Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A New Source of Freedom

Thursday evening, Headteacher’s office.

“Sorry I’m late, Professor,” Hallie blurted as she hurried into Professor Dumbledore’s office. “I got into a rather heated discussion with Kevin Entwhistle about The Chronicles of Narnia and didn’t realise what time it was.”

“Oh?” Albus asked amusedly without looking up at her, busy paging through a sheaf of papers in his hand. “I’ll be done with these in just a moment, but do go on!”

“Yeah, we were debating whether Aslan counted as a wizard or not, even though he’s a lion; which then morphed into whether C. S. Lewis was a wizard or not, considering he isn’t in either Great Wixen of the Twentieth Century or Notable Magical Names of Our Time. Is he…?”

“He was not.”

“Yes! I was right!”

“But…”

“But?!”

“His niece is.”

Hallie raised an eyebrow. “His niece? C. S. Lewis had a sibling?”

“Yes, while Warren was often overshadowed by his younger brother Clive, he was the only one of the two to be aware of the Magical World through his daughter Janet. I was her transfiguration professor, as a matter of fact, though sadly her favourite subject was Potions under Professor Slughorn.”

Hallie wrinkled her nose as she processed that information before shrugging. “I think I still win that argument.”

Albus chuckled as he put away the papers he had been working on and turned his attention to her. “I will leave that resolution up to you and Mr Entwhistle.”

Hallie scoffed. “Well, we both agree that Aslan was probably a wizard; I wouldn’t be surprised if wixen could turn into animals, but Janet is very clearly not Clive. There’s no way he’s winning this argument.”

She then took a deep breath and plopped into the chair across from the Headmaster. “The note sounded urgent, Professor.”

Albus sighed. “Not urgent, so much as serious. Halloween is coming up, Ms Potter.”

“Oh, it is! And…?”

“It is October 31^st, Ms Potter.”

“I’m aware, Professor…?” she said slowly, utterly confused, before realisation struck and her face fell. “Oh,” she whispered softly.

“Indeed, Ms Potter. As such, I assumed you would not wish to be celebrating that day.”

“Is it bad that I did not even think of that until you said it?” Hallie sniffled, barely keeping the tears at bay.

Albus smiled kindly. “Not at all, Ms Potter. You have never really known them, and I don’t know if Petunia ever told you when they died. I just wished to give you the option to skip the feast and dine in your Common Room.”

“Yeah, now that I’ve realised that, I don’t think I could be there while everyone is celebrating, Professor.”

Albus’ smile dimmed slightly. “Apologies for bringing it up, Ms Potter. I just wanted to make sure.”

Hallie shook her head vigorously. “No, Professor, I would have figured it out on my own at some point and would have likely felt even more ashamed of myself. Thank you very much for telling me, in fact. I think I’ll have dinner in my Common Room, then.”

Albus nodded, taking a blank piece of parchment and a quill to pen a permission slip to hand to Filius before he paused. It hadn’t been done since the 1830s, until a year ago with Chelsea Sanders, but Daphne Greengrass had also requested it for the coming January. It would be rather risky considering Harriet’s status as the Girl-Who-Lived, but maybe…

“There might be another option, Ms Potter,” he said carefully.

Hallie’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Professor?”

“There is a provision that Hogwarts has offered for centuries but has never really been availed of. On the anniversary of the death of someone close to you, Hogwarts allows you to take time off to pay respects and grieve. Until last year, it had been over a century and a half since someone had put in a request, but this year, you would be the second to do so. If you wish to, of course.”

Hallie’s eyes widened as the tears she’d stemmed threatened to spill over anyway. “Pay respects? So, I could visit…?”

“Yes, Ms Potter. It would have to be with a chaperone, considering the danger accompanying that exposure, but I see no reason why not. You would be responsible for catching up to your peers in your studies afterwards, however.”

In.

Hold.

Out.

Hallie took a few more calming breaths before nodding her head, a few tears managing to escape her hold over them before she wiped them away. “I’d like that a lot, Professor. I’d like that a lot.”

“Very well,” said Albus, smiling kindly. “Now we simply need to decide on a chaperone. Any ideas, Ms Potter?”

Harriet took another deep breath before nodding. “Yeah. I need to have a conversation with someone, and by Halloween, it will be long overdue.”

Saturday.

The day had come! Hallie had never been so excited; the sombre mood from Thursday banished in its wake. After a quick shower and breakfast, she burst into her room and whipped her trunk open.

Right on top of her things, having arrived yesterday, was a rather conspicuously shaped package from Professor Flitwick.

Hallie huffed in excitement and tore the package open before taking the broom reverently into her hands. The fastest broom on the market, and it was hers.

