Ginny strained, tried to feel the light caress of the magic on her skin, buried herself as deep as she could in her occlumency and blocked out any and all distractions. "It's…a…stinger?" She opened her eyes. Harry was grinning, finger tips alight with a bright white spell.
Ginny took a step backwards, leaned forward, and ran, full tilt, towards the long pile of leaves she'd piled up in the orchard. She leapt at the line of twigs on the floor and landed in the leaf pile, scattering a good number of them, and making a huge indent in the pile. She got up, inspected her distance, made an unsatisfied grunt sound, went back to the line of twigs, and moved it back another few inches. Ginny pooled a stunner, brought it to her finger tips and swatted the spell away, almost without having to think.
"Stinger!" Harry shot a bolt of almost invisible magic at her.
She pooled a stinger and brought it to her finger tips, instantly switching it with her stunner and letting it flow back through her hand.
"Stunner!"
She swatted it away.
"Stinger!"
She swatted it away.
"Good!" Harry smiled widely. "Now, again, but without me calling out the spell names before hand."
Ginny took a deep, long breath. "Bring it on."
Ginny leaped over the pond, hit the other side, rolled, jumped up, laughed, pumped the air with her fist, and ran off to get ready for morning classes.
Ginny felt like her muscles were on fire. They'd been at it for ages.
On the opposite side of the clearing, Luna was panting, doubled over, clearly nearing the end of her tether. Her normally dreamy countenance was shattered. Her eyes were going in and out of focus. Her hair hung down in front of her face, yanked out of her ponytail by the constant whipping this way and that.
Ginny swatted away another stunner-stinger-stunner combo and followed it up by loosing her own stunner and stinger, which fell into Luna's thrice damned seemingly unbreakable shield.
Ginny wasn't thinking. There wasn't room for thinking. There was only room for doing. Swat, dodge, cast, retreat, advance. Over and over and over.
She advanced. She cast another stunner. It hit Luna's shield.
Luna's shield shattered.
Luna made no sign of intending to move, hands planted firmly on her thighs, still panting heavily. Ginny's heart leaped. Victory crept into her eyes. Her hand glowed red again.
Luna looked up, still panting, met her gaze, and grinned.
Ginny loosed her stunner. It flew straight and true…
…And Luna swatted it away.
…
…
…
Ginny groaned, sank to her knees, and let out a desperate cry of frustration. "That isn't fair!" "Luna always was extremely intuitive with her spell casting. She picked up occlumency faster than I've ever seen anyone else, and I still haven't managed to replicate that trick she did with firing a wandless spell with her tongue — not that I've been trying all that hard, but still." Harry sat opposite where she sat with her head in her hands.
Ginny raised her head and met Harry's unruffled gaze. "It's just so frustrating! It seems no matter what I do, Luna's always one step ahead of me."
Harry smiled softly. "You've come an incredibly long way in an amazingly short period of time, Ginny."
"Not far enough."
Harry's smile turned playful. "Well then, how would you like to try something that not even Voldemort managed?"
Not even Voldemort? Ginny frowned. "Um, Harry… if I can't even beat Luna what chance do I have of managing something that even he couldn't?"
Harry shook his head, still smiling. "You underestimate just how far ahead of most people you now are. But let me rephrase that a bit. How would you like to try something that Voldemort considered learning, but never actually decided to, because he could never quite find the time and there were always other things to do?"
"Is it dangerous?"
"In theory, it's no more dangerous than what we're already doing."
"And it will help me beat Luna?" Harry grinned. "Ginny, if I didn't know what was coming, I'm pretty sure it could beat me."
Ginny stared. "When do we start?"
"Tomorrow night."
The next morning, Ginny walked into class to see a group of her classmates all surrounding something on a desk. Shouts and gasps and cheers filled the room.
She sidled over, peered through a gap in the bodies, and gasped.
HOGWARTS YEARS!
TROLL
DEFEATED
BY
FIRST
Picture after picture of several witches, barely older than her, battling a huge mountain troll, three times their size, presented themselves to the excitement and fear of the congregated students.
Her eyes fell on the names in the article and her eyes bugged out even further. That was Daphne Greengrass! She was the other witch betrothed to Harry! And one of the other combatants was one Hermione Granger, 'Vassal' of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin. That was news to her. Harry had never mentioned Slytherin House having vassals.
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