Harry's steps were swift as he made his way to Sebastian's office, the weight of the conflicting evidence pressing down on him. The official version of the Quidditch match was a heroic victory; the unofficial version, whispered and fiercely debated between his two best friends, was a covert assassination attempt.
He found Professor Swann in his office, cataloging a new batch of ancient artifacts, the room smelling faintly of sandalwood and old parchment.
"Professor Swann, I need to ask you about the Quidditch match," Harry began, the words tumbling out in a nervous rush. "Ron and Hermione are absolutely certain they saw Professor Snape casting a jinx at me. They saw his lips moving, focused entirely on my broom. They think he was trying to hurt me."
Sebastian looked up from a small, obsidian sculpture, his expression calm and discerning. He gestured for Harry to sit.
"And what do you think, Harry? You know Professor Snape better than most first-years, given your shared time in the laboratory. Do you truly believe the man who has taken you under his wing would attempt to kill you in a moment of public sport?" Sebastian asked, not challenging Harry, but guiding him toward his own instinct.
Harry didn't hesitate this time. He knew what he felt, regardless of the confusing evidence.
"I don't believe it, sir. I can't believe it," Harry said, his voice firm. "It feels… wrong. He's severe, yes, and he's not a kind man, but I have always felt a sense of… protection from him, especially in class. And like I told Ron, if he wanted to harm me, there were a hundred opportunities over the summer or in the dungeons where no one would ever suspect him. Why wait for a crowded, high-profile event?"
"Precisely," Sebastian affirmed, leaning back in his chair, his eyes twinkling with a knowing light. "Your logic is sound, Harry. Your instinct is correct. Now, let me share the real story with you, because it involves the much darker reality you've already guessed at: there is a dangerous influence within the castle."
Harry's heart sank, fearing the confirmation of a rogue professor.
"But that influence was not Professor Snape," Sebastian continued, his voice dropping to a serious, low tone. "Professor Snape was not trying to curse you, Harry. He was trying to save you. He was casting a counter-jinx."
"He was… helping me?" Harry breathed, utterly stunned.
"Yes. Severus is, for all his stern temperament, one of the most masterful practitioners of defensive magic in this country. He was the only one quick enough to identify the specific dark magic being used—a highly unstable, rare curse designed to destabilize the broom's core enchantments."
Sebastian paused, allowing the gravity of the threat to settle. "He immediately began a difficult counter-jinx to negate the attack. It was the sustained power of his counter-spell that prevented you from being thrown. It was an immensely difficult, exhausting piece of magic to perform while under observation."
"Then why did Ron and Hermione think he was the attacker?"
"Because the nature of a counter-jinx, especially against a curse of that dark magnitude, requires intense focus and a highly agitated magical signature, which can easily be mistaken for the aggressor's. Harry, your friends acted out of loyalty, but they misread the magic. Professor Snape was the one who broke the jinx, allowing you to eventually recover the control you needed. He was your shield that day."
Relief flooded Harry, overwhelming the confusion. This news was better than a thousand points to Gryffindor; it validated his trust. Sebastian's explanation reconciled the conflicting evidence, turning the suspected villain into a silent, complex hero.
"Harry, remember this," Sebastian said, his gaze intense. "Never doubt those who protect you, especially when they do so silently. No matter what rumors you hear, you can always, always rely on Professor Snape to stand between you and true danger."
Harry nodded, feeling a profound sense of gratitude, not just for Snape, but for Sebastian's candor. He left the office in high spirits, eager to clear Snape's name with his friends.
The following days blurred into the final week before the Christmas holiday. The general atmosphere of Hogwarts had shifted from academic concentration to a state of suspended animation. The air was thick with restlessness and anticipation.
Decorations appeared in the Great Hall—twelve majestic Christmas trees decked with luminous ornaments and garlands of holly. Yet, the students' minds were already far away, dreaming of home and gifts. They struggled to focus on Transfiguration and Charms, their quills tapping impatiently against parchment.
Then, one morning, the castle awoke to a transformation. Thick, pristine snow blanketed the grounds. Every turret and battlement was capped with white, and the air was sharp and exhilaratingly cold.
The sight was too much for the young wizards. Their thin skin of discipline cracked entirely. Protective badges and school rules were abandoned. The students—dressed in hastily grabbed cotton coats and scarves—poured out of the castle like a torrent, racing to the grounds to initiate a massive, joyous, inter-house snowball war.
Sebastian stood at the castle gate, watching the beautiful, chaotic scene with an aching sense of longing. The sheer, unbridled joy of a proper snowball fight. What a bitter irony that being a revered professor meant sacrificing the simple, frantic fun of a childhood brawl.
His attention was drawn to a highly specialized skirmish near the edge of the lawn. Fred and George Weasley, the masters of practical spellwork, had elevated the snowball fight into an art form.
Sebastian watched, silently impressed, as Fred fired a snowball that appeared to be charmed with a mild Homing Spell, guiding it with wicked precision, while George simultaneously hit it with an Acceleration Charm, boosting its velocity.
The target of this twin-led missile: Professor Quirrell, who was attempting to cross the grounds to the Owlery, huddled deep inside his robes.
SPLAT!
The charmed snowball struck Quirrell directly on the back of his turban. Fred and George roared with delighted laughter, linking arms and performing a triumphant, impromptu jig in the snow, shouting gleefully.
