Chapter 14: Defence Against the Dark Arts

The day progressed horribly slow.

They had started with History of Magic, probably the most boring subject ever invented, though mostly because of their teacher. Professor Binns did not seem to be able to convey any emotions and droning on and on about giant wars wasn't exactly interesting.

Sadly, Harrys resolution to try and learn things included this subject so he forced himself to listen and take notes while trying not to get distracted by anything.

It was probably the worst class he ever had, including Divination, but he survived it just barely, with notes that made both of his friends stare at him as if he'd gone crazy.

"Since when do you take notes in Binns classes?" Ron asked incredulously after they went down to the dungeons, since they had potions next. "You didn't even talk with me!"

"Sorry Ron, but since the OWLs are coming up and everything... I thought it might help. And if I can memorise it that homework we've gotten is only half as hard."

Ron just stared at him as if he had gone mad - well, maybe he had, at least a little bit? - but he got an approving nod from Hermione.

"That's the spirit, Harry." She then turned to Ron. "You see, even Harry has understood that learning is important! Try that too, won't you?"

"Hey, what do you mean 'even I'?" Harry protested and the three of them continued bickering until they had taken their seats inside of the potions classroom.

The following lesson was almost as strenuous as History of Magic had been. Sure, Snape wasn't talking a lot, since they were requested to brew a quite complicated potion - the Draught of Peace - but the concentration needed was a lot and Harry was determined to not make any mistakes.

ooo

At the end of the lesson, Harry took a deep breath, a thin layer of sweat covering his face due to the heat of the flames under his cauldron as well as all of the multicoloured fumes.

The potion was said to emit a silvery vapour by now and Hermiones seemed to do just that, causing Snape to pass her without any comment. So he probably didn't have a reason to criticise her.

Many students had various problems with their potions though, Rons was shooting green sparks and Nevilles looked as if he had tried to mix cement.

Nervously, Harry looked at his own potion as Snape walked to him, already with a look on his face that made clear he was just waiting to humiliate him. It did emit some silvery mist, but it was much darker than Hermiones.

Still, the face of his potions professor as he took a look into Harrys cauldron was priceless.

"It seems as if you actually were able to read the instructions this time, Potter," he said, though clearly disappointed. It didn't last long, though. "Well, it was a very simple potion."

He passed his place, but turned around once more after a few steps, a small smirk back in place.

"Five points from Gryffindor for getting help from Miss Granger. I said you should work alone."

With that, he went to the Slytherin side of the room, leaving Harry to exhale frustratedly, but not commenting on it. It could have been worse. At least he could fill up a vial of his potion to turn in, guessing that it wouldn't be too bad as Snape hadn't said anything about it.

What followed was lunch hour which was pretty uneventful, just like Divination afterwards. The latter was incredibly boring, yes, even though the idea of interpreting ones dreams sounded vaguely interesting, but nothing much happened anyway.

No, the really interesting part came after Divination, since they had Defence Against the Dark Arts now. A double period, even.

Curious, the whole class, consisting of Gryffindor and - of course - Slytherin students, sat at the tables, awaiting Professor Pyrites' entrance.

ooo

He turned up about two minutes after class should have started, looking slightly dishevelled.

"Sorry, some urgent business was delaying me, I missed the stairs..." he explained, grinning embarrassedly. A few girls giggled and some students looked sceptically at him, as he straightened himself and his clothes before clearing his throat.

"So... to begin the lesson... Welcome to 'Defence Against the Dark Arts'," he said, putting the name of his subjects in air quotes. "I'm sure you're having a few questions before we start, judging from your expressions. Shoot!"

Immediately, quite a few hands went up. Professor Pyrites looked around for a second, before pointing at Parvati. "Yes, Miss -?"

"Patil, sir," she said, smiling broadly. "Could you tell us something about you...?"

He looked surprised for a moment, before chuckling.

"Not the question I would have expected, but alright." He looked at the class. "My name's Aquila Pyrites, I'm too old for you-" He was looking at the girls now, who blushed, looking down. "-and I have been a Ravenclaw student once. I always liked Defence but not the way it was taught here. That's why I went to the Ministry, to see if I could improve the education for future students. And... well, I guess I've had success somehow, they did sent me to teach you."

As he talked he had an easy smile on his face, having taken a seat on the teachers table.

"Other questions? Yes, Mr. -?"

