Chapter 35: Getting manhandled by a stick on wheels

'I need a room in which I can practise duelling.' Was the phrase running through Harry's mind on the morning after the sorting. He'd woken up extremely early so that he could slip out of the common room and had made his way to the Room of Requirement.

Once there he stepped through the door that appeared in the wall and gazed appreciatively at the grand hall given to him for his practice and at the dummies standing on the far end. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't be weak anymore, or at least not any weaker than he had to be and this was going to be one of his focuses this year. All the time that he'd spent last year creating and testing his search spell, would go into duelling now.

But first, he grinned cheekily and asked the room for an Occlumency teacher, which it provided in the form of an old leather hat appearing on his head.

'Good, you got me,' Chanithachuah said into his mind after a few seconds spent acclimating to the sudden teleportation.

"Was the headmaster overly curious about your location over the summer?" Harry asked as he batted away a strong mental probe with some difficulty. The hat was stepping up its game. "Did he try to prevent you from disappearing again?"

Chanithachuah did the mental equivalent of a shrug. 'He didn't seem overly concerned. I did come back on time after all. I imagine the head-master has bigger fish to fry.'

"Any important information you can share?" Harry asked, suddenly realising, that if the hat spent time in the headmaster's office, it might have overheard some important details about Voldemort, or other threats. Alas, he was to be disappointed.

'Too many sentient objects with conflicting loyalty in the office, he has a spell for shutting out interference and perception for truly important moments. But I could tell you which students still wet the bed if you're curious.'

"Errr, I'm fine, I think," Harry responded. "It's good to have you back."

'It's good to be back, just the act of moving around is refreshing. I noticed that I've grown quite lethargic over the past few centuries. I haven't done anything more difficult than sorting for a very long time.'

"Isn't that your purpose?" Harry asked with a quirked eyebrow.

'You of all people should know that an entity's primary purpose does not have to be its only task in life,' the hat evaded. 'Don't let me keep you from what you came here to do, I see a duelling dummy over there. Send a fire-blast at it or something.'

Harry graciously accepted the change of topic, due to not having a lot of time before he had to meet his head of house. He'd gotten a letter from Sprout yesterday, She'd bid him to a meeting this morning after breakfast and before his first lesson. He assumed that she wanted to talk about his advancement, which had mostly been handled by Flitwick and perhaps how he'd punched that bloke yesterday.

Anyway, the point was that he didn't have infinite time and so he should really go over his combat potential, which had been the primary purpose of this visit. He tapped his wand against his chin as he paced and pulled out a piece of parchment from his pocket. He levitated it wandlessly and began taking notes, cataloguing his current repertoire. He hadn't really come here with a plan, thinking he'd save the thinking until he arrived.

Attack:

Transfiguration: non-organic to Snake + animation charm; non-organic/organic to needles + telekinesis

Spells: Scourgify?; flipendo, auqamenti, incendio, petrifying charm

Utility: Sum invisibilis + muffliato, bubble-head charm, finite, accio

Defence:

He frowned as he drew a blank on defensive options, but also at the fact that he lacked a single-target incapacitation spell that would remove an enemy from play, without burning them to ashes or breaking their ribs with a high-pressure water jet. Flipendo was mostly useless in comparison to a stunner or the disarming jinx. This was probably why Flitwick had suggested he learn the latter and the shield charm. He suddenly realised that the most pragmatic thing to practise would be the shield charm, but looked at the sad and lonely duelling dummy just standing there.

He couldn't just ignore it, could he? He needed to at least test his offensive repertoire, and see what it could even do. He'd never really cast any of his actual attack spells on a human target, ignoring Flipendo, which he'd learned in the classroom last year. He confidently turned to face the dummy, noticed that it was too far from him to really hit it without his spells losing effectiveness on the way and walked closer.

'Optimal range is about 14 metres,' The hat helpfully supplied, something that Harry took at face value, not particularly caring enough to doubt its advice. While he was older than all his friends and classmates, the hat was about 33 times as old as Harry. So, he should probably listen to its advice if it was about a topic that he knew nothing about. Thus, he walked over to the dummy, having the feeling that its eyes were following him, before measuring a distance of 14 metres away from it with his steps as reference.

'Knees slightly bent, head forwards at an angle; reduces the amount of space that a spell can hit you in,' the hat instructed and Harry went down a bit, robes swishing slightly against the ground. He faced the dummy, right side forward, left hand behind his back. 'Set intent to harm, instead of just using the spell in the direction of a target,' the hat commanded and Harry took the time to look at the wooden dummy, a torso on a stick with a wheel on the bottom, held up by magic. An ugly dark thing with a hateful frown etched on its face and a wand loosely gripped in its right hand.

