Severus faced Filius across the wide dueling circle. He ignored the students and their chatter, louder than it had been all day. He felt for the edges of the Headmaster's shield charm and the gap in the apparition ward, marking the boundaries in his mind precisely in three dimensions. He nodded to Filius. They drew their wands. They bowed to eachother. They began to duel.

In an open duel with a barren environment like this, Severus tended to begin things simply, to test his opponent before committing himself to a more elaborate strategy. Thus, he opened with three silent stunning charms in rapid succession, aimed directly at Filius and immediately to either side should he dodge.

Naturally, the Charms master merely tapped the floor with his wand before apparating away, to a different quadrant of the mat and about three feet in the air. He conjured a chair beneath his feet before returning Severus' attack exactly. Severus elected to dodge in the more usual fashion and regretted it immediately: Filius must have put a Flagrante curse on the rug when he so briefly tapped it. Severus' shoulder burned where he touched it in his diving roll.

He conjured a stone to stand on when he regained his feet, then immediately apparated off of it to reappear directly behind Filius. He jabbed his wand into Filius' neck, retaliating with a Flagrante curse of his own to the little wizard's collar, as well as another stunning charm that merely bounced off the Charms master's tightly held, nonverbal shield. He returned to his safe island before his feet could blister. How did Filius get the Flagrante curse to burn the skin through clothing and even shoes? He alternated conjuring a few more stepping stones with lobbing minor curses at Filius. The pace was faster than the student duels, but not yet at full throttle. Filius did much the same, casting stunners at him with one hand and fiddling with the burning collar around his neck with the other. Eventually, the Charms master managed a possibly wandless switching spell to trade collars. Severus ended up raising a shield at last, ceding time and opportunity to Filius in order to just cast the lengthy countercurse on the blasted thing with his other hand. They both had rings of angry red blisters around their throats now.

There were still not enough safe places to stand if one wished to forego a hotfoot. It was too easy for the person on the offensive to send spells at every conjured chair and stone. Severus apparated out of the path of Filius' spells three times before he got the opening he needed to cast an overpowered Geminio on Filius' current chair, which suddenly exploded into a whole pile of chairs. The reduplicating furniture threatened to bury the diminutive dueling champion, before he cast a Carpe Retractum to pull himself out of it. Severus would have landed a Body Bind curse then, if it weren't for Filius' Protego. He would definitely have to try harder. He cast a rapid succession of jelly legs jinxes, steadily increasing the power to figure out how much it would take to break the shield. The answer was quite a lot - Filius retaliated with a fire whip before he managed to break anything. Better to be sneaky rather than attempt to overpower the Charms master. He honestly did not know which of them would come out on top in a contest of sheer brute force, but he sensed trying to find out would be a good way to succumb to Filius' more devious stratagems. He therefore summoned Filius' wand, followed by his glasses, since even the strongest shield charms would not block a high quality Accio. The fire whip dissipated. Filius barely kept hold of the wand, but the glasses zoomed towards Severus, and he destroyed them with a Reductor curse as soon as they were outside the range of Filius' shield.

"Cheap move, Severus!" Filius cried, although he sounded quite pleased. And then he blew up the stone Severus was standing on. Severus apparated to another stone and summoned Filius' beard. The Charms master stumbled and failed to counter the charm in time or keep up with his hair, instead falling forwards onto his freshly plucked face. Wincing from both Severus' attack and the fresh red burns on his cheek and knuckles, he still managed to apparate away from Severus' aggressive bandaging charm, another trick to get past the shield.

Filius retaliated by summoning Severus' fingernails, which worked hideously well, unfortunately. It hurt. A lot. Also some of the students screamed or made overly loud expressions of disgust, which was annoying. More importantly, his hands were now bleeding all over the place, making his grip on his wand treacherous. "Ferula Cataplasma," he whispered, the healing enchantment for fast-drying splint plaster rather than mere bandages. He aimed the spell at Filius again just to keep the man occupied. Filius apparated away right as the spell passed through his shield, and Severus apparated into the place he had just vacated. He scraped the backs of his fingers through the puddle of plaster, surreptitiously cursed the stepping stone, and apparated away again before Filius' several stunning spells could hit him.

