Spells in Silence

Chapter 39: Realigning Priorities

The massive bell hidden somewhere in the many towers of the castle bonged loudly, and all the students around Hazel started packing up their parchment and quills and bottles of ink. The sound shook Hazel out of her distant thoughts, and with a grimace she looked at her own notebook. The first few lines were attempts at taking notes related to the class, but after that it devolved into idle thoughts about how to start coming up with her own counter-spell.

She had found the instructions for the spell in her Charms book, but to her absolute lack of surprise it only said how to use the incantation and the wand motions, not how the spell actually worked. And this was just the book for her first year at this blasted school! If that was how all the wand-waving textbooks were written – which, considering it was the same format used in both the Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts books, was more likely than not – she might as well not waste her ill-gotten funds on any more textbooks and just write down a list of spells for her to translate into her own style on her own time.

Which, she had to wonder, raised the question as to just what she was expected to get out of some of these classes she was attending. Transfiguration had been a wash from start to finish, but Defense Against the Dark Arts was little better. Professor Quirrell might not have immediately jumped into spellcasting, but he did not go into any kind of detail about how certain jinxes worked. Instead, like McGonagall, he exclusively focused on the instructions for how wizards were supposed to cast the spell through their wand. Having the classes back-to-back on Tuesdays helped to highlight just how similar the two and therefore her problems with them were.

She would be lying if she denied sometimes thinking about how differently she might see these classes if she had chosen a wand back in Mr. Ollivander's shop, but even when she indulged in her musings they were never with serious consideration. After all, she could not forget that even if she had a wand, she had been given no guarantee that she would be able to cast the spells without the ability to speak. That was something no one considered fixable with wizard magic, not even Madam Pomfrey during her introduction to the nurse the night before. She doubted being half a witch would be that much better than where she stood currently.

Watching the other students filter out to head down to the Great Hall for lunch, she bit her lip and glanced at the professor. What did she really have to lose? She had not thought before now about just asking one of her teachers if the class would be useless to her, but what was the worst that could happen if she did?

Well, maybe not in so many words, but that just meant she needed to phrase it differently.

Her footsteps pulled the man from his thoughts about his upcoming sixth-year class, and he adjusted the obnoxiously bright purple turban on his head as he looked up at her. "Y-yes, M-m-m-miss Potter? What can I d-d-do for you?"

'I had a small question.' He gave her a nod to continue. 'You've talked about several ways to defend yourself with magic, but what about if a wizard or witch loses their wand, or if it is broken? How would you defend yourself from another wizard or a magical creature or something then?'

"What kind of question is that? A—" A grimace swept across his face and vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "Apologies, Miss Potter." Adjusting the collar of his robe, he gave her a half-smile that did not reach his eyes. "You would be surprised how rarely wizards ask themselves that question. Optimally, a wizard would do everything in his power not to allow his wand to be broken in the first place. But what to do if you lose your wand," he flicked his eyes to the staff in her hand, "or if you do not have a wand in the first place? The answer is simple."