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Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad
The Potions Master and Other Terrors
By Ishtar
Chapter Nineteen
The Potions Master and Other Terrors
The one class Harry was dreading was Potions. Five years of Snape was enough to make anyone dread it, he thought. Thursday morning was all Potions, a lecture followed by lab work, and he bolted an early breakfast so as to make sure he was there on time, much to his roommate's amusement. Bart didn't seem to be very concerned about Potions, but then he was a Malfoy, Harry thought darkly. His parents probably read him Potions texts instead of fairy tales when he was little. The rest of the Hogwarts Team, as they had started thinking of themselves, seemed to share Harry's reservations about Potions and were also at the classroom early. Harry was moderately surprised that they were all there, since they had been broken up in other classes. The American students, with the exception of Ellen Smith and the twins, had also been assigned to this section.
Potions had its own building, somewhat away from the rest of the campus. It consisted of two wings, one built of the standard log construction, with plenty of windows to let the sun into the lecture halls, and the other of stone, with smaller windows which could be covered to prevent sunlight from getting in, where the labs were located.
"Are you as nervous about this as I am?" Justin asked Harry, sliding into a seat alongside him. "I did well enough on my O.W.L.s, but Snape always favors the Ravenclaws in class."
"I was wondering how it worked in your classes. Does he let them actually sabotage your potions?" asked Harry. Justin shook his head, wide-eyed. "Then you've probably had it better than I have. I couldn't tell you how many of my potions have wound up on the floor. I got tired of getting zeros, so I always bottle two samples, now, before I bring one up to his desk. In unbreakable bottles. Just in case."
"No, nobody ever sabotaged anything of mine. Didn't have to. Somehow I was just never able to get it quite right. I was happy to get an A on the O.W.L.s. But I hear Longbottom was the worst. Did he actually manage to explode a cauldron once?"
"More than once," Harry replied, chuckling. "If he hadn't got points docked from Gryffindor every time he did it, it would have been funny. One time he even managed to explode a cauldron full of nothing but water, can you believe it?"
"A person who does so is a person of great power and talent, but needs special training," cut in a new voice. Professor Rozendal had entered the classroom from a rear entrance and come up on them silently. "I trust this person was taken into a focused Potions study where his potential could be realized?" Hearing him speak for the first time, Harry realized the professor had a vaguely European accent, similar to Victor Krum's, but not as strong.
"Err. No, sir, I believe he was failed out."
Professor Rozendal pursed his lips. "Pity." The portly professor moved up to the lecture desk and called the roll. "Now then. Welcome to Grade 11 Potions. I am Dr. Ivo Rozendal — Herr Doktor Professor Rozendal where I was trained, you may use either Doctor or Professor, but not both. I wanted all of you together — well, except for the students who have already been in my classes for years, they're in their proper groups — so that I could focus on you and give you my fullest attention for the brief time you are here. We must make the most of it, yes? Accordingly, we will start with a quiz."
There were groans from various parts of the classroom.
"Don't worry, this will not be part of your grade. It is a necessary evaluation of your knowledge. The lab portion of the class will be a similar evaluation of your brewing technique. With these evaluations in hand, I will be able to attend to the special needs both of the class as a whole and its individual members. Now, you will notice a great many questions on this quiz," he said, passing out test booklets. "It would be advisable for you to read all the questions before beginning to answer any of them. Please be aware that I do not expect any of you to finish them all. Answers should be kept brief. Don't get so involved answering one question that you neglect the others. If you are not sure of an answer, put your best guess, and if you have no idea, skip ahead to the next question. You may begin."
It's bezoars and wolfsbane all over again, Harry thought. At least this time, I have a hope of knowing some of the answers. As advised, he read through all the test questions before he started to write anything. Some of the questions would be easy to answer but others required some thought, and some made no sense. What is the result of combining comfrey, arnica and powdered carnelian? was an easy question, but When mixing these ingredients in an ointment base, in which direction do you stir, how many times, and why? was trickier. He thought it was clockwise, but for the rest of it, it had always been "because Snape says so." He didn't think Professor Rozendal would accept that for an answer.
Sighing quietly to himself, he set to work. The first question was, Why is the Potions building so far away from everything else? "Because it might blow up," he wrote, and moved on.
An hour later, Professor Rozendal called time while Harry was pondering the question, Why do Potions Masters move silently? He didn't think "so they can sneak up on their students and scare them into dropping things into their cauldrons" would be a good thing to write down. Neither would "so they can spy on evil Dark Lords." And "because they are vampires" was right out.
"You may take a ten-minute break," said the teacher. "Then we shall gather in Lab Three." He gathered up the test booklets and left. Moving silently.
