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Gazing at the clear and attentive eyes of the students seated before him, Sargeras quietly pushed aside the faint weariness hidden in the depths of his own gaze, allowing no trace of it to show upon his face. Then, in a voice measured and steady, neither hurried nor sluggish, and with each word spoken with perfect clarity, he began his lesson.
"Today, we will master three basic spells: the Disarming Charm, used to strip your opponent of their weapon; the Body Freezing Spell, to restrict and immobilise their movements; and the Stunning Spell, which robs your target of consciousness entirely."
As his calm explanation reached this point, he flicked his wand with effortless precision. A streak of magic, sharp and swift as a silver serpent, shot out and wove its way nimbly through the crowd. In the blink of an eye, it struck an empty chair in the far corner.
Gasps rose from the students as the chair began to twist and warp, the wooden frame bending unnaturally until, before their astonished eyes, it had transformed into a towering armoured knight. A long sword gleamed coldly in its gauntleted hands, catching the light with a razor edge.
It stepped forward with a heavy, deliberate rhythm, each thud reverberating through the polished oak floor. The knight shoved its way through the crowd with brute force, sending students stumbling aside, then charged straight at Sargeras with the unstoppable momentum of an oncoming boulder.
In that instant, the students' eyes gleamed with a strange, almost hypnotic focus, their faces bright with fascination. Even the professors standing to one side could not help but widen their eyes in astonishment.
"Expelliarmus!" Sargeras thrust his wand forward with sharp precision, and a fierce scarlet beam lanced through the air, striking the armored knight with unerring accuracy."
"CLANG!!"
The long sword flew from the knight's grasp, spinning through the air before landing with a metallic ring.
"Key points…" Sargeras said evenly, as if the dramatic display had been no more than a routine exercise. "Your target must be clear, and your will must be unwavering. Picture the enemy's weapon as an alien object that must be stripped away from them. Focus your magic into a single point of release… never let it scatter."
Without pausing, he lifted his wand once more and gave it a decisive sweep.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
A beam of light, grey with a faint metallic sheen, shot forth in an instant, striking the knight squarely. In mid-charge, its movements froze; the pose locked into place as if molten steel had been poured over its body, leaving it stiff and immovable like a statue wrought of iron.
"The essence of the Body Freezing Spell…" Sargeras continued, "lies in the purity and strength of your 'sealing' intent. Imagine your magic seeping into the target like frost, freezing every joint and limb until no motion is possible."
Almost before the last word had fallen, his wand cut downwards in a crisp, decisive arc.
"Stupefy!"
A thicker, more forceful column of blue light burst from the wand's tip, slamming with brutal impact into the petrified knight.
BOOOOM—!
The armoured figure was hurled backward as though struck by a massive hammer, crashing heavily to the floor. The impact echoed through the hall, and the knight lay there motionless, the metallic plates of its armour rattling faintly before falling still.
"This spell demands a clear and absolute will to bring things to an end," Sargeras instructed, his tone as calm as ever. "Your force must fall heavy, like a great hammer striking its final rest. At the same time, the flow of your magic must remain steady. Power alone is never the goal, for excess can be just as flawed as insufficiency."
What followed was a lesson in precision. Sargeras broke down every element of spellcasting with meticulous detail; the subtle shifts in the shaping of the lips with each incantation, the delicate angle of the wrist at every flick, the minute channels through which magic coursed within the body, and the fleeting yet unmistakable sensation in that perfect instant of success, when magic and will fused into a single seamless whole.
Every detail was forcefully pressed into the students' minds, burned there with relentless clarity. Their brains were working at full capacity, sharp and overclocked like the most finely tuned instruments, drinking in each fragment of knowledge with a greedy hunger. In their eyes, there was nothing but a cold, razor-edged focus—single-minded, efficient, and absolute.
Half an hour later, Sargeras finally lowered his wand.
"The theory portion is complete."
His cool, level voice pulled them back, if only slightly, from that state of extreme calmness.
"Now, we move to practical application." With another flick of his wand, a row of heavy oak chairs along the edge of the hall began to warp and twist without a sound, reshaping themselves into wooden practice dummies, each one clutching a short club in stiff hands.
Their wooden feet thudded dully against the floor as they marched forward with jerky, puppet-like steps, automatically fanning out to different corners of the hall.
"Pair up. Two to a group, partners for the exercise. Begin with the Disarming Charm and take turns casting the spell." He strode as he spoke, his words measured yet carrying the weight of command. "Focus your minds and follow the key points I have just explained, exactly as I gave them. I will be moving among you to observe and guide."
Almost at once, the hall filled with a chorus of voices, rising and overlapping in uneven rhythm. The first hesitant incantations rang out—"Expelliarmus!"—each attempt accompanied by the occasional flicker of scarlet light.
At first, some beams veered far from their intended targets, while others fizzled weakly in midair. But soon, as the students followed the crystal-clear instructions etched in their minds, successful disarmaments grew steadily more frequent.
The sharp metallic clang of short clubs being knocked from wooden hands echoed across the hall in quick succession, the sounds weaving together into a bright, crisp rhythm that seemed to dance against the stone walls.
Professor Flitwick stood to one side, his round eyes stretched wide in disbelief, his small frame trembling faintly with excitement. In all his decades of teaching, he had never seen so many young wizards master a new spell in such an incredibly short span of time.
Of course, not everyone found the path so smooth. A few students still failed repeatedly, their dummies standing firm with clubs untouched. Yet even with these exceptions, the sheer success rate was enough to overturn Flitwick's understanding of what was possible in the speed of magical instruction.
