Seo Gerecednis

Harry watched from his seat at the Gryffindor table as Luna entered the Great Hall, trailing a group of her housemates. His attention had been unusually focused on the members of that House while he waited for her to arrive for supper. He'd been obliged to look away hurriedly when he saw Cho and Michael enter together, lest either of them see him watching and misunderstand his purpose. Once he saw Luna come in and take a seat, however, he allowed himself to relax and tune in the conversations around him.

The most popular topic of conversation amongst the sixth years, naturally, was the Herbology lesson and their odd instructor with the even stranger accent. Ace, who had been elected the resident expert on all things American, was the center of attention as he fielded questions from all sides. He seemed to be enjoying it though, his accent growing noticeably more pronounced in harmony with his expressions and gestures. Harry had a sneaking suspicion that half of what he was telling people was pure bollocks.

As supper wrapped up and people began to filter upstairs, Harry looked up at the head table to see that Professor Tolliver had already finished her meal and left. He then glanced over his shoulder to see if Luna was still at the Ravenclaw table. Seeing her seated off by herself, he swiveled around on the bench and went over to her.

"Hi, Luna."

Luna looked up and smiled dreamily at Harry as he sat down beside her. "Hello, Harry," she said brightly. "Is it time to go to our lesson?"

He pointed at the creme brulee she had just started to eat. "You can finish your pudding first, I'm not in any hurry."

She smiled again. "Thanks. This is my favorite. Did you know the glaze is made from the fermented milk of a Peruvian Long-haired Yorax?"

Harry had to hide his laughter in a fit of coughing, bending over so she couldn't see the tears streaming from his eyes. Consequently, he almost didn't hear her as she nattered on about how Cornelius Fudge was having the stuff illegally imported and passed off as harmless caramelized sugar because, apparently, fermented Peruvian Long-Haired Yorax' milk was highly hallucinogenic. "That's how he intends to stay in office, by getting everyone so addicted to this they won't be able to think for themselves," she continued as Harry forced himself to sit up and maintain a straight face. "Unfortunately, it's too late for me, as you can see." She turned and looked at him with her protuberant eyes. "You didn't have any pudding tonight, did you?"

"Er, no," Harry replied, thinking fast. "I'd been warned in advance not to touch the stuff."

"Good for you," she said before polishing off the last of her creme brulee. "I'm very relieved to hear that. You'll need a clear head when you face You-Know-Who."

"Right," he said. "So, are you ready?"

By then the Great Hall was nearly empty, and their footsteps seemed to be unusually amplified as they echoed off the stone walls, making it sound as though an invisible army accompanied them to the entrance hall. "Luna," Harry asked, his voice bouncing back at him from several different directions, "what do you know about wandless magic?"

She shrugged. "Not all that much, really. I've heard it's quite dangerous and that most witches and wizards are afraid of it."

"Yeah, that's what Ron told me. He said it's dodgy business."

"I'm really keen to learn how to use it though."

"You are? Why?"

"Just think about it, Harry. Just think of all the things you could do with wandless magic."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. No one does. That's the beauty of it -- no one knows what a witch or wizard who can use wandless magic is really capable of. That's what scares people most of all. That's why all you ever hear about it is that it's so dangerous." She stopped and turned to face him. "Cornelius Fudge is terrified of you because he knows you're capable of wandless magic, even if all you've ever done so far has been accidental. That's why he's always been so strict about enforcing the law against underage magic."

Harry knit his brow. "How d'you know about that?" he asked.

"My dad's editor of the Quibbler, remember?" she said archly. "It's his job to find out these things."

"So you know about the Dementors then, about last summer."

She nodded. "And about the time you let that snake loose."

"Wow." He reached up to scratch at the back of his head. "Is there anything you don't know about me?"

"I don't know," she said. "Why don't you tell me something you don't think anyone else knows, and I'll tell you if I've heard that before or not."

"Er... okay," Harry said. He tried to think of something he might not have even told Ron and Hermione. "Well, there was..." He stopped short and gaped at Luna as a grin spread slowly across her face. "Hold on... are you ragging me?"

