Lesson 4: Grief
December 1996 to January 1997
After the initial scare and some rough first few months, Defence Against the Dark Arts was actually shaping up to be one of the most enjoyable subjects once more. Professor Totengräber seemed to have finally grasped the extent of what an average Hogwarts student was capable of and devised something vaguely resembling a plan based on it. She never did hide her disappointment in what she called the steep decline in educational quality over the past few decades, but she also didn't try to force those decades' worth of knowledge down their throats.
Her lessons were demanding but not impossible to master.
Harry especially enjoyed the multitude of outdoor training, even with the heavy snowfall trying to bury them alive. Just a year ago, Harry might have honestly frozen to death not realising that he had magic and warming charms were really not hard at all. He couldn't remember ever learning them in Charms, but Hermione was quite adamant they had been part of their third-year curriculum.
He had a bad scare once, when Neville managed to hit Ron with a stunner and he fell over right in front of Harry, dragging up bad memories and Harry almost got stunned, himself, courtesy of his momentary distraction, but then his instincts had kicked in. Poor Neville hadn't stood a chance after that.
Professor Totengräber had even praised Harry for it to the confusion of about half of his classmates who lacked the necessary context for what had happened.
(She still didn't award points much to Hermione's chagrin.)
In comparison, the private necromancy lessons were much quieter even with Fawley and Lémure being as chaotic as they were (or as insane, in Nott's words).
With Yule approaching, Professor Totengräber thought it fitting for some reason Harry couldn't discern to begin lessons on ghosts – broadly in Defence and deeper into the subject in the private lessons.
Ghosts, as Professor Totengräber explained, were imprints of a soul left behind by a magically gifted being clinging desperately to life as they died. Imprints with limited sentience as opposed to actual spirits of the dead that could be summoned and communicated with. Ghost fires were often but not always spirits of the dead.
Harry couldn't quite see the difference at first, getting lost in the definitions.
Necromancers could apparently manipulate and control both, but were more cautious and respectful when dealing with the latter for reasons Harry only realised later, once he finally comprehended what set them apart.
"We can call upon the spirits of the deceased – their souls, some would call them – as can the Resurrection Stone, reportedly. But we cannot call ghosts from the beyond, for ghosts are created," Professor Totengräber explained. "Technically, under the right circumstances, we have the ability to force their creation."
"Then the – the people we meet on Samhain," Harry began, feeling just a tiny amount of desperation, "they are real? Unlike ghosts?"
Professor Totengräber tilted her head. "Ghosts are as real as anything can be."
"Where does a person begin and where does it end?" Nott said quietly. "It's similar to a portrait, perhaps – you have interacted with the portraits here at Hogwarts. They are certainly real. But would you call them real people?"
"No."
"What makes them different?"
"They are paintings."
Nott gave him a patient look.
Harry glanced over at Professor Totengräber, but the old woman had apparently decided observing them was more interesting than stepping in.
"They don't have real bodies."
"Neither have the spirits of the dead. Or lost souls. Or ghosts, of course."
"They – I don't know. They don't seem real. I mean portraits don't. When you talk to them for longer than a minute then they … It doesn't feel real. But ghosts aren't like that."
Nott hummed. "Portraits and ghosts share similarities in their capacity to interact with the world. They are … depictions of the person they take after. A depiction painted on a canvas. A depiction left behind upon death."
"Indeed," Professor Totengräber said. "For a painting, their complexity depends heavily on the artist and how much time was invested in them. For a ghost, their complexity depends heavily on the manner of death of the person they were created by and the precise cause of their creation."
"They don't have souls," Harry realised.
"And a soul makes a person?" Nott asked.
"Well, yes." Harry looked at Professor Totengräber. "Right?"
"Technically," she replied. "But what if someone were to split their soul? Would that diminish their personhood in your eyes?"
"Split their soul?" Harry repeated. "How does that work?"
Professor Totengräber shrugged, her eyes trained on him. "There are a multitude of ways."
"And why would someone do that? What's the benefit? Is that even healthy? It can't be, right?"
"All a matter of perspective. I wouldn't recommend it, of course. A soul is not meant to be broken apart just as a body and a mind are not meant to be broken apart. The three of which make a living, sentient being – soul, body and mind."
"What about the victims of a Dementor's Kiss?" Nott asked quietly.
"Ah, the moral debate of what the Muggles would call braindead. Although, of course, medically and magically speaking, a braindead person and a soulless husk are completely different. Most victims of brain death still house their soul but not their mind and most cases of those who lost their souls have perfectly intact brains for as long as their body still functions correctly – it is why splitting your soul for whatever reason is even a possibility in the first place. Now, a Dementor does not only take your soul, for you could continue on as a sentient being without it."
"It also takes the mind," Harry realised. "The way it drains you of all your happy memories."
Professor Totengräber nodded. "Either way, the distinction between soul and mind is a blurry one that is hard to explain in words. There are many aspects of it I cannot teach you without breaking my own laws, but some are rather simple to demonstrate in the same way the difference between ghosts and spirits is simple to demonstrate. That is why for the next few lessons, I shall teach you how to call upon the dead."
o
Harry never called upon his parents. Nott did and Harry felt incredibly awkward intruding on the conversation between Nott and his mother, but he could understand the quiet grief he saw on the other boy's face. It was why he didn't summon his own. Samhain had been enough.
Harry sometimes sat with Nott in the aftermath of those lessons – shoulder to shoulder, neither saying a word.