Filius blasted apart this stepping stone too. And the next. Severus summoned all the stone dust and gravel and banished it at Filius. Filius easily caught it, levitated it in place, and increased the size of it with an Engorgement charm, clearly planning to throw it back. Except Severus cast Descendo on the great globe of grit, and the whole thing crashed down on Filius' head and buried him, he was so small. Copying Gwenog's strategy from earlier, Severus transfigured the loose sand and gravel into a boulder encasing Filius entirely. Of course, Filius was not the Charms Master of Hogwarts for nothing. It took him one second to break out of the boulder and shoot an Anteoculatia hex at Severus. He had to sever half his own hair when it started turning into antlers. He dodged the next few curses easily and then apparated away from the high-pressure water jet Filius conjured.

He smirked. Filius was nearsighted and struggling to aim as precisely without his glasses.

Didn't stop him from being dangerous. They traded a few more spell-chains, and then Filius turned his wand on the towering pile of conjured chairs he had abandoned earlier. With a single blasting curse, he smashed them all to splinters. He sent the fragments at Severus. Severus conjured a pane of fire before him, incinerating the wooden splinters instantly. He shoved the pane forwards, and it devoured everything in its path, leaving only a trail of ashes on the rug behind it. Filius apparated out of its path... onto one of the stepping stones Severus had enchanted with a toenail-growing hex, one of his own schoolboy inventions. "Piermeum Locomotor, Oppugno," he cast while Filius attempted to remove the curse he mistakenly believed to be on his shoes. The stone Filius was standing on shook him off and flipped over on top of him, and all the other conjured stones started rolling in his direction as well. Filius cried out in genuine pain but blasted the stone apart, then all the other aggressively attacking stones in turn. Severus conjured a few cushions to replace the stepping stones.

While Filius was thus distracted, Severus cast a bubble head charm on himself and snatched a potions phial from his pocket. He dripped part of it onto his/Filius' collar, then threw it into the air, shattered the glass, aerosolized the contents and blew them towards Filius with a Ventus. Filius, who had just regained his feet, apparated away again. Undeterred, Severus swept his wand in an arc, causing the conjured wind to spread the potion all across the ring. Filius cast his own bubble headed charm.

Perhaps suspicious the potion might still absorb through the skin, Filius raised his wand for a firestorm spell. Severus had not actually planned for that and temporarily crouched beneath a shield charm and fire-freezing spell in his surprise. He composed himself soon enough and dashed a few meters to his right. He murmured "Partis Temporis," cutting a channel through the firestorm all the way to Filius' back. Expelliarmus. Langlock, he thought, moving his wand in a complicated, knot-like shape. The curse was another of his inventions, sticking the victim's tongue to the roof of the mouth. Both it and the disarming charm connected, happily. Filius' wand flew from his hand, and the firestorm died.

Of course, disarming was hardly the end of this duel, and Severus cast five stunning charms in rapid succession to follow up. Dodging stunners all the while, Filius wandlessly summoned his weapon back to him while it was still sailing through the air. He recast his shield charm and returned a silent Levicorpus, which connected since Severus had designed that one to be completely invisible, with a wide, subtle field that was very difficult to detect ahead of time. Of course, he recognized the effects with the first jerk on his ankles and countered the spell before he could be pulled upside down. His smirk widened to a grin. Filius must have recognized the Langlock as his invention and sent the Levicorpus to tell him so.

Well, Severus had more where that came from. He raised a shield of his own, apparated directly behind Filius again and said, "Hasta." His wand instantly lengthened into a spear. That Filius started to turn, whether to counter or to apparate, meant the spearpoint took him glancingly in the shoulder rather than straight into the back. Filius grunted in pain and banished himself away from Severus, who was both heavier and had the more stable footing. More students shrieked in alarm, but Filius was able to stop the bleeding soon enough. He responded in kind with an arrow-shooting spell. Severus transfigured the arrows into flowers, but because of the thick volley missed the incoming Orbis that sucked him into the stone floor. No matter, a wandless Reductor curse freed him, and he pulled himself out of the pit with Ascendo. While he was airborne, he cast a Hebeto jinx, another one of his own inventions, inspired by a muggle fairy tale, that sapped the energy of the victim. He used to cast it on Potter and Black when he sat behind them in class, usually in the mornings to make them take naps over lunch and show up late to afternoon lessons. Good times. It was a useful jinx in this case because he could make the field so wide, it settled over the entire ring. Filius would have had to apparate even higher than Severus was currently to avoid the spell.

