When Harry met Hermione in the common room the next morning, she acted as though nothing
out of the ordinary had happened the night before. You have no idea how attractive you are, do
you? seemed to echo in his head, but Hermione unconcernedly stretched and drank water
preparatory to their running. Although it did seem to Harry that she avoided looking him in the
eye. Maybe he was just imagining it.
After the morning run, he was actually starting to feel like his life was back on track again. He
showered in the prefects’ bathroom (ignoring Malfoy in the bath this time, and for once, Malfoy
ignored him), then he dressed and ate breakfast. While he ate, he looked furtively around the
Great Hall, but by now, people seemed to have gotten used to his new haircut, and he felt able
to eat in relative peace and quiet.
Next to him, Ron said, through a mouthful of porridge, “You ready, Harry?”
Harry frowned. Now what? “Ready?”
“For Snape. I’ve heard he’s brutal to fifth years. O.W.L. preparation and all that. We’ve got
him first thing every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”
Harry groaned; he’d forgotten that Potions was first thing after breakfast. “And I thought it was
bad to have Double Potions last thing on Friday, before being able to begin the weekend...”
“Yeah, it always seemed to take forever to end. Well, now we get to begin our classes every
week with the lovely visage of Severus Snape...”
“Careful, Weasley,” came a drawling voice behind them. “Prefects are supposed to report
insubordination to the professors. Aren’t you taking notes, Potter and Granger?”
“We’ll let you do that, Malfoy,” came Hermione’s indignant reply. “And if that’s really what
you want us to do, I can take very detailed notes on every time you badmouth Hagrid, who is
also a teacher, remember.”
“In name only,” came Malfoy’s reply. Harry and Ron rose together at this insult to Hagrid’s
teaching abilityalthough they secretly agreed, they were Hagrid’s friends. They tolerated the
way he ran Care of Magical Creatures out of staunch loyalty, but neither of them would have
minded if Hagrid had suddenly become obsessed with kittens and puppies.
“Harry! Ron!” came Hermione’s dangerous voice, as though she were prepared to announce
that she was taking points from Gryffindor for their behavior. Harry picked up his bulging bag.
“Don’t worry, Hermione,” he told her. “We should be getting down to the dungeons, anyway.
And he’ll get his when we play Slytherin at Quidditch.” He smiled at Ron, who nodded in
agreement. Then Harry turned to go, catching Ginny’s eye and winking at her, making her turn
as red as her hair and look down at her plate.
* * * * *
Harry’s first Potions class as a fifth-year was a complete disaster. Everything he’d been reading
about during the summer seemed to have left his head, and Snape made a joke that the
Slytherins (the males anyway) greatly appreciated, about whether some of Harry’s brains had
been snipped off along with his hair. Harry had to remind himself of the ludicrous image of
Snape in safari clothes standing in his front hall just to keep from getting angry enough to put a
hex on him. And Hermione had said he’d reamed out Viktor Krum for not taking better care of
her...Oh, well. Anyone who didn’t like Viktor Krum couldn’t be all bad, he had to keep
reminding himself. On the other hand, he had noticed, but had not mentioned to Ron and
Hermione, that Snape hadn’t been at the staff table during a single one of the meals they’d had
since arriving back at school Friday night. Where had he been? Harry wondered.
When they were leaving the dungeon to go to Charms, Harry said, “I’ve made a decision.” This
sounded very official, so Hermione and Ron stopped and listened with puzzled looks on their
faces. “I refuse to let that man humiliate me in class one more time. I am going to practically live
in the Potions dungeon if that’s what I have to do to get full marks in Potions on the O.W.L.s.”
Hermione smiled and nodded. “Good for you, Harry! I mean to do a lot of extra work myself
to prepare.”
Ron made a face. “That’s all right for you two. I’m never going to beat Percy and Bill each
getting twelve O.W.L.s, so there’s not much point in trying. And I could probably beat Fred’s
and George’s pitiful showing with what I know now, so I’ve decided not to put too much
pressure on myself. It’s just not worth the insanity.”
Hermione scowled at him. “You have no ambition, Ronald Weasley. You should be ashamed of
yourself! Fat lot of good it’s done Percy, even being Head Boy, when he couldn’t recognize
that his own boss was under the Imperious Curse and he was being sent instructions by a dark
wizard! You know as well as I do that Percy’s just a sycophant, and that you’re worth a dozen
of him!” Hermione’s face was flushed, and she stomped up the steps ahead of them, leaving
Harry and Ron to stand looking after her with their jaws on the floor.
“What was” Ron began. But Harry shook his head.
“Don’t ask. You wouldn’t believe the things that have been coming out of her mouth lately...”
Ron looked as though he thought this was some kind of double-entendre (which maybe it was, thought Harry). “Like what?” he wanted to know.
“I already said: don’t ask.” And Harry followed Hermione up the steps leading out of the
dungeon, a puzzled Ron following closely behind.
