The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was the first room at Hogwarts that looked as though someone had considered what would happen if a lesson went wrong.
Matthew noticed that before he crossed the threshold.
There were two doors rather than one. The entrance opened into the corridor, allowing frightened students to leave without fighting against anyone trying to enter, while a narrower second door stood in the opposite wall beneath a clearly marked emergency sign. The tall windows had been left unobstructed. Desks lined the edges of the room instead of filling the centre, and every cabinet carried a legible label rather than a skull, lock, or ominous warning intended to make children curious.
Even the floor had been planned.
A large practice space occupied the centre of the classroom, its dark boards divided by pale lines into distance markers, casting lanes, safe zones, and three circles of increasing size. The boards nearest the walls bore shallow grooves where rolling targets could travel without striking a student who had already stepped aside.
Aidan stopped behind Matthew and looked over his shoulder.
"Why are we waiting?"
"I am examining the room."
"You can examine it from a chair."
"Not from the same angle."
Elara entered around them, her book held against her chest and her eyes moving through the space with an attentiveness Matthew had begun to recognise. She paused beside the doorway and followed his gaze toward the emergency exit.
"There are no decorations," she observed.
"There are cabinets," Aidan said.
"Labelled cabinets."
"That does not make them less decorative."
Katie Bell stepped past him and read the nearest brass plate aloud.
"'Training projectiles: padded, low-force, first-year.' That sounds disappointingly safe."
Aidan looked at her in betrayal. "You wanted danger?"
"I wanted to know why the subject has such a dramatic name."
"Defence Against Moderately Inconvenient Objects would not fit on the timetable."
A quiet laugh came from one of the Ravenclaws already seated along the western wall. Julian Quill had chosen a desk with a clear view of both doors and three sharpened quills arranged beside his parchment. Cho Chang sat near him, speaking softly to Marietta Edgecombe while adjusting the buckle of her satchel.
Gryffindor shared Defence with Ravenclaw. The difference between the groups was obvious even before the lesson began. The Ravenclaws had opened their books and begun comparing the introductory diagrams. The Gryffindors were still deciding whether the practice circles were for duelling, running, or an unusually organised game.
Aidan stepped into the largest circle and spread his arms.
"This is probably where we fight."
"It is where you will be told to stop standing," Matthew replied.
A woman's voice spoke from directly behind him.
"Mr Knight is correct."
Aidan jumped out of the circle so quickly that one heel caught the boundary line.
Professor Helena Wardwell stood beside the emergency door.
Matthew had not seen her enter.
That troubled him until he realised she had been present from the beginning, positioned in the one corner hidden by the opening classroom door. She wore fitted dark robes with reinforced cuffs and no loose ornament that could catch, rattle, or become a handhold during a struggle. Her dark hair had been bound securely at the back of her head. A narrow scar crossed the left side of her face, beginning near her temple and disappearing beneath the line of her jaw.
Her attention moved from Aidan to Matthew.
"You noticed the room," she said.
"I noticed part of it."
"What did you miss?"
"You."
A faint shift passed through her expression. It was not quite amusement.
"Good. Sit down."
The students chose places along the outer desks. Matthew sat between Aidan and Julian, while Elara and Katie occupied the row immediately behind them. The absence of central furniture meant every student could see the professor without turning away from either exit.
Wardwell waited until the bell rang.
She did not introduce herself.
Instead, she took a piece of white chalk and wrote four words across the blackboard in large, firm letters.
SEE. NAME. SURVIVE. RECORD.
When she turned back, her scar caught the pale afternoon light from the windows.
"Before any of you attempt a spell," she said, "write down five things you noticed when you entered."
Quills moved reluctantly or eagerly, depending upon the student.
Matthew wrote the doors first. Then the clear central floor, labelled cabinets, unobstructed windows, and the professor's concealed position.
Aidan looked at his parchment.
"Does 'no skeletons' count?"
Wardwell heard him from the other end of the room.
"Yes."
Several Ravenclaws looked up.
