What Happened?
There was only one class left that day. I certainly hadn’t expected to share it with Harry.
After all - why would we both take Divination?
I took Divination purely because it was interesting, and I could pass it.
The teacher was… odd.
I didn’t know Professor Lynx’s first name. He had never told us. He seemed… a little paranoid, honestly, though he managed to hide it fairly well. He seemed to have a few issues on top of that - some mild OCD, maybe a bit of ADHD. I wasn’t really sure, but he just wasn’t completely there.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that he was a very interesting teacher. And I liked him. James and Sirius dismissed him as a hack, and only took the class as an easy O - but I had decided to keep the class, despite my friends’ belittling. Peter had seemed to expect seerhood to come to him with just a few classes, and had seemed to take it as a personal insult when he was told that Divination wasn’t about being able to tell the future.
Slam!
Speaking of Professor Lynx-
“What is the most important thing to practice?”
He opened with the same question every year.
A field of hands grew from the desks and blossomed.
But Lynx’s eyes didn’t find any one of them.
Instead - he stared at Harry.
Harry - who stared right back.
“Mr. Maeyres? Why don’t you tell us?”
Harry blinked at Lynx knowing his name - but seemed to get past it quickly.
“Considering your subject, sir, I’d say - Divination?”
There were a few chuckles at his joke.
Lynx didn’t react.
“Incorrect. Why don’t you tell me what you really think this time, Mr. Maeyres?”
Harry stared at him, for a moment.
“...To practice, sir?”
“Yes.” Lynx said, flatly.
Harry’s eyes went completely, utterly flat.
“Occlumency.”
Lynx blinked.
And, suddenly - he chuckled.
Surprise flashed across Harry’s face.
“Close - but no cigar, Mr. Maeyres.”
Harry blinked.
And then - something like a smile touched his lips.
“That’s a muggle saying, sir.”
And, just like that - all the joy left Lynx’s face.
“That it is, Mr. Maeyres.”
With quick, short strides, Lynx swept to the front of the classroom.
Lynx looked very interesting. A rumour floated about that he had Dementor blood - this was because he never seemed to look any older, and he was one of the most pale people I had ever seen. He had a thin, whiskery blonde beard, and long hair that was tied back into two pony tails. He had no eyebrows.
One of his front teeth had a chunk taken out of it. When someone had asked him about this in first year, he said that he had sold it to the tooth fairy when he was low on cash.
Everyone laughed except Lynx.
He moved with very quick, short steps - like he was trying to hide in his own shadow. His fingers were long and spidery, as were his feet. He only wore shoes to class about one in every four days.
He turned so sharply that his pony tails flopped over his shoulder - and his eyes pierced them all.
“The most important thing to practice - is scepticism.”
Nobody was surprised by this.
Well. Nobody but Harry, anyway - who blinked once at this news.
“All things are subjective, class. And you must always be re-examining your position in the world. You must always ask questions, about anything and everything. You must constantly wonder - you must practice the eternal art. Scepticism.”
“Scepticism and curiosity, class - these things are what got me to where I am today. Though, I must admit, being able to see the future helped every now and then.”
A few chuckles ran through the class.
Lynx didn’t chuckle.
“Now. Does anyone want to volunteer to show that they haven’t forgotten anything over the Summer?”
Nobody did, of course.
“...Alright. Mr. Lupin, you seem up to the task. Come to the front.”
I sighed.
And stood.
As I walked down the aisle to the front of the class, my eyes couldn’t help but wander - again - to Harry.
When I saw him, he was already staring at me.
He looked…
Empty.
That frigid, impossible mask. Stone cold, and impossible to see past.
I turned away.
Lynx was looking at Harry, too.
“And please take your hand off your wand, Mr. Maeyres. You won’t get the draw on me any time soon.”
I blinked - pulling to a stop.
And turned to Harry again.
Harry was staring at Lynx - and there was something very deep in his eyes.
Something almost… prickly.
“...I have every right to keep a hand on my wand, sir.”
Lynx raised an eyebrow. Or rather, a lack thereof.
