Monday morning in the common room a list made of yellow letters hung in the air between the spiral staircases leading to male and female dormitories, revealing all the instructions for a week-long selection of new teams of quidditch players, all teams besides the winning male senior disbanded completely, reselection incoming. In the words of Themistocles stinging the unhappy eyes of those who played last year: ‘Pathetic that we can’t even win all of the divisions.’.
“I think of applying for a seeker.” Nathaniel decided to try his strength as the six boys went out together and were drawn to the timetable of the trials lasting for an entire week where thirty-something new people would be given a chance to play for Wampus.
“Good luck, anyone else?” Winnetou asked, not interested that much in flying himself.
“Gonna go for chaser, those suckers sucked too ‘ard.” Tolkien pointed his chin to three senior students previously in the junior male team who failed to score goals at a rate that could give Wampus anything higher than fourth place sitting on a sofa with the rest of their disaster crew consoling each other because of getting a boot out.
“Don’t blame them, goalkeeper was way worse.” Nathaniel and Tolkien went on to talk about quidditch among themselves, rest of the boys discussing which of the professors they would prefer to fight in the upcoming Offense class. Breakfast eaten together, they came to a consensus that the Irish McKinzie should be the assistant teacher for a reason, maybe they could even win some glory for themselves by coming out on top of him, lean, athletic, and younger Afro-American head teacher Johnson impossible to beat for now. Luca kept mostly quiet, confident that there would be no problem disposing of both of them at the same time now that his abilities had increased so much, the impatient boy wanted to show off and prove that his training and advantages weren’t a waste of effort, that he would one day stand on top of the wizarding food chain starting with those two men that he estimated equal to underling Aurors or the best of enforcers.
“Three…, two…, one, expelliarmus.” in the middle of the long classroom resembling a corridor, space cleared of desks and mannequins was occupied by two pairs of teacher and student facing each other as Luca and the rest of his peers watched the beginning of the confrontation, both teachers sending a beam of red light aimed straight at the torso of the children. One student froze due to nervousness, his wand flying away, the second leaped to the side and cast his own spell, earning a nod of approval as Mr. Johnson waved his wand to block it and again aimed at the student. Going back and forth like this for a couple of turns, the rhythm broke as the man started to send out his spells in smaller and smaller intervals, the student danced around them with no time to send anything back, the nimble kid’s wand landing in his outstretched hand eventually.
“Not bad, B category for you, F for you. Next pair.” Luca watched as the class was called alphabetically over to jump in their end of the rectangle, some lasting longer, some blanking out like deer caught in a headlight, evidently not suited for combat before training the class was designed to provide for them. Bryce worked hard to try and aim while dodging, but his spells only removed some transparent walls separating the audience from the temporary dueling arena, the Horned Serpent alone among his buddies with a name higher on the alphabet than he was, Luca got his turn shortly after.
“Three…, two…, one, expelliarmus!” McKinzie started the routine with his spirits visibly lifted, observing the most special student he had ever seen intently. Luca neatly sidestepped the danger and sent stupefy as the shortest and therefore fastest to articulate incantation he knew, yet it got absorbed by the teacher’s shield all the same, the boy decided on the same strategy his teachers executed while he watched the show, to overwhelm with constant casting. Spell after spell hit McKinzie’s shields he had to construct in a hurry, no time to get a spare letter out for a counterattack. The situation at an impasse, McKinzie moved for the first time since the beginning of the lesson and taking advantage of a split second he had in intervals between Luca’s Stunning Charms, he jumped to the left. Squinting his eyes to see against the red glare of his uninterrupted spells, Luca noticed the bent legs of his opponent and followed the silhouette without mistake, his wide spells giving McKinzie no possible fluke to stop casting protego and counterattack. The teacher had to use his true skills, next shield and counterattack cast nonverbally, Luca of course knew such technique existed and was long prepared to sidestep in a hurry and start shortening the distance between them in hope of McKinzie’s slip-up since the teacher had to cast rapidly two spells for one his.
“Sur…” seeing no possibility of a turnaround as the boy came closer and closer while dodging his sporadic shots with confidence, feeling the sweat on his forehead affected by a male balding pattern, in a depressed mood, the middle-aged man tried to surrender, but before he could finish his words, Luca’s spell hit him and sent the crumbling on-the-spot teacher into an unconscious state to the excitement of the class and roars of portraits from behind, indignant of the teacher’s failure that happened first time so early, during the student’s second year.
“Beat this scoundrel with a heavy hand, discipline must be upheld!”, “Fire that weakling, how he got this job?!”, “Shameful display!”, “Revenge, revenge!” agitated portraits overwhelmed the room, demanding for Mr. Johnson to go and duel Luca to reclaim the reputation of all Offense professors throughout the ages.
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“Silence, silence! Granger, want to try it with me?” Mr. Johnson came after knocking down the transparent whitish barriers to extend a second helping hand for his colleague sitting up in a daze on the ground that Luca already reanimated, McKinzie standing up with their help as he sighed repeatedly looking down at the floor.
“Yes, but with no holding back as Professor McKinzie, if he was serious from the start I might have lost.” Luca smoothed out the stage for his professor, the man stopped sighing and straightened up as he sent Luca a grateful look.
“I will use everything I can, are you ready or wait for a bit as magic recovers?” Johnson asked with a serious expression as he stretched his legs and arms while walking back to his position, Luca equally eager to fight for real trotted opposite, waving to his classmates on the way. McKinzie in the meantime went to lean in a corner after restoring the barriers between his and Johnson’s half-arena.
