Chapter 11 – Dueling Club
Following the night in which Filch's cat was petrified two more major events that were of no interest to Vergil happened. First was the quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor, despite Draco debuting as a seeker Vergil didn't feel like going to watch the match. Either way Potter caught the snitch once more and brought victory to his team; that also gave Gryffindor house 50 points, which made the two houses tied..
The second event was another petrification, this time a first year student Creevey or something like that.
The entire frenzy got the students into exchanging talismans, protective devices and what not, but the white haired boy honestly couldn't care less.
It was during one of his strolls to the Great Hall that he saw Neville.
"Hey." Vergil raised his hand to a shoulder level as he grinned at the boy.
"H-Hello." Neville was still as timid as he was when they first met.
"You sure armed yourself." Vergil said as he noticed a green onion, purple crystal and a rotting newt tail.
"Everyone known I'm almost a Squib." Neville muttered.
"You know, if it was that easy to get protected surely some of the professors would have told us." Vergil pointed out
"Well…" The boy seemed embarrassed.
"Better safe than sorry, though." Vergil kind of had a soft spot for the boy, he wasn't sure why, he just did.
"Yeah. Say, Vergil?" Neville waited for Vergil to correct him.
"Hm?" The correction never came and that gave the Gryffindor a bit of will to continue.
"Are you going to the Great Hall as well?" He asked as they passed by a group of Ravenclaw students.
"Yeah. Want to tag along?" Vergil invited him.
"I'd like that." Neville mumbled and suddenly found floor to be much more interesting.
"Loosen up a bit. Just because we're in different houses it doesn't mean I'm against talking to you." Vergil assured him.
"You mean it?" the question slightly took Vergil aback.
"Of course." He still confirmed it as they approached the Great Hall; it was already half full as students ate their breakfast.
"I'll see you later than." Neville still didn't meet Vergil's eye but the Halfling still grinned.
"Yeah."
They went to their respective house tables and Vergil sat down on his usual spot next to Draco.
"Seriously Vergil, first Granger now Longbottom?" Draco immediately hissed.
"Good morning to you too. And yes, I don't see anything wrong with that." Vergil said as he poured pumpkin juice into his cup.
"She's a Mudblood and he's brainless." Draco expressed his thoughts on the two.
"You're spoiled brat and I'm still spending time with you, ain't I? Once again, I don't care about blood and Neville's not brainless." Vergil calmly argued back with Draco.
"Why are you so fixated on defending them?" Draco finally asked the question he had on his mind for a while now.
"No reason. I'm not defending them; I'm just sticking to my beliefs."
"And you're trying to change mine!" Draco snapped.
"I am a hypocrite; I stick to my belief while trying to change those of another. I believe I am right, true but above anything else I am presenting you with a possibility that there is something beyond what mom and dad told you." Vergil's eye had a strange glint to it, for a moment Draco saw something that wasn't fully human in that eye. At that time he dismissed it as imagination or light playing games with his sight.
Potions took place on Thursdays and everything seemed normal. They were brewing the swelling solution and other than a couple of students none were exactly expecting anything out of ordinary. Especially not Goyle's potion exploding.
It was only years' worth of honing his instincts that allowed Vergil to react quickly enough and duck under the potion. Being a half devil and having a slightly heightened senses when compared to humans did help, a lot.
"Silence! SILENCE!" Snape roared. "Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draft, when I find out who did this…" Well that someone better hope he would never get found out. Snape looked murderous as students came up to him with swelled noses, hands, arms, lips and other body parts.
Once everyone took the antidote Snape scooped out the black remains of the cause of explosion. "If I ever find out who threw this." Snape whispered. "I shall make sure that person is expelled." It wasn't a threat, but a promise and everyone in the room knew that.
A week passed without anything significant happening and things were starting to fall back into the usual routine with the addition of threat of being petrified looming in the air.
"Dueling Club?" Vergil repeated once Zabini told him what he read.
"Right. The first meeting is tonight. Will you go?" Zabini asked him.
"It could be interesting to see, as long as it's not the most competent professor of all times teaching us." Vergil smirked.