Professor Flitwick was delighted to see the fifth-year Gryffindors; he was usually pretty jovial,
and seldom looked irritated, even when Neville Longbottom had repeatedly sent the tiny wizard
sailing across the classroom while learning Banishing Charms. He outlined for them a long list of
charms they would be learning, plus reviewing all of the work they’d done the previous four
years, for it would all be on the O.W.L.s. Five years of work, thought Harry. It was a lot to be
tested on all at once.
It was a relief to relax at the Gryffindor table and eat lunch, but it seemed to end all too soon,
and then they were off to Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. They knew they could
count on her being very stern about the upcoming tests, and she did not disappoint them.
Stalking around the class, warning them of what they would have to remember from this and the
previous four years, Neville looked practically in tears, and even Hermione looked nervous and
unsure of herself, and she’d been the top Transfiguration student from the first day of their first
year.
When class was over, Harry opted to stay behind. “Can I talk to you a bit, Professor?”
She looked a bit less stern now that class was over; after all, she was his head of house, and
had selected him to be a prefect. She had also been glad to hear that he was now the captain of
the house Quidditch team. “Yes, Potter?”
“I was wonderingwhen did you become an Animagus? Were you still in school?”
She nodded. “As a matter of fact, I was in my sixth year. I was tutored by the headmaster
himselfalthough he was not the headmaster, yet. He was our Transfiguration teacher. Why?”
“Well, I was wonderingI was considering whether to try to become an Animagus myself,
someday.” Was he? He wondered. Or was it that hearing young Will Flitwick talking about it
got his mind working?
“Were you, Potter?” McGonagall’s eyes flickered with interest. “Fascinating. I would have
thought perhaps Miss Granger would be interested, but you-?”
“Well, I don’t remember whether Professor Dumbledore said you knew this or notand it’s not
like he can get in trouble nowbut, were you aware that my father was an unregistered
Animagus?”
She pursed her lips. “Yes. I know about that. And I know why. And although he was obviously
very talented at it, that doesn’t make it right...”
“I know, I know,” he interrupted her, before he got an encore of the performance Hermione
had told him about, her explaining to Rita Skeeter the reasons for Animagi to be properly
registered. “That’s why I’m coming to you. I want to do everything right. I want to find out
how soon I could start learning. Do I have to wait for sixth year? Or seventh? Do I have to be
of age?”
“Although it is usually recommended that a student have a little more magical education than you
currently possess, I admit this is you we are talking about, and you managed to win the
Triwizard Tournament as a fourth-year...” she looked at him thoughtfully. “And, I suppose that
with your father’s history, you may turn out to be a natural, plus you do have a compelling
reason for wanting to cultivate this particular skill,” she added, without saying Voldemort. Harry
could tell she was thinking it. She regarded him silently for another minute.
“Very well,” she finally said. “I will discuss it with the headmaster. I will let you know what he decides. You’d better go; Professor Moody won’t appreciate you being late for class.”
“Yes, Professor. Thank you,” he said, nodding at her. She almost cracked a smile and looked
at him with an affection in her eyes she had not meant to show but could not disguise.
He ran through the corridors, light-hearted; he hadn’t even known before he’d asked her that
that was what he was going to say, it was as if it had come up out of his subconscious and burst
upon his lips, an idea that was fully born. But no, he thought. That’s not true. I’ve really been
thinking it for more than a year, ever since I conjured that Patronus that looked like my dad as a
stag. Ever since then, I’ve wondered whether I could do the same thing.
He quickly reached the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. This would be his first class
with the real Mad Eye Moody. The other fifth-year Gryffindors were still standing in the
corridor, for some reason. They seemed nervous about entering. After all, during the entire
previous year, they’d been taught by a dark wizard in disguise and had not suspected a thing.
Dumbledore had not suspected a thing until the man they had all thought was Moody had taken
Harry to his office after he returned to Hogwarts with Cedric Diggory’s body, going on about
Voldemort being back, having his body back, Wormtail resurrecting him, the Death Eaters
being called to him....
Harry peeked around the doorway into the classroom. Moody had his back to them, sitting at
the teacher’s desk, his hands folded, seemingly staring into space. Then he growled, “Are you
all going to come in or am I going to lecture to an empty classroom?” Harry realized he’d
probably seen them through the back of his skull with that eerie magical eye, and then Harry
remembered that the eye could not only see through many, many solid objects, but also through
invisibility cloaks.
They filed in then and took their seats, taking out textbooks they had on the Dark Arts and
parchment and quills and ink bottles. Moody seemed to be examining the empty desktop in
front of him and did not look up at themat least, with his normal eye. There was no preamble.
“Many of you,” he growledhe always seemed to growl” may be under the impression that
you know me because you think I taught you last year. WRONG!
“You may or may not know that that was an impostor, whose real name was Barty Crouch, Jr.
Most people in the world thought he had been dead for the last thirteen years, but his father and
his house elf knew better. His fatherwho was killed by his own sonthought he could oversee
his imprisonment better than the dementors at Azkaban, kept him under the Imperious Curse,
made him hide under an Invisibility Cloak. But it didn’t work, DID IT?”
