Of Alchemists and Wizards

Questions and Answers

Hermione's POV

"Bloody hell," Ron groaned as he leaned back in one of the plush couches in the Gryffindor common room. "That new alchemy professor has gone mad," he said, his eyes wide.

"He's not that bad, Ron," I commented as I started flipping through the alchemy book. We had only gotten it today, so I hadn't had the time to read through it like I did with every other book we were assigned for the year. I liked to have a little background knowledge before we got started. "He just has," I paused for a moment, not really sure how to put it at first. "He just has a unique teaching style," I finally settled on.

"Yeah, well you're only defending him because you totally fancy him," Ron said, causing a hot blush to rise to my cheeks.

"I do not!" I exclaimed. "And how about you, staring in awe at the girl's from France," I countered. Ron immediately started to sputter about how it was different, but I wasn't going to listen to his poor excuses. There was no denying that the young professor was good looking, but he was just that, our professor. 

"He is a little crazy, Hermione," Harry said from his spot on another chair. "And this quiz? The one that if we fail were removed from the class? Even you have to see the absurdness in that," Harry reasoned. I nodded slowly, knowing it was a little strange. "And why would Dumbledore start a class that is so dangerous?" the boy asked again. I sighed.

"Do I really need to bring up the past few years?" I asked, referring to every other dangerous thing we had gotten ourselves into the past three years. The dark haired boy was quiet after that.

For a few minutes, we remained quiet as we worked on the homework we already had assigned when I came across something peculiar. A section of pages from my alchemy book had been ripped out. Thinking it was just a bad copy, I asked for Harry's book. He offered it up, but I found the exact same set ripped out of his book too. After snatching Ron's from where it lay unopened on the table, I found it to be the same as the previous two. There was no way this was a coincidence.

"There's pages ripped out of these books," I said, showing the books to the boys. They both looked up. "It's the same set of pages in every book," I explained when they didn't look very interested. Harry's brows furrowed as he sat up a little straighter in his seat. Ron put his homework down for a moment, no doubt this was more interesting than whatever homework he was currently working on. Harry reached for the book, looking at it for himself as I stood from my seat.

"Going to the library?" he asked. "You know, maybe you should just leave it be. Maybe the professor doesn't want us learning it; it could be dangerous," he pointed out

"I just don't like it. Something isn't sitting right," I said. "I'm just going to go see if the library has a fresh copy. I'll let you know if I find anything," I called before sweeping out of the room as I headed down to the library, taking my copy of the book with me.

"Good evening, Madam Pince," I said as I approached the librarian's desk. "I was wondering if you had another copy of this book," I said, placing it out the counter. "It's missing a few pages." The librarian adjusted her glasses as she took the book from my hands. She pointed me in the right direction, and I was quick to grab the book off the shelf. I flipped to the missing set of pages to find that they were intact in this particular copy as I sat at a nearby table.

Human Transmutation. What is Human Transmutation? And why didn't the professor want us to learn about it? I quickly read through the excerpt. It was only a few short pages, and the whole thing was very vague. I understood that it was a taboo amongst alchemists by reading, but it didn't go into much more description. I didn't understand why he wouldn't want us to learn about it, so we would know better. It was very open what the Unforgivable Curses were, and they were unforgivable. A simple explanation was enough to keep people from wanting to learn about it. To me, it wasn't making much sense. Well, there was only one way to find out the truth.