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Chapter 104: Chapter 104 How do you improve your defence skills? Fighting, of course!

After a while, the red Howler finally stopped its yelling. It fell to the ground and then caught fire, curling up into ashes.

The milk shield also fell away, drenching Ron and Harry.

However, they seemed oblivious to this, standing dazed and stunned as if a herd of rampaging rhinoceroses had just trampled their faces, leaving their faces a deep purple.

"Are you alright?" Hermione, who had already cleaned up the area with a cleaning charm, asked with concern.

"Sorry, Hermione, what did you say?" Ron rasped. "I feel like my head is buzzing, I can't hear a thing..."

"What are you two talking about?" Harry's voice was also hoarse. He looked at Ron and Hermione's moving mouths but heard no sound. "I think I might be deaf; I can't hear anything!"

Because they couldn't hear, their voices were unintentionally loud, breaking the rare silence in the Great Hall.

Draco Malfoy at the Slytherin table couldn't help but laugh as he watched their purple faces.

Under someone's lead, Crabbe and Goyle started laughing too, and soon, the laughter spread from the Slytherin table to Ravenclaw, and even the Gryffindor table was laughing loudly.

As for Harry and Ron, they didn't feel embarrassed by the laughter because they couldn't hear it at all.

The two of them continued to stare at each other blankly, their heads still buzzing.

It wasn't until Professor McGonagall came down from the staff table, distributed the class schedules along the Gryffindor table, and cast a spell on them, that they finally regained their senses.

"Professor, can I ask who cast that silencing milk shield?" Ron, regaining his wits, immediately prepared to find someone to take revenge. "Who would do such a thing, trapping us with the Howler from my mum?"

Harry nodded in agreement. "That shield had such a big echo; Mrs. Weasley's angry shouting reverberated inside it so many times... I even feel like it's still echoing in my head..."

McGonagall handed each of them a class schedule and then looked at Harry and Ron with a slightly amused, unusual expression, unlike her usual stern demeanor.

"What would you do if I told you who cast the spell?" she asked. "Are you planning to take revenge?"

"Of course!" Ron said with determination. "It's unacceptable not to get even!"

Harry, standing beside him, somewhat agreed with Ron but felt something was off, so he stayed silent, prepared to observe.

McGonagall seemed to find their reaction amusing. She nodded at Ron and pointed towards the front of the hall.

Harry and Ron followed her finger and saw a silver-haired professor casually eating pudding.

"The one who put the shield around you is over there!" McGonagall said. "You can go and take revenge on him, Weasley."

"Ah... so it was Professor Dracula who cast the shield..." Ron's face turned extremely awkward. "It must have been a misunderstanding! Yes, definitely a misunderstanding!"

"Professor Dracula must have been concerned for our safety, so he used the shield to protect us!"

As if sensing their gaze, Professor Dracula looked up and glanced at them.

He considered for a moment, then smirked. His lips moved slightly, and his voice, though distant, clearly reached Ron's ears.

"Weasley, for the first two weeks of school, your workload will be the same as Potter's."

Ron was stunned upon hearing this, then furrowed his brows in confusion.

McGonagall looked at him and seemed to think that with Dracula's deterrent, they wouldn't cause any more trouble. She turned and continued distributing the schedules to other students.

"What's wrong, Ron?" Harry asked, noticing Ron's puzzled expression.

"Harry, Professor Dracula just told me that for the first two weeks, my workload will be the same as yours," Ron said, scratching his head. "But aren't we in the same year? Our workloads should be the same anyway!"

He then lowered his voice and leaned closer to Harry. "Do you think Professor Dracula might be a bit mixed up?"

"Why do you say that?" Harry cautiously glanced at Dracula, who had resumed eating pudding and was no longer paying attention to the Gryffindor table, and then asked in a low voice.

"I heard Fred and George say that there's always something wrong with the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, no matter the year," Ron whispered. "I mean, it's one thing for him to talk to the car and have it respond, but..."

"But the homework thing doesn't make sense. Could your workload really be more than mine?"

As Harry was about to respond, he suddenly fell silent.

"Do you think so, Harry?" Ron, seeing Harry's silence, asked persistently.

"Ron," Harry took a deep breath and clapped Ron on the shoulder with a serious expression, "I've got some bad news..."

"...My homework is really twice as much as yours."

After a joyful week at the Weasleys' home and the psychological thrill of driving to school, Harry had almost forgotten about this issue.

It wasn't until Ron mentioned the homework that Harry suddenly recalled—Professor Dracula had doubled the amount of homework for the first two weeks of this term compared to the other students!

Ron: "..."

...

The first day of school was a Wednesday.

This year, Professor Dracula's first class was for the sixth-year students.

The sixth-year class was an advanced course in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and the advanced class was no longer split by houses but combined all four houses in one classroom.

Since there were only a few students taking the elective, it didn't feel crowded with all four houses in one classroom.

When Dracula arrived in the classroom, students with four different colored collars were already neatly seated in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

He glanced at the lectern and realized he had forgotten to bring the lesson plan, textbooks, and even the class roster.