In.

Hold.

Out.

She would not let her team down!

She held it handle-down, so as not to hit anyone in the face as she rushed down the stairs of Ravenclaw Tower and raced towards the Quidditch Pitch. She hadn’t seen the other players yet, or even any of the other balls they would be playing with, since Eliza was a big believer in individual try-outs. Today would be the first practice session, though, so they could no longer delay introductions. There was still half an hour until she was meant to be down there, but she wanted to fly around for a little bit.

To her surprise, Eliza was already down there, sitting in the bleachers, reading a book. “Ah, Potter, nice to see you here!” She spotted the broomstick in her hand and beamed. “Seems like Professor Flitwick splurged a bit. You planning on taking it for a spin?”

Hallie nodded vigorously as she mounted the broom, causing Eliza to giggle. “Alright, go ahead!” Eliza said. “Actually, you know what? Stay up there until you hear me calling you or talking about you. I haven’t told the others about you yet, so we can surprise them this way. Feel free to be as dramatic as you want on your way down! I might even help you in that regard.”

“Gotcha! See ya then!” Hallie said, before kicking off the ground and zooming into the air.

…

…

…

HOOOOOOOOOOOLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

She’d thought the Shooting Star she’d used during the Flying lesson was fast. The Nimbus outstripped it by several dozen times! Tamping down the instinctive spike of terror, she hissed and gripped the broom handle tighter before leaning forward and stabilising herself, and soon all that fear was replaced with exhilaration, and she let out a long whoop of joy. THIS WAS FUCKING AWESOME!

Wind rushing past her and blood roaring through her ears, she didn’t hear Eliza let out a low whistle before grinning. “The other houses are sooooo screwed!” the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain cheered.

Hallie spent the next fifteen minutes racing through the air, followed by another five doing laps around the hoops. Five minutes before their meeting time, however, she noticed that everyone else had arrived and she could just barely hear Eliza speaking. Hallie slowed to a stop so that she could hear her captain clearly.

“…and don’t worry, Chang,” Eliza was saying to an Asian girl Hallie thought was in second year, holding the golden ball she had shown Hallie during her tryout. Was she…? Hallie pointed her broom downwards and started to pick up speed.

“I’m booting off Terslith per his request, given it’s his NEWT year, and giving you Chaser like you wanted,” she continued. “After all, Professor Flitwick managed to find us a Seeker!”

Eliza tossed the Snitch high into the air, and before it could spread its wings and fly away, Hallie zoomed by it and caught it in her outstretched arm. Instead of hopping off and rolling like she did when she caught the Remembrall, however, she called upon her already developing intuition and simply jerked the handle upwards and to the side, drifting to a stop.

“How was that?!” she asked excitedly, only to be greeted by dumbfounded looks from everyone but Eliza.

Eliza guffawed, turning to the rest of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. “Yeah, I reacted the same way during her tryout. Potter, meet the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. Now, Potter, Chang. I assume you’ve read Quidditch Through the Ages, and at least understand the basics of the game?”

Hallie nodded. “Back to front, thrice!” she chirped. The girl called Chang also nodded, seemingly a bit more nervous than Hallie was.

“Good. Oliver Wood may believe in running the Gryffs through drills ad infinitum, but we do things a little differently here in Ravenclaw. Of course, you’ll learn the most commonly used moves so that you can recognise them on sight, but Flying Class and positional diagrams can only take you so far. I’ll have you training against each other.”

“Against each other?” Hallie and Chang asked, confused.

Eliza grinned evilly. “You’ll see in a minute. We can save the chit-chat for later, but we have two new players, so introductions first. Everyone, meet Harriet Potter and Cho Chang, our new seeker and chaser, respectively. You two know me, I’m also a chaser. Our third is the unkempt, ungroomed tall one over here, Roger Davies.”

Roger scowled at her, but it morphed into a wide grin as he waved hi to Hallie and Cho.

“The shortstack is one of our beaters, Duncan Inglebee,—”

“Oi!”

“—and our other one is the one with mismatched socks, Jason Samuels.”

“It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday! And I’m already done with my homework! I wasn’t expecting to have to get up this early!”

“Finally,” Eliza giggled, thoroughly enjoying herself now, “our keeper is old Lanky Grant over here, Grant Page.”

“Eh, I guess my introduction could have been worse.”

Eliza shrugged. “Yeah, well, unlike the others, you don’t slack off, so…”

The other three began to protest, but Eliza shushed them. “Now that introductions are done, it’s time for your trial by fire, kiddos.”

Hallie and Cho stiffened. “What does that mean?” Hallie asked bravely.

