Ginny watched the Greengrass Heiress lunge for the beast with a transfigured sword, only to be smacked away. Another picture showed another armed lunge, this one together with Hermione Granger, the vassal, plunging both the swords into the troll's thighs and exploding them when the transfiguration ran out.
It was so different to what she was doing with Luna. Duelling with Luna had started to feel like a tightly choreographed dance. They could only use three spells—well, four if you counted finite incantatem—and that created a very predictable form of combat. It was all about speed, power, and energy conservation.
What she was now looking at was pure chaos, with elements of teamwork thrown in here and there.
Someone appeared on her left. "What shouted.
the hell is this?"
the
someone
She winced and turned to see Alexandra Black staring at the unfolded paper in shock.
Moments later, the violet eyed girl had snatched the paper up, eliciting howls of protest from her peers. She cast her gaze over the paper for all of a few moments before throwing it back to where it lay before and stalking out of the classroom. As the Black heiress left, Ginny swore she heard 'Luna' and 'Slytherin' and 'Harry' among her many mutterings.
Ginny frowned. She almost wanted to chase after the girl and ask if she knew about Harry, but one thing stopped her. Alexandra Black didn't wear a silver lightning bolt ring. "And then I woke up the next morning with no memories of where the stone was." Harry finished.
Ginny leaned back and rubbed her temples. "Harry. Wow. Just wow. The philosopher's stone. I mean, wow. And you ran into the basilisk." She shivered.
"Well, that's most of the story. There are other things, but they're still on a need to know basis, and until you're at Hogwarts, you don't need to know."
Ginny nodded. "Harry, what are you going to do about the basilisk?"
"Nothing. It's a thousand year old magically perfect killing machine. I have no intention to engage it until it's absolutely necessary. So until we have a good way to deal with it, we evade and contain instead."
"Rooster crows?"
Harry shook his head. "Oh, that it were that easy."
"And you being a parselmouth?"
"First come, first serve. Literally."
Ginny sighed. "Well, you said we were going to try something not even V-Voldemort managed, or at least tried. What is it?"
Harry picked up a black pebble and started idly tossing it up and down. "The way I see it. Your major problem is that Luna has just enough extra power to keep you from ploughing through her shield with brute force, but she's also been matching you in terms of efficiency. Luna being able to figure out to spell swat independently, after seeing you do it only a few times, was amazing."
Ginny's shoulders slumped. "Thanks," she said dejectedly.
Harry continued as though he hadn't heard. "The one area you clearly outshine her in is physical fitness and raw speed. So, we should focus on your strengths. We need you to be so fast that Luna doesn't have time to shield."
Ginny laughed bitterly. "Luna can cast a shield as quickly as it takes her to raise her hand. You want me to be faster than that?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Harry tossed the black pebble up one last time, snatched it from the air, did something that Ginny didn't catch, and, suddenly, held instead a white pebble.
Ginny frowned. "What did you just do?" Harry smiled. Did the thing again, and was once again holding the original black pebble. Ginny's frown deepened. "I don't get it." Harry pointed behind her and to the left. She turned and saw there, on the ground, the white pebble.
The white pebble disappeared, replaced with the black pebble with a tiny clink sound. Ginny turned back and saw the white pebble back in Harry's hand. "You're switching them." "Yes. It's called a switching spell. Normally, you learn it in your sixth year at Hogwarts."
"And how does that make me faster? Unless…" Understanding spread through her.
Harry obviously saw it because he said. "Yes, that's right. Unless you switch yourself."
"Yes!" Ginny jumped up. "If I could do that, I could appear anywhere around her! I could switch myself to wherever Luna's shield isn't, and stun her before she had a chance to cast!"
Harry held up his non-stone holding hand. "Easy there, Ginny. You ready to hear the difficulties?"
A sinking feeling crept through Ginny. Obviously it wouldn't be that easy. She sat back down again. "Go on."
"No one has ever succeeded in switching themselves — not that we know of. Voldemort had a theory that casting the spell with a wand does something to the spell when redirected back at the body. His idea was that you can only switch yourself with something else if you do it wandlessly, and obviously, the vast majority of wizards never learn the advanced occlumency required for wandless magic, and then even fewer refine their control like you've been doing, and so are automatically precluded from even trying."
"But…" Ginny began.
"And of those who do know the proper occlumency, they'd still have to put in the two-hundred odd hours it takes to learn what would be a very circumstantial spell that apparition could replicate in many circumstances. And then there is the final killer."
"Which is?"
"Switching spells are classified as transfiguration magic. And transfiguration is not permitted in international standard rules duelling."
Ginny's jaw dropped. "For such a stupid reason?"
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