Of course, the disadvantage of Severus not immediately apparating out of the sky was that the duel was getting bloodier. Filius used the opening for a nonverbal Surculus, and Severus' torso was suddenly full of holes as if from a shotgun. These were wounds he could not ignore, so he used his wand arm to cast "Vulnera Senentur" over them, chanting the incantation repeatedly, whilst simultaneously aiming dozens of wandless and nonverbal stinging hexes at Filius. As soon as he was done healing himself, he coughed to clear the blood in his lungs and slashed his wand violently in the initial motions of a Confringo, though he made no effort to actually channel the magic. Filius apparated away to the one cushion that was not within the likely field of the anticipated blasting curse, and Severus instantly hit him with Defodio instead. The gouging curse caught the Charms master in the leg and clearly bit deep, as the knee collapsed beneath him. Rather than healing so serious a wound himself on the fly, Filius conjured bandages around his leg whilst simultaneously launching a barrage of spells at Severus. As usual, Severus apparated away, but Filius still managed to pin him with a horn-tongue curse.

Now they were both limited to nonverbals.

Filius pointed his wand upwards and sabotaged the weather charm on the ceiling. Normally, the ceiling of the great hall only showed the sky outside, but now the gray clouds stirred. Clever to manipulate the magic already in the environment; it was a feat of nonverbal charms work Severus knew he could not match, not in a controlled fashion. Lightning arced down towards Severus. He diverted it by conjuring a long copper wire that he flung in Filius' general direction. The wire electrified and connected to the ground with a resounding peal of thunder. The surrounding rug burned with harsh blue fire. Filius tried one more time with similar results, then wisely stopped messing with the weather when Severus almost got him with another gouging curse. They traded stunners and simple curses for awhile, before Filius conjured an enormous pane of glass, shattered it, and sent the shards spraying out in all directions. Severus reflected them back and followed up with a Scourgify aimed at Filius' eyes, which his opponent ducked under. He must have realized what it was, for Filius returned the glass shards yet again with a Conjunctivitis curse on their tail. Severus allowed that one to hit only because he was in the middle of casting another Confringo, a real one this time.

The blasting curse destroyed all the glass shards, half the rug, and some of the underlying floor, which at least meant they had more places to stand that wouldn't burn them, even if it was a treacherous bed of tumbled stone with a few holes that would drop the unwary down to the dungeon levels. Severus wandlessly summoned the remains of the potion he'd made for Paula earlier and applied it before the Conjunctivitis curse did any significant damage. Meanwhile, Filius was unscathed, having banished himself out of the way in lieu of apparition. He aimed multiple stunners at Severus as he whizzed by, which Severus dodged, but he dodged right into the subtler sponge knee jinx. Severus collapsed to the floor.

And now they were both nonverbal with bum legs. Not ideal. It was possible to apparate from a seated position or all fours, but it was difficult. And Filius, being smaller and lighter, had the advantage in terms of other magical means of rapid movement. He rather wished just then that the Dark Lord had deigned teach his followers his mysterious technique of true flight.

He vengefully shot a finger-removing jinx followed by several stunners at Filius' retreating form. He was honestly surprised when the finger-removing jinx connected, the Protego reappearing just a split second too late. Filius' eyes widened as he watched his own fingers and wand scattered over the floor in his wake. Still miraculously sustaining the Protego, he dived to the floor and managed to awkwardly scoop up his wand in both palms. He used it to Disillusion himself, and Severus could hear the crack as he apparated to a new location. He raised a shield charm of his own and peered around. Hard to see the distortion of either the disillusionment or Protego at all through the floating dust of the blasting curse. He conjured a handful of prickly burdock seeds and moved his wand over it in a perfect circle. The tracking spell Avensegium was tricky at the best of times, doubly so nonverbally, but he felt the charm settle over the burs. A Ventus sent the burs sailing around the ring... and three of them stuck themselves to Filius, crouching invisibly in the blasted out section.

Severus' collar started to shrink and choke him as soon as he located the Charms professor. Severus hastily cast a switching spell on it again, sending it back to its original owner. Filius shrunk his shoes next, and Severus, casting stunners all the while, kicked them off since switching with Filius would probably make the problem worse. Severus was unsure if Filius had managed to replace some of his fingers or what, but he somehow managed another arrow-shooting spell. Severus dropped out of their way, but Filius must have summoned one back after it had passed him, and it embedded itself in the back of his right shoulder. A little irritated the man could still hit him whilst tongue-tied, fingerless, and hamstrung, Severus scraped a pile of gravel over him and solidified it again. This one Filius did not immediately break out of. Instead, Severus concluded based on what happened next, he shattered only the interior and a few holes, leaving a hollow shell intact and relying on his own bubblehead charm to breathe. He levitated the rock, and therefore himself inside of it, sand draining out of it, and banished the whole construction away from a nearby pile of rubble and therefore towards Severus. He considered rolling out of the way but decided to blast apart Filius' flying fortress instead. The stone shell shattered. Still mostly invisible, Filius landed on top of him. Severus hastily contracted his shield charm to fit him like a skin and could feel Filius doing the same, to prevent them from merely stunning each other.

