A Room With a View

Crowded Rooms

Severus watched as his students flicked lazy shielding spells at one another. It was the last class of the last day of winter term, and the students were clearly feeling as impatient as he to be done with school for a few weeks. He spotted four girls in the back corner of the room, whispering to one another - about their Yule Ball dresses, no doubt - rather than practicing projective shielding as they were assigned.

Severus approached stealthily, partially hidden by a pillar, and assumed a stern countenance. "Ladies, as much as I'm sure you wish to dazzle at the ball this evening, Defense class is neither the time nor the place for such socializing. Resume your shielding practice. Ten points from Hufflepuff."

The girls had the sense to blush before returning to their assigned task, but he could tell attention was not where it should be. There was still a half hour left in class and the misbehaving students meant that he couldn't reward the class with early release. All the same, this meeting would be worthless if the students didn't wake up.

"Wands down, please," Severus called to the class. "Jenkins, Hobarth, Saunders and Ballard. Up front and center, please." He watched as his four best students warily approached the dais. "The rest of you, take a moment to hydrate and stretch."

He turned toward his four students as the rest of the students took a moment to rest. "You four are easily the best with hexes, curses and jinxes in this class." He smirked as the four students looked gratified at the compliment. "Your reward for your hard work and prowess is that you're going to get to attack your classmates." He discretely handed them each a chunk of Peruvian instant darkness powder. "Place yourselves around the room as I explain this exercise and use this when I speak the words 'element of surprise'."

Severus turned back to the room at large. "Everyone rested now? Good. You are all attending the Yule Ball this evening, yes?" He paused to allow the students to nod and babble excitedly. "I do hope you all enjoy yourselves. However, a large gathering of people is a prime target for attack, as we saw at the Quidditch World Cup only a decade ago. A relatively small group was able to entirely scatter a crowd of thousands... and without the direction of the Dark Lord. So today, we will practice defending in a crowd scenario. Misters Jenkins and Ballard and Misses Hobarth and Saunders will be attacking the classroom. They have permission to use any curse, hex or jinx to create mayhem and havoc that will not directly send someone to the hospital wing. So you four, no slicing or stinging hexes. I encourage you to be creative with your wandwork. You are to restrain your attackers for 'arrest' in this scenario, so please do not attempt to harm your fellow classmates. A battle can last from minutes to hours, as was the case in the Battle of Hogwarts. This battle has a time limit of thirty minutes. Now you know who your attackers will be, so I am going to grant them the element of surprise." As Severus spoke the words, he raised his hand in the air and cast his own piece of instant darkness before him, cloaking the front part of the classroom and the dais in darkness.

He couldn't see whether the four 'attackers' had cast their powder down as well, but assumed they had based on the general screeches heard around the room. Severus quickly disillusioned himself and crouched down in place as the powder began to clear. When light at last began to return to the room, he saw chaos. Hobarth and Jenkins had managed to subdue a number of members of the class with blanket stunning spells and were now picking off individuals as they stumbled over their classmates' bodies. Ballard and Saunders had chosen the alternative tactic of creating as much havoc as possible. Rather than attacking his peers head-on, Ballard was redirecting curses and jinxes around the room and smashing them into new targets. This had the unfortunate side effect of occasionally launching desks, chairs, and book bags into the air, but it created distractions and new targets in the process. Saunders, on the other hand, was making use of the levicorpus spell in a manner that was entirely too reminiscent of Death Eater raids from years ago. Though, to be fair, she was using the spell to affix students to the ceiling of the classroom. A small group of Hufflepuffs hung from the rafter like bats, their school robes over their heads and bodies wriggling as they attempted to extract their wand hands from the excess fabric.