Chapter 12

Today, I had the morning all to myself, then the afternoon was Dueling Club, followed by lessons with Magnus Gamp in the evening. It was a pretty full day after the morning, and I doubted I'd get much in the way of training in once I had to leave for Dueling Club. That, unfortunately, meant skipping breakfast. Thankfully, my trunk provided a solution in the form of cured meats, smoked cheese, and hardtack. It was a sort of soldier's charcuterie, which wasn't great, but it was filling and provided me with more than enough energy to train with.

I had wanted to bring along a rune-scribed fridge with me that could power itself via runes, but there hadn't been enough room with everything else I'd stuffed into my expanded trunk. You might have thought a solution to that would be to just buy a mokeskin pouch and use that to hold a bunch of stuff, but one of the interesting bits about space-altering charms was that you couldn't stuff one container that was bigger on the inside into another willy nilly. It had to be designed specifically to allow for that, and given how the first large-scale production of Mokeskin Pouches began in the seventeenth century, while the Zabini Family Trunk was easily over two hundred years older than that, it wasn't in the cards.

Mind you, I probably could have just bought one and wore it to school, but I hadn't been thinking about that at the time. Mostly, I'd been moping about after the death of my Mother at the time and hadn't really been thinking about solutions to problems that may or may not crop up. I'd had to send Lucia to do my school shopping, for God's Sake. That meant bringing non-perishable foods to Hogwarts in my trunk, which meant Soppressata, smoked mozzarella, hardtack, and various similar items. I had a couple of sticks of salami, wedges of smoked gouda, and so on in there too.

Once I'd eaten, I sat down to continue my training. I worked mostly on more alterations of various easy spells. I used the information from the Principia Arcana to begin work on a charm combining the Sonorous variant of the Sonorus Charm with the Fulgeo Lumos variant of the Lumos Charm to create a sort of Flashbang effect. Both Fulgeo Lumos and Sonorous were known variants of their specific charms, but for some reason, nobody had thought to combine them.

It took me most of the morning to get down, even for such a seemingly simple spell as to combine two known variants of the pair of First-Year Charms. I wandered down a dead-end path for a few hours before I managed to figure out what I was doing wrong. By the time I had to go to Dueling Club, however, I had created my first real spell. The Flashbang Spell was fairly simple, point and flick your wand at the target and incant Fulgeo Percusso and it would fire a deafening sound and a flash of blinding light at the target that would have a similar effect as a modern-day flashbang grenade.

By the time I made my way over to the Training Grounds just in time for Gemma and Penelope to open the hidden door behind the hippogriff statues. I almost missed the entrance, which would have meant missing club for the day unless I could get one of the upper years to show me how to use the solo entrance. It was probably something I should look into anyway.

"You all right, there Blaise? You were making an awful racket in your room earlier, I sort of figured you'd give Club a miss today." Called out Gemma.

"I'm fine. I was just working on something is all." I nodded.

"Right. Don't burn down your dorm room. You won't enjoy the fire suppression system built into the rooms." Intoned Gemma.

"I won't." I returned.

With that, those of us using the group entrance, which mostly consisted of myself, Susan, Hannah, Terry, Millie, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley, entered the Club Room. Interestingly, Daphne and Tracey were already inside seated on a pair of couches having entered earlier through the solo entrance. Malfoy's group wasn't present today, which honestly, didn't fill me with as much confidence as it might otherwise have. Malfoy may have been pledged to avoid hassling my friends and I for the time being, but that wouldn't last into next year. If he was doing training of his own that I didn't know about, he could hit me with something surprising as soon as the time limit on his non-aggression ran out.

Those were thoughts for later as I stalked over to Daphne and Tracey who were lounging on their pair of couches like a pair of ancient queens, all smug and pleased with themselves. They had to have figured out the Solo Entrance and I wanted to know how to use it too.

"All right, what's it going to take to get you to tell me where the solo entrance is and how to use it?" I queried.

"I suppose that depends on what you've got for trade." Sniffed Daphne.

"Yeah, you're the one doing secret solo lessons in Charms, Defense, and Potions, Make us an offer." Grinned Tracey.

"I haven't actually learned anything yet." I pointed out.

