A/N: So i have gotten reviews asking for updates on this story, so here it is. Thanks for everyone who reviews, and please keep doing so. If anyone wants, I can post part one of the prologue or Dark Lady Pendragon as well. it's not that much of a spoiler at his point. Anyways, here's the next chapter.
James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigew entered the defense classroom, joking and shoving each other around. Remus Lupin entered behind them at a more sedate pace, all four bags on his shoulders. They say at the back of the classroom, Remus Lupin with a dictaquill ready in front of him. The class quieted, though glares were being sent across the room with all four houses worth of fifteen year olds.
The doors opened and Professor Gryffindor walked into the room, his robes floating behind him in a way that the Severus Snape of his time would be jealous. He walked to the front of the room, a mass silencing charm falling on the room when he got to the front.
"Class. My name is Professor Gryffindor. This is defense against the dark arts, but from what I've heard, in the past this has been defense against minor inconveniences. I don't care about whether or not you know how to hurt a mountain troll, a simple lumos, or worst case scenario an overpowered version of a cutting curse." Quills were scratching.
"Put those quills away. No notes. I am not here to prepare you for OWLs. Those you can pass by spending an hour a week in the library for a month before the exams. I am here to make sure that if you are ever in a dangerous situation, hype can defend yourself. Now memorize one thing. This class is just plain simple defense. Light arts can kill, and dark arts can save. Can anyone give me an example of dangerous light arts? Mister Shacklebolt?"
The Ravenclaw answered, "a severing charm used to make robes can be used to cut a limb off if overpowered,"
"Alright. Not what I meant. Mister Lupin?"
"Uh…"
"Miss McKinnon, do you have an idea?"
"Yes, professor. A wingardium leviosa can raise someone to a height and then drop them. That could break bones."
"Correct. Wingardium leviosa is the first spell you ever learn, and one of the dozen each and everyone of you will know silently and wandlessly by the end of the year."
Oohs and ahs echoed around the room. "Wandless Magic is not nearly as difficult as it sounds. I guarantee every one of you has done it by now. Accidental magic is done wandlessly and silently. The one thing that Hogwarts fails to educate you in. Six of the twelve most useful wandless spells. Wingardium leviosa. Accio. Aguamenti. Incendio. Portus. Compulso. Those you should already be able to do with your wands. The others we will work on. Now, today will be the only theoretical class. The rest, you will be casting magic. You should not do any magic within twelve hours before this class, or your magical cores will be depleted. Mister Potter, hand over that invisibility cloak. That answers the mystery of how you regularly sneak out of your other classes. One foot away from the door was James Potter's head which his invisibility cloak had fallen off of.
Sirius called out, "Prongs, I thought it was my turn!"
"Black, sit down."
Bellatrix Black sent him a questioning look. "Mister Black. Miss Black, you're good. Potter. Invisibility cloak. Now."
"You have no right. It's a family heirloom."
"Family heirloom from what family? There are no records of the Potter family having an invisibility cloak in the records of 1926. And the heirloom records get updated every fifty years, any less than that it's been in your family, legally it's just a memento."
"Peverell family. I'm descended from them on my father's side." James stated proudly.
Professor Gryffindor sighed. Lily could have sworn she heard him murmur, "how the bloody hell am I related to this imbecile?" He then whispered something under his breath and a glamour fell away, revealing a Head of House ring on his finger, with a triangle, a circle inside it, and a line crossing down the middle, inside both figures. "Hand it over." James Potter's eyes widened, but he reluctantly handed over the cloak. "I am going to have to talk to your father about giving dangerous stolen heirlooms to teenagers." As James Potter was getting back to his seat, the professor cleared his throat.
"Pettigrew, being an illegal animagus and using that to sneak away from class is beyond idiotic. I will give you a minute to get back to your seat before reveal our form, though good idea dillusioning yourself before transforming. Ten seconds later, the disillusionment charm melted away from a wide-eyed Peter Pettigrew sitting in his seat.
