Harry Potter and the Hermetic Arts
Chapter 18: Duel Monster
Double Defense Against the Dark Arts had been a complete waste of time, as Harry had expected when he walked into the class on Monday morning; Quirrell once again stuttered his way through the lesson, which seemed to cover just about anything except dark arts.
After that was Herbology, and Harry braced himself for the coming headache, but to his luck, the redhead nuisance arrived to class late. Of course, that also meant the chubby boy who was his friend was also late, which made passing him a message to meet him after class difficult.
Still, a single-session class was only forty-five minutes long, and before long, Harry found himself being annoyed by the redhead.
"Teach me to play Shankey," the ginger said.
"What?"
"Shankey. Teach me!"
"What the fuck is 'Shankey'?" asked Harry, playing stupid.
"Chinese Chess! You said you'd play me if I learned to play it!"
"No, I said janggi, which is Korean Chess," lied Harry. "What are you, a racist? Do you think all East Asian people look the same too?"
"What? No! So, teach me Ganjy!"
"Do you really want me, who is going to play you, to teach you? What if I teach you a bunch of traps and then take advantage of them when we play?"
The redhead's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he considered the idea. Then, he nodded to himself in satisfaction, declaring, "I'm going to learn Ganjy and then beat you, Harry!"
With that, he departed, almost dragging his mousy friend with him by sheer gravity, but Harry caught the chubby boy by the shoulder before he could depart. "We've got business, you and I," he said, and the chubby boy swallowed nervously.
"I'm sorry, Harry," he apologized, his face in a state of near panic.
"Relax," said the black-haired boy. "It's not about that. It's about that thing you asked me about last week."
"Oh."
"Come on, walk with me."
Together, the two first-year boys walked down the hall, seemingly purposelessly, until Harry hanged a corner and pulled his accomplice into an empty, abandoned classroom.
Reaching into his pocket, Harry pulled forth the Ziploc bag, setting it down on a desk, before nodding at the boy across from him. "Pay attention, I'm only going to show you this once."
Opening the bag, Harry took out one of the buds and crumbled it into small bits into a piece of rolling paper, which he then rolled into a tight spliff.
"Hold this in your mouth," said Harry, and Neville let him stick the cigarette between his lips. Striking a match he had taken from Transfiguration and kept, he lit the spliff. "All right, now inhale the smoke."
"What?" asked the boy, surprised.
"You heard me," Harry said. "Inhale the smoke."
The boy did as he instructed, eyes widening as he seemed to hold his breath. Then, he suddenly pulled the lit cigarette from his lips, coughing violently.
"All right," said Harry. "Now inhale, exhale, and repeat it until the entire thing's been smoked."
The boy did as instructed, and though the two stood in the empty classroom in silence, Harry could see he had become more calm as he reached the end of the cigarette.
"I feel... good," drawled the boy, as he finished the last of the joint. "What is this?"
"It has a lot of names," said Harry, as he put down the Ziploc bag and the rolling paper in front of the boy. "Cannabis, marijuana, Mary Jane, skunk, pot, weed… All you need to know is it's all natural, and you can have the rest of this."
"Thanks, Harry," said the boy, smiling widely.
"I didn't catch your name the first time," Harry said, as he shook the boy's hand.
"Neville Longbottom," the boy said, stoned and with not a care in the world. "Neville's fine."
"All right, Neville," said Harry, as he pulled his hand from Neville's. "I'll be seeing you."
"See you later," Neville called after Harry, as he left the room.
~ooOoo~
Harry had revised for Transfiguration before lunch, which was right before Transfiguration, but the revision had no helped. By the end of the lesson, he was the only one in the combined class who had made no progress on the turning a match into a needle, and Malfoy mocked him from a distance.
Charms with Slytherins was next, and it during this second lesson that the tiny professor decided it as time for his students to try learning their first charm, the Wand-Lighting Charm, lumos. Yet, despite the simple wand movement and the nearly-impossible-to-mangle incantation, Harry once again was the only student incapable of getting the tip of his wand to even light up a little bit.
By the end of the lesson, Malfoy was openly mocking him, yet, Harry didn't care one bit; after all, he wasn't going to bark at a dog on a chain just because the dog was barking at him first.
Of course, this didn't last; once class was dismissed, Harry as packed his belongings as always, Malfoy came within a few steps, his two big goons at his flanks, and started needling Harry.
