Hidden Wings - Part I

The best place to talk is...up

Happy first Advent everybody! 🕯

The next morning started with Defense Against the Dark Arts. Mioha was kind of excited, but most students seemed to dread it. Harry, despite feeling a strong dislike towards Professor Snape, at least tried to keep his facial expression from looking like he was dying.
The classroom door opened after Slytherins and Gryffindors waited for a few minutes, and Professor Snape stepped into the corridor, his pale face framed as ever by two curtains of black hair. Silence fell over the queue immediately.

"Inside," he ordered.

Mioha looked around as they entered. The room was gloomier than usual, as curtains had been drawn over the windows, and was lit by candlelight. New pictures adorned the walls, many of them showing people who appeared to be in pain, sporting grisly injuries or strangely contorted body parts. Nobody spoke as they settled down, looking around at the shadowy, gruesome pictures.

"I have not asked you to take out your books," said Professor Snape, closing the door and moving to face the class from behind his desk; Hermione hastily dropped her copy of Confronting the Faceless back into her bag and stowed it under her chair. "I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention."

His black eyes roved over their upturned faces.

"You have had five teachers in this subject so far, I believe. Naturally, these teachers will all have had their own methods and priorities. Given this confusion I am surprised so many of you scraped an O.W.L. in this subject. I shall be even more surprised if all of you manage to keep up with the N.E.W.T. work, which will be more advanced."

Professor Snape set off around the edge of the room, speaking now in a lower voice; the class craned their necks to keep him in view. He seemed to be in a worse mood than usual.

"The Dark Arts," said Professor Snape quietly, "are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defensesmust therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures," he indicated a few of them as he swept past, "give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse" (he waved a hand toward a witch who was clearly shrieking in agony) "feel the Dementor's Kiss" (a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed, slumped against a wall) "or provoke the aggression of the Inferius" (a bloody mass upon ground).
Mioha shuddered.

"Has an Inferius been seen, then?" said Parvati Patil in a high pitched voice. "Is it definite, is he using them?"

"The Dark Lord has used Inferi in the past," said Professor Snape, "which means you would be well-advised to assume he might use them again. Now..."

He set off again around the other side of the classroom toward his desk, and again, they watched him as he walked, his dark robes billowing behind him.

"... you are, I believe, complete novices in the use of non-verbal spells."

Mioha and Hermione traded a look.

"Yet those who progress in using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting. Not all wizards can do this, of course; it is a question of concentration and mind power which some lack. You will now divide into pairs. One partner will attempt to jinx the other without speaking. The other will attempt to repel the jinx in equal silence. Carry on."

Although Harry had taught at least half the class (everyone who had been a member of the D.A.) how to perform a Shield Charm the previous year, none of the others had ever cast the charm without speaking. Hermione and Mioha were able to do so, while Harry and Ron managed most of the time when concentrating really hard. For the others, a reasonable amount of cheating ensued; many people were merely whispering the incantation instead of saying it aloud. Ten minutes into the lesson Hermione acted like she was finally able to repel Neville's muttered Jelly-Legs Jinx without uttering a single word.