Aidan straightened. "It does?"
"You expected skeletons. Their absence told you something about the room."
He wrote it down with visible satisfaction.
Wardwell moved along the edge of the practice floor.
"Miss Chang?"
Cho glanced at her list. "The main door opens into the corridor, but the emergency door opens inward. That means the second exit remains usable if something blocks the corridor side."
"Good. Mr Quill?"
"The cabinets identify both contents and intended year level. A student cannot reasonably claim to have mistaken advanced material for first-year equipment."
Julian's voice carried quiet certainty, but a pleased flush reached his ears when Wardwell nodded.
"Miss Vance?"
Elara rested her quill beside the parchment. "The room is arranged so that movement remains possible. No desk blocks either exit, and the casting lanes keep students from standing behind one another."
"Mr Rookwood?"
Aidan looked down at his list.
"There are no skeletons."
Wardwell waited.
He became less pleased with the answer.
"And," he added, searching the room again, "there are no objects that make noise without a reason."
A small bell hung beside the emergency exit. A clock ticked above the board. Nothing rattled, moaned, whispered, or moved merely to unsettle them.
Wardwell inclined her head.
"That is better than you think. Fear becomes harder to judge when a room is deliberately trying to produce it."
Her eyes reached Matthew.
"Mr Knight?"
"Two exits. Unobstructed windows. Clear practice lanes. Cabinets arranged by risk. You were standing in the only place hidden by the opening door."
"What does that tell you?"
"That you wanted to know who would examine the room before looking for the teacher."
"Did I?"
"Yes."
Wardwell regarded him for a moment before returning to the board.
"Defence begins before magic. It begins before danger, if you are fortunate and observant enough. It begins with understanding the place in which you have allowed yourself to stand."
She drew a line beneath the four words.
"Most frightened people ask one question: 'How do I stop it?' That question is often necessary. It is rarely sufficient."
Beneath the line, she wrote three more.
WHAT DOES IT WANT?
WHAT DOES IT COST?
WHO HOLDS THE KEY?
Aidan raised his hand.
Wardwell pointed at him.
"What if it does not want anything?"
"Then you have learned something useful. A collapsing stair has no desire. A hungry creature does. A cursed object may be carrying someone else's intention. Treating all three as though they think alike would be foolish."
"So Defence is partly determining whether something hates you."
"No. Hatred is only one possible motive, and frequently an inefficient one. Hunger, fear, territory, obedience, habit, enchantment, and opportunity injure far more people."
She placed the chalk down.
"This year, you will learn foundations. Dangerous creatures. Hostile enchantments. Cursed objects. Basic signalling. Movement under pressure. Shielding. Wand retention. The difference between residue and active attack. The difference between containing a danger and curing what it has already done."
Matthew's right eye began to ache.
The pain was not sharp. It arrived as pressure, forming behind the old web-like scar when words touched too closely upon the parts of his past his mind still struggled to hold.
Wardwell crossed to a cabinet marked CURSE-DAMAGED MATERIALS: INERT / SUPERVISED USE.
She opened it with her wand and removed a rectangular glass case. Something dark lay beneath the cloth covering its contents.
Matthew felt the scars across his right hand tighten before she revealed it.
Inside the case rested a blackened length of wood. Its grain had twisted into jagged branching lines, and the surface around those lines looked less burned than emptied, as though the material had forgotten how to remain whole.
"This was cut from a house struck by a Blasting Curse," Wardwell said.
The room became quieter.
She passed her wand over the glass.
Dark red light appeared within the grain.
"The building remained standing after the visible explosion. The curse did not end."
Matthew's breathing changed.
Only slightly.
Elara noticed from behind him. He knew because her chair stopped creaking and remained completely still. She did not touch him or whisper his name. She simply left him room to remain present without pretending she had seen nothing.
Wardwell continued.
"A curse can leave several kinds of damage. The first is ordinary injury produced by magical force: broken bone, torn skin, burns, concussion. The cause is magical; the wound may still behave in an understandable physical way."
