The very next day after Hallowe'en was a Tuesday, and the first session of Duelling Club since the commencement of the Triwizard Tournament. With the Pariturium right around the corner, Harry expected attendance to be high. As usual, Duelling Club was held in the castle's Great Hall with the massive doors firmly shut to any potential onlookers. As Harry looked around at the students in attendance he realised that quite a few members of Duelling Club hadn't come that week – presumably because they'd given up after not being selected for the competition proper, since as far as Harry could tell everyone who'd been selected for the competition was there that Tuesday evening. Still, there were a few people who hadn't been selected hanging about too. Harry saw Ernie and Justin stood with Susan, so there hadn't been a complete exodus.
Flitwick stood atop the stage at the centre of the Hall and addressed the assembled students.
"Tonight's session will necessarily include some administrative bits and pieces," Flitwick said, "given that the first round of the Pariturium is to begin later on this month. I know that some of you here in the Duelling Club are not competing—you have not been forgotten! We will of course continue our regular sessions and we will all take part in duels and work on new techniques, but we must also of course devote some time to helping train our competitors! It is fortunate for us all that those two goals are complementary! As we are all still engaged in the same endeavour we shall all, I am quite sure, be happy to test our skills against one another."
Flitwick paced up and down the duelling stage.
"The Department of Magical Games and Sports has finally seen fit to inform us of the particulars in how the Pariturium proper shall unfold, although I should say the specific matchups will remain secret from all competitors until the day of the event—or not too many days before this. I do believe that all of our competitors will, in the first round, be facing someone from Beauxbatons or Durmstrang—although this will not be the case moving forward." Flitwick paused when he noticed someone stick their hand up.
"Yes, Miss Granger?"
"When will the first round of the competition be held, Professor?"
"Oh, ah, that would the twenty-third of November, I believe. Professor Snape, does that sound correct to you?"
"It does," said Snape. "It will be on a Wednesday."
"Yes, there we are. So, we now have a date—the twenty-third of November and, as Professor Snape helpfully remembered, it is a Wednesday," continued Flitwick. "So we shall have three weeks which we can use for preparation. Now, if there are no further questions, I am quite keen to press on with this evening's session." Flitwick waited for a few moments in case anyone had a question, but nobody did, so he carried on.
"Wonderful! Now, tonight we shall be considering the list of allowed spells in each category, and both myself and Professor Snape shall attempt to teach you some of the more useful entries. Ordinarily I would not like to devote so much time to actively teaching you these spells—this is after all an extracurricular activity and the expectation is that you put in the requisite work yourself—but I must confess that after discussions with my counterparts from the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations I have learned that the preparations undertaken by our sister schools have been rather more guided than our own and I should not like to leave you all underprepared. Therefore I would like our Juniors to join Professor Snape at the far end of the Hall, and for the Novices to join me over here."
Harry didn't doubt that the staff at Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had been 'rather more' involved in their students' preparations than Flitwick had at first assumed. From the very first moment they had arrived each of the other two schools had appeared much more organised and prepared for the Tournament than their peers at Hogwarts. Harry didn't think the Hogwarts staff were at fault, necessarily. It seemed as if the intention of the Tournament and its events was that the students did most of the work themselves with only minimal interference from teachers, but he did feel that they could have perhaps anticipated that the other schools would take a different approach. At least Flitwick appeared to be adapting now that the other schools had arrived.
Flitwick took the Novices to one end of the Hall and spent the rest of the session going over the advantages and disadvantages of all of the permitted spells at the Novice level of the competition, taking some time at the end to demonstrate some of the more useful examples. Harry made sure to take a lot of notes. Flitwick had never gone into quite so much detail about strategies and tactics before, and Harry felt like he'd forget it if he didn't write it down. Much of the information would have been contained in duelling journals and the like, Harry assumed, but it was always better to hear it direct than have to read about it.
Some of spells he mentioned were things like the confetti charms the Weasley twins had used, but some were more standard – although somewhat obscure – jinxes. Harry took notes on them all, even the ones he didn't like the sound of.
Flitwick wouldn't have mentioned them if he didn't think they were of some use.
By the time the session ended Harry felt like he'd spent more time taking notes than he did during his classes, but it felt much more worthwhile doing it during Duelling Club than it did in History of Magic.
"I'm glad we're getting a bit more hands-on instruction now," said Blaise as he walked back to the dungeons with Harry and Tracey. "I know we've done alright so far on our own, but we all knew the other schools would be going hard at it and there's some stuff you just can't do on your own."
