On a new day, Damocles Belby had breakfast and went to his first class happily.

Following Felix's advice, after negotiating with Dumbledore, he visited twelve wizards who had taught Defense Against the Dark Arts, which gave him first-hand information about the rumored curse.

According to these predecessors, the influence of the curse is very subtle, and even cannot be felt, but after half a year, some hidden things begin to exert their influence, and they often encounter some seemingly coincidental accidents. As

time goes on, such accidents will become more and more frequent.

Their advice to Belby is, "When one day you encounter a failure that should not fail when brewing a potion, you should prepare to leave."

Belby kept this sentence in mind. In

the remaining few days, he began to prepare for class seriously.

...

'Today is the second grade class, they should have the level to deal with the red hat, but I'd better be safe. 'This is his first class, and Belby was excited and nervous at the same time.

When he appeared at the door of the classroom, the little wizards who were originally chatting, their eyes fell on him.

The professor had an ordinary appearance, tall and thin, and looked a little frail, but he used magic to drag two large cages covered with cloth, which gave them a glimmer of hope.

There was no way, their requirements were already very low.

The professor stood at the door and greeted them, "Follow me, little wizards, today is a practical class, I need to understand your practical level." He directed the cages floating in the air and disappeared at the door, "By the way, don't forget your wands."

The little wizards were busy packing up their things, but they exchanged surprised looks with each other.

They haven't had a practical class on Defense Against the Dark Arts for a long time, unless the memorable class this year is counted in it. In that class, Gilderoy Lockhart brought a cage of Cornish goblins and disrupted the class.

"Do you know what I remember?" Ron said meaningfully.

"Those blue-faced little guys won't be so quiet." Harry answered very experiencedly.

In the only practical class this year, the three of them cleaned up the mess and caught the Cornish elf back into the cage. Hermione's freezing spell helped a lot.

They walked through the corridor and came to a quiet and empty classroom.

Belby put the metal cage in the corner. A low "chirp" sound came from inside. Neville, who was walking in front, shrank back. He was afraid that the thing inside would grab his ear and fly to the ceiling.

"What do you think it is?" Harry asked.

"It sounds a bit like a cat-nip." Ron guessed.

"But cat-nip should appear in the Care of Magical Creatures class. They are not dangerous." Hermione said.

"I just hope it's not an acromantula." Ron said hopefully. When he thought of Hagrid releasing a group of acromantula in the Forbidden Forest, he couldn't help but want to knock open his thick skull to see what he thought.

This news was a secret revealed by Hagrid when they were tracking down the monster in the Chamber of Secrets. When he later saw the photo information about the acromantula that Hermione found, he had been bothered by it.

"He even gave it a name - Aragog!"

Belby looked at the classroom with emotion, and he recalled the scene when he was in school - although it was not very beautiful, because he was not very sociable at that time.

He reintroduced himself: "Many people may not know me well. My name is Damocles Belby. I have some research on potions, but I am fully qualified to teach you Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"To some extent, I have a certain advantage. I read the second-year textbooks. You need to learn some anti-evil spells and learn how to properly deal with some low-risk magical creatures. I happen to know them very well when I brew potions..."

He told a cold joke, and from the effect, the little wizards were indeed frozen.

Ron whispered to Harry: "I guess Hagrid won't like him." But he suddenly had an idea and wanted to introduce Aragog to the new professor.

Harry agreed with this. If anyone dared to use his "little cutie" as a potion material, he would definitely go crazy.

After introducing himself, Belby checked the list and called the names of the little wizards one by one.

"Millicent Bulstrode."

"Neville Longbottom."

...

"Ronald Weasley."

After the roll call, the young wizards raised their hands curiously to ask questions. They had already received all kinds of true and false news in advance -

"Professor, did you win the Order of Merlin?"

"Yes, this month."

"Are you a potion master?"

"This is what others say about me."

"What is wolfsbane potion?"

"A potion that relieves the symptoms of werewolves' full moon."

"Who is better, you or Professor Snape?" This was a question asked by a Gryffindor, and the other half of the Slytherin glared at him.

"Well... our research directions are different, so there is no point in comparing."

After a few minutes, Belby realized that he could not let this group of divergent little wizards ask questions. They seemed to want him to challenge Snape to compete for the title of Hogwarts' first potion master.

Belby cleared his throat and said, "Today, let's review what we have learned. I will ask a few questions about red hats. If you answer them correctly, you can get extra points--" "

Professor!"

A little wizard interrupted him, "What is a red hat?"

Belby was a little stunned, "Uh... Red hats are a magical animal similar to dwarfs. They are distributed in Northern Europe, etc." He looked at the confused expressions below, "Haven't you learned about red hats?"

What responded to him was a uniform shaking of the head and sighing.

Belby stopped, he felt something was wrong, he called a student, "What did you learn?"

Seamus Finnigan stood up and said something incomprehensible: "Professor, we learned to play vampires." He unbuttoned the outer layer of the wizard robe and used it as a cloak, bared his teeth, and made a high-ranking aristocratic expression.

Many little wizards laughed.

"Well, that's interesting, but it's not the answer I was looking for."

Finally, Hermione raised her hand to introduce their learning situation this year to the overwhelmed new professor.

"So, apart from the goblins in the first class, you don't have any practical classes?" Belby was completely dumbfounded.

He did ask about this course and was mentally prepared, but no one told him that there was no practical part in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class?

It took him almost half a minute to come back to his senses, "Okay, then we, uh... then we'll learn about the red hat today."

He waved his wand and lifted the curtain on the cage.

The creature in the cage scared them. It was a short, skinny creature. Except for a layer of red fluff on the top of its head, the exposed skin gave it a dirty dark brown color.

"You can get closer to observe." Belby said.

The young wizards bravely approached and looked at these ferocious-looking creatures -

they curled up in the cage, baring their teeth at the young wizards, and one of the red-capped ones suddenly smashed its claws on the enchanted metal cage, but it was in vain.

"Bang!"

But the young wizards were still startled.

Harry clearly saw that its claws were very exaggerated, completely disproportionate to its body, and its nails were at least an inch and a half.

Belby's voice came to explain: "Did you notice their claws? I think someone has noticed that their forelimbs are very flexible and can use simple tools, such as branches, sticks and stones."

"Red-capped ones are attracted to blood. If they encounter lone Muggles or young wizards in the wild, they will attack from behind. Today we will learn how to deal with them -"