Chapter 155: Dueling Club
8th October 1995, Hogwarts (Earth 2)
(Harry Potter POV)
For the first time since he joined the Quidditch team, Harry was joining an extracurricular club. When he had first heard that Professor Sayre was starting a dueling club, he had made sure to not feel too enthused. After Lockhart’s joke of a club two years ago, the Boy-Who-Lived was understandably cautious of the idea. Of course, this hesitation completely went out of the window after his first lesson with the new professor.
She had been, by far, the professor that had helped him the most. She had taught him magic, in such a simplistic way that he was leaping ahead of his classmates, much to Hermione’s chagrin. His friends didn’t know about their private lessons; Professor Sayre had requested for him to tell them that he was training by himself, so as to avoid any feelings of jealousy or accusations of preferential treatment.
Even if the woman had made him quit Quidditch, Harry thought that it had been worth it. But their lessons had stopped ever since Umbridge’s arrival. Truth be told, the woman made everyone uncomfortable, with her little snide remarks in the middle of lessons, and her obnoxious pink outfit, that should only be worn by seven year old girls pretending to be eighty.
McGonagall and Sayre didn’t seem to hold the woman in high regard, ignoring the woman entirely, and sometimes going so far as to berate her when she interrupted the lesson. Her look had been priceless, in both McGonagall and Sayre’s lesson. Even Snape seemed to hate the woman considering he was looking at her as if she was a pink insect in front of him.
Some didn’t fare too well, especially Trelawney who pretty much had a breakdown in the middle of the lesson.
The woman had especially been targetting him, probably on Fudge’s orders, trying to find a way to punish him somehow. It was why Sayre cancelled their lessons, in the first place, and had given Harry a strict warning to not speak about what happened in June to anyone during her stay at the castle. Umbridge was very vicious and would try to exploit anything he would say.
Still, with his lessons postponed, and Umbridge visibly watching his every move, Harry needed to destress, and this club looked like a surefire way to do that.
Harry stepped inside the dueling room which held eight rectangular stages, similar to the ones that were used during Lockhart’s lessons, with one in the middle being higher than the others. Standing on the main stage, Sayre and Flitwick were discussing something.
Harry waited for the session to start, and Sayre was the one who spoke up, “Alright, let’s get started then. Welcome to your first dueling lesson. Now, when I’m talking about dueling, I’m talking about the sport, which has strict rules and regulations, with its own etiquette that we must follow. This is, of course, different to a fight, where you’re trying to defeat your opponent in the quickest way possible. I will go into detail later on, but assisting me in teaching this club, is Professor Flitwick, a former dueling champion that I’m pretty sure was undefeated for almost a decade, something that I don’t have to say, is very impressive.”
There was some clapping for the enthusiastic charms professor, who bowed at their enthusiasm. Sayre raised her hand to silence the crowd to continue, “Now, as you can tell, I didn’t choose to teach every year alone, but instead, I’m teaching everyone from first years to seventh year, instead, I will separate you into groups. To avoid anyone getting bored, every week, we will do a small tournament for each group, where the winner gets to advance to the higher group and the loser will relegate to the lower one. As for now, each group will consist of your year, meaning group 1 will have the first years, group 2 the second years, and so on… The winner of the seventh group tournament will have the opportunity to duel against either Professor Flitwick or myself and should he win, he will get an automatic O for his next five assignments in the losing teacher’s class. So, yeah, try to do your best. As for now, you’re probably not here to listen to me prattle on about history and etiquette. You’re here because you want to see what a duel is really like, so, let’s start with a little demonstration between your Charms Professor and I.”
Harry ignored the enthusiastic murmurs in the crowd, who seemed like their dreams were coming true. Truth be told, Harry was probably more excited than any of them; for all their lessons, he had never seen Sayre actually duel anyone. Everything was either theoretical or was cast against a training dummy. Harry looked next to him, to find Neville focusing like a hawk towards the stage. The boy has been getting a lot better since he bought a wand of his own. On his other side, Ron and Hermione were vibrating in excitement.
Speaking of Hermione, she had developed some sort of one sided rivalry against Professor Sayre, where she would stay hours in the library trying to counter any of her defense teacher’s arguments and theories. She still respected the woman immensely, and acknowledged her mastery over multiple fields, but the older woman’s non logical view of magic rattled Hermione immensely.
“Now, the first thing you have to know about dueling is that we cannot leave the stage, meaning that our mobility is reduced, at least from left to right considering how narrow the stage is. We also cannot go past half the stage, which also means that we cannot go past our opponents. We cannot physically touch our opponents, and if it is found to be intentional the aggressor loses the duel immediately. We cannot transfigure or summon anything outside the stage or from the other side of the arena. Finally, only certain dark spells are allowed, and those are very limited ones. There is a list of allowed spells in the official books if you want to check them out. With that said, we first must follow the etiquette, and that’s to bow to our opponent, showing respect at their skill, and since we have no judge, we will use a timer to start to duel. The loser of the duel will be the one that concedes, is unable to continue or leaves the stage.”
