Spookier Things

"I wonder how the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher will be?" said Tracey. "The last two haven't been that great, to be honest."

"I don't know," admitted Oleandra. "I guess we'll see, won't we?"

The class's chattering died down as the teacher entered the room, followed by a flurry of rustling noises as students pulled out their writing implements to begin taking notes; hopefully not about the teacher's personal life, this time.

"Good afternoon, everyone," said Professor Lupin. "There will be no need for books or note taking today, as we'll be having a practical lesson. You'll only need your wands."

Oh? Oleandra raised an eyebrow at this news. So far, no Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had ever done a practical lesson, unless you counted the time that Professor Lockhart released a host of pixies onto his unsuspecting class. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any incidents this time around.

Once everyone had packed their things, Professor Lupin led the students out of the classroom. Along the way, they encountered Peeves, the annoying Poltergeist. He seemed to be doing something to a door, but Oleandra was standing at the end of the file, so she couldn't get a good look.

"Loony, loopy Lupin," Peeves sang. "Loony, loopy Lupin, loony, loopy Lupin —"

Unknowingly, a scowl had crept onto Oleandra's face. That apparition always got on her nerves, it always seemed to know when a student was up to no good, even though it also played pranks like there was no tomorrow. Surprisingly, Professor Lupin didn't seem to mind the disrespect.

After a few failed attempts to get it to stop whatever it was doing, Professor Lupin had finally had enough.

"Waddiwasi!"

The wad of chewing gum that Peeves had been trying to cram into the door's keyhole shot out and into its nose, sending it reeling and running for its life, cursing all the way.

Oleandra was impressed; that silly wad of chewing gum spell had actually forcefully interacted with a non-being, who could choose whether or not they wanted to physically interact with reality. Ordinary ghosts couldn't actually touch things; but a Poltergeist wasn't a ghost!

Professor Lupin led them inside an empty staffroom; empty that is, except for Professor Snape, and a large wardrobe. Once everyone was in, he made to close the door, but Professor Snape interrupted him.

"Leave it open, Lupin. I'd rather not be there when Neville Longbottom's magic inevitably backfires on those near him. Unless, that is, Miss Granger takes him by the hand and does everything for him."

"Well, it just happens that I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first step of the demonstration," said Professor Lupin, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sure he'll do very well."

Professor Snape didn't insist, and he left through the open door, slamming it shut on his way out. At the same time, the wardrobe on the other side of the room rocked back and forth violently, almost tipping over. 

"Oh, there nothing to worry about," Professor Lupin reassured the nervous third years. "There's nothing but a Boggart in there; they rather like dark, enclosed spaces. One moved in there yesterday afternoon, so I secured it to give you some practice."

This explanation didn't reassure his class very much.

"So, can anyone (Daphne and Granger raised their hands) tell me, what exactly is a Boggart?"

Professor Lupin, being a fair and unbiased teacher, selected Daphne to give the answer, as she had been slightly faster on the uptake.

"Boggarts are Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions; non-entities or non-beings, if you prefer; like Peeves the Poltergeist and Dementors," Daphne explained. "They are human emotions given form; but instead of being born from the spirit of teenage rebellion and despair, respectively; Boggarts are born from fear."

"A textbook answer," said Professor Lupin. "I'll give you credit for mentioning the two other most famous examples of non-entities, considering their involvement at this school this year. But since this is a practical lesson, what I especially wanted to hear is what they can do; which is to shapeshift into what we fear most, in order to collect their favourite food."

"However, as Boggarts like to jump out and scare people, this one is still hiding inside the wardrobe; it can probably tell that we're nearby, but it does not know yet what it will turn into. Nobody knows what one looks like when no one's around, but once I let it out, it will transform into our worst fear."

"This means that we have a huge advantage over the Boggart, before it has even struck. Harry, can you tell what that advantage is?"

Professor Lupin ignored Granger's raised hand and stared at Harry, who was standing next to her.

"Er —," he said, thinking. "Because there are so many of us, it won't know what shape it should be?"

Indeed, the Boggart would turn into everyone's fear at once, which would result in a messy, unscary transformation. Unless, of course, one was scared of disorganization.

"As Miss Greengrass has explained, Boggarts are born from human fear, which means that to truly defeat it, we must impress it with the opposite emotion; which means we must laugh in the face of fear! To help us achieve this, we can use a spell to force it into a shape that we will find funny. Now, without wands, repeat after me— Riddikulus!"

"Riddikulus!" chorused the class.

Once he was sure that everyone had the pronunciation right, Professor Lupin coached Neville and the rest of the class on what exactly they would have to do. Every time it would be met with laughter, the Boggart would switch its focus onto another victim until finally it would run out of spooky energy and vanish. As a non-entity, it would only truly die when fear itself would be defeated, which was impossible as long as one human still drew breath. 

One by one, the students had their turn transforming the Boggart. First was Longbottom; the Boggart took Professor Snape's appearance, and he dressed it up as his grandmother! The Boggart started taking different scary shapes, such as mummies, snakes, eyeballs, spiders, each time being defeated, until finally Professor Lupin called Oleandra's name.