William flipped through a few more pages of the massive tome. It was relatively late at night and he sat in a back corner of the library trying to concentrate on writing his most recent paper for History of Magic. It was hard to wrap his head around what the Great Goblin Contract was let alone how it played into the creation of the United States. He flipped back a chapter where there was a copy of the document itself, however as he looked it over he realized that it had never been updated to anything resembling modern English spellings, and was of course written in legal language that he couldn't understand even if it was.
William rested his head against the book and had to refrain from banging his head against it again. He still had a week on the paper, he had just decided to make a crack at it before heading to his astronomy class that evening since he had to stay up late anyway. Slowly he closed the massive book shut and turned to a much slimmer volume he had picked up off of a shelf while he was doing research on the Great Goblin Contract. He opened it to its title page and frowned, The American Werewolf: A Guide to A Most Dangerous Beast. The subtitle hadn't been written on the spine. Ever since he had spoken to Professor Tall Elk William had been trying to figure out how to help Nick, if there was anything more that he could possibly do. In the library though he hadn't been able to find much so far on how to help a werewolf, only how to ward them off, kill them, and in one case an ancient text on how to 'exorcise the demon that afflicted them', however he realized that the process described in that text was a patented method to kill a werewolf in another. If there was one thing he had learned through reading on werewolves it was that apparently most wizards did not like them and considered them horribly dangerous, in most cases too dangerous to live.
As he pawed through the book, taking notes in a vain attempt to try and see if there was anything capable of helping Nick adjust to life as a werewolf, he heard a quick snicker. William looked around but didn't see anyone in the small clearing amongst the stacks that he had situated himself in. Still something was nagging at him, as he squinted trying to look into the stacks themselves. That's when he spotted another robed figure who quickly rounded the corner with his wand out.
Henry Blackstock, unaccompanied for the first time William could remember that semester, was as large as ever. His dark stubby wand was out and he quickly shouted the incantation of the same wind spell he'd been using since the start of the year. Henry quickly let out a chortle as all of William's notes went swirling into the air. Before William could do anything however Henry had already turned off and was running through the stacks. William sighed as he turned to collect his notes. As he was slowly rearranging them though, he took a deep breath and remembered what Clark had said about a duelist afraid to duel. He shoved his notes into his backpack haphazardly and slung it over his shoulder, leaving the books he had taken to be reshelved by one of the librarians as he jogged off in a different direction from Henry.
William was relatively familiar with the library and he knew that Henry didn't have astronomy tonight, meaning that he was probably heading back toward Corey Hall. William burst out of a side entrance in the direction of Corey Hall and turned toward the main entrance of the library. Strolling casually down the length of the building was Henry Blackstock looking relatively pleased with himself. William let the door close shut with a small boom, and pulled his wand from his holster letting his bag drop as he did. He stood there facing the bully unsure of exactly what he was going to do.
Henry stopped about a dozen feet away from William, he slid his wand out of his pocket and smirked, "What are you looking for a beating Fraser?"
William shook his head, unsure of exactly how to respond to the bully. He wasn't even sure if he was going to throw the first punch. All he knew was that he wanted to stop the bullying this year before it became a serious problem.
Henry scowled, as he began tossing his wand to and from his left and right hands, slowly moving out in a semicircle around William. The quick tossing back and forth of the wand was strange, though William could remember an old film where people handled knives that way but that film had also had a lot of singing and dancing. Of course, wands were very different from knives as well. Without even thinking William tried a spell older students often used in dueling, "Expelliarmus!" A bright flash of light raced towards Henry and hit him square in the chest. However, while Henry's wand jumped up out of his hands, he gripped the short little wand quick and hard.
William was already on the move when Henry called out a hex that smashed into the door William had been standing in front of. Henry spun and shouted another hex as William jumped into the air and called out a curse of his own. Henry tried to jump aside only tripping over himself as he did so. From the ground though he called another hex, that William caught on a shield charm. William spun about and hit Henry with a jelly-legs curse just as he came to a standing position. Henry dispelled it as he stumbled again, getting solid ground enough to shoot off another spell.
The air in front of William glowed silver as the spell bounced off of his shield charm once again. William then called out another jinx in the hopes of throwing Henry off balance. He did once more get the larger boy off kilter, and struck again with a second curse. Henry grumbled and then cast one of the counter-curses to stop his legs from dancing. With one arm still spasming, Henry shouted a spell that William wasn't familiar with.
William was suddenly blasted with a stream of water, and found himself coughing and sputtering as well as knocked to the ground on his behind. As he shook out his now wet mop of hair, and picked his glasses off to dry on the bottom half of his robes. He looked around once they were dry and saw Henry running off back toward Corey Hall. William sighed, checked his pocket watch and then cursed as he realized that he had to get moving to make it to Astronomy on time. He righted himself, grabbed his luckily untouched backpack and then broke into a run to the astronomy building.