“I’m fine, please start.” Luca prepared himself by focusing his sight on the Professor’s wand.
“Three…, two…, one.” a faint excited smile on Johnson’s brown lips later, he assumed a bent forward posture and fired a red beam that came towards the boy who responded by verifying the hypothesis on the second scroll he received yesterday.
“Finite.” two crimson lights collided under Luca’s precise aim and large margin for error that wide as a bucket stream of magic allowed, the boy’s side silently devouring whichever of myriad red spells was cast on him and galloping almost undiminished straight to land on Johnson’s body, the man allowed it to happen as he heard the boy’s incantation and judged it harmless, proven right by the light safely disappearing upon touch with his robe, even delivering a slightly comfortable and warm feeling spreading over his skin. Meantime, his hand holding the wand moved to the side and a squirt of water came out of it, spraying on one side of the arena.
Luca didn’t know what was that supposed to do, but out of caution, he chose to run closer to his opponent along the opposite side of their arena while firing stunning spells one after another in the same version of tactic he tried in the previous duel, those calmly blocked by the man as he judged the boy’s spells rather unavoidable without an interruption, giving up mobility for now he shook out a dozen rocks out of his pocket with his free hand. Luca observed closely while spitting the same set of letters like a stuck-on-a-word stutterer while halfway to his goal of putting a tip of the wand to his opponent, a method he came up with as he cornered McKinzie. After each blocked spell his opponent had time to wave a wand towards those stones he threw out, transfigurating three living cats, revealing him to be a graduate of Wampus, the man judged it to be enough and splashed another small fountain over floors where Luca’s feet had to step to get any closer. The full-grown cats pounced on Luca, the boy had to try and keep them away without missing a beat or his suppression would come to nothing and Johnson would be allowed to cast more charms to compress the boy’s space.
Unable to advance safely, the boy bent his wrist and arm at an angle to separate the cats intended to pester and trip him over and unfolded a white wall extending from in front of Johnson to behind Luca, Johnson raised his brows hearing the boy’s incantation and seeing the opaque white barrier but managed to immediately take advantage of Luca’s decision to spill another jet under himself and make all the conjured and now transfigured water touch and gather, a figure half-a-man tall taking shape behind him. Luca didn’t know the purpose of it, he advanced forward cautiously now, his opponent’s speed still allowing for an exchange of two spells for one, the distance now roughly where McKinzie couldn’t keep up. Dodging red beam after red beam, Johnson and his figure advanced in unison and took initiative to play into what Luca thought he wanted, a close encounter, but now outnumbered and with no signs of exhaustion from his opponent he had to change something as they exchanged spell for a barrier like that mere ten steps away from each other, the vaguely humanoid water blob ready to jump on him and put an end to this duel.
Luca cast protego again, this one to separate them, and jumped over to the side hurriedly gathering magic. Wave of a wand and an incantation later, a cloud of magic went in the direction of the water figure he memorized. His barrier devoured, what emerged were three shapes - Johnson calmly conjured another helper for himself while keeping an eye on the wall. Luca’s magic managed to hit all of them and the edge of arena, water vanished abruptly and his classmates got an accidental wash-over that made their insides warm and relaxed. Johnson saw the situation he created come to nothing and knew the naive in his opinion idea of hopping eagerly over the last twenty feet of classroom between them Luca - to end it in close quarters somehow as a kid against an adult. Offsetting Luca’s red beam fired mid-air, Johnson tensed his muscles and jumped aside using all his strength at the moment he saw the last stupefy before they could touch about to be fired from less than seven feet away, giving up shielding himself in favour of trusting his body to be agile enough to dodge once, the boy’s attention to meticulous aim hopefully dormant as he presented an easy target for him so far, steady arm disrupted by the boy’s leap, red light the man’s wand fired from an angle carried his wishes for victory. Reality imagined by both the duelists failed to manifest itself, they hit each other and closed their eyes at the same moment. Luca fell forward on his nose, Johnson on his shoulder, dislocating respective parts of their bodies and sliding with inertia to also bruise them.
“What strength you have, Professor, compared to Aurors?” Luca asked as they were first treated and then woken up by McKinzie, the commotion around them with congratulations and commentary over the tie hardly subsiding.
“Was a small Auror captain for a while until dean Fontaine scouted me when I planned to quit.” Mr. Johnson’s tone solemn for a sentence, making Luca think there was some personal story or a reason for the exit. “I still held back a lot, for example, it didn’t seem fair to punch you down or take out my weapon.” the man looked at him funny and blinked one eye as he reached for his pocket and took out a miniature stick weighted with metal orbs and rings on both ends and activated lines of runes engraved on it, to enlarge it reaching six feet up.
“Oh.” disappointed Luca lowered his head after acknowledging that he didn’t do that well.
“Don’t worry, as a person who can’t cast nonverbally against someone who can, you did outrageously good. Just need some combat experience and I won’t stand a chance in a year, especially if dean continues mentoring you. Also, I could understand how you want to win from the start, which put you on the back foot. Maybe if we went to duel first…” Johnson’s big hand on his shoulder ended the topic for now, the assessment resumed to put only four people in A category out of sixty, Luca, Winnetou, and two girls, one from Pukwudgies who looked like a tomboy with short hair and tall stature, second one wearing round glasses and of petite build, perpetually a slight wrinkle on her forehead from thinking too much, an intellectual Horned Serpent that nobody expected to perform as she did.