"I thought we all did really well so far!" said Tracey. "But I am looking forward to more structured practise. Flitwick must know so many things we'd never figure out on our own! Oh, and we've got a date now! The twenty-third! Do you reckon we'll get the day off lessons or will it be an evening event, do you think?"
"I hope we get the day off," said Harry. "Seems a bit much having a whole first round of the duelling tournament after lessons…"
"I'll skip lessons if it's an evening event," declared Blaise. "No chance I'll waste a day sitting in classrooms."
"That's not a bad idea," agreed Harry. Even if he got a detention for skipping Harry thought being able to go into his bouts rested would be worth it.
"I'm going to write home as soon as I get back," said Tracey. "I know Mam and Dad can't come watch—unless there are tickets being sold, do we know?—but I still want to tell them. It's so exciting!" She paused. "Harry, have you told your aunt and uncle yet? I know you said they don't really get magic and stuff but this is just sport, isn't it?"
Harry frowned. He hadn't told his aunt or uncle that he would be competing in an international duelling tournament, or in the flying, but it did seem like the sort of thing he should let them know about. His muggle school would have required their permission for him to even compete, but wizards seemed less strict about that sort of thing so Harry hadn't bothered to check.
"Er, I hadn't thought about it yet," said Harry. "I might write a letter before dinner, I suppose…"
Petunia had said she would be receptive to letters and Harry supposed it wasn't especially onerous to send off a couple of letters, after all, and Harry thought he should at least tell them about his sporting activities. Not to ask permission, since even if his aunt and uncle said no he would participate, but just so that they were aware. And a little part of him did want them to know that he was good at what he was doing, even if they didn't quite understand it.
It was still a little while until dinner, so when Harry got back to the Common Room he reluctantly went to grab some ink and parchment to scrawl a letter to his aunt and uncle. It felt stupid, writing a letter back home about things that were really just normal school stuff, but he supposed his aunt would have wanted to know.
She'd always used to ask what he'd done at school when he was at Stonewall, at least. Same principle, different setting.
Harry settled into his usual seat and started to write his letter.
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon
Hello,
It's Harry, obviously—I don't imagine you get many owls. Agrippa doesn't need any fuss really and I've taught him to come 'round the back, but if you could give him a little bit of chicken for the fly back that would be really good, thank you. He'll fly back to school on his own but he will wait if you want to send a letter back with him.
Harry paused with his quill hovering over the parchment. What else should he say? He didn't want to just dive into the Triwizard stuff, and then he realised he hadn't been in contact with his aunt or uncle since he'd left for Ernie's house. His aunt would want to know about Harry's behaviour, at least, even if she didn't care about the Quidditch.
I wanted to let you know the World Cup at the summer was amazing. I've never seen anything like it before so I was really happy to go! I was very polite at Ernie's house and remembered to say please and thank you. Although his family has an elf so I wasn't really asking his parents for anything anyway. I don't think I was a nuisance at all. His parents were really nice and they said I could come and visit again.
School is going fine—I think I said about having new subjects this year, but in case I didn't, there are five of them and I'm okay at them I think. We've not done any tests yet so I don't know. There are two I don't really like at all, but that's okay because we only have them once a week.
Harry considered whether or not to go into a bit more depth about his subjects, but then decided not to. He didn't want to spook Vernon with talk about magical writing and predicting the future –not least because he'd barely got used to the basics.
So that's all going well. Something I didn't know about this year was that there's this big international tournament going on between the three best schools in Europe. It's called the Triwizard Tournament and it hasn't happened in a really long time. It's at Hogwarts this time. I'm too young for the main competition but I thought I should tell you that I'm taking part in the duelling competition and in the flying, too. It's called the Pariturium—that's Latin and it's got to do with duelling—and the Aerobaticum—that's the flying bit. Different kinds of racing, mostly. I'm having a lot of fun.
It's all really safe and you don't need to worry at all. Duelling is like boxing but for wizards—there are loads of rules and regulations so it isn't dangerous. And the flying is just something we do normally at school anyway. But it's quite a big deal to be picked—there were loads of people who tried out but didn't make it past there—so I am quite happy about it.
It's a really good opportunity and the prizes are nice, too.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Harry
Harry read over the letter several times before he decided it was good enough to send. It covered all the main points and didn't look as if Harry was asking for permission to compete, which would have been insincere anyway. He waited for the ink to dry and then rolled up the parchment and tied it off with a little ribbon, then slipped it inside his robe pocket to send off after dinner.
Harry went up to the Owlery right after dinner along with Tracey, who had a letter of her own to send. Agrippa dropped down from the rafters almost as soon as Harry stepped inside and came to a gentle rest on Harry's outstretched arm – or as gently as an eagle owl could manage, at any rate.