Her wild, hysterical laughter echoed off the stone walls, summoning the ghost of the Bloody Baron, who emerged from beneath the floor to frown and shake his head in disapproval. This only made Luna laugh even harder. Harry couldn't help feeling a little embarrassed by her behavior, and he wanted to hide when the front door opened and two Aurors, a pair of nearly identical dark-skinned men with thick dark beards and bright red turbans that clashed horribly with their orange and green robes, came in and stood by the door.

"That must be our escort," Harry said, eager to get out of the castle before any more curious onlookers showed up. Luna, unable to speak, nodded in reply. At least she had stopped laughing at the sight of the Aurors, Harry thought. "Reckon Professor Tolliver's waiting for us."

As one, the Aurors turned on their heels as Luna followed Harry outside and walked behind them in grim silence punctuated every few seconds by a hiccough from Luna. When they reached the greenhouses, the men took up posts just outside the entrance to greenhouse one while Harry and Luna walked past the long study tables to get to Tolliver's office.

Harry thought he could hear music coming from the back of the greenhouse. As he drew nearer, the strangely haunting tune grew louder and more distinct. Perplexed, he looked at Luna, but seemed to be as puzzled as he was. When they reached the office and Harry pushed the door open, he found Professor Tolliver seated with a musical instrument lying flat across her lap, her eyes closed and tears streaming down her face. She had her hands resting gently on the instrument, but her fingers did not move across the strings, and yet music filled the room.

Harry stopped in the doorway, hesitant to intrude. "Professor?" he asked. "Are you--?"

Her eyes opened and she sat up straight, shaking her head as though to clear it. "Come in, come in. Set." She laid the instrument on her desk and bent over to wipe her eyes on her skirt. "Don't mind the mess, I ain't done unpacking yet." Her accent, Harry noticed, had slipped free of the restraints she'd placed upon it during his Herbology class, and he had to listen carefully to catch what she said.

As she got to her feet and bustled about the office, shoving trunks and crates against the walls and clearing scrolls and piles of parchment from her desk, Harry took a seat in one of the two hardback chairs set before Tolliver's desk. Luna sat demurely next to him, crossing her feet at the ankles and folding her hands in her lap. Harry glanced over to see her watching Tolliver, a look of delighted fascination on her face.

Harry could see that, despite the disarray, it hadn't taken Tolliver long to put her own stamp on what had previously been Professor Sprout's office. Although plants of all shapes and sorts jostled about for elbow room, as one might expect from a Herbology instructor, he recognized few of them apart from a Fanged Geranium perched on a shelf by the window and a Flutterby Bush in the top drawer of the file cabinet. At a sound near his feet, Harry bent down and found the dogwood Tolliver had demonstrated in class earlier that day curled up beneath the desk. It raised its crown of leaves and thumped a branch on the floor in greeting before settling back down.

What Harry found most curious were the various stringed instruments Tolliver had hanging on the walls. A couple of them he recognized, such as a guitar and a violin, but most of them he'd never seen before in his life. The instrument she'd been playing when he and Luna came in, for example. Or, rather, the instrument that had somehow been playing itself. It sat on the edge of her desk a few feet away form him. Curious, he scooted his chair closer and leaned forward to examine it.

He remembered one Christmas season having been dragged along with Aunt Petunia to a shopping center where a piano had been set up outside a department store and programmed to play even while no one sat at the keyboard. He'd watched the keys in fascination as they mysteriously moved up and down in accordance with the tune they were playing and had not even noticed that he'd been left behind by his distracted aunt until she came screeching up to him, bags laden with gifts for Uncle Vernon and Dudley flapping from both arms, and dragged him off by his collar. His Christmas present that year had been an empty spool and the cold remnants of the Dursleys' full breakfast after they'd gone to Aunt Marge's and left him alone.

Harry knew that what had operated that piano did not also produce music from the strings of this instrument, but the result was nonetheless the same. He reached out his hand and tentatively ran his fingers across the strings.

"That thar," Tolliver said, sitting down heavily in a chair she'd dragged out from behind her desk and placed opposite Harry and Luna, "is a mountain dulcimer." Harry drew his hand back quickly as if it had been burned. She chuckled. "Hit don't bite. This is how you play it." She picked it up and laid it across her lap to play a sweet, melancholy tune.

"That's not how you were playing it before," Luna said when the song was over.

"Nope. I was using wandless magic when you'uns came in here."

