"Keep your spine straight, shoulders back. Front foot should be pointed at your target and back foot a quarter turned—keep your weight balanced between ball and heel so that you can move in an instant!" Harry repeated the lessons he'd only just learned from McGonagall to his new students, who obeyed quickly and fixed their postures hastily.
He smiled as he put a finger on Ginny's wrist and pushed it down a couple inches.
"Not so high—if your arm is straight out like that you'll get tired quickly. It's okay to have a bend in your elbow just to keep it at the ready. Remember, you need full arm flexibility to be able to react with any type of spell that might be appropriate for whatever your opponent is throwing at you. Also, you need to be able to see over your own hand at what it is that they're throwing,"
"Right," She had a serious look on her face and corrected her arm, knees bent like she was ready to tackle someone. He was very amused how into this she was getting, and suspected if the dueling club continued to be a thing then she was going to be a really good fighter someday.
In comparison, directly to her left Luna looked so calm that she might be ready to hex you, or simply drop her wand from how loose her grip was, and she was standing casually enough that it seemed like a stray wind might topple her. He would've commented on it if he hadn't already seen her lazily flick her wrist this way and that, only for very accurately placed charms to go zinging all over the room as if she were dancing with them.
She had mentioned her father once taught her some self-defense… so the fact she was being harassed by her own housemates seemed purely a benevolent choice on her part rather than a lack of capability. Harry was going to leave that battle for another day though, as today was for dueling only—they didn't have much time until the club began after all.
His group of first years had both shrunk and grown… they were most noticeably missing Colin and Harry was trying hard not to think about how quiet it was without him there snapping pictures at literally everything they did. Even being quieter than he would've liked, they'd still increased in number from their original flying lessons though, as now every single first-year Gryffindor boy was here, probably because they were the most affected by what had happened to Colin, and therefore the most unnerved by it. Gryffindor boys were also the type most likely to be comforted by learning how to defend themselves against this mysterious monster, so it made sense to have the representation… although Ginny and Melody were still the only two representing the Gryffindor girls. He knew there were at least four more who still hadn't shown, not that he was judging that exactly.
They'd expanded on other fronts too, as Basil, the first-year Hufflepuff Susan had practically thrown at him, had convinced his best friend Toddy to come too. They were having a little too much fun trying to catch each other with laughing charms rather than focusing on their footwork, but they were polite when he spoke up at least.
The most exciting part though, had come out of nowhere when two first-year Slytherins had approached him and asked to join when they somehow heard he was putting on these little classes in prep for the dueling club.
He'd looked up all the first years' backgrounds just so he was aware of them like every other snake would be, but other than making sure they weren't picking fights with the Gryffindor first-years, hadn't approached them too much yet. He was letting them get used to Hogwarts and pick up on how 'Harry Potter' was seen in Slytherin house before he got involved. Knowing they were at the bottom of the barrel hierarchy-wise, and how Slytherin usually left firsties relatively alone if they shut up and just tried to learn their place in the world their first year here, Harry had copied that behavior so as not to sabotage them. He was a controversial character after all, and demanding upper years deal with him was not the same as bullying someone younger than him, who didn't know any better, into dealing with him. Brand new snakes would not immediately know how to deal with an upper year getting in their faces without insulting both the Potter name, and also not get them ostracized by their own house. If they talked to him without knowing any better, they would have no idea Harry was essentially ruining their reputation for them as they might be seen as Draco was—conspiring with a Gryffindor, and the Boy Who Lived at that.
So he'd kept his distance to let them work it out. Let them get a feel for Hogwarts and Slytherin house in particular, and maybe in the later half of the year he'd reach out slowly to see if they had anything worth trading for yet and get the dealing going.
That plan had been blown out of the water when an unpredictably brave girl with long brown hair and hazel eyes walked up to him when he was sitting doing Charms homework with Draco in the Slytherin common room, and asked to be included in his unofficial class.
To be completely blunt, Lake Evergreen was a phenomenal Slytherin.
She was pureblood, not outwardly dark, not obscenely wealthy but robes of a very fine design and make. She knew exactly what she was doing when she asked him, and as a firstie with nothing to trade she'd given him big eyes and promised that she'd get along with the Gryffindors this year in exchange for his help as an upper year.
Which was amazing for several reasons.
First of all, doing it in the Slytherin common room meant people knew, and she knew that they knew. Second, she'd known exactly what he wanted in his heart of hearts: for Slytherins and Gryffindors to get over their old rivalry, and since she had nothing to trade she'd gone for his heartstrings instead. Thirdly, her words were very careful in saying 'his help as an upper year'.
That did not mean help with the dueling club specifically.
It just meant help.
Harry recognized immediately that she was asking for not only help with combat, but also perhaps schoolwork… perhaps protection from the other Gryffindors who might be the ones picking the fights in the first place, since he'd already very much proven he'd bully any first year who started the fight, even if they were in his own house. She was essentially asking to be put under his wing, in exchange for following his rules.
She'd done it in her own common room so that everyone knew that helpless little firstie Lake Evergreen now had Harry Potter as her mentor… which meant she'd grabbed a lot of power relative to her position very quickly, considering she'd only been at Hogwarts a couple months. She must have seen how he'd commanded (ahem—threatened) all the first years into peace in the hallways and picked up very quickly how wary the snake house was of him and decided she could definitely capitalize on it.
Because he was still a Gryffindor, and he had heart strings with which to attack, and perhaps unluckily for Harry it was a damn effective method. In true Slytherin fashion, it was almost too good of a deal to pass up, so Harry hadn't needed to think long before accepting.
Draco had witnessed the whole thing and been much more wary, warning him that it probably wasn't a good idea… but he really couldn't quite give a quaffle.
She could be using him, she could walk in the start of next year and start hexing Gryffindors left and right since this deal was only to be nice for now, but it still wouldn't matter. She was still a first year, who had no better chance of surviving whatever monster was roaming their school halls than Colin had… at the very least, he wouldn't turn anyone away from this self-defense lesson of sorts, no matter who they were or what their motivation was. She hadn't defined what help meant and neither had he—he could still be as careful as he needed to be with her.
Besides… Harry only pretended to be able to predict Slytherin motivations, but he also had a sixth sense for when the motivation wasn't Slytherin at all.
In fact, while he wasn't about to bring it up to anyone, he was pretty sure Lake's motivation was tightly interconnected with the boy who'd been right behind her when she asked for the deal not only for herself, but the both of them.
There was… shockingly little known about Alden Cork, and he was dead quiet even when Harry was encouraging him to say a spell louder to get more strength in his core to cast it properly. Even Daphne knew nothing about him, which really…
It meant he was probably a muggleborn.
He was smart enough to say nothing about that though and keep firmly to himself, and it seemed his year mates were ignoring that silent fact too. Harry suspected there were several muggleborns throughout the snake house, but you'd never know it from how secure that information was, for obvious reasons. If Lake had her shit together, then comparatively Alden seemed to be silently drowning and hoping no one noticed if he disappeared suddenly.
Harry genuinely could not imagine how hard this kid probably had it. He had literally nothing going for him except for the fact Lake seemed to have aligned herself with him and was taking him along for the ride.
Muggleborn or not, he was in Slytherin, so he had a goal or at the very least wanted to get somewhere with his life. Harry could relate and the boy was certainly not going to find too much help in his own house, so maybe it was pity or sympathy or whatever… he was willing to pass on what he knew and do what he could for them in exchange for them supporting his own goals.
Best of all: as a muggleborn, the idea that he'd end up siding with the dark or with someone actively preaching the death of people like him as Voldemort did, was laughable. Not that it couldn't happen as you never knew, but Alden was a Slytherin was had as good a motivation as anyone to side with "Harry Potter", so it was likely this relationship would be a long-term one for survival purposes while he was at Hogwarts.
And Harry could totally work with that.
For almost the same reason though, he was exceptionally wary of Lake as she was sharp as a knife despite being able to play helpless-firstie-with-puppy-dog-eyes outstandingly well… but he considered it a challenge worth taking.
"Is there any spell we can learn that would actually be useful for a duel though?" Lake herself spoke up in amongst all of their practicing, unafraid despite the room being mostly Gryffindor boys… who were still looking at her with wide, suspicious eyes, but firmly polite under Harry's acidic stare daring them to start shit in front of him.
"Hm… I had given that some thought," He tapped his chin, but it was a hard conundrum. Lake very obviously was already trained by her family—her posture was immaculate and simply oozed confidence in how she held her wand and placed her feet. There was no way she didn't know ten hexes and dark curses from her parents to use in real combat, if not a friendly duel exactly. Her partner across from her had a death grip on his wand though, despite his shoulders being up straight and face otherwise blank, so he doubted she was asking for herself.
He wasn't about to make the same mistake in teaching them spells above their year level for fear of damaging their magical cores. His was special but like hell was he going to risk their health, even if McGonagall and Pomfrey wouldn't personally quarter him if they ever found out about it, but that meant he was limited to the spells taught to first years only.
