| Details for The Review |
| Summary: | DADA NEWT Class, comes with a review for all things from the prior year. The problem, is that Alphard gave Dora a little review on pureblood behavior, too and what was expected of her. |
| Date: | September 9th, 1939 |
| Location: | Defense Against the Dark Arts 3rd Floor, Hogwarts |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
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The large cathedral-like windows in this room provide plenty of illumination to work by at the rows of old fashioned wooden desks, which seat two people each. The rooms itself has low, wooden beamed ceiling but still feels open and spacious thanks to the ample lighting and the large size of the space. Towards one end of the room an open space has been left for the instructor to walk about in, a blackboard covering most of the wall in that section of the room. In a corner of the instructor's area there is a small spiral staircase carved out of white marble that ends in a small balcony from which the instructor can observe the whole room without impediment as well as serving as the entrance to the D.A.D.A. office.
Defense Against The Dark Arts happens to be Alphard's favorite subject. He enjoys letting his imagination go, and in his own mind become cast as the heroic protagonist of an epic journey to defeat evil, vanquishing all manners of Dark creatures along the way. At the end of his daydreams there is usually some pretty teenage witch panting with admriation and gratitude. That he technically has a girlfriend doesn't stop that particular part of his dreamscape. Much more important than being a boyfriend is being a hormonal filled boy. He's already settled into one of those scenarios when Lestrange tells them to open their books so they can review what they went over last year.
Perfectly prepared. Not at all distracted. Dora arrives and seems to be humming, mostly to herself and well let's just be honest, Defense Against the Dark Arts is a class that makes her incredibly nervous. She doesn't want to think about terrible horrible things like that because…because because they do terrible horrible things! The class just makes her jumpy. She wants to fix what ails, not learn about the creatures that do them and how best to deal with them. But even she can, grudgingly, admit that knowing helps and certainly effects her chosen profession.
She is really trying very hard not to look around the class room at all, instead drawing out her notes and focusing with a single minded determination on the carefully written scrawl that was her review. Reviews for Dora tended to be the entire lesson verbatim. And she's generally very good at paying mind to what ought be minded too. Except when she isn't. Like now. Because she's staring at the shadows and imagining all sorts of Terrible Things, like clawed fingers crooking in invitation and, "Selwyn." In the sound of Lestrange's voice makes her all but climb out of her skin. "Where is your partner?" Blink blink. That was a good question and then, she remembered. Her partner had been a muggleborn. Dora focused on becoming invisible.
"You might as well come sit over here," Alphard says lazily, and waves her down to a seat closeby. There's a bit more room around without the Muggleborns. He finds he rather likes it. There are especially a couple of the mud tainted bastards he really dislikes. His eyes fix on Professor Lestrange and he says innocently: "I don't mind."
Infront of him he has his DADA book, his notebook, and of course some patchments. His quill is fashionable and exeedingly expensive, as is the ink he uses to write with. No drip-drip or smudge around here. Everything is also in neat order, with every line perfectly paralel with every other line. For someone who is happy to make total chaos on the Quidditch field, he's also rather a neat freak outside of it.
"Had a good last day at Hogsmead?"
Dora just finds it lonely and empty and full of terrible things. Because she takes a moment to…owl-in-the-broomlight stare at Alphard and then the Professor, who waves her on with a sigh and immediently goes back to the lecture. Poor Dora, is left to relocate. It takes her…several moments. And more disturbing is that apart from the fact that every single I in her notes is dotted with a fluffy white cloud, much more mature than a heart, is the fact that she has something in common with Black on par with tidiness.
"Thank you." Is given with barely a breath of sound, before she pokes her tongue against the very corner of her lips and goes about underlining passages that are referenced in regards to the mechanics of the Intruder Charm. It seemed they were going to revew of the last spells first, with an emphasis in Disarming and Shield; a reminder perhaps for those who'd also be starting up Duelling Club again.
"Ought to put that one on Selwyn's skirts."
'Hardly. Silly git'd yell loud enough for someone even thinking it, anyway.'
Boys will be boys. "I did, thank you. And yourself?" Came the oh so soft return, whilst Dora stared stubbornly forward.
As usual, Alphard makes a good show of it when he's called on to show off his magical prowess. He stands up and brings out his slender wand. His grip is loose and elegant, in fact the wand almost looks as if it floats freely within his fingers. With a combination of grace, efficiency and simple flawless technique, he shows off his spell work. His words are articulate and clear. After Lestrange has thanked him, he sits down as arrogant as an uncrowned prince. It's almost a pity the damn Muggleborns aren't around so he could shove their faces in his excellence!
"How about we don't act like children?" Comes Alphard's cutting respnse to the commends he barely overhears. His dark eyes narrow. While nobody would call Selwyn one of his normally, she's sitting with him now. So she's under his protection as a gentleman wizard!
