Chương 247: Ch237- Fire Eaters

Walking into the classroom, Cassian spotted Fred, George, and Lee Jordan already half-wrestling by the front table, arguing over who got to cycle this week. The overhead projector hadn't even been touched yet, and Fred looked one step away from mounting it like a broom. He sighed. Loudly.

"Of course." That got their attention. Fred beamed. George elbowed Lee. Lee elbowed back. Cassian didn't stop. He walked straight to the board, picked up the chalk, and wrote, Extinguishing Spell. The class immediately frowned. Disappointment clear on their faces. They were excited for another flashy spell, and they were getting something that sounded like the magical equivalent of turning off a tap.

"Jordan," Cassian said without turning, "you stay. You two, sit." Fred and George let out a pair of synchronised groans. Lee grinned so wide his face might split, already hopping onto the stool. He started pedalling before Cassian had even touched the projector. It gave a groan of protest but lit up anyway. Cassian turned from the board.

"If it explodes, I'm not responsible. It's your legs."

"That's what makes it fun, sir." Cassian clapped his hands, got everyone's attention.

"Right. So, yes. You read it correctly. Extinguishing Spell. And before any of you start crying about the lack of glamour-" George raised a hand.

"What if I'm already crying?"

"Good. Bottle it. We'll use it in a potion next week." A few laughed. Some heads dropped as quills started scratching, already resigned to it being one of those classes.

"Anyway," Cassian went on, "this spell's not on the NEWTs syllabus, which tells you everything you need to know about the Ministry's priorities. You're more likely to be tested on goblin taxation than the spell that's saved half your ancestors from being turned into fondue." Fred muttered, "Tragic, that."

"Bring it up with the new Curriculum Liaison," Cassian said, "Maybe she can do something about it." Fred and George made gagging sounds. The class laughed. Cassian waved toward the projector.

"This spell's ancient. Older than most of your family trees. Which means it's been through five name changes, three wars, and one unfortunate incident involving a bonfire, a goat, and someone who thought fireproof robes were a suggestion." Angelina elbowed Fred who was mimicking something. Fred blew her a kiss. Cassian slapped the first rune sheet onto the projector.

The wall lit up with a flickering image of a courtroom, wide marble steps, wooden benches packed with robed figures, a stand in the centre charred black at the edges.

"By the time I finish this lesson," he said, pointing at the scene, "this'll be your favourite spell." That earned him a few sceptical looks. Cassian started pacing.

"Remind me, what did we study in your first year? What was fire invented for?" Roger raised a hand.

"Light. Heat. Cooking. Water purification. Protection from beasts. Shaping tools. Metalwork..." Cassian waved a hand.

"Brilliant. Someone was paying attention." Lee gave Roger a slow clap from the pedals.

"As Roger said," Cassian said, "fire was one of the first things that changed the game. For magicks too, not just for Muggles. Once we figured out how to control it, everything else got easier. Villages. Travel. Defence. Some bright spark figured out you could set your enemy on fire and suddenly, we're in the Bronze Age throwing burning sticks at each other." He moved to the projector again, slid the next sheet in. The scene shifted.

A battlefield this time, shields up, robes torn, a creature looming in the distance. Smoke curled from its jaws. The dragon was massive. Even as a sketch, it dwarfed the soldiers.

"This," Cassian said, tapping the corner of the image, "is why the extinguishing spell matters." A few leaned forward, now eyes more focused. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. He pointed at the field.

"Dragons don't care about your fancy wards. Your sparkly shield charms. You try hitting one with a basic Protego and you're barbecue." George raised a hand halfway.

"Is that a technical term?"

"Yeah," Cassian said.

"Barbecueus Idioticus. Ask Snape." Scattered laughter. He turned back to the wall.

"This spell, right here, was invented when people realised dragons didn't fight fair. They breathe fire. Forests burning. Siege camps demolished. Whole wizard settlements wiped out in one breath." He clicked to the next slide. A rune circle, burnt into stone. The air above it shimmered faintly.

"So they made this. Earliest record we've got comes from somewhere near the Caucasus. But similar symbols popped up in Mongolia, parts of Finland, coastal Britain, deep inland China. All within a few decades of each other." He looked over the class.

"That tells you one thing, people all over the world were being torched at the same time, and they were desperate enough to invent a fix. Separately. Independently." Alicia raised her hand.

"So it wasn't spread?"

"Nope. Converged. That's how you know a spell matters. When civilisations who've never met all create versions of the same thing. This one shows up on dragon bones. In cave walls. Carved into the bottom of old water basins." He flicked to the next image, an enormous carved rune half-submerged in black rock, ash seared into the grooves.

"The original spell was localised. Cast it in a radius. Put out anything within that space, magical or not. Flames, embers, curses that mimicked fire. Only worked if the caster knew the exact size of what was burning." Angelina frowned.

"How would you know the size, it changes every second?"

