Investigation into the Heir (I)

History of Magic was probably the most torturous class at Hogwarts.

This was not Harry's opinion alone. Nearly every student in the school thought so, including the most diligent Ravenclaws, those least likely to skip class. Professor Binns was Hogwarts's only ghost professor. He had died one day in the chair where he prepared his lessons, then gotten up the next day and taught as usual, as though death had merely been a small, unremarkable interlude.

From then on, he had never left his post, nor had he ever changed the way he taught.

That method was having no method at all.

He floated behind the lectern and read the textbook word for word in a monotonous voice without the slightest rise or fall, as if it were drifting from somewhere very, very far away. He did not look at the students, ask questions, write on the board, or even care whether it was raining outside or someone was asleep in class. He simply kept reading, lesson after lesson, year after year, century after century.

At that moment, he was reading about the specific provisions of the seventeenth-century Goblin Rebellions.

"In 1631, the Goblin leader Ulf signed the Iron Treaty with the Ministry of Magic in Worcestershire, stipulating that Goblins had the right to possess wands, but only in... er... only under specific circumstances. In 1632, the treaty was unilaterally revoked by the Ministry of Magic on the grounds that the Goblins had used... er... some sort of misleading magical ink when signing it..."

Professor Binns's voice was like an endless carpet, spreading flatly onward and wrapping the entire classroom tightly within it.

Outside the windows lay a gray, overcast sky. Only a few candles flickered weakly indoors, and the air was stuffy and damp, mixed with the scent of