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Ch. 19: Duels in the Room of Requirements
DM entered the Room of Requirements (completely empty except for a wall clock and two chairs that looked suspiciously like EZ-Boys) a few minutes after three, prompting Harry to halt his pacing and look up at him. When he smiled awkwardly, DM returned his own nervous smile. His earlier elation had faded somewhat in the face of his anxiety over having to meet with Harry now that he knew his darkest secret. Harry hadn't freaked out the night before, but who knows what time to think about it could yield. DM vaguely considered the idea of bombshelling the Gryffindor with secret after secret, staving off the boy's eventual rejection with a constant stream of shock.; but no, while it was an amusing scenario, it lacked certain elements of feasibility.
Both boys grabbled for something to say, before Harry found his tongue first. "Why weren't you at the game?" He almost cringed as he realized what he said. Still, despite the fact that Harry had meant it in a pathetic crush sort of way, it was a valid question: as the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, DM was generally expected to attend all games, if only to observe their adversaries.
"I was asleep," DM answered a little sheepishly. "I was. . . knackered after yesterday." There was a self-conscious silence for a moment before he continued, "So, uh, who won?"
Harry's grinned. "Do you even need to ask?"
"No, I guess not," he said with amusement before gradually sobering. "So, you're, uh, okay with everything then?"
Harry wanted to smack himself. He must be as dumb as a brick, because after everything, his felt for the blond stronger than ever. His feelings of tenderness were particularly alien to him, but his body miraculously knew how to act despite his mind's emotional immaturity: he smiled affectionately, and said, "Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's kinda creepy, you know, that Malfoy was in our mists everyday and no one even knew. But it's not your fault."
DM hesitantly smiled back for a moment as he was put more at ease, shuffling his feet, then he scowled. "Dumbledore knew."
Rather taken aback, Harry was torn between being mad at his headmaster and being defensive. "How do you know that?"
DM snorted. "He knows everything that goes on in this castle. He knew what had happened over the summer without me telling him."
Harry wasn't entirely convinced (to be honest, DM himself wasn't entirely sure either). Another awkward silence stretched, before Harry plopped himself into one of the chairs. DM followed suit, and so they sat watching each other pensively.
"What was, er, Draco like then?," Harry asked delicately, a little unsure how such questions would be taken.
DM looked up at the ceiling for a long moment before speaking. "It's hard to say. Weak, I suppose. He wanted to please everyone, even Lucius. He made friends with the house elves because they were the closest things he had to playmates, but then Lucius would make him use unforgivables on them." He said this emotionlessly, but then a strain of contempt crept into his voice. "He cried a lot. Cried because Lucius made him kill that stupid pet toad he had found in the pond. Cried when he was punished. Cried when Lucius told him was a poor excuse for a Malfoy. Cried when he found Dylore's body."
"Dylore?"
"The older brother. One of those mysterious Malfoy deaths that plague the family."
Harry didn't know if he wanted to hear. "How did you – I mean Draco – find him?"
DM sighed. "Dismembered. He found his partially decomposed head in the woods on the Malfoy lands. Father had the servants comb the woods after that and most of the rest of his body was found. He was. . . not pleased."
DM stole a glance at Harry, who looked horrified. "And I thought my home life was bad."
"Is that whole cupboard under the stairs rumor true?," DM asked faintly.
Harry nodded. "Yeah. My aunt and uncle were pretty mean, treated me like a house elf when they weren't ignoring me. But they never actually hurt me. I got in a few scuffles with Dudley – that's my obese cousin – a few times when I was younger, but I was left alone mostly. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess."
They sat in silence again, this time more comfortably, as both reminisced over unpleasant childhoods. Finally, Harry pulled himself out of such depressing thoughts, and after a quick glance at the rather morose looking Slytherin, he asked, "You up for a bit of magic practice?"
DM considered the suggestion for a moment, testing it against his demeanor: his demeanor answered with a rush of positive enthusiasm and he shot out of his chair and grinned mischievously. "You're on!"
Harry jumped up and whipped out his wand. "Wait!," DM demanded. Then he closed his eyes, standing completely still, breathed deeply and attempted to calm himself so that he could focus on the magical energy that coursed through his very being. It was so obvious, so close to the surface that it seemed unbelievable that he hadn't been aware of it before. It was like a heartbeat, inconspicuous when overshadowed by life, but most definitely there, strong, constant, and absolutely vital.