"It was fine enough, I suppose. Honestly, Hogsmead just isn't the same anymore."
Watching from the corner of her eye, Dora paid absolute attention as Alphard went through the motions. A keen eye might well note that her lips shape each gesture as he makes it, that her fingers dance out against the air the syllable of every word. Not to ever be confused in the manner of one cheating or trying to help someone else do it, but rather, remember. These are important classes. They're equally important spells.
"That was very well done of you," the compliment is a quiet thing, as the girl watches Fawley move through the next. Her mind skipped a step, her expression had that slightly guarded oh what just happened panic to its edges and she missed the question completely. "I'm sorry, Professor?" There was a plea in that to have it repeated a second time. But honestly? Dora was just sort of…had he just defended her? And he was still talking to her? Beneath the faint frown of the Professor, Dora hung her head and fell back to hugging that silence in around her. Ignoring the, "Perhaps Black may bring you back up to speed," that was suggested.
"I know," Alphard responds dismissivly. He doesn' really intending to sound so arrogantly superior, but ends up doing so anyway. It's part of his personality. He doesn't look in her direction the whole time, keeping his attentions on the class instead. Occasionally he'll note something down, but for the most part this is knowledge that is already set in his mind. He doesn't need artificial crutches anymore to remember them. If anything, as time moves on, he gets a bit bored. Is all of September going to be set off with old stuff? He suspects it might.
"Of course, Professor Lestrange. It would be my utmost pleasure." And then just under his breath he adds a sour: "It's not like I have anything better to do."
He turns towards Dora with a wooden squeak of his chair. "So did you really not know, or were you just daydreaming? Was I an Auror come to rescue you from the clutches of the evil mudblood Dark Wizard?" He smirks.
He just can't help himself, can he? Not even a little. With a purse of her lips, Dora lets the moment go. Resigned to not pointing out how insufferable he is and full of himself. How prone to turning always so that he seems to catch the very best pose, particularly if the wind's blowing and suddenly she's no problem at all recalling how his robes had billowed the other night when he'd…
"What?" Bugger it. That was twice now. "I really do know this." She doesn't sound so very certain. She's also a bit flush in the cheeks, too. And her head drops just a tinsy bit as she peeks Alphard's way. "I was daydreaming. But only a little. I know I know these things, I do. But..," but she wasn't going to tell him what she was daydreaming about either. "But it's so easy to imagine all manner of things and forget. I don't want to be the one who sweeps in to save the day," she quietly bemoaned, "I want to be the one who peers at your bloodstained arm and then mends you up, whilst you recount every vile laugh and feindish spell that was cast in your direction."
"You know these things, do you?" And that's when Alphard grins and lifts his hand up to answer another of Lestrange's questions regarding the variables of the Shield Charm. "We know!" The Slytherin boy only provides half the answer, though, before cheekily giving Adorabella a nudge with his elbow to indicate that the rest of it is up to her. The whole time his dark eyes laugh, and perhaps they laugh with a little bit of cruelty, too.
"In other words you're the Princess at the top of the tower, waiting for the hero to rescue you. And after his gallant quest has reached its conclusion, he collapses into your arms in a bloodied mess, and then it's your turn to be the hero by nursing him back to health. Selwyn my dear, there's no reason to be ashamed. I'm used to being the center of girls' daydreams. You can feel free to tell me all the little details."
It was that grin of his and the way his hand shot up that made her nervous and then damned if he wasn't calling the professor's attention once more in their direction. She knew this. She did. It wasn't as if she didn't. Still, there was a moment, when Alphard first nudged her that she looked as if she might yet again, choke before the words came out in a tumbled rush that while yes, may have been hurried for fear of forgetting, were in the right order. Sans demonstration but proper all the same.
She pratically sagged in relief, even if Black got the praise of refreshing her memory. "No. No I don't think that I'm a princess, either, really. I don't have a castle, just a very old house. No. I don't think I'm cut out to be princess material." Except..except there was that dreamy little twinkle in her eyes because what girl didn't want to be a princess? "Wouldn't it be wonderful though?" Damnit, she'd fallen. Hook line and sinker.
Alphard's smirk belongs to a great big feline, purring with smug contentment as bowl of cream is put infront of it. He laps in her embarrassment and her shock, and then looks even more satisfied when he ends up getting the credit for putting her back on track. Now he even has an excuse to keep murmuring in her ear with that slyly teasing tone of his. He's just doing what he was asked by the Professor, keeping poor Dora from falling behind!
"Come on, now. Don't be daft. You're a Pure-Blood, a Selwyn, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Where else do you think those magical Princesses of old came from, if not from one of our families?" The Blacks in particular, of course. There's hardly an older or more distinguished family in all the land!