There was another lesson to be learned in the summoning of spirits: Grief.
Professor Totengräber openly admitted to having no personal experience with the emotion, but she was old and had been working with the dead all her life. Grief was ever present when one's calling regularly brought them in contact with those left behind by the death of a loved one.
They had not attended any of the funerals of the bodies they prepared until that point (except for the ones they had held, themselves). But Professor Totengräber now had them deliver the bodies personally – or even travel to the bodies to prepare them on site – and then stay for the funeral. At first, Nott and Harry merely watched, learning the different rules and customs and observing the people in mourning. Then Professor Totengräber showed them how to officiate alongside Fawley and Lémure, who had apparently been doing this for most of their lives.
Harry had never really thought about the fact that almost every body they prepared for their lessons also received a proper funeral with dozens of attendees in mourning. Harry had never realised just how many people died every day, week and month of the year. And the funerals he personally attended were only a small fraction when one looked at the entire country or the entire world, even. There were so many people out there, it made his own world look tiny in comparison.
Death was always present. It made every day more precious.
And with the constant threat of a Dark Lord having it out for him, Harry of all people should treasure them all the more.
"Professor?" He turned away from the daughter crying over her father's coffin. "There is a grave I would like to visit, but I don't know where it is."
Professor Totengräber smiled. "Then we will simply need to find out, won't we?"
o
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Harry frowned. "Why would someone write that on their headstone?"
It was just the two of them – Harry and Professor Totengräber– standing alone in a graveyard at the edge of a small village called Godric's Hollow, quiet and calm like the snow-covered winter village around them, neither acknowledging the hot tears running down Harry's cheeks.
Professor Totengräber's Grim was prowling around the place, weaving its way between the graves.
"It is an odd choice for an epitaph," Professor Totengräber said. "A biblical quote at that. I did not know your parents, but I doubt they were religious."
"Who do you think chose it?"
"I wouldn't know. But we can always ask."
"I – No. It's not that important."
They remained standing there in silence for several moments, before Harry spoke up again.
"I wish, sometimes, that I were lying there with them. I know I shouldn't. They sacrificed their lives for mine and I can never repay that."
"Some would say living a happy and fulfilled life is repayment enough."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know." Harry rubbed his eyes. "I thought it would be different. I thought that learning all those things about Death would make me feel differently. But I don't. I – I want them back. Mum and dad and Sirius." He looked up at his teacher. "It's possible, isn't it? To bring them back with necromancy."
"Yes," Professor Totengräber replied truthfully. "But you are not ready. Even if the lack of bodies wasn't making it all the more complicated, there are more lessons you have yet to learn, Harry, before you can bring someone back. And even once you are able to that still won't mean you are ready for it. Death fundamentally changes a person and you need to truly understand what that means first."
"Okay." Harry sniffed, rubbed his eyes once more, then nodded to himself. "Okay. I don't understand – but that's the point, right? I shouldn't do it as long as I don't understand."
"Something like that."
Harry looked around. "So what's special about this village?"
"Many things," Professor Totengräber began and then she led Harry around the village, Inpu returning as a faithful shadow at their side, as she told Harry about its namesake and the various famous people who had resided in it over the years including one of the Peverell brothers, the Dumbledores, as well as the Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald and his aunt. "Come to think of it," the old woman mused, "old Bathilda might still be around."
Harry blinked. "Are you around the same age, then?"
Professor Totengräber barked out a laugh. "From your perspective, perhaps – for what difference would a decade or two make when you are past one hundred? I went to school with Gellert, if you must know. I met Albus through him."
Harry blinked. "Headmaster Dumbledore knew a Dark Lord?"
The smile his teacher sent him in reply was full of teeth. "Oh, he certainly knew him quite well. That was before Gellert rose to power, of course, though there were murmured rumours about their dalliances as enemies. Of course, Albus' refusal to face him until it was almost too late only served to fuel those rumours."
"Can you tell me more about Grindelwald?"
"Do they not teach you about him in History?"
"Not really. It's all about goblin rebellions and witch hunts."
Professor Totengräber gave him an incredulous look. "Gellert Grindelwald was the most influential, most dangerous Dark Wizard in contemporary history."
"Worse than Voldemort?"
"Quite."
Harry doubted anyone in Britain would agree, but he barely knew anything about either Grindelwald or Voldemort, so he couldn't really make a judgement, himself. Come to think about it, perhaps Harry should rectify that. While Dumbledore was showing Harry memories of Voldemort's past in their private lessons, he wasn't teaching Harry anything about the First Wizarding War (of Britain) – and neither was Binns.
"You vol de mort never looked past the British borders," Professor Totengräber elaborated, "or I might have actually known about him beforehand. Gellert, on the other hand, was well on his way to taking over an entire continent, already setting his eyes on the rest of the world." She inclined her head. "He is still alive, if you would like to meet him."
Harry paused, taking some time to think about it as his gaze swept over the quiet little village.
"Perhaps someday," he said eventually.
"Better not wait too long. I'm afraid he won't be of this world much longer once Albus is gone."
"What?" Harry whipped his head around. "What do you mean by that?"
"Did he not tell you? And here I thought those private lessons meant something. Albus got himself foolishly cursed. He will be lucky to survive until the school year ends in June."
Harry shouldn't have been able to feel the cold layered with warm clothes and charms as he was, but the news of Albus Dumbledore's impending death sent icy chills down his spine, making his lungs freeze painfully.
If Dumbledore died, what hope would they have left to win against Voldemort?