She drew the first of four circles on the board.
"The second is magical trauma. The body's own channels become overloaded, distorted, or interrupted even after the spell is gone."
A second circle.
"The third is residue. Part of the spell remains embedded within tissue, wood, stone, memory, or active magic. Residue may be inert, reactive, feeding, defensive, or waiting for a particular condition."
A third circle.
"The fourth is an active tether. The injury remains connected to the caster, object, place, name, command, or continuing enchantment which created it."
The fourth circle closed.
Katie raised her hand.
"How can someone tell the difference?"
"Carefully," Wardwell replied. "Usually with more knowledge than a first-year possesses. That is why your first responsibility is not to experiment upon the injured person."
Her gaze travelled across the students, pausing near Aidan.
"You do not pour a healing potion into every victim because the bottle says healing. You do not cut out every dark mark because it looks foreign. You do not cast Finite repeatedly and assume persistence means you need to shout."
Aidan lowered his hand, though he had not raised it.
Wardwell wrote another sequence.
REMOVE FROM ACTIVE DANGER.
PRESERVE LIFE.
CONTAIN SPREAD IF NECESSARY.
IDENTIFY.
SEVER OR CLEANSE.
REPAIR.
RESTORE FUNCTION.
Matthew's eyes remained on the third and fourth lines.
Contain spread.
Identify.
Sever or cleanse.
Repair.
The order was different from what had happened to him.
Wardwell saw where he was looking.
"Emergency containment may come before identification," she said, addressing the room rather than Matthew. "A healer cannot spend an hour analysing a curse while the patient dies in three minutes. But containment is not treatment merely because the patient survives."
The pressure behind his eye sharpened.
Aidan looked sideways at him. His usual humour had disappeared, replaced by the uncertain concern of someone who understood enough to know the lesson had become personal but not enough to know what to say.
Wardwell placed one hand on the glass case.
"A seal may prevent unstable magic from spreading. It may also hide the condition, restrict access, or become integrated into the patient's survival. Whoever controls that seal may gain power over the person beneath it."
Julian's quill stopped.
"What prevents that from becoming abuse?" he asked.
"Consent, where consent is possible. Explanation. Independent review. Records. Defined limits. A path to release. More than one person able to challenge the maker."
Her scar tightened as her expression grew colder.
"And the understanding that keeping someone alive does not grant ownership of the life preserved."
Matthew's hand had become completely still upon the desk.
The words were for the entire class.
They were also for him.
He raised his hand.
Wardwell looked toward him.
"Yes?"
"Can healing magic make curse damage harder to treat?"
"It can."
Several students glanced toward him. Matthew ignored them.
"How?"
"By closing tissue around residue. By strengthening a pattern the body has been forced to accept. By providing energy to dark magic capable of feeding upon restoration. By numbing warning pain. By stabilising a seal which should eventually be removed."
The Wiggenweld vapour seemed to warm his wrist again in memory.
"What would proper cleansing require?"
"Knowledge of what is foreign, what belongs to the patient, and what has become entangled with both."
"Can Transfiguration hide a curse scar?"
"Yes."
"Can it remove the curse?"
"Not merely by changing what the tissue looks like."
Professor McGonagall had given the same answer from a different direction.
Wardwell looked around the room.
"A wound may resemble healing without fulfilling healing's purpose. If that thought sounds familiar after Transfiguration and Herbology, good. Subjects do not stop being related because the timetable places them in different rooms."
Cho raised her hand.
"Can someone cleanse dark magic from themselves?"
"Sometimes. More often they worsen it by mistaking determination for competence."
Matthew heard Gareth objecting somewhere in memory.
Wardwell's mouth shifted as if she could hear him too.
"Learning enough to ask the correct question is not the same as becoming the person qualified to answer it with someone's body."
She returned the glass case to the cabinet.
The first half of the lesson moved from curses to creatures.
Wardwell placed three illustrated cards on stands around the practice floor. The images moved within their frames.
