Chapter 54: The First Duel

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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12 March 1992, Hogwarts

Yeah, Harry was right in his decision to stay the fuck away from that boy. He was a disaster waiting to happen. Harry nodded and decided to go to the great hall. This little encounter had ruined his appetite. He did his best to push back any thoughts of his detention and Longbottom. He was excited to come back to class, especially with the duelling club session in the evening.

Harry did his best to pretend as if the detention didn't happen. It was the first time being in a life or deaths situation and it had left a mark on him. He really didn't want to face it, nor have anything to do with Longbottom's frankly suicidal adventures.

Not for the first time, Harry wondered about the sanity of Gryffindors in general. Longbottom looked completely untroubled from almost dying. Maybe he was just too young to realize what just happened to him, what he almost lost, but it was still very farfetched.

Harry shook his head and decided to stop thinking about Longbottom entirely, or anything related to him really, even Hermione. Harry had barely spoken to the muggleborn in the last few months, but they were on somewhat friendly terms. They were barely more than partners in potion class, and there was a bit of awkwardness between them, but enough to be a bother. Choosing to forget about former friendships, Harry decided to see what his schedule was for the day, especially since he was excited to go back to class.

Of course, Harry's excitement withered away when he realized that his first class after a week in the infirmary was with Snape. Sighing in exasperation, he was immediately joined by his friends, and they all started to eat their breakfast.

Afterwards, they slowly walked down to the dungeons for the practical potions class and sat in their assigned seats. Hermione was still there waiting for him. When Snape entered the classroom with his cloak billowing without there being any wind – Harry was sure that he charmed it to act like that – and just proceeded with the lesson. Honestly, Snape wasn't that bad of a teacher. He tended to let people make their own mistakes instead of stopping them and scaring the living hell out of them later. No one here made the same mistake twice, even if the guy was an ass about it.

Snape rarely involved himself in the theoretical lessons, but he does make a few comments while explaining mistakes. Yeah, he was harsh, and very petty to be so gleeful at messing with students, but if he hadn't done an acceptable job, he would have been fired long ago. Potions were critical in many prestigious careers, and having underqualified potion brewers was a bad thing for everyone. Still, the number of Hogwarts graduates holding potions NEWT was lower than when Slughorn was teaching, although they tended to be more competent. No one really liked it, but the headmaster had vouched for him, and he wasn't doing too bad of a job for people to make a fuss and risk opposing Dumbledore of all people.

As usual, Harry did his best to brew the required potion, a basic bruise healing balm. They had moved on from traditional simple potions that you would drink to other ones that are applied directly or taken differently, like balms and pastes. It was interesting because you could use ingredients that are toxic to eat but have very specific properties to the touch. People have been trying to find a way to avoid drinking potions – since, you know, they taste horrible – and developed many remedies with alternate methods to ingest them. Harry had read that more than a few ambitious muggleborns have tried to make magical pills that the user would swallow but none were successful. It was considered to be a fool's errand in the potions community.

While brewing, Draco, who was on the table to his left, spoke up mockingly, "Oh, Potter, you finally woke up from your nap. It's a shame that you missed our trip to Hogsmeade. We had so much fun. It was such a shame that you weren't there."

Oh, right, the Hogsmeade trip. Since Slytherin had won the House Cup the previous year, first and second year Slytherins were allowed to have two Hogsmeade trips throughout the year. The first one was supposed to be the previous weekend, and Harry had missed it. It wasn't really a big deal; he didn't really miss much, especially when he could go there anytime during the Summer. He was not planning on returning to Privet Drive anytime soon and since he didn't want to be discovered by the ministry and he didn't want to stop using magic, he was going to need to stay in the magical world. He was probably going to stay in an inn and buy a few ageing potions to hide his age.

Back to the annoying blonde Slytherin, Harry simply raised an eyebrow, "Are you seriously picking a fight with me again?"

The boy paled, shook his head, and went back to work on his potion. He didn't even speak for a bit. Damn, Harry really had traumatized the boy. He hadn't even hurt him or anything. Still, at the end of the lesson, when Snape claimed his balm to be "Acceptable", he proved how much of an asshole he really was.

He slowly stalked towards Harry's desk, and spoke up with a soft voice, "Potter, as you have not submitted any of your assignments in the last week, you have until tomorrow at ten in the morning to bring them to me, completed. I have granted you this extension from the goodness of my heart. If you are even a minute late, I will give you a zero in every single one of them."

Someone gasped in shock. It was probably Hermione, but she had a point. Yeah, that man really was a petty ass. Seriously, why the hell would he give him a day to finish a week's worth of assignments? Still, Harry was still one step ahead, "Oh, right, Professor, I have my assignments right here. I was a bit bored in the infirmary, you see."

He knelt down and grabbed his potions assignments, fully written assignments that he had done the previous day. Harry had prioritized them because he knew that Snape was the only professor that could end up doing something like this. Harry slowly stood up and walked towards Snape's desk and just put his assignment on it while giving a polite smile, "Thank you, professor, for your consideration."

