Lesson 5: Psychomancy

January to March 1997

With the new apparition lessons intruding on their free time, Professor Totengräber decided they might as well stop their extra lessons as they 'had caught up to her Lémures as much as they could, anyway'.

As a direct continuation of their lessons on summoning spirits of the dead, Professor Totengräber proceeded to teach them how to divine the future with their help.

"We use the word 'psychomancy' these days," she explained, "for 'necromancy' has established itself as a broader term including more than just divining the future. In the true sense of the word, necromancy would be more accurate as we limit ourselves not to souls."

"Perhaps necrokinesis or necrology would have been better terms," Nott said.

"If only they would roll off the tongue as easily," Lémure replied almost wistfully.

"Is it more accurate than divination?" Harry asked, then ducked his head when he received several raised eyebrows. "The divination that Professor Trelawney teaches, I mean. I don't know if there is a different term for it, she never said."

"Fortune telling, perhaps?" Professor Totengräber looked towards Lémure and Fawley.

Fawley titled her head, considering. "She does seem to teach all sorts of techniques associated with predicting one's personal future." She turned to Harry. "Divination is a very broad term not necessarily referring to gaining knowledge about future events. There are many disciplines that fall under divination but aren't even mentioned in Trelawney's subject."

"They even teach Arithmancy here yet no one ever acknowledges it as a form of divination." Lémure shook her head. "It's ridiculous."

"They do tell you it's a form of divination," Fawley corrected, "but they never draw the connection to the subject of Divination, itself."

"I –" Harry frowned. "I'm confused."

"It's not all about the future. It's about gaining insight. And there so many ways to do it – astrology, clairvoyance, scrying, palmistry, cartomancy, oneiromancy, pyromancy, haematomancy, arithmancy, necromancy – what were tea leaves called again?"

"Tasseomancy," Lémure replied.

"And – they all work?" Harry asked.

Lémure shrugged. "If you know what you're doing. If you have a talent for it – and an aptitude, too, in some cases."

"Rhea has a particular talent for cartomancy and pallomancy," Fawley supplied. "I'm more suited for haematomancy."

Harry didn't know what any of these words meant.

"But we are not here to learn about all of that," Professor Totengräber interjected. "You can research that in your own free time, if you find your curiosity piqued."

"Does osteomancy fall under necromancy?" Nott asked.

"Why, yes." Professor Totengräber smiled. "There are so many words for every little thing, we could be here all day."

"Osteomancy, psychomancy, sciomancy, necyomancy, anthropomancy, haruspicy" Lémure listed. "There's a debate whether haematomancy counts, but it's easy if you differentiate between using blood from a living source and blood from a dead source."

"That was not an invitation, Antheraea dearest."

Lémure smiled innocently. "My apologies, grandmama."

"I'm still confused," Harry admitted.

Professor Totengräber sighed. "They should really teach you Latin and Greek at this school. Perhaps a class just to categorise magic and all the boxes it is put in."

Harry blinked. "I thought magic just was."

Their teacher smiled. "And it is. All these words are meaningless, in the end. As long as you achieve what you intend to do, what does it matter what the method is called? Broad distinctions help, generally – especially to discern and better describe where one's talents lie. But does it matter whether you use the entrails of a human to divine the future or the entrails of an animal? For your moral complexes, perhaps, but not for the rituals themselves."

Harry tried not to grimace. "But we are not doing that, are we?"

Professor Totengräber tilted her head. "Why not? For now, we are still on the subject of calling upon the spirits of the dead, but branching out into other fields of necromantic divination later cannot hurt."

Harry did not look forward to that at all.

It only occurred to him later, when he told Ron and Hermione about it (separately, because they still weren't talking to each other) and they asked why he still went to the lessons – that the thought of stopping had never even crossed his mind.

He didn't want to stop. Despite the horrors Professor Totengräber inflicted on them now and then, despite the constant contact with all things dead, despite the gore – Harry honestly enjoyed the lessons. He felt … content, somehow, in a way he rarely did with schoolwork even though objectively speaking coming from someone with a Muggle upbringing, learning magic was brilliant.

