Chapter 2
The crowd of Gryffindor third years outside the nondescript classroom on the second floor thrilled with the anticipation of meeting the new Defence teacher. Harry’s fellow Gryffindors had been quizzing him mercilessly on every detail about the two new teachers and gossip had inflated the expectations even further beyond that engendered in Harry by the mysterious magic performed by Professor Harrow on the train which he had not described in any detail. The speculation about Gideon—for that was what Harry had taken to calling her, a lack of formality engendered primarily by her general casual and jovial demeanour as well as the complete lack of the usual aloofness he associated with a professor—had reached similar hyperbolic heights and half the boys in Gryffindor as well as a fair number of the girls had already taken to sneaking long looks of her at breakfast after her introduction at the feast on the first night at Hogwarts. Harry was generally perplexed by this fascination, though he could confess a general curiosity towards the mysterious new teachers. His general state of curiosity and confusion wasn’t helped by the fact that Hermione seemed to only ever be present for their shared classes, disappearing without warning while the three of them walked between classes. He ascribed this primarily to the tremendous number of classes she was taking, a number which seemed unreasonable even for her. He was pretty sure that the only class that she wasn’t taking was Divination after her dramatic exit from the class, breaking a crystal ball as she left.
Harry turned to ask Ron when he thought that the teachers might arrive and jumped. Hermione seemed to have appeared from nowhere, having not accompanied them from the Gryffindor common room. He opened his mouth to ask them when the raucous conversation filling the corridor dropped suddenly to excited whispers. The crowd of students parted and Professor Harrow strode towards the door, followed closely by Gideon. Harry melted away to the side of the crowd with Ron and Hermione as it parted and the two teachers reached the door. Gideon was dressed in a black shirt with the shoulders cut off to bare her arms while Professor Harrow wore more Hogwarts teacher's robes albeit in a darker midnight black than was typical. She had also pulled her hood back to reveal a thin and surprisingly young face that nonetheless gave off an aura of command
To Harry’s surprise, Professor Harrow pulled a mundane iron key from a pocket somewhere on her person and used it to unlock the classroom door. She threw the door open and walked into the class. Looking past the shoulder of a taller Gryffindor classmate, Harry saw what at first glance seemed to be a regular classroom except that the desks had all been pulled off to the rear of the room. After a moment’s hesitation from the students milling in the corridor, Gideon turned to regard them. “Come in guys. I won’t bite,” she said. This ominous statement out of the way, she turned to follow Professor harrow to her desk at the front of the class. The crowd outside milled around for another few seconds before they began filtering into the class, curious whispers furtively flitting between students as they saw the unorthodox layout of the classroom. Harrow’s voice rang out suddenly into the dull roar of conversation, cutting through the sound filling the classroom.
“Welcome class, to Defence. I am your teacher, Professor Harrow and this is my aide, Professor Gideon,” she said, her tone even more chill and unwelcoming than the few words she had spoken to Harry on the train.
She continued, “In this classroom, you will be learning how to defend yourselves against a variety of different threats, beyond those typically covered in your more orthodox Defence Against the Dark Arts classes and using means more exotic than mere spellwork. You will…”
She was cut off as the door to the classroom banged open to reveal Ginny Weasley, short of breath, with a parchment note in her hand. She froze for a second as the entire classroom turned towards her before she walked across the classroom to Professor Harrow to hand her the note, her eyes downturned the entire way. She waited while Professor Harrow read the note, a red flush slowly spreading over her face as she did so before Professor Harrow nodded and handed the parchment back to her. She turned and hurried across the room to stand with Ron and Harry against the wall, whispers following her as she passed by. Professor Harrow cleared her throat before she spoke.
“Today, I want to see how you do against something you probably haven’t seen before. For this, I’d like a volunteer. You may use whatever spells you choose, and I will ensure that you are not harmed in the slightest.”
A brief smirk flitted across Gideon’s face in anticipation as the crowd of students pulled back, no one wanting to be the volunteer Harry turned to look at Ginny and, whispering, asked her what she was doing in the class. She turned around to look at him and whispered back, “I asked McGonagall to join in.” Having hesitated, wanting to ask further questions of Ginny as the crowd of students resolved themselves into the barest semblance of a line, Harry found himself at the front of the crowd of students.
