The faint mist gradually dissipated.
Dawn loosened his grip and placed the Resurrection Stone back into the velvet lining of its wooden box.
As he stretched, his body shifted once more, returning to the appearance of Leia Hickman.
The anxiety in his heart settled.
In truth, his mother had not given him particularly useful advice. But through that conversation, Dawn had slowly clarified what he truly wanted.
Love was simply unnecessary.
What he pursued was freedom and unrestrained existence—doing as he pleased, being himself—rather than being bound by others and locked inside a cage.
As for Neville— This excess concern had to be cut off as soon as possible.
Ding ding!
Inside the clock, the little bear pulled a hammer from behind its back and struck the copper hands again and again, producing a crisp chime.
Dawn snapped back to his senses and instinctively glanced at the timetable pinned to the corner of his desk. It was time for class again.
With a sigh, he picked up Dark Magic: A Guide to Self-Defense from the desktop.
After taking two steps, he turned back and grabbed Magical Damage: Theory and Application, the book he had only used once.
Having sorted out some of his thoughts, Dawn was in a noticeably better mood and decided to teach the students something interesting today.
He left the office.
Since the classroom was also on the fourth floor, he only had to turn one corridor before seeing the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Even from outside, he could already hear a fair amount of noise.
The students were basically all present.
Unlike Dawn, who always timed things so he arrived exactly on the bell, they were far more punctual.
Inside the classroom.
Ron propped his chin on one hand, flipping through Magical Damage: Theory and Application. It was like watching a horror film—his expression a mix of fear and anticipation.
"Hmm… I wonder what Professor Hickman is going to teach today?"
"I heard from the third-years this morning that it should be something about Dementors," Hermione replied, already on her Nth reread of the textbook, without lifting her head.
After a month of school, everyone basically knew that the new Professor Hickman taught the exact same content to all seven year groups.
So it was easy to find out the lesson plan in advance.
Ron smacked his lips. "Honestly, I really want to hear something like the first lesson again! Dark magic creatures are kind of boring."
"Oh yeah?" Hermione shot back immediately. "I think this pace is perfect. What we covered before was way too advanced."
Harry sat beside them, listening, feeling a little awkward.
For some reason, even though he was the victim, every time he thought about how the curriculum had changed because of the attack on him, he couldn't help feeling guilty.
Behind the trio, Dean Thomas pressed his lips together and lowered his head, hiding his expression behind the upright book.
Although Dumbledore had shielded him from the Ministry, his situation over the past month had not been good.
After all, no one liked a student who would attack a classmate in their sleep. Even Slytherin wouldn't associate with someone like that.
But Dean truly felt wronged.
Everything he had said was true.
He had no idea what he'd done that night. By the time he was aware again, Dumbledore already had him in his grasp.
"What exactly is going on?" Dean murmured painfully as he looked at the empty seats around him.
He hated this feeling of being isolated. He desperately wanted to find the truth and clear his name.
Creak—
At that moment, the classroom door opened.
Dawn walked in.
The noise in the room vanished instantly.
He stood at the podium, sweeping his gaze from left to right across the students.
Neville sat in a corner, back straight and posture proper. Perhaps because of the help earlier that day, he was trying to put on his best performance.
On the other side, Draco, having been reprimanded in the morning, avoided Dawn's gaze with clear resentment.
Dawn ignored all of it.
Suppressing the faint, dark stirrings in his heart that surfaced when he saw the chubby boy, he said calmly,
"For this lesson, we'll temporarily pause our study of dark magic creatures and look at a rather obscure, but very interesting, spell."
As usual, he raised a finger and left pale white letters hanging in the air.
Scarecrow Curse.
"The Scarecrow Curse," Dawn explained.
"It was developed in the Middle Ages by an unknown French wizard. It can turn a person into a scarecrow.
For the specifics, you can first read the material on page 126 of Magical Damage: Theory and Application."
The students froze for a moment.
Hearing that spell instruction was back on the menu, their expressions brightened. Spirits lifted, and they quickly flipped open their books.
