Harry Potter and the Heir of Slytherin

Letters

Harry quickly spun away from the heel kick aimed at his midsection. As his body began rotating a full 360-degrees, his left palm shot out and knocked the kick away by striking his opponents calf. Before completing his spin, the elbow of his right arm came up in a jabbing motion that would have dislocated his opponent's jaw if it struck.

Naturally, the attack didn't strike--not that he actually expected it to.

Katrina darted backwards by one step, then came back in with a powerful one-two high kick, low kick combination that forced Harry to backpedal. The attacks were so fast that one of the kicks, the one aimed at his head, actually managed to graze Harry's nose, shaving off a few epidermal layers of skin.

This didn’t faze him. If anything, the close call left him more excited than before. This was a true challenge. Two forces almost evenly matched fighting against each other with everything they had. This was exactly what he looked for in a test of physical prowess.

The two continued to trade blows, attacking and counterattacking with their respective styles. It was easy to see both the similarities and differences contained within their respective fighting styles. Both relied on speed, the use of human weak points, and powerful counters designed to take out an enemy with a single strike. The differences lay in their movements.

Katrina was grace and elegance personified. Every move she made led into her next one. Her attacks flowed together like a stream of water that never ended unless broken up by Harry. At the same time, her movements were instinctive and unpredictable. Harry doubted even Katrina herself knew what her next attack would be. And while it was possible to determine her next move when she used a longer range of motion, those moments were rare. She had a very minimalistic approach to combat.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was Harry. His moves, while holding all the grace of a dancer, were much more flashy and straightforward. He spun and ducked and weaved and jumped, constantly moving around the woman he was sparring against as he continued to seek an opening he could extrapolate on.

There was a much wider range of motion in his attack patterns. It was both an advantage and disadvantage. It gave him a much wider range of attacks and positions he could exploit, but it also expended more energy and a skilled practitioner of martial arts could come up with a number of counters to his style.

That just gave him more intensive to get better.

Their styles were also different in how they used their bodies. Katrina stuck mainly to using her feet for attacks and her hands to parry attacks, only using them for the occasional sneak attack toward his throat or another place around his neck and head. Harry did not confine himself to just using those four appendages for attack or defense. He also utilized his elbows and knees to great effect, as his sparring partner found out a number of times in recent days.

It was clear by now that the pair had been at this for a while now. Harry and Katrina were both covered in a layer of sweat. Their uniforms stuck to their bodies. Sweat liberally flew off both hair and skin as they danced around each other.

Equally obvious was that neither really wanted this spar to end. The two were tied for the number of hits this session, and their competitive streak was at an all time high, especially Harry's, who wondered if this would be the day he finally beat Katrina in a spar.

There was an old saying that all good things must eventually end, and that unfortunately included this spar. The end came not from a decisive hit that gave one or the other a clear-cut victory, but from Katrina accidentally slipping on a puddle of sweat that had been accumulating on the sparring mat.

“WOAH!”

“OOF!”

It was an awkward position that the two found themselves in after Katrina's unfortunate fall. She had been mid kick, aiming at the left side of Harry's torso when she slipped. Harry had moved forward, prepared to throw her attack off course with a well placed parry, and then counter with a double palm thrust to the chest when she slipped. And because she had slipped, her foot ended up moving higher than he anticipated, knocking him upside the head, with her toes actually managing to hook themselves around the back of his head and drag him down with her. The end result was Katrina falling onto her back, and Harry Potter falling face first into Katrina's sweat soaked chest.