"Thomas. You said you're from the Ministry... Why did they sent you, what about Dumbledore?" Dean asked, voicing the thoughts of most other students, Harrys included.

"Good question, Mr. Thomas. Though I'm not sure if I can answer it completely. I do know that the Ministry has very recently established a law that says they might appoint a teacher if the headmaster of a school cannot find someone in time. So my best guess is that Dumbledore didn't found a teacher himself which led to me being appointed by the Ministry," Professor Pyrites explained, not looking too sad about the whole matter. "I've actually been sent to see how the education of the student works, too - sure, I've also been a student here once, but... you know, curricula can change. Don't worry though, it shouldn't be too bad. Just some observing, asking questions and stuff."

"Are they allowed to do that?" Seamus wondered aloud, sounding surprised.

"What's your name?" Professor Pyrites asked.

"Seamus Finnigan."

"Well Mr. Finnigan, the Ministry does have a certain power over Hogwarts, since it should be their job to ensure the students are well-educated. Of course, that power can be misused, but... I'll try to act on behalf of the students."

Seamus looked slightly impressed but stayed silent, giving Professor Pyrites enough time to call up another student. This time, it came from the Slytherin part of the room.

"Why did you put 'Defence Against the Dark Arts' in air quotes as you introduced yourself? The name's Blaise Zabini."

At this, the teacher seemed to ponder for a while as if he didn't know how to answer that question.

"That is also a very good question, Mr. Zabini. The easiest way to answer it is probably to show you."

He hopped of the table and drew his wand. He turned to an empty spot and conjured a straw doll out of nowhere.

"Imagine if this is a human being." He waved his wand again and robes appeared, making the straw doll look slightly more like a wizard. "And now... Diffindo." He pointed his wand at the puppet, the spell going straight through its body, leaving a big cut in the middle of it. "Sure, a real human being isn't a straw doll, but a well-aimed Diffindo still bloody hurts. Also... Incendio." Immediately, the puppets robe caught fire and soon, the straw was burning nicely, illuminating Professor Pyrite face from the side as he turned back to the class.

"As you can see, these spells were very simple, Neutral ones. They are taught to first-years and no one ever thinks about how dangerous they can be if used with ill intent. Actually, you can hurt a person with almost every spell. So why did they call this class 'Defence Against the Dark Arts' if it is way more probable to encounter someone who wishes you ill and isn't able to cast Dark spells?"

He looked questioningly at the students, but no one talked.

"Exactly. So... while I do think it's important to be able to defend yourself against the Dark Arts, it is just as important to defend yourself against any other spell, hence my dislike against the name of this class. Why not just 'Defence'?"

The stunned silence continued and Professor Pyrites just shook his head before vanishing the meagre remains of the straw doll.

"Anyway, I think that's enough for now. I'll just give you a short version of what I've planned for this year - which, mind you, isn't much since the Ministry actually appointed me on a very short notice - before you can do something more practical."

He was now completely concentrating on the students again. "We'll start off with repeating older spells, testing your knowledge and stuff. The OWL exams will probably feature quite a few practical spells and I want you to be roughly on the same level for that. Afterwards, we'll begin talking about wards. Warding is quite difficult but as fifth-years, you should at least be able to do some easy muggle-repelling charms and, depending on your natural affinity of the subject, maybe you'll even be able to cast anti-owl wards. And at the end of the year we'll probably look more closely into what kind of theoretical stuff will be tested on your exams. But if you get the practical stuff I'm sure you'll do fine."

ooo

Harrys opinion on the matter? He thought the teacher was bloody brilliant! Sure, he hadn't seen much practical competence yet, but he definitely already liked the mindset of his professor. Because he had come to the same conclusion once: Almost all magic could be dangerous if the caster wanted it to be. Sure, he was pretty sure that many Dark spells had been created to hurt, making using them for friendly purposes was difficult, but he knew by now that not everything was bad about the Dark Arts, so... he liked Professor Pyrites' point of view.

After that much talking, the teacher finally motioned for them to get up, putting the tables out of the way with a flick of his wand. Soon, the students were gathered in the middle classroom, with Professor Pyrites standing in front of them.

"Alright guys, first spell: Expelliarmus. Does anyone of you not know how it's casted?" he asked, looking cheerfully around as no one raised his hand. A few people grimaced, though Harry wasn't sure if that was because of the spell itself that, admittedly, was pretty easy or because of a certain memory of the first and only lesson of their 'Duelling Club' back in their second year. "Doesn't matter, I will demonstrate it anyway. Any volunteers?"

