The moon was gibbous.
Ginny panted as she faced of against her serenely smiling opponent.
She swore she was getting better. Her stunners felt sharper. Her stingers felt crisper. She felt the magic flowing up and down her blood vessels, nerves, and muscles like a tide. Back and forth. Back and forth. Magic under her command. Magic under her mastery. She flung her hand forward and loosed a stunner.
Luna side stepped.
She snap adjusted her aim and loosed a stinger.
Luna shielded.
Ginny narrowed her eyes. She brought both hands up straight in front of her.
Luna tilted her head.
Stunner, stinger, stunner, stinger, stunner, stinger, stunner, stinger, her hands flashed red, white, red, white, faster and faster, bolts slamming into Luna's shield like a boxer's fist flurry.
Luna stood her ground.
All too soon, Ginny felt her magic drained from her body, now refilling directly from her core, weaker, less potent, and still Luna's shield held.
Ginny said a bad word.
Luna raised her other hand. Her fingers glowed red.
Ginny didn't even try to dodge.
...
"I just want to beat her!" Ginny shouted, waving her hands and knowing she looked like a petulant child. She didn't care.
Harry smirked.
"I get so close, then she just throws up that damn shield and I can't get through it!"
Harry continued to smirk.
"Please, Harry!" She skipped to where Harry sat on a broken, massive stone pillar and batted her eyes at him. "You'll help me, won't you?"
Harry's smirk didn't fade.
She scrunched up her face. "Harrrrryyyy, pleeeeaassseeeeee. Show me something. Some awesome trick. Teach me a new spell. Something - anything! I want to beat herrrrrrr!"
Harry jumped down from his pillar. "Okay, okay. Let me have a look first."
She grinned.
Harry moved forward and placed his hands on her shoulders "Look into my eyes and think of your last few duels."
She dropped into her occlumency, looked into Harry's eyes and brought those last frustrating fights to the front of her memory. She felt Harry's legilimency probe and surrendered to it. Images of her fights flashed past her consciousness like an omniocular on fast forward.
Harry dropped his hands and looked thoughtful. "Luna really is getting stronger, isn't she?"
She growled. "Yes! And It's so frustrating."
"Luna took your full spell chain-basic though it is-head on, and outlasted it. That shows a large difference in power."
Her shoulder's dropped. "So, I'm just weak?"
Harry frowned. "No, not at all. It's more that Luna is unusually strong. And if she's like this now, the difference between her and most other wizards will just grow as she matures."
"Are you trying to depress me?"
Harry laughed. "No, no. I'm just revelling in our friend's potential." He smiled. "How do you feel about having Luna at your back in a fight?"
She paused. "I must admit, I'd feel pretty good about that."
"Exactly." Harry hopped back onto the pillar and swung his legs back and forth against the stone. "So, you ready to hear how to beat her?"
Her eyes flashed. "Yes!"
"Right. We're going to be improving two combat attributes. The first is speed. When you're up against someone who outmatches you in terms of power, you can compensate by being faster, by being able to close the distance between you quickly when you're at full power, and being able to run away and let your magics recover when you're depleted. In other words, by controlling the space between the two of you."
Ginny nodded.
"That means lots of sprinting, jumping, changing direction, etc."
"Okay."
"The second attribute, is efficiency." Harry tapped the stone. "Tell, me. What is the most efficient way to protect yourself from a spell?"
"Not be where the spell lands. That was one of the first things you taught me about duelling."
"Yes, well done. What's the most inefficient?"
"Conjuring a physical obstacle?"
"Again, well done. And something in the middle?"
"A magic shield."
"Yes. Another?"
Ginny drew a blank.
Harry grinned. "Spell swatting. Think of it like parrying with a sword. You use your wand, or in your case, your hand, to bounce a spell away from you. It's more efficient than a shield, but not as efficient as dodging."
She frowned. "That sounds awesome. Why haven't I learned this already?"
"Because it's very hard to do. It requires, what for a normal person, is an obscenely large amount of control over your magic." Harry's grin widened. "Control that I'm sure you now possess." His smile evaporated and his voice firmed. "Ginny, bring a stunner to the tips of your fingers as though you're just about to launch it, and hold it there."
Ginny closed her eyes and let the magic flow through her, she felt the intent, let the intent form into a spell, let the spell pool in her hands and up her finger tips, she held the spell as close to the edges of her finger tips as she could without loosing it.
"Open your eyes."
She opened her eyes and saw the tips of her fingers glowing bright red.
"I'm going to fire a stunner at you, and you're going to hit it away with the tips of your fingers as though you were hitting a bludger away with a beaters bat, understand?"
Ginny slowly nodded, afraid to break the fragile hold she had on the spell.
"On three. One, two, three!"
The stunner flew towards her. She made to hit it away. The spell hit her fingertips, and the world went dark.
...
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