If they'd made it through an hour of review already, that meant that there was an hour left and that meant it would be an hour before she was feasibly free and that was if she didn't round up the current hour. Dora sank her teeth into the swell of her lower lip and bit down hard enough to keep from squeaking or choking or any other such noise. When she was sure she managed, the girl released her lip and cast another look in his direction.
"I have trouble imagining any of the Black women needing help," she admitted, honest at least and there was a compliment in it, wasn't there? Sure there was. "But there is something to be said for the fashion. For the romance of it all. For..," it ended there as she fell quiet. Found new shades of red. Tried to breath. "Possible outcomes of the use of the sheild charm." She quizzed, trying to put his mind somewhere else.
Somehow, Alphard is having no trouble keeping up with both teasing Adorabella, and Professor Lestrange's class. Once or twice more he lifts his hand up and makes a comment or two, and he easily gets it right. He leans back in his chair with cocky confidence, possessed with the spirit of effortless success. A couple of times he also mockingly sneers when someone says the wrong thing. Gives the wrong answer. His whole expression then twists into something haughty and cruel, and almost unbelieving of how stupid some people can be.
"It's true that the witches of House Black are all capable. But not all of them were born Black. Some of them had to be rescued into the fold of the family." He throws her a playful wink as he says it. "Mhm. The romance of it. Though you should keep in mind, Selwyn, that Princesses don't stay Princesses if they dance around in the filth."
Perhaps it was that look on his face, that unwholesome sneer of his that came when people were wrong, but Dora paid more attention. She tried harder and when she could without losing all hope of sanity, she skimmed ahead on her review. While she no longer ventures her hand up, she does give off the kind of steady eye contact that suggests on occasion calling on her wouldn't be remiss and out of a desperate desire not to bungle again, manages to keep things flowing smoothly. She doesn't want the embarassment of repeated corrections!
"Is that…that what you intend to do then, Black? Rescue yourself a princess into the fold?" The words are quiet things, fluttering this way and that with a tone that warbles a bit like a butterfly beating against the wind. It just doesn't stay as strong as it wants to. And that gentle warning? Effective. "It's hardly dancing if it's social nicities, is it?"
"Eventualy I'll have to. It's part of my duty as a scion of House Black. The line doesn't just continue on its own, you know." It requires the dutiful effort of the men to ensure that there's always a next generation. "Honestly, it would be unconscionable of me to deprive the future of my proud lineage. And of course, a Black could never settle for anything less than a Princess." As for social niceties, he shrugs dismissivly at first, then grudgingly admits: "Being polite doesn't hurt anyone. But there's social niceties, and then there's.. Well. I shaln't use the word right now. I'm sure you know it:" Blood-Traitor.
He seperates them with a bit of distance all of a sudden, apparently turning his full attentions back to the class.
Dora sat so straight when Alphard drew away with that oh so quietly implied word between them that for a moment it looked as if the girl were going to rock herself right off her stool. Blood-Traitor. And while she knew, on the one hand, that it wasn't a terrible thing and it wasn't vile and it just meant that one cared, it also meant that one didn't and she wasn't certain, with their mother being as she was now that it… "I'm not," came the quiet counter. The 'a blood traitor,' was implied. She wasn't. The thought that he might think so?
Dora looked like she wanted to cry, her face was pinched, her shoulders were trembling, her breath had that little hitch that prequaled an oncoming sob and yet? Yet she stared ahead. He couldn't mean that. He didn't mean that. Not really.
Alphard gives Adorabella a small but encouraging smile, even if his eyes still have that reptilian shine to them. "Of course you aren't. You're just a bit confused sometimes, Selwyn. I quite understand. These are confusing times for some people, especially good natured people who just believe the best in everybody. Don't worry about it. I'm sure you'll find a way to prove to everybody just where your heart lies." He reaches over and gives her a little pat on the cheek and a little whisper.
Then he's back to the class again, and will stay preoccupied with it until the end. Once more Professor Lestrange asks for a demonstration, and this time Alphard all but leaps up out of his chair. He heads up to the front of the class, and then together with the Professor he shows off exactly how to turn the Shield Charm against a variety of different spells. Then the class is over.
Where her heart lies? Dora knew exactly where her heart lay. How come everybody else needed to? Her heart was…there was a little flush then, of guilt and sadness and she tried but didn't quite manage to look as impressed as she should have while he went through the last of the demonstrations. It was enough that she'd managed to go through the motions and put the words in the right place following along from her seat.
A seat she almost leapt free of once the glass was over; everything from the neatly organized young girl shoved off the table and into her satchel without a second thought for what landed where. Her quill had snapped and like a rabbit whose caught scent of the wolf, she fled.