Chapter 167
Chapter 167
“Is that all? Is that all?” Snape expressionlessly flicked aside a spell hurtling towards his face. The red beam rebounded into a mound of rubbish and blasted out a shallow crater.
An instant later, another spell shot back at Suer.
Crack. With a sharp sound like breaking glass, the ominous spell tore through the thin, pale shield without slowing and raced towards Suer beneath it.
Suer threw himself into an awkward roll to the right and barely avoided the speeding curse.
Good heavens, Snape was trying to kill him! The aura surrounding that spell unquestionably belonged to Dark magic.
Snape raised his wand and advanced with an icy expression. Without thinking, Suer cast Impedimenta. Unfortunately, Snape deflected that spell as well, sending it into the nearby rubbish heap and scattering faded wrappers.
“Hmm?” Snape suddenly stopped and looked down. His foot had sunk into a patch of marsh where no marsh had existed before.
Impedimenta had merely been a distraction. The suddenly formed marsh beneath Snape’s feet was Suer’s true objective. His silent Transfiguration had quietly laid a small trap.
“Far too immature,” Snape sneered. “Are you attempting to amuse me?”
He lifted his foot with ease. At that precise moment, a Knockback Jinx flew towards him.
Snape reacted with extraordinary speed. He tilted his head to the left, and the jinx skimmed past his greasy black hair.
In those few seconds, Suer had regained his footing. A thin magical shield stood before him, and a smile appeared on his face.
“Confringo!” The boy’s clear voice rang across the open ground surrounded by rubbish.
Boom! His target was not Snape, but the refuse that had somehow gathered behind him.
With a great clatter, every kind of discarded wrapper, half-eaten fish bones, and foul-smelling green mash rained directly onto Snape.
The biological attack proved remarkably effective. Fast though Snape was, even the magical wall he raised could not stop every drop of stinking liquid from landing on his robes and hair.
It caused little injury, but tremendous humiliation.
Once the rain of rubbish stopped, the normally impassive Professor Snape looked down at himself. The piercing stench filled his nose. His jaw tightened, and a vein stood out clearly at his temple.
Suer’s triumphant laughter and smug expression froze. A sense of danger even stronger than the one he had felt when three Acromantula attacked during his Animagus transformation surged through his mind.
Shrill, urgent alarms rang in his head.
“Ah! Don’t… You can’t do this!”
“I’m still a child! I’m your student, Professor!”
“Aaaah!”
The black river continued its slow, silent course while the boy’s hoarse screams echoed overhead and refused to fade.
Not long afterwards, Suer sat curled up on the tattered cloth sofa, arms wrapped around his knees. His eyes were empty, and his face held utter despair at the meaninglessness of life.
Why was he alive?
Across from him sat the once-again composed Professor Snape. His hair was wet but remained greasy, and he had clearly changed into fresh robes, for the small dark red bloodstain on his chest had vanished.
Snape’s gaze was as still as an ancient well. Yet the memory of rubbish raining over him made his expression tighten all over again.
He might rarely wash his hair or change his clothes, but that did not mean he cared nothing for cleanliness!
The memory still made him angry.
Humiliated by Suer’s rubbish attack, Snape had lost his temper with unusual force. His sense of mortification had outweighed even his anger.
He decided that his student needed a thorough lesson in respecting his teacher.
Snape therefore demonstrated the power of an adult wizard — and a professor at that.
For the benefit of his excellent student — with considerable emphasis on “excellent” — he showed what a series of simple prank spells, harmless in the eyes of castle students, could become when cast by a professor.
What Snape considered personal instruction felt like one-sided torment to Suer. Yet however much he suffered, Snape retained precise control. He caused no real injury, and the display truly opened Suer’s eyes.
In the hands of an adult wizard, simple prank magic was almost indistinguishable from certain forms of Dark magic.
Dark magic could broadly be divided into jinxes, hexes, and curses. Prank spells such as the Dancing Feet Spell and the spell that made someone weep uncontrollably were among the milder jinxes.
Hexes were a step beyond jinxes. They caused inconvenience or injury, but not enough harm to reach the level of a curse. The boundary remained rather vague; Densaugeo, for instance, could be classified as either a jinx or a hex.
Curses, meanwhile, were best represented by the infamous Avada Kedavra, the Killing Curse. Any magic intended to take a victim’s life or cause severe, irreversible injury belonged in that category.
Judging from Professor Snape’s “lesson”, even a straightforward jinx such as Densaugeo could be developed into a spell capable of killing a wizard. Suer could imagine the horror of being stabbed to death by his own teeth.
Snape had deliberately limited the strength of those spells while teaching — and venting his anger — but the experience was more than enough to make Suer understand the significance hidden within supposedly simple prank magic.
Any spell driven by powerful negative emotion could become Dark magic. Had Suer faced a Dark wizard instead of Snape, his own teeth might have pierced his skull, or his suddenly lengthened hair might have strangled him.
Even so, using Dark magic on one’s student was excessive for a professor!
Suer would have to complain to Dumbledore.
He cursed silently for some time.
Only after a long while did Suer recover from Snape’s brutal retaliation. His face had settled, but indignation still burned in his eyes.
Snape gave him a contemptuous glance. If Suer objected, he could keep it to himself until the day he defeated Snape — which, of course, would never come.
“Let me see how your Occlumency practice has progressed,” Snape said flatly.
Suer’s expression froze again.
Damn. How had he forgotten about that?