Severus pressed his wand into Filius' side and could feel Filius doing the same. Severus grinned madly. They were both incredibly vulnerable. The duel would likely be won soon. The question was what each would choose to do next. Severus thought Hasta, the spear-wand stabbing through Filius' abdomen. Filius chose Incendio, catching Severus' robes on fire.

This was it, Severus exulted. Filius had forgotten Severus still had an active Flame-Freezing charm from earlier... Except, he realized suddenly, he also couldn't breathe. Filius must have cast something else as well, he had no idea what. So now, if neither could fix their own problems, it was a question of which of them passed out first, him from suffocation or Filius from blood loss. He adjusted his grip on his wand for a Finite and hazily realized why Filius had cast the Incendio: if Severus used the general counterspell rather than the specific counterjinx, he'd get rid of the flame-freezing charm too, or only. The fire now engulfing half his robes would actually start burning him.

And then an irate house elf popped up next to them and separated the two duelists with a snap of its fingers. "You is first damaging the kitchens, and now is delaying dinner. You is stopping now, Professors sirs," it squeaked. With another snap of its fingers, it reversed all the currently active charms in the dueling ring. Not the jinxes and curses, judging by his lump of a tongue. Apparently, Filius had been suffocating him with a simple charm, though. He gasped for air and hastily extinguished the fire before it could badly burn him. Several more house elves appeared and started putting the room back together.

He sat up and looked at Filius, who was doubled over holding his stomach. His wand was quite literally stuck to one open palm, likely a sticking charm. They both remained incapable of speech through their respective oral jinxes. Severus grunted wordlessly to attract Filius' attention. He met the Charms master's eyes and with effort projected his thoughts at the older man. Call it a draw?

Filius gave a strangled laugh and nodded. Severus pointed his wand at Filius and removed the Langlock. He then turned his wand to his own tongue and knees.

Rolanda understood the gist and strode into the ring to address the students. "Ahem. As it appears we are out of time, I declare the demonstration to be over." Poppy bustled into the ring, and Severus waved her towards Filius.

"Who won?!" several students immediately shouted.

"Neither."

"Oh, come on!"

"I mean, Flitwick looks worse. I think Snape had him."

"No way! Snape was toast! Literally!"

As soon as Severus got his tongue working again and resolidified the bones in his knees, he stood up sharply and cleared his throat. He had only meant to get attention, but he almost choked. There was still thick, coppery blood coming up out of his lungs from the Surculus attack. He cleared his throat again and swallowed a few times. He needed his dignity for this, and coughing up blood wasn't the way to retain it. "Settle down," he ordered them, voice raspy. "Yes, this particular duel ended without a winner, but that is not important, because it was a demonstration. So..." He cleared his throat again. Better for a student to talk than him. "Mr. Tickes, tell us what you have learned from observing."

Gardner looked up quickly and flushed. Severus assumed he had been arguing with his neighbor about a wager. "Ah... well, sir, your strategies had to be very different from ours because you were able to apparate. Rather than focusing on what spells flow well together or counter each other, both you and Professor Flitwick seemed to focus on, er, sabotaging each other I guess. Like, you're really good at physical dodging and taught it to all of us, so Professor Flitwick did something to the rug at the very beginning that made it so neither of you wanted to step on it the whole rest of the duel."

"Floor is lava!" one of the first years piped up.

"A Flagrante curse, yes. Continue."

"Well, the same thing with whatever you did to each other's tongues. And literally stabbing each other... I mean, you both used super aggressive tactics that look pretty brutal, but... it was amazing how nothing was really disabling until the very end. Also, I sort of expected you both to use more powerful magic. I mean, you used some, but you used a lot of simple things as fille and feints. And a hell of a lot of wandless magic. That was awesome."

