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defense against magic

Defending Yourself Against Magic | Tuesday, 4th period

Bob was uncharacteristically silent as the students filed in, and he stood there and looked at them all for a long moment once they were there. A class on defence against magic, and he had failed half of them already.

Bob sighed.

"I'm not going to tell you - those of you who fell victim to this latest attack or those of you who never noticed it - that you should have known better. You should have, but knowledge is only a partial defence. Strong enough magic can take in anyone. I'm not going to tell you that I'm disappointed in those of you who succumbed or those of you who didn't protect them; my good opinion isn't the most important thing here."

He took a deep breath. "Ideally, I would be able to show you the difference between beneficial and harmful magic - the white and the black. But the truth is, sometimes the difference is elusive. And even if I could, it would be irresponsible of me to expose any of you to the black any more than you already have been."

He looked at those who'd bought things from Gaunt; his expression was sad, but not judgmental. "I know some of you are still recovering. I hope the worst you get from this is a bit of illness and embarrassment. Because as you've already learned, the black can be addictive. The easy power it gives is heady. But in the end, the one it harms the most is you. Believe me, I speak from experience.

"So, for today's lesson, we talk," he said. "I would like for those of you who've been through this to speak to the rest of the class. Tell those who haven't felt it what it was like. Explain its seductiveness and how it lured you in. Use your experience to help them avoid it. Use your experience to teach."

Make of that wording what you would.

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Seriously.

Or just shuffle about uncomfortably.

Ask each other questions, discuss what happened. If you choose not to, Bob will look Very Disappointed at you, but it won't affect your grade (such as it is).

Before or after class, he's here.

If she's here and talking.

Because sometimes Bob Gets Serious.

Nathan Byrn

Elsa of Arendelle

Elsa pulled in a deep breath. She didn't want to talk about this with the class. Really, she actually would much rather made a bolt for the door. But she was the TA (whether she'd actually volunteered for the job or not), and as such, she had a responsibility.

That didn't mean she had to speak loudly.

"He knew exactly what I wanted... what I thought I needed," she said, frowning. "I can't speak about how he lured other people in, but I... I have powers that are often too much for me to control, and I've hurt people very close to me in the past because of them. What he offered me was a way to embrace what I am, and he used my fear of hurting people again to lure me in. And... once I had a taste of it, of having complete control of my abilities, I couldn't bring myself to give that up again. Even while I knew it was poisoning me."

Better dead than a danger to her sister. She'd said that. Without letting herself think for even a moment that she could hurt her sister just as badly like that.

"It was like looking at the entire world through frosted glass. I thought I knew what it was I was seeing on the other side, but everything was so distorted, what I believed I was seeing was something else completely. And I didn't want to see differently."

Also, she'd learned that she could sort of create life with her bare hands? Which she was hoping and praying was really just a side-effect of the dark magic involved. Because there was another responsibility she didn't want to even consider, right there.

She's here, yes. And she's done her talking. And now she's just placed herself off to the side, looking for all the world as though she'd like to never ever ever talk again, thank you.

But yes, here.

And lo, after class there was a John, leaning on the door-frame and having a smoke.

"Oi, don't you think that was a bit harsh?" he said, making a face at Bob. "'Black can be addictive blah blah blah.'"

Yes, he'd been on his way to the library when he overheard the start of class. Yes, he'd stayed to eavesdrop. IT WAS CONSTANTINE. What did you expect?

Anders

"I was an idiot," Anders said bluntly, because that was the kind of thing he needed to get out of the way first. The fact his friends seemed to forgive him didn't mean he'd forgiven himself, and his tone as he continued was lacking any trace of its usual humor.

"The bauble Gaunt offered me would have let me go home as a free man. It's the only thing I want that desperately, and I needed to believe in it so much I stopped asking questions about how or why he had it. Nathan" -- he gestured that-a-way -- "even told me I was being stupid and I completely ignored him. It felt like the world only made sense when I was holding the phylactery or doing something for Gaunt, and everything else was ... pointless noise, really."

He drew a breath. "I know I'm being hard on myself, but mages need to keep control. I lost it. I attacked one of my friends and could easily have killed her. it would only have gotten worse if the hold hadn't been broken. At home I'd be lucky if they didn't execute me over this, and I can't say I don't understand why."

"If I'm going to give advice, which I hardly expect anyone to listen to, it would be: Don't let your guard down. Not for a smile, not because you want something badly, not ever. We tend to think the island is safe, but it isn't. Half of us just proved that."

"How do you think you might have better seen through that glass?" Bob asked. "What do you think you might do going forward?"

Bob rolled his eyes. "It can be. Do you really want to play host to lot of budding little black magic users with no idea of the consequences?"

"You want to play host to a batch of righteous teenage Lawful Good twats with no sense of nuance or the gray?" he asked in return. "That 'white' magic nonsense is just as powerful and twisting as the rest of it. Power corrupts, the type of power is just incidental."

