Bright studious nod.  ...and she supposes she'd better actually take his advice.

Stroke swoop stroke "oppilo;" shield forms.

Thwap.

The shield holds!  She produced a self-satisfied smile, for Morgan's benefit, though she is actually feeling pretty self-satisfied.

"There you go," Morgan says.  "You've gotta be really precious about getting the gestures right, especially when you're just learning a new spell.  Go a few more rounds with it."  He indicates the beanbag, which has resumed floating attentively.

She nods, and turns her attention back to the beanbag.  And doesn't tell it to speed up quite so often, and is more careful with her gestures, and also tries to keep her face on more consistently as she's working.

After a little while of this he does the two claps again at the head of the classroom.  (All the beanbags desist their thwapping and sort of hover at attention.)

"All right," he says, "looks to me like everybody's got a pretty decent handle on it.  Good work, folks.  Now I'm gonna open the floor to questions - about oppilo, about defensive magic in general, about magic in general.  It's normal to have questions or doubts the first time you ever do intentional magic, so, shoot."

"I can sort of keep the shield going if I concentrate but I can't really - tell what I'm doing, to keep it going, if that makes sense - am I doing something wrong?"

"I've seen real duels between grownup wizards and they don't have to be careful with the gestures, why can't we just cast the spells that way?"

"What good is a shield that just stops beanbags, if dark wizards are going to be throwing hexes at us?"

"You're not doing anything wrong.  Part of learning to do magic is learning to feel your own magic, and understand what its doing inside you, and how to make it do other things.  It's like if you're trying to train a muscle you've never used before, except that making it stronger than it is now is the only way you'll be able to even tell it's there or what it's doing.  I can tell I'm doing something, but not what I'm doing or how I'm doing it is exactly what you're supposed to feel like the first time you cast a spell."

"When you're very very good at a particular spell, and very very good at casting spells in general, you can afford to be sloppy with your gestures, or even leave them out altogether - that's called stillcasting, and it's an important skill for defending yourself.  But the way you get good enough to stillcast a spell is by practicing casting it gesturewise, a lot and very carefully."

"Different enemies will attack different ways.  Some dark creatures attack in ways better blocked by ballistic shields; some attack spells create magical constructs that are more like physical objects then spellbolts.  And lots of good anti-hex shields are broken easily by physical objects, or just let them right through, so if you only use anti-hex shields your opponent will attack with projectiles instead.  And once you're stronger and better at casting oppilo then you are on your first day of lessons, it can block a lot more than a beanbag."

Hermione of Gryffindor raises her hand.

"Shoot."

"What makes dark magic dark?"

(Clover's outward persona wasn't going to ask this particular question on her very first day of classes in front of everybody, but now that someone else has she's very interested in Professor Morgan's answer.)

"Whoof," he says.  "That's a big question."  He sits down on his desk.

"Well, first of all - the class is called Defense Against the Dark Arts, but it's perfectly possible to use spells that aren't dark to hurt people, and you'll be learning to defend yourself agains those as well.  But dark magic..."

He muses.  "Well, to explain it properly I should say that different magics can be more or less similar to each other in lots of different ways, it's not just a matter of dark versus not dark.  A cutting hex and a puncturing hex are more similar to each other than either is to a bashing hex.  All three of them are more similar to each other than they are to the shield spell we learned today.  And cutting hexes and shield charms are more similar to each other than they are to a flame-freezing charm, and so on.  It works across different domains of magic, too - self-transfiguration with a wand and animagy and brewing polyjuice potion are in a meaningful sense more similar to each other than wanded self-transfiguration is to, say, a summoning or fetching charm."

"What it means for magics to be similar is complicated, but basically, if you get good at one spell, it makes it easier for you to get good at other spells and even potions and rituals that are similar to it.  You can't learn to be an animagus just by practicing brewing polyjuice, but someone who's brewed polyjuice before, and done a lot of other transfiguration besides, will have an easier time learning to do the things you need to do to become an animagus."

"Dark magic is essentially a broad set of spells and potions and rituals and other magics that are all similar to each other in this way, and tend to have other things in common.  They are very often primarily or solely useful for violence; they are very often harmful to the user, or require the user to cultivate self-destructive or dangerous mental states; they frequently distort their users' or targets' bodies in unpleasant or unsettling ways.  But even dark spells that don't do any of these can be dangerous to use, because they make you into more the sort of person who's good at dark magic, and that's not always a good kind of person to be, for you or for the people around you."

"There's more I could say on the subject than that, but I think that's a pretty good primer for your first day."

