Defense Against the Dark Arts

Yukimura Seiichi

Yukimura, Sanada, and Yanagi made it to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost with the help of Akiteru's maps, which they studied the night before so Yanagi did not discover their existence. They sat with the other first years in their house and ate a breakfast of eggs, toast with marmalade, and sausage links. They were all anxiously discussing their first class of the year.

"We have Defense Against the Dark Arts first," Yanagi said, looking over their schedule. "We have it with Gryffindor."

"My sister said the professor is interesting," Fuji said.

"But what does 'interesting' mean?" Oshitari asked.

"She said words wouldn't help explain it and that I would understand when I had the class."

Oshitari did not look satisfied with Fuji's answer.

"My brother said the same thing," Sanada said to Yukimura and Yanagi. "He never talks about the class, but he said he likes the professor. I think my parents know her somehow."

Yukimura looked around and saw a boy with strange white hair looking at them curiously. The boy was obviously listening in. Yukimura smiled at him and asked, "Do you know anything about the professor?"

The boy looked down at his plate and took a large bite of his eggs. He did not answer, unless you counted the subtle shrug of his shoulders as an answer.

The first year Slytherins all left at the same time to go to Defense Against the Dark Arts, which was located somewhere on the third floor. They got lost on their way there and Yukimura was tempted to take out his map, but remembered what Akiteru said and chose to wander the corridor with the rest of the Slytherin first years until they found the correct classroom. The Gryffindors were already outside and glared at the Slytherins upon their arrival.

"They're glaring at us," Yukimura said with a sour expression. He knew there was a rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor, but he did not think it would be so bad. Akiteru even mentioned having friends in Gryffindor.

"What were you expecting?" Sanada asked. "For them to greet us, smiling?"

Suddenly, Marui and Jackal appeared at their side. Marui tossed an arm around Sanada's shoulder and asked, "What's up?"

Sanada jerked away from the Gryffindor, blushing furiously.

Marui and Jackal's appearance made Yukimura forget about the rest of the Gryffindors glaring at him and his housemates.

"Have you heard anything about this class?" Yukimura asked curiously.

"Apparently our professor is crazy," Marui said.

"Please don't hex her," Jackal said.

"Are you ever going to drop that?"

"We heard the same thing about the professor," Yukimura said. "I can't wait for class to start."

Marui stared at him. "You're weird, you know that, right?"

Just then, the door to the classroom swung open and a strong voice called out, "Get in here!"

"She sounds scary. Good luck, Jackal," Marui said and pushed Jackal inside. "Way to take one for the team!"

The room had high, intimidating, bare walls. An iron chandelier hung from the center of the room. Twisted around the chandelier and nearly spanning the entire length of the room was a stark white dragon skeleton, its wings spread outward like it may still take flight. The desks had all been pushed against the walls and were stacked neatly on top of one another.

Standing at the front of the room was their professor. She had black hair with large noticeable streaks of gray and stone cold eyes, and she wore a dark red lipstick. She reminded Yukimura of a bird of prey with the way she watched the first years enter, not saying a single word to them, as if she was deciding which one of them to attack first.

"My name is Professor Reyna," she said. "And today, I am your enemy."

She drew her wand from her black robes and several students startled. With a wave of her wand, the door slammed shut.

"I'm too young and beautiful to die," Marui said. "The world cannot be deprived of my genius."

"Shut up," Jackal hissed as he elbowed Marui in the stomach.

"Defense Against the Darks Arts is all about survival," Professor Reyna said. She began to slowly pace the front of the room, looking each of them in the eye. Her dark gaze was unsettling. "Whether you're facing a foul creature, a dark wizard, or your best friend, your first instinct should be to survive."

Professor Reyna pointed her wand at the wooden floor. A thick glob of white paint hit ground. She then moved her wand to the students.

"If you get hit by the paint, you die." The students shifted uncomfortably. "For every Gryffindor who dies, Slytherin will lose a point; for every Slytherin who dies, Gryffindor will lose a point."

