After the three of them stepped back into the crowd at the rear of the classroom, Malfoy came striding out from the students and shot Harry a contemptuous sneer.
"Disarming a spider. Very clever, Potter."
"Ignore him. He’s the one who’s about to embarrass himself," Ron said, clearly in a very good mood. He pulled out his Adventurer Profile, pointed his wand at it, and whispered, "Adventure begins."
He saw that his Class had already become Fighter, while his Level now read:
Level 1 (5%)
And under Feats, there was now a new entry:
[Protection Fighting Style]
[When an enemy attacks an ally beside you, your quick reaction reduces or negates the damage.]
Ron excitedly held the parchment up in front of Hermione to show it off, only for Hermione to cut him off and whisper in his ear, "Harry’s been acting strange ever since last night."
By then, Malfoy had already gone up front with Crabbe and Goyle to begin their practical exercise.
Malfoy clearly did not want to dirty his expensive school robes, so he had Crabbe and Goyle, both of them big brutes, take the front while he stayed in the back.
Following Malfoy’s instructions, Crabbe had chosen Fighter as his class, while Goyle had gone with Barbarian.
"Get in there, you two!"
Crabbe raised a longsword, while Goyle simply wielded a thick club, wide at one end and narrow at the other. Under Malfoy’s command, the two of them charged the spider.
The sword and the club struck the Acromantula’s two great pincers at the same time, locking the three of them in a dead struggle.
From the rear, Malfoy raised his wand and began casting.
But instead of using a conventional offensive spell, he started hurling out insults in a strange, rhythmic cadence.
He sneered at the spider that had just crawled out and shouted,
"You ugly eight-legged furball! Did your mother forget to weave you a brain when she made your web?"
The students watching in the back all burst out laughing. Clearly, none of them thought insulting a spider would actually do anything.
But the air seemed to vibrate in an odd way.
Then, to everyone’s astonishment except Lynn’s, the spider actually flinched, as if something had stabbed it. A trace of confusion, almost like wounded self-esteem, flickered in all eight of its eyes.
The Bard-exclusive cantrip Vicious Mockery dealt psychic damage through verbal abuse. Language barriers did not matter.
Still, that amount of damage obviously was not enough. The spider quickly recovered, its eight legs moving in a blur as it slipped around Crabbe and Goyle and lunged straight at Malfoy in the back.
Seeing the spider about to pounce, Malfoy snapped at Goyle in panic,
"Goyle! You useless glutton, block that damned bug! If you even take one step back, don’t bother following me around ever again!"
Strangely enough, that insult-laden "encouragement" actually made Goyle shudder.
A surge of hot blood rushed through him. With a shout, he grabbed his thick wooden club and charged the spider, smashing it hard on the head.
Lynn could not help finding the whole thing a little funny, and the corners of his mouth twitched upward.
What Malfoy had clearly just cast was the 1st-level spell Heroism, which filled the target with courage, made them immune to fear for the duration, and briefly bolstered their vitality.
That spell was normally delivered through direct contact. Triggering it by insulting the target probably was something only Malfoy could manage. In its own way, that counted as talent too.
"Stop."
Lynn called the exercise there and used magic to separate the spider from the two boys.
"Well done." He applauded Malfoy’s group. "Mr. Malfoy, you’ve displayed truly astonishing... linguistic talent, and the three of you coordinated remarkably well. Five points to Slytherin."
Malfoy lifted his chin proudly, obviously enjoying his moment in the spotlight.
One group after another came forward to take on the challenge. Some showed surprisingly good teamwork, while others performed so badly it was painful to watch.
Neville Longbottom and his group, for example, made complete fools of themselves. Neville had a two-handed sword in hand, but he simply did not swing it. The spider knocked the weapon out of his hands with embarrassing ease, and only Lynn stepping in kept him from getting hurt.
Before long, the lesson was over.
The students poured out of the classroom in a wave, excitedly talking over the fight they had just watched. Malfoy was still boasting to Pansy about how he had used mental force to crush a monster.
Very soon, the room was empty again.
Lynn was in the middle of tidying up the massive wooden crate, preparing to return it to Hagrid.
"Professor."
A hesitant voice sounded from beside the platform.
Lynn stopped what he was doing and turned around.
Harry was standing there, gripping his wand tightly, his face full of unease and conflict.
