The girl who died Harry Potter's Twin Sister

Chapter 5-HBP

The classroom door opened and Snape stepped into the corridor, his sallow face framed as ever by two curtains of greasy black hair. Silence fell over the queue immediately. 

"Inside," he said. 

Harry looked around as they entered. Snape had imposed his personality upon the whole room already, it was gloomier than usual as curtains have 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. Nobody spoke as they settled down, looking around at the shadowy, gruesome pictures. 

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

His black eyes proved over their upturned faces, lingering for a fraction longer on Elizabeth's than anyone else's. 

"You have had five teachers in this subject so far, I believe."
You believe... like you haven't watched them all come and go, thought Elizabeth scathingly. 

"Naturally, those 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 much more advanced."

Snape set off around the edge of the room, speaking in a lower voice; the class craned their necks to keep him in view. 

"The dark arts..." Snape began. "Are many, varied, ever-changing and enteral Fighting them is like 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." Elizabeth stared at Snape. It was surely one thing to respect the Dark Arts as a dangerous enemy, another to speak of them, as Snape was doing with a loving caress in his voice?

"Your defences," said Snape, a little louder, "must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the Arts you seek to undo. These pictures, give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance..." Snape paused and looked at Neville. "the Cruciatus Curse," Neville grabbed Elizabeth's hand under the table while Snape pointed to a painting of a woman who was shrieking in agony. Elizabeth looked at him and smiled in sympathy. She squeezed his hand. "The dementors kiss," he said now pointing to a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed slumped against a wall. "Or provoke the aggression of the Inferius," He continued, as he walked next to a painting that showed a bloody mass on the ground.

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

"The Dark Lord has used Inferi in the past," said Snape, "which means that you would be well-advised to assume he might use them again. Now..." He set off again around the other side of the classroom towards his desk, again, the class watched him, his dark robes billowing behind him. 

"...You are, I believe, complete novices in the use of non-verbal spells. What is the advantage of non-verbal spells?" Hermione and Elizabeth put their hand up. 

"Miss Potter?" 

"Your opponent has no warning of what spell you're going to use, it gives you an advantage." 

"Correct, those who progress to 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," his gaze lingered maliciously upon Harry. "lack."