Master Xander
Chapter Ten
Professor Harris, wand in hand, touched the center of the desk with it. There was a soft glow at the wand's tip, characteristic of magic flowing through it, and the desk's color, changed from a dark brown to a lighter almost cream color. It was a simple charm, one that any of the young students were capable of.
Naturally, the students were unimpressed, but it did confirm that the professor could use a wand properly even though the way he performed his wand movements seemed somewhat erratic when compared to the way most people usually performed magic with wands. There was some question about his magical competence as many of the students that had visited his store never really actually saw him using his wand. There was a rumor that the professor was barely magical, and was closer to a squib actually than anything else. That and other rumors were pushed by the Daily Prophet in a series of articles written by the reporter Rita Skeeter. The articles from their ace reporter were particularity vicious. Her series of articles about the '6Americans' and their 'unfair' competition practiced against the 'innocent' stores and shop owners of Diagon Alley, suffering the degradation of those American immigrants who were taking jobs away from the upright citizens of Magical Britain was yellow journalism of the lowest sort.
This small burst of magic helped dispel l the rumors circulating though some of the houses.
"Okay, we don't deny that the ability to use magic makes life easier. It gives us a sense of power. Magic is power. It is something that certain people are born with. It is an ability that helps in the survival in the human race. Now, having said that, I want you to think about this," he continued, looking at a somewhat confused group of children. "Is magic a survival trait? A show of hands please, if you agree to this."
Most of the students raised their hands.
Alex nodded to the class. "Does the ability to use magic make us stronger and, or superior to the non-magical people that live on Earth, agree or disagree?"
This time, almost all of the students raised their hands.
"Okay, then why is it that the magical community is so afraid of people who have no magical power?"
Daphne Greengrass quickly raised her hand. Alex nodded and the girl stood up. To his amusement he saw Hermione's look of disappointment at not being able to answer the question. "The magical community is very powerful; we can all agree to that," she said succinctly. "But the muggles-"
"No-mages, or non-magicals are the names for them used in this class," Professor Delane corrected, having a clear note of disapproval and the merest touch of menace that the young pupil immediately sensed. "If we are going to study about them, then we should use the appropriate terms to identify them."
Miss Greengrass gave a barely perceptible nod and continued without missing a beat. "No-mages breed too quickly and their populations have exploded."
"Much like the Wesley clan," snickered Draco. Several of the students laughed.
"Class," said Professor Delane. "We don't usually give or take point arbitrarily. We do however, give out lots and lots of homework for the week to students who disappoint us. Am I clear?" Draco felt the world on his shoulders and it was pressing down on him hard. "Yes, Professor. Understood."
Ron couldn't help smiling somewhat hysterically.
"Please continue Miss Greengrass."
"They fear us and our power. That is why we keep our communities secret from the no-mages. If they found out about us and our communities, then they will burn us all at the stake or torture us to try" to gain our power."
"A quick point and something to think about, students" interrupted Professor Harris. "If the Statute of Secrecy is so effective, then non-magical people should not know anything about magic in the first place. But they do, so what does this imply?"
Ceraine looked at her and continued to make her point. "So, you're saying that our magic is superior to anything the non-magical community can strike at us with." Again, Daphne nodded. "But we would lose to them because they have the numbers? But our community is strong and if we come together, we can do anything we want. So, it seems to me that there's something wrong. With all of our abilities. With all of our magic, we would still be defeated in a war? Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes," said Daphne. She was somewhat less certain now. It felt as if she were walking into a trap but she couldn't see it. "We all know the histories. Witches and wizards interacting with no-mages has always resulted in disaster. When they discover the truth about us and our magic, they become jealous and afraid. Then the inevitable happens. We are burned us at the stake or they use some other way to kill us. It's a well-known historical fact."
"When was the last time a witch or wizard was burned at the stake?" asked Professor Harris.
Surprisingly to Harry and the majority of the class, Draco Malfoy raised his hand. The professors acknowledged his existence and he half sneered, "just recently. It happens all the time. When those people see witches and wizards performing magic, they attack us. That is why we separate ourselves from them, otherwise it would lead to war," he finished. A moment later, he added, "We would win such a war, of course."
