"I might. Maybe there's something you can do to make it go away and none of the teachers have bothered looking for it, for some reason."
Mr. Phelps is the new Magical Defense teacher for the new mixed-up class that includes Bella, the Stark twins, and Feral. They all sit in a cluster close to the middle of the room, Sherlock and Bella in front of Tony and Feral.
Stroll.
Stroll.
He is also making preparations for a certain demonstration.
He passes in front of Sherlock.
It feels rather like a part of her body she didn't know she had has been thrust into unfriendly weather.
But it's wearing a raincoat.
She swats away the - spell, some kind of spell - and Mr. Phelps's eyes widen in surprise and his mouth opens a tiny bit - and she stands up out of her chair -
"What did you just try to do to me?"
Bella screams at the top of her lungs, clenching her hands in her school robes. "You can't do that! For - for a stupid demonstration - you can't just Memory Charm us - I don't even know how I stopped you - what if I hadn't, what were you going to steal -"
"The last few seconds," says Sherlock, his tone carefully even.
"Those seconds are mine!" she screeches. "You can't have them! You can't! How dare you!"
"Or what? You just tried to do one of the worst things I can think of already! Without warning, without asking for a volunteer, you were just going to casually -" She emits a nonverbal sort of howl and clutches at her head.
"How about," Tony pipes up from behind Bella, "you don't ever do a 'demonstration' like this again, and I don't write my mom about not feeling safe in your class."
"I've been doing this for second-semester sixth graders for nine years," says Mr. Phelps. "I am not an unsafe practitioner of the charm - none of you would have suffered more than a moment's disorientation similar in effect to inattention or drowsiness that children invariably experience in school anyway -"
"The charm isn't safe because it's designed to do something bad!" shrieks Bella. "That's like saying the Killing Curse is safe because apart from being dead its victims suffer no side effects!"
"Sure," says Tony, and she picks up paper and pen off her desk in a deliberately conspicuous way.
Bella is still clutching at her head, near where her wands stick out from her bun. But she'll follow Tony out.