"Are you lost?" Bellatrix asked.
"No," Harry said. "I know exactly where I'm going." He was pacing in front of a certain wall in the Hogwarts castle.
"So does everyone in the St. Mungo's Spell Damage Ward," Bellatrix point out.
A door appeared in the wall where Harry had been pacing. "Here we are," Harry said. "This is the Room of Requirement. It's exactly what we're looking for."
"Right," Bellatrix said. She opened the door and stepped in with Harry following her closely. After a quickly glance she changed her mind. "I guess you are right."
"Told you so," Harry said, closing the door behind them and surveying the form that the room had taken in response to his need. One always had ideas about how the room would appear, but sometimes it accounted for needs and wants that the asker wasn't always conscious of.
The room seemed more impressive than he recalled ever seeing it before. The ceiling was high and elegantly dark colors were painted on the walls that weren't gray stone. Torches lined the walls providing ample light. There were two chairs near the entrance. The rest of the room was a formal dueling arena.
"This looks perfect," Bellatrix said. "Let's get started." She drew her wand and assumed a formal dueling pose.
"We need to establish some ground rules," Harry said. He walked to one of the chairs and sat down.
Bellatrix reluctantly followed him and sat down in the other chair, still holding her wand while her eyes gleamed eagerly. "If we must."
"We must," Harry said, feeling slightly silly. "We can take turns making up rules, if you want."
"All right," Bellatrix agreed. "I'll go first. I think there should be a rule that we don't hold back. If we get our noses broken, that's our own fault."
Harry sighed. She had him cornered there. He had broken her nose the last time, so he couldn't argue that she was just looking for an excuse to hurt him. Bellatrix had pretty much turned the whole purpose for making rules on its head. "Very well, but we aren't to use any spells that can't be quickly reversed or healed, and-"
"My turn," Bellatrix interrupted. "The winner of the duel gets to pick when the next duel is held."
"Fine," Harry muttered. "Now, we're not going to use any killing spells."
"And, we each must teach each other a new spell before the duel starts."
"We have the option of forfeiting the duel at any time for any reason," Harry said.
Bellatrix glared at Harry, "Pansy."
Harry shrugged. "Take it or forget this practice dueling stuff."
"Every fifth duel is hands only," Bellatrix stipulated. "No wands, no weapons."
"You can't expect me to wrestle with you," Harry snapped.
"Seeing as you provided ample evidence in our last encounter that a well placed punch can turn the duel around, I think we'd better," Bellatrix said.
Harry sighed heavily, conceding that argument to her. She was probably right, but he wasn't eager to engage in that sort of thing. Dudley had long ago established that Harry was not talented in that area. "All right, we teach each other a new spell each time, but if one of us doesn't master it, the other doesn't have to come up with a new spell for next duel."
Bellatrix opened her mouth to utter her next rule, but Harry interrupted her. "Forget it. I think we've got enough rules."
"All right, Ashworth," Bellatrix said. "Let's get started. Teach me something I don't know."
"Stunner?"
"I'm an expert."
"Stinging hex?"
"Honestly, Ashworth!"
Harry racked his brain for some sort of spell he could teach her that would be challenging. Finally he found something he thought might take her a long time to master. "I'll teach you the Patronus Charm," Harry announced.
"Can you even do that yourself?" Bellatrix asked.
"Learned it during my third year at Hogwarts," Harry said, enjoying the look of surprise on her face. "The incantation is 'expecto patronum,' and the wand movement is something like this." Harry demonstrated the incantation and wand movement. The familiar stag leapt from his wand and pranced through the room for a moment before disappearing."
"Impressive," Bellatrix said quietly. "How many dementors does that drive away?"
"I drove several dozen dementors away back in third year," Harry said. "I haven't really faced that large of a number since. As for other people, their success varies. It might depend on your happy memory."
"Happy memory?" Bellatrix asked.
"Oh," said Harry. "I forgot. You've got to have a really happy memory in mind while you cast the spell or it doesn't work."
"The hardest part," Bellatrix said.
"Yeah, it is the hardest part," Harry admitted as he recalled his original struggles with the spell.
They stood and Bellatrix paced back and forth, holding her wand limply. Finally she stopped, did the wand movement, and literally shouted the incantation. Nothing happened. Bellatrix stood frozen, her wand still pointing toward the far wall.
"That's about what happened my first time," Harry said, trying to reassure her.
Bellatrix ignored him. Her arms dropped to her side and she began pacing. After several minutes she tried again, shouting even louder. Again, nothing happened. Bellatrix continued for nearly half an hour, attempting the spell repeatedly. Her voice became hoarser with each attempt. Harry wondered if perhaps he should seek out a boggart and let her practice on a fake dementor, but decided against it. He didn't need her knowing what his greