Author's Note: This chapter fought me like nobody's business. If it weren't needed to get the ball rolling about certain things I think I would just delete the whole thing and go straight to chapter 18. Fair warning, this isn't my proudest work.
Chapter 17: Concerning Curses
The new school year began without much fanfare. Harry was quite used to the whole process now and quickly adapted to his new schedule. Old subjects covered new topics in much the same way they did every year. History of magic turned to the topic of goblin rebellions which any teacher other than Professor Bins would no doubt have made into a fascinating topic. But the dry old plodding professor made it sound impossibly dull. Harry quickly resolved not to actually pay any attention in class but just focus on the history book itself instead, which provided the same information at a far more reasonable pace.
The actual topic was fascinating enough. The goblins had come close to winning enough of their rebellions to force their own side of the story into the history books, making them far less biased than the giant wars had been. The goblins hadn't actually won any rebellions of course. They couldn't. If the goblins or any other major magical race ever came close to actually defeating the wizards in charge of their country they risked getting the muggles involved which could only end in slaughter.
For instance in the early eighteen hundreds one of the larger goblin rebellions in England broke out. Some twenty thousand goblins took up arms against the ministry against a task force of four hundred official ministry battle wizards, twelve hundred members of the emergency wizard militia, and whatever concerned citizen might turn out to throw some hexes or curses on a passing troop of goblins before magically sealing themselves in their home. About twenty wizards died in the rebellion, maybe four hundred goblins and the single greatest thing that was destroyed in all the fighting in terms of monetary value was the twenty one hundred articles of enchanted clothing that had to be replaced.
By contrast at the height of the Napoleonic wars armies of more than a hundred thousand muggles might clash with each other and tens of thousands of people could die in just a few days. These days muggles were even more dangerous, the weapons those battles had been fought with were considered laughable museum pieces now. The last real goblin rebellion had been fought off at Hogwarts School, mostly by the school staff, in the eighteen nineties. Harry doubted any goblins these days were eager to start another one.
Charms and Transfigurations were much more interesting to Harry thanks to both their subject matter and their capable teachers. In charms they were covering the summoning charm, which relied on a great deal of visualization to work properly. The spell and wand movements were simple enough, picturing exactly what the wizard needed to summon, how fast it should come to the summoner, and even which hand it should land in, all at a moment's notice was a bit more complicated. The real issue though was that this was the first spell they were covering that relied so heavily on such visualization and simply put, not every person's mind could naturally summon such visuals.
Different people's minds worked in different ways after all. Some verbalized their thoughts in their head, others preferred to work with images or sensations. Professor Flitwick had them all reading a number of different books about how to adapt their own style of thinking to meet the needs of a spell. Harry fortunately could both verbalize his thoughts and visualize them, he also had a good grasp on three dimensional thinking thanks to all his practice with his telekinetics, so the summoning charm came easily enough to him, but the work itself was fascinating enough to keep him interested in his class.
In transfigurations they covered how to gradually transform an object into something else using a series of reverse transformations. That is, they shifted the object into things it was the opposite of rather than things it was similar to, as they had done the previous year. This also allowed them to begin more seriously broaching the topic of the thematic and elemental natures of objects, the broad categories that things fell into which largely determined how they reacted and responded to magic.
This was all quite heavy work and it meant their homework load quickly piled up. Harry was a bit worried about Ron who had never had the best track record when it came to dealing with homework, but so far he had risen to the challenge. Hermione couldn't help but comment on it when she saw Ron, unprompted, dig out the extra charms book that Professor Flitwick had given them to get started on his homework the very first day back in class.
"Already hitting the books, Ron?" She said in surprise.
"Well yeah." Ron said defensively. "You're the one always saying we have to start strong to keep on top of everything."
"And you're the one who always swears he can catch up on all his work over the weekend." Hermione said back.
"But that's never really worked out all that well now, has it?" Ron answered, then he added pride fully. "I'm not going to be the one to fall behind and need you all to bail me out this year."
In their minds he continued. "I talked to Dad about the department of mysteries over the summer. He said they almost never take students fresh out of Hogwarts, but usually either recruit aurors, curse breakers or experts from the misuse of magical artifacts department. I figure that the best strategy to make inroads there is to first join the DMLE and get Bill to teach me about curse breaking to build up a reputation there and then transfer over. But it will require N.E.W.T.S in charms, transfigurations, potions, and defense at the very least. I'll need to up my school game to manage it."
Ron's thorough foresight in the matter surprised Harry and Hermione, which made Ron mentally scoff at them and feel proud of himself at the same time. But Harry couldn't help but wonder if Ron really was the best choice to aim for the department of mysteries. The department was mostly a team of researchers, from what Harry had heard, though they did occasionally find themselves facing off against dangerous dark wizards. Hermione was the best suited of the three of them for technical research, she was the smartest of them in most respects. Harry himself would be the next best choice since he actually was conducting some magical research already into both rune craft and the arts of real divination.
"But we want to minimize the amount of contact you have with the department of mysteries." Ron commented on the direction of Harry's thoughts. "If they find out that you're not human then the whole plan falls apart and were properly buggered. And Hermione was all but born to be the minister of magic, which is a post even more important to our plans to stop the Illithids than head of the department of mysteries. I'm our only real choice. Unless you want to ask Neville if he's willing to go after that spot?"
Harry couldn't argue with that. And he didn't really want to argue with Ron over this at all. It was good to see his friend really throw himself into his school work and take his future seriously. It certainly turned a few heads over the course of the first week. The twins openly wondered if Ron was feeling sick or something. Ginny actually pinned Ron down and demanded to know what was going on, which got her quietly read in on Harry and his friend's plans for the ministry and fighting the Illithids. Ginny spent the next few nights in the common room seriously thinking about things after that night, before she also started hitting the books hard as well.
Before long most of the Gryffindor fourth years were all studying just as hard as Ron had the first night. It seemed like every class was piling on as much work as the students could take. Astronomy was giving them spells to measure the acceleration and gravity of objects in their telescopes. Using that information they were supposed to plot the courses of various heavenly bodies and would then have to carefully track them over the course of the year.
Potions threw them into work on brewing antidotes to the more common poisons that could be magically brewed either intentionally or accidentally from improperly brewed potions. Professor Snape had a new technique to make his displeasure known to those who's antidotes didn't measure up to his standards. As he soon demonstrated when Neville's antidote turned a ghastly shade of purple instead of light blue on their first day.
Where normally Snape would've said something like: "Mr. Longbottom can you actually read the writing on the board or have you gone blind? Can you not see that you're supposed to stir your cauldron exactly thirty times counter clockwise before you add the newt spleens? If you can then tell me why you have elected to stir your cauldron forty times in the wrong direction after you added newt livers instead of following the very simple and clear instructions on the board?"
Instead he approached Neville and glared down at him before removing something from his robes which he handed over to Neville. Professor Snape then explained: "This is a bezoar, Mr. Longbottom, take it and suck on it. It is a stone made from indigestible matter that slowly builds up in the stomach of a goat. I advise you to get used to the taste and invest the money you need to stock up on them. They are rare and expensive but vital to people who can't follow the simple instructions on the board, especially step nine which you have messed up, to brew a basic antidote since they are proof against most poisons. Until you all have mastered the techniques to brew these antidotes whoever brews the most unsatisfactory potion each day will be given a chance to get used to the taste of this goat stone at the end of class. Am I clear?"
