Harry Potter and the Order Of the Phoenix [129]
Harry welcomed Quidditch practice with open arms. It was great to fly away from the boringness of the classes. He was also especially looking forward to the next Dueling Club meet, and when the day came for it, he was very excited.
It was late at night, and Animagus lessons had just ended. By now, all of them could transform their entire bodies to their animal forms. They were now working on staying like their animal for long periods of time. While it wasn’t hard to transform just one part of your body, and keep it that way for a long time, staying the entire animal for extended periods of time was very tiring, and even painful.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione each walked down to the Great Hall, excited about their Dueling matches. Tonight they would be doing groups against other groups, it should be interesting. They entered the massive room, and it looked just like it did before: the tables were pushed against the wall, and there was a giant open space in the middle. Most of the students were already there, in fact Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the last to arrive. Cho waved to Harry as he entered the ring of duelers. Professor Flitwick was there again, only this time he was not flying in the air, he was on a giant chair at the front of the room. He had two big, black cubes on either side of him.
“Well, it looks as though were all here,” said Professor Flitwick, sitting down (he was taller sitting down than he was standing), “so let’s get started! I have here, on my left, a box. When I tap it with my wand, either a 1-2, 1-3, 2-2, 2-3, or 3-3 will appear. This will tell us which kind of duel we will have. On my right, I have another box. When I tap it with my wand, the student’s names that will participate in this duel will appear, clustered in groups showing you which team you will be on. The winners of the round will continue to play, but the losers will have their names taken out of the memory of the box. This is the easiest and fastest way to randomly choose dueling groups, and it should be a lot of fun. I wish luck to you all… especially those of you who will have to face three others at once.”
Everyone exchanged nervous and excited glances. Everyone was ready to escape from their dull school life with a good duel.
“Our first duel is…” Professor Flitwick tapped the left box with his wand. A giant, red, 2-2 appeared, “a two against two match with…” he tapped the right box, and four names appeared on the from of the box. Two were together, and two others were on the other side. “Mr. Gregory Goyle and Mr. Vincent Crabbe against Miss. Ginny Weasley and Mr. Tci!”
There was a very loud silence as the four competitors gathered in the center of the circle, and the rest of the students backed away. Ginny and Tci came together on one side, Crabbe and Goyle on the other. Ginny and Tci said something to each other, a plan probably, and Crabbe and Goyle just smirked. They held their wands out, in dueling position. Ginny did the same, but Tci insisted on repeating his normal dueling stance. He grabbed his Swand out of his sheath, and took his jacket off.
“Get ready,” said Professor Flitwick, looking excited, “three… two…one… go!”
“Expelliarmus!” said Ginny and Tci together.
“Kooverta Maximus!” yelled Crabbe.
“Bakatcha!” yelled Goyle.
Crabbe’s spell came into effect first. A giant, light-blue beam came out of his wand, and materialized in front of himself and Goyle. It became a giant transparent window, barely visible. The disarming spells hit it, but stopped there, absorbed by the shield. Goyle’s spell hit the front of the shield, making it glow a brilliant yellow. When the glow died down a bit, the shield had turned into a mirror. Now the shield wouldn’t just absorb attacks, it would reflect them back. Tci and Ginny were in trouble.
They, however, didn’t seem to care that there was a giant mirror blacking their spells, or that Crabbe and Goyle gave each