"Hello," said Harry. "I really need to spend more time with you, you know. Who's a handsome fellow?" Agrippa preened as Harry lavished him with attention, and Harry waited a few moments with his owl while Tracey sent off her letter.
By the time Tracey had finished, Harry was tying the letter to Agrippa's leg. He sent the owl off along with a little owl treat as an extra incentive and walked back to the dungeons with Tracey. Harry spent the rest of the evening going over the homework due the next day with his friends until it was time for bed.
After classes on Wednesday Harry and Tracey went down to Harry's spot in the dungeons to practise their duelling before dinner. Flitwick had gone over a number of useful spell sequences at the previous session of Duelling Club, some of them with spells no one in the Novice category had learned yet through schoolwork – and so both Harry and Tracey needed to devote some extra time to mastering them.
"I can see why we haven't been taught these spells," complained Harry as he looked at a dungeon floor covered in multi-coloured confetti. "They're pointless and messy."
"I know it seems silly but the Confetti Conjuring Spell is a big part of that spell sequence we're working on! And it doesn't have to do anything, does it, since the whole point of it is that you get points for style when you use it right," said Tracey. "You're just annoyed because you do better with jinxes and stuff like that, but you'll get the hang of it. And if you don't, well, there are other sequences you can use and you're good at thinking on your feet!"
"I suppose," muttered Harry. "Flitwick did say my flashbang was really good though, didn't he?" Flitwick had, in fact, given Harry some pointers on how to make it more effective – a bigger flash, a louder bang – which Harry had been itching to try out in a duel situation. "And if I get the confetti spell right I could add it to the flashbang and get some extra style points…"
"Yeah, exactly!" said Tracey. "Shall we try again with that combo? I think we were about to get it right last time…"
Harry sighed. He knew that they had to get it right, no matter how long it took. Any kind of combination spell sequence was a very powerful tool that could be used in paired duels assuming they could pull it off.
Except it was quite disheartening to get it wrong over and over again. But then, without practise he'd never get it right, so…
"Yeah, come on then. Let's give it another go."
Harry and Tracey spent another half hour or so working on their combo, and by the end of it Harry had clouds of confetti pouring out of his wand on command. He vanished the detritus from half an hour's conjuring and then sat on the rickety chair opposite Tracey for a little rest.
"You're doing really well with it now," said Tracey. "All it took was a bit of extra practise!"
Harry nodded.
"Yeah, I got there in the end. My vanishing's got better too. I just wish it was as easy as jinxes and hexes. I can do those no problem, but I'm not that good with transfiguration." It wasn't that he struggled with it, exactly, at least not compared with many in his classes. He found it more difficult than charms, at least.
"Oh, but you're good enough," said Tracey. "I wouldn't worry about it—you get good marks and you were great with those bees, remember? That was really tricky as well, conjuring so many at once! I think you're just better at jinxes, you know, and that's alright—we're all meant to have different talents and powers, aren't we?"
"Yeah, I suppose," said Harry. Being good at Dark magic seemed less impressive than being good at transfiguration. Or if not less impressive, certainly not as socially acceptable. Harry could already see the newspaper headlines – 'HARRY POTTER: DARK LORD IN WAITING'.
Harry sighed.
"Can we go over the Mirror Charm into the de Medici Riposte again? I know there's not that much time before dinner but I think I can get it right if we give it another try," said Harry as he stood up. The de Medici Riposte was a nifty little technique popularised by some Italian bloke, Harry vaguely remembered Flitwick saying, a couple of hundred years ago – and which was still used in Novice level duels even today because of how effective it was in breaking an opponent's rhythm and flow.
"Well... alright," said Tracey, "but only a couple of times because I want to get back and shower before dinner—get rid of this musty dungeon smell, you know." She grabbed her wand and stood, then took up her position opposite Harry near to the far side of the room. "Okay, I'll count down from three and then I'll go after the one. Get ready! Three... two... one!"
Immediately Tracey cast a spell at Harry – a Tickling Jinx, he thought – which he reflected easily enough, and then shifted his wand in his hand to transition to the Knockback Jinx. He got the Knockback Jinx off perfectly, even if he did think so himself. Tracey staggered backwards, but Harry fumbled the follow-up Sneezing Jinx because he was paying more attention to Tracey than his wandwork. Despite a direct hit on Tracey, the petite witch didn't so much as wrinkle her nose.
"It's moving from the jab in the Knockback to the swirl of the sneezer that gets me," complained Harry. "I make it too wide and the Sneezing Jinx doesn't work."