"Thank Merlin for these pens," said Blaise, putting down his ballpoint pen and trying to wring the cramp out of his hands. "I can't imagine writing that fast with a quill. What did you make of that test, Harry? I thought it was pretty easy, but there was a lot of it."
"Easy?" cut in Justin. "That was murder! How should we know why curative potions are stirred anti-clockwise?"
Blaise goggled at him. "But that's simple! It's because you're banishing the illness, and you always stir widdershins for banishing. Everyone knows that."
"Well, I didn't," said Justin. "So I got that one wrong. What did you make of the last one, though?" he asked with a grin.
"That one made no sense at all," Blaise complained. "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?"
Blaise and Harry both jumped when Justin, Lavender, Michael, Bart and Anna all shouted in unison, "Forty-two!" and then started laughing.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" asked Blaise.
"It means the BBC has it all over the WWN," said Justin, smugly. "And it would probably take the rest of the year to explain it properly. Let's go find Lab Three."
Professor Rozendal was already there when the students trooped in noisily. He directed each one to take a stone-topped lab table, each with two flame rings, small cauldrons and cutting and mixing surfaces. "Ordinarily I would have you work in pairs, but since today's purpose is to see what you are capable of individually, you will work alone. Please don't speak to or assist any of the other students, but if you have a question, come to me, or check the reference books in the cases to your right. You will observe that you have two cauldrons at your table. You will be making two fairly simple potions today, and you should be able to complete both in two hours. Ingredients are in the cabinets at the back of the room and directions are on the board — so." He waved his wand at the white board at the head of the room and it filled with precise writing, showing the recipes for a calming draught and a burn salve. "You may begin."
The first step was, of course, accurately copying the recipes and instructions into their journals. Reviewing the brewing times, Harry realized that if he did them in sequence, there wouldn't be enough time to do them both. He juggled the steps in his head, and then figured out that if he treated it like cooking a meal, something he had plenty of experience with, it could be done. He could start one, get it brewing, start the second, go back to the first, and so on. Both of them should be finished about the same time. It's ironic that I can thank Aunt Petunia for a good Potions grade. He scribbled out the order of the things he'd have to do in order to make it work out, then took his list of ingredients to the supply cabinets.
That was when he ran into the next hurdle. The list of ingredients for the burn salve included Chinese pistachio, but it didn't say what part of the plant to use. There were three containers, one of dried leaf, one of shelled nuts, and one of powdered bark. Okay, think. You can do this. Whatever part of the plant was used was to be ground into a paste and mixed with several oils to form a paste. Nuts had fats and oils in them, that he knew. So they'd probably mix with the oils well. He scooped out a healthy amount of the nuts, glanced sideways to where Daphne was measuring out powdered bark, and hoped he'd guessed right. She was obviously hoping the same thing. To his left, Lavender was looking dubiously at the container of dried leaves and trying to make up her mind.
Harry took his loot back to his table, then went back for a second supply run for the things needed in the calming draught. Hops, passionflower, skullcap, anise, valerian root … he was holding his nose against the rancid sweat-sock odor of the valerian when it hit him where he'd seen this formulation before. It was on the back of a very suspicious pill bottle. This wasn't just a calming draught. He checked the rest of the ingredient list. Ayahuasca? What the heck is that? The recipe only called for a little, but he had not the foggiest idea what it was. He picked up the little jar of powder and noticed the bright red edge on the label. There was very tiny lettering under the name on the lettering; Harry had to take his glasses off and hold the label practically up to his nose in order to read it. Psychotropic, hallucinogenic … increases suggestibility … In shock, he looked back towards Professor Rozendal and noticed that the man was now leaning over Harry's desk looking at his preparation notes. As if he sensed Harry's gaze, the professor glanced up over the top of his reading glasses. His expression was inscrutable.
Harry whirled back to face the little bowls of herbs he'd measured out, breathing fast. He still had the ayahuasca jar in his hand, and carefully replaced it on the shelf. This must be part of the test. Figure out what really isn't needed in the recipe. Okay, assuming this is really supposed to be a calming draught, how do I make it weak enough? Carefully, he put back about half of each herb, and replaced the valerian entirely, substituting an equal part of chamomile. His new version should do the job of calming, and it wouldn't taste vile, either. He selected an extremely pink rose quartz stone from a bin of tumbled stones, and returned to his table. Vijay Kumar was consulting with the professor about something, and most of the other students were still busy with the supplies, but Bart Malfoy was checking something in one of the reference books, frowning and chewing on his lower lip. I bet he's not happy with the ayahuasca either, Harry thought, and then he got down to work.
