Thin blades of light poked through the slanted slats that covered the window. Patrick tried to close his eyes for a few more moments of sleep and a more than pleasant dream. Reality, and a full bladder, won. He sighed as he slung his legs over the side of the bed and made his way down the hallway to the restroom. His roommate was still deep asleep even after he returned to the small three meter by five-meter space that he shared with a single other student. Walter was not a bad guy, a little bit of a boffin and egg head, nerd might be the right word in the States, but he lacked an ability to just shut up and let Patrick be. He had started a one hundred and thirteen minute monologue last night on the matching of different wand woods to cores. His redwood and thunderbird combination was supposed to signify strength and wisdom. He had theories on half of the wands of all the older Wampii but he never received the signal that no one cared.
Patrick carefully changed into active wear. He laced up his trainers, tucked his wand into his holster and silently made his way back out. A few people were starting to wake. The crew and Quodpot teams had practices at opposite ends of the campus that started at dawn. The ambitious and the nervous were ready for the day even as they waited a few more minutes to wake the laggards. Soon a score of students would begin group runs to their practice pitches. He had no one else counting on him. He had no one to wait for. He was alone when he stepped into the darkness. He tucked his wand into his headband and began to briskly walk to the running path. A modified Lumos to pitch the light a little wider and a lot longer lit the trail and he started to run.
Every step was a victory.
Every step was another away from that night at Hogwarts.
Every step was pleasure.
Every step was pain.
Every step was meditation.
His eyes focused on the path ahead of him. His fists stayed balled. His lungs soon began to burn. Every step became a focus. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Steady pace, long strides, and soon the first three miles were gone. He felt everything. He felt nothing. His eyes took in the trail that was being softly lit by the rising sun. His ears soon heard the chatter of birds. A single loon claimed the lake where the sculls were busy slicing through the warm, glass smooth water. He grunted an acknowledgement as an adult overtook him and then turned left to run along a ridge trail. He kept on running until he could not think nor feel. And then he kept on running for another twenty minutes until he had finished the circuit around the campus.
As he entered the dormitory, the morning hustle and bustle was picking up. His roommate was playing a Muggle card game about magical beings over in the corner. A trio of classmates were slowly opening their eyes as they slowly sipped coffee in the common room. Younger students were checking their bags to make sure that they had their notebooks and pencils. As the clock ticked to seven, a bolus of students left the building as the dining hall opened for breakfast. Patrick ignored them as he stripped, wrapped himself into a towel and headed for a shower.
Forty-seven minutes later, the clean, refreshed, and relaxed transfer student was filling his plate with potatoes and bacon. Liz had pulled him over to her table and everyone was talking through their schedule. The school operated on a six-day rotating schedule. Today was A Day while next Monday would be F Day. A-Day was a magic heavy day. First period was English literature followed by ADEPT Charms. There was a brief upper-class break before third period, fifteen minutes for a coffee or a chat before Advanced Combat Magics for a double period. Liz was in charms with him, while Donna would share Advanced Combat Magics. Lunch followed by a physics class and then Transfiguration would complete his day.
A few Puckwudgie Quadpot players accompanied him to English where the teacher went over the syllabus and offered an interesting perspective on the value of the end of the year Advanced Placement exams - it was more a marker of commitment than ability, but sometimes those signals were quite valuable in and of themselves as the students sought to do more in the world.
Charms was taught by a leonine old man who was excessively precise in everything that he did. Words were metered. Wand movements barely perceptible. Hips turned ever so slightly as wrists rolled precisely. The instructor was able to correct a minor flaw in Patrick's first cast after he saw the yellow splash of light be just a few shades too close to lemon instead of traffic light yellow. A quiet word and a slight repositioning of his fingers, and the spell came out perfectly. He managed to glance over to Liz a few times. She was a natural, inquisitive and deliberate, creative and constrained in her spell casting. A few minutes before the bell, she had a slight, unintended smile on her face as a glamour charm finally set right on her left hand. He smiled at her accomplishment.
There was a mad rush out of the classroom when the bell rang. Some students stayed after class. He understood why the Charms teacher could be a personal favorite for some students with his deep reserve and constant coaching for each student to be the best witch or wizard that they could be. In some ways, he was like Flitwick even if he was a bit less excitable.
Patrick allowed that thought to bounce in his head as he began to head towards the tea
Patrick walked with determined strides in the hallway, and then down the stairs but he ended in a fire escape. Suddenly, his arm was in a strong grasp. Even as he saw long blond hair and a full set of lips out of the corner of his eye, his elbow was coming around at full speed and his foot was seeking to slam into the instep of his potential attack. He pulled the full thrust of his elbow just short of Liz's nose and he did an odd little jig to regain his feet.
"Down killer, you okay?" Liz asked with a bit of a shake in her voice.
"Yeah, just was not expecting you to grab my arm"
"I get that, but thought you were going to break my nose there for a sec… I just saw you go down the wrong hallway to either Parasol's room or the cafeteria… trying to be friendly, as this door has one hell of a nasty alarm on it. The stink will follow you for a week, and you don't want to be the smelly kid for the first week in class" She smiled again as she saw him relax a little more."
"I guess you're right. Being the smelly kid is almost never a good thing… just got surprised." Patrick took a breath. He felt his heart rate coming down, and his skin getting clammy as he realized that he had almost broken the nose and foot of the nearest thing he had to a friend because she was trying to help him. "So where should I go?"
"Down the hall, take a left after the 2nd intersection, avoid Donna as she'll be balancing two coffee cups and not looking around, and then down the stairs and head left." Her hands had never stopped moving even as her eyes stayed focused on reading his face looking for a hint of suspicion or a flair of anger that she never saw. "If you want, a bunch of us are meeting outside near the Quadpot field for lunch… be nice if you're there."
"I'll try, and thank you, and sorry." Patrick put his hands into his pockets and started to turn to follow the directions. At least there were no moving stairs. As he went past the first intersection, he heard Liz call out.
"I'm here if you need to chat."
He kept that in mind as he headed down the stairs and almost bumped into Donna who was cradling three cups of steaming hot coffee between her hands and her not too bad looking chest. She pulled up short. Her hand darted out. Before he knew it, there was a cup of coffee jammed into his wand hand.
"I thought you needed one on your first day of class." She smiled as she kept hurrying to class. "I get one for myself and one for Sammie on A C and E days, and Sammie gets me coffee on the other days of the week." She barely turned her head to him as she kept on talking. "Parasol is good, we learn a lot, but I have to keep up my energy. The early morning practices keep me from getting a good sleep most nights. A little bit of caffeine works for me. She doesn't care if we eat or drink. We just need to do the work." She took a sudden left and then entered the classroom before sliding effortless into the middle of a three person multi-desk. At the far end there was a short girl with her purple and green dyed hair in a single French braid tapping her finger against the desk. Donna paused and tapped the last open seat in the cluster and her eyes met Patrick's for a moment before leading him done to the seat.
"Sit with us, the Coffee Club.. if the membership committee approves, you'll get B and C days…" She laughed. Patrick thought that she had a simple, joyous, free laugh that he had not been able to hear in years.
As Patrick sat down and took his first sip, Ms. Parasol strode into the room. She dominated the space with absolute confidence. Her eyes took in her students. She nodded to a few of the returning students who had taken her previous classes. She took a measure of the students that she had not taught. He looked at her. She was powerful; that much was obvious as her thighs bulged against the casual slacks that she wore and everything about her screamed strength despite the fact that she was shorter than three quarters of the students in her class. She strode straight to her desk, pulled out her wand, placed it in a notch on her desk and turned about.
Within three seconds she had cast a series of silent stinging hexes. Some of the students were scratching their hands. Sammy had her wand out just as a hex hit her in the shoulder. Patrick was on the floor with a wandless summoning of a brown backpack floating in front of him. He could see over the bag and as Parasol's hand looked in his direction, he saw a flash of magic erupt from her, and moved the bag ever so slightly to the left absorbing the impact of the spell. Donna was still in her seat, ducking for cover but without her wand at the ready. His wand was ready and he cast a protego that covered him and a bit of her.
Two breaths later, most of the class was rubbing some body part that had been hit. The first half dozen students had taken hexes to their chests and faces. More had started to move and the hits were more scattered to arms and legs and heads. Patrick, Donna and a pair of students standing behind a quickly conjured wooden wall seemed to be the only students who had not been hit.
"Continual threat assessment and decisive decisions are what keeps you alive in combat. If I was throwing cutting and severing curses at least half of you would have been dead or in intensive case before any defenses came up. This class will not be easy although it is an elective. This class will challenge you first mentally and then magically as we're not learning complex charms or rituals that can only be performed on the seventh hour of the seventh moon. No, we will learn how to fight and more importantly, when to run and not fight. Any questions?"
