Year 2: Show Some Strength

Chapter 13: November 2016

"Weasley! Spinnet!"

Louis stopped in his tracks and groaned silently before turning around to face David Flint and the others.

"What can we do for you today, Flint?" Louis asked as politely as he could. If he was being honest, he was getting fed up with Flint constantly coming to him and Justin with assignments and essays they were supposed to be doing themselves. Louis had enough to do without the Slytherins' homework. And while sometimes it was only Flint's homework they had to add to their own, sometimes it was all five Slytherins. But there was nothing he could do, unless he wanted Flint to break his arm and send him to the hospital wing.

"That transfiguration essay that Tonks just set," Flint said. "We aren't going to have time to write it."

"Any of you?" Justin asked.

"Nope," Flint shook his head. "We've got some other stuff on our plate. We'll expect our essay no later than Thursday, so we'll have time to recopy them. Bring them with you to Herbology, it's our last class."

Before either Louis or Justin could respond to Flint, he'd gone on his way, the rest of the Slytherins following behind. Louis turned to Justin with a defeated look.

"Well, I guess we'd better get started," he said. They'd been planning on doing some extra-curricular reading on astronomy. Ben had recommended a few really good books that he thought they'd enjoy. But now it looked like the rest of their week would be consumed by transfiguration.

"This isn't fair," Justin complained as they headed to the library. "We shouldn't have to put up with this."

"It's not like we can resist them," Louis pointed out. "There's five of them and two of us. And some of them are huge. No offence, but you're basically a twig, and I'm not much better off."

"But we're wizards," Justin muttered. "These things aren't supposed to matter for us. We're not Muggles."

"Well they do matter," Louis declared matter-of-factly. They'd arrived in the library and he began to peruse the transfiguration section in the hopes that a new title might jump out at him that would contain some new information he could throw into a paper or two so that they wouldn't look like they'd been written by the same person. "Because the Slytherins don't fight with magic, they fight with strength."

"Yeah, but we don't have to," Justin replied. Suddenly his face changed, as though he'd just had a brilliant idea. "Hey – we don't have to."

"You're going to have to explain a bit more," Louis said, turning away from the shelf he was skimming and moving on to the next.

"We're wizards," Justin said, by way of explanation.

"Gee thanks, I'd forgotten," Louis practically rolled his eyes.

"No, just listen," Justin insisted. "The Slytherins always use force to get us to do what they want. But what if they couldn't get to us? What if we held them off with magic? Then they wouldn't be able to control us anymore."

This caught Louis' attention and he looked away from the transfiguration shelves and considered Justin's idea properly.

"So you're saying, if we practiced our defensive magic, we could defend ourselves against the Slytherins and hold them off so that they couldn't threaten us with physical force anymore?" Louis summarized.

"Exactly," Justin nodded enthusiastically. "Don't you see? It's perfect. And not only do we get the Slytherins off our backs, but we'll probably get a really good mark in defense if we practice it a lot."

"That's a great idea!" Louis exclaimed, suddenly imagining what it would be like to only do his homework once. "I'm in."

With that decided, the boys switched from searching for transfiguration books to searching for defence books. They would need some more advanced spells than what they'd been learning in class so far. Tickling hexes and trip jinxes would only get them so far. What they really needed were protection and barrier spells that would keep the Slytherins at bay.

They found a book on shield charms that looked promising. The only problem was, it was fourth year level magic, and they were only in second year. Louis was convinced though that their determination would outweigh the difficulty and the boys agreed to get started on it the very next day.

LlLlLlLlLlL

"This will have to do," Justin declared the following afternoon. They'd spent almost an hour wandering around the castle looking for a decent space where they could practice their shield charms, and so far, all they could find were abandoned classrooms. This one was particularly spacious though, so they decided to just settle in and get started.

After two hours of practice though, Louis was still unable to block Justin's knockback jinx, and Justin had yet to prevent himself being hit with Louis' disarming spell.

"Looks like this is going to take longer than we'd thought," Louis pointed out. "I think we might have to write those transfiguration essays after all."

"What are you talking about?" Justin demanded. "The whole reason we're doing this is so that we don't have to do that."

"I only mean just this one time," Louis explained himself. "Eventually we won't have to do the Slytherins' homework anymore, but until we can perform the protection magic, we have to protect ourselves in other ways."

Justin saw Louis' point, and so reluctantly, the boys packed up and headed to the library to write the essays that were now expected in less than two days' time.

The essays were rushed and sloppy, but Louis and Justin didn't really care at this point. Soon it wouldn't matter any more, and honestly, five extra essays in two days would be a lot for anyone – except maybe Molly.

As soon as they finished with the transfiguration essays though, the boys were back at it in the abandoned classroom, working on their shield charms. If anything, they were determined that these transfiguration essays would be the last of the Slytherins' homework that they ever had to do.

