Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 458 Silent Spell Teaching

After finishing the conversation with Slughorn, Mike returned to the lounge, and after meeting Franklin, he went straight to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

That’s right, the class they were going to attend was Professor Snape’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

At this time, many students had gathered in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and they were all Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws.

Apparently, due to the recent return of Voldemort and the fact that Snape had not raised the admissions standards for the advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts class, an unusually large number of students had signed up for the subject, so many that Snape had to teach the class in divided classes, as he had done in the lower grades.

Just as the Potions classroom changed with the arrival of Slughorn, the originally bright Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom also changed with the arrival of Snape.

The first were the large floor-to-ceiling windows in the classroom, which had long been blocked by thick curtains. The entire classroom was only lit by a few candles, making it extremely dark.

There are also many murals on the walls of the classroom that were not there originally. These murals all depict humans suffering horrific tortures, which are creepy to look at!

These, coupled with the cold and gloomy atmosphere in the classroom, inevitably reminded people of the Potions classroom of last semester.

Perhaps to counteract the tension brought about by this weird atmosphere, everyone was chatting and laughing, trying to bring a bit of life to the place in this way.

However, at this moment, accompanied by a loud bang, the door of the classroom was slammed shut.

The students who were chatting and laughing were startled. They all turned around, their faces changed drastically, and they lowered their heads in silence.

Mike also turned his head curiously, and saw Snape walking towards the podium with big strides. His steps were so big that his black cloak was blown by the wind, making it look like Snape had a pair of black bat wings growing behind him.

Snape quickly came to the podium. He looked up at the people below with his eyes lowered. After a while, he said in a cold, empty voice without any emotion:

"I didn't ask you to take out the books."

As soon as these words were spoken, Mike heard a lot of rustling sounds around him. It seemed that many people had taken out their books in advance.

Snape continued until the sound stopped:
"What I'm about to say is very important, and I want each of you to pay attention!"

As he spoke, Snape walked down from the podium.

"So far, you have had five Defense Against the Dark Arts professors. These professors have their own different teaching philosophies and methods. Under such a chaotic situation, I am surprised that so many of you can pass the OWL exam. I guess those Ministry of Magic officials who marked the papers must have let them off. What do you think?"

Snape's back pressed heavily on a Hufflepuff's shoulder. The poor child trembled violently, and the Hufflepuffs around him lowered their heads in fear. They knew very well that what Snape said now was completely directed at them. Unlike the Ravenclaw side where almost all the students had good or excellent grades, their Defense Against the Dark Arts class grades were all very low.

"Keep going. I'll be even more surprised if you can keep up with the progress of the advanced class because its content is more advanced."

Snape patted the Hufflepuff on the shoulder as he spoke, then walked towards the Ravenclaw.

This scene surprised Mike a little, because Snape actually encouraged those Hufflepuffs just now!
Although it sounds a bit sarcastic, this is obviously Snape's unique way of encouragement!
This is very rare to see!

Unfortunately, the Hufflepuffs didn't seem to appreciate it.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Snape leave. The Hufflepuff boy who was patted on the shoulder even touched his pants, apparently to check whether he had wet his pants. He didn't seem to want to make any effort at all.

Seeing this, Mike shook his head helplessly, and Snape said slowly:
"Dark magic! There are many different kinds of magic, and it's so powerful... Fighting it is like fighting a powerful nine-headed snake! If you cut off one head, two more powerful and cunning heads will grow back!"

Mike wanted to laugh. Snape's words reminded him of some comics he had read in his previous life.

"Therefore," Snape suddenly raised his voice, "your defense must be as varied and creative as the Dark Arts!"

Snape's sudden increase in voice alerted the students, and then he pointed to the mural on the wall.

"These pictures vividly show the conditions of the victims. For example, the killing curse (he pointed to a painting of a protagonist lying on the ground with a pale face). There is also the fire curse (a large piece of human-shaped charcoal), the explosion curse (a fragmentary corpse)..."

As Snape began to explain the meaning of these murals, the students' expressions gradually became terrified. Of course, Mike still maintained his expressionless look. He even felt a little bored because what Snape talked about was too low-level.

Perhaps he noticed Mike's thoughts. After introducing these murals, Snape returned to the podium and said to everyone:

"I think you are all still unfamiliar with silent spells. Who can tell me what silent spells are used for?"

There was a dead silence in the classroom. Everyone hung their heads and no one raised their hand.

Snape looked around and finally set his eyes on Mike.

"Mike, please answer this question."

"Okay, professor." Mike stood up and said, "Silent spells can prevent your opponent from judging the spell you are about to release through the spell, so that you can gain some advantages. Of course, this is only a superficial effect. In fact, the silent advantage of silent spells is also very useful when sneaking. And its ultimate effect is actually to speed up your casting speed, allowing you to release spells at an almost instantaneous speed. Of course, it also has disadvantages. First of all, silent spells are very difficult to learn, and their power is much smaller than that of audible spells."

"Well said." Snape nodded. "At least you can relate it to reality. This is much better than Miss Know-it-all, who can only read from a book. Okay, sit down."

Mike sat down with a smile, while Franklin beside him was grumbling in dissatisfaction.

According to convention, Snape should have given Mike extra points, but he obviously didn't do so.

But Mike didn't care about this little thing. Instead, he gave Franklin a gesture to keep quiet, because if Snape found out that he was still chattering, the consequences would be bad.