Every student in the class jumped in his or her seat. Moody finally looked up from the bare
desktop. Harry realized he was probably reading notes for the lecture in the top drawer of the
desk, which he was now able to follow with his magical eye. One by one his normal eye lit on
each student.
“Can anyone tell me WHY it didn’t work?”
Hermione and Harry and Ron raised their hands, joined timidly by Neville.
“Longbottom!” Moody cried.
Neville swallowed. “Because you can learn to overcome the Imperious Curse, with practice.”
“EXACTLY!” Moody now positively bellowed. Harry, Ron and Hermione lowered their hands
again. Lavender and Parvati moved their chairs back from their desks several inches. Although
they all had had their quills poised over their parchment, ready to take notes, no one had as yet
written a word.
“Soif the Imperious Curse can be overcome with practice, why put it on someone to begin with, why use it to control someone? Why do it at all?”
Was he kidding? Harry thought. He was asking them why someone would use one of the three
curses that were guaranteed to give a person a life sentence in Azkaban? Silence reigned in the
room.
“Come on!” Moody bellowed. “Why do it? Why control someone, making them torture and
kill Muggles, why do it? Why do dark wizards do it? WHY?”
They all looked at him, and at each other. Finally, Neville timidly raised his hand again.
“Longbottom!”
Neville looked like it was taking every ounce of bravery he possessed to answer. “Because
they can.”
“BECAUSE THEY CAN!” Moody cried, smiling. He looked extremely unnatural, smiling. It
passed mercifully quickly. “Because they can!” he repeated at a lower volume. “Ten points for
Gryffindor!” Neville tried not to look pleased, and failed. He looked sideways at Hermione,
who smiled at him. He averted his eyes quickly, looking terrified again.
“Is that a good reason?” he demanded of them. No one answered again. He waited what he felt
was a reasonable amount of time, then said, “NO! There IS no good reason! Because you can!
Any one of you could fly on your broomstick around Buckingham Palace and scare the living
daylights out of the queen, but does that mean you should? NO! I could turn each and every
one of you into newts, but does that mean that I should?” This time he did not answer his own
question. Silence. He smiled again. “Well. That all depends on how you do on your
assignments.” He was still smiling; the students all looked at each other with alarm. “JOKE!” he
shouted suddenly, giving a brief cackle.
Harry started to laugh, then caught himself. Ron was looking like his cheeks hurt from stifling a
smile. Hermione frowned at them. Moody strode over to Harry and Ron. “Go ahead! Laugh!
It’s all right, Potter and Weasley. You too, Granger. I’ve heard about you three; you’ve seen
more than your fair share of evil close up. It’s not just boggarts can’t stand laughter! You have
to be able to look evil in the eye sometimes and laugh!”
Suddenly he was abruptly sober. “But some things are NOT funny. Take Muggles; who do you
feel is more powerful, wizards or Muggles?”
Seamus Finnigan raised his hand and Moody nodded at him. “Wizards,” he said confidently.
Moody walked around his desk, nodding and rubbing his chin, then turned on Seamus and
bellowed, “WRONG, Finnigan! You come from a wizarding family, don’t you?” Seamus
nodded. “Thomas! Granger! Potter! You grew up in the Muggle world, didn’t you?” The three
of them nodded. “Name me some things Muggles have done over the centuries to torture each
other and make each other miserable!”
Harry knew that Dean Thomas’ family had come to England from Jamaica about thirty years
earlier; presumably, sometime before thatprobably hundreds of years beforethey had come
from Africa.
“Slavery,” Dean said evenly.
“Oppressing women,” Hermione said, not without indignation.
“War,” Harry ventured.
“Nuclear war,” Hermione added.
“Drugs.”
“Automatic weapons.”
“Chemical weapons.”
“Concentration camps.”
“Ghettoes.”
“Apartheid.”
“Ethnic cleansing.”
“The Cold War.”
“Genocide.”
“Yes,” Moody said. “Genocide. Killing an entire race. Or what passes for race on this planet.
In truth, there is one race: the human race. The genetic variations between people of different
ethnic groups across the world are negligible. Even those of us who are born with some magic in
us aren’t appreciably different from those who aren’t. It’s just another characteristic like hair or
eye color, right or left handed.
“But no matter what atrocities dark wizards have visited on this world, I am here to tell you that
none of themNONEhave even approached the number of casualties that were suffered by
those who were at Agincourtand I’m talking about the French, who experienced REAL
losses. And THAT was hundreds of years ago. There has never been a wizarding equivalent of
Waterloo, of the American Civil War, of the Boer War, of World War I or II, of Vietnam or
any of the conflicts in the Middle East, or Northern Ireland. All of the goblin rebellions
combined didn’t have the carnage experienced by the Anzacs who went over the top at
Gallipolli. Worse than decimation. Losing only ten percent of the men would have been a vast
improvement. Do you know how many humans have died in these conflicts, and more?”
