A large and tidy practice room came into view.
The students were extremely excited, and many of them looked at the surrounding sets with pride, as they had also contributed greatly!
Ivan waved his wand and arranged a bookshelf neatly before speaking.
"This will be our training ground from now on. You can come here every morning on your day off to practise your magic."
"As for now…" Ivan went on, looking at the smaller wizards and witches in the crowd. "All students under the third year move to the right, where the practice dummies will be your opponents…. The ten people who destroy the most dummies will receive an extra reward before they leave!"
As Ivan spoke, everyone looked to their right, where over a hundred practice dummies were standing and moving around.
As these practice dummies were made of wood and did not seem to pose much of a threat, even the younger wizards did not take them seriously. Some of them even felt that there were too few of them and that there were not enough to go around.
Ivan only smiled at this, but did not reply. The Practical Dummies he animated were not easy to deal with, and they would be lucky if they did not get beaten to tears, given that they had not been in any combat.
"Pansy, Ron, Anthony, and Hannah, you're in charge of guiding them!" Ivan instructed the prefects.
Ron and the others nodded and called for the younger students to start fighting the Dummies.
After settling the children down, Ivan turned his attention to the remaining senior students and instructed them to split into pairs for practice.
Soon, the Shrieking Shack was bustling with activity. Charms of all kinds were flying through the air, and Ivan was roaming the grounds, using healing magic to heal the injured and giving instructions from time to time.
"Hands high, Seamus! Watch the wand's movements… now, with the Petrifaction Charm!"
"Don't just take it head-on with the Impediment Curse, dodging is the best option most of the time…"
"Ernie, I need to remind you that it's against the rules to use Demolition Charms in practice. You can't control the power of your spells yet."
… .
After wandering around the Shrieking Shack, Ivan was disappointed to find that the hundred or so students were much weaker than he had expected.
Only a few people could master the Shield Charm, and some graduates were not even proficient in the Disarming Charm.
This batch of students was not good!
Ivan shook his head. As students, Snape was able to create his own charm in his fifth year, and Sirius and the others were taught the difficult transfiguration spell, the Animagus.
Not to mention Tom Riddle, who was able to create a Horcrux and fuse bloodlines before he even graduated.
Having seen these heroes before, and then looking at these students who had not even mastered basic magic, Ivan could not help but marvel at the disparity.
The main culprits are, of course, the long peace and the unreliable Defence Against the Dark Arts professors of recent years.
The morning passed in the blink of an eye, and when it was time for dinner, Ivan called for a two-hour break.
Ivan then conjured several long tables with a wave of his wand and ordered Dobby to contact the elves in the castle to bring some food, so that they would not have to return to the castle and waste precious time.
After a quick lunch, Ivan called the rest of the wizards over to give them instructions on how to fight, and, on a whim, turned to the prefects and asked Hermione and the others to join him.
"All seven of us?" Anthony Geddes asked hesitantly.
"Of course," said Ivan.
Remembering Ivan's skill in Transfiguration and his performance in the Triwizard Cup last year, Anthony Geddes decided to keep his mouth shut and take out his wand.
Hermione and the others, who had a rough estimate of Ivan's strength, drew their wands and stood opposite him without a word.
The other young wizards took a few steps back, leaving a wide space in which to watch the fight.
Ivan, who did not think it was safe enough, waved his wand and cast a few protective spells to prevent anyone from getting hurt.
"This is just practice, but you can do whatever you want. There are no restrictions, and you don't have to worry about hurting me!"
The prefects frowned at Ivan's words, and Anthony thought he was being too arrogant. They were prefects, and one of the best wizards in their year!
"Experialmus! (Expelliarmus)" Anthony wanted to show Ivan his true power, so he waved his wand and shouted.
Hermione and the others did not hesitate to cast their spells.
"Stupefy! (Stupefy)"
"Reducto! (Crushed to pieces)"
… .
Streaks of magical light shot out in a cone, and in an instant, they were in front of Ivan.
However, such a small scene was not even a warm-up for Ivan. He gently raised his wand, and a magical barrier automatically appeared around him, blocking all the magic that was attacking him.
While casually breaking their spells, Ivan did not forget to give them pointers on how to effectively work together to defeat him.
"Be advised not to fight alone, but to join forces and cast spells. Only an attack on the same location in a short period of time will be able to break my Impediment Spell!"
"Remember to keep changing your position, Ron. Don't always cast spells in the same place. It's a big no-no in a fight!"
Under Ivan's constant command, Hermione and the others, who had been fighting on their own, began to work better together.
However, they soon realised, to their despair, that no matter how well they worked together, Ivan would always be able to crack it easily. For five minutes, they could not even force him to move.
The battle ended quickly after Ivan switched from defense to offense. Ivan shook his head in amusement as he watched the prefects being knocked down one by one. He had held back as much as he could, or the battle would have ended in seconds.
"I bet not even the Professor is as good as you, Hales!" Anthony got up from the floor, breathing heavily. He looked at Ivan with admiration and disbelief, and the little bit of dissatisfaction that had risen in his heart had long since been wiped away by the previous exchange.