When the Duelling Club gathered for the first time that term, it was chaos straight off. Someone had already hexed the cushions to moo every time someone sat, and a first-year Hufflepuff was visibly trying not to cry because she'd shown up without a wand. Dennis Creevey nearly dropped his bag trying to wave at Harry and Malfoy at the same time. Ginny and Astoria sat side by side on the front bench, flanked by Luna, who was holding a notebook upside down.
Cassian stood dead centre, robe sleeves rolled to the elbows, mug in one hand, wand in the other. The last few students filed in.
"Right," he said. "I know this isn't what you expected. You thought we'd have a few flashy spells, a couple of dramatic duels, maybe a chance to jinx someone you hate. Bad news. We're doing actual work. Good news. You'll still get bruised, but at least it'll be educational."
That got a few snorts from the back.
Cassian pointed vaguely at them. "This year, we're changing format. You've all survived my History classes, so you know what we're covering. Dark and Light magic. Properly. This time practically."
Some of them straightened, some looked excited.
Cassian nodded toward the middle of the room. "My goal's to get every one of you casting a Patronus by the end of the year."
A stir went through the group at that. Even some of the sixth-years gasped.
He paced a few steps across the front. "You need to know this isn't a charm you cast like Lumos. It's intent-driven. Emotion-bound. You've got to picture the thing. Mean it. Hold it. If your happiest memory is when someone tripped during exams, you might want to dig deeper."
Cassian gestured lazily at the room. "Now, lucky for us, most of you somehow managed to learn Occlumency. Don't know who taught you that," Cassian added blandly. "Bit of a mystery really."
That got more laughs.
"Right then. Expecto Patronum's built on intent. It's a projection. You summon a shape using memory, emotion, focus. It's positive magic, which means if you're a miserable git, you'll struggle."
He stopped at the centre again. "But since most of you aren't ready for the full version, I'll be teaching a set of watered down version spells Professor Babbling and I developed."
Hermione perked up visibly.
"They're not Patronuses," he said. "They won't drive off Dementors. But they'll help you build the mental structure. They'll show you what it feels like to pour something real into the wand."
He waved his wand. A flicker of silver smoke trailed behind the tip, then burst into a soft crackle of light before vanishing.
"That," he said, "was the simplest one. You'll all learn it by the end of the week. If you can't cast it, you're doing something wrong."
Dean raised a hand. "What's it called?"
Cassian tilted his head, thinking.
Luna looked up at once. "Moonspit."
He nodded. "There. Moonspit it is."
Laughter broke across the room.
Cassian clapped his hands. The chatter died quickly.
"Before we start," he said, pacing slowly across the front, "can anyone tell me why Light spells require positive emotion and Dark spells lean into negatives? Are feelings some kind of magical currency? A price you pay to cast? Or are they the fuel?"
A few hands shot up. Others hovered, waiting to see who'd get called.
"Alright, Bones."
Susan sat up straighter. "They're catalysts not currency. You don't spend happiness to make a Light spell, you use it to shape the spell's structure. Same with negative and Dark magic."
Cassian nodded, walking past. "Good. More."
Hermione didn't wait. "It's about resonance. Emotions carry frequencies, magic echoes them. The spell you're casting responds better when your internal state matches its intended effect. That's why forcing a Patronus while panicking almost always fails."
"Nice phrasing. Someone finally paid attention in Arithmancy," he muttered. "Go on."
Padma raised her hand next. "It's not the emotion by itself, it's how clearly you feel it. A sharp, focused feeling is stronger than a vague one. That's why Light spells are harder in battle. Hope and joy get fuzzy when you're terrified."
Cassian pointed at her. "Exactly. That's the core problem. Anyone can feel angry on demand. But happy? On command? In danger?"
More heads nodded now. A few scribbled notes.
"Alright, let's kill a bad metaphor while we're at it," Cassian said, hopping onto the front bench and perching. "Emotions are not the wand. They're not the incantation. They're not the gear."
He pointed at the middle of his chest. "They're the voltage."
Blank stares.
He sighed. "Right. Most of you don't do Muggle Studies."
Cassian waved his wand. An illusion bloomed mid-air. A floating wire, a little glass bulb at the end, and a glowing stream pulsing along the path. "Imagine magic is a circuit. The wand's the wire. The spell's the bulb. But emotion's the current. No current, no light. Wrong current, the bulb explodes. Follow?"
Some nodded. Justin still looked confused.
