Evidence of Absence

The spellcrafting

Harry eyed the owl that had swooped down and was now waiting on the sill of the large window it had come through. He’d been walking to a study session he was holding with some of the other seventh-year Gryffindors for the Defense NEWT, and this didn’t look like a school owl or one he’d seen before.

The bird was large and handsome, a black owl with white edgings to her feathers. She hooted encouragingly and waved her leg at him. It had a large, creamy piece of parchment held onto the leg with leather bindings, not the simpler twine most people used.

Slowly, Harry reached out and took the letter. The owl hooted at him again and settled down in the rumple-feathered way that said a reply was expected.

Harry unrolled the scroll and found himself staring at a completely unfamiliar kind of handwriting. It swooped and scrawled back and forth in a way that made it seem as though it must have taken hours to craft. Harry could barely read it. He skipped to the end to see the signature, wondering if this had been mis-sent to him.

He choked when he saw the name.

Holy shit.

He went hastily back to the beginning of the scroll and squinted until he could make out some of the simpler letters, which led to making out others, although he still had to read half the paragraphs by guessing the words from the letters he could make out, rather than just straightforward reading.

Dear Mr. Potter,

Word has recently reached me of your proficiency in spellcrafting. I salute you. This is no easy gift to master, or to figure out how to employ in the middle of one’s seventh year, struggling as you must be with revising for NEWTS.

It is also one that will inevitably lead one into dangerous territory as the Arithmancy and the runes necessary to master the gift become more complicated. I would hate to see someone so promising destroyed young by a miscast experiment or misplaced rune. In consequence, I would like to offer you an apprenticeship with me, to commence in the coming August. I judge that some few weeks after the end of your NEWTS would give you time to consider what you want to do and in particular, choose between what seem likely to be many offers.

I would, however, appreciate an indication of your current interest in my offer. Please write back, just a simple note. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Narcissa Black, Spellcrafting Mistress.

Harry went back through the letter in a slow daze, trying to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He thought he must have, surely had, since he could barely read the bloody thing.

Yes, all right, so spellcrafting was a rare talent, and one that many people chose not to exercise even if they had it, because of the dangers that Madam Black had talked about. But it was still absurd that the best-connected and most well-known spellcrafter in Britain had reached out to him after what must have been foggy reports of a single demonstration in a seventh-year Defense class.

Narcissa Black was…

She had been married to Lucius Malfoy at one time, and was the mother of Harry’s classmate Draco Malfoy, but she had reclaimed her own name and her freedom after discovering that her husband was donating money to various blood purist causes that had made the family look exceptionally bad when revealed. Everyone knew that. And everyone knew reports of her talent, that she was the best spellcrafter in at least two hundred years, that she had invented thirteen spells in common use and at least twenty more used mostly by specialized Healers at St. Mungo’s, since her concentration was Healing magic.

Harry had a hard time connecting his knowledge, and his own degree of reverence towards her, with the letter in his hands.

Of course he was going to write back. But he would have to explain how things really stood, how he’d barely started down the path that a spellcrafting mistress of such quality would expect her apprentice to occupy, and he’d been working more off necessity and institution than a deep love for the field.