The Marauders: Year Seven Part One

Defensive Dark Arts

"You can always fight dark with light," murmured Remus. "By it's very property, light defeats dark..."

Garm brought a hand to his mouth and paused for a moment, thinking, then lowered his palm and looked at Remus. "Sorry, do you want to teach this class or shall I go on?"

"Well, he wants to teach it someday," Sirius said before Remus could reply.

"Then he better pay attention, eh?" Garm asked. He turned, looping back around to the chalkboard. Previously, everyone that had taught the class had used magic in order to write on the board, but Garm lifted a bit of chalk with his hand and looked it over, his fingers getting the white dust all over them as he passed the chalk piece through his grip. "Defensive Dark Magic," he said, writing the three words down as he spoke, "Is a form of magic that a lot of witches and wizards frown upon in theory, but find useful in practice. Don't think for a moment that your dear Headmaster, Dumbledore, didn't use a fair bit of Defensive Dark Magic when he fought the infamous Duel against Grindlewald in 1945." He tossed the chalk bit to Frek, who jumped up to attend to writing on the board as Garm turned back to face the students again. He seemed unable to stop moving, wandering constantly as he spoke, his hands now clasped behind his back, his head rolling about. "Hexes and Curses... You've been taught some of them, haven't you?"

Everyone sort of looked between each other.

"C'mon, I know you have," Garm said. "I used to go here, too, alright? I know what they're teachin' you in this castle. And what they aren't." He looked around. "Someone name something they know."

"Evans can cast an excellent Bat Bogey Hex," James piped up.

Garm looked at Lily. "Well isn't that fun. And tell me, -- Evans is it? -- what do you use the Bat Bogey Hex for, typically?"

Lily looked at James and then back at Garm, "Well, I used to use it to threaten Potter here to back off when he was being a bully."

James grinned, "Hit me with it once, too. Bogeys everywhere."

Garm nodded, "And, Evans, would you say that was a defensive use of the hex?"

Lily hesitated, seeing where he was going with this. "Um, yes."

Garm looked back to Remus. "That, Remus Lupin, is precisely how Defensive Dark Magic works."

There was a long pause, and then Garm looked up. "Mister...."

"Snape," came a monotone voice from the back of the class.

Everyone looked around to look at Severus in surprise. In all the time that Snape had been at Hogwarts, the only class he'd ever really spoken up much in had been Potions, and even that had been quite rare. There was a murmur of disbelief that went up through the room, and Sirius met James's eyes across the aisle between them before turning to look at Garm again.

"Alright. Snape. Yes?" Garm stared at Severus - but, Remus noticed, it was the same sort of dead-cold stare that Garm had stared at him with that morning after the full moon.

Severus Snape said, "At Durmstrang, sir, in the Dark Arts class, they said that Dark Magic is only thusly called Dark because it is used for Dark purposes. No magic in and of itself is Dark, no spell is Dark. Even the Killing Curse isn't inherently dark."

James made a face, "How in hell do you justify that? Of course the killing curse is Dark." He shook his head, his brow furrowed.

"Because," Severus Snape said, his voice cold and even, "Sometimes people beg for death, and the killing curse is more mercy than anything else."

James shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking down at the desktop. "Yeah, well," he murmured, unsure if Snape was referring to him or not... referring to the time he'd spent in that horrible tower...

"These people that beg for death," Sirius said loudly, turning 'round to look at Snape, "Spend a lot time near you, did they?"

Remus closed his eyes in exasperation.

A few nervous chuckles rippled through the classroom.

Garm was looking between Sirius and Severus, a bit of a smirk quivering on his lips, "My, my," he said, "Do leave at least some of the dueling for our practice rounds!" And he turned around on the heel of his boot and resumed his pacing. "As Snape has pointed out, there are reasons for which to use dark magic that are alternate to the norm and therefore, yes, dark magic is thusly called because of the intent of the caster... Frek, you ought to be writing this down."

"Yes, Messer Garm, sir," and Frek leaped up and grabbed the chalk stubbin, quickly and messily writing down Dark Magic is thusly called because of the Intent of the Caster across the chalkboard. As the chalk squeaked, Garm's eyes roved over the motionless group of teenage witches and wizards before him, and when none of them made the move to collect parchment from their bags - save for Remus, who had been taking meticulous notes of everything that had been said from the moment the class started - Garm cleared his throat.

"He ain't the only one that ought to be writing it down."

They all went for their parchments.

"Ferfucksakes," Sirius groaned while his and James's heads were both down in their bags in the aisle, "Bugger doesn't realize I'm only going to doodle mean pictures of him and copy down Moony's notes later anyway."

James laughed, and as he was smiling at Sirius, his head turned and his eyes met Snape's down the aisle as he, too, reached for his parchment and they stared directly into one another's eyes for a long moment. James sat up quickly, turning to face forward and he straightened his parchment carefully.

"Do you want to share my ink well?" Lily asked, seeing James had neglected grabbing his while he was bent double.

James nodded, "Yeah, thank you."

Lily smiled, "You alright?"

He nodded again. "Spiffing."

Remus glanced over and gave James an apologetic grimace, and turned back to his notes.