his own desk in front of him, the two overturned desks now shielding him almost perfectly from two sides if he ducked down behind them.
'Justin, get in here!' Harry called to his still-stunned classmate. He then turned to the two students closest to him on his left and to his rear. 'Neville, Lavender! Drag your desks over!'
'What do you want us to do?' Neville shouted back.
'Your desks!' Harry yelled. 'Drag them over here and flip them! We need to make a square!'
'Why?' asked Lavender.
'So that you won't get hit!' Harry replied. 'How're you supposed to cast spells if all your attention is focused on dodging balls?'
As if to drive his point home, right at that moment, a ball hit Neville right in the thigh, causing him to yelp. 'Do what I say and that won't happen!' Harry shouted. 'Do it!'
Neville hesitated for a moment, during which time he was hit again. That seemed to drive him into action, and he, braving the hailstorm, dragged his desk over and knocked it over onto its side to Harry's left, covering their left. Lavender, seeing Neville's lead, did the same thing, and soon enough, the square was complete, nearly completely protecting them from the vast majority of flying balls.
'Now what?' Justin demanded, cowering behind his own desk.
'Freezing Charms,' Harry said, their improvised cover giving him a renewed calm. 'Now that we can focus, we should be able to cast them. We already did learn them last year, after all.'
Harry turned to face the outside of their fortress and raised his wand. He concentrated to remember the spell, ignoring the sounds of the balls bouncing off the surface of the desk. When he felt ready, he looked up and pointed his wand in the direction of a dense group of about four or five balls. 'Immobulus,' he said, methodically moving his wand in the prescribed pattern.
The spell worked. At once, the handful of affected balls stopped in their tracks. After about two seconds of being held magically in the air, the spell's effects released, and they dropped to the ground, flightless. Buoyed by his success, he took aim at another region of balls and cast again, dropping another several.
Harry glanced around momentarily to check on the others. Neville and Lavender were succeeding in knocking the balls down, too, and Justin was beginning to climb out from hiding to join in. Around them, others, seeing the success of their strategy, were replicating it for themselves. Hermione, Dean, Parvati, and Hannah had already constructed their fortress and had begun to cast, while Ernie, Seamus, and two other Hufflepuffs were rapidly pulling their desks together in the same pattern.
In less than five minutes, nearly all the students had put up the makeshift barricades. Balls were now falling to the ground like flies, no match for the concerted effort of the class. Very soon, only a few balls were still left flying, and they, too, were quickly taken down by well-aimed Freezing Charms. As the very last ball was caught by a Freezing Charm from either Lavender or Raul, the room fell silent, and everyone breathed out a collective sigh of relief.
Lockhart, with a wordless wave of his wand, opened the box, and all the balls picked themselves up off the floor and flew back inside. 'Your display was disappointing. If this were a real battle, every one of you would've died, and your position would've been long overrun,' he told the class. 'Nonetheless, seeing as this is your first time exposed to such a scenario, it is still an accomplishment that you completed the task in the end. Potter's quick thinking in devising a battle plan is worth commending. I see little value in House Points, but nonetheless, for propriety, ten Points for Gryffindor. Now, what did this task teach you?'
'Yes, Brown.'
'That we panicked,' Lavender answered.
'Yes, you did, but that's not the point,' Lockhart scolded the class. 'The point that I had hoped to make is that every spell you learn, in this class or anywhere else, is completely useless if things get hot. You panic, you lose focus, and suddenly, your school marks are meaningless. It doesn't matter if you had all "O's" in your classes, it doesn't matter if you aced your OWLs or your NEWTs. You die as helpless and defenceless as a baby.'
'The last time I checked, this class is "Defence Against the Dark Arts" and not "Learn a Textbook's Worth of Spells and Hope for the Best", you must learn to keep calm in the face of any danger you face,' he continued. 'If you panic, become paralysed by fear, run away in total chaos, or anything else of that sort, then the only thing that will happen is your eventual death. Defending against the dark arts has little to do with what spells you know. It is a matter of knowing how to react to situations, think on your feet, and use the tools you have to fight back and survive. This is what you must learn to do this year. I will never assign homework, and there are no quill-and-parchment exams, but do not take this as me telling you to slack off. I expect you to constantly repeat the lessons and takeaways that you gather here in your mind and practise them, even in mundane situations. This is the only way you will learn skills which may someday be the difference between surviving and dying. Dismissed.'
