Ted came up laughing. Harry watched intently as his wand began to move. He had already warned Harry that he would end their sequence of spells with something Harry had never seen before, and he expected Harry to counter it with a spell that was taught in either first or second year.
"Voco fulgur!"
A lightning bolt, a real, honest-to-Merlin lightning bolt, flared into the air between them. Harry caught his breath sharply and almost somersaulted backwards as Ted aimed it at him. But it wasn't actually moving yet. It was trailing around after Ted's wand, but not moving towards Harry.
Harry ran through the first- and second-year spells he knew in his mind with the speed that only happened to him when he was actually fighting, staring at the lightning all the while. No shields, no jinxes, no hexes would block that.
Harry's eyes focused on Ted for a second.
So stop the one who's casting it!
Harry snapped his wand out and yelled, "Diffindo!"
The Severing Charm flew straight and true at Ted's hand. Ted yelped a little as a bloody cut appeared there, and dropped his wand, although Harry thought that was either for their audience's benefit or sheer surprise. The lightning bolt went out as his wand rolled on the floor and Ted's will stopped empowering it.
"I didn't know you could do that," Hermione gasped, when the duel was ended and Harry leaned against the wall and panted for a minute.
"I can cast the Severing Charm," Harry said a little indignantly. It didn't help that his voice was wavering. He thought it was more from how fast his mind had had to move than the fact that he'd had to use so much magic at once.
"No—I mean—I mean cast it against someone else." Hermione looked as if she was trying very hard to find the right words, so she wouldn't offend him.
Harry laughed, and that made Ron grin at him. "That was brilliant, mate! Do you think I can learn that?"
"Of course," said Ted, and smiled at them all as he bent down to retrieve his wand and healed the small cut on the back of his hand. "It will take practice, of course. Harry and I have been practicing that sequence of spells for a few weeks now."
"But what good does a sequence of spells do?" Draco broke in, impatient. "He'll learn them all in a certain order, but how does it help him with real combat? No one's going to use that exact same sequence."
Draco sounded a little stiff. Harry tried to catch his eye, worried that he was thinking Ted would try to hurt Harry, but Draco wouldn't look at him.
"Of course not," Ted said. "But it will teach Harry—"
"Henry—"
"To be fast and light on his feet. Those spells I cast are heavy ones, and many people would panic simply to see them flying at them. Your brother can't afford to do that. And we're going to vary it, of course. Soon I'll be mixing up the spells in different orders and adding new ones," he added to Harry, who nodded eagerly. Defense was something he was good at and probably had to be good at, if Voldemort believed in the prophecy.
"You're training him to face You-Know-Who?" Ron suddenly sounded like he wanted to learn less than he had.
"That is what we must assume," said Ted. Then he turned towards Ron and smiled. "But of course, I'll train you less hard than him. Do you want to come up here and give it a try?"
.....
"Mr. Tonks is wonderful!" Hermione was practically hopping beside Harry all the way down the corridor back to the little sitting room where Dobby had tea set up for them. "I wish he could come and be our regular Defense professor!"
"Then the curse would get him," Ron pointed out. He was cradling his left arm against his side, where Ted had hit it hard with a jinx, but he was grinning. "Still, it would be pretty brilliant. But I hear Professor Dumbledore's getting a retired Auror to teach us this year, so it could still be great."
"Who?" Hermione asked, and Harry leaned over to hear the answer, but Draco cleared his throat pointedly.
"Henry, can I talk to you?"
"Sure," Harry said, a little concerned. Draco had been sullen for the last half of their Defense lesson. He waved his friends on and walked over to his brother, who was leaning against the wall with his eyes shut.
Harry wondered if Draco had been injured by a spell and he hadn't noticed. But then Draco's eyes opened, and they were just angry.
"Why do you have to show off like that?" Draco demanded. "Why do you like him so much? When he won't even call you by your proper name!"
....
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