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As starlight streamed down through the stained-glass dome of the Great Hall, Dumbledore gave his golden goblet a gentle tap. The sugar-frosted gingerbread men, mid-dance atop the desserts, froze at once—then, under Professor McGonagall's sharp glare, slunk shamefully back onto their plates.
"Before we begin dinner, I have a few announcements to make…" Dumbledore continued, seeing that every pair of eyes in the hall had turned to him.
"First of all, Mr. Filch, our caretaker, has asked me to remind everyone that magic is strictly forbidden in the corridors." When no one objected, he went on, "Additionally, you'll notice from the notices posted around the castle that the corridor to the right of the fourth floor is completely off-limits to all students—no exceptions."
"And another thing. The forest marked as the 'Forbidden Forest' on the school map is exactly that: forbidden. No student is allowed to enter it under any circumstance. It is full of dangers, and not to be trifled with."
"Now, moving on—we're also fortunate enough to welcome two new professors this term." The Headmaster's clear blue eyes swept over the Professor's table, and it was only then that Sargeras finally set down his knife and fork.
"The first is our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor—Professor Quirinus Quirrell."
The man in the purple turban stood up in a fluster, accidentally knocking over his goblet of mead. Just as the golden liquid was about to soak into the book Curses and Counter-Curses he had brought with him, Sargeras frowned slightly and tapped his fingers against the table. The spilled mead flowed backward, curling neatly back into the goblet as though time itself had rewound, restoring everything to its pristine state beneath Quirrell's stunned gaze.
Dumbledore continued his introduction, unbothered.
"And due to new regulations from the Ministry of Magic, as part of our efforts to strengthen the practical abilities and theoretical foundation of our graduates, the Board of Governors has approved the addition of a new course this term—Charms Theory and Practice."
As he spoke, he extended a hand toward the staff table. "Professor Sargeras Greengrass," Dumbledore said brightly, his tone as cheerful as if he were announcing a new flavor of cockroach clusters. "He will be responsible for teaching this new subject, and all students who have passed their O.W.L. exams are required to attend."
Upon hearing this, the students' reactions were mixed. Over at the Slytherin table, Draco Malfoy muttered under his breath, his tone dripping with disdain, "My father says some people don't even have their N.E.W.T.s…"
"Keep your voice down!" Crabbe and Goyle hissed beside him, eyes wide with alarm. Malfoy looked annoyed, but chose not to press the matter.
At the staff table, Sargeras rose and gave the Headmaster a nod. He didn't bother silencing the murmurs spreading through the hall—he considered all those whispered comments, whether praise or insult, utterly meaningless. But at that moment, the raven Noctis suddenly descended from the rafters, landing silently on his shoulder.
"Silence."
The word creaked out from the raven's throat like the groan of a rusted door hinge—hoarse, metallic, and cold. The eerie sound sent a chill rippling down every spine in the room.
In that moment, the obsidian in the creature's left eye gleamed faintly under the dim light. Still clutched in its beak was half a shard of silvery mithril.
Sargeras raised a hand, calmly signaling the frenzied raven to stand down. Then his voice, low and composed, rang out with perfect clarity, reaching every ear in the hall.
"I am Sargeras Greengrass. Some of you may have heard of me—a lunatic, a scholar, a murderer? Call me what you will. But here's a friendly warning: in my classroom, the truth takes the form of a ravenous beast. I suggest you come prepared."
And with that, he sat back down in his seat.
For a moment, the Great Hall was shrouded in hushed silence. Then, all at once, the Ravenclaw table erupted in applause—loud, enthusiastic, and unabashed. They were welcoming back one of their own, a once-legendary alumnus known far and wide as a "dangerous genius."
Moments later, Dumbledore declared the start of the feast, and the plates filled themselves with a warm, golden glow…
---
"I think Dumbledore has lost his mind." Daphne Greengrass waved her dinner knife dramatically, as if slashing through the air might make the thought any less absurd. "He's seriously letting a murderer teach us?"
