Chapter 330

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The practitioners were given a task — to study the text on spells in five minutes. Goyle and Weasley eagerly read the paragraphs while the others waited with interest for developments. Five minutes later, Umbridge took the books from them and called them to the blackboard, and on the other side of the class, there was a dummy stand - a hand with a wand.

"So, Mr. Goyle," Umbridge pulled out her wand with a smile. After all, she looks very funny in her pink outfit. "Remember the movement and the keyword. Expeliarmus."

A dim, small and neat light ray flew from the professor's wand, perfectly knocked the wand out of the stand, and the professor did not even have to catch it — the wand flew exactly into the palm slightly set aside. She gave the wand to Goyle and set him the task of practicing and returning the wand to its place in the stand-hand. Goyle nodded and got down to business.

"Now you, Mr. Weasley. Memorize the movement of the wand and the verbal form. Protego."

A perfectly smooth hemisphere of the shield film appeared around Umbridge.

"A properly created Protego protective spell has a flat surface and an even distribution of the transparency gradient from the center to the edges. Practice."

Time was running out. Minute after minute, attempt after attempt, but the boys were not achieving any success at all, beginning to get a little angry and red-faced. Twelve minutes later, the Fifty-Fifty came out – Parkinson and Brown. Umbridge showed them the moves and spells, and the girls began to practice. Sometimes the professor corrected the unsuccessful movements of Goyle and Weasley because they pay more attention to practice.

Oddly enough, after twenty minutes, it was the girls who began to make serious progress, while Weasley and Goyle only got angrier than before. Parkinson was already knocking out a wand that flew in her direction and with the right force, and Goyle only once achieved a similar result, though he almost broke his hand-stand, and the wand flew into the wall from Goyle. Brown was creating an uneven and undulating shield film, and Weasley couldn't even do that.

When the pure theorists came out, Umbridge stopped the practitioners and showed Protego once for Dean Thomas.

"Please, Mr. Thomas," the professor said with a smile.

Dean concentrated, waved his wand, clearly saying:

"Protego."

To everyone's surprise, the guy created a fairly even hemisphere of protection with a near-perfect gradient of transparency. Even though there was an almost imperceptible wave through the film for the first moment.

"Excellent, Mr. Thomas," grinned Umbridge. "Wonderful performance of the spell."

Dean himself was in shock and looked at us all with a dazed look, causing his concentration to break down and his shield to disintegrate, but it didn't matter anymore. Ours immediately began to applaud, for they saw a tangible difference.

"Hush, hush, my dears," Umbridge made a few soothing hand gestures with a smile. "Let us now look at Mr. Finnigan's results. For you," she looked at Seamus, "the demonstration is unfortunately not allowed."

Seamus nodded, pointing his wand at an arm-stand with a simple stick in it. In sync with the simple, sharp, and proper motion, he uttered:

"Expelliarmus"

A neat, dim ray flew off his wand and knocked the "weapon" out of the stand-hand. It flew in an arc almost into the hands of Seamus — he had to catch this wand.

The audience applauded again, and Seamus showed the trophy in his hands in a gesture of victory. Umbridge put things in order in the audience with another calming gesture and made everyone take their seats.

"So, students. During our small experiment, a kind of demonstration, we were able to make sure of a very important thing for all of us. During the same time allotted to students to study spells by different methods, those who devoted this time to a thorough study of the theory achieved the greatest efficiency. Practice, as you could see from the success of Mr. Goyle…."

There were chuckles in the class because his success was not very good — the strength of successful attempts was too different, and the "enemy weapon" either flew in the wrong direction at all, or fell, or tried to break through a wall or break a stand-arm.

"The practice, as you could see from the success of Mr. Goyle, was very traumatic for himself and others, and it was also a waste of time. For you, my dears, on the eve of exams, wasting time is an unacceptable luxury. It is for this, as you can see, the obvious reason that the Ministry has decided to organize and systematize your knowledge on such an important subject as protection from Dark magic as much as possible."