Chapter 41, The Dueling Club

In the third week of December a notice went up in all the common rooms about the Dueling Club. It was the talk of the school, everyone looking forward to it as much as to the Halloween feast. Nobody knew who was running it, but they were all excited nonetheless. And they were happy to be getting some real defense done, because Lockhart was obviously incompetent, and "Slytherin's monster" was on the loose.

"I can't believe they're starting a Dueling Club," Harry heard Millicent Bulstrode say to Pansy Parkinson the morning of the first meeting, "do they think the monster in the Chamber of Secrets can duel?"

Harry, Draco, and Vanella (who had recovered from her fainting spell weeks ago) were all for learning to duel, though Harry knew quite a bit already, still having his Sunday night practices with the Professors (most of them).

So they all headed down to the Great Hall at eight o'clock on the night of the meeting, soon joined by Ron and Hermione on the way. The long dining tables were missing and a golden stage had been placed along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black once more and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited.

"I wonder who'll be teaching us?" said Hermione as they edged their way into the chattering crowd. "Someone told me Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was young—maybe it'll be him."

"As long as it's not—" Harry began, but he ended on a groan: Gilderoy Lockhart was walking onto the stage, magnificent in robes of deep plum and accompanied by Snape, wearing his usual black and a scowl that could beat all scowls.

Lockhart waved an arm for silence and called, "Gather, round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!

"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions—for full details, see my published works.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile. "He tells me he know a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry—you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

Vanella leaned over to Harry. "Would it be too much to ask for Snape to murder him on the spot?" she asked, while Harry restrained laughter.

Snape's upper lip was curling. Harry wondered why Lockhart was still smiling; if Snape had been looking at him like that he'd have been running as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

Lockhart and Snape turned to face each other and bowed; at least, Lockhart did, with much twirling of his hands, whereas Snape jerked his head irritably. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.

"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Harry murmured, watching Snape baring his teeth. "Wow, am I glad he's on my side."

"One—two—three—"

Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent; Snape cried: "Expelliarmus!" There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor.

Harry, Vanella, Draco, Ron, and some of the other Slytherins cheered. Hermione was dancing on tiptoes. "Do you think he's all right?" she squealed through her fingers.

Harry looked at the sprawled Lockhart. "Who cares?" he asked.

Lockhart was getting unsteadily to his feet. His hat had fallen off and his wavy hair was standing on end.

"Well, there you have it!" he said, tottering back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm—as you see, I've lost my wand—ah, thank you, Miss Brown—yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy—however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…"

Snape was looking murderous, to the delight of the Slytherins. Possibly Lockhart had noticed, because he said, "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me—"

They moved through the crowd, matching up partners. Lockhart teamed up Neville with Justin Finch-Fletchley, but Snape went to Harry, Draco, Ron, Hermione and Vanella first.

"Weasley and Granger, you can partner; Draco and Vanella, you can partner; Harry, come with me." He turned and Harry followed him, shooting confused looks back to his friends, who were now facing each other.

By now, Lockhart finished matching people up and was getting back onto the stage, prepared to announce. Snape climbed up onto it also, Harry right behind him.

Lockhart looked at him strangely. "May I ask what you are doing, Professor Snape?" he asked.

"I believe," Snape said, smirking evilly, "that Mr. Potter is a little advanced for his age group, and should be challenged by an experienced Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor."

Lockhart's usual 150-watt smile went down a few notches and he paled a little. "I'm sure a second year will be fine practicing with his schoolmates."

Snape tsk-tsked. "Come on, now, Gilderoy," he said, feigning friendliness. "What's a second year to everything you've faced in your books? Don't tell me you're afraid to face a student!"

Lockhart looked out at the gathered crowd, who had now turned from their partners to watch the scenario play out on the stage. Lockhart swallowed hard and turned to Snape and Harry. "All right," he said. "I'll duel Harry for demonstration."

Harry smirked, very Slytherin, and Snape left the stage, allowing Lockhart and Harry to go through the bowing and raising of wands. Harry, though, didn't have nor need his wand, so he raised his hand and pointed a finger at Lockhart.