A tense silence enveloped the room of requirement as Harry prepared a spell. He didn't know which one in particular he wanted to use, but he knew that he wanted to annihilate the thing. It wasn't that he had a particular hatred of wooden dummies, but setting the correct intent for the practice at hand was something he'd learned early on in his practice of magic. You were just as much training your muscle memory, magical connection and enunciation as you were your emotional state and your ability to control it. His wand blurred forward faster than it likely ever had before as he shot off a knock-back jinx. A white ball of force flew through the air and was on course to nail the dummy right in the middle of its torso.

That's when the thing simply rolled to the side in one efficient motion, put up its arm and shot a bright red light at Harry, whose eyes widened and who was too shocked to do anything but gape stupidly at the spell coming his way. It hit him in the chest, knocked him on his ass and sent his wand flying in the air. It clattered to the floor obnoxiously beside the wheel of the again unmoving dummy.

'You should probably dodge, next time,' the hat helpfully supplied from where it apparently hadn't fallen off during his tumble.

"I didn't know magicals had autonomous practice dummies," Harry said stupidly, as he continued blinking at the ceiling.

"I forget that beneath all that talent for the Mind Arts and magic is a twelve-year-old boy," The hat said with a sigh, out loud this time. "There are many things about the magical world you don't know, but let's take this step by step. Stand up, pick up your wand. Easiest exercise first. Shoot off a Flipendo, dodge the counter-attack, and send off the next one. You need to get used to dodging."

Harry leveraged himself onto his feet with prodigious use of his elbows and hands, sent a note of thanks to the hat, which apparently had a much wider knowledge base than he assumed, and wandlessly summoned his wand to his hand. It snapped into his palm with a satisfying thwack and its owner entered the correct position for this exercise.

The young wizard felt electrified, goosebumps spread out across his skin and his sight hyper-focused on his enemy. He had been learning magic, coming up with spells, and clever manipulations for over a decade now. But this was the first time he was learning how to do something so primal with this knowledge. He didn't feel like he could take on the world, but he felt like he could start learning. Harry Evans was here, magical, powerful, and intuitive and he was going to-

"Point your feet more inwards, you look like a goose," the hat supplied. Harry followed its teachings and fired off a knock-back jinx. The dummy dodged and riposted.

-/-

Suffice it to say Harry didn't get to work on the shield charm that day, but he did work out a sweat and improved the speed that his knock-back jinx travelled. He also felt like his footwork had improved. The dummy had needed to get out of the way with more urgency towards the end of the practice session there.

All in all, Harry was satisfied with what he'd accomplished. While the hat hadn't seemed all that impressed, the young wizard knew not to expect anything grandiose from the first session; with only a hat to teach him the do's and don'ts. What was important was that he'd started practising. With the fact that he'd finished the spell that had taken up most of his time last year, he expected to get quite decent at duelling by the end of this year.

The Room or Requirements was an amazing resource, it seemed. He was willing to work at the skill and he might even get a world-class tutor by the end of the year. So, understandably, there was a slight skip to his step as he made his way to Sprout's office, the woman wasn't spending all her time in the greenhouses yet, likely because there hadn't yet been a class for her to go there for.

His mood soured a bit as he considered the dressing down that he was likely to receive for punching that moron at the sorting. The boy had definitely deserved it, but Harry could have taken a different route. Sprout seemed to share his opinion and voiced it as he entered her barely furnished office, which seemed dead in comparison to the woman's usual surroundings, "I'm quite disappointed in you, Mr. Evans," she greeted him.

Harry sighed and stood at attention behind the comfortable-looking plush armchair before the equally plump woman's desk.

"I'm sorry, professor. My anger got the best of me when I saw the newest addition to the house being harassed rather than welcomed."

"That was more a justification, than an apology," Sprout admonished.

"I'm sorry, professor," Harry repeated. If he was apologising for what he'd done yesterday, or for the fact that he didn't feel sorry at all, he didn't know. Sprout's frown remained.

"It isn't me you should be apologising to," she said and Harry nodded dutifully.

"Detention, Mr. Evans and an apology to Mr. Kent. You'll serve yours with Professor Potter. He volunteered so as to unburden me, who also has a house to head in addition to teaching a main subject. Remain to speak with him after your first DADA lesson."

Harry narrowed his eyes as his limbs froze up in slight fear. Despite how James had saved him, in the end, last year. He still hadn't forgiven the man for creating the situation in the first place. At least he had the balls to come and try to solve the issue on his own this time, instead of sending a proxy and sneaking around like a rat. The only advantage Harry had in this situation was the fact that the man didn't know that Harry had recognized him, thus making future interactions potentially uncomplicated. "I'll have to thank Professor Potter in person then."

Sprout nodded, before allowing a smile that looked too tight on her grand-motherly face. "Going back to what the only subject would have been, had the incident of yesterday not occurred. I'd like to congratulate you on your achievements and let you know that you can always come to me for help if you're struggling with the workload."

"Thank you, professor."

"As for the timetable, I felt the need to give it to you in person, due to how customised it is," she said as she pushed forward a piece of paper from atop the desk in his direction.

