Defence, Pretence, Offence

Chapter 5 - Hilde to the Rescue

Harry could have spent all day looking at his soulmate, but as suddenly as it had started, it was over and Draco snapped back round to look at Hilde again.

"And now that I come to think of it," Draco said brightly, "you, my dear Hilde may be just what we need. How do you fancy a class of some magnitude, rather than just two?"

That took the ex-Hufflepuff by surprise. She open and closed her mouth a couple of times and gently began to blush.

"I couldn't," she said, obviously flustered. "I'm sure the headmaster must have a better replacement than me."

"I don't know," Draco said with a charming smile, "if you can teach Harry something, then anyone else would be a picnic."

For that Harry swatted his lover on the arm.

"I'm only an amateur," Hilde protested again, "a professional would be far better."

"Hilde," Harry said, joining in since he could see the merit in the idea and it took the focus off him, "if there's anything you don't know about the subject by now it would fit onto a piece of parchment an inch across."

"I would be pressed to do anything but concur."

Harry jumped and turned to see Albus standing not two feet behind him. How on earth he had missed the headmaster's approach was a mystery to him, since now that Harry knew he was there he could sense Albus; the wizard radiated magic wherever he went. At the praise Hilde went an even darker shade of lovely pink.

"I'm afraid I will be unable to refill the position for a few days," the headmaster continued pleasantly. "If you could see your way to assisting us in the interim I would be forever in you debt."

Hilde looked between all three of them and Harry gave her a grin, it was obvious she knew she had been outmanoeuvred.

"I would be honoured," she said, "but only until the Ministry send someone else," she added.

"Of course, of course," Albus said, his eyes twinkling brightly. "Come, allow me to introduce you to the rest of the pupils."

Harry drifted back towards the front of the hall as Hilde was led to the open space which was supposed to be where they were learning wandless defence. The poor woman appeared rather embarrassed and Harry could not help sympathising. If Dumbledore set his mind to something there were very few people who could refuse.

It occurred to Harry that if the way the headmaster's eyes were twinkling was anything to go by, they may never have a substitute and Hilde would be stuck with the job. He had absolutely no doubt that his teacher was perfectly qualified to take the class, much more so than any Auror if Fitzsimmons was anything to go by. He looked forward to her unique sense of instruction.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Albus called everyone's attention to him, "unfortunately Mr Fitzsimons will be unable to continue this tutorial, however, we are blessed with a most delightful replacement."

Hilde was pinker than ever as she smiled at the assembled group.

"Now some of you will have seen Professor Praeceptrix around the school during the last year," the headmaster continued at his usual rambling place. "She has been Harry and Draco's personal tutor since their delightful bonding. To my great pleasure she has agreed to be our interim teacher for wandless defence. Professor, your class."

"Um," Hilde said, bouncing on the balls of her feet in the way she always did when excited, "well hello. Please call me Hilde; I feel about a hundred when anyone calls me Professor."

That drew a titter of laughter from the assembled pupils. She was someone it was very difficult not to like, although when Harry glanced around the room the two Slytherins in the group still appeared dubious.

"Now wandless defence is a most fascinating discipline; it's different for everyone," Hilde explained, warming to her position, "which makes it a complete bugger to learn."

Even Pansy and Goyle laughed at that.

"I'm afraid I am no expert," Hilde ploughed on with a bright smile, "but I promise to do my best until Professor Dumbledore can find a replacement."

Harry couldn't help thinking she was already doing better than the supposed expert who had been taking the class.

"Right, well," his tutor decided quickly, "I suppose we should get on with it since you've already lost so much time this morning. Draco, would you mind helping me to begin with."

When his soulmate moved forward it was with far less trepidation than Harry had been feeling earlier. Harry felt only a moment of discomfort at the separation. Once Draco was standing with her, Hilde pulled out her wand and reactivated the ward spells.

"Now I could spend an hour or so sorting these out," Hilde said with a wry grin at the class, "but why go the long way round when you have a short cut? Harry, would you be so kind as to tell me why these failed."

Letting down his shield to magic slightly, Harry took a good look at the wards to make sure his earlier conclusions were correct. His instincts told him most of what he needed to know, but it never hurt to be positive about these things.

"The overall structure is sound," he said, looking at the intricate magical web, "but there are no safeguards against a large impulse of magic. The foundations need a magical reserve so they can cope with something like that."

"I think he means something like him," Seamus interrupted, but it made everyone laugh again, so Harry didn't mind.

"You'd be surprised what your average wizard can do when pushed," Hilde said, before turning her attention to the wards.

She set about casting a few spells of her own. Every time she whispered some Latin and pointed her wand the wards glowed, and Harry was pretty sure it was visible to the others as well as himself. They all appeared impressed. It was not every day they were allowed to witness someone so efficiently shoring up magical barriers.

"Right then," Hilde said when she was finished, "okay now, Harry?"

He nodded, his magical sense was quite happy now, absolutely no nagging doubt left whatsoever.

"Then I think it's time to begin," Hilde said, addressing the whole class.

[Save me,] Draco said dramatically, and Harry had to fight down the urge to laugh out loud.

[Drama queen,] he sent back as he bit his lip to keep from chuckling.

"Now wandless defence is all about mental attitude," Hilde continued, oblivious to the silent conversation going on. "We are trained very early that wands are the only way to do magic, but we all did accidental magic as children, proving that we knew better long before we were given our first little wooden stick. The problem is focus."

She slipped her wand back into its holder and held up both of her hands.

"We're going to start using the hands as our focus," Hilde explained, barely containing the cheerful bouncing, "because it's the closest to what we normally do."