The triumph was fleeting. Quirrell, his face contorted in a look of sheer, paranoid rage—a rage undoubtedly amplified by the angry voice currently suffocating in a paste of melted snow at the back of his head—whirled around. He didn't stutter, he didn't stammer; he simply bellowed.
"Weasley! Weasley! Twenty points each from Gryffindor! And you will both serve detention in separate, isolated studies until the Christmas train departs! Go! Now!"
Sebastian watched the crestfallen twins march away, and a quiet, wicked idea took root. The game needed an arbiter, a maestro, and a new escalation. He was a professor; he couldn't play with them, but he could certainly teach them to play better.
He walked casually onto the snow-covered lawn, his boots crunching loudly.
"Professor Swann, look out!" a small Ravenclaw girl screamed as a massive, icy projectile flew toward him.
Sebastian merely ducked his head slightly, the snowball whizzing harmlessly over his shoulder. He turned to the desperate, pale little wizard who had launched it—a third-year Hufflepuff already fearing the "Weasley Detention Treatment."
Sebastian smiled warmly and raised his wand. He used the Sonorus Charm to amplify his voice over the joyful din.
"Little wizards! Would you care to learn how to turn this enjoyable brawl into an instructive academic exercise?"
The snowball fight instantly ground to a halt. The students—Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and even a few Slytherins—drifted toward him, their eyes shining with pure, unadulterated curiosity.
"I shall teach you a simple Charm I devised: the Arcus Nivalis Charm, or, the Snowball Spell," Sebastian announced, holding his wand steady. "Watch closely. This requires nothing more than precision of thought and a controlled flick of the wrist."
He pointed his wand at a patch of snow near the edge of the Forbidden Forest, a good hundred meters away.
"Arcus Nivalis!"
A small, fist-sized snowball materialized in the air. Immediately, it dropped to the ground and began to roll. It wasn't propelled by a force; it moved with an almost organic momentum. As it rolled, it began to collect the loose, fresh snow, adhering to the basic physics of mass acquisition.
The wizards gasped, watching in utter fascination as the small snowball rapidly grew. As its mass increased, its velocity increased with terrifying speed.
What started as a toy snowball quickly became the size of a pumpkin, then a small barrel, then a wardrobe. By the time it reached the edge of the forest, the Snowball Spell had created an enormous, dense, house-sized sphere of compacted snow.
With a monumental CRASH that shook the very ground, the giant projectile slammed into an ancient oak tree, instantly fragmenting into a thousand glittering shards of ice and snow, creating a magnificent, brief blizzard.
"Merlin's socks!" a chorus of awe-struck whispers echoed across the lawn.
The students were beside themselves. Their previous methods—hand-packing, or a simple, slow Wingardium Leviosa—seemed hopelessly primitive compared to this cold, kinetic power.
"Professor, I want to learn that! Please!" the young wizards shouted, jostling to get closer.
Sebastian patiently demonstrated the simple, three-movement wand flick, repeating the incantation slowly. The charm itself was indeed elementary, but the underlying principle—sustaining the charm's kinetic energy while simultaneously allowing it to interact dynamically with the environment to gain mass—was the advanced key.
The students began practicing furiously. Snowballs popped into existence and began rolling. But they were clumsy. They wobbled, deviated from the path, and most of them disintegrated after rolling barely ten feet. They were nowhere near the house-sized behemoth Sebastian had created.
"Professor, what is happening? Why do ours fall apart so quickly?" a Ravenclaw prefect asked, thoroughly frustrated.
"Excellent question," Sebastian replied, beaming. "The Arcus Nivalis Charm is simple, but its effectiveness is entirely dependent on your spell control. The charm isn't just making a snowball roll; it's maintaining the precise cohesion of the snow molecules even as the mass and momentum increase. The larger the snowball, the more finesse is required to keep its shape intact. This is not about brute power, but about wand precision."
He watched approvingly as the wizards immediately adapted, focusing not on shouting the spell, but on perfecting the minute control of their wands.
Soon, the lawn was littered with dozens of rolling, self-propelled spheres of varying sizes, all heading toward the Forbidden Forest boundary. The chaos was now structured, a massive, live-action exercise in kinetic Charms work.
Seeing them absorbed in practice, Sebastian raised his voice once more, amplified by the Sonorus Charm. He cast a subtle, warming charm on his own robes.
"Now that you understand the mechanics, let's make this competitive! I need teams! House against House! We will hold the inaugural Yuletide Brawl, commencing tomorrow afternoon!"
He held up a hand to silence the cheers. "Teams of ten only! The rules are simple: the last team standing wins, and the objective is to eliminate the opposing team members by hitting them with a charmed, self-propelled snowball of size no less than a football. The winning house will receive a special, personalized, enchanted Christmas gift from me. Who is ready to sign up for the first official House Snowball Competition?"
The reaction was instantaneous. Every single student still standing on the lawn—minus the two solitary Weasleys—raised their hands, their earlier fears forgotten, replaced by the pure, competitive spirit of Hogwarts. Sebastian smiled, delighted.
The atmosphere of academic restlessness was officially broken. The games had begun.
Do you think the students will manage to involve the Weasley twins in the Yuletide Brawl despite their detention, or will the twins have to watch the action from the sidelines?