Duels and studies

Once again, there was a commotion going on at the courtyard of Hogwarts, two slytherin students were about to start fighting over something.

A lot of students were crowding the place, forming a ring around the two fighters, a lot of the students were shouting encouragements at one of the duelists and sneering at the other.

In the middle of the ring there was a slytherin boy and slytherin girl facing eachother, the girl had pulled out her wand and had taken a dueling stance, while the boy just stood there looking angry. But not nearly as angry as the girl.

"Ymous! You arrogant fucker, stop being an embarrassment and raise your wand." The girl taunted the boy, trying to kill him with her stare.

The boy looked around at the crowd and ignored the girl, he seemed like he was scanning the crowd.

"Wake up! You're going to regret not taking me seriously!" The girl kept threatening him.

"Fine, So be it..." The boy said unenthusiastically and raised his wand and took a defensive stance.

The two stood there for a good two minutes, just waiting for openings, until the girl dropped her wand.

The boy looked at the girl surprised, until he realized the girl had grabbed her wand with her other hand and had cast a spell. It hit him square on the chest and he was knocked back.

He got up and looked at the girl, whose eyes were filled with hateful fury. At that point he realized that she wouldn't back off without a fight, and he was the one who was supposed to provide it. He took his stance once again, but before he could close his defenses, the girl had cast another spell. The boy, took the duel more seriously now and managed to dodge the spell by dropping back down.

"Expelliarmus!" He shouted and pointed his wand at the girl, who predicted his move and dodged it and cast another spell on the boy and knocked him back down.

"Ymous, you're disgustingly weak. If you don't start taking this seriously I will really make you suffer!" The girl was shouting angrily.

"Alright, Merula, no more games." The boy said and took his proper stance.

"Expelliar-" he started, but she was faster again.

"Levicorpus!"

The boy was now dangling by his ankles, and the girl walked up to him and kicked him square on the nose, he felt warm blood trickle down to his eyes and forehead as the girl released her spell and he fell on his head and rolled into the grass. He watched as the girl looked at him with disappointed eyes and walked off.

"..fuck." He said and rolled to his back.

"Anon! Are you alright." A fellow slytherin boy said and ran up to him with a hufflepuff girl in tow.

"Let me take care of that nose." She said and pointed her wand at the broken nose. "Episkey."

The boy felt his nose crack back into it's proper position, he got up and blew his nose.
"Thanks..." He said without much enthusiasm.

"Jeez, Anon, she really did have it out for you this time, what did you do?" Rowan asked his friend.

"I don't know, but I do know this isn't the end of it." The boy said and walked off before any teachers caught him dueling against the school rules.

Later the three friends went to library after the duel, the boy was intent on reading on defense against the dark arts, he scoured the shelves for books on the subject, he had made a request to get access on a few tomes from the restricted section. Which he expected to be approved, everyone had high expectations on him becoming an auror after school.

Rowan always thought himself to be the bigger bookworm, but lately Anon had been reading more books than him. Anon was really keen on studying everything he can on how to defend himself against dark art. Which made Rowan proud of his friend, he wished he had his future so clearly in sight, but for now he wanted to help his best friend.

"What are you researching now, Anon?" He asked inqusitively.

"Souls." The boy answered without lifting his head.

"Souls? Why are you interested in souls?"

"Few old powerful magics involve souls, and magic that isn't cast, but instead worked differently, I want to know all about the mechanics behind that." The boy said and scribbled something on his parchment.

"Mechanics of what?" Rowan asked confused.

The boy stopped to think for a bit and looked Rowan, who was being awfully curious about the subject, instead of just scurrying off to look for books on the subject. The boy decided that a straight answer would work best in this instance to get the boy off his back, and to make him do something useful.

"Love, man, love makes two souls join." He said staring at Rowan with blank expression.

The girl heard that and turned bright red and started giggling. "I didn't take you for such a romantic guy, mr.Ymous..."

The boy just smiled at the girl. "You know me, Penny, I need to know how everything works, including love. But this is more about souls, why don't you use your prefect privilege and bring me that old tome about souls from the restricted section?"

"Oh, but I..." She started. "If I get caught I could lose my badge."