"I thought you had an afternoon session with your trainer?" Asked Daphne.

"That got used up trying to prove I was worth his time. He had me demonstrate what I could do. I don't actually start classes for real until this evening." I admitted.

"Well, I suppose if you'd be willing to agree to a favor to be named later. . ." Trailed off Tracey.

"No way. I know all about favors to be named later. That's not happening." I refused.

"Give us a moment." Intoned Daphne.

Then she and Tracey began whispering to each other in French, a language I'd only had a single lesson in so far. I was going to have to figure out the Mental Art of Omnilingualism at some point because this was not something that I enjoyed. Eventually, Daphne and Tracey seemed to come to some sort of accord, though it took them a while and by the time they did, Harry and Ron were already using the Pit for a friendly duel of their own.

They turned back toward me and Daphne said, "I suppose we could put up the information as stakes for a duel."

"We want you to put up something specific in return if you lose, though." Informed Tracey.

"What'd you have in mind?" I questioned.

"We want you to use your Mind Arts for us on something we found in a room full of junk on the seventh floor. Daphne thinks it might be related to something she's seen at Greengrass Manor. You used the mind arts to help Hermione find Neville's toad back on the train, this would be the same thing." Informed Tracey.

"All right, am I allowed to know what exactly this thing is?" I queried.

"Not in public, no." Refuted Daphne.

"Fine. I'll do it, then." I agreed.

"Great! Looks like Potter and Weasley are almost done. Then we can head down and Daphne will duel you." Smirked Tracey.

I looked down and saw that, yes, Harry and Ron were almost done. Harry was dodging several of Ron's spells hurriedly, and Ron seemed to be strategically pushing Harry into a corner with his spellwork. With a tactical mind like that, it was no wonder Ron was capable enough to beat the Chess Trap in the underground chambers the first time around. It's just a shame he was a total git about things. Eventually, Ron hit Harry with a Bat-Bogey Hex and Harry was immediately assailed by green, snotlike, bats that flapped out of his nose. He yielded and one Finite Incantatem by Penelope Later, the Pit was clear.

Daphne got up off her sofa and we made to head down only to be blocked by Terry. Daphne cocked an eyebrow at him in response but Terry stood firm.

"Sorry, Daphne. Old Business first. I demand a rematch." Smirked Terry.

"I figured this was coming. You've been doing something with Anthony, yeah? Finally gonna show me what it was?" I sighed.

"That's the plan." Nodded Terry.

"Fine, but if you break him, I'll be put out." Cautioned Daphne.

"If that happens, then you'll get whatever it is you were looking to duel him for next week. It's not that big a deal." Shrugged Terry.

"Come on. Daphne, I'll try and make this quick so we can get to our duel." I promised.

"Ha. Bold words, wonder if you can back them up?" Asked Terry.

"We'll find out." I retorted.

"Boys. If you're going to duel then duel, don't stand there making snide comments all day." Grumbled Daphne, rolling her eyes.

Terry and I made our way down into the pit, bowing to each other before taking up positions. As soon as Gemma called for the Duel to start, Terry fired off an unfamiliar spell with an incantation that sounded like he was saying Showesh or something like that. Immediately a bunch of twisting rootlike vines burst from the sand of the Pit and tried to tangle me up in them. I was forced to dodge out of the way as the odd spell lashed out at me.

As Terry tried to hit me with castings of Flipendo, I realized his strategy. Use that grasping roots spell as the backbone of his strategy and then use the Knockback jinx to try and keep me from escaping by knocking me back into the rootlike mass. It was a pretty good strategy, only it had a fatal weakness. The backbone of the strategy relied on something that was eminently flammable while I had my Incendio being powered up for the rest of the year thanks to the Ritual of Selene's Inner Flame.

I immediately cast Incendio after ducking under a Flipendo that Terry had aimed at my chest to try and knock me into the root mass. My flames burst forth from my wand tip with enough power to immolate the root mass. Terry fired off an Aguamenti, the Water-making spell being one of those spells that could be taught to a First Year without issues but which never really seemed to make it into the Hogwarts Curriculum except as an afterthought. Clear water erupted from Terry's wand to douse the flames, but the damage had already been done thanks to my fire magic's ritual empowerment. The vines couldn't withstand the flames and even doused, fell apart into a tangle of charred wood.

