Chương 30: ITW,H - Chapter 30 - Dueling With Flitwick

(Word Count: 1, 259) The day went by quickly. Ron and Neville eventually found the two of them in the library some time before lunch and dragged them away from their reading. They then explored the castle grounds and generally messed around. When evening came around, it was time for Harry to go find Flitwick. On the way to Flitwick's charms classroom, Harry anticipated what he might learn from the tiny professor.

He had a feeling he might be going over the shield breaking charm, since that was a weakness Flitwick had pointed out. However, he could already cast it, he just had most of his power tied up in his snake summons. He peeked his head into the charms classroom. Professor Flitwick was there, clearing out the center space between the two sides. The space was meant for demonstrating spells, so it was already mostly clear, he was just getting some piles of books out of the danger zone.

The professor was humming to himself merrily.

"Professor Flitwick?" Harry announced his presence.

"Ah! Mr. Potter! Welcome! I hope you're ready. I'll be putting you through your paces properly to see just how far along you are!" Flitwick grinned cheerfully.

"We don't have much time, so we'll be dueling!"

"Already? Harry grinned back.

"Alright, then!"

"We'll be following the standard dueling rules, I trust you know them?"

"Yes, sir." Dueling was a common wizarding sport, akin to fencing. Duelists faced each other on a long thin stage, where you could advance or retreat. There are several ways to win, the primary method is to disarm your opponent's wand. The second was to force the opponent off their back end of the stage. The third, was to land three solid hits on your opponent. Knocking them off the side of the stage, as opposed to the back end, was considered a single "hit."

Lastly, was to incapacitate your opponent, knockout or blood loss, it didn't matter. The only real restrictions on what you could do was a list of restricted spells that were considered too lethal for proper dueling. There were 3 major dueling circuits: the Under 15, the Under 17, and Adult circuits. The list of restricted spells got smaller and smaller the higher up you go, with the U-15 circuit restricting even the use of Deffodio and Diffindo down to superficial cuts, and banned Bombarda.

The U-17 allowed many spells, including many curses, but nothing too "dark". The Adult circuit allowed any spell that wasn't declared illegal by the local ministry, including Antonin Dolohov's special purple curse, which won him a championship before the war broke out. It was a dangerous competition, and there are multiple critical injuries a season among the adults, with a death every so often. This was the same society that applauded the Triwizard tournament, and Quidditch is a favorite pastime.

It's astounding the level of brutality that is considered "reasonable" when the healers can regrow bones overnight. Still, they were in Hogwarts right now, and Flitwick was his teacher, so it wasn't going to be that serious. This would be following the U-15 limitations. Still… He wanted to go all out. Or at least, as far as the rules would let him. Harry thought about it, and chose to dismiss two of his snake summons watching over the unicorns.

That way, he had just enough Power to actually use a shield breaking charm, Ruptura, that he hadn't been able to show the professor before. Harry went to the other side of the area, and raised his wand at the ready.

"I'll give you the first move, Mr. Potter. Whenever you're ready," Professor Flitwick said, raising his own wand at the ready. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Harry lunged into his opening spell chain: Ruptura, Stupefy, Expeliarmus, Levioso, Depulso. However, at the same time, Harry launched a Legilimency attack. Both to distract Professor Flitwick, and get a read on what he was going to do next.

Flitwick responded to his attacks with a veteran's ease, side stepping the shield breaking charm, and casted a Protego that tanked all the rest of the spells. However, when the probe touched upon Professor Flitwick's mind, the professor's eyes gleamed with pride." Very well done, Mr. Potter!" Professor Flitwick thought.

"I see you worked on the shield breaking charm like I suggested. And the Legilimency! Excellent! I wasn't expecting you to be so talented in the mind arts. Legilimency is definitely a game changer in dueling." Flitwick reversed the Legilimency probe back into Harry's own mind. Harry didn't fight him too much on it, just enough to not make it obvious that this was what he wanted. Then, Flitwick started his counter attack, with him saying his spells out loud for Harry to hear." Stupefy!"

Harry immediately thought to cast Protego, and Flitwick followed up with a " Ruptura" to break the shield. The professor was in his mind, seeing what Harry was going to do next. Except, instead of casting Protego, Harry had side stepped Flitwick's Stupefy, and launched his own back at him. Flitwick ducked hastily to the side to dodge, but it took him off guard. It was the perk of having Occlumency at level 3. Fake thoughts and memories are at the level where they're considered real.

Professor Flitwick must have realized that Harry's Occlumency was at a much higher level than he thought, because his legilimency probe was removed.

"Your Occlumency is incredible. I had no hint at all you were trying to deceive me," Flitwick said.

"I'm a natural Occlumens, professor," Harry replied." Serpensortia!" He summoned several cobras at a time, and they raced forward, hissing threateningly." $Let's mess him up! $"" $Bite his ankles! $"" $A rat's more threatening than you! $" The snakes were enthusiastic, up until the moment Professor Flitwick vanished them. Harry tried to take advantage of the momentary distraction by sending several attacks as he dealt with the snakes, but Flitwick was too quick with his spells.

The two of them went back and forth a while longer, with Harry showing the full extent of his repertoire, even breaking out some of his parseltongue spells again. Eventually, their duel ended with Flitwick landing 3 hits on him. Flitwick summoned a goblet of water, drinking deeply, and caught his breath.

"Well done, Mr. Potter. You have a good head on your shoulders for dueling. Can you tell me where you can improve?"

"Um… I could be a bit quicker with my spells? I couldn't get any spells past you, even with distractions." Flitwick shook his head.

"No, Mr. Potter, one can always improve his casting speed, but that's just general improvement. Specifically, you are too focused on launching direct attacks. Even your distractions are snakes that come at me to attack me directly. Your deception with your talent in Occlumency was wonderful, but there are many more spells that you can use to mold the surroundings to your benefit, or use it to your advantage. For example, you could have summoned the stacks of books behind me to attack me from behind.

Or you could have used Glacius to freeze a patch of ice on the floor beneath me to hinder my footwork, making it harder for me to dodge." Harry grimaced sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. He was right.

"Yeah. I can see that now." Flitwick nodded, "Good. This next week, I want you to think of 3 different spells, aside from the ones I pointed out to you, that you could use in this way. Next week, I want to see your improvement!"

"Yes, sir," Harry said.