There had been too much theory to get through that week. Revisions in British law to restrict dark magic, case studies of the unforgiveables in action. All for one of the possible essay response questions in the summer. It wouldn't save their life necessarily when faced with one, but it did widen their knowledge of why spells were restricted.

As much as the older students were able to chew through it all with maturity on the majority of occasions, even Professor Storm found himself becoming restless for the mostly static lessons during the week, especially just before the Halloween weekend. As such, he had saved Friday's lesson just before lunch to be entirely practical.

The Seventh years had paired off and split to either side of the classroom, a great no-man's land down the middle of the room, all the desks pushed back to the walls. There was quite a noise - not of words, but of clashes and crackles as spells crossed and collided. The Professor had tasked them with practical revision of Protego subsidiary spells, beginning with Protego Duo and Protego Durus to try and break their partner's shield before they split further to tackle the larger, greater shields with more space. The first floor classroom was quite a space, but filled with adult-sized seventh years, they suddenly felt crammed in.

Down the very edges of the room, the Professor carefully picked his way along, wand in hand, keeping an eye out for wayward spells.
"Wand up," He corrected one, "Too high," another, "release it when your arm lowers to your shoulder height and not before, stop it from sailing over."

Something a little more unusual hit someone's protego durus across the room as he demonstrated and although he threw up Aegis instinctively on the lack of identification. The silver shield hung in the air before him and the student he was advising for a moment as the rogue spell dissipated.

---

Have your student be advised, have them the source of the rogue spell, or the one who reflected it. Throw a spell at a partner, have your shield fail - let's have a little fun before we move on.

When it came to Ligeia's overall proficincey in Defense Against the Dark Arts context certainly mattered. She could easily identify the effects of many different curses and suggested counter-spells or other treatments. Her level of interest in the subject bled over into related courses under Creatures or Potions. As for practical demostration she could pick up proper wand movements gracefully.

Accuracy of her aim, to this day, could wobble all over the map. That wasn't even taking 'parasol casting' into account, where she had practiced having her wand resonate with the shaft of her ubiquitous black parasol, both woods of matching wand quality. For what few spells seemed to work with that settup an immediate area of effect was much easier over precision.

To strike through to the heart of the matter, Ligeia's overcorrections with her pale alomnd wand could easily be mistaken for apparent poor aim. For targets at further distances she should probably have been using corrective lensesses on account of her vision problems from albinism. But then Ligeia had always trained herself to not be overly depantant on such aids.

Still, as she stood amongst her fellow peers on one half of the classroom the conditions weren't that conducive for Ligeia's optimal firing parameters. The noise of those that intoned their incantations or grunted from the effort of blocking or practicing non-verbal casting wasn't the issue, such din didn't break her conentration. The light in the room was average and normally that wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the inhereent nature of the lesson:

That of the strength of your shield blocking. So as Ligeia resisted spellfire from her partner that was roughly four to five spells she could block before they were expected to switch. That meant several flashes of different spells all striking the shield a foot in front of her face, let alone the same effect from others' practice out of the corner of her eye.

A dizzying effect to aggravate her nystygmus, increasing the inherant shakiness of what she was looking at when meaning to switch and take aim at the blur of her partner's own shield. So what had been a little stronger than the usual Jelly Fingers Jinx (it would have left the whole arm wibbly) just barely caught on the edge of her partner's shield enough to bounce instead of block, continuing around the room out of her sight.

Textbook, theory and lecture had always been Sasha's natural strength so the last few days of discussion had kept him entertained. 

For the first five years of his Hogwarts career, theory and essays kept him from completely tanking Defense Against the Dark Arts.  He'd never actually gone to Ollivander's prior to his first year, so he'd never gotten the 'wand chooses the wizard' lecture.  He had no idea that a cheap, second-hand wand was partly to blame for his poor performance.  Wand aside, he had no misconceptions about his lack of confidence and timidity.  He'd been a staunch pacifist.  Every spell cast had been restrained.  Half-hearted.  His habitual response to his step father, when the man had been in a towering rage, had carried over into duel practice: flinch, closer your eyes and wait for the worst to be over.   

