Chapter 2 - A Room of Peace
The first day of classes were always one of the most peaceful days in the Hogwarts library, the row after row of books sat undisturbed on their high shelves, all properly sorted by subject and year with their thick covers neatly aligned to form an impressive looking wall of books. Overall the amount of work that has done over the student-free summer months by the libertarian was easily visible and the pride she took from the state of her domain obvious.
Only a handful of people were inside the library today, most students still being too much used to their long summer holidays to think about such things as homework or writing assignments. A timid young boy sat next to a window near the back of the room going through a thick tomb, potions of some sorts if judging by the images on the large green cover. A girl browsing the Charms section closer the door got noticed by the raven haired boy entering the library looking for something that would provide better explanation about a transfiguration concept that the book he was currently reading had only hinted at shortly.
"Granger." the boy greeted.
"Potter." She responded. "I hope you had a nice summer."
"About as well as I could have hoped. But obviously not as sunny as your's." Hinting at the darker than usual skin of the girl.
"Probably yes, I spend the last three weeks of it in France with my parents, it was great and I even visited the main magical district in Paris for a day. So what has gotten your interest to have you here after the first day of classes, I don't think any teacher has assigned any reports yet."
"Looking for something about 'Litzher's Principle of least transfiguration', the book noted its significance in lower level transfigurations but failed to give any further information about it."
The girl pondered about it for a moment, the two of them had grown into an interesting relationship over the last year. Not necessarily one that one could describe as friends, associates was probably a better description. Both of them starting their time at the magical school without any knowledge about the world they suddenly found themselves in and both resorting to books as solution for this problem. They could be seen reading together in the library at a fairly regularly, exchanging only a small number of words between the two as they focused on the paper in front of them. And they often teamed up in the few classes the Slytherins and Ravenclaws shared.
"Yes, I do recall the book mentioning that, I believe there was a little bit more about it near the end but nothing of much significance. The author seems mainly focused on providing the minimum amount of information that still gives a sufficient explanation for the spell it covers but doesn't spend much time providing any deeper understanding about the magic. Which is a shame because even the very basic magic we use in the first years at school can be improved so much if have proper understanding of the underlying principles."
Harry had heard her tell the same story in a few different variant multiple times over the last year but let her talk anyway. He found the girl easy to get along with as long as you were able to ignore her constant desire to teach the ones around here from time to time. He moved over to the transfiguration isle just a bit over and skimmed the titles for anything relevant, finding a book titled "Investigating the Seventeen Core Principals of Inanimate Transfigurations and Their Interactions". Browsing through the book it looked a bit too advanced for him but he hoped to at least be able to get a decent understanding from the lengthy chapter it had on Litzher's.
Saying a short goodby to his female acquaintance he checked out the book and started walking back towards his common room.
The door to the Slytherin common was hidden behind a nondescript wall in the upper parts of the dungeon, when provided with the weekly changing password the large stone bricks of the wall would slide inwards majestically and provide access to the green and silver decorated common room. The room was spacious, providing plenty of space for seven year worth of students all doing their own thing without getting into each other ways. In the back of the room were a series of large windows looking out into the more shallow parts of the lake. Being underwater they didn't provide too much light but the way the little light they did let through shine through the clear, rimply, water gave a nice relaxed atmosphere to the room. The lack of direct sunlight was remedied by the three large fireplaces on the left side of the room and a series of torches and gas lamps spread around the room which raised the light level in the room to a comfortable level for reading. A series of couches, positioned around the three fireplaces, which also provided the majority of the heating for the room, were widely regarded as the most comfortable sport in the common room and thus usually reserved for the upper years or the odd fifth year who had managed to make his way up the social ladder.
Harry moved over to the series of tables accompanying the various bookshelves that lined the east side of the room. These were the usual spot for the younger students, with the lowest years sitting closest to the entrance. Even though these weren't the prime Slytherin real estate they were still comfortable enough with a good variation of simple wooden chairs at the tables and soft, more comfortable chairs for some lazy reading or simply hanging around.
Arriving at the group of second year students he took an empty seed between his two friends and Nott, who was about halfway through a thick, tome with a nondescript cover.
"And where have you been running of to?" Tracy said with a playful smile.
"Probably the library again, you know he loves books more than he loves us." Blaise responded with a grin on his face.
"Oh shut it you two, I was just there for a bit to lookup a small thing."
"Oh Blaise. We have always been so kind to him but he pays more attention to bundles of paper than to his supposed friends. Where did we go wrong". Tracy continued, ignoring Harry's response.
"He is lost to us, the first day of school and he's already spending the entire day between the shelves. All hope is lost."
Harry hit Blaise in the shoulder and the boy let out a short laugh.
"Well, I can't help it that you two wouldn't touch a book if your life depended on it. Anyway we're starting tomorrow with a double block of DADA, who do you think Lockhart will be." Harry asked.
"I'm not sure, my mom seems very impressed with him and that's high praise for anyone. I've also read some of his books that were on the list and while they are definitely an interesting read, I'm not sure what they are supposed to teach us."
The next morning the second year Slytherin and Gryffindor students, whoever still thought that putting those together in a small room was not known to anyone, anxiously entered the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and took their seating, all curious to know if their teacher this year had any competence in the subject. Just over a minute after all students had taken their seats, both houses completely split from each other as usual. The door in the front of the room opened and their teacher entered the room, carrying a large cage of some sorts covered with a thick, dark red cloak.