Severus finally succeeded in clearing the crud in his airway. "Excellent observations, Mr. Tickes, one point to Gryffindor. Professor Flitwick and I agreed this morning that this demonstration would be a duel to disability, because that is the way it works in the real world, disability or death. As you saw, neither of us consider mere disarming to be disabling. When your opponent is equally or more proficient in dueling magic than you, able to continue without a wand, able to simultaneously shield and cast at least some spells, then your strategy must adapt accordingly. Against an opponent who can cast wandlessly, a stunning charm is far more valuable than Expelliarmus. Against an opponent who can shield effectively against either one, a summoning charm or physical attack may be more valuable. This demonstration does not fully reflect a real-world battle though, as we agreed Dark curses would not be permitted..."

There was a high-pitched grumbling behind him, and he glanced back to see Mipsy, the head house elf, lurking in his shadow, tapping her foot impatiently. He glanced at the clock and concealed a wince. The minute hand had slipped past six o'clock. He would definitely have to visit the kitchens and mend bridges with the elves after this. He made a placating gesture at her behind his back.

"I hope you all learned something, now if you would please step down off the bleachers so we can rearrange the tables for dinner..." Another glance back showed the house elf smiling again.

Rolanda tapped his shoulder. "Better go to Poppy, or she might decide to murder you herself, Severus," she murmured. Severus looked around and was surprised to see Poppy's niche abandoned. "She moved her things to the chamber behind the staff table after you summoned that potion. She didn't want you stealing anything else, and we agreed it would probably be better not to have the students watching while she patched you two up afterwards."

"Probably a good idea. I'm not actually badly hurt, though."

"Did you forget your necklace of blisters?"

He had, actually, though they ached again at the reminder. He inclined his head. "Thank you for your help today, Rolanda."

She grinned. "It was fun. At least, moderating the students was fun. You and Filius... not much I could do about it as moderator if either of you decided to break your own rules, I think."

He shrugged and headed for the back of the hall. He was stopped by several groups of Slytherins on the way, complimenting him and asking about some of the magic they'd seen. He shook them off with promises to show up at the dormitory some evening this week to answer questions. Chiara also accosted him, with a hug and some excited hero-worshipping. Interestingly, her gaggle of first year friends had expanded: all the Hufflepuffs, all the Slytherins, one Ravenclaw girl, and three Gryffindor boys, Thorin Abbott, Jae Kim, and Charlie Weasley.

"You were so brave, Professor Snape! And so sneaky! And..."

"Thank you, Chiara, please let go." She squeezed his waist a moment and, thank Merlin, let go. He glared down at all of them, in case any of the others got ideas that he condoned hugging of professors. Fortunately, no one else seemed inclined to copy Chiara's example. "Return to your House tables for dinner," he instructed briskly, and swept past.

Rubeus and Pomona both stopped him to shake his hand when he finally reached the staff table. Minerva offered a thin smile and a nod. Albus' eyes twinkled, but he did not speak or get up. When Severus let himself into the back room, it was to find Filius happily rehashing the duel with Poppy. She must be almost done with him, seeing as he had regained his fingers. "Severus! Excellent! Too bad we won't be settling our wager today, but I'd be happy for a rematch..."

"I'll consider it. How are you?"

"Oh, fine, fine. Couple burns, two broken ribs from that big rock, the slashed tendon, and the two stab wounds." He yawned. "All better now. Merlin, I'm tired, though. I haven't dueled like that in decades, not since I left the circuit. What was that spear spell? 'Hasta' I think I heard you say?"

"Yes. You adjust your grip on the wand to hold it in a fist with thumb towards the base, followed by the incantation."

"Is it one of yours?" he asked shrewdly.

"It is. I came up with it in 1981, but never had much chance to use it."

"I loved it. I knew you'd done the Levicorpus before, and the one you used on me that sticks the tongue to the roof of the mouth."

"Langlock," Severus supplied.

"You must teach it to me properly sometime."

"I will, so long as you promise not to spread them around to the students." Filius chuckled and nodded, then covered another yawn. "What on earth did you cast on me at the end? I could barely breathe."

Filius nodded instantly. "Spongify." He laughed at Severus' dumbfounded expression. Poppy paused her healing charms and raised her eyebrows too.

"The first year softening charm? Really?"

"To the ribs," he explained. "Every time you tried to inhale, the ribs moved in, rather than forcing the lungs to expand. No one ever figures it out the first time, because it isn't painful."

"Fascinating."

Poppy shook her head. "You two... alright, Filius, you're done. Severus, your turn. How bad is it?"