It was time to go on the offensive and I hit Terry with a Flipendo of my own that sent him stumbling backward. I pressed my advantage by hitting him with a second Flipendo. If he stumbled from the first, the second knocked him on his arse. An Expeliarmus had his wand flying out of his grasp shortly afterward, ending the duel.

"Dang. I was sure that would have worked." Grumbled Terry as I helped him to his feet.

"It would have if you hadn't forgotten about the Ritual." I shrugged.

"Still. Anthony's not going to be happy." Sighed Terry, scooping up his wand.

"What was that root tangling thing anyway?" I questioned.

"That was a spell Anthony learned from his older brother. He's studying at the Kabbalist Institute in Jerusalem. Apparently, they've got all sorts of spells that differ from the usual curriculum." Explained Terry.

"Neat." I nodded.

Terry quickly made his way out of the Pit and I was faced with Daphne. I knew she wouldn't make the same mistake as Terry in planning a strategy around a spell that creates a flammable obstacle. As we bowed, I resolved to use the flashbang spell off the bat to get an edge, followed by Expeliarmus. If it worked, and it probably would, I'd win this in two moves.

As we took our positions and Gemma called a start to the bout, I did just that, shoving my want out at her and flicking the tip, I incanted Fulgeo Percusso as Daphne began to go through a series of unfamiliar wand motions. The loud bang and blinding flash of light interrupted whatever Daphne was trying to do and she fell back with an indignant squawk. Unfortunately, she'd seen my disarming charm so even blinded and deafened temporarily, she threw herself to the side, avoiding my Expeliarmus.

As she stood, she fired off a Flipendo that forced me to juke to the side away from, before redoing the spell she'd previously been trying to cast. With her wand cutting a trapezoidal figure in the air, Daphne incanted the words to the Scutum Charm. It was a modification of the shield charm that almost no one used because it formed an actual shield, which, rather than a dome surrounding the caster, instead came as a trapezoidal plane of force attached to the caster's non-dominant arm. As it happened, my next attempt to use Expeliarmus bounced off the shimmering scutum that Daphne had conjured.

Her riposte was another Flipendo of her own though thanks to her blindness and deafness it didn't come anywhere near me, instead sending a spray of sand up from the floor of the pit. I circled around to her side and cast my third Expeliarmus. This one actually managed to hit, and Daphne's wand was ripped out of her grasp to fall onto the sand.

With a grimace, Daphne's scutum of force winked out of existence and she very loudly asked for assistance. Gemma came down to the pit with a pair of potions, one of which was definitely an Oculus Potion to cure the Charm-induced blindness while the other was an odd, yellowish, colored potion I'd never seen before. Daphne drank them both and swiftly found herself able to see and hear again.

"By the way, Blaise you shouldn't rely on that charm to win your duels for you. It's powerful, sure, but it's easily reversible and I'm not just talking about potions." Cautioned Gemma as Daphne drank her potions.

"I won't." I promised.

"Good. The best duelists have a varied collection of spells, after all." Intoned Gemma, then she headed back up the staircase. I waited for Daphne's sight and hearing to return before nodding at her. She scooped up her wand and frowned at her loss.

"The Solo Entrance is behind the Knarl Tapestry to the right of the Lost Wands Storage in the Defense Tower." She sighed.

"You don't sound happy at having lost." I pointed out.

"I really did need you to use the Mind Arts on something." Admitted Daphne.

"I mean, you could always ask me as a friend to help you out." I shrugged.

"Would you do that without asking for a favor in return?" Queried Daphne.

"We'll call this one a freebie. Not everything has to conform strictly to house stereotypes, you know." I confirmed.

"Thank you. I really do appreciate that." Beamed Daphne.

"No problem. When do you want me to take a look at this secretive thing you don't want to let people know about?" I asked.

"Does Sunday work for you?" Questioned Daphne.

"It should." I agreed.

