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"You mustn't start off like that," she said warningly. "For all you know, there's someone much better than me out there. Good teams have been ruined before now because Captains just kept playing the old faces, or letting in their friends. ..." Ron looked a little uncomfortable and began playing with the Fanged Frisbee Hermione had taken from the fourth-year student. It zoomed around the common room, snarling and attempting to take bites of the tapestry. Crookshanks's yellow eyes followed it and he hissed when it came too close.
An hour later they reluctantly left the sunlit common room for the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom four floors below. Hermione was already queuing outside, carrying an armful of heavy books and looking put-upon.
"We got so much homework for Runes," she said anxiously when Harry and Ron joined her. "A fifteen-inch essay, two translations, and I've got to read these by Wednesday!" "Shame," yawned Ron.
"You wait," she said resentfully. "I bet Snape gives us loads." The classroom door opened as she spoke, and Snape stepped into the corridor, his sallow face framed as ever by two curtains of greasy black hair. Silence fell over the queue immediately.
"Inside," he said.
Harry looked around as they entered. Snape had imposed his personality upon the room already; it was gloomier than usual, as curtains had been drawn over the windows, and was lit by candlelight. New pictures adorned the walls, many of them showing people who appeared to be in pain, sporting grisly injuries or strangely contorted body parts.
Nobody spoke as they settled down, looking around at the shadowy, gruesome pictures.
"I have not asked you to take out your books," said Snape, closing the door and moving to face the class from behind his desk; Hermione hastily dropped her copy of Confronting the Faceless back into her bag and stowed it under her chair. "I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention." His black eyes roved over their upturned faces, lingering for a fraction of a second longer on Harry's than anyone else's.
"You have had five teachers in this subject so far, I believe." You believe . . . like you haven't watched them all come and go, hoping you'd be next, thought Harry scathingly.
Naturally, these teachers will all have had their own methods and priorities. Given this confusion I am surprised so many of you scraped an O.WL. in this subject. I shall be even more surprised if all of you manage to keep up with the N.E.W.T. work, which will be more advanced."
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