No response. Moody paced back and forth for a couple of minutes, staring at the floor. Then
he erupted into questions again. “Just because Muggles can blow up the entire planet, does that
mean that they should? Just because they have antibiotics to fight disease now, does that mean
they should use them for everything? It turns out they shouldn’tstrains of diseases that are
resistant to all known antibiotics have mutated and are proliferating around the world.
“JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD.”
They all jumped in their seats. Moody stumped up the aisle between the desks, his wooden leg
very loud, looking at each of them as though he were surprised they hadn’t all flunked out of
school by now. “What,” he finally went on, “have you learned in your last four years in Defense
Against the Dark Arts?”
“Grindylows.”
“Boggarts.”
“Hinkypunks.”
“NO!” he barked. “You haven’t learned ANYTHING! What you need to learn nowbefore
you sit for your O.W.L.sis that fighting the Dark Arts does not mean fighting the darkness
OUTSIDE of you, it means fighting the darkness INSIDE you!”
He went back to his desk and stood beside it, surveying them all with his magical eye. “What is
the purpose of the Cruciatus Curse?” he said softly.
Hermione immediately raised her hand. “To hurt someone, of course.”
“WRONG!” He had turned the volume back up. Ron and Harry looked at her, alarmed.
Hermione wasn’t accustomed to this kind of reaction from a teacher. She sank down in her
chair somewhat cowed, and Harry wouldn’t have been surprised if she didn’t say another word
in Defense Against the Dark Arts all year.
Neville timidly raised his hand and Moody nodded at him. “To break someone and make them
do what you want them to do.”
“To control someone,” Moody said, nodding, speaking in a normal (for him) conversational
voice, as though he hadn’t just shouted at Hermione loud enough to wake the dead. “In some
ways, it is not as sure as the Imperious Curse, but in some ways it’s better. A person who is
really concentrating, who has an extremely strong sense of self, can withstand the Imperious
Curse. But the same person may cave in seconds of experiencing the Cruciatus Curse. Most
people would turn around and put the same curse on another person in a heartbeat if they were
promised that they would not have to feel that pain again. THAT’S THE DARKNESS INSIDE
YOU.”
Hermione turned and looked at Neville, giving him a little smile to show that she was impressed.
Neville blushed deeply and looked down at his blank parchment.
“I’ll wager,” Moody went on, “that none of you has ever experienced the Cruciatus Curse.
First you feel”
But Harry had slowly raised his hand. Moody stopped and stared at him. “Really, Potter? Was
the person caught?”
“No, sir.”
“Does the Ministry know about this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well? I’m out of the loop these days.”
“Voldemort.”
A couple of people had gasped, but the rest of the class was otherwise silent when Harry said
the name. Moody nodded at Harry. “Good. You said it. Say it again.”
“Voldemort.”
“Again.”
“Voldemort. Voldemort. Voldemort!”
Moody walked around the room, his wooden leg clunking, his normal eye looking at the ceiling.
“How many times?”
“Twice.”
“What happened?”
“Well, first he did it just to show the Death Eaters that I wasn’t more powerful than him. I
couldn’t do anything; he had tied me to a gravestone. Then he gave me back my wand and we
dueled.” All of the other students besides Ron and Hermione gasped. “First he told me to bow
to death, to bow to him, but I wouldn’t do it. Somehow he made me bend in the middle
anyway. And then before I could do anything else, he put the Cruciatus Curse on me the second
time. Then he wanted me to beg him not to do it again.”
“Did you?”
“No. So he tried to make me with the Imperious Curse.”
“Did it work?”
“I told him I wouldn’t do it.”
“And”
“He tried to curse me again. ButI ran. I hid behind a gravestone.” Harry’s voice shook, telling
about his cowardice.
“And then?”
“And then I stood to face him and I used the disarming charm at the same moment he used the
killing curse. But somehowthe spells collided and canceled each other out. Then, something
weird happened...he got distracted and I was able to get back to the cup” and Cedric’s body, he thought, but he didn’t want to say it. “It was the portkey that had taken me there. It
brought me back here to Hogwarts.” Somehow, Harry had not wanted to tell about his wand
and Voldemort’s wand being brothers, about the dome of golden light and the sound of phoenix
song, about the Priori Incantem and the shades of the people Voldemort had killedincluding
his parents and Cedric Diggoryinterceding for him, making it possible for him to get away.
All of the other students were silent with shock. “You were lucky,” Moody told him, then
turned to the rest of the class. “Odd as it sounds, when Voldemort feels he has a worthy
opponent, he likes to give him a sporting chance. That said, I only know of two wizards who
have dueled with Voldemort and lived to tell about it. Potter here is one. The other one you are
accustomed to callingHeadmaster.
