Chapter 21: Duels and Visions

Bella's Point of View

A few days had passed since we had revealed ourselves to the school, and the majority of students continued avoiding us. It seemed like most agreed with Harry that we weren't there as agents of Voldemort, but that still didn't ease the fear of them knowing that they were in the same room as a group of vampires. This led to us spending most of our time out of class in the training room, preparing.

Edward, Nessie, and I were in the Room of Requirement practicing with the rest of our family and the Pack. We had spent most of the day working on integrating normal vampire fighting with our magical abilities, since we had no idea what could come in handy when Voldemort showed up.

Harry had asked us to meet him in the training area an hour before the DA meeting that was scheduled, so we were not surprised when he walked into the room in the middle of a practice duel between Edward and Alice.

The duel had been going on for a little while now and everyone had gathered around to take a break and watch. Harry joined the group just as Edward sent four stunners at Alice in quick succession. She deflected three of them and just barely dodged the fourth before sending a disarming spell, a stunning spell, and a body bind curse at Edward. Edward jumped into the air to avoid the spells and allowed his momentum to carry him towards Alice. She rolled out of the way, and as Edward passed the spot where she had been, jumped on his back and put her teeth to Edward's neck.

"I win." Alice announced triumphantly as she hopped off Edward's back.

Harry cleared his throat before greeting us, "Hi everyone. I see you've been keeping busy."

"Hey Harry." Alice said as she and Edward walked over to join us. "What's up?"

Harry went straight to the point, "As you know there's a DA meeting in about an hour. I asked you all to be here early so I could ask if you would be willing to show everyone how vampires fight. We don't know what Voldemort will be bringing with him when he attacks, but from what Marcus said, it sounds like there will most definitely be some vampires with him and I want everyone prepared."

"Excellent. I've been wanting to show these kids what I can do." Emmett said.

"Don't get too carried away. We're already on shaky ground with most of the students. We don't want to scare them any further." Edward wanred Emmett before turning back to Harry. "We would be glad to help. Are you going to want us just to do an exhibtion so they know what they will see, or would you like us to actually duel with the students so they can get accustomed to fighting vampires?"

"Actually, I was planning on just having you show them what you're capable of, but if you want to actually duel them, that would be even better."

"I think that since we do not know when the attack is coming, we need to prepare as quickly as possible, and the best way to do that is to train as rigorously as possible. Actually dueling with the others will be much more beneficial than just having them watch us." Jasper said.

"Do you want me to do anything?" Nessie asked.

"No, thank you Renesmee. Its strange enough that they will be dueling vampires. I don't think that there's any need to add even more confusion."

Nessie seemed relieved by Harry's response, and nodded.

"Harry, if you'd like, the Pack and I can help teach everyone how to fight werewolves." Jake offered. "Like you said, its better to be safe than sorry. And besides, a bit of training thats different from the norm may help somehow."

"Good idea Jake. Thanks."

"Not a problem. I'll go get Remus. He's better at teaching than I am anyway." Jake said before running out the door.

"Now that thats all settled, would one of you mind dueling me? Merlin knows I need the practice. Plus, I'm not sure how trusting of you everyone will be, so maybe they'll take it better if they know that I've already duelled you."

Guessing that Edward wouldn't be thrilled about me dueling a student who may or may not care for my saftey, despite the fact that I was nearly indestructible, I immediately volunteered. "I'll duel you Harry."

"Okay. I want to try without you using a wand for the first time, if you don't mind." Harry said.

"Sure thing." I said, lightly tossing my wand to Edward as I went to stand across from Harry.

After making sure that I was ready, Harry wasted on time in going on the offensive. I used my heightened speed to easily dodge the spells he sent at me before I began to close the space between us. I was able to half the distance between Harry and I while still dodging his spells, before he got a new idea. As I went to move forward, he conjured a shield in front of me. I attempted to go around it, but he continued to conjure shields wherever I went to move.

I was still able to advance towards Harry, but his shields greatly lowered the speed of my approach. When I was about three feet away from him, Harry conjured a shield that surrounded him completely. Knowing that he would be unable to hold the shield indefinitely, I stood just outside of it, waiting for the shield to drop. After a few minutes, it did, and I was able to jump at Harry before he was able to react. I brought my mouth to his neck before quickly getting off of him and allowing him to stand up.

"That was definitely different from what I'm used to. It's going to be hard to figure out how to effectively fight one of you guys."

"Maybe you could try to surround your opponent with shields and then try to hit them with a spell?" Jasper suggested. "If you could do that, it would offset our speed advantage."

"It will take work to be able to maintain a shield while casting other spells, but that would be a good strategy." Harry agreed. "I'll talk to Remus when he arrives to see if he can give me advice."

We took a short break. While we were waiting, Jake returned with Remus, and soon, the rest of the DA arrived as well. Once everyone had shown up, Harry stood up to begin the meeting.

"Hello everyone. Today, I have something a bit different from normal planned. We know that Voldemort has become a vampire, and it is likely that he will have more with him when he attacks. The Cullens have offered to duel with you, without using magic, so you can get a feel for fighting against vampires. Professor Black and his Pack have also offered to duel, just to provide something different from the usual."

"Wait." A Hufflepuff who I didn't recognize said. "You expect us to trust them to fight us, but not to actually follow through and bite us?"

"I duelled with Bella just ten minutes ago. She beat me, but you don't see any bite marks on me. Do you?" Harry responded. "No one is forcing you to duel with them, but we know that Voldemort will be coming with vampires. I trust the Cullens completely, and they are offering to help you prepare for what is coming. It's your choice whether to take it or leave it."