Without the need to keep an eye out for Professor Snape, Malfoy, or Neville, Harry was able to concentrate on getting his ingredients prepared. Soon the cauldron with the ointment base was warming as he bruised the fresh herbs, being sure to catch the juice from the rhubarb and the gardenia petals. As he added the herbs one by one, the ointment changed from a translucent white to a rather violent red shade. Leaving that to brew, he put the rose quartz in the bottom of a cauldron of fresh water and brought it to a boil while he prepared the herbs for the calming draught, making notes on the revised potion as well as what he thought the unrevised version would actually do. Working this way was a lot easier, he realized, and wondered if there was a way to do Potions as an independent study.
The addition of beeswax to the ointment base made it become more the orange shade he was used to, and he carefully poured it into clean tins and labeled it, putting his initials and the date on it. Then he bottled up the calming draught, which was a soothing pink, the same color as the quartz he'd used. At the next table, Bart was bottling up his potion, which was a clear green.
"You left out the ayahuasca too?" Bart asked.
"I looked at the warning label. That didn't belong in a calming potion. What stone did you use?" Harry asked curiously.
"Aventurine. You used rose quartz?"
Harry nodded.
"That works, too. Slightly different resonances, but … oh, you used chamomile instead of valerian, right? That explains it, then."
Harry looked around at the other tables. Blaise and Daphne were glumly bottling up supposed "calming draughts" which were pitch black. Vijay was comparing his deep blue draught against Meg's opalescent white one — the two were schoolmates and obviously used to checking against each other. Lavender's healing salve was pale peach instead of orange, and Mandy apparently hadn't checked the brewing times and had done her potions sequentially, with the result that her burn salve was done but she was only half way through with the calming draught. Panicking, she was making a classic first-year mistake in superheating the water in the hope that it would brew faster.
Professor Rozendal had noticed Mandy's difficulty as well, and was making his way rapidly towards her. "Miss Brocklehurst, stop what you are doing immed…" As Harry watched in horror, she touched the surface of the water with the tip of her wand and the brew flashed to steam and went up. Hot liquid splashed everywhere and Mandy screamed and clutched her hand. Professor Rozendal grabbed her by the arms and hustled her over to a sink, where he ran cold water over her hand and forearm. "Ah, that's not too bad. And fortunately we have plenty of burn salve. Let's put a little salve on the worst of it, and Miss Gillespie, would you take Miss Brocklehurst over to the infirmary, please? It's the building with the large red cross on the Flash map. Thank you. And Mr. Corner, would you bottle up whatever is left in the bottom of Miss Brocklehurst's cauldron? Very good."
While Anna led Mandy from the room and the rest of the students finished bottling their potions and cleaned up their work stations, Professor Rozendal evaluated the products. "Now, then. I have finished checking your test papers and observed your independent work. You all noted that there were deliberate errors in the recipes I provided. I will try to avoid such things in the future, but as you are aware, many of the older sources fail to give correct names and proportions, so we must sometimes make the educated guess, yes? The burn salve was a simple problem. The recipe did not state which of several forms of a crucial plant material to use. In fact, all were correct. However, the leaf was the least potent part of the plant, which is why Miss Brown's salve was weaker than the others. She should have increased the amount of leaf she used in order to achieve the desired result. Those of you who used the bark will have noted a more mottled effect to the ointment once set, but that is a purely cosmetic difference. The bark of the plant being equivalent to the skin of the human, the correspondences are right and the salve will work properly. And for those of you who used the nut, you ground it fine and mixed it into the oily base; these will be the strongest of the salves. Mr. Potter, I noticed you carefully picking through your nuts before you ground them. What were you looking for?"
"The plumpest ones, sir. I didn't think a shriveled nut would have the same amount of oil."
"Of course, that is correct. May I ask what you did with the extra nuts?"
"I, um. I ate them. I didn't think they'd be usable for anything else."
"Waste not, want not, Mr. Potter? I trust you'll not use that method of disposing of other unwanted ingredients?" Professor Rozendal's small smile removed any possible sting from his words, even as some of the girls giggled.
"Only the tasty ones, sir," replied Harry, blushing.
"The calming draught was, of course, a much more complex problem. The proportions given produced something much stronger than was desired, and the addition of an unfamiliar ingredient produced something completely different from the desired result. Half of you worked from the stated recipe and produced completely successful potions," he said, gesturing at the row of black bottles, "but they are not calming draught. What we have here is something that will stimulate visions — true ones — while keeping the body in a sleeping state so that the vision will not be interrupted. Those of you who are taking Mr. TwoBears' Vision Quest program will become quite familiar with this potion." Harry swallowed nervously at that.