The class was silent as students took in the simple statement of intentions.
Patrick thought that she was a much more attractive version of Moody from his third year as he slowly brought down the shield charms that he had cast in front of him. Donna gave him a smile and a quick grasp on his forearm as she readjusted herself into her seat. Patrick took out a pen and a notebook but kept his wand at the end of his fingertips.
Ms. Parsol waved her wand. A screen came down from the ceiling and a projector rose from the floor. The lights dimmed. The projecter through up the image of a short man dueling. He sidestepped powerful incantations, his wand never stopped moving, he charmed the ground to be slick in one spot and tar-like in another. Little flicks and swishes created tiny shields that were just enough to deflect attacks. Spells that Patrick had never seen erupted from the duellist's wand tip. One hundred and seventy three seconds after the film started, the duellist's opponent conceded as a modified bubble head charm had landed on his head and could not be dispelled. He would soon pass out from the lack of oxygen if the duellist wished to pursue the fight to its logical and fatal end. The small man bowed and with two more small, precise circles of his wrist, the charm ceased.
"That was the 1972 World Dueling Championship. I think the champion is the epitome of one style of dueling that some of you may wish to emulate. Now we will watch the 1987 final for another style." The teacher walked to the projector and inserted another crystal. She tapped her foot as a sudden blast of magic erupted as soon as the duel started. Loud gongs assaulted everyone's ears as the new duelist sprinted, and ducked and dodged and dipped and dove to avoid incoming spell fire. Tremendous waves of magic erupted from her wand. Her opponent beat down the first few strikes with shields and deflections but three minutes into the fight, a purple streak landed on her opponent's left leg and sent him to the ground as the bone breaker atomized his femur.
"That right there is Mystiq McMahon and it was the first of her three straight international titles. She defeated the defending world champion who had gone four years without a loss. He had beaten her twice in the previous year. SO class, what can you tell me about the styles of Flitwick in comparison to McMahon?"
Patrick shook his head. That, that dervish was Professor Flitwick. He knew that he was good, but he had never seen him actually duel. The battle in the Great Hall did not count as it was one on one as well as dozens on dozens at the same time where the intention was to kill, or be killed, to maim or to hide. He tentatively raised his hand.
His teacher smiled. She had wondered if the British students would recognize their former professor. She had chosen that duel for a reason, to give them something familiar. "Patrick, correct? What are your thoughts?"
"Yes ma,am, Patrick. Well, Professor Flitwick was judicious in everything that he did. Nothing was wasted, no spell was over or under powered. It was like watching calligraphy. McMahon just flung raw power down range and outlasted her opponent… There were spells that missed by several meters, there were spells that her opponent had perfect shields up. And she kept on throwing them."
"Very good point you're making. Anyone else have things that need to be shared?"
A hand shot up three tables over… "Ms. Parasol, the sheer number of spells. I lost track at fifty for Flitwick and would not be surprised if he cast two hundred spells. McMahon used seven spells repeatedly and we've already been taught five of them and I recognize the bone breaker and can't quite tell what that shield charm is but it is not too different from what my brother picked up in the Aurors. There is nothing difficult there, besides the power and her speed."
"Very good points; you're right, Flitwick cast eighty four unique variants three hundred and thirty one times. His opponent used twenty-three variants for just under two hundred casts. McMahon used eight spells; a subtle disillusionment spell was cast in the first second to add a bit of fuzz to her body position. She cast just over one hundred and fifty times in just four more seconds than Flitwick. Her opponent used sixty-one different variants and two hundred casts. "
"So what style is better?"
Soon the class was engaged. A few students ventured that McMahon had more pure power and flexibility in her approach. Donna tentatively argued that Flitwick's efficiency was what one should strive towards. Twelve minutes into the discussion where Ms. Parasol barely spoke except to moderate the flow and maintain order, she smiled as she tapped her wand to her desk.
"My opinion on that question is that both and neither style is better. Flitwick's style is perfect for him. McMahon's style is nearly ideal for her. If we forced Flitwick to fight like McMahon, he would never had even qualified for his national tournament, much less international matches. McMahon likely would have qualified for Canadian nationals just because the competition is weak up north but she would never make it out of the tournament. They each have a style that works for them. They each achieved their goals using styles that maximized their strengths and minimized exploitable weaknesses based on what they are good at. We're going to have a short exercise for you all to figure out what styles might work for you. Respect for your partner is critical; respect their health and safety and respect their skill. Ready?"