Eliza’s evil grin returned, but softened slightly when she saw it actually made the newbies more nervous. “It’s nothing too drastic. Instead of working on teamwork immediately, I want to test how you work against an opposition first. Potter, you’re going to be searching for the Snitch while Duncan and Jason do their best to barrage you lightly with the Bludgers. Chang, you’re going to have to watch out for them too, but you’re mostly going to have to try and score against Grant while Roger and I run interference. Think you can do this?”

Hallie and Cho turned to look at one another, took a deep breath in concert, and nodded. “We can!” they said simultaneously.

“Good, love the enthusiasm,” Eliza growled. “Let’s see if you’re still holding onto it after this!”

Dawn of the Old Dark

A few hours later, Saturday Night, Dungeon Six.

After following the rather confusing set of directions that Professor Snape had given him, Ron found himself inside what looked to be an abandoned ‘Defence Against the Dark Arts’ classroom on the sixth floor.

And wasn’t that subject name such a misnomer?

He walked in and ran his hand over a broken terrarium that likely once contained a ‘dark’ creature. With the new definition of Dark Magic that he had heard, though, did that classification even make sense?

“It does for some of them,” answered a voice behind Ron, making him jump. Oops! Apparently, he’d voiced that last thought out loud.

“Professor!” he screeched before covering his mouth.

He would forever swear that he saw a brief smile on Professor Snape’s face at that moment. “Apologies, Mr Weasley, I did not mean to startle you,” Severus said, with just the barest twinge of amusement. “You are indeed correct in thinking that many of the creatures that are classified as ‘dark creatures’ by the Ministry are, in fact, not so. Creature classification, however, is an extremely complicated subject that I am severely underqualified to explain. You are better off asking Professor Kettleburn or Hagrid about it. I am here to teach you about the more wanded Dark Arts, and if you satisfy me sufficiently, perhaps even Dark Potions. These classes will take place every Saturday evening for now and will be equal in length to all other Hogwarts classes.”

Severus gestured to one of the seats for Ron to sit down. “Now, let me make one thing very clear, Mr Weasley,” he said once Ron had done so, his voice low and severe. “Your willingness to broaden your horizons and the Weasley family’s stalwart reputation is what led me and Professor Dumbledore to even consider this as an idea. However, unlike your other classes, messing around while learning Dark Magic will result in your immediate expulsion from Hogwarts and all the consequences that follow that.”

Ron couldn’t quite keep the shock off his face as he asked, “Expulsion!?”

Severus nodded. “Yes, Mr Weasley. Learning True Dark Magic requires both your complete concentration at any given time and the utmost respect for the Arts at all times. Bungling up a complicated transfiguration may take a very long time to reverse, or have a complication or two. Only in the rarest of cases does it result in a permanent problem, and usually one that’s not truly harmful for a practitioner. With the Dark Arts, you could very well lose your sense of self or life if things go wrong, even with some of the intermediate spells. The difficulty might indeed be at a similar level as the other wanded Arts, but the risk a practitioner faces doing Dark Magic is far higher.”

Ron took a deep breath before nodding. “I understand, Professor,” he said. “I will not let you down.”

“I sincerely hope you do not, Mr Weasley,” Severus said, his voice surprisingly soft. “Perhaps you might even become a True Practitioner someday.”

“A what?” Ron asked, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

Severus couldn’t help but chuckle. “And thus begins your first lesson.”

“There are four types of users of the Dark Arts, Mr Weasley. You already know of two of them, one far more nefarious than the other.”

Ron scrunched his nose in thought. “Terrible, evil people like You-Know-Who are probably one, what’s the other type?”

Severus smiled, surprised but thankful that Ron was already consciously separating evil and dark in his mind. He wrote the word ‘misuser’ on the board before answering. “New practitioners like you, and most of your typical everyday ones that reside in Knockturn Alley, Mr Weasley.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed. The former type has long fallen prey to the corruptive effects of Dark Magic, regardless of whether it influenced their decisions; the latter type hasn’t practised enough of it to really feel the same effects.” The words ‘untrained/average’ joined ‘misuser’.

“Huh. And there are two more beyond that?” Ron asked, his curiosity now piqued.

“Yes, there are. The first is rather uncreatively but aptly named, and where I lie on the spectrum. I am what is called a Trusted Practitioner,” Severus said, writing it next to the other two types. “As the name suggests, I am trusted to keep the corruption that assails me at bay. I do feel it, but I do not fall prey to it. There are thousands of Dark wixen in this tier, and it’s by no means a permanent designation. It is also a designation independent of our allegiances.”

“Allegiances, professor?”