The first showed a thin, smoky creature holding a lantern above a marsh. Its single leg faded into mist below the knee.
"The Hinkypunk," Wardwell said. "What does it want?"
Julian answered first. "To lure travellers from safe paths."
"What does it gain?"
"An isolated victim," Cho said.
"What lies underneath the danger?"
Silence followed.
Matthew studied the false lantern. The creature did not drag anyone from the road. It offered a point of certainty in darkness and allowed the lost traveller to choose it.
"The victim wants someone else to know the way," he said.
Wardwell nodded.
"The Hinkypunk succeeds because uncertainty is uncomfortable. A false guide may be more attractive than admitting you are lost."
Aidan leaned toward Matthew.
"I dislike that creature."
"You dislike directions generally."
"I dislike malicious directions specifically."
The second card showed a squat, red-eyed creature crouched beside a ruined building. Dark stains marked the stones around it.
"Red Cap," Wardwell said. "Found near places where blood has been spilled. What does it want?"
"More blood?" Katie suggested.
"Often. What does it cost to destroy one?"
Katie frowned. "A spell?"
"Perhaps. What happens if the place remains soaked in violent magic?"
"Another may come," Elara answered.
"Exactly. Defeating the visible creature may leave the condition that attracted it untouched."
Matthew wrote:
Removing the result is not the same as changing the cause.
The final card depicted a green, horned creature beneath dark water. Its long fingers wrapped around a swimmer's ankle.
"Grindylow," Wardwell said. "Strong grip. Territorial. Dangerous in water. Weakness?"
"The fingers," Cho replied. "The book says they are brittle."
"Good. Why does that matter?"
"So a weaker person can escape without overpowering the entire creature," Julian said.
Wardwell smiled for the first time.
"Understanding structure is often more useful than possessing greater force."
Aidan raised his hand.
"What if the Grindylow has two hands?"
"Then I recommend not waiting for the second before acting."
The class laughed, and some of the pressure in the room eased.
Wardwell removed the creature cards and opened another cabinet.
"Now we practise two spells. Neither makes you a duellist. One helps others find you. The other may keep a padded ball from striking your face if you pay attention."
Aidan sat straighter.
"Progress."
The first spell was Vermillious, a red emergency flare.
Wardwell demonstrated with a short upward movement. A fan of bright red sparks rose above her head and remained visible for several seconds before fading.
"A proper emergency signal must be seen from more than one angle. It should rise above surrounding obstacles if possible. It should not resemble an attack aimed at the person coming to help."
She looked directly at Matthew.
He accepted the implication.
Students spread through the casting lanes.
Katie's first flare emerged as a cluster of red sparks that travelled sideways and struck the floor before her. They bounced harmlessly around her shoes, and she laughed despite the failure.
Elara produced a narrow red line that rose properly but vanished almost immediately.
Julian's flare lasted well but remained close to his wand, illuminating his face more effectively than his location.
Aidan raised his wand with unnecessary confidence.
"Vermillious!"
A brilliant spray erupted above him, struck the underside of a hanging lamp, and rained red sparks into his hair.
He slapped both hands against his head.
"They are not hot," Elara told him.
"That does not make them welcome."
Wardwell cancelled the remaining sparks.
"Mr Rookwood, a signal should inform rescuers that you require assistance. Yours suggested the emergency had already won."
Matthew's first attempt formed a straight red lance.
It rose cleanly and remained stable.
Wardwell watched it fade.
"Too narrow."
"It was visible."
"From the front. Perhaps from behind. Less so from the sides."
Matthew looked at the line of smoke it left.
"I overdefined it."
"Again."
He relaxed his intent and pictured not a target but a location that needed to be seen. The next flare opened into a wide red fan and hung above him like a burning feather.
"Better."
The second spell was a simplified training shield Wardwell called Protego Minima.
"It is not a smaller version of courage," she said as she moved a padded red ball into the nearest floor groove. "It is a controlled first-year shield. It will redirect weak training projectiles and low-force sparks. It will not stop serious jinxes, curses, falling masonry, angry trolls, or the consequences of arrogance."