Lockhart's lesson seemed to have quite the divisive effect on the students. Some students, Harry included, thought that his lesson had a point and that they indeed were ill-prepared for any actual defence against the dark arts. If Harry had to be honest with himself, he, too, was shocked by how poorly he had performed, and knew that Lockhart was right – knowing all the spells that they had learned last year had done Harry about as much good as waving at the balls, telling them to stop, would have. It made him realise just how much their rescue from Quirrell last year had been pure, dumb luck, and that concerned him.
Hermione had seemed rather indignant that Lockhart could suggest that reading about spells was useless, going so far as to argue the point with Harry. Instead of putting aside the textbook as Lockhart suggested, she decided instead to double-down on learning new spells. After Tuesday's lesson with Lockhart, though, she seemed to have accepted his statements as truth. Lockhart had repeated the same exercise as the day before, but now with a swarm of Cornish Pixies instead of balls. No amount of spell-work could help Hermione stop the pandemonium the Pixies caused. It got even worse, for she was unable to avoid being lifted into the air by her ears and hair, forcing Lockhart to rescue her by using Stunning Spells on the Pixies holding her, an experience which spooked her enough to render her out-of-action for nearly the rest of the class. Harry was about the only one who remained unscathed and un-humiliated, a feat he had accomplished by always staying mobile on his feet and using quick Freezing Charms on any Pixies that got too close. Even he, though, had failed in the actual objective, having not captured a single Pixie. Lockhart, displeased with the chaos that the class had fallen into, told them that they would be repeating the exercise every class until they managed to complete it successfully.
'So much for learning spells out of a book, huh?' Harry asked Hermione as they exited the classroom.
Hermione huffed irritably, pulling apart several strands of her hair that the Pixies had managed to knot, but said nothing in rebuttal. Harry took that as her way of saying without saying that she had changed her mind on Lockhart's methods.
There were also another group – those whose admiration of Lockhart had morphed quickly into fear and dislike after the first two lessons. The most prominent denizen of that group was, unsurprisingly to Harry, Ron. 'He's like a second Snape!' he had complained barely ten steps out from the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom on Tuesday. He had suffered one of the worst predicaments of anyone in the class, being first dragged into the air by his feet before being used in a game of catch between two groups of rampaging Pixies, something which resulted in him receiving a sprained ankle from being accidentally dropped, though thankfully, Lockhart managed to fix it in seconds with a spell.
'He doesn't even bother to teach us how to do it!' Sally-Anne griped. 'All he told us was "capture all the Pixies", and then immediately let them all out! How does he expect us to do anything about them?'
'And he's constantly yelling at us!' Hazel, who had quickly bonded with Ron and his friends over their common dislike of Lockhart's lessons, grumbled. 'Even if we knew the spells to use, how is repeatedly telling us we're already dead supposed to help us perform them?'
'It's like he gets joy out of humiliating us,' Raul groused angrily.
That night, Harry found a signed copy of Shapes of the Shadows: An Anthology by Gilderoy Lockhart abandoned on one of the sofas. He wondered if had once belonged to Ron or one of his friends.
Wednesday afternoon saw the first Herbology lesson of the year. When Harry arrived at the greenhouses, he was surprised to see Hagrid standing outside it, a loaded crossbow in his hands and a full quiver on his back. Harry waved to Hagrid, and when he saw Harry, a big smile came across his face.
'Harry! How're you doing?' Hagrid asked, patting him on the shoulder, the force of which caused Harry's knees to buckle. 'And you, Hermione, Neville? How were your summers?'
'Pretty well,' Harry said, upbeat.
'Had a decent summer,' Hermione replied. 'How about you?'
'Ah, just the usual,' Hagrid answered. 'The unicorns were a bit spooked after what happened last year, of course, so had to spend a good bit of time trying to bring things back to normal in the forest. Other than that, well, you know, Harry. Just keeping things in order around here. What about you, Harry? How was the Davises'?'
'Great!' Harry said with what was surely a radiant smile on his face. 'Tracey and her parents were really nice. April was so amazing.'
'Of course she was,' Hagrid said. 'I knew her when she was in school – of course I did. She was one of your mother's best friends. Always kind and thoughtful. I'm glad you enjoyed your summer, Harry.'
Herbology was with the Ravenclaws this year, who, in their classical fashion, were remarkably prepared. They had all taken their seats in the greenhouses when Professor Sprout arrived several minutes later, and the majority of them already had their notebooks and quills out, ready for class. It was probably to their disappointment, then, that the first instruction Professor Sprout gave ended up being to put away all their things and get ready to leave.
