Jupiter crossed her legs in a reserved position as she settled into her favourite common room armchair. She had earned the right to sit by the fire with her friends in second year after Montague had tried to stir up trouble. She had defeated him in one swift wand flick and earned the house's respect. Professor Snape entered the common room whilst the last of the first years scrambled for somewhere to place themselves.
"As you all know the third Task is happening in just over six weeks. As are your exams. I would be… severely disappointed if any of you were to do any less than you are capable of because you are distracted by such trivial matters." A shudder went down many people's spines. Being on the wrong side of Professor Snape was not something anyone wanted. "The usual rules apply still - travel in small groups at all times, keep your spats for inside the common room and if you must break the rules then don't get caught. Remember you're still representing Hogwarts while the other schools are here. Any problems speak to your prefects, especially the sixth years who don't have OWLs or NEWTs. And finally, my office door is open to any of you who need it." Snape gave a slight head nod as though he was mentally ticking off a checklist.
The female seventh-year prefect, Jupiter wasn't too sure of her name, gave a single clap. "Right! Us prefects don't have anything to add other than make sure you keep up in your schoolwork for exam season or you'll find it hell."
Professor Snape gave another curt nod before seeking out Jupiter in the crowd as the Slytherins started to gather themselves to go upstairs. "Miss Etsuko, a word if you please." She raised her head in acknowledgement, giving her friends a wry smile before heaving herself out of the comfy armchair. A couple of younger years gave her a curious look, but most were aware of her extracurricular activities and her spell-creating sessions with the Professor.
Reaching the spot before the common room door where Snape stopped, Jupiter gave him a small smile. "Was there something particular you wanted, Sir?"
"Congratulations on your final win as a Junior. I received an owl from your parents asking if I was still willing to tutor you even while you are out of formal competition." Ah, straight to the point. She hadn't even considered that he was only helping because she was competing - which did make sense seeing as she was representing Slytherin with every victory, or failure. Her parents had semi-regular correspondence with Professor Snape (there were many complex potions that could aid in astronomy and Snape was one of the top potion masters in Britain), and Jupiter was silently hoping his positive view of her and her family would help sway him into agreeing. "I see no issue with it, you can move onto more complex spells that will take longer to craft and learn now."
Jupiter sighed in relief. "Thank you, Professor."
"I expect you in the Potions classroom straight after dinner on Wednesday. Don't make me wait." And with that, Snape was off with a swish of his cloak, Jupiter returned to where she had left her friends by the fire.
"What did Professor Snape want?" Draco couldn't hide his curiosity and was asking before she had a chance to reclaim her seat.
"He was just saying how I'm going to continue my extra classes with him even though I'm not competing anymore. I didn't even think that he wouldn't want to help me train now I'm not out there representing Slytherin."
Thanks to the deep-rooted prejudices against Slytherin in Magical Britain, competitive Slytherin duellers were few and far between. The fear that they would use extreme dark arts (despite the rules clearly not allowing that) was ridiculous but slightly understandable as most of the best duellists from the house of snakes were currently (or used to be) in the ranks of Voldemort. So Jupiter was somewhat of a novel curiosity to the competition scene. No one could accuse her of dark arts as she started duelling far too young for even the most Light of supporters to be suspect. However, she knew that the older she got, the more rumours there would be, Especially now she was taking 3 years out when she could, theoretically, be learning spells of that nature.
Jupiter didn't believe in the Ministry's definition that Dark was wrong and Light was right, Sure, she would never even entertain the idea of using Unforgivables or anything close, but she didn't see why most Dark spells were banned in Britain. Her parents were of the same opinion, especially her dad, as Japan wasn't nearly as uptight about their use. Thanks to the Adult division having more lax rules surrounding that issue, they had entrusted Snape to teach Jupiter dark spells on the condition she never used them unless against an opponent using them on her. She was perfectly agreeable to that - duellers who hailed from Durmstrang were notorious for using Dark spells liberally, and she would be a fool to disadvantage herself.
