Myst at Hogwarts Part 10 (Patreon)

Hermione watched the last grains of sand drop to the bottom of the hourglass sitting on the table. “That should do it.”

“Hopefully,” Tracey muttered as she glanced at the five shallow bowls that had just enough crismon goop in each bowl to cover the rings they’d dropped in each bowl.

Myst used the tongs in his left hand to carefully fish a ring out of the closest bowl of goop then set it on the wooden tray on the lab table. He pointed his wand at the goop covered ring then flicked it as he chanted, “Koruma Halkasi.”

Tracey frowned as the ring went from a bright silver to an emerald green color as the crimson goop bubbled away. “Nice color. Was the ring supposed to change colors?”

“The notes don’t say anything about the ring changing color,” Hermione said as she looked over the notes that Myst had copied out. “The potion color matched what the notes said.”

“I’m guessing I screwed up somewhere along the line,” Myst muttered as he used the tongs to grab another ring and set it on the tray. “Let’s try that again.” He pointed his wand at the ring and flicked it as he said, “Koruma Halkasi!”

Tracey frowned as the ring turned green like the first ring. “You might be mispronouncing the spell, let me try.”

“Go for it,” Myst replied as he fished another ring out of one of the bowls and set it on the tray, trying not to get frustrated at his failures.

“Koruma Halkasi,” Tracey said as she flicked her wand at the ring. She frowned slightly as the ring turned blue to match the blue stone set in the ring. “Blue is closer, right?”

“Possibly,” Hermione said as she drew her wand. “Let me try.” She waited for Myst to set another goo covered ring on the tray then cast the spell, making sure to pronounce everything perfectly, “Koruma Halkasi.”

Tracey frowned slightly as the ring remained silver as the goop vanished, not sure if they’d missed something or if Hermione was just that good. “Let me try that again.”

“Sure,” Myst replied as he dropped the last ring on the tray. “Go for it.”

“Koruma Halkasi,” Tracey chanted as she flicked her wand at the last ring. She noticed the ring stayed the same silver color as Hermione’s attempt. “That didn’t feel any different.”

“It didn’t sound any different either,” Myst agreed, wondering what else was going on. “Any ideas?”

“Not really,” Tracey admitted. “I’d blame the gem for the ring changing blue, but Hermione’s ring had a small green stone and the last ring was plain like the first.”

Myst set the tongs on the table then reached over and touched the plain ring. “It feels normal enough.” He slipped the ring on his left hand then pointed his hand toward the wall of the lab. “Here goes nothing,” he said as he pushed magic through the ring.

Hermione grinned as the ring generated a transparent glowing blue shield the size of a dinner platter. “It worked!”

“We should test it,” Tracey agreed, trying not to squeal in delight because they’d actually managed to create a working focus.

Myst grinned as he took a couple of steps away from the table. “Toss a stinging hex or something at me.”

Tracey grinned as she took a step sideways then brought her wand up and fired off a stinging hex at Myst’s shield without pausing. 

Myst grinned as the stinging hex bounced off his shield and flew toward her knees which required her to quickly step out of the way. “Nice reflexes.”

“Thanks,” Tracey replied as she walked back to the table and grabbed the other silver ring. “How do you make them work?”

“You push magic through them, like when you’re casting a spell with a wand then sort of hold it, it doesn’t take much,” Myst explained as he relaxed and let the shield vanish.

Hermione watched with interest as Tracey slipped the ring on then created an identical blue shield. “Nice, now we just need to figure out what’s different about the other three.” She reached out and grabbed the blue ring then slipped it on her left ring finger, slightly surprised that it fit perfectly. 

“We need a better way to test this stuff,” Myst muttered as Hermione pointed at the wall.

“We’ll have to check the library,” Hermione agreed as she pushed a small amount of magic through the ring.

Myst blinked as a super soaker sized stream of liquid came out of the gemstone on Hermione’s ring and hit the wall. “That’s not a shield.”

“Not so much,” Hermione agreed as she grabbed an empty bowl and started filling it with the liquid from her ring. “This way we can run some tests to make sure it’s just water.” She stopped pushing magic into the ring which caused the stream of water to stop when the bowl was half full.

Tracey rolled her eyes then cast the poison detection spell her mother had drilled into her head on the bowl. “I’m reasonably sure it’s water, it’s not poisonous at any rate.”