At eight o'clock he entered the Great Hall, which now looked quite different, a golden stage that went along one wall was lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. Most of the school seemed to be present as well and they all carried their wands.
That was the moment Vergil should have learnt how to keep his mouth shut. As the one who entered the hall with intention to teach them was none other than Lockhart.
The fact that Snape was also there eased Vergil's mind a bit, this wouldn't be a complete waste of time.
Lockhart waved an arm for silence. "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent! Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions, for full details, see my published works." He boasted to the students, how he still had students that believed him was beyond Vergil's brain capabilities.
"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape." Lockhart flashed them a wide smile. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry, you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"
"Like you stand a chance." Vergil felt oddly frustrated. He did relax a bit when he saw the way Snape looked at Lockhart, a knowing smirk appeared on Cambion's face. With Snape looking like that anyone sane or at least somewhat observant would run or at least stop talking.
Lockhart and Snape turned to face each other and Lockhart bowed; Snape just jerked his head irritably. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.
"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position." Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."
Snape bared his teeth, clearly annoyed by the man in front of him.
"One, two, three…"
The two swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at one another.
Snape was the first to make a move. "Expelliarmus!" A dazzling flash of scarlet light hit Lockhart and blasted him off his feet. The man flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, slid down and sprawled on the floor.
"All right!" Vergil couldn't suppress his cheer as he grinned at Snape. He wasn't the only one, his fellow Slytherins were cheering as well.
Lockhart unfortunately began getting up. The absence of his hat and the wavy hair standing on end was a bit of a satisfaction though.
He tottered back to the platform. "Well, there you have it! That was a Disarming Charm, as you see, I've lost my wand." He received it back from one of the Gryffindor females. "Ah, thank you, Miss Brown, yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy, however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…" he probably stopped because of the murderous look on Snape's face.
Although a menacing red eye that promised pain near Snape probably added a bit of sweat. How could a child have that much killing intent in his eye was beyond Lockhart.
"Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me." Lockhart requested and began teaming up students.
Snape paired up Weasley with Finningan, Potter with Malfoy and Granger with Bulstrode. He then proceeded to approach Vergil who was standing near Zabini. "Leonidas, Zabini." That was all he needed to say and the two boys grinned at one another.
"Don't go crazy." Zabini teased.
"Right back at you." Vergil's grin turned into a smirk.
"Face your partners!" Called Lockhart who was back on the platform. "And bow!"
Vergil and Zabini bowed to one another.
"Wands at the ready! When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents, only to disarm them, we don't want any accidents, one… two… three!" Lockhart instructed.
"Expelliarmus!" Vergil was the first one to act, only a few milliseconds earlier than Zabini.
"Expelliarmus!" Zabini cried out and the two spells collided.
Vergil stood, wide open.
"I told you not to go crazy. Expelliarmus! Not to underestimate me." Zabini reminded him, the spell ricocheted toward Vergil, assuring Zabini that he had won.
Yet the white haired boy jumped to the side just in the nick of time. "I never underestimate my opponents." Vergil assured him, skidding rapidly from side to side, catching the fellow Slytherin off guard by the quick movement. "Expelliarmus!" The spell hit Zabini and sent him flying back.
The boy fell down and coughed a bit as he tried to catch his breath.
"Power is useless if you don't know how to use it." Vergil walked up to him and offered his hand.
"Are you sure you weren't going crazy?" Zabini smirked at him.
"Maybe a bit." Vergil turned to look around them, most duels were also over. He shook his head slightly when he saw Bulstrode having Granger in a headlock. The bushy haired Gryffindor was clearly whimpering in pain. He didn't leap forward, but he certainly didn't stroll toward them.
"All right, cut it out Bulstrode." Vergil put a stop to the headlock before the girl could do any damage and pulled her off.
Granger coughed as she slowly got back up and Potter ran up to her.
"Are you okay?" Potter asked her.
"Y-Yes. Thank you." Granger turned to Vergil.
"Don't mention it." Vergil brushed it off and went back to the where he was beforehand.
"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells." Lockhart, who was standing flustered in the midst of the hall said. Looking at Snape he saw that the man's black eyes glinted, thus he quickly looked away. "Let's have a volunteer pair; Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you-"
"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart." Snape interrupted him. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox. How about Malfoy and Potter?" Suggested Snape with a twisted smile on his face.
"Excellent idea!" Agreed Lockhart. He proceeded to gesture Draco and Potter into the middle of the hall as the crowd backed away to give them enough space.
Vergil observed as both professors went on to instruct their students. Or at least tried to in Lockhart's case, the imbecile even dropped his wand trying to impress students with a complicated sort of wiggling action. Snape on the other hand smirked at the scene and whispered the instructions into Draco's ear.
He could barely hear it but Vergil managed to catch a rather nice exchange.
"Just do what I did, Harry!" From Lockhart.
"What, drop my wand?" And that certainly made Vergil respect Potter a bit. It was a very nice burn and Vergil couldn't help himself as he smirked.
"Three; two; one; go!" Apparently the man wasn't listening, at all.
Draco was the first to act and he wasn't wasting any time. He raised his wand and bellowed. "Serpensortia!"
That certainly wasn't what Vergil expected as a long black snake fell heavily onto the floor between Draco and Potter. It looked ready to strike. There were screams throughout the crowd as they backed away nearly as one.
"Don't move, Potter." Snape sounded lazy, but he was clearly enjoying the sight in front of him. "I'll get rid of it…"
"Allow me!" An uninvited Lockhart comes to offer his always welcome aid.
"Just get the hell out of this school…" Vergil grumbled as the man brandished his wand at the snake.
With a loud bang the snake was flung ten feet into the air, instead of vanishing as it was intended. It just made things worse as the enraged snake hissed and slithered straight at Finch-Fletchley. Its fangs were exposed as it got ready to strike.
A strange noise emerged from Potter's mouth and the snake seemed to turn its attention toward the boy, calm and no longer looking like it was ready to strike. It seemed to obey Potter from where Vergil was standing.
"What do you think you're playing at?" Finch-Fletchley shouted, turned around and stormed out of the hall.
Of course, children who never experienced any significant danger to their lives wouldn't be able to recognize that the danger is no longer imminent. That was what separated the white haired boy from most of his peers who lived moderately sheltered lives
Snape stepped forward, waved his wand, and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. His black eyes looked at Potter; it was a calculating, shrewd look that most people wouldn't like to be directed at them.
In the end as Potter was dragged away by Granger and Weasley the muttering continued. Soon enough The-Boy-Who-Lived would receive another title, that of the 'Heir of Slytherin', the ability to speak Parseltongue probably had a lot to do with that.
The rumors of Potter being the Heir of Slytherin spread like a wildfire and caused fear among most of the students. Apparently Creevey was annoying him and Filch nearly punished him, both paid in one way or another. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that Finch-Fletchley, a Hufflepuff who told Potter that he is a Muggle-born ended up being petrified along with Nearly Headless Nick.
Vergil generally didn't care, he had no relation to anyone petrified. Plus he had his own things to deal with. Things that required Snape's approval. With that in mind he went to the extra potions lesson he had. Once they were finished he'd speak with the Potions master about what he had on mind.
And that's it.
Answers on reviews:
josephguy217 – Thank you.
Suzululu4moe – Wow, thanks for reviews. First of all, Jokermort part, if there is any similarity it is completely unintentional, I have no idea what that is about. Secondly the topic of Devil May Cry, the short answer is yes, he was inspired. When I started writing I was heavily inspired and influenced by the franchise, especially by Vergil. As time passed the influence was toned down to a few details, most prominent ones being name, hair color and the usage of term cambion along with a few game specific terms.
Well Vergil doesn't have any relation to Voldemort, it's just that there are similarities that caused the entire unofficial 'Voldemort incarnate' thing. Eh, I don't really see Snape pulling a tsundere but to each their own. Lastly we agree, Dumbledore did have his moments of nepotism and that was one of them.
Guest – Thanks.
Brit – Thank you, I'm glad you do.
Next Chapter – Kaiser