Magic is a very strange thing. It is all-encompassing in its capabilities and comprehensive in its diversity. Just when you think the line is crossed and you've seen everything, life immediately presents you with another surprise.
Who would have thought that the world has days when ethereal, otherworldly entities and other evil spirits can pass into reality? There were no such days in the memory of the shards, and they lived in very diverse worlds. And here—please! By next Halloween, I need to study this issue in as much detail as possible.
But, be that as it may, what happened should not affect my study schedule in any way.
Friday's Transfiguration, the first Transfiguration in November, went calmly and routinely. McGonagall gave material quite dryly, drew diagrams, occasionally asking someone, after which we performed the practical part.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was open. For most students, there was no choice between waiting in the corridor or inside, sitting at desks, and therefore we quickly took our seats and, talking about all sorts of everyday trifles, began to wait for Professor Lupin.
The door to the classroom suddenly slammed shut, and the students who turned to the sound could see Professor Snape in his fluttering black robes. He moved briskly between the rows walking to the teacher's place, closing the shutters on the high windows with a wave of his wand, plunging the classroom into twilight. Each closing of the shutters was like the strike of a gavel in court, sentencing students to a long and painful death—this is exactly what could be read on the faces of some students flinching with every sound.
The Professor reached a certain conditional place in front of us all, turned sharply, and pulled a string, lowering a white screen, like for a projector.
"Page three hundred ninety-four," Snape said dryly instead of greetings, and slowly walked between the rows, waiting for everyone to open the right page.
"Excuse me, sir…" Potter couldn't restrain himself, but I was already used to this intemperance of Gryffindors.
In DADA classes, I, like the other guys from the House, tried to take the back seats by the window, and now I had a full view of what was happening in the class.
Snape stopped, looking at Potter.
"…Where is Professor Lupin?"
"That should not concern you, Mr. Potter," Snape went to the end of the class, where a rather extravagant-looking slide projector stood.
Extravagant, like all devices of wizards, somehow working both on magic and with the use of quite ordinary mechanics, physics, and… Take optics for example—without calculations, or at least understanding the principles of refraction, one cannot build an apparatus with a whole bunch of lenses and with great variability of settings.
"I will only say that Professor Lupin cannot be present at the lesson at the moment," Snape tapped the projector a couple of times with his wand, and it started working, sending just white light to the screen for now. "And now, page three hundred ninety-four."
We are jumping from topic to topic very notably, because werewolves are still quite far away.
"Werewolves?" Weasley was loudly indignant, although the others just opened their textbooks and prepared to listen.
"But sir!" Hermione immediately objected. "We just finished covering Hinkypunks and Grindylows. It's too early to move on to werewolves…"
"Miss Granger, I did not ask what you have covered, and if I wanted to know, I would look in Professor Lupin's logbook," Snape looked at Hermione quite strictly, forcing her to direct her gaze not at him, but into the textbook. "But how could I forget? Professor Lupin does not keep a logbook. What carelessness…"
A mulatto from Gryffindor almost jumped up from his seat.
"Lupin is the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!"
In Snape's gaze, I saw for a moment something that can be interpreted as "waved off like a mosquito," but in the same moment, he became serious and a little angry. It seems to me he just likes to annoy everyone to the gnashing of teeth, achieving universal hatred towards himself. My inner psychologist without experience and with a superficial education in this area allegedly put two and two together, hitting his fist against his palm—he hates himself! And reinforces the justice of his own self-hatred with universal hatred! Consciously… What insidious and thoughtful self-deception!
"You are easily pleased. It is enough just not to assign homework. So, as you noticed, today we will study werewolves…"
The projector mechanism came into motion, and the first slide appeared on the screen. A slide with a fresco depicting a werewolf attacking a defenseless peasant.
"But werewolves are still too far away," Hermione couldn't restrain herself again.
"Miss Granger," Snape turned to her. "As far as I know, I am the teacher here, not you."
Snape walked halfway through the class.
"So, who can tell me what a werewolf represents and why it is dangerous?"
Everyone was silent, no hands raised, except Hermione, the restless girl, stretched her hand as if she hoped to reach the ceiling. She is funny. Probably will get a rebuke from Snape, and then get offended in her best feelings. And surely she received similar rebukes before.
"No one," Snape almost reached the screen. "Your silence, apparently, means that Professor Lupin has not explained even the basic differences to you…"
"You were told…" the Gryffindor Indian girl jumped up from her seat, "that we haven't reached werewolves yet!"