"Er... not bad. Burns mostly. Oh, and the shoulder, I suppose."

"Yes, I can see the arrow sticking out of it," Poppy said wryly.

"I also hit him with a Surculus, Poppy," Filius supplied.

"Yes, but I healed it already, or you would have won the duel ten minutes earlier and I wouldn't be standing here talking about it."

"Let me see," Poppy said sternly.

Severus allowed the mediwitch to minister to him without complaint. She applied a paste to soothe the burns, removed the arrow and closed the wound, and cleared some lingering fluid from his lungs. She did reluctantly agree he'd done a good job with the Vulnera Senentur. There would be no scarring. He was about to lead the way back out into the hall when Filius pointed out really, they should both change into new robes. This was a good point since they were both covered in a mixture of blood and stone dust, and both robes were also partially burnt. Poppy called a house elf to fetch new clothing for them and left them to it. Filius also offered to even up Severus' hair, since he'd lopped off a good portion of it during the duel. Severus scoffed initially, sure no one would really notice, until Filius conjured a mirror. Severus normally did not care about his hair... at all... but even he had to admit it looked pretty bad like this. The dust and burnt ends were especially unflattering. He allowed Filius to clean, trim and style it.

"You look good with shorter hair," Filius said approvingly. "Mature."

"You look younger without the beard," Severus informed him. "I'm sorry I obliterated your glasses."

"No matter. I have the prescription still. I can have Minerva conjure a new pair for me with the right lenses."

"Good. After you."

They reentered the hall and were greeted with a wild round of applause from students and staff alike. Filius smiled and waved, while Severus scowled at the floor and headed for his preferred chair. Filius followed him, taking Professor Slinkhard's usual place, vacant since the man had left. "Come on, Severus, you're allowed to be happy in public."

"I'm also not obligated to be happy in public."

"Suit yourself. Tell me..." Filius resumed his reminiscence about their duel, sprinkled with anecdotes from his glory days. His conversation grew increasingly tangential over the next ten minutes until... finally... he yawned again, set his head on his hand, and fell asleep just as Severus was finishing his soup. The Potions master smirked and clinked his glass against Filius'.

"What on earth?" Pomona said from his other side, as she reached around and prodded Filius. He did not awaken. "Is he alright? Poppy!"

The mediwitch bustled over, frowning. "He's fine," Severus said, loudly enough for his voice to carry across the staff table and perhaps even to the nearest students. "Check his collar. On his other robes, I mean."

Poppy blinked, then her eyes widened. "The potion you used in the duel! What was it?"

"Sleeping draught, of a kind that can be vaporized and inhaled. He wouldn't have gotten a very big dose, though, just whatever fumes evaporated from the collar in between the end of the duel and changing robes."

Poppy sighed and called a house elf to take Filius to bed. She returned to her seat, muttering under her breath.

Pomona nudged him. "Does this mean you won the duel after all?"

"We agreed it was a draw."

"Sure, but you were already planning for him to go under even then."

He smirked again and watched the students. He could practically see the gossip spreading across the hall. His Slytherins were as happy as he had ever seen them, constantly shooting glances up at him and whispering animatedly amongst themselves. The Ravenclaws looked stunned. "Ask the moderator what she thinks."

"Sneak."

He shrugged. "Slytherin."

"Aye. Well played."

Author's note: whew! Well, that was fun. I'm not writing any more duels in this fic anytime soon. It's a lot of work, lol. Hopefully, you are not disappointed with either the action or the outcome. For the shield charms, I'm operating under the assumption that while it's possible to cast some of the variants indefinitely and duel within/around them, that's not what Severus and Flitwick are doing in this duel because the variants aren't very flexible and constantly maintaining a regular Protego would interfere with casting certain other spells, for instance the blasting curse. So they periodically allow shields to fall and then recast as needed. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Most of the incantations listed are canon or from games, but a few are original: Hasta (spear-wand), Hebeto (drain energy jinx), Piermeum Locomotor (variation on the canonical Piertotum Locomotor to only animate stones originally conjured by the caster), and Surculus (shotgun curse). I also came up with the Stinging Hex incantation mentioned in the last two chapters, although the hex itself is definitely canonical. Also, yes, I know Severus can fly a la Voldemort in Book 7, but it's implied he learned that skill later than this, when he earned the status of Most Favored Death Eater.

Thanks for the reviews! Back to our regularly scheduled non-dueling club content next Sunday.