Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Peter

Chapter 68 Avant-Garde Art
On Friday afternoon, Peter was giving fifth-year Ravenclaws a catch-up lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts for the first week of term, which was also the last lesson of the term.

These students were about to face the OWL exam, so Peter raised their requirements accordingly. The other five grades held Christmas tree exhibitions in class, and the poor fifth and seventh graders could only continue to study resentfully.

In this class, Peter used the form of relay questions to consolidate the knowledge that the students will be tested in the exam.

"Miss Zhang, please demonstrate the floating spell for us," Peter said.

Zhang Qiu leaned her face, with a dreamy smile, and quietly glanced out of the window, her heart had already flown elsewhere.

Looking out of the spacious windows of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, one could see the snow-covered Dragon Arena and Hagrid's Hut in the distance, both of which were decorated with colorful lights.

Sirius added a statue of a stag's head wearing a Santa hat on the top of the Dragon Arena. Durmstrang students often stopped to watch it. They thought it was some variation of the Durmstrang school badge. Only Peter knew that. The deer is actually a prong.

After several seconds, Zhang Qiu stood up as if waking up from a dream, his face was a little red.

Peter patiently repeated the question.

Zhang Qiu raised her wand and pointed to the parchment in front of her, "Yingardim, Levio-sa." With a bang, the parchment turned into ashes, she threw away her wand, and covered her face with her hands.

"It's okay, please sit down." Peter said comfortingly, "Actually, it's basically correct, it's just that you pronouncing the sound of "Ao" too long when you recited the spell."

He looked around the classroom, all the students were frowning, staring at the boring OWL notes in front of him, looking ugly like a Flobberworm facing Hagrid.

He felt that he might be too harsh on these fifth graders, and if this continued, he would become the second Snape sooner or later, and the weekend would be the Yule Ball, who would be in the mood to prepare for the exam?
So Peter waved his wand and handed out the stack of parchments.

"This is your homework for the holidays. I hope that students who still can't get an 'A' in the exam will work hard during the holidays. Well, the rest of this class, everyone can move freely."

There were several cheers in the classroom, and the students randomly stuffed the parchment with holiday homework into their schoolbags without even looking at it.

"Professor Peddie, please teach us how to dance!" a Ravenclaw girl shrieked.

"Why don't you let your dean, Professor Flitwick, teach?" Peter said with a smile.

To tell the truth, dancing was completely out of Peter's skill set, and he preferred more practical things, but these students thought he was omnipotent.

"Professor Flitwick is too shy. The day before yesterday he taught us to jump a few steps in the common room, and accidentally bumped into the Ravenclaw statue. After that, he covered his face and was embarrassed to dance again." Another girl explained road.

The students laughed, and soon, the bell rang for the end of get out of class, and people filed out.

Peter tidied up the quiz papers that had been collected, and was the last one out of the classroom. As soon as he reached the corridor, he heard a burst of giggling. The handle of the stick is "Dragon's Breath".

He skirted clumps of mistletoe, rounded the corner of the corridor, and then he heard Harry's voice.

"Will you come with me as a companion?"

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Zhang Qiu said.

"Would you—would you like to go to the dance with me?" Harry blushed.

"Oh, Harry, I'm really sorry, I've already agreed to go with Cedric." Zhang Qiu's face turned red again, and Harry's face had turned from red to white.

Peter could swear to Merlin that he didn't spy on Harry's fiasco on purpose, and when he saw Harry turn around with ashen face, he hurried and considerately walked towards the dense crowd, pretending that he didn't see anything.

*
Heavy snow fell on the castle and grounds. Beauxbaton's light blue carriage looked like a big frosted pumpkin in winter. The gingerbread house next to it was Hagrid's hut. The antlers on top of the Dragon Arena are covered in icicles.

The big ship Durmstrang was finally no longer affected by the wind and waves, it was now completely frozen.

Hogwarts was beautifully decorated, with never-melting icicles hanging from the marble railings, and the customary twelve Christmas trees in the Great Hall were decorated with baubles of all kinds, from glittering from holly berries to hooting golden owls.

Few people want to go home this holiday, the castle is busier than usual, the Great Hall seems even more crowded than before, people eat turkey, sweet pudding and mounds of wizard biscuits for dinner, and the cheerful atmosphere of the festival has infected everyone .

Perhaps only Snape didn't like the din in the auditorium, he ate his dinner with a grim face, and in the light of the roaring fire in the auditorium fireplace and hundreds of candles, he looked paler than usual.

But Peter saw several discordant notes.

Dolores Umbridge was leading the Council of Magical Education with a livid face to decorate the armor in the Great Hall.

The employee of the Ministry of Magic named Domilik Hope tapped the armor with his wand, and it immediately made a hoarse and rough "singing sound". Through the lyrics, Peter could barely distinguish that it was originally a Christmas carol.

The teachers and students in the auditorium all turned their faces to look for the source of the noise. Umbridge's face turned darker, but Constantine walked to the armor with a smile on his face, "Oh, isn't this just heavy metal rock?"

As he said, he snatched Mr. Hope's wand and pretended to play drums with two wands, and the armor was still singing a completely out-of-tune Christmas carol: "Bo-you-you-you-"

"Shut up!" Umbridge yelled angrily at Constantine and the armor, which she cast a spell on which effectively made the armor sing harder.

The people in the auditorium couldn't help frowning, Fleur Delacour covered her ears in disgust, and only Nearly Headless Nick was a "person" solemnly admiring this kind of art that was definitely not in the world.

Peter walked down from the teachers' table, strode past the bewildered Mr. Hope, flicked his wand, and the armor immediately sang a beautiful carol.

Umbridge looked at Peter with hatred, but she couldn't think of anything harsh to say, after all, she was no longer the chief teaching quality supervisor, and Rita Skeeter's report had discredited her.

"Thank you, Ms. Umbridge. Mr. Filch is cleaning the basement. Please go there and help, go." Peter gestured towards the hall, and Umbridge glared at him. , walked away angrily, and Mr. Hope followed.

Peter watched the two walk away, making sure that no one around could hear him, so he lowered his voice and said to Constantine, "Is there any progress on that book?"

Constantine showed a mysterious smile: "I still need something..."

As he spoke, he took out a crumpled note from his pocket and stuffed it into Peter's hand. Then he put Mr. Hope's wand behind his ear, with a cigarette in his mouth, and strode towards the hall go.

Peter returned to the teacher's table, and on the way he noticed that Snape had disappeared.

He sat in his seat, put the note under the table and unfolded it carefully, and found a line of crooked words written on it:
"I need five hundred Galleons for hard work. - S. Constantine"

"..." Peter pulled out the poplar wand, the handle of the faucet splashed the tiniest spark, and the note was burnt to ashes in an instant.

(End of this chapter)