Chapter 22
Alan continued to wander around the classroom, while also guiding the group of second-year young wizards.
"Mr. Longbottom, don't panic, and don't wave around your wand carelessly. You should calm down and maintain a composed stature, and you'll be able to cast the spell better! Mr. Potter, you're doing well."
Neville's face turned bright red. Although Harry felt a bit happy inside, he didn't want to show it and thought he should take better care of Neville. Holding his wand, he said to Neville, "Neville, You can do it too!"
"Mr. Longbottom, try again," Alan encouraged, showing him the way of waving the wand.
Neville nodded slightly, pointed his wand, and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Harry's wand flew out of his hand in response.
"Good job, Mr. Longbottom!" Alan nodded in satisfaction, and then turning his attention towards harry wand, with just a gentle wave of his wand, Harry's wand automatically flew back into his hand, which he then handed to Harry.
"Thank you, professor," Harry said.
"I did it? I really did it harry!" Neville said excitedly, seemingly unable to believe that he had disarmed Harry.
Alan looking at the excited Neville, decided not to mention that when facing an enemy, the enemy wouldn't just stand still and let him disarm them. However, since this group of kids were still young, and this was just the first lesson; he didn't want to be harsh and rigid, instead he will continue to teach them and help them improve.
"You two keep practicing, take turns disarming each other," Alan said as he walked to another area. There were still many places in the classroom where he needed to pay attention to guidance, and he couldn't afford to waste too much time on one group of students.
As the class turned out to be full of excitement, the class period passed quickly for everyone.
Alan after praising Malfoy, who had also done quite good, lightly tapped his throat with his wand and mumbled the spell, "Sonorus!" which was a spell to amplify the speaker's voice.
"Everyone, you all did great today!" Alan said. All the students stopped their actions, put away their wands, and applauded enthusiastically.
"There were many students who performed excellently in this class: Hermione, Harry, Neville, Draco... you all did very well, so I've decided to award Gryffindor ten points and Slytherin five points!" Alan said softly, but due to the spell, his voice was loud.
Hearing the points distribution thought the group of slytherin looked a little down at first, but began to applaud as well following draco.
"Alright, that's it for this class. For homework... um, after you go back, take some time to practice the disarming spell. At the beginning of the next class, I will randomly call up two students to demonstrate. Alright, that's it, class dismissed!" Alan announced, with a smile on his face.
The students excitedly left the classroom in groups of three or five, while Alan stayed behind as he had another class with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.
"Reparo!"
"Petrificus totalus!"
...
As Alan chanted the spells, he readjusted the classroom setting, at the same time reinforcing it a bit; as the younger students were fine, but the older students could use some more powerful spells. If he didn't cast protective enforcment around the classroom, it would probably be destroyed after just a few classes.
He certainly didn't want his combat class to become a joke for this reason.
Meanwhile, the group of young wizards who left the sixth-floor combat classroom were discussing animatedly. They had never attended such an interesting practical class.
Last year's Defense Against the Dark Arts class was taught by Professor Quirrell, since they were full of excitement at that time, being newly introduced to such content of magic; however that guy solely focused on helping Voldemort obtain the Philosopher's Stone and had no time to teach the young wizards.
the same case was this year as well, as Professor Lockhart was just another pretty face, and most of the other classes were going to be theoretical, with very few practical lessons. This had led to them having almost no good practical class experiences, and this combat class provided them with an exceptionally wonderful experience they were desiring.
"Professor Smith is amazing; I think he's much better than Professor Lockhart," Harry said, as he couldn't help but still feel the magic surging through his hand, as he had casted that disarming spell.
"I think Professor Lockhart is also very capable. Of course, I mean Professor Smith is outstanding, but Professor Lockhart isn't bad, is he?" Hermione said. "Look, Professor Lockhart has written so many excellent books based on his experiences; he just hasn't found his teaching style yet. He's better at dealing with various dark magical creatures."
"Come on, Hermione, stop defending that show off," Ron said, making an ugly face.
"You..." Hermione said angrily, "i think you have forgotten that Professor Smith will write to Mr. Weasley about your wand; just wait and see!"
Ron turned pale instantly.
"What's going on?" Harry couldn't help but ask, and Hermione explained what had happened in class.
Harry thought for a moment and said, "Ron, try to look at the bright side; this might not necessarily be a bad thing."
"What??" Ron could hardly believe his ears. "he really wouldn't do that? i don't want another howler; but It's all my fault for breaking my wand..."
"Don't be like that Ron, and anyway you obviously can't get through the whole second year with this broken wand, can you?" Harry pointed to the broken wand peeking out of Ron's backpack and said, "If it's Professor Smith who wrote a letter, Mr. Weasley will definitely think seriously about it. As long as you get a new wand, hearing a howler is worth it?"
"Well, you do have a point there," Ron nodded thoughtfully, smiling like a deadman.
"You two come on, we have another class, i don't want to be late again," Hermione said as she strode out of the castle's sixth floor, with Harry and Ron following her.
****
Want to read more of this fanfic, and support me :- Patreon.com/EmptyThoughts.