Amidst the curious stares of the gathered students, Sebastian didn't reach for a textbook or a quill. Instead, he held out his ebony wand with a practiced flick. An empty school desk from the corner of the room groaned as it was caught in an invisible tether, flying through the air and skidding to a halt in the center of the floor.
"Grow," Sebastian commanded softly.
Under the influence of a powerful Expansion Charm, the wood began to ripple and stretch like a living thing. Within seconds, the modest desk had transformed into a massive, elongated banquet table that spanned nearly the entire length of the classroom.
From the "Seamless Flexible Package" he wore—a piece of high-end alchemical gear that seemed much too small for its contents—Sebastian began to pull out training materials. One by one, objects clattered onto the table. A tarnished silver necklace, a cracked crystal ball, a bundle of dried herbs that smelled faintly of rotting meat, a beautifully carved bull's head statue, and a yellowed letter sealed with black wax.
"When Aurors bring down a dark sorcerer, the first thing they do after the handcuffs are on is inventory," Sebastian explained, circling the table like a shark. His smile didn't reach his eyes this time; it was sharp and professional. "Now, for the sake of this exercise, I am a captured dark sorcerer. These are my personal effects, stripped from my pockets and my home. Your task is simple: inspect them, categorize them, and justify your findings."
He tapped the table with his wand, and a stack of forms flew into the air, dealing themselves out into the hands of the students like a pack of enchanted cards.
"Three levels," Sebastian continued. "Extremely Lethal—cursed items designed to kill or maim. Dangerous—items with special magical effects that could incapacitate you. And Common—the mundane junk people carry. If you can identify the specific curse or the exact effect, you'll earn top marks. And don't worry—these are replicas I've crafted for teaching. You won't die today."
He paused, a mischievous glint returning to his gaze. "Oh, and one more thing. To ensure your decisions are truly your own... I'm suspending your right to speak."
He waved his wand in a broad arc. Suddenly, the room fell into a heavy, artificial silence. Students turned to each other, their mouths moving in frantic circles, but no sound emerged. It was as if the very air refused to carry their voices.
"Twenty minutes," Sebastian said, checking a silver pocket watch. "Begin."
The students rose from their seats, hesitant at first. Harry walked toward the table, his heart thumping against his ribs. He watched the sixth and seventh years—the "adults" of the school—plunge into the task. Some were cautious, leaning over the table until their noses nearly touched the items, peering at the ink on the letter.
But others were startlingly reckless. A tall Gryffindor boy reached out and snatched up the silver necklace, holding it up to the light to see if he could spot any hidden runes. A Ravenclaw girl tapped her wand against the crystal ball, trying to provoke a reaction.
Harry stayed back for a moment, his mind racing. They're just picking them up? he thought, his stomach turning. He remembered the cold, oily feeling of the artifacts in Borgin and Burkes. He remembered Sebastian's warnings about the Hand of Glory. In the world of dark magic, the most beautiful things were often the most jagged.
If these were real, Harry thought, watching a Hufflepuff boy casually flip through the pages of a small, leather-bound book from the table, half this class would be headed to St. Mungo's in boxes.
He looked at the older students. They were supposed to be the best and brightest, yet they were treating these objects like toys in a gift shop. Their alertness seemed to evaporate the moment Sebastian said "teaching materials."
Harry approached the table but kept his hands tucked firmly into his robes. He looked at a small, ornate ring. It looked like something Aunt Petunia would fawn over. Common? he wondered. Then he looked at a jagged, blackened skull sitting at the end of the table. That's obviously Lethal.
But was it? Would a dark wizard really carry a glowing sign that said "I AM EVIL"? Sebastian had taught him better than that.
He looked at the forms. He didn't know the detection spells. He hadn't read the advanced books on curse-breaking. He felt a surge of frustration. How am I supposed to know the difference between a cursed necklace and a regular one?
He glanced at Cedric Diggory. The older boy was the only one who seemed to share Harry's hesitation. Cedric wasn't touching anything. He was moving his head in different angles, looking for the shimmer of a lingering charm or a faint discoloration in the metal.
Harry decided to trust his instincts—the gut feeling he'd developed while walking through the shadows of Knockturn Alley. He began to fill out his form based on a simple rule: if it looked like it wanted to be touched, it was Extremely Lethal. If it looked like junk, it was Dangerous.
Twenty minutes felt like twenty seconds.
Sebastian's watch chimed, and with a flick of his wrist, the forms were summoned from the students' hands, stacking themselves neatly on the podium. The silence charm broke with a sound like a popping bubble.
