DADA-301 Lessons

Welcome, Third Years, to what will be your most difficult experience in defending against the Dark Arts yet. In prior years, we spent equal amounts of time focusing on spellwork and creatures. This year, our focus will be primarily on some of the Dark creatures that inhabit the world around us with spells interspersed as they are applicable to defending against the creature covered in that lesson.

Syllabus and Expectations
You all should be quite familiar with my expectations by now, but I will spend a short amount of time here discussing them again - refreshers never hurt.

1. Respect: I expect you to treat each and every individual in this castle with respect. We all have come together to make a community that far transcends any of us individually. The professors, PAs, and your peers all take time from their lives to complete the work on this website. Treat them the way you would wish yourself to be treated. Rudeness will not be tolerated, especially in assignments.
2. Academic Integrity: Please complete all of your work yourself at a level that accurately reflects your ability and, as above, respects the time that myself and the PAs take to grade the work that you submit. Plagiarism and troll assignments will be graded with a 1%

Below you will find each creature that we are covering.

• Lesson 1: Boggarts
• Lesson 2: Kappas
• Lesson 3: Red caps
• Lesson 4: Hinkypunks
• Lesson 5: Grindylows/Midterm
• Lesson 6: Vampires, Part One
• Lesson 7: Vampires, Part Two
• Lesson 8: Werewolves, Part One
• Lesson 9: Werewolves, Part Two / Final Exam

Finally, my general rubric remains the same. This year, essays will be more challenging and all essays this year will be mandatory.

• 70%: Content
• Do you address all components of the prompt?
• Do you do so in a logical manner?
• Do you defend any opinion statements with facts?
• 15%: Word Count
• Do you meet the minimum word count for the assignment?
• 10%: Grammar and Spelling
• Has your work been proofread?
• Please note that students who are learning disabled in any form (LD) or are non-native English speakers (NES) need to place the appropriate mark (LD or NES) at the top of their assignments so that no points will be deducted in this category.
• 5%: Identifying Marks
• Do not include any information in your assignments that might create bias. This includes, but is not limited to, your name, your house, or other such information.

There will be no textbook; all relevant information will be found within the lesson or can be deduced through appropriate logic. As a reminder, when completing essay assignments, make sure you incorporate all relevant knowledge and information to demonstrate you comprehension of the course concepts - for casting spells, this includes all spellcasting components; for creatures, you should demonstrate a thorough knowledge of defense against the creature you are writing about. I will not remind you all of this again, as I would hope by now the expectations has been well established.

Fear of the Conscious
Last year, we began our discussion about the Trifecta of Fear, honing in on the first segment of the Trifecta, which was the Fear of the Physical. The fears that fall under the Fear of the Physical are creatures or objects that affect us directly in a physical sense. The Fear of the Physical is further broken down into two subcategories: Fear of the Internal Physical and Fear of the External Physical. The Fear of the Internal Physical involves fears of things that would affect us internally - fear of poison or fear of a heart attack, for example. Fear of the External Physical deals more with the world around us; fear of any of the creatures we have studied or fear of being stabbed would both fall under the Fear of the External Physical.

In this lesson, we now move to the next category of the Trifecta of Fear, the Fear of the Conscious. Similar to the Fear of the Physical, many of the fears that fall under the Fear of the Conscious can be tangible things that have physical forms; the difference, then, comes from how these physical items are viewed. While all of the fears that fall under the Fear of the Physical are specific items or creatures that cannot be questioned (we all know what a doxy is, or how poison affects us), fears under the Fear of the Conscious are more open to interpretation.

This means that we make a shift and focus more on how the mind interprets the fears that fall under the Fear of the Conscious. Take, for example, acrophobia; this is more commonly known as the fear of heights. How do we interpret “high”? Do we assign a specific distance at which it is acceptable for people to be afraid of heights? Do we find it absurd when a person’s acrophobia is so bad that they will not even climb ladders along the side of their house or climb to the second step on a step ladder within their own home?

Some of you snicker, but these are legitimate fears that people have. For some, heights are a thrill that carry no fear with them; for others, the thought of their feet even leaving the ground causes their stomach to drop and dread to set in. This intangibility - for that is what the Fear of the Conscious is that makes it unique from the Fear of the Physical - is why many people struggle with discussions about fears under the Fear of the Conscious. The amount of interpretation that goes in, the level at which these fears are completely individualized to the person who suffers from the fear, makes them difficult to discuss.