The boy reminded Harris of a certain bleached vampire but this young man's hair was naturally blond. "Do you know of any concrete evidence of which burning that has happened recently?"
"No, but I'm sure that it has happened possibly as late as last week," defended a confident and defiant Draco.
"Interesting," Professor Harris respond. "If that's true, then either the normal people are stronger than we believe, or the magical folk are a lot weaker, or that the Statute is not doing its job and magical people are not adhering to it."
"There should be records of those incidents in the news," Draco added. "My father mentions these incidents all of the time."
"Good, good," Professor Delane said. "That will be your assignment, Mister…?"
"Malfoy," the young man proudly answered.
Mister Malfoy," smiled the professor. The way she said it was some dazzling that it took some of the sting out of the fact that he was stuck with an assignment he hadn't really anticipated. He was positive that somehow, he'd been tricked into this assignment. He was irritated but had to admit it was very Slytherin of her.
"That implies that the Statute of Secrecy may not be being adhered to as much as it should be," Alex said while looking at the class in general. "Assuming that what Mister Malfoy is saying is true, then this is one of the primary reasons why we keep ourselves separated from them," Alexander continued. "So, in conclusion, the Stature exists for our safety. Does anyone agree with that comment?"
Everyone's hands raised but there was an uncertainty now. The seeds were planted and were planted deep.
Professor Harris turned to another student. "Miss Granger, it is good to see you again. I have a question for you. Since you are one of the students who lives in the no-mage culture, what is your opinion about living among them? Is it good, bad, or something else?" Are you indifferent? Does it excite you? Does it bother you? Do you fear living in the no-mage world? Please explain."
Hermione looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. She was a magical born to non-magical parents and until she discovered that she did have magical powers she was quite content. Now, she was caught between two worlds, desperately trying to fit in a world that in many cases treated her with disdain because of her heritage. Many people were prejudiced against her because her parents weren't magical, while many other people quietly considered her a stain of community because of it. She was well aware that she and others like her were called names behind their backs and unless they were exceptional, their futures weren't bright inside of the British magical community. At her tender age, this was very disheartening and it forced her to work even harder to be accepted in the short and long terms.
Being called mudblood and other even more despicable names truly hurt. But she ignored those comments as best she could, determined to prove herself and not to allow these people to tear her down. Still, talking to her fellow students and friends about life in the non-magical world was difficult. Many just didn't understand.
"Before I knew I had magic everything was fine. I did everything that normal people did. I was unaware of how the magical community lived until I came to Hogwarts. To me, life was normal."
Professor Delane interrupted her before she could continue. "So now that you've been exposed to magic are you afraid of the no-mage people that are your friends and family?"
"Only my parents know about magic. We've kept the secret from everyone else as stated by law." The young girl's eyes were scrunched up in thought. "I'm not afraid of them at all. But I have to be careful around them because of the Statute of Secrecy. They needn't know about magic because it would endanger both them and us."
"Ah, now you've said something interesting," said Professor Harris. "They are a danger to us, but we are also a danger to them. Is that what you're saying?"
"I am saying that we need to maintain our secrets to keep both sides from being endangered. There are too many of them and not enough of us."
It was the 'them vs us' mentality that Harris wanted the tyo realize. he wanted them to understand what thatrutly meant. further, the word 'normal' was a word that everyone was trying to avoid and he resolved to beat that word to death in his students. They had no idea what normal was when it came to humanity as a whole.
Harris began pacing the room while, Ceraine sat on the desk and crossed her legs unconsciously pulling every young male eye towards her direction.
"That is what I want to discuss today," Harris told them. "It's about them or it's about us. That's how we define and separate us one from another. They're different, therefore they can't be trusted. They will kill us if they find out, so we have to obliviate them whenever they experience any hint of magic. I propose that that way of thinking is a recipe for disaster." He paused for a moment as he stared at the defiant looks being directed at him the class. "Well," he whispered. "Let me tell you a secret."