"The rest of you left out the hallucinogen. Some of you further modified the brew, resulting in draughts with a range of efficacies, from one that will keep someone asleep for twelve hours," Professor Rozendal said, displaying a bottle of Vijay's blue potion, "to ones that leave someone calm and functional, although with slightly different emotional loads," he finished, showing Harry and Meg's. "The only non-functional potion was Miss Brocklehurst's, and that was solely because of the superheating."
"Between observation and your test answers, I have noted some interesting patterns here. I already knew that Mr. Kumar and Miss Ogunfowara are from different cultural backgrounds. Miss Ogunfowara is used to an entirely different style of potion brewing, am I correct? Your technique is sound, but you are less than familiar with the ingredients, and this results in an inability to make changes on the fly — though I believe you would be able to do so given base materials from your own culture's pharmacoepia. On the other hand, you did recognize the ayahuasca and left it out of your draught. May I ask why?"
"I recognize the smell. It is bitter like poison, dark like nightmares. It does not belong in calming potion."
"Quite right. The bitterness is a common trait of alkaloids, and the darkness is the drug's magical signature. Mr. Kumar appears to be more familiar with the standard Eurasian ingredients, though you would prefer Vedic proportioning, am I correct?" Vijay nodded without comment. "As for you British students, all of you show good knowledge of materials. However, of the eight of you, six did not question the bogus calming draught recipe and prepared it as written. Of the six psychoactive potions, one was ruined by Miss Brocklehurst's incident with the cauldron. The two of you who did successfully modify the potion, however, are also the ones who showed the poorest knowledge of fundamental theory and technique, which I find quite puzzling. Some of your answers were quite entertaining, but theoretically you two should have been least able to modify the potion. Mr. Finch-Fletchley and Mr. Potter, what can you tell me that might explain this?"
Justin and Harry exchanged uncertain glances. There was really only one thing the two of them had in common. "It might be that neither of us had any exposure to the magical community when we were growing up," said Harry. "Justin's Mu- I mean, he's a Natural Mage, and I might as well be. My guardians hated magic and didn't even tell me I was a wizard until my Hogwarts letter came, when I was eleven."
Bart muttered "Fundies" under his breath, and Harry thought he saw a touch of pity run across his face.
"Anyway, we've only really started to realize how much we don't know and haven't been taught, simply because it's second nature to everyone else. So that's why our technique might be bad. For the rest," Harry said, shrugging, "Our Potions Professor discourages questions. If he tells you to do something a certain way, that's the way it's done. Nobody dares modify anything. But coming from one world into another, I learned a long time ago not to take things at face value, or else you get pranked. I'd say Justin learned the same."
"So. This is good, very good," said Rozendal. "Basic information, technique, this can be taught. If you had come to me when you were eleven, all this would have been fixed then. But late is better than never. I will work on this intensively with you, and the teachers in the other schools you will visit will be informed of the situation. What they do about it, of course, is up to them. You do know how to think for yourselves, and that is most important. I am more concerned about the other six of you. Honestly, how many of you knew or guessed that that was not a standard calmative?" Four hands hesitantly went up. Only Lavender had not had doubts about the recipe, but Potions had never been her best subject anyway. "Did it occur to any of you to modify it? Or to ask me about it? The worst part of it," said Professor Rozendal, picking up one of the bottles, "is that three of the four of you simply labeled it 'Calming Draught.' At least one of you had the sense to put a question mark on it, indicating that there might be some doubt about it. Had this potion actually been given to a person in need of a calmative agent, severe damage could have been done to the patient's psyche before it could be counteracted. You could drive someone insane with this. And the responsibility for such damage would be solely on your head." He put the bottle down with a distinct 'click' against the stone tabletop, and Blaise winced. Professor Rozendal was lecturing much more sternly now. "Whenever you make something, you must be sure that it is what it says it is. Check your references. If you see something unfamiliar, look it up. If there's something that looks like a mistake in a recipe I give you, ask me about it. Potions Masters are human, too. Sometimes we make copying mistakes. The older the recipe, the more likely it is to contain errors. So you cannot follow along blindly, preparing potions by rote. The six of you also did not make guesses on your test papers. Either you knew or you didn't. You didn't try to figure out what you did not know. Even though some of your Mundane-raised classmates' answers were wrong, at least they showed that they were trying to think their way through problems. The rest of you need to work on that."
He looked at the clock above the lab door. "I think that is more than enough for one day. Most of you have quite a lot to think about. Mr. Finch-Fletchley, Mr. Potter, if you will come to my office with me, I will provide you with books on the basic theory and technique that you seem to have missed, and we will schedule some supplemental lessons and lab work. We will be preparing a large quantity of flobberworm potion base for the next class; I want all of you to review the preparation procedures thoroughly before then and familiarize yourself with the types of potions that can be made with that base. Class dismissed."