"And that class moves me on to my next point. I only get an hour a week with you. Considering there is a high chance I will get fired at the end of the year just for Dumbledore to prove a point, I will not be teaching like your other teachers. First of all, I have installed a time dilation and necessary expansion ward on this room. So if you count the time, we will be spending three hours a week in a room the size of the Great Hall. I'm not cruel, I will have core regeneration draught as well as nutrient potions available. I also don't want to see a single piece of parchment or a single quill in this room starting next class. I will be installing the ward your OWLs use that incinerates all notes upon entering the room. If you can't memorize it, you sure as heck won't be able to use it when you actually have to defend yourself. Furthermore, as I told Gryffindor House this morning, pepperup potion is the most useful potion you will ever brew. I have given Professor Slughorn the recipe I use that does not, unlike the one in your textbook, make it addictive. If you can bring me vials that you make under Professor Sluughorn's supervision and they are up to standard, they will be put for everyone in your house's common rooms. Anyone who can improve on it will get fifty points. That brings me to my next point. Punishments you are usually given are practically useless, and the ones Filch wants to use are inhumane. House points are also not very valuable. So I will have my own system. Each of you will be earning points for yourselves. Whoever gets the most points in each year, each term will get to choose a chapter to read, and the winner overall will get to copy a chapter and keep it, though I will place it under a fidelius with the winner as the secret keeper. The books I'm talking about? You get to choose from the grimoires of the families of Gryffinor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Peverell, Emrys, or LeFay. I do not have access to the Hufflepuff Family grimoire, sorry for those of you in Helga's house. Ten points will also get you an additional private one hour training session, three under time dilation, with Professor Ravenclaw or me, as we will use the same system shared across our two classes. I am warning you though, detentions will not be with Filch, but with me, and I will have you moving for the entire length of the detention. Physical fitness is very useful. Any other ideas for what you may want for points, talk to me. They are made to reward you. You all start with fifty. If you can create or improve upon a spell, another fifty, and other defensive advantages will get you fifty, such as being an animagus, I don't care if you are registered or not, come talk to me in private. ONe more thing, there is no such thing as impossible. As any muggle raised student not introduced to the wizarding world will tell you, magic is impossible. And yet it is. The only limitations are the ones you place upon yourself. I learned a patronus from a werewolf in front of a dementor boggart at age thirteen, and became an animagus that same year. And I was born with magic level two and a half. Most children are born with levels from two to three, for those of you who don't know. The more magic you do, the stronger it becomes. That's why Dumbledore is so powerful. Have you ever seen him do anything without magic that could be done with? Any questions? Feel free to speak your mind. I take any statements as long as you can prove them. Also, a warning for those of you not educated, the only being that can survive looking unharmed for more than ten minutes with mud as blood is a river troll."
Sirius Black asked rather pompously, "How in the Merlin's beard are you going to teach us this all if it's not even in my family grimoire? Everyone knows we have the biggest one!"
"And that, students, is what brings down most people. The 'everyone knows'. A family friend of mine was very nearly killed by aurors because everyone knew he was guilty of a crime he was not, if fact guilty of. And Mister Black, I'll humor you. In the next ten minutes, I will teach you something that I assure you, not a single person in Britain has admitted to knowing since before the ministry of magic was created. What do you know about the unforgivables? Miss Nott?"
A brunette Ravenclaw girl answered, "The imperius, cruciatus and killing curse. The imperius curse can take over the mind of a weak-willed person and make them follow the caster's bidding. The cruciatus curse can cause pure pain on every single part of a person's body, and the killing curse is a curse that kills any living being it touches. Use of any of them is punishable by life in Azkaban."
Professor Gryffindor smirked like a Slytherin whose master plan had just come to fruition. "A perfect ministry definition. Now let me tell you why each of those statements are false. First of all, the minister of magic and head of the DMLE have the right to authorize unforgivables in the capture of specific criminals by aurors. Those aurors go unpunished. Furthermore, it is only illegal to use them on a witch, wizard, muggle, or untransformed werewolf. If I go and find myself a giant, even though they are sentient beings, and cast any of the three on it, if the ministry bothers tracking me down seeing as I used them in the middle of a giant reservoir, they cannot do anything to me legally. At all. A mentor of mine who was a werewolf, you know what he used to do to keep from harming anyone on the full moon? He had his wife put the imperius on him as soon as he was transformed and make him go to sleep, and then she took the curse off a minute before the moon set. The spanish ministry, where she did that the first time and explained herself to aurors ent to question her, they applauded her ingenuity and made it clearly legal to follow in her footsteps. In fact, when they train aurors, they have them do that same thing to werewolf volunteers on the full moon so they can use that curse to apprehend criminals when given legal permission." The whole room was slack jawed. They didn't know this.