“Others have been less fortunate. Those who have been tortured by Death Eaters using the
Cruciatus Curse, for instance. You see, the Death Eaters had orders, and they knew what
would happen to them if they did not follow orders, if they did not succeed. In some ways, they
were even more ruthless than Voldemort himselfHE didn’t feel threatened by anyone. Each
Death Eater has probably felt the Cruciatus Curse at least once in his lifebecause I know that
Voldemort always wanted them to be mindful of what would happen to anyone who displeased
him. Do a good joband you would never have to experience it again. Slip upand you took
your chances. That’s why the Death Eaters wereand areso unrelentingly cruel. Selfpreservation.
THE EVIL INSIDE.”
Lavender Brown timidly raised her hand and he nodded at her. “How is self-preservation evil?”
“By itself, it’s not evil. It’s what people do to achieve it that often turns out to be evil. If they feel
that anything is worth doing to achieve it. Anything...”
Neville was staring down at his desk with a strange expression on his face. Moody noticed and
came over to him, leaning over slightly. “Have you been to see them lately, Longbottom?” he
asked gently. Neville nodded, still not looking up. “I’ve been to see them myself from time to
time. Do they recognize you?” Neville shook his head. “Ah, well. They were really put through
the ringerfinest Aurors I ever knew, your parents.”
The rest of the class, except for Harry, was looking at Neville in amazement. Neville looked up
now and met Harry’s gaze; Harry nodded grimly, to let Neville know he’d already known.
“Your parents had more pain coursing through them than I’ve ever heard tell. Of course it fried
their brains. Because what you all may not know is that YOU CAN beat the Cruciatus Curse. It
takes an even stronger mind than to fight the Imperious Curse, but the reason it can be beaten is
that it’s just pain. JUST PAIN. And pain is ALL IN YOUR MIND.”
The fifth-year Gryffindors all had very perplexed looks on their faces. “Now,” he went on, “that
sounds like I think it’s not real, I know. Let me explain.” He stomped his wooden leg on the
floor. “See this? I won’t tell you how I lost my leg; you’re not ready for that, trust me. Do you
know why I regularly still experience pain in a leg I no longer have?”
Hermione looked around furtively before raising her hand slowly. “Phantom Limb Syndrome,”
she said shakily.
“Exactly!” Moody responded, making her give a quiet sigh of relief. “But what does that
mean?”
Hermione took a breath and went on. “Your brain is still receiving signals from the leg”
“Is the pain real? No! It’s all in my head! Every time you bark your shin on a chair or put your
hand in a flame, your body sends a message to your brain to feel pain. Interrupt the
communication between the body and brainno pain.” Hermione had apparently forgotten about being worried about being snapped at. “But pain
serves a purposeit protects us”
“Yes, when it is a PHYSICAL pain, something you have come into contact with. But the
Cruciatus Curse” He looked at Neville. “does not serve any purpose but to destroy the
mind by overwhelming it with pain. Do it enoughand insanity is the result. Usually, it doesn’t
happen that way, usuallythe victims crumble and give in, agree to do just about anything. But
sometimes, sometimes” He walked over to Neville and clapped his hand on his shoulder. “
you find someone so principled that he or she is willing to endure the suffering rather than inflict
it on someone else. That’s why the destruction of the mind of such a person is so tragic.”
Neville was crying now, tears running silently down his face. Moody took a handkerchief out of
his pocket and handed it to him without comment. The rest of the class was quiet and shocked.
“Nowyou’re not ready yet to learn to disconnect your brain from your body in order to beat
the Cruciatus Cursebut you will be, before you’re in sixth year. Unlessyou just can’t do it.
It’s not easy. Not everyone can do it. And although I want you to learn this, and we will work
on it quite a lot this year, we won’t begin until after Christmas break.”
He walked back to his desk and leaned heavily on it, looking at each of them in turn with his
normal eye. “Until thenwe will analyze the nature of darkness. What makes a person turn
dark? What makes another person decide not to? When is that crucial moment? Have you all
got your copies of the Sweetbriar Publishing Anthology of Muggle Literature?”
Hermione and Harry nodded and leaned down to get the books from their bags; Neville and
Seamus also had it. Ron raised his hand.
“Pleaseit was on the reading list for fifth years, but I thought it was only needed for Muggle
Studies”
“No. It’s for this class. Those who don’t have it had better write home for it. While you wait,
there are copies in the school library you can borrow. Your assignment is to read one of the
Shakespeare plays in the anthologyLear, Hamlet, Othello or MacBeth (ignore the witch
stereotypes)and write me an essayI won’t tell you how long. Make it as long as it needs to
beabout a character or characters who succumb to the darkness, and why, and someone
could be more than one personwho doesn’t, and why. The essay is due in a month, and then
you will each read your work to the class. On Wednesday you must each tell me what play you
are doing. Also, read The Lottery and be prepared to discuss it. DON’T pick The Tempest for
your Shakespearethat’s more complexyou’ll all be reading that one and writing a long
parchment about it at the end of term. DISMISSED!”