0o0o0o0o0
Friday was Mundane classes, and the students left their robes behind in favor of Muggle clothes. Blaise was obviously still uncomfortable in a T-shirt and jeans, but he'd fallen in love with "athletic shoes" — what trainers were called here — and claimed he was going to wear them even when he got back to Hogwarts. They were so much more comfortable than boots. All of the group felt a little uncomfortable without their wands, but they had decided as a group that it would be better for them to avoid temptation completely than to risk using magic out of habit in the Outer Campus. For these classes, all seventeen of them were together.
The school in the Outer Campus was a single large building with a gymnasium attached, and between classes its halls were crowded with laughing, running students, most of whom toted huge backpacks which seemed to contain every book they owned.
Their first class was English, though Daphne grumbled that they shouldn't have to take classes in a language that they already knew. They found when they arrived, though, that it wasn't a language class at all. What it turned out to be was a class in acculturation. The teacher, Marilyn Goodman, welcomed them warmly and explained that she was going to be helping them learn how to adjust to the Mundanes by showing them how the Mundanes thought of magic, as reflected in their literature. This would be done through intensive reading in the classics as well as modern science fiction and fantasy writings. There would be short works with essays assigned for each week, together with a longer report based on a single longer work, contrasting the imaginary magical system with real magic and analyzing the differences, and class discussions. Harry discovered that one of the books he had already planned to read, Stranger in a Strange Land, was on the list for the long report, and took that. Blaise selected The Return of the King and was rather disgusted to learn that that was the third book in a series and he had to read the other two as well. Justin, however, had apparently read it before and volunteered to help him with it, mainly by telling him which parts to skip.
After five years of Binns' classes, Harry thought he was well enough versed in Magical History, but soon discovered his error. The Americans put absolutely no emphasis on the Goblin Rebellions, except possibly to explain why the Goblins had been perfectly justified in rebelling. At Nokomis, they would study the development of shamanism worldwide into the various forms of sorcery that in turn became classical magic, and then look into the development of specific Native American magical forms, followed by the effects of the conflict between the Natives and European sorcery during the colonial period. That was quite a large amount of ground to cover in a period of only two months.
Chemistry was totally new to all of them, although the Americans and the Muggle-raised had a better grasp on the concepts of elements and compounds and such. The hard part was going to be getting used to the metric system, which was alien to the British students who were used to the archaic measurements used in Potions. The Americans had to shift from their own system of measurements to metric as well. Here, Harry, Justin, Michael and Lavender had the advantage, having grown up using metric measurements. The Chemistry Professor was a Mundane, but was used to dealing with Mage students and was very patient, so everything went smoothly.
Mathematics was a disaster. The teacher soon discovered that beyond basic calculation skills, absolutely no math skills had been taught at Hogwarts except to those students taking the specialized class of Arithmancy, and magical number theory bore no resemblance to algebra in any event. Before the end of the class period, the difficulty was obvious, and the teacher called in Mrs. Cobbley, who regretfully split the class. The American students would be taking trigonometry, while the British students, much to their annoyance, were placed with a teacher who normally taught twelve-year-olds the basics of algebra. At least they got a separate class session; actually having to share a class with what Harry thought of as second-years would have been incredibly embarrassing.
The final class of the day was Ethics. At first, when they entered the classroom, they thought they were in the wrong room. Instead of desks and chairs, there were comfortable sofas and armchairs, along with a couple of ottomans and some large overstuffed pillows on the floor. There was a table along one side of the room with a supply of snacks and soft drinks. The teacher was Professor Rivenbank; he welcomed them all warmly and instructed them to help themselves to the snacks and sit wherever they felt comfortable, before sinking into a huge denim beanbag chair himself. The class would be mostly discussion, they found, with supplementary reading to be done during the week.
It was in the comfort of an overstuffed armchair, with a handful of chocolate-chip cookies and a glass of birch beer, that Harry received some of his greatest shocks so far.
"What do you mean Dark magic isn't illegal?" Blaise squeaked. He'd asked for a list of which spells were legal and which were illegal to use, and Professor Rivenbank had dropped that little bombshell.
"Well, that would require two things — a definitive description as to what is 'Dark' and a government with authority to declare things legal or illegal. Neither of those conditions apply here."
"Everybody knows what Dark magic is!" Daphne said at the same time Harry blurted, "You have no Ministry?" In that second, he decided that he wanted to move to the United States some day.
"Let's take these subjects separately," Professor Rivenbank said. "They're both complex enough that we might spend days discussing them in detail, but let's have a cursory go at them today. First let's talk about the government issue. We don't have one. At least, not one separate from the Mundanes. They have more than enough government for everybody."
