𝘒𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 •°𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘴

[52]

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

'Here comes torture,' Sara whispered as Snape let them into the Defense against the dark arts classroom.

Sara and Nico took a seat at the back of the classroom, looking around it. Snape had imposed his personality upon the room already; it 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 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.'

'Sure you do,' Sara muttered under her breath and a grin spread over Nico's face.

Snape's black eyes suddenly fell upon her, his expression threatening, but Sara only raised a brow in amusement, staring at his desk.

'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.WL. 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.'

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. 'The Dark Arts,' said Snape, '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.'

Sara 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 defenses,' said Snape, a little louder, 'must 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.

'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 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 nonverbal spells. What is the advantage of a nonverbal spell?'

Hermione's hand shot into the air and so did Sara's. Snape took his time looking around at everybody else, making sure he had no choice, before saying curtly, 'Very well - Miss Potter?'

'Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform,'said Sara, looking Snape dead in the eye, 'which gives you a split-second advantage.'