Snape's new method actually turned out to be useful for the class. With the prospect of publicly humiliating a student at the end of class to look forward to, Snape didn't feel the need to berate a student every time he corrected them. So now the man would simply point out what a student had done wrong in the most direct and condescending way, usually by just saying: "Your work is ruined, start over and be sure to pay extra attention to step three this time." Before moving on. With less direct confrontation to worry about, Neville's and Ron's work actually considerably improved in the new system.
"Mr. Potter stay behind after class, I have some words for you." Snape also added at the end of their first class. Hermione and Ron hesitated to leave with the rest of the class but eventually were forced to go after Snape took Harry back into his office.
"Professor?" Harry asked curiously, he had no idea why he had been held back. Professor Snape still guarded his mind as closely as ever, in fact his defenses seemed to have grown since he discovered Harry was a mind reader at the end of the last school year. Harry was also certain nothing he had done in class warranted being brought back here either, his antidote had been textbook perfect and Harry had held his tongue in check during class.
"Do you hate your mother, Potter?" Snape demanded to know with a mocking sneer.
Harry recoiled as if slapped. He and Snape had never gotten along and certainly had taken any opportunity to snipe at each other over the years, but Harry had never expected the man to stoop this low. Anger boiled, sudden, hot and furious in his gut, Hermione and Ron had to yell at his mind to keep him from lashing out.
"I may not remember much of my mother but I treasure every scrap I have of her." Harry said after taking a second to reign his temper back in.
"Nonsense." Snape coldly dismissed. "You must hate her. I can think of no other reason to explain why you seem so determined to spit on her sacrifice and throw away the life she gave her own to save. For some reason you must truly hate and belittle your mother and so you are determined to end your own life and destroy the last gift she gave you."
"I am not trying to kill myself, if I was suicidal I never would've made it this far in life." Harry declared, too angry to watch what he was saying, or to stop himself for that matter. "And how dare you say I don't love my mother. What could you possibly know of it? Or about how I feel? Have you ever even tried to understand how anyone else other than yourself feels about anything?! I-"
Professor Snape slammed his hands on his desk and stood up to loom over Harry who was still seated somehow to project as much authority as he could. Harry silence himself but his blood was roaring in his ears. If it wasn't for Ron and Hermione both urging him to calm down through their thoughts Harry might have lashed out. Esharry certainly was ready to, his own outrage dangerously mirroring Harry's own. But again he held himself in check.
"Four years you've gone to this school, Mr. Potter." Snape intoned. "And at least four times you've nearly gotten yourself killed taking senseless risks for almost no reason. First year you rushed off to face the Dark Lord himself even though it was impossible for him to free the philosopher's stone from the mirror of Erised. Second year you hunted after his ghost and a basilisk with a conman to watch your back instead of just coming to McGonagall or myself to help save that poor girl's life. Third year you rushed off after a dangerous large dog because you didn't know it was only after a rat and not your friend, a pursuit you continued even when you suspected you were about to face a mass murderer; instead of sending for help either from Lupin, McGonagall, myself or even Professor Dumbledore. And this year you've already forced yourself to fight a mob of dangerous and violent dark wizards in order to rescue a muggle family a few minutes sooner than the ministry could have."
"I didn't-" Harry started not certain which accusation he was going to deny first, but Snape didn't let him get a word in edgewise.
"Don't lie to me boy." Snape snarled angrily. "Luscius has already dragged the three other people in magical Great Britain who know the Negra Ignis curse into his home for some very angry and painful interviews. You are very lucky he doesn't know that particular curse was used last year to pacify the whomping willow tree like I do. To avenge that attack he might have been willing to ambush you at the Hogwarts Express station and damn the consequences. Professor Dumbledore may not see fit to properly interrogate you but I will have the truth. How many true curses have you learned boy?"
Harry was tempted to turn surly, dig his heals in and refuse to answer his professor. But Snape had just confirmed once again that he was still protecting Harry. Snape had actually saved Harry's life once back in his first year when he stopped Quirrel from cursing Harry's broom stick to make him fall to his death. And now Snape had let slip that he must've been present for those interrogations of his fellow Negra Ignis users and had kept silent. Snape knew Harry was the one who had acted against the mob at the World Cup and had kept the knowledge to himself, despite the Daily Prophet offering a cash reward for any information on the subject and all the power that might be gained from having a favor owed him by Luscius Malfoy.
Harry couldn't help but compare Snape and Wormtail, both given the chance to betray those they knew to advance their own ends. Wormtail had stabbed one of his closest friends in the back, Snape had protected a student who was a constant thorn in his side. Harry had accused Snape of the same callousness he had felt in Wormtail's mind and the man was certainly insensitive about the effects his words and actions could have on others, but clearly Snape was at least trying to do right by others. Perhaps he even thought that he was helping people in his own way.
"Four." Harry answered. "Negra Ignis, caronesco, calvari clava and vertex velox. I know a few other fighting spells such as fulmitten and linpuls but nothing else that requires real emotion to use, not counting the patronus charm since that's not for fighting."
"Four." Snape repeated simply as he closely studied Harry's face for any sign of deceit. Eventually he gathered himself and continued. "I may have come on a bit to strong in the beginning by accusing you of suicidal behavior."
Harry nearly felt his mouth drop open to gape at the man as he almost apologized. Harry's anger which had burned so hot at the beginning was starting to cool especially as he was surprised by his words. Harry listened carefully as the man continued.
"I need you to pay the utmost attention to what I tell you, Harry." Snape continued as he sat back down in his chair behind his desk. "I don't need you thinking you know better than me and dismissing my words. You don't know better than me about this. I have studied the dark arts my whole life. I have walked with and worked alongside many dark wizards and seen many things that would make others go weak in the knees. I know more about real dark magic, about real curses than anyone else in this country except maybe Dumbledore. Even the Dark Lord never probed as deeply as I did since he was only ever interested in how to use curses not to understand them. Have you ever realized, Potter, that magic is slightly alive? That it sometimes acts as if it has a will of its own? Failing when you try to use it for something you know is wrong, or working especially well when you really need it to?"
Harry nodded in response. He hadn't experienced a spell ever failing on him but he did know that some spells felt alive and active in ways that most didn't. The patronus charm for instance moved with a will of its own, often in a regal or eager manner. And Harry recalled that when he had unleashed the Negra Ignis it had been filled with emotion of its own. It had wanted to be used.
"Of all magic," Snape continued after Harry nodded, "True curses and true blessings, the spells that have to be fueled with emotion to properly work, are the most alive. They have a will of their own, and like all living things they desire to continue to exist and to multiply. And unlike other spells which are cast and then fade from existence, only affecting the things they were cast on, true curses can influence the wizard who cast them. Because they are fueled by emotions they are connected to our minds while they are being cast, and that allows them to resonate with our minds and alter the way we think while they are being used."