"Freedom is a very heady feeling." Bob's smile was understanding and a bit wistful. "But I would say that execution is a bit harsh." For more reasons than one, even.

"It's good to remember that if you can demonstrate control over yourself, others are less likely to feel they need to control you. Beyond that, listen to your friends. Not that you have to do everything they say, but their opinions can be useful."

Bob looked back at Anders as serious as he was. "It sounds like you've already learned a lot about how you'd deal with this the next time. That's the best thing you can take away from it, really."

Bob shook his head. "It may not be quite black and white, but the easy things, the harmful things, I'd still prefer to keep them from. They're too easy a trap."

"You keep 'em from the harmful things now, they'll just trip over 'em when there's no one there to catch 'em," John replied, not without sympathy. "Could say that exposing kids to magic in the first place is irresponsible, since no magic is safe and it's all a trap, but it's unavoidable around here."

"That's what the class is about," Bob pointed out. "With any luck, I'll give them the tools to catch themselves." He sighed. "So far, I seem to have failed them."

Vider Bearskin

"Would you still say it was harsh if I had accidentally killed someone?" Anders asked. "But you're right about the rest of it. I hope I learned enough that I won't ever repeat the experience."

"I would, yes," Bob said firmly. "My friend Harry was very nearly executed for precisely that reason. Accidents do happen, even deadly ones. They require care to ensure they don't happen again, but they're hardly reason to execute a good man."

Anders frowned, as though Bob had said something complicated in a language he didn't quite speak. "That would never happen at home."

Thedas was not a forgiving place to be a mage.

"Free will, mate," he pointed out with a shrug. "They made their own choices, even if some of 'me are shit choices, and that's what makes humanity so bloody fantastic."

"You gonna blame yourself for me, next? I made a deal with Gaunt, even knowing he was a demon of some sort. Didn't care, and I'd do it again and probably will," he continued. "You can't fail anyone who didn't fail themselves first."

"Your poor choices are your own," Bob said dryly. "But most of my students couldn't recognise the fact they were making poor choices. That's what I'm supposed to be teaching them - if they go on to make poor choices fully informed, I can't help them."

"Would your home execute a swordsman for tripping and stabbing someone through the heart?" Bob asked. He was honestly curious, but he had a feeling that he knew the answer. It didn't make him think very highly of Thedas.

"Depends on who he stabbed," Anders said dryly,then tried to think seriously about Bob's question.

"No, to be fair you could make that kind of mistake. If you did nothing wrong, you'd probably live. Like, if you were in a fight and a child wandered into the path -- that would be tragic, but you wouldn't get killed over it. But a mistake like the one I made, trusting a demon and hurting someone while in his thrall?" His mouth twitched. "Nobody's going to be forgiving about that."

"And if you weren't a mage?" Bob asked. "Not everyone who fell under his spell was, after all."

"Somehow when they're lecturing us in the Circle they only tell us what happens to bad mages, not bad people," Anders said. "I don't know. I've never heard of a person without magic dealing with a demon and not dying before the law got involved."

"And do you think you're a bad mage for making a mistake? Or that Carmilla or Elsa is a bad person?"

"Yes, I don't know her well enough to say, and no," Anders answered, with a tiny smile to Elsa. "Elsa's not from a world where this kind of thing happens. I am. I'm not going to beat myself up over it forever, but I can't wave it away as 'oh, everyone messes up, tra la.''"

"I'm not suggesting you do," Bob said sternly. "I'm suggesting you learn from it, do better next time, and refrain from calling yourself a bad person because of it. You made a bad decision, yes. Don't let it define you."

Anders' smile was still small, but nonetheless genuine. "That's -- a good way of looking at it," he said. "Thank you."

"I'm not sure... how to see through the glass," Elsa admitted. "Though if it was my fear he was taking advantage of, the most obvious solution seems to be me as though it would be to get rid of my reasons to be afraid. Learn control for myself, so that I don't need to rely on anybody or anything else in order to keep it."

Isabelle Lightwood

"That sounds like a very good idea," Bob said. "I'm glad to help, if you like."

"I could probably use all the help I can possibly get," Elsa admitted, softly. "I've had friends try to help me out as well, but..."

She shrugged her shoulders a little. It seemed different, coming from a friend than from a teacher. Particularly one whose job it was to teach magic in particular.

... And besides that...

"I... wouldn't be able to hurt you, would I?"

"It's highly unlikely," Bob answered. "The very worst that could happen would be that you'd unsettle me, and if you somehow managed to do any damage I'd pop back to my skull and have to get a portal back."

Oh... Oh, thank goodness, then.

"That's... actually a relief," Elsa admitted, trying a little smile on for size. "It's one of the things that makes it difficult for me to practice around other people. I'm always terrified that I'll hurt them."

"Hard to hurt someone who's already dead." Bob shrugged.

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Defending Yourself Against Magic | Tuesday, 4th period

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