"I am asked to keep things in balance. Like I said, they led me to Harry and I've been gifted a few other students in the past. There are not a lot of necromancers left, so I have been called to teach as many as I can. I feel a push to get rid of Voldemort as well. Necromancers should not fear death, it is a grave insult and misuse of the craft. Not to mention pathetic. It is unnatural, the lengths he's gone to prolong his life, and it is the right thing to do to get rid of him."
"- And moral," Harry interjected.
"Right. It's the moral thing to do as well." She said politely. Although privately, that part wasn't particularly important to her. She was the last person to grill Voldemort on the morality of murder and the like. Honestly, if she had been tasked to kill an infant! Why hadn't he just tried dropping Harry? Aren't babies supposed to be super easy to kill? She would be a much better Dark Lord than Voldemort ever was if only she cared enough to do so.
"Alright, so any more questions? It's getting late, I don't want to keep you past curfew. Are you still interested in learning necromancy?"
"Um yeah, question: am I going to go crazy? I already agreed to this shit," Sirius grumbled.
"No, you'll be fine. We'll get you an anti-possession wardstone and that will keep you safe during summonings, which is all I really need you to learn. And your animagus form is a Grimm, correct? For it to take the form of a magical creature, let alone a Dark one is quite unique. It seems you're already well-suited for Dark magic. Of course, I think you'd be much improved if you were dead, but -"
"Hey!" She patted him on the shoulder condescendingly.
"I'm sure the girls got all that theory," Ron said. "But I still don't understand. What exactly can you do with animancy? Like is it just raising dead people and the creepy shadow shit?"
"Ah. There's a lot you can do! You can resurrect corpses, of course. To varying degrees. Inferi are just mindless corpses if you need a large army. But a skilled practitioner can bring people back with more sentience. If you're very powerful, I've seen it done so skillfully that it's fooled people into thinking it's still living. You have complete control over those corpses, but if you wanted something similar for the living you could possess them. That is the temporary transfer of your soul to another's body. There are a lot of fun esoteric rituals about soul magic. I believe Voldemort's Dark Mark, for example, binds his followers to him. I've only been able to study it a bit on a few captured Death Eaters, but I believe they should be able to share magic. It seems to be based on a perversion of ancient coven practices. Those have long fallen out of favor, it requires a lot of trust, or else you're trapped in what is essentially a slave bond like the Dark Mark is.
You can also exchange life energy, to heal or harm others. There is some control over certain creatures, like Dementors, Threstrals, Lethifold, etc. There is the manipulation of darkness, as you mentioned. General power, knowledge and physical strength increasing rituals as well. Rumor has it Morgan le Fay was capable of bringing inanimate objects to life and could read people's souls in a similar manner as occlumency. There is a lot you can do with it if you're creative."
"My favorite thing," Harry said. "Is getting tutored in History of Magic by people who actually lived during the events. Binns is so boring in comparison, I keep meaning to exorcize him. Over the summer I talked to a witch who was born in 1790 and she told me all about the Third Goblin War. She got tortured and beheaded, it was brilliant! And she taught me some French and Goblish."
Hermione looked extremely offended that Harry had not mentioned that previously.
"Oh! You speak other languages? I've always wanted to learn Mermish." Luna said.
"Yeah, sometimes the spirits don't speak English, so I've learned a bit of some other languages. Mermish is easy, I could teach you some," he offered.
"Then I am definitely still interested in learning more necromancy, Professor," Luna exclaimed, clapping her hands together in delight. Ron and Hermione quickly added their agreement.
"Fine," she grumbled. "Fine. Not in school, not one bit. Make sure you disguise any books you borrow, and if you can devise something to do for Yule, then we can perform some at the house."
The children cheered.
...
On the first of October, the Gryffindors arrived at dinner to find a host of new adults sitting at the head table. Curious murmuring scattered across the students but they settled into dinner as it was obvious the teachers were not going to mention it yet. Harry was eyeballing the oddly dressed wizard at the end, who appeared to be wearing a jacket of snakeskin, when Luna came huffing over to join them, out of breath and sitting down quickly beside Harry.
"Alright, Luna?" Ron mumbled through his mouth full of food. He handed the basket of rolls over to her.
"Thank you, I'm very well. I came from Astronomy, it was a bit of a walk, is all." She took the basket, her hands shaking slightly. She looked too flustered to have simply been tired from the walk. Harry immediately noticed that her usually neat, tied-back hair was in disarray and her eyes looked red from crying. He sent a glance over to Hermione and Ron, who gave him a brief nod.
"Have you been enjoying your lessons?" Hermione asked her. "You're studying Jupiter, if I recall?"
"Yes," she said. Her voice was a bit gravelly. "Astronomy is peaceful. I like looking up at the stars."
"Oh!" Ron said. "That reminds me. Did you tell Hermione your theory about how the centaurs came from the stars? I liked that one. What was the word you called them? Astro-nuts?" Luna loved any excuse to talk about her theories, this was a surefire way to cheer her up.
"Astronauts. Is that why they're good at divination, Luna?" Hermione asked.
"I don't think you want to hear one of my loony stories," Luna whispered, not looking up from her plate.
"Who said that to you?" Harry thundered. He went to stand, but Ron dragged him by the arm back into his seat.
"Luna," Hermione said much more calmly. "We like hearing your stories. None of us think they're loony. Are some of your classmates bothering you?"
"But you don't think they're real!"
"Well, no. Not always. But you believe them, and we respect that. You're not hurting anyone." Hermione said, her tone impossibly gentle.
"Yeah, I mean I don't love how much time you lot spend in the library, but I go with you anyway. We're friends, we don't all have to like or believe in the same stuff." Ron added. "Anyone who's bullying you is just being a dumb git."
"You never eat any meals at the Ravenclaw table anymore. Do you have any friends over there?" Harry questioned, fuming.
"Not really," she whispered. "But it's not a big deal -"
"Oi! Ginny!" Ron called, waving his arm to get the attention of his sister, who was sitting at the other end of the table next to Percy. "Come over here!"
.....
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