The Echoes Of Yesterday

The Echoes Of Yesterday…by Samayel

Chapter 17: A Battle Of Wills And Skills


Harry had made it through the day with only his standard doses of potion, despite having been plagued by vivid dreams once again. In truth, he was exhausted, at least physically, but he felt surprisingly calm in spite of it all. He was growing used to it in a way. Each night he saw Draco, heard his voice, knew that he was wanted and missed, and felt good, if bitter sweetly reminiscent. Each morning he woke to remember that Draco was dead, and always would be. It hurt…considerably, but he’d nursed a silent hurt for many years, sometimes only remembering the faintest fuzzy moments of his dreams. Draco’s face was fresh in his mind now. Lean and angular, aristocratic and full of wry and impish humor. It was something. A small plus amongst the many minuses.

He’d be seeing John Prewett again shortly, to try a change of potions and other magical sleep aids, and he’d have to see Minerva again soon. Parts of the previous night’s debacle with Draco the Younger had nagged at his conscience all day. The boy hadn’t come to breakfast, and while he’d apparently attended his other classes, he’d skipped the sixth year lecture for DADA, and Harry was about to start his final class of the day, with the room adjusted for dueling practice. Students were filtering in, and Harry watched carefully until the last students sat down. Draco strolled in dead last, clearly making a show of his tardiness, sneering ever so faintly all the while, and took his seat in a lazy sprawl.

Harry studiously ignored the minor insolence, starting his instruction with a fairly routine combination of spells for seventh year students. The students would be paired off against one opponent each in the early classes, and eventually against a ’gauntlet’ of their fellow students before the year was over. This day they would be casting traditional Stunning Spells and the classic Protego as they dueled one another formally, this time quite slowly by Harry’s standards, but with greater speed in later classes. In the final classes for seventh year, it wasn’t uncommon for duels to involve almost a dozen spells per pupil, but for the start of the year’s dueling classes, Harry always started with the classics. Cast Stunner…block with Protego. Cast…block with Protego.

One student was missing altogether, but he was accounted for already, having been the accidental victim of a misfired gag gift earlier that day. The unfortunate boy had grown ears so large that it became difficult to hold his head upright, and John Prewett was working on a proper antidote. In a worst case scenario, they might well have render the poor boy unconscious, lop the things off and grow him new ones. Draco grudgingly rose from his seat and slouched his way into position against the one student left without a partner.

Harry explained the terms of these short duels, though everyone new them well from previous years, then marched back to the end of the line and gave the order to begin.

A thunderous report was heard from the end of the line, and Draco’s opponent went sliding into the wall at the back of the room. Shouts of protest and pointed wands were already starting as Harry stepped into motion ready to bellow for peace, when a flurry of spells Stunned and disarmed three more students. Draco was still standing with wand upright, sneering at the outraged class while Harry rattled off a hasty spell for the student who’d struck the wall, snapping the lad awake instantly. Harry then turned his full attention on Draco, who launched into an immediate tirade.

“Pathetic! This class couldn’t defend itself against the weakest of spells. Small wonder, that…with a miserable fake for a professor! Second years at Durmstrang are more dangerous!”

Harry’s voice was as cold as ice. Very real outrage was fluttering at the edge of his nerves, and it was with great effort that he controlled his voice in front of the class.

“Mr. Malfoy…these are opening practice duels, not final combat duels. Apologize immediately to the student you unfairly struck with Expelliarmus. There was no call for what you did, and I will not tolerate any such conduct in this class.”

Draco spat his answer out, chin up defiantly. “Apologize? Hah! The weak deserve what they get! I’ll apologize when you prove you can cast all those spells you claim you know! I want to duel you! I challenge you.”

Somewhere in his soul, Harry had drawn a line in the sand, and Draco had willingly crossed it. He felt no qualms about what was coming. Injuring a student, even mildly, over deliberate malice toward Harry, was not forgivable. Draco wouldn’t listen to reason in his current mood, and it was possible that this had been coming since the first day he set foot in the school. If he was to truly know who was the teacher and who was the student, this lesson would be necessary. He answered without hesitation, biting back the anger that would only distract in a duel.

