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Author: mcdowella Story: The Chimaera and the Hippogriff Rating: Young Teens Setting: Pre-DH Status: Completed Reviews: 3 Words: 45,280
As soon as the Grangers had left, Ron told Harry and Ginny, "Guess what! We’re getting duelling lessons tomorrow!” "I’ve duelled," said Harry shortly. "I prefer Quidditch." Tonks broke in. "A lot of the real pureblood types are keen on Duelling, but they spend most of their time talking and drinking. We've had a lot of Auror duelling drills since the punch-up at the Ministry, and they're really hard work. It makes you feel you could take on anything, though." "Like breathing Snape's potions without the Bubble-Head charm?" asked Remus. "Perhaps they'd lose fewer Aurors if they knocked some sense into you instead." "Maybe they need to add the Bubble-Head charm to the Auror syllabus," said Tonks. "We needed it a lot at Hogwarts the year before last," said Harry. "We got really good at it. Are you going to be teaching us?" "No," said Remus. "I think Minerva will choose from the regular Hogwarts staff." "Hermione's going to be mad," said Ron. "Don't you think she'll enjoy it?” said Ginny. "It's not that," gloated Ron, "she hasn't had the time to read up on famous Duellists of the past, and bore us all with the history of Duelling from 382 BC onwards." After breakfast the next day, the four of them loitered around the fireplace until an exasperated Molly Weasley finally told them to go up to the library "And do some work!" she yelled, looking at Ginny. "I don't know what time they'll arrive," she continued, "there’s no point waiting down here." Back in the library, Ron quizzed Hermione about all the Muggle books she had bought. "What's the point of this? Are we going to be doing Care of Non-Magical Creatures? You've got books on the care and feeding of everything that creeps, crawls, walks, or flies." "It's for my project, Ron," said Hermione. "How am I supposed to know how to transfigure something properly if I don't understand what I'll get? If only I knew what I was going to... Never mind, we really should be working. You owe it to poor Stan Shunpike to get going, too." Ron flipped through more of the Daily Prophets. He read that his Dad had arrested Gideon Fairweather for trying to pass off Rememberalls as Dark Detectors. Didn't that mean his father had just arrested a distant cousin? Ron was looking up Fairweather in "Nature's Nobility" when he noticed that Fairweather must have been in Slytherin with Lucius Malfoy, but that he would have grown up not far from the Lovegoods. Ron was just wondering whether he had been friends with either, and thinking that this was the sort of thing Hermione would be good at, when Mrs Weasley opened the door without knocking, and said "Professor Flitwick's here to see you." They ran downstairs to see him looking rather more solemn than usual, though he did greet them with a cheerful "Good Morning!" before carrying on to ask "The four of you are to start Duelling training; is that correct?" Hermione answered with "Yes, Professor Flitwick." "Before I start, I must make one thing clear," Flitwick said. "There is to be no actual Duelling practice without my presence. It is very easy to lose a sense of proportion in the middle of a once-friendly duel, and then things can get out of hand, even with the best of friends." He seemed to be glancing at Mrs Weasley a lot. Had she been over-protective again? "Don't worry," he said, smiling, "you'll get plenty of homework from this class, but it will be exercises without a real opponent. Do I make myself clear? No real duelling unless I say so?” He waited until they had all nodded, and then led them off to the cellar. The cellar level of 12, Grimmauld Place was almost a single very large room, but with pillars and partitions running through it that divided it into three corridor-like areas. With a few swift flicks of Flitwick's wand, it gained more lights, a blackboard, targets on the far end, and an assortment of Muggle gym equipment: padded mats, low benches, and a large cardboard box half full of a tangled mix of something or other. "I am afraid," he said, "that I can offer you neither the intellectual delights of Charms, nor the convivial fellowship of the pure-blood Duelling society. This is a crash course, with only one aim; to increase your chances of surviving a Duel with the everyday murderous Death-Eater." Smiling wryly at Harry, he said, "Duelling with Lord Voldemort is an entirely different proposition, which is thankfully not my problem, though I believe some of the same principles could apply. We will start with the Expelliarmus hex." "Professor Flitwick," said Hermione deferentially, "we've done Expelliarmus. We did it with Professor Lockhart and Professor Snape." "Yes," said Flitwick, "I believe a demonstration would be in order." He waved his wand and four school desks and chairs appeared, complete with parchment, quills, and ink. He waved again, and the desks each gained a bell, of the kind once provided by shops for customers to ring. The four of them looked blankly at him, but sat down behind the desks. "Which