Defence and Mayhem

Annoyance at its finest

Tomorrow would be the first day of classes after the winter holidays. Sitting at the staff table, Harrison could see the students chatting about their holidays over dinner, sharing experiences, full of excitement. Another thing he noticed was the change in the Slytherin table, but he already had an idea as to what that was about.

But Harrison wasn't excited. He knew that tomorrow would be his first session of inter-house DADA sessions. Meaning Slytherins and Gryffindors will have to cooperate, something that- from experience- doesn't work. He wasn't too worried about the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, since they had no feuds with each other, but it would still be difficult as they're no longer used to working together in his class. 

When he was a student, all that mattered to him was his survival and having fun while he could in between deadly encounters, so he didn't really notice the other houses. Well, besides Malfoy's gang of Slytherins that is. But as a teacher, he mostly saw the study patterns that each house had. Of course, each individual was different and studied at a different pace and method, but each house still had its shared strengths and weaknesses. 

Gryffindors weren't afraid to be the first to try new spells and could pick themselves up easily after failing, only to try again with higher determination. However, any mention of the Dark Arts, or subjects they didn't agree with, and they wouldn't listen. They took too much pride in believing themselves to be right.

Hufflepuffs were great at teamwork and made sure to take the time to help a struggling friend, picking each other up and making sure no one was left behind. When they couldn't help their peers, mostly on trials they had to face alone, then they worried too much for others and didn't focus on themselves.

Ravenclaws had a thirst for knowledge and were very thorough in their work, making sure to ask questions to further progress in their studies and delved deep into any subject of interest. They didn't, however, accept that not all they have read was a solid fact and sometimes didn't consider the reliability of their sources.

Slytherins came up with the most creative solutions for problems they faced, making careful plans to best face hardship and were open-minded to many forms of magic. They weren't, however, open-minded to hearing of advancements made by who they deemed their lesser, especially muggles and muggle-borns.

The sessions will be held twice a month.

Hopefully, he'll manage to get them to cooperate, or at least get them to be civil with each other. This would be difficult,  especially since the subject of the session would be to see the progress the students made in a practical session with harsher conditions. He was most worried for the fifth and sixth-year students since they had just learned shield charms and spells fit for dueling respectively. To see their progress in those subjects, they will fire spells at each other to check the effectiveness of their shields and spells. This was going to be a nightmare, he thought, already feeling drained even though these sessions will progress much faster than his normal classes.

Luckily, he'll be doing these sessions with two grades of students at a time. First and second-year Puffs and Claws in one session, and then in the next- Gryffs and Slyths of those years. That will apply to all years. Meaning- two sessions per two grades.

____________________

He had the third and fourth-year Puffs & Claws first. Mild hexes for third years and hex deflection for fourth-year students. He tried his best to fit the material of each pair of grades to work out for these sessions, while still sticking to the material he needed to go over. During Remus's classes in his third year at Hogwarts, they mostly learned about creatures, but that came to be because Lockhart didn't teach about creatures properly at all, as was known after the pixie incident, so they had to make up for it. 

When Harrison was teaching, however, he made sure to go over all subjects that came under the title of Defence Against the Dark Arts, and was surprisingly organised when teaching, considering that he pretty much wings it with anything else he does.

The class went well, and so did the other class of third and fourth-year students. 

Between his classes, he took notes on the class's behaviour when faced with this new challenge. Yes, they used to be with each other in his class, but they were no longer used to it now.

 He easily saw that the change was good for all four houses. Gryffindors and Slytherins were no longer at each other's necks, Hufflepuffs no longer had to give up on answering questions in favour of the Ravenclaws out of politeness, and Ravenclaws now knew how to fight for their opinions to be heard, since the Slytherins weren't going to let them gain house points for free, they were less friendly and more competitive. 

But when they worked with the house they usually didn't work within his class- meaning during his sessions- they made practical use of the material they already knew. And that made a difference. They no longer made beginner mistakes due to stress and had fewer fights. They actually managed to cooperate better than he had hoped for. 

He did have some minor issues like sneers, eye rolls, and the occasional snide remark, but other than that, nothing much.

The fifth and sixth-year class went better than expected, but he was still worried. The rivalry between the older students was much worse than he had thought… he was happy that these sessions didn't include the seventh years, who were too busy with their NEWTs to attend another attempt at house unity.

_______________________

Having a class with the Gryffindors again wasn't easy. Tom understood why, but it didn't make it better. He had to deal with the Potter scion and his goons. That obnoxious little group seemed to believe him to be the root of all evil and made sure to make it known. Usually, he wouldn't give them a single glance. After all, who were they for him to care for their opinions? However, they kept on bothering him, trying to ruin his performance in class, messing with his spellwork, throwing ingredients into his cauldron… it was childish and repulsive. Seriously, were those really heirs to old magical lines?

Their childishness in their little pranks was getting on his nerves and slowing him down. He had, of course, avoided all of their silly attempts at making him 'slip up in anger and reveal his true devilish nature', as they would probably put it, but that didn't mean that it didn't affect him or his overall concentration in his work. 

And now he was paired up with said Potter scion, who was feverishly throwing spells at his shield, spouting the most unintelligent remarks one can think of. 

"Is that all you can do, Riddle? Spell a shield to protect you instead of fighting like a man?"

"You are aware that this whole lesson is about defending oneself with a shield spell while your work partner is testing the strength of said shield, right?" He irritably replied, watching the flurry of spells and hexes directed at him get stopped by his shield. "Now, if you're done, I would like to get this warm-up over with and move on to the serious part of this session. Put up your shield, we can clearly see that mine is doing its job." 

Sneering and grumbling something that sounded like "you're no boss of mine", Potter put up his shield. After a while of spell firing, they finished, and Tom was glad that this was quick and didn't drag on for longer than he had to. With both of them being prefects, they were both good with their schoolwork, even if Tom was the better of the two by quite a bit.

And so, they both moved on to pairing up with sixth-year students, to see if their shields could hold up against more complex spells, and to test how different defensive spells held up against all sorts of offensive spells and hexes. 

At the end of the lesson, he was very pleased to get away from those pesky lions. At least he had the Extracurricular Dark Arts session to look forward to this Saturday.

  

Published on Friday, 1st of July, 2022

I'm back, updates will resume as normal.