Unfortunately, Jupiter also knew that once she started using them in competitions she would have to work extremely hard to keep any Light fans on her side. But she had a plan for gradually introducing ones of her own making first - so by the time anyone realised she was using Dark magic, hopefully, they would have been supporting it long enough to be unable to have a drastic change of heart without seeming hypocritical.
"Luckily he thinks I'm ready for more complex spells, ones that might take months or even a couple of years to develop and learn."
Theo looked impressed. "That's great news. I take it we'll be seeing far less of you on Wednesdays still then?"
After catching up with Daphne, Draco, Theo and Blaise a bit more, Jupiter and Daphne bid the boys farewell and climbed the stairs to their dorm, ready to go to sleep for a fresh start the next morning.
–
Wednesday evening couldn't have rolled around slower for Jupiter. She had been buzzing for the past few days at the thought of what she now had time to research. She had mentioned to Professor Snape the last term about the possibility of developing spells that 'boomeranged'. It would be a neat trick to appear to miss her opponent and catch them unaware by a spell from behind. He had agreed to see if there had been any spells developed like that or if it had to be created from scratch - and now she had time to work on it!
Jupiter wolfed down the last of her meal in the great hall as 6 pm approached, thunderous dark clouds rolling overhead as the students ate. She grabbed her leather satchel from under her feet, giving Daphne a friendly arm punch before waving goodbye to the boys, mouth still full as she raced off.
Reaching the potions classroom, she gave a quick glance in her bag to make sure she had all her notebooks before knocking on the old wooden door.
"Come in."
Jupiter gave herself one moment to gather all her excitement and bury it deep down. She knew that feeling anything other than calm would be detrimental to her reaction times, spell-casting ability and also her ability to shield herself from mental attacks. It was not disallowed to use mind magic in duelling, but that was only because it was so long since someone proficient in it had been on the scene that the rules had never been changed. In Jupiter's second year, Professor Snape had given her occlumency lessons just in case she ever encountered something that could exploit a lack of mind shields in the future.
Setting her satchel in the corner, Jupiter waited as Snape rose out of his chair. He flicked his wand across the classroom, causing the furniture to stack itself around neatly. Finally, a line was drawn on the floor, in the recognisable duelling platform format.
"I want to start off by determining your duelling level. You will follow the normal rules to win by any means necessary. I will start by just defending but if I see fit I will move on to attacking."
Jupiter nodded. "Yes, Sir." It wasn't often she could duel against the Professor, and she wanted to use this chance to her advantage. Before they moved, Snape pointed his wand to the back corner of the room closest to Jupiter, erecting a shield charm.
"That corner contains a partially brewed potion for Headmaster Dumbledore. I will be facing that direction and you are under no circumstances to let any spells go near it or to pass beyond the shield yourself"
"Yes, Sir."
They each walked to the end of the makeshift boundaries, making eye contact before bowing deeply. Jupiter felt pleased - the depth of the bow indicated respect and it was a testament to her abilities that Professor Snape was bowing properly.
Jupiter cast the first spell immediately.
"Ignario Liberious!" A mass of flames shot out of her wand, racing towards her mentor. He immediately dispelled it with a casual wand flick - she expected no less.
Her next move was to silently transfigure dirt on the floor into arrows - a trick that was always handy outside of official duelling platforms that were cleaned to within an inch of their life.
Professor Snape quickly constructed a shield charm for solid objects - perfect! Jupiter took the opportunity to rapidly fire two spells to try and catch him off guard.
The first made it past the shield but was easily deflected but the other got in slightly closer and almost grazed the bottom of his robes. It was an overpowered knockback jinx but before it could even ruffle the Professors clothing it had been dissipated.
Jupiter frowned slightly, that combination usually caught people out. She didn't have a moment to think before a red stunner was shot directly at her chest. She reflexively drew her wand up, casting a shield and firing her own stunner variations straight back.
A few seconds passed by, Jupiter using her tamer spell repertoire and occasionally deflecting a stunner shot to catch her unawares until Professor Snape raised the level.
"Neuralempra"
Jupiter ducked out of the way rather than trying to counter - it was a lesser-known dark spell that made your nerves tingle as if your whole body had gone to sleep. The counter was quite difficult and in that moment she couldn't remember which type of shield charms worked against it.