'We'll be going into the forest with Hagrid today to tour one of our rare plant groves,' she announced. 'A lot of you may soon start thinking about what you want to do with your lives. You may think Herbology is dull or uninteresting or has no applications, when in fact, nothing is further from reality. Hopefully, our little excursion today will show you why.'
'A couple of rules before we leave,' she continued. 'You must stay with the group at all times. This is extremely important, because though our path through the forest is usually very safe, the forest can sometimes be unpredictable. You are not to, at any time, wander off the path. Second, you are not to touch any plants unless we explicitly tell you to do so. Finally, you must follow all instructions regarding the plants in the grove. If we tell you to stay away, you must stay away. Failure to do so will result in more than Point losses or detentions. They may lead to injury. Are the expectations clear?'
'Yes, Professor Sprout!'
Hagrid started out of the greenhouse with the students following him, Professor Sprout bringing up the rear to ensure there were no stragglers. They crossed the stretch of ground between the greenhouses and the forest before entering it along a narrow dirt path. The trees on either side seemed to close in around them as they walked deeper into the forest, and Harry could hear the sounds of animals from afar echoing through the trees. Some of them seemed quite normal – the chirping of birds or the scurrying of little feet – but others, like a deep, grumbling roar or sharp screeches, were far more unsettling.
They walked for about ten minutes before reaching a large clearing in the forest, partially shielded by trees along its edge but open to the sunlight in its centre. Around the clearing were arranged a number of different plots, on many of which were growing strange-looking plants unfamiliar to anything that they had seen before in Herbology. Other plots, meanwhile, contained completely mundane-looking plants, although Harry was sure that they were, in fact, extraordinary.
'Here we are,' Professor Sprout said. 'This is the newest of our three rare plant groves. Our first two rare plant groves are dedicated to rare plants from around the British Isles which we have been studying, but this one is dedicated to plants from around the world. Most of our plants here are from Europe, Africa, and Asia, but we also have several from the Americas and Australia. Some of these we were only able to obtain after years of negotiations, so we do our best to treat them with as much caution as possible. This is the only grove where only fifth- to seventh-year students are allowed to work – the other two are open to all students second-year and above. This grove, though, has, in my opinion, the most interesting plants of the three. Let's walk around, and I'll show you some.'
She stopped by the plot closest to the entrance to the clearing, in which a plant with flowing, silvery-blue leaves was growing. 'This is a Riversprite,' she explained. 'This is a plant which grows in the marshes along the southern reaches of the Danube. It's quite a paradoxical plant. On one hand, it's the component which lends many lethal poisons much of their killing power, but on the other, it's a part of many – though older – medicines against Dragon Pox. Nowadays, more common and easier-to-obtain plants are used against Dragon Pox, but we've been researching this plant because it seems to have the power to combat the Mediterranean Boneworm. That's a disease-causing parasite that most often affects people working on the Mediterranean Sea, for instance fishermen and sea-hunters. Currently, the only technique that works against the Boneworm is a surgical removal, but that is only viable in earlier stages of the illness, before the parasite migrates to the bone, and it is risky, too, if the worm happens to infect certain more vulnerable parts of the body.'
The tour continued. Professor Sprout next stopped a distance away from a grove in which a tall, completely boring-looking bush was growing. 'Do not step near this plant,' she warned. 'There are enchantments around this plot that keep the growing environment optimal and cannot be disturbed. This is the Fernflower Bush. It's a very new addition to our collection – we only received it in June – and in fact, I'm not very well-read in its properties. Anna, dear, do you have a moment?'
A figure walked around the bush, and Harry was surprised to see that it was Anna. She had a small spade in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. Though it was already rather chilly in the Highlands, she was dressed in clothing – more appropriate for noon on a hot summer day – and even then, she was sweating. When she saw Harry in the crowd of students, she winked at him, and Harry waved back.
'What is it, Pomona?'
'Do you mind giving the students a quick explanation of what the Fernflower is?' Professor Sprout called.
Anna nodded. 'Sure. So, there're actually two varieties of plants that are both called "Fernflower" in English. These two plants actually are not related, but they look very similar, hence the mistake. One of them grows on the Scandinavian Peninsula around the Baltic Sea. That one's actually very common and its berries are used in a lot of simple but useful potions. The other one, the one we have here, grows around the Caspian Sea. It's a desert plant – that's why we need the enchantments to create a bubble of hot and dry air around it. Unfortunately, because of overharvesting, this plant has been becoming scarcer and scarcer in recent years, and there's a real danger it might go extinct. That'd be a tragedy, because parts of this plant are used in many alchemical elixirs, and might have even more applications we don't know about. Right now, we're working on trying to farm it artificially, but that's been difficult, because the climate and geography of its native habitat isn't very easy to replicate. Right now, we can manage small-scale cultivation like we have here, but it's not very practical for scaling up. We'll find a way, though.'