"But don't you need a government?"
"Can you tell me what the purposes of a government are, so we can tell if we need one?"
"Protecting us from You-Know-Who?" volunteered Lavender immediately.
Harry snorted in response. "You mean spending a year ignoring his return in the hope he'll go away again."
"Excuse me. 'You-Know-Who'?" asked the professor.
"Voldemort. Particularly pesky Dark Lord we're dealing with right now." Harry waved his hand dismissively, even as half the Hogwarts contingent shuddered. "Makes up a scary name and then tries to make it even scarier by punishing people who say it. They've been calling him You-Know-Who and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and other ridiculous things for years now."
"But you don't."
"Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself. Besides, it isn't even his real name. His real name's Tom. Not very scary, is it?"
"I think we can work in a session on the psychology of Dark Lords a couple of weeks from now," said Professor Rivenbank, making a note in his journal. "But let's get back to something even scarier. Governments. We were listing what they're good for."
"Providing Aurors to defend us?" Mandy put in hesitantly.
"They haven't hired any new ones for four years now. Training them would take another three. A quarter of the existing force has been diverted to providing personal protection for the Minister. And given their response times, they don't show up until the action's over, or almost over, anyway." Harry was glad he'd listened to Tonks and Kingsley and Moody having bitch sessions at Grimmauld Place and at the Burrow.
"They catch criminals."
"They arrest students for using magic in self-defense."
"Sending Death Eaters to Azkaban."
"Sending innocent people to Azkaban without trial because they 'have to be seen doing something'," said Harry, making the "quotes" signal in the air with his fingers.
"I don't believe they would-" said Lavender, before Harry interrupted her.
"That was a direct quote from his Ministership himself, Ron, Professor Dumbledore and I heard him say it, and you all know the person it happened to," said Harry.
"Collecting taxes?"
"And collecting bribes from Death Eaters." By now it was all of the Hogwarts students making suggestions and everybody waiting to see how Harry would respond. Professor Rivenbank smiled; the whole point of these classes was to get the students working things out for themselves, and he'd been worried that it might take some time for the British students to get into it.
"Controlling dangerous Dark creatures?"
"Making sure werewolves can't get jobs, thereby forcing them to live whatever way they can. Remember what happened to Professor Lupin?"
"How about creatures that actually attack people?"
"How about when the people provoke the creature, and then the creature is executed?"
"Protecting non-humans."
"Permitting the routine abuse of house-elves."
"Keeping us separate from the Muggles."
"Coming this close," Harry said, holding his finger and thumb almost touching, "to declaring Muggles Beasts that can be hunted."
"Protecting us from Muggle influence?" This, unbelievably, was Blaise, obviously grasping at straws.
Harry just pointed at the shoes on Blaise's feet.
"Keeping the economy going," said Michael.
"People who spend money do that; the government doesn't have anything to do with it."
"Providing us with an education?" Lavender made another try
"Come on, Lavender!" Harry replied. "You know the Ministry doesn't control Hogwarts. When they tried to take over, we got Umbridge! Not a great recommendation, you know?"
"Providing medical care!" said Justin with a little satisfaction, sure that Harry wouldn't have an answer to this.
"St. Mungo's isn't part of the NHS, Justin," Harry reminded him. "They charge fees and have to solicit donations." The other boy's face fell. He still tended to think like a Muggle sometimes.
"Public safety?"
"Regulating cauldron bottom thicknesses!" laughed Harry.
"Okay, I think we're beginning to get the picture," said Professor Rivenbank. "Harry, I gather you're not a big fan of your Ministry?"
"The Ministry's not a big fan of me; I'm just returning the favor," said Harry. "It's never done anything for me."
"However, we do have a large number of functions which have been suggested. I'm surprised nobody mentioned the post office, that's one that usually gets mentioned."
"Most of us use private owls in Britain," said Blaise.
"Ah, right. Britain is quite small compared to the U.S. Owls aren't practical for anything but local mail here. Most of what you've suggested are various services that a government would provide for its citizens, and which are paid for by the citizens through taxes. Of course, the government itself says what it's charging and what it will deign to provide — the difference being skimmed off as salaries for the ever-increasing layers of managers required."
"I'd say you're not very fond of the Ministry, either," said Harry.
"Well, no, I'm not, really," said Professor Rivenbank. "Or I wouldn't be very fond of the Ministry if we had one. Most of us came here from other countries in an effort to escape the governments thereof — and while we look at the Mundane government here as something we can't avoid, we have refrained from adding our own layer of bureaucracy to it or forcing people to pay for something they may not particularly want. Most of what you've listed as functions of a government can be handled privately anyway."