He then bowed and left the classroom, leaving everyone gawking behind him. Yeah, it might be a little petty from him, but so was cornering a student who was unconscious for a week because of some stupid decision the staff made. Snape was always prowling at him as if he waited for Harry to do something wrong just to catch him. What the hell had James Potter done to him that made him that wary of his son a decade after his death?

Thankfully, the rest of the day went by without anything unusual happening. Finally, Harry found himself at the Great Hall after dinner, waiting for the duelling club session to begin.

Professor Flitwick was waiting for them, and Harry saw his fellow club members slowly join him. The half-goblin looked excited and clapped his hands, "Ah, good, you're all here. Today is the day I know you've been waiting for. You will start really duelling. It was supposed to be last week, but since Mr Potter was injured at the time, I chose to postpone it since it's a very important session."

Harry sighed in relief at the fact that he hadn't missed this session. He noticed that the other students were giving him the stink eye for some reason. They haven't really been duelling in the past sessions. It was just mock duels with one or two spells at most. It was more like a choreographed fight, with events and tactics, that didn't really have a winner. Still, Harry was excited at the prospect of being in an actual duel, at least in a controlled setting. Harry shivered at his encounter with the wraith in the Forbidden Forest.

Don't think about it, Harry. Don't think about it, Harry. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. He really needed to get a grip.

He had missed half of what Flitwick was saying in his little inner freakout, so he decided to pay attention to the rest, "You will have access to your full arsenal, as long as the spells are in the current Hogwarts curriculum. That means no unknown spells, and especially no dark magic. Am I understood?"

Everyone nodded, "Yes, sir."

"Good, let's start with Potter and McLaggen to warm up a bit," the diminutive professor exclaimed.

They all nodded, and the two contestants slowly walked up to the duelling stage that the professor had conjured. This particular style of duelling had a narrow rectangular stage, where each consistently stood at one of the edges. They were not allowed to go past a third of the way to the other side, meaning that a physical confrontation was impossible. This was designed to showcase how skilful the duelers were at magic and countering hexes. It didn't leave a lot of space to move around and dodge too much. It wasn't even close to what a real fight would be, but it was very entertaining to the masses.

Harry and Cormac McLaggen walked to a side of the stage each, inclined their heads slightly, and took their stances. The Gryffindor seemed to prepare to be on the offensive, and so Harry took a defensive stance, ready to dodge or shield the coming spell.

Professor Flitwick spoke up, "Now don't forget the rules. If you break them, you will be expelled from the club. Am I understood?" both Harry and McLaggen nodded at him, "Alright, the duel will start at the count of three. one… two… three!"

Harry tilted his head slightly when the punching hex came his way, dodging it. He retaliated with a Flipendo which McLaggen was able to block with a Contego. Harry took a deep breath, and the entire room washed away, it was just him and McLaggen.

Harry waited for his opponent to send another spell to counterattack. Luckily it was a cutting hex of all things. It was a pretty dangerous spell that's derived from the cutting charm but that attacks enemies. It was taught in Defense Against the Dark Arts in the second year, but it was easily countered with a Contego shield from Harry. Unfortunately, the spell required far more magical manipulation to cast.

The truth is that when you cast a spell, you manipulate your magic to cast it. To cast another spell, you need to wait until your magic comes back to normal before casting, or else the spell will either fail or just destabilize and cause an explosion if it's very wild, but that was a rare event.

Long story short, the more a spell needs manipulation, the more time your magic needs to regulate itself. Meaning that generally complex spells take more time to recover, while basic spells like the simple cast can be used continuously without any problems. Of course, the magic of the caster is important. People who are attuned to a certain magical field will recover quicker since they don't need as much magical manipulation to cast a spell in the first place.

Back to the duel, McLaggen had cast a very intensive spell without a way out, leaving him defenceless for a couple of seconds. It wasn't much but it was enough for Harry to send three basic casts at him, hitting him in the chest every time. Honestly, the spell really wasn't that impressive, damage wise, but it required no magical manipulation whatsoever, meaning that Harry could cast it multiple times without pausing, and it was effective. By the time his opponent was able to cast a shield, he was already hurt.

McLaggen was on the defensive, with Harry bombarding him with basic casts, making him unable to drop the shield. Harry tried to sneak a disarming charm in between them. The Gryffindor's shield buckled at the surprisingly more powerful spell. But he was able to dodge Harry's finishing strike, giving him enough time to send a desperate counterattack.

McLaggen sent a green spell at him and suddenly everything changed. Harry knew that it wasn't the killing curse. The shade was different, and his Arcane Magic analyzed the spell, showing it to be a common hex. But suddenly, Harry wasn't in the Great Hall anymore. No, he was in the forest again, fighting an impossible enemy. Harry quickly dodged it and sent a fireball at his opponent who barely shielded against it, and then sent an overpowered stunning charm that knocked him out.

Just like that, the great hall returned, and Harry looked at the shocked club members. He shouldn't have shown off like that in the end. The stunning charm was a fourth year spell. He shouldn't have known it. And the fireball was just too dangerous to use in an average duel.

The professor applauded and called for the other students to duel. Harry half-heartedly listened to him as he analyzed their match. What happened in the duel was dangerous. Harry was almost tempted to send actually dangerous spell at McLaggen.

He really needed to get a grip on this and fast.

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.