October arrived, and Hogwarts Castle grew damp and chilly.
But in sharp contrast to the gloomy weather was the students’ enthusiasm for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Professor Gray’s "class" theory had become wildly popular. On top of that, a rumor had begun spreading through the castle like wildfire: Hagrid, who looked like he only knew how to raise dangerous creatures, had apparently become a "druid" under Professor Gray’s guidance, a druid who could conjure berries out of thin air with his bare hands. The news was like a spark dropped into dry straw, completely igniting the young witches and wizards’ excitement.
Of course, not everyone was pleased.
Professor Snape had already complained to Dumbledore several times, calling Gray’s teaching "childish," "utterly devoid of wizarding dignity," and "encouragement for students to break school rules," but Dumbledore had blocked every complaint with the same reasoning: teaching according to the student’s aptitude.
Professor McGonagall, after having to answer seven or eight separate questions of "Druids are not Animagi, so turning into a bear doesn’t earn House points, right?", had finally cornered Professor Gray in the staff room for a "serious discussion," demanding that he make the distinction clear in class.
Professor Flitwick, on the other hand, had become deeply interested in Professor Gray’s unusual "spells." He had privately asked Lynn for advice several times, and had even started adding things to his own lessons, such as explaining the difference between the Levitation Charm and Feather Fall.
Naturally, the most dissatisfied person of all was Filch. Lately, every night there had been several students skulking around dark corridors, claiming they were "training their Rogue stealth skills," and it had driven him so mad he had lost a considerable amount of hair.
As for the source of all this chaos, Professor Lynn Gray himself had been in rather an irritable mood lately.
The sudden attack from the little girl he suspected might be one of Mystra’s Chosen had cast a shadow over the easy, comfortable life he had been enjoying. The feeling of having the sword of Damocles hanging over his head made him desperately eager to grow stronger.
Although he was already Level 11 (56%), after losing his fixed grinding spot, his rate of leveling had slowed to a crawl. He was still a long, long way from Level 13, the point at which he would gain access to 7th-circle spells.
After the attack on his home that night, Minister Cornelius Fudge had stormed to the school, demanding that Professor Gray be taken away for investigation, only to be sent back by Dumbledore’s mix of firmness and subtle pressure. In particular, Dumbledore’s casual remark, "Do you really think Azkaban could hold Professor Gray?", had sent Fudge away wiping cold sweat from his brow.
Lynn himself, however, had looked completely unconcerned.
If they really did throw him into Azkaban, he might actually thank Fudge for handing him an entire prison full of Dementors to farm for experience.
...
Time passed quickly, and before long it was the end of October, Halloween Eve.
The Halloween feast was one of the students’ favorite events at Hogwarts, because not only could they wear all sorts of bizarre costumes, they were also allowed to use harmless prank-type spells.
The Great Hall had already been decorated with live bats. The enormous pumpkins Hagrid had grown had been carved into lanterns, each big enough to seat three people inside. People were also whispering that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons to entertain everyone.
At seven that evening, Lynn arrived in the Great Hall with nearly all the other professors to enjoy the feast.
He did not eat here very often. Compared to all kinds of British "delicacies," he much preferred his own fries and burgers, or dishes recreated with magic that reminded him of home.
"It seems our entertainment is about to begin, Professor Gray."
Dumbledore, seated in the center of the high table, was clearly in excellent spirits. He wore a deep purple robe decorated with golden moons and stars, and as he raised his goblet, he smiled and motioned for Lynn to look toward the stage.
As the candlelight in the hall suddenly dimmed, a shrill, teeth-grating sound like a saw scraping through wood began to play.
A dance troupe made up of more than a dozen pale white skeletons slid in from the side door.
Unlike ordinary undead, they gave off no stench of decay or oppressive chill. Instead, they were dressed in flamboyant fashion. Some wore tattered top hats, others draped themselves in brightly colored gauze full of worm-eaten holes.
With the weird, screeching music playing, the skeletons began kicking and spinning wildly across the stage. Their bones clacked crisply together, and every now and then one of them would pop off its own skull and toss it like a ball, drawing screams and cheers from the students below.
"A splendid performance, is it not? I had this skeleton dance troupe specially invited from France, just to give the children a little holiday surprise."
"Animate Dead? A very interesting application."
