Chapter 8: DADA

"You are here, to learn how to defend yourself," Professor Twix said loudly to the room of first years of the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff variety. "Not necessarily from the Dark Arts yet. It is a bit early to be covering that sort of material. We will instead be looking at other dangers, which are perhaps less obvious. Can anyone give me an example of a non-magical danger that you might encounter in your daily life?" she asked, at which Harry raised a hand. It was always better to raise a hand in class, he found. If one interacted directly with the material one was more likely to remember it, also, the faster someone answered a professor's question, the faster the class could progress.

"Yes, you. Tell us your name and your suggestion," Professor Twix said, pointing at Harry while continuing to pace in front of the first-row desks.

"Harry Evans. What the most dangerous non-magical threats we are likely to encounter depends mostly on our living situation. I would say that those of us living in magical districts and villages are more likely to be beset by a wild animal, like a boar, or a deer. Whereas those of us living in muggle settlements might encounter muggle criminals or religious fundamentalists, who, if they were to discover our nature, might plot to kill us," he answered, to the general discomfort of the class. "These are the animate threats we might encounter, I guess, ignoring falling objects or natural disasters."

The professor nodded. "Yes, correct, muggles and wild animals are the most direct threats we might face. Something that, especially an untrained witch or wizard, might be the most vulnerable too," she said, enunciating untrained with an oddly grudging inflexion. "Earthquakes and the like… are not really the subject of our class," she finished, before frowning and looking out over the curious mass of first-years looking at her. She twitched her wand and the chalk sitting innocuously at the blackboard behind her started writing the words, 'Muggles and Beasts.'

Harry dutifully wrote it down, making sure that the two categories were separate enough to still be able to write down differing strategies under the two. "Now, dealing with muggles and beasts requires two different tactics, can anyone guess why?" the woman continued with a sigh.

Harry raised his hand again, but her gaze swept over him. He mentally noted down that she was one of the professors who was unlikely to call upon him twice in one class. "Weasley," the professor ended up saying, looking at one of the twins, god only knew which one. "I know that you know the answer, considering where your father works," she prompted, causing the two, who had previously been doodling something, to freeze up.

One of them eventually said something, the tapping of the professor's foot not helping with their thinking process. "Uhh, the muggles, well, they need to be reported to the, uh, ministry, if they see something magical."

"Good, as all of you well know by now, I hope, the statute of secrecy forbids muggles learning of our existence. This means that in addition to any spell you might use to defend yourself, you'd also need to add the spell which summons ministry officials to your location. The obliviators, whose main purpose is to keep the statute of secrecy by removing the memories of any magical instances out of the mind of muggles, will arrive." Professor Twix said.

Harry raised his hand to ask a question, wondering amusedly how interesting it was that eleven-year-olds were being taught to put non-magical humans and animal aggressors in the same category. Wizarding society seemed to be much more martial than the current muggle one. Perhaps because with the ownership of a wand, technically everyone was equipped with a multi-faceted and potentially deadly weapon.

"How have obliviators adapted to the existence of video cameras?" he asked, "Technically if an act of magic was recorded on film, one would have to destroy it before distribution." At this Professor Twix stared at him for a moment before waving him off with a spindly arm.

"You better ask Professor Quirrell if you want a reliable answer. I've never cared enough about muggle affairs to stay up to date," she said and Harry nodded. "Going back to the previous topic, since muggle threats require one additional spell for the sake of the statute of secrecy, we will first be learning an offensive spell with which one can quite handily ward off muggle aggressors and beasts. Next session we will then learn the alarm spell, which summons the obliviators and the Aurors to one's position," she finished and twitched her wand again.

The wand motion and incantation of the knock-back jinx transcribed themselves onto the blackboard. "Flipendo, the knock-back jinx, not an overly complicated spell. You should get it down after a few tries, I would expect at least. Sort yourself into groups and go to the back of the classroom in groups of two. Take turns casting at each other," Twix said with a clap of her hands.

