Jonquils And Lightning

Angelfire

"Tom, would you mind if I dueled you?"

Tom couldn't have been more startled if someone had thrown a cabbage at his head. He set aside his cup of tea, the only thing left of his breakfast, and blinked at Jonquil Potter. "Why would you want to?"

"Harry's been giving me some practice with spells that he's willing to teach me, but he won't teach me all that much." Jonquil was leaning forwards a little, her eyes focused on him. "I don't have a good measure of my power when I keep facing someone who doesn't want to hurt me."

"You think I want to hurt you? What would that do to the gracious hospitality your family's offered me?"

"I think that you won't care as much as Harry does, and I'll tell you right now, I have more strength than you might think. And I want to be sure that I can actually face an opponent if I become a professional dueling teacher someday. That was a career that Harry suggested to me. I hadn't thought of it before, but it makes sense."

Tom disregarded the rest of the babble. Harry cared enough to try and tell his cousin, who had so many ambitions and so little ability to choose, what she should do in the future. Jealousy hit him like heartburn. If Harry would only give him a tenth of that attention...

"Tom? Would you be willing to duel me?"

Tom smiled and stood, Vanishing the rest of the tea from his cup with a wave of his wand. The Potters mostly didn't have house-elves but did the dishes and the like themselves. "Of course. Do you want to come out now and I'll measure your power level? I need to see what kinds of spells you can counter first."

Jonquil's eyes glowed. "Then I'll be right there, as soon as I put on a less delicate pair of robes."

When Harry feels the magic, he'll come look. And if I can't have his positive attention, the antagonistic sort will do.

*

Harry's head whipped away from the pregnant cow he was kneeling next to when he felt magic blaze into life at the edge of the village.

Dorea was the one on the side of the cow, hands smoothing over her sides. She caught his eye and nodded. "Go attend to whatever you need to, Harry."

Harry didn't bother nodding back before he began to run. His skin was burning as if he was the one the spell had been cast on. A powerful Dark fire spell; he recognized that one from when an ex-Death Eater had attacked him in his second flat back in his first world. The spell had burned everything he owned at the time to ashes, except the Invisibility Cloak and the album with his pictures in it, which Harry had protected with multiple, layered defenses. The Death Eater had been terribly surprised when Harry stomped out of the flames and melted her nose.

He ran down paths and through fields, the sensation of power leading him better than any of his normal five senses could have. He was in time to see Jonquil dive to the ground beneath a streaking comet of flame that slammed against the sides of a nearly transparent bubble and dissipated.

Opposite her stood Gaunt, shaking his head with a faint smile. "How are you going to be a dueling instructor if you can't do something like this?" he asked, and cast another spell, wordlessly. Harry recognized the wand motions for Fiendfyre.

He leaped forwards, and his magic opened around him like steel-edged wings, cutting straight through the sides of the bubble. Gaunt swung around to face him. The Fiendfyre that had become to come into existence on the end of his wand was already fighting his control, struggling to get out and burn.

Harry reached out and cupped the Fiendfyre in his hands. He blew on it, and the beginnings of chimeras and basilisks disappeared like a candle flame.