"Curses which only exist for a brief moment," Snape pressed on in a lecturing tone, "like the brain bashing calvari clava curse try to fill the mind of their caster with a sense of euphoria, of a deep and abiding satisfaction over the pain and suffering they have inflicted. The curse will want you to enjoy casting it, to enjoy what it does to other people, so that you will be more likely to cast it in the future and allow it to exist once more. Long lasting curses like negra ignis and vertex velox will try and convince you that you should keep casting them for as long as you can. They will fill you with a sense of power and invincibility, they will try and persuade you that you can do anything you want so long as you cast them. And when you finally terminate them, they will try and do as instant curses do and give you a sense of joy and happiness so that you will cast them again in the future. Curses that have a long lasting effect on your target are the worst by far. A curse like caronesco will try to make you forget that you've cast it at all. That way it can linger on its victim and keep them trapped in the nothingness that vanished things are sent to. It will torture and torment it's target for as long as it can, trying to break their mind and their will. Such a curse will eventually teach itself to its victim and try to drive them to cast itself on others spreading its pain and madness as far as it can."
"I understand." Harry said when it seemed that the professor was winding down.
"Do you, boy?" Snape all but sneered. "Do you understand that this is magic we are talking about? That this is not some passing temptation but something that will magically alter the very way your brain works? Do you know how many men, strong men, capable men, good men, have turned into some of the darkest and most dangerous wizards because they were too quick to turn to a curse when a jinx or a hex might have settled the fight? Do you realize that even Dumbledore will not cast a true curse save in direst need because he knows the nation may not survive if he were to grow to enjoy inflicting pain on others? Do you know that even Lucius Malfoy will always turn to a curse last of all for fear of how such magic might subvert his mind?"
"I believe I do, professor." Harry said with confidence. "When I first used black fire I don't recall it being any different from any other spell I had cast before, but I also remember feeling it call to me at the world cup. I know it was trying to get me to keep casting it on those Death Eaters to make them suffer. I can imagine that every time I cast it, it will get worse and more insistent. I am not eager to cast it again anytime soon."
"Good." Snape said simply as he studied Harry's face. "You should also be aware that it is dangerous to gain a reputation of being a wizard who turns to their strongest spells first at the beginning of any fight. There are rules for fighting, even for fighting against people who want you dead. You always start a fight with charms, then you escalate to jinxes, then hexes and finally curses. Always defeat a foe with the weakest spell you can. Because if you gain a reputation for cursing an enemy from the outset others will be quick to curse you as well, and that will get you killed one day. The restricted section of our library is the largest by far for a good reason. Once people have a charm that solves some household chores they are usually satisfied with it. But people never seem to grow tired of devising new ways to kill and torment their fellow men. You cannot learn the counters and defenses against all the different curses there are out there. Now if you find yourself up against one of the Lestranges or the Carrows or God forbid the Dark Lord himself then do what you must to stay alive. But remember Potter that you have exposed yourself to a new and dangerous world, you must take care of what you will do in the future."
"Yes professor." Harry agreed, he had been given much to think about. "I will be cautious."
"See that you do." Professor Snape concluded. "You may head on to your next class."
That whole conversation with Snape had taken Harry completely off guard. Even after thinking over it for the rest of the day he still wasn't certain how he felt about what had happened. He was angry and furious that Snape had brought his dead mother into such a discussion, but he also kind of understood why he had. Harry had never been a biddable student, both in general and especially not for Snape, so he could see why Snape felt that maybe he had to shock Harry into listening to him. Still it was a terrible and insensitive way of going about it.
Harry was increasingly convinced that the root cause of much of the suffering and pain that people inflicted on one another was a lack of empathy and understanding. That people didn't truly realize how their actions affected others or else they didn't think that the people they were affecting were really people and so their suffering didn't count. But Harry was also realizing that there were different degrees to which this numbness had settled in other people.
Some people had been made into monsters by this missing quality of their character. Wormtail was one such broken person. Not only did he not care about the consequences of his actions for other people he was convinced that no one else cared either. He was so empty he couldn't even conceive that anyone else might be whole. Voldemort was almost certainly another. He had told Harry that good and evil didn't exist, just power. The consequences didn't matter, so long as they were happening to someone weaker than himself he didn't have to care. Harry suspected that such people simply couldn't be helped, that nothing short of a group of Illithids tearing down their minds and rebuilding them from the ground up might be able to make them see how their actions hurt other people and that was wrong.
But there were others who only seemed a little blind to the consequences of their actions. Draco Malfoy understood that his family and a few of his friends were real people and he would feel awful if anything he did hurt them. He just had a blind spot to people who didn't meet his qualifications for what it meant to be human. Draco just needed to see that half-bloods, muggleborns and muggles as well for that matter were real people and he would turn out to be a decent human being.
Snape Harry suspected was a bit worse off than Draco but not as bad as Wormtail or Voldemort. In his own way, Harry had to admit that the man actually cared about others and was trying to do right by them. He did try and teach as well as he could, he had saved Harry's life more than once, he was one of the first to rush into danger to help and save others. But the man simply did not care if what he said or how he acted hurt others. It was like he believed that his noble intentions made up for his clumsy behavior. It was extremely frustrating. He was a good man, but he made it so hard for anyone to remember it.
Other classes had surprises just as big, but far more pleasant in-store for Harry. Care of magical creatures started by introducing them to a big new project for the year. Though by the end of the first class Harry guessed the other students weren't as excited for this project as Harry was.
"They're called Blast-Ended Skrewts." Hagrid eagerly proclaimed as he dropped a large crate in the middle of his fenced in field before the students and opened it up. "They're a newly bred species, whipped up by accident by a friend of mine from the Netherlands. I thought we could take a stab at raising them as a big project for the year, and learn a thing or two about how to figure yer way around new species."
The Blast-Ended Skrewts were not a pleasant species to look at. They had pale, worm like bodies with no obvious head, legs protruding from odd places, and back ends that ended in what looked like suction cups but which occasionally emitted sparks and launched them forward. They reminded Harry of shelless lobsters, minus the large pincers. They were all about six inches long and smelled of rotting fish.
"Why would we want to learn anything about creatures like this?" Malfoy asked with obvious disgust. "Why did anyone breed something like them?"
"Potion ingredients of course." Hagrid answered Draco's second question first. "Yet another attempt to answer de Manticore question."
"The what?" Ron asked, mirroring the puzzled looks on most of the students' faces.
"De Manticore question." Hagrid repeated unhelpfully. "Also known as de Manticore problem. See dere are a lot of quite useful potion ingredients ya can get from a Manticore. Manticore quills, hair, venom and teeth just ta name de main ones. De venom is especially important since it's needed ta cure hex pox and is one of de only ways to reverse ghoulification. But Manticores are very dangerous creatures, they've got no rules ta make them safe or keep dem under control. They're far more vicious than dragons and almost as hard ta magic into submission. So people try ta cross breed Manticores with other less dangerous creatures in an attempt to make something dat has the same magical properties as a Manticore but isn't as dangerous. If anyone can ever manage ta figure out how to do dat they'll be one of the richest wizards in de world in no time at all."
"How come no one's managed that yet if it's so valuable?" Pavatti Patil asked as she looked at the Skrewts with disgust.