Harry stood up and turned to Cedric, only to see that the boy had run away from him to partner up with Penny, who was shooting him an apologetic smile. Harry rolled his eyes, saw that all the Hufflepuffs were paired up and turned around, before frowning. It seemed that there was an uneven number of students, which meant that he was the odd one out. The Weasley twins, who had obviously paired with each other, seemed to notice this as well and invited him to their group.

It wasn't long before the two boys were laughing uproariously at each other's misfortune as Harry took turns seeing which one of them he could knock back further than the other, only for the situation to switch as they then both ganged up on him, causing him to dodge around the room in an uncoordinated scramble. At some point, Twix angrily came to separate them and deducted some points for their tom-foolery, before reluctantly granting Harry a single point for his mastery of the knock-back jinx. Harry didn't get the feeling that the woman liked him, or teaching. It was still a fun lecture, though. The only issue was that Harry had identified Professor Twixs' voice as the voice that he had heard in the abandoned classroom. This suggested that something not quite right was happening here in Hogwarts. It worried Harry that he didn't know who her male accomplice had been.

-/-

It was a frustrated Harry who scribbled madly into a notebook, completing the basic arithmetic exercises depicted within 'Arithmancy for the less Advanced'. A book that he'd managed to find, in contrast to 'Magical Theory for Initiates', which remained elusive. The fact that the magical mathematics system relied mostly on symbolic instead of logical causality markers almost made him wish that the book had remained lost to him. Oh sure, the basics were still the same, but whereas maths was a pure science, arithmancy was influenced by astrology, symbolism, magical history and in some parts, the gender of the person attempting to solve an equation. It was frustrating as fuck.

It was also what Harry needed to create his spell and by god was he going to create his spell. It had taken him three hours to find all the materials he needed to complete his very small amount of homework, while also managing to find the arithmetic primer. The sooner Harry had to stop dealing with this hellhole of a library, the happier he would be.

He sighed, noting that his frustration wasn't entirely laid bare before magical maths. It was magical, therefore still fun and he'd already found an example of the equation that he would need to determine how many syllables his spell should have once he knew the spell variables to input into the thing. Harry was frustrated because he didn't know what to do with the fact that his Defence professor was briefing someone of an unknown identity, about, whatever. The original Harry Potter's luck with his defence professors, as Potter, as it might have been, left him feeling paranoid and on edge. Technically he wasn't the boy who lived, so the shenanigans connected to that title should well and truly leave him alone, but there was just an itch at the back of his mind that he couldn't quite scratch.

Should he tell Dumbledore? Sprout? He thought as he glared a hole at an offensively bland book stuck in one of the many archaic bookshelves. The truth was that by telling someone Harry would get involved and getting involved was dumb. Especially considering how he was trying to stay out of trouble. As long as he had a magical education he could do whatever he wanted afterwards, but if he died, all the knowledge and skills he could amass would help no one.

Better to leave it, Harry decided. Nothing seemingly bad had happened at Hogwarts two years before the original Harry Potter had graced the dangerous school, or else it would have been mentioned in the book. Although, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind. How much of this world do you truly know, doesn't it all seem too different, you in the middle of it all?

But to this, Harry shook his head, and with the motion noticed something lying on the floor underneath the book-shelf that mostly seemed to deal with magical theory. It was a book, he walked over and bent down to pick it up. "Magical Theory of Initiates", Harry said with a frown as he dusted off the cover, revealing the author's name as well. "Who the fuck hides a book under a shelf," he muttered, looking at the text in his mind. Well, he thought, it was a magical book, maybe it hid itself. He froze as he caught sight of a thin figure walking imperiously into the restricted section, wand alight, an unhappy Pince trailing not far behind. It was Professor Twix.

"She's the DADA professor, so of course she's going to visit the restricted section, but why the whole show?" Harry muttered, considering for a second if he should sneak up to maybe overhear a part of the conversation the two might have inside the forbidden part of the library, before shaking his head and going back to studying.

"Curiosity killed the cat," he said, but nevertheless kept an eye out. He saw Madam Pince leave the restricted section with an extremely pinched face, seemingly abandoning Professor Twix inside. He studied for another two hours, before giving up and borrowing the books to continue tomorrow on Sunday. During this entire time, Professor Twix hadn't left the restricted section.