Michael's grudge lingered right up until Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Tuesday's DADA slotted Ravenclaw with Slytherin.
Hogwarts classes usually paired two houses,
save for rare flukes like a freak astronomical event pulling all four into Astronomy together.
That was the gist Sean gleaned from Michael's nonstop grumbling en route.
By his reckoning,
DADA was Hogwarts' crown jewel of a subject.
Anthony and Terry's hype hit fever pitch off that alone.
Sean, trailing behind, just shook his head. DADA pulled you in, sure—but the teaching? A roll of the dice.
That crucial class:
First year: a stammerer.
Second: a con artist.
Third and fourth: halfway decent,
fifth: the pink toad from hell.
Sixth: Snape, finally.
Seventh: a grudge-holding Death Eater who skipped the teaching bit.
Tally it up—out of seven years, only three with proper learning.
So Sean resolved to self-teach.
He clutched Theory of Defense Against the Dark Arts, a fifth-year text he'd nicked early from the library—
not for the free read (though that helped),
but because he'd need it.
DADA kicked off, and Sean's sliver of hope evaporated.
He knew Quirrell had been a star Ravenclaw once,
but playing double agent had clearly gutted his prized smarts.
Or left him no bandwidth to flaunt them.
Up front,
Michael finally twigged Sean's odd duck routine.
Sean had claimed the back row ages ago, nose-deep in his book from the off—
Michael still puzzling it when a wallop of garlic fumes hit his nostrils,
paired with Quirrell's spluttering, mush-mouthed textbook drone.
It was like stumbling into the underworld.
Beside him, Terry—nearest the prof—sat stock-still, as if fumigated to death.
**[Trolls fall into several categories: mountain trolls, river trolls, and sea trolls.
Mountain trolls are the largest, with pale gray skin, bald heads, and hides rougher than a rhino's—stronger than ten men to boot.
Yet their brains are pea-sized, making them easy to bamboozle... ]**
Sean pored over The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, penned by Quentin Trimble—
its cover a stark, unadorned black, much like its contents: crisp, no-frills.
Banshees, hags, night hags, trolls, vampires, werewolves, yetis, Boggarts, Red Caps, kappa (river demons), Hinkypunks, Grindylows—all crammed into that slim volume,
packed tight with beastly lore and spirit lowdown,
yet with room for counter-curses and unpickers.
Proper useful stuff. So Sean committed it to rote,
his one pang: with Quirrell as he was, real defensive spells were off the table.
Self-study it was.
But Expelliarmus? Protego?
Advanced charms, both.
Nowhere in Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1.
So how was Sean to pick them up?
As he frowned over it, DADA wrapped,
first-years bolting the room like it was cursed.
Michael and Terry stayed glued to their seats, rigid as statues.
Sean wandered over, concern creasing his brow—
only for Michael to lunge with a bellow:
"Miserable!"
Sean near jumped out of his skin.
Compared to DADA, next up—Charms—was a breath of fresh air for Sean.
Flitwick wasn't some two-faced turncoat; he was a wizard who could teach,
drilling wand flicks and crisp pronunciations—just what Sean craved.
He knew a wizard's power stemmed from belief,
what past-lifers dubbed "the power of positive thinking."
...
But endless thinking without structure? No dice—Sean knew from a week straight of wishful flailing.
His take: belief fueled the magic, true,
but how you believed—method, mindset—mattered just as much.
As "father of magical theory" Adalbert Waffling put it in Magical Theory:
"Most wizards can't consciously control their magic on their own, so they require incantations and wands to guide it, allowing magic to be directed purposefully toward an end."
...
Charms classroom sat on the fourth floor, so the ever-shifting staircases wrought merry havoc on the first-years.
The Ravenclaw pack jammed one flight, the one linking to class refusing to budge.
At the rear, Terry scribbled in a notebook:
"I'll crack the pattern any second."
Michael facepalmed beside him:
"Terry, I trust you can, but by then we'll be hours late."
Time bleeding away, stairs still stubborn—the kids fidgeted like ants on a hot plate.
It was Flitwick's first go as Head of House, and his Ravens turning up tardy—
Merlin's pants!
Sean sighed, nose back in his book.
Couldn't sway the stairs? Best cram the textbook instead.
"Fine, fine—huddle up, Terry. You're our shot.
Sean, leg it—at least don't be the last through the door."
Michael tugged Sean forward; Anthony and Terry squeezed after,
carving a path through the crush.
"Got it yet? Terry?"
"Al... most..."
"That's your fourth 'almost'! Merlin's saggy Y-fronts and sweaty socks!"
Michael seemed half-mad from garlic and stairs.
Then Sean spotted a tall ghost gliding through the wall.
Her arrival sparked a memory.
"Lady Grey."
Sean called soft.
She drifted over; the chill hit the little Ravens like a Dementor draft.
"Ghost—Merlin!"
"She's coming!"
Most first-years feared the spectral more than fancied it,
huddling tight—even bold Michael quavered:
"Sean, what're you playing at?"
"The prefect said Lady Grey might tie back to Rowena—remember?"
Sean murmured.
"Lady Grey, could you help us past the moving stairs? We're late for Charms."
Sean asked.
Lady Grey said nothing, just fixed Sean with a steady gaze.
That look near gave Michael and Terry heart failure.
"Too close... too close..."
"Sean, this feels dodgy..."
In their shaky whispers, the front stairs rumbled to life, slotting neatly onto theirs.
Michael and Terry's eyes bugged out.