She was really proud of her badge, the boy tried to cover his annoyance over the fact that he was never made a prefect. Not that he really wanted to be one, or that he particularily deserved to be one, but it would make reading interesting books easier.

"It's fine, Penny." The boy smiled at her wider. "I'll read that tome later, after all love always prevails."

"Okay, just wait there, and don't tell anyone." The girl got up with her face red.

Rowan watched as the girl walked off and turned back to Anon. "Dude, you are one smooth operator."

"I don't know what you're talking about." The boy said and went back to his book.

"Are you kidding me, man? Didn't you do that on purpose?" Rowan asked with his eyes wide open.

"Rowan, I'm trying to read."

"Dude, you piss me off, You flirt with the most popular girl in the school and she looks at you like that and you'd go back to studying?" Rowan said with his voice full of jealousy.

"I wasn't flirting with her." The boy dismissed him. "Why do you even care, do YOU like her?"

"Fuck yes, I like her, I'd give pretty much anything to be in your position right now, but if you're too goddamn naive or blind to go for it, you're dumber than that Gryffindor who took four years to learn Wingardium Leviosa." Rowan said seething.

Hmm... That kid is pretty suspicious, I need to look into it, the boy thought. He didn't notice Rowan got up, until he heard a book dropped infront of him. "Are you done with studying already, Rowan?"

"Yes, I am feeling sleepy, I'm going to go to common room. Enjoy your study hour with Penny, maybe you'll learn something. The boy said with his voice oozing anger.

"Alright, man, catch you in a bit."

Rowan stared at the boy in disbelief, how could someone be so bad at reading the atmosphere, he looked at Penny who got back from the restricted section. He shrugged at the confused girl and walked off.

"Where did he go?" She asked.

"He got tired" The boy said and took the tome from the girls hands.

"Oh well, guess we're going to have to study together." The girl said and pulled a chair closer to the boy and sat right next to him as he opened the old dusty tome. "What are we looking for?"

"This, it describes broken souls."

"Broken souls, how do you break your soul?" The girl asked curiously.

"Intense evil deeds leave marks on weak souls."

"Intense evil, like what?" The girl asked slightly nervous.

"Murder probably, I don't really know." The boy said scribling notes on his parchment.

"Why do you want to know about broken souls?" The girl asked and wished she subject wasn't so depressing.

"You can heal broken souls, I read about it, intense emotions, regret... Love." The boy said, I want to read up on that.

The girl blushed again, but the boy didn't show any change, she started feeling frustrated, until she realized he was really just interested in his future as an Auror. She smiled It's good that he's serious about future, she thought, she'll get her chance with him later.

Penny just resolved to go back to her side and study for ther charms classes, stealing glimpses on the boy every now and then.

After a while the boy stopped reading and looked at the bookshelves and then at Penny. "Alright, Penny, it's late, let's continue some other time."

"Ah, uh, do you want to do something else?" The girl asked hopefully.

"No, I think I will clean up a bit and call it a night, Iet's do this again next week." The boy paused for a bit. "Studying with you is nice."

The girl smiled brightly as she took the tome he asked back to the restricted section and left the library.


Ymous looked around and walked to a secluded corner in the library. "Merula."

"Ymous." She replied.

"About that duel..." He started.

"You're lucky I am angrier about something else right now, so I will be brief about that." She said with unusually calm tone. "You will not lose to me again like that, If you do not take me seriously from this point on and give it your all to defeat me... I will kill you."

"I listened to the crowd." He admitted.

"You're an idiot, why would you care what they chant, their thoughts are beneath me."

"Well.."

"Enough about that, just tell me if you understood me. You're not going to go weak on me, or I will kill you, I promise that." She said angrily.

"Alright, you're right, I was sloppy and I deserved to be kicked in the face."

"You deserve much worse than that for your sorry display." She said seriously.

"We'll get to that later, I figured out a way to practice it." He said smiling crookedly.

"Tell me."

"That magic room, it's unmappable, casting any spells in a room there will not cause alarm, all we need is a target."

"Let's kidnap your blonde girlfriend." She said getting angry and ready to start another argument.

"Too suspicious, I have another idea, we'll try that next week." The boy dismissed the idea quickly.

"Well, I'll kill her then." She said her violet eyes sparkling with anger.

"Later, dear, later..." He said smiling.