“You already know of my regretful stint as a Death Eater, and regardless of his final allegiances, Headmaster Karkaroff of Durmstrang Institute was also one before he turned many of his fellows in. But…”

“…both of you were Trusted Practitioners the whole time, even if you were working for You-Know-Who at the time!” Ron finished, before cringing for having interrupted Professor Snape. “Sorry, Prof—”

“No need to apologise, Mr Weasley,” Severus reassured Ron. “Unlike with Potions, so long as you are not practising spell-work, I would prefer you ask questions and interact with me. In Potions, the danger that distraction poses is ever-present, and so a momentary unplanned interaction could turn disastrous. With the Wanded Arts, the danger is only present when you incant. Now, cast your mind back a few minutes, and you’ll remember a comment I made. What is the last type of user of Dark Magic, Mr Weasley?”

“A...True Practitioner?” Ron asked hesitantly, vaguely remembering what Professor Snape had whispered.

“Correct! A True Practitioner of the Dark Arts is categorised by their immunity to its corruptive effects.”

“Wait, complete immunity?!”

“Indeed. Now let me temper your expectations with the fact that through all of wixenkind’s storied existence, the maximum number of True Practitioners in the entire world at any given time has never crossed 15.”

“But there’s a chance I could…?” Ron trailed off, already knowing the answer, but ever hopeful.

Severus chuckled. “Of course, Mr Weasley just as much a chance as any one of us has. Some are born as True Practitioners, others eventually become one. Of course, it will be a few decades before you find out, unless you happen to meet another True Practitioner. Rumour has it that they have a method to find if you’re one of them (or have the potential to be one of them) quite a bit sooner, but they reveal that method to no one. You can, of course, identify a True Practitioner by a tattoo on their person.”

“Like…like a Dark Mark?” Ron asked hesitantly.

“In that it is a tattoo? Yes. It is, however, supposedly significantly more advanced than the Dark Mark, although I do not know the specifics of how. I unfortunately do not have an image of it on my person, so showing it to you will have to wait for another time.”

The final type of practitioner joined its fellows on the board before Severus turned back to Ron. “Now, did you bring parchment to take notes like I asked?”

Ron nodded as he hurriedly took out two rolls, an inkpot and a quill.

“Very good,” Severus said. “Now, first, I must begin with a correction. When we first talked of Dark Magic, I said that it is categorised by requiring either a sacrifice or a retributive effect. This is not exactly true. Every casting technically has a retributive effect on the caster, whether the casting is incanted or not. If you pair it with a proportionate sacrifice of some sort, however, in most cases, that retribution is erased entirely.”

Ron frowned. “Erased entirely? And is there a particular amount of sacrifice that would be considered proportionate?”

“Two excellent questions!” Severus said with a smile, bordering on a grin. Turns out, he was quite enjoying instructing someone in the Arts that had long held his fascination, perhaps a little more than he did Potions. “For certain spells, their Arithmancy was calculated to include a sacrifice, thus pegging it at a standard value. In the case of enchanted objects, part of this sacrifice can sometimes be foregone by the enchanter, provided the person using the object provides the rest. For any spells that do not normally require a sacrifice, however, this amount is not set, and would differ from person to person.”

“So, it’s up to the caster whether they want to take the risk!” Ron gasped in understanding.

Severus nodded. “As for the erasure of the retributive effect, many think that the Ambient Magic of the Earth considers the sacrifice as a sufficient substitute. Now, what exactly that means is a little out of the scope of your first-year studies, so I will leave my explanation at that for now.

“Now, there are multiple things that you can sacrifice for a casting. The one most oft chosen, because of its availability, is blood, of course. For your first year, when we do look at sacrifice-based spells, we will be looking at these.”

“But there are others?” Ron asked.

“Indeed. For example, you can also choose to sacrifice your memories, your maximum magical potential, or even the use of a body part. All of these come with significantly more risks, but often less overall loss, than a blood sacrifice.”

At this, Severus pulled a pocket watch from the folds of his robes. “Hmm, it seems we have a few more minutes before the class ends. So let me introduce you to what I intend to be a year-long project for you!” He walked over to a supply cupboard in a corner of the room and removed an object covered by a cloth.

“Under this cloth, Mr Weasley,” he said, “lies an artefact. An artefact is any object that has been enchanted using magic, no matter its size or usage. In this case, the enchanter used Dark Magic.” He placed the object in front of Ron, a rather unassuming-looking galleon with a chip on its circumference. “Your goal for the year, Mr Weasley, is to use your ability to sense Dark magic to find out what this object has been enchanted to do.”

Ron’s eyes lit up in interest. “Can I try right now, Professor?”