Aside from Transfiguration which he'd gone completely out of order on, he knew the main offensive spells you learned in first year would be the severing charm, the fire-making charm, the knockback jinx, and the verdimillious charm—half of which were second semester lessons they didn't know yet. The severing charm was a bit too reckless for him to teach a bunch of younger years in preparation for a duel—he didn't want them actually using that and accidentally cutting someone's hand off. The fire-making charm sounded a bit excessive and from what he remembered the knockback jinx was pretty tough (prodigy at Charms, he was not…). The only one that had real promise was the verdimillious charm which was specifically meant for use in duals and would conjure large, lightly damaging green sparks. The only defensive spell taught was the smokescreen spell which was useful enough as the only shield-type spell in first-year range, and it would actually be helpful if, say, a monster were coming at them down a hall and then needed a quick getaway.
The twins had also come in clutch and explained some of the more mischievous spells they'd learned over the years, trimming it down to a couple that even first years should be able to do within the week they had until the club started. Things like the laughing charm (which it seemed some of them already knew), the full body bind hex, and a monster hair growth jinx. The last one didn't seem too useful but it was also very funny to see someone's eyebrows grow over their eyes to blind them temporarily. And besides, in a duel it mattered less what the spell was and just so long as it was considered an incapacitation or a 'hit', and for a first year it would still count.
"We only have a week so the verdimillious charm and the smokescreen spell will be our best bet at a safe offensive and defensive pair. If we have time I'll teach you a couple jinxes to switch it up if you want." He decided, and she tilted her head curiously at him.
"I heard you were really good at Transfiguration—do you know anything useful with that?"
Harry mentally flashed back to a melted club raining down on a troll, and Quirrell's choked death-gurgles as the blood in his body was replaced with water.
"… not unless you want to kill a troll." He deflected and she startled. "I'll tell you what: if you're still interested later in some offensive Transfiguration I can teach you, but it's way too dangerous for a duel against someone you don't want to kill—McGonagall will actually murder me if I start spreading Transfiguration dueling tricks to first years."
"Oh," She frowned, considering that with eyes alight with whatever was churning behind her gaze. "I didn't realize Transfiguration was that dangerous."
"It's the second most dangerous after Potions! So maybe later with that stuff, let's just focus on winning some duels first." He clapped his hands and they all perked up as he launched into a demonstration of the smokescreen charm.
Lake Evergreen kind of terrified him, since she wasn't quite sly enough to cover her blatant interest in dangerous magics, but he knew she would be soon. What she wanted it for though…
Harry was just gonna have to stay on his toes and hope they used it against monsters in the Hogwarts hallways, not each other.
000
"Is he still not talking to me?"
"Don't question it, just enjoy the silence."
Blaise felt a vein in his temple twitch and spun around to give the peanut gallery standing behind him a venomous snarl.
He must be losing his touch though, because Harry just beamed while Draco didn't even look away from the stage they were setting up in the Great Hall.
"Blaise! It's been so long since you acknowledged me I thought you'd forgotten about me!" The red headed jerk didn't even admit his betrayal and the Zabini heir whipped around again to openly ignore him.
It was hard though… he sincerely wanted to pick on him instead.
The audacity, of when he'd heard about this dueling club obviously he'd gone to tell everyone in the entire useless school, except the red-headed prick behind him had already known.
Way to ruin the joy of gossip, asshole.
"What did you do?"
"Me? Why are you asking me what I did!?" Harry's indignant cry made Blaise feel slightly better, and he glanced over his shoulder in a show of casualness to see the other Gryffindor boys settling in beside them. They were awfully… not uncomfortable standing and sitting with them when the years gathered like this, or when they had classes together.
Blaise wasn't strictly uncomfortable either, as they were all potential targets someday so no use in burning bridges, but there was also the matter of appearances to keep. That in no way explained why a bunch of lions, who didn't care about appearances in the first place, had no issue standing right next to them though.
The answer, as Blaise was quickly finding was usually the case, circled back around to the lovely Harry Potter-Monroe to whom had taken a seat atop one of the empty tables in the Great Hall with the ever-present sidekick that was Longbottom firmly by his side. Over the course of the half hour where people filtered in to see what this dueling club was about, he'd been slowly crowded with people who wished to stand or sit near him. Like a magnet that had most people's attention and interest, good or bad, people gravitated towards him… and evidentially, sometimes that pulling force exceeded the distaste for being near others.
For example Nott was still here, but he was at the far end of the table from the direction the Gryffindors had appeared, like a planet being kept in place around a sun but simultaneously repelled by larger planets on the other side of its orbit. Draco of course sat next to Harry, but hadn't acknowledged Longbottom sitting on his other side, like two tightly spinning moons that wouldn't leave their planet but were forever stuck at opposite poles by sheer opposing magnetism to each other.
Blaise himself had done it, impishly standing right in front of him to block his view in retaliation for ruining his gossip earlier, but him purposefully annoying the boy wonder back there was still him paying attention to, and choosing to stand near, the famous Boy Who Lived. He supposed he himself was a comet—heedless of any planet or asteroid belt in his way and keeping a definite distance most times… yet he always found himself circling back eventually.
For some reason.
Potter had been infiltrating a lot of corners of Hogwarts lately, which meant you ended up with this weird grouping of people: Slytherins, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs all mixed together, and not by house or friend group, but by how close of friends they were to Harry. How tight was your orbit, how strong was the gravitational pull…
Blaise was annoyed.
As the center of his own universe, the implication someone else was the sun in this metaphor pissed him off. Maybe that was why the slight annoyance and tiny grudge over his interrupted gossip was easier to hold onto that it would be otherwise.
In the end it didn't actually matter though—nothing did. It was just another small detail that was a bit out of place.
"Well you're always very polite to the Slytherins so if he's mad at you, I'm assuming it's something you did." Dean continued like he didn't hear Harry's indignant tone.
Blaise felt better.
He spun around so fast Longbottom nearly startled right off of his seat and all the Gryffindors did a sharp double take.
"That's it! Harry dear you're ousted from my favorite Gryffindor position for being a bitch—Thomas you're it."
Harry's wide green eyes looked betrayed for half a second before lighting up and cackling madly.
Thomas, to his credit, just titled his head as if not sure how to take that.
"I'm not sure I have a favorite Slytherin."
"Yes you do, and you have to say it's me now." He snapped.
"Ah… alright?"
"Blaise, I found out literally one day before you—what could you have possible done with less than twelve hours notice?" The Potter asshole had the audacity to ask, which Blaise took full offense to.
"Everything—where have you been? Pay attention! I could've taken over Hogwarts already with that kind of forewarning!"
"Which is maybe why it's best he didn't tell you," Draco drawled uncaringly, yelping as he got hit on the shoulder immediately for it. "Stop hitting me because you're mad at him!" He complained.
Blaise looked as far down his nose as he could at the red head looking too-innocently at him, though the slight smirk to his lips gave him away. He sneered.
"Well I can't hit that one. He'll just bite me."
"I'm not a dog."
"But you are a bitch," He waved his hand dismissively over his shoulder, making a show of being done with them and turning back to the stage, relishing in the way Potter choked on air audibly at the sharp retort. He even got a snicker from a stray Ravenclaw in the nearby crowd, which was mildly entertaining.
"How did you know about it ahead of time, Harry?" Finnegan chirped up curiously, although Blaise had already figured it out the instant he realized his gossip wheel had been ruined.
"McGonagall told me." He admitted.
"You really are her favorite…"
"I mean yeah but this time it wasn't technically because of that. I still had that magical block on me and she wanted to be sure it got removed before the club started, so it came up in that conversation was all."
"Oh that's right! So you're finally free?" Dean cheered him and he flashed a pleased grin for the many onlookers that perked up at that news.
"Yep! All good by now!"
It posed a slight problem, Blaise considered.
Magical power was a nebulous topic in that it was difficult to categorize people just because they had more or less sheer capacity for magic than someone else. Any clever Slytherin with a weak core still had a slight edge over, say, a Hufflepuff with a larger-than-average core just by virtue of being willing (and eager) to play dirty and trick their opponent into a trap, even if they couldn't go wand-to-wand and win in a direct clash. Power combined with control was a much better indicator of someone's strength, but control was very hard to quantify as you could be great at ten spells but horrible at a hundred others.
Just because you had a lot of magic did not necessarily mean you could use it. Blaise never discredited anyone as a non-threat just because of weakness or arbitrary magical strength, it was just poor tactics.
Potter though, was a bit of an outlier.
Being stronger than someone else in terms of magic was not usually something to get worked up over, however being twenty times stronger than anyone else your age wasn't something you could just ignore. Blaise was no expert on magical core theory, but the fact Potter had a magic block on for the entirety of this year so far and, frankly, just forgot about it was a red flag and a half. Blaise had watched him, never for a second forgetting the fact his magic was leashed while the weirdo sat in front of him in Charms, still completing spells averagely quickly compared to the rest of the class. And let's not even pretend that everyone didn't notice how he had the entire year's work in Transfiguration already done, and how he'd just hand it in and start doing other homework during that class period with McGonagall's permission.