And he clumped out the door without looking at any of them. The fifth year Gryffindors all
looked at each other. Harry checked his watch. “There’s still more than an hour left in the
class...” he said lamely, as though it were his job as a prefect to point out something a teacher
had done wrong. Hermione shrugged.
“Well, then we should go and start reading one of the plays, or at least decide which one to
read. Let’s go back to the common room.”
But as it was the end of the day, and dinner wouldn’t be served for three more hours, the rest of
the class had already decided that it was free time; they were going back to the common room
too, but Seamus and Dean were discussing playing Exploding Snap, and Lavender and Parvati
were planning to do Tarot readings for each other. Neville was very quiet, packing his bag and
standing up slowly.
Harry remembered the way, a year earlier, Neville had clutched the desk spasmodically when the fake Moody, who was really Barty Crouch, Jr., had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse on
an enlarged spider. Hermione had screamed for Crouch to stop, seeing how distressed Neville
was. Afterward, he had taken Neville up to his office for tea and given him a book. Harry
wondered now whether Crouch was just trying to do a very convincing job of being Moody, or
whether he was genuinely sorry for having effectively orphaned Neville, as much as Voldemort
had orphaned Harry.
He also remembered being in Dumbledore’s pensieve, seeing the trial of Barty Crouch, Jr. and
the three other people who had tortured the Longbottoms; he remembered Crouch, a mere
nineteen years old, screaming, “Father! I didn’t do it!” as Barty Crouch, Sr. had his son sent
away to Azkaban and Mrs. Crouch collapsed in grief. When he’d seen it, Harry had assumed
that it was the elder Crouch who was in the wrong; now he knew that he had had the measure
of his son, who was merely a very good actor. Well, they’d all seen during the previous year
what a good actor he was.
Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at each other and at Neville. Harry took a deep breath and
spoke first. “I found out by accident, Neville. Dumbledore didn’t want me to say anything; he
said you’d say something when you were ready...”
“Moody shouldn’t have done that, then,” Hermione said indignantly. “It wasn’t his place to”
“No,” Neville said suddenly, sharply. He looked at the three of them with glistening eyes. “I’m
glad everyone knows. I’m glad....excuse me. I have to go decide which play to read.” He
calmly picked up his bag and left. The three of them stood looking at each other awkwardly,
then Ron said, “Why didn’t you say anything, Harry?”
“You heard him,” Hermione said. “Dumbledore didn’t want him to.”
“He can speak for himself, Hermione.”
“Don’t you snap at me, Ronald Weasley! You need to go to the library and find a copy of the
Anthology of Muggle Literature!”
She shouldered her bag and left without looking at either of them. Ron looked at Harry,
perplexed. “Who’s snapping? I seem to be getting called Ronald a lot lately. First that scene
after Potions, now this. What’s her problem?”
Harry also stared after her, then turned back to Ron. “Oh, you know her. Probably still shellshocked
because Moody yelled at her.”
Ron grimaced. “Yeah. She’s so perfect...” he said in a mocking tone.
Harry felt like hitting him; it was a great effort not to. “I’m going to the common room. See you
later.”
“Okay. What play you going to read?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Hamlet. That’s supposed to be good, right?”
“I’m leaning toward Othello. He strangles his wifeI can identify, just now,” he said, looking at
the doorway where Hermione had disappeared. Harry shuddered. Hermione thought Ron was
immature, Harry remembered, but it was possible that he was also just plain dangerous. Harry
looked at his friend, wondering what was going through his mind.
“Well,” he said finally, unable to comment on the wife-strangling statement. “See you.”
* * * * *
While he was eating dinner, Alicia Spinnet tapped him on the shoulder and said, “When you’re
done, Professor McGonagall wants to see you.” Harry looked up at the staff table. Professor
McGonagall was drinking from her goblet and not looking at him. He glanced at Dumbledore,
who met his eye and nodded with a slight smile at the corners of his mouth before putting his fork into it. Harry took that as a good sign. Maybe they’ll let me start next year after the
O.W.L.s, he thought. Or maybe they’ll make it contingent on the O.W.L.s, in which case I had
really better work hard to get good marks...
When he was done, he stood, explained to Ron and Hermione that he had to see McGonagall,
and walked toward the staff table without letting Hermione finish asking why. Both Dumbledore
and McGonagall had risen and were heading toward the anteroom where he’d attended the
prefects’ meeting the previous evening, the same anteroom where he had gone to wait with the
other champions after his name had come out of the Goblet of Fire.
He closed the door after himself and walked over to the large fireplace where Dumbledore and
McGonagall were standing, waiting for him. Their faces were in shadow with the fire behind
them, but what expressions Harry could see looked very serious. Dumbledore spoke first.
“Somewhat against Professor McGonagall’s better judgment, I have recommended that not
only should you receive Animagus training from her, but that it should commence immediately.
You have a mortal enemy who is targeting your friends and their families, and trying to build his
power and his supporters in the wizarding world. You have a number of excellent skills, and a
strong mind Harry, and I feel that adding this skill to your arsenal will make you even more of a
formidable opponent for Voldemort.”