"You're a squib, Potter," said the towhead, a mocking laugh in his voice. "It's a shame House Potter will end with you."
"Blow it outcha hoop, Malfoy," Harry said lightly, shrugging. Again, barking dog.
"What?" asked the boy with the bleach-blonde hair.
"Slot off, frag-face," Harry said, changing his words but not his sentiment.
"What?"
"I said, 'piss off, you twat-waffle'."
As the words left Harry's lip, he could judge by the reaction of Malfoy's face that he might have taken it a step too far, even if his tone had been light.
"Potter, I challenge you to a Wizard's duel!" snarled the Slytherin. "Midnight tonight! Wands only! No contact!"
The students who were still in the process of packing their things or leaving the room suddenly stopped short, and Harry could tell the situation had escalated in a way he hadn't foreseen; with the exception of Malfoy and his minions, the only students who remained were Hufflepuffs, who were always liable to stay and help their friends, while Slytherins were long gone, having went off to pursue their own goals, as was their wont.
Still, barking dogs.
"So, you're challenging me, somebody you're insulting for not being able to do magic, to a duel where you can only use magic?" Harry asked, and Malfoy scowled. "What are you, a coward?"
Malfoy snarled and started towards Harry, but stopped himself. "You would say that, you filthy squib."
"And why at midnight, after curfew?" asked Harry. "Why not now, in front of witnesses? Or are you scared that little ol' me, who can't even do magic according to you, will beat you, and you don't want people to see it?"
Malfoy's expression twisted quickly from scorn to anger and then confusion, then back to anger. "Fine, we can do it right here, right now!"
"With magic? You might as well just have your heavies beat me up, since we clearly know I can't do any magic all, as this lesson has demonstrated. I mean, why else would you be mocking me? Besides my dead parents, I mean; you do love insulting me about that."
That seemed to be all the invitation Malfoy needed, and he nodded to his minions. "Crabbe. Goyle."
"Are you sure you want this?" asked Harry, leaning heavily on his cane as the two big oafs slowly lumbered towards him. "Three of you, against somebody who needs a cane to walk right?"
Malfoy's smug smile was all Harry needed to see to have an answer.
"Remember: you wanted for this."
The-Boy-Who-Lived flipped his cane nimbly, catching it by the straight end. Seizing it with both hands, he stepped forward and swung the crook of it hard at the nearest of the two goons.
Gidgee is one of the hardest woods in the world.
The big boy's knee made a sickening crunching sound as the diamond-cored wood connected and reduced it to bone fragments. Suddenly with only one leg, he toppled forward, and the boy with the cane let the momentum of his swing spin his body, putting him in line with a second swing that connected solidly with the other goon's throat, sending him crumpling to the ground, clutching at his neck and fighting to breathe, his larynx cracked. Completing the turn, the green-eyed brought his cane smashing down across the first boy's jaw, knocking him out cold.
"You'll want to get him to hospital in about seven minutes, or he'll suffocate," said The-Boy-Who-Lived lightly, to no one in particular.
Casually hanging his cane on the side of the desk where his belongings lay, Harry drew his wand and pointed it at the blonde, who flinched. Pulling his hand back over his shoulder, he whipped it forward, flinging his length of wood towards the Slytherin. "Think fast."
Dumbly, the towhead caught the flying object, which gave The-Boy-Who-Lived all the time he needed to cross the distance between them in a dead sprint, cane firmly in hand. Surprised, the Slytherin stumbled a step backwards, and his assailant took advantage, shoving him with a hand and knocking the already off-balance Slytherin to the floor, wands clattering onto the flagstone. Before he could scramble backwards or sit up, the Hufflepuff straddled his chest, placing the cane across his neck and pressing it against the prone boy's Adam's apple before passing Astral energy through it.
"The point of a duel is to win," he said, sitting with his full weight on the blonde's stomach. "Magic or not, if you lose, you die, so what does it matter if it's a Wizard's duel?"
Leaning forward, the raven-haired boy spoke, a sharp edge in his voice, which he kept low as he looked directly into the eyes of the boy who had been mocking him. "Did you think I'd just take it from you because I'm in Hufflepuff?" he said, pure malevolence barely contained in his voice, as the blonde tried and failed to move the cane from where it pressed into his throat, making it hard for him to breathe. "Don't you know badgers fear nothing?