If he hadn't openly told them, literally no one—not even a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw or a single teacher in this second-rate school—would've been able to notice that he had a magical block on until just recently.
Even worse, is that he wouldn't have told them if he didn't get caught with the potions at meals almost immediately. Blaise could read people like he could breathe air, and while he didn't always know the motivation or what they were hiding, he always knew when they were hiding something. Harry had told them it was because he'd pushed himself too far in upper year Transfiguration work, which was an exceptionally reasonable excuse—it made almost too much sense in fact.
Blaise knew for certainty that it was a lie because of how oh so reasonable the explanation had been. Only muggleborns or those raised by muggles cared about making everything make perfect sense when they lied, because if they actually knew a thing about the wizarding world they'd know life and magic certainly did not work so sensibly as they thought it should. He didn't even need the deduction though, as he could tell the instant the words came out of his mouth by the way the Gryffindor's smile had been ever so slightly too calm. Blaise had had a year of eating meals with him at this point: he knew when the boy wonder was lying by now. He didn't even need the full year honestly, he could tell by last Christmas.
As for if he cared if anyone was lying to him… ha, no.
Lie away, he didn't give a fuck.
In fact he kind of loved it when people lied to him. It was just so cute that they genuinely thought they'd get away with it.
While he didn't know the actual reason Harry had a magical block on, he also knew if Madam Pomfrey was involved then it was a sincere threat to his magical core—and therefore everyone around him. As someone who ate lunch with him periodically, Blaise wasn't questioning the decision.
The only thing he would maybe question was why he'd lied to Draco, because it was clear the Malfoy heir didn't know the real reason either—he wasn't lying when he'd commented on the potions so he very genuinely didn't know the actual reason.
That was a bit interesting, as in he'd made note of it… but he didn't actually care enough to do anything about it. He would just sit on that knowledge and wait for something else to pop up that maybe was related—maybe he'd get to use it against them someday. That would be fun, maybe. Or maybe not.
Maybe it would be just another boring thing cluttering up his brain.
Anyway, while none of that mattered, the fact Harry had his core released in preparation for today's duels posed an imminent problem he needed to give attention to. There was a none-zero chance he would get paired up with the red headed menace and in that case, he needed his wits about him.
Because the power was one thing… it was a significant thing, but it was only one factor.
Power and control was the name of the game, and unfortunately Mr. Monroe had an intense amount of competency with a wand in addition to his apparent unparalleled magic power. Since the start of this year, his comfort with a wand had skyrocketed, and as the snake house in general was hyper-aware of anyone who may pose a threat to them, there weren't many who hadn't noticed that he walked a lot like a pureblood who'd been trained in magic since birth these days. Pretty much only Draco and some first years seemed to have not noticed, actually.
He'd been around when Harry had traded some Transfiguration lessons to others in the Slytherin common room, and even if he wasn't in on the deal and had to sit elsewhere in another sitting area where he couldn't hear what was being said, he still watched like a hawk and very much noticed how he seemed to forget to say some spells out loud when he was doing a demonstration. Not being able to hear didn't matter, as his lips didn't move as he moved his wand, and things started transfiguring in front of him flawlessly.
Also, he didn't care about quidditch but even Blaise knew being the youngest seeker in a century both at Hogwarts and in the professional sport of quidditch in general, meant he had the hand-eye coordination and reaction time that beat out everyone around him by miles. He'd attended enough games out of obligation to know first hand at this point too.
To top it all off, shattering your arm and still being able to hold onto a snitch and not fall off your broom, being roasted alive by a rouge potion without making a sound and then brushing it off immediately… yeah.
Mr. Monroe would do fine before Lady Zabini if it ever came to that.
Anyone with that kind of pain tolerance wasn't going to shy away from some second-year level spells in a public duel.
To top it all off, he'd destroyed an upper year Slytherin with only a harmless defensive spell being cast to prevent a scene from happening at breakfast. He didn't need a wand to be a fucking threat and half, but given the weapon and the clear goal of fighting someone, Blaise was thrilled to see him go destroy some fools… and not so thrilled with the none-zero chance he'd be one of them.
Blaise himself was very good. He was trained by his mother after all.
Reality was though, he most likely wasn't as good as Harry right now. He had power and he knew how to use it, he was dangerously clever, he was still an annoyingly unafraid Gryffindor who wouldn't back down because of pain or fear, and he had the repertoire of spells, at least in Transfiguration, to be a real fucking problem to fellow second-years who didn't have high level magic they could lean on here. At least not that they could show in front of teachers as plenty of Slytherins knew a couple dark ones that'd do the trick in a real fight.
Still, for a 'friendly' duel, Potter had all the advantages here.
And to be beaten by him in this public forum would be a blow to Blaise's pride that he wasn't willing to take, so he had to think carefully about what he needed to do should it happen. It was a small chance, but a none-zero one was still a chance, and only a fool wouldn't prepare anyway.
As he mulled it over, he sighed as he realized the only viable weakness the guy had was his mental stability which was, let's say, about as good as Blaise's right now… but he didn't wear it nearly as fabulously as he did. That was a trump card he was saving for a better day though so it wasn't useful in this setting.
Hmmm…he's weak to Charms and I bet he doesn't know any good shields. Then again with his power he could probably break through most of my shields, or at least the ones I can use publicly… and his reaction time means I'd be the one at a disadvantage if I tired overwhelming him with volume. Maybe psychological, if I play purely defensive and don't attack for as long as I can hold out and just wait for when his guard drops?
He tisked at the mediocrity of his tactics. This is why he didn't get into head-on fights—destroying people's reputations was so much easier.
"On that topic, me knowing about it wasn't favoritism but I'll tell you what is: she promised me I get to go first once we start this thing." Potter continued behind him, ignorant of the Zabini's internal musings.
"No way!"
"Better you than me, honestly. I'll just take notes as I've never dueled before." Thomas sighed wearily.
"I doubt many our year level have, I don't think."
"Jokes on you, Slytherins grow up knowing the rules so good luck." Surprisingly, Draco actually addressed Finnegan with a haughty sniff, and even more surprisingly was that the Irishman didn't even take offense, he just gave a dreading groan.
"Oh great…"
Blaise knew Draco had been getting too chummy—he couldn't keep his trap shut when it came to quidditch and the two of them were nerds about it. Minus one point for the weakest snake of their grade—including Mr. Monroe here somehow, who was, in fact, still a Gryffindor even.
"I just have to hope I'm up against a Slytherin then." Harry gave a wicked grin as if not bothered at all by the apparent disadvantage… which confirmed to Blaise the worst possible scenario here:
Potter knew how good he was, and he was actively looking for an actual challenge to him.
It was one thing if he had all the advantages in combat against others his age but was still nervous for his first fight or underestimated himself… that he knew and was confident in his own abilities was a whole other monster altogether.
Blaise automatically made a face of disgust, but deflected with his words.
"Ironic, given you're the one always preaching the snakes and lions get along, aren't you?" He sniffed down his nose at him.
"I just want a good fight is all," He countered smoothly, unbothered.
Bitch knew he was going to win, and it pissed him off.
He couldn't help but bare his teeth just a bit.
"With that attitude I hope you fight Longbottom first."
Blaise immensely enjoyed the way the meek Gryffindor's face paled dramatically at realizing that that was a possibility, and Potter's cockiness vanished in a puff to instantly turn to his friend with reassurances, completely abandoning the exchange with everyone else to focus on his sidekick.
Predictable.
Merlin he hated predictable things. Harry was usually more entertaining than that.
Serves him right though.I hope he's forced to knock his little shadow right off the stage himself.
Blaise's uncharitable mood got worse as he turned back to where the stage seemed to be set, and the teachers were gathering to begin the club session. Lockhart who was apparently running this thing was unfortunately there, but so was Snape, McGonagall, and Flitwick.
Unfortunately, a Potter vs Longbottom duel is even less likely than me fighting the bitch. The cat and the shrimp wouldn't do that to Longbottom and there are much better ways to fuck with Potter that Snape would probably choose over torturing Longbottom even more than he does in class already. I mean it's a predictable win for Potter so it'd be such a basic choice when Snape is far too much of a dramatic bastard for it to be so simple.
Lockhart is a wild card though—maybe I could catch his eye and have him pick Longbottom somehow? I mean, if the dunce would ever pick up on that, which I doubt. Nah, too much effort given Harry will know I had a hand in it and will get pissy about it. I still don't know exactly where the line in fucking with Longbottom is before he sees me as a legitimate enemy and it's not worth it for now.
"Alright everyone, gather round! How excellent to see such a turnout for my little experiment here! Are we all excited for a little demonstration?" As Lockhart caught everyone's attention with his flamboyant gesticulating, Blaise rolled his eyes and abandoned his mission of blocking Harry to walk back and plop himself between Nott and Draco grudgingly.