Ron and Hermione did not understand how interwoven a necromancer's practices were with their day-to-day life, how their philosophies affected every little aspect of their lifestyle. One could not simply decide to be a necromancer one day and not to be one the next. It wasn't possible.

Voldemort would never be able to learn necromancy.

It should have been a bigger revelation than it was – mean more than it did. But somehow, it was just a simple fact and did not turn into a bigger motivation to continue. It may have started in the hopes of gaining the upper hand, but Harry had stopped doing it for that reason alone along the way. If he had to be completely honest, Harry would have to admit that he hadn't been doing it for the possible advantage against Voldemort in a long time. He was learning the ways of necromancy because he enjoyed it, no matter how queasy and uncomfortable and even guilty it made him feel at times.

He simply … felt content.

o

"Oh, Harry dearest. I received a reply to the enquiry you had."

Harry looked away from the book Nott had given him about the origin of Greek words in everyday language. (It looked suspiciously Muggle, but that couldn't possibly be.)

"One of my granddaughters was indeed around Tom Riddle's age," Professor Totengräber told him as she entered the classroom, "but she skipped Hogwarts in favour of pursuing her own personal studies. I even remember Naenia staying with us for a few years to study the Totengräbers' ways. From our side, Tom Riddle never had direct contact with a necromancer. Under neither of his aliases."

"That's good to know," Harry said slowly. He had forgotten he had ever asked about that. It wasn't all that important anymore, anyway. "May I ask why it took so long?"

"All those with relevant knowledge are dead one way or another. Things are never as urgent when you are dead and the passage of time just feels different once you have lived a couple of decades, centuries, millennia … Or when you're simply so absorbed in your studies that you don't even notice a month or two have already passed. It's not like the undead need sustenance and rest the same way the living do. Hello, dears."

During her explanation, the three Slytherins had finally arrived.

"You are reading the book I gave you," Nott said quietly as he sat down right next to Harry.

Harry shrugged. "It's not as dry as I expected it to be."

Nott smiled. "Of course not. I specifically chose it with you in mind."

Harry felt his cheeks heat up. He was thankfully saved from having to splutter his way through a response by Professor Totengräber beginning the lesson.

"Is there something specific you want to know about your future?" Harry asked Nott curiously once the theoretical part was over and they proceeded to the practical part.

Nott shook his head. "Either I will survive the war or I won't. Anything else pales in comparison."

And a necromancer would accept whatever fate Death granted them, so there was no use in asking about it.

"I imagine you have more important questions to ask."

"Maybe." Harry shrugged one shoulder, giving Nott a sheepish smile. "Recently, I find myself wondering what is really important."

"It doesn't have to be about yourself. Divination isn't limited to personal information."

Harry considered this for a moment. He did actually have a few questions, but he couldn't ask them in front of Nott. They might have been something resembling friends by now – or at least on friendly terms – but that did not mean Harry trusted Nott enough to reveal information he had gained about Voldemort from Dumbledore's private lessons.

"Let's ask about the outcome of the next Quidditch match then. You're up against Ravenclaw, aren't you?"

He would just have to ask his questions later. Professor Totengräber never discouraged them from practicing on their own, after all.

o

There was a weariness and exhausted air about Headmaster Dumbledore that Harry had always deliberately failed to notice before, but couldn't overlook any longer, now. The way he was slumped over his desk, his face tired, his eyes speaking of pain. The way he hid the blackened hand that had been lying motionless on the table the moment Harry entered his office. The way he donned a mask of bemused but delighted surprise when he saw who it was.

"Harry, my boy. I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

"He made seven, sir," Harry wheezed out between gasping for air. He had run directly to the headmaster's office after dismissing the spirits. "Seven pieces of his soul."

"Sit down, sit down. Allow yourself to catch your breath. We have all the time in the world, my boy, no need to hurry yourself so."

They didn't. But Harry knew Dumbledore wouldn't like him pointing it out.

"Would you like some tea?"

Harry mutely accepted the offered cup and drank deeply.

"Now, you said something about seven pieces of his soul?"

Harry nodded. "The Horcruxes – Voldemort made six of them. To split his soul into seven parts."

