Chapter 19
Although somewhat reluctantly, the upperclassmen came to terms with the fact that first-years had joined their club, and perhaps the main reason we were accepted was the duel between Regulus and Cedric Diggory.
"Since we have such talented newcomers, why don't we hold a sparring match between one of them and the youngest member up until now?" Flitwick suggested with a slightly sly squint, looking at Cedric.
"I don't mind," the boy immediately stepped forward.
"Then I'll be his opponent," said Regulus, while Andromeda moved back to join the rest of our group.
"In that case, take your places. I'll be the referee," the professor nodded with satisfaction, taking his seat.
After waiting a moment until we were the required distance apart, he asked, "Are you ready?"
"Yes," we both replied in unison.
"In that case, on my signal…"
Just like in our previous duel, we raised our wands like swords, anticipating the start. Only this time, we had the chance to show much greater speed.
"Begin!"
As soon as Flitwick gave the signal, we went into motion.
"Bombarda!" Cedric shouted the spell.
Meanwhile, having already sent a Stunning Spell towards the third-year, we raised a wandless shield with our free hand. And here came a surprise: even before the red jet reached Regulus, the magical shield began to crack from the bottom up, and then, upon contact, shattered.
"Regulus Black is the winner!" Flitwick declared, because although Cedric surprised us by breaking through our Protego—which we hadn't really put much power into—he didn't have time to defend himself from the spell and was now lying on the floor, stunned.
"Miss Crystal, if you would be so kind," the professor addressed the older student, who after his words walked over to Diggory, touched his chest with her wand, and woke him up.
"Phew," Cedric exhaled heavily, stood up brusquely, and, with a surprisingly friendly smile, walked over and offered a handshake. "Looks like I lost."
"Yeah, but you surprised me. How did you break through my shield so easily?" Regulus asked.
"That, Mr. Regulus, was a double-cast spell," Flitwick explained for Cedric. "The essence is to cast two spells simultaneously: one aloud, the other nonverbally, so there's almost no delay between them. And Mr. Diggory pleasantly surprised me by mastering this technique. He didn't have enough experience to defend himself in time, but that's just a matter of practice."
"But what surprises me even more is how well you performed, Mr. Black: a nonverbal Stunning Spell and a wandless Protego— you've essentially achieved your own form of double-casting. And if you work at it, in the future you could manage even a triple-cast. In that case, you'd have almost no opponents."
"Almost?" Regulus asked, raising an eyebrow.
"There are, in fact, quite a few wizards in the magical world who far surpass others—not just in knowledge, but in magical power as well. For example, Mr. Cedric couldn't break your Protego with a regular Bombarda, but if your aunt Bellatrix Black did it, not only would she tear through the shield, but part of the shockwave would still hit you."
"Professor, isn't using an explosive spell in training duels too dangerous?" Hermione asked as she approached.
"Dangerous, no doubt," Flitwick nodded in response. "That's why, for safety, we cast this spell at the feet of the opponent; that way, in the event of failed protection, the worst outcome is some broken legs— which can be healed overnight."
"Broken legs?!" Harry and Ron exclaimed in shock, causing knowing laughs among the upperclassmen.
"That's right, broken legs," Flitwick confirmed, then continued with a serious expression, "You're still first-years and don't realize the full seriousness and danger of magic, but the truth is, every day, witches and wizards all over the world are injured because of magic. So it's best if you get used to the idea that magic and pain go hand-in-hand. Only then can you achieve something beyond being just a Muggle with a wand. This is especially important for you, Mr. Potter."
"Me?" Harry asked, his eyes wide.
"Yes, your fame could easily become your worst enemy, so I'm honestly glad you decided to learn to defend yourself so early."
"I… understand," Harry said, his shoulders drooping a little.
"All right, let's do something more interesting." Seeing that Potter felt uncomfortable, the professor changed the subject. "Who wants to show our newcomers a few tricks?"
The next couple of hours flew by quite happily: the upperclassmen, with unusual enthusiasm, demonstrated their skills to the first-years, showing off in front of us. Ron Weasley was the perfect audience for this: he was enthralled by their skills, showering them with praise and at the same time imagining how he would one day knock Malfoy out with some complicated combination and eventually become a master duelist himself. The rest of us weren't far behind either. The principle of double-casting was something new to us, and after seeing the seventh-years' demonstration duel, to be honest, we doubted we could handle them, even with our cheat of enhanced reaction speed when focusing on a single body. They seemed to have memorized every spell and what it looked like as it was cast, and, as it turned out, each spell had its own non-obvious countercurse, with a whole variety of outcomes possible from their collision—from a simple ricochet or chain-reaction, where the stronger side pushes both spells into the opponent, to complete neutralization. In fact, in the last Harry Potter film, where McGonagall attacks Snape, they show a similar principle, where the Slytherin Head redirects the spells back at the Death Eaters behind him using the right combination of spells. Ultimately, this method of blocking spells is much more effective than a simple Protego, though it takes a huge amount of knowledge and very fast reflexes.