"Because so far anything dat's been crossbred with a Manticore has ended up almost as dangerous as a Manticore is." Hagrid said simply. "Dese cute little guys shouldn't be so bad though, they're failures loik I said. See the stinger some of dem have got? Dat's supposed to be full of Manticore venom, but instead it just makes ya a bit itchy if it gets ya, like an oversized mosquito bite."
"As fur why we'll be raising them," Hagrid circled back round to Malfoy's other question as the other students started looking truly relieved to hear the Skrewts didn't have deadly venom in their stingers. "It's because it will give us a chance to cover a number of topics that will be useful for ya all to know before yer O.W.L. year. Mainly how do ya deal with a magical creature you've encountered dat ya don't know anything about? How do ya figure out the rules that will keep ya safe? Dat can be a pretty risky set of business to do with something ya met in the wild, but here we can all work together to figure out a good method for it while dealing with something dat shouldn't be so dangerous to be around. So let's get started by trying to figure out what they eat. I've got some ideas, so grab something from that pile over there and see if ya can't get a Skrewt to eat it."
While they worked Hagrid lectured them on how the Skrewts had been bred. He explained that there were three main ways of crossbreeding magical species. There was the simple natural way, which made people snigger and giggle as Hagrid had to talk his way around the mechanics of sex. But that way only worked if the creatures were somewhat similar to begin with. People could crossbreed a pegasus with a unicorn to make what was called an alicorn for instance, but trying to get a wyvern and a Cerberus to breed was out of the question.
The second method was called chimerifying. With it a wizard would simply try and make the kind of creature they wanted by magically transfiguring an existing creature into a new shape or by grafting the limbs or features of one creature onto another. If the wizard wanted to they could then make a second copy of the creature and try to breed them together hoping that the new features would be inherited by their descendent. This required a lot of strong magic to pull off and it was always a gamble of the desired traits would be passed on or not.
Finally there was a method called blood grafting, which had been used to make the Skrewts. With this method a wizard would magically infuse the blood of a creature whose traits they were trying to copy into the fertilized egg of another creature to hopefully change the child. This method only worked with creatures that laid eggs but it was fairly easy to do for an experiment.
"Dese Skrewts were made from lobster eggs." Hagrid explained. "Much smaller and weaker than a Manticore so obviously much safer to work with. And lobsters have hundreds of eggs at once so if it had worked they could've made hundreds of Skrewts at a time to harvest materials from. Pretty clever idea in my opinion. Again it didn't work though."
"But don't lobsters never stop growing?" Hermione asked as she tried to get a Skrewt to notice some lettuce. "I mean I've heard they're nearly immortal you know, they normally only die when their shells get too heavy for them to move, but these guys don't have shells so won't they eventually grow to be just as big as Manticores?"
Hagrid and the whole class froze at those words and looked at the crate full of hundreds upon hundreds of Blast-Ended Skrewts. Hagrid eventually shrugged and said: "I didn't know Dat about Lobsters. Maybe Dey will grow real big at dat. But I can't imagine they'll grow that quickly, I mean it takes four or five years fur a Manticore to grow to its full size and they start off larger."
The class didn't sound too reassured by his words, in fact most of Harry's fellow students seemed either freaked out by or disgusted with the Skrewts. Care of magical creatures might not be that popular of a class this year. Harry found the Skrewts fascinating though.
The Skrewts had no brains, their nervous systems was more distributed, clustered around a few points at the base of the Skrewts limbs with another two clusters at the front and back of the creature. Each cluster could produce sudden spikes of thought that bounced back and forth with other mental nodes gradually dying out or getting boosted until a majority of the nodes agreed and the Skrewt would finally act. The larger clusters in the front and back of the creature were the most powerful and might be in charge overall. The signals they released were more like 'get ready were about to do this' rather than 'I think we should do this' but the limb nodes could outvote the big ones and shut their ideas down if they all agreed. Harry couldn't help but smile at the idea that the Skrewts might be a democratic mind, with each limb getting a say in what their body should do.
Harry found that he could forcibly harmonize the Skrewts little mental clusters, nudging them to all think in the same direction so they agreed more quickly. He found that when he did that the little Skrewt he tried it with could move with much greater precision and agility. In fact when the minds of a Skrewt were united their intelligence climbed to a level that was fairly close to what Harry had seen in rats and mice.
When Pavatti Patil suggested that the Skrewts might be blood drinkers, Harry pricked the end of his thumb while holding a Skrewt to find out. When the small creature scented the blood its scattered mind unified and it moved swiftly and precisely to find the open wound and drink from it. But once it started drinking the Skrewt did something quite unexpected and started to push it's thoughts out around it in a small weak psychic field.
Intrigued by this development, Harry touched his own thoughts to the Skrewt's. The emotions he sensed were very simple and primitive. Surprise, awe at the size of Harry's mind, eagerness and a kind of odd submission. The Skrewt then began to tap its spider like limbs over Harry's skin, pricking them like tiny needles. Never pressing hard enough to draw blood, just enough to feel a slight tinge of pain from Harry's nerves and then it would stop and poke some other place instead. When the Skrewt felt nothing but pain from Harry wherever it poked it stopped all together. Harry felt disappointment radiate from the Skrewt as it finished drinking and settled down. Though Harry noted that the Skrewt still felt submissive, and respectful to Harry.
Harry experimented with a few more Skrewts. If he fed one and didn't touch its mind it just drank a little bit of blood and moved on. If he touched the mind of a feeding Skrewt and forced his nerves to feel pleasure instead of pain the Skrewt would keep its limb pushing down onto the spot that felt good, not hard enough to pierce the skin or do any lasting harm but each limb stopped searching as soon as it found any kind of pleasure. Unfortunately the Skrewt then waited for Harry to do something in response and since Harry didn't know what to do eventually the Skrewt felt rejected and slinked off Harry's hand feeling miserable to an almost staggering degree.
Harry guessed that he stumbled across some kind of psychically initiated ritual that would happen between Skrewts. If a Skrewt fed on the blood of another Skrewt they would try and stab their limbs into some other part of themselves. What would come next Harry didn't know. His first thought was that perhaps it was a breeding ritual like how birds would sing and dance for each other. But Hagrid seemed to imply that the Skrewts were freshly hatched and Harry didn't think that any species would breed that young unless they wouldn't live for very long. Harry was tempted to cut a Skrewt to see if he could get one to feed from another, but the class ended before he got the chance. And Hermione and Ron objected to Harry potentially introducing the concept of cannibalism amongst the Skrewts.
Another class that proved excitingly new turned out to be their divination class. When Harry and Ron arrived to the top of the Hogwarts tower where the class took place they found the decor radically changed from last year. The comfy chairs, burning incense and too warm atmosphere was still present. But the walls were now decorated with tapestries depicting various ancient runes. Each chair was arranged around a table covered with a tablecloth that had another rune marked on it in bright golden thread. Harry noticed that if he read the table runes from left to right, top to bottom from the point of view of the professor's desk, they spelled out the same sequence that could be found in the complete crystal ball he had experimentally created last year.