The Hufflepuff seemed conflicted for a moment, but stayed where he was.

"Alright then. Everyone pair up with one of the Cullens, or a member of Jacob's Pack." Harry instructed. "They won't have wands, but they will have a massive speed advantage, so you will need to alter your techniques to compensate for that."

I looked over and saw the Pack phase. Turning back, I saw a short, sixth year Ravenclaw standing in front of me.

Before I had a chance to say anything to him, Harry spoke, "Make sure you have enough room around you so you don't collide with anyone else. Start your duels in. Three. Two. One. Go!"

I stood my ground, allowing him to make the first move. I easily dodged the first spell he sent at me, and I began to advance towards him. He began shooting spells faster, but I continued to dodge them until I was standing directly in front of the student. I jumped over him to dodge his last spell and grabbed his shoulders. However, the moment I did, he pointed his wand over his shoulder and hit with a spell that sent me flying backwards.

I began dodging his spells and moving towards him once agin, but he had realized that his original strategy was not going to work. Instead, he began trying to distract me. In addition to launching spells at me, he attempted to blind me by lighting his wand. At one point, he came close to hitting me with a stunning spell, but it whizzed past my shoulder, missing by an inch.

After another few minutes of slowly closing the gap between us, I faked a jump over him before lunging at him and tackling him to the ground. I put my mouth to his neck to show that I had won the duel before helping him to stand back up.

He was breathing heavily as he stood up. "That was difficult. You're way to fast to hit."

"You did well." I reassured him. "I wasn't expecting you to knock me off the first time I grabbed you, and its hard to surprise a vampire."

He laughed, still trying to regain his breath. "I can sort of see why everyone is so scared of you guys. I was pretty freaked out when you grabbed me."

"You might not believe me, but I know the feeling." I told him. "I was attacked a few years before I was turned. But the guy who attacked me wasn't like me or the rest of the Cullens."

Curiosity seemed to have taken him, because he continued to ask questions, "But isn't it difficult? I thought vampires had to feed on people a lot."

"I've never fed on a human, so I have nothing to compare the taste of animal blood to. Plus, we hunt often, more often than we probably need to, just to make sure that we don't feel any temptation."

"But when do you find the time? You must not hunt in the same place all the time, or else animals would stop going there."

"We do travel around to a number of different places. We go at night, because we don't need sleep."

"Wow. If you don't sleep, you must have a lot of free time."

"We do. But we find uses for it. This year, we've spent most of our nights practicing magic."

"Do you want to duel again? I need more practice." He asked.

I nodded and got myself into position to begin the duel. Although he changed up his strategy a bit, I was still able to win the duel after about ten turned out to be good timing, because Harry called for everyone to stop duelling a few minutes after we had finished.

"Okay everyone, I think that that's enough for tonight. Next meeting, we'll go back to more conventional practice, but its always good to prepare for the unexpected."

Everyone filed out, heading towards the joint common room, leaving Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the Pack in the room with us.

"Thanks guys." Harry said once everyone had left, "Hopefully that will help them if they wind up facing one of Voldemort's vampires."

"it was no problem at all Harry." Edward assured him, "From their thoughts, it seems that duelling with us gave most of them a bit more trust that we aren't Voldemort's spies or dark creatures of some sort."

"That's good. Anyway, during the meeting, I had an idea. You said that fire is one of the things that can kill a vampire. During a fight, you could try to trap a vampire, and light them on fire. Even if they dodge it, if its an enclosed space, the fire will probably spread on to them."

"That's a good idea Harry." Jasper said. "If you can get people to help by conjuring some sort of flammable liquid near the target, that would be incredibly effective."

"I'm sure that we could help corner the vampire before you light them." Jake said. "It'd be easier than ripping them up, albeit less satisfying."

We began to walk towards the common room while continuing to discuss strategy. Once we arrived the in the Common Room and met up with Ginny, Neville, and Luna we moved on to discussing less grim topics, trading stories from years past.

After what seemed like no time, Hermione looked over at the clock and said, "Its time for us to be getting to bed."

Edward and I bade goodnight to everyone as they headed to their dorms. Rosalie and Emmett had disappeared hours ago, so the only people left in the room were Edward, Alice, Jasper and I.

We sat in silence for a few moments before Edward asked, "Jasper, you have the most experience in these situations. What kind of odds do you think Harry has against Voldemort?"

"In all honesty. Slim to none." Jasper responded. "Just from being a newborn vampire, I'd expect Voldemort to overpower Harry easily. From what we've heard, Voldemort is also a powerful wizard, likely as strong, or stronger than Harry."

We sat in a grim silence.

"Do you think if Harry was a vampire?" I began.

"Carlisle would never agree to it, and neither would I. And even if Harry did think that was a good idea, we don't know when Voldemort is coming. If the transformation isn't done and Voldemort comes, we are all dead."

We were engulfed by silence once more, saying nother for nearly fifteen minutes. Suddenly, Alice went rigid in her seat.

"What is it?" I asked her.

The look on her face told me what she hadn't said yet. "Voldemort has decided when he's going to attack. He'll be here in four days."

A/N I decided to start on my next story, because I really wanted to write, but couldn't for some reason get myself working on this story. Hopefully this chapter's quality didn't suffer as a result.

It's a James/Lily Harry Potter story. The first chapter or two may not seem like it, but I think I have a pretty unique twist to the normal story, so check it out from my profile if you want to.

As always, reviews are appreciated (on both stories) and if you leave an -email address, I will respond to it.