He opened his eyes and the grin returned in forced. "Expelliaramus!"
Harry's wand flew from his hand, ricocheting off one of the walls, while Harry himself was threw backwards about three meters, where he hit a spontaneously padded wall. He blinked, momentarily dazed before becoming a little peeved. "Hey! That's not fair! You attacked me after telling me to wait!"
DM smirked. "Potter, Potter, Potter. I would have thought that by now you would have realized that I don't play fair with anyone, no matter who I am. Besides, when it comes down to you and Voldemort, the battle won't be fair no matter what the conditions are."
Harry's expression hardened, and a deadly determination overcame him, the same seriousness that always set in when he thought of his fated encounter with Voldemort. And it was this calculating, survival-oriented part of his personality that told him that he wasn't able to best Mal-Diem, then he had no chance against Voldemort. He mirrored DM's smirk, "Okay, Dragon. Let's see what you got."
What ensued was no less than a maelstrom of magic that could not have failed to draw Dumbledore's notice. Harry tried to stupefy DM, DM deflected the curse without a word and promptly fired back an Incarcerous, which had ropes shooting towards the Gryffindor. Harry dodged them easily, shouting, "Petrificus Totalus!" simultaneously with DM's Rictusempresa (tickling spell); both were promptly followed by two, Protegos.
DM yelled, "Waddiwasi!", and one of the EZ-boys was launched towards Harry. Harry's reflexes hurled himself out of the way, and where he immediately copied DM's move, "Waddiwasi!"
"Incendio!" The second EZ-boy burst into a spectacular bouquet of flames
As the smoke cleared, the two boys took a breath's second to eye each other before launching into another round.
"Silencio!," DM hollered, at the same time that Harry bellowed, "Impedimentia!"
This time, both spells hit their marks, leaving both boys with shocked expressions. And so the next half an hour was spent with DM trying to move and say thing things in excruciatingly slow motion, while Harry went from silently calling him names, to making rude (but amusing) gestures, to laughing hysterically but mutely. When the Impedimentia eventually wore off, it was DM's opportunity to loudly mock Harry, before finally lifting the curse.
They tried again, but this time DM was too distracted and a little aggravated by all the taunting: he tried to say something, but it was ineffective, and he was hit with a Tarantallegra (A/N: dancing), that he wasn't able to respond to at all. Harry watched with a mixture of guilt and wonder as DM promptly began break dancing quite adeptly. When he began a headspin, Harry quickly muttered, "Finite Incantantem", and DM collapsed to the floor in a heap of arms and legs.
DM scrambled to his feet with a degree of humiliation. "Well, I, uh, didn't know I had it in me."
Harry smiled timidly – the old Malfoy certainly wouldn't have dealt with mortification half so well. "What happened? You were on top of your game, and then. . . you weren't."
DM frowned unhappily, looking at his loafers. "I dunno, it's definitely been getting better recently, but it still comes and goes. . . depending on how I feel, I guess."
Harry tried to come up with a helpful suggestion, but such things were really Hermione's area of expertise. All he could come up with was a rather far fetched idea that he was pretty sure was fueled more by his romantic interest in the Slytherin than any actual astuteness of the reason. Still, his mind refused to budge from the thought to consider anything else, and so he found himself warily voicing it. "I could try to show you. . . how to control your magic, I mean."
DM looked at him cautiously, his concern inspired more by Harry's delivery than by his actual words. "What do you mean?"
"Well, uh, I could try Legimency. You know, like that time in the Infirmary. I've been practicing, and I think I can control it. I could, uh, invite you into my mind, I guess. Show you what control feels like," Harry babbled, blushing a color that would make Ron proud. He was remembering his earlier brush with DM's psyche – more foreign than anything he had ever encountered, and far more enticing. Merlin, was he stupid? He wasn't even that confident that it would work.
DM, however, was seriously considering the idea. A normal wizard would have been much more hesitant, but DM was so used to being messed up in the mind, that a little mind fucking almost seemed on the brink of normal. He didn't particularly like the idea, but he was pretty sure he wasn't weak minded or weak willed like Draco had been. If he had to fight off the Imperius now, he was convinced (perhaps somewhat arrogantly; but, considering the unique makeup of his mind, probably justifiably) that he could fend it off. His impulsiveness made the decision. "Okay."