Ceraine continued without missing a beat. "In America, where we were trained, it was proven to us, that magic exists everywhere. It's in the smallest to the largest of things." She wanted to use viruses and bacteria as examples but then she would have to explain what those were and that would distract from her point. Most of the children here had no idea of the basic of known of biology, so she kept it as basic as possible. "It is only a matter of degree how much magic is present, if it can be used and how it is expressed. What this means is that there is really no such thing as non-magical people or things. Everything has magic. And everything, and everybody in their own way uses it or it dies. And each person, animal, or thing has a unique way of using it. Some can access it directly such as wizards, witches and magical animals and manipulate…magical energy in almost all of its forms. This type of manipulation can be used to animate and infuse objects, creating magical artifacts limited to only the imagination and the amount of power and intent available to the manipulator. Did you know that the magic in the air can be used by some people who are able to can gather and use it in the same ways as witches and wizards can use their inner cores?"
"That's Impossible," Ron Weasley yelled out while a stunned Draco looked at him, shocked as he was in agreement with a Weasley. "They have to have a core that is able to use magic in the first place. Everyone knows that."
"He is right, professor," Harry added feeling wonderful at the ability to jump into a conversation in a class without being openly rebuked. "You just told us that everyone has a core but only some can use magic like wizards and witches. Those cores can't be magical, not as we understand it."
"Mister Weasley is partially correct. Both of you are," Harris told them.
"Think about this. Every living human on Earth has a magical core. It can be active such as in witches and wizards or it can be inactive. The inactive cores in people for example, cannot access magic like a witch or wizard. Or, can they? A so-called squib cannot use magic, not because they don't have a core, but that the core is unable to access the needed requirements to manipulate magic. But is it really inactive or… is not being used for the manipulation of magical energy? What if those cores could be changed? Would they become magical or would those cores express themselves in another form? And as I said, some people who have inactive cores,t can use magic just as effectively as the magical community."
"Professor," Hermione said as she raised her hand all but demanding to be heard. "If what you have told us is correct, then magical cores must be active so that a person or magical creature can use magic. It is impossible for those who have no active cores to use magic."
"Active cores allow magic to be used. But those beings that don't have active cores who use magic use something, something outside their cores and it works. In some cases it is called mutation. athat is a concept we will discuss later. In fact, I might consider giving a class on magical core and the science of genetics called the science of magical inheritance which is a lot more complicated than you might think. The question we should be asking is, what really defines a magical core and how may variations there are of said cores?"
Professor Delane smiled. "Did you know that a few squibs have full access to magic even though test would confirm that they are squibs and they don't even know it. It is very possible that some pure bloods might be families of magically stable squibs." She smiled at the stunned looks of absolute disbelief of the students glaring at her. "Everyone is focused on whether a person has magic or not in magical families. Logically, there is the assumption that they must have active cores. It is a well know believe that Pureblood magical families have pure magical children. But there is a lot more to this than simple inheritance. There are a lot of factors that allows one to have magic, otherwise squibs would not be born into pureblood families."
There was a collective gasp heard throughout the classroom.
"But as Professor Harris said, we will get into that later. This class will focus on the non-magical people of the world. They do not have magic but they have compensated for this lack. Instead of magic they have science and the questions are, how do they live, what do they do and how is it that they can survive without magic? What have they achieved and what do we know about them that could affect our lives? Could we survive in a non-magical environment and how much do they really know about magic despite the Secrecy Act? These are questions we will discuss in the coming weeks. For now, let us begin our study of non-magical objects you see in this room, what they are, how they work and why non magicals can't stand to live without them."
"This is my personal favorite," Alex began. "It's my LG OLED C12 flat screen television."
"What magical company made it?" asked Miss Granger. "It's not an ordinary TV. It doesn't even have a picture tube. It's too thin to be a muggle TV."
"It is a non-magical TV warded so that it can be used here at the school."
"Impossible," Hermione scoffed.
