Spruik: to make or give a speech, especially extensively; spiel.
May 16, 2016
Professor Lancing's footsteps rang in the silent classroom. Thirty students occupied the desks, watching him slowly cross the room to the old turn table that sat at the back. The seventh year Defense Against the Dark Arts students had been anticipating this lesson for weeks. Some for years. It was common knowledge what the N.E.W.T. students studied in the last months of their education: the reason for knowing such things and hoping never to have a need to employ them.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, well aware that every eye was on him, lifted a black disk that resembled a record, although it was smooth and covered in thin, dancing gold lines rather than grooves. He paused long enough for the students to get a good look at it, but, uncharacteristically, offered no explanations or elaborations. There was no need. The class already knew the story.
Eighteen years ago, in the aftermath of the greatest battle in recent Wizarding history, perhaps all wizarding history, people wanted to understand what had happened. They were grieving and in shock and generally reeling from the devastations of war. Kingsley Shacklebolt, their new leader, had given half a dozen exhausted speeches filled with reassurances, promises of rebuilding a bright future. But what they wanted was to understand how it had all ended. They wanted to hear from the person who had, once again, become their savior.
But he was a seventeen-year-old boy in the process of burying loved one after loved one. After everything he'd done for them, no one who might have persuaded him to give a speech thought the world had a right to ask that of him, too.
And this was how Lee Jordan, who would later go on to become 'the most recognized voice in Wizarding Britain,' came to produce a recording of the final showdown of the war. Apparently he alone had had the foresight in those climactic ending moments to magically capture what was obviously the most intense conversation of their time.
Harry Potter never made a speech to the public explaining that night. Indeed it was six years before he addressed the wizarding world as a whole at all. But he did give Lee Jordan permission to release his recording in lieu of a direct address. That is, after modifications were made to ensure certain words were kept inaudible.
Lancing lowered the record onto the turn table and silently began to count the seconds of spinning static. He had reached seven before a clear, loud cry burst from the speaker as if the person stood in the room with them.
"Protego!"
Each student sat perfectly still as they listened to history spool in the lofty stone classroom around them. At the back of the fourth row, a boy with turquoise hair had stiffened. Professor Lancing watched him carefully, worriedly. But the boy stared fixedly at the quill he'd been turning over in his fingers as the most famous and unintended speech of the last century crashed over him in a voice more familiar to him than even the renowned Lee Jordan.
Younger than him… those words belonged to someone younger than he was right now.
A/N: Meh. I'm sorry if this is somewhat unexciting and plain. It's late. I'm tired. This word was lending me no inspiration. I like the idea, but… anyway, thanks for all the reviews! I hope to keep hearing from you.