"You still haven’t gone to eat, Potter?" Lynn’s tone was calm.
"I..." Harry drew in a deep breath and asked, "Professor, about that green fire I used last night, can you tell me what spell it actually was? No matter how I think about it, it feels like Dark magic."
He looked up, hoping this powerful professor would give him an answer he could believe in.
"Hellish Rebuke."
Lynn pulled out the chair behind the platform and sat down. With a wave of his wand, another chair slid over from the side of the classroom.
He motioned for Harry to sit, then continued,
"It’s a rather unusual spell. When someone attacks you, it lets you channel your anger into an immediate counterattack that deals fire damage."
"But it doesn’t seem to be in the book..." Harry said, confused.
"That’s right, because this spell belongs to a rather unusual class. Originally, I had no intention of teaching any of you the knowledge connected to that class."
"An unusual class?"
"It’s called Warlock. In some ways it resembles Sorcerer, but in other ways... it’s quite different."
"Because it’s connected to Dark magic?" Harry drew in on himself a little, sounding uncertain.
"No, Harry." Lynn adjusted his glasses and spoke earnestly. "Power itself is neither good nor evil. Even Dark magic, if Headmaster Dumbledore used it to repel Dark wizards, I doubt you’d suddenly decide that Dumbledore was a bad person."
"But Professor Dumbledore would never use Dark magic," Harry replied at once, absolutely certain.
Lynn did not pursue that point. Instead, he went on,
"The reason I didn’t want you all to know about Warlocks is that they are spellcasters who gain power by making a pact with some powerful being, or by drawing from a special bloodline or soul-link."
Seeing that Harry still looked confused, Lynn explained patiently,
"We’ve already studied this. A Wizard draws power from knowledge. A Cleric draws power from belief. A Paladin draws power from an oath."
"But a Warlock draws power from a powerful being we usually call a patron. That power is often more direct and more violent, and it is usually driven by emotion, that is, by the Charisma attribute."
"Charisma?" Harry looked lost.
"Yes. In the class system, Charisma doesn’t just mean looks. It also refers to a person’s force of will, presence, and the power of their emotions when those feelings erupt."
"Last night, when you were extremely angry, you unconsciously drew on that power within yourself. It answered you, and became Hellish Rebuke."
"As for why it was green..." Lynn paused, and a subtle look flickered through his eyes before he concealed it.
"That may have something to do with the source of your power. Every Warlock’s magic manifests differently. Some resemble starlight, some shadow, while yours takes the form of green fire. But that does not mean you’re a Dark wizard. Just because Slytherin’s colors are green doesn’t mean every Slytherin is evil, right?"
Harry fell silent.
Lynn’s explanation sounded strange, but there was a logic to it that eased something inside him.
So it was not because he was evil, but because of the nature of his class?
"But Professor..." Harry hesitated, then asked the question worrying him most. "If it’s a pact... then who is the source of my power? I never signed anything with some powerful wizard."
Lynn looked at the lightning-shaped scar on Harry’s forehead and sighed inwardly.
Because there’s a fragment of an extremely powerful Dark wizard lodged in your soul. In a sense, Voldemort is your unwilling patron.
But of course he could not say that now.
"Not every pact is written out and signed on parchment," Lynn said, standing up and patting Harry on the shoulder. "Sometimes it comes from an unexpected encounter. Sometimes from family bloodline. Sometimes... from a ’gift’ left behind by a brush with death."
Harry instinctively reached up and touched his scar.
"Don’t overthink it, Harry." Lynn’s voice softened. "The power is inside you now, and it belongs to you. Since your Warlock talent has already awakened, then instead of fearing it, you should learn how to control it."
As he spoke, Lynn reached into his robes and pulled out a thin stack of parchment, then handed it to Harry.
"What’s this?" Harry asked, taking it.
"I stayed up late last night organizing some material on Warlocks specifically for you," Lynn said with a smile. "Since you already possess this power, you need to learn how to control it. There’s guidance in there on calming your emotions and directing that green fire."
Harry gripped the stack of parchment tightly, and it felt as if at least half the gloom weighing on his heart had lifted.
"Thank you, Professor!"
"Go get something to eat," Lynn said, waving a hand. "If you wait any longer, the Great Hall will run out of chicken legs."
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