...Yeah this all sounds to her like dark magic is perfectly reasonable to use, and Professor Morgan is just repeating cliches.  What on earth is a "dangerous mental state", presumably if you are adopting a dangerous mental state it is because you endorse being dangerous at that moment.  Plenty of combat spells could be described as "primarily or solely useful for violence," and ordinary damage-to-a-body inflicted in the course of fending off an attacker is also "distorting the target's body in an unpleasant or unsettling way."  And it is her body and she may distort it how ever she likes in fact.  And being the sort of person who is good at dark magic seems strictly better than the alternative, because a person who is good at dark magic can simply elect not to use it if the situation does not call for it.  (This seems analogous to how an evil person may choose to be good when it advantages them, but a good person may not choose to be evil without ceasing to be good, evil people thus being strictly advantaged over good ones - this principle having always seemed self-evident to her.)

If she was feeling impressed with her defense professor at the beginning of the lesson, that does for that.  Oh well.

There are a few more questions asked that Clover does not find terribly interesting, and then the class ends.

*

Mother:

As of this writing it is September 6th and I have completed my first week at Hogwarts.  Hogwarts professors are generally of higher quality than teachers at Muggle schools.  Prof. McGonagall who you have met is more or less as she presented herself to you.  Also of note are:

Prof. Morgan, head of Hufflepuff and professor of defensive magic, who has had us mostly learn spells to summon shields but has also taught us "luminos", a spell to create a bright flash of light where it hits; its combat use is in obstructing the enemy's vision when aimed at the eyes but it also serves as a useful spell to practice shields with, as it is largely safe if it hits anywhere else on the body.  Prof. Morgan takes his students more seriously as people than any teacher I have met at a Muggle school but seems prejudiced against some types of magic.

Prof. Lupin, head of Ravenclaw and professor of "charms."  At our level this seems to be a home economics class though learning household magic is still learning magic and I find it gratifying.  Lupin took me aside after our first class to gravely inform me that he knew my parents and I was welcome to speak with him on the subject if I cared to.  I tolerated this with politeness.  It does occur to me as a result of our exchange though that you have not spoken much of my biological father.  I would be interested to hear your comments on him.

Prof. Whitlock, head of my own house Slytherin and professor of history.  Unbearably twee.  Too cheerful by half even when she is holding herself back, which I can tell she is.  She shares some of Morgan's prejudice - being the only other teacher so far whose lessons touched on the relevant branch/es of magic - though it seems tempered by a measure of cultural relativism.  This strikes me as more noncommittal of her than principled though perhaps you will tell me I am being uncharitable.

Aside from these I am studying potions, herbology, arithmancy, ancient runes, and once a week broomstick riding...

[...]

I have made overtures toward several other children my age.  Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode have been preliminary successes.  Both of them have a melancholy or perhaps just quietness about them that I find a welcome respite from other children, and I think they find some aspects of my manner symmetrically pleasant to tolerate.  Zabini I suspect of having an unpleasant home life, the ominous hints I have collected suggest to me neglect rather than abuse.  Bulstrode has no such compelling victimhood narrative, I suspect she is simply not interpersonally adroit and not pretty (though I find her interesting enough to look at) and so not having a pleasant time of her childhood....

[...]

Tomorrow there is to be an exhibition duel between Morgan and Lupin, as an illustration of what defensive magic looks like at different levels of skill, and also as a popular yearly folk holiday among the students of Hogwarts.  Aside from this I intend to spend the weekend exploring.  I suspect Hogwarts has much to discover outside the magisterium of schoolwork.

~Clover Evans-Potter

*

The show duel is to take place by the lake.  She's there bright and early, childsface on, while the arena is still being set up.  A few of the other students are milling about, and there's a buffet table of snacks off to one side.

Millicent's there too, holding hands with her and grinning a little grin.

They paint quite a sweet little picture together, Clover thinks, which is all to the good.

What is meant by "setting up the arena" is that little creatures that look, at a glance, like large upright sphinx cats, are moving heavy magical pylons into place, and the tall dark ominous-looking Wardwizard Severus Snape is giving them directions.  This one goes here, that one goes there, et cetera.

"Sir is maybe considering being a little less short with Binky, Master Snape," one of the little sphinx cat creatures murmurs to him.  "She is new."

"I rather understood," Snape says tightly, "that the point of House Elves was that one did not have to worry overmuch about being rude to them."

"Sir is very clever, Master Snape," the creature says dryly.  "The point of House Elves is that we is not going in for self-determination and so can be pointed at manual labor as needed and be plenty self-actualized.  Most of us is not liking confrontation but we is more than capable of finding you unpleasant, Master Snape.  You is in a bad mood these past few weeks and you is please not taking it out on my Elves, thank you kindly, Master Snape."  It is amazing how she can address a man as "master" and make it sound so reproving.

"You may convey my apologies to Binky," Snape says even more tightly.

"I will do that," she says, and bustles off into the crowd of creatures.  House Elves, presumably.