That spell had given her permission to open up to darker bits of magic though - having put their study to the side during competition season lest she slipped up and used one, she was a little rusty. Jupiter knew they weren't going to be as powerful as her light spells and that she couldn't cast them silently.
A split-second decision to try out a neat trick she once read about a duelling champion using was made.
A "Protego!" was cast just between her and Snape, off to the side with each edge pointing to the duellers. A stunner was cast at the Professor as a distraction and then-
"Locomoello!" Jupiter cried, aiming for the shield charm. She watched as Snape's attention flicked to the spell a fraction too late - it ricocheted off the charm, sailing around his own shield for the stunner and catching his elbow.
The spell was designed to send whatever body part it hit flying backwards at a high speed without affecting the rest of the body, usually causing a break or dislocation - and that was exactly what happened. Snape's arm jerked back, the impact causing a loud crack as the joint snapped and the speed at which his arm flew back caused a secondary pop. His shoulder out of place and his elbow broken, he turned back to Jupiter with a slightly malicious smirk.
"Legillimens."
Oh crap. That was not what she was ready for. Slamming her occlumecy shields up, Jupiter felt the pressure in her mind build as she pushed and pushed against it. Her vision went dark with the effort as they engaged in a mental tug of war, both parties vying for control.
Her awareness of her surroundings dropped, however, and it was enough for a silently cast Incarcerous to immobilise her, her wand summoned to her Professors hand. She grinned ruefully as the mental attack stopped.
"Not bad." Snape gave a half-smirk in her direction as he cancelled his spell and passed her wand back. "The trick with the shield was certainly ingenious, though you need to work on fighting off mental attacks while still fighting physically. Luckily that's not something you should encounter in a duel and we can work on that later."
Jupiter nodded. "I read about the shield charm trick a few months ago and have been waiting to try it out. I didn't think it was wise to use it officially until I could practice because the angles are quite tricky."
Professor Snape hummed in agreement. "Good choice. If you had miscalculated in a duel it could break the charm and hit the crowd. Worse, it could fire back at you and you'd have to fight yourself."
Jupiter cringed at the thought. A mistake that bad and she wouldn't be taken seriously ever again.
"For the rest of the session, I think working on shield charms will suffice for now. I know you are advanced in the different types but you should make sure they are unbreakable."
"Yes, Sir."
Before she could cast her first one, however, Snape cast a quick tempus.
"Unfortunately a certain Mr Potter once again displayed his incompetence during potions class and will be here in half an hour to serve his detention. You can practice until then but we will have to cut the session short."
Jupiter scowled, she had been enjoying herself.
Snape gave her a knowing look - he despised Potter possibly more than everyone in the castle - but didn't give her time to think about it before casting his first offensive spell.
They went back and forth for a while, Snape switching spells every so often but casting out loud so Jupiter knew when to change the type of shield she put up. Only one very powerful aguamenti cast between changing from a solid object to an elemental shield charm managed to catch her - but they had magic, so she had dried off in seconds and continued.
Neither teacher nor student kept an eye on the time, so Jupiter was startled when the door to the dungeon was flung open. So startled in fact, that she took her eyes off her opponent to see who had barged in, just as a knockback jinx and stunner combo was fired in her direction.
"SNAPE!" A shout from the door revealed the intruder to be Potter, for his detention. He fired a weak shield charm towards the spells sailing towards Jupiter at the same time she had spun back round to counter them, their two charms combining and exploding, neither taking effect. It was too late to do anything and Jupiter could only see the horror on Professor Snape's face for a fraction of a second before the knockback jinx struck her squarely in the chest, sending her sailing towards the back of the room towards the shielded-off area. The jinx had thrown her out of the way of the stunner but that flew straight beside her head, breaking the shield charm Snape had put up almost 2 hours ago and colliding with the bubbling potion that had been kept safe behind it.
The stunner hit the magical brew right in the centre and the last thing Jupiter remembered was the potion exploding, her back hitting the hot steel of the cauldron causing searing pain and the extremely furious shout of "POTTER" from her Professor.