Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.
Chapter 12 - Decisions and Training
"Voldemort isn't the Destroyer," Hermione finished.
"Correct. Someone else is…"
Hermione entered the room cautiously, determined to do better in her second training session than she had in her first. Last time she had just entered the room normally, and so was caught completely off guard when the professor had launched a series of stunning charms at her from the far side of the room. Whilst none of them had completely knocked her unconscious, they were strong enough to completely throw her off balance and allow the professor to claim a victory for him. Once again the lights in the nearly empty room had been dimmed down slightly, and she held out her hand in front of her, trying to sense where the professor was. She sensed some movement from the far side of the room, and put up a fairly strong shield between the two of them, waiting to see what he would do next.
She had managed two steps forward before realising something wasn't right. It was more than enough chance for the professor to leap out of the shadows on the other side of the room and once again have her completely unprepared. This time however she had already conjured a shield and was able to move behind it before any of the spells could reach her. Before she could begin to retaliate, he lowered his wand and fully raised the lights.
"Not bad, not bad. I just put a small ball of magic over there in the corner. It was made to feel as much like a person as possible. There are a few things that worry me though."
"What's that?" Hermione asked.
"Well, to be honest, you should be wiping the floor me every time. No matter how much experience I have or what sort of tricks I pull on you, you should be beating me no problem."
Hermione didn't quite know what to say, so she just looked on and waited for the professor to explain himself.
"I've noticed you try your best to blend in and look exactly the same as you did before. We both know that when you started using the magic you changed slightly, and whilst you hide from that you aren't accepting who you are, and can't learn. With experience you can find ways of hiding it, but certainly not while you are learning. It's one of the reasons why you weren't supposed to come back here before completing your training."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"You need to stop hiding. Stop using the glamour charms, and allow everyone to know who you are. Make an announcement in front of the school if you have to, but pretending to be something you aren't isn't helping."
Hermione didn't like the sound of having to explain everything in front of the school. It was difficult enough trying to explain it to her friends. Sensing her discomfort, the Professor continued.
"You don't need to go into too much detail. Just briefly say why you have changed, what you have to do, and what you want everyone else to do. Couldn't be simpler! In fact, you could tell everyone just before the duelling starts next week. People will have other things to think about then as well."
Hermione was leading Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna towards the Room of Requirement for the first of their extra 'lessons'. They had approached Hermione and asked her if she could teach them a few of the things she had learnt so they would be more ready to fight when the time came. She reluctantly agreed, but couldn't promise she would be any good at teaching. They were just a few corridors away when they heard a familiar mocking voice from behind them.
"Well, well," Malfoy drawled. "If it isn't the mudblood leading a pack of Gryfindors. Seems the house has stooped to an all-time low. Looking for somewhere to practise you duelling? You are going to need it when we wipe the floor with your sorry Gryfindor behinds."
Apparently having learnt from past encounters he was accompanied by not only Crabbe and Goyle, but also by Parkinson and Zabini. They were all standing side by side, blocking the Gryfindors. In the past it had always been Harry who stood up to them, but now Hermione took an extra step forward. Malfoy seemed oblivious as to why.
"Excuse me Malfoy," said Hermione, "just step aside, we will be on our way and nobody will get hurt."
"What if I wanted someone to get hurt?" countered Malfoy, pointing his wand menacingly.
"Then some of us will." Hermione held her hands up in front of her, palms together, and then moved them apart as though separating something. Crabbe and Goyle instantly became attracted to the left hand side of the corridor, while the other Slytherins were attracted to the right. They all stuck so tightly they couldn't reach anywhere with their arms to free themselves.
Ignoring the muttered curses, Hermione walked between them and on to the Room of Requirement. They were just rounding the corner when they looked back and saw Malfoy prising himself off the wall. He seemed to think about whether to try his luck again, but thought better of it, and began helping the others off the wall.
A few minutes later they all stood together waiting for Hermione to start. She thought for a few moments before beginning.
"I'm not totally sure what I can do to help you to be honest, but Harry here seems to think that more practise can't be a bad thing, and that it should be my turn to do some teaching this time. So, I think the best thing to do to start with is to practise how to make the curses and hexes as strong as possible. The stronger the curse is, the more chance it has of getting past an opponent's shield.
The key is to try and put some emotion behind the spell. Oh, and of course while focusing as much as you possibly can. This is the difficult thing during a real duel. Anyone who can stay calm in the face of danger has a definite advantage. We really need some way of practising this safely…"
Hermione looked around the room and thought for a few moments, before five rather large boulders appeared around the walls of the room.