They'd got to the point where they could get the shield charm working part of the time. Louis' shield had a tendency to flicker in and out of existence, and Justin's only blocked spells coming at him from the left side. But they remainder determined and continued to practice and to read up on the spells in their spare time.

As a result of all the time they were devoting to this new project, Louis and Justin started to fall behind in their other endeavors. One such thing that they suddenly had less and less time for was astronomy club.

"Is everything alright?" Kelsey asked them one day in the common room. "We haven't seen either of you at astronomy club at all this week. If something's going on, you can talk to us about it."

"We're fine," Justin assured her. "We just need to take care of this one thing, and then we'll be back full-force, you'll see."

Kelsey seemed unconvinced by the answer, but let it be. If Louis and Justin didn't want to share, she wouldn't force them.

On their side of things, Louis and Justin were extremely disappointed that they'd had to miss their astronomy club meetings. They'd wanted to go, but they were getting anxious. The Slytherins would soon be coming to them with another assignment they didn't want to do – Louis and Justin knew their patterns – and they wanted to be ready when the time came. They didn't want to get saddled with any more work that wasn't theirs. So, every spare moment they had was spent training.

By the end of the second week, the boys had improved enough that they were feeling extremely confident about being able to hold the Slytherins off. Louis' shield was now holding steady and Justin's had expanded to cover the full space in front of him. They were able to hold off offensive spells and to practically test their real purpose, Louis and Justin had taken it in turns to run at each other and try to physically break through the barriers. To their delight, the shields had held, and they felt ready.

They didn't have to wait long for another confrontation with the Slytherins. It happened Friday afternoon, after transfiguration, when the essays from the week before were returned. Apparently, the Slytherins hadn't done so well, the best grade being an 'A' and most being fails. They were clearly not happy and at the first opportunity they had, they cornered Louis and Justin in an empty corridor.

"What do you call this?" Flint demanded, waving his 'D' in Louis' face. It didn't matter that Justin had written that particular essay, Flint was angry and would take it out on both of them.

"We're very sorry," Justin apologized. "We were distracted and – "

"When we ask you to write our essays, we expect good results," Flint shouted. "If we'd wanted 'D's', we could have just scribbled a bunch of words on a piece of parchment ourselves and handed that in."

"Well maybe you should've," Justin said. He sounded brave, but Louis could hear the waver in his voice. "Maybe if you want good grades, you should do the assignments yourselves. I mean, isn't that the only way to ensure it's done the way you want?"

"I thought I'd made it clear what would happen to the two of you if things like this ever happened again," Flint said, referring to the time the Slytherins had gotten less than optimal grades on a history of magic essay that Louis and Justin had written for them. "I thought that you understood the consequences of sub-par work. Apparently, we'll have to instill that lesson in you both properly."

Flint made a gesture to his gang, and then Darian Reed and Anthony Pearle stepped forward menacingly.

Panicking, Louis turned to flee, but found that he and Justin had been trapped into a corner with no escape options. Next to him, Justin made a face and reached into his robes, and Louis remembered the plan. He could do this. They'd prepared for this.

Heart racing, Louis slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wand, gripping it tightly. Justin was doing the same and taking a deep breath, Louis prepared to cast the shield charm.

"Oh look at this," Flint cried then, looking back and forth from Louis' wand to Justin's and back again. "You think you can cast a little spell and scare us away? You really think it'll be that easy? I don't think so."

And before Louis knew it, Reed had pounced on him, pinning him to the wall behind and holding his wrist down with more force than Louis could handle. His wrist felt like it was going to fall off, and then Reed's hand shifted so that he was no longer squeezing his wrist, but instead wrestling the wand out of his hand.

There was nothing Louis could do. His wrist was already hurting from being squeezed so hard, and he was significantly weaker than Reed. He relinquished his hold on his wand and watched as Reed threw it as far away as he could, down the corridor. Louis could hear it clatter as it landed, and then a second clatter as Justin's wand joined his.

"Give them a reminder of what happens when they try to mess with us," Flint ordered.

Louis struggled against Reed, but it was no use. The boy was too big and too strong and Louis was too weak and too small. He knew it was coming before it happened, but still it in no way prepared him for the pain that followed. Reed curled his hand into a fist and pulled it back, just enough to give himself room for a good swing. Then he let it go and pummeled Louis in the stomach, causing him to double over, coughing and spluttering. A second punch followed the first, and now Louis was no longer able to hold himself up against the wall. Reed stepped back and Louis doubled over, desperately gasping for breath.

"And again."