Harry was shocked, and was unable to respond for a few seconds; he had made the suggestion honestly thinking that DM would refuse. Finally, he forced himself into motion and sat down cross-legged on the ground. "Um, okay then. You should probably sit down. I can't tell you how many times I found myself face down on the floor after doing this."
DM apprehensively lowered himself to the ground, and they stared intimately into each other's eyes, both a little taken aback by the degree of trust they felt for the other. DM smiled weakly, "Lay it on me, then."
Harry tried to smile reassuringly, though he felt incredibly nervous. Merlin, everything was moving so quickly, so unpredictably! "Legimens!"
The surrounding room shrunk almost instantly and he promptly found himself enveloped by the oddly familiar obscurity. Something was there, something alive and sentient, but it was indistinct and intangible, sort of like parts of a language that he didn't understand. But his id understood the indecipherable language, and want desperately to join in the free floating. Harry knew he had to act quickly if he was going to avoid a self-indulgent sauna in DM's strange mind. He purposely pulled back into his own mind, leaving a great inviting chasm in his wake, and sure enough, he quickly found himself back in his mind, accompanied by a nebulous presence. He single-mindedly tried to focus on his magic, on the feeling he experienced when he was using his wand. His magic was controlled, sometimes to the point that nothing happened. Several embarrassing incidents in Transfigurations, when his magic was simply. . . constipated, as though his subconscious new that his ineptitude at the particular spell in question would certainly lead to disaster if it didn't prevent its attempt from the get go. Next came the precision he forced on himself during his Charms and Transfiguration OWLs, hours of meticulous practicing with Hermione. . .
Then, inadvertently, through some bizarre mental connection, his mind flashed to fourth year, to his confrontation with Voldemort. . .
To the feeling he felt when he threw off that monster's Imperius; the determination, the fortitude, the hatred that pulsed through his very soul as he defied the power; his soul screaming that the power of magic was nothing to the power of the mind.
To the feeling as his curse met Voldemort's, and the two cables of magical energy meeting in mid air and battling for supremacy; magical threads shooting off into every direction, but an unwillingness of give up using Harry's body to fuel his defense to the god awful end. NO! I will not die you slimy, death eating scum son of a bitch! YOU FIRST! YOU FIRST! I AM NOT AFRAID, I AM BLOODY FUCKING PISSED OFF AS ALL HELL! DIE, YOU COMPLETE WASTE OF TWO BILLIONS YEARS OF EVOLUTION! DIE, DIE, DIE!!!
The rush of emotion so intense that it was unidentifiable forced Harry to reflexively pull back, and both Harry and DM were ripped from the memory, suddenly and disorientedly finding themselves laying on the floor and panting heavily. Both boys took several minutes to calm themselves and regain control of their haywired feelings and thoughts.
"That was extreme," DM finally muttered huskily.
Harry waited a moment before responding. "Did it work?"
DM carelessly muttered, "Lumos." His mind was incomplete disarray, but some part of his subconscious had recognized and picked up on Harry's phenomenal control and latched on to it instinctively, like mother to its child, like memory to something it already knew: the whole room suddenly exploded in a blinding splash of light.
"Agh! Turn it off! Turn it off!"
"Nox!"
Then the room went pitch black, to the point where neither could see the hands they held up before their faces. There was a heavy beat of silence, then they both burst into relieved laughter – the only stimuli in the empty room.
DM repeated his spell, "Lumos!", this time keeping in mind a softer sort of lighting. Sure enough, the room was instantly bathed in a far more acceptable level of illumination.
Harry grinned, feeling too drained to do much more than what his id dictated. "Did it work?"
DM grinned, feeling equally drained and cheerful. "I have no idea. But I will choose to believe for the moment that it did."
The two lay there for a while longer, laughing and joking tiredly, before a comfortable, intimate silence set in. DM eventually propped himself up on his elbow so that he lay watching the tousled Gryffindor, and interrupted it with a hesitant question, "What did it feel like – my mind, I mean?"
Did he have to ask that question? Harry REALLY didn't want to answer, so he focused on the ceiling and tried to act normal. "I dunno. Like your mind, I guess. Why? How did mine feel?"