She waved her wand again.
Above each student was a letter. Patrick saw that Donna had a "C" over her head while an "F" floated over Sammy. He looked up. There was an "B" over his head, just out of reach. He looked around. He saw, across the room, a lanky boy with a C, a pair of fraternal twins with an E and an F. A stocky, thickly muscled athlete had an B over his head. Their two eyes met and the young men gave each other a nod in recognition.
"Ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, please find your partner and get in line in alphabetical order. We will start in one minute with John and Marcus leading off." She cast a few more spells to broaden the room and to create a dueling space for everyone to surround. The first two students ambled onto the lane. The shorter student had his wand out and tightly gripped while the slightly overweight boy with a tight crew-cut had his hand on his belt ready to draw the wand. He grinned sharply, showing his front teeth and as soon as Ms. Parasol yelled for the duel to start, he began to throw a barrage of spells at the shorter boy. Patrick looked and recognized the entire repertoire. The casting was proficient and smooth with few wasted motions although it was quickly apparent that there were opportunities for Marcus to shave off a fragment of a second here and there, but the combinations were inelegant and there was never a combination where one wand movement ended at the perfect position for the next spell to start. Ginny had reinforced how critical casting chains could be in the Room of Requirements. They had pent hours practicing so that they could send spells as if it was a cursive signature. Even as Marcus continued with a hammering series of attacks, John mostly dodged and stepped aside when his shields were under too much strain. A few counter-jinxes and hexes were sent back. Suddenly, he dropped his shield and then let loose a stream of birds transfigured from pencils. Marcus blocked the first dozen but three stuck into his arm and if John had intended harm, two more would have gone through his heart.
"Very nice transfiguration John, Marcus, be aware of everything around you but good work with the initial flurry." Ms Parasol's praise and coaching was both specific and vague enough to not be particularly useful to learn from just yet. Patrick did not think more as his name was called.
He stepped up to the dueling area. His wand was lightly grasped between his thumb and his first two fingers. His eyes slowly focused. His world narrowed to only himself, his breathing, his slightly splayed feet with his weight moving to the balls, ready to bounce like a coiled spring and his opponent. His opponent adopted an offensive stance with a narrow profile offered to him but too much weight was on his heels to move forward and reduce his reaction time.
Time was funny for the moment as his mind emptied of everything. He could not hear the jeers and comments of his classmates. He could not feel the ever accelerating beating of his pulse. He could feel his magic begin to swirl and his fingers barely touching the finely polished wood of wand as it moved ever so subtly in his hand.
"GO" He was moving on the first hint of the letter G. His wand slashed up, then came around in a tight circle. Another sudden cut to the right and the first part of the chain erupted from his wand. As the spell was flowing outwards, his wrist kept on spinning and jerking and gliding. His opponent's yell of a stunner gave him warning. He felt the magic flowing towards him. His head barely moved as the red spell went three inches to the right and over his shoulder. Two more spells erupted silently. By now his first spell had hit a solid shield charm and then the next two dissipated as well.
He began to move in silence. Spells erupted from his wrist and spells came at him. Sometimes a shield was cast. Twice he conjured wooden walls and once they broke, he animated them back to attack his opponent. He was barely sweating from the exertion of the first minute while his opponent was breathing heavily. Three more slashes and a viscous circle sent Sectumspera. The dark spell was aimed above the target. Two bonebreakers alternating with a confounder and an exploding hex followed in a descending diagonal where there was no space for his opponent to dodge. The cutting curse broke the remnants of the shield while a bone breaker connected to the wand arm of his opponent and the exploding hex scattered shrapnel at his shins.
"STOP"
Patrick barely heard his teacher. He froze as Ms. Parasol hurried forward with her wand out and concern radiating from her face. She leaned over and cast half a dozen diagnostic and healing charms to stem the blood flowing from the crumpled body of the boy.
"WAND DOWN NOW" Patrick placed his wand into the holster. He walked forward and kneeled next to his teacher and saw the pain in the eyes of his classmate.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry… can I do anything?"
"Sit down over there, we'll get him to the infirmary in a moment and he'll be fine tonight." Ms. Parasol hissed through her teeth as the diagnostic charms confirmed that everything was quite amiable to healing. But what had she just seen? A senior in high school dueling for an entire minute and silently casting spells that she had never seen. Just what the hell happened at Hogwarts?