"Silence!" Snape mirrored this girl's intonations. "To live in the magical world and not be interested in its most dangerous inhabitant. I didn't think there were third-years incapable…"
"Sir," Hermione spoke without lowering her hand. "A werewolf differs from a simple wolf very little. Its snout…"
"Miss Granger," Snape looked at her like an interesting and unusual potion. "You are jumping up with an answer for the second time when you were not called upon. For the third year now you have been doing this every time you are not asked voluntarily. For the third year, you receive the same negative reaction, and judging by your face, expect some changes or praise."
Hermione wilted. I wouldn't say that Snape is so wrong in his claims—such a sin is noticed behind her.
"I was once told," he continued, not taking his eyes off Hermione, "that insanity is repeating the same action over and over again, hoping for a different result. Tell me, Miss Granger—are you insane?"
Hermione just shook her head. I shook my head too, like: "No, she is normal."
"Then bother, finally, to learn that a teacher needs an answer not for the sake of an answer. The teacher knows it anyway. Admit at least for a second that the teacher has absolutely no reason to ask someone who quotes books in paragraphs anyway. Let's continue…"
The slide changed, and now an ancient vessel with the same theme was depicted there—a werewolf attacking a human.
"A werewolf is the most dangerous creature among all—magical and non-magical. Why is that? Mr. Granger."
Getting up from my seat, I decided to answer clearly how I see this problem, because I read about them, and in principle, these are quite familiar creatures to me.
"The unknown, sir."
"Explain."
"If you do not specifically look for already insignificant signs of a werewolf in a person, then you may not know about his essence until your very end. A neighbor may turn out to be a werewolf, signs can easily be ignored in everyday life, and here you come to him for salt on the days of the full moon. That's where you get torn apart."
"Precisely," Snape nodded. "Herein lies the insidiousness of werewolves. Differences from Animagi? Crabbe."
The heavy boy got up from his seat.
"Well… An Animagus transforms at will. A werewolf—at the full moon."
"Behavioral features? Goldstein."
"Aggression towards people, bloodlust, fearlessness until it receives a lot of damage. Much smarter than an animal."
"Precisely," Snape nodded, and the slide changed again. "A werewolf in wolf form is a bloodthirsty animal with the ability to learn, like a human…"
For another ten minutes, a survey was conducted in a similar form, during which Snape fished out grains of knowledge from us, turning them into theses.
"Now drop your gaze into the books on page three hundred ninety-four. Read, take notes on the voiced nuances."
The remaining time of the lesson we took notes, listened to Snape's criticism regarding notes from both today's and past lessons, and then he gave an assignment record-breaking for DADA by current standards. This did not touch me in any way, but the rest were indignant—children, what can you do? They never want to work. Mostly.
By evening the weather turned bad. All night the wind howled outside the window, and raindrops knocked on the glass, rarely giving the ears a respite. Did it bother me? Not a bit. But the others tossed and turned, waking up now and then.
Saturday morning began with nerves, but not for me. Any morning of mine—exercises, workout, shower, breakfast. But the others were nervous. The weather outside the window was terrible: a cold wind blew, thick clouds covered the sky, rain poured. Because of such bad weather, the Headmaster even turned off the illusion of the sky on the ceiling of the Great Hall—it was too oppressive due to its realism.
"How are you?" Cedric approached and asked. "Will you manage in such weather?"
"Not a problem, I suppose," I shrugged.
"That's good. Don't eat too much."
"Agreed."
After breakfast, our team went to the locker rooms, actually, like the Gryffindors. True, they walked much further than us. Changing into the yellow House uniform, grabbing brooms, we went out into the rain.
"Goggles, who needs them," Herbert held out seven pairs of goggles, like pilots'. "Impervius is already applied."
"Of course," grimacing from the rain, everyone reached for them except me. "Hector?"
"Better this way for me."
"As you wish."
We quickly reached the stadium and went into a kind of vestibule under the stands. Here you could sit, lie down, jump, hang on the crossbar—an activity for any mood. And there was no wind and rain here, which is important.
"So, ladies and gentlemen," Cedric addressed us with a smile, standing in a circle. "Even though we play Quidditch for the sake of the game itself, for the sake of, as some believe, perverted pleasure from risking life, but… But we won't give Gryffindors a break."
"You bet!"
The gates of the vestibule began to open, as if this is not a Quidditch stadium, but the Colosseum, and we are gladiators who will fight lions. To some extent, this is exactly so.
Well then, let's fly!
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