Potter-y Lessons (with apologies to J K Rowling)

The crowd outside the classroom looked less than enthused. Delilah Fayle regarded the motley crew and sighed. Going back to school to try to pass her Ordinary Wizarding Level in Basic Magic had seemed like a good idea at the time, but most of these squibs looked as if they would be even more hopeless than she was herself. She hoped the teacher would be patient.

She had already picked out the class troublemaker – a flamboyantly dressed would-be wizard with a raucous laugh and an apparently limitless supply of stories. “So what I was trying to do,” he explained amidst shrieks of laughter from the people around him, “was to perform a levitation spell on the cat so I could float it over the puddle without getting its feet wet, but I misfired somehow and only managed to put the spell on the back legs – which meant I then effectively dragged it face first through the puddle with its hindquarters in the air!”

At least this guy had the ability to do something, Delilah thought gloomily as her new classmates whooped and cheered with appreciation. Just this morning, she had spent three hours trying to erase a zit on her face without anything happening at all. Admittedly, she would have been horrified if she’d got it wrong and covered her face in pimples instead; but it would have been a start. With or without a wand, she exuded about as much magic as a cupcake – a really terrible cupcake that made you wish you’d chosen the fruit salad option.

She looked at her watch, wondering where the teacher had got to. She was paying for this class and the flyer had said 7-8pm, but it was already ten past the hour and they were still waiting outside the room.

“Excuse me,” she called out, surprising herself with her own boldness, “does anyone know how we can find out what’s happened to the teacher? We can’t stand out here all night.”

“Potted begonias!” interjected the show-off. “I was having such a good time that I forgot all about the class. Well, don’t stand on ceremony – in you go, all of you.”

Delilah followed everyone else in a daze. That was the teacher? It didn’t inspire her with much confidence.

Once they were seated, Professor Amnesia gazed thoughtfully around the room. “I knew I’d forgotten something,” he remarked conversationally. “Well, let’s start with introductions – I’m Professor Amnesia and I’m going to be teaching you all how to master the basic skills of transfiguration, obfuscation, levitation and flower arranging.”

It was at this point that Delilah began to wonder if he’d printed his own qualifications and was just trying to swindle them all out of their money.

A hand shot up at the front of the room. “Flower arranging?”

“So sorry,” Professor Amnesia apologised. “I meant to say cake decorating – no, that’s in the other room. Where was I?”

“Listing the basic skills of magic,” prompted another student.

“Yes... yes. Transfiguration, obfuscation, levitation and transfiguration,” the professor finished triumphantly. No one had the heart to tell him he’d repeated one of the words.

“So, let’s kick off with a simple colour changing charm.” He raised his wand and pointed it at his flowing grey locks. “Alterus colorare,” he intoned. “And as you can see, my hair is now red.”

The class gazed with interest at Professor Amnesia’s face which had turned a rather fetching shade of lime green. His hair, on the other hand, was definitely still grey.

“So,” the professor continued, oblivious to his appearance, “if you could all find a partner, we’ll have a bit of fun changing each other’s hair and eye colour. It’s a quick wand point in the right direction, and then the words are alt-er-us col-or-ar-ay.”

This time, the teacher’s nose became bright blue whilst the rest of his face started flickering from yellow to puce and back again.

Delilah found herself paired with a rather nervous woman who seemed to be a similar age. “I’m Felicity de Feete,” the stranger whispered, “and I can’t do magic at all. I was rather hoping we’d get someone who was more well versed in the psychology side of things – I’m sure I’ve just got some sort of mental block and I’d be casting spells with the best of them if I could get rid of it. What about you?”

“Delilah,” Delilah whispered back. “I’m rubbish at magic too – I failed my OWLs eleven times when I was at school.”

“Eleven times!” Felicity sounded impressed. “You must have been nearly thirty when you left, then.”

“My boyfriend had a Time Turner,” Delilah explained. “He felt bad about me failing, so he kept giving me the chance to do the exam again – but I think I actually did worse each time.”

“Even so,” Felicity’s voice was wistful, “it must be lovely to have a magical boyfriend who accepts you as you are – you know, with your disability.”

Delilah was silent, not wanting to remember the awful moment when Ganymede had ended things between them. “I just don’t understand why you can’t do simple magic,” he’d cried in frustration after her fifty-first failed attempt at a washing up spell. “I was making the plates jump into the sink on their own when I was five, but you haven’t even made them quiver! Why are you so useless? Why, Delilah?”

“I suppose we’d better get on with it, then,” she said at last, reluctantly picking up her wand and pointing it at Felicity.

The first evening was not a success. Delilah supposed she shouldn’t be surprised – anyone who thought crushed orange velvet was an acceptable suit material was obviously eccentric to say the least; but she felt saddened when she thought that after an hour of trying, the only colour change she’d brought about was making herself go red in the face from exertion.

The following week saw Professor Amnesia clad in a startling yellow kaftan embroidered with silver moons and stars.

“Do you think he’s trying to look the part?” Felicity murmured as their teacher drew mystical shapes on the board to demonstrate how it was done.

“Well, he’d hardly wear a three foot tall pointy hat if he was trying to look inconspicuous,” Delilah said reasonably, wondering how the remarkable headgear managed to fit through the doorways in the adult education centre. Did he perhaps use a shrinking spell at the point of walking through each door? Or maybe he transposed the hat into a different location and then picked it up afterwards. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t be using levitation – not if that cat story from the other week had been true.

“Delilah!” Felicity nudged her in the ribs. “He’s eating his chalk!”

It was true. Professor Amnesia stood at the front of the room, absent-mindedly munching away on the stick of chalk in his hand. The class watched, enthralled.

