After a bit, Adams nodded at his progress. "Good. Now the difference between typical magic and necromantic magic is intention. In simpler charms and transfiguration, you simply push magic outward and your wand interprets the rest for you, changing your magic to your desired effect. With more difficult branches such as necromancy, you need to want it. You need to put everything into the spells or they will not function, a wand cannot easily interpret what you mean and will make guesses which can lead to dangerous outcomes. You need to be concise and passionate. Practice this spell exhaurire sana -" She demonstrated a complex wand movement. They repeated this a dozen times.
"Good," she said again, and Harry flushed at the praise, adrenaline pumping. "Now the difficult part. Exhaurire sana drains magic and energy from a being and uses that to heal you. You must want, desperately, to be better."
"I do," Harry said quickly. His wrists hurt a lot from the repeated wand movements and his stomach ached from all the food. He wanted to be healthy and normal and to keep learning cool magic.
"Do you want it enough to take it from another person?"
He paused. "Is the person under there alive?" With a flick of her wand, the sheet flipped off and the body of Vernon Dursley was revealed. The bloody runes were still carved into his body, but his chest fell and rose on beat.
"I thought it would be fitting. And I didn't want to run out for another body. He stole energy from you for years. Ate food while you had none. All you would do is take that energy back from him."
Harry's heart was pounding out of his chest. The Dursleys treated him like dirt under their boots and that wasn't okay and he knew it - had tried to tell a teacher about when he first entered school - was resigned to live as their slave for the rest of his life - until Vernon hit him too hard and killed him - and so what if he was a bit angry and wanted some revenge? That was perfectly rational. They were terrible people. It… would be fair… wouldn't it?
Harry lifted his wand. It would be fair. "Exhaurire sana!" Nothing happened. It would be fair! He thought louder, shouting the thought into his head. It would serve him right! Harry was a wizard, and Harry would show him how it felt to be picked on, hungry, beaten, cold!
An odd trickle of magic, much colder than with the lumos spell, shivered over his body. His ears started ringing and another rush of power passed through him.
He woke up on the floor a moment later, feeling very odd. His fingers didn't shake and his eyes were very blurry behind his glasses. His stomach rumbled with hunger and he could breathe fully without stabbing pain in his lungs.
"Alright, Potter?" called Adams. "You look a lot better. I think you grew a few inches. Good thing you were unconscious for that, watching this spell is disgusting. Don't get up for a minute - it'll be an adjustment."
"It doesn't hurt anymore," he said bewildered. He felt great! Pressing his hands against his body, he no longer felt ribs protruding. Harry started to laugh, a bit hysterical. He had never felt so energetic and healthy in his life. After a minute, he stood up and Adams humored him as he delightfully lifted his shirt and ogled his pudgy, unmarred skin. He breathed deeply and jumped around in circles, delighted at his improvement.
Then he saw the body on the table.
Vernon's figure had contorted, his limbs twisted and stiff. He had lost a significant amount of weight, the space under his ribs concaved and his muscles thinned so that he resembled a skeleton. His eyes were wide with horror, a clouded film overtop them and his slow breathing which rattled and shook his whole body was the only sign he was still alive.
Harry's joy was extinguished. With a shriek, he scrambled behind Adams.
"D-did I do that!?" his small voice shook.
Alabasandria sighed, noting why it was typical for necromancer's apprentices to be much older. She gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder and summoned a sheet to drape over the dying body to hide from the young boy who was now silently crying.