"Where I come from, this is the state of the art," smiling as he said it. "Magic and science are not exclusive arts. Less scoffing and more thinking, Miss Granger."
A hand raised.
"Yes, sir?"
"Professor, ah. Exactly what is a TV?"
"Young man, I'm glad you asked that question."
Thus, began the first week of the loudest, most rambunctious week in the history of Hogwarts. That week was like nothing ever seen at the school as students literally scrambled into their respective seats and waited for class to begin. Energetic wasn't the right word to describe the class, especially as Professors Harris had a gift for aggravating his students much to their delight and frustration.
"So, the Los Angeles National Guard, that's their city militia had to go into the sewers and wipe out those giant ants before they could wipe out the city and spread across the world," finished Alex.
It took every once of power Ceraine had to keep from rolling her eyes.
As usual, it was Daphne who stood up ready to argue first, much to Hermione's irritation at being beaten yet again. "You're not telling us the truth!" she yelled. "America doesn't have giant magical ants!"
"I didn't say they were magical," her teacher responded. "These ants were created as a by-product of non-magical experimentation. Then there was the problem with the giant grasshopper, you would call them locusts, that attacked Midwest Illinois. The army couldn't stop them and they overran the city of Chicago. Again, that is in the United states of America. They were the size of buses or bigger. The army and scientists figured out how to attract them and they were able to drown them all in Lake Michigan. That was decades ago. It's interesting that locust corpses still wash up on 31st Street Beach occasionally. The city usually tries to dismiss them as driftwood from old ships that sank in the 1800s." Alexander whispered fondly. "Ah, the good old days."
"Most of the students in the room looked appropriately horrified.
Terry Boot of house Ravenclaw started mumbling. "What a horrible country. How could anyone live in that wretched place?"
"Scotland has giant spiders…"
"They are called acromantulas, Professor," corrected one Cho Chang. She looked a little shy speaking up. In this class, it was almost expected.
"That's what I said," the professor deadpanned. "Giant spiders, centaurs and other magical creatures," Professor Harris said. "Why can't America have radioactive, non-magical creatures. You have magical mandrake plants. America had alien plants like the Thing from Another World. That was a super vegetable that looked like a large human. It came here in a spaceship to get to Earth and found itself in the artic near a small American military-exploration outpost. It was accidently unthawed and went on a rampage because it needed blood for its progeny it had stored in seed pods located in its forearms."
"Let me guess," said a very sarcastic Susanna Hesleden. "The American military killed it before it could create an army of killer plants."
"Of course," smiled Alex.
"Merlin! The American Army are busy blokes," Neville Longbottom exclaimed. "But couldn't they had explained to the plant that what it was trying to do was wrong?"
Mister Longbottom looked so sincerely and heartbroken at the thought of an intelligent plant being destroyed by ruthless American soldiers that he almost felt sorry for him. "There was a scientist that thought the same thing. He almost got everyone there on the outpost killed." He looked at Neville, who was looking distinctively uncomfortable under the scrutiny. "The Thing was about to beat everyone to death with a giant piece of wood so it could feed its new army on fresh blood. Mister Longbottom, they were scheduled to be used as plant fertilizer. Would that have been better?"
Neville gulped. "I guess not, sir."
"Then there was Audrey II. That was a telepathic man-eating plant that also needed fresh blood to thrive. As an adult, it ate people that its master fed to it." He sighed and continued the story. "It's always about the blood, but I'll admit it had a magnificent singing voice. Notice students that none of these were magical plants but aliens from other worlds. None of these threats were even noticed by the magical community."
Silence.
"If the non-magicals hadn't stopped it, do you possible believe that those threats would have ignored the magical community? Would the magical communities have been able to stop them?"
"Our protections would have stopped them!" Malfoy said.
"Do you really believe that?" asked Professor Delane. "Can you imagine three to four million ants half the size of railroad cars swarming over Scotland and not notice Hogwarts or Hogsmeade? Do you believe you would be safe?"
Again, there was silence. Most of the girls in the classroom looked pale and the boys didn't look any better.
