> On Knowledge of the Enemy: "Before casting your first spell, cast your eyes upon your enemy’s wand, his training, and stance. The wise magician reads his foe as a book—carefully, patiently, and thoroughly."
>
> On the Superiority of Interior Ley Lines: "In battle, he who commands the ley line commands the field. Magical currents are the unseen rivers of power; to fight against them is to row against the tide."
>
> On Positioning: “To defend well is to place oneself upon the key terrain: high ground, uneven terrain, and choke points render an opponent’s numbers impotent while amplifying your own.”
>
> On Maneuver and Illusion: "The greater duelist is not he who casts the most spells, but he who appears where his enemy least expects. Apparition is not merely movement—it is misdirection."
>
> On Economy: “A defensive charm foolishly placed is as wasteful as a Galleon spent on frippery."
>
> On Wards and Countermeasures: “The essence of magical defense lies in economy of effort. The Protego Reflexionis is not a wall but a mirror; this most elegant shield turns a foe’s own strength against them by a factor of three. Why exhaust yourself when the enemy will gladly provide their own downfall?”
>
> On the Balance of Offense and Defense: “A wizard who defends endlessly will be buried. Any defense, however strong, must always be in preparation to shift to the offense at the first opportunity.”
>
> On Offensive Action: "To linger in defense is to yield the initiative. The wizard who presses forward with fire and fury dispels his enemy’s plan and compels him to react, and reaction breeds mistakes."
>
> On Momentum: "Victory in battle is a rolling stone; once it begins, it gathers speed and strength. Strike, strike again, and strike until the stone and slope are too great to stop."
>
> On Strategy vs. Tactics: "Spells win duels; duels win battles; but strategy wins wars. A wizard who plans for the hour is a tactician. A wizard who plans for the season and the one thereafter is a master strategist."
>
> - Excerpts from "The Principles of Magical Warfare" by Antonius Grimini, 1836. Translated from the French by Cephas Parrott.
>
> Required Reading at Ilvermorny, CM370: 10th Grade Advanced Combat Magic.
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The next morning dawned gray and drizzly, the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall mirroring the gloomy sky. Jack was halfway through an improvised bacon sandwich, trying to ignore the pounding in his temples, when the morning mail arrived in a flurry of feathers.
A bedraggled owl landed in front of him with a slightly damp letter clutched in its beak. Jack took it eagerly, recognizing his mother's neat handwriting on the envelope.
He scanned the contents, his heart lifting at the news that his parents would be arriving in Britain in a week. His mother wrote that everything was ready for his father’s ‘new job and our new apartment’, without any further details. Jack smiled tightly, his dad always told him never to entrust details to mail.
There was a small postscript: “Keep your eyes open for a boy named Venge, should be in your year. His father and I were in Paris. - Dad”
Cyprian Venge? Jack looked over towards the Slytherin table where the boy in question was sitting at the far end, a yard wide gap between him and the new first-years.
Still waters run deep, he thought to himself. He’d have to try and grab him between classes. He made a mental note to write back to his parents that evening.
The morning's Daily Prophet brought fresh reminders that the magical world's troubles hadn't ended with Grindelwald. Grim headlines told of more chaos in India and trouble with striking goblin factory workers in southern France and Lancashire.
The Quibbler's shrill warnings about dark wizard infiltration at the Gringotts Stock Exchange sounded comical in comparison, though Grymes leaning over to borrow the tabloid from a third-year suggested otherwise. Concerned murmurs about relations stationed in the Orient bubbled around him, a few Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs had family in colonial civil service.
The Slytherins were particularly disturbed by the news about India. Green-clad students crowded around each other to read the papers. He focused his ears, picking up groans of consternation and gloomy speculation about what will go wrong.
Next he glanced over at the Ravenclaws, where Caeso sat having a spirited and one-sided debate with his sycophants:
"You sound like a bloody Fabian, Partridge! Always ‘gradual change’ this and ‘tea with the Establishment’ that! I tell you, in ten years, we’ll either have full integration or we’ll be living under a MACUSA jackboot..."
Cassandra was sitting in the middle of their house table with Bianca Ludd, filling out forms. Probably demerits or patrol schedule, Jack reckoned. She looked polished and unruffled.
The Ravenclaw table seemed blasé about the newspapers dropped on their tables. As if the world outside, with all its tragedy and suffering, simply didn't exist. Like the deaths of millions of Muggles and the destruction of whole wizarding enclaves, was less real or important than the personal dramas playing out within the walls of Hogwarts.
Jack felt a surge of irrational anger, hot and bitter in his throat. People were dying and losing their homes. How could they all be so cavalier about everything?