"What could some filthy half-blood possibly teach us? How to brew potions using snot scraped from Mudbloods?"
Pansy Parkinson curled her lip in disdain. "Sounds like you've got quite the grudge against your dear cousin."
"Shut your mouth!" Daphne snapped, eyes flaring like an angry hen. "He's a filthy Mudblood, alright? The family disowned him a long time ago."
"I'm not surprised," Malfoy chimed in from farther down the table, his voice dripping with smug amusement. He had overheard them and couldn't resist the urge to stir the pot. "Didn't he personally send both your uncles to Azkaban?"
"Hmph. Malfoy, don't pretend you've forgotten why he went to prison himself. My mother says he blew five people into nothing but bone fragments with just a single spell."
Draco tapped the rim of his goblet with a silver fork, his drawl soaked in mockery. "Your mother says a lot of things. She probably can't even tell the difference between a Dementor and a house-elf."
Daphne pulled out a folded copy of The Daily Prophet and slapped it onto the long table. "At least she can tell when two of those five blasted Dark Wizard corpses were Death Eaters who used to work for your father."
"How dare you…"
"Keep your voices down!" Crabbe finally cut in, visibly shaken. His whisper trembled with nervous urgency. "Didn't your parents ever tell you not to mess with him? He's got more than just one pure-blood's blood on his hands…"
The long table suddenly fell completely silent. All that remained was the harsh clink of cutlery scratching against porcelain.
---
After the feast, in the Gryffindor common room.
Harry and Ron were sitting by the fireplace, the flames flickering softly as they talked about the new professor. Lately, everyone seemed to be talking about him—whispers echoed through the corridors wherever you went.
Harry stared at the dancing shadows in the fire, his scar throbbing faintly.
He couldn't stop thinking about the look Professor Greengrass had given Professor Quirrell during dinner—it was the same expression Uncle Vernon had when he found a spider spinning a web inside the jam jar.
Honestly, something about the whole situation just felt off, though Ron was quick to brush it off as Harry being paranoid again.
"That bird was really scary, wasn't it?" Ron said, a little louder than necessary, his voice filled with theatrical exaggeration. "I've never seen a talking raven before—and its voice! Merlin, it was awful!"
Harry sank deeper into the armchair, unusually quick to agree. "Yeah, it gave me the creeps too… though, are we sure it was even a raven?"
"What else could it be?" Ron leaned forward, clearly warming up to the idea. "You'd need some serious dark magic to make a bird talk like that."
"Er… what exactly is Dark Magic?" Harry asked. Having only just stepped into the magical world, his knowledge was still frustratingly limited.
"It's just like it sounds—evil spells, the nasty kind," Ron replied.
Harry blinked, hesitating. "But Professor Greengrass didn't seem like a bad person to me. He even helped you fix your broken trunk on the train today…"
"I know, I know," Ron said quickly, "but the Daily Prophet said he's killed people!"
"And I'll say it again—it was self-defense!" Hermione's voice cut in sharply as she marched over, clutching a thick copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to her chest.
"And that wasn't a regular raven," she added, glaring at Ron with a mixture of frustration and pride. "That was a Nackaferin Night Raven, a magical creature that naturally knows how to speak."
She glanced at the two boys, who were now staring up at her with the dumbfounded silence of people who'd just been scolded by a librarian. Then she lowered her voice, tone half warning. "And you—don't think you can get away with badmouthing a professor behind his back, or Gryffindor might lose points because of it."
Without waiting for a reply, she spun on her heel and stalked off.
Harry and Ron exchanged a long look, eyes wide with the same mix of confusion and disbelief.
"Who does she think she is? The Minister of Magic?"
"Forget it, Ron. I think Hermione's got a bit of a thing for Professor Greengrass."
"A what?"
"Like… she sees him as a role model. A guiding figure or something."
"Ohhh. You mean like how Death Eaters worship You-Know-Who."