At the next dueling meeting he was surprised when Clark lined them up but didn't begin calling out drills. It had been a few days since his run in with Henry and he was somewhat proud of how he had moved around, though he hadn't told anyone yet because fighting was against the code of conduct, still he had been looking forward to new spells and drills this week. Clark instead was watching them, and then shouted, "Stand up straight seventh graders." They all tried to stand up a little straighter, and Clark then said, "It is time that I began preparing you for the appropriate method of dueling. Last year I taught you the basic spells you would need to know to survive a duel, and the importance of movement during a duel. However this year you will be learning the proper decorum of the dueling circle. You will be expected to always maintain an accepted stance during drills, and I will be explaining the proper theory of how a duel is won. Are there any questions?" She gazed at them all in turn.
Hobbes raised his hand, and Clark nodded at him, "Why do we need to learn how to duel properly?"
"Because the only way to win at a tournament is through proper dueling, and the Salem Dueling Team expects you to win at the tournaments you attend," Clark responded, "In the weekly sparring here at the club when you're an upperclassmen you will also be expected to follow a tournament standard."
Hobbes nodded slowly, and then William raised his hand, Clark looked at him, and he then asked, "Why didn't we learn proper decorum first?"
Clark smiled, "Because part of proper dueling is understanding the basics of how a person fights with magic. It's hard to understand why more points are awarded at a duel for disarming, or out-maneuvering an opponent instead of just overwhelming them with a stunning spell without having at least an idea of what those things might be."
As no one else raised their hands, Clark then began to teach them several standard dueling stances in addition to the ready stance William had learned the very first night at the dueling club. He quickly discovered that there were at least five acceptable forms of appropriate stance, five forms they would all need to know and be expected to fall into when Clark told them to. Before she dismissed them Clark taught them the all-important salute which they would be expected to use at the start and end of every duel. It was very simple and merely consisted of raising one's wand parallel with your face, locking eyes with an opponent and nodding before swinging the wand down into a ready position.
As they were dismissed William noticed that Nick was already slinking out of the basement without even grabbing a cup of water. William quickly jogged off after him, to find him standing outside sucking in deep breaths of the cool early October air. He straightened up and as he did he let out a resounding hacking cough, Nick turned around and was surprised to see William standing there.
"Hey," William said. Nick just nodded, as William looked into his sunken brown eyes. "Pretty crazy that decorum stuff," William said in an attempt to ease the tension that had somehow built up between the two of them.
"Yeah," Nick said with a tired air to his voice. He straightened out his robes, and particularly tugged on his sleeves as he began to walk away.
William fell into step beside him, unsure of what to say. After a few minutes he asked, "How are you doing?"
Nick shrugged, "I'm alright I guess," He didn't look at William as he coughed again. He had to pause as he coughed once more, his whole body seemed to shake as he made the massive hacking sound. Afterwards he spat out something from his mouth. "How about you?" Nick responded as he started walking again.
William tried to ignore the horrible hacking cough his friend had just released and said, "Oh you know, classes and stuff. Still having a lot of trouble with that History paper."
Nick nodded wearily, "Oh god I keep forgetting about that paper." Nick shook his head.
As they started walking William slowly realized that Nick was veering off in a different direction, "Hey Corey Hall is this way."
Nick nodded, and then said, "Yeah, I know but I have to get some work done tonight, and it's just hard to get it done in my room, so I'm going over to the library."
William nodded and then said, "Well, curfew's in an hour but I could get my stuff and meet you at the library..."
Nick was shaking his head, he coughed again and replied, "Don't worry about it, it'll be better if I don't have any distractions."
"Ok," William responded, he then watched as Nick stumbled off down the old brick path toward the library. As he slowly turned down the path toward Corey Hall he began to wonder if there was anything he could do to at least help alleviate the constant pain and fatigue that seemed to be plaguing Nick. He shook his head, realizing that if there was anything that anyone could do someone besides a seventh grader would've clearly thought of it and done something by now.
William entered his dorm room, and per usual after the dueling club clambered into bed and prepared to drift off to sleep. Chris was still sitting up working on something at his desk. As William started to drift off however Chris asked, "Does it ever seem like this year is just really boring?"
William shrugged, "I don't know, it's been pretty hectic with classes and stuff."
"Well, yeah classes are annoying and stuff," Chris responded, but then said, "But like I miss sneaking out at night to go spy on those dark wizards and stuff. I mean..." He paused.
William shook his head, "I don't know if I'd like to get into any more trouble."
Chris replied, "Well I don't mean like something dangerous like that but I mean doing something fun but sort of mysterious." He paused for a few long moments, "I don't know I just feel like nothing is happening this year and that it's supposed to be."
William turned over, yawned, and said, "I guess, I'm just happy that there is nothing going on. Probably better that way."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Chris replied as he stood up and blew out the candle he had lit up, "Still sometimes I wish it were a little more exciting."
William shrugged, "I don't know, exciting is kind of dangerous."
As Chris fell back into his bed, he replied through a yawn, "Eh, what's the worst that could happen."