Chapter 14.3- Doom Days

“Yes, Mckinnon” He said with a sigh, turning to one of the Ravenclaws with her hand up.

“Professor, how can we practice a counter curse on a dummy?” She asked. Good question. A very good question actually.

“With this here dummy. It has multiple enhantments that make it able to sense magic when cast upon it. If it’s primed with a correctly cast spell, then it will be able to detect when another instance of the same spell is fired at it. So I will use the counter curse first, and that will set it to detect your attempts at casting it as well. When you succeed, it will light up green. If you fail, it will light up red and I will deliver the adequate punishment” he said.

“Punishment?”

“Nothing too severe. This is a spell best learned under some form of duress. Ordinarily, it would be the duress of your classmate and partner moaning in unimaginable agony as their very life essence was heated to the point where it would become nothing more than red steam leaking out of them. Since that isn’t available as I’m not allowed to use that on any of you and I definitely won’t be using that on myself, you will learn under the threat of a stinging hex. I assure you, I’m quite practiced with them”

“That’s barbaric” Someone called out and I barely managed to swallow my laughter. They sounded so much like Hermione in that moment. ‘Moody’ obviously did not care for their objections on the matter, and we began in no time.

Mctominay was eager to go first but he failed to cast the countercurse correctly and dropped to the floor, moaning in pain after Moody jabbed his wand at him. My left eyebrow went up without intending it to when he rose covering one half of his face. A stinging hex wasn’t the most painful spell out there. There were plenty simple and not so simple pain curses out there, but the stinging hex was unique in that it operated with localized pain. Needless to say, the face was one of the more agonizing targets available.

After that, the rest of the class seemed shy to go up. His mate, Jurrien, visibly stepped backwards as ‘Moody’ beckoned on him to take his turn. I sighed and walked around all of them. Tom Riddle had attended Hogwarts at a much more brutal time than present day. People in Doom’s universe had mocked Dumbledore for being an uncaring old man who turned a blind eye to the happenings at the school. I silently wondered what they would have thought of Armando Dippet. The blood boiling and bloodfreezing curses were staples at Slytherin House before Riddle got the run of the place. I stabbed my wand, not even bothering to mutter the incantation and the dummy glowed a bright green.

I ignored the way ‘Moody’s’ false eye followed my every moment as I returned two my place just as surely as I ignored Mctominay’s venomous stare.