He wasn't acknowledged but for once he was fine with it, just leaning back and trying not to let the annoying teacher's insane narcissism irritate him too much. Lockhart didn't seem to care much that the purpose of this club was to teach them how to duel, and more an opportunity for them to witness his own dueling prowess apparently.
"If we're just gonna sit here watching him duel I'm going to leave." Nott muttered darkly and Blaise gave him a lazy look before sighing at the ceiling. The sky was a horrifically ugly pale blue today.
He was bored again.
That was never good.
He was still bored, even when Lockhart asked Snape of all people to help him do his demonstration. It was a horrible idea befitting of the imbecile and Blaise already knew how it'd end… he didn't even feel anything to watch the Defense professor get his ass handed to him, nor as he gave a great bluster about letting his opponent win. The students around him were greatly enjoying it all, some girls who were somehow still smitten with his charming smile sympathizing with Lockhart—it made him want to gag.
I wonder what we're having for dinner…
Lockhart wanted to move right into the student attempts now that they'd had a demonstration, but McGonagall cut him off sternly and forced her way onto the stage despite the man's loud ego trying to take up the entire platform. She insisted that while the demonstration was nice they were all still second-years, half of them being muggleborn who didn't actually know the rules and so she was going to assist Flitwick in giving them the proper run-down.
Flitwick had been a dueling champion? Blaise hadn't known that.
Maybe he'd be a tad less flippant towards the man, since apparently he could hold his own more than he'd previously thought. Or maybe not.
How old was he again? He had to be part goblin or something so it was hard to tell. Old though—his heyday was far away at this point.
This was dull. He already knew the rules and they were getting very dumbed down, baby rules here for a beginner lesson. He really hoped he was up against a muggleborn, as he wasn't interested in fighting in general and just wanted an easy win. Then again that would be even more tedious so maybe he wanted someone like Susan Bones who promised to be the most aggressive Hufflepuff of the choices today while still being manageably easy to beat.
Why did I even come? Am I really gonna get any good information here?
As much as this was unfortunate, he supposed he needed to know who won what matches and potentially what grudges came from them. This had a huge turnout so he couldn't skip something everyone else would be witnessing firsthand, the same reason he went to quidditch matches despite being dead bored there too. Not that any non-pureblood would put up much of a show, and not that any pureblood worth their brains would show their actual potential in a farce like this, but it might be an opportunity to see how people handled themselves in a fight. More likely, it'd highlight the weakest links of them all which was useful in its own way, or would be eventually.
He really didn't like direct combat though, there were so many other ways to do things. Eventually it would be more relevant but that was when they were older—how they showed their mettle in a second-year dueling club would be stale information in only a couple years when they'd all gained some more experience and knowledge. Who was good at fighting now was only good information for like, a couple months at best, as everyone would progress and get better pretty quickly.
Maybe he could pick out the weakest links and leave them somewhere for Slytherin's monster to eat.
That might be funny.
Unfortunately Longbottom is definitely one of those weakest links and Harry would get mad at me for that. Ugh.
Idle thoughts of 'accidental' deaths were put aside when McGonagall finally got to the bloody point and called Harry up, and now Blaise actually gave a shit. It was a very small chance he'd be called, but as Snape stepped forward to be the one to pick Potter's opponent, the Zabini relaxed almost entirely. There was no way the man would pick him—his mother had already had a conversation or two in the past with the potions master and Blaise knew he was immune to Snape's petty waspishness.
But that meant there were only a few juicy choices left to really cause Harry some distress and as Blaise thought about it…
"Draco. Get up here." Snape's voice was as curt as it always was but now it had the effect of silencing the already pretty attentive crowd when they all realized what was about to go down.
Blaise smiled blankly as he enjoyed how flustered Draco was to stand and immediately follow the path his friend had just left through the crowd up to the stage. It was amusing that he didn't see that coming.
By Harry's abashed look up on the platform, he probably had suspected this would be the case—at least once he saw that Snape would be the one picking his opponent if not necessarily before that.
"If Draco goes easy on him, he's done for." Nott mumbled, and Blaise was only mildly surprised he was actually offering commentary. The bookworm had an impenetrable shell but this fight was going to prove mildly interesting, maybe.
The youngest Malfoy teered on the assumption he's only friends with a Gryffindor as a means to an end, mainly to upper years in the snake house. On the other hand, the lions only accepted him because they thought (and were partially correct in assuming) that Harry owned his ass. If Draco went easy on his publicly acknowledged friend, then Slytherin would eat him alive, but if he went too hard or crossed some arbitrary line to the morality-obsessed Gryffindors, the lions would do it themselves.
It was a touchy line to walk, and Draco wasn't nearly a good enough Slytherin to pick up on the nuances of what both houses would deem acceptable. You needed success to look good to the snakes, but you needed to be honorable to the lions… and unfortunately snakes would only accept a flawless victory and lions only cared about their honor so Draco wasn't going to look good no matter what he did.
And honestly, if Harry even suspected Draco was holding back, then Slytherin and Gryffindor would be the least of the Malfoy's problems, so it would probably be smart to pacify the boy wonder first and worry about everyone else later.
Blaise's brow twitched when, in a moment of annoying self-reflection, he recognized that might the tactic Draco had been following from the start.
"He's screwed," He decided instead, because this was a complicated situation and Draco wasn't talented enough to come out of it unscathed, that was for sure—no matter what other thoughts there were besides it, that was the main point anyway.
His best bet was to restrict his spell usage to things above-board only, act quickly and aggressively but follow the rules of a duel to the tee. Even then, it wouldn't be enough for Slytherin to say he 'put up' and Gryffindor would think him a sneaky underhanded bastard even if he only used tickling charms. He was fucked.
Blaise would've been more excited about that if the only interesting thing about it was the curiosity over why Snape was interested in screwing his godson over like that. Surely he knew Potter was going to accidentally make Draco's life hell over this regardless of if they were "friends" or not? Did he want to drive a wedge between them?
Seemed tastelessly petty.
Then again, it's Snape. I like being petty but he makes petty look unappetizing.
Blue eyes tilted in his direction, even if Nott's head didn't move from where his chin rested on his hands, braced against his knees.
"You're certainly in a mood." He noted.
Warily, even.
Which wasn't even unreasonable given the atrocities Blaise had been known to commit when he was in a mood.
He put his nose in the air. "I just hope this is interesting enough is all."
"How could you think it wouldn't be?"
"Hm." He didn't honor that with a response, instead wondering wildly how Nott had picked up on his thoughts. "Are you an empath? Usually I'm a better actor than that."
He didn't receive an answer, just an eyeroll.
Which was annoying because if someone could read him without his permission then it was a threat, and he'd hate to have to kill a roommate when Nott hadn't strictly done anything yet.
Theo's luck seemed to be high today as considerations of him being a loose end were derailed by an unexpected voice beside him.
"Do you really think Malfoy has no chance?"
He blinked, head snapping back to his left and—oh right. Draco and Harry had vacated their seats, which meant he was somehow now sitting next to a Gryffindor. Not Longbottom as the blond had pulled a Nott and disappeared rather than be sat next to him, which was the expected, understandable reaction, however…
What was not the sane reaction was that fact the other two lions had filled the gap to break into a conversation with him, and Dean Thomas was showing his muggleborn by not being the tiniest bit wary of him. Blaise narrowed his gaze at them briefly, given neither Finnegan nor Thomas were potential targets—in fact they were on the 'avoid' list so far as his mother was concerned. Or more like, she didn't care to know they existed and would expect him to act the same way.
However, they were Harry's roommates and Mr. Potter was a player and a target.
Perhaps it was a chance to gain information, and as a default it was safe to keep friends rather than make enemies unless you knew them well enough to have them as an enemy in the first place. They'd been polite and casual in class since with Harry and Draco bringing the two groups together by force he'd been unable to avoid them thus far, and he suspected it would remain the case for their duration at Hogwarts.
He wasn't Draco though, so he had no intention of getting too friendly… but friendly enough for now. Perhaps they would prove useful someday: they were Harry's people after all, and he'd already invested a lot into Longbottom with noticeable results, even if minorly. Someday was worth waiting to see when it came to the red headed menace's crazy plots.
"About the duel? Who knows," He smiled playfully and put his own chin on his hand. Thomas tilted his head since clearly he had no idea they'd been talking politics, not who won the fight. "Harry is obviously more competent but then again you're a muggleborn… you've never dueled before and neither has Harry, while Draco was raised with a wand in his hand. How would you fair?" He challenged.
"I thought you weren't allowed to use magic before Hogwarts," Finnegan betrayed his ignorance—and he was a half-blood even, he should've known better. Then again, he was a Gryffindor.
"That's so cute," He grinned instead, voice deceptively fond. Staunch rule-followers were just so naïve it was precious… if not also kind of disgusting.
Like a toddler was adorable in a germy, snotty way.
"I probably wouldn't do too well, but Harry's far more aggressive than I am. I mean, worse comes to worse, he'll chuck his wand at him and punch him if magic doesn't work." Dean actually answered Blaise's rhetorical.