Through it all, Sargeras moved among the students like a silent shadow, gliding between the pairs without a sound. Whenever he caught sight of a mistake, he would pause just long enough to deliver a brief, precise correction. At times, he called out a name, instructing the student's partner to identify the fault themselves.
Yes… these students were now capable of acting as teachers in their own right, and that was precisely the purpose of pairing them together.
"Cedric…" Sargeras said without a hint of emotion in his voice, "identify your partner's mistake."
"His wrist needs to be raised higher, Professor," Cedric answered at once.
Sargeras turned his gaze to Cedric's partner. "Did you hear that, Mr. Jones?"
"Yes, Professor!" Jones adjusted his stance immediately, and the scarlet beam that burst from his wand was indeed much more stable than before.
Sargeras continued his slow circuit, moving toward the Ravenclaw section.
Not far away, Astoria Greengrass was forcing her wand to produce the thinnest thread of red light, but it fizzled into nothing after scarcely three meters.
"Analyze the cause, Astoria," Sargeras's voice came at exactly the right moment.
"My magic output isn't steady enough, Professor."
"And the method for improvement?"
"When casting, my will must be absolutely firm," she replied earnestly, her tone without hesitation.
Sargeras gave a small nod and slipped once more into the flow of the crowd.
Harry and Ron had been paired together. Harry was already able to send the dummy's short club flying with steady accuracy, but although Ron's red beam struck his target, the club remained stubbornly clutched in the dummy's grip.
"Mr. Potter," Sargeras said, his gaze locking onto Harry, "analyze Mr. Weasley's mistake."
"It's a target deviation, Professor! The Disarming Charm is meant to strip away the threat, not to cause damage."
Sargeras inclined his head slightly. "Do you understand, Mr. Weasley?"
"Understood, Professor!" Ron took a deep breath, narrowing his focus on the wooden club as if it were the only thing in the world.
Sargeras's eyes moved on, this time to Hermione and her partner, Neville. Hermione's scarlet beam was already quite condensed and well-controlled, each strike clean, but Neville's wand could only sputter a few scattered sparks.
"Miss Granger, identify your partner's mistake."
"His wand movement isn't decisive enough, Professor. It needs to be a clean, sharp forward thrust… no hesitation, no dragging through the air."
Neville immediately adjusted his form, focusing all his concentration on replicating the perfect motion now etched in his mind.
At last, Sargeras came to the Slytherin section. Amidst the green-trimmed robes, Goyle's clumsy movements and the weak, sputtering light at the tip of his wand stood out in sharp contrast to the others, made all the more glaring by the fact that his partner was Draco Malfoy.
"Mr. Malfoy," Sargeras said, his voice cool and even, "break down your partner's mistake."
"The target is wrong," Malfoy replied smoothly. "The Disarming Charm is meant to strip an opponent of their weapon, not shove the target itself back. His motion is distorted. Power should gather at the wrist and burst forth in a single instant, not be swung about like he is hefting a club. And his will is unfocused. Hesitation and fear are both crippling the spell's force…"
Sargeras' eyes slid toward Goyle. "Do you understand, Mr. Goyle?"
Goyle gave a sulky nod, muttering nothing.
Every bit of Sargeras' guidance was as sharp and exact as a surgeon's scalpel. Short, direct, cutting straight to the heart of the problem. There was no excess emotion and no wasted words. The precision and efficiency of it all was almost startling to witness.
Even those who had been failing only moments before could, under the influence of that "Mechanical Mind" state, conjure a perfect image of the spell in their minds and adjust themselves at once, correcting flaws with an immediacy that bordered on the miraculous.
The golden light of the setting sun streamed through the high windows, stretching long bars of brilliance across the polished floor.
The hall was alive now with the shimmer of spellfire and the quick clatter of wooden staves striking the ground. All around, the steady chorus of "Expelliarmus" rose and fell, overlapping in waves. Even the youngest first-years, after only a few attempts, were managing to knock the short sticks from the dummies' hands with steady precision.
Soon after, Sargeras announced they would move on to practicing the Body Freezing Spell and the Stunning Spell. With the solid foundation and confidence they had built from mastering the Disarming Charm, the students now took to the new spells with far greater speed.
The incantations might have been different, yet the underlying demands of how to control one's magic, how to focus one's will, and how to execute each movement were bound together by a subtle but undeniable thread.
Some quick-witted students began to notice this, comparing the way the spells worked, learning from the contrasts as much as the similarities, and using that insight to seize the core of each new spell even faster.
And, in a curious twist, some who had stumbled with the Disarming Charm earlier suddenly found, while practicing these new spells, that the source of their earlier mistakes had become crystal clear. They could take that flash of understanding and feed it back into their original work, repairing and refining themselves in real time.
Sargeras stood at the edge of the hall, watching the entire scene unfold in perfect order, and a faint light of satisfaction passed through his eyes.
Four hours of class slipped away as if they had been nothing more than a moment.
Then, with a quiet lift of his wand, Sagres withdrew the "Mechanical Mind" that had been settled over the entire hall. He didn't speak, didn't need to. The effect was immediate… an indescribable, bone-deep weariness swept through every single student in an instant.
It was as though the unseen scaffolding that had been holding their minds in that state of razor-sharp efficiency had been yanked away without warning. Many swayed on their feet; a few let out low, involuntary groans.
A murmur of conversation began to ripple through the hall, and the professors exchanged startled glances with one another.
What caught the students off guard even more was this: only moments ago they had been handling their spells with smooth precision, yet now those same incantations felt like strange, uncooperative tricks.
They swung their wands with effort, but could coax out no more than a few feeble sparks, or at best a thin, wavering ribbon of red light, a far cry from the crisp and flawless casting they had been performing only minutes before.
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[Chapter End's]
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