Selene Prince stopped dead in her tracks from walking down the corridor of the castle. She had to check. It was not a thought. It was not a memory. That meant only one thing, that the danger from her left was coming. What if she slammed against the left wall of the corridor? No, it could be the wall that was dangerous or leave her even more unprepared. Should she run for it? What if the danger from her left was up ahead?
She tickled her wand from behind her left ear. She started looking around. There were voices up ahead. Another first year running up to her from behind. Was he running from the danger to come?
And of course, instead of passing on her left he slid to stop and damn near tried to stab her in the heart with his wand. "Stupefy!", the child yelled.
Selene's vision barely allowed her to flinch away from the wand and push the boy's arm in front of her. It was not as if she knew what was going on. Stupefy was not just a motion arresting spell, it actually directly affected a users biology: trying to arrest the biochemical processes, magical output, and any motion of the target. It was less lethal, certainly. But a Stupefy that could stun a vicious magical beast could tear the lungs of a child. Headmistress McGonagal had landed in a chair for months after having taken 4 in rapid succession and she survived the Battle of Hogwarts later. Any normal first year should collapse on the spot from trying to power the damn thing.
Okay, this first year was not normal. Or a was not a first year. Or her Sight was affecting her more than she gave it credit for and just like other people could have deja vu within deja vu she was experiencing a vision within a viewing, and should have not left her Occlumency as open as she normally did to entertain exactly that type of event.
Selene happened to push the boy away with her left hand as she adopted a dark arts stance. One hand reaching as if to sense any magical signatures a moment earlier, the other elbow straight back and bent keeping the wand raised just to the top of the head, feet shoulder width apart. Of the offensive spells she knew most began with a downward stroke, but some were variations on twists around a forward thrust, and if she was forced to dodge then throwing her hand back for balance would give her the momentum to lead into underhand spells. Even Protego was a downward swipe in front of her body as if batting away the incoming curse, if she managed to time it right and not collapse like a muggle in diabetic shock fueling it. Because on one hand, much like her father, she came to school knowing more curses than half the kids in seventh year. On the other, neither the knowledge of them or a good stance meant that someone who could be affected by the Sight at any moment, and was such a natural Legilemens and Occlumens, leave alone the fact that she had not even hit puberty yet had the strength left flowing out of her magical core to cast a tenth of them.
But she was smart. No. She was the Brightest Witch of Her Age. She could win a surprise duel against an opponent throwing spells years beyond her without even sweating. She just had to figure out a better plan of action on the fly, in the middle of combat than someone who planned this ambush.
The boy pushed off the wall. "Bombarda Maxima!"
Bombarda Maxima? What was she supposed to do about that in the like quarter second she had?
Selene's eyebrows nearly jumped off her face as she nearly touched her wand to her attacker's and yanked into a slanted position. "Lumos!", she yelled with blinding intent. It did not give her the extreme brightness of Lumos Maxima. It did not give her even a directed cone like Lumos Talerum. But it did get her an expelling energy spell on her wand before the incoming Bombarda Maxima could interact with anything else.
The two children paid attention only to the tips of their spells as they locked: bright red beaming out of her attacker's and a visible white reaching just off her wand tip to meet it. And at that lock, both of them started pouring their strength into what they had cast. Magic dripped onto the floor only to hot skip across the stone as the beams bent and zig zagged in attempts to press each other off. The boy smiled at her: if he did not pour enough into the spell or broke concentration on his intent, he would be looking at a candle light. If Selene failed, the explosion spell he had cast would pop her head like a grape dropped in molten lead.
With the spells locked, Selene had a moment to not exactly breathe. She huffed and puffed keeping her Lumos alive. But a natural Occlumens could present to her wand a manufactured thought that was pure focus on Lumos, particularly since a pure single intention was much easier than the actual believable meandering thoughts that one would present to a Legilemens. With that thought magically manufactured, she could actually think.
She did not recognize the child. Her memories of the gathered first years when they were gathered from the sorting ceremony flittered through her imagination and she came up short. So not only was the face she was looking at not a student of the school but they were probably not using poly juice, otherwise why not use the hair of someone who actually attended the school? If they had to get a hair from a child outside the castle into the castle, they must have had the ability to get into some muggleborn's house to get it. Then again, they'd have to get into the castle and trying to get past the wards Hogwarts had thrown up to defend its teachers and students for the past thousand years including what it had presented Headmistress McGonagal with after the Second Battle of Hogwarts would be way more impossible than just the fact she was not fighting someone her own age.
In less than the blink of an eye, Selene stopped her assessment and looked to the spell lock. It held. If she could just reach the Whalter PPK she had transfigured part by part, except for the powder and priming cap she had to mix together mundanely. She checked her opponent to see if she suspected what she was doing, only to notice the other person reaching behind his own back. Could it beat her pistol? A quick act of Legillemency would let her know if her gaze was bounced off the boys mental sheilding.
