The Second Week of September

Draco and Harry were seated at the dining table in their parents dungeon quarters, on opposite ends, with their homework spread out in front of them. They were arguing.

Lyrica, exhausted by both her classes and her pregnancy, had gone to bed early. The door to the bedroom was closed, and Snape had cast a Silencing Spell to spare his wife from his sons occasional raised voices. Snape himself was at his desk by the fireplace grading essays. He was also half-listening to the argument.

The argument between his sons was a permissible one since it related to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Snape had devised a series of debates between his students that forced them to delve into the moral, philosophical, and historical depths of the Dark Arts. His seventh years were a disappointment. Their senses were mostly jaded after practically seven years of a continuing long line of incompetent DADA instructors. Too many of his seventh years on that first, overly dramatic day, had been too wide-eyed and oohing and ahhing over the ghastly examples. His lectures fell on mostly deaf ears, and he had caught two Slytherins and one Ravenclaw that had actually dared to fall asleep during his lecture!

The sixth years were little better, but salvageable. His best success were his fourth and fifth years who had responded to his first day's demonstration with the horror he had intended to engender. They paid strict attention to his lectures, and remarkably did not hesitate in taking part in the discussions. The fourth and fifth years also took better notes and their essays were not only interesting for Snape to read, but their exam grades were higher than any of his other classes.

What pleased Snape the most was that those fourth and fifth years, from all the houses, weren't just keeping their discussions about the Dark Arts in class. They were talking beyond the classroom doors, involving his lassitude laden sixth and seventh years, and were showing the potential that had sadly been lacking from the majority of students in a very long time. Hence, the creation of the debates.

The debates would pitch a pro and a con side of a topic against each other and the two students assigned a particular topic would present their arguments not just in front of their class, but in an actual Forum to the entire school. The devotion and enthusiasm that Snape's fourth and fifth years dove into this project caused the Potions Master to experience a joy in teaching that was rare for him.

Draco and Harry were scheduled to open the debate tomorrow afternoon and had been honing their arguments during every spare minute of the day. At the dining table, they were now discussing, and even arguing, the merits and weaknesses of each other's assigned points of view. Their raised voices ended jarringly as Harry addressed his father.

"Dad, what IS a Forum?"

Snape looked up just as Draco snapped, "I told you already, Scarhead!"

"Shut up, Goldilocks. I already know what that kind of forum is, okay? I can read a dictionary, you know?" Harry glared and then stubbornly looked to his father for a better answer.

"All right, Harry. I take it that your question does not refer to the mundane definition, that a forum is a public meeting place for open discussion?" Harry nodded. "Are you asking then what the actual, physical Forum is?" Again, Harry nodded. Snape smirked and placed his quill in its stand by the inkpot. "Why don't I just show you?"

"Hogwarts has a Forum?" asked Draco, his brow beetling with puzzlement as he rose from his chair.

"You will never know just how immense Hogwarts is, my boys, even if you spent the rest of your lives within its walls." He summoned Dobby as he rose from his desk. The elf appeared promptly. "Dobby, would you watch over Lyrica for me? The boys and I will be visiting the Forum and will be gone a few hours."

"Certainly, Master Severus, sir." The little elf vanished from the living room.

It was just a little past curfew and as Snape didn't want to tempt fate by running into inveterate rule breakers (when did I stop enjoying the game of catching hormonal dunderheads and taking away house points?) in the upper corridors so he led his sons down deeper into the dungeons until they came to a narrow staircase. The stairs were so short and steeped so badly, that the joints in Snape's ankles and knees began to painfully protest as they climbed ever upward. Soon they arrived at a narrow doorway, about a third of the way up the stairs that led directly to an open gallery that lined the base of one of Hogwarts many towers.

The wind whipped into the gallery, lifting the hems of their long, outer cloaks, chilling fingers and faces. Snape quickly cast Warming Charms on their clothing as they marched to the other side of the gallery. Another narrow doorway led them into a short corridor that ended in a non-descript, heavy oaken door that was no taller than the size of a large house elf.

Taking out his wand, Snape touched it to the door, and spoke, "In the name of the wizard Cicero, the Artist of Oratory, I humbly request entry to his Forum."

As sounds of ancient gears and pulleys woke and snapped to life somewhere behind the small door, Snape pulled his sons back a few steps just as the door shuddered violently and began to change.