It seemed that Professor Tralawney had carefully investigated the one crystal ball that had given her an usable vision and noticed the runic sequence within it. In further support of a potential new obsession that Tralawney had developed, Harry noticed a number of new books on the Professor's desk. Harry spotted a copy of his own ancient runes text book, along with other works with titles like "A Simple Overview of Common Runic Sequences." "Ancient Runes for The Modern Times," and "Hieroglyphics to Cuneiform, What Ancient Wizards Knew About Fate and the Stars that You Should to."
The Professor herself soon swept into the room with an excited look on her face with Harry's experimental crystal ball at her side. She rushed over to her desk as everyone scrambled to find a seat. Words rushed out of her as she spoke, hardly even bothering to check if anyone was following her train of thought.
"Wonderful news students!" She declared. "We are living in exciting times with great things afoot and amazing changes on the horizon. With careful examination and dedicated research I believe I have reached the edge of an amazing breakthrough that will change the humble art of Divination forever. These will be vital years coming up which could well change the world."
"Alas we can't completely abandon the old ways of course." Tralawney continued, "There is no telling after all what will turn out to be obsolete and what will be vital to the new understanding we are going to develop. Neither can we allow an obsession with the old way to hold us back from bravely exploring this new frontier! So we sort of have to do both. Which will be demanding on you students, but I believe it is worth the effort. Your names might well go down in history for your efforts in these classes over the next few years."
Tralawney then launched into a lightning fast explanation of astrological divination, that almost left even Harry's head spinning. She covered the thirteen zodiacs, how they divided the sky into sections, the visible planets and the different kinds of energy they were said to release. How different planets passing through different zodiac regions could change and alter how that energy could affect an individual, how different energies from different planets could synchronize or cancel each other, and how it was finally filtered and drastically changed or even inverted by the precise hour of any given persons birthday and the current time of year.
It all led to the quite rapid creation of a multilayered moving chart. Outer rings of Zodiac signs could be moved to align with specific planets in their orbits and different months of the year and season which eventually produced a code. That code then could be added to a person's birthday to get a different code which then corresponded to a chart of general and specific predictions for the coming weeks. It was to no one's surprise a very complicated way of getting a very general prediction that typically boiled down to "beware crossroads in the presence of those that have betrayed you once before." Or some such nonsense. This was nothing new for the class.
What was new was that Tralawney delivered all of this information in a very straightforward, step by step lecture that they might have expected to get from Professor McGonagall instead. Instead of giving them a few weeks to gradually piece all this information together out of the book with nothing but her own vague guidance to go on, everyone had a working star chart magically assembled on their desk inside fifteen minutes of the class beginning and a pretty good idea of how it was supposed to be used. After just half an hour of furious note taking she was done speaking about their official lesson and was ready to move on to what she saw as actually important, the experiments.
"What I have discovered over this past summer is that the energies of the universe actually resonate with certain symbols and phrases of ancient wizardry." The Professor explained as she raised the blinds on a window so a beam of sunlight streaked through the room towards a crystal ball. "I have also found that these energies can be guided and shaped by certain natural crystal formations in a way that greatly enhances the divination process."
The Professor then drew a quartz crystal stone, shaped like many white prism towers rising from a black base of stone, from a pocket in her robes. She pointed out to them how she had carved a rune on each of the ends of the crystal spires and explained how she had experimented with each rune to tell how it could affect the light. When she moved the stone into the path of the sunlight it focused the sunlight into a far more intense beam that shot into the crystal ball on the floor.
Runic lettering in the crystal ball flashed and Harry saw how psychic energy was produced by the ball and then projected into the air. A hazy image formed over the ball showing a crowd of students leaving the classroom before one of them tripped and fell through the trap door in the floor. The scene repeated itself time and time again. Everyone in the room was astonished by the sight, even Harry.
"It is this fascinating interaction between two esteemed fields of magical study that I have taken a great interest in." Trelawney declared, "I can not order all of you to take up the study of ancient runes but we can make the utmost use of those of you who are. And while I would love to give you all the chance to throw yourselves into this new and exciting field, we don't actually know if it will work yet or not. Bearing all that in mind the plan for this year will be as follows, the work you all will need to do to pass will focus on the traditional proven techniques of the past, and if any of you wish to earn some extra credit there will be plenty of opportunities to do so by 0helping me with my experiments."
"So let me show you what I'm planning on trying out next." The professor continued, her excitement obvious and her enthusiasm growing rapidly. She slapped a large set of designs onto the wall at the front of the class. They had been written on blue paper like the blueprints of a house, but rather than clear white lines, the designs were written in a rainbow of different colors. Pictures and drawings were taped to it in odd places, notes were scribbled in margins, not insubstantial portions were crossed out and rewritten over top of each other. It was in short, a bit of a mess, but it did describe a fairly fascinating device.
"The basic idea," Trelawney explained, "Will be to use the cosmic energy of the planets to awaken the predictive power of the central crystal through a filter of runic arrays. This will require two moveable portions of the device, the first will be the rotating telescopes which will capture the energy of the planets and focus them through the arrays. We'll need nine of these telescopes, one for each planet, minus earth plus the moon or the north star, depending on what we're measuring. Mr. Weasley, I know your father has a fascination with muggle machines. I hope that his skill has rubbed off on you a bit because this will require some clever thinking I fear. The other big part will be the runic arrays which will need to be spelled out correctly and I think will need to be able to rotate around the device to line up properly with the telescopes. Harry, I need you and Sheamus to get me transliterations for the names of the zodiac signs written in ancient runes. Now everyone else I'll need your help conjuring and shaping the metals and other materials we need for the base of the device."
It seemed that earning extra credit this year wouldn't be voluntary. Trelawney did not allow anyone to object to helping her out. She didn't run roughshod over people, she didn't need to. She simply took it as a given that people were volunteering and set them working right away. It was like an avalanche of pillows, soft but ultimately unstoppable. Most students fell in line happily enough, this was far more exciting work than staring at someone's palm for two hours trying to find a dozen meanings out of the same five or six lines. Harry wondered how long this enthusiasm would last when people realized that Trelawney had essentially told them they were all taking two simultaneous classes this year. They had to learn the traditional divinations methods, which is what they would be tested on, and which Trelawney obviously intended to speed through as quickly as possible. And they would also have to help out with experimental stuff which might turn out to be a total bust.
Ron at least seemed to be taking things seriously. While he had rolled his eyes when he heard Trelawney presume that he had the same interests as his father, now that he took the time to study Trelawney's designs his mind focused on the task at hand. After staring at them for a few minutes he noticed that the rotating arms for the telescopes were drawn in a way that simply wouldn't work. The gears that were supposed to turn them were turning in the wrong ways, pushing against each other. So he took out a sheet of parchment and started to redraw them.
Much later when class ended, after they had all made good progress on this project, Harry made sure to be the first one to leave the classroom. He got to the ground floor and pulled out his wand just as Neville tripped and fell through the trap door as Trelawney's crystal vision had predicted. With a combination of his telekinesis and a quick levitation charm, Harry caught Neville and lowered him safely to the ground.
"Thanks Harry." Neville said as he clutched his chest and tried to calm down.
"No problem man." Harry dismissed.
During lunch, rumors of the new divination class spread like wildfire. Hermione was one of many students dumbfounded by what she was hearing. She hadn't paid much attention to Harry and Ron's minds while she was busy focusing on her own arithmancy class. She quickly scanned through Harry's memories to confirm what she was hearing.