---
The First Charms Class
Tuesday morning's Charms Theory class marked Professor Sargeras' inaugural lecture at Hogwarts.
When he entered the Charms classroom in the Ravenclaw Tower with a copy of Introduction to Magic in hand, he was met with a space entirely unfamiliar. The layout had changed completely since his student days—the original oak long tables were gone, replaced by curved stone platforms, and in the center of the classroom, a levitating crystal prism now hung suspended in midair.
Stepping onto the central platform, Sargeras quickly scanned the students before him, then gave a curt nod of approval.
"Good. Everyone's here."
"I imagine we can skip introductions," he said evenly, "but since this is a brand-new course, I do need to explain a few things before we begin."
Drawing his wand, Sargeras tapped the podium lightly. At once, it rose smoothly from the floor and hovered several feet above the ground.
Ignoring the sixth-years' scattered gasps of surprise, he tapped his copy of Introduction to Magic against his hand. In an instant, the book melted into a stream of silvery liquid that floated into the air, rearranging itself into constantly shifting strings of words:
Charms Theory and Practice
"This course covers only two things," he said calmly. "Understanding charms theory, and practical spellcasting."
He glanced at the students, all of whom sat straight and silent like startled quail, and couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight.
After all these years of iron-fisted methods, it seemed they were not entirely ineffective. The thought amused him, though his words remained strictly on topic.
"This class is not the same as Professor Flitwick's Charms course. We won't be using The Standard Book of Spells here."
The liquid characters shimmered and shifted smoothly in midair, forming new lines.
"Charms theory will help you build a solid understanding of the very nature of magic. By studying the historical evolution of spells, you will begin to see just how limited the current educational model truly is."
At those words, a Ravenclaw student tentatively raised her hand.
"But Professor," she asked, "hasn't the material in The Standard Book of Spells already been tested and proven throughout history?"
Sargeras didn't even glance in her direction. "What you're learning in The Standard Book of Spells is a product of the Spell Standardization Movement of 1890. That's only been around for, what, a hundred and one years? But in the long centuries before that, magic had already evolved into something far more splendid and diverse."
"But we still…"
"I know exactly what you're about to say," Sargeras cut her off, his tone sharp but not unkind. "Of course I understand that you're all preparing for your N.E.W.T. exams next year. But you don't need to worry. This class won't come with any homework."
He allowed that statement to settle for a moment, then continued, his voice smooth and confident.
"So no, it won't pile even more work onto your already-overloaded schedules. On the contrary—if you master the material in this course, your chances of passing the N.E.W.T.s will only improve. That much is certain."
The moment those words left his lips, the room stirred. Whispers broke out across the classroom, students leaning toward one another in barely contained excitement.
"Professor, are you serious? There's really no homework in this class?"
A subtle smile played at the corner of Sargeras' lips. "Of course there isn't. After all…"
He traced a clean arc through the air with his wand. With a deep click, every door and window in the room sealed shut.
"…practice is the best kind of homework."
He let that hang in the air for a moment, then spoke again.
"Now then. Before we begin the lesson properly, are there any other questions?"
A small, shaky hand rose from one of the Hufflepuff boys near the back. "Um… Professor Greengrass, is this course only useful for passing exams?"
"Excellent question," Sargeras said with a nod. "That's exactly the kind of question you should be asking." He spread his arms slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting in something faintly resembling a smile.
"The answer is… of course not."
And just like that, he didn't explain any further. Instead, he moved on to another question entirely.
"Does anyone know how many Aurors die on duty every year?"
He glanced around the classroom. The students remained silent, shaking their heads.
"And how many curses does a Curse-Breaker encounter in their lifetime that they cannot unravel?"
Still, there was no response.
"What about the Healers at St. Mungo's? What do they do when faced with cases beyond their expertise?"
This time, he didn't wait for an answer. He simply continued, his voice cool and composed.
"The Standard Book of Spells will teach you the simplest ways to cast spells. But it is neither the most comprehensive, nor the most effective."