Hermione sighed with a troubled expression.
Page 126 told the following story.
In medieval Europe, an outbreak of the Black Death caused a drastic population decline, leaving no one to drive birds away from the fields.
One day, in a remote part of France, a traveling merchant selling scarecrows suddenly appeared.
The scarecrows he made were finely crafted, lifelike, and cheap. They were immediately welcomed by many Muggles.
But one day, the merchant suddenly vanished.
Curious villagers followed his trail and eventually found his cart in a field.
The cart looked as though it had been abandoned for a long time. No one was nearby.
Only a scarecrow stood beside it, its head covered with cloth, its painted face bearing a vague resemblance to the merchant.
The local Muggles spread rumors that he had been cursed by the scarecrow and suffered retribution.
Later, a passing wizard heard the rumors and came to investigate. He eventually went to the merchant's home and discovered evidence that the man himself had been a wizard.
Inside, he also found the merchant's own spell manuscript—a self-created spell called the Scarecrow Curse.
However, what the merchant experienced, and why he himself had turned into a scarecrow, remained unanswered to this day.
Pages rustled as students read.
Dawn sat on the edge of the podium, thinking about the spell as well.
In truth, this was a very simple spell.
Within the magical system, most wizards classified it as a branch of Transfiguration and paid it little attention.
But when Dawn read this section and considered the medieval context—an era when scarecrow horror stories spread widely—he suspected the spell might have a great deal to do with collective consciousness.
So he went to the library to search for related material and eventually found some information in the Restricted Section.
The original intention behind the Scarecrow Curse had been to create a new vessel for a dying soul, extending its lifespan.
This wasn't strange. From ancient times to the present, both Muggles and wizards had pursued immortality and resurrection.
Egyptian pharaohs' mummification rituals in hopes of returning from death, for instance. Or the book Dawn had seen before enrollment, Soul Grafting: The Talking Cat.
However, the Scarecrow Curse ultimately failed.
Its effect deviated from its original purpose, achieving only a Transfiguration-like result—turning a person into straw.
But that didn't mean the spell was worthless.
Dawn had read in Restricted Section texts that the spell could produce an interesting phenomenon.
If two people were turned into scarecrows and the straw at their arms was exchanged, then when the spell wore off, their arms would grow attached to the other person's body.
Unfortunately, those exchanged limbs would quickly necrotize over time, severely limiting the spell's potential.
What truly interested Dawn, however, was the spell's earliest form.
He had tested the Scarecrow Curse on his owl and confirmed that it consumed the caster's own magic.
But if the spell was connected to collective will, then it should have been able to draw on natural magic instead.
Dawn suspected that the Scarecrow Curse had an even more primitive version—just as the Blood-Curse Spell had been derived from a natural-magic-driven Blood-Withering Ritual.
But regrettably, he had found no trace of that original version.
Schk—
Suddenly!
As Dawn was deep in thought, he heard the sound of something piercing flesh!
Then came a cry of pain, followed by several panicked screams.
Dawn snapped his head up.
In the area where the Gryffindors were gathered, he saw the Boy Who Lived bleeding from the chest.
A gleaming silver blade tip protruded from his heart!
Behind him, the curly-haired Dean Thomas gripped the weapon, murderous intent blazing in his eyes as he drove it in from Harry's back with both hands.
What was going on?
Dawn froze for a split second.
Before he could react, a burst of fire erupted out of nowhere, scattering in all directions.
A phoenix emerged from the flames, cried out, and in an instant the dagger in Dean's hand reverted to parchment, slipping from his grasp.
With the support gone, Harry's body sagged.
Blood foamed at the corner of his mouth as his head lolled to the side and he collapsed to the floor.
"Harry—Merlin's beard! Harry, are you okay?" Hermione finally reacted, crying out as she knelt to check on him.
The phoenix folded its wings, lowered its head, and a tear fell from the corner of its eye onto the gaping wound, rapidly knitting the torn flesh back together.
After a brief moment of stunned silence, the classroom exploded into chaos.
