154 Chapter 154: One Step At a Time

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29 September 1993, Hogwarts

Harry ducked as he dodged a white beam of light from his opponent, only to be faced with some large vines coming out of the ground like some kind of tentacles. He used a magic circle to banish himself away rather quickly and cast a wave of fire at the incoming plant, which turned into ash very quickly.

He redirected a stunning charm that was coming his way to intercept one of the other beams of light, and with a slight change in the magic circle that he was maintaining on the ground, the gravity suddenly changed. Up was down and down was up. He had taken that one from a pretty old book in the forbidden section, that used some kind of golden mist to affect the direction of the gravitational force. It was a very specific spell, and it took a little tinkering for Harry to interpret it correctly and design a suitable magic circle to mimic the effect.

Just as he expected, he heard noises of surprise, as his opponents finally found themselves standing on the roof, something that Harry took advantage of by sending a few stinging hexes at each of their faces and their chests.

He snorted, "Always be ready for something unexpected."

The groaning Blaise Zabini snorted, "Well, I'm sorry that my duelling instructors didn't account for the fact that someone might change the bloody gravity on a whim."

The boy's shoulders were tense, probably readying some kind of surprise attack. His obvious overreliance on his crest meant that it was probably going to be another light attack. He was proven correct when the dark-skinned boy waved his wand to create some kind of light slash, which carved through Harry easily.

The boy had a panicked look on his face until he was hit with a bludgeoning hex on his chest, knocking him back. He groaned as he watched Harry's body disappear into motes of light, which showed that all he did was cast an illusion.

Blaise's family magic was surprisingly potent in a fight. The boy was obviously a beginner, but those hard-light constructs were very hard to stop. They tended to shatter most shields and could only really be dispelled by overwhelming the magic that gave the light form, turning it to a normal beam of light.

The boy was obviously a beginner but after analyzing the core of the magic with his Arcane Hearing, he realized that he was also barely scratching the surface of what he could do. Theoretically, advanced forms of this magic could turn into plasma but that would need a tremendous amount of control to avoid killing everything in sight, that's not to mention how energy-intensive conjuring something like plasma would be. That magical crest was definitely overpowered, something that Harry would try to replicate in secret, especially considering how useful it was. His Arcane Hearing really wasn't fair to everyone else.

While Harry was still pensive about Blaise's magic, he was still paying attention to his opponent, he ducked and bent to space to send himself away, avoiding a lot of roots that came out of the ground. With a flick of his wand, he returned the gravity, taking them by surprise again. Tracy was knocked out by a simple stunning charm that he sent at her in the air, using a cushioning charm to stop her from being hurt. Tracy didn't have any ancestry to fall back on, and even if that wasn't fair, that made her the weakest witch in the group.

Daphne easily conjured a new tree that grabbed both her and Blaise, who remained in the fight. Harry, of course, sent another wave of flames at the base of the tree, disintegrating it by how hot it was, and unbalancing Daphne, causing her to lose control over her spell and fall alongside Blaise.

"You really should work on making your plants less flammable, Daph."

Harry immediately stunned Daphne, not letting her respond. He was right, of course, one of the biggest issues to her firepower when it came to duelling. Her plants were far more vulnerable to fire than actual normal ones and that put her at a huge disadvantage, the moment anyone figured out this weakness. Even then, Daphne's magic was fascinating. Harry didn't know if he would ever be able to replicate it. Conjuring a tree was easy, but what Daphne did was communicate with nature, with the ambient magic somehow and prompt it to grow a tree, which she then controlled with her magic. He didn't even know how to go about trying to replicate something like this.

Of course, there was only a single opponent left, Blaise, who tried to send a bolt of light at his back that he dodged without even looking. The boy looked incensed, and he conjured what seemed like a blade of light coming out of his wand, trying to cleave Harry in two. The last Potter simply conjured a small filament of ice that he charmed with the exact opposite frequency as the boy's wave. That was pretty tricky to get, but his Arcane Hearing taught him that.

The boy's eyes widened when he saw that small filament of ice redirect his attack, and he tried to do it once more, only for the blade of light to bend around Harry. He couldn't help but ask, "How?"

Harry shrugged, "Light travels in space, so bending space would bend light as well. You also have to be aware of your surroundings."

Before the boy could respond, Harry pulled his wand and his previously inert filament of ice was pulled, revealing that he had subtly controlled it to surround the boy. Harry grinned at the incarcerated boy and stunned him.

Just like that his opponents were done. It wasn't a bad showing, really. Well, Tracy wasn't really a fighter, so he didn't expect anything from that front. She did know a few more curses thanks to joining the duelling club, and she had some good reflexes, but she wasn't passionate when it came to fighting, not like Blaise and Daphne were, whose crest also gave a far greater arsenal than she could hope to match. Speaking of the duo, they were not bad, but they still relied way too much on their crests. It wasn't bad since their family spells were obviously far more powerful than anything they learnt in school, but each of their magic had a cornerstone that should anyone understand, could be countered with enough preparation.