By now most of the school was used to Harry's usual lack of wand, but the ones that didn't were laughing, and a few "What's he think he's going to do without a wand?"s were going around.

Snape was standing next to the edge of the stage, commentating. "Lockhart's made the first move by casting a 'stupefy' at Harry, which, as you all should know, stuns your opponent. And Mr. Potter has easily blocked it and thrown 'petrificus totalus'. Yes, good spell, it petrifies the opponent, but is easily lifted with a counter spell…."

Lockhart managed to block the spell, and next he threw 'tarantallegra' at Harry.

"…and now Lockhart's thrown the Dancing Charm, and—oh, it's blocked by Potter. Oh, yes, the Tickling Charm! And it's hit!…"

Harry had thrown 'rictusempra' at Lockhart, who hadn't the chance to block it. Now Lockhart was doubled over, laughing and writhing, gasping for breath.

"…hmm…and it appears Mr. Potter is enjoying this….Oh, now he's gone and lifted the curse, tsk, tsk, that's not how we duel! You're supposed to take advantage of that weakness…"

Lockhart tried to 'stupefy' Harry afterwards, to no avail. Harry threw it aside and lifted his arm, yelling, "Serpensortia!"

A long black snake shot out of Harry's finger (a considerably strange sight to see), landing on the floor in front of a freshly terrified Lockhart.

The snake reared back and looked up at Lockhart, baring its fangs. Lockhart brandished his wand at the snake and it flew ten feet into the air, coming back down with a loud smack, facing the students.

Suddenly it hissed at Justin Finch-Fletchley, baring its fangs, furious.

Harry shook his head and edged closer to the snake, coming up behind it. "Not him!" he hissed, "HIM!"

The snake stopped and turned to Harry, who was pointing at a very shocked Lockhart. The snake followed Harry's finger to Lockhart, moving away from Justin Finch-Fletchley.

"Don't attack the students, good boy," said Harry.

The snake turned to Harry, then back to Lockhart, and hissed.

Lockhart stumbled backwards in fear.

"…and now Lockhart's in trouble…." Snape sighed, clearly reluctant to do the necessary. "I'll get rid of it, Gilderoy."

Snape waved his wand and the snake vanished.

The school was gaping openly at Harry. Not everyday does one see a schoolmate hissing at a snake.

A few whispers of "the heir of Slytherin!" were going around, accompanied by "Parselmouth!" and "Parseltongue!".

Lockhart was recovering from his humiliation, brushing off his robes and slipping his wand into them. "Alright. That's really enough for demonstration. Get back with your partners and bow. Yes, good, now, we're going to practice disarming only using 'expelliarmus'."

Snape leaned in to whisper in Harry's ear. "You might want to leave now. Revealing your Parseltongue was probably not the smartest idea in light of all that has happened. I suggest you retreat to your dormitory."

Harry looked at his friends, who had begun to practice 'expelliarmus' on each other, and left for his dormitory.

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The next day Herbology was cancelled due to snow, and Professor Sprout wanted to put socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, now that they're so important to the revival of two students and a cat.

Vanella, Draco, and Harry were sitting in the Slytherin common room, lazing. Draco and Vanella were playing wizard's chess, while Harry watched with mild interest.

Finally, as Draco put Vanella in checkmate for the second time, Harry said, "I'm going to the library. I want to see how Hermione's research is going."

Vanella scowled as the board reset itself and they began another game. "I think she found the book she needs in the resource section of a Care of Magical Creatures book, but it's in the restricted section. She left her notes with Madam Pince, if you want to ask for them. She doesn't have a free period right now, remember."

Harry nodded, "I want to see the notes… but she left them with a professor?"

Draco snorted. "Haven't you ever heard of confidentiality spells? It's easy to make one person see something and someone else see something completely different…"

Harry raised an eyebrow and shrugged, turning away from their game, and headed towards the library. Harry retrieved the notes from Madam Pince (thankfully Hermione had told her that a specific few could see them) and began looking for some of the books on the list.

