The first meeting of the Dueling Club was set for eight o’clock the following evening.
Inside the Great Hall, the long dining tables had all vanished, replaced by a gilded platform built along one wall. Under the glow of hundreds of floating candles, it shone brilliantly, while the ceiling above had turned black as velvet, lending the whole place an air of elegance and solemnity.
Almost the entire school had come. The students were packed together, every one of them clutching a wand, their faces bright with excitement.
No one knew where the rumor had started, but word had spread through the castle that the first duel of the night would be a live demonstration between Professor Gray and Professor Snape.
"This is definitely going to be good," Ron said loudly to Seamus beside him as he struggled to elbow out a little space in the crowd. "I’ll bet a silver Sickle Snape won’t last five minutes."
"Much as I’m rooting for Professor Gray too, Snape’s no pushover," Seamus replied.
Beside them, Hermione was clutching a book so thick it looked like a brick: Wizard: The Art of Battlefield Control. It was "supplementary reading" Lynn had given her. Even with all the noise around her, she was still using every spare second to read the sections on "pre-reading" and "spell slot management," though her brown eyes kept darting toward the stage, glittering with undisguised anticipation.
Over on the Slytherin side, Draco was leaning against a pillar with a circle of listeners around him.
"Just watch. That blowhard’s going to be exposed tonight," Malfoy drawled mockingly. "Professor Snape is a real dueling master, and Gray? He only knows how to teach people to throw punches."
If Lynn had been standing there, he probably would have sighed that the boy seemed to have already unlocked a Bard’s Cutting Words.
"They’re here!" Harry suddenly shouted.
The crowd fell silent at once.
Lynn Gray and Severus Snape walked up onto the stage one after the other.
Harry sharply noticed the difference in the aura around the two men.
Lynn was wearing a deep blue robe patterned with intricate silver designs. He was idly toying with his blackwood wand, and a faint smile rested at the corner of his mouth. He looked as relaxed as if he were taking an after-dinner stroll.
Snape, meanwhile, was wrapped as tightly as ever in his black robes, like a giant bat preparing to strike. His sallow face showed no expression at all, yet the air around him seemed almost frozen by the chill radiating from him.
Glancing around, Harry was surprised to find that the teachers’ section was full as well. Professor Flitwick was craning up on tiptoe to see better, Professor McGonagall sat with a stern expression, and even Headmaster Dumbledore was seated in the center, smiling benignly.
"Hi, Harry!"
A huge figure at the back of the crowd was waving. It was Hagrid. He had to keep bending over so he would not block the view of the students behind him. Harry, Ron, and Hermione waved back excitedly.
Lynn stepped to the center of the stage and motioned for silence.
"Good evening, everyone. Professor Dumbledore has allowed me to establish this Dueling Club for one purpose: to train all of you through real combat, so that when genuine danger comes, you will be capable of protecting yourselves."
He paused, then turned to look at Snape behind him.
"To help everyone understand more clearly what real combat actually looks like, I have specially invited Professor Snape to serve as my assistant. On this stage, we will show you what a true duel between wizards looks like."
Snape said nothing in reply. His upper lip curled slightly as he glowered darkly at Lynn.
The two of them took their positions facing one another, bowed, and then raised their wands before their chests like swords.
As if by unspoken agreement, three seconds later they both lifted their wands over their shoulders.
Snape moved first, fast and without the slightest pause.
"Expelliarmus!"
A blazing red flash erupted from the tip of his wand.
The shot was unbelievably fast. The red light tore through the air and slammed straight at Lynn’s chest before he seemed to have moved at all.
But Lynn did not dodge. He stood rooted to the spot, and just as the spell was about to strike him, a thin transparent violet membrane appeared before him.
Arcane Ward.
The spell crashed into the membrane and shattered instantly into harmless sparks that vanished into the air. Its intended disarming effect never took hold. Lynn still held his wand steady.
At the very same moment he took the blow head-on, Lynn’s lips moved slightly and his wand jabbed forward.
"Magic Missile!"
Six red darts, upcast to 4th circle, shot from the tip of Lynn’s wand in rapid succession. Unlike ordinary spells, they did not fly straight. Instead, they traced six strange arcs through the air with a humming sound, each one streaking unerringly toward Snape.
"Protego!"
Snape reacted instantly, throwing up a Shield Charm in a flash.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The first four darts struck the magical barrier. Two vanished outright, while the other two ricocheted away, one toward the ceiling and the other toward the teachers’ seats. Dumbledore flicked a hand, and both darts dissolved into motes of starlight.
But that was clearly the limit of the shield’s endurance. With a sharp cracking sound, the barrier shattered, and the final two darts slammed hard into Snape’s shoulder, forcing a muffled grunt from him and driving him back several steps.
Snape had only just tried to steady himself when his footing suddenly slipped.
While firing Magic Missile, Lynn had already cast another spell: Grease. A wide patch of waxy yellow slickness now coated the floor beneath Snape’s feet.
Snape staggered, nearly falling flat in front of the entire school. His greasy hair came loose around his face, partly hiding his furious expression.
But that was not the end.
Lynn’s next spell was already prepared.
Floating in front of him was an orange fireball the size of a human head. It crackled in the air, radiating such heat that even the students crowded near the edge of the stage instinctively backed away.
A wizard’s signature attack: the 3rd-circle spell Fireball.