“You have every right to leave this class, Mr. Maeyres. Hand off your wand.”
“With all due respect, sir - no.”
I stared at him.
Turned to Lynx.
A moment passed - where the air seemed to crackle.
And Lynx turned on me.
“Well, Mr. Lupin? I said to the front - what is the hold up?”
The tension in the air dissolved.
“Now, just to remind anyone who may have forgotten over the Summer,” Lynx said - while I reached the front of the class, and sat down - indian-style. I put my hands on my knees, and closed my eyes - letting the drifting voice of Lynx float around me and dull in the darkness. “Mr. Lupin will meditate at the front of the classroom. I will attempt to put a hand on his shoulder. If I succeed, he has clearly not retained any information from this class, and I will give him a T for this assignment. If he opens his eyes before I make any move to touch him, he will get a T. If he opens his eyes while I am reaching over, he will get an O. Now - Mr. Lupin? Do you believe you are ready?”
I breathed in through my nose.
Hold.
Out through my mouth.
In.
Hold.
Out.
I nodded.
Lynx was utterly silent.
My awareness drifted.
The sensation of the cloth against my fingers was the first thing to go. Well, not really go - more… fade. Become irrelevant. It melded into the background of my mind and drifted in a smoky haze.
The bustling noises of the students went next. Their little shuffles and coughs - thin breaths and twitching fingers. All… irrelevant.
In.
Hold.
Out.
And I tried to see Lynx.
It was very odd. Every other student was easy to see. Every other person was easy to see. This was how Lynx had first taught us - by having us try to focus on another student. It was far, far easier.
The other students were rays of light. Or bubbling pools of light. Or shrapnel-ridden bursts of light.
Lynx was a shade.
In.
Hold.
Out.
I felt the air around me crackling with light.
And Lynx moved.
(He was pretty obvious the first time. He went easy on us first day of class.)
I opened my eyes.
The haze vanished like it had never existed. Suddenly, everything was light and sound and relevance.
And Lynx stopped.
Pulled back.
“Well done, Mr. Lupin. Ten points to Gryffindor. Back to your seat.”
I nodded at him, and stood up.
The classroom was the strangest one in the school, probably. It was in the highest spire of the castle - and Lynx seemed to focus his chosen decorum and layout on this above anything else. He put everything around the windows, framing them with furniture and drawers. Light spilled from every crevice and drenched the classroom - and on rainy days, you could practically feel the droplets splashing onto the glass - and the tracks of it would cast watery shadows along the features of every student. The walls were plain grey - but every day, the room seemed to be painted a different shade - because the light was never quite the same.
I sat back down in my desk.
“Now,” Lynx said, folding his hands behind his back. “I understand we have a new student. Mr. Maeyres, come to the front, if you would.”
The whole class turned to Harry.
Who stood and shuffled to the front of class.
He walked on light, but sure steps.
Lynx turned to him when he came to the front - and then turned back to the class.
“Class - Mr. Maeyres will have to demonstrate that he belongs in this classroom fairly quickly. I hate to put a student on the spot, but I’m afraid there are no other options, as Dumbledore neglected to warn me about the new student and allow me time to prepare. So we’ll have to improvise.”
He turned on Harry again - who was looking right back at him, spine straight and shoulders tense.
“Mr Maeyres, you will be going through the same exercise as Mr. Lupin. I will guide you through it. We will continue to do it until you get it right. Understood?”
Harry nodded.
“Good. Sit.”
Harry shuffled to the floor, and crossed his legs.
“Eyes closed, please.”
That order, Harry seemed much more hesitant to fulfill - but, slowly, he obliged.
“Wonderful. Now - take a deep breath in through your nose. Four seconds.”
Harry did.
“Now hold it for seven seconds.”
Harry’s hands wrapped around his knees as he waited.
“Out through your mouth. Eight seconds.”
Harry exhaled. His expression didn’t relax.
“Good. Again.”
So it went.
Four more times, Harry followed the instructions. Four, seven, eight. I couldn’t help but count along with him - I found that he counted seconds a little faster then I did.
Lynx seemed satisfied after the fifth repeat.