"Even Aurors?" asked Blaise with some surprise.
"We call them Justicars here, and most of them work for private security organizations. Some freelance. There are some that work best for preventing crimes — doing patrols, alarm services for homes and communities, that sort of thing — and some that are experts in forensics for tracking down perpetrators once a crime has happened."
"What about courts and prisons and things like that?"
"Any person capable of reason can act as a judge or juror. Parties to the action choose a neutral person to be the judge, and away you go. Once a verdict is made, the judge and jury decide what restitution a criminal has to make to the victim, what other penalty may be necessary, and the whole thing is enforced with Wizard's Oaths."
"What about murder?"
"We don't have many murders, actually. No Mage is ever really unarmed, and in most cases can defend themselves adequately or apparate to safety. When they do occur, we handle them on a case-by-case basis, according to the local community's standards and the circumstances of the crime. Sometimes we do have to execute a killer — it's no different than putting down a rabid dog. Sometimes the person goes to prison, and yes, we do have a prison. One. The fact that Alcatraz alone can serve this entire country says something, don't you think? And sometimes it's even agreed that the victim needed killing, and there's no punishment at all. It all depends. We don't work as fast as your Ministry does, but we also don't work as slowly as the Mundane justice system does, and we make fewer mistakes than either."
"Beyond providing services, the other purpose of a government is to tell people what they can and can't do, and to provide for enforcement and penalties. We've chosen to take another route, and don't have much by way of laws. We figure most people know what right and wrong are, and will act accordingly without someone breathing down their necks. We pretty much leave it up to the individual to behave in a rational manner and for the most part people live up to that."
"But how does that prevent Dark Lords?" asked Harry. "They're about the most irrational people going."
"True. They tend not to find much support, though. The last Dark Lord wannabe we had was, oh, about ten years ago. Fellow from Hong Kong tried to take over Chinatown in San Francisco, figuring he could move out to the rest of the West Coast from there. He lasted, oh, about a week before the locals realized he was serious and took him down. I think he killed himself rather than be sent to Alcatraz."
Now that the students were into the swing of things, Professor Rivenbank passed around a set of booklets with plain grey covers. "These booklets contain the basic rules of conduct in our society. There are only about ten of them, and then there are some short essays discussing them. I'd appreciate it if you'd read through these booklets by next week and make notes about where you have questions, and then we can start talking about them in class."
Harry opened the booklet to its first page. There was a simple list of short paragraphs, under the heading, "Precepts of the Grey Council".
1. Don’t Mess with the Mundanes.
2. You have the right to enjoy your life, body, possessions and liberty without interference.
3. You have the right to defend your life, body, possessions and liberty when necessary.
4. You have the right to appropriate recompense if your life, body, possessions or liberty are violated.
5. You do not have the right to interfere with others’ lives, bodies, possessions and liberty, and will be expected to make recompense if you do.
6. You are responsible for the results of your actions. Clean up your own mess.
7. Your only entitlement is to your freedom, and that must be defended. Everything else must be earned by you or given freely by others.
8. If you choose to be part of a community, you should at least try to follow its standards of behavior.
9. Some rules are necessary for your own safety, and parents, teachers, and other experts should be listened to unless there are specific reasons otherwise.
10. Don't allow others to do your thinking for you.
The next page started with "Don't Mess with the Mundanes", followed by a list of pithy aphorisms and then an essay on the International Secrecy Statutes and reasons why they were a good idea. Harry assumed each of the ten Precepts would be handled in similar fashion, and returned his attention to the class.
"Who are the Grey Council?" asked Daphne.
"To the extent that we have a government, that's them. The Grey Council is a group of respected advisors, judges, and teachers. The original Council formed centuries ago when it became apparent that no one group of mages in this country could dominate over the others, and that there needed to be some kind of guiding body. Today, the Council consists of over a hundred members representing many different groups in our culture. As individuals and as a group, they carry tremendous influence, and their rulings and opinions are greatly sought. For that reason, they rarely make them."
"So this Council decides what's Dark magic and what isn't?" Blaise returned to his original question.
"Okay, let's try the definitions game again. What exactly constitutes Dark Magic?"
"Using the Unforgiveable Curses."
"Using Dark spells that hurt or kill other people."
"Blood rituals."
"Necromancy."
The suggestions flew thick and fast, from both the British and the American students, and finally it devolved into a battle of opposing quotations.
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," quoted Ellen Smith with a grim little smile; she was followed by Meg's "An it harm none, do what you will" and Vijay's "Stray not from the right-hand path."
Harry didn't say anything, until Professor Rivenbank turned to him. "Mr. Potter, you had quite a lot to say on the subject of the Ministry and Dark Lords. Do you have an opinion on this?"