And well, the image of Potter throwing his wand at Draco and nailing him in the head with it to win a point was amusing enough that Blaise couldn't help but really hope that's exactly what he did.
"I would pay so much money to see that," He cooed eagerly, earning another eyeroll from Nott.
Finnegan laughed. "Oh my god can you imagine Snape's face if he did that?"
"Forget Snape, McGonagall might finally crack if her star pupil goes completely rouge like that."
"Oh Harry please do something interesting like that," Blaise perked up at the exciting prospects, not loud enough for anyone near the stage to actually hear him but more as a wish to the universe.
He so loved when things were interesting and for some reason only monsters and red heads ever seemed to do fun things these days. Everything else was so incredibly dull he almost missed his mother.
"Are you hoping Snape or McGonagall snaps then?" Thomas challenged.
"Hm… both?" He shrugged, and they snickered. "I just want it to be interesting, please.""I mean I'm sure it'll be entertaining at least—Harry's only ever beaten people, he's never like fought someone who was fighting back right?" Thomas shrugged.
Fair enough. Montague never even had a chance to fight back given he didn't know he was a target until it was too late. And he's only ever picked on Weasley, Draco, or first-years who certainly weren't threats to him.
However… it still wasn't strictly true.
"I mean he was attacked by Quirrell, though no one saw it to be fair. He's been in at least one life-or-death fight before which is far more than Draco has under his belt." He dismissed.
Only to realize he was getting twin stares of shock. Maybe not shock… maybe just horror.
Which made no sense whatsoever as he was sure he'd told the entire school about it at the end of last year, including Gryffindor and most particularly their year level.
"Did I say something not true?" he challenged them but they just looked away, clearly dropping it.
Hm… weird.
Although, Longbottom was now sitting on Finnegan's far side and pointedly wasn't look in their direction, with no discernable reaction although there was no way he wasn't eavesdropping on this conversation. Which meant he probably knew the details or had heard more about it than the other two did… though why they'd seemed so taken aback was a curiosity.
Harry had literally been in the hospital wing, and these two in particular had visited him while he recovered. They'd seen him on the train, everyone had seen the way he'd fallen apart. This was certainly not news to them… so what the fuck?
Then again, Gryffindors had this 'out of sight, out of mind' mentality. There was a good chance no one had brought it up since the end of last year… there was no way they'd forgotten though, right?
A teacher attacking a student was kind of a huge deal after all, regardless of the fact that student was the Boy Who Lived and their roommate of all people. Not that he cared but even he wasn't just unaware when Nott had broken ribs, and lions claimed to be so much more sensitive about people than anyone else aside from maybe Hufflepuffs.
Oh! Maybe they're bad Gryffindors—that would be hilarious.
"Alright, now that everyone is in position—on my mark!" Lockhart ripped them from their conversations about the duel to actually start said duel, and the room quieted down to sit back and watch what was about to happen.
While Blaise had been preoccupied apparently the two duelers on stage had reached some silent agreement because the discomfort in their stances had faded significantly. Annoying as it was to admit, Draco had improved a lot over the past year, at least in his body language, so it wasn't strictly easy to interpret what he was thinking right now. When they first met there was no use in even calling him an open book, he was a bloody billboard plastered on the side of a mountain, in that he not only didn't hide anything but actively seemed to be trying to get people to notice him for some reason.
It was a bit rich for Blaise to call anyone else an attention whore but then again, the basis of their friendship did not run deep aside from their distinctly shared personality traits.
In any case, as fun as that had been for all of two weeks, what little Blaise could pick up from his body language wasn't very useful at this point, when he was standing on a stage and cautiously locked down on his straight posture for the crowd watching them. He could tell he was nervous mostly by deduction and not because Draco's shoulders or his expression or the grip on his wand told him anything, which was a minor inconvenience.
Mr. Potter though… had always been much harder to read. Not because he was good at hiding what his body quietly signaled into the world for others to pick up on, but because what he was signally never made any fucking sense.
Which was reason #1 why Blaise hadn't lost interest in him even as months had dragged on and eventually turned into a full year a this point, which was a record for him by a long shot.
For example, right now… there were a lot of reasonable emotions he might be feeling, to be dueling for the first time in such a public place, up against his self-proclaimed best friend at that. There was no way he was oblivious to what the political ramifications of this would be to Draco, even if he didn't have the full picture he was sly enough to know a couple things and assume the rest. As a Gryffindor he could be feeling some mushy, nonsensical things, but even as a Gryffindor who had quite a few qualities in line with Slytherin house there was plenty of other things that could be racing through his mind right now, not related to remembering the rules or trying to think of which spell to cast first.
Blaise could assume he was thinking and feeling most of those obvious things.
He was not signally any of it though.
No… his body language very, very clearly displayed that Harry was fully intending to try and kill Draco right now.
And the future black widow couldn't help but plop his chin on his hands with a goofy smile because oh how he loved when the red head got all riled up like that.
No matter what words came out of his mouth or the expression on his face, sometimes Mr. Monroe here had this posture about him, this tension that most snakes would know well even if it was pretty hard to recognize on a day-to-day basis. Out of context, you almost never noticed how the lines of one's shoulders or the jut of a chin meant anything more than the way the body moved normally in casual, or even animated conversation. There was a difference though, in how the same exact motions could be seen completely differently in a life-or-death situation.
Fight or flight, perhaps.
You had to be ready to flee at a moment's notice or put up a fight—when confronted with an unsurmountable danger sometimes you needed to be able to muster the courage or the power within you to not only fight, but fight to kill.
Kill or be killed.
Inflict or be inflicted.
That seemed to be a thought that floated through his favorite Gryffindor's lovely red head a lot, ever since he'd met the boy but a lot more recently for sure. The fact he seemed to come to terms with the idea that he'd much rather be a predator than prey and therefore acted on that desire born from fear pretty young in life was simply fascinating. Early on, even Blaise hadn't immediately picked up on it, but when Potter had unceremoniously sat at the Slytherin table that first day and everything Draco had been hinting at truly hit him that this was a thing they'd have to deal with, obviously Blaise had started to pay a lot more attention. It did not take him long to realize the boy was off, for sure… but he hadn't truly witnessed it until they'd learned to fly their brooms, and for what might've been the first time in decades he'd gotten to witness an accidental magic incident at Hogwarts.
Not because of fear or confusion as most accidental magic incidents in general were, but because of anger.
Even Blaise himself had never had an incident because of anger or something that wasn't fear or inattention. Not that he was a very angry person but… it had caught his attention, and more importantly it put together a few clues for him that was all he needed to figure the rest out.
Ever since it'd been simply fascinating to watch the way Harry interacted with the world—who he considered to be friend and who he considered to be foe. He claimed people as friends, verbally and with his actions, and yet…
And yet, Draco and Longbottom were the only two in most of last year that he didn't instinctively lean away from, or subconsciously tense like he was getting ready to lash out if he needed to.
It was very telling that he leaned all over Draco, actually, particularly when he was at the Slytherin table, in 'enemy territory' as it were. But even from this distance Blaise had watched him do the exact same thing to Longbottom at the Gryffindor table, which was supposedly 'home turf' was it not? Obviously the boy didn't feel very comfortable anywhere and given he'd almost died three times last year alone there wasn't even anything Blaise could tease him for about it since it was just a reasonable attitude to have at this point.
What really sold him for good on this complete loon though, was when he'd confronted Montague—and not for the obvious reasons that that was literally the best thing to have ever happened while he was eating breakfast.
No, what had really just taken him and beat him over the head with a club, was how Harry had straightened up and spoke directly into Montague's eyes—then undid his little transfiguration trick on his sleeve to 'free' his opponent a bit… and he hadn't leaned away.
The first Slytherin besides Draco that Blaise had ever seen the boy not tense around like he was getting ready to dodge or bite them, and it was a fucking enemy.
An enemy he'd so completely conquered that he felt zero fear in dropping his guard and daring the third year to try and do shit about it. He wasn't about to defend himself if Montague had decided to hex him right then, nor was he about to attack his opponent himself since he'd already won.
Slytherins liked success.
Blaise liked success like he liked water.
They liked their personal success a lot, don't get him wrong… but Merlin there was something magnificent about witnessing a beautiful victory too. It didn't really happen too often as snakes weren't nearly as show-boaty as lions were, but given how delectable that event had been he could tell some had been reconsidering that a tiny bit.
This year, one might've assumed Mr. Monroe would become even more closed off given the severity of his latest near-death experience, but true to Blaise's expectations on the wild child, he never could've predicted how things had actually changed.
The weirdest for sure was that Harry had started leaning away from Draco. It was obvious from the first day of term, and it didn't happen that often but enough to be noticeable. It sort of got explained away after the potion incident though, as Draco's complete failure to understand had honestly pissed even Blaise off a tad more genuinely than he'd been prepared to deal with. He was sort of annoyed the potion hadn't roasted the blond's pretty face off instead of Harry's, so he could understand that the Malfoy had probably fucked up the friendship check after the Quirrell incident and was suffering the consequences of that.