Professor Harris tapped his wand on the desk regaining everyone's attention. He smiled widely. "Of course, I could be lying."
"I knew it!" Susan yelled. "Everything he said was a lie!"
Hermione jumped up as did Harry and Ron. "You can't call the professor a liar!"
Harris folded his arms, pleased that they would defend him. "Well, she could be right," admitted Harris to a shocked and confused class. "But Miss Bones, how would you know?" He turned again to address the class. "And that's the point. I could well be lying to you with every word I say, or I could be telling you the absolute truth. But how would you know? Non-magicals went to the moon thirty plus years ago, but you had no idea, or you didn't believe it. My students, I will tell you many, many things about no-mages and I could be lying. However, it is up to you to prove or disprove it. I just told you that mankind went to the moon. You are the ones to prove that I am lying or telling the truth."
"How?" asked Neville. He wondered what type of Professor would openly admit to lying?
"It's a technique called study and research. In this class, it would be wise of you all not to take my word for anything. In this class, you will have to study your little hearts out to prove me right or to prove me wrong. There will be a lot of things that we will learn about. Some of these observations will be unbelievable but true. Others will seem absolutely true but are false. You need to know what is true and what isn't. Don't just don't take my word for it in this classroom. But make no mistake," he said softly. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Outside this classroom, I will tell you the truth and I expect you to do the same. In real life and I don't mean this place," he said as he stretched his arms to encompass the school, "your word is your reputation. Tell the truth and always verify. It will keep you safe," he finished, as he glanced at Hermione for a quick instant.
"Professor," asked an anxious Harry Potter. "Were the things you spoke of about the giant ants and locust true?"
Professor looked as serious as he'd ever been. "Research time, Mister Potter. Everybody, that's your assignment. Mister Malfoy, you are excused from this assignment as you have one of your own you are still working on. Everyone else, is the American army constantly saving the Earth from giant bugs, speaking of which…"
He glanced over at Ceraine who nodded. She had noticed it as well. The tip of her wand brightened a dark blue as power surged within it. The room's wards locked down effectively trapping everyone and everything inside.
Alex tapped his wand on the desk and a strange object appeared on the desktop. This everyone is a no-mage product. It is a spay can containing a chemical affectionally called Raid Ant and Roach Killer. It kills bugs dead." Then he added. "Not the giant ones you're going to research. Those need anti-tank rounds. But for little things, it works just fine. Allow me to demonstrate."
He grabbed the can and headed towards the back of the classroom as he explained what he was about to do. "I saw a flying roach in the back of the room and I will not tolerate those creatures in my room. Just a tiny spray will do it. Then he began laughing like a madman.
Suddenly a large beetle began desperately flying around the room while Harris chased it, can in hand. The fleeing beetle made a mistake and turned the wrong way in its desperate attempts to flee.
Squirt!
"It smells horrible," someone yelled as the oily chemical covered the frantically twitching beetle.
"Class dismissed for today."
Conjuring a small glass cage, he placed the beetle inside. He looked at the poisoned creature squirming inside. "I wonder how long it'll take to die?" In response the beetle's movement turned even more frantic. He quietly spoke to the insect inside of the transparent plastic box. "Rita animagus, I warned you, Skeeter. You didn't listen. So, listen now, roach. You won't die but for the next few days, you will wish you had. Don't worry. I'll keep you safe in this glass cage until you get better. I wouldn't try to change back if I were you..."
"That's cruel," Granger snapped as she exited the class and saw the Professor staring at his squirming, obviously in distress captive beetle.
Harris stopped her and she froze at Harris' intense glare. "Weren't you listening in class, young lady? American have a thing about bugs."
Editing and modifications 12-20-2019.
Note: So far, there has been no Potter canon changes that have directly effected Harry's story line as of yet. But all that will change as the next chapters show. We are at the beginning of the 'Goblet' things will take a subtle change of direction as enemies known and unknown begin to make their appearances. No Ron bashing as such but certain habits will get him into a wee bit of trouble and his parents will not be pleased.
Bye for now.