"What?" several students muttered, looking around to see if they had heard right.

"Do we actually die?" a student asked.

Professor Reyna ignored them. "You have two minutes before I attack. You may use anything in the classroom to defend yourselves. I will not move from this spot." Professor Reyna pulled out a silver pocket watch and said, "Your time starts now."

For a moment, no one moved.

Then a Slytherin girl shrieked, "We have to protect them?"

"I'd rather die than protect a bunch of snakes!" a Gryffindor shouted.

"If we die, you lose points. We should just throw ourselves in front of the spells."

"We'll get there first!"

The two sides began to yell indistinguishably at one another.

Marui turned to their small group. He looked panicked but was holding it together well. "I say wedon't jump in front of the crazy lady's spells. Jackal's got my back on this."

"I actually do for once," Jackal said.

"Let's forget about the points and protecting anyone but ourselves," Yukimura said. "This is about surviving, right? To do that, we need to avoid her spell. We're going to need some type of defense. We don't know any spells just yet, so something physical."

"We could use the desks to build the fort," Yanagi said. "If we put them against a wall, we'll have one side completely covered."

"That's a good idea. Everyone grab a desk."

Yukimura, Sanada, Yanagi, Marui, and Jackal began unstacking the desks from the wall and rearranging them on their sides in a semicircle as far away from Professor Reyna as possible. They were able to put up two rows of desks, one on top of the other, without the structure falling.

Smaller groups of students, mostly Gryffindors, began to copy them, though there were a handful of Slytherins who followed their lead. Fuji and the white-haired boy began building their own individual forts, which were much more compact with less holes. Oshitari from Slytherin paired up with the other Oshitari in Gryffindor to make a fort in the back.

There were still many stubborn students who refused to protect themselves if getting hit meant taking points from the other house. They were focusing on the wrong thing, Yukimura decided, but did not tell them. Their survival was not his concern.

Two minutes was not an awfully long amount of time. Professor Reyna did not announce when she started attacking—they heard it. A boy yelped and Professor Reyna said, "If you're hit, play dead. The paint changes color if you move. I can figure out which of you are the rotten liars this way."

"Quick, put your robes over the top," Yukimura said. "And stuff your ties into any holes."

Their pathetic attempt at a fort was small and cramped. They sat on the floor, huddled together; Yukimura was forced into Sanada's lap, and Marui was stretched across both Jackal and Yanagi.

"I can't feel my legs," Jackal said.

"Half my body is not touching solid ground," Marui said. "Suck it up."

"I didn't know Gryffindors whined so much," Sanada said.

"How long do you think this task will last?" Yanagi asked.

Yukimura looked at the others. There was little light in their fort since the robes stretched over the hole on the top blocked out most of the light, but Yukimura could still make out their clueless faces. Professor Reyna didn't tell them how long they needed to protect themselves.

Suddenly and without warning, there was a loud thump on as a glob of paint impacted with the side of their fort. Several more spells hit them in shock succession—thump, thump, thump!

"We're hit, we're hit," Marui said dramatically.

"I'll hit you if you don't shut up," Jackal said.

"The fort is withstanding the force of the impact," Yukimura said. "That's a good thing."

They heard several more impacts on the wall behind them, but the white paint only dribbled down into the fort and did not touch any of them.

Professor Reyna moved on to the next group of the students.

After several long minutes, Professor Reyna said, "That's enough. You can all come out."

"Finally," Marui said, moving to stand up.

Yukimura grabbed his arm and stopped him. "You told us to treat you like the enemy," Yukimura said. "How can we trust you?"

Professor Reyna did the last thing Yukimura expected: she laughed, loud and sharp.

"She's bloody mad," Marui whispered.

Professor Reyna's laughter lasted for several seconds and no one dared speak. She said, "I've been teaching for twelve years and you're the first person to ask me that!"

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Marui asked.