“Good. Keep breathing like that as I guide you through the next steps. It should become second nature after a moment. Now - I want you to relax.”
It didn’t take a psychiatrist to know that Harry didn’t fulfill that order.
“Relax, Mr. Maeyres. Let your muscles go slack. Don’t put any effort into sitting this way - it is practically effortless. Starting with your shoulders - I want you to let them fall, and relax. I want you to let the sensation drip out of them.”
Harry - slowly - let the tense line of his shoulders drop.
But it was clear to everyone in the classroom, who had been doing this for seven years - that he wasn’t really relaxing.
“Good enough. Now, let that warmth flow down - let the tightness in your chest melt away. Let the sensation leave you - all the way down to your toes. Relax.
Slowly - very, very slowly - the tension in every line of Harry’s frame began to melt away.
But his expression never changed.
His hands loosened around his knees - but the line of his wrist was still that kind of tight. The one that said he was prepared to whip out a wand at any moment.
His frame relaxed.
He didn’t.
“Good enough. It should become easier with practice. Now - I want you to let everything fade away. Starting with the sensation in your hands - I want you to let it melt away. Fade into the background. It doesn’t matter.”
Nobody could tell if Harry succeeded at this.
“Next, the sounds of the classroom. The feeling of eyes on you - the shuffling of skin against cloth. None of it matters, Mr. Maeyres. Let it fade.”
Lynx’s eyes were impossibly sharp on Harry.
“And I want you to focus… on the air. Around you - in you.”
“It’s moving, Mr. Maeyres.”
“Moving. Crackling. Changing.”
“I want you to feel it. That thing in the air. That energy. That liquid knowledge - that density - that focus. I want you to feel it flowing through you - it will show you everything you need to know, if you only let it.”
“Let it show you where I am.”
Silence.
I began to feel it, almost subconsciously.
I thought of it as an importance. Air didn’t matter - but that weird crackling substance in it, that quality about it, that thing that made it swirl in strange patterns and bubble in your skin - it made it important.
That was how I thought of it. But Lynx often used a half-dozen words for it - trying to lead every student to think of it in their own way. With their own word.
Harry’s frame still hadn’t changed.
Lynx moved.
Now, I had been expecting one of two reactions to this. One - nothing. Two - Harry’s eyes opening.
What I hadn’t expected was for Lynx’s hand to catch fire.
To catch blue fire.
Lynx froze.
Harry opened his eyes - and seemed just as startled at the rest of us to see Lynx’s hand on fire.
Except… it didn’t really move like fire. It caught the light in spirals, and sharpened at its edges like knives.
And it was blue, which was quite odd as well.
Everyone stared.
Lynx let out a slow, careful breath.
And the fire vanished.
For a long moment, the classroom was silent.
And then it was filled with sound.
Everyone was talking.
Everyone.
Well. Everyone except Harry and I.
I stared up at the front of class.
Lynx was still looking at his hand. And Harry…
Harry looked horrified.
And then, Lynx straightened.
I saw his mouth move, as he said something to Harry.
And then, he shouted, in a single bark,
“Silence!”
Nobody was dumb enough to keep talking.
“Sit,” Lynx said - and his voice left no room for argument.
There was a chorus of shuffling as people sat down.
“...Back to your seat, please, Mr. Maeyres.”
Harry blinked.
And speed-walked back to his seat.
The moment he was sitting down, he burrowed his head in his arms.
“Now, class,” Lynx said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Can anyone tell me what just happened?”
No hands raised this time.
“I didn’t think so. What happened - was that Mr. Maeyres failed the assignment.”
Harry’s head whipped up at that - and his eyes were sharp upon Lynx.
“He will not be joining you for dinner. So, I do believe that is enough excitement. How about this - if anyone can tell me what, exactly, Mr. Maeyres did - they get an automatic O. Use any resources you wish. Including Mr. Maeyres himself.”
A pause.
And everyone started talking again.
(Nobody managed to figure out what had happened. Well - not in exact enough terms for Lynx, anyway.
Harry spent the rest of class swarmed by students asking questions.
He didn’t talk to anyone.)