Disclaimer: See previous chapters
Harry Potter and his Sixth Year
Chapter Eleven: Wednesday: Dueling
The next day Harry was having the first lesson with his father. He had seen his dad's pranking, out-going side, but he had never seen his dad's serious side. He knew that his dad had to "buckle-down" at one point to get his mom to date him, so he knew his dad had to be the least bit serious.
After eating with both his parents and Sirius, James and Harry went down to the dueling chamber. James asked Harry if he had any previous dueling experiences.
Harry replied, "Well, there was a dueling class once, but all I learned out of that was that I can talk to snakes and the disarming spell. Then of course there was the third task, against Voldemort."
"So you've never had any official dueling lessons?"
"Nope, every one was too freaked that I could talk to the snake Malfoy conjured." James laughed at that comment because he was thinking how Slytherins were afraid of their house animal.
"Okay, the first thing you need to know is that when wizards start a duel they stand in the center of the platform and bow to one another. If you do not trust the person, you should do a short bow because they could attack you right there and then, even though it is not seen upon as a good thing when you do that, it's disrespectful, so be prepared for Death Eaters and Voldemort to do that. Next you put your wand-at-the-ready. You turn around and take about ten steps back. That is how a proper duel is, but during war you don't have proper duels. Only if Voldemort asks for one, and if he does, don't think that he will go by the proper rules of dueling, he will only do what is mandatory. The only thing that is mandatory is the bow. Now you already know one of the most important spells, the disarming spell. But there are shields that protect against that and other spells and hexes. Today we will be working on those shields. It will probably take about three or four weeks to learn about each shield and to be able to perform it flawlessly."
The first shield Harry learnt was called the anti-disarming shield, real original people who named the spell, thought Harry. The anti-disarming spell not only blocked you against the spell, but it also shot it back at the caster, therefore the caster would be with out a wand. Then the only thing the caster can do is use a weapon, or use their fists, that's why you need hand-to-hand combat. The color of the shield would be in the range of blues. Light blue meaning that you aren't very powerful, but you can perform this shield and royal blue meaning you are one of the most powerful people in the world. Navy blue was not used for the color of a anti-disarming shield. Navy blue was reserved to auras, when seeing how good or bad a magical being is. You could also make your anti-disarming shield invisible if you added invisitatus, that way nobody would be able to see how powerful your anti-disarming shield was, unless of course they could see through invisible things, like Mad-Eye could see the color even if you made it invisible.
After Harry learned how shields can be used in a duel, he wanted to learn ways that you could destroy a shield. He knew that if he asked his dad, his dad would make up some complicated lesson plan. So Harry decided to go check out the library. One of the little tools his mom added to the library was adding a database of all the books in the library along with what they were about. So all Harry had to go do was search on the computer for shields and how to destroy them. He only found two books about destroying shields, but he figured that since they were pretty thick, it might take him a while to get through the books. He found that you can destroy an anti-disarming shield by sending three spells that weren't the disarming spell at the shield, and the shield would break down, because it was not designed to take spells that weren't the disarming spell. Harry wondered why his dad didn't cover that in his lesson plan. It would have been useful information to add to the lesson. Harry also made a mental note to inform the DA about creating the shield and destroying it.
Since that was the only shield they had gone over in lessons so far, Harry decided that he wouldn't look up any more shields or how to destroy them. He made a mental note to look up how to destroy the shield after he learned about it in lessons. That way if Voldemort ever used one of the shields he would know the way of how to destroy it, giving him a better chance of victory.