"Now, the imperius curse is also slightly different. It only works on those of less power than the caster. That is why people didn't try to get an imerius in at Grindelwald. Because as much as he was a horrible monster who did and ordered horrible things, he was also a very powerful wizard. The killing curse. Another fake. Two things that are wrong. First of all, it can only work on a person weaker than the caster. If a first year were to shoot the curse at me, I would be fine. That applies to all magic. Magic is all about intent and power. If I shot a cutting curse at the curtains with intention to destroy them, they would be shredded. If I wanted to tear off a long thin strip to use as a string, it would peel off. Now, the second thing about the killing curse. Do you know how we know it is painless? For all we know, it freezes people in place and stops their pulse, but they are in unimaginable pain for eternity. Now do we know that's false?
Because of the simulation spell. Simulit, accentuate the i. One of the most important spells I have ever learned, and one you will be learning wandlessly. If I cast it on you, it will let you feel the effects of any spell to hit you, but after it wears off, anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, depending on the amount of power put into it, the effects will leave you. If I cast the spell of a person, and then cast the killing curse at them, they will feel the effects of the curse, but when it wears off, they will still be alive. I have been under that curse and have had the killing curse shot at me, and I can guarantee it works, although if you want to try it, do not do so in this country. Currently, in Switzerland, where Emrys Academy was located, where I went to school, it is legal to shoot the killing curse at a person only once within ten seconds of the simulation spell being applied, with a government official monitoring the process. I did not learn the laws of other countries, but that one I know for sure. As for the cruciatus, it is the most interesting of the three. Magic is all about intent, and this one is where it applies most. The curse was not meant to have an incantation, so the words crucio will only help intention. In fact, the curse is an expression of pure magic, and is much easier wandlessly. If cast with the intention to torture with hatred in mind, it will be unimaginable pain wore than being burned alive and frozen in ice simlutaneouseely." Some more attentive students realized their professor had experienced that aspect of the curse, but were smarter than to ask. "But if used with joy in mind, and a different incantation for those who need to focus better, it becomes known as the patronus charm. When used with hope, it becomes the most powerful healing spell. When used with sadness, it can put a person in a coma, I have had that aspect used on me once. And when used with love between two people or familial or friendship love with more, it can form a mental link that works a lot like the protean charm, except in the back of the mind. There are other emotions that it can be used with, but they are less powerful than these core four. Professor Ravenclaw used to heal me once, thankfully we were in Bulgaria and were able to explain our way out of legal trouble."
The entire class was frozen with awe on their faces, even the Slytherins with the most solid figurative masks. They would not start moving for another twenty minutes. This was life changing information.
Finally, after unfreezing, a lone student raised his hand in the air. "Mister Lupin?"
"How many points will it cost to get an international portkey to Switzerland and to get you to cast the simulation curse on us, and then the killing curse?"
"Are you seriously insane, Moony?" James asked.
"No, I'm curious., The seriously insane one's padfoot. I'm pretty sure his middle name is insane, because his first name obviously doesn't fit."
"It's Orion, I think. At least that's what my mother told me. Though I think grandfather Arcturus mentioned something about my middle name being insanity, now that I think about it," Sirius mused, "but sanity's overrated anyway. Look at my cousin Narcissa. Probably the only sane Black to be born in centuries, and she's all set to marry into the Malfoy family."
Professor Gryffindor's lips quirked up a little. "Now that Mister Black is done telling us about how proud he is of being insane, Mister Lupin, you would have to have the highest point total out of all of my students, due to the complications and paperwork required in getting that accomplished. And pass it on to your housemates, will you, all of you," he turned to the class, "
"I have no OWLs requirements for my NEWTs classes, as long as the individual is willing to put in the effort. And our time is up. See you next week, when I will turn on the time dilation and expansion wards, as well as the ones that destroy notes, parchment, and quills. All you need is your wand. Any items you have with you discounting your wand and clothing will automatically be summoned to my desk. Any potions or spell creations or adaptations you wish to receive extra points for are to be brought during my office hours, between breakfast and lunch on weekends. Remember, I hate parchment work, so no essays for this class. Misters Lupin, Snape, Potter, Black, Pettigrew, Shacklebolt and Miss Evans, Nott, and McKinnon please stay back."