With a deliberate twist of his wand, the glowing letters suspended above them shattered into a cascade of silvery stardust. The fragments drifted upward, reforming across the domed ceiling into vivid, sweeping images: ancient spellwork etched in cuneiform by medieval wizards.
"The Ministry of Magic created this course, 'Charms Theory and Practice,' to give young witches and wizards real survival skills before they leave the safety of these walls. Skills that go far beyond anything covered in your exams."
"Whether you're planning to become an Auror, a scholar, or even an alchemist, this course will be essential."
"Because the very foundation of your future—what you'll depend on to survive—will be forged right here."
Even before he finished speaking, a ripple of silver light erupted from the tip of his wand and swept across the stone platform like a wave.
Janet White, Ravenclaw's former prefect, stiffened. Her pupils contracted sharply as a strange calm settled over her mind. The restless tide of thoughts that had once surged within her was suddenly stilled, as if soothed by an unseen hand.
All across the room, the effect repeated. Students blinked. Their eyes cleared. Their breathing slowed. Their gazes sharpened—focused, steady, eerily serene.
"Professor?" Janet's voice emerged low and level, so composed it startled even herself.
Sargeras stepped down from the floating platform, the hem of his black robe brushing through the symbols still suspended in the air.
"Emotion clouds perception," he said evenly. "In my classroom, you will require complete clarity of mind."
"Professor Greengrass, are you saying you cast a spell on us?" The students quickly picked up on the shift in themselves.
A tall, thin boy in the second row glanced down at his own hands, examining his body with clinical detachment. "That must be it. Otherwise, our emotions wouldn't be this… undisturbed."
"I don't believe this is allowed. The Ministry would never approve of you casting an unregistered, untested spell on students…" The Hufflepuff students began to calmly "protest" as well.
Sargeras brushed his fingertips across the cover of the textbook belonging to the student seated closest to him, replying without so much as a glance. "'Mechanized Mind.' Special authorization granted by the Department of Magical Education at the Ministry of Magic. The enchantment sustains a controlled state of heightened cognitive clarity for ninety minutes—limited, of course, strictly to this classroom."
"Professor Greengrass, we've never heard of this spell before."
"That's because it belongs to a branch of emotional magic… unique to me."
As he spoke, every student's textbook lifted into the air and settled perfectly onto their desks, pages fluttering open in unison—page twelve.
"Lesson One: The Magical Node Network of the Summoning Charm…"
And for the next ninety minutes, only one voice echoed through the room—Sargeras's low, steady, commanding tone.
By the time the final strand of silver light dissolved into the crystal prism above, the bell rang, sharp and sudden, jolting the students from their trance-like focus.
Emotions began returning, slowly, hesitantly, like water trickling through cracks in ice. The students looked around at one another—startled, wide-eyed.
Those intricate magical runes… the complex diagrams of casting pathways and formulaic matrices… they were still etched clearly in their minds, as if carved in stone.
Only now did the students truly understand what Professor Greengrass had meant during the welcoming feast when he said, "Everyone will gain something from my class."
If Harry had been there, he might've sworn that even Neville could now recite the full list of spell attenuation formulas by heart.
With a wave of his wand, Sargeras dissolved the floating platform, restoring it to its original shape. His deep, quiet voice resounded once more in the lingering silence.
"Next Tuesday, we begin practical spellcasting."
And with that, he turned and left the classroom without another word, not even glancing back at the room still buzzing with restrained energy.
…
And then, the classroom exploded into noise.
"That was awesome!"
"Absolutely amazing"
"Cool!"
"Didn't even need to take notes!" one of the Hufflepuff boys exclaimed, staring at the still-blank parchment in front of him. "I can actually remember every single thing Professor Greengrass said."
"I'm telling you, if every class worked like this…" a Ravenclaw muttered, wide-eyed.
The students chattered nonstop, voices rising, filled with excitement and a kind of exhilarated disbelief.
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[Chapter End's]
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