of you has the fastest reactions?" asked Flitwick. The other three all pointed at Harry. Flitwick smiled. "Do any of you lack confidence in your speed, your ability to hex before being hexed?" Hermione raised her hand immediately. Seeing her, Ron raised his, but Harry snorted dismissively at this. "Casting a successful spell requires precise co-ordination and concentration. So also does duplicating the following pattern." He wrote an obviously precise, but apparently meaningless, series of squiggles on the board. Hermione put her hand up, but received a stare from Flitwick, who also shook his head slightly at her. She put it down again. "Copy it down once, for practice," he said. Hermione didn't seem to be taking this seriously. The others looked carefully at the pattern, then copied it down slowly, glancing repeatedly between their parchment and the blackboard. "When I say go," said Flitwick, "you will copy it down accurately again, then ring your bell. Three, Two, One, Go!” Hermione's right hand appeared to wave over the paper just once, before it went on to ring the bell. Much later, Harry and Ginny rang their bells at very nearly the same time. Ron was last, though not by much. "Hermione," said Ron, "you write, then ring. Did your quill break, or something?" Wordlessly, Flitwick walked over to Hermione's desk, picked up the parchment, and showed it to the others. It was the most accurate rendition of all of them, making allowances for Hermione's usual cramped handwriting. Ron's was almost unrecognisable. "Hermione," asked Flitwick, "Are you the fastest wand in the west? Should we draft you as Seeker for the Gryffindor team?" "That's the rune ehwaz, written in an archaic Goblin notation," she said, "it means partnership. I had to learn that notation as my Ancient Runes homework over the holidays. I copied out the lesser western ballad cycles for practice." "And very silly I'd have looked, too, if you hadn't done your homework," said Flitwick. "There is a difference between knowing how something is done and doing it accurately, but as quickly as possible. That difference is exhaustive practice of the exact actions concerned. If you don't have it you'll look just as silly as you would racing Hermione in rune dictation." He smiled. "The traditional pure-blood initiation would have me blasting all four of you into the walls, before you had raised your wands, but I've never really felt like doing that. Perhaps it's my Goblin heritage. Shall we start practicing?" For the next half hour, they practiced `Expelliarmus’ against the targets on the far side of the room, which lit up when hit. They practiced on a count of three. They practiced firing in short bursts. They practiced with Flitwick making minute adjustments to their wand actions. They practiced while running. They practiced firing in sequence. They practiced, in other words, until they were completely fed up. "Now for the second half of Duelling," said Flitwick, "Defence. Shield Charms do not stop Avada Kedavra. Animation, so you can get objects to block the incoming hexes, takes years to perfect, and then you have to get it fast enough. You've all seen my preferred option." "Have we?" said Ron. "In Charms class!” said a smiling Professor Flitwick. "Lesson after lesson, students prove that they need teaching by getting spells wrong. Misbegotten magics come whistling and whirring out of wands, generally at the poor Duellist-turned-Professor facing all those desks, and what do I do? Do I put up a shield and scatter the hex back at my class? Do I shout Expelliarmus as you come in through the door to relieve you of your wands in the first place? No! As far as possible, I arrange not to be there when the hashed-up hex arrives. Now watch where I put my feet." Feeling rather self-conscious, the four walked in slow motion through what Ron would come to despise as "dancing class". They learned the approved motions for the left wheel, the right wheel, the duck, the squat, the side steps, the advance, the retreat, and then again they repeated all this well beyond the point of boredom. "We will start the feints next time," said Flitwick, as if promising them a rare treat. "I'm exhausted," said Hermione, when Flitwick finally gave them a rest. "I was afraid of that," said Flitwick. "It's been too long since you were at Hogwarts, playing Quidditch, or just dashing up and down staircases between lessons." Ron cheered up. "We're going to start playing Quidditch?" he asked eagerly. "Sorry," said Flitwick, "no room, and it's not really what you need anyway. The purebloods miss out on this, because Muggles dreamt it up. Don't worry, I'll just show you the basics now." The cardboard box turned out to be filled with skipping ropes and diagrams of Muggles bending and stretching and doing things called press ups and sit ups and squat thrusts, and more. Professor Flitwick took them through the routines briefly, showing them how the diagrams were to be interpreted as he did so. Hermione perked up when she saw the skipping ropes, saying "I used to enjoy this!” Harry said very quickly, "Muggle boxers do this too, you know." "Boxers?" said Ron, sounding