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"These essays on curse suppression were abysmal. Anyone with less than an A will be rewriting theirs for homework tonight," said Snape, placing a scroll with a large red D neatly in front of a miserable looking Colin Creevey. "Unsurprisingly, that includes nearly all of you."
A groan went up from the class, quickly silenced by a look from the former Potions professor. Snape continued, "As fifth years, I expected more of you. Not one of these essays would have merited an Outstanding on your O.W.L.s, and moreover, the egregious mistakes in these essays are likely to get you killed if you have the misfortune of facing any curse more potent than a bat-boogey hex."
"Even those of you who have scraped a passing grade," said Snape, locking eyes with Ginny Weasley, as he passed back her paper, "have much to learn before you gain mastery of this topic. I advise all of you to look over your notes, should you have any worth reviewing, and perhaps you will not suffer too much when I administer the practical examination next week. I assure you that petty jinxes will not be the only curses you must contain."
A cold shiver seemed to run through the class. Snape had been hinting for weeks now that the culmination of their current unit on curses would include a practical exam with a high risk of fatality. Of course, he was not actually going to harm any of his students. But it was his first year as the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, and no one could be quite sure if he meant it or not. One would think that the threat of the Dark Lord out there somewhere would be enough motivation for them to take their studies seriously, but the threat of Snape was much more immediate and thus much more effective. He couldn't imagine they would ever thank him for it, but they might live to resent him a little longer, which was all Snape could ask for now.
"Creevey!" barked Snape, suddenly.
"Yes, sir!" squeaked the boy, jumping out of his chair in shock.
"What is the first step of curse containment, or more broadly, curse countering?"
"Identification!" Creevy blurted, relieved to know the answer.
"Correct. Now Identify the curse in this situation. You pick up an item of unknown origin. At first touch, you begin to feel a stinging sensation in your hand. Within 30 seconds, your tongue has gone numb. 30 seconds after that, your vision begins to blur, but your thoughts are still lucid. What is this curse, and how could you counter or contain it?"
Creevey stuttered incoherently for a few moments before conceding, "I don't know, sir."
"How can you possibly hope to master curse containment when you are unable to even accomplish the first step? Pathetic. Anyone else?"
Snape's eyes darted around the room, but all the students were refusing to meet his gaze. "Weasley!"
"Yes, sir," said Ginny Weasley smoothly.
"How would you identify this curse?"
"I don't know, sir."
"You don't know? The stinging sensation, followed by the characteristic sense impairment, with the notable absence of cognitive impairment, gives you no clue on how to identify this curse?"
"No, sir."
"How disappointing, Weasley. You correctly utilized this exact curse as an example in your essay, but it seems you did not deign to actually learn the information you copied out. No, don't check your notes now. Think."
To her credit, Weasley did appear to be thinking about it very hard. After an uncomfortably long silence, her face brightened and she exclaimed, "Eldervane's Paralysis! You can contain it with a standard continenti charm, but there's no known countercurse. The effects can be reversed by Healers though, with time."
Weasley looked very proud of herself, and Creevey looked relieved to be off the hook, but Snape was not satisfied. "Yes, you could contain it with a simple charm. But in the time it took you to identify it, Weasley, you would have been rendered completely paralyzed and unable to perform any sort of magic at all. Don't worry, though, you would still be able to think perfectly clearly as you lay in a coma in the Hospital for the next year recovering. That is, if someone found you within the next hour, before the fatal effects could take hold. If not, you could spend the last hour of your life contemplating what might have been if you had simply studied the materials you were assigned in my class. You may sit down, now, Weasley."
Addressing the class at large, Snape continued, "By the end of this unit I expect you to know every curse on this list in intimate detail. The words of the spells, the characteristics of casting, the short and long term effects, and the methods of countering and containment. You must know them without thought, without effort, such that when you encounter them you will respond with pure instinct. You will have no textbook to reference. You will have no notes to check. You will have only yourself and a scant few seconds to make a decision. You will achieve this level of proficiency or your last thoughts will be of this lecture, and everything you failed to learn when you had the chance."
Some of the students looked cowed, but others were just short of rolling their eyes. They still thought of this as just a class. Just a way to pass the stupid exam they would be set at the end of the year. Weasley looked like she knew this was life and death. She ought to, with her connections to the Order. But Colin Creevey still looked entirely too preoccupied with the grade on his essay.
"Creevey!" Snape shouted again.
The boy jumped to attention once more.
"Since you failed so abysmally at the first step, I doubt you will be much use for the next steps, but I will allow you a chance to redeem yourself. After identification, what are your options?"
"Counter or contain, sir," Creevey replied confidently.
"Counter, contain, or…?" Snape prompted.
"Er, there's a third option?" Creevey asked nervously, "You didn't mention a third option before…"
"I didn't. But I'm wondering if you can think of the third option on your own, seeing as you are unlikely to succeed at the first two."
Creevey wrinkled his brow in frustration, trying to think of something to say.
"No, I thought not," Snape replied, gesturing for Creevey to sit back down. Returning his attention to the rest of the class, he continued, "Counter, contain, or consult . When you are too injured or ignorant to take action yourself, you can retreat and seek help. Aparate away, if that is something you can do. Get yourself to the hospital wing or a professor if you are within Hogwarts grounds. Stumble into the street and call for the Knight Bus to take you to St. Mungo's. Fall upon the mercy and the wisdom of your more capable friends. If none of my other lessons stick, remember this one as a last resort. Counter, contain, or consult."
"I will accept your essay rewrite tomorrow, Creevey. And should you face any dangerous curses in the meantime, perhaps you can run to Weasley for help. Just hope she doesn't take as long identifying the curse next time, or you'll be dead regardless."