"A very good thing—you may not be complete dunderheads after all," Professor Reyna said. "I promise not to attack you and I always keep my word. Trust is important in this classroom. I will not tolerate foolishness or liars. Now get this desks in order so I can do a roll call."

The only thing the first years talked about was their first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. More specifically, they talked about Professor Reyna.

"I heard she only wears black."

"My brother said she almost killed a student once."

"Almost? I bet she has and covered it up."

"I heard a girl in Hufflepuff cried during class."

"We lost ten points on the first day!"

Yukimura was rather fond of their eccentric teacher and was disappointed when they had a proper lecture on werewolves later in the week that did not involve classroom demonstrations.

"Why would you want a demonstration on werewolves?" Sanada asked him.

However, Yukimura could not focus solely on Defense Against the Dark Arts. There was much more to magic than waving your wand and saying a few silly words, and the first years were quickly becoming overwhelmed by their classes. There was so much to learn that muggle-borns were on equal footing with people like Yukimura and Sanada, who grew up surrounded by magic.

On Wednesday nights they went up the Astronomy Tower and looked at the sky through their telescopes, learning the names of stars and the movement of the planets.

Charms was taught by Professor Watanabe, the head of Hufflepuff, who wore mismatching robes and sat in peculiar positions as he lectured them on wand technique and magical theory. They spent entire lessons waving their wands in different patterns.

History of Magic was interesting, but the hardest to stay awake during. The professor was a ghost named Professor Binns, who hovered several inches off the ground, lecturing without writing anything on the board. Students were constantly asking how to spell names such as Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball, and Professor Binns would always reply, "Phonetically," then continue lecture. Yanagi leant his notes to Yukimura and Sanada after every class.

Slytherins had Herbology three times a week with Hufflepuff in the greenhouses behind the school where they learned about plants and fungi and their different uses. On the first day, everyone was assigned to groups of three. Sanada and Yanagi were put into a group with a girl from Hufflepuff, who looked horrified every time Sanada or Yanagi tried to talk to her. Yukimura was paired with Fuji from his house and a Hufflepuff named Shiraishi.

"Are we allowed to go into the seventh year greenhouses?" Shiraishi asked.

"No," their professor replied.

"Not even to look?"

"No."

"When are we going to work with dangerous plants?"

Yukimura and Fuji snickered into their hands while the rest of their classmates appeared horrified.

Professor Saitou, the head of Slytherin house, taught Transfiguration. He was an abnormally tall, awkward looking man who spoke so softly that students fought over who got to sit in the front row. Atobe picked up a chair from the third row and sat in front of the first row. Several other Ravenclaws eagerly copied him. Professor Saitou transfigured them a desk to write on.

Yukimura sat in the second row next to a skinny, pale boy from Ravenclaw with perfectly combed hair and glasses. His name was Yagyuu Hiroshi and he was the only one to change his match into a needle on the first day of class. No one else even managed to change the color or make the end pointy.

By the end of the week, Yukimura and Sanada did not need Akiteru's map to get to the Great Hall without getting lost. They filled their plates with potatoes, eggs, fruit, and croissants, and looked over their schedule for the day.

"We have double Potions with Ravenclaw," Yanagi said.

"The Headmaster is the Potions Master, right?" Yukimura asked.

"Substitute Headmaster," Yanagi corrected.

Yukimura remembered Professor Kurobe introducing himself with that title during the start-of-term feast. "What does that mean, though?"

"Akiteru said the Headmaster hasn't been here for years—not since he was a first year," Sanada said. "The Ministry of Magic had to appoint someone in his place and chose Kurobe."

"I'm looking forward to Potions," Yanagi said. "I've read all about it. You can do some amazing things with potions. Just the other night, I was reading about this potion called Felix Felicis, which grants the drinker unimaginable luck and success for a short time. I don't believe in luck, but the primary sources are rather interesting…"

As Yanagi spoke, the mail arrived. Nearly a hundred owls flew down from the ceiling and dropped letters and packages in front students. The first time the owls had arrived, Yanagi had been surprised and said he did not think so many wizards used owls for mail, which did not make sense to Yukimura because even a half-blood like Yanagi should know that wizards use owls to delivery mail.