Dracula then gloomily remembered that the diligent assistant, Quirrell, had been dead for half a year.

"You're the sixth-year students, right?" he sighed and asked casually.

"Yes, Professor!" A red-haired boy in the front row responded cooperatively.

"Alright, I understand." Dracula nodded at him, "Since you're all sixth-year wizards, I assume you've all passed the Ordinary Wizarding Level exams?"

"Yes, Professor!" Percy answered proudly.

Percy Weasley had received twelve OWL certificates, a rare achievement.

But Dracula paid no attention to Percy or the nearly all-straight-A Ravenclaw students. Instead, he focused on a few gloomy-looking Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students in the corner.

"If I'm not mistaken, some of you didn't pass the OWLs, right?" Dracula said coldly, looking at the Gryffindors in the corner who sat there like quails, afraid to look up.

Percy glanced at them and then raised his hand.

"Professor, you usually don't give much homework, and these undisciplined students tend to focus on other things and naturally end up failing," he reasoned.

Dracula's expression stiffened.

"So I suggest, Professor, that you should assign more homework..." Percy continued his theory but was interrupted by a Ravenclaw girl next to him.

"Professor, Percy didn't mean it that way. He just wants more homework for himself!" said Penelope Clearwater from Ravenclaw.

Penelope had to intervene to save Percy.

Her comments had obviously offended most of the students in the classroom, including Professor Dracula, and she feared that the petty-minded professor might hold a grudge... If Dracula bore a grudge, Percy's future would be difficult.

"Percy Weasley." Dracula stared deeply at the red-haired student and curled his lips into a humorless smile, "Do you think... there's something wrong with my teaching method?"

The temperature in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom seemed to drop a few degrees, and Percy shivered.

"Uh... actually, I was just speaking off the top of my head, Professor." Percy lowered his head and said weakly.

"But I think you have a point, Weasley," Dracula said coldly. "Since so many people didn't pass the OWLs, it indicates that my teaching method has significant issues."

The students in the classroom looked terrified and then angrily glared at Percy.

If it weren't for this meddlesome guy, Professor Dracula, who usually didn't assign much homework, wouldn't suddenly be re-evaluating his teaching methods, right?!

"Don't show such terrified expressions just yet." Dracula looked at them and suddenly laughed softly. "Even if some fail the exams, I still disdain to assign so much pointless paper homework. Your homework load will remain as it is."

The students in the classroom looked puzzled and surprised at Professor Dracula's words.

But the next moment, their surprise turned into fear.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts is a subject best suited for practice; paper homework won't improve your grades effectively," Dracula said, pulling out his sinister wooden wand from his pocket. "When learning Defense Against the Dark Arts, there's no better way to improve than practical combat!"

With a wave of his wand, the desks and chairs in the classroom were magically moved aside, neatly arranged along the sides of the classroom, clearing a large open space in the center.

The students in the classroom were lifted by an invisible force and placed in the newly cleared space.

"Now, take out your wands," Dracula said with a sinister smile. "You all come at me, and let's see what progress your five years at Hogwarts have brought you!"

Saying this, Dracula cast a Stunning Spell that whizzed past Percy's ear and struck the window at the back of the classroom.

With a crash, the window shattered into pieces.

"Your reactions are too slow!" Dracula said coldly. "If this were a life-and-death duel, you'd all have died a thousand times by now!"

Percy gritted his teeth and quickly cast a Disarming Charm aimed at Dracula's eyes.

"Expelliarmus!"

Dracula casually shook his head, and the red Disarming Charm missed him, hitting the blackboard at the front of the classroom instead.

"Not bad reflexes, but your judgment is lacking," Dracula said. "Disarming Charms, which are used to disarm opponents, don't differ much in effect depending on where they hit. So you should aim for the chest, the most likely target."

At that moment, another red Disarming Charm flew silently towards Dracula.

Dracula waved his wand and deflected it to the side.

"Good use of the Silencing Charm, Miss Clearwater," he nodded approvingly. "And knowing to use surprise tactics against a strong opponent, taking advantage of their unpreparedness to win."

"But you overlooked one thing—you and Percy are directly facing me. Can you really call a frontal surprise attack a surprise?"

Before Dracula finished speaking, a torrent of spells rained down from the wands of the students in the classroom, almost leaving no space for Dracula to dodge.

However, Dracula had no intention of dodging. He didn't use his extreme magical resistance to withstand the attacks, nor did he use a powerful Shield Charm to block them.

Facing the countless spells, Dracula moved leisurely, dodging or deflecting the incoming beams, while pointing out the flaws in the students' spells and suggesting improvements.

"Move faster, increase the frequency of spell casting, and improve accuracy!" Dracula kept urging, occasionally casting punitive spells on students who tried to slack off.

This high-pressure environment forced them to use all their strength every second, exhausting their magical power and physical stamina while continuously casting various spells.

Ten minutes later, all the sixth-year students lay collapsed on the ground.

And Dracula hadn't even cast a single offensive spell.