Neville hesitated, then raised a hand. "Then... why do people say Dark magic corrupts? If it's just a tool like any other?"
Cassian looked at him for a moment.
He flicked, and the illusion shifted, two hearths burning side by side. One crackled with soft golden flame. The other roared with thick smoke, fire guttering black along the edges.
He pointed at the darker one.
"If you use petrol to warm your house, it'll do the job. But the walls'll darken. The smell sticks. You breathe it in. Bit by bit, it gets into everything. You warm up, sure. But you pay for it."
He turned toward the cleaner flame. "Now... electricity is clean heat. Still warms you, but no smoke curling in your lungs."
He let the illusion flicker out.
He tilted his head. Was Noctis a Dark Spell? Well... it was basically darkness conjured, wasn't it? But he didn't feel any darker. Naah, it ha Lumos at the start. It couldn't be dark.
"What you feed into your magic shapes it. Whether it's fear, pride, love, grief. The longer you feed it the same thing, the more it remembers the shape. Makes a habit of it."
He gave the room a quick glance. "That make sense?"
A few students looked thoughtful. Some were already scribbling again.
Cassian pointed off to the left. "Anyone who's already got a Patronus, full form, not mist, get over there. You're on teaching duty. That means guiding fifth and sixth years through the basics, no showing off."
Some shuffling followed. Mostly the seventh years. Hermione stood without waiting. Padma joined her, then Goldstein, corner of his mouth twitching like he'd already started judging everyone. Neville glanced around before following. Potter and Malfoy moved at the same time, caught each other's eyes, and then silently agreed not to comment.
Cassian raised his mug. "Excellent. The overachievers have volunteered as tribute."
He turned to the rest. "The rest of you, your first job is learning Moonspit. Yes, that's what we're calling it officially. Blame Lovegood."
Luna waved from her bench.
Cassian paced in front of them. "You'll start with basic projection. If you can't manage a stable stream, you're not ready for more. Once you've got the hang of that, I'll teach you the other variants. They're built to ease you into the right shape without frying it."
Someone near the back muttered something about being rubbish at visualisation.
Cassian pointed. "You, with the self-esteem problem, pair with someone who can focus."
Dean raised his hand. "Are we supposed to think of a memory already, or...?"
"Get a memory ready, yes," Cassian said. "But don't panic if it's not the happiest thing in the world. You're not building a fireworks display."
Susan asked, "What if it fades halfway through?"
"Then we figure out why," he said. "That's what this is for. Moonspit's soft magic. It doesn't bite."
Cassian finished his tea and took a slow lap around the practice floor, trailing behind a dozen wands sparking in various states of failure. Most of them were getting it wrong. A few were getting it spectacularly wrong... Seamus had managed to set his own sleeve alight, which was almost impressive given the spell wasn't meant to be hot.
"Try again, Finnigan," Cassian said as he passed. "But this time, maybe less rage and more 'my gran just gave me a biscuit.' You're not scaring the spell into existence."
Susan Bones, nearby, gave Justin a nudge and whispered something. He nodded, then promptly summoned a pale wisp that fizzled halfway to his elbow and turned into what looked like a confused puff of fog.
Cassian nodded. "Better. Still tragic, but better."
They'd made the spell set over summer, him and Bathsheda, with Goshawk dragged in by threat and bribe. It wasn't remotely close to Patronus, but it used the same wiring. Enough to teach the right channels. Magic was mostly the visualisation and intent. But Light and Dark spells didn't care for 'mostly'. They wanted emotion, no handy measuring unit, just the kind you couldn't fake with a grin or a headache. The problem was, younger students weren't built for that. Their emotional range was 'hungry' to 'murder over a Quidditch foul'. And Light spells needed something stronger.
The Hogwarts curriculum didn't help either. It wasn't designed for optimum anything, just layered in tradition and a dash of guesswork. But it worked. Start slow, climb. Same pattern, century after century. Fine for most years.
But not this one. He needed something more. A buffer. A way to get them there quicker, without the usual lecture circuits.
Hence Moonspit.
"Corner," he called across the room. "That's not a projection. Looks more like a tantrum with sparkles."
Michael scowled, adjusted his stance, and tried again. The result looked mildly offended.
He reached the far edge just as the door opened. Bathsheda stepped in followed by Charity, Aurora, and Septima, all looking mildly windblown and about three arguments deep into a conversation.
Cassian raised a brow. "What, staff audit? Am I being investigated?"