Driven by shock and rage at his friend being hurt, Ron surged forward and punched Dean hard in the side of the face, sending the darker-skinned boy flying back into several desks, which collapsed under the impact.
"Damn it! Thomas! What the hell are you trying to do?" Ron roared furiously.
Dean shakily scrambled to his feet, shuddered, and stared at his blood-soaked hands. Trembling, he said, "I—I didn't… it wasn't me."
He collapsed onto the floor, rubbing the blood on his hands over and over, scanning his classmates in desperation—only to meet eyes filled with anger or cold indifference.
"It wasn't me, it wasn't me!" he repeated, trying to make them believe him.
Ron shouted in fury, "Still lying? Thomas, this is the second time you've hurt Harry!"
"Quiet!"
Dawn frowned. "Now! Everyone! Stand against the walls around the classroom!"
"But—"
"Weasley, don't make me repeat myself."
Dawn fixed the red-haired boy with a crushing stare. Ron swallowed the rest of his words and moved with the others toward the walls.
Dawn then strode to the fallen Harry. He didn't actually care whether the boy lived or died, but it was better to keep up appearances.
"Professor… Hickman," Harry said weakly, face pale, clutching his chest.
Dawn nodded and looked at the phoenix beside him. "Fawkes—sir, right? Could I trouble you to take Harry to the hospital wing?"
Fawkes looked up at him, lifted his wings to show he understood, and vanished in fire along with Harry.
Dawn frowned at the bloodstains on the floor, then at Dean, still sitting there in shock. The situation suddenly felt extremely troublesome.
He had no desire to take responsibility for something this messy.
Fortunately, he wasn't left to deal with it for long.
Soon—
Dumbledore, dressed in plain white robes, pushed open the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
"Professor Hickman."
The headmaster greeted Dawn, then turned to the students along the walls.
"Children, I'm very sorry to inform you that this lesson is temporarily over. Please return to your common rooms in an orderly manner and await further instructions."
The students exchanged looks, then left the classroom in small groups under the headmaster's orders.
Once the room was empty Dumbledore turned to Dean, the only student left, sighed softly, and called out, "Fawkes."
The phoenix appeared once more in a flare of fire.
"Please take Mr. Thomas to my office first," Dumbledore instructed.
Fawkes nodded, hooked Dean's robes with his talons, and disappeared again.
In an instant, only Dawn and Dumbledore remained.
"Professor Hickman," the old headmaster said, "could you tell me what happened just now?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know," Dawn replied, shrugging as he met Dumbledore's gaze.
"I'm not evading responsibility, Headmaster.
But during the lesson, Mr. Thomas showed absolutely no warning signs before he drew a knife and stabbed Potter."
Dumbledore frowned at this, then suddenly asked, "Professor Hickman, do you think Thomas's attack was truly meant to kill Harry?"
"Why do you ask?" Dawn said, puzzled.
"Because the timing is too strange."
Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose, perplexed.
"The previous attack while Harry was asleep made some sense. But if Thomas wanted him dead, why choose such a public setting and use a dagger?"
"I don't know," Dawn answered after a moment's thought.
Then he added, "But I'm certain that in that instant, the killing intent in Thomas's eyes was real."
"I see…"
Dumbledore unconsciously stroked his beard.
After a pause, he said, "I'm going to the hospital wing to check on Harry. Professor Hickman, would you like to come along?"
Dawn very much didn't want to, but under the circumstances he could only nod. "Of course."
They left the classroom together.
They walked quickly and spoke little.
When they reached the hospital wing, Dawn saw a witch in white healer's robes hurrying out.
"Albus, I was just about to find you," she said, startled at first, then visibly relieved.
A sense of foreboding rose in Dumbledore's heart as he stepped forward. "Madam Pomfrey, what happened?"
The healer turned and pointed back inside.
Through a white curtain, a large red stain was visible.
"Just now, after Fawkes brought Mr. Potter here, one of the students being treated in the hospital wing—no one knows why—suddenly used Transfiguration to conjure a knife and lunged forward, stabbing Harry in the neck—"
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