“Jumping nasturtiums!” the professor suddenly ejaculated as he realised what he was doing. “I hope it’s not poisonous!” He began scanning the box, searching for the words ‘non-toxic’. “Perhaps one of you could perform a small protection spell, just in case...”

His voice tailed off as fourteen pairs of eyes gazed at him blankly.

“Er, we’re here because we don’t know how to do magic – yet,” said a voice on the front row. “That’s what you’re here to teach us, remember?”

Delilah sighed. It looked like most of them would be asking for their money back.

Before the session ended, Professor Amnesia set them homework. “I realise that most of you have been unable to perform even the simplest magical tasks so far,” he told them, trying to ignore the baboon he had inadvertently conjured when showing them a summoning spell. Hairy simian fingers reached out and extracted the glasses from his nose. “So I’m going to ask you all to do something I used to do when I was practising for my OWLs and NEWTs – find a space at home where you feel comfortable and open yourself to the magic realm. Feel the force –“

“Isn’t that a line from ‘Star Wars’?” someone muttered.

“– And let your inner ability take over,” the teacher continued, fixing the heckler with a stern look. “Next week, you will all demonstrate what you have managed to do. Class dismissed.”

And with that, he swept out of the room.

Delilah tried hard that week, retreating to her bedroom, lighting a candle and closing her eyes, and concentrating with all her might. It was no use: objects she tried to move stayed stubbornly where they were; and after several hours of channelling all her energy into transforming her pillow into a handbag, it remained resolutely a pillow.

Blinking back angry tears, she considered her options. She’d thought going back to school – even if was only an hour a week – would make her feel better, not worse. She’d naïvely assumed that being a mature student would make her more focussed than she had been the first time around; but it seemed that someone in her thirties could be just as useless as someone in her teens.

Maybe she should give up now – just drop out of the course and have done with it. But she’d never get anywhere in the wizarding world without the basic qualifications that most sixteen-year-olds seemed to achieve so effortlessly; and she was fed up with trying to live like her non-magical friends. All she needed was to master a few basic spells – putting on mascara without it smudging, for example; or performing a simple hex on a date with wandering hands – and she could surely have the best of both worlds. Besides, she’d paid for this course – and she was damned if she was going to walk away after forking out enough money to keep Professor Amnesia in gold spandex for the next few years!

This week’s ensemble was a pair of candy-striped trousers topped by a sweater that looked as if it were made from chain mail. It was beginning to look as if Professor Amnesia’s sartorial credentials were as bogus as his magical ones. However, Delilah had no time to stare at the offensive clothing because within seconds of taking the register, their teacher was making them push their tables to the back of the room to create a ‘performance space’. They were made to form a circle and sit down, cross legged, upon the floor. As their names were called, each student shuffled nervously into the middle of the ring and prepared to show the rest of the class whether or not they had achieved success with their homework.

Artie took the first turn. Delilah hoped they weren’t being called out in alphabetical order because her name was the next one on the register. She could do with a little more time to compose herself and think how she could blag her way out of this one.

As she watched Artie struggle to move a chair with a charm most people learned in kindergarten, she thought about Professor Amnesia and wondered yet again how he had managed to become a teacher in the first place. She was sure that someone who dressed in a less eccentric fashion would have helped her learn at least one spell by now. If he were dressed like her old Transfiguration teacher, for example, in a plain black robe with sombre clothing underneath, would she be more likely to think he knew what he was talking about?

Her eyes flickered momentarily to the professor and then widened in shock. He had definitely been wearing candy stripes and chain mail at the start of the lesson, but he was now clad exactly as she had been picturing him when she remembered her old teacher.

“Thank you very much, Mr Choke.” The professor sent Artie back to his space on the floor. “And now, it’s time to reveal the true purpose of this course.” His voice was suddenly crisp and clear and had a note of authority that Delilah had never heard before.

“All of you,” the professor continued, “have gone through life being told that you can’t do magic when the simple truth of the matter is that you couldn’t perform any of the spells you were given at school because they were far too easy.”

A hum of conversation broke out, but he hushed everyone and continued.

“In the past, you’ve been labelled as ‘squibs’ when in fact there is no such thing as a squib.” Delilah’s heart began to race. “That’s just a term invented for children’s stories because everyone who has magical blood in them can perform spells, and all of you here are actually very powerful enchanters – and that’s a step up from being a wizard.”

He let this information sink in.

“The problem that all of you have is that you’ve been brainwashed by parents and teachers – and sometimes yourselves – into thinking you can’t do magic. This course has been all about getting you to focus differently by giving you a teacher who seems hopeless so that you lose your own inhibitions as you watch him get it wrong. And as for the clothes...” He looked directly at Delilah now. “...We have Ms Fayle to thank for my much-improved appearance tonight.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” Delilah burst out.

“Au contraire,” Professor Amnesia replied. “You’ve been so incensed by my outlandish apparel over the past three weeks that you had to do something about it. You didn’t have to wave a wand or mutter magic words: you just thought about what I could wear that would be an improvement on a frankly crazy get-up. And I’m glad you did! So,” and he looked around the room once more, “from now on, the title of this course has changed: you’re not doing Basic Magic for Beginners anymore, but you’re all skipping OWLs and NEWTs and going straight on to Advanced Enchantment.”

In case there were any students who still doubted him, he let each one present the previous week’s homework. Artie couldn’t budge a chair with a summoning charm; but when he just told the chair to move, it instantly flew to the other side of the room. Felicity’s glamour spell was hopeless; and then she visualised two of the students in the shape of lamp posts and it happened immediately. One enchantment followed another until the room was full of prancing unicorns and colourful parrots, whilst a chocolate fountain bubbled happily in a corner, surrounded by cupcake trees. Nothing, it seemed, was impossible once you knew you could do it – or if you forgot that you couldn’t do it.

And at that moment, Delilah realised why the teacher had called himself Professor Amnesia.