Honestly, if the boy couldn't figure out the cruciatus implication when it was so fucking obvious then he was hopeless.
How angry that made him was a topic for another day though.
Another interesting change had been that a couple more people had managed to wiggle their way into Harry's bubble so that he didn't constantly seem to want to either ditch them or kill them for the entire Great Hall to see. The Weasley pranksters for one, his roommates in Thomas and Finnegan, and most first years after he got to know them for a couple weeks. Seems he had a soft spot.
Greengrass seemed to fluctuate: half the time he seemed to relax around her but at any given moment, or even halfway through a conversation, he'd tense up again. For some reason he only ever seemed to want to flee from her though, not attack— which was a shame as she would've been his top pick to get metaphorically murdered after Montague. Hm… actually maybe second top pick, putting Flint The Troll first, because he was more immediately troublesome than she was as just a gross person.
What really pissed him off to unbelievable levels though, was how 0.2 seconds after Mr. Potter's parselmouth reveal, how he seemed to just completely accept Theodore the shut-in. Blaise never regretted not carrying his books with him more than he did at that moment to have not been there to see their reactions, and Nott had done everything to hide it from him, with some success annoyingly enough. Harry's posture had totally evened out when talking to the quietest Slytherin these days, and clearly was not about to attack him or feel threatened by him anymore, and he knew Nott had picked up on that as well.
He did not reciprocate obviously, and Blaise was sure he was planning on something utilizing that obvious weak point in their Gryffindor, though he refused to even give a hint about what it was, the bastard.
All in all, Harry's reactions were always so interesting… and true as always, even now during this duel when Draco was supposedly one of the few people he'd never feared, the weird lion was standing there looking ready to commit murder regardless of who it was that was standing in front of him.
And it had nothing to do with fight or flight anymore: this was all fight.
And it was a mouth-watering premeditated aggression too, of someone going into the fight before them fully intending to win no matter what needed to be done to obtain that victory. Fighting in defense was not the same as fighting for the thrill of rage or the taste of blood, and Mr. Potter had it in spades right now. A calm, cooled aggression dripped off the lines of his shoulders and snapped out into the air with the click of his heels on the stage in a slightly off-putting impersonation of McGonagall honestly. His eyes didn't flicker and his head was held high enough to be proud without losing solid, realistic grip of the situation in front of him.
Never dueled before my ass.
Malfoy was proud because he was born to be that way. It was natural, effortless and prestigious— grating as that was to admit.
Despite reflecting confidence on both sides of the stage, their body languages did not match right now, so to repeat his earlier sentiment… Draco was screwed.
Maybe this will be interesting… if Draco actually dies or comes close then the day won't be completely wasted then.
"Ready yourselves! Severus if you would," Lockhart wrapped up whatever the hell he'd been saying as the duelers raised their wands and got into position, and Snape looked like he'd be rolling his eyes if he were the sort to break his mask that way.
Instead he simply raised his wand between them and without preamble, gave the signal.
To his credit, Draco did not hesitate and displayed reasonable ability as a pureblood by firing off four hexes immediately, going as fast as a twelve-year-old possibly could to fling spells out as aggressively as possible. Good spells too with decent range, as he called out a stinging charm, a laughing charm, but also a slicing spell and bat-boogey hex too.
Blaise gave him a 7/10, given that was probably the best he could've done even if it was predictable and not that interesting, it was still the only viable choice he had and he'd executed it admirably. While he was loathe to give the mediocre Slytherin that much credit, he could at least acknowledge he'd obviously been trained as the Malfoy heir, and his parents had not slacked in his education. Blaise had been trained too but grudgingly acknowledged the blond had slightly better speed than he did.
What was far more interesting though, was that despite that speed, Harry was completely undisturbed by the assault and proved once again that he'd been named the youngest seeker in a century for a damn good reason as he physically dodged each spell. Not even that hastily, but with a neat step here, then there, then a brief lean back and a tilt to his head and not a single spell landed without him actually raising his wand or startling like he was dodging on instinct. Each move was calm and purposeful like his reaction time was so far ahead of his opponent's speed that it was nothing to just… move out of the way of an oncoming spell like one would casually brush by someone in a crowded hallway, leaning your shoulders to the side to not bump into them without giving it a thought.
While he dodged he even lifted his wandless hand and, for some reason, slipped one of the ever-present hair clips out of the long tressed of blood red hair floating around him. The wand in his other hand moved like water as he dodged the last spell, saying something low enough that Blaise couldn't hear it from this distance, and then suddenly a small yellow bird was flying from his palm directly at Draco.
The Malfoy blasted it out of the air as soon as it got in range, displaying an impressive accuracy to hit a moving target so small… only for everyone to do a wild double-take when the bird exploded into a plume of glass and showered over the blond sharply. Draco instinctively raised his arm to shield his eyes from the tiny shards of glass biting into him from the force of the explosion, and nearly missed Harry's follow up stunner with his blocked vision, only just barely managed to physically dodge it as well by stepping to the side—though it was more of a stagger and far less graceful than his opponent had done it.
The crowd got louder, rustling and shifting and a lot of soft ooh's and ahhh's at the rapid-fire exchange as everyone got wrapped up into the show before them.
"What even happened!?" Finnegan exclaimed only half-quietly, which was something Blaise actually agreed with. How had that bird been glass? He knew the boy was good at Transfiguration but he had no idea what that even was.
"He transfigured it into a glass bird right before Draco's blasting curse hit it." Nott mumbled, not really for Finnegan's benefit but because it was obvious most people had missed that.
Blaise felt… kind of cold, as the implications of that made him a bit horrified.
But also thrilled too.
If he thought Draco had good accuracy to hit a small target like that, then it paled compared to Harry's if what Nott was saying was true. That he could not only hit his own projectile from behind, but time it so that it would hit just before his opponent's own pin-point spell landed… that it'd been so fast even Blaise had missed the motion… that was insane.
He'd known Harry was going to be a good fighter, that he definitely had the upper hand… but he was kind of happily horrified to realize even he had underestimated just how good he probably was at this point.
The fact that Blaise really doubted he could beat the red head in a duel himself made him almost breathless, a grin hijacking his lips almost before he could stop it.
He couldn't dwell too long on those thoughts as the intense exchange didn't halt at all, and the pattern repeated itself a couple more times. Draco launching a series of aggressive and wide-ranging spells and Harry either physically dodging them or summoning/transfiguring objects to take the hit for him while occasionally launching a spell himself at his opponent at far less frequency. The pace was fast and neither opponent was missing openings; given they were both jocks in their own right they both had the stamina for this exchange to last quite a while unlike most others their age.
So far as magical capacity went, Draco had clearly been trained rigorously in the past to be able to keep firing off spell after spell like this without tiring, and Harry… well, given he was now free of blocks that hadn't impaired him so far this year anyway, no matter how much Draco had ever trained, the Gryffindor still would not be running out of power before the blond did. Probably ever.
It only took a minute of this exchange for the most notable difference between the two to present itself: skill level. They seemed to be matched so far as this duel went, but the types of spells being cast were really telling as the exchanges dragged on. Draco had a huge variety, clearly having successful grasp on everything they'd learned in class so far but also a huge breadth of knowledge beyond school-taught spells as well that he likely learned from his parents or other sources. He was keeping them mostly above-board too, while being watched by this many people and several teachers, so the implication he knew just as many spells of the darker sort was notable.
Not only was his variety impressive, but the speed he could set them off combined with their complexity and instant variation was quite tricky. He was jumping between charms and transfiguration, hexes and curses and spells of all sorts, offensive and defensive casts as easily as the wind changed direction. It was truly the kind of intelligence and skill only a pureblood who'd grown up being trained in magic could display so young, but also the kind of clever complexity only a pureblood raised Slytherin specifically could execute so cleanly, instinctually even.
Draco would've been a very formidable foe for most others their year level, one of the better fighters for sure apart from maybe the stronger Ravenclaws and Slytherins in their grade. Blaise recognized that Snape had probably known just how good Draco actually was and had been banking on that actually-quite-impressive skill to shine through and win his godson some points in front of the snake house, rather than be the liability Blaise had originally assumed it'd be.
Snape had a Harry-Potter-sized blind spot though, because despite how surprisingly good Draco was, he wasn't up against any old Gryffindor and the potions master had made a mistake in thinking this would be an easy win for his godson.
Admittedly, Mr. Monroe's spells were very one-note, and he lacked his opponent's trickiness and diversity, even his spell-casting speed was noticeably slower. Everyone could assume at this point that no matter what spell he cast back at Draco, there was a 9 out of 10 shot the attack would be Transfiguration in nature. Predictable things were usually a liability, and being a one-trick pony was a bad tactic in most scenarios.
The thing was, despite managing to get off only one spell for every ten that Draco was bombarding him with, each and every one of those attacks was damn impressive.
Draco had a huge breadth of spells at his disposal, but they were all generally recognizable spells that a second, even third year at times, should be reasonably capable of.