The door soon vanished as the stone melted away, morphing and changing until it became a wide and tall, arched entrance of finely veined, white marble with carved pillars depicting Mercury, the Roman god of Oratory.

Glancing through the archway, the boys could see a statue on the opposite side of the arch of an elderly man draped in the familiar clothing of a Roman. This statue's arms were held out and upward as though he were addressing a long dead audience.

Snape pushed his sons forward and they advanced through the arch into a large, circular chamber almost as wide in circumference as the Great Hall was long. The floor was a mosaic of dyed marble that depicted the ancient city of Rome at its height in history. Rising up around the floor were raised benches of grey marble that followed the circular layout of the room rising quite high above them. Halfway up, and just in front of the statue that Snape had whispered to Draco and Harry was Cicero, was a wide box with a set of four golden chairs.

"The Headmaster and Deputy Headmaster will sit there whilst I and your mother will sit behind them," explained Snape.

"The whole school will be here?" Draco whispered. He would have been amazed to know that the acoustics of the Forum carried even his small, very nervous whisper, up to the highest places in the structure.

"A little stage fright, Draco?" smirked Snape.

Draco only nodded. Harry spoke up, "Me too, dad. This is going to be impossible."

"Well, since I refuse to see either of you suffer from stage fright for such an important school project, I think I might have a solution. Stay put." The two boys, curious as to what their father was up to, didn't move from the center of the Forum and watched as he ascended the stairs to the box seat for the Headmaster. Snape purposefully avoided the seats that Dumbledore and McGonagall would occupy, and took one more step up to one of the two golden seats behind the first two. He seated himself and looked down expectantly at his sons.

"Uhm..." began Draco, "did you want us to practice, dad?"

"Certainly, but..." Snape made a great pretense of looking around the empty Forum benches. "You need an audience." With a wave of his wand, the stands were filled by Romans, mostly men, talking amongst themselves until they noticed the two figures in black cloaks standing center stage on the floor below. The murmuring soon vanished as Draco and Harry's audience focused their attention below.

"He's mad," whispered Draco to Harry.

"Completely." Harry knew the audience was an illusion, but he still felt sweat prickling at the back of his neck against the collar of his robe.

Their father waved his wand once more and two podiums appeared containing their notes. "Begin!" Snape smiled and leaned back in the uncomfortable, gold chair.

A debate has certain customs, forms, and even traditions to follow. Snape, who often was a stickler for such rigidity, had not forced this upon his students. He expected a pro and a con view to be presented for each topic assigned to a pair of students, but from there he allowed his students a large measure of creativity with the stipulation that arguing was not to degenerate into a fight, nor was any harm to be inflicted from any possible demonstrations. With this latitude given, the week of the DADA Debates wasn't as dull as many students first expected them to be.

The Headmaster decided that prizes needed to be offered for such a monumental effort and so, before the DADA Debates began, he outlined the prizes which were 50 galleons to the winners of the entire debates, 10 galleons to the winners selected for fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh year levels, and lastly, 1 galleon for the winner of each individual debate.

The festive atmosphere began with Harry and Draco's topic which concerned the nature of the three Unforgivables and whether or not the curses themselves were inherently Dark, or were they Dark due to the intent of the witch or wizard. The con side, Draco, had to prove that there was no way the Unforgivables could even be considered Light Magic.

As he argued, Draco showed a remarkable gift for oratory as his once, annoying and childish habit of boasting in a cultured, yet whiny voice, had become a cultured and persuasive tone. As he stepped away from his podium, his smokey grey eyes imprisoned the gaze of his audience as he circled around the Forum and spoke. As Snape watched his son argue, he thanked the forethought he'd had so long ago when he'd first met the young three year old heir of Lucius Malfoy and vowed, during the Death Eater Welcoming Ceremony, to protect and keep the child out of the hands of the Dark Lord. Draco would one day become a great force for the Light.

When Draco was finished, he bowed to his opponent, Harry Potter, and then settled with perfect aristocratic dignity into a chair he conjured. Snape had to smirk at the pompous arrogance of the gesture.

Up in the audience, Ron whispered to Millicent, "Harry ought to just pack it in now. Drake's wiped the floor with him before he's even had a chance to start."

Milli smiled as she looked down at Harry Potter as he seemed to draw the near silence of the audience around him like a cloak. "I'm not so sure, Ron," she whispered back.