“Accepted. Warding Shield for two opponents, the best one you can cast. We duel inside it, so that nothing leaks out. That’s my condition as the person challenged.”

“Accepted.” To his credit, Draco cast a flawless matrix of energy over the two of them, some twenty feet long and almost ten feet wide, while students outside the shield became faintly blurry and moved around the edges with fascination.

Harry took his position, in proper and classical form, while Draco remained carefully poised, wand arm forward, body angled slightly to make him less of a target. His eyes never wavered from his target. Harry nodded for the duel to begin, and was almost surprised by the speed with which Draco rattled off spells.

But not enough. He had known full well that Draco was very, very good, and was entirely prepared for the flurry of spells that came his way. He took the defensive, which wasn’t generally the best tactic to take, but Draco was owned almost entirely by his anger and would tire himself out much quicker than most.

Two sizzling levin-bolts cracked his shield, and Harry quickly flung a spell that transformed the stones of the floor into a grasping claw, raising new shields while Draco paused a second to blast the claw into powder. The tempo of the duel shifted momentarily, with Harry testing boundaries by hurtling more complicated spells into Draco’s path, keeping the young man busy with carefully cast blocks for each spell.

Unlike any of his students, Harry had lived through a war. His calm in a duel was unshakeable, and in the past two decades he’d gained a mastery of spells he’d never even heard of then. Each feint and block and hurled spell was rote and familiar, even after years of disuse. Combat with multiple opponents had been the norm then, and the real challenge was drawing Draco out in the course of the duel, deliberately frustrating him in order to provoke a clear mistake. That was where the real lesson would lay. When this was over, Draco would know what his greatest weakness was, and Harry would scarcely have to say a word to prove his point. Weakness was blind anger, not the refusal to use unnecessary force. This would be Draco’s lesson, and a lesson for all in attendance as well.

Draco was sweating profusely, snarling under his breath while conjuring sheets of fire and stinging showers of acid venom. Harry met the fire with blinding hail and snow, and transformed the acid into soft sparks that flitted gently to earth. Then Draco upped the ante. The spells weren’t classified as Unforgivable, but they were unquestionably Dark in origin, and any one of them would have sufficed to end a duel against someone unprepared for them.

Harry knew every counter curse, and every permutation of Finite, and even every spell that Draco cast. Auror training had been comprehensive, and Harry had completed the DADA-related portions in record time. These weren’t new to him, but familiar from his time fighting Death Eaters. He let Draco take the offensive once again, and poured his effort into blocking spells calmly while Draco tired himself out. To be honest, this was the best duel he’d fought in years, and he felt quite remarkably alive in the heart of it, all worries and fears forgotten in the precise and beautiful poetry of action.

Draco had grown desperate, sweat drenched and cursing between hastily spoken phrases in Latin. Harry almost thought to end the duel, when Draco finally surprised him. The wand was firing spells in rapid succession, but Draco brought up his free hand and flung lesser spells by will alone…wandlessly. The Stinging Hex set Harry’s arm on fire briefly, and he was forced to fight fire with fire, watching Draco’s smug smile fade to shock when Harry cast both a fresh Protego from his wand and flung a matched set of Freezing Charms from his hand, shifting Draco into the role of defender.

Harry sensed the desperation, and raised his final shield, one learned only by Aurors, which was quite nearly impermeable. Draco’s spells deflected helplessly off of it, setting off a frenzy of black and horrible curses, all Dark or at least dangerous, but none Unforgivable for an adult wizard in a formal duel. Each shattered against Harry’s cone of golden light while Harry prepared his final attack in perfect calm.

