One week later, Leo noticed a piece of parchment on the wall. Apparently, Hogwarts was starting a Duelling Club. To tell the truth, he wasn't particularly keen on the idea: he much preferred learning independently through the Snow Leopards, being able to push himself in the ways he wanted instead of having to ask permission and have his back watched the whole time.
But Draco loved the thought of learning to duel, and decided that he would sign up, so Leo decided to go along for the ride. Marisa, on hearing this, also decided to join the group.
At eight o'clock that evening, they gathered in the Great Hall to begin the first session. To Leo's horror, the person walking onto the stage was his least favourite teacher, even including Professor Binns: Gilderoy Lockhart. He was accompanied by Professor Snape.
To begin with, Snape and Lockhart carried out a demonstration of duelling. Snape took precisely one second to Disarm Lockhart. Leo couldn't resist cheering, he hated Lockhart so much. Many of the other Slytherins, including Draco, did the same.
Lockhart tried to claim that he could easily have been able to have stopped Snape, who was looking absolutely furious at this claim.
Then they both came down and started putting the students into pairs. Leo was expecting to have to go with Draco, but he was spared from this: Draco was called by Professor Snape to partner Potter.
Lockhart reached the remainder of the Slytherin group (the second-year Snow Leopards, as well as Pansy) and said "Right, there's six of you, so three pairs," before moving on. Leo partnered Marisa, Theo Daphne and Tracey was left with Pansy.
Once everyone was in pairs, Lockhart, who had returned to the platform, said: "Face your partners! And bow!"
Leo and Marisa bowed to each other.
"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 – "
Leo was more certain than ever that this was a waste of time: he had been able to Disarm effectively for ages by now, and so had Marisa.
"One…two…three…"
"Expelliarmus!" yelled Leo and Marisa at the same time. The jets of red light shooting out from their wands collided in mid-air and bounced off each other, Leo's hitting Pansy just as she reclaimed her own wand from Tracey and Marisa's ripping Theo's from his hand as he stared at Daphne, who he had just beaten.
Leo was just observing Pansy looking for her wand all over again when he felt his own wand being pulled from his hand; turning quickly around, he saw Marisa standing with his wand in her hand and a smirk on her face.
Many of the other duels had not progressed so well: Finnegan was ashen-faced and being held up by Weasley, Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley were both on the ground, and Millicent was half-suffocating Granger.
As for Draco and Potter… the less said about that, the better. Draco was speechless with laughter on the ground, under the influence of what Leo easily recognised as Marisa's trademark Tickling Charm and Potter's legs were dancing around uncontrollably.
Leo and Marisa glanced at each other and rolled their eyes. They hadn't realised until that moment quite how far their extracurricular studying had put them ahead of the crowd when it came to duelling.