This year, we will be looking at many tangible creatures - in fact, we will only be looking at tangible creatures - that in most cases fall under the Fear of the Physical. That said, you must be aware that, in some cases, what you will experience will be highly individualized. It is also important to remember that some fears that may appear to be physical are also open to interpretation. Therefore, for the purposes of this class, we will be completely separating Physical and Conscious fears by the keyword that goes with Fear of the Conscious: interpretation. If there is any room for interpretation, it will fall under Fear of the Conscious.

Boggarts
Now that we have adequately discussed the Fear of the Conscious to get us started. If you have any questions about this concept, please feel free to ask. Let us begin our term by delving into ourselves and facing our darkest fears. What we will be facing from here on will get progressively darker and more dangerous. If we cannot conquer our own fears, how can we be expected to suppress the fear when in dangerous situations? By facing and conquering your fear, you effectively gain control over it. Therefore, we will start off by looking at a type of shapeshifter that plays off of our fears.

Now, the fears represented by a Boggart may well be tangible fears that, normally, fall under the Fear of the Physical. But because we are discussing a Boggart, we look to the Fear of the Conscious. This is because a Boggart has no distinct form - when it is alone in the cupboard, like the one you see here at the front of the classroom, it has no known form.

Once that door opens - and as a note, Boggarts live in dark places, such as this cupboard or under stairs - the Boggart can begin feeding on the fears of the nearest person to it. If you face a Boggart alone, the fear which you will experience will be far stronger than the fear you will feel if you face it with a group of people, the more people the better. There are several reasons for this. The first reason is that humans have a tendency to feel empowered by the presence of others - it makes you feel like you are not alone facing whatever it is that you fear. The other reason that a Boggart is not as strong when facing a group is because it is attempting to frighten multiple people at a single time. Rather than focusing all of its energy onto a single individual, it must be aware of the entire group and their fears and try to intimidate each individual. This lessens the amount of energy on you individually, which makes it possible to increase your odds of overcoming the fear(s) that the Boggart takes the form of.

The other aspect of Boggarts to keep in mind is that they have the ability to take multiple forms, though not at once. If you have more than one fear, the Boggart will take the form of as many fears as you have. Some people will have as few as a single major fear, while others will have a multitude of major fears. The amount of fears that you have does not define your strength; it simply demonstrates that you may have gone through more hardships than others; you may have experienced more and found more that affected you consciously.

The Riddikulus Charm
Now, we have discussed in-depth the ways that a boggart will affect us, and that some people may need to overcome more than a single fear in order to beat a Boggart. However, we have not yet covered the most important part of the lesson: how to beat a Boggart. The spell I will teach you is called the Riddikulus Charm, and, when cast properly, will change the form of a Boggart from something that causes fear into something that causes laughter. That is the secret to defeating a Boggart - it cannot handle laughter. Therefore, this spell will be used to force the Boggart to take a form that the caster finds humorous.

In order to cast the spell, you need to concentrate on how you can make the fear presented funny. This requires an intimate knowledge of yourself to know what fears the Boggart may exploit. For example, I know that I have an immense fear of heights and of disappointing those around me. For me to fight a Boggart, I would need to be prepared to concentrate on a way to make both of these situations funny.

The wand movement is simple - start with your wand on the left, move it to the right, move it down and right, keeping the movement curved and fluid, before moving your wand back up and continuing right a little. While doing this, you say the incantation “Riddikulus”(ree-DIK-uh-lus). Finally, you are dealing with a non-living, but sentient creature (this type of creature is known as amortal). You will need to exert enough willpower to overcome the illusion that the boggart has created, but because it is not living, it does not have a strong will of its own, so you should find it fairly easy to overcome.

Spell Block

Spell: The Riddikulus Charm
Incantation: Riddikulus (ree-DIK-uh-lus)
Wand Movement: start with your wand on the left, move it to the right, move it down and right, then move your wand back up and continuing right a little
Concentration: Keep your mind on a way to make your fear amusing
Willpower: Moderate

Which brings us to the end of class. For you homework, you will have an essay where you explain what form(s) your boggart takes, how you make each one humorous, and how you properly cast the Riddikulus Charm There is also an extra credit essay where you are able to explore the Fear of the Conscious in relation to the Fear of the Physical.

Class dismissed.

Original lesson written by Professor Jericho Penrose

Image Source(s)
Cupboard: https://www.pamono.com/antique-german-baroque-cupboard-in-oak-and-walnut-1740