"I know where you eat. I know where you sleep, which classes you have, when you have them, where you live during holiday. Your Head of House can't protect you. Your father can't save you. You cry to them, I'll make you disappear forever, and all you'll be is one of the mysteries of Hogwarts, a cautionary tale of just what happens when you cross The-Boy-Who-Lives."
His lips parted into a twisted, menacing smile, one he hoped resembled the Joker's, as he moved his face within an inch of the blonde's wide, terrified eyes, speaking in a whisper so soft, only the towhead could hear. "Did you really believe that fool Potter boy just happened to survive that night in Godric's Hollow?
"Try to get me expelled and I'll burn your house down with your entire family in it, and then I'll hunt down your family tree and burn them out until not even roots are left.
"I'm not to be fucked with. Understood?"
Panicked, the blonde nodded as vigorously as the cane in his throat allowed him to, and the raven-haired Hufflepuff grasped it with one hand, flushing the Astral energy from it before lifting from his victim. Standing, the raven-haired boy stepped over the prone boy, then pivoted at the hips, swinging the flat of the crook of the cane into the side of the Slytherin's head like a golf club, careful not to crush his skull when rendering him unconscious. Twirling the cane in one hand, he surveyed the room, and the Hufflepuffs erupted into applause.
"Somebody really should get these boys to hospital before they die," said The-Boy-Who-Lived, indicating the boy whose larynx he had crushed. "I'm going to make myself scarce, so do try to keep my name out of it, all right?"
The other Hufflepuffs were as good as their house was reputed, quickly organizing to get help their housemate, working together to move the three unconscious Slytherins even as The-Boy-Who-Lived slipped away from the classroom.
~ooOoo~
Harry walked down the hall briskly, quickly leaving the Charms classroom behind him. He had been lucky that the classroom was not in use for the rest of the day; in fact, now that he thought about it, he had a hunch that each subject and year had its own classroom, which explained why he never met any students from different years when he arrived to a classroom early.
In truth, he felt deeply uncomfortable with the experience; he had never stood up to a bully before, and while he had expected the red-hot rage that had always rushed through him whenever Dudley savaged him physically or verbally, what he had instead felt was a white-cold, calm fury that filled his head and made him see things clearly. Threatening Malfoy had been a gamble, but as soon as he was channeling his inner Big Bad Evil Guy, something he hadn't done in the two years since the last time he had been the dungeon master to a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, it felt right, the "right" way to make Malfoy believe he was not who he seemed to be, to make him question whether You-Know-Who had really been defeated by The-Boy-Who-Lived or it had been a huge ploy to put the "forces of Light" at ease, something he knew the Slytherin could not put past the Dark Lord. It was who he needed to be in the moment, and so, that was who he was; in a sense, he wasn't unlike a certain fictional Tom.
Still, it was not an experience he relished, nor it one he sought to repeat, and so he hoped the exchange with Malfoy would be the last of its kind.
~ooOoo~
Tuesday morning, a visibly relaxed and confident Neville Longbottom strode into the greenhouse for Double Herbology without the redhead and came straight to Harry, who was reading a book, as per usual.
"I'm almost through the skunk," drawled Neville, running his fingers through his uncombed brown hair. "You got more?'
"Meet me in front of the library after your next class, and we'll talk about it," Harry said, and Neville nodded his understanding before smiling and giving a tidily-dressed girl with her brown hair in pigtails a thumbs up. "New friend?"
"Yeah, that's Fay," said Neville, grinning widely. "She's cool; we smoked together last night, and then again this morning."
"She's got good taste."
"Yeah!"
"So, where's the ginger fragface?"
"Ron? Probably sleeping. Kept saying 'five more minutes', so I just left him."
"Smart move."
"I know, right?"
"All right, I think your lady friend wants to talk to you. I'll see you later."
~ooOoo~
Harry did not have to wait long in front of the library for Neville; once again, he was accompanied by his lady friend.
"Hey Harry, this is Fay," said Neville, as his two friends met up close for the first time.
"Pleasure," said Harry, shaking the girl's hand. "Longbottom tells me you're cool."
"Damn right, I am," said the girl, grinning as she clapped Harry on the shoulder. "So, how're we going to do this?"