And with that, we headed back up the stairs. Interestingly, Tracey and Susan were waiting at the top, having agreed to duel next. Their duel seemed to go on for a while in comparison to either of mine as neither had any trump cards to play and mostly stuck to conventional spellwork that a first-year would know with a couple of exceptions. Tracey was good enough with transfiguration to use the sand in the Pit as material to make glass walls. They only soaked up a single spell apiece, given how fragile glass was and how simple the transfiguration was, and Tracey could only make a few of them before she started to run out of gas, but they tanked two hits for her that would have ended the fight otherwise.

Meanwhile, Susan had the Telum Pugnus spell, which conjured blasts of force about the same strength and size as a punching fist wearing a knuckleduster. The punches blasted through both of the Glass Walls that Tracey had transfigured and constituted a purpose-built attack spell, one of the few that anyone in First Year currently had in their arsenal.

Eventually, however, the use of such draining spellwork as battlefield transfiguration from Tracey drained her enough to slow Tracey down. She caught a Flipendo from Susan who rushed forward and placed her wand over Tracey's knocked-down form, prompting Penelope to call the Duel in Susan's Favor.

After that, we first years were done with duels for the day. The remaining duels were all upper years going at it over something or other. Kevin Sterndale of Hufflepuff was taking on Cyril Meakin of Gryffindor over some spat over who got to date Beatrice Heywood in Hufflepuff, while two Seventh Years, Eliza Billingsley and Lenny Pindlebrook both from Ravenclaw dueled to settle a rivalry they'd apparently had ever since first year.

I stopped paying much attention, choosing to read up on the Scutum Charm. It turned out that the Scutum Charm wasn't a modification of the Shield Charm, but the Shield Charm was a modification of the Scutum Charm. The Scutum Charm had come first, back in the days of the Roman Empire, and as the years went on, and better ways of casting were discovered, the Scutum Charm was modified into the Shield Charm.

It was why the Scutum Charm could be performed by even a first-year if they had enough talent, while the Shield Charm was much more advanced. It was also the reason why modifying the Shield Charm was considered so damned difficult because it already was a much more advanced modification of the Scutum Charm. Once again, Grindelwald's Protego Diabolica came to mind as an impressive piece of spellwork, even despite how the man had plunged Europe into war to satisfy his own ego. Oh sure, he'd claimed it was to prevent muggles from developing weapons that could wipe out entire cities in a single blast, but he hadn't stopped himself from making use of muggle puppets of his own. That was beside the point, however, which was that modifying such an advanced modification of a previous charm was undeniably impressive.

As I spent the rest of the Club time learning the Scutum Charm, I missed the looks that some of the upper years were giving me. By the time Dueling Club was let out for the day, Rumors were beginning to spread about me. Apparently, coming up with things like the Flashbang Charm was supposed to be beyond a first year. I wouldn't start to feel their effects for some time yet, however. For now, I had to hurry to meet Magnus Gamp.

It wouldn't do to keep my instructor waiting, after all. . .

XXXX

"Again! You're not gonna impress anyone with something that size!" Ordered Magnus Gamp.

With a grimace, I flicked my wand into a series of swishes and incanted the word Gelum to cast the Ice Jinx. Cold blue light blasted out from the tip of my wand, forming a block of ice. As I poured more power into the spell, the block steadily built up to chest height. By that point, however, I was completely drained, falling back on my arse, huffing and puffing from the strain.

"Good enough, I guess." Grunted Magnus Gamp.

For the last two hours, he'd really been putting me through my paces and trying to get me to finish off the first-year Charms Curriculum. The Box-Blasting Charm had been easily accomplished, as that was fairly straightforward, and Magnus Gamp had been satisfied enough with my performance of the Dancing Feet Spell when he'd taught me to be able to make his desk do the two-step with it. The Ice-making Charm was completely different, however.

Normally, the spell had two modes. The first was to cover an existing surface with a thin sheet of ice, making the surface cold and slippery. That had different wand movements but the same incantation, as the second part, which conjured a block of ice. Normally, this block was small, somewhere between the size of an ice cube to the size of a brick. That wasn't good enough for Magnus Gamp, however. No, he wanted me to use the Ice-making charm to conjure something that was large enough to block incoming spell fire.