"But I thought wandless magic was supposed to be dangerous!" Harry turned towards Luna. "That's what you told me. Ron said the same thing." Luna nodded.

"Wandless magic is dangerous."

"I don't see what's so dangerous about playing music."

"I been learning and practicing wandless magic for so long I have some measure of control over it," Tolliver explained. "Very few witches or wizards who've even attempted it can make that claim. Hit's the sort of thang that takes years, a lifetime even, to accomplish."

She ran her fingers up and down the strings, plucking idly at them. "During the next few months you two will be using it to learn wandless magic. You, son," she said to Harry, "are here because Professor Dumbledore reckons there may come a time when you'll need one last trick to finish off Old Scratch. That's why I'm here as well."

Tolliver then laid the instrument on her desk and leaned toward Luna, resting her hand on Luna's knee. "You, darlin', are here at my own asking." Luna's cheeks bloomed with color and she ducked her head down to hide a smile of shy pride.

Harry found himself strangely curious to find out what Tolliver had seen in Luna to invite her to these sessions. Although Luna had done well in the D.A. meetings last term and had outlasted almost everyone else during the battle at the Department of Mysteries, nothing he'd seen so far had suggested any sort of unusual ability. On the other hand, Luna did seem to have a special affinity for the arcane and esoteric; maybe one had to believe in the existence of heliopaths and blibbering humdingers to excel at this sort of thing, he through wryly.

Or, for that matter, hear voices from beyond the veil.

"Wandless magic ain't to be sneered at," Tolliver continued. She pulled a crooked, knobby stick that looked as if it had once been a branch from a pocket in her skirt and gave it a small flourish, releasing a shower of sparks. "If used wrongly, hit'll kill you. We use wands for good reason. The wand acts as a lens -- it channels and focuses magical energy so you can direct it. Tryin' to cast a spell without a wand is like tryin' to kill a fly with a bomb."

She pointed her wand at an insect that had been buzzing at a windowpane and eliminated it with a word and a tiny burst of flames. She lowered her wand and looked back at Harry and Luna. "Had I tried to do that without my wand, I prolly would've shattered that thar pane. Most wizards and witches would've blown out the entire window and half the wall."

"Professor," Harry asked when she paused, "if wandless magic is so dangerous and uncontrollable, why use it at all?"

"A good question, Harry." Her chair creaked as she leaned back in it and crossed her legs. "Wandless magic is a measure of last resort. Hit's only to be used when you're desperate, when you've been disarmed and you're facing someone fixin' to kill you."

"How does it work?" Luna asked.

Tolliver's high cheekbones rose as she smiled. "All magic is intuitive -- it draws its power from what you're feeling and thinking when you cast a spell. This is why you cain't use an Unforgivable unless you really mean it, or summon a Patronus without a very happy memory. In order to use magic without a wand, you're going to have to figger out how fix on one single emotion."

"What emotion is that?" Harry wanted to know.

"That depends. Hit can be fear, anger, grief, hate, and, in rare cases, love. Hit varies from person to person which emotion works best at channeling their magical ability, but in every case it has to be a very powerful emotion. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the magic, but at the same time, the greater the danger to you."

Tolliver pocketed her wand, then picked up the dulcimer and laid it across her lap. She then closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, exhaling slowly through her nose. Harry found himself holding his breath in anticipation.

Very soon the strings on the dulcimer began to quiver and a few mournful notes filled the silence. The notes at first were random and disjointed, lacking form and tune, but soon Harry was able to distinguish an emerging melody. Enchanted, he leaned forward in his seat so he could better see the strings as they vibrated beneath the pressure of invisible fingers.

Suddenly the music stopped. Taken aback, Harry looked up to see Tolliver once again wiping her eyes with the hem of her skirt, as she had done when they walked in on her earlier. "Professor --" he began.

Tolliver interrupted him. "I don't 'spect either of you to be able to produce a tune tonight," she said. "Hit'll take months, perhaps even years, before you can concentrate well enough to control the release of magical energy to play more than three or four notes in succession. Tonight I jus' want to see if you'uns can figger out how to get this thang to play at all."