"She's conducting experiments?" Hermione asked incredulously. "She's trying to develop a whole new branch of magic? I knew I should've signed up for that class this year. Maybe I can transfer-"
"No!" Ron shouted at her as he batted her head with a rolled up parchment. "No overworking yourself this year. We had quite enough of that last year. You two would be at each other's throats by the end of the day anyway. She's still the same Trelawney she's always been. She's not really conducting any experiments, she just stumbled across one thing that actually worked and now she's throwing everything she can against the wall hoping something else will stick. She didn't even discover that runes effect predictions, Harry's the one who figured that out and made the only crystal ball she's got that works."
"Ron, throwing things against the wall to see what sticks is the very definition of an experiment." Hermione shot back. "Between her and Harry, divination might become a real, reliable school of magic and I'm missing out on it. Imagine being able to actually predict the future with accuracy! It could change everything, it already saved Neville from a nasty fall."
"I'm pretty sure Neville only fell because he assumed that he was the person in that vision and got so nervous as he approached the trapdoor he tripped over his own feet." Ron shot back.
"Probably true." Harry agreed. "And even if I hadn't had warning it's not like I would've let him drop. But I don't think you're giving Trelawney enough credit Ron."
"She's stealing your work mate," Ron pressed. "You're the one who started working with the runes in the crystal balls last year."
"She doesn't know that, so that's not her fault." Harry pointed out. "All she knows is that she found one ball that actually works and ran with it. And she's had some interesting ideas on the subject." Harry continued in a lower voice that besides Ron and Hermione only Neville could hear. "I had never considered that light could be made into psychic power, yet she's managed to do just that with her crystal shards. It makes me wonder what other kinds of energy can be changed around. Can you convert fire and lightning into, say, magical power? It opens intriguing possibilities."
Hermione spent the rest of lunch brooding over what she was missing out on, but she made no further protests about missing divinations. Not that she spent much of their lunch together. For the last few days and for the next few as well, Hermione spent only enough time in the Great Hall during meals to get a plate's worth of food into her mouth and then she took off to the library. It was clear she was working on some kind of project, but Hermione offered them no information on what she was up to and closed her mind whenever it seemed like her thoughts were wandering in that direction.
It worried Harry a little bit that one of his friends was keeping secrets from him, but he refused to press Hermione for information. He told himself that it was his own fault for keeping so many secrets last year and this was his comeuppance. He also told himself that it probably wasn't anything serious and so nothing he had to worry about. If he had to guess he would suspect it had something to do with house elves. Hermione hadn't mentioned their plight since the welcoming feast and Harry seriously doubted she had dropped the subject entirely. If she had, then Harry would get worried about her because then something must've been seriously wrong with her.
Whatever secret projects Hermione had to work on, she soon also had an open project to work on with Harry, after they took their first ancient runes class together. Professor Babbling ran her classroom in a very no nonsense kind of way and got her students to work very quickly. Harry appreciated this fairly straightforward approach as well as the fact that the professor didn't draw any attention to the fact that Harry was joining the class. Like all his favorite professors she just treated him like any other student.
"Last year we started with an introduction to Elder Futhark runes, the runic alphabet, common gap filler symbols and basic transliterations." She began her lecture to the class. "This year we will hit the ground running and start covering how to use runic arrays to form written incantations and enchant basic objects. While we work on learning common ancient words and phrases and how they can affect and influence spells, we will also be working on how to inscribe basic spells onto common everyday items. For this year and all the upcoming years you all will be expected to create a number of enchanted objects with both common spells and magical effects of your own designs to complete the practical portions of your exams. For your O. and N.E. you will need to design a runic array on your own and build a unique enchanted object. For your off years, including this one, you will be expected to inscribe known spells and arrays into your enchanted projects to learn the principles you will need to complete your unique projects. This semester our goal will be to enchant a metal rod with the effects of the lumos spell and a pair of boots with the leviosa spell."
"Both of these effects can be created by transliterating the spells name into ancient runes." The professor continued. "But to properly control the spell we will have to pay special attention to how our individual runes interact with each other. For that we will need to cover the runic natures: raising, falling, solid, shifting, flipping, loving, fighting and of course strange runes. You all will need to consult The Chart on page one-thirty-five about which runes fall into which categories and commit it to memory."
The work was a lot of memorization since frankly, the ancient runic language was incomplete. Elder Futhark had been dropped by the Proto-Germanic muggles of ancient Europe after they were introduced to Latin characters which were easier to write with and needed to trade with the Romans. Wizards had remembered the old ways for a time but eventually a lot was forgotten. Not at all helping was the fact that most of what ancient runes was used for over the years was making magical traps, which tended to explode either when set off or when disarmed so a lot of ancient words had been lost. There were other more complete ancient runic languages they could work with such as the hieroglyphics used by ancient Egyptian wizards, well preserved in their many ancient booby trapped tombs. Or Chinese runes which had been passed down complete to modern Chinese wizards. But these were considered more advanced runes that they wouldn't work with until they reached N.E.W.T level.
It gave Harry a lot of insights though. So far he had only actually been working with isolated runes. The runic arrays he designed were written with large spaces between each letter. This prevented the letters from affecting each other and thus isolated them, it made them easier to work with, but limited their effects. Already Harry had ideas about how to redesign his prototype crystal ball he had worked on over the summer with simple runic combinations to make the visions it would produce manipulable.
So far the beginning of the school year had started very well, with nothing Harry could complain about. And while the peaceful days continued the first week was not without its speed bumps. Unsurprisingly the first disturbance came from Draco Malfoy.
Malfoy had been decently well behaved so far. He hadn't complained more than anyone else had during care of magical creatures and he hadn't started any trouble in their shared potions class. But when a new issue of the daily prophet came to the school with a certain article in it, Draco just couldn't hold his tongue.
The article was actually about their new defense professor, Mad Eye Moody and how his paranoia had led to him unleashing a pair of enchanted garbage bins on his neighbors, causing a disturbance that nearly got the muggle police involved. But it was also about Mr. Weasley and his efforts to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Quite unfairly, in Harry's opinion, Rita Skeeta, the author of the article, accused Mr. Weasley of shaming the ministry by getting them officially involved in the sordid affair. Harry didn't see what other option Mr. Weasley had. If he hadn't acted either Moody would've been arrested by the police, no doubt causing a major scandal, or he would've had to bewitch the police to get away, causing a different kind of scandal. Either way the ministry would've ended up looking far worse since they had done nothing to handle the situation when they knew about it. Of course on the other hand it did somewhat irk Harry that Moody had gotten special help and assistance from Mr. Weasley, a ministry official, because if he hadn't it would've interfered with his first day working at Hogwarts.
The problem however wasn't the article itself. Though it called Ron's father out he could've easily brushed that off. The real problem was that Draco used it as an opportunity to bad mouth the Weasley family. They weren't particularly good insults, just pointing out the Daily Prophet had actually gotten Mr. Weasley's name wrong and calling their house shabby.