"Merlin's beard, that was stressful!" a Gryffindor girl gasped, rubbing her throat. "I couldn't tell the difference between the herbs and the tea leaves!"
"It's obviously the skull that's the killer," a boy laughed, shaking his head. "The rest of it just looks like stuff you'd find in a dusty attic. I think the Professor is just trying to spook us."
Harry moved through the crowd, finding Cedric near the back. "Did you get any of them?" Harry whispered.
Cedric looked troubled. "I'm not sure, Harry. I caught a weird vibration from the bracelet—it felt like it was humming, but only in my teeth. And the bull's head... I've seen a drawing of something like that in a book on Peruvian hexes. But the rest? I was just guessing."
Suddenly, a loud yelp erupted from the front of the room.
"Oi! Look at your face, Ernie!"
Harry turned and felt his blood run cold. Ernie Macmillan's skin was rapidly turning a vibrant, neon shade of green. It wasn't just his face; the green was spreading down his neck and staining his hands.
"What's happening? Is it a curse?" someone screamed.
"Look at Sarah! And Miller!"
One by one, the students who had been the most "hands-on" with the items began to change color. About ten of the upperclassmen were now glowing like overripe limes. They were frantically rubbing their skin, but the pigment was deep, as if it had been dyed into their very cells.
Sebastian didn't look surprised. He didn't even look concerned. He stood on the podium, leafing through the forms with a calm, clinical detachment. The room went quiet as he stepped down, walking toward the group of green-skinned students.
He stopped in front of the Gryffindor boy who had snatched up the necklace. The boy was looking at his glowing green palms with a look of pure terror.
"Everyone, quiet," Sebastian said. The authority in his voice was absolute.
He looked at the "green" group, his expression softening into something that looked uncomfortably like pity. "To those of you currently resembling a patch of grass... I regret to inform you of the results of your first practical."
He tapped the silver necklace on the table with his wand. "This necklace carries a skin-contact curse. In a real scenario, this wouldn't be green dye. It would be a necrotic rot that would have dissolved the bones in your hands before you could even reach for a potion."
He moved to the crystal ball. "The crystal ball? A proximity trigger. If you stand within two feet of it for more than a minute, it releases a colorless, odorless gas. In this case, it just turned your faces green. In the field? It would have been 'Devils' Breath,' leaving you paralyzed while the sorcerer finished you off."
Sebastian turned back to the rest of the class, his eyes landing on Harry and Cedric, who remained their natural colors.
"You followed your curiosity instead of your training," Sebastian said to the green students. "You forgot that an Auror is a hunter, and a hunter never touches the trap."
He sighed, his voice echoing in the stunned silence of the room. "The exercise is over. To the ten of you glowing like lanterns... you've already 'sacrificed' yourselves. You are, for all intents and purposes, dead. Please take your seats and try to enjoy your final moments as ghosts."
"Ugh! My face! What's happening to my face?"
Harry whirled around. A sixth-year boy was staring into a small hand-mirror. His skin was turning a vibrant, sickly shade of neon green. Within seconds, another girl screamed as her hands began to glow with the same verdant hue.
One by one, about ten of the older students began to transform into human emeralds. The green wasn't just on their skin; it was spreading to their hair, their fingernails, and—as one student discovered with a horrified gasp—even their tongues.
The students who hadn't touched the items, including Harry and Cedric, backed away as if the green glow were contagious.
Sebastian stepped down from the podium, walking slowly through the rows of glowing, panicked students. He didn't look worried; he looked like a doctor delivering a diagnosis to a patient who had ignored every warning.
He stopped in front of the seventh-year who had held the necklace so confidently. The boy's face was now the color of a Granny Smith apple.
"To all of you currently glowing like a fresh spring meadow," Sebastian said, his voice calm and cold. "I regret to inform you of the final assessment."
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in.
"In a real field operation, you wouldn't be looking for a healer. You've already 'sacrificed' yourselves. If the 'Contact Stain' on those objects had been the Draught of Living Death or a Flesh-Eating Curse, we would currently be waiting for the janitor to come and mop up your remains."
He looked at the rest of the class, his gaze landing on Harry. "The first rule of an Auror is not 'Be Brave.' It is 'Be Paranoid.' You touched an unknown object in a dark wizard's possession with your bare skin. You might as well have walked into a dragon's den wearing a meat suit."
Harry felt a cold shiver. He looked at his own clean, non-green hands and realized that his fear—the fear that had kept him from touching anything on that table—was the only thing that would have kept him alive.
"Class," Sebastian whispered, "the lesson has truly begun."