He was looking for an invisible creature in the Invisibility section when he noticed a group of the Hufflepuffs from his Herbology class sitting at the back of the library, heads close together, having what appeared to be a very absorbing conversation.

He paused, listening, then turned himself invisible and walked closer to hear better when he heard his name come up.

"So anyway," a stout boy was saying, "I told Justin to hide up in our dormitory. I mean to say, if Potter's marked him down as his next victim, it's best if he keeps a low profile for a while. Of course, Justin's been waiting for something like this since he let it slip to Potter that he was Muggle-born when they were partnered for Herbology. That's not the kind of thing you should declare when Slytherin's heir is on the loose, is it?"

"You definitely think it is Potter, then, Ernie?" said a girl with blonde pigtails anxiously.

"Hannah," said the stout boy solemnly, "he's a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that's the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue."

There was some heavy murmuring at this, and Ernie went on, "Remember what was written on the wall? Enemies of the Heir, Beware. Potter had a run-in with Filch last year. Next thing we know, Filch's cat is attacked, which, to Filch, is almost worse than death it self. That first year, Creevey, was annoying Potter at the Quidditch match, taking pictures of him while he was lying in the mud. Next thing we know—Creevey's been attacked."

"But what did Dean Thomas do? Potter's never had any sort of disagreement with him, other than the usual Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry, but Potter never really had that anyway. I mean, Potter's friends with a Muggle-born Gryffindor and a half-blood. He always seemed so nice," said Hannah uncertainly. "And, well, he's the one that made You-Know-Who disappear. He can't be all bad, can he?"

"Maybe Potter was angry about something when Thomas was attacked. After all, he was in the Headmaster's office moments before it happened." Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously, the Hufflepuffs bent closer, and Harry edged nearer so that he could catch Ernie's words.

"No one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted to smithereens. Only a really powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that." He dropped his voice until it was barely more than a whisper, and said, "That's probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn't want another Dark Lord competing with him. I wonder what other powers Potter's been hiding?"

Harry made himself visible and cleared his throat loudly. "The power to become invisible, for one," he said angrily. If he hadn't been so angry, he would have found the sight that greeted him funny: every one of the Hufflepuffs looked as though they had been Petrified by the sight of him, and the color was draining out of Ernie's face.

"Hello," Harry said. "So, how's Justin? Can I talk to him?"

The Hufflepuffs' worst fears had clearly been confirmed. They all looked fearfully at Ernie.

"What do you want with him?" said Ernie in a quavering voice.

"I want to know if he's alright. And to inform him that I meant him no harm yesterday, nor do I mean him harm any day, and what I told the snake." Harry raised an eyebrow. "And that I'm not the heir of Slytherin, no matter what you think."

Ernie bit his white lips, and then, taking a deep breath, said, "We were all there last night. We saw what happened."

"Then you noticed that after I spoke to it, it turned back to Lockhart? And that I was pointing at Lockhart, not Justin?"

"All I saw," Ernie said stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, "Was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake towards Justin."

"I didn't chase it at him!" Harry said, his voice shaking with anger. "It didn't even touch him!"

"It was a very near miss," said Ernie. "And in case you're getting ideas," he added hastily, "I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood's as pure as anyone's, so—"

"I don't care what sort of blood you've got!" said Harry fiercely. "Why would I want to attack Muggle-borns?"

"I've heard you hate those Muggles you lived with," said Ernie swiftly.

Harry swallowed hard and took a shaky breath, trying to keep tabs on his anger. "It would be impossible," he said, breathing heavily, anger flashing in his currently-glowing green eyes, "to live with the Dursleys and not hate them," said Harry. "I'd like to see you try it."

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the library, setting Hermione's notes back on Madam Pince's desk a little harder than he meant to as he walked by, earning himself a reproving glare from the librarian.

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Author's Note: Sooo… how am I doing so far? Is everyone still interested? Are my differences and twists and turns still interesting, or is it too close to the book to be worthwhile? Review, readers!

Sorry this was late… and happy holidays to everyone! Even though they're over now… well, mostly… this is my Happy-New-Year-gift to all of you!

Cheers,

S.A.M.