She looked back and forth between Harry and Luna. "Son, why don't you go first." She picked up the dulcimer and held it out to him. "Jus' set it across your lap and rest your arms on them armrests there." Harry did as he was told, then looked up at Tolliver for further instructions.

"Now shut your eyes. Breathe deeply, in through your mouth, out through your nose. Empty your haid. Try to shut out all the sounds you hear and listen for your heartbeat."

Harry strained his ears into the cloak of darkness that had enveloped him, ignoring the rustle of fabric as Luna shifted in her seat beside him and the scraping of a branch against a window. The tension that had built up in his limbs slowly began to seep away. Soon all he could hear was Tolliver's low, nasal voice coaxing him to relax and the roaring of his own blood, accentuated by the steady throb of his heart.

"Good," Tolliver said, her voice sounding as though it came from very far away. "Very good. Now I want you to open that thar Pandora's box of emotions and latch on to the first one that scurries out."

Puzzled, Harry opened one eye.

"No!" Tolliver snapped, and Harry flinched as Luna make a squeaking sound. "You must concentrate. Now begin again."

With a quiet grumble Harry closed his eyes again and renewed the relaxation exercise, slowing his breath and letting his limbs grow slack. Soon the only sounds he was conscious of were those of his own breaths and the even beating of his heart.

"Perfect," Tolliver murmured. "Now, like I tol' you before, open up your heart and take hold of the first thing you feel. Don't fool with pickin' and choosing', jus' fix on the first one. Hit'll be the strongest."

Harry felt as though he was sinking into murkiness as he searched inside himself. With everything he'd been through in the past few days, from the euphoria at returning to Hogwarts to the agony of having his consciousness plumbed by Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy, from the physical exhaustion he felt at the end of Defense Against the Dark Arts to the painful, unfulfilled ache he felt whenever he awoke from unsettling dreams, his emotions were a muddled, chaotic mess.

"Don't try too hard, son," Tolliver said. "Let it happen naturally."

Harry took a deep breath and plunged into the morass. For a few brief, terrifying moments he felt as though he were about to be sucked under, but at the last moment something buoyed him up, lifting his head above the surface. He gasped for breath as if he had truly been about to drown.

"Good," Tolliver said. "Good. You've found your anchor. Now embrace it. Let it fill you up."

Like a shipwreck survivor clinging to driftwood, Harry hung on to whatever had lifted him to the surface of his boiling, swirling emotions. Soon he began to feel, even more than he could see, a lurid red light churning all around him and white-hot anger flooded through him.

"Yes!" Tolliver breathed. "Fix on that. Let it fill you."

Her directions were no longer necessary, because the anger had already taken root, dividing and multiplying, Hydra-like, taking over every corner of his mind until he thought it would choke him. He was raging hot now, consumed by fury such as he had never before known, not even when he had wanted nothing more than to make Bellatrix suffer under the Cruciatus Curse. The strength of his anger, undiluted by other feelings, terrified him.

"You've got it, son," a voice said from beyond the red haze of his anger. "Now release it."

Almost without conscious realization of what he was doing, Harry did as he was told. Something inside him snapped and he leaped to his feet with a terrible bellow.

Luna's scream of terror brought Harry back to his senses. He opened his eyes to find himself on his hands and knees with Professor Tolliver's arm across his shoulders. He shook his head to clear it of the thick fog that seemed to have settled over him and saw, out of the corner of his eye, Luna cowering in a corner, her eyes wide with fright, her knees hugged tightly to her chest. Only then did he realize, as he followed the direction of her terrified gaze, that the low rushing sound he thought was only in his head was, in fact, the roar of flames overhead.

"Er..." he said, sitting back on his heels.

"Never you mind," Tolliver said as she grabbed her wand and pointed it at the blaze. "Aguamenti!" A jet of water emerged from her wand and hit the flames with a hiss, sending thick, black smoke billowing through the room. "Don't jus' set thar like a coupla lumps," she said. "You got wands too."

Harry had just pulled his wand out when the door to the office flew open and the two Aurors burst in. With rapid decisiveness they immediately assessed the situation and took action, sending streams of water toward the ceiling. Luna got to her feet and added hers to the others, and soon the fire had been extinguished. Without a word the Aurors pocketed their wands and exited the office, leaving Harry, Luna, and Tolliver standing in the midst of the smoky, water-logged mess.