Anna went back to work on the Fernflower, and Professor Sprout led the students further along on their tour. Her next plot featured a short plant with large, broad leaves. Curiously, they were placed abnormally far apart from one another, with approximately a full metre's distance between each one. This arrangement meant that on the standard-sized plot, only fifteen of the plants could be grown. Like with the Fernflower, Professor Sprout stopped a distance away and instructed the group not to approach any closer.
'This is the Maghrebi Mandrake,' she explained. 'As the name suggests, these used to be native to Algeria in the Ottoman Empire, but they've since gone extinct in the wild following an Ottoman effort in the 1700s to exterminate them. Why? Well, the Mandrake is a bit of a, shall we say, problematic, plant. It's a pest: Mandrakes poison the ground on which they grow – that's why we needed to space them out like this here – and they're also extremely nutrient-intensive, meaning that any land that gets invaded by Mandrakes is left unusable for years afterwards. To make things worse, when pulled from the ground, Mandrakes produce a horrible, shrill cry that can cause episodes of delusion that last for days or even weeks. If the victim is unlucky – usually, if they have abnormally weak mental defence abilities – they could even be killed on the spot. There's a story – possibly apocryphal – of a leader of the uprising in Ottoman Serbia who was assassinated by Mandrake Cry on the Sultan's orders during the Yugoslavian Revolution of 1903.'
Terry Boot raised his hand. 'Why do we keep them around, then?'
'Because they're useful,' Professor Sprout replied. 'Before the Ottomans rid the Mandrake in the wild, they made sure to learn how to farm it first. The Mandrake root is used to cure several severe illnesses, for example Petrification, which is a phenomenon where the body turns to stone that could be caused by many sources. Now, the Sultan's court strictly regulates the growing and trade of Mandrakes, for obvious reasons, so Mandrake production is very low. To make things harder for us, most of the Mandrake harvest each year ends up being processed for its leaves or root powder, its most valuable products, and most of that is used in the domestic market. The number of live Mandrakes that end up being sold on the international market per year can probably be counted on one hand. We managed to receive our Mandrake after waiting for four years, and we've been trying to learn how to cultivate it at a larger scale ever since, but we haven't come across any leads so far. Obviously, the different climate means we need climate control enchantments, but Mandrakes don't seem to grow well even in their native climate in large groups. Trying to understand why is one of our main goals with these Mandrakes.'
Professor Sprout showed them around some of the other plants in the garden, and though Harry did not like Herbology more than average, he still found hearing about what was done in these groves quite interesting. In one plot, they were trying to crossbreed varieties of Golden Ginseng to recreate one which had been lost in its native Korea since the late-1600s. In another, several newly discovered plants from the Iberian Peninsula were being grown so that their magical properties could be understood. In yet another, Umdlebe trees from southern Africa were being studied to determine what makes approximately one in a thousand mundane trees have magical properties.
'Unfortunately, I'm out of time,' Professor Sprout said after showing them the Umdlebe. 'There's a lot more fascinating plants than these at Hogwarts, though. If you're interested in these plants, talk to me at any time. As I said, second-year students and above can apprentice at the other two rare plant groves. You'll be put under the supervision of a sixth- or seventh-year student and you'll get to work with some plants from Britain yourself. It's a great learning experience and it might even lead you to some opportunities later down the road. I definitely hope to see some of you there.'
'That was incredible, don't you think?' Neville asked Harry and Hermione as they walked back through the forest. 'All these plants and their properties. And the fact that you probably can't find any of these anywhere else in Britain…'
'You should talk to Professor Sprout about her offer, then,' Hermione suggested.
'I want to,' Neville said, 'but…'
'But what?'
'Do you…do you think Professor Sprout would take me on?'
'Why shouldn't she?' Harry asked. 'You're one of the best students in her class.'
'And you've always been really interested in Herbology,' Hermione added. 'It's the perfect thing for you to do.'
Neville blushed a little. 'You…you really think so?'
Harry and Hermione both nodded with certainty.
'I…well, I won't ever be able to do it if I don't ask, right?'
