Intent, Interrupted
December, 5th Year
The DADA classroom was colder than usual, lit by late-morning sun and the soft flicker of enchanted torches. Frost curled along the bottom panes of the tall windows, blurring the view of the grounds beyond. Inside, the students rustled in their seats, quills tapping, parchment unrolling. The usual rhythm. Routine.
Until it wasn’t.
Professor Warrick stood at the front of the room—not behind the desk, but in front of it, sleeves rolled, spine straight, arms folded like a neutral witness.
“Today,” he said, “we begin a new series: interpretive spell theory, applied. Structured rebuttal. Collaborative logic.” He paused, letting the words settle like a challenge.
“Each of you will be paired. Each pair will be assigned a concept. You will debate—formally. Respectfully. Thoroughly.”
A few students groaned.
Some whispered. Most sat up straighter.
Hermione’s quill was already poised.
From the back row, a Slytherin drawled, “Is this DADA or rhetoric?”
Warrick didn’t blink. “If you don’t understand the difference, you’ll find out.”
He turned and waved his wand. The chalkboard flared to life.
Intent-Mediated Casting: Symbol and Function as Contingent Variable
A ripple moved through the classroom.
Hermione sat a little taller.
“Pairings,” Warrick continued, his voice calm but clipped, “were selected for ideological range and interpretive strength.”
Which, Hermione knew, was his way of saying: this will be a blood sport.
“Goldstein and Patil. Greengrass and Thomas. Corner and Macmillan.”
The names kept coming. The list tightened.
“Granger. Malfoy.”
Silence.
Hermione blinked once. Didn’t move. Draco, two rows behind her, didn’t either.
Something in the air shifted—like a ward nudged awake.
Professor Warrick looked up, just briefly.
“Granger. Malfoy. Theory of Intent-Mediated Casting. Now, please.”
Hermione stood as did Draco.
They crossed the classroom from opposite ends. Their movements didn’t match, but they mirrored each other all the same—deliberate, contained, sharp.
They reached the front of the room and stopped, just far enough apart to make it formal. Just close enough that the space between them hummed.
Hermione’s hands rested lightly at her sides. Draco’s were folded behind his back.
They waited.
Warrick raised his hand and let it fall.
“Begin.”
Hermione didn’t wait to be called. She stepped forward, spine straight, words already forming before her shoes stilled on the stone.
“Theory of Intent-Mediated Casting posits that magic is not merely functional—it is interpretive. A spell does not emerge in isolation. It reflects the caster. Emotion, belief, bias. All of it bleeds into the output.” Her voice was clear. Controlled. Crisp with conviction.
She paced once, deliberate. “That’s not opinion. That’s data. Fogward Trials. The Rosales Variance Study. Even the DMRC’s restricted mirrorwork results from 1979.”
She flicked her eyes at Warrick. Then, without looking at Malfoy: “A spell isn’t static. It’s a question asked—and answered—by the caster’s intent.”
She stepped back.
No flourish. No smile.
Just precision.
Draco moved forward as if he had all the time in the world. Like he’d been expecting her thesis down to the syllable.
“And yet,” he said smoothly, “if the spell is the question, you assume the caster knows what they’re asking.”
He let that hang.
“A flawed premise. Intent is not clean. It’s not conscious. And it certainly isn’t noble. You talk about reflection like it’s pure. But mirrors warp.”
He paused, not for effect—but for calculation.
“Fogward? Rosales? Both biased. Both controlled by wizards with agendas. You’re citing theory dressed up as truth.”
Hermione lifted her chin, voice sharper now. “Better flawed theory than unchecked tradition parading as fact.”
Draco tilted his head. “So you’d rather trust instability than acknowledge limitation.”
She stepped forward before she meant to. “You’re equating awareness with chaos. That’s cowardice.”
The class stilled.
Warrick didn’t move. But his gaze sharpened.
Draco’s tone didn’t rise. But it cut colder. “No. That’s realism. Intent is messy. Dangerous. You want to make it curriculum. I want to keep it from destroying people.”
Hermione’s laugh was too soft to be mocking. “You don’t want to keep it from destroying people. You want to keep it from changing anything.”
He turned to her then. Fully.
“No. I want to make sure people like you don’t weaponize morality and call it education.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And you’d rather defend a system that doesn’t see you either.”
A beat.
Then—
“Granger,” he said, voice low. “Just because you believe in reform doesn’t mean you understand power.”
“And you think wielding it makes you qualified to define it?” she snapped.
Their voices weren’t loud.
But the force in them filled the room like wind before a storm.
A few students had stopped pretending to take notes. One Ravenclaw had half a hand over his mouth.
They weren’t watching a debate anymore.
They were watching something unravel.
And knit.
And threat to burn.
Warrick stepped forward at last, the silence trailing behind him like smoke. He didn’t smile. Didn’t blink.
“Noted,” he said.
Just that, but the approval in his voice was something else entirely—mixed with warning.
Hermione returned to her desk without looking at Draco. Draco sat down like his skin was still humming. And Warrick—arms crossed—watched them both. Like the lesson had just begun.
The room emptied slowly.
Chairs scraped back. Books snapped shut. Quills clattered into cases. The ordinary hum of departure swept through the space—but it didn’t erase what had just happened. Not really.
A few students muttered as they left, voices low but charged.
“That was intense,” someone breathed.
“Honestly?” Padma said, a little stunned, “I think I stopped breathing halfway through.”