"You wouldn't. Which is why half of early magical defence was guesswork. You tried to match the fire's intent. You burn a tent? Estimate. Burn a soldier? You calculate what they were carrying. Get it wrong, and either nothing happens, or you snuff out your own lungs by accident." Fred muttered, "Bit harsh."

"That's how it was back in the day," Cassian said.

"Magic doesn't run on pity. It does what you ask." He crossed his arms.

"Now, some of the old versions still exist. Ancient Greek hexbreakers. A Druidic variant carved into the old standing stones. The Mongolian form's embedded in their breath-dampening charms. You've all probably used a boiled-down version already." George raised his hand.

"Aguamenti?"

"That's for water. This one suppresses, doesn't make it go. That's the key difference. You undo the fire." He swapped slides again. The next image showed a skeletal creature, mouth open mid-roar. The jaw still blackened, flame caught mid-curse.

"Here's where it gets fun," he said.

"Because this spell wasn't just for dragons. The Dark Ages saw the rise of cursefire. Creatures born from flame, souls turned to smoke, magic that burned on spite and grief alone. The spell still worked on them." Patricia blinked.

"Even on cursed fire?"

"If cast properly. And with intent." He pointed at the sketch.

"This one came out of a forest in northern Spain. Took six witches and three circles." Roger spoke again.

"So the spell evolved depending on what it faced?"

"Exactly," Cassian said.

"Context shaped the casting. You don't extinguish fire the same way in a desert as you do in a cursed cellar. One's heat. One's hate." Cedric raised a hand.

"So can intent override the scale issue? If you don't know the size, but you really mean to stop it, does the magic adjust?" Cassian gave a nod.

"Good question. Sometimes. Depends how tightly you anchor your intent. But if you're wrong, the spell might collapse or do absolutely nothing." Cedric took notes, nodding. Cassian moved away from the light again.

"So when I say this might be your favourite spell? I mean it. Not because it's flashy. Nor you win duels with it. But because it's been saving lives since before we had parchment." He paused.

"Fire-extinguishing charm," Cassian said, tapping the rune on the projector sheet, "was the first spell made to shut down what people once thought were gods." He stepped out of the light, hands tucked behind his back, the class watching as the faint image of a dragon's skull hung behind him.

"Dragons," he said, "were divine for centuries. Messengers of flame. Scorchers of armies. Every civilisation with half a mythos saw them as power made flesh. Envy. Awe. Fear. All wrapped up in scales and teeth.

"I explained how far humanity went to mimic a fraction of their power in Draconis Spell. They tried wings. Fire. Scales. Failed all of it. So when they realised they couldn't become dragons, they did what humans always do when they don't get their way.

"They found ways to take away what dragons had. Fire." The projector hissed. Slide shifted. Burnt hills. Ashes layered so thick the outline of charred trees had fused into one another. Someone in the back of the class gasped. He shook his head with a chuckle.

"This is an uprising against natural order. A fight against the food chain. Pure defiance. Arrogance in its simplest form, humanity refusing to be under anything. We had to be on top. With nature's most exquisite creation... brains." A few students shifted. Cassian tapped the projector tray.

"We couldn't fly, so we built brooms. Couldn't breathe fire, so we made cursed wards and glass-bomb potions. Couldn't rip trees from the ground, so invented spells instead." He glanced over the room.

"When none of that made us top dog, we made a spell to take their fire away. Think about it, someone had to stand close enough to a dragon, get nearly roasted, and go, 'You know what this needs? Less fire.' Absolute lunacy. But it worked. That was the line. That's when we started winning." He swapped to the next slide, an old parchment sketch of a wand cutting through smoke, spell glyphs inked around a battlefield. The runes shimmered faintly, barely lit.

"Dominion. Dragons were gods, once. And we made spells to kneel them." That got a silence that finally stuck.

"You'll hear a dozen reasons in a textbook for why dragons went rare.

'Environment change.'

'Wand standardisation.'

'They were never that common to begin with.' Bollocks." He flicked back to the slide of the dragon skull.

"They vanished because we stripped the world of the one thing that made them unbeatable. You ever wonder why the Ministry regulates magical beasts so tightly? Not because they're dangerous. Because we've already wiped out half of them once. Can't let the rest remember what they used to be." Cassian stepped away from the light and rolled his shoulder. He let them look at the image a bit longer.

"The spell's been softened now. Trimmed for school use. Cut down so you don't pass out mid-cast. The version we'll learn doesn't burn your hands or need a chanting circle. But it comes from the same place." Some were staring in awe. Others scribbled down notes rapidly. Lee had stopped pedalling. Even he knew better than to ruin the moment.

"You don't need to be flashy to be frightening," Cassian said.

"Some of the most powerful magic ever made didn't blow anything up. It simply told the world to shut up and did."

"Now," he said.

"Who wants to learn how to do it?"