Special Training

The special training came sooner than Clara had expected.

She woke before it was fully light. The dormitory was quiet, and steady breathing came from behind Cersei Bones's curtains. Clara lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a while, then rolled out of bed and got ready for her first special training class.

Dumbledore had sent Fawkes to deliver the timetable to the common room the night before last. The phoenix had appeared without warning in the Hufflepuff basement common room, startling Rowle so badly that he nearly choked on the Chocolate Frog he was eating. There were only a few lines on the timetable, written in Dumbledore's signature loops within loops:

Monday and Friday mornings: Transfiguration and combat applications - M. Professor McGonagall

Wednesday morning: Charms - F. Professor Flitwick

Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons: Defence Against Dark Magic Class - S. Professor Snape

Tuesday and Thursday: Practical combat exercises (Room of Requirement, beginning in December) - joint instruction by all three professors

Weekends: Rest. Not to be skipped.

The last four words were doubly underlined, as though he were afraid she might miss them.

As soon as she finished reading, Fawkes breathed a jet of fire over it, literally burning it after reading.

This was probably the strangest timetable adjustment in the history of Hogwarts, Clara thought.

A fifth-year student with middling grades had suddenly vanished from every regular class without any public announcement, as though she had been erased from the school timetable.

Dumbledore had said he would take care of all the formalities. He had spoken to Professor Sprout and filed the paperwork with the academic office, giving the reason that Clara was taking part in a special academic research project. Clara thought the explanation was utterly Dumbledore: technically true, completely blank on the details, and leaving everyone plenty of room for imagination.

Professor McGonagall's combat applications of Transfiguration took place on Monday morning. Clara learned how to turn loose stones on the ground into birds to obstruct an enemy's view, and how to transfigure walls into barriers that blocked the path of incoming spells. Professor McGonagall's assessment was "good comprehension, but your Transfiguration speed still needs improvement." Coming from McGonagall, that was high praise indeed.

Professor Flitwick's Charms class took place on Wednesday morning. Standing on a stack of books for height, the diminutive Charms professor instructed Clara in a high, enthusiastic voice on how to cast while moving, how to combine the Shield Charm with evasive maneuvers, and how to counterattack in the pause when an opponent drew breath. Flitwick taught with animated enthusiasm, and when Clara successfully cast a Trip Jinx from a tricky angle, he was so excited that he stood on the desk.

But what truly made Clara nervous was Snape's Defence Against Dark Magic Class on Wednesday afternoon.

The dungeon classroom was as cold and gloomy as it was during Potions Class, but it looked a little different today. All the worktables had been pushed against the walls, leaving a large expanse of stone floor clear in the middle, as though space had been made specifically for some intense activity.

Snape stood behind the only table that had not been moved, his black robes motionless in the candlelight. His sallow face was expressionless, but Clara noticed his fingers tapping lightly on the tabletop.

"Miss Albert, I believe you've done passably well in Potions Class," Snape said in a low voice, every word sounding as though it had been pulled from ice water. "But all of that is passive defence. Starting today, you will learn how to face an active attack."

He walked around to the other side of the table, where three cages stood, each covered with a black cloth.

"The Ministry of Magic classifies three spells as 'Unforgivable Curses.'" Snape lifted the first black cloth. A fat grey rat was trembling in the corner of the cage. "The Imperius Curse: complete control over a person's will." He raised his wand, pointed it at the rat and murmured, "Imperio." The rat's body went rigid. Then it stood up and began turning slowly on its hind legs, its movements stiff and uncanny. Clara watched as Snape made the rat perform all sorts of actions: dancing, doing somersaults, grooming its whiskers. Every movement was precise, as though an invisible puppeteer were pulling its strings.

"A person under the Imperius Curse will feel an indescribable sense of calm," Snape said, flicking his wand to lift the spell. "That is precisely what makes it so dangerous. The victim will have no desire to resist." He turned to Clara. "A Shield Charm can block the Imperius Curse, provided you cast it before the curse hits you. If you have already been hit, only your willpower can save you."

He walked to the second cage and lifted the black cloth. Inside, a spider the size of a palm crouched in the middle of its web.

"The Cruciatus Curse." There was the slightest change in Snape's voice. "A torture curse. It will not kill, but it inflicts indescribable pain on the victim." He raised his wand without the slightest hesitation, though his voice was a little quieter than before. "Cruciatus Curse."

The spider curled into a ball, all its legs twitching. It rolled across the bottom of the cage, its body shaking violently. Clara forced herself to watch, her fingers gripping the cuff of her school robes.