Fortunately, Snape didn't seem to notice the situation here. He raised his head, shook his greasy hair, and then said, "Our task today is to practice silent spells. Now you will be divided into groups of two. One will try to cast a spell on the other, but you are not allowed to say it out loud. The other will try to repel the evil curse, but you are also not allowed to say it out loud. Let's get started."

After saying that, Professor Snape swung his wand and all the desks in the classroom were thrown to both sides of the classroom with a huge force.

The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students looked at each other, and finally raised their wands towards the classmates around them under Snape's threatening gaze.

Although there were many people who wanted to team up with Mike to practice, Mike finally chose Franklin.

There was no other way around it. Compared to educating others, Mike would rather train Franklin, his own person.

To be honest, Mike felt that Snape was still a relatively competent professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. At least he was much better than Umbridge before him and Quirrell who could only read from the textbook in the first year.

After all, he has been trying his best to improve the students' strength in order to face the next invasion of Voldemort. This can be seen from the fact that he teaches everyone advanced spellcasting techniques such as silent spells. Otherwise, if Snape really wanted to surrender to Voldemort, he could have allowed his students to study freely, just like Quirrell did before. In this way, he could save some effort when Voldemort really invaded Hogwarts.

However, although Snape has tried his best to teach everyone, it is obvious that the students are not very grateful. Various cheating methods emerge in the practice of silent spells. For example, the two people next to Mike, although their voices were very low and their lip movements were almost invisible when they chanted the spell, Mike still found that they were secretly chanting spells, and there are many people who do this.

This is actually a very stupid thing to do, because even Mike could easily detect their cheating methods, let alone Snape.

That's right, Mike was sure that Snape must have noticed these people's little tricks, but for some reason, Professor Snape, who was extremely strict with his students in the past, chose to ignore such behavior.

On the contrary, those students who practiced hard but achieved little results were reprimanded by Snape. Snape's thin lips kept opening and closing, spraying venom at them, but at the same time he was constantly pointing out the mistakes they made in practice.

The faces of the students who were reprimanded were all pale. Snape was indeed an old yin-yang person and was very good at dealing with people.

Those students who cheated couldn't help laughing when they saw this.

Mike shook his head in disdain. In his opinion, these self-righteous people were the most stupid. They thought that no one could discover their methods and even laughed at those who worked hard, not knowing that they had been abandoned.

Mike retracted his gaze and looked back at Franklin.

He planned to teach Franklin well in this class, because the role of silent spells in combat was so important that whether or not one had mastered the release of more than double-digit silent spells was even set as one of the graduation review criteria for the Auror training class. This meant that only wizards who had mastered silent spells could be called true combat wizards.

"Come on, cast a silent spell on me. Any spell will do. Pick the one you are best at."

Mike said to Franklin, who looked embarrassed.

Franklin really had no confidence in the silent spell, he thought it was too difficult.

Fortunately, Franklin was not as smart as those people. After hesitating for a while, Franklin finally agreed.

Then, they both drew their wands and pointed them at each other.

Franklin gritted his teeth to prevent himself from accidentally reciting the spell, and at the same time, he waved the wand in his hand up and down in the air, and soon it drew a strange trajectory in the air.

This is 'Expelliarmus'.

Mike easily recognized the spell by the trajectory of Franklin's wand.

But this is not the right choice. The Disarming Spell is a relatively advanced offensive spell in Defense Against the Dark Arts. As a beginner of silent spells, it is obviously not advisable to choose such an advanced spell for the first attempt.

As Mike expected, when Franklin's first attempt at the silent spell failed, and due to the lack of guidance from the final stage of the spell, the magic power in his body that was guided by the correct wand waving action also went out of control.

Looking at the twitching muscles on Franklin's face, Mike also gasped.

This reminded him of his experience when he was learning the silent spell. The feeling of losing control of magic was not pleasant. The pain was just like being hit by a weakened version of the Cruciatus Curse.

Mike shook his head and was about to remind Franklin, but before he could say anything, he heard a familiar voice coming from the side.

"Ha! Another idiot! Do you think you are Merlin? You chose the Disarming Spell at the beginning. I should open your head and take a look, because I guess there should be nothing inside." Snape said quickly in a singing tone, "Or did Mr. Townley teach you this? Oh! I think I should understand. There is always an idiot beside celebrities who can bring out their genius, just like Weasley beside Mr. Potter. And you are the idiot beside Mr. Townley, right? You exist only to bring out Mr. Townley's genius!"

Franklin clenched his teeth so tightly that there was even a creaking sound from his mouth.

Mike believed that if Franklin had not been unable to defeat Snape, he would have gone up to fight him to the death.

In order to prevent Franklin from doing anything impulsive, Mike stepped forward, patted Franklin on the shoulder, and said loudly:
"Okay, calm down, Franklin. Use 'teeth as sticks', you know? Try it again with the simplest spell, remember that you have to use your mind to mobilize magic power in the end, not words like before. Come on, let's do it again."

Franklin glared at Snape fiercely before raising his wand again.

At this time, Snape also closed his mouth and looked calmly at Franklin who was preparing to cast a spell.

It was clear that he still remembered his duties as a professor.

Compared with the disarming spell, the steps to cast 'Teeth as Bludgeon' were much simpler. Franklin took a deep breath, and the wand in his hand slowly slid through the air, and finally pointed at Mike.

At the same time, Mike and Snape on the opposite side also held their breath at the same time.

(End of this chapter)