"We'll use an abandoned classroom, like last time," Neville declared, and Harry nodded, somewhat relieved to see that the previously mousy boy had found some confidence in himself, even if it was chemically assisted, and would thus likely be more liable to leave him alone in the future.
It did not take long for the trio to find an abandoned classroom a few floors up, and once they were inside, Harry excused himself for a moment, going into his haversack to retrieve the big bags of dried buds and the rest of the rolling paper.
Returning, he found Neville and his friend chatting easily, and he placed the two bags on a desk.
"That's a lot of skunk," Neville said, eyes wide in wonder.
"Hey, I didn't say I was giving it to you," Harry said, and Neville nodded with a smile.
"How much?" asked Neville's friend.
"This about a hundred grams, and this is some potent stuff," Harry said. "Friend of mine who got it for me said it cost him forty-five pounds a gram, and the exchange rate at Gringotts is five pounds to the gold piece, so that'd be, what, nine hundred gold pieces?"
"We can't afford that much," the girl protested, and Harry held up a hand, stopping her before she could continue.
"Luckily, we're not using that exchange rate, because that's just stupid," the Hufflepuff said, and the two Gryffindors look relieved. "I'll sell you these two bags for just twenty-five gold pieces."
"That's a huge difference," the girl observed. "How are you making up a profit?"
"You're clever," Harry said, and the girl beamed. "Gringotts is pretty damn bad at maths and economics. We'll leave it at that."
"We'll take it," Neville said, with a wide grin, and quickly, money exchanged hands between the Gryffindor and the Hufflepuff.
"A pleasure, Longbottom," said The-Boy-Who-Lived.
"Join us for a smoke?" Neville asked, as he retrieved a bud from the bag
"Naw, I never get high on my own supply," Harry said. "Good you're feeling more relaxed, though. Got plans?"
"Yeah, I think I'm going to start a garden," said the Gryffindor boy, sprinkling a bud into a leaf of paper, while the Gryffindor girl watched intently. "Got a garden back home, and I enjoyed that."
"I've actually got some seeds in my bag," Harry said, patting his haversack. "Got a manual on how to grow the stuff too."
"You do? Will you sell it to me?"
"Sure, let me get them."
Harry returned a moment later with the packet of seeds and manual Jason had sent him, placing them on the table between himself and the Gryffindors passing a spliff between themselves.
"So, how much?" Neville asked.
"If you grow enough, are you planning to sell your product here at Hogwarts?"
"Maybe, why?"
"How about this: if you do, I'll take a twenty percent cut of your profits, but nothing up front," suggested the raven-haired boy.
The Gryffindor boy thought about it for a moment, then stuck out his hand, and the two boys shook on the deal.
"By the way, you can actually cook this stuff into food and drink, too," said Harry, and thus, the conversation turned to space cakes and cannibis tinctures.
~ooOoo~
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was perplexed, something he hadn't been in a very long time.
Without the looming threat of the House Cup hanging over their collective heads, the Ravenclaws had thrown caution to the wind, damaging and destroy more school property with their experiments and tests in a single week than the entire student body had the previous year. Even the house elves on hand could barely keep up with the messes being created, and the cost of equipment lost to their undertakings were already starting to add up in ways he had never imagined possible, and even the usually mild-mannered Hufflepuffs were becoming strident in their defense of each other when Slytherins harassed them.
Just Friday night, Poppy had given him a piece of her mind about young Harry Potter's living situation and the scars she had found on his back, no doubt from the beatings his cousin had given him every day, which had no doubt caused his magical core to react by speeding his recovery to something unknown even in the magical world. The admonishment had been unpleasant, especially when he had been unable to placate the matron with reassurances in his usual soothing tones.
Then, there were the accounts from Filius and Minerva, both who had reported young Harry was the least of his peers; even while the rest of his classmates had managed some progress in their first spells, Harry had shown no signs of being able to use even the most basic of magic. Ordinarily, lessons would employ the time-honored traditions of waiting for every student to master a spell before moving on to the next, but Harry had made no progress from his first day to his most recent, almost like his magical core had been sealed away, and Filius and Minerva had been forced to continue the lessons, lest the first year Slytherins and Hufflepuffs fall completely behind the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Yet, the rumors Harry was a squib could not be true, else Hogwarts would not have sent him an acceptance letter.
