The classroom was thick with the sound of nervous, high-pitched laughter. It was a defense mechanism—the classic teenage reaction to being caught in a mistake.
"Look at you, Miller! You look like a giant sprout," one seventh-year wheezed, pointing at his friend's neon-green nose. "I guess I'm a sprout too, then. We can start a vegetable garden."
"I'm going to tell everyone you sacrificed yourself to a piece of stationary," another retorted, poking at the green dye on his own arm. "The great Auror-to-be, defeated by a thank-you note. It's actually quite a look, isn't it? Very festive."
Someone even jokingly pulled out a small mirror to adjust their hair, posing as if the radioactive green skin were a new fashion statement. "Do you think this will wash off before the Gryffindor party tonight? Or should I just go as a Forest Troll?"
The laughter grew, echoing off the stone walls, but it stopped abruptly when the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Sebastian hadn't moved. He was standing behind the podium, his hands resting flat on the wood, watching them with an expression that was terrifyingly neutral. The silence that followed was heavy and cold.
"Is this a joke to you?" Sebastian asked. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a razor-sharp edge that cut through the lingering giggles. "Do you find the concept of a 'sacrifice' amusing?"
The students bowed their heads, the mirror was shoved back into a pocket, and the boy who had been joking about sprouts suddenly found his shoes very interesting.
"If this is your attitude toward the profession, then I'll be blunt: leave," Sebastian said, his eyes scanning the room like a hawk. "Pack your bags, walk out that door, and don't come back. You are wasting my time, you are wasting your own time, and you are certainly never going to survive a real field assessment. An Auror who laughs at their own death is an Auror who won't live long enough to draw their first paycheck."
The "green" students shifted uncomfortably. The neon glow on their skin now felt like a brand of shame rather than a prank.
"Being an Auror is not a game of dress-up," Sebastian continued, stepping down from the podium and circling the long table. "It is a grim, relentless profession where you are paid to be the shield between the innocent and the things that go bump in the night. And as I told you, these aren't just 'props.' These are replicas of real evidence recovered from a high-profile Dark Wizard case."
He pointed to the pile of ordinary-looking trinkets. "Look at them. Really look at them. A letter from a lover. A crystal ball that wouldn't look out of place in Trelawney's attic. A silver bracelet. Nothing screams 'Dark Magic,' does it?"
The students leaned in, their faces somber now, caught by the gravity of his tone.
"The sorceress who owned these was caught by two young Aurors," Sebastian said, his voice dropping into a low, rhythmic cadence. "They were talented, much like you. Maybe a bit too confident in their own talent. The witch was beautiful, cooperative, and seemingly terrified. She handed over her belongings without a fight. She even encouraged them to check her 'jewelry' to prove she wasn't a threat."
Sebastian picked up the letter with a pair of silver tongs. "One of the Aurors, a boy not much older than the sixth years in this room, lowered his guard. He saw a pretty woman and a romantic letter. He picked it up. When he didn't drop dead instantly, he assumed the jewelry was safe too. He touched the necklace. He pocketed the ring."
The room was so quiet you could hear the flickering of the torches in the hallway.
"That Auror isn't dead," Sebastian said, his eyes darkening. "But he's been in the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo's for three years. The curse didn't kill him; it just unraveled his mind, stitch by stitch, until he forgot how to speak, how to eat, and eventually, who he was. All because he thought a piece of parchment was 'ordinary.'"
A collective shiver ran through the class. Harry looked at the letter on the table. He had seen people touch it. He had almost touched it himself. The idea that a simple expression of love written in ink could destroy a man's soul was more terrifying than any curse he had learned in books.
"The witch?" someone whispered.
"Sentenced to life in Azkaban," Sebastian replied. "But that doesn't bring back the man she broke. Dark Wizards don't play by your rules of common sense. They don't use the 'Skull and Crossbones' brand. They use your curiosity, your kindness, and your laziness against you."
