Chapter 42

Flitwick noted the tension in the air the moment he stepped into the large classroom used for the Dueling Club. Every single member of the club was present, not one student absent due to illness or an unfinished assignment. Neville, not fully recovered from his encounter a few days earlier with a giant, was nevertheless in attendance. Even Flint was present, despite the detention Flitwick himself had handed out to the boy earlier that day, confining him the the Slytherin common room for failing to hand in yet another assignment. Having run the Dueling Club for most of his lengthy tenure at Hogwarts, Flitwick knew the reason for the evening's full house. He turned to Harry.

"And who is the challenger?" he asked.

"I am," said Draco, stepping forward.

Harry's friends had explained to him just how irregular it would be for Harry, the club champion, to issue a challenge. He could not, as he had supposed, simply stand up and demand that Draco duel him, not without any act of provocation to justify the meeting. The Weasley twins, having known Flitwick the longest, scotched any such notion in no uncertain terms.

"Flitwick will never go for it," said George.

"That's right," said seconded Fred. "He's a stickler for correct form, and he knows the Code inside out. You simply cannot call out Draco, not unless there has been a very recent insult."

"His face is provocation enough," said Harry. But it was not, Ron assured him. Ginny nodded in agreement, Imogen and Hermione saying nothing and maintaining a watchful silence.

"There must be someway I can force him to meet me. Any suggestions?" asked Harry, his question directed at all his Gryffindor friends. The Weasley brothers looked at each other, but said nothing. Imogen, who possessed only the meanest understanding of Wizarding laws and customs, was useless on a question like this. Hermione had earlier in the year demonstrated her complete lack of knowledge of anything to do with dueling, and she too was of no help. Ginny spoke up.

"Why don't you ask Draco to challenge you?" she suggested.

"He'll never agree," said Harry. "He's far too much of a coward. Look how he avoided me only last week, foisting me off on Imogen instead."

"It's true that he is coward," said Ginny. "But not openly a coward, and he does have a reputation to maintain, at least among his Slytherin friends. If you send him a letter asking him to challenge you, he might find it very difficult to refuse."

"But only Draco will know about the letter," said Hermione.

"Not if the letter is sent as a Howler," replied Ginny. She waved her wand. A quill and ink bottle sailed towards her which she caught expertly in one hand. Another wave of her wand, and she had parchment as well. She handed the quill to Harry.

"You're not one for words," said Ginny. "Take my dictation, and try not to blot the parchment too much."

Ever since Christmas, Harry had become increasingly accustomed to such treatment from Ginny. At first he had thought it was her way of being endearingly humorous. But of late he had come to the realization that at some level, Ginny believed herself his superior, and that it was only right and proper that she give him direction in some things. Most things, in fact. Harry took up the quill and wrote what Ginny dictated for him:

"Draco,

It is unfortunate that you were unable to accept my challenge to you last week. And now I understand that custom prevents me from issuing you another, for the simple reason that I am champion and you are not. I hope that you will see fit to issue me a challenge. If you don't, this will disappoint me, and yet at the same time confirm the opinion I have long had of you." Harry signed the letter with a flourish and a smile.

"Now how do I turn this into a howler?" asked Harry.

"I don't think that's a good idea to put it into a howler," said Imogen, speaking up for the first time. "An open insult like that is just a bit too much. Why don't you just send him the letter, and if he ignores is, you can resort to a howler or some other method if you must."

"That's fair enough" said Harry, "I'll hand it to him at breakfast.

The next morning in the Great Hall, Colin Creavy had been delighted to receive an errand from Harry, and rushed off to deliver the letter. He ran back to sit with Harry and the others, watching Draco closely. Draco finished the story he was telling, to his Slytherin friends, and then broke the letter's seal with a table knife. Even from across the hall the furious expression on Draco's face as he read the note was clearly evident. Draco opened a school bag, and pulled out a quill and ink, hastily scribbling a reply which he gave to a second-year Slytherin to pass on. A minute later, Draco's reply was in Harry's hands:

"Potter, if your courage matches your impudence, you will meet me at the next Dueling Club."

"Nicely put," observed Fred. "Maybe he's not such a coward after all."

Hearing Draco's challenge, Flitwick smiled at the young Slytherin.

"I would have expected nothing less," observed Flitwick. "You accept of course, Harry?'' By way of reply Harry only nodded.

Just as they had at the previous meeting, the club members lined up on opposing walls, the Slytherins on one, and the members of the other houses on the other. To the Slytherins, Harry was very much an unknown quantity when it came to his dueling abilities. Most of them doubted the account they'd read in the Quibbler of Harry's alleged duel with the Dark Lord. Harry had performed well enough in the various dueling club exercises since the start of term, but the only real duel that in which he had taken part was the one with Imogen, a match which in their view hardly counted, for most of them would have dispatched Imogen with the same ease as had Harry. None of them knew about the long practice sessions Harry had had over the Christmas holidays at the Burrow, nor did they know about the DA meetings which had taken place during first term. Harry was not known to be a particularly brilliant student; he had taken no prizes in any of his subjects and, so far as the Slytherins were concerned, had done little to distinguish himself during his four-and-a-half years at the school, with one exception: his victory in theTriwizard tournament the previous year. And it was this one accomplishment that gave the Slytherin observers pause.

The Slytherins were, however, very familiar with Draco's qualities. Draco had become dueling champion in fourth year, the youngest to hold the title in some decades. There were only a few in the club who could duel Draco on close to even terms. Draco's loss to Imogen in October was such a bizarre fluke that his Slytherin friends rejected it as having been achieved by Gryffindor trickery of some kind. Weighing everything in the balance, most of the Slytherins felt reasonably confident that their man would prevail.

But immediately things went badly for Draco. After the combatants exchanged salutes, within seconds Harry had paralyzed Draco's right arm: his wand arm. Harry stepped back, his wand lowered, the duel obviously won, for Draco was no longer capable of defending himself. But Flitwick and the Slytherins knew Draco better, and they were not surprised when Draco calmly removed his wand from his immobilized right hand, and proceeded to duel using his left. He had fought far too many times to be perturbed when he got off to a bad start, and continued as if nothing had happened. Harry, having lost his opportunity to finish off Draco, was greatly unsettled, and fought with less than his customary skill. By the end of the mercifully shorten encounter, most of Harry's hair was burned off, and his wand hand was covered in cruel, painful blisters that made it almost impossible for him to maintain a grip on his wand. But the curse which finished off Harry was the one that almost blinded him. Flitwick ended the duel when Harry's stunning spell went nowhere near Draco, instead rendering unconscious two of his Gryffindor friends. Unable to see and in great pain, Harry, to his shame, had to be led from the room and upstairs to the infirmary. Before the door closed behind him, he heard Draco's Slytherin friends give three cheers for the new champion.

When Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room that evening, he found some of his friends waiting up for him. Ginny had been to see him in the infirmary, but chose not to linger when Madam Pomfrey assured her that Harry would be discharged shortly. She returned to the common room, and was there with Ron, Hermione and Imogen. They sat in almost silence, aghast at what they had witnesses that evening. Surely Harry would be devastated, and they all wanted to show their support for their friend. Harry had faced so many obstacles since joining Hogwarts, and until now, he had risen to every challenge. He had defeated Voldemort in his first and fourth years; killed a basilisk and a Voldemort horcrux in second year; and saved his godfather from execution in third year. How would Harry hold up in the face up an embarrassing set back, his friends wondered. They had their answer very quickly when Harry opened the Gryffindor entrance and climbed in.