Hermione stuck her finger in the liquid then brought it up to her nose. “Doesn’t smell like anything.”

“Don’t taste it,” Myst warned her as he walked back over to the table. “Not poisonous doesn’t mean safe.”

“The ring is probably just conjuring water but he has a point,” Tracey agreed, wanting to run some tests before she got any of the summoned liquid near her mouth.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Hermione assured him as she took the ring off and set it on the tray. “Any ideas what the green rings do?”

“Not a clue,” Myst replied as he picked one of the green rings up then slipped it on his middle finger of his left hand. “One way to find out.” He pointed his hand toward the wall then pushed some magic through the ring and blinked when dozens of strange fist sized green shimmering bubbles poured out of the ring. “Huh.”

Tracey walked over and picked up the tongs then poked at a couple of the bubbles which bounced out of the way and floated into the air. “They’re a bit more durable than soap bubbles.”

Myst grinned as he pushed more magic through the ring and hundreds of bubbles flew out of the ring and covered the floor, cascading around Tracey. “You can control how many bubbles by how much magic you push into the ring.”

Tracey reached down and picked up one of the orange sized bubbles and squeezed. She relaxed slightly when the bubble finally popped. “They’re about as durable as balloons, they would be good distractions if nothing else.”

Hermione reached over and grabbed one of the green rings and slipped it on then pointed at the wall, conjuring her own stream of bubbles. “We’re going to have to test the bubbles against incoming spells, but they might block some jinxes.”

“We should probably clean up then get some practice with the rings.” Myst turned to look at Tracey. “Do you want to help us practice?”

“Of course,” Tracey agreed, looking forward to a bit of dueling. “We have two green rings, one blue and two silver, anyone mind if I take the blue ring? I have some ideas I want to test.”

“Go for it,” Myst agreed as he started cleaning up the lab equipment they’d used to make the potion they’d soaked the rings in.

0o0o0

Draco smirked as he looked at the crowd of people that had gathered in the great hall to witness his triumph over the overhyped halfblood. “If you feel overwhelmed and want to concede, I’ll accept it,” he allowed ‘magnanimously’.

Myst barely managed to keep his face straight as he studied Draco across the dueling circle. “No point in wasting all of the practice we put in and everyone is expecting a show, I’d hate to disappoint.”

Flitwick announced, “No Unforgivables, No Dark Spells, and No attacking your opponent once they’re down. Bow to your opponent.”

Myst bowed, figuring if Draco shot him while he was bowing it would make him look worse to the other purebloods than anything he could do. Sadly or perhaps not, Draco merely bowed like Flitwick had instructed then raised his wand to the ready position.

“Begin!” Flitwick commanded.

“Expelliarmus,” Draco shouted as he jabed his wand at Myst.

Myst merely stepped to the side as he brought his wand up and flicked it at Draco, “Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy…” he trailed off as the first two spells slammed into Draco and dropped him. “Huh, he must be having an off day, maybe he’s sick. Can we get his second out here?” he asked as he looked over at Crabbe who suddenly looked less enthusiastic about the whole duel.

Snape’s scowl got a little worse as he looked at Draco’s sprawled form. ‘Must have been a fluke.’

Myst waited for Crabbe to get into the ring then bowed. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Crabbe agreed after bowing enough to be halfway polite, his eyes never leaving his opponent.

“Begin,” Flitwick commanded.

Myst flinched as Crabbe shot sparks at him and dodged to the right, barely avoiding the full force of a jelly leg jinx sent towards his feet while he was distracted. He scowled and tossed himself to the mat as Crabbe’s spell hit his left leg, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stand or dodge properly with it that state. “Stupefy, stupefy, stupefy!” he quickly tossed stunners one after another, the first missing, the second impacting Crabbe’s chest solidly and then a third when Crabbe didn’t actually go down.

“Match,” Flitwick announced as Crabbe finally fell down.

Myst pointed his wand at his right leg. “Finite.” He rolled to his feet and smiled at Flitwick. “Since we’re here, is there anyone else that would like to duel? It doesn’t have to be me, but knowing what a proper duel looks like it would motivate people to learn.”

“Hey Fred, do you want to duel?” Lee asked loudly.

Flitwick glanced over at Albus who looked faintly amused by the outcome. “What do you think headmaster?”