"My nose did tickle a bit," offered Tracey. "So if you can manage a tighter swirl on the next go I think you'll get me to sneeze. And do you know, sometimes it's worse when you don't have to sneeze but you have that feeling where you need to sneeze but can't, isn't it?"
"Hungry… Bored… Alone. Want to hunt. Want to kill," whispered a quiet voice almost, but not quite, out of earshot of Harry. Tracey didn't appear to hear it.
"You know, I think—"
"Ssh!" said Harry, interrupting Tracey. "Sorry, but—just a minute. Do you hear that?"
"It has been so very long… I have waited, waited, waited…"
Tracey shook her head.
"No, I don't hear anything."
"Just—hang on, I can hear it again," whispered Harry. He felt like Tracey should be able to hear it. The voice was quiet, but not so quiet as to get lost in the background noise. And whoever it was was moving. That, as well as the disturbing content of the words, gave Harry reason to worry.
"I can only sleep for so long until I must feed…"
"Are you sure you can't hear it?" said Harry, perhaps a bit more forcefully than he'd intended. He felt somewhat bad for the outburst, but someone running around the castle talking about feeding and hunting and killing seemed alarming enough to warrant a bit of haste.
Tracey just shook her head.
"No, Harry. I can't hear anything—well, nothing that I couldn't already hear, anyway. Does it sound the same as the upper year you thought you heard the other day? What's he saying?"
"Er—just the same sort of things," said Harry. He shrugged. "You know, about being hungry, lonely… Whoever it is wants to hunt. Something about needing to feed, I think was the last thing…"
Tracey frowned.
"That really doesn't sound good," she said, face a little pale. "It sounds like... I mean, this sounds bonkers I know, but it sounds like a vampire!"
"There aren't any vampires at Hogwarts!" said Harry, although after he'd said it he felt far less certain. "Are there?"
"There aren't supposed to be," said Tracey. "But maybe one came in with the Durmstrang lot! Or the Beauxbatons—they have a part-Veela, so maybe they've got a vampire as well... You know what people say about the French..."
"Maybe," Harry said. He wasn't sure what to think. The sorts of things he'd heard did sound like the things a vampire might say. But then... he'd heard the voice – and he was quite that it was the same voice each time – before the other schools had arrived, so even if they had brought a vampire with them, the voice predated its arrival.
"No," said Harry eventually. "I heard the voice before they got here, remember? I'd even heard it before you came here with me to practise for the first time. So if it is a vampire it's been here all along. Since September, I suppose. One of the new first years, maybe? But I'm sure someone would have noticed one of them was a vampire! So I don't think it's a vampire," Harry decided. "It has to be something else."
"Okay," said Tracey as she sat down on her chair. "Right. So, not a vampire. That is better, but we still don't know what it could be. Do you think we should go to Professor Snape, maybe?"
Harry shook his head immediately.
"No, definitely not!" he said. "What would we even say? 'Professor, I heard a weird voice in the dungeons and I thought it might be a vampire'? And you didn't hear anything, did you?" Harry said – half asked, although he knew Tracey hadn't because she'd said as much.
"No, I didn't," said Tracey slowly. "Do you think—I'm not saying you need to, but maybe… well—do you think it might be helpful to go talk to Madam Pomfrey if you're… well, if you're hearing voices?"
Harry recoiled.
"You think I've gone mad," he said.
"No!" said Tracey quickly. "Of course I don't think that! You aren't acting mad at all! But I can't hear anything, and I've tried, so if it's something only you can hear and you've been hearing it a lot then maybe you've been cursed or—" She trailed off and then clicked her fingers. "Wait! It's something only you can hear, right?"
Harry nodded slowly, unsure where Tracey was going. He wasn't going mad, or at least he hoped not, but he knew that even in the wizarding world hearing voices nobody else could hear wasn't usually a good thing.
"So, all I can hear is, like, the pipes hissing, right? And you know, all the normal dungeon noises," said Tracey. "But you're hearing voices! Well, remember when we were at the zoo in Barcelona and you were talking to those snakes and all I could hear was... hissing..."
Harry started to smile.
"But I could hear voices! That's brilliant, Tracey! A snake! You think there could be a snake in the walls, or something like that?"
"Well, maybe," said Tracey. "Perhaps it got in from outside and got stuck, or maybe it's one of the ones Draco conjured and it got lost. I don't know, but I mean, I can hear hissing sometimes—just a bit—and I did think it was only the pipes, but you were saying that you've heard voices a few times down here now, so... I think... we could go looking to see if there is anyone else around, or if it is a snake, if you want." She grinned. "You know, I'm even more glad I found out you were a Parselmouth now because otherwise I really might have thought you'd gone mad!"