"I want you to use the spell 'Levitat' on these stones. It isn't quite the same as the using levitating spell. This one just sends your target up in the air and back down again; there is no actual control. You will see how strong your spell is simply by watching how high they jump. I think it will be useful to see how using different amounts of focus, and different thoughts, can affect how powerful you are."
Before they all got started Hermione demonstrated the spell. It was on a slightly different scale to what the others would be doing though. She got all five of them thundering out a rhythm at once. She hadn't quite grown tired of showing off a little yet.
Up in the Slytherin common room Malfoy was furious. He had been publicly embarrassed in front of his friends, and now he was busy plotting his revenge.
"We have to win this duelling tournament," he said to no one in particular. "I'll show them who is the most powerful."
"But how can we?" Spoke up Goyle. "Granger just stopped all five of us."
Malfoy just turned and stared, causing him to go back to staring at his feet. Malfoy held his gaze for a few moments before replying, "We'll think of something. We're Slytherin."
As Hermione asked everyone to stop for a while, she reflected on what she had seen. She could understand what the Professor had meant when people were definitely split into different levels of power. She hasn't much time to compare the different levels before, but from what she could tell, Neville probably only had two genes, while the others had three. The strain was definitely showing on Neville's face, as he looked as though he had just gone for a long run.
"Why don't you go and sit down for a minute Neville?" she offered, pointing to a chair behind her. "I'll just do a short demonstration again so you can catch your breath."
For a moment Neville looked offended at being singled out to take a rest, he really had been trying hard to keep up with the others, but then decided it was probably for the best. He took a seat and waited to hear what she had to say.
"There is another way to increase your power if you don't think you will be strong enough to get a job done. You have to have more than one person cast the same spell at the same time. You know that if a person is hit with multiple stunning spells then it can actually be fatal. Certain groups of people actually combine spells better than others. I wouldn't be surprised if we would go together quite well, because we have all been friends for quite some time. Individually I would be surprised if you could cause one of these stones to move half the length of the room, and even then it would leave you quite drained. Let's see what happens when the five of you try it together."
She quickly worked out that the best thing to do would be to put herself in the way so she could slow the stone down before it rolled into anything. She placed the quartet over by the far wall and moved the stone into position next to them. She then took up her place in the centre of the room and got ready to stop it.
"Right, give it a try when you are ready," she called.
After counting themselves in, they aimed their wands at the stone and shouted the banishing charm.
It took only a fraction of a second for Hermione to realise that she had been rather dramatically wrong in here estimates. It took only another fraction for her to register than there was now a big lump of stone moving towards her as if shot out of a giant gun. With her hands by her sides she decided that the only thing she could hope for was on such short notice was to get out of the way, so she took a quick step to the side and watched the massive stone whiz past her head like a meteor. Straight towards Neville.
Not possessing the quick reactions and decision making of Hermione he just sat there staring open mouthed. Luckily for him Hermione could react fast, especially in a crisis. With a quick shriek of 'Neville!' she apparated the length of the room, and appeared right next to his chair. She stuck out a foot and shoved, sending him and the chair sliding across the room. Unfortunately there was a minimum time needed to apparate, and then move Neville without injuring him, and this was almost exactly the time it took for the stone to cross the room, leaving absolutely no time for anything else.
The stone smashed into her side with an audible crack, and continued on, crashing her into the wall. The force was so strong that she was sent right into the mountain of bricks that made up an outer castle wall, and then a few seconds later a large portion of the wall crashed down, burying her even more. As the dust settled there was no sign of movement at all.
Up in his office the Professor was sat writing out the schedule for the duelling tournament. For a moment he thought he could sense something, but after waiting for a moment to see if it would happen again, he went back to his planning.
Dumbledore was also sitting up in his office, absently watching Fawkes. He definitely did notice the massive shockwave coming from somewhere within the school. He wasted no time in getting up and hurrying down the spiral staircase. In fact, if he had taken the time to look out of his window, he would have seen a few bricks falling from one of the walls of the castle.
A/N – This is probably the slowest update in the history of updating. I found this quite hard to write, especially after such a long gap. Everytime I went to write it, I just came up with a massive block. I'd be surprised if anyone is still reading! Hopefully when I have finished this block of exams in the next few days I will have more time to sit down and get this finished. I would really like to see it to the end. Thanks. Reviews are always nice.