Harry stepped around the arm-chair to pick it up. It looked like a normal timetable, just that on Wednesdays, Charms ran until late into the evening. "We had to shuffle around a lot, a student advancing means there is one more unit to consider in the delicate puzzle of scheduling. In the end, we decided to open up an evening Charms class for the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff third years," she explained, while Harry was already making plans for when exactly he would be able to sneak away to practice duelling. And he still needed to look up curse-breaking, didn't he?

"In addition, if you have troubles with other students in either of your advancement classes, take these issues to professors Vector or Flitwick. Don't take matters into your own…"

"Hands?" Harry supplied cheekily, at which Sprout just sighed and waved him off.

"Off you go, Mr. Evans, apologise and discuss further details with Mr- Professor Potter."

"Good morning, professor," Harry said as he turned around and left the office, while Sprout picked up some papers to look through. His gaze stuck to the house cup sitting on a shelf, as he wondered if she was just doing that to avoid going to the great hall with him. Would be awkward to say goodbye and then walk with the person in question for another five minutes, wouldn't it? He shook his head and cast a tempus as he made his way through the grey corridors to the great hall.

He saw that he had another thirty minutes during which breakfast was going to be served and hurried up. He liked eating slowly. Perhaps it was due to his hurry, or simply fate. Enemies always met somehow, didn't they? Anyway, Harry was walking quickly, traversing paintings of horses and prairies when he bumped into someone while turning a corner, knocking both of them back. Harry frowned at the now second-year Slytherin who'd tried to bully him last year and had managed to lock Penny into a chamber of the forgetfulness potion.

The boy drew his wand, recognizing Harry as well and scowled. The Hufflepuff threw a quick glance around, noting that they were quite close to the great hall, on the same floor actually. He'd been going down and the Slytherin likely up. "Mudblood," the boy spat, distorting his pale features painfully into an even uglier face than Mother Nature had already given him. Harry, for his part, was seriously considering just blasting the idiot with his most powerful aguamenti. Maybe it would improve his behaviour.

"Montongue," Harry said with a frown.

"It's Montague!" the boy shouted, growing red, raising his wand. Harry instinctively entered the duelling stance he'd been practising, but didn't draw his wand yet. It didn't take more than a second anyway, with his holster.

"Do we really need to keep doing this? Wasting our time on each other when we could actually be learning stuff and having a relaxing school year," Harry complained, at which the response was.

"You started it, I know it was you who drugged us at the exams last year!" Montague argued sophisticatedly.

"Would you leave me alone if I apologised?" Harry suggested, which seemed to give the boy pause. He contemplated, stupidly for a few seconds, before shaking his head and raising his wand resolutely.

Honestly, this kid had some sort of mental damage.

Harry raised a wand, stopping the violence from progressing. "Look, I just advanced a year in Charms and two years in Arithmancy. Do you really think your parents will agree with you making an enemy out of me, a future Charms master? If we stop this now, I'll let bygones be bygones and we can be neutral in the future, instead of enemies."

"You don't know anything about my family! They'd agree that you need to know your place," Montague said, making Harry seriously want to kill the dumbfuck. Screw redemption, someone who was this idiotic at age 12 wasn't going to improve at age 21. He was just ridding Voldemort of a future death-eater at this point. He decided to try and de-escalate one last time.

"How about I write them a letter and ask if they'd rather have a Charms master who disliked their family, or who was neutrally pre-disposed. Also, I'm not even a muggle-born, both my parents were magical," he threatened and complained.

It seemed to have worked, as Montague lowered his wand, blushed and stormed off, throwing one last angry look and an insult over his shoulder as he crossed a bend. Hopefully to fall down a ditch and never be seen again. "Your mother was a mud-blood and so are you," was the charming goodbye.

Harry stood there, amidst a bunch of paintings whose human inhabitants were awkwardly shuffling around, pretending that they hadn't seen anything. Or simply dying of second-hand embarrassment for Montague and his powerful and convincing rhetoric. He seriously hoped this was the last time he saw the boy. The whole thing was getting to him to a point where he didn't know if he could stand any of it anymore. If the moron hurt one of his friends again Harry was going to corner him somewhere and beat the magic out of him. Although, considering his class work, that wouldn't take more than a light slap.

More honestly, though, he likely would just go to Dumbledore, raise a stink, show all his memories and refuse to take a non-punishment as an answer. This was honestly starting to go beyond the pale, and if Draco Malfoy had been anything like Montague, Harry Evans wondered how Harry Potter hadn't been able to muster up enough hate for a Cruciatus. He continued making his way to the great hall and entered amongst some other students. He let his eyes roam the Hufflepuff table until he found the NPC-like mop of brown hair. He walked over to the boy, whose friends notified him of Harry's presence.

Kent, or whatever his name was looked up sullenly at Harry.

"I'm sorry about hitting you, it was uncalled for. A verbal reprimand would have been fine," he said and went to the other side of the table, as far as possible, to go eat. He didn't bother waiting to hear whatever response Kent might have because he didn't care and because he was hungry.