Worse, though, was the incident of Harry with the broom. Now, the boy would never play quidditch like his father had played, and it was a lost connection, one he could never be able to use to make the boy want to be James.
On the other hand, he had heard from Molly Weasley that Ron had become friends with Harry, who was teaching him to play Chinese chess. With luck, Ron would guide Harry back to the Light and the Gryffindor way.
Some of that was already in play; just last night, he had received reports Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe had ended up in the hospital wing. Though all three Slytherins were tight-lipped about what had sent them there, young Mr. Crabbe with a crushed windpipe and the younger Goyle with a shattered knee, but rumor floating around Hogwarts was there had been a fight between the three and Harry, and it was this news Dumbledore welcomed like a drowning man would a life preserver. Harry was embroiled in a feud with the son of a known Death Eater, and that was the first step of ensuring he would fight for the Light. Even if he was a Hufflepuff, he could be made to follow the Gryffindor way.
Good too was that he was connecting with the other students at Hogwarts; word was Harry had already created a new club that included students from each house save Slytherin, and he would need to treasure those kinds of friendships in the future if he was to fulfill his Destiny.
Best of all was that young Harry excelled at Potions despite Severus' animosity; it made him so much like his mother, and Dumbledore smiled to himself, knowing he would use this to make the boy yearn for the family he never knew. It was a shame the Hufflepuffs remained adamant about remaining out of the competition for the House Cup; by doing so, they had stripped Severus of one of his biggest tools for tormenting young Harry, who only did enough to warrant the taking of points and not enough to be given detention.
At his desk, Dumbledore rewarded himself with a lemon drop and allowed himself a victorious smile. Young Harry Potter, as cunning as he thought himself, was no match for a true wizard's mastery of the game.
Author's Notes: More of Harry's darker impulses on full display. He has a tendency to become whoever he needs to be in the moment to see things through, not unlike a certain other Tom R. And no, not Riddle, either. That's a literary and cinematic reference for you; the book was released in 1955, and the first film adaptation in 1960, albeit a French-Italian production, though it was later adapted again, this time in an American production, in 1999. Let it never be said that this Harry isn't cultured.
Funny how an unhealthy rivalry between two houses is considered a good thing by so much of a society of supposedly-enlightened people, even when it turns violent. It's almost like they're still stuck in the age of vendettas and blood feuds...
In regards to tone, remember that this Harry is heavily influenced by cyberpunk, given his love of reading and Shadowrun; this isn't the normal Harry Potter story, but one with more of a dungeon punk attitude about his end to the story and the world. There's violence, there's sex, there's drugs, there's terrible people, and Harry is absolutely going to be one of them and be involved with all of them; hell, he's probably going to be worse than most of the people around him simply because of who he is and what he's been through. He's ultimately a consequentialist, which means he's perfectly capable of doing whatever he feels he needs to and then justifying it to himself as getting the result that's for the best.
Dunbar is going to be a recurring supporting character, much like Longbottom. Yes, I understand this is a wide departure of character for her, but I want Longbottom to have a cool tomboy friend to smoke with who is also one of the guys, and she fits the bill better than her unnamed friend or Kellah of Gryffindor. Plus, I rarely see her used in most other fanfiction, so I figured it'd be a nice break from tradition.
No, Harry does not actually walk with a limp; he's simply faking a psychosomatic limp for the benefit of being able to have his immovable rod-cane on hand all the time.
Dumbledore is meant to be a scheming version of the character who isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is; his multitude of schemes is supposed to contrast with the reality of who Harry actually is. Heaping expectations and making a plan relying on somebody you hardly know is not really a good way to plan any operation of any sort, which has always struck me as weird for a supposed genius; if Dumbledore hadn't been oddly accurate (for no good reason besides plot convenience, I might add), his plans in the original stories would have went pretty tits-up. He's less scheming!manipulative!Dumbledore and more delusional!incompetent!Dumbledore.
Same usual thing regarding reviews and messages. I like talking to you people about my work, even when you criticize it. Just not when you do so anonymously, because that just makes me think you're a coward who is hiding behind anonymity, or when I can't understand what you're saying because of bad writing skills, because that's just incomprehensible.
Credit to Shinshikaizer and goalie12345. You both know what you did. No, you don't need to sit in the corner.