“Alright Harry, great initiative!” called out Gideon as he stood there in the rapidly clearing space in the crowd of students.
Professor Harrow reached into a jar on her desk and pulled out a single bleached white shape. She then softly tossed the shape towards Harry. As it landed several feet short of him, Harry saw a silver light begin shining from the centre of the shape before it blossomed outwards, forming tibia, femur, and other bones, the names of which Harry was unsure, although he knew Hermione could probably name most, until a full human skeleton stood before him. It was around his height and the same silver light seemed to permeate each of the bones, holding them together in the absence of ligament or muscle. The class behind Harry was suddenly alive with whispers and murmurs as well as a solitary scream from someone at the back of the class that was quickly cut off.
The skeleton was still for half a second before it lurched into motion, slowly moving towards Harry who stock still, paralysed for a second or two, at the sudden appearance of a walking skeleton. The skeleton began ambling towards harry as he stood there dumbly, shocked into immobility by the sudden appearance of an entire human skeleton.
Harry raised his wand and called out, “Stupify”. The red light flew from his wand to strike the skeleton in its ribcage. Unperturbed the skeleton took another step and reached out to grab him with a speed belied by its lumbering strides. Harry scrambled backwards and tripped over one of his classmates behind him who had failed to get out of the way, either from malice or inattention, his wand falling from his hand as he did so. Harry stared in horror as the skeleton bent down over him. His skin crawled and he felt his heart leap into his mouth. Harry was fairly sure that Professor Harrow wouldn’t hurt let the skeleton hurt him, but the panic was hard to control. As it reached down one hand to grab at him, Harry tried to scramble further backwards, the skeleton looming overhead. It was all he could see, its osseous matter and the strange silver light animating it. As the skeleton’s hand neared his he felt… something. It was at once like and unlike the feeling he felt when casting a spell and in his blind panic he reached out to this sensation. As he did so, the silver light filling every bone of the skeleton began to slowly move out of the skeleton hand that had frozen just at the point of touching his shoulder, its cold light retreating as he pushed against it. Although, push wasn’t the right word, lacking as he did, anything with which to actually push. Then Harry felt immense pressure, beyond anything he could describe that… ‘pushed’ back against him and the silver light rushed back into the hand as the skeleton jerked back into motion. It withdrew, its hand still extended outwards towards Harry who, after that initial indescribable force pushing back against him, had fallen back, his mind spinning and a headache building. What was that?
After a moment, Harry took the proffered skeletal hand and was lifted to his feet by the skeleton, shuddering slightly at the feeling of the bone. As he regained his feet, the skeleton took a few steps back before crumpling back in reverse until all that remained was its original bleached white shape. Harry could see clearly now that the white object was a jawbone sans teeth and he shuddered again. He bent to pick up his wand again and pocketed it.
Harry turned to see Professor Harrow staring at him, a pensive expression on her face as Gideon strolled towards him. She bent to pick up the jawbone and pocketed it before turning to face him.
“All good Harry?” she asked, concern evident on her face. “Harrow thought she should do something a little theatrical for her first lesson,” she whispered conspiratorially to him. Harry nodded in response, not trusting his voice not to shake. He slowly walked back to where Ron, Hermione and Ginny were positioned in the corner of the classroom, whispers following as he did so.
“Oh Harry, are you alright,” Hermione asked, worry showing on her face.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” nodded Harry.
“That was absolutely mad, you know that right. A bloody skeleton!” said Ron.
“At least it didn’t do anything too threatening, it just wanted to help you up,” said Hermione.
Professor Harrow had begun speaking so they lowered their voices. Harry didn’t mention the silver light or that strange feeling he had noticed when the skeleton had gotten close and they were quickly distracted from the topic as Professor Harrow began the lesson. Harry heard almost none of the lesson as he contemplated the magic animating the skeleton and that strange sensation of pushing against that cold fluid light. He didn’t notice the way that Professor Harrow seemed to watch him out of the corner of her eye throughout the lesson, nor the curious looks that Professor Harrow and Gideon gave him as he left the classroom.