“Did anyone else feel like Warrick was enjoying it?” whispered Terry.
Across the aisle, someone else murmured, “Malfoy’s face—like he was daring her to prove him wrong.”
Hermione didn’t hear most of it. Not clearly. But the echoes trailed behind the last footsteps, clinging to the air like static.
She was still seated, her notes spread in front of her, ink blotting faintly in one corner where her quill had rested too long. Her hands were steady. Her heartbeat wasn’t.
Across the aisle, Draco hadn’t moved either.
He sat back slowly, one elbow propped on the edge of his desk, fingers tapping once against the wood. His expression was unreadable—but not blank. There was something alive behind it. Sharp. Tethered.
“You enjoy being right,” he said, his voice low, almost casual.
Hermione looked up, her gaze cool but unflinching. “I enjoy being listened to.”
He stilled.
Not visibly, not completely—but something in the line of his shoulders shifted, like he’d been caught off balance by a spell he hadn’t seen coming.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The room felt strange with only two people left in it—like the walls remembered more than they should.
Finally, he leaned forward just slightly, voice quieter now. “You think I wasn’t listening?”
She tilted her head, measuring. “I think you’re the only one who was.”
That caught him.
No comeback. No smirk. Just a pause. Brief. Tight. Real.
He closed his notebook, but didn’t move to stand.
Hermione, meanwhile, gathered her things in neat, practiced movements—quill capped, scroll rolled, notes aligned like they needed a reason to stay orderly.
When she stood, her eyes flicked toward him—not quite a challenge. Not quite a question either.
He didn’t look away.
But he didn’t follow.
As she passed his desk, the silence between them said enough.
Not truce. Not tension.
Just space.
A space that hadn’t been there before.
And might not be again.
The Great Hall buzzed with the low warmth of evening—clinking silverware, the rustle of owl-feather quills scribbling last-minute notes on serviettes, and the soft murmur of conversation rising like a fog across the four House tables.
Then— clink clink.
Umbridge tapped her spoon delicately against the side of her goblet. A soft, chiming sound. Precise. Deliberate.
The Hall quieted—not all at once, but quickly. As if sound itself recognized authority and withdrew.
She stood with a rustle of rose-colored wool, her bow bobbing slightly as she straightened. Her smile was soft. Wide. Glued in place like lacquer.
“It has come to the Ministry’s attention,” she began sweetly, “that certain ideologies—cloaked in the language of inclusion—are beginning to distract from the standards we cherish at Hogwarts.”
Murmurs stirred. Some confused. Some annoyed. Most cautious.
Umbridge folded her hands atop the table, fingers twitching as if to smooth invisible creases from reality.
“We believe in tradition. In clarity. In the strength of heritage and the order it provides. And we must be vigilant against the erosion of these values—especially when such erosion arrives dressed as… progress.”
A few Slytherins nodded. One Ravenclaw clapped once—awkwardly—and stopped.
At the Gryffindor table, Hermione clenched her jaw. Her hand was tight around her fork, knuckles white with effort. She took a breath. Then she stood. The motion was quiet. Controlled. But it cut through the Hall like a line drawn in ink.
Umbridge’s smile did not move. But her gaze sharpened.
Hermione’s voice was clear, even, and deceptively calm. “Order without curiosity is fear.”
The room held its breath.
Hermione’s eyes swept the Hall. Not defiant—precise. Anchored. “And fear unchallenged,” she continued, “becomes doctrine.”
A beat. Long enough for meaning to settle like dust.
Then—
“From The Fifth Principle ,” she added. A banned book.
Gasps broke the silence. Some students turned sharply in their seats. A third-year Hufflepuff choked on his pumpkin juice. Several Ravenclaws looked intrigued. A few students—mostly Slytherins—glanced toward the staff table, unsure whether to laugh or duck.
Umbridge’s smile didn’t crack.
But it tightened.
Barely.
Professor Warrick, seated a few chairs down, raised his goblet. Tilted it slightly. And took a slow sip to hide the smile that flickered at the edge of his mouth.
Dumbledore did not rise or speak.
It was clear in the silence that followed that something had been said and no one would be able to pretend otherwise.
The corridors after dinner were quieter than usual. Heavy with the weight of what hadn’t been said aloud.
Hermione walked slowly, her fingers still tingling from the rush of it—the standing, the quoting, the silence that followed like held breath. She half-expected to hear her name shouted down the corridor. Detention. Interrogation. A public warning.
But nothing came. Not yet.
Footsteps echoed behind her—measured, unhurried.
She turned the corner and nearly collided with Professor Warrick.
He didn’t startle. Just stepped aside and glanced down at her as if he’d been waiting.
“If doctrine had teeth,” he said calmly, “you just kicked one out.”
Hermione blinked. She wasn’t sure whether to feel proud or reprimanded. “And if I get detention?”
He tilted his head. “Then we’ll review shield charms.”
A pause. He moved past her then, his robes whispering against the stone floor. Just before he turned the next corner, he added over his shoulder, “Not all battles need a wand, Miss Granger. But all the important ones require nerve.”
Then he disappeared.
Hermione stood alone for a moment longer, her heartbeat slowing into something steadier. She reached into her satchel, pulled out her notes from the debate, and slid them into the worn pages of her private journal.
At the top of one page, just above a line of rebuttal inked in Draco’s careful script, she wrote: He’s wrong. But I see why.
She circled it once, just once, and left it there.