Louis could barely hear Flint's voice now, because his ears were ringing. As if out of nowhere, a foot came as him, hitting him right where the punches had landed, and Louis went flying back into the wall, hitting it. He landed on his back on the floor, one arm awkwardly underneath him and the other stretched out in the Slytherins' direction. He couldn't move, could barely breathe, and certainly couldn't speak.

"That should do it," Flint declared then, apparently satisfied with the damage they'd done. "And don't forget boys, if you report this, it'll only get worse."

Louis couldn't do much more than swallow as the Slytherins began to retreat. Almost as an afterthought, Flint stepped closer to Louis, raised his foot above his outstretched hand, and stomped down on it hard. Louis cried out and his hand curled in on itself in pain. Laughing in satisfaction, Flint followed the other Slytherins back down the corridor to join the rest of the school, leaving Louis and Justin convalescing on the floor.

It was a long time before Louis regained enough strength to pull himself into a seated position and scoot his way across the floor to grab his and Justin's wands. Justin was still splayed out across the floor, unmoving, and Louis was honestly more worried about his friend than himself. At least Louis was moving.

Every movement was pain like Louis had never felt. He tried to cast a numbing spell on his stomach, but nothing happened. It had been a long shot anyway. For pain this severe, he would need a lot more power and experience to cast a successful numbing spell.

He scooted over to Justin and gently nudged his shoulder. Justin let out a soft moan, but did start to turn over onto his side, so Louis took that as a good sign, and leaned back against the wall for a bit to rest from all the exertion.

When it started to get dark and nobody had come and found them yet, Louis knew that they were going to have to get up on their own. They couldn't be caught out after curfew, even in this state. Because they wouldn't be able to explain how they'd come to be immobile at the end of a rarely used corridor, they'd be unable to explain why they didn't deserve detentions and the loss of house points. So Louis slowly started to curl his legs towards him and put weight on them little by little in an attempt to get into a standing position.

Justin was also making progress. He'd managed to get into a seated position, and at least both his hands were unharmed, unlike Louis who had kept his injured hand clutched in a fist and pressed up against his chest this whole time.

The boys eventually made it to a standing position and slowly stumbled their way back to the common room. They agreed that they wouldn't tell anyone what had happened to them. They didn't want to risk the Slytherins coming back with worse. If anything, it was clear that all the practice they'd put into the shield charms had been a complete and utter waste.

"You'll have to get Eldridge to take a look at that hand," Justin pointed out once they were up in their dorm and climbing into bed. "She'll have to set it, or it won't heal right."

"I supposed I could tell her I dropped something heavy on it," Louis said thoughtfully. "Maybe we were trying to move furniture around the dorm or something."

"Whatever you tell her, you should go sooner than later," Justin declared.

Louis shook his head. "Not until I can hide my other injuries," he said. "I can't afford to have her notice that anything else is wrong."

"But your hand won't set right," Justin protested. "She'll have to rebreak it."

"So be it," Louis shrugged resignedly. "This is just how it has to be. We'll never be able to overpower them."

"Unless…" Justin's voice suddenly took on a similar quality to when he'd thought of the protection magic idea.

"Oh no, I'm not listening to any more of your brilliant ideas," Louis muttered, pulling his blanket over himself and getting as comfortable as he was able under the circumstances.

"Just hear me out," Justin insisted. "We learned the defensive magic as a way of holding the Slytherins off, but we didn't factor in the possibility that they'd attack faster than we could cast, and that we'd lose our advantage."

"Thanks for stating the obvious," Louis muttered.

"Just listen," Justin insisted. "The Slytherins always win because they're so strong and we're so weak. But what if we were strong too?"

"But we're not," Louis muttered, exhausted. "Just give it up Louis, it's over."

"No," Louis shook his head. "We don't have to be stronger than them, we just have to get a little stronger so that we can hold our own until we have a chance to cast a spell. We have to be strong enough to not let them get our wands away from us."

"And how to you propose we do that?" Louis demanded.

"Professor Derlid teaches a physical defence unit to the third years," Justin replied. "I think if we ask him, he'll teach us a year early."

"And how are we supposed to explain our sudden interest in learning physical defence?" Louis wondered.

Justin shrugged. "We can just say we want to learn more," he said. "I don't know, we can work it out when we talk to him, the point is, isn't it worth a shot? All we have to do is learn enough to be able to use their own strength against them, to get them off us, so that we have time to intervene with magic."

"Or we could just keep doing their assignments and not get beat up," Louis suggested.

"You're fooling yourself if you think that's going to work," Justin said. "Flint'll find reasons to beat on us, whether we obey him or not. Just to keep us in line, just to keep reminding us who's in charge. The only way is to fight back."

"I'm tired," Louis muttered. He didn't want to be thinking about any of this, he just wanted to sleep.

"Alright," Justin conceded. "We'll talk more in the morning. Once we've slept the worst of it off."