Blaise was looking, but even as he watched the boy like a hawk, he didn't even recognize half the shit Harry was unearthing to launch at his opponent. The only thing he knew for certain was that it was Transfiguration, it was most likely far above what a normal second year should be able to do, and it was fucking powerful. The amount of magic he seemed to be pooling into each spell was insane, as he watched what should've been a normal transfigured bird take three hits from Draco before finally dispelling—transfigured creatures should not be able to withstand magical attacks, which meant the amount of magic Harry had used to create that creature required three times the amount of magical power from Draco to cancel it out.
So yes, he was much slower and far more predictable than his opponent, but it didn't matter.
And Blaise could only say 'predictable' with his tongue in his cheek, because while everyone knew whatever spell he was about to cast was probably going to be Transfiguration, that fact that it was so far beyond second-year skill level that they didn't even recognize most of it meant knowing that it'd be Transfiguration was essentially useless.
It took about two minutes and honestly too many spells to keep track of for the round to come to a conclusion, but what an exciting finish it was. Draco had clearly picked up on the intense danger associated with Harry's spells so while he didn't let up on his constant assault, Blaise could tell the wariness—fear even—of every time Harry lifted his wand to start in on his next attack was getting to him. As it took Harry ten times as long to manage to get a spell off, the comparatively long periods of time Draco had to just wait for it and somehow manage to react in time for the unknown, positively insane attack about to come his direction was eating away at his nerves quickly.
Thus far he'd done an excellent job of responding as his own reaction time wasn't something to scoff at, and despite the fact he needed to hit Harry's transfigured creatures multiple times to neutralize them hadn't made him stumble noticeably. In fact it was genuinely impressive that he could hit a moving target of a transfigured bird or rat or cat multiple times in a row before it reached him, fast enough and without hesitation, even if that would've startled the fuck out of anyone else when their first spell failed to do the job properly. Blaise could almost see him try and gather more magical power to try and finish the creatures in one or two spells—but he just couldn't do it. He didn't have the magical capacity that Harry did so while it was fine that he'd attempted it just to see if he could, he had the good sense to abandon that tactic pretty quickly.
Draco's fraying nerves started to reflect in the types of spells he was leaning on, as they started to get slightly more dangerous as if to try and throw Harry off guard or make the red head just as wary of him in return. It failed epically though as Harry continued to calmly dodge harmless tickling charms and debilitating slicing hexes with the same calm, unaffected steps on light, casual feet without seemingly any fear.
The Malfoy heir ratcheting up his spell intensity was ultimately his downfall though, as he launched several blasting charms in a row at his opponent, which would've been a very deadly attack against anyone else.
It was almost as if Harry had been waiting for that though, as he dodged the first two—and calmly lifted his wand to intercept the third on dead-on. It was as if a mirror had rippled to life from the tip of his outstretched wand, only the size of a dinner plate and semi-translucent as it flowed, spiraling out into existence like liquid mercury and becoming abruptly solid the instant Draco's hex made impact with it. The hand-eye coordination needed to seemingly catch an oncoming spell in such a small target area seeming to come to the Gryffindor effortlessly as the mirror reflected the spell without so much as a jolt to the one reflecting it.
It didn't reflect perfectly but caught at an angle, so that the blasting hex bounced right back towards Draco but downwards, and hit the wooden stage directly between them violently enough that a significant chunk of it exploded into a plume of woodchips and splinters.
Harry's wand slashed outwards to the side the same moment the spell hit the stage.
Instantly every single last splinter clouding into the air was suddenly a needle, and they launched themselves at Draco who had no chance of deflecting or dodging so many tiny targets. The needles were so thin and silvery in the naturally lit Great Hall that the only reason Blaise even knew they were there was because there were thousands in a cloud, glinting like sparkles from the distance he was, but he'd never have been able to pick them out individually, much less in the split second it took to completely overwhelm their target and make a full pin-cushion out of him.
He heard as the crowd inhaled almost as one before it exploded into cheers and cries of shock, many people suddenly talking all at once about the impressive feat.
Nott put a hand over his mouth silently, blue eyes wide enough to betray his fear.
Blaise clenched his fists automatically, but he couldn't stop grinning.
That… was really something.
The only downside was that Draco seemed to be fine, unable to move for a second with the needles piercing him in probably a hundred places over his body forcing him still rather than bear having them go deeper, but Snape stepped in immediately to call the point—one wave of the potion master's wand and the needles were banished and the stage returned to its former state without so much as a crack. Draco seemed to brush it off quickly but was visibly shaken by the shock that attack had been, wiping a small pin prick or two of blood from his cheek as he rolled his shoulders. Harry had been vicious with that one but he still somehow avoided Draco's head, so his face and eyes were unscathed but despite the needles being invisible from where they were watching in the crowd, going by his posture before they were vanished, a lot had hit his body and his limbs.
Talk about brutal.
'Magic is the hand the wields it' after all. That wasn't a dark spell as turning bits of wood into needles was literally the first thing everyone learned in Transfiguration class, but god damn there wasn't really a way someone could use that seemingly basic, impractical spell in a more aggressive and deadly way. If he hadn't purposefully avoided aiming for Draco's head then needles to his eyes or into his mouth would've been the end of him in this duel for sure. Even if Madam Pomfrey could fix that pretty easily, it was still ruthless. But more than that, Blaise could turn one match into one needle. Harry had just done that a thousand times with one wand movement.
One silent wand movement at that. And that wasn't even the wand movement they all knew to turn a piece of wood into a needle, it was different and silently cast and multiplied by a thousand of what anyone else their age could do with the same knowledge they'd been taught in class. No one even used that spell once they took the test on it because it was frankly kind of useless in a day-to-day application, it was just supposed to be an introduction to how Transfiguration worked on a small scale.
Harry had turned a useless spell that any first year could do and made it fucking terrifying.
Magic is the hand who wields it indeed, and if Mr. Monroe was that hand then they all should be incredibly cautious of any and all magic he had to show them.
"Oh shit," Thomas muttered quietly beside him, and while not as terrified as Nott given he probably didn't quite pick up on the nuances of why that display of skill had been so terrifying, still knew enough to be significantly impressed. "I mean I knew he had it in him, but that's insane."
So the Gryffindors acknowledged how aggressive their boy wonder was. Unlike if a snake displayed the same aggression, they didn't seem to have a problem with it. If a Slytherin had used the same simple spell so ruthlessly, Gryffindor would burn them at the stake as being dark and violent.
But Harry was one of them so obviously it was okay.
Blaise was willing to ignore it this time though because he was now enjoying this duel a lot more than he thought he would. Honestly it'd only be better if he had some popcorn…
"Well we all knew he was a Transfiguration prodigy. That'll be downright terrifying given time, won't it?" Finnegan chirped brightly.
"Given time?" Blaise repeated incredulously—like it wasn't already pretty damn horrifying?
Thomas rolled his eyes. "You sound way too happy about that." He complained to his friend who just shrugged it off, but at least he could recognize what a problem it would be if Harry got comfortable with the idea that he was strong. "Still, I get what you're saying now about purebloods having the experience. I had no idea Malfoy had all that." He, for some reason, addressed Blaise again who didn't mind as he was hyped by the turn of events here and knew Nott wouldn't give a shit about his babbling.
He was also pretty amused that the lion was actually complimenting a Slytherin right now. Further proof that Malfoy had gotten too chummy, but whatever.
"It was decent, I'll admit." He allowed with a sniff.
"Most of that we don't learn in class, do we?"
"Obviously not—purebloods learn from their parents and if you had any ambition to be strong you'd learn things on your own time to have the edge. Lame as he is, Draco can at least study seriously, so he didn't embarrass himself or anything."
"I think he did a bit more than just not embarrass himself—it was impressive wasn't it?"
"Says the muggleborn." Blaise clicked his tongue but true to his suspicions, Thomas just chuckled lowly instead of taking offense to it.
"Suppose I would've embarrassed myself then."
"Most likely." He drawled but didn't look away from the stage as the two opponents prepped for the next round. Snape was clearly stalling some to give his godson a moment to recover from that attack—his poker face was an iron wall as always but it didn't take much to realize he was likely regretting putting Draco in this position as he realized his mistake in underestimating the Boy Who Lived.
Blaise wondered idly why he was still doing that… sure, most of them also dismissed the rumors about the boy as just a fancy title more than someone with actual merit, but it hadn't taken more than a week tops to realize there was so much more to him than that. So much more threatening about him actually, which was the more important part of it all. Snape seemed to be actively trying not to see or be reasonable about who Harry Potter actually was, and since he was a death eater Blaise was going to assume it was blind prejudice. Which was very lame of their head of house to not be able to overcome that and actually take advantage of it in any way, but he hardly cared about Severus Snape on a good day to give a shit about whatever was wrong with him now.
"Did your assessment of Draco being screwed change at all after seeing that?" Thomas asked him.
"Not at all—he's still properly screwed." He scoffed, although this time he definitely meant in terms of winning this duel. "For many reasons obviously but let's put it in simple terms: Draco's strongest spell he can show in front of teachers is serpensortia."