But even as the thought formed, he felt a twinge of guilt. He'd grown up safe and sheltered in America, far from the devastation of the war here. He had no idea what it was like to live with that kind of loss. For him, pain was dinner coming an hour late, or taking an exploding Quod to the chest. Nasty sure, unexpected maybe, but nothing earth-shattering or life-changing. What about the poor wizarding families in the former British Raj that had lost everything overnight?
As he gathered up his books and headed for Defense class with Henry, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was deeply wrong at this school. Things back home seemed incredibly simple by comparison. Was this the burden of trying to maintain such a sprawling magical empire?
He climbed the winding staircase to the Defense Against the Dark Arts Tower, preoccupied with depressing thoughts. Professor MacLeod's classroom was near the top of the wide tower, taking up most of the floor. The tapestries lining the staircase and walls showed magical combat through the ages, from ancient Roman magi hurling elemental magic at dark magic-wielding Carthaginians1, medieval magicians dueling in enchanted armor and riding upon dragons, an early-modern wizard in alchemist garb destroying a pike square of landsknechts2, all the way to 19th century Aurors dramatically facing dark wizards on stormy mountaintops.
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The Defense classroom bore the scars of countless duels – scorch marks on the stone walls, a few suspiciously clean patches where curses had stripped away centuries of grime, and desk legs that had been repaired so many times they seemed to be made of splinters held together by spellwork. Tall windows let in the autumn sunlight. Runic iron bars criss-crossed the windows, to protect the glass against both stray spells and potential attack from without.
Professor MacLeod, the head of Gryffindor House, stood beside a raised dueling platform with his gauntleted hand tucked into his belt. Jack and Henry settled into an inconspicuous back table. Cyprian and Caeso Montfort were in opposite corners. Cassandra was in the front, one table over from Eustace Grymes.
"Welcome to N.E.W.T. level Defense Against the Dark Arts," MacLeod announced without preamble as soon as he adjudicated that the last student was in her seat. "You're here because you've shown both the aptitude and the will to learn advanced combat magic. But make no mistake, this isn't about passing exams."
He paced the platform, his boots thunking rhythmically on the boards. "Three years ago, Grindelwald's forces attacked Diagon Alley. Students your age found themselves fighting dark wizards in the streets.”
Eustace Grymes didn't move a muscle.
“Two years ago,” MacLeod continued, “nearly to the day, they attempted to storm Hogsmeade. One last gasp. Again, young witches and wizards stood on the front lines. You” he gestured at the class “were kept in the castle. The fifth-years and up were called out to fight in order to defend Hogwarts. Some of them didn’t come back."
The class was silent. Jack was scared to look away from the dueling stage. MacLeod continued to pace steadily.
Now Jack knew why there were so many empty seats in the Great Hall.
"I am not saying this to try and scare you," MacLeod continued, his blue eyes fixing each of them in turn, "I am telling you that not one of us knows when you'll be called upon to defend yourselves, your loved ones, or the innocent. Dark wizards will not wait for you to finish school. The curriculum reflects that reality." He flicked his wand at the blackboard. Words appeared in bold letters:
> Block 1: Advanced Shield Charms and Counter-Curses
>
> Block 2: Detection and Dispelling of Dark Magic
>
> Block 3: Defensive Wards and Anti-Apparition Area Protection (Mid-Term)
>
> Block 4: Combat Healing
>
> Block 5: Partnered Combat Techniques and Avoiding Friendly Fire
"The last block of instruction is particularly important for when you are in a mêlée,” MacLeod smiled, attempting to lift the tension, “I speak from experience. Professor Whitby - fellow Gryffindor alum - almost took my good hand that way. He was aiming for the chain on a drawbridge. In his defense, I was holding onto said chain at the time, and an armored mountain troll was bearing down on us. It’s a good story, especially when he tells it, since I nearly tossed him off the top of the Hohensalzburg3 afterwards.”
A few nervous laughs. Jack diligently noted down the words on the board, not realizing they were already on his course syllabus until he had already gotten past Block 3.
"We'll begin with Shield Charms," MacLeod continued. "Not the basic 180-degree Protego you learned for O.W.L.s, but specialized variants. Variants that are highly dependent on timing and direction. Shields that can reflect curses back at attackers. Shields that protect not just yourself but others nearby. Shields that can be maintained while moving or casting other spells. By Halloween, you'll be able to do this."
He demonstrated while still pacing, his wand moving in a complex pattern. The air glimmered and refracted around him.
Jack noted with satisfaction that it was practically the same reflection Protego that he had learned last fall at Ilvermorny. Finally, he was a bit ahead of the game.