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Slowly, a green light flickered, showing the number one, then two and finally three, and suddenly, Flitwick moved his wand so quickly that Harry could barely see it. He had somehow cast three spells at once that were racing towards the unconcerned defense professor, who just sent a red bolt of light at them.
Harry immediately recognized the disarming charm, which hit one of the spells towards the other, redirecting two of the spells, and the woman somehow caught the third spell with her wand and redirected it towards the charms professor.
Flitwick shielded against the spell, creating a loud gong. He smiled at the move, looking at his opponent with a raised eyebrow and an impressed look on his face. His smile turned feral as he sent spell after spell at her, so quickly that they felt like it was a beam of magic, not separate spells. Sayre countered by transfiguring a wall in front of her, it blocked the spells but it was smashed by the continuous spells that Flitwick was casting. However, the professor used this to her advantage by banishing the remains of the wall towards her opponent, both blocking the spells and attacking Flitwick.
Undeterred, Flitwick created a silver shield which turned all incoming debris into sand, that he then animated and turned into a weird rope of sand. Before he could do anything, he was immediately sent flying into the air, Because Sayre had used some weird spell that moved the stage like it was a wave. But in a surprisingly nimble maneuver, Flitwick righted himself in the air and used the sand rope, that he had transfigured the tips of into steel hooks, towards the stage and pulled himself forwards, landing easily on the stage.
The professor used the sand as a whip that Sayre was able to dodge and counter by transfiguring the sand into steel spikes that she sent back at her opponent. Seeing the danger, Professor Flitwick made a wide area banishing charm which redirected the spikes away from him.
The half goblin used whatever sand he had left to create a giant hand that leapt towards Sayre, who conjured some sort of wind scythe that cut the attacking appendage in two. With a wave of her wand, Sayre raised some sort of giant magma soldier from the ground which slowly walked towards Flitwick.
The charms professor conjured a dragon made of water which flew towards the attacker, creating a burst of steam. The defense professor conjured a gust of wind which cleared out the steam, and quickly conjured some sort of metallic spike.
Harry’s confusion to the strange conjuration was immediately satisfied when a bolt of lightning was immediately absorbed by it, casted by a gasping Flitwick, from the other side of the stage.
Sayre immediately transfigured the rod into some weird red spear which flew towards the charms professor so quickly that it was barely more than a red blur. The professor created a shield that the spear somehow broke through, but it gave enough time for Flitwick to dodge it. However, this was the opening that Sayre needed to banish him outside the stage.
Harry didn’t notice how silent everyone was ever since the start of the duel, which was by far one of the most beautiful uses of magic he had ever seen. So, the sudden applause and cheering had surprised Harry so much that he stiffened in shock.
The Boy-Who-Lived knew for a fact that what he just witnessed was something special. It was so different than what fighting Voldemort was. It was more elegant, more refined. It was an art, a demonstration of skill, not a fight between two of wizards trying to kill each other. There was no Voldemort, sending killing curses left and right. They used each other’s attacks against each other, trying to unbalance the other, with discreet tricks that were very impressive to pull off.
Sayre smiled at the reception, and Harry knew for a fact that no one would be leaving this club any time soon. The defense professor waved her wand and the stage fixed itself, and Flitwick had gotten up and helped her with it. They both bowed to each other and Harry could see the charms professor’s opinion of the woman rise at the skill demonstrated.
Sayre raised her hand again and everyone quieted down, “Now, this was a nice little demonstration, that we both were holding back immensely in, especially to make things a bit more child friendly. Every single spell we cast is one you have learnt in your seven years of schooling. Which means that seventh years have no excuses not to be able to do this. Now, who could tell me what kinds of magic we both used?”
Hermione raised her hand in lightning speed, and was called upon as well, “Well, I saw the use of transfiguration and charms, mostly animation charms with a lot of uses of banishing charms. There was also a small amount of elemental magic mixed in.”
Professor Sayre nodded, “very good, Ms. Granger, but you actually missed one. Who here can tell me what she missed? It’s nothing that you haven’t learnt…”
Hermione looked like someone had just slapped her in the face. Harry stifled a chuckle at her face, unlike Ron who was on the ground laughing. No one raised their hand, and the professor just sighed, “The last attack, with the lightning rod. I used runes to add a shield breaking aspect to the spear. Of course, the end was blunted to avoid anyone getting hurt, but as you can see, you can use a large variety of magic when you duel. As long as you’re creative enough, there’s no reason not to use your strengths while dueling, no matter what they may be.”
Harry looked around the back to see Umbridge leaving the dueling room. He didn’t know if this was trouble or not, but Sayre looked unconcerned with her presence, so he dismissed it. The woman had looked furious though.
Still, this was a hell of an introduction and in a few minutes, Sayre had half the school hooked and had made dueling almost as popular as Quidditch. He couldn’t wait to see what else they were going to learn.