"Well, thank Heaven for small mercies, hey?" Harry said with a little smile. "Shall we go have a look around?"
"Ooh, definitely! Let's just get our things together and we'll have a little look before dinnertime!" said Tracey.
The two Slytherins gathered up all their things and headed out into the dungeons to look for the snake – or vampire, or whatever it was – that Harry could hear. If it really was a snake, and not a sign of a curse or madness, Harry felt sorry for the poor thing. It sounded hungry, and if Draco really had conjured and then forgotten to vanish it Harry wouldn't be happy at all.
"Right, well I think it was coming from this way," said Harry once they'd got outside their dungeon chamber. "And I think there's actually a room there as well so if it was conjured and it got lost, then maybe it's there..."
They headed along the cool, dimly lit, dungeon corridor towards one of the other chambers, although each one they passed was empty.
"I wish I knew that spell—you know the one," said Harry, "the thingy-revelio or whatever spell. That would make this much easier..."
"Ooh, I know the one you mean," said Tracey. "It would, wouldn't it? But it's not that hard having a look with our eyes."
Harry and Tracey ended up doing a loop of the section of the dungeons where they'd been practising and wound up near enough back where they started when they found a dark, damp room filled with boxes, trunks and old-fashioned potions workbenches. A persistent dripping came from a leaky pipe crossing the ceiling.
"Shall we have a look in here?" said Tracey. "It looks kind of ... snakey ... doesn't it?"
"Snakey?" asked Harry with an arched brow.
"Oh, you know what I mean!" said Tracey. "Come on, let's have a look—we've not got long before dinner so we'd better make it quick."
They went inside the damp dungeon room and then started to search through the some of the boxes and trunks. Each and every one of them seemed to be full almost to bursting with bits and pieces of useless, broken things—potions equipment, ripped and torn books, charred pieces of wood. Harry pulled a half-melted cauldron from a battered old trunk and paused.
"Why is all of this stuff even here, anyway? Who keeps a room full of old junk? Why not just vanish it all?" Harry asked.
Tracey shrugged.
"Maybe they were going to fix it and just forgot," she suggested. "That cauldron looks salvageable, although I don't think this—whatever it was—is ever being useful again." She picked up a melted bit of glass and turned it over in her hands. "A Sneakoscope maybe? Or just some potions bottles? Well, it's just a lump of glass, now." Tracey put it back.
"Maybe this is where Snape puts everything Longbottom ruins," said Harry with a grin.
"Ooh, that's horrible!" said Tracey, although she did laugh, so Harry thought it couldn't have offended her that much.
"I can't see any snakes in here, though," Harry said. "That trunk has got a picture of a snake on it, I suppose, but it's not animated so I can't have been hearing that..."
In fact, a fair few of the broken things in the disused dungeon chamber had images of snakes on them – one snake scratched into the surface of a scruffy old potions bench, another snake on the cover of a book that had more pages missing than not. Harry thought that maybe the place had been used by Slytherins through the years to get rid of unwanted bits and pieces, but not even Slytherins stuck snakes on everything. At least not the ones Harry knew, anyway.
"I didn't even think about paintings!" said Tracey. "Oh, but do you think that snakes in paintings can even speak Parseltongue?"
"I don't even know how paintings of wizards are able to talk," said Harry, "so... I honestly have no idea," he said with a shrug. "But I suppose maybe I could have been hearing a snake in a painting somewhere... although the voice did sound like it was moving around."
"Paintings can move between frames," said Tracey, "but I think you probably were hearing a real snake if it was moving about because there aren't many paintings this deep in the castle, are there? Or at least I don't think I've ever seen any. I think you're right that there aren't any real snakes in here, anyway. Just a load of old junk with pictures and stuff."
Harry nodded.
"Yeah, I don't think we'll find anything looking tonight... and I haven't heard it in a while, so it's probably just gone," Harry said. "I feel a bit bad leaving it about—it said it was hungry and lonely—but we can't spend all night looking for it, can we?"
"And we've got just about enough time to have a shower before dinner so that's alright," said Tracey. "We can come back and look again another day—you've been hearing it for ages haven't you, so it probably doesn't get far."
Harry agreed, and the two went back to the Common Room to get ready for dinner. Harry felt quite disappointed that they hadn't found the snake, but he supposed that now he at least knew – or could assume with good reason – that it was a snake he could hear and not a random student. Or a vampire, although that had seemed like a more outlandish possibility.
And Dumbledore surely wouldn't have allowed a vampire free rein to roam about the castle unattended.
At the very least Harry no longer had to worry about coming across an ornery upper year while he was practising down in the dungeons.
Whether that was better than a hungry snake, though, was another thing entirely.