Harry had hoped Draco would be better than this by now. Between their fight on the train and the drubbing that Draco and his cronies got from Ron and Hermione last year he would've realized this kind of confrontation doesn't go well for him. Perhaps he felt that a verbal spar would turn out better, and perhaps the feeling of admiration he got from his friends whenever he got the better of their Gryffindor rivals was worth the risk. At least Harry could take some comfort in the fact that Draco felt at least a little bit of shame, though he tried to bury that feeling as deep as he could in order to ignore it.
"Your mother really could stand to lose some weight." Draco declared looking judgmentally down at a picture in the paper of Ron's family. "Tell me Potter, you stayed with them over the summer, is the old sow really that portly?"
Draco had no idea the fire he was playing with. Ron's mind filled with anger over the insult to his mother and Draco had little hope of resisting him if Ron's wrath was unleashed. Ron might not be able to read minds like Harry could, but he had learned a number of fighting spells last year and unlike Harry he wouldn't hesitate to use them.
Harry put his hand on Ron's shoulder to both reassure him he was here and perhaps hold him back if he needed to. "He's not worth it Ron. Calm down." Harry said to his mind.
"He was worth it back on the train." Ron shot back. "Why do you get to take him down a peg but I have to grit my teeth and bare it?"
"Ron, you know there's a difference between teaching someone a lesson and just trying to get back at someone." Hermione pointed out.
"Really Draco?" Harry shot back as he turned Ron away. He couldn't let Draco get a feeling of satisfaction out of this, that would only allow him to fall back into bad habits. "Jokes about someone's mother? Is that the best you can come up with? And while your own is so vulnerable?"
"What are you implying Potter?" Draco said in a low, dangerous tone. "My mother is a saint."
"I'm not trying to just get back at him." Ron insisted in their minds. "I'm trying to defend my family's honor! There's nothing wrong with that!"
"Draco doubtlessly says he's defending his family's honor all the time." Hermione mentally countered. "That's not a good excuse. Violence should only be used to protect people."
"And who exactly was Harry protecting back on the train then?" Ron called Hermione out.
"He was protecting Draco from himself." Hermione countered.
"I was surprised to see your mother over the summer Draco." Harry explained while trying to ignore the argument going on inside his head. "My godfather had such good things to say about Narcissa and her beauty. But she had such an ugly scowl on her face, like she had some bit of dung under her nose. I wonder how much she had to practice that look so she could look half as arrogant and disgusted as your father does. Or did that look come naturally to her after a decade of putting up with you Malfoy?"
"Don't you dare talk about my family that way Potter!" Draco shouted, pulling his wand from his robes in a way that utterly failed to intimidate Harry.
"Did that hurt your feelings Draco?" Harry asked honestly. "Of course it did. It sucks when people make up lies about your family. Try remembering that feeling in the future before you try to insult one of the kindest and most welcoming witches in all of Britain."
Ron allowed himself to be turned away from Draco, satisfied by the kind words Harry had said about his mother. Harry walked away as well, Draco's mind was buried in shame now and that might actually do him some good. But after they had taken a few steps towards the Great Hall and dinner for that evening, sudden white-hot anger flooded through Draco's mind.
"Harry watch out!" Hermione shouted in warning as Harry watched through her eyes as Crabbe shook Draco's side and said something to him. An instant later Draco had raised his wand and started casting.
Harry and Ron split apart and each lunged in a different direction. A red spark of a fire spell shot between them an instant later. Harry started to turn and heard a popping noise as he did. When he spun about, Draco was nowhere to be seen, but there was a small white ferret on the ground where he had stood. There was also an angry Mad Eye Moody stomping across the courtyard.
"Oh no you don't!" Moody roared as he waved his wand about gesturing Crabbe and Goyle back away from the ferret. As he did so a field of magical power swept out from his head. Turning this way and that, sweeping about like the cone of light from a lighthouse, searching over every person in the crowd. That cone of magic seemed to originate from Mad Eye Moody's apparently magic eye. It reflected off of anything in its path, sending information back to the artifact but also passing through anyone it passed over. Harry suspected that not only could the professor see just fine with his fake eye, he could see through anything he wanted and perhaps could even see magic itself.
"Are you alright lad?" The professor asked as he inspected Harry and Ron. "He didn't get either of you did he?"
Before Harry could answer, the professor gave them a once over with his magic eye as well. As that cone of magic intersected the field of psychic energy that Harry constantly allowed to flow out around him whenever he wasn't in Professor Dumbledore's line of sight, his eye froze. Harry watched in stunned surprise as that magic field reflected back from his psychic one, feeding information about the unseen energy back to the professor. Moody's real eye widened and a look of shock covered his face, he could see Harry's psychic power.
"I'm fine, professor." Harry answered since he couldn't think of anything else to say. "We managed to get out of the way."
"I saw that." Moody said as he schooled his features. Harry wondered what exactly the other man was thinking about what he had seen, but there was no way to tell. Moody's mind was every bit the occlumency enforced fortress that Snape's was. The man even allowed a confident smirk to cross his face as he watched a tendril of Harry's psychic power instinctively touch his mind and find no purchase or cracks in his defenses. "The two of you moved like you had eyes in the back of your head." He added knowingly.
"I've always tried to cultivate good situational awareness." Harry said.
"A lad after my own heart." Moody responded in what seemed to be earnest approval. "But this one on the other hand seems to have done everything he can to tick me off!"
Moody spoke those words in a roar as he spun around and with a flick of his wand, magically snatched the white ferret out of Crabbe's hand and lifted it into the air. With a glare from his good eye he forced Malfoy's cronies back, though Harry could see the magic field of his other eye hadn't stopped studying Harry in detail. Harry noted that the professor evidently had no trouble seeing out the back of his own head.
"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who attack others when their backs are turned." Moody declared as he started bouncing the white ferret up and down off the ground. Steadily climbing higher and higher up with each bounce. "Treasonous rats, skulking in the shadows waiting to betray and double cross those that should be their allies. I'll not stand for any of that nonsense lad you hear me?"
"Professor Moody!" Professor McGonagall called from a landing to a staircase she had just exited from. "What are you doing?"
"Just administering some corporal punishment, professor." Moody answered simply.
"Corporal-" McGonagall stuttered and then her eyes flew wide as she dropped the stack of books she had been carrying and pulled out her wand. "Is that a student you've got there? Alastor turn him back this instant! We do not use human transfiguration as a punishment in this school!"
Moody complied and the ferret turned back into Draco Malfoy, who could only scrabble back from the professor along the ground in fear. McGonagall started giving Moody a tongue lashing over how punishments were supposed to be administered in the school. Her ire was up and hot and even the veteran auror could do nothing but grimace and take it. While the two were distracted Harry stepped over to Draco and helped him up.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked as he got Draco back to his feet.
"What do you care, Potter!" Draco cried as he tried to shake free from Harry's hands. Shame, embarrassment and anger all flared hot in Draco's mind. Fear and terror were trying to burn themselves into Draco's memories, Harry suspected that Draco was about to gain some serious trauma from this experience. Without thinking Harry pulled that fear from Draco's mind and soothed his thoughts, helping him calm down and perhaps saving him from some future nightmares. Luckily McGonagall's growing tirade was hot enough that Moody had decided it deserved his full attention and his magic eye field was turned away from Harry when he did that.