Harrow sat in the small living room immediately adjacent to her bedroom staring at the sheaf of paper spread before her unseeing. She had a pot of tea cooling before her, the steam from the water having long since ceased rising. The exhaustion clouding her mind was so total that the sensation of a collection of living cells accompanied by a beating heart approaching her door was almost missed. As the approaching presence reached her door, she reached out and dismantled the wards on the door, the change invisible save for the disappearance of the silver lines crisscrossing the doorway which would have propelled a hail of bone shards into whoever was unfortunate enough as to enter into her quarters without her permission. A knock sounded on the thick wooden door and harrow rose from her chair.
“Come in,” she called, standing facing the doorway.
A tall sallow-faced man clothed in all-black robes opened the door and stepped inside. His greasy black hair partially covered eyes that glimmered with intelligence as he surveyed the small room before him. His gaze fixed in particular upon the small collections of bones scattered around the room.
“Quite the homely atmosphere you are cultivating here Miss Nonagesimus” he finally said after a short moment. He gestured around the room, encompassing both the piles of bones and the large poster of a Cohort necromancer pictured with an implausibly low-cut Cohort uniform that hung on the wall behind Harrow.
“That is one of my Cavalier’s aesthetic decisions” responded Harrow, her still face not betraying the embarrassment she still felt at having the poster on display. Yet Gideon had thought it hilarious and had insisted. And in all honesty, the poster was the least salacious of those that Gideon possessed, the more colourful poster relegated to the bedroom itself.
The man shook his head, “I was referring more so to the piles of bones that litter this room.”
Harrow smiled. “They provide the right kind of ambience don’t you think. You may call me Harrowhark.”
The man nodded his head, “I am Severus Snape and you may call me Severus. I came by to check on how you were settling in.”
Something about Severus’s demeanour did not incline Harrow to believe this statement, a feeling only strengthened as he continued to run his gaze over the apartment. Suddenly he stopped, eyes unfocused, with his back to her.
“I heard that you have had some encounter with the Potter boy,” he said in the tone of a question.
Harrow looked at him for a moment. “Yes, he is one of my students,” she finally responded.
“Did you notice anything about him, anything at all?” he asked, tone casual but the tension he felt was betrayed by spikes in cortisol and micro tensions in muscles that Harrow sensed, having turned her attention fully to him. He was harder to read than a nonmagical person certainly, but nothing like the Lyctoral blackness or the blinding light that filled Gideon and made her impossible to ignore or to read.
She considered this for a second. What abnormality might he be referring to? Could it be the surge of unfocused necromantic power she had felt from him earlier? It seemed unlikely as she had not met anyone else in the fancifully named ‘Wizarding World’ who could even sense that particular brand of magic.
“Nothing in particular, no” she responded after a long moment. “What might be peculiar about the boy?”
“The he-who-must-not-be-named supposedly fancied himself a necromancer you know.” Harrow blinked at this non-sequitur and took a second before remembering this Voldemort that Dumbledore had mentioned.
“I have found little evidence to support any serious necromancy happening on this planet at all. The thalergenic nature of Earth precludes almost all major displays of necromancy. There is simply no source of power for necromancy.”
Severus turned to face her. “How peculiar then that you yourself do not seem limited by this.”
Harrow’s face stilled, betraying no emotion. “I have my ways,” she finally responded.
“Might he-who-must-not-be-named not have had a similar method?”
Harrow’s mask slipped for a second and she let a small smile escape. “I find that unlikely…” since you lot actually managed to kill him she did not say.
His face betraying nothing, Severus spoke again. “Some might find your powers… threatening. I know for a fact that the Dark Lord consider killing hundreds all at once so that he might be able to properly practice that type of magic”
Despite herself, Harrow flinched almost imperceptibly. Severus’s face betrayed no reaction but something suggested curiosity glimmering behind his eyes.
Severus walked over to the door. “I was also tasked with telling you that Dumbledore wished to see you as soon as you are able. The password is ‘Sherbet Lemon’.” With this, Severus swept from her room, cloak trailing behind him. Harrow remained standing, her eyes tracking where he went for a few seconds until she finally turned away and sat back in her seat to ponder the growing enigma that was Harry Potter.