McGonagall looked at him evenly. “It will not be easy, Potter. It may even not be possible for
you. But we need to know that sooner than later.”
“I know it can take a whileit took my dad three years”
She brushed this off. “That is because he was not properly supervised. If you have the aptitude
for it, you could do it in six months.”
“Six months!” Harry was floored; he had not expected that.
“Or less. A year at most. If you are suited to it. We will begin immediately.”
“I know. The headmaster said”
“No. You don’t understand,” Dumbledore said to him. “Right this minute.”
Harry looked back and forth between the two of them. “Right now?”
McGonagall stepped forward. “First, tell me, Potter, have you ever done magic without a
wand?”
“Without a wand? Of course not.”
“Think, Potter. There’s a kind of magic you do without a wand every time you play
Quidditch...”
“You mean flying a broomstick?”
“Do you think a Muggle can fly a Firebolt? There’s no magic in the person for it to respond to.”
“I’d never thought about it...”
“Can you think about any other times you’ve done magic without a wand?”
“Welldoes speaking to snakes count?”
She considered this. “That’s more like an innate ability that you have no control over. Think of
when you were younger, before you knew you were a wizard.”
Having just thought of talking to snakes, Harry’s mind immediately went to the time he had
inadvertently released the boa constrictor he’d been talking to in the zoo; he had somehow
made the glass disappear that was holding the snake prisoner. He told them about this.
“That’s closer, Potter, but let me ask you this: have you ever altered your body magically in any
way, without using potions, magical plants or a wand? Just your will?”
Harry ran his hand through his hair, thinking, then did it again and stopped with his hand half way through and pulled his hand out of his hair and stared at it. “Yes,” he realized. “You
wouldn’t know it now,” he said, “but when I was younger I hated to get my hair cut. Every time
my aunt and uncle cut my hair, I was so angry, I just spent the night in my cupboard under the
stairs seethingand when I got up in the morning, it was always just the same as it had been, as
though it had never been cut.”
Dumbledore and McGonagall smiled and nodded. “Excellent!” she said. “That’s the kind of
thing I’m looking for, that indicates that you might have a knack for this. It takes a special kind
of concentration and control over and awareness of one’s body to accomplish the Animagus
transformation.”
“Do you need me for anything else, Minerva?” Dumbledore asked her.
“No, Headmaster.”
“Then I have some letters to write. Good night. Good luck, Harry!”
“Thank you, Professor,” he said a little nervously. Dumbledore made long strides across the
room and left.
Harry turned back to Professor McGonagall. “So because I didn’t like haircuts I might be able
to become an Animagus?”
“It’s not as simple as it sounds, Potter,” she said, and then without warning, she disappeared
and in her stead was a dignified, aloof-looking cat with marks around its eyes that looked rather
like Professor McGonagall’s square-shaped eyeglasses. It seemed that Harry blinked, and she
was human again. “An Animagus can change back and forth in a secondin less than a second.
Let’s practice something. You’ll do this repeatedly until you have complete control, and then
we’ll move on to something else. First, hold up your hands in front of your eyes, palms out, like
this.” Harry imitated her. “Look at your fingernails,” she instructed him. “Stare at them, notice
how each one looks, think about how they feel going into your skin. Look at them for as long as
it takes to become an expert on them.”
Harry stared at his fingernails, wondering vaguely what this had to do with becoming an
Animagus. He didn’t speak. This went on for ten minutes.
“Now,” McGonagall said at last, “close your eyes. Can you still picture them?”
“Yes.”
“Keep your eyes closed. Think about your fingernails the way they are now. Now think about
what they would look if they were longer, and then want them to be longer, will them to
grow...”
Harry thought about having longer fingernails, wondering if perhaps they should have measured
them first, so they’d be able to tell whether there was a difference of any kind; suddenly, he felt
a pain in his fingers and a sensation of the bones in his hands becoming liquid...
“Aaaah!” he screamed in alarm. He looked at his hands; the last joint on each finger was
elongating slowly, so that his fingers were now an inch longer each, now two inches, now
three...while his fingernails at the end of the stretched fingers looked exactly the same.
“Finite Incantatem!” McGonagall said quickly, tapping Harry’s hands with her wand. His
hands stopped growing and then shrank back to normal.
“Concentrate, Potter, concentrate. You need to focus more. Spend more time contemplating
your fingernails.” Harry could think of plenty of times when teachers had told studentsnot
usually him, trueto stop contemplating their fingernails, but this was the first time he’d ever
heard a teacher tell a student to do more of it.
He did as she said, losing track of time; he forgot to blink for a time, and then was forced to do quite a lot of blinking; then when it seemed he’d been holding his hands in front of him and
staring at them forever, he decided to close his eyes and think grow.
He didn’t feel anything. Then he opened his eyes and looked into the smiling face of Professor
McGonagall, who was looking at his now eight-inch long fingernails. He felt like laughing, but
her face became serious again.