“Clear your tables so that I can move them to the side of the room to make space,” MacLeod ordered. A scuffle of activity in the classroom. “Now partner up with your seatmate. Knockback jinxes. I want five percent power only! I want you to focus on timing and deflection, not trying to smite each other."
The rest of the class passed in practical exercises. Jack and Henry practiced launching gentle Flipendos at each other like they were first-years, with the new sixth-year wrinkle of catching the jinxes with Protego and volleying them back and forth like a Quaffle. Jack handled the assignment effortlessly. It was actually pretty fun.
"Good class, old bean," Henry commented as they packed up at the end of class. "I think you made an impression."
“Eh?” Jack said, distractedly trying to put his wand back into his sleeve pocket.
"You think Hightower was watching me and my partner that closely last term?" Henry asked with a grin.
Jack glanced over to where Cassandra was carefully filing away her notes. She wasn't looking at them.
He felt a strange, swooping sensation in his stomach.
“No way,” Jack replied, shaking the feeling off, “She’s just got it out for me. Making sure that I’m staying on the straight and narrow- Squanto’s corns3, where’s Cyprian Venge gone off to? He was just in his seat.”
“What are you asking about him for?” Henry asked curiously. “Venge is queer. Even by Slytherin standards.”
“My dad wanted me to say hi to him, I think he and Venge’s dad know each other from the war.”
“The war?” Henry’s lip curled, “The Venges played neutral until they threw in with us late in ‘40.”
“Johnny-come-lately, huh...” Jack caught a glimpse of Cyprian slipping out the door behind a pair of chatting Hufflepuffs. “Oh, there he goes.”
Montfort shot Jack a smug look as he packed up and left. Jack looked past him, instead zeroing in on Venge, who was beelining for the stairs down. He bid a hasty good-bye to Henry.
“Hey there, Cyprian, wait up!” Jack had to jog down the hallway to catch him.
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1. The Roman magi were famed for their disciplined use of magic—harnessing fire, wind, and earth as effectively as their legions wielded steel. During the Punic Wars (264 BC – 146 BC), these magi often found themselves hurling flames and invoking tempests against Carthaginian sorcerers, whose dark necromantic blood magic struck terror into Roman ranks. The Carthaginians, it is said, bound shadows to their will and called on eldritch forces that unnerved even the bravest legionaries. Rome's eventual victory not only secured dominance over the Mediterranean but cemented its magical legacy. The Romans codified Greek spellcasting into structured incantations and charms, creating the foundation of what the Western world still considers magic today. Terms such as magia, incantatio, and protego stem directly from Roman tradition, as do the principles of wandcraft, runic warding, and magical law.
The secrets of Carthaginian black magic and necromancy have been lost to time, thank Merlin.
2. Landsknechts, gaudily dressed German mercenary soldiers of the 16th and early 17th centuries, would march as readily for gold as for glory, and were as dangerous as they were flamboyant. Known for their brutal efficiency with pike and firelock, they wreaked havoc across the towns and battlefields of Europe. The 17th century was an especially perilous time for magical people. The chaos of constant warfare, combined with the breakdown of society and organized religion, desperation, suspicion, and superstition, often forced wizards and witches to defend themselves against Muggle rapine and pillage. This dark period proved one of the final straws that made wizardkind realize co-existence with Muggles was impossible.
3. The Hohensalzburg, a massive medieval stronghold overlooking Salzburg, Austria, was the site of a covert wizarding battle in October 1944. Aurors Malcolm MacLeod and Edwin Whitby engaged several dark wizards who had fortified themselves deep within the fortress, supported by a mountain troll they had bewitched. The battle - which happened concurrent with a massive Anglo-American Muggle air raid - reached its climax when Whitby used a Bombarda spell to sever the chains of the fortress’s ancient drawbridge mechanism and drop the bridge onto the troll, flattening it. Though the dark wizards managed to escape amidst the chaos, the Aurors successfully recovered the cursed artifact they had been smuggling to Grindelwald’s forces.
4. Squanto’s Corns is another colorful American wizarding idiom, used to express disbelief, frustration, or exasperation. Its origins trace back to the early days of America and the peculiar circumstances surrounding the famed Patuxet Indian known as Squanto (Tisquantum), who famously aided the Muggle Puritan settlers of Plymouth Colony in 1620 AD (and thus indirectly the following wizarding settlers of Rhode Island). Squanto was not only multilingual but also a highly skilled magical botanist. By blending herbology with magic, he managed to cultivate extraordinarily resilient maize (known as corn to Americans) that flourished in the rocky New England soil—a feat so miraculous it baffled Muggles. It's also a sophormoric pun on foot corns.