“Of course, be my guest. But wear these gloves first.”

After wearing a pair of dragonhide gloves that Professor Snape produced, Ron took the coin in his hands, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath in. He searched for the same feeling he’d felt the previous two times he’d sensed Dark Magic and tuned out the Dark Mark on Professor Snape’s arm. Lo and behold, he could sense the magic in the coin.

Score!

This feels interesting. It doesn’t feel malicious enough to be something truly harmful, unlike the slimy feeling Quirrell gives off.

He brought it closer to his face slowly, only to immediately move it away. Huh! The magic’s trying to latch onto me? But it didn’t do it earlier, so it’s definitely targeted at whoever’s holding onto it, but needs skin contact to transfer.

I also sense something…tangy. No, wait. That’s not quite right. It almost feels like a taste, something I’ve tasted before. Something copper—oh! Blood! So it’s blood magic?

Ron took another deep breath as he brought what Professor Snape had said four days ago to the forefront of his mind. Magic was all about intent. It was all well and good if he sensed the actions of the magic, but the point of this was to sense the intent of the original caster.

Hallie had described meditating a few times to him, and for some reason, it felt like following those principles might help here. So, he took a few deep breaths and let everything around him fall away from his senses except for the coin. He poured everything into focusing on the coin, all the computing power he normally reserved for a good game of chess.

…

…

…

*snap*

His senses briefly flashed with a sensation that was somewhat familiar to him, given the two tricksters that were Fred and George.

Oh!

“It’s alright if you don’t—”

“I’ve got it!” Ron shouted.

“You…what?”

“It’s a prank item, right? It either makes people more clumsy or unlucky or something, and they wanted it to stick around even when the coin wasn’t being held, so they used Dark Magic. It’s been enchanted by sacrificing blood, so the caster probably didn’t have to go through a retribution of some sort!”

Ron finally opened his eyes, only to see Professor Snape gaping incredulously at him, an expression that looked very out of place on his face. “Professor?” he asked, a little concerned.

Professor Snape continued staring at him for a few more seconds before finally blinking thrice in quick succession. “Mr Weasley, do you know what this is?” he finally asked, pointing at the coin.

“Did I get it wr—?”

“No, please, let me explain,” Severus interrupted. “This, Mr Weasley, is known as ‘The Coin Test’. As I’ve told you before, you’re far from the first person to develop a Dark Magic sense, and also quite far from the first who was actively being taught Dark Magic—or started soon after. This is a test commonly administered to students like you; a rather innocuous object, often a coin or a metal cube, enchanted with some relatively mild Dark Magic. Unlike you, however, they tend to spend a year trying to deduce the curse.”

Ron processed what Professor Snape said before jumping up from his seat. “Wait, I got it right?! Seriously?! I just tried to think it through like I analyse moves while playing chess. Hallie’s meditation tips helped, too. I didn’t think I’d get it right!”

Severus shook his head in a combination of amusement and disbelief. “Yes, you did, Ronald; it’s an object that causes clumsiness with short-term contact and bad luck with longer exposure. But you didn’t just get it correct, you did so on the first try. It speaks of a prodigious talent for magical analysis that you’ve seemingly brought forth to your daily life and cultivated from something entirely unrelated. An untested and incomplete talent, yes, but one that can be honed.”

Ron blushed nearly as deep as the colour of his hair at the sincere praise, but took it in stride. “When can we start?” he almost growled in excitement.

Severus chuckled. “After every class we have, I’ll hand you an enchanted object for the week. Fair warning, not all of them will be as easy as this, and I’ll only hand you new artefacts once you’re done with the previous one. We could start now, but…”

Almost on cue, Severus’ pocket watch started to blare with an alarm spell, causing Ron to jump.

“…I have a prior engagement with Professor Dumbledore.”

A bit of the wind got knocked out of Ron’s sails, but his smile didn’t fall. “Next week, then,” he chirped, leaping up from his seat and walking towards the door.

Severus sighed, still unused to being around hyperactive children even after teaching for over a decade. But for once, even he was having fun. “Indeed, Mr Weasley. See you next week. Oh, and please do bring your own dragonhide gloves!” he said, before waving his wand in an arc.

There was a yelp from outside the class as a pair of gloves came flying through the door, followed by a “Sorry, Professor!”. Severus simply snorted before exiting the room and immediately taking a secret passageway to the corridor in front of the Headmaster’s office.

“Sherbet Orange,” he said to the gargoyle, the professor-only password that he never stopped finding ridiculous. A short ride up the stairs later, he went to knock on the door, but it swung open automatically.

“Come in, Severus,” said a weary Albus Dumbledore. “We have much to discuss.”