Today, Yukimura's family owl dropped a small square package in front of him, took a croissant off his plate, and then flew off. Yukimura opened the package, which contained a letter from his sister and a batch of slightly burned chocolate-chip cookies.

"Emiko made me cookies. My little sister, she's nine," Yukimura said for Yanagi's benefit. "I wonder how they taste…"

"You shouldn't eat cookies for breakfast," Sanada said, but Yukimura ate one anyways. It was too crispy and a little burned, but it was not bad.

"Genichirou, Yanagi, do you want any?"

"Maybe later," Yanagi said.

Despite what he had just said, Sanada took one bite and made a face.

Yukimura laughed softly. Maybe the cookies were bad after all, but when he replied to her letter, he would say that they were delicious and that Sanada enjoyed them too. He wondered how his sister was doing without her brothers around.

Akiteru came over and tapped Sanada on the shoulder. "Hey, Gen, did you find a set of my robes in your bags?"

Sanada shook his head. "No."

"When did you lose them?" Yukimura asked.

"That's just the thing," Akiteru said, frowning, "I haven't seen them once and Mom said I didn't leave them at home." Akiteru shrugged, unbothered. "I'll ask Saito for a new set. I have Transfiguration right now anyways. I'll see you guys later."

They finished breakfast then headed down to the dungeons where the Ravenclaws were wandering around, unable to find their way to the Potions classroom. The Slytherins did not help them, but the Ravenclaws were smart enough to follow them through the twisting halls to the classroom.

The Potions room smelled heavily of smoke and off-putting herbs that stung Yukimura's nostrils and burned his throat. As Yukimura progressed into the room, he was met by several different smells. Some desks smelled sickly sweet while others smelled as though something had died. Along the back wall were shelves of jars containing the oddest things—curled up dead leaves, fowl orange liquid with floating eyes that blinked at Yukimura, full unicorn horns, and snake skin that seemed to move.

"To many students, Potions is their most difficult class and they struggle greatly," Professor Kurobe said. Sanada shifted uncomfortably next to Yukimura, who refused to be intimidated before they even began. "But if you work hard and are determined, you can surpass those with a natural affinity for this class. Potion making is an art, a science. Anyone can master it with enough practice and patience.

"For your first year, you will work in pairs. I will allow you to choose your partner, but I reserve the right to separate you later on. Sit next to your partner before I take roll."

Yukimura, Sanada, and Yanagi looked at each other. Yukimura wondered if Professor Kurobe would allow the three of them to work together. Before he could ask, Yanagi said, "You two should work together."

"Are you sure?" Yukimura asked.

Yanagi nodded.

Sanada's shoulders relaxed when Yanagi stood to leave. He was probably glad that he did not have to ask random people to be his partner. Sanada was never good at asking strangers for things.

Yukimura smiled at Sanada and said, "I hope I won't hold you back."

"Even I can tell you're kidding," Sanada said. "We both know you'd never hold anyone back."

Yanagi partnered with a boy named Inui from Ravenclaw. Niou, the boy with white hair, and Yagyuu were partners. Nearly everyone else found partners within their own house. The Ravenclaws fought over who partnered with Atobe, but Akutagawa took the seat next to Atobe and their argument came to an abrupt end.

After finishing roll, Professor Kurobe went into lecture. He spent the entire class talking about the first potion they would be brewing and what each ingredient did—dried nettle, snake fangs, horned slugs, and porcupine quills. Yukimura thought his hand was going to fall off by the end of class, by which he had written a full scroll of notes. Sanada was rubbing his tired palm as they left the room while Yanagi was brimming with energy.

"That was brilliant," Yanagi said. "Professor Kurobe is brilliant. I can't wait to start brewing next week."

"I hope I can feel my hand by next week," Yukimura said, frowning. "I've never written so much in my entire life."