The new students had settled down in their respective house tables after being sorted. I was sitting between Ron and Hermione, when Dumbledore stood up with his usual jovial smile. "Welcome to our new first years and welcome back to our old students. We have said our farewells to our seventh years and welcomed our first years. Now it is my great pleasure to welcome one more person."
*POOF*
A cloud of smoke went up in the ceiling of the great hall as a burst of sparkles rained down upon the staffs and students. All of a sudden there were students from all the houses cursing and swearing, the door to the Great Hall opened wide and in the entrance stood "SIRIUS?!" I couldn't help but yell out my Godfather's name as he stood there with his arms wide and bowing to us.
Instantly, the entire student body burst into conversation and whispers as Dumbledore continued, "Professor Sirius Black who was wrongfully convicted was recently released. But before he was arrested he was one of the best Hit-Wizards the Ministry had. He is more than qualified to teach and guide you. Welcome Professor." He said bowing slightly to him. Sirius bowed back, "Thank you Headmaster. Now all I would like to tell is that to enjoy this year as much as possible. Thank you!" There was applause as he strode over to the head table and took a seat.
After the Welcoming Feast we marched to our respective house dormitories and went straight to sleep.
The school days strated and the classes were as much the same as last year. Only History of Magic and Herbology is going to give me a headache. On an other note Sirius's classes have been nothing but fun. He filled in various cages filled with magical creatures explaining their physiology and structure then telling us which spells would be effective against them. He made demonstration which were fun to watch.
A surprising part was that it quickly became the school favorite subject. But the most surprising part was that Sirius was far more diligent than I thought he would be: giving out extra study material, recommending books and texts, giving the last ten minutes of his class to try out the spells, covering the practical aspect even giving weekly tests.
I was currently in "detention" that my own godfather gave. Although it was technically a detention given for "breathing too loudly in class", I was actually chilling with him. Today I wanted to turn it up a notch so I asked him to teach me to fight.
"Dueling is an art form,but I'm not teaching you dueling. I'm teaching you to fight. And the first thing to learn about fighting is to defend yourself. Now Harry, the three most basic spells you need to learn for defending is 'Protego'- the shield charm, 'Expelliarmus' - the disarming charming, and 'Depulso' - the banishing charm." Sirius said standing next to me and throwing out each spell as he said it.
I just gave a smirk and raised my wand, "Depulso" a green wave pushed the target dummy back a few feet. "Expelliarmus" a white light shot out of my wand hiting the dummy and ripped out the dummy wand in its hand, I caught it mid air and turned towards Sirius, "Protego" a translucent silvery dome surrounded me from the front. Sirius had his mouth agape but quickly composed himself, "Stupefy" a red bolt of concussive energy hit the barrier and dissipated with a *ping* sound.
Sirius shot a few more Stupefy and got the same result, but when he shot the last one, I put down my shields and brought my wand in the path of the bolt and swung a back-hand like a tennis player, redirecting the spell right back at Sirius who just side-stepped the bolt of energy and raised a questioning eye. "I have a lot of questions..." I just shrugged, "What can I say... I got bored."
Sirius understood that I had the basic spells down so started off with stances other physical aspects of fighting one-on-one. But the most useful thing he aught me was to always move my feet. "A moving target is far more difficult to hit than a stationary one, Harry. Even more so when you duck, weave, dodge and roll and make yourself as unpredictable as you can."
I placed my wand on his desk and walked to the other end of the room and stood against the wall, while Sirius was standing with his wand up and nodded, "Ready Harry?" I nodded, "Good. On your mark then." Without warning I pushed off the wall and started sprinting diagonally towards a stack of books as a stinging hex whizzed past my ear. I did not wait as the books started floating up revealing my position. I got up and threw myself to the other side of the room, but a stinging hex got me square in the ribs. "Oooff." In my haste, I tripped over a leg of a table and fell landing ungracefully on my stomach.
I slowly got back up wincing at the bad fall. Sirius gaffawed loudly at my state, "You could have thrown a book to distract me or retreated and tried a different approach but nooo... Were you trying to catch a snitch or something?"
We put the Dodging practice on hold for the moment and Sirius brought the target dummy forward, "I see now, what I need to teach you. The art of rolling." He said with a serious face. I narrowed my eyes. Was this guy a trnsmigrator who is a fan of Dark Souls or something? Sirius continued, "The first thing you need to know when fighting is concerned is how not to get hit. Those Death Munchers are not shy about using the Unforgivables, so one tiny slip up would cost you dearly."
Sirius controlled the target dummy like a puppet and showed how to do that, "While rolling forward, you do not use your head or neck, although it looks like it. But instead you use your shoulders to take the impact and weight. Tilt you head and neck slightly and use your hands to guide your body to one of your shoulders. The shoulders are very strong and would soften the impact to almost nothing even when you leap and roll."
And that was how I started my first month back in school. Learning how to tuck and roll and dodge. Learning the ancient art of the ROLLY POLLY. My shoulders were aching a lot but I told myself it was all going to be worth it.