We made it to the Great Hall without incident, as usual, and the fact that I'd escorted our first-years this time too was really just a gesture — a sort of "one last walk together."
I spent the whole of breakfast at the House table. Nobody had any particular news, the fresh issue of the Prophet was full of absurd nonsense or trivial bits about this or that wizard, so nothing especially important happened.
Practically at the tail end of breakfast, Potter himself made his way over to our table, fending off a clingy Weasley who was determined to accompany him anywhere, for any reason, so long as they went together. Sometimes it strikes me that Ronald only associates with Harry to boost his own status. He might not even realise it himself, or might refuse to admit it, but the fact remains — without Potter, Weasley is dead average at best, and probably below that, and in pretty much everything. That's not my inflated sense of self-worth talking, either — I'm perfectly aware of the extent of my own superiority and I'm not boasting about it — these are simply real observations and comparisons against the other students in his year, older and younger alike.
"Hey, Hector," Potter opened the conversation. "Need a word."
"Hm? If you need one, you need one," I didn't attach much significance to it, and got up from the table, since the lad clearly didn't want to talk in front of everyone — secrets, and all that. "I wonder what abou—"
"GRANGER!!!" Nott's voice boomed across the entire Hall, and I turned toward a group of older Slytherins closing in fast, with Malfoy, for some reason, hurrying towards me separately from the rest.
"Yes?"
Naturally, such a booming outburst couldn't fail to draw attention, so the students who hadn't yet cleared out of the Great Hall — the overwhelming majority — fell silent at once and pricked up their ears, since there hadn't been any "grand" events so far this year, and this whole business promised to be the first significant one.
"I, Theodore Nott," the boy declared self-importantly, evidently buoyed up by the support of his House colleagues, "challenge you, Hector Granger, to a noble duel — with swords!"
Malfoy, hurrying toward us and toward the spontaneously formed knot of students, while doing his level best to preserve his face and his "languid prince" air, very nearly tripped over absolutely nothing, with every chance of collapsing rather unaristocratically face-first into a plate of bacon — at least, that was the trajectory he seemed to be on.
Plenty of other students in the Great Hall looked equally astonished, breaking at once into eager whispering about the situation — hardly surprising, given how few wizards ever even consider the possibility of using a bladed weapon, being wizards after all. Who cares about the fact that as recently as a century and a half ago, those families who wanted to be seen as aristocracy — which, de jure, doesn't even exist in magical England — were required to be at least competent with a sword, if only to duelling standard. It's no accident, after all, that the basic stances and even the classical duelling tactics — I mean wand duels here — descend from fencing. Duelling fencing, specifically, not battlefield swordwork.
Hold on! Hadn't he wanted to challenge me to a duel exactly like this just yesterday? And now he'd decided to do it in front of the entire student body? The sheer self-assurance that must take! And judging by everything, his confidence seemed to rest on nothing but assumptions. Even I wouldn't allow myself that kind of thing, and I've got no shortage of strength and skills of various sorts.
"Let's skip the bowing and scraping," standing there by the House table, I glanced briefly toward the staff table, from which our Head of House was making her unhurried approach. "When, where — we'll settle the terms there."
"Not familiar with etiquette at all, are you, Granger?" smirked one of the Slytherins, someone so insignificant I don't even know his name.
"Our Head of House is about to come over and disperse the lot of us, so get on with it, Nott," I ignored the insignificant Slytherin and kept addressing myself solely to Theodore.
"Straight after dinner. The Ballroom," he announced loudly, then turned and left with his little entourage.
"Feel that?" Malfoy smirked, coming to stand beside me. "Reeks of nonsense."
Then, to my surprise, Potter spoke up — he'd been watching Nott this whole time the way you might watch someone about to commit suicide.
"You have no idea how much, Malfoy."
"Hm? You know something, Potter? Though I doubt it."
"I know plenty. Hector, a word."
"I'll definitely be there," Malfoy called after me, more or less at my back. "Don't forget to name me as your second."
Potter and I left the Great Hall along with the rest of the students, who were all busily discussing what had happened, making guesses, and so on. Ducking into the first side corridor we found and stopping by a window nobody passes, Potter and I continued the conversation.
"What did you want to talk about?"
"Nothing much," Potter looked a little tense. "Just… you know, I wanted to give you a heads-up. I gather you've been talking to Amber?"
"Not quite accurate," I shook my head. "More that we were introduced to each other, and I was given the option of reaching out to her if I have questions about Dark Magic."
"That's roughly what I meant. Anyway, I had a word with… Mum…"
The lad clearly still finds it fairly difficult to think of the portrait that way, though that's hardly surprising.
"…basically, she recommended keeping as far away from Amber as possible. And not to be fooled by her appearance."
"And why's that? Though I'm more curious where you've been keeping the portrait of Lily Potter. It might be a portrait, but there's a person in there, and sitting alone all the time is a fairly dismal pastime. Enough to drive anyone mad."
"No surprise there," Potter smirked at something, "that Sirius's mother's portrait is completely off her rocker — years shut up alone, with nothing but an equally unhinged house-elf for company. Don't worry, Mum's portrait is connected to the guild's portrait network. Which particular one, she won't say — turns out oaths hold even for portraits. But it's a safe place. I understand how much fuss there could be."