"I've been thinking about it for a while, ever since two wizards on opposing sides both told me basically the same thing. One said, 'There is no light or dark, only power and those too weak to use it.'" Blaise and Daphne both gasped in surprise, but Harry ignored them and continued. "The other said, 'It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.' So … it all comes down to intent, doesn't it? It's not the magic that's Dark or Light. It's us."
Professor Rivenbank nodded in approval. "We can compare magic itself to a natural force, like electricity. On its own, electricity does what it does. In small amounts, it keeps the body and brain going. In large amounts, lightning blows apart trees and kills people it strikes. Magic's the same way. Wild magic, uncontrolled magic, does odd things like make storms that rain fishes or cause people to step around a corner and vanish forever. Both electricity and magic, though, can be harnessed and controlled by human beings. Mundane technology uses electricity to light homes, cook food, keep people alive, and generally make life more comfortable. But it can also use electricity to torment and kill. Mages use magic to light homes, cook food, and so on, but we can also use it to torment and kill. Neither the electricity nor the magic are responsible for the uses to which they are put."
"But aren't some spells just inherently Evil?" asked Lavender, unwilling to give up. "The Unforgiveable Curses are called that for a reason."
"Are they? Okay, what are these Unforgiveable Curses?" asked Professor Rivenbank, and he wrote them down on a whiteboard as Lavender recited them. "The Killing Curse, the Cruciatus, and the Imperius. Well, you're right, they're certainly some nasty curses. But as things go, I can think of nastier ones. The Killing Curse, for example, causes a sudden but apparently painless death. There are any number of curses which cause a much longer, more painful and degrading death, and yet those are not called Unforgiveable. Personally, I'd call a curse that slowly dissolves one's innards, but leaves the nervous system intact to feel it, much more Unforgiveable. But it isn't on your short list. I wonder why?"
"Because you can stop it with the right countercurse," said Lavender, with that 'isn't it obvious?' tone. "There's no way to stop a Killing Curse."
"Ah, but it can be stopped. It can be blocked by simple physical means. Get enough mass in between you and it, and the mass will take the hit. This means a simple Transfiguration or Conjuring spell can be used as a defense, like this." Professor Rivenbank flicked his wand, and a stone wall shot up out of the floor in front of him. "You see?" He made the wall disappear again. "A Summoning Charm or Levitation to put something in between you and it works, too. You can also dodge it. Running like hell constitutes a valid defense against the majority of the single-combat spells."
"But there's no magical defense."
"There has to be one, even if we don't know what it is, because, well," Professor Rivenbank glanced apologetically over at Harry, who was attempting to sink into his armchair. "If it's happened even once, even accidentally, there has to be a way to make it happen again. And once it's found out why, the Killing Curse will lose most of its terror. As for your other Unforgiveables, the Cruciatus is supposed to cause the most pain imaginable, but it requires the constant attention of the caster to keep it up, it can be resisted, and at least in the short term, it's not permanently damaging. The Imperius is the most insidious of the three, but it's also the easiest to fight. We spoke of intent earlier. I will put it to you that there are reasons why all three of these spells, which you consider the Darkest of the Dark, could be used for purposes that are at least neutral, if not Lightside. And spells that are usually considered Light, such as, oh, a Cheering Charm, a healing spell, or even a Patronus, could be used for purposes which could be considered Dark. We're getting close to the end of the class, so I'll leave that with you for homework. For next week, I want you to list as many Lightside purposes for your supposedly Dark spells as you can, and also Dark ways to use Light spells. We'll discuss them in depth next Friday."
0o0o0o0o0
On the way back to the Inner Campus, Harry listened to Lavender complain about the Ethics class. She apparently firmly believed in the Ministry and what it said about Dark spells. Finally Harry had enough.
"Lavender, do you even listen to yourself sometimes? You and Parvati are the biggest gossips at Hogwarts — do you really believe everything you pass on?"
"Well, if there wasn't some truth in things …"
"Hello, remember the Heir of Slytherin crap you were bleating a few years ago? And all that junk last year? There wasn't a word of truth to any of it, but because people were repeating it, you assumed that it had to be true. And it made my life miserable as a result. Now you're repeating the Ministry line again, even though you know the Ministry was wrong last year and is likely wrong about a lot of other things. I hope being pretty is enough for you to get by on, because you obviously don't have a brain in your head!"
Lavender looked at him with a bright smile on her face. "You think I'm pretty?"
Dismayed that this was the only thing she'd picked up out of his whole rant, and knowing she'd now be following him around for at least a month, Harry groaned and dropped back to talk to Bart and Meg.