DM looked unhappy with his answer, but tried to muster a reply. "Uh. . .like stone. Like something big and powerful and permanent. Excitable on the surface, perhaps, but with immovable foundations. . . does that make sense?"
Harry was flattered, though it wasn't an impression he had ever held of his own mind. He tried to understand how his mind might seem to an outsider. If he had instead looked over at DM, he would have seen an almost frightened look on the blond's face.
"But, Harry. Just tell me. . . did my mind, did it feel. . . normal? Sane? It didn't feel like. . . it was going to fall apart, did it?," he asked vulnerably.
Only then did Harry understand the motivation behind DM's question, and his heart went out to him. He turned to face the Slytherin, propped himself up on his own elbow in a mirroring position, and he gazed searchingly into unguarded azure eyes. If he wanted to, he could really hurt his long time rival by simply confirming his worst fears.
Instead (curse these impulses!), he reached out with his free hand and fingered a strand of platinum hair that had escaped its twist, and his eyes left DM's to wistfully study the angelic features. "Your mind is beautiful, Diem. Like. . . honey. Sweet and sticky. . . and a little addictive."
Harry's words were nervous, but earnest, and he was rewarded with a big, happy grin. In fact, DM was so relieved that he spontaneously leaned forward and planted an ungraceful, slightly painful kiss on Harry's mouth. He quickly pulled away, and upon seeing the look of shock on Harry's face, immediately recognized his mistake.
DM scrambled to his feet and took a glance at the wall clock. It was well past six, but if he hurried, he could make it to the Great Hall in time to get dinner. "Well, dinner time," he blurted. "I'll see you around."
Then he fled from the room, leaving a very confused Harry in his wake.
! ! ! This is a break. ! ! !
Harry spent Sunday with Ron (who was feeling a little left out), doing homework and playing chess and exploding snap in the Gryffindor commons. Most of DM's day was occupied being helped through his homework mostly by Hermione, but in the evening by Blaise and Pansy. Things were settling down pretty well with the Slytherins. Hermione, on the other hand, had had about a million academic questions about his "condition", making him feel a little like a freak on display. Still, she had pleasantly (though somewhat reluctantly) backed off when he had expressed his irritation at her probing. All in all, it was a good day.
Monday and Tuesday were fairly typical, if one had come to accept relatively amiable (if limited) interaction between the sixth year Gryffindors and Slytherins as typical. Dean and Seamus still attempted some form of outward hostility, but now Millicent, Vincent, Greg, and the rest of that crowd would just look at them as if they were hopelessly and pathically out of the loop, then promptly ignore them. Things were a little different amongst the other years, but the explosive hostility that had centered for years around Potter and Malfoy's class had noticeably dimmed.
Which brings us, the readers, to Tuesday evening: another DA meeting. Dean Thomas and Hannah Abbott were scheduled to lead the session, though Abbott failed to appear, due a rather irresponsible last minute decision that she was too shy and embarrassed to display leadership in front of her peers. Dean, however, did an impressive job: the dark skinned boy had been taking Karate since he was six. By the time he started Hogwarts, he was a brown belt, but over the five summers since then, he had progressed to a black belt. And he wasn't shy about demonstrating his skill and technique.
The DA members, which now included DM, Goyle, and Crabbe (who had inevitably joined his best friends, Greg and 'Malfoy'), watched with a degree of admiration as Thomas took down Ron Weasley, Millicent Bulstrode, Zack Smith, Ginny Weasley (trying to redeem her brother's honor), Justin Finch-Fletchley, Harry Potter, Lavender Brown, and several others. When Goyle challenged him, he had the gall to laugh and offered to take him and Crabbe down at the same time.
He was true to his word, and a few minutes later both bulky Slytherins were slinking away from him cradling various body parts. Dean Thomas grinned arrogantly and asked, "Anyone else?"
Only then did DM feel the need to step up to defend his house's honor, though it really shouldn't have been unexpected. Still, everyone (save the Slytherins, who expected such heroics from their hero) was surprised when DM raised him hand. "I'm willing to go a round."