As Harry looked around, no one seemed very eager to do so. Well, it was kind of understandable, who wanted to show a weakness in front of the house they disliked most?

It was only seconds before Harry had wanted to raise his hand that he heard Draco Malfoy not-so-quietly whispering something to one of his cronies.

"Who does he think we are, first-years? As if an Expelliarmus is any help in a real fight."

Surprisingly - or maybe not so much - that brought him more attention that he probably would have liked as Professor Pyrites turned to him.

"So, Mr. Malfoy seemingly wants to volunteer," he said, still smiling happily. "Your name is Malfoy, isn't it? Lucius Malfoy is a well-known face in the Ministry and you are looking strikingly familiar to him."

Malfoys face contained a mixture of horror, pride and frustration for about half a second, before he caught himself and nodded, haughtily walking up to their professor.

"Great. Now, first of all, the wand movement." He turned sideways, showing all of them the correct wand movement in slow-motion. "You probably knew it anyway, but to see it one more time can't hurt. Of course, to cast it you have to be a bit quicker." He looked at Malfoy. "Mr. Malfoy, as you seem to doubt my abilities, how about a little duel?"

Malfoy began to protest - rightly so, a teacher knew a larger variety of spells which wasn't very fair - but Professor Pyrites interrupted him soon. "Of course, I'm not talking about a real duel. Quite the opposite, I will use that to show you what you can do with Expelliarmus. Feel free to use any spell you know, Mr. Malfoy, while I will stick to the Disarming Charm. Not even a shield charm, only Expelliarmus. What do you say?"

The offer sounded easy enough... Especially so, since Malfoy could protect himself with a Shield Charm while their teacher could not. But Harry was sure that there had to be a catch, even though Hermione whispered frantically about it being a very bad idea as Professor Pyrites should not duel with students, especially not with Draco Malfoy.

"Alright." Was the word that sealed Malfoys fate and the two more-or-less duellists soon stood in front of each other in the middle of the classroom, both looking surprisingly serious. The rest of the students were watching from the sidelines, wondering what would happen.

And dammit, the teacher knew what he was doing.

The second Professor Pyrites had counted to three Malfoy had thrown up a shield before shooting a variety of spells at his teacher. This actually surprised Harry to an extend, though it was probably only natural that the youngest Malfoy wanted to prove his worth to... whomever. It would be quite a feat to win against a teacher, especially so if said teacher taught Defence Against the Dark Arts.

But did Malfoy really think it was that easy?

While he fired spell after spell, Professor Pyrites seemed to be quite content with dodging them for now. He seemed to be a true expert regarding that as he easily side-stepped every single blow of his opponent, which got Malfoy increasingly frustrated. Which worsened his aim even more and so on. It was like a vicious cycle that went on for about two minutes, before their teacher raised his wand for the first time after having ducked under a particularly vicious cast Stunning Spell.

"Expelliarmus!"

The red beam of light shot straight at Malfoy, crushing his shield as he had obviously forgotten to focus on maintaining it, thus weakening it enough for the spell to come through.

About one second later Malfoy was left looking dumbstruck at their teacher, who held two wands in his hands.

Well, that had been... interesting, at least.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Professor Pyrites announced, now smiling again before giving Malfoy back his wand. "I am sure you have understood by now that Disarming Charms are actually pretty useful. Especially so if your opponent doesn't want to kill you. And it is more probable to face someone in an official duel - in which making your opponent drop their wand is the actual purpose of it - than fighting a duel to the death. Though without a wand, your enemy can't attack anyway so it's always a good idea to know how to disarm someone." He turned to the other students. "Any more questions?"

No one said anything. "Great, so then let's form groups of two to practice the spell. Just search yourselves a free spot and start practising, I'll take a look at your skills once I've had a word with Mr. Malfoy here. There are a few things you can learn with every duel you have."

He then turned to Malfoy, leaving the rest of the class staring stupidly at each other for a second, before chaos erupted as everyone tried to partner with his or her best friend.

Ron and Hermione both looked at Harry questioningly, probably unsure of how to form pairs as they were three, but he motioned for them to partner with each other, making his way to Neville instead.

The boy was staring into nothing, looking somewhat lonely just standing there, probably because most of the time no one wanted to have him as a partner.

