Chương 221: Ch211- DRAGONS!

Entering the classroom, Cassian gave the third years a quick once-over, "Every one of you take Ancient Runes, right?" A scattered nod passed through the room. He grinned.

"Good. Your lovely teacher, Professor Babbling, especially loves difficult questions. Do remember to test her." A few snorted. Someone in the back muttered, "Noted." Cassian perched himself on the edge of the desk, flicked his wand toward the board. Chalk squeaked to life, scribbling out Draconifors Spell.

"You've already seen it, yeah? Deputy Headmistress loves this one." Another round of nods. He chuckled under his breath.

"Draconifors. The peak of human arrogance. One of the earliest attempts to elbow into the natural order. A spell designed purely to say, 'What if we took something ancient, furious, and wild, and stuffed it in cages?'" Students leaned in. Luna's eyes were already shining. Never a good sign.

"Dragons," Cassian said plainly.

"Free, untouchable, and older than half the concepts you lot can name. And what do wizards do? We try to turn every bloody thing into one, because, surprise surprise, real dragons don't like us." A ripple cut through the air above the desks, light caught, warped, and then bloomed into a moving illusion. A dragon scream rattled the glass panes. Below it, villagers in layered robes bolted across dry earth, tiny figures screaming as a massive silhouette passed overhead.

"Ancient China," he said, stepping aside, gesturing at the scene.

"The Tang dynasty was obsessed. Not with dragons themselves, mind you, too much of a nuisance to catch, but with what they meant. Power. Change. Divine authority. So, of course, someone decided they wanted to become one." He paced along the front.

"It got weird quickly. You had nobles eating powdered horn thinking it'd make them fly, priests trying to grow scales, someone even tried a full blood transfusion with a juvenile frostling." A few students flinched at that. Cassian raised a brow.

"Spoiler, didn't go well. But they kept trying. Anything they thought might get them closer to the real thing. Skin transfigurations. Bone restructuring. One bloke even replaced his liver with a drakin's. Died screaming. Not a great plan.

"Anything you can imagine," He added, "they've tried it." He let the words hang there while the illusion flickered, one of the villagers below falling as the Dragon landed near him. Luna raised her hand. Cassian pointed with his wand.

"Yes, Miss Lovegood. Hit me." She tilted her head.

"If the spell was meant to mimic dragons, why do most of them end up as tiny desk ornaments? That doesn't sound very divine." Colin let out a soft snort. Cassian sighed, "Excellent question. Ten points for ruining the romance." A few giggles rippled across the Ravenclaws. Cassian waved his wand, and the dragon illusion cracked into smaller scenes, scattered across the air.

"Throughout history," he said, turning to lean casually against the desk, "humanity's always wanted more. Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Greed, Wrath. You know them as the Seven Deadly Sins. But really, they're just... us. Bit more honest, that's all." The classroom watched the illusions shift, a crowd clawing at gold, two figures locked in a kiss that burned into ash, a priest kneeling while eyeing another's crown. Ginny raised her hand, brow furrowed.

"Why's Sloth first? Matter of fact, Lust and Gluttony... shouldn't they come after Pride and Envy?" Cassian pointed his wand at her.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" He opened his arms as if he was presenting a universal fact.

"Humans are lazy. Innately. Deeply. Most of them want to do absolutely nothing." He paused.

"Or maybe that's just me." A few chuckles rolled through the class. He puffed his chest.

"Even Muggle science agrees. Things that don't move, want to stay not moving. It's called inertia. Very real. Very scientific." Colin squinted.

"Isn't that Newton's law of motion? That's... not the same as humans not wanting to move." Cassian pointed at him.

"Fine. Sloth's last, then. Happy?" Colin nodded, mildly smug.

"But," Cassian went on, pacing again, "Lust and Gluttony? Definitely top two. Depending on the person."

"Humans and dragons are very alike in this. They want to eat everything," he said, tapping the board with his wand, "and... well, let's keep it classroom-appropriate, but the second one's not exactly shy either." Some of the boys snickered.

"So, what do humans see?" The dragon shrank into a tall, proud outline of a man with horns stitched into his shadow.

"They see big, terrifying creatures who eat more, survive more, chase things humans wouldn't poke with a stick. And the flying, Gods, the flying. Nest to nest, no boundaries, no laws. Doesn't matter if it's a frostdrake or a bloody canopy wyrm, wings out, off they go. Eat, Flirt, fight, vanish. It's chaos." A few eyebrows rose.

"Now, if you're an old time noble stuck in a stone tower with too many rules and a chronic need to impress people, well, envy starts looking like a good excuse." Colin raised a hand, half-shrugged.