Snape lifted the curse after only two seconds. When he turned around, his black eyes rested briefly on her face.

He walked to the third cage and placed his hand on the black cloth, but did not lift it immediately.

"The Killing Curse." His voice grew even lower. "The most unforgivable of the three. There is no countercurse, no defence and no cure. Once it hits, death is instantaneous."

He lifted the black cloth. This cage also held a rat, smaller than the first, with untidy grey fur.

Snape raised his wand. Clara saw his lips begin to form the curse-

"Wait." The word burst out of her.

Snape stopped and turned to look at her, his eyebrows rising slightly.

Clara's throat moved. "Professor, is it necessary—is it necessary to kill it?"

Snape looked at her, an emotion she could not understand in his eyes.

"Miss Albert, it is good to have a kind heart," he said, his voice as flat and mocking as ever, "but the Dark Lord will not be so kind."

But he did not kill the rat.

Clara was not sure whether that was because he thought it unnecessary. The three cages were covered again and floated back into the storage cupboard.

"The demonstration is over," Snape said, turning and walking to the middle of the classroom, his black robes sweeping a silent arc across the floor. "Now you know what each of the three Unforgivable Curses is. Next, you will learn how to survive them."

He drew his wand and pointed its tip at Clara.

"A Shield Charm can block the Imperius Curse and some Cruciatus Curses, but not the Killing Curse. Against the Killing Curse, you have only one option: do not get hit. To do that, you need to learn how to move, or conjure solid objects to block it. Do not stand still and wait for the spell to come flying before raising your shield." The corner of his mouth moved slightly, more like a cold, assessing sneer. "Get ready, Albert. From now on, I will not speak the incantations. Neither will those people."

Clara did not even have time to nod before a streak of red light flew past her ear and exploded against the stone wall behind her, leaving a scorch mark. A blast of hot air and stone chips struck her neck, making it sting.

"Move, Albert. Even a Troll runs faster than you." Snape's voice came from the other end of the classroom. "Keep your center of gravity low when you move. If you face an enemy with that posture, the first spell will kill you."

Clara lowered her body, her eyes fixed on Snape's movements.

Spell followed spell. Snape's Nonverbal Spells came like a continuous whip, each one striking precisely at the place she was about to move. Clara dodged desperately around the center of the classroom. Sweat soon soaked a large patch of her robes, her knees were scraped raw from sliding to the floor several times, and her hair came loose and stuck to her face.

Snape did not say much, but every remark struck precisely at a weakness.

"Your steps are too large. You treat every dodge as a matter of life and death. At that rate, you'll exhaust yourself in thirty seconds."

"Don't look at my face. Watch my wand. Faces can lie; wands don't."

Clara shifted her gaze and fixed it on the black wand. The spells were coming faster, but her movements began to grow smaller instead: tilting her head out of an attack's path, shifting half a step sideways to evade an incoming beam. Her breathing grew more and more ragged, but her mind became clearer.

She could not wait for the spells to come. She had to learn to counterattack.

The thought exploded in Clara's mind. Snape's spells kept coming, red and purple light weaving an ever-denser net as she dodged back and forth within it. Her strength was draining rapidly, her calves were trembling, and each time she jumped and landed, she felt heavier than before. If this went on, sooner or later she would be hit.

Her gaze swept over the storage shelves by the wall that had not yet been cleared away. They were packed with bottles and jars commonly used in Potions Class, containing valerian root, moonstone powder, fragments of African Tree Snake skin, and several dark glass jars filled with unidentified herbs steeping in liquid. Professor McGonagall's voice rang in her head: turn everything around you into a weapon.

Clara sidestepped a jinx, turned and tapped the cupboard behind her with her wand, speaking an incantation at high speed. Three glass jars rose from the shelf, twisted and transformed in midair into three drab grey sparrows, and flew toward Snape, beating their wings. They did not fly straight at him. Professor McGonagall had taught her that the key to a distraction was not numbers, but angles. Two circled around his left to peck at his wand hand, while the other swooped down from the ceiling, its wings brushing the top of his head.

Snape flicked his wand and knocked away the sparrow overhead, but the other two immediately pecked at his wrist and shoulder from different directions. He had to wave his wand twice more to clear them all away. The instant his spells faltered, Clara cast a Levitation Charm and threw two jars at Snape.

"You finally realize what you're holding isn't a Troll's club." His tone was as cold as ever, but his attacks grew faster. His wand kept moving, and a streak of purple light grazed the ends of Clara's hair before blasting a framed specimen hanging on the stone wall behind her to pieces.