Lynn raised his goblet to the Headmaster and spoke in a low voice only the two of them could hear.
"As for the Minister of Magic... thank you for your help, Headmaster."
"There’s no need to worry, Lynn." Dumbledore shook his head cheerfully. "I trust that you are not an evil man. If there is ever anything troublesome, you need only ask me for help."
"Oh? So even the famous Professor Gray has things he finds troublesome?"
A cold snort suddenly came from Lynn’s other side.
Professor Snape.
"Professor Gray’s ’class’ theory has caused me no end of trouble in my own teaching. A number of students have begun loudly declaring that ’Fighters don’t need Potions’ and ’The Holy Light will heal me,’ and now they no longer want to study Potions at all."
"Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps your teaching is just terrible, and that’s why students don’t like it, Professor Snape?" Lynn had been in a fairly decent mood, but Snape’s sarcasm immediately ruined it, and he felt rather irritated.
"Teaching students not to use wands, and instead to hack at people with swords, that is what you call ’teaching’?" Snape shot back without the slightest restraint.
"It’s called teaching according to aptitude, Professor Snape. Even Malfoy from your House listens very seriously in my class."
"In my opinion, your so-called ’class’ theory is nothing but a way of misleading students."
"Misleading students? Then what if I told you, Professor Snape, that one class called Cleric even has spells capable of bringing the dead back to life?"
Clang
The knife and fork in Snape’s hands, which had just been cutting into a fish steak, dropped against the plate with an unpleasant crash.
He neither answered nor refuted him. Instead, he furrowed his brows and stared at Lynn with an expression full of anger, but also doubt.
"All right, all right, gentlemen. Tonight is a feast. Let us not talk about work, or exchange profound magical theories. Let’s simply enjoy the performance."
Dumbledore cut in at once, neatly interrupting the confrontation. Laughing heartily, he rose to applaud as the skeleton dance troupe finished a routine.
At that moment, a green point of light suddenly lit up in the field of view provided by Lynn’s glasses.
This was the warning effect from the Locate Creature spell he had permanently attached to the glasses after encountering the Basilisk in the walls alongside Harry. And if it was triggering now, that meant only one thing.
The Basilisk had appeared again.
"It seems our entertainment has come to an end, Headmaster Dumbledore."
Lynn suddenly spoke. His voice was not loud, but it was unnaturally calm and serious.
"What is it, Lynn?" Dumbledore immediately sensed the change in tone and lowered his goblet.
"There is an unwelcome guest slithering through the castle. And... it seems to have already caused damage."
Narrowing his eyes, Lynn looked up toward the ceiling.
"Second floor. A massive Dark magic reaction. Let’s go, Headmaster."
...
Second floor corridor.
"My cat! My cat! What’s happened to Mrs. Norris?"
By the time Lynn, Dumbledore, and the others who had come with them, including Snape and McGonagall, arrived at the scene, Filch was screaming at Harry Potter.
"You! You killed my cat! You killed her! I’ll kill you! I’ll...!"
"Argus!"
Dumbledore stepped up beside Filch and stopped him sharply.
Lynn walked over to the terrified Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who were standing off to one side, and carefully lifted the petrified Mrs. Norris down from the torch bracket.
He glanced at the words smeared across the wall a foot above the floor:
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware.
Then he calmly said to Dumbledore, "Let’s go to my office, Headmaster."
"Thank you, Lynn," Dumbledore said.
The silent crowd parted to let them through.
Once Mrs. Norris had been laid on the desk, Dumbledore leaned in to examine her carefully through his half-moon spectacles, while Lynn had already checked her status through his own glasses:
[Name: Mrs. Norris]
[Race: Beast]
[Status:]
[Basilisk Petrification] (succeeded on the save against instant death after seeing the Basilisk’s eyes, effect reduced to petrification)
"She isn’t dead, Filch," Lynn said softly, adjusting his glasses.
"Not dead?" Filch choked out, peering at Mrs. Norris through his fingers. "Then why is she all... all stiff, like she’s frozen?"
"She’s been petrified," Lynn answered. "Petrified by some kind of evil creature."
"Ask him!" Filch did not seem to have heard the second half of Lynn’s words. He swung his blotchy, tear-streaked face toward Harry.