confused. Harry took up a shadow-boxing position and said "Fisticuffs. Usually big chaps, too. Dudley Dursley is an amateur boxer." Ron laughed. "You've got a common interest, then, Hermione. Dudley would fit right in with Krum and McClaggen, too. Not a working brain cell between them." "Perhaps you're right, Ron," said Hermione sweetly. Why didn't her expression match her tone of voice? "Perhaps I have picked a series of very stupid boyfriends." She emphasised the last three words heavily, and Ginny got the giggles. "Homework," said Flitwick firmly. He looked at them speculatively, then measured their pulses. After that, he asked them to hold their wands out at arms length and send out green sparks, as quickly as they could. They did their best, but achieved only a fraction of the rate they could have managed when fresh. Then he waved his own wand, and each quill wrote down a schedule, with footwork drills and a personalised selection of Muggle exercises on even days, and wand work on odd days. "I have to go on my Charms round now, but I'll be back in a week or so," he said, before bouncing off with what they now recognised as the rather self-conscious pride of the fitter-than-thou. When they finally climbed out of the cellar slowly, Mrs Weasley was waiting for them. "Did you enjoy your Duelling, then?” she asked. "We prefer Quidditch," panted Ron. "No slacking, now; I have a copy of your schedules," said Mrs Weasley in triumph. The Duelling practice did have some good points. The Muggle exercises were always tiring. Every time they got used to them, Professor Flitwick stepped up their schedules to make them harder; but they took to wearing just shorts and t-shirts in them, and Ron found the sight of Hermione worth the effort, in fact even worth the embarrassment of Hermione and Ginny's giggly comparison of his and Harry's knees when they adopted the same dress. After the first few weeks, he also noticed that Hermione was much more relaxed at meals, although she still tended to opt for fruit instead of pudding. Professor Flitwick showed them how to charm a collection of old butterbeer corks to act as moving targets, which was quite amusing, at least for the first five minutes. Once they had a grasp of the basics, he allowed a few gentle bouts, under supervision, restricting them to light stinging hexes only. He even arranged a special demonstration, with Tonks and Mr Weasley invited in, to show them their different Duelling styles. Tonks, the Ministry trained Auror, was awesome most of the time; both powerful and fast in offence, and with immensely energetic footwork in defence (although Flitwick criticised her for jumping too often). But she did trip once, and almost dropped her wand. "So, if you have absolutely no alternative but to face a much more thoroughly trained opponent," said Flitwick, "keep your head, and wait for them to make a mistake. It does happen." Flitwick waxed lyrical about Mr Weasley's footwork. "Notice the economy of effort, the apparent laziness that hides precise control; the product of the last and best year of Hogwart's duelling club". "And years of dodging Mundungus Fletcher." Put in Mr Weasley. "You duelled at school, Dad?" said Ron. "Why isn't Mum here then? Isn’t she any good?" "Your mother is an excellent Duellist," said Mr Weasley. "Now let's drop the subject." But Professor Flitwick was reminiscing. "Mad Molly Prewett," he said fondly. "It's just a shame we had to stop the Duelling club after that. All through training, I remember her being so apologetic; saying sorry after landing stinging hexes, and stopping at the first hit. Then in the quarter-finals she got so angry that we had to pull her off poor Violet before we could carry her up to the hospital wing. She was still screaming 'She hexed Arthur! She hexed Arthur!' when I left carrying Violet. Silly girl! How else was Violet going to get through to the quarter-finals?” He paused. "Come to think of it Arthur, how did Violet manage to hex you? I would have bet money that she'd never touch you even if you were wandless." "And face Molly in the quarter-finals?" said Mr Weasley, "you must be joking! I was dodging into Violet's hexes." "That explains it," said Mr Flitwick. "As I said, it's too easy to lose a sense of proportion when wands are out. Solo exercises are much more practical." Ginny was grinning while muttering "Mad Molly Prewett" repeatedly under her breath. Mr Weasley said "Unless you want to meet her in person, I strongly recommend that you never mention that phrase again. My life is quite exciting enough already." After Professor Flitwick had left, the others rounded the day off with a butterbeer by the fire. Ron and Hermione played a game of wizard chess. "How's it looking for Stan Shunpike?" said Harry. "I'm nearly ready to go and see him," said Ron. "He could put forward a good case, with what I've got.” He turned his head to address his chess pieces. “Rook to Queen's Knight Two, check." "Was his case prepared by Ron, or RonAndHermione?" asked Mrs Weasley, who had a pretty good idea of Ron's approach to school work when Hermione was around. "King to King's Rook Eight," said