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Hermione shrugged, a gesture of casual, unconcerned innocence that was utterly at odds with the terrified, whimpering wreck of a pure-blood aristocrat currently clinging to Professor Snape's leg. She popped the last piece of chocolate frog into her mouth and offered a piece to Luna.
Lockhart, his face a mess of confusion and frustration, finally gave up on Malfoy. "Right then!" he announced, his voice a little too loud. "A change of partners! Mr. Potter, if you would be so kind!"
In the collective imagination of the student body, Harry Potter was the only one who could possibly stand on the same stage as the Gryffindor Witch. Now that she was out of the running, he was the only logical choice. He gave Hermione a hesitant look, but nodded and made his way to the stage.
The moment he was announced as the new opponent, Malfoy's terror vanished, replaced by a familiar, arrogant sneer. He scrambled to his feet, dusted off his robes, and shot Harry a look of pure, venomous contempt. So, Harry thought, his own anger beginning to simmer, you're only terrified of her. You think I'm a pushover? We'll see about that.
The two boys, a pair of sworn enemies now given a formal, school-sanctioned arena to settle their grudges, walked to the center of the stage.
"Scared, Potter?" Malfoy hissed, their faces so close they were almost touching.
"You wish," Harry shot back.
"Wands at the ready," Hermione's voice, now acting as the official referee, cut through their posturing. "The rules are simple. Disarming Charms only. The first to successfully disarm their opponent wins." She looked pointedly at both of them, a silent warning in her eyes. "Understood?"
They nodded, turned, and walked their ten paces, the air crackling with a tense, almost violent energy.
"Three… two… one… Begin!" Hermione commanded.
"Tarantallegra!" Malfoy yelled, taking the first shot with a spell that was most definitely not a Disarming Charm.
A jet of purple light shot from his wand. Harry tried to dodge, but it struck him in the legs, which immediately began to twitch and dance in a wild, uncontrollable jig. He stumbled, humiliated, as a wave of laughter went through the Slytherin section.
Furious, Harry raised his own wand. "Rictusempra!"
The Tickling Charm hit Malfoy square in the chest. He doubled over, gasping, helpless with a high-pitched, wheezing laughter, his own legs giving out from under him.
It wasn't a duel. It was a clumsy, magical slap-fight.
Enraged at being so publicly humiliated, Malfoy scrambled to his feet, his face a mask of pure fury. He was done playing games. He raised his wand and shouted an incantation that was far darker, far more advanced, than any simple jinx. "Serpensortia!"
A long, black snake erupted from the tip of his wand, landing on the stage with a heavy thud. It hissed, its head rising, its black, beady eyes fixing on the nearest target: the terrified Hufflepuff, Justin Finch-Fletchley.
Panic erupted in the crowd. Snape started to stride forward. "I'll get rid of it, Potter."
"Allow me, Professor!" Lockhart shouted, seeing another opportunity to be the hero. He gave his wand a theatrical flourish. "Alarte Ascendare!"
The spell, instead of making the snake vanish, simply launched it twenty feet into the air. It came crashing back down to the stage, now thoroughly enraged. It hissed, its fangs dripping with venom, and slithered directly toward Justin.
And then, a strange thing happened. Harry, who should have been terrified, felt a strange, unnatural calm. He didn't see a monster. He just saw a snake. And he understood, with a certainty he couldn't explain, that it was angry and confused.
"Ssaaa-hash-ass-a-hath-ass-heth…"
A strange, hissing sound, a language of whispers and sibilants that did not belong in a human throat, spilled from Harry's lips. He took a step toward the snake, his eyes unfocused, his mind a quiet, calm place. He was telling it to stop, to leave Justin alone.
The snake, which had been poised to strike, froze. It turned its head, a look of what could only be described as reptilian confusion in its eyes, and looked at Harry. It hissed back, a soft, questioning sound.
Then, Harry became aware of the silence. The profound, absolute, and deeply fearful silence that had fallen over the Great Hall. He looked up. Every single person in the room—Ron, the other Gryffindors, the Ravenclaws, the Hufflepuffs, even Lockhart and Snape—was staring at him with the same, horrified expression. They weren't looking at him with awe, but with a deep, primal fear. They were looking at him as if he were the monster.
Teaching Accident 3.0, Hermione thought with a sigh. She raised her wand. "Vipera Evanesca."
The snake erupted in a cloud of black ash and was gone. But it was too late. The damage was done.
To control a situation, you need to control the narrative. And to control the narrative, sometimes you have to create a bigger, more frightening story.
She pointed her wand, not at the ashes on the floor, but at the two boys on the stage.
"I believe," she said, her voice a low, dangerous whisper that carried through the silent hall, "the rule was 'Disarming Charms only.' Did you both think I was joking?"
Before they could answer, an invisible, crushing force seized both Harry and Malfoy by the throat. They were lifted off their feet, their hands flying to their necks as they were hoisted into the air, dangling like puppets.
A collective gasp of terror went through the crowd.
Hermione's aura, which was usually so carefully controlled, was now a palpable, terrifying presence in the room. Her eyes were cold and hard as chips of ice. Harry and Malfoy struggled, their faces turning red, then purple, a choked, gurgling sound coming from their throats as the invisible hand tightened its grip.
"That's enough, Miss Granger!" Snape's voice was a sharp, commanding crack, his own wand now slightly raised.
Hermione turned her cold, furious gaze on him. For a split second, Snape felt a jolt of something he hadn't felt in over a decade. A feeling of pure, cold, dominant power, an aura he had only ever felt in the presence of the Dark Lord himself. The feeling was so shocking, so utterly unexpected coming from a second-year girl, that he was momentarily stunned into silence.
In that moment of hesitation, she had won.
"I'm sorry," Harry and Malfoy managed to choke out, their voices thin and reedy.
Hermione released the spell. The two boys dropped to the stage in a heap, gasping for air, greedily sucking in breath.
A new kind of fear now filled the room. The strange, unsettling incident with Harry and the snake was forgotten, completely overshadowed by the terrifying, and very public, display of overwhelming power from Hermione.
Lockhart, his face pale, quickly announced that the Dueling Club was over. The students filed out in a strange, whispering silence, all of them giving Hermione a very, very wide berth.
In the corridor, Harry and Ron finally caught up to her.
"Hermione, wait!" Harry panted. "I… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"Apologize once," she cut him off, her tone impatient. "And don't let it happen again. If you ever ignore my rules in a duel again, I won't be so polite."
That was polite? Ron and Harry thought at the same time.
"And… thank you," Harry said, his voice quiet but sincere.
"Oh?"
"I know what you did back there," he said, looking her in the eye. He was young, but his childhood had taught him to see the things that other people missed. "Everyone was looking at me like I was a monster. So you… you became a bigger monster. You drew their fire. To protect me."
Hermione just looked at him, a flicker of something almost like surprise in her eyes. She hadn't expected him to understand the cold, brutal logic of her actions. She just gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment.
Luna, who had been standing beside her the whole time, just smiled her dreamy, faraway smile, her gaze fixed on Hermione with an expression of profound, and slightly unnerving, understanding.