Chapter 342: Snape: Your Teaching Is Completely Useless! Ethan: Then Watch Closely — I'll Take Your Life Instead.
Boom!
Crack!
"AAAAAH!"
"Oof—"
With a series of thunderous crashes, the two gargoyles moved through the crowd with terrifying agility, weaving in and out as though the students weren't even there — sending these wandless young witches and wizards tumbling to the ground one after another with contemptuous ease.
Ethan surveyed the wreckage spread across the rocky ground and shook his head.
"Tsk, tsk. Couldn't even last thirty seconds. How disappointing."
He paused.
"But that's all right." His voice lifted, bright with encouragement. "I am not giving up on any of you!"
Please, the crowd thought as one. Give up on us. We're begging you.
Under a sea of horrified stares, Ethan reached into his coat and produced an armful of Invigoration Draughts, their contents glowing an unsettling shade of green. In that sickly light, the spiral face settled into an expression of tenderness that made everyone want to run screaming.
"Don't worry — I've prepared plenty of potions to restore your strength…" he said warmly. "This lesson is far from over. We still have so much time to keep trying."
Everyone: "…"
"..."
Please don't come over here…
Their survival instincts were screaming. Unfortunately, their legs had resigned.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Each footfall of Ethan's boots against the ground sounded like a death knell, each step landing somewhere in the pit of their stomachs.
"N-no… I've got nothing left…" Ron's already-red face had crumpled into something resembling a boiled tomato. "There's no way anyone can learn like this! This fake-human professor is just trying to turn us into ingredients!!"
Even Harry — a Morning Star Club member who had trained under Ethan for years — was flat on the ground, gasping for breath. Losing your wand, he was discovering, was like losing your hands and feet at the same time.
How is anyone supposed to learn wandless magic like this…
Harry stared up at the spiral-faced professor.
The longer he looked, the more familiar the particular brand of torment felt.
…Could this actually be Ethan?
But Dumbledore would never actually let a student become a professor — not unless he'd been bribed. And Harry dismissed that immediately.
No. Impossible. Dumbledore was a man of unimpeachable integrity, with power and wealth beyond measure. There was simply nothing anyone could offer him.
The only logical conclusion was that the wizarding world had run so completely out of willing Defence professors that Dumbledore had genuinely reached into some other dimension and summoned an actual demon.
Absurd, perhaps. But Harry felt his brilliant mind had grasped the truth of it.
As the demon advanced with unhurried, elegant steps, a long, drawling voice cut through the air.
"I submit, with respect, that your teaching methods have produced absolutely no results whatsoever, Professor Unknown."
Ethan stopped.
He turned his head.
Professor Snape emerged slowly from the shadows at the back of the crowd, stepping forward to stand in front of the Slytherin students.
"Professor…" Draco breathed, practically weeping with relief. His usually immaculate hair, heavy with product, had gone sticky and was plastered across his face. Snape gave it one withering glance.
Not quite up to Ethan's standard, is he?
Snape pressed his lips together, withdrew his gaze, and fixed it on the terrible spiral face ahead.
"You are doing nothing but indulging your own amusement," he said coldly. "I see no progress whatsoever in these dunderheads. It appears Dumbledore has chosen the wrong person for this post."
He lifted his chin with imperious disdain.
"I suggest you tender your resignation sooner rather than later."
And then let me take the position.
By rights, it should never have gone to a student who hadn't even graduated.
"..."
"..."
Draco blinked, slightly dazed.
He had the distinct and deeply uncomfortable feeling that Snape had not stepped forward out of concern for them at all. If anything, he seemed to be trying to steal the Defence Against the Dark Arts position.
Two tears rolled silently down Draco's face.
The tension between the two figures crackled. Something invisible and charged stirred in the air between them. The students went still.
"Merlin's beard!" Ron's eyes lit up with gleeful interest. "Everyone knows how badly Snape's wanted this post! There's no way he's going to stand by while some random weirdo takes it right under his nose!"
Fight! Fight! Fight!
If they fight, the weirdo won't have time to torment us! And if we're really lucky, he gets sacked!
Off to one side, the professors were equally startled.
"Severus does want the position rather badly," Professor McGonagall said with a frown, "but he usually manages to keep up appearances. Openly opposing a colleague like this is unlike him…"
Even with Gilderoy Lockhart — arguably the most useless Defence professor in living memory — Snape had confined himself to private mockery.
"Mmm," Professor Flitwick murmured thoughtfully. "This feels more like… a personal grudge, doesn't it?"
Had the strange spiral-faced man somehow managed to offend Snape before today?
Surely not. The Spiral Being had presumably only just arrived in the mortal world. How could he possibly already have done something like accidentally touch a nerve regarding Lily, or dangle a false promise in front of Snape only to crush it, or quietly steal a position Snape had been waiting years for?
"That does sound rather like something Ethan would do, doesn't it," Flitwick said with a bright, entirely innocent laugh.
In full view of everyone, Professor Unknown finally spoke.
"You make a fair point, little Sevvy."
Little Sevvy Snape: "..."
"..."
You absolute—
His fingers twitched. The urge to hex a certain insufferable child was becoming increasingly difficult to suppress.
Though Professor Unknown's tone remained as mild and gentle as winter sunlight, after half a lesson in his company, everyone had already learned that whenever he sounded this warm, something was about to go very wrong for someone.
"I have been too lenient," Ethan said sincerely. "I should help the students feel wandless magic as quickly as possible."
Before anyone had time to process that, Ethan raised his hand.
Those long, slender fingers pointed toward a student in the crowd — a boy staring blankly ahead, thoroughly bewildered.
Without a single word of warning, Ethan said:
"Avada Kedavra."
A terrible flash of green light erupted.
Like an arrow loosed from a bow, it tore through the air and shot straight toward the frozen student.
"NO—!"
Like a stone dropped into still water.
Time stopped.
Professor McGonagall's wand arm froze mid-raise. Professor Snape's eyes widened in shock. And Harry was already diving through the air toward the student.
BANG.
The green light struck something and burst apart in a spray of scattered sparks.
A magical barrier.
"Merlin's beard — was that wandless magic?! He actually did it!!" The words flew out of Ron's mouth before he could think better of them. His voice carried equal parts shock and something he didn't quite want to examine.
Everyone went still.
Professor McGonagall remained standing with her wand arm raised, her mouth forming a perfect O.
Harry knelt on the ground, breathing hard, one hand still outstretched. He could feel his heart hammering — the adrenaline still surging through him, unspent.
Did I…
…Did that actually work?
No wand. And yet something had come out of him — a barrier, fragile and half-transparent, shimmering in the air in front of the student.
It had happened the moment he remembered Cedric. The flash of green in the graveyard. His body had moved before his mind could catch up.
Harry stared at the barrier, then slowly reached out and touched it.
It shattered at the contact, dissolving into nothing.
Fragile. Barely there.
But real.
A genuine wandless cast.
"…"
"…"
Across the space, the colour drained from Snape's face — and something darker slipped in behind it.