Umbridge stood there, frozen and fuming for quite a while. At last, just before the dummy raised its arm, she managed to stop Tver.
"Professors are not allowed to use Jinxes on students!"
She looked at Tver with complete seriousness, her face practically glowing with righteous conviction.
If the scars on the back of his hand from her punishments had not still been faintly aching, Harry might have been moved enough to raise his wand in support.
"Are you sure?" Tver looked at her oddly.
For a moment, he even had the illusion that Umbridge was genuinely trying to stop him out of some sense of justice...
"I'm absolutely sure." Umbridge answered with utter certainty, even nodding her heavy head, looking almost exactly like some righteous professor.
"But I'm not using Jinxes on students. Whatever the dummy does, you can't pin that on me, Tver, can you?"
Tver offered that shameless excuse in a thoroughly speechless tone, then quickly snapped his fingers.
"What are you doing?" Umbridge's attention was immediately diverted.
But the answer she got was a sudden red flash fired from the dummy.
"The battle's started, students!" Tver hurriedly backed away from Umbridge with mock alarm, as if the dummy's sudden movement had nothing to do with him at all...
"Please stay focused on dealing with the dummy, and don't concern yourselves with the professors' presence!"
"What?"
The only one genuinely panicking was Umbridge. But before she could vent her anger on Tver, she heard that line.
This time, the ones responding were the students, who had clearly picked up on their professor's hint.
Casually deflecting two spells fired by the students, Umbridge glared at them in fury.
"I am not only your professor, I am also the Head of the Department of Magical Education! Any student who attacks me will be expelled!" she shrieked angrily. "Who cast those two spells just now? Step forward!"
Umbridge had built up her authority for a long time. The moment those words left her mouth, the students were furious, but none of them dared speak.
Just as Harry closed his eyes and prepared to step forward and take the blame, Tver suddenly spoke.
"Don't be so tense, Professor Umbridge."
"You haven't taught these students any magic all school year. It's perfectly normal for them to make a tiny little mistake from being out of practice."
"I'm sure they didn't mean it. Their spells just happened to fly your way by accident. Isn't that right, everyone?"
"Right, right, right. We're just too rusty, that's why we need more practice!" Seamus instantly caught on and slapped his thigh with a look of frustration.
"We all respect Professor Umbridge so much. How could we possibly attack you on purpose?!"
"I... I..." Neville stammered nervously for a moment. "They're right!"
Umbridge's face went green with rage. Then the dummy, utterly unhelpful, sent another Jinx at her, forcing her to block it in a fluster all over again.
"What about this dummy, then..."
"You're standing right in the middle. The dummy isn't a real person, so of course it can't recognize that you're the Head of the Department of Magical Education," Tver explained with a smile.
Umbridge nearly exploded with rage. She had finally understood. As long as Tver was here, no matter how outrageous the students' behavior became, she had no way to punish them like she normally did.
On top of that, the dummy had apparently entered full combat mode, hurling one fierce Jinx after another at her.
Her magical ability was not that strong to begin with. Facing a dummy powerful enough to contend with the entire fifth-year classes of two Houses put together, she quickly found herself overwhelmed.
"Oops, Professor, sorry. My spell went off target again." Harry grinned as he played with his wand.
"You... just you wait!"
That was the final straw. Boiling with rage, Umbridge.
She stuffed the now-empty clipboard into her handbag, then turned and ran out of the classroom in a fluster without looking back.
"Woohoo!"
The moment Umbridge left, the students burst into cheers.
Even with Professor Fawley's help, this was still their first complete victory over Umbridge.
"Ow!"
Harry, carried away with triumph, suddenly took a Jinx straight to the face.
His face instantly swelled and twisted as if he had been stung by a swarm of wasps, until it looked fully twice its normal size.
"The battle's only just begun. What exactly are you cheering for?" Tver said with a smile.
Looking at the miserable state of Harry's face, that gentle tone felt like a late cold snap, the kind that brought a bone-deep chill just when the weather had started to warm.
The professor had never cared about Umbridge at all. His goal today was to make them practice Counter-Jinxes.
As they scrambled to block the Jinxes, they gradually realized that.
"When I said you were rusty, that was just an excuse I made for you. But apparently not only have your Counter-Jinxing skills deteriorated, your combat ability has gone right back to what it was five years ago!" Tver snapped irritably.
He had spent a full five years on them... well, not counting this year, but still four years. And yet they looked as though they had not improved at all.
After facing that storm of attacks, not only had they failed to resist the dummy together in teams the way they had learned before, they had even panicked and crashed into one another, turning the entire scene into chaos.
"Professor, there's something wrong with the dummy's strength!"
After Hermione removed the Stinging Jinx from him, Harry shouted that at once.
"Oh?" Tver took a look at the dummy's movements.
"Sorry. This was originally prepared for the seventh-years. I changed the lesson content at the last minute and forgot to limit the dummy's strength."
Looking a little embarrassed, he flicked his wand at the dummy. Its movements immediately slowed, as if shackles had been fastened onto it.
The students all let out a sigh of relief.
There was no way they could have forgotten everything they had learned that quickly. The dummy's attacks had simply been too fierce, almost effortlessly tearing apart the cooperative formation they had worked so hard to maintain.
Although Tver had still left the dummy strong enough to knock down one or two students from time to time, so they would have opportunities to practice Counter-Jinxes, the students were now handling it in a far more organized way.
They even managed to rotate forward by teams, working together smoothly.
Whenever one teammate was knocked down, the others could let another team step in while they focused intently on practicing the counter-curse on their fallen companion as if they were experimenting on lab mice...
"Well... alright then. Just remember to leave these unlucky classmates a chance to practice too. At least make sure their suffering gets them something in return."
Tver watched the scene with amused resignation. Honestly, this method was not so bad.
The ones who got hit were usually the weaker members of each team anyway. Getting a firsthand taste of the Jinx was actually useful. It would deepen their understanding of Counter-Jinxes.
Though it really was a bit ruthless...