Chapter 15.4- Doom Days

“Dead? How?” I found myself asking almost instinctively, forgetting that these people did not answer to me…yet.

“That is for us to find out, Mr. Potter.” Bones said with pursed lips.

“Now that you are cleared, you can be on your way, Mr. Potter. We hope not to see you here for a while” She said while unclasping the bracelet in her hand to release the wards around the cell. Scrimgeor took out my wand from his jacket pocket and held it out towards me. I reached out to take it, and he pulled the hand back leaving me grasping at nothing but thin air. I resisted the urge to scowl at the action.

“Those counter curses might be legal. They might even not be frowned upon, but I know that one doesn’t learn counter curses like those without knowing the curses that they counter. Stay away from dark magic, Potter. We all saw the killing curse” He said before passing my wand over. I felt the urge to shatter every bone in his body with a wave of my wand but I killed the voice and pocketed the wand. Not here. Not yet. They would bow before my will, but not yet.

X-

I twirled my wand between my fingers as I stared at my would-be opponent. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked her, not feeling apprehensive quite, but just a bit cautious of what could happen here.

“Yes, Harry. You dueled a Death Eater. I want to see what that means and how far away I am from something like that” She said for the upteempth time.

“Yes, I heard you the first few times, but like I said this will be painful and you could really go out looking for easier opponents” I felt the part of me that was Harry Potter wince as those words left my mouth. Hermione had a form of pride that was not difficult to see. She was proud of her intellect, of her skill with magic…being called the brightest witch of her age hadn’t just gotten to her head, it had seeped into the very fabric of her being. I saw the fire as it lit itself behind her eyes and knew that there was no way I would manage to get out of this one without having to fight my way out. That was good enough, I figured. We had a week until the Yule Ball, and the duels that were scheduled to take place afterwards.

“Just take your stance, harry” She said and I nodded, but remained in m position.

“Suit yourself, then” To her credit, the first spell was silent. Silent casting from a fourth year was impressive…but failed to be impressive enough. I batted the disarming charm into the ceiling of the room where I had once fought Quirell and now served as our sort of meeting spot. The spell did little, and the two others that followed were sent back to their caster.

Even more to her credit, she did not panic at seeing her magic so casually turned against her. She screamed the incantation for the shield charm to the heavens and managed to produce a gleaming blue one that swallowed both spells. I nailed it with a silent shield breaker before she could even react/