Aidan lowered the hand he had begun to raise.
Wardwell drew her wand across her body.
A transparent plane appeared before her, slightly angled toward the floor.
The padded ball shot along the groove, struck the shield, lost most of its force, and rolled beneath an empty desk.
"The goal is not always to return danger to its source. Deflection is not retaliation."
Matthew entered the practice circle first.
He raised his wand.
"Protego Minima."
Gold and silver light formed before him in the shape of a narrow door. The shield was firm, bright, and perfectly centred.
The ball struck it.
The shield held.
The ball rebounded at nearly the same speed, crossed the practice floor, and knocked Aidan's Defence book from his hands.
Aidan stared at the book where it had landed.
"My notes were innocent."
Wardwell cancelled the shield.
"Mr Knight, what did your defence protect?"
"Me."
"What did it endanger?"
"Aidan."
"And my notes," Aidan added.
Matthew looked at the fading plane.
"I removed the force from my space but did not control its release."
"A defence which protects the person at its centre by exporting harm to everyone nearby may succeed under a narrow definition. It is still badly designed."
The words struck deeper than the padded ball had.
Matthew raised his wand again. This time he angled the shield toward the floor and allowed a weaker release along its lower edge.
The next ball struck, slowed, and rolled between his boots.
Wardwell nodded.
"Better."
The class divided into pairs.
Elara built a small shield no wider than her shoulders. It appeared late during her first attempt, but the angle was correct, and the ball dropped harmlessly beside her. Katie's shield was broad and bright, though she stepped too far backward while casting and nearly crossed into the neighbouring lane.
Cho produced a clear blue barrier that held through two projectiles before collapsing.
Julian's appeared instantly and vanished just as quickly.
"I know when it should exist," he said in frustration. "I cannot keep it there."
"You are treating stability as an afterthought," Cho told him.
"I know."
"Then stop thinking about the impact before the shield has finished becoming itself."
Julian looked at her.
"That is annoyingly good advice."
Aidan's shield spread wide enough to cover both himself and Matthew.
The ball touched its centre.
The whole structure folded inward like wet paper and vanished.
Aidan caught the ball against his chest.
"I protected both of us."
"You built a large promise without enough structure to keep it," Wardwell said.
Aidan looked down at the ball.
For once, he did not answer with a joke.
Matthew's third shield held against three consecutive projectiles.
Wardwell sent the fourth from the side.
It passed the edge of his barrier and struck the padded panel over his left ribs.
Matthew stepped with the impact rather than resisting it. His rear foot turned, his centre lowered, and the ball fell away without unbalancing him.
Wardwell stopped the mechanism.
"Why did the shield fail?"
"I strengthened the centre and neglected the edge."
"What else?"
"I assumed the threat would remain in front of me."
"Did you still defend yourself?"
Matthew looked at the position of his feet.
"I moved."
"Good. A shield is one tool. Distance, cover, awareness, signalling, and movement are also Defence. Standing still while insisting your spell should have been sufficient is a good way to die with excellent theory."
Gareth would have approved of that sentence.
The final minutes of the lesson were spent repeating the two spells under increasing distraction. Bells rang from different sides of the room. The projectiles changed speed. Wardwell called incorrect directions and watched who obeyed a voice without checking the target.
When the bell sounded for the end of class, most students looked more tired than they had after Potions.
Wardwell returned to the board.
"Before you leave, remember this. A promise is not a shield unless there is structure beneath it. A title is not proof of competence. A protected place is not automatically safe. A powerful person is not the same as a reliable one."
Her gaze moved across the room and stopped on Matthew.
"Learn from people. Accept help. Use institutions when they perform their purpose. Do not surrender your responsibility to see merely because someone else promises to see for you."
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then Wardwell dismissed them.
Students began gathering books and comparing scorch marks from Vermillious. Aidan was attempting to flatten the corner of his Defence notes where Matthew's rebounding ball had bent it.
Elara came to Matthew's desk.
"That lesson was partly for you."
"Yes."
Katie shifted her satchel onto one shoulder. "Are you staying?"
Matthew looked toward Wardwell, who was replacing the curse-damaged wood in its cabinet.
"Yes."
Aidan stopped fussing with the book.
"Do you want us to wait?"
"Outside."
He hesitated, then nodded.
"We will be near the second door."
That was a better answer than insisting upon remaining inside.
Julian closed his ink bottle.
"Do you want the lesson notes copied while you speak with her?"
Matthew passed him the ordinary parchment.
"The creature section only. Not the personal questions."
Julian accepted the boundary without offence.
When the classroom emptied, Wardwell closed both doors with a flick of her wand. She did not lock them. The handles remained visible and usable.
Matthew noticed.
"So did I pass the first test?" she asked.
"You left the exits open."
"That was not the test I meant."
Matthew placed his satchel on the nearest desk but remained standing.
"You arranged the lesson so I would understand that sealing me without cleansing the curse was not proper treatment."
Wardwell rested one hip against the demonstration table.
"I arranged a first-year lesson on dark residue."
"You began with a Blasting Curse. You described a core seal, guardian consent, unfinished treatment, and the power gained by whoever controls access."
"The lesson applies to more than one person."
"That does not mean it was not chosen for me."
A long silence passed between them.
At last, Wardwell inclined her head.
"No. It does not."
Matthew's voice remained calm.
"Why?"
"Because no one explained the foundation to you when it mattered."
"That is not the full answer."
"No."
She folded her arms.
"I knew Eleanor Knight."
The name changed the room.
"My aunt."
"Yes."
"How?"
Wardwell's fingers tightened against one sleeve before relaxing.
"I was one of the two injured Aurors who escaped Rosebank House beneath her final ward."
Matthew stopped breathing for a moment.
Professor Binns's dry voice returned to him.
Eleanor Knight's ward allowed the final civilians and two injured Aurors to escape.
"You were there."
"I was twenty-two, arrogant, frightened, bleeding, and certain that being an Auror meant I should remain until everyone else was safe." Wardwell looked toward the emergency door. "Your aunt informed me that bleeding to death in a hallway would not improve the evacuation."
The memory softened her voice without making it warm.
"She built a moving boundary around the last group. Every time the Death Eaters struck it, she redirected the force into empty sections of the house rather than back toward them. She was protecting civilians, not proving she could hurt the attackers."
"What happened?"
"The extraction was late."
Matthew's jaw tightened.
"Dumbledore delayed it."
"I did not know that then."
"Do you know it now?"
"I know Eleanor requested evacuation before the attack reached the refuge. I know the response came after the outer wards failed. I know she remained because leaving would have killed the children behind her."
Wardwell's eyes met his.
"I know I am alive because she stayed."
Matthew looked toward the blackened wood case.
"Did she know you?"
"She knew my name. She knew I was trying to stand on a broken ankle. She knew I had hidden a curse burn beneath my sleeve because I was afraid they would order me out."
"That sounds like her."
"It does."
Wardwell crossed to her desk and removed a folded reading list.
"When I learned you would attend Hogwarts, I accepted this position."
"Because of me."
"Partly."
"What is the other part?"
"Hogwarts has failed too many students by teaching reaction before recognition."
Matthew did not accept the answer as complete, but it was large enough to hold truth.
"Did Dumbledore ask you to use the east gallery?"
"No."
The reply came sharply.
"Were you told it had been reactivated?"
"Only after you placed the witness ward."
"Would you have approved it?"
"I would not use a memory mirror upon any child without informed consent and several independent safeguards. I would not isolate a first-year through controlled routes and call the result a choice."
The pressure behind Matthew's eye eased by a fraction.
"Do you believe Dumbledore intended harm?"
"I believe intention is not enough."
The answer surprised him into silence.
Wardwell looked at the words still written on the board.
"What does it want? What does it cost? Who holds the key? Those questions apply to protectors as well as threats."
