LRAB Chapter 150: Defense Class
Chapter 150: Defense Class
Chapter 150: Defense Class
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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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3rd September 1995, Hogwarts (Earth 2)
(Harry Potter POV)
Like every year, Harry was excited for his first Defense class, and he could see that he wasn't the only one. For the first time in almost a year, students were vibrating in their seats, vibrating in excitement, at learning from someone they admired.
Harry didn't really understand why, but apparently, the Slytherins were very excited to learn from someone who could be a descendent of their house's founder and were acting like a bunch of first year Hufflepuffs ready to make friends.
It got even worse when someone found out that Jasmine Sayre was some kind of magical prodigy who already had two masteries in different fields of magic. There were a lot of speculation and rumors, some were so outrageous that it made Harry laugh for few minutes, like her being Voldemort's secret daughter. Harry was in tears when he heard that one. It was funny that people had already started worshipping the woman and ignored what she did during the welcoming feast.
Still, Harry heard rumor after rumor about her classes. Fred and George were seriously admiring her. They said that she was without a doubt the best defense professor that they ever had. She really knew her stuff, and they always assumed that this was what Dumbledore would be like if he was teaching the class himself.
Seriously, it hadn't been that bad when Moody had come to teach the previous year, well, fake Moody, at least. The man was famous, or is it infamous, in magical Britain, and yet they didn't act like that with him.
Still, the new professor having two masteries had pretty much cemented her as Hermione's newest hero. What a surprise, having a significant academic achievement was enough to earn Hermione's respect without even meeting the woman.
As for Ron, he didn't seem to especially care about the woman. He really had an aversion to anything academic, didn't he?
Even with Ron's lack of enthusiasm, Harry was still very excited to attend Professor Sayre's class. He had gone through an entire day of people gushing about her classes and the professors scaring the crap out of him about the OWLs, that he wanted to see what everyone was talking about.
Finally, it was time for Defense class. Harry followed the rest of the fifth year Gryffindors, to the classroom where Professor Sayre was sitting down, writing something on a piece of parchment. She looked up and smiled at them, "Ah, good, you're here. Let's wait for the Slytherins to arrive. Sit down, wherever you want, take out your books, and some parchment."
Everyone scrambled to take a seat. Hermione pretty much leapt to the front of the classroom to secure the closest seat to the Professor. Harry shook his head in exasperation and just joined her, leaving Ron at the back of the class where he chose to sit. Harry was going to try to pay attention to this lesson. From what he had heard, he didn't want to miss anything.
A couple of minutes later the Slytherins arrived in unison, far more organized and proper than the Gryffindors, and took their seats as well.
Hermione immediately raised her hand. The professor sighed in exasperation, "yes Ms. Granger?"
Hermione righted herself, "I'm afraid that I don't understand, Professor. What do charms and transfiguration have to do with Defense class?"
Harry had asked himself a second before but didn't want to seem stupid in front of the new professor who was looking at Hermione with incredulity, "Seriously? You don't know?" Hermione shook her head, and the professor looked up, "Does anyone here know the answer to that question?"
She shook her head, at the silence that met her, "Alright, this is really bad. This is basic stuff that you should have learnt in your first year. Alright, I have to start from the top. Who here knows what a magical field is?"
A few hands were raised and the professor pointed at Hermione, "Ms. Granger."
The girl brightened at being called by the teacher and answered, "A field of magic is a classification or category that certain spells belong to."
Sayre nodded and answered, "A textbook answer, which is a shame since it's barely ten percent of the actual answer. Now, does anyone have another answer?"
Hermione's face was red and obviously wanted to protest but had been able to contain her temper. The professor looked around and pointed at another student. It was a Slytherin this time, "Ms. Greengrass."
The girl nodded, "A field of magic is a way for wizards to partition spells and practices that have similar properties. For example, transfiguration is the field of magic that concerns the transformation of something from one form or element to another."
The professor nodded, "A very close answer, but not quite the correct one. A magical field in easy terms is a way for wizards to put labels on kinds of magic. Like Ms. Greengrass said, it groups spells and practices with similar properties, but what she didn't explain, is why wizards did that. What the purpose of it is, outside of just categorizing spells. Long ago, before wands existed, before spells were a thing, wizards still existed and there were fields of magic. So, what do they categorize exactly? There were no spells, no incantations, just will and magic, barely more than accidental magic. So, wizards imagined the fields of magic just to be able to describe a magical act. No more and no less."
Hermione spoke up, "I don't quite follow you. How can there be magic without spells?"
"Spells, Ms. Granger are, by definition, a reproducible act of magic. Before the invention of a wand, there were no spells. A wizard, or a mage as we used to call them, learnt to manipulate their magic after decades of meditation and practice. There were no simple spells, with straight up wand movements or incantations, and whatever focus they had just served to direct the magic, not shape it like wands do. Wands are a Roman invention, and their main advantage is to allow someone to shape their magic for a spell by just moving their wands in a precise manner. Therefore, you have wand movements, for every spell. Your incantations, which are generally in bastardized Latin, are a way to synchronize your wand movements and time them properly. This allowed the Roman Empire to quickly train a lot of wizards for their armies. Classical mages could no doubt defeat hundreds of wanded wizards, but it would only take one lucky spell to kill them, which allowed the Romans to conquer most of Europe. For example, one of the main requirements to gaining a mastery in a magical field is being able to perform any spell in that field without actually using a spell, with just pure manipulation of magic. This is what I call true mastery over a field of magic. You hear things about dark lords who have mastered the dark arts or whatever. The truth is, that there hasn't been a master of dark magic since Morgana Le Fey, no matter what most people like to say."
The teacher paused for a few minutes to let them absorb what she said before resuming her lesson, "A magical field is also not a box with strict borders. A spell could easily be a part of multiple magical fields. For example, if you combine elemental magic with a charm, you create a new spell entirely. It's how new spells are crafted nowadays. For example, if you add a cutting charm and the air element, it will enhance the cutting factor. Observe."
With a wave of her wand, the professor conjured two blocks of wood. They were over a meter deep. She waved her wand at one and it was cut halfway, "This is a normal cutting charm without me actually trying to overpower it."
She waved her wand again, and Harry felt a burst of wind with the spell. It cut through the wood easily and had continued to hit the wall where a clear slash appeared. After another wave of her wand, the wall repaired itself. Harry was stupefied, like the rest of the classroom.
"I added the same amount of power to the charm, I just modified it to add the air element as well. There are a lot of combinations, mainly with charms, but the deeper you get, the more you see it. You can combine elemental magic with transfiguration into something called elemental transfiguration, a very difficult piece of magic to master, soul magic with transfiguration for the Animagus transformation, blood magic, and alchemy to create a bloodline limit, like parseltongue and metamorphmagus. Although the last one has only been through the use of rituals, since the details were lost to time long before wands were invented in the first place. The main theory is that old mages used Alchemy to make the magic permanent, and then bound it to their bloodline using blood magic. Now, you're thinking, as interesting as that is, why are we talking about this. What's the point of this? It's quite easy. Can anyone tell me what field of magic Defense Against the Dark Arts belongs to?"
For the first time, the students started to actually try to understand what Defense class was all about. It was odd. He hadn't learnt a new spell, or even used magic, really, but he felt like he started to have a better understanding of magic just a few minutes with Professor Sayre. He had to admit that Fred and George were right. The woman really knew her stuff.