"McGonagall is right, he went too far." Harry answered Draco, releasing him after he was sure the man's legs could hold him up. "I would hate to go through something like that and so I wouldn't want that to happen to my worst enemy."
"Oh." Draco said simply as his panic subsided and the thought that Harry was answering him honestly crossed his mind. "Thanks I guess."
"Well then I'll take the boy to go see his head of house then." Moody declared after McGonagall had finished explaining in detail about how punishments were meant to be handed out. Though Harry suspected this would be less about wanting to see Draco properly punished and more about getting away from McGonagall.
"I think whatever master Draco did he's already suffered enough for it and deeply regrets his actions now." McGonagall shot down. "I think it would be much better if you and I went to have a conversation with Professor Dumbledore instead."
The two professors marched off so all the students were free to go and get something to eat. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle slinked off at the same time to go lick their wounds somewhere. Harry felt the whole conflict had ended satisfactorily, though Ron pointed out that despite everything Malfoy hadn't apologized for anything.
"You really don't think he can change?" Harry asked him as they sat down to eat.
"Not in a million years." Ron declared. "Some people are just born rotten Harry. It's not worth the time or effort to try and change any of them. Though if you ever think he needs more sense pounded into him I'll be more than happy to help you out."
"No one's born rotten Ron." Hermione rejected the idea. "Just like how no one's born good. People drift and change over the course of their lives, often for no discernable reason. You shouldn't ever give up hope for someone."
"We all would've said that Snape was rotten to the core when we first met him." Harry pointed out. "But he's saved my life more than once and does try to help in his own way. We didn't know him when we first met him and still don't, not really. We don't know Malfoy either, what he's gone through, what it's like to grow up in a blood purist household. I think it's too soon to judge him and write him off."
"So are you gonna try and help out You Know Who when he comes back as well?" Ron demanded to know. "Or are you going to hold out hope that maybe Wormtail could be a better person with a push in the right direction?"
"I do think there's a point of no return in a person's life." Harry admitted. "There probably is a point where a person has dug a hole so deep for themselves and nothing short of completely starting over from scratch could change who they are. And I have to admit, I wouldn't want Wormtail to become a better person, he doesn't deserve that after all he's done. But I seriously doubt that Draco's anywhere close to that point."
"Plus." Esharry added in. "We've seen inside Wormtail's and Draco's minds. Wormtail was so buried in selfishness he was completely blind to how anything he did effected anyone else. Draco has to try and ignore the voices in his head that are telling him what's right. There's definitely still hope for him."
Ron couldn't argue with that assessment. Though he did insist that Moody had done nothing wrong by ferretifying Draco. Harry had no idea what to make of the former auror. But the man did make him nervous, he was the first person outside of Harry's friend group to get a glimpse that there was more going on with Harry than meets the eye. But nothing seemed to come from that, at least Moody didn't bring it up when they finally had a class with him.
Moody's defense against the dark arts class had already grown large in the imaginations of Harry and his schoolmates by the time that Friday arrived and they got to experience it for themselves. Most Gryffindors felt a fair bit of goodwill for Moody over the Draco incident. And the other students who had already had a class with him had nothing but praise for the man by the sound of it.
Certainly their first lesson with the man was fascinating. From his opening roar of "Constant Vigilance!" Shocking the class for failing to notice he had come, to the total control he kept over the class with his seemingly all seeing eye, the man kept everyone's attention on him from beginning to end. The man knew how to plan out a lesson too.
"My name is Alastor Moody." He said to begin with after telling everyone to put away their books and do their reading later. "I've been an auror for four decades through some of the worst times of English history. I've seen just about everything there is to see and faced just about everything dark magic can throw at a man. I'll be your teacher this year as a favor to Dumbledore, as he thinks you all need to learn a thing or two about what's really out there."
"I understand that your last teacher gave you a solid grounding in how to deal with dangerous creatures," He continued. "I'll be teaching you how to deal with dangerous wizards. That means learning how to deal with dangerous magic and also how to recognize that you're in danger in the first place. Well start this term with the dangerous magic and next term we'll see if we can't pound into your little heads the importance of CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
The lesson started with the definition of different kinds of offensive magic. Jinxes which were nasty to get hit by, but rarely dangerous and if they had any lasting effects they tended to wear off after maybe an hour or so. Hexes were more powerful, they could cause serious injury and often required a healer's aid to recover from. Finally curses could easily be lethal and even if they weren't they almost always inflicted injuries that could last a lifetime.
"The strongest kinds of curses are known as true curses." Moody pressed on, "Those ones are powered by the mindset and emotions of the wizard casting them. Now I can't teach you all about every jinx, hex or curse there is out there. Frankly speaking there are too many. But we can cover the big ones. Does anyone here know of the three most dangerous curses of all?"
Ron, Neville and Hermione named the three so-called unforgivable curses in turn. As they did Moody demonstrated each one on a spider he had brought and enlarged in size. He started with the imperius curse which gave him absolute control over the spider's body, allowing him to make the spider dance, or leap about, or even drown itself and die. Then he demonstrated the cruciatus curse that caused the spider to writhe in constant agonizing pain. Finally he showed off the avada kedavra curse which simply killed the spider instantly with a flash of green light and a sound like a rushing wind.
What Harry couldn't take his eyes away from wasn't the effects of those spells, but the sight of those spells themselves. Harry could plainly see just what it was that Professor Snape had been talking about. As each curse swelled with emotion they tried to twist those emotions and make them resonate with Moody as he cast them, trying to fill him with the satisfaction and joy that might make him want to cast such dreadful things again. Since Harry couldn't see Moody's well guarded mind he could only guess at how effective they were, but Harry had no desire to let any of them have the chance to try and effect his own mind.
The emotions that fueled those spells also surprised him, at least imperio did. Crucio and avada kedavra were both powered by fairly straightforward hate. Crucio fed off a desire to hurt and torture and could even take in a bit of joy and happiness, drinking in the deepest sadism that it could from its caster to make another hurt as much as it could. Avada kedavra was a more nihilistic kind of hate, a cold hate, a hate that simply wanted the other person to go away forever, to end, to cease. It was in an odd way a surprisingly kind curse, especially compared to transmuting someone's blood to molten brass, as it simply killed, instantly and painlessly. Harry wondered if perhaps that was one way the curse wormed its way into people's heads, trying to convince them that this was a merciful way to kill someone else.
Imperio however surprised Harry. He had expected need to drive it, the need for control, the need for surety, the need to have someone. That was after all what drove him to take others as thralls. Instead the imperius curse was fueled by pride, an absolute and unshakable belief that the caster was greater than the target and deserved to be in control of the victim. Harry supposed that made some sense, since Illithids also believed themselves to be greater than any of the races they enslaved and so were justified in doing so. The really odd thing though was that there was some sense of need in the spell that Professor Moody cast, but it wasn't feeding the spell. Rather Professor Moody was perhaps subconsciously broadcasting his own need to be in control of the spell along with the emotions that actually fed it.
Perhaps, Harry suspected, Professor Moody had had some nasty experiences with the imperio curse. He had been an auror for such a long time after all, he had likely run afoul of just about every curse one could imagine. Still it was a bit odd that he didn't seem disturbed by either of the other unforgivable curses he showed off for them.