Hermione, grinning. "I've done a lot of work on this!" said Ron, sounding aggrieved. "If you must know, we've had arguments getting the stuff Hermione found sorted out, so I've not just copied stuff down. Some of her stuff was useful, but a lot of what's in the Daily Prophet doesn't make sense if you know the background of the families involved. Rita Skeeter's stuff is a grain of truth covered in whatever junk she thinks will sell most papers. Rook to Queen's Knight One, Check. Hang on; we've been there before, haven't we?" "Ron knows a lot about family backgrounds I don't have a clue about, Mrs Weasley," said Hermione. "And he picks up things I don't spot, because he knows some of the people behind the names. I've mostly just helped with the organisation. King to Queen's Rook Seven." A small section of the library was now almost walled off with family trees, tables of who went to Hogwarts when, and who was arrested with who. Hermione's crowning achievement was a sheet of names linked by lines with different colours representing different sorts of connections, that kept itself magically up to date as they accumulated more and more information. The area around Lucius Malfoy was especially busy. Hermione looked at Ron and smiled. "Your Rook is getting awfully angry." It was true. He had been chasing Hermione's King for what seemed like an age now, and was no closer to checkmate than he been at the start. Indeed, Ron had narrowly avoided accidentally stalemating Hermione twice now. "I guess we'll have to call it a draw, then." said Ron. "Annoying that." Hermione's King looked up and held his breath. "Are you offering me a draw?" said Hermione carefully. "Yes," said Ron. "I accept," said Hermione. Her King put its thumbs in its ears and stuck out its tongue at the Rook, who went purple. "Gratefully, because King and Rook against King is a winning position." "I'd like to see you try," said Ron. Hermione's King tried to catch his eye and made urgent cancelling gestures with its hands. Ron ignored it. "Ok," said Hermione, swivelling the board round. "Rook to King's Knight Eight". Hermione seemed to be working to an almost mechanical pattern. This time the positions did not repeat themselves, as her previous King was steadily forced to the side of the board. Finally, the King tossed its crown down, looking distinctly worried about being delivered into the custody of the grimly grinning Rook. Ginny and Harry, who had moved over to watch, applauded. "Where did that come from?" asked Ron. "I bought a Muggle book on Chess with all the rest of the stuff. I paid for that one myself, not the Order," she added quickly. "So how come I nearly won," said Ron. "Book didn't tell you everything?" "I haven't got very far with it, but Rook and King against King is on page one," said Hermione. Ron spluttered helplessly. "Your grandfather left you a couple of Muggle chess books," said Mr Weasley, smiling. "You just never opened them. We brought a trunk of heirlooms from The Burrow, so they should be up in the attic. They're one of the reasons we're blood traitors." "How's that, Mr Weasley?" asked Hermione, curious as always. "He was chess-mad," said Mr Weasley. "He heard Muggles played chess too, so he went off disguised as one to beat them all at it. But they were better than he was, so he played with them and read their books and came back and beat a load of wizards. Then he was the undisputed Wizard Chess Champion for years, until somebody else had the same idea. He was pretty clear that Muggles aren't stupid." Ron was still shaking his head, unable to take in this defeat. Remus looked across. "Did you think books were just for exams, Ron?" he asked, sounding amused. "Did you think the Marauder's Map was useful?" "Yes," said Ron, brightening up. "That was quite a prank. That came in really handy." "One new idea, from Sirius," said Remus. "Then James found a load of stuff in his transfiguration textbook. I stumped in a little something we covered in Arithmancy, and the rest is from 'The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six', or just plain hard work. I'll make out a reading list for you, if you like. Didn't you think books might be useful? What did you think Hogwarts was, a seven year long aptitude test?” "You've only done endings so far," asked Ron of Hermione, "is that right?" "Yes," said Hermione. "Right," said Ron. "In that case, we'll leave the books till tomorrow and I'll beat you before we get to the end game." And he did, but he made a mental note to dig out his Grandfather's books, and to get Hermione to find out about the Marauder's map.
I know a regular club chess player who drew a game because, in the heat of the moment, he could not find a solution to Rook and King vs. King within the fifty-move limit. I have a copy of "Chess Fundamentals", by Jose Capablanca, first published 1921, and reprinted 2004 - so both Hermione and Ron's Grandfather could have owned a copy. Chapter 1, Section 1, Example 1, on Page 1, is "The ending rook and king against king." Thanks to my pre-Beta Tinnidawg for both detailed comments and advice.
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