Lyra was breaking her own rules, but it had happened before. Lyra raised her hand slightly and began talking, "Well, I would personally say that any spell could be used with malicious intent and it could be considered dark magic, but the witch or wizard would have to do significant, lasting damage to a living thing for it to be considered dark magic. Me casting Wingardium Leviosa to float a book and drop it on your head wouldn't be considered dark magic unless I were to drop a very large book on your head from a substantial height with intent to do you serious harm, like say to drop the book from the Astronomy tower with you standing on the lawn, and hoping it would cause severe brain damage, or break your neck." Lyra smiled innocently at the professor, as if she hadn't just mentioned injuring him. " Professor." Lyra added the Professor on as an after-thought. She still wasn't used to having to be polite.

Lyra felt quite confident in her answer, and felt that it was just as satisfactory, if not more so, than the majority of the answers the other students provided.