Albus nodded. “Since we have everything set up and we scheduled far more time than we needed, it sounds like an excellent teaching opportunity. Perhaps the two of our prefects would like to show everyone a proper duel then we can take some volunteers.”

Snape pointed his wand at Draco as he walked over to where Draco was sprawled. “Enerverate.”

Draco blinked as he woke up on the mat looking up at the ceiling. “What happened?”

“You lost, perhaps next time you’re sick, you’ll avoid dueling until you’ve seen the nurse,” Snape sardonically.

“Sick?” Draco asked confused.

“Yes, Potter already announced that you must have been sick, implying that you weren’t at your best. However, you should be commended on your choice of seconds, Crabbe managed to clip Potter with a jelly leg jinx and it took several stunners to fell him.”

“So Crabbe took him out?” Draco asked hopefully and a bit shocked that Crabbe was actually competent at dueling.

“No, but he managed a respectable showing. Take the loss gracefully and take your training more seriously, as Potter obviously has.” Snape turned his attention to watching the prefects set up, wondering who had taught Potter to duel.

Myst happily made his way over to where Hermione was leaning against the wall watching people set up, rather happy that he hadn’t had to use his shield and give away the advantage. “How did I do?”

“Awesome, did you see the look on Malfoy’s face?” Ron asked excitedly, not even noticing that neither was paying attention to him.

“You did great,” Hermione said, happy that Harry hadn’t been injured and trying to ignore the small part of her that was feeling rather pleased about how he’d defeated the bully who had insulted her.

“Thanks,” Myst replied as he leaned against the hall next to Hermione, letting his fingers brush her hand.

“How much do you think Malfoy practiced for the duel?” Hermione asked as she absently grabbed Myst’s hand.

Katrina snickered. “Not enough.”

Myst shrugged. “He managed a disarming jinx, he just forgot to follow it up with something else. He should have started with sparks or something as a distraction, like Crabbe did.”

“Sparks,” Ron replied sarcastically.

“Considering he managed to clip my leg while the sparks obscured my vision, it wasn’t a bad plan,” Myst admitted, not particularly disappointed in the duel with Crabbe as it made Draco look worse. “Ah well, nothing a bit of practice shouldn’t fix.”

“Didn’t you practice enough last night?” Ron asked.

“We practiced dodging jinxes and tossing stunners, there is always more things to learn,” Myst replied as he watched Dumbledore set up another dueling ring while Flitwick paired Percy and the female Hufflepuff prefect that he couldn’t remember the name of.

“If I can have your attention,” Flitwick called out. “We will start the next duel. No Unforgivables, No Dark Spells, and No attacking your opponent once they’re down. Bow to your opponent.”

Myst watched Percy and the other girl bow to each other then shift to a ready stance. There was something undeniably thrilling about watching a magic duel even if the duel itself wasn’t technically all that impressive. He would have liked to see more dodging rather than a mix of shields, counterspells and jinxes being tossed back and forth as the two duelists stayed in roughly the same positions as they started. ‘Fucking idiot, one step to the left, one damned step and you wouldn’t have had to shield which meant you could have been tossing a jinx.

Hermione twitched as the Hufflepuff prefect dodged a spell at the last second then used something that caused the end of her wand to explode with light. She blinked a couple times then focused on where Percy was sprawled on the floor. “What just happened.”

Myst blinked his eyes a couple times to get the spots out of his vision. “Some type of flash bomb spell, we’re going to have to look that up.”

“We have a winner,” Flitwick announced, rather amused by the girl’s creativity. He pointed his wand at Percy. “Enervate.”

Percy sighed as he woke up on his back looking up at the ceiling. “What did she get me with?”

“A stunner,” the Hufflepuff prefect replied with amusement as she helped Percy to his feet.

“Thanks,” Percy replied, a bit annoyed with himself that he didn’t do better.

“If I can have your attention,” Albus announced, his voice cutting through the noise of the crowd. “I have set up an additional two dueling circles in order to give more people the chance to duel.” He waited for the applause to die down. “In order to keep things safe and to provide an interesting experience for the spectators, we’re currently limiting things to fourth through seventh year students. I’d like all fourth and fifth year students that want to duel to talk to Professor Flitwick, sixth years McGonagall and seventh years myself.”

