Chapter 126: Im A Jinx?
“What do I mean by the flow of the fight?”
“After you use a spell, you have already figured out what effect it will have if it hits. If it doesn’t hit, what method should you continue to use to attack? What kind of move will the enemy use, and what is his way of attacking you? Will it be a threat to you?”
“Before you cast a spell, think about these things. This means you have a good grasp of the fight’s flow. Even if the situation comes to a stalemate, as long as your flow is not ruined, there will always be a chance to win.”
“He dealt with it very well from the beginning. When he used the Disarming Charm, he had already anticipated the countermeasures I would use later, so he avoided it in time and used his body movements to cover up his next spell. But he didn’t guess what I was doing after I got rid of his spell.”
“Since he thought I deceived him with a false wand swing, his flow has been interrupted, so the Protego Charm on his body was broken. He was about to build up his flow again, but it’s already messed up, and my Transfiguration had already caught up to him.”
The students listened carefully to Sherlock’s analysis of the entire duel and even took notes. These are students who have been with Sherlock for a year, and they have all developed the habit of keeping this behavior. The students had never been taught so meticulously about actual combat. Sherlock’s words had inspired them a lot.
According to their thoughts, the battle between wizards is to use whatever magic they think of, given the majority of them never encountered a real fight.
After watching this duel, they understood why some wizards can do well in battle. They should pay attention when waving their wands instead of being a reckless person who can only cast a Disarming Charm for no reason.
After that, Sherlock began organizing the students to try the duel. Of course, he won’t be a sparring partner anymore. If he did, he would probably be exhausted after a class and would have no energy left to teach a lesson.
The students duel in groups of two and one by one. The other students stood by and watched while Sherlock guided them and let other students learn from their duel.The class ended quickly, and about a third of the students in the class had a duel. Each of their duels ended very quickly. Hearing Sherlock speak, they were enlightened, thinking that they had understood most things/ But when the actual duel was being done, it was a mess, and it was not as easy as they imagined.
Achieving the flow of the fight can’t be done in a single day, so it will take them quite some time to get a hang of it. Sherlock opened the door for them. If they want to practice by themselves after class, they can come to this classroom for a duel.
They can’t do it in other parts of the castle because Filch will directly arrest them and give them a punishment. After class, Sherlock packed his things and walked out of the classroom when three students surrounded him.
Harry looked at him and said embarrassedly, “Professor, we have something to say to you.”
Not only him, but Hermione and Ron also had the same expression, and they were hesitant when they stood beside Sherlock.
“What kind of crooked ideas are you trying to do now? You don’t think that I’m a jinx, are you?”
Sherlock walked to his office, Harry and the others following him. Hearing his words, Harry and the others just giggled and didn’t make a sound. They were preparing to make a bold experiment.
They were prepared for it after discussing it in the common room for a full week before making a decision. Sherlock took them back to his office, sat on the chair, put his things in his hands, leaned back, and looked at them.
“Tell me, what’s going on?”
The three looked at each other, and Hermione spoke first, “Professor, haven’t you noticed that sometimes, what you predict and say happens the opposite when you say it?”
Sherlock understood what she was trying to say, and she still wanted to say that he was a jinx. But this kind of belief has always been mystical, and Sherlock never thought that someone would believe this kind of thing.
If it is true that no matter what he says, things will develop in the opposite direction of what he said, wouldn’t that make him like a God?
Sherlock couldn’t have been more eager to have this kind of power. If he encounters any danger in the future, he can just say, “It’s over. No one can help us, and we can only just die.” And things will eventually turn out well. If there is such a thing, he can only laugh about it.
It may be that he said something before it ended. The opposite had always been just bad luck, which is why Harry and the others misunderstood him, making them think again and again that he had some strange power.
The best way to overcome this view is to prove to them that the so-called jinx is a coincidence and that this kind of coincidence will not happen again, just like in France when Harry questioned it and Sherlock tried to prove it wrong.
He folded his hands on his chest and sighed as he looked at Harry and the others, “I already proved it to Harry once during the holiday, but you still don’t believe it. What you saw before is just a coincidence. I didn’t expect that a person like you would believe such a thing, Hermione.”
Hermione pursed her lips in silence.
“Since you have always had doubts about this, let’s do an experiment.”
Sherlock is open-minded. He feels that as a teacher, he should debunk this impression of his students directly and focus on learning magic more.
Harry and the others were waiting for his words. They specially prepared a series of questions and even wrote a small note.
Harry came first, “Professor, what do you think the weather will be like this afternoon? You must tell it truthfully.”
Sherlock relaxed and looked out the window; although it was still a little dark, there was already some sunshine in the sky.
“The weather should be fine in the afternoon, right? I would say it would be sunny all day.”
Harry then wrote down his answer on a piece of paper.
Next up was Hermione, “Professor, do you think there will be pudding as dessert for lunch today?”
Sherlock said thoughtfully, “Pudding seems to be a frequent dessert. To be honest, this is one of the sweets that I can eat. I guess there should be a later time, at noon.”
Ron asked, “Professor, do you think it’s possible that Seamus learned a spell wrong again in this afternoon’s Charms class and exploded?”
This question is a bit difficult for Sherlock. When he was in Harry’s class last semester, he had some impression of this boy named Seamus. He always seemed to learn a spell in the wrong way, and all kinds of things happened to him.
“It shouldn’t be. Seamus is quite smart. I think the previous mistakes were just a little accident on his behalf. There is no way for him to explode for him just using a normal spell.”
After they asked each question one by one, the experiment started. Among these three things, the two things that Harry and Hermione mentioned belong to two kinds of things that have a 50/50 chance of happening, while the Seamus explosion that Ron said is very likely to happen.
Seamus’s use of magic is not an exaggeration; explosions occur every time. But they don’t know if it is because of his traits. Whenever he starts to learn a new spell, Seamus’s first attempt will end up in an explosion.
Professor Flitwick said he would explain a new spell in this afternoon’s Charms class, so the possibility of Seamus causing an explosion is extremely high.
After getting the answers from Sherlock, the three left the office.
Sherlock devoted his energy to grading his homework. He had left a lot of summer homework during the summer vacation last semester, so it didn’t take long for Harry and the others’ experiments to get in his way.
But Harry and the others took it seriously. Hermione made a bold hypothesis before the experiment, and what they are doing now is to verify the things that are going to happen.
The first to see the results is the pudding at noon.
After leaving Sherlock’s office, they went straight to the Hall. Lunch had just started, and the food prepared by the house elf in advance had all appeared on the tables. Harry and the others ate first, and dessert didn’t appear until halfway through the meal.
They filled their stomachs as fast as they could, and then the three stared at the table together, attracting the attention of other Gryffindors.
“What are you waiting for?” Lavender and Parvati asked curiously while eating grilled sausages.