Charity gave him a look. "You've got children flinging experimental light magic in an enclosed space. Thought we'd check for casualties."
Aurora ducked past her, smirking. "We took bets on how many ended up blind."
"None yet," Cassian said. "Though someone's conjured a slightly judgmental puff of fog."
Bathsheda handed him a flask. "You've been standing too long."
He took it, uncapped, sniffed. "This is peppermint."
"You're welcome."
He drank.
Septima scanned the room, eyes flicking over the pairs of students. "How is it going?"
"Not bad," Cassian said. "Get them thinking in the right direction."
Charity snorted. "And what direction is that?"
"The one where they don't die screaming."
Aurora gave him a shove with her elbow. "You've got such a way with children."
Cassian grinned. "I find honesty builds trust."
Across the floor, Colin Creevey yelped as his wand sparked sideways. Ginny ducked the blast and smacked him with her notebook.
"Progress," Cassian muttered.
Charity wandered toward the middle, watching as Astoria summoned a passable stream of light that coiled twice, then blinked out.
"Well," she said, "at least nobody's crying."
"Give it twenty minutes."
Cassian settled next to them and kicked his legs out. "Right. Give me the latest gossip. Don't hold back, I've been starved."
Charity's hand shot up over her mouth, but the laugh slipped through anyway.
Aurora narrowed her eyes a second too late.
"Aurora and Black are da-"
Aurora slapped her hand over Charity's face with a sharp smack.
Now it was two hands over one mouth, and Charity still looked smug underneath them.
Cassian gasped, properly scandalised. It was so loud that several students froze mid-spell, half a dozen more turned round. Someone's wand fizzled and popped.
Cassian raised both hands. "Carry on. Nothing to see. Back to the glowy bits."
A few muttered, a few rolled eyes, but they got back to it.
Cassian turned to Bathsheda, who was doing a frankly unconvincing job of looking anywhere but at him.
He narrowed his eyes. "You knew. You absolute snake. Spill."
She tilted her head, all serene and innocent, as if she'd never heard of gossip in her life.
He pointed a finger. "If you say it's none of my business, I will summon an illusion of Aurora and have it flirt with Black in front of the entire school."
Aurora lowered her hand. "You wouldn't."
"Would and will."
Charity wriggled free with a triumphant noise. "It's new, but it's happening."
Cassian swung back to Bathsheda. "Betrayal."
Aurora muttered, "You're being dramatic."
"It's part of the job." Cassian leaned toward Aurora. "How long?"
"Few weeks," she murmured. "He's been less annoying."
He grinned. "Hope he knows what he's doing."
Bathsheda muttered, "I doubt it."
Charity leaned forward, still grinning. "They argued about spell syntax for forty-five minutes last week."
Cassian's eyebrows lifted. "Foreplay."
Aurora flicked a cushion at his head without turning. It hit him square in the side.
Cassian caught it mid-fall, dropped it neatly on the bench beside him, and sipped his tea.
"Right then," he said. "I'll be taking bets."
Aurora gnashed her teeth. "Rosier!"
Cassian raised both hands like a caught thief. "Alright, alright. Fine. But I've been gossip-deprived for a year. Let me live. Next victim... Septima."
He turned to her. She shook her head before he even finished the look.
"No chance," Septima said. "Even Defence Professors are permanent now."
Aurora narrowed her eyes. "You want my boyfriend to die or get cursed, is that it?"
Septima laughed awkwardly. "I didn't mean that."
Cassian grinned. "But honestly, don't you think Kingsley's got some decent friends lying around? You could've poached one of them. You'd at least get Charity off our backs. She still hounds us for double dates."
Charity gave him a dry look. "I mostly want Bathsheda. You're free to stay home."
Cassian snorted. "You wish. You and King are such a good couple it's actually offensive."
Charity flushed. "It's short for Kingsley! It's adorable!"
Bathsheda didn't look up. "Still sounds like you're dating a chess piece."
Aurora grinned. "Or a horse. 'King and I went to Hogsmeade this weekend, he got sugar on his crown.'"
Charity rolled her eyes. "At least mine isn't still bleeding on my living room rug every other week."
Cassian raised his flask. "Occupational hazard."
Septima sighed. "Why are all the men in this castle terrifying?"
Cassian looked around, as if checking for competition. "I'm delightful."
Bathsheda didn't glance up. "You're functional."
Aurora choked on her tea.
Charity held up her mug. "Cheers to lowered expectations."
Cassian stretched, content. "Romance, ladies. Alive and thriving."
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