"So people wanted to become dragons... because dragons got to snog around and eat cows?"

"Yes, Creevey. Well done. That's the gist of it." A few students laughed.

"Now returning to Miss Lovegood's question, let's talk about what people actually do when they realise they can't become dragons." He pointed at the board.

"They build their own. Simple logic, really. You can't eat your way into wings, can't drink enough blood to sprout scales, so next best thing? Make something that listens to you. That's where Draconifors comes in. The spell is more about mimicry, not about summoning a creature. Trying to steal shape when you can't steal essence. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

He waved his wand again, and the illusions reformed, this time showing fragments of the spell's development. Scribes at long tables. Notes scrawled around rough dragon sketches. A transfigured ferret stuck mid-mutation, now with wings and a big tail it clearly didn't ask for. He looked at the scene, really annoyed.

"History's a bit fuzzy on this part," Cassian said, pacing slowly across the front.

"Some records say they dug up an older ritual, proper ancient stuff, deep-forest scribbles and half-burnt scrolls, that actually managed full Dragon Transfiguration. But the thing was damaged. Half the ritual missing, half guessed. Ended about how you'd expect." He flicked his wand, and the floating illusion split, showing a frantic ritual circle and the sudden explosion that followed it.

"Other documents claim the Emperor wanted dragons at his wedding. Real ones. Tamed. His court mages had to deliver or risk losing their heads. So they got creative." The second half of the image now showed robed people in panic, scrolls burning, runes drawn in haste. Then the familiar swish of a wand, and a rabbit convulsing into a twitchy, toothy dragonette before crumpling. Cassian crossed his arms.

"Whichever story you believe, same result. Draconifors is just a knockoff. Looks clever. Sounds flashy. But it's barely a shadow of the real thing. A party trick. Nothing else." He snapped his fingers, and the illusion shattered into shards of glowing script, which vanished one by one.

"Still, it's taught. Still, it's on the curriculum." Ginny raised her hand again.

"But if it doesn't do anything useful, why is it still taught?"

"Because some exam board thirty years ago decided you lot should know how to turn a teacup into a dragon instead of, say, learning how to read Old Khotanese," Cassian replied.

"Also, it looks cute in duels." He grabbed a cup off the front table, tapped it with his wand.

"Draconifors." The cup flared, twisted, and became a miniature copper-scaled dragon, wings flapping lazily, claws clicking against the desk as it blinked at them. A few students leaned forward, visibly delighted. Cassian watched it for a second, then gestured at it.

"See? Harmless. Shiny. Completely incapable of lighting anything on fire." The dragon let out a small puff of smoke in disagreement. He pointed his wand again.

"Finite." The dragon shuddered back into porcelain. Cassian turned back to the class.

"Now, remember this the next time someone tells you every spell is a miracle. Some are just fancy misfires that never got properly binned." He gave the board a lazy flick, chalk lines clearing themselves.

"Right. Homework, figure out three historical misuses of transfiguration magic. I want sources, not gossip. Don't copy last year's lot unless you're particularly brave or particularly bored." Bell rang in the distance. Cassian stepped aside, letting them pack up.

"Go on then. Off you go. And if you catch anyone trying to ride a dragon, take notes, must be heroic." The room emptied in a rustle of cloaks and mutters. Luna lingered at the door, eyes bright as if she'd just spotted a constellation on his face.

"Sir," she said with complete sincerity, "you smell like a dragon." Cassian didn't even blink.

"Go before I turn you into one." She giggled, spun on her heel, and skipped off without another word, scarf trailing behind her like a tail.

With the mental resistance training in full swing, students across every house started building their mind-palaces. It began slow, awkward, confused, more candles dying than staying lit, but once they got past the early headaches, it stuck. Word got out. Fast. A week after the international guests had arrived, students from Beauxbatons and Fenghuang were slipping into the back of the room pretending they'd been there the whole time. Uagadou lot didn't even pretend, they just barged in bringing bribes from Ekwensi.

Three of the four school heads came to him directly, asking if he could teach their students too. Karkaroff didn't ask. Naturally. But the Durmstrang students came anyway, trickling in once Cassian made it clear they were welcome. Which meant that, somehow, Cassian was now teaching mental defence to five bloody schools. The Duelling Club expanded into a full hall rotation. Training zones carved out like camp tents, candles flickering everywhere. Weeks passed. Every one of them had something now. Anchors. Palaces.

Constructs. Cassian had walked through enough makeshift memory rooms to last a lifetime, some polished, some raw, some so unsettling he'd needed a stiff drink afterward. They were nearly there, just short of the real thing. Occlumency. That final wall most wizards never even saw, let alone tried climbing. Cassian sighed sharply through his nose, then gave his head a tired shake.

"Right. Don't try it," he said.

"Occlumency training's banned for a reason. Not because it's fashionable to be mysterious, but because the last hurdle's a mess. Real risk. Dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. And before anyone gets clever, no, I'm not allowed to teach it. You're not allowed to practise it. So don't." He pointed his wand toward the long table at the front. Hundreds of slim books sat in crooked piles, covers scuffed, stained with old tea rings on the exact same spot. Every single one looked suspiciously identical.

"Plenty of books floating round pretending they've cracked the secret to mind walls. Most of them are garbage. The rest are worse. Still..." he tapped the nearest stack "these are the most 'respectable' of the bunch." He nudged one with the tip of his wand. The cover flapped half-open.

"And I've seen the debate. Some say Occlumency isn't actually dangerous, just suppressed. Too useful. Ministry doesn't want kids learning how to block mind-reading because then how do they snoop without paperwork? Purebloods don't want it common because that'd make politics harder. Maybe they're right. Doesn't matter. You're not trained. If you get it wrong, your brain turns on itself. That's not a theory." A few students shifted in their seats. No one spoke.

"I've seen it. Trust me. You're not walking away from that kind of spiral with just a headache," Cassian said, stepping toward the door.

"One misstep, and your mind folds in on itself like a cheap tent in a windstorm." He knocked the doorframe lightly with his knuckles.

"One must follow the steps in those books exactly or not at all. And let's be honest, none of you lot are going to do it properly. So no." He swung the door open.

"In ten minutes, I'm burning those." He gestured at the stack.

"You've got five minutes to stare at them longingly, maybe pet the covers if it makes you feel better. Then out. There should be twelve. If I find eleven, I'll know exactly which one of you to hex." He left without waiting for a reply, whistling something that sounded vaguely threatening. The door shut behind him. Hundreds of books sat on the table like cursed sweets, plain and innocuous. Students stared at each other. No one moved first. Michael Corner leaned forward.

"He's bluffing."

"No, he's not," Parvati said immediately, sliding her hands under the bench to keep her hand from grabbing one.

"He is," Michael insisted, voice low.

"Come on. He said he's burning them. He wouldn't have told us if he didn't want someone to take one. That's like, reverse psychology."

"Or it's just psychology," Anthony Goldstein muttered, eyes narrowed at the stack.

"He said we'd get hexed."

"He says that a lot." Padma gave her sister a side-eye.

"You're not seriously thinking about nicking one?"

"No. I'm thinking about watching someone else nick one, so we know what happens." Ernie cleared his throat.

"Well I, for one, would like to point out that the man explicitly said no." Fred and George rolled their eyes like they were surrounded by toddlers.

"Are you seriously this dumb?" Fred said.

"Professor R. said there are twelve copies." George gestured to the table.

"But there are hundreds here." They looked around, waiting for someone to catch up.

"He obviously wants us to take one each and practise them." Harry gave a slow nod. Amara from Uagadou laughed.

"You were right, babe." She elbowed Kenneth lightly.

"This Professor is really something else." Kenneth looked too pleased.

"Yeah." Movement followed like dominoes. First the Gryffindors, then Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws. Slytherins didn't rush, but they didn't hang back either. One by one, they made their way to the long table. Other schools followed. Padma Patil hesitated just long enough to watch Sue Li grab hers before reaching out. Michael Corner grabbed two, then put one back when Terry Boot stared him down. Fleur crossed the room without a word, plucked one clean off the top and tucked it under her arm, throwing another to Mingyu.

Even the Durmstrang students moved now, one after another, collecting books. Once the ten minutes ended, Cassian walked back in and stopped dead centre, giving the table one long look.

"Let's count, shall we?" he said, dry.

"One. Two. Three..." Students fidgeted.

"... Nine. Ten. Eleven." He looked up.

"Hm." Every breath in the room paused.

"I warned you, didn't I?" Cassian said, tone flat. He raised his hand and flicked two fingers toward the Gryffindor bench. Ron gave a startled yelp as a book wriggled out from inside his jacket. It zipped through the air and landed in Cassian's palm. Fred and George both turned to stare at him.

"You took two?" Fred hissed. Ron blinked.

"I took for the family!" The twins groaned in unison. Cassian didn't even blink. He turned and chucked the book back onto the table. Then he raised his wand. Twelve books burst into flames. Smoke curled, ash drifting upward. A couple of students jumped in their seats.

"Right," Cassian said, flicking his wand again.

"No learning Occlumency for you." He turned for the door, already walking.

"Out. Go on. You're dismissed." Nobody argued.