He sat the cage down on his desk, the weight of the object visible through his movements and smiled at the class in front of him.
"Hello everyone!" He began enthusiastically. "And welcome to your second year of Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, now I understand that switching teachers after only one year can have a negative effect on the course and my predecessor hasn't been forward thinking enough to leave lesson notes for any successor in cause he would suddenly disappear from the surface of the earth without leaving a single trace. But I can assure you that your OWL grades are secure and that your education will not suffer from the sudden change."
"Now, to start things of interesting and to allow me to get an idea of the level all of you are one, we will start this lesson with a little..." He lingered for a little bit, walking to the edge of his desk.
"Exam!" he finished, as the ripped the cloak from the cage, exposing a large amount of angry looking pixies to the class of unsuspecting second years, and quickly made his way back to his office, closing the door behind him firmly.
Chaos ensued as the large amount of pixies, agitated by the sudden increase in light, rushed out the cage they were in and started flying through the classroom.
Students started screaming, caused by the completely unexpected situation the students suddenly found themselves in. Some Some tried to, mostly unsuccessfully, hit or spell the little beast out of the the air that were assaulting them or hid under the desks. Children were running around screaming and more than one lost their wands in the utter chaos. People running towards the door while trying to dodge an onslaught of little critters rushing towards them only to discover that the door was locked and suddenly found themselves out in the open, in a corner with no place to escape to.
Some of the more studious students managed to hold them off a collection of defensive spell with varying levels of success and Harry had decent luck holding them off with a low-level variant of the shield spell, by no means sufficient for any sort of dual but it was effective at stopping light physical objects and significantly easier to cast than the complicated, proper, shield charm. Making it suitable to use for younger students. Blaise, who had been sitting next to him did an admirable job of keeping the little creatures away using one of their DADA books as weapon and using Harry as cover for his back.
After the pixies had been roaming around the room for a full few minutes a clear "Peskipiksi Pesternomi" could be heard and every single one of the little winged creatures froze and fell to the floor. A few basic spell later and they were all back in the cage, once again covered by the cloak and the classroom slowly came back to rest.
"Well, that was certainly an informative experience" Lockhart said with a smile, seemingly unfazed by the state of his classroom.
"Now if you could all make sure you have all of your belongings and make your way back to year desk we can have a look at the result of this little experiment."
"Now before I go over how all you performed I would like to know if any of you has been able to deduce the meaning behind the activity." He looked around the room for an answer although most people still seemed to be too shocked to fully understand what he was saying, after a while a hand rose slowly a few seats to the left of Harry.
"Yes, Mr. Nott." the teacher called out.
"It was meant to see who we would react to danger in an unexpected situation." the boy answered.
"Very good, very good. Yes, this was a test to see how each of you would respond to a situation of unexpected danger. None of you were expecting to be in any danger during the first class of the year and none of you are likely to have any experience in handling pixies, especially larger groups of them.
Now, while the spell I used to subdue the swarm was in fact mentioned briefly in one of the books that were prescribed for this course I didn't expect any of you to have remembered that specific spell or have even read that specific book.
No, the most important thing I've learned from all my travels is that you can never be prepared for every situation you might run into. And that the most important skill to have is not knowing as many spells as possible or being able to cast those spells with the greatest amount of power behind them. The most important skill you can have for surviving a dangerous situation is quick thinking and the ability to improvise." Lockhart concluded.
"Now, some of you tried to exit the room and get away from the danger, a very good option in most situations but you failed to keep a backup option in mind and found yourself in a corner when your first plan failed."
"Some of you went for a more offensive approach but as you likely found out, the general spell repertoire of a second year is not sufficient to handle a larger number of pixies. As much as you can say that offence is the best defence, you'll find that an offensive solution usually requires a much greater deal of knowledge and/or power than the alternatives."
"Those of you who managed to keep up a sufficient defence through magical means, I applaud your quick thinking and clever applications of your limited spell knowledge but please try to be aware of the limitations of your magical defence. It might have been sufficient in this case but there are many cases where you will find yourself overwhelmed if you just rely on your magic to defend you."
"The people who sought the cover and safety of their desk are probably the people who picked the best option. While hiding might not bring you much glory, it doesn't require any specific knowledge or magical skill, won't drain your physical or magical reserves and isn't likely to place you in an even worse position than you started at."
And for the people who's only response to the situation was to start panicking and screaming. I will just say that you should be grateful if we're only some pixies this time."
After a few moments to led the words sink in he continued.
"Now, this also ties in with the question I'm sure many of you would have. What kind of teacher would put seven of his own books, that aren't even educational material, on the required book list."
"The main way to improve your ability to think on your feet and allow you to quickly improvise in a dangerous situation is to have a lot of experience in handling dangerous situations. While no two situations are the same you can often use your experience from one in a related scenario."
"And since I didn't think your parents would be happy with a six month trip around Romania looking for vampires to get some first hand experience, you'll have to do with the the next best thing. Second hand experience."
"While it would be unlikely for many of you to run in the similar situations as I have been in over the years, I believe that the experiences in then can give you valuable experience about handling an as large variety of situations as possible."