He paused, letting the weight of the story settle. "The Ministry pays Aurors more than almost any other entry-level position. You'll have a higher starting salary than the Senior Undersecretary's assistants. But you aren't being paid for your time. You are being paid for the risk. You are being paid to stand in the gap so that families in Hogsmeade can sleep without locking their windows."
Sebastian's voice rose, filling the room with a magnetic power. "If you choose this path, you must have the will to protect, the courage to stand fast, and a mind that is perpetually, obsessively vigilant. If you aren't prepared to live with that weight every single day... leave now."
To everyone's surprise, two sixth-year boys stood up. Their faces were pale, their hands shaking as they gathered their quills. They didn't look at anyone as they shuffled out of the classroom, the heavy oak door thudding shut behind them.
No one mocked them. There was no sarcasm. There was only the realization that the "cool" job they had seen in the papers came with a price tag they weren't sure they could pay.
Sebastian clapped his hands once, the sharp sound echoing like a gunshot. The atmosphere shifted instantly from grim to academic. "Good. Now that we've trimmed the fat, let's get to work. I want to liven things up. Use your heads—if you were on a raid right now and you didn't feel safe touching these items, how would you handle it? No wrong answers, just give me your instincts."
The silence broke, but the tone was different now. It was focused.
"Professor," a girl from Hufflepuff said, "could we wear dragonskin gloves? I heard they're resistant to most low-level hexes."
"Excellent!" Sebastian nodded. "Standard issue for a reason. They won't stop a Killing Curse, but they'll save your fingers from most contact poisons. What else?"
"I'd call a supervisor," a boy suggested sheepishly. "Someone who's seen more than me."
Sebastian smirked. "There's no shame in asking for help, though expect to be the one cleaning the owlery for a month after your boss has to come down and bail you out. It's better to be mocked than hospitalized."
"Could we... could we make the suspect touch them first?" Harry asked, his voice steady. "If they're willing to handle the items, doesn't that prove they're safe?"
A few students gasped, looking at Harry as if he'd just suggested using an Unforgivable.
Sebastian actually laughed, a short, sharp bark of amusement. "A ruthless thought, Harry. Very practical. But unfortunately, dark wizards often carry 'attuned' items. They can touch them because the curse knows their magical signature. If you touch it? Boom. So, forcing a suspect to handle evidence is often useless and occasionally dangerous if the item is a portkey or a weapon they can trigger."
The students began to buzz with ideas—detection charms, specialized mirrors, even using trained ferrets to sniff out dark energy. Sebastian listened, occasionally correcting a technicality, watching as their confidence slowly rebuilt itself on a foundation of caution.
"Enough brainstorming," Sebastian eventually said, waving his wand to clear the chalkboard. "I've read your assessment forms. Most of you based your 'lethality' ratings on aesthetics. If it looked creepy, it was deadly. If it was pretty, it was safe. That is the quickest way to end up as a cautionary tale."
He smiled, a glimmer of the 'Professor' coming back to his face. "In this lesson, I'm going to teach you the most basic, yet most effective tool in an Auror's kit for evidence handling. It's not a complex dark-arts-detection spell. It doesn't require a master's degree in Arithmancy."
He pointed his wand at the tarnished silver necklace.
"It is the simple, humble Wingardium Leviosa—the Hovering Charm. Or more specifically, the Accio and Depulso variants."
Sebastian looked around at the puzzled faces. "Think about it. Why would you touch a curse when you can make the curse come to you? Or better yet, move the curse to a containment box without ever letting it graze your skin? An Auror's greatest weapon isn't the 'Big Magic.' It's the smart application of the 'Small Magic.'"
He stepped toward the table. "Now, I want every one of you—including our 'green' ghosts—to line up. We are going to practice the 'Standard Evidence Extraction Maneuver.' You will learn to move these items with your wands, feeling for the 'weight' of the magic. Because cursed items don't just feel heavy in your hand; they feel heavy in the air."
Harry stood up, his heart racing. He looked at the necklace. He wasn't going to turn green. He wasn't going to be a sacrifice. He was going to learn to be the hunter.