Feral Den

Chapter 14

Defense was the worst of all her classes, in Hailees —no, everyone's opinion.

Currently she was sitting in the deathly quiet classroom. Her hand subconsciously hurting from the detention she'd had not too long ago with the... thing.
Umbridge was not a person, Hailee refused to believe a human being would knowingly give their student a quill that quite literally cut into her hand. And she lived with the Dursleys full time before coming to Hogwarts.

Today, they were reading and copying chapter five, 'Etiquette for Dueling'. It was a boring chapter just as dull as the other four chapters.
The section was called 'Etiquette for Dueling' but all it went on about was the proper way to bow and the correct way to hold your wand and the, presumably, right way to cast spells at your dueling partner. But to Hailee it was all rubbish.

If they were actually dueling someone and not just a friend, then no one would care about bowing, or the position they held their wand, or the extravagant ways they were to cast spells.
Taking Snape and Lockharts duel during Lockharts sad example for a dueling club, Hailee knew none of that mattered. While Lockhart was going through procedures, Snape had already cast his first spell.
Honestly that was one of two times Hailee actually respected Snape, if only a little. The second was when he put himself between Hermione, Ron and her and Lupin-turned-werewolf.
Would she ever tell the overgrown bat this though? Of course not. She could only imagine what Snape would do.

He would sneer, write her proclamation off as her fucking with him, and give her detention.

Because he's a cruel bastard.

Hailee huffed, her hand clenching around her quill at the thought. Bloody bastard —not to mention the mountain of homework he'd given just yesterday. Like, did he not understand that she had seven other classes on top of his —or what she thinks is seven. The number really didn't matter, but Hailee had too many classes and all of them were handing out mountain loads, if not more homework than what they usually do.
Of course, Professor McGonagall had warned them along with most of her teachers that the work load would be much harder and much larger than previous years since this year they had O.W.L.s. Hailee truly did dread when N.E.W.T.s came around.
O.W.L.s was the pre-N.E.W.T.s as Fred and George as told her in not so many words.

God was this going to be bad. She could do her other classes, at least they were teaching something. But Defense? Hailee loved Defense class, and the curriculum not matter the teacher (usually) but this was just ridiculous.
If they weren't going to do any practical work, than what was the point in all of this? What was the fucking point in copying the same chapter five times when they weren't going to put it to use?
Hailee knew from first hand experience spells couldn't be cast on the first try —well, most— but that wasn't the point.

It had taken her half a year to learn the Patronus Charm and perfect it. It had taken her multiple tries to get the hang of the Accio charm.

Imagine if she needed to use a more complicated spell like Incendio but because she didn't practice the spell then she burned herself and everything around her.
That would not be productive whatsoever —actually, that would be lethal. Which is way more dangerous than practicing spells in a controlled environment.

She sighed, dropping her quill into her ink bottle as she hand twitched from the cramping muscles.
It was a waste of time anyways, writing these lines and copying it down to where she could repeat it like a robot without the book in front of her.

Glancing up at the front, Hailee noticed that Umbridge wasn't paying attention to the class. Instead she was scribbling down her own words with her fancy quill that looked creepily like her Blood Quill.
Hailee hummed, pulling her wand out. She glanced around, knowing the class, by this point, wouldn't snitch on her, but still —it was better to be cautious than not.
Lifting her wand just above the desk, Hailee tapped it across her stack of parchment paper with the entirety of the chapters pages copied down.
One copy turned into five, the required amount Umbridge had breathily told them to write at the beginning of class.