All in all, everyone was inspired to reach new heights and pleased with the day: even Hermione and Ron weren't bickering, but sharing impressions with us, like proper eleven-year-old children.
So, in the end, the five of us went to the chapel every day to train. Club meetings were only twice a week, but sometimes upperclassmen, who were quite friendly, joined us as well.
October 31, 1991
Two months had already passed since we entered Hogwarts. During that time, the only big event worth mentioning was probably the capture and subsequent execution of Peter Pettigrew, and the resulting release of Sirius Black, who, at Dumbledore's insistence, had to undergo a full medical course at St. Mungo's before he could interact with us or Potter—especially with the mind healers. He'd been too hard on himself, with constant self-reproach fueled by the dementors' influence. Nevertheless, he wrote us— and Harry— a letter.
In short, the letter to us said he was very grateful, amazed that his no-good little brother had children, and would like to meet us someday and spend the summer together at a resort as a family, without any pure-blood nonsense.
As for Potter, it seemed Sirius had promised him he'd live together in the house inherited from Alphard Black. At least after getting the letter, Potter was all smiles, though we knew disappointment awaited him in the summer.
We'd also delved a little into blood magic and rituals—naturally, "for purely academic purposes"—and based on what we'd learned, besides the elusive magic of love (which we weren't dismissing, since, after all, this was a magical world and who knew what could exist), our suspicions were that Lily Potter actually knew what she was doing with blood magic, so there really was some protection; and Potter, in order not to lose it, would have to spend at least a month with those much-disliked relatives.
Rita Skeeter, true to our agreement, wrote nothing about me or Hermione, taking it all out on the Weasleys. As a result, all of magical Britain learned that a dodgy Animagus Death Eater had spent years sleeping next to first Percy and then Ron Weasley. Poor Percy was mortified and had to stoically endure ridicule, looking red with anger, until a month later he called out one of the jokers, won the duel, and sent them to the hospital wing with broken bones. After that, no one bothered him anymore—strength is respected in the wizarding world. Things were much easier for Ron: not only did he usually spend time with us, so almost no one teased him, but if there were any particularly brave jokers, the next day it would be them who were laughed at thanks to the Weasley twins. That didn't stop them from teasing Ron, though.
Speaking of the brave: after the incident in flying class, Malfoy rapidly lost standing among his housemates, and soon the leader of the Slytherin first-years became Theodore Nott, who took Malfoy's mistakes into account and stopped openly antagonizing our group.
As for wrapping up everything that happened, I should mention our lessons with Dumbledore. Exploiting the fact that we had one mind in two bodies, he would periodically call us out of class one by one to teach us Occlumency. To his credit, he never used Legilimency on us but taught us how to build an impenetrable shield around our mind and organize our memories for faster recall. The latter was particularly easy for us, thanks to our perfect memory.
"Troll! There's a troll… in the dungeons… thought you ought to know…" Professor Quirrell's acting interrupted our thoughts, as he collapsed dramatically to the floor. Immediately, the Great Hall was filled with the screams of panicked children, who recoiled from their plates as if they were poisoned, and then…
"QUIET!" boomed Dumbledore's order, and everyone fell silent.
"Prefects!" Dumbledore thundered. "Lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"
Percy jumped to his feet, clearly in his element.
"Follow me quickly!" he commanded. "First-years, stick together! If you listen to me, nothing bad will happen! Let the first-years come forward! No one is to fall behind! Obey my instructions— I'm the prefect here!"
We calmly got up and, sighing over a half-eaten piece of delicious cake, followed the rest. After all, unlike in canon, Hermione was with us, so there was no need to worry.
"Wait!" Harry hissed in a loud whisper, stopping us as we exited the Great Hall.
"What is it?" we asked in unison, looking at the chosen one.
"Malfoy."
"What about Malfoy?" Weasley asked, confused.
"He doesn't know about the troll."
"What do you mean?" we frowned, already guessing where this was going.
"I heard he got into a fight with Nott today, and when Nott broke his nose, instead of going to Madam Pomfrey, he holed up in the boys' bathroom," Harry replied.
"How do you know that?" Ron asked.
"Well, I noticed he wasn't at the Slytherin table, so I asked the girls— they always know everything."
"So what do you want us to do?" we said, seeing we'd already fallen behind the others and mentally hoping Malfoy would get a taste of the troll's club.
"We have to save him!" the chosen one declared.
"What?!" We exclaimed, along with Weasley.
"But it's Malfoy. If any Malfoy dies, I won't shed a single tear. I'll even gloat and say it's karma for Sirius' murdered children," Andromeda announced.
"Exactly," Weasley echoed.
"But Draco wasn't the one who killed them. Won't you feel guilty if he really does die, and we all knew we could have saved him?" Harry asked, looking as serious as possible.
"I'm with Harry," Hermione chimed in.
"…." Clenching our teeth and taking a deep breath, we conceded. "Fine, let's go."