I got this idea while laying in bed one night trying to get to sleep. Harry Potter is enjoyable, sure, but it isn't very hardcore and it's pretty darn moppet-friendly. There are passing references to grim or disgusting elements of magic, but for the most part things are clean and tidy.

Now imagine a sister school of Hogwart's (not set in the Potter universe at all, just giving you a frame of reference) established to train necromancers. There is so much potential there for horrible pranks, thrilling adventures, and grisly fun.

What do beginner necromancers work with? I'd imagine you'd start with bugs, worms, that kind of thing. Animating dead tissue, forcing your will onto a not-quite in-working-order organism and making your commands stick even as your slave/familiar/pet roams beyond your influential range.

Second year students move up to small mammals, amphibians, and reptiles.

Third year students may work on golems, animated skeletons and other 'incomplete' creatures.

Not until your fourth year do you start work on human cadavers.

There's a lot of research involved of course. I have to figure out the basics behind necromancy. Does it matter how fresh a corpse is, in terms of your end-product's quality? How much of the dead creature's unique qualities survive the transition from death to un-life? I'd also need to establish a power scale. Is it impossible to raise someone from the dead so perfectly that their memories and other faculties are totally intact? Is it rare to be able to reanimate so perfectly? What's the far end of the scale? Someone who can raise entire graveyards at once to do their bidding? Or someone who can manipulate organic tissue as easily as a master sculptor works with clay, creating patchwork creatures with amazing abilities?

Some of the inherent humor is obvious, with pieces falling off the student's creations and plenty of zombie jokes, but think what trouble a pair of disembodied hands could get into?

It's also pretty easy to sketch out a potential cast of characters.

Protagonist: Son of well-known necromancers. Withdrawn and morose from his years in traditional schools, where his pallor and awkwardness made him a social reject. Now, in supporting surroundings with like-minded people, he's free to bloom and drop his introverted habits.

Love interest: Very much Wednesday Addams, a creepy girl fascinated with death and decay. Her playmates are darkness and wet Autumn winds. She excels in her studies, but is always skipping ahead, eager for the next step and confident she can handle it.

Goofy sidekick: Different schools of necromancy probably come together in this academy, and the sidekick will be from the voodoo side of things. He isn't weak, or sniveling, but quite laid back and unconcerned about how bad his grades tend to be. While he isn't wise beyond his years, a talking skull (Or shrunken head) that's been in the family for years advises him and his friends.

Unlikeable sidekick: A ditzy girl who looks like an Aber Crombie and Fitch covergirl, but who possesses a downright disturbing enthusiasm for the most disgusting of tasks. There are flickers of megalomania in her that hint at a concealed cunning, but she's just *such* a ditz that few watch her carefully.

School bully: Not from a rich background, but with aspirations of power, this kid has worn the cover off The Prince several times. He's cunning, but not very imaginative. Most of the friction between him and the core of heroes is merely roommate friction, from sharing a room with the antagonist for the first two years at the school.

Antagonist: A Catholic priest. :KD