18 November 1992, Hogwarts
When Harry attended Lockhart's duelling club session, he didn't really know what to expect, especially with the blonde professor's surprising competence as a teacher. Honestly, the Potter scion only came to get a first glance at Parseltongue being used. The Tongue of Serpents isn't something that has been studied much, deemed as family magic more than any other spell.
It didn't make any sense. Family magic was something that you had when you were born. You couldn't really give it to someone. Soul shard in his scar or not, if Parseltongue was genuine family magic, then Longbottom shouldn't be able to speak to snakes. And considering that in the story, the boy who lived was able to do it, and that was a mystery that Harry wanted to solve.
Honestly, the mere existence of Parseltongue baffled Harry. It couldn't be a regular language. Snakes were good predators, who could hunt in packs with basic tactics to ambush large prey, but they definitely didn't have the intellect to follow precise orders like Voldemort's rumoured snake familiar, at least when it came to non-magical snakes. So, Harry was curious as to how it worked.
It was a mystery worth solving, and it did make a good way to test whether or not Longbottom was a Parselmouth. And examining the use of the snake tongue with his Arcane Hearing could be a clue to finding where Riddle put the new entrance to the chamber in some way.
Ten minutes into the meeting and Harry already doubted whether it would be worth it. The duelling demonstration between Lockhart and Snape was just despicable on both sides. Sure, the spells were obviously limited to the standard curriculum until OWL level, but that made sense since this meeting was for first years to fourth years, so using any sort of advanced magic would go over most people's heads.
But no, what made Harry suppress a sneer while watching the spar was the utter disregard for duelling as a sport was being shown. Snape was obviously a fighter, and so was using ambush and light Auror tactics. He was also missing most of his arsenal since he obviously specialized in dark spells. Harry did see the man stiffen in the middle of a spell chain, or suddenly change wand movement, preparing to cast a curse by instinct. It just made him look sluggish.
And speaking of instincts, Lockhart didn't have any and it was obvious. Riddle being stuck in the diary for at least a couple of months made whatever way Riddle was making him competent stop. The man just kept sending spells without any tactics in mind and cowered behind a Protego shield for most of the spar before Snape had enough of him and sent him flying.
So, yeah, it was a disappointment. Even Luna and Daphne thought the same, considering the small frowns on their faces. The two girls had insisted to accompany him for some reason, even though he had told them that it would be a waste of time if they wanted to learn anything.
After a practising session that honestly felt like ages, Lockhart announced the spars to practice what they have learnt. The two girls ended up participating in a small duel each, both of them winning their own fight. Daphne was obviously a little more experienced, probably because of Flitwick's duelling sessions and whatever self-defence spells she had learnt at home.
Anyway, eventually, the duel Harry came to see appeared. Longbottom against Malfoy. For some reason, people were excited about the rivalry. The two boys were obviously incensed with each other. Malfoy was angry at Longbottom because he thinks that the boy who lived was the one who hexed the bulger that attack him to spare Gryffindor their humiliating defeat. The blonde ponce kept complaining about it in the common room, so much so that Harry wanted to punch him just to shut him up.
Longbottom, though, just seemed angry in general ever since the attack. The fact that he was a suspect didn't help at all, since he was the one that discovered Filch's petrified body and Mrs Norris' corpse. The fact that Dean Thomas, his roommate, was petrified later, felt more like a taunt than anything else. Apparently, the boy who lived had started a crusade and vowed publicly to the Gryffindor common room that he would get to the bottom of things and avenge their fallen comrades.
That boy really was dramatic.
Anyway, it was obvious to everyone that the two of them were going to ignore every restriction and go all out the moment the duel started, and well, they did.
It was a relief that neither of the duelers knew any permanently harmful spells, and Snape being there would be able to deal with any real issue. Anyway, the duel turned into a common schoolyard scuffle, with practically no shielding and just common spells and hexes.
Of course, things started to heat up a bit when Malfoy snarled and sent in a cutting curse of all things, "Lacero!" It wasn't really a dark curse, but it was a little frowned upon because it was optimized for cutting biological matter, like human flesh.
Luckily, Longbottom dodged most of it, but he did end up with a thin red line on his gut, with blood slowly looking down on it. The boy who lived frowned, and well, he went all out on it. It seems that the Longbottom scion had started to learn some self-defence in his spare time because he snarled and started a pretty interesting spell chain. He started by casting a Knockback Jinx that threw the young Slytherin in the air and followed it with an Impediment Jinx, that froze him in the air. The boy who lived proceeded to cast a veritable barrage of pranking spells before finally casting a Descendo charm that pulled the boy back into the ground.
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