That was what he'd been spending most of the last hour of lessons on. Unfortunately, making that much ice, while possible for a first year, was a draining experience. The most I'd been able to do at the start of the hour was conjure a knee-high block. Over the subsequent hour, Magnus Gamp had me do it again and again until I could conjure first a waist-high, then a chest-high block of ice. I was tapped out now, magically speaking.

"All right, that's the first year Charms Curriculum in a nutshell. Let's get you started on the Defense Curriculum." Intoned Magnus Gamp.

"I'm. . .tapped." I huffed between breaths.

"We're not gonna be doing practicals right now. Just shut up and open your ears. I'm gonna give you the rundown on Gnomes. They're annoying, vicious, little shits with razor-sharp teeth that like to infest places where people grow food. Fields, Greenhouses, Gardens, you name it, odds are, they've had a Gnome infestation at least once." Began Magnus Gamp.

The remaining hour of lessons was filled with the lecture on Gnomes, their behavior, habitats, and dangers, as well as various ways to get rid of them. It turned out that Gnome spit was a good ingredient for potions and could be used as a substitute for Flobberworm Mucus in a bunch of different potions along with a few other things. Apparently, the reason it wasn't used as much was because Gnomes were about as intelligent as the average dog, which made keeping them for spit production inhumane. It was the same reason why most Wizarding Families no longer kept Jarveys for De-Gnoming duties, since Jarveys, effectively being magical weasels, would literally savage the Gnomes in the process of getting rid of them.

Ultimately, I felt I'd learned a whole lot more from this than I would have from Quirrel. Magnus Gamp may be a hardass with high expectations of his students, but he was a pretty damn good teacher as a tradeoff. By the time he finished his lecture, he checked his watch and grimaced.

"All right, I've kept you here long enough. You're already late for dinner. I'll see you Friday morning. We'll be brewing a couple of potions, the forgetfulness potion and the hair-raising potion, so be ready to work." Remarked Magnus Gamp.

"I will, Sir." I affirmed.

"What are you waiting for, dismissed!" Snapped Magnus Gamp.

With that, I made my way down to the Great Hall. True to what Magnus Gamp had said, the Great Hall was already in the middle of dinner. I barely made it in time to grab some of the main course before it disappeared in favor of dessert. I was eating cornish game hen and neeps and tatties while the rest of Slytherin had dug into treacle tarts.

"You look tired. Are you all right?" Queried Millie.

"I'll be fine. Lessons just went long is all." I waved off, a fork full of neeps and tatties halfway to my mouth.

"You know, I heard something interesting about your instructor. Grandad said Magnus Gamp used to be an Auror. Apparently, he and Mad-Eye Moody used to be partners back during and leading up to the Last War." Informed Millie.

"Is that so?" Asked Daphne, joining the conversation.

"Yeah, apparently, he used to be a big deal in the Auror Office during the first phase of the War." Nodded Millie.

"I wonder what happened to make him switch departments like that?" Mused Tracey.

"Susan's aunt is the head of the DMLE. We could try asking her?" I tried.

"I don't know. Grandad seemed to think that the reasons weren't to be pried into." Hedged Millie.

"It's probably because of the War. Everyone knows Mad-Eye Moody went to join Dumbledore and his Order part-way through the War as the Order's Ministry Liason. They say he went alone, so whatever made him choose that probably made Magnus Gamp switch departments as well." Shrugged Daphne.

"Well, whatever the reason, he's a damn good teacher. A lot better than Quirrel, that's for sure." I smirked.

That touched off a debate on the merits of Quirrel as a professor or lack thereof. I wanted to chime in to steer the conversation towards Quirrel maybe faking his incapability and incompetence at several points, but each time found myself inexplicably tongue-tied. It was only after hitting on the tactic of telling them that Quirrel couldn't be as bad as he seems since he'd taught Muggle Studies for years before this point that I was finally able to get my words out.

I frowned at that. It seemed the choices I'd taken on the online questionnaire before I'd been sent here and had my consciousness merged with Blaises' were preventing me from directly saying anything that related to my metaknowledge. I found I could game it somewhat, but only by skirting the topic and using suppositions that could be made by anyone with a reasonable amount of research into the topic.