“I expect everyone to be on their best behavior,” McGonagall stated firmly as she looked around at the students, giving the Weasley Twins a stern look. “If you’d like to duel simply walk up to Professor Flitwick, Professor Dumbledore or myself and ask, we’ll try to match you with someone in your skill range.”

‘This worked out better than I was expecting,’ Myst thought as he glanced over at where Quirrell was standing with several other professors. ‘At least I won’t have to deal with his class for much longer.’

“Fourth years, that’s not even fair, I wouldn’t have minded defeating some Slytherins,” Ron complained.

Myst rolled his eyes, more than a little tempted to point out the fact that Ron would probably lose on account of the Slytherins having the common sense to practice or at least have parents that knew that learning to fight was a useful skill. ‘Then again, by all rights, Draco should be better than he is so there’s that.’ He turned and flashed Hermione a smile. “Shall we wander?”

“I think we shall,” Hermione agreed as she headed toward the ring the headmaster was standing next to, wanting to see the seventh years duel as they had the best chance of knowing what they were doing.

“Why are you leaving?” Ron asked as Harry and Hermione walked off, not sure what was wrong with their current spot.

“Because they want to see the best duels,” Katrina explained then followed Harry and Hermione toward the headmaster’s dueling circle.

Myst pretended that he didn’t hear Ron’s question as they headed toward the dueling ring to watch the seventh years. He did his best not to turn and look when he heard a fifth year girl ask someone, likely her boyfriend, “How come you’ve never fought a duel in my honor?”

The fifth year boy next to her laughed. “Because they’re usually already on the floor bleeding by the time I get a chance.”

“Fair enough,” the girl admitted as she watched Harry and the bushy haired girl walk over to the seventh year duels. “You could at least hold my arm like a gentleman.”

“That I can do,” the boy replied with amusement as he took her left arm with his right and led the way toward the Flitwick’s dueling circle.

‘At least chivalry isn’t dead,’ Myst mused as they managed to get a decent spot to watch the seventh year duels, mostly because they were short enough that the seventh years watching their friends could see over their heads. He smiled as Katrina joined them. “Having fun?”

“You bet,” Katrina replied enthusiastically. “We should practice for next time.”

“Next time?” Hermione asked as she watched two seventh year boys walk into the dueling circle.

Katrina shook her head. “You don’t expect Draco to take the hit to his pride lying down do you?”

“She has a point,” Myst agreed, knowing that Malfoy would probably try to get revenge one way or another. “Besides, it doesn’t hurt to know how to duel.”

“True,” Hermione agreed in a whisper.

Albus spoke up, “Bow to your opponent. No biting, no dark magic and don’t hit your opponent while they’re down.”

Myst frowned as he watched the two teenagers bow then drop into something approaching a martial arts stance or duelist stance. The Slytherin’s stance looked a bit sloppier or at least looser than the Ravenclaw’s rigid stance with his right arm forward and his body angled to limit how much area he was exposing. He frowned as he watched the spells fly back and forth. On one level it was an awesome light show and made his blood race because magic, on the other hand he couldn’t help evaluate it as a martial artist. 

The lack of ‘proper’ footwork alone would have had his instructor looking for a rolled up newspaper to beat some sense into people. The fact that they weren’t moving left him wondering if they were stupid or if they knew something he didn’t. Just because he’d never seen any lightning fast spells in the books or movies didn’t mean they didn’t exist. He was a bit amused when the Slytherin conjured a couple snakes that the Ravenclaw quickly banished at the Slytherin’s face then followed it up with a stunner to his chest much to everyone’s amusement other than a couple of the Slytherins watching.

“Match!” Albus announced as he flicked his wand and dispelled the snakes before they could attack anyone.

“I need to learn that,” Katrina muttered under her breath.

‘If nothing else it would give us some test subjects.’ Myst pulled a small muggle notebook out of his pocket with his left hand. “I’m going to need my hand back.”

“Okay,” Hermione said as she let go of his hand so he could take notes. “Make sure you get the incantation so we can look the spells up.”

“That’s the plan, we have a bunch of things to look up in the library,” Myst agreed, knowing they still had to look up ways to identify enchanted items. He did his best jotting down spell incantations and some of the stuff that worked, making a mental note about what didn’t work and why so he could look up alternatives in the library.