Thomas sneered adversarially: he was definitely up for putting the Prince of Slytherin in his place. Harry grimaced, knowing that this wouldn't end well, but allowed it to proceed. He and DM had spent much of the last three days exchanging tense, unreadable looks, and avoiding any real conversation. Both were feeling quite a bit of ill-defined and poorly understood frustration towards the other. Harry both pitied and envied Dean for getting to be on the receiving end of that frustration.
At the word 'go', Thomas launched himself at DM. The blond ducked with the ease of one used to avoiding flying fists. A couple of moves later, Thomas scored a vicious kick to DM's stomach, followed quickly by a punch in the face. The hits should have floored the Slytherin, but DM reacted as though he didn't register pain at all, and (in an amazing display of reflexes) he used the opportunity to grab Thomas' leg and yank up upwards so that the Gryffindor lost his balance and fell to the floor. DM was immediately on top of him, his knee lodged painfully in Dean's gut, his leg digging into Dean's groin, and his hands tightly around Dean's neck.
He remained like that for a long moment, long enough to make his point, before jerking away. "See that?," he demanded, looking around at the mixed expressions of awe and outrage that could be found amongst the DA members. "Thomas has more skill than me, no doubt, but still I bested him. How? Will power. Fuck pain, screw danger. Survival is everything. Determination can win every time. If you want to win, you have to be willing to risk everything for it."
DM was looking pointedly at Harry, neither of them listening to several objections being voiced by the crowd. Harry didn't like the message either, but he couldn't help but realize that it just might come down to that. Fine, then. If Diem wanted to teach such lessons, then he could do it properly.
"Okay, Sensie Malfoy," Harry said loudly, earning a few snickers from the other students. "Since Hannah has declined to lead the second lesson, why don't you enlighten us with your privileged insight."
DM glowered at Harry for springing the challenge on him, but the suggestion was actually met quite a few voices of agreement – some from students who actually thought he might have something to teach them (the Slytherins; and Hermione and Ron, who had witnessed more than one impressive display of the blond's wandless magic), others from people who wanted to see DM fail and make a fool of himself. Those few jeers made it completely impossible for DM to refuse.
DM turned to glare at his peers, who went unevenly silent under his steely gaze. "With the possible exception of Potter here, every single one of you needs to do some serious work on your dueling," he growled. "So, who'll be the first to step up?"
No one said a single thing, and most tried to avoid eye contact with the Slytherin; no one wanted to be on the receiving end of his notoriously volatile magic – with or without his wand.
"I'll do it," Harry finally offered from where he stood propped against the far wall.
DM didn't even look at him. "No, Potter, you're last." He combed the possible candidates for a moment longer, then made his selection. "You. Smith. Come show us what you're made of."
Zacherias Smith looked extremely uncomfortable, but he reluctantly stood as he was too proud to back down from the challenge. He walked up to the front of the room and pulled out his wand.
DM sneered maliciously, his body going through the motions it had been trained in for the last six years. "You first."
Looking nervous, Smith forced out, "Petrificus Totalus!"
DM thrust his hand forward instantly, shouting, "Protego! Stupefy!"
And just like that Smith collapsed stiffly to the floor, and DM turned back to the now thoroughly daunted spectators. "Next."
Encouraged by his Ravenclaw peers, Terry Boot tried next, and was put down just as easily; Boot was followed by Seamus Finnigan, who was also quickly defeated by a combination of "Expelliaramus!" and a little physical force. Then, when no one readily stepped up after his defeat, Luna Lovegood indulged her curiosity and gave it a try. She managed a creative and little known spell, "Obstringo ab bracchi!", which caused DM's arms to tie themselves around his body. He looked surprised for a moment, and everyone cheered, but DM didn't even have to counter the curse to respond with his own debilitating, "Impedimentia!"
Once Lovegood was incapacitated, and her curse lifted, a long silence followed before Ron stood, inspiring the encouraging cheers of almost everyone except Harry. They couldn't have known that their hostility and distaste only served to stoke the fiery magic that flowed through him.
DM sneered nastily, "Weasel."
Ron briskly made his way to the dueling space, eyes narrowed angrily and jaws clenched in determination. "Ferret."
DM's mouth widened into a toothy, terrifying leer. "Lets see what you got."
Wanting nothing more than to destroy the creep's maddening face, he bellowed, "Furnunculus!"
