Amelia Merlin

Part Forty Two: Duelling Club

"Did you hear what happened?"

"Petrified, not dead."

"It's because he's muggle born!"

"The little Gryffindor boy, the one who was obsessed with Harry Potter."

"What was his name?"

"Colin Creevey!"

Amelia had the dreams again last night, more vivid than ever. She woke up in a panic. The freaky part was, she had dreamed about killing Colin Creevey. Then she woke up the next morning to find it was true.

She thought the kid was annoying but she didn't want to kill him. Maybe her dreams were magical in the way, whatever she dreamed came true.

But that didn't make sense, because then Dumbledore would have been dead a hundred times over.

Fuck, this was so confusing.

But luckily she had plenty of distractions. Cedric had been especially charming lately, Fred was back to being her best friend, and the Duelling Club started today.

The Gryffindor girls headed down to the Great Hall for the first meeting. Amelia was really excited, duelling was something she might be really good at, and she was much better at controlling her powers now and making her magic look the same as other peoples.

Amelia could make the sparks and lights appear while doing spells at the same time, so really she barely used her wand at all. It was only there so she wouldn't scare anyone or draw attention to herself.

All the magic she did came from the mantra aperire animo, and her Druid magic helped all that. Whenever she tried to use her wand, it was so uncontrollable, so she had just done it Jeremy's way ever since that Christmas. But she was a bit worried she might hurt someone.

Professor Lockhart strode onto the stage, in the middle of the hall, in robes of a deep plum, accompanied by Professor Snape.

Lavender whispered in Amelia's ear, "Dibs on the sexy teacher!"

"Fine! I guess that leaves me with Lockhart!" She replied, causing Lavender and Parvati to choke with laughter.

"Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!" Lockhart looked beyond excited. "Now Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little duelling club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves, as I myself have done on countless occasions- for full details, see my published works." He winked at them.

"Let me introduce my assistant Professor Snape! He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now I don't want any of you youngsters to worry - you'll still have your potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

Snapes upper lip curled into a smirk, making anyone who saw it, very uneasy.

Lockhart and Snape bowed to each other, well Lockhart did with lots of twirling, while Snape just jerked his head. They raised their wands in front of them.

"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position!" The crowd was silent as Lockhart spoke. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill of course! One - two - three - "

Both of them swung their wands, but Snape was much quicker than Lockhart. He yelled "Expelliarmus!" And there was a bright flash of red, Lockhart was blasted off his feet and smashed into a wall.

The Slytherins cheered, and Amelia might have chuckled a bit.

"Well, there you have it!" Lockhart got to his feet. "That was a Disarming Charm - as you see, I've lost me wand - ah, thank you, Miss Brown. Yes an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy. However, I felt it would be instructive to let them see...."

Amelia thought Snape was literally going to murder Lockhart on the spot, and apparently the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had noticed as well, because he said. "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me...."

The two teachers moved through the crowds matching people up. When Snape reached Amelia, she had a bad feeling about what he might do.

"Miss Merlin, who to put you with?" He hissed thoughtfully. "How about Mr. Hemlin?" Snape grabbed a Ravenclaw, blonde haired boy from his friends, and yanked him over to Amelia.

"Are you serious?" She asked incredulously. The boy was more of a man than a boy. He was six feet tall and strongly built, he was also seventeen years old. "You want me to duel a seventh year? That's not fair!"

"It so happens I don't really care about fair." Snape sneered and walked away.

Hemlin looked down at her. "You don't have to fight me. I'll understand."

Amelia narrowed her eyes. "No. I'm going to duel you. You will not stop me from that. Snape can suck it." She glowered.

Hemlin smirked, "Alright, Merlin! Let's see what you're made of!"

Amelia cracked her neck and plotted what she would do. She had to prove Snape wrong, she could take on this seventh year. Didn't matter how talented he was or how clever, she was going to kick. His. Ass.

"Face your partners!" Lockhart called. "And bow! Wands at the ready! When I count to three, cast your charms and disarm your opponent - only to disarm them - we don't want any accidents. One ... Two ... Three..."

Nobody listened to the disarm only part. Chaos then ensued.

Amelia didn't have time to react before Hemlin had shot a random spell at her, making her fly backwards. She felt something sprouting out if her head and back. She turned to see wings like a butterfly beginning to grow, and felt two antenna on her skull.

Amelia didn't know why she got so angry, but she did. Maybe it was that he had made her into a giant butterfly, which showed he didn't take her seriously at all. She pushed herself off the ground and strode over to Hemlin, who was snickering away at her.

"Get them off me." She growled.

"Aw! Does the little lady not want to fight anymore?" He laughed as though he was really funny.

"This little lady, is going to wipe the floor with you." She stared him directly in the eyes as she willed the wings and antenna to disappear. Hemlin looked impressed and nodded for them to go again.

They squared up again, and readied their wands. Hemlin counted down for them. "Three.... Two.... One-"

Amelia raised her arm and slashed downwards. She made sparks appear in the air to make it look like a real spell, rather than just her form of magic, then Hemlin disappeared and where he stood, and a small lady bug took his place. Grinning, she picked him up and placed him on her palm.

"Who's a little lady now?" Amelia said sweetly before placing him on the ground and transforming him back.

He stood gasping for air. "You're only in second year!"

She laughed lightly, "Um, yes!" Amelia turned on her heel and walked back to her friends, feeling epic. She saw Snape watching her, and Amelia was so close to saying DID YOU SEE THAT SNAPE? Suck it.

But instead she watched as Harry and Malfoy duelled on the stage in from of everyone.

Malfoy cast a serpent that hissed and nearly killed Justin Finch-Fletchley. And Amelia almost shrieked in terror, she really did not like snakes, she thought that would be the most terrifying thing to happen. Then Harry spoke.

But the scary part wasn't when Harry Potter spoke Parseltongue to the snake.

It was when Amelia understood it.