He should try to diversify their arsenal a bit. 

With a wave of his wand, Harry woke them up. 

"How long did we last this time?" Blaise asked.

"A little more than two minutes. Better than a week ago," Harry responded.

"Still as humiliating though. We're three against one, and we still haven't hit you once. Hell, you were obviously playing with us the whole time."

Harry gave her a reproachful look, "You wouldn't last ten seconds if I took you too seriously, and you wouldn't learn anything. The fact is that you're getting better at a very good rate compared to our classmates."

Daph grumbled, "I know that you think you're making us feel better, but you're really not. So please stop trying to comfort us. And stop giving us pointers in the middle of fights, it's demeaning."

"Hey, you're the one that asked for me to train you," the last Potter answered while raising his hands.

They didn't respond because he was right. Harry wasn't even the one who made the suggestions, it was Tracy who did it. Daphne has been training with him for almost a year, but their two friends insisted on learning to not be left behind. They probably regretted it now.

"I would have thought twice about asking you if we knew you were so far ahead," Blaise said.

"Welcome to my life," Daphne complained, "you get defeated like we're toddlers then lectured afterwards. Unfortunately, it's too useful and too exhilarating to stop. And you get used to the humiliating defeats after a while."

"I'm too tired for a lecture now. I need to have a shower, especially after our Care class this morning. I swear, those buggers made me dirty on purpose."

Ah, Care of Magical Creatures. It was an elective that was both disappointing and promising. The whole thing was about taking care of magical creatures, and so far, they only dealt with boring animals. He should have expected something like this since without Hagrid in charge, no one was mad enough to make the first lesson of the class about Hippogryphs, a creature that while easily trained and docile, could easily injure a student.

For example, the lesson earlier today was about the Crup. On parchment, this species was rated XXX meaning that they can be adopted as pets. They were essentially dogs that were highly intelligent and loyal. The professor taught them how to feed them, they played with them a bit. Weasley ended up being bit a few times for trying to surprise them, but that was the only injury, and even then, it was superficial. However, Harry did notice that the Crups were very mischievous since they purposely jumped in the mud before leaping at students, and then running away. Tracy was one of their unfortunate victims.

Like he said, it was disappointing but there was promise that they would start working with more interesting creatures in the future.

As for the Hogsmeade plan, things were going according to plan. Daphne was halfway through making her marking plants, which he enchanted. Harry had stuck to Hogsmeade to mark the boundaries for the ward. Blaise managed to get his hand on enough Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder for their project, while Tracy found an old charm in the library which was probably used on Omnioculars to record information, as well as an adaptation of the protean charm to transmit an image. It was more than enough for Harry to create the magical equivalent of cameras, but he was already swamped with work.

He already finished the marking enchantment as well as the boundary, so they might be able to start planting Daphne's plant soon. The giant petrification rune was a bit harder since he had to use the magical mark as a sample to determine who not to affect, but he still managed to do it. He was still working on the darkness potion, which was far more challenging than he expected. His respect for Severus Snape grew immensely; crafting a potion from scratch was still very complicated. He was getting close, he knew he was, but it still took a sizable portion of his free time. He was tempted to ask Luna for help since while she wasn't as knowledgeable about the subject as he was, she had some very interesting insights thanks to her clairvoyance.

Harry took out his wand and muttered, "Tempus!"

His eyes widened when he realized that he was late for his Runes project meeting. And wasn't that a clusterfuck of its own. Neville had literally gone to the professor and told her that he went over his head, just so that he would be in a group with Harry. And neither he nor Susan could really refuse him because doing so would be publicly humiliating him.

Harry really wanted to avoid being in a group with the Longbottom scion. He tried being supportive to the boy, he really did, but he wanted none of the trouble that followed Neville.

Susan seemed to have a similar train of thought and chose not to publicly humiliate someone who she would end up spending a lot of time with when they were adults. It was funny how childhood grudges could have long-term effects.

He ran out of the Room of Requirements, and towards the library where their meetings were held. He cleaned his outfit with a wave of his wand and removed any sweat or smells. In a few seconds, he looked like his normal self. With that done, he walked nonchalantly into the library, finding his group partners very easily. They both looked irritated for some reason.

Susan's burning glare turned towards him, "You're late."

"I'm sorry. A black cat crossed my path, so I had to take the long way around, then I met this fascinating painting called Ser Cadogan, who refused to let me go without a poetry battle. It was such a hard-fought battle that I forgot what I was doing. Then I came here."

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