New Lineup

This year, Severus Snape finally became the professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Allen's Ancient Magic Class would teach students how to make proper use of dark magic, while Professor Snape's Defense Against the Dark Arts class spoke of dark magic almost with fondness and admiration. Like Allen, he also chose a practical approach to get the sixth-years started on nonverbal spells, having the wizards split into pairs: one in each pair tried to jinx the other without saying the incantation aloud, while the other tried to repel the jinx, also without making a sound.

The wizard apprentices of Hogwarts flushed red in the face, their mouths clamped tightly shut, terrified they would fail to resist the temptation and whisper the spell aloud. Those trying to repel the jinxes, meanwhile, held up their wands and silently repeated the Shield Charm over and over, waiting on tenterhooks to knock back a spell that seemed as though it would never come. In class, aside from the Training Class and a few extraordinarily gifted geniuses who had already practiced and mastered this technique long in advance, most young wizards—including the D.A. members—were trying this advanced spellcasting technique for the first time. None of them managed to cast a nonverbal spell successfully. For them, managing it on their very first practice attempt was simply far too difficult.

Under this pressure, the sixth-year wizards seized every spare moment after class, practicing nonverbal spells day and night, because it was not only Defense Against the Dark Arts—Charms Class and Transfiguration had begun making the same demand as if in coordination.

So inside Hogwarts Castle, whether in the house common rooms or the Great Hall, the younger wizards could often see these upper-years flushed crimson, silently straining against themselves as if they had taken an overdose