All The Magic We Made (Sebastian Sallow x Fem!OC)

I Get My Ass Handed To Me-- Wait, Scratch That. I Emerge Victorious

The moment I step inside the classroom, I leap to the side to dodge a spell flying directly my way. There are two guys locked in a pretty intense duel, so I do a little discreet side-shuffle to join the group of students watching without interrupting their bro face-off. I tap the shoulder of a nearby Ravenclaw girl, my eyes still alert on the scene before me.

"Do we need to call somebody?" I whisper from the side of my mouth.

She shakes her head. "Nah, they do this all the time. Just let them fight it out."

What in the angry TikTok white boy.

An ill-directed spell hits the large reptilian skeleton hung from the ceiling, disconnecting the skull from the rest of its body. I gasp and cover my mouth as I watch it fall upon the ginger fighter.

"Levioso!" a commanding voice says from an elevated doorway. The skull pauses in midair just as it was inches from crushing the ginger. 

I look up at the doorway and see an elderly woman slowly descending down the stairs, her sharp eyes concentrated on the skull as she keeps it elevated. She must be Professor Hecat. "Perhaps you'd be good enough to blast each other to pieces on your own time," she says. "I get new students every year, but I only have one Hebridean Black skull."

Okay, icon.

"It was a token from the Great Poacher Raid, no doubt you heard of it," she continues. "Now, you may be asking yourself how an old woman like me single-handedly took out the largest poacher ring in eastern Wales and lived to boast about it." With a swish of her hand, the skull reattaches itself to the rest of the skeleton. "Knowledge.

"Today, we will review a spell that has saved me from the hands of dark wizards more times than I care to remember," she says, walking along the room and making eye contact with each one of us. I find myself fascinated by the subject already, eager to know more. "Levioso."

The ginger boy from earlier scoffs behind her back. Party-pooper. "Levioso? The levitation charm?"

All of a sudden, Professor Hecat whips around to face him, her wand at the ready. "Levioso!"

With a yell, the boy shoots up into the air as Hecat holds him there in elevation. "A surprised opponent is a weak opponent," she says calmly. "Care to defend yourself, master Prewett? No?"

That humbled him real quick. Hecat swishes her wand and he drops back to the ground. The other guy he was fighting against earlier, the Slytherin, moves to stand next to me. He watches the demonstration with crossed arms and a smug smile.

"Now," Hecat says, turning to face the class. "Let's practice what we've just learned...starting with something small."

We start practicing the spell by elevating feathers. After a couple tries, I manage to get my feather to float lightly. I can't suppress the delighted giggle that escapes me, giddy at the experience of using magic. The Slytherin boy, stationed at the desk near mine, must have heard me, because he looks up from his own floating feather and directly at me. My cheeks flush with warm mortification, and I quickly break eye contact, looking back down at my feather.

Next, Professor Hecat has us practice on a dummy. She gestures for me to step up first, putting me on the spot. Slowly, I walk forward and stand across from the dummy, wand at the ready and heart pounding.

"Let us begin with the Basic Cast," Hecat instructs. I do that, and the spell quickly bounces off the dummy's barrier and flies off to the side.

"See how the dummy deflected your cast?" she asks me. I nod in confirmation. "This time, cast Levioso first, then the Basic Cast. Remember: a surprised opponent is a weak opponent--as Mr. Prewett so artfully helped me demonstrate earlier."

I take a deep breath and steady myself. "Levioso!" I exclaim, watching as the dummy floats up from the ground. I cast the Basic Cast next, and experience first hand how much easier it is to hit the dummy after catching it off guard. The dummy limply flops to the ground.

"Well done," Professor Hecat praises with a small smile in my direction, before speaking to the class again. "But, of course, the best way to practice is by dueling."

Damn, I wonder which poor kid is gonna have to take one for the team and duel. That definitely does not sound like something I'd be into.

"We'll start with you two," Hecat says, gesturing to me and the Slytherin boy who caught me in the horrific act of giggling at a floating feather. Who also, I might add, nearly smashed the ginger kid into pulp on the ground with a dragon skull. "Duelists, take your marks."

Shit. I'm the poor kid who's gonna have to take one for the team.

The Slytherin boy walks past me, sizing me up and giving me a prideful smirk . "Time for a proper Hogwarts welcome," he says quietly to me, taking his place at the other end of the room. All of a sudden, the carpeted area of the floor rises up into an elevated board in the air, causing me to stumble and nearly fall flat on my face. A few snickers rise up from the students.

I am so screwed.

"I want a fair duel using only Levioso, Basic Cast, and Protego," Professor Hecat announces. "You may begin."

What's a girl to do? In a fit of panic, I hit him with Levioso right away, catching him off guard. I take the opportunity to get a few Basic Casts in, flying by the seat of my pants as I try to ignore the frenzied string of no-no words in my head.

When he drops back down, he's right back on his feet, although I can tell that he's catching his breath. Jesus, how much willpower does this kid have? "Lucky," he scoffs.

"Nothing lucky about it," I counter breathlessly, and the duel continues. It's fast-paced and nerve-wracking, but somehow I'm so locked it that I can bullshit my way through it and it works. The next thing I know, I am standing there, trying to breathe quietly so nobody hears me fighting for my life, watching as he struggles to sit up.

Oh my God, did I win?

The cheers and whoops that rise up from the students are the answer to my question, and I can hardly believe what I just did. If you asked me to do it again, I probably couldn't. It all went by as a blur--although I am starting to feel the aftermath of the hits I took myself.

I brush the hair out of my face and quickly walk towards him, offering him a smile and a hand to get up. An olive branch. A part of me is worried that he's going to take the loss personally and that I just made myself an enemy for life on the first day of school, but he just looks up at me with something unreadable in his eyes. To my relief, he accepts my hand and pulls himself up.

"You know, it's not common practice for duelists to help each other up," he says lowly, at a volume only I can hear.

My eyes widen. "Oh no. Did I screw something up? Is that, like, the equivalent of the middle finger in duelist language or--"

He cuts me off with a chuckle. "No, no. You're good." He lets of of my hand and gives me a nod, almost looking...impressed. "Not bad for a beginner. You give as good as you get." With that said, he walks past me, leaving me to bask in the everlasting question of 'what the heck just happened?'