"To produce this level of ’permanent petrification’ requires an extremely advanced degree of Dark magic," Lynn said, lifting one finger and lightly tapping Mrs. Norris’s stiff forehead. It made a crisp tok, tok sound.
"This is a form of Dark magic with an instant-death property. It was only by some chance that the effect was weakened into petrification."
Lynn turned around and looked at the tense Harry and the agitated Filch.
"If Mr. Potter, as a second-year student, were truly capable of casting a mutated form of advanced instant-death magic that even I would find troublesome... then I imagine he would already be heading the Auror Office at the Ministry of Magic, instead of standing here because you caught him breaking school rules."
"Professor Gray is right," Professor McGonagall said sternly. "Even a seventh-year student could not achieve something like this."
"If I may say a word, Headmaster."
Snape’s irritating voice came from the shadows.
"Perhaps Potter and his friends simply should not have been in that corridor at that hour," he said, wearing a faint sneer. "But one cannot help wondering why they were there. Why were they not attending the Halloween feast?"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were just about to explain when Lynn walked over to them, patted Harry on the head, and said to Snape:
"They were helping me in my office prepare some new teaching materials, Professor Snape."
"Instead of attending the Halloween feast?" Snape pressed.
"You may not know this, Professor Snape, but I am preparing to introduce a new set of teaching tools next week, intended to help students better understand themselves. I call them Adventurer Profiles. They require a great many parchments treated with magic, and Mr. Potter and his friends..."
Lynn gave Harry, who was now practically trying to bury his head in his chest, a meaningful glance.
"...happen to have shown remarkable skill and patience in production work. They are quite well suited to helping me handle basic alchemical materials. Surely, as Potions professor, you must have noticed this talent in them?"
The corners of Snape’s mouth twitched, and his sallow face tightened.
Of course he knew Lynn was lying. Potter’s hands, which were good for nothing except catching the Snitch, handling alchemical materials? It was absurd.
But for the moment he had no evidence with which to refute it, so he could only let out a contemptuous sniff and say darkly, "I hope Professor Gray understands that covering for students who break rules will not lead to any genuine achievement in education."
"As long as guilt has not been proven, they are innocent, Severus."
Dumbledore finally spoke, the wisdom in his bright blue eyes glinting behind his spectacles.
Snape looked furious.
So did Filch.
"My cat’s been petrified!" Filch shrieked, his eyes bulging. "I want to see somebody punished!"
"We can cure her, Filch," Dumbledore said patiently. "Professor Sprout has recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. Once they are fully mature, there will be a potion capable of restoring Mrs. Norris."
"You may go," Dumbledore said to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
The three of them looked as though they had just received a pardon from execution. After throwing Lynn a grateful glance, they all but fled from his office.
Dumbledore and the other professors soon left as well, until only Lynn and Snape remained in the room.
"Thank you for the ’alibi,’ Gray," Snape said, though there was not the slightest trace of gratitude in his voice. "It does not, however, change the fact that Potter is an impudent fool. And that so-called ’teaching material’ of yours had better actually exist."
"Oh, it exists. You’ll see it next week." Lynn shrugged, then very clearly indicated that the conversation was over. "Was there anything else, Professor Snape?"
"That spell..."
Snape suddenly stepped forward, lowering his voice so much that the words seemed to be forced out through clenched teeth.
"At the feast. When you mentioned it... were you telling the truth?"
Lynn stopped what he was doing, turned around, and looked straight into Snape’s eyes, which were burning with desire and doubt.
"I do not joke about things like that, Severus."
Lynn’s voice was calm, but it carried an unquestionable force.
"Just as this cat can have its petrification undone through a potion, death itself is not an irreversible ending. So long as you become a Cleric, and grow strong enough to cast a 7th-circle spell: Resurrection."
"And what would it cost?" Snape asked, staring at him.
"The cost?" Lynn smiled, and there was something mysterious in that smile. "The cost is abandoning that ridiculous pride of yours... and changing the way you look at magic, just a little."
As he spoke, a neatly bound copy of The Adventurer’s Guide and another volume titled Drawing Power from Faith: Becoming a Cleric flew out from a stack of books and floated in front of Snape.
Snape gave Lynn a long, searching look, as though he wanted to say something.
In the end, however, he only snatched the two books abruptly into his hands, whipped his robes around, and strode out of the office without another word, carrying a gust of cold air with him.
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