Draco in Darkness

Talk to me

This is a one-shot completely unrelated to the story but I really liked this one shot and couldn't find it on watt pad any more so I did some digging around and here it is (same thing with the whole entire book)

"Keep your eyes on your wand," Harry calls, trying to hide his irritation as he once again has to duck to avoid a wayward zigzag of red light. Turning, he watches the hex collide with the wall behind him, which absorbs it harmlessly. The Room of Requirement is good like that. "Distraction gives your opponent the advantage."

"Sorry!" calls a curly-haired third-year boy, the originator of the spell, looking apologetically at Harry before hurriedly throwing up a shield to protect himself from his apparently ruthless duelling partner.

"You will be," Harry mutters under his breath as he turns away and carefully walks along his end of the room, watching the expressions of fierce concentration on the faces of most of these young students and breathing in the smell of exertion and mingled hexes, charms, and shields.

And OK, so perhaps today he's a little more irritable than usual—he has an insistent, banging headache, he hasn't had a good night's sleep, and he was so busy at lunch helping Hagrid with a new consignment of something unpleasant and bitey that he didn't have chance to eat anything—but really, he doesn't regret setting up this Duelling Club for the younger students.

After the war had ended the previous year, demand had been high for some sort of continuation of the DA, both from the remaining members who had returned to Hogwarts, and from the younger students who had previously been denied involvement. Of course, once Dumbledore had jumped on board and declared the whole thing 'a wonderful idea', it had been inevitable.

Harry still has his dubious moments—particularly when he recalls his second year and the first incarnation of the Hogwarts Duelling Club. It's not as though any of these students remember the general disaster area that was Gilderoy Lockhart, but still, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and their ex-DA comrades do their utmost to create something, in lunchtimes and free periods and whenever Harry isn't being roped into some other 'school unity' type activity, that's useful and educational and fun.

And it is fun, most of the time. And useful, Harry suspects, although he usually leaves the 'educational' to Hermione. No use breaking the habit of a lifetime. Today's their day to run the club together, and he glances over to her side of the room and watches her ever-so-patiently demonstrating an effective defensive stance to a nervous-looking second-year girl. Her voice is soft—"That's much better, Grace, now try that again,"—and Harry smiles. Lets her words dissolve into the cacophony of yelled spells and muffled curses and requests for help.

They've all learned such a lot already, hexes and shields and etiquette and technique, and at the risk of sounding like a complete sap, Harry's actually rather proud—

"Mfleh," Harry manages as he's knocked off his feet and onto his arse by a flash of pale green and yellow light and a dull, percussive roar that makes his ears ring for a long few seconds. The floor is designed for such impact and he's unharmed, but that's hardly the point. Rattled and blinking rapidly, he looks around the room, which has fallen almost silent, and really hopes he's managed not to swear. It would be a first, if he has.

When he focuses on Hermione, her face is twisted with concern and she mouths, 'Are you OK?'

Harry wiggles his fingers experimentally and checks that all limbs and appendages are in their correct configuration. "I'm fine," he calls, and she hesitates for a moment before biting her lip, nodding, and turning back to her students. As she does, the noise level in the room gradually picks up again as the other pairs resume their duels. Harry sighs and gets to his feet, feeling slightly dazed.