As Draco was mouthing a curse, Harry timed an utter flurry of Immobilizing and Binding Spells. Draco fumbled back to the defensive and was completely absorbed in the task of holding back the dual attacks from wand and will, when Harry uttered a final, nearly unstoppable spell. Draco was bound tightly in coils of shimmering force, struggling while they closed slowly around him. His wand clattered to the floor, and the counter-spells he gasped out failed one by one while Harry watched impassively. The bands grew tighter still, while Draco stubbornly fought them. That was their nature. As long as one fought them, they drew inward, cutting off air and strength, forcing breath from lungs, ultimately stopping only when the victim of the spell collapsed or surrendered. Draco’s face was crimson and his eyes and veins were bulging before he toppled, breathless, beaten, and very nearly unconscious. Harry still wasn’t sweating.

Harry dispelled his golden shield, then dismantled Draco’s wards and picked up the wand while Draco lay on the floor, red-faced and gasping for breath as the bands of force loosened ever so slightly, responding to his passivity.

“I think observing the events of this duel qualifies as an education in itself. Mr. Malfoy? Will you acknowledge that the duel is ended?”

Draco looked bitter, but mostly exhausted, and nodded his head somberly, resting it on the flagstones after the effort to signal his defeat. Harry whisked away the magic bands that constricted Draco’s entire body, and the younger man’s limbs flopped to the ground while he sucked in a deep lungful of air.

“Mr. Malfoy. You will go to my office and wait for me quietly. We will discuss your conduct, and a suitable punishment for it, when I join you. Am I understood?”

Draco crawled to his feet, and nodded assent, then limped to the door of Harry’s office. Harry turned to the assembled class, which was still silent and awestruck by what they had just witnessed.

“Let us divide the duel into three parts. It is only my opinion, but I think that almost all of you might have acquitted yourself well during the first portion of the duel, had any of you been in my shoes and well prepared. A fair number of you might have done well even into the second part of that duel, owing largely to speed of response and calm while casting and responding. Good shields are of course essential. The last third…was different from anything you have seen…for a reason. To duel at that level, you must be fighting for your life, even if it isn’t genuinely on the line. You must treat every spell as an attempt to end your life, or you will surely slip and let one overwhelm you or otherwise rattle your nerves.”

“You may have noticed the spell that hit me still didn’t change my responses or their pace. In past years, you’ve been hit by spells in practice duels, and the duel stops immediately. In reality, you will have no such luxury. If one hits, you must be ready to counter-spell it yourself and move on without flinching, or simply continue as best you can. We will practice this very thing as the year progresses. Conquering your own fears and remaining calm will be essential to your success in this class.”

“How does an early dismissal from class sound to everyone? For our next class, I want each of you to write up everything that you saw cast today, as well as an analysis of the entire duel. No less than fifteen inches of parchment, since I can personally vouch that that would be a short summary of the match. If you didn’t know the name of a certain spell, simply describe its effects and I will discuss it at length after I’ve read all your papers. You are all dismissed.”

There were mixed looks of eagerness and disappointment. An early end to class was a sweet treat, but another parchment’s worth of work was a bitter to pill to take with it. Still, a few students were already scribbling notes as they walked, trying to record as much as they could recall while it was still fresh. Harry waited until the last one had left, then closed the classroom door and headed for his office. Now he could afford anger, and anger was completely justified for this case.

Harry opened his office door and stopped cold, mouth agape is complete shock while he stood stock still, taking in the spectacle before him.

Draco had placed his hands on either end of Harry’s desk, and was bent half across it, shirt peeled to his waist, displaying a smooth expanse of glistening and pale skin, faintly pink from exertion. His head was hung low, and he was absolutely silent, waiting stoically for a form of punishment that hadn’t been used at Hogwarts in almost half a century.

Harry was aghast. Dark curses, duels, and dragons were things he’d battled and beaten with comparative ease. Half-naked young men were something far more frightening. There were no counter-spells for the blush that hit his cheeks a second later. Harry lost his temper completely.

“What in the bloody, buggery hell do you think you’re doing?! Put your shirt and robes back on this minute!”

This was going to be a lot more complicated than he’d thought.


TBC!!!