"Hey Neville, care to join me?" Harry asked, smiling at him, who looked surprised.

"Uh... don't you want to partner with someone... useful?" he mumbled, looking somewhere else.

"Well, I'm doing just that, aren't I?" Harry met Nevilles stare with a wink, before getting serious again. "Honestly, you need to get a little bit more confident. You're a genius herbologist, why should that be your only talent? Let's just practise for a bit, alright?"

Neville shrugged helplessly and they moved into position. On the count of three, they began casting, though Harry was way faster, easily disarming the poor boy.

He summoned Nevilles wand and gave it back to him. "How about you simply try to disarm me?" He knew that he was quite good at disarming other people - hell, Expelliarmus had already saved his life! - so it probably wouldn't do to take turns.

But with only Neville casting he could try to analyse why it didn't work and the worst thing happening to him was a small shudder and his hair standing on end. Actually, it was a very easy problem, one he could relate to as he had done so too in the beginning.

"Your hand movements are too sweeping. Try it a bit smaller, like this." He pointed his wand at Hermione, who was waiting for Ron to retrieve his wand somewhere in the classroom and disarmed her, making sure that Neville could see his wand movement.

Surprised, she whirled around and while her face was priceless for a few seconds it turned into a frown shortly afterwards.

Harry only smiled sweetly at her before looking back to Neville. "Want to try it again?"

He got a nod and they continued their training.

ooo

It wasn't until the time was almost up and Harry had given a few more hints that finally, his wand flew out of his hands, landing somewhere behind them.

Both Harry and Neville stared surprised at each other for a second, before grinning.

"I did it! For the first time, I did it!" Neville exclaimed happily as Harry clapped him on the shoulder. "Congratulations!"

Though their excitement was cut short as Professor Pyrites stepped on a table, casting a quick Sonorus to get their attention.

"Alright, enough for today!" he called, before cancelling the amplifying spell again as the last shouts of Expelliarmus rang through the room.

"Soo... while I haven't been able to look at all of your performances, I did see that whoever taught you that spell probably wasn't the most... effective teacher. But most of you seemed to have grasped the concept of the spell by now, I guess it won't need as long to get the rest of you to get it, too. Afterwards we can proceed with another spell." Suddenly, his smile changed slightly, almost into a smirk, as if he'd just gotten a brilliant idea. "You know, to prevent further... complaints about spells, how about suggestion the ones you'd want to learn about? Homework: Write.. let's say... at least six inches about any spell you'd like me to let you practise. The only important thing is that it can be used in duels or in Defence in general. Write about what it does, how it's cast and why you think it should be covered. The more and the better you write, the more probable it is that I will use your suggestion. Have fun!"

With that, he hopped from his table and went to repair a few thing inside of the room that had gotten damaged by stray Disarming Spells, leaving the class to stare at each other in wonder.

That didn't last long though and soon everyone moved again to leave the room.

Harry went to retrieve his wand that still laid somewhere behind him as most of the others made their way outside.

"Mr. Potter, one word..."

Harry looked up to his professor questioningly. He didn't need to ask how he'd been recognized, it was fairly easy anyway. "Yes...?"

Professor Pyrites held his wand out to him, looking fairly amused.

"It was quite entertaining to see you disarm one of your friends through half of the room, and nice to know that you are able to do it, but please try to keep it to your partner - or at least out of my sight - alright?"

He winked as Harry felt his face grow hot. He hadn't thought about checking if he was being watched. "Of course..."

The man smiled. "Great! Now off you go, I'm sure you already have massive amounts of homework to do."

Harry nodded once and hurried back to his things, which he hurriedly grabbed to leave, wand still in hand.

Well, he certainly needed to watch out as his Defence teacher was more perceptive than he seemed.

There we have the newest chapter and finally a bit more of Pyrites!
Quite the weird teacher, isn't he? But at least he's competent ;p

Right now, I'm actually not very sure how to proceed with the story (oh I'm having a whole lot of ideas, but I can't implement most of them as of yet since they'll need more time) but... well, I'll see what I can do! (suggestions are lovely as always *hint hint* ;p)

Thank you all as always for every reviewer, favourite and follower I get. I'm still incredibly happy for every email I get, announcing some activity! ;)

Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling. (...do I honestly need to put that disclaimer after every chapter? oO I've seen people do that quite a lot, but on German ff-archives almost no one does that, since it's obvious they don't own the original *cough*)

Regards, Violet-san