Harry, taking the pro side of their topic, slowly paced once around the floor, seemingly to study the mosaic. His audience now watched him carefully, not terribly certain what to expect from the wizard who would one day smite Voldemort.

To Snape's surprise, the presentation Harry had given the night before as his sons practiced in front of Rome's citizens was completely different from today's speech. Harry's father quickly realised that Harry was presenting his side completely improvisationally. Like many in the audience, he too leaned forward, listening as Harry began.

Harry's argument had delved into the history behind the origins of each Unforgivable and explored the medically beneficial uses under which the curses had once been used for.

The Imperious Curse had been created by a Healer in the 13th century in order to treat patients who had lost much of their autonomic functions. It was a warlord wizard, set to conquer all the lands he could travel to, that had begun using the Imperious Curse as a way to build his armies. This warlord's ambitions failed as his Imperioused army became immune to the curse and eventually turned on the warlord. Harry cited many beneficial aspects of the Imperious Curse used in healing. His argument to show that the intent of the caster was the deciding factor in whether or not the Imperious Curse was truly Dark Magic came when he showed that many of the spells used anaesthetising patients derived from the Imperious Curse.

His voice still calm and matter-of-fact Harry went on to show that as devastating as the Cruciatus Curse was originally meant to be, experimentation in the branch of Magical Psychiatry was currently using low level and focused usage of the Cruciatus Curse to stimulate areas of the brain in patients afflicted with a wizarding type of Schizophrenia that was nearly always fatal. He did, humbly admit, that such experimentation was dangerous, but in the hands of professionals who only had the intent of a normal life for a patient who would only suffer terribly, it was possible for the Unforgivable to have a benefit.

The Unforgivable, the Killing Curse, that had been used on his own parents, seemed to cause Harry his one, long hesitation in his presentation. By then, all of his audience, including the Headmaster, his mother and father, and the entire staff of Hogwarts, were dead silent and on tenterhooks as they waited to see how Harry might present a positive side to the deadly Unforgivable.

Harry waved his wand and produced an image of an elderly wizard and witch; husband and wife. He went on to detail their lives. Long years full of a rich and loving relationship. The wizard had begun to suffer a type of wizarding Dementia that began to eat away all the memories of his wonderful life with his beloved wife. It was also a type of Dementia that caused a great deal of pain for the wizard. The witch, finally at the end of her rope as she watched someone she loved so much being torn, slowly to pieces, day by day, had one day taken up her wand, cast the Killing Curse, and killed her husband. Those investigating the crime wondered how in the world the witch could have found hatred enough for her husband to cast the curse at all. While the investigators tried to figure this out, the poor, grieving widow, was given a life sentence in Azkaban, and soon would be kissed by the Dementors for her insidious crime.

At this point in the narrative, Harry paused and allowed the now oppressive silence to settle heavily upon his audience. He didn't look at anyone and actually appeared to be more interested in a scuff of dust on the hem of his black robes. With a nudge from Lyrica, Snape glanced quickly around the audience. There wasn't one student or staff member that didn't have a look of sadness, sympathy, or even tears glistening in their eyes for the elderly couple and what had happened to them. Snape knew of a few students who had a grandparent that had suffered from the affliction Harry had presented.

It was now time to conclude his argument and he did so by revealing that the investigators finally discovered that the widowed witch had NOT used the vile power of hate to wield the curse that put her husband out of his misery, but love. Not many paid attention to the fact that it was strong emotion and intent that powered the Killing Curse. It did not make a distinction as to what the emotion was as long as it was strong. Hate, an easier emotion to inflame one's intent, made the Killing Curse an instantly Dark piece of magic. Hate was the Dark Art, not the Unforgivable Killing Curse.

One short pause, and Harry delivered the final blow in his presentation. The findings of the investigative team came too late for the widow who had been kissed a year to the date of her own husband's death.

The eruption of applause was like an explosion in the Forum. Even Draco, who really didn't like losing, was so caught up in the emotions of everyone in the Forum was shouting congratulations and pounding Harry's back. As for Harry, he was blushing terribly, and doing his best to keep his brother from thumping his back so hard that it was knocking his glasses off his face.