He heard a couple Slytherins and Ravenclaws standing behind them snort in amusement at that, obviously eavesdropping though the Gryffindors beside him tilted their heads.
"What does that do?"
"It summons a snake."
"…ohhh," Finnegan finally caught up, rubbing his chin as he evaluated that with new eyes.
Spell types only scratched the surface of why Draco had no chance here, but to dumb it down for the lions it served it's purpose. In essence: Draco could be as good a Slytherin as he like to think he was, but Harry would still be better. He could summon all the snakes and be as clever as he wanted, and Mr. Monroe would simply take control of those snakes and overpower him in the end, all the while using 'light' spells in incredibly dark ways that wouldn't get him in trouble, while even those blasting hexes would catch Draco some heat on being too aggressive.
There was no way to come out of this smelling like roses, that was for sure.
"Ah… so Malfoy is fucked."
Blaise coughed to hide the laugh that threatened to bubble up from his chest at Thomas' succinct interpretation.
He wasn't wrong exactly.
For many reasons.
With one point to Harry and enough stalling and subtle glares shot the red head's way, Snape finally relented and backed up to signal the start of the next round. Blaise had to wonder if Draco was getting tired here and knew he couldn't pull the same trick twice, but was interested to see what he could do even.
He was about to be annoyed when, the instant Snape signaled the next round to start, Draco went for the same tactic as before of launching a barrage of spells at his opponent lightning fast. He was actually surprised though when the variety of the spells vanished, and instead seven stinging jinxes in a row flew out much faster than before.
The stinging jinx was a good choice for speed—its wand movement was just a small, simple little flick and the incantation two syllables. You could churn them out pretty damn fast even if you couldn't do it silently, and Draco's speed was already very high compared to Harry's.
Finally, Harry seemed to actually startle and he stumbled a bit. Not only because Draco had completely abandoned aiming for obvious targets like the head and torso, but because he had tossed his own predictability out the window and was aiming everywhere. The spells were going for not only limbs and feet, for the body and the head, but also the stage right in front of where Harry was standing, over his head, and even purposefully seeming to miss him entirely as if just begging him to step right into it as he dodged the last one.
One might think Draco had been backed into a corner and was going wild in desperation to land a hit, his aim become sloppy because of it, but Blaise easily picked up that that wasn't he case at all. Harry could read him like a book and Draco knew it now, so his only option was to go wild enough that he wasn't thinking about where he was aiming, therefore his opponent couldn't read his movements in time to dodge.
And more impressively, was that it worked.
Compared to how long the previous round lasted, this one was over in twenty seconds tops and it felt noticeably short. Blaise could tell many in the crowd were startled when Harry didn't even manage to get a single spell off in his defense before he stumbled under this new cadence, and a stinging hex caught him in the shoulder as he tried to dodge it and failed. The force of it combined with his angular movement whipped him around and he fell to the stage floor in a heap, though he sat up in a second looking pissed—seeming more mad he'd gotten hit rather than even acknowledging the painful hit to his arm.
There were cries of indignation but also thrilled cheers to the exciting fight.
Blaise had to clap along with those alongside him as they gave their own audible reactions, kind of stunned that had actually happened.
So… Draco wasn't a pushover.
That was certainly news to him.
Ah… but he was still an impulsive fool because Blaise could see even from here the sweat the blond had broken out into. He'd just cast no less than thirty stinging jinxes in a row as fast as he could, and it had visibility taken the wind out of him to do so.
Harry, on the other hand, looked completely ticked off and his brilliant red hair seemed to stand up in a frazzled way somehow, like a pissy cat's dander going up. As he stood and barely acknowledged McGonagall fixing his shoulder, his green eyes were positively on fire with determination as his mind raced over what his next move would be, while Draco was actually panting from the effort he's just expended.
So, yes it was impressive… but he'd made the red-headed monster angry, so he was still thoroughly fucked.
The last round began without further ado as Snape didn't give a fuck about letting Harry have a breather, but no one was complaining in their eager desire to see how this would conclude.
And like that they were off before anyone could really absorb what had just happened—and Blaise made an audible noise of glee when Harry completely gave up the ghost and ran at Draco.
Oh please punch him, he begged the universe, even clasping his hands in front of him as if that would work, and while that did in fact not happen, it was still enthralling that Harry had finally switched to the aggressive and was not about to be held back by conventional dueling norms. The stage was long and narrow and while there was technically no rule of how far forward or back you could run, there were marks on the floor signaling where you should, traditionally, be standing.
Completely disregarding those marks he ran forward and Blaise nearly giggled to see how badly Draco startled, panic written across his face that not even Slytherin could fault him for because… come on really. If Harry Potter was running at you then you had no idea what was going to happen and that was fucking terrifying.
Harry got there first, feet carrying him into the middle of the stage before Draco could get one spell off, and with a very loud crack that echoed so sharply in the Great Hall the crowd actually jumped some, he seemed to throw a spell at Draco as if he were chucking a baseball.
To his credit, Draco got a shield up in time, a notably dark leaning shield too. Desperate situations called for desperate measures after all, but no matter what type of shield it was the sheer force and magical power behind the impacting spell flung him back. While he remained standing he flailed back to the edge of the stage as his shield couldn't absorb the entire force of the impact—which Blaise had not even known was a thing until now. If it'd been a normal 'light approved' shield, that spell would've ripped right through it, he was sure—and it wasn't even that impressive of a spell! From what he could see it was only the verdimillious charm, which was a glorified sparkler at best, not a truly offensive spell at all!
Draco instantly reverted to trying to overwhelm him with fast jinxes in panic at how close his opponent had gotten, but he was more tired than before and far too thrown off by the aggressive assault to be near the same level as earlier, and by now Harry had already realized what he'd done and was not about to startle under the barrage a second time. He ducked and weaved as he physically dodged the spells with a lot more intensity on his face than before, so it wasn't as effortless to him as it'd been in the first round, much less that he was so much closer to Draco and had even less time to react and dodge, but he was still able to do it.
While he dodged, Blaise suddenly realized he was moving his wand.
But not spells were coming appearing he was just… moving his wand? After a second or two he caught on that he was moving his wand in the same motion over and over and over and over…
What on earth was he doing?
Blaise lost count of how many times he did that motion as the red head was never stopped moving to dodge Draco's assault and slowly making his way closer, light feet nearly dancing across the stage so at not to get hit but still, he never stopped moving for a second like it was the world's most complicated dance. The way his crimson hair flung around him like ribbons curling in the air around his wild, graceful movements really sold the vision that this was a performance, not a duel.
Blaise was sure no one could look away—he certainly couldn't.
And then, Harry jabbed his wand forward like a fencer would lunge, a neat arc to his back and back leg straight, hair tossed back like a plume of fire and arm stretched out like he could stab Draco through the heart if only his wand were a sword instead.
"Orchidenemious,"
He didn't yell it but everyone practically had their breaths held to see what was about to happen, so the large room was quiet enough that his clear, stern voice commanding the spell into existence was heard by everyone.
Blaise felt a chill over his arms as he didn't recognize the spell at all, but somehow he knew…
Flowers… bloomed into existence.
Thousands and thousands of them actually, every color one could imagine and they flurried like a snow storm completely covering the stage, like each individual petal was alive and wriggling in the air. It spun into a huge plume of kaleidoscope colors as the whole room suddenly smelt like fresh cut grass and wildflowers, smacking them in the face with it's intensity, and with the enchanted ceiling above them being a clear blue sky it was almost hard for a second to remember they weren't actually sitting outside right now.
Especially because there was a noticeable increase in heat as the expensive room was laced with one rippling, lazily soft but slightly unnaturally warm breeze.
It moved as one, the cloud of flowers, like a horizontal tornado forming a massive wind tunnel at its target and completely obscuring Draco from view as he disappeared into the mass of flowers. They heard him yell and Blaise had to laugh out loud when the split second later he saw the blond riding the cloud—or more accurately, the plume had swept under him like a tidal wave whisking a rubber duck out to sea. It launched him up and then it all fell—but he landed safely on his back atop a veritable mountain of flowers that finally settled down lifelessly.
A mountain of flowers that was off the stage, actually, which meant the point went to Harry.
Even Snape needed a moment to raise his hand to give him the win, blinking in surprise and too taken off guard by the oddest display of magic he'd ever seen to actively glare for once, everyone else also seeming to be shock for a second or two—
Before there was an insanely loud amount of cheering that made Blaise's ears hurt.
"Holy shit! Holy shit!" Finnegan and Thomas were ecstatically jumping around with each other, and while he and Nott couldn't help but agree to a certain point, were a lot more composed. Even if that composure was a level of shock that that had even just happened right now.
Still… Harry had a very proud look on his face, but Blaise saw he'd also broken out into a sweat. That… should not be possible with someone with as much magical power as he had, which meant…
It meant that spell was quite something, whatever it'd been.
Only monsters and red heads are interesting these days… but that might be a tad redundant given that red head was definitely a monster too.