"Well… fine," I nodded. "So, about Amber?"
"Mum strongly recommended I have nothing at all to do with Amber. Well — recommended it to me, but… you understand."
"I suppose I do."
"Mum explained in a lot more detail and precision what might have happened that day, and what she and Amber worked out together. And she also knows exactly which imprinted sets of knowledge from books make up the foundation of Amber's personality. No morals, no emotional hang-ups… The way you'd put it: 'See the goal, don't see the obstacles.' There's basically no limit on the methods for reaching that goal," Potter was describing it the way you'd describe some Dark Lord. "Well, limited by laws and rules, technically, but even that depends on the payoff. If putting a city to the sword would be advantageous to her, and the advantage significantly outweighed the legal, procedural, or other-wizard-related trouble it would cause — she'd do it."
"That's called pragmatism, Harry," I smirked. "But I get your point and your take on it. Honestly, any sensible Dark wizard operates on roughly those same principles. So does anyone, really, who's aiming for truly extraordinary heights."
"You too?" Potter looked at me with doubt and suspicion.
"Not really, no. I do have morals and principles" — some my own, some inherited from the shards, if not entirely — "even if they're not especially idealistic, or childish ones."
"Glad to hear it. Heh…" Potter shook his head with a smile. "Can you imagine, if Hermione found out just how dangerous the people you talk to are?"
"That'd be a disaster," I nodded in agreement. "Although I suspect she's already grown used to my antics by now."
"You'd know better than me," Potter shrugged. "By the way, are you actually going through with the sword duel? I mean, it's not like we were ever taught anything of the sort, though… remembering how you tore through those spiders, I'm honestly more worried about Nott. He's a git, no argument there, but… not that much of one."
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a curly-haired hurricane bearing down on us at speed, and the fact that Hermione's hair was pinned up did nothing whatsoever to soften that impression. What was rather more interesting was that Daphne wasn't falling even a step behind her, and despite the fairly brisk pace, she was somehow managing to maintain the image of a lady in the most thoroughly aristocratic sense of the word. It looked funny, in an odd way, purely from the contrast, since hurrying along behind that pair came Pansy, forced every few steps to break into an outright run.
"Hector Erich Granger!" Hermione hissed, stopping dead in front of me. "How can you possibly agree to a duel like that? What if you kill him?!"
"Oh-ho," Daphne hid a smile behind her hand, while Pansy looked outright shocked by the statement. "I'd been expecting these sibling squabbles to go a rather different direction."
And Potter, the traitor, was grinning, and even took a step back, letting this battalion of women surround me on every side, cutting off any route of retreat. Not that I had any intention of retreating — I'd talked my way out of worse scrapes than this — but still.
"So you're not the least bit worried," I tilted my head slightly to one side, arranging my face into an expression of surprise and sorrow, "about your beloved brother, hm? Such a cruel sister."
"Don't be dramatic," Hermione looked utterly serious. "And of course I'm not worried about you, since I've seen your training more than once, and what exactly you work with and how."
"Hm?" Pansy glanced at Hermione, then at me, then swept her gaze over the rest of us. "Is there something I don't know? No, never mind, forget it…"
"In any case," Hermione recovered her composure, "this is extremely irresponsible. Harry…"
"Oh no, that's not happening," Potter threw up his hands in a defensive gesture, backing away with a smile, further and further. "You're not dragging me into this. I've got quite enough problems of my own."
That was the end of my conversation with Potter, who beat a hasty retreat to parts unknown. There was nothing left for the rest of us to do but head off to Ancient Runes, to soak up our next dose of knowledge.
The lesson itself passed quietly — we'd finally and irrevocably moved on to studying the principles of combining runes with charms and spells. For Daphne, this particular topic had clearly already been studied to a respectable standard, but the professor covered not only the fairly basic material but also a number of finer tricks along the way, and it was there that Daphne took careful notes, jotting down references to useful literature and so on with real focus. I, naturally, wasn't lagging behind either, since knowledge is knowledge, and the Ancient Runes project I'd promised Snape is still looming somewhere in the near future. My success with runic magic comes from my grasp of magic in general, not from encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject. Which is to say, I do have the knowledge, and a fairly broad body of it, but the actual foundation of my success is understanding magic itself. So I study as an equal among the rest and don't cut myself any slack.
Combat Magic this time was held in a spacious classroom, and the topic was a simple one — Professor Hunt talked us through how to get out of a sudden scrape as quickly as possible.
"This is the very first thing I'm going to teach you. It was precisely the lack of skills and knowledge like this — theoretical and practical both — that got the lot of you flattened last time. Understood? Second lesson of the week will be outdoors," the professor twirled her wand through the air. "We'll be watching how well you can put your knowledge and the spells you've learned to use, running away from our 'lethal trio'. And from me, of course."
She finished that sentence with a smile that made it perfectly clear to everyone — there would be beating involved, possibly with feet. But at least today would be limited to studying tactics and a couple of spells.
---------------
Give me Powerstones if you like the story.
If you want to read 60+ advance chapters, you can do so on my Patreon.
Patreon(.)com/TheRedSpell