Occlumency that could stop her. Bringing back up weapons to a duel. Able to take an appearance not their own. To know for sure, she'd have to cast a Finite Incantatem in hopes of breaking the glamor that it could be...but the spell lock did not seem to be wavering in its path. Worth the risk?
"I didn't know you were a metamorphmagus, Delphini.", Selene gambled. If she bet right, there would be some tell of surprise from the boy. A raised eyebrow. A slight widening of the eyes. Something. She needed something. Might as well double down. "What, you thought your Occlumency was actually good?", the girl bluffed. The boy had to have at least felt her attempt to intrude if his mental defenses could repel her so easily. But if that intrusion was successful then she would have gotten something to identify her attacker.
The boy growled. Success! Delphini had planned to stun her, take her somewhere and either permanently dispose of her or mentally damage her until she was no longer a threat to the title. Brutal bordering on a lack of empathy only someone descended from magically psychotic parents could produce, sure, but a plan none-the-less. Once that stunning attempt did not work, Diggory had not been stupid enough to try to stick to the plan or simply cover her tracks and leave a dangling mystery. Instead, she realized that she had started a fight with a magical creature and decided to jump straight to murder as immediately was available to end the now threat. Which was probably doubling down on the whole magically psychotic assessment.
The boy broke off the spell lock to try another curse. Selene let the mirror shard of the intent for her own Lumos to drop into the lake of her mindscape and it sliced into the 'surface of the pool', speeding toward oblivion. Without the intent but having begun the motion and the incantation, her wand was channelling but undirected. She hoped this next trick would not tear her arm off. Or worse, suck out her magical core like an Entrail Expelling Curse.
Downstroke of the wand even as the boy was still spinning around to restore his (well, hers since he was Delphini) line of sight. "Maxima."
With the spell's incantation and wand motion coming together she actually intended the spell. Selene had her eyes as tightly shut as she could (and regretted she could not move her off hand fast enough to get from behind her back and over her eyes). The tip of her wand shone as brightly as anything else in the castle, filling the hallway and her attackers vision point blank with light.
One more charm and she survived, if it did not level her unconscious. Quickly drawing the ear in mid air, Selene called out "Muffliato." Damnable fifth year spell, simple as anything. It was invented by a student that had not even sat his OWLs. But it was taught at the fifth year level just for the core's sake.
But Delphini was already racing off. The boy dragged one hand along the was once she reached it and used that to guide her as she ran. She could not exactly stay and fight blinded by the wand light and unable to hear even the footsteps or incantations Selene made but for the buzzing. Running blindly was the only option.
Heh. The two spell flash bang grenade worked. Selene stepped to take after her attacker and nearly fell flat on her face. One hand open on her knee, the other balled in a fist around her wand supporting her. She felt her breathing even though all she heard was buzzing. Wait. Muffliato was supposed to give other people the buzzing, not yourself. She looked to the wall hoping to brace herself. The wall looked very far away from where she was. Well, the floor was nice too.
By the time a prefect who spotted the light from her Lumos Maxima had brought Professor Flitwick, she was laying on the floor and staring into the ceiling. The professor clucked his tongue and pointed his wand at her. "Please don't. I promise I'm awake."
"Rennervate.", he softly muttered.
Selene took the deepest breath of her life and sat up abruptly. "That's a kick. Sir, I mean. Professor. Sir."
"Ms. Prince, were you attacked?", the head of Ravenclaw asked.
She sat silently. She looked at his expectant face, unaccustomed to not being answered immediately by a student. She pointed at her chest and his wand as if reviving her had taken the wind out of her.
"Specialis Revelio" Selene let out a breath, revealing she had plenty of wind now. Flitwicks eyebrows raised as he examined the remnants of scattered magic on the floor. He raised his wand up and gazed into the air of the hallway. Selene frowned even more. He could see the spells that executed?
The professor turned back to her. "Would you care to explain what happened here, Ms. Prince?", he said in a completely different tone.
The girl sighed. "Professor. If I had been attacked, you would want to know who my attacker was. Not just because you're a dutiful teacher and a good person according to every record of the Battle of Hogwarts I read, but the rules of the Castle would demand it. However, if I was attacked and knew who my attacker was then you would need some level of proof. The staff, no - I mean, the faculty couldn't dose a child with Veritaserum or officially use Legilemency on a student or teacher or staff member on just someone's word. And if I couldn't provide a specific memory showing exactly that my attacker was who it was, then you'd have no actual proof. You'd have one student claiming a particular someone tried to...do whatever it is you may have think happened but I haven't said happened, in public but with your hands tied. But it would invoke a real need for retaliation ranging from the immediately magical to potentially political machinations if the name was big enough.
"On the other hand, if I tell you that I was just enjoying a nap no matter what you may believe was revealed with that Revelio then all I'm really provably guilty of is lying to a professor."
Flitwick looked down at the girl that was way too young to be this sure of herself. "Do you mind if I think differently, Ms. Prince?"
"No, of course not.", she began. "It's inevitable considering how much smarter I am than" It was then she realized that the Ravenclaw head was mouthing "wow" to the prefect. "...detention?"
"So very many."