The beautiful boy didn't even bother to counteract the spell, opting instead, for, "Incarcerous!" A mere two seconds later, Ron was firmly bound from head to toe by thick ropes, while a the first of a string of horrible boils broke out on DM's pale complexion.
"You fool!," DM snarled, advancing on the immobilized redhead. "You let your anger overcome your survival instinct! If I wanted to kill you, do you really think that BOILS would stop me?!" Now he was all up in Ron's alarmed face, yelling, "If anything, you have done me a favor! Am I not even more terrifying now?!"
With that final question he swung around to glare at the spectators, and it was truly a terrifying sight: several huge, swollen pustules marked crimson volcanoes on the normally porcelain skin, looking like mutant growths caused by some disfiguring disease that one would rather die than contract. Such ugliness on a human, especially such an exquisite one, was truly horrifying, and was only magnified by the cruel smile that emerged. "So who's next?"
The tense silence that followed was finally interrupted by Hermione, who was beginning to figure out the lesson the Slytherin was trying to get across with all these duels. "I'll take your challenge."
Granger held out the longest by far, quickly and systematically countering DM's curses with, "Protego!" She had an impressive repertoire of curses and spells, and used them creatively and with talent. DM's displayed much less diversity of skill, but Hermione still found herself petrified within five minutes when he blurted a fateful, "Protego! Petrificus Totalus!"
DM adopted a blank expression. "Impressive, Ms. Granger. With the exceptions of myself and Potter, you are probably the most adept dueler of the bunch. You display an aptitude for casting and a useful diversity of curses."
Then he turned to his audience and looked at them coldly. "However, alone neither is sufficient to win a duel. You can know every spell under the sun, and you can be as powerful as Merlin, but if you aren't fast enough to take down you opponent before he – or she – takes you down, then it's all for naught. Your speed, your casting reflexes, are one of the most crucial elements in a duel, and the element which you are sorely lacking. You have to be able to fling out curses as easily as you can count to ten! Fancy spells are great, but you better not have to think about them, or even have to remember them, because in the time that takes, you WILL be killed."
He paused for a moment to take in everyone's reactions. Granger (who had been unpetrified by Weasley) and Lovegood were nodding knowingly, as were the Slytherins (all of who had received similar lectures from him before). Potter was watching approvingly from his position at the back of the room, while Ron and most of the Ravenclaws looked a little miffed: it was so obvious!
"It seems so obvious, I know, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken seriously. Your reflexes must be taken into consideration when planning your training! Don't focus on knowing as many spells as possible, focus on mastering a dozen or so – spells that you can perform perfectly and automatically, without even thinking. Of course, some of these should be the basics – Patronus, Petrificus Totalus, Stupefy, Finite Incantantum, Protego, Silencio. Everyone should know these, because they are invaluable. Then pick another six, less popular spells for your specialty, to have an element of surprise over your opponent. Once you master those twelve, and I do mean master to the point of being able to do them in you sleep, then work on mastering new ones. . . Useful ones, mind you! Ones that will disable your opponent immediately, and that means no boil curses!"
DM took several long seconds to eyeball the rather cowed DA members, then he snapped out of his Snapesque lecture mode and he looked suddenly very disgusted as he brought a hand up to touch his face. "Now, I know I promised a duel with Potter, but you are just going to have to practice amongst your sad selves because I'm going to the Infirmary."
With that, he stalked out of the Room of Requirements. His 'lesson' had been sufficiently impressive (and frightening) that the students waited until he was gone before laughing nervously.
Harry had a word with Hermione and Ron, then bolted out of the room to catch up with the Slytherin prince.
! ! ! Break. End of Chapter. ! ! !
A/N: I think/feel that I have rushed DM's magical recovery. But I wanted to keep things interesting. For the sake of realism, lets say that DM has been practicing hard for a quite some time. I'm also sorry if the dueling scenes dragged on a bit. Somehow they all got bunched up into one chapter.
Anyway, please review (I deserve it for this nice long chappy!). Each review in my mailbox fills me with pleasure. Appreciation is as good as money. Advice, of course, is always welcome. I am truly interested in criticism, as I strive to be the best writer I can be. The art is everything, I honestly justify this writing as preparation for my Great American Novel. Do I have what it takes? Do I have the skills? What is less than perfect? Anything that doesn't insult my political views, I am very much willing to consider.