Of course Harry had heard all of this before, but he still listened. It was impossible to tell if Hilde would drop a new titbit of information in as she talked. She really did have a Ravenclaw's mind and a Hufflepuff's heart.

"It's all about visualisation," Hilde explained. "For example, I think of my whole body as a wand and, in this case, my hands as the tip. Harry and Draco, however, have a different solution. Would you care to explain, Draco?"

"I think of the pores in my skin as tiny little wands, or conduits," Draco dutifully told the class.

"Both techniques are equally as valid," Hilde took over again, "and you all may come up with different ideas that suit you. Our minds all work in different ways, so different visualisations work better for different individuals."

"Just ask Seamus," someone piped up from the back.

"Yeah, yeah," Seamus responded as everyone laughed at him for a change, "I can't help it if me genius shows through."

Harry grinned, if there was one thing you could say about Seamus it was that he could take it as well as he could dish it out.

"Draco, shall we demonstrate?" Hilde asked as the class settled once again.

"With pleasure," Draco replied. "Would you like to lead or shall I?"

That caused some more laughter. Harry settled in to enjoy the view. Draco was wearing a very stylish pair of black jeans and, from his current angle, Harry had the perfect view of his soulmate's arse.

[Really? Now?] Draco shot at him as Hilde lifted her hands into the ready position.

"Show us what you've got, Draco," Hilde said with a grin.

[I can already see,] Harry said, totally unrepentant in his ogling.

He couldn't help it if Draco was always the number one thing on his mind and he was a teenager with hormones.

Draco ignored him and instead brought his hands up to meet Hilde's. It was something they had done a hundred times since the Dursley incident that had created the need to learn. Harry watched as Draco frowned just a little in concentration before Hilde went sliding backwards on the smooth floor. With his barriers up, Harry couldn't see the energy, but, as with every time Draco used magic, Harry felt it and it sent a wonderful thrill up his spine.

He loved it when Draco was in his element.

"Thank you, Draco," Hilde said, pulling out her wand and dropping the wards.

Draco nodded and walked over to return to Harry's side.

"Now, it might not have looked like much," Hilde continued, looking around the room, "but imagine you're in a dark alley and someone grabs you from behind. You can't reach your wand and they're bigger than you, but you're not helpless. Draco was very controlled just now, but you could use a much bigger blast."

"Like Harry," someone said.

"Exactly," Hilde replied and grinned at him as he blushed. "You could think of your whole back as a wand and send your hypothetical attacker sailing away from you."

"So why doesn't everyone learn then?" Susan Bones asked.

"Pride."

Surprisingly it was Pansy who spoke up.

"Would you care to elaborate on that statement?" Hilde asked.

"We are all taught our wands are an extension of ourselves," Pansy said. "To lose one's wand is a failure; hence wandless defence is sign of weakness. So, pride."

Hilde raised her eyebrows for a moment and slowly nodded.

"I hadn't considered it from that angle before," she said, "very good Miss Parkinson, thank you. It's also harder than it looks, of course."

The class laughed.

"This morning I would like to test you all, one at a time, to see if you have an aptitude for this discipline," Hilde explained. "Don't worry if you can't do it straight away, it takes a lot of practice and we'll get you there in the end."

Harry was more than pleased to take a back seat as all his fellow seventh-years were put to the test.

* * *

"Okay, how did you do it?" Dean asked as the Great Hall rearranged itself around them in time for lunch.

Draco walked back from where he had been checking arrangements for their next private meeting with Hilde to Harry, who, it appeared, was being quizzed by Gryffindors.

"Like Hilde said," Harry replied, "it's about focus. When I first watched Hilde teaching Draco about it I could see the magic gathering in his hands and it looked like he was pushing one flat surface against another. That's how the idea about pores started."

"I tried that," Dean said, "but it didn't work."

"Did for me," Neville said.

Everyone had been somewhat shocked when Neville had managed to move Hilde on his first try, even Draco; everyone that is except Harry. Sometimes Draco wondered quite how differently Harry saw everyone and everything, and he was in Harry's head. Merlin knew what the rest of the world thought.

"You have to figure out how you feel the magic," Draco put his two knuts in. "Harry sees it, so that visualisation works for us, but every witch and wizard experiences magic a little differently. The spells help us use it, but in here," he pointed to his chest, "we're all unique."

"Like snowflakes," Lavender commented.

Draco did his very best not to laugh, he really did.

"How do I feel magic?" Dean checked.

"Try casting a few spells and concentrate on how it feels rather than on what you're doing," Harry suggested.

"We're so used to doing things by wrote we don't always notice what we're actually up to," Hermione added. "In one way Harry has the advantage over us on that; he's had to rethink everything already."

"Not sure that's really an advantage," Harry replied with a laugh.

"You haven't blown anything up in a while," Draco said in his best dry tone; "that's definitely an advantage."

"Explain why I love you again," was Harry's comeback.

"Ugh, if it's getting mushy over here I'm going to sit down," Dean said as if it was the worst thing in the world.

"How d'you think he'd look with green hair?" Draco asked Harry in a very exaggerated stage whisper.

Dean just rolled his eyes, which kind of underlined just how much Draco had lost his mantle of Slytherin terror. He made a mental note to get it back.

"Come on," he said, slipping his arm into Harry's, "we're going to sit with Pansy."

[We'll probably cause a riot,] Harry pointed out.

[Don't care.]

They may have invited the Slytherins to Hogsmeade with them, but so far, everyone had stuck to their own tables at meal times. Draco decided that was about to change, the consequences be damned.