What a difference two years had made.  The wand he held now had not only chosen him, but he had won it.  Off another wizard.  The bond he had with his wand was unmistakable.  That, combined with countless hours of practice, both in and out of the classroom, had done wonders for his confidence and proficiency. 

Eyes narrowed in concentration, Sasha threw up a shield spell as a crackle of red light left his partner’s wand.  The red flashed and splintered, spiderwebbing over the shimmering surface of the shield spell.  With a subtle crackle, the light dissipated into nothingness.  With a blink, Sasha released the shield and dropped his wand hand.  Basic protego spells were relatively easy, now.  Instead, he was concentrating on reaction speed; he waited until his partner lifted their wand to cast before casting his own shield.  His partner had caught on and was changing their own casting pattern to try and catch Sasha off guard.  Sometimes they'd pause between casts.  Sometimes, a second followed right on the heels of the first. 

Off to his periphery, a dancing light was whizzing towards him.  Reflexively, he pivoted and raised his wand.  With only a slight movement in his lips, the shimmering shield blossomed in the space in front of him and deflected the arrant spell.  But, pivoting towards the hex had left his side open to his partner, whose Concusso hex had left their wand before they'd registered that Sasha was distracted. 

The impact of the second hex sent Sasha staggering to the side and into one of the desks along the wall.  Even as he fell back, memories of cautionary warnings came back to him: 'It's uncommon for wizards to go for lethal spells first - unless they think themselves invulnerable or know, beyond a doubt, they'll win in the first shot.  Few raise the stakes to that level before sizing up their opponent.  Most go to disarm and incapacitate first.  Dear boy, always, always get a shield up, if you're going down.  That's the biggest mistake most dead wizards make.'  And, Kronos had insisted on drilling that scenario until the response was reflexive. 

Just as the Protego Maxima Sasha cast as his side hit the desk was reflexive.  As Sasha leaned against the desk panting to catch his breath, he forced his mind to remain focused on maintaining the shield and ready to strike back if he felt the shield tested. 

"Enough, enough," The Professor raised his wand in the air above their heads and called above the noise, making a point to catch the visual attention of the likes of Amherst.

"Well revised, now," He made his way into the gap between both sides. "For this you will all need to be on this side of the room in two rows. So if you're crossing the room now, you will stand in front of the student already there." He gestured for them all to move across. Once feet had finished marching across the floor he turned to address the two rows of students.

"You must all have your wits about you for reflections, as now that you are most certainly proficient at reflecting spells somewhere, we may have a little more fun with directing the reflections on purpose." As he spoke, he ran his gaze down the line of students.

"In your OWLS we focused on this mostly with Declino, the weaker cousin." He stopped extended his wand towards one of the students towards the end of the row on his left. He addressed them by surname[1].

"Stun me." At their hesitation of whether Professor Storm might mean to surprise him with a particularly talented dance routine or some other ridiculous talent they might be hiding, he nodded that he did indeed mean to stupefy him.

At the flash of red across the room at him, he threw up protego wordlessly, and instead exclaimed the surname[2] of a student on his right, and deflected it right at them so they had to act.

"Easy enough, and again," He gestured to the first student, and yelled another surname of someone in the line, the more assured stupefy rebounding straight at them.

"That's easy enough to deflect to the side of your wand hand, harder to defend it to the other. It is about how to receive and how to end the wand movement and transfer your weight." He demonstrated the shift a little more slowly without an attack.

"Right, over here,"[3] swapping places with the student he retreated to one end. Calling one name to cast, "and name your target so we can see if you're anywhere on the mark."

---

All students on one side of the room, one the other. One student casts a stunning spell or similar at the student on their own who yells the name of another classmate they deflect the spell at. That classmate must defend. Write 3-4 spells being thrown and deflected but try to deflect them both left and right, and MISS. Hit the wrong student, knock over a desk, whatever. Have a bit of fun with it, and try and get your friends.

1.	Insert your character
2.	Can be anyone too
3.	Anyone, can be the same as one before or different