“Now, Potter,” she said, “make them normal again.”
He looked up at her and suddenly panicked. Uh, oh, he thought. I knew there was a catch. But
he held up his hands before his eyes again and contemplated his fingernails once more. He felt
like he was getting double vision by the time he closed his eyes and thought about his nails being
normal. When he opened his eyes againhis hands looked as they had when he had entered the
room.
“Excellent, Potter!” McGonagall praised him, something rare for her. “That’s enough for
tonight, I think. We’ll practice that every night after dinner, in here, until you build up your
speed. You should go back up to Gryffindor Tower now. I have a meeting. Good night!”
Suddenly, he heard Sandy hissing under his robes, saying, “A cat will meet with a beetle.”
Harry stopped and turned, “Professor,” he said, “by the way, speaking of Animagi and all
what exactly is Rita Skeeter doing these days?”
McGonagall looked shaken, as though he had read her mind about what she was about to do.
“WhyI can’t discuss that with you, Potter. The fewer people who know about that, the
better.”
He’d thought he’d gotten one over on her. Oh well... “Good night, Professor.”
“Good night. Oh, and Potter? Have you given any thought to what animal you’ll be choosing?
You’ll need to do a great deal of research on your animal of choice, learn everything you
possibly can about it.”
“Er, no. I’ll start thinking about it. Good night.”
He passed out into the Great Hall again, checking his watchhe’d been contemplating his
fingernails for an hour-and-a-half, apparentlyand went back up to the Gryffindor common
room. As he entered, Colin Creevey put a camera in his face and took his picture with a
blinding flash. Harry threw up his hand before his face, too late, groaning, “Colin” Great, he
thought. Colin was doing the whole Harry Potter Fan Club thing again.
“He’s been taking pictures constantly,” Lee Jordan explained from one of the tables; he was
writing out pithy comments for the first Quidditch match.
“I’ve got a penfriend at a wizarding school in America, and I’m sending him pictures of all my
house mates. But I’m also giving copies to whoever wants them. I got a good one of George
and Angelina I’m giving them.”
Ron and Seamus and Dean were ignoring Colin when he took their picture, sitting at a table with
copies of the Anthology of Muggle Literature open before them, but they were actually playing
Exploding Snap. At another table, some first years were being told horror stories by some
second years about the castle ghosts. Hermione and Parvati and Lavender were sitting by the
fire discussing the witches in MacBeth, and Ginny was sitting cross-legged in a corner reading a
potions text. In another corner, George sat in an armchair talking to Fred, who was on the floor,
while Angelina sat draped across George’s lap also casually talking to Fred. They seemed so
natural and easy with each other, Harry thought. They made a good couple. When Colin took
their picture again, they ignored him.
Harry sat on the floor next to Ginny, looking around the room, feeling pleased with himself, then wondering what animal he would become. A stag like his father? No, that wasn’t right
somehow. Think, think...
“What are you thinking, Harry?” Ginny’s voice came suddenly. He jerked his head up, having
forgotten about her.
“Oh, something for Transfiguration...” he said lamely, but truthfully. “What animals do you like?
If you couldbecome onewhat would you choose?”
“You mean like an Animagus? Oh, I don’t know” her face lit up suddenly. “There are so
many good ones. A bird, maybe, like a hawk or an eagle. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able
to fly like that? Or perhaps a horse; running with four legs looks so wonderful. Why, what
would you choose?”
Then he looked up and the first thing that met his eye was the lion above the fireplace opening,
on the keystone. “What about a lion?” he said, turning to look at her.
She regarded him shrewdly. “You mean like the Gryffindor lion? With a mane and everything?
That’d be really beautiful...” she trailed off, looking at him. Their eyes were locked somehow.
Suddenly a bright flash went off out of the corner of Harry’s eye, and he realized Colin had
taken their picture. He turned away from Ginny and rose.
“Well,” he said abruptly. “Gotta study. Bye,” he said heading for the stairs. On the way, he
noticed Hermione looking at him oddly. When he reached the fifth-year dorm room, only
Neville was there.
“Oh,” he said stiffly, “Hello, Harry.”
“What are you reading, Neville?”
“King Lear.”
Harry nodded, not wanting to have a more protracted conversation with Neville at this point.
He sat down and got out some parchment and a quill and ink, writing down, Hawk, Eagle,
Horse, Lion. He looked at the list. Surely he could think of more possibilities that that. He
pictured Ginny’s face when she’d talked about flyingbut then, he kept coming back to the
lion...
He lay back on the covers, trying to picture his father as a stag, and him running beside him as a
lion...but a lion would hunt down and kill a stag...He shook his head. No; as far as he knew,
he’d still be intelligent enough to be able to control his animal instincts and avoid hunting like a
real lion, or hawk, or eagle...The horse was the only animal on his list that was more prey than
predator, he realized. He needed to consider this choice very carefully. He changed for bed and
closed his curtains, lying back in the darkness, picturing his fingernails...
* * * * *