"What do you want from me?"
"For you to learn enough Defence that no one can use your hunger for answers as a handle."
"That includes you."
"Yes."
Wardwell held out the reading list.
"I have marked three introductory books in the ordinary library. Dark residue, first response, and ward failure. No procedures for curse extraction. No diagnostic spells disguised as theory."
Matthew took the parchment.
"Does Dumbledore know?"
"He knows I assigned additional reading. He does not know why."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You should not. Not yet."
The honesty landed more strongly than a promise would have.
Wardwell continued.
"I owe your aunt a debt. Debts may create loyalty. They may also create poor judgement, guilt, and the desire to control outcomes. Judge what I do rather than what I claim to feel."
Matthew folded the list.
"That is what Hermione would say."
"Then Miss Granger is sensible."
"She will be pleased you think so."
"I suspect she is frequently pleased by correct assessments."
Matthew almost smiled.
At the door, he paused.
"Professor."
"Yes?"
"My aunt died because help arrived late. My grandfather died waiting for help that never arrived. I will not build my safety around promises."
Wardwell's expression did not soften.
It steadied.
"Good."
Matthew opened the door.
Aidan, Elara, Katie, and Julian were waiting in the corridor exactly where they had said they would be. Aidan had sat on the floor with his back against the wall. Elara held his damaged Defence book open while Katie attempted to flatten the bent corner beneath a heavier text. Julian was copying the Red Cap notes in neat lines.
Aidan looked up first.
"Did she recruit you into a secret organisation?"
"No."
"Did she reveal a hidden war?"
"No."
"Did she give you more books?"
"Yes."
Aidan climbed to his feet.
"I knew something dangerous had happened."
Elara examined Matthew's face.
"She listened?"
"Yes."
"Did she know your family?"
"She knew Eleanor."
The four students became quiet.
Katie stopped pressing the book.
"How well?"
"My aunt saved her life at Rosebank."
No one knew what to say immediately.
Aidan looked down the corridor toward the closed classroom door. When he spoke, the humour had left his voice.
"Then she meant what she said about shields that protect people outside their edge."
"Yes."
Julian closed the copied notes.
"Does that make her trustworthy?"
Matthew adjusted his satchel.
"No. It makes her connected."
Elara nodded slowly.
"Those are different."
"They are."
The five of them began walking toward the Great Hall.
Aidan remained unusually quiet until they reached the moving staircase.
Then he looked at Matthew.
"For the record, I would prefer that your next shield not use my book as secondary protection."
Matthew glanced at the bent corner.
"That seems reasonable."
Aidan smiled.
The tension loosened without disappearing.
That evening, Matthew described Wardwell's lesson to Hermione through the linked book. He wrote from an armchair near the common-room fire while his friends worked at the low table. No one leaned toward the protected pages. When Aidan wanted to know whether Hermione had commented upon his failed shield, he asked.
Matthew shared only the answer which belonged to him.
"She says attempting to protect two people with an unstable shield was kind and badly engineered."
Aidan considered that.
"I will accept it."
Hermione's private message continued beneath the static no one else could read.
Wardwell was at Rosebank?
Yes.
That gives her firsthand knowledge of Eleanor but may also give her guilt.
She said the same.
A pause followed.
That is favourable.
Not proof of trust.
No.
Matthew looked toward the dark windows. The night had cleared after the rain, and the first stars were becoming visible over the castle.
She said the gallery was not part of her curriculum.
Hermione's response appeared slowly.
Then whoever arranged it bypassed the professor responsible for Defence.
Yes.
Record that separately from her opinion of Dumbledore.
Already done.
Another pause.
You liked the class.
Matthew considered the shield, the curse-damaged wood, the open exits, and Wardwell refusing to claim trust she had not earned.
Yes.
Hermione's next line carried a faint tremor in the letters, as if she had written more quickly than usual.
Good.
The bell for Astronomy would ring in less than an hour.
Matthew closed the linked book and looked toward the stars.
The next lesson waited above the castle.