Seeing that massive globe of flame racing toward him, Snape had no time to wonder at the flawless flow of Lynn’s combo. He responded at once:
"Protection-from-Energy!"
Boom!!!
The fireball struck Snape full on. The explosion was so violent that the Great Hall windows hummed with the force of it. Flames instantly swallowed the entire half of the stage where Snape stood, and the grease on the ground ignited as well, turning the whole area into a sea of fire.
The students screamed, convinced that Professor Snape had just been blown to pieces. Even Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick covered their mouths in shock.
When the smoke cleared, everyone stared in astonishment.
That black-robed figure was still standing at one end of the stage, completely unharmed. There was not a trace of a burn on him, and even his robes remained intact. The 3rd-circle spell Protection from Energy had absorbed nearly all of the fireball’s damage.
"Create-Water!"
Snape gave a sharp wave of his wand, and a sudden shower poured down from above, putting out every last flame on the stage.
Lynn lowered his wand, and behind his glasses a flash of admiration passed through his eyes.
Amazing, he thought. In barely a month, he can already cast these spells this fluently and adapt them to combat so quickly. No wonder he’s a top-tier magical genius.
Snape’s face was darker than before, but in his eyes burned a fiercer fighting spirit than ever.
After that short exchange, he had already realized that although Lynn’s spells were enormously powerful, his casting speed was still much slower than the curses and charms Snape had mastered long ago.
I have to end this fast, Snape thought.
He gave his wand a quick motion, and white light settled over him.
The 1st-circle spell Bless.
In the next instant, Snape became a black whirlwind. Spell after spell came crashing down in a silent storm. Stunning Spells, Disarming Charms, even a malicious curse that would cover the target’s skin in boils, all of it amplified in precision and force by Bless, rained down on Lynn from every direction.
Yet Lynn still looked calm and composed.
Whenever one of Snape’s sharp-angled spells was about to hit him, a blue hexagonal force shield would appear at exactly the right point and knock it aside: the 1st-circle spell Shield.
And when Snape tried to unleash a particularly powerful Stunning Spell, Lynn’s timing was perfect. He gave a slight motion with his wand, and the light building at Snape’s wandtip went out at once: the 3rd-circle spell Counterspell.
Even the occasional attack that slipped through was completely absorbed by Lynn’s last line of defense, Arcane Ward.
The longer Snape fought, the more stifling it became. The sensation of having his magic forcibly cut off halfway through by Counterspell left a sick pressure in his chest. The spells that did get through were either blocked by Shield or erased by the ward. Not a single one of them had actually managed to harm Lynn.
The man before him might as well have been a heavily armored knight in plate from head to toe, his defenses flawless on every side.
"Sectumsempra!"
At last, the frustration building inside Snape exploded. He slashed his wand, and an invisible razor-edged blade ripped through the air straight for Lynn’s chest. This was his deadliest move.
Lynn’s expression tightened.
Snape had chosen the timing brilliantly. The spell had been released in the narrow gap between Lynn’s own casts, leaving him no opening to interrupt it with Counterspell.
And his divination told him at once that this cursed attack was not something he could simply block head-on with Shield or Arcane Ward.
"Nicely done."
Instead of retreating, Lynn advanced. His wand swept upward, and a great surge of magic poured out.
"Interposing-Hand"
The air twisted violently. A giant blue-glowing hand the size of a carriage appeared out of nowhere, stretching across the center of the stage: the 5th-circle spell Bigby’s Hand.
Screeeech!
An awful tearing sound rang out. The invisible blade struck the giant hand head-on and carved a massive, ugly wound into the construct of force.
Feeling the summoned hand rapidly weakening, Lynn was inwardly startled.
So this is Snape’s own invention? It even comes with lingering damage.
Not daring to waste a heartbeat, Lynn issued the next command before the hand could collapse.
"Clenched-Fist"
The giant hand immediately curled into a fist and smashed downward at Snape with a roaring rush of wind.
Looking up at that enormous descending fist, Snape felt the sheer physical oppression of it. Apparition was impossible within Hogwarts. He had nowhere to go.
"Protego! Shield of Faith!"
Snape shouted the incantations, pouring every ounce of magic he had into defense.
Boom!!!
The giant fist crashed into Snape’s shield. Then, already too damaged to hold together, it burst apart in a cloud of smoke and debris that swallowed Snape whole.
The hall fell into dead silence.
Every single person there held their breath and stared at the cloud.
A few seconds later, a green light shone from within it.
That was a Cleric’s feature: Channel Divinity, Preserve Life.
As the smoke thinned, Snape was revealed kneeling on one knee. A trace of blood marked the corner of his mouth, but the wounds on his body were already healing at a visible rate. He jerked his head up, glaring ahead with fierce eyes, ready to continue the battle.
But there was no one in front of him.
"Professor Snape, behind you!" Malfoy suddenly shouted from below in terror.
Snape spun around.
At some point, Lynn had already appeared behind him, a wisp of silver mist still clinging to his body: the 2nd-circle spell Misty Step.
Lynn’s blackwood wand was leveled straight at the center of Snape’s back.
"Expelliarmus."
A flash of red light burst forth. Snape’s wand flew from his hand, spinning through the air before landing neatly in Lynn’s grasp.
The duel was over.
Lynn smiled at the somewhat disheveled Snape, dusted off his sleeve, and gave him a graceful bow.
Then he stepped forward, returned the wand to him, and said softly:
"Thank you, Professor Snape. That was a truly magnificent demonstration."
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