Dumbledore sat back in his chair, gazing at the air above Harry's shoulder for a moment.

"And you know this how?"

"I asked the dead."

The dead saw all and knew all. One just needed to figure out whom to ask.

It hadn't been easy. Were Harry any better at psychomancy it might not have taken an entire month's worth of sleepless nights, but as it was simply calling the dead and asking them directly about their memories was more reliable to get him the answers he sought. Divination, it seemed, would never be Harry's strong suit no matter which specific field of it he pursued.

Harry had racked his brain for dead people who could possibly know anything related to the manipulated memory Dumbledore had shown him, but eventually come to the realisation that the memory itself wasn't the important part. That had not necessarily made it any easier to find the right people, but Harry only had to find one or two and start a chain from there. After he had figured out how to actually ask his questions, for almost none of the people he summoned knew what a Horcrux was.

Heck, Harry hadn't known what a Horcrux was, at first – Dumbledore had never deigned to explain it to him. But Professor Totengräber had known.

She had given him the oddest smile when Harry had asked her about it.

"The Diary was his first." And hadn't that been a revelation. "Then the Gaunt Ring. Slytherin's Locket and Hufflepuff's Cup." One of Zacharias Smith's ancestors had been murdered for those two and some poor house-elf named Hokey had been framed. "Ravenclaw's Diadem." That one had been the hardest to figure out. "And most recently, his snake Nagini."

"You are absolutely sure of this?"

"Yes, sir. I verified everything."

There was a moment of silence.

"I also know where most of them are."

Dumbledore set his piercing eyes on Harry. "Where?"

"Well – the Diary has been destroyed, obviously. And you took care of the ring." Harry couldn't help the way his gaze flickered to the hand Dumbledore was hiding behind his desk. "He hid the Locket in some cave filled with Inferi." Which had made it all the easier to find out about it and also confirmed once again that Voldemort most definitely did not know the first thing about real necromancy. "But it's not there anymore. I'm sure if I ask around some more, I can track it down. The Cup is in a Gringotts vault. And the Diadem – the Diadem is here at Hogwarts."

"Here, you say?"

Harry nodded.

"Where?"

"In the Room of Hidden Things."

"The interview," Dumbledore said to himself. "He came here not because he thought he had a chance of getting the job or to find one of the founders' artefacts but to hide one."

"Interview, sir?"

"Ah, a memory I would have shown you in our next lesson. Paired with one I collected from a house-elf called Hokey who served one Hepzibah Smith."

"The person Voldemort murdered to get the Locket and the Cup."

"Yes. It seems you have outpaced our lessons, Harry."

Harry ducked his head. "Sorry."

"No need to apologise. It is a good thing you did. And now it seems, my boy, we have an important task to fulfil." Dumbledore rose from his seat and swept across the room towards the exit.

Harry moved to follow him. "Professor? How does one destroy a Horcrux?"

o

"So you need to find the Locket somehow, break into Gringotts and kill the snake," Ron summarised.

"More or less," Harry agreed. "Dumbledore hopes his connections with the goblins might be helpful in getting our hands on the Cup, but the goblins aren't an easy bunch to deal with." He glanced at Hermione, who was pacing left and right in front of them, muttering to herself. "Finding the Locket can't be harder than figuring out what the Horcruxes were in the first place. I just need to catch up on some sleep first."

"You really do." Ron patted his shoulder. "You look like an undead, mate, no offense. We thought it was because of those lessons again. You had us really worried last time."

"It was all part of the lesson. A very important one at that."

"So you've told us."

"It was at Grimmauld Place," Harry confessed quietly. "The Locket. Sirius' brother took it."

"Wasn't he a Death Eater?" Ron asked.

Harry nodded. "It seems he defected, in the end. Sirius never knew."

"We should ask Kreacher about it," Hermione said almost absentmindedly, still pacing.

"Sounds like a good start," Ron agreed.

"We can do this." Harry briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I think we can actually do this. We know what to do – how to make him vulnerable. We have a plan. We can do this."

"Yes," Hermione said, coming to a stop and fixing them with determined eyes. "And this time, you are going to let us help you."