Harry Potter and the Order Of the Phoenix [55]
“Everyone, I have an announcement about… your learning schedule.” All the students in the class looked at her with interest. “I know that we’re supposed to be moving on to more advanced shields now, but Dumbledore had just informed me that he wants to go a bit more… ahead.” Now everyone in the class was gazing right at Mrs. Figg, wondering what they were going to do next.
“How many of you have ever felt extreme pain?” she asked the class. Everyone started at her confusedly, but a few people put their hands in the air, in fact, almost everyone did, including Harry. He had his bones grown overnight, had his scar burn, and been hit by the Cruciatus Curse twice.
“Now, among you that have your hand up, how man have felt pain so extreme that you wanted it to all just end, just to die?” Everyone was looking at her very seriously now, and everyone that had their hand up, put it down… except for Harry. Mrs. Figg looked at him.
“Mr. Potter, you are the only one in this class… this entire school perhaps who can answer this question. What was it like to have the Cruciatus Curse put on you?” Now all the eyes shifted to Harry. He was feeling very nervous. He had tried to block those memories out of his mind and now that they were flooding back, Harry felt like he was being put through the curse all over again.
“Well, it felt like… felt like… I guess it’s like when you break a leg, only breaking every part of your body at once,” Harry stopped there, thinking he was done, but, he felt as though this didn’t show how bad the curse was, so he continued. “And then having hot pokers put all over you, and being jabbed with spears, and then being slit open with a dagger and having your intestines fall out, and then having them tied to a pole, and that… that’s only the beginning…” Harry now stopped, with everyone gawking at him, including Hermione and Ron. He had never told them how bad the curse really was. Even Mrs. Figg was looking at him in surprise,
“Well, Harry. What I am trying to get at is, wouldn’t you have liked to be able to shut off the flow of pain to your head?” Harry started at her, this question had a very obvious answer.
“Well, yeah,” said Harry.
“Of course you would! It would have helped you greatly!” Mrs. Figg slammed her fist on the desk loudly. “Come on Harry, you can give me more of an answer than ‘yeah’. To be able to turn off the pain would’ve been a godsend.” Harry could only nod in response, it was only too true.
“And that’s what I’m going to teach you all to do,” said Mrs. Figg. Each student was looking at her appreciatively, as though they never wanted to go through what Harry had. “Under the certain current… circumstances… Dumbledore has thought it important to start teaching you all how to do this. It will require much patience and skill, it takes as much intelligence to do this as it does to become an Animagus…” she said and looked at Harry. Did she know Harry was trying to become one? Well, Harry didn’t care. He knew what these ‘circumstances’ were… Voldemort rising. Harry would be more than happy to learn this skill.
“We will start today, and hopefully, by the end of the term, you will all be able to voluntarily shut off pain,” Mrs. Figg said to the class. Each looked more ready than ever to begin. “To start off, I want each of you to come up, and get a PainBall. We will start with these first then move on to… more advanced techniques.” Harry looked around the class, Neville was whiter than a ghost, he must have been very afraid. Suddenly, he put up his hand.
“Yes Mr. Longbottom?” asked Mrs. Figg.
“Um… you’re not going to… put the Cruciatus Curse on us… are you?” he looked absolutely terrified. Harry knew that both of Neville’s parent’s were tortured with the Cruciatus Curse, and were now in an insane asylum because it had