Clara had no time to look back. She dashed two steps forward and to the left, sweeping an arc through the air with her wand. A Shield Charm spread out in front of her, but this time, rather than forming a large shield, she compressed the transparent barrier until it was just large enough to protect her torso. Flitwick had said that a smaller Shield Charm was actually stronger and used less energy, though it required more precise judgment. She was not sure whether her judgment was precise enough, but she knew she no longer had the strength to maintain a full-body shield.

Another of Snape's Nonverbal Spells came flying at her, and she blocked it head-on with the small round shield. The red beam struck the transparent barrier and burst into a shower of sparks. The impact jarred her arm numb, but the Shield Charm did not break. She had no time to rest; a Cruciatus Curse followed close behind the red light. Clara jerked sideways, letting it skim past the edge of her Shield Charm. She was not sure whether the shield could completely block the Cruciatus Curse. Snape had used the word "some," and she remembered it clearly.

"You reduced the size of your Shield Charm," Snape said, "but you did not combine it with Transfiguration. Distraction and defence cannot be used separately. After you conjured the sparrows, you stopped to dodge. You wasted them. Move while the sparrows are distracting me, or cast another Shield Charm at the same time. Do not let any step become an obstacle to the next."

Clara gritted her teeth and did as instructed. She conjured two more sparrows and sent them around behind Snape to attack while she moved to the right, forming her Shield Charm again as she went. This time her shield was thinner than before, almost transparent, but just enough to block the spells coming straight at her. When the sparrows pecked at the back of Snape's neck, he had to turn around to deal with them, and the spells coming at her from the front briefly slackened. Clara seized that half-second opening to rush out of his range of attack and roll behind a metal worktable, gasping with her back against its cold iron frame. Her heart pounded like a drum and her hands were shaking, but her mind was clearer than ever. She had just done three things at once. What the three professors had each taught her had come together in that instant.

But Snape gave her no time to savor it. Before she had even finished drawing a breath, a spell blasted the worktable sheltering her in two. Metal fragments flew through the air, and the impact threw Clara to the floor, leaving a shallow, bloody cut on her shoulder.

"No cover on a battlefield can protect you forever." Snape's voice came from close by. At some point, he had walked right up to her, his black robes cutting a sharp arc in the candlelight. "People who hide behind tables die the fastest. Move."

Clara scrambled to her feet, her shoulder stinging. Her wand was still clutched tightly in her hand. This time, instead of hiding behind cover again, she conjured two sparrows to fly at Snape from the front while she kept low and circled around the side. A Shield Charm formed a tiny round shield beside her, blocking a Disarming Charm Snape casually flung at her. She moved faster and faster, the transitions between her sparrows and Shield Charm growing smoother, although her attacks posed no threat at all. Snape dealt with them as easily as if he were swatting flies.

Then Snape suddenly fired three Nonverbal Spells in succession. The first knocked down the sparrow on the left, the second pierced Clara's Shield Charm, and the third shot straight at her face. Clara bent backward to dodge the third spell, lost her balance and fell heavily to the floor.

She braced herself on her arms and tried to get up, but they had no strength left at all. She could feel sweat dripping from the tip of her nose onto the stone floor, and her robes were a mess of sweat and dust. She looked up and saw Snape standing in front of her, his wand already put away inside his robes. His black eyes examined her from head to toe, and his sallow face showed neither satisfaction nor disappointment.

Just then, the classroom door opened. Professor McGonagall stood in the doorway in dark green robes, her eyes sweeping rapidly over the entire classroom from behind her square spectacles: broken glass and pottery shards all over the floor, scorch marks blasted into the walls, the worktable split in two and still trailing wisps of smoke, and Clara slumped on the floor, covered in dust.

"Severus." McGonagall's voice was quiet, but it trembled a little. "You used Nonverbal Spells?"

Snape turned to face her, without a trace of guilt on his face. "She could keep up."

"Her shoulder is bleeding."

"A scratch. Her reaction speed and ability to sense spells are above average." He paused. Praise was an exceedingly rare thing for him in itself. "She has some talent."

McGonagall was silent for a few seconds. Then she walked over to Clara, bent down and offered her a hand.

"Get up, Miss Albert," she said gently. "You need to go to the Hospital Wing and have your shoulder treated." She glanced at Snape. "I think that is enough training for today."

Snape did not object. He had already turned away, and with a wave of his wand, he restored the worktable that had been blasted in two. The broken glass and pottery shards flew back onto the shelves of their own accord, and the scorch marks vanished from the walls.

"We'll continue next class. Don't think you can slack off just because you barely scraped through today. Those people's spells are much faster than mine, and they won't stop because you've fallen down."