Chapter 61 — Before the Count

Lockhart managed to get up smiling. He put one hand on the platform and straightened carefully, then accepted his wand from a student who had retrieved it. By the time he faced us, he appeared ready to discuss the useful experience he had arranged. He praised Snape’s demonstration and began explaining how easily he could have prevented it had he wished.

‘We should teach them to block a hostile spell,’ Snape said. His voice carried without being raised. Lockhart agreed immediately, presenting the suggestion as the excellent next step he had been waiting to take. Then he called Harry and Ron onto the platform, and Harry’s grin disappeared.

Ron glanced towards the pocket containing his damaged wand. Snape followed the movement and said he would observe until he had a sound one to use. The arrangement had already been explained, he added. Ron stayed beside us, letting his hand fall away from the pocket with an expression which suggested he did not intend to dispute the reminder.

Snape selected Malfoy instead. Draco moved forward readily enough, no longer walking with the discomfort I had seen in the hospital wing. He gave Harry a look as he approached the steps. Lockhart then turned towards me, announcing that he would choose one of his most promising pupils to meet him.

Malfoy stopped with a foot on the step. Harry and Ron looked at me, and Ron whispered for me to go on. I examined Lockhart’s welcoming hand, wondering when managing something useful in his presence had become the same as learning it from him. Then I went up before he could improve the introduction.

Snape showed me where to stand. Malfoy took the other end more slowly, and I measured the distance between us while the rules were explained. Disarming and defence only, with both of us to wait for the count. At Snape’s instruction we would stop. I took a prepared shield from my pouch and watched Malfoy adjust his grip on his wand.

We bowed. I turned to take the required paces, keeping him in sight as long as the movement allowed. Quirrell had reduced my enthusiasm for politely forgetting where an opponent stood. Harry’s practice spells had helped reinforce the lesson, particularly when we tried awkward angles rather than arranging ourselves conveniently on opposite sides of a desk.

A shoe scraped behind me. Malfoy spoke Expelliarmus before either professor began counting. I looked over my shoulder and threw, saying Protego as the preparation left my hand. The shield opened at an angle between us, a sloping surface towards which his spell was already travelling.

Light struck it and flared back towards his wand arm. He jerked away, lost his footing and landed on the boards with an impact I felt through my shoes. I finished turning, keeping the shield between us. We had practised turning aside Harry’s lighter spells; I had not expected the afternoon’s first chance to use it to arrive before the exercise began.

Snape ordered us to stop. I lowered my hand as the barrier faded, its paper spent, while Gryffindors shouted from beside the platform. Ron’s voice reached me through the others, followed by Harry laughing. Lockhart applauded with the satisfaction of somebody who thought the lesson had provided exactly what he wanted.

Snape was less pleased. He took five points from Slytherin for casting before the count and told Malfoy to get up. Draco scrambled to his feet, his cheeks red and one hand holding the arm the turned spell had caught. I resisted the temptation to ask whether he had thought the count optional; the professor was already giving him the answer.

‘A defensive spell does not require your opponent to behave properly,’ Snape told the room. ‘That gives none of you permission to disregard the rules of this exercise.’ I looked at my empty fingers, pleased less by the applause than by the result. The shield had worked while somebody was trying to remove my chance to answer, which was rather more useful than succeeding when we both agreed to be ready.

Snape inspected Malfoy’s grip and asked about his arm. Draco answered stiffly, and the professor allowed him to continue after checking it. We would repeat the exercise properly, using only the Disarming Charm, he said. I selected an appropriate strip this time and waited, watching the wand rather than trying to decide whom Malfoy blamed for the laughter.

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Lockhart reclaimed the count. At three, Malfoy spoke a different word: Serpensortia. Something black shot from his wand and landed between us. It uncoiled across the boards, lifting a head which had no obvious part in a demonstration of taking somebody’s wand away.

Snape told us to back away. I moved towards the clear end of the platform, with the unused Disarming Charm still between my fingers. Hermione called out that the spell had broken the rules. Snape said he could see that and ordered Malfoy to lower his wand while he approached the snake.

Lockhart stepped forward from the other side, announcing that he would handle it. His spell struck before Snape reached the creature. It flew into the air, and I looked up expecting it to disappear. Instead it fell against the platform’s edge and dropped among the students, where people stumbled backwards trying to make room.

Snape turned sharply towards Lockhart, then moved to the edge to see where it had landed. I put away the Disarming Charm and reached for fire. Justin was retreating with the snake between him and the nearest clear space. It raised its head, drawing its body tighter while the students behind him attempted to move in several directions at once.

Harry came forward from my left. I told him to stay back, but he did not seem to hear. A hiss came from his mouth, stopping me for half a second. The sound changed in little harsh bursts with pauses between them, as though he were saying words I ought to distinguish. I could understand none of it.

The snake turned. Justin tried to retreat farther and struck somebody behind him, stumbling as the head rose higher. Harry hissed again. Whatever he intended, I could see Justin running out of room while Snape ordered everyone to clear the floor. Waiting until I understood the conversation seemed a poor choice with the distance shrinking in front of me.

I dropped from the low end of the platform and took a shield with my free hand. I threw it across the gap before Justin, speaking Protego, and light divided him from the snake. Harry was beside me on the same side of the barrier. I caught his sleeve with the hand which had released the shield and drew him back.

The snake struck at the light. I sent the fire preparation towards the bare stone beneath it and spoke Incendio. The flare was brief and confined, with no reason to fill the space where the students stood. The creature twisted once. When the light subsided, nothing moved beneath the smoke.

Snape reached us and extinguished a burning scrap beside the platform. He sent the nearest students farther back, checked Justin and turned towards Malfoy. Draco was to remain, he said, and so was Professor Lockhart. Lockhart began explaining, but Snape put him off with two words and continued dealing with the students in front of him.

I looked at the marks on the floor. Two more preparations were gone, making three since I stepped onto the platform. The unused Disarming Charm was safely back in the pouch. My hand still held Harry’s sleeve, and I loosened it when he turned to ask why I had done that.

Justin spoke before I could answer. He demanded to know what Harry had been playing at, saying he had been telling the snake to come at him. Harry looked bewildered and denied it. I remembered the sound coming from his mouth, strange enough to frighten people without supplying any of us with a meaning.

‘I saw where the snake was,’ I told Justin. ‘I didn’t understand what Harry said. Neither did you.’ He looked at me, breathing hard, with anger and fear close together in his expression. I had met him less than an hour ago. It would take more than one sentence from me to remove the memory of that head rising towards him.

‘I told it to stop,’ Harry said. Several students close enough to hear moved farther away. I let go of his sleeve altogether and told him that was what he needed to explain. Preventing the strike had been a decision I could make from what I saw. Deciding what Harry meant required listening to him.

Snape looked directly at Harry, his expression briefly harder to place than its usual disapproval. He ended the meeting and instructed prefects to take their houses back together. Justin was to wait where he could be seen until Snape finished checking what had happened. The students began moving, leaving a conspicuous space around us.

‘What did you believe you were saying?’ Snape asked Harry quietly. Harry repeated that he had told the snake not to hurt Justin. Snape held his gaze for a moment, then said he would speak to the headmaster. Harry was to return with his prefect and attempt no further demonstration. He agreed, though the instruction did little to clear the confusion from his face.

Ron and Hermione joined us. Students nearby took longer routes to their friends, avoiding the place where Harry stood, and I stayed beside him as we went towards Percy. He had spoken to a snake. The rest of us had heard something frightening and supplied an intention of our own, which was an uncomfortable reason to remember how much we still needed to ask.