"Professor?" Harry asked.

McGonagall looked at Harry, surprised at his interruption and curious about the strange tone he was using. "Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Why are you teaching us to get rid of bodies?"

The entire class froze and almost as one turned to stare at the boy. McGonagall choked, "What?"

"Well," Harry began, "the Vanishing spell. From what I've seen people mostly use it for rubbish right? So why would we ever need to be able to vanish a living creature? And Hermione is practicing on kittens now. If the intent of the spell is to get rid of rubbish then why would be need to be able to vanish vertebrates? It sounds like you are preparing us to get rid of dead or possibly living bodies."

Everyone stared at him. The way he said it made it sound so logical; why would they ever need to be able to vanish a kitten? The spell was only ever really used on inanimate objects so why were they practicing on animate ones?

McGonagall just stared. It was definitely an interesting question and one she could definitely say she had never heard asked before.

Harry continued, "It seems like this spell would be really useful for serial killers that don't want to get caught, but isn't that kind of morbid for fifteen-year-olds?"

Before McGonagall had time to respond he continued, "And isn't this really cruel to the animals?" At the confused looks he elaborated, "Well think about it. We look at a half-vanished slug and see that we didn't complete the assignment, but we have just mutilated it and essentially tore it to pieces. Actually," he said in a thoughtful tone, "how are they not bleeding? Chunks of their bodies are missing."

Hermione looked at her kitten as if she had never seen it before and scooped it into her arms. Like hell she was going to murder a kitten! And now that everyone thought about it, wasn't vanishing a living animal essentially murdering it?

This thought seemed to occur to Harry at the same time, "So you are teaching us a spell that will simultaneously kill someone and do away with the body. Sounds useful. Not so sure you should be teaching this to kids though."

Luckily for McGonagall the bell rang. She tried to tell the class to practice the spell, but she could tell that the vast majority would not and when she saw Hermione cuddling the kitten she knew that this was a fight she was not going to win.