Despite the obvious reception of their debate, since their father was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, they declined the acceptance of any prize. The prize for the fifth year level went to Ron Weasley and Blaise Zabini who had created a remarkably entertaining musical duel of lute versus guitar to illustrate their topic of Dark Magic versus Light Magic.

The winners of the entire debate were the Weasley twins. Fred and George had been assigned the topic of whether or not jinxes should be considered Dark Magic. Fred had taken the pro side of the argument and George the con. Their lively debate consisted of volunteers that demonstrated jinxes, a variety of their pranks that left the first row of the audience a summery shade of yellow for the rest of the evening, and a lively, staged discussion between the two twins that ended, literally, with a bang as George knocked his brother into the third row with an invented jinx of his own called the 'Swift Kick'. The jinx produced a volatile explosion that sent the victim careening backwards from the blast. Madame Pomfrey was on hand to treat Fred's bruises, and scold both young men as the school was still caught up in their thunderous applause. Snape, as soon as the cacophony of cheering students quieted down, congratulated the twins, and assigned them a week's detention with Filch for having broken the 'no harm' rule.

The End of the 3rd Week in September

Hermione dried her hands and rolled down the sleeves of her uniform blouse as she finished up the last evening of her three weeks detention with Snape. She hadn't balked at the detention which had consisted of inventory, cleaning cauldrons and phials by hand, and preparation of TONS of the most vile potions ingredients. Even after all of that, the detentions were worth the spanking she'd slithered her way out of after Snape had caught her reading several books from his library that had been warded shut. She had very cleverly broke the wards as she couldn't resist the titles.

"Miss Granger." Snape's voice called from the front of the Potions classroom. Hermione turned just as she'd shouldered her book bag.

"Yes, Professor?"

Snape indicated she was to follow him to his new office near the DADA classroom. They left the Potions classroom and she quietly followed her teacher to his office. Snape ushered her inside, left the door open, and walked round to the other side of his desk. He seated himself and indicated she should sit on one of the chairs reserved for his students.

For several long minutes Snape regarded Hermione. After the fourth minute of silence, she squirmed uneasily in her chair. She wanted to say something, anything to get the older wizard to speak to her, but she knew better than to prompt the Potions Master when he was in 'teacher mode'. Biting the inside of her cheek lightly, Hermione did her best to try and be patient.

Snape began to speak softly. His voice was so quiet, Hermione had to lean forward to properly hear him. "I expect the boys to get into trouble, Hermione. Not only is it what boys do, but those three, Draco, Harry, and Ronald, seem to have an especial talent for attracting trouble." He sighed heavily and leaned forward. "The few times you have bent the rules, you have behaved relatively responsible, with the exception of Polyjuicing yourself into Miss Bulstrode's cat."

Hermione's cheeks coloured brightly as she recalled the Polyjuice incident in her second year. "Sir," she practically whispered delicately, "the books were worse than brewing the Polyjuice."

"Indeed they were, Hermione. You went against my instructions, stole my property, and handled exceedingly dangerous books." His gaze hardened sharply and suddenly. Hermione cringed perceptibly in her chair. "I understand your burning curiosity, but you have the intelligence to know better." Snape then rose from his chair and clenched his hands behind his back. "Have you any idea what you did in breaking the spells on those books, Hermione?" His voice was low, but so sharp, she winced.

"I... I was just... I was curious. I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry, Uncle Severus! Truly I am." Hermione blinked rapidly to stop the tears that threatened to spill.

"Curiosity killed the cat." Snape summoned a book from the nearby shelf and she immediately recognised it as one of the ones from Snape's private library. "You are extremely fortunate that I caught you before you had a chance to even open this one, Hermione. The author of this grimoire coated the pages with a fatal poison. The poison was to keep enemy wizards from reading the spells contained within its pages." He slapped the book on the desk, causing Hermione to jump at the loud noise it made. "There is no antidote to the poison, Hermione. Do you think I would have been happy to have found you dead with it open upon your lap?"

"I didn't know!" she rasped and swiped at the tears that betrayed how horribly she felt for what she'd done.

He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her so she could dry her tears.

"Hermione, come here, child." She lifted her head and rose to her feet. As she stepped closer, she wasn't certain about whether or not she had escaped that spanking or not. She was surprised as Snape pulled her into a brief embrace and kissed her forehead. "To answer my own question, it would have destroyed me to have lost my little Know-it-all."