That was annoying, but I supposed that just flat-out telling people that Quirrel was possessed by Voldemort and faking his incompetence to cover that fact up would sort of be spoiling the fun for whatever entity had sent me to this world from my old one in the first place. Not that I had any clue as to what that entity was mind you, or even if there was any intelligence at all behind me being sent here beyond some sort of cosmic joke.

Fortunately, my comment seemed to prompt a moment of introspection out of the whole debate. They were thinking about it, that was good. Maybe someone would give me an opening to push them further toward looking into Quirrel. Sadly, it wasn't to be as Millie spoke up next and mentioned that she'd heard something about Quirrel being held captive by a Vampire in Albania over the summer. That seemed to prompt a round of rationalization, as that sort of ordeal was bound to have side effects on someone's personality and demeanor, which in turn locked me out of making any further oblique pushes.

I finished my dinner just in time to snag a single piece of treacle tart. I finished that up just before we were all dismissed for the evening. With that, I headed back to the Slytherin Common Room, stating the password, Rex Mundi, before entering through the revealed doorway and heading to my dorm room.

I spent around two hours doing my Occlumency and Leglimency Exercises, and one hour training the Dead Moment before I absolutely had to go to sleep. I hadn't wanted to, not after last night's prophetic dreams of doom. I had to, though, especially since tomorrow was normal classes and not Magnus Gamp's classes at later times. Fortunately, my dreams weren't nearly as full of doom and gloom tonight as they had been last night.

Unfortunately, they were still prophetic. . .

XXXX

I found myself at a flying lesson. It seemed to be the first flying lesson of the year, which I somehow knew would take place on the morning of the Saturday of the first week of October. As I watched, everything played out as it had in the books. Neville wound up falling off his broom and breaking his arm, Malfoy wound up antagonizing Harry over Neville's rememberall, and the chase happened the same way as it had the first time around.

Then something happened that I hadn't expected. Malfoy challenged Harry to a duel, sure, but then my dream flashed forward to midnight. Harry and Ron were in the Trophy Room of Hogwarts, only this time, instead of having Filch Called on them, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Theo Nott waited hidden in the trophy room and ambushed Harry and Ron as they entered.

The fight was brief but brutal. Malfoy managed to hit Harry with a curse that took him weeks to heal from, even with a witch of Madame Pomfrey's skill. In doing so, Harry was out of commission when multiple trolls slipped into the Castle on Halloween, having been let in by Quirrel at his master's command to cover for an attempt on the stone.

Once again, I found myself alone trying to save Millie from multiple trolls. Once again, I only managed to get one's attention with some clever spellwork and the Dead Moment. Once again, Millie was killed by the Second Troll's club. As the club fell down and pulped Millie's Rib Cage like a melon, I woke up with a sharp intake of breath. After taking a moment to calm down, I now knew what I had to do to avoid Millie's death by troll.

I would have to help Harry and Ron deal with Malfoy and his lot during the ambush they would have set for them in the Hogwarts Trophy Room. Then, I would have to call in that debt to get them to help me with the Trolls when the time came to help Millie. To do that, I would need to be able to get into the Trophy Room unseen by Malfoy and his lot. It looked like I would finally get a chance to use the Zabini Concealment Cloak.

I just hoped it would all work out like I planned. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we have Tuesday of the second week of classes. More training, more Dueling Club, and more prophetic dreams. Fortunately, Blaise now knows what he can do to at least try to save Millie. Even if his dreams are right, and he won't be able to save all his friends, that's no reason not to try.

Also, yes, Daphne found something personally interesting to her in the Room of Hidden Things, which she stumbled on off-screen. What that is will be revealed in one of the amalgamated scenes in the next chapter, but it's something that reminded her of a thing she'd seen her mother use once, a long time ago before her mother had gotten sick and died. Daphne'd been a little girl at the time, so finding a twin to that item and having Blaise use Psychometry on it actually has some personal significance for her. After all, there are a limited number of magical items that are made in pairs, and all of them are meant to be used together. Finding out who used the lost item might give Daphne some insight into her Mother's life.

At any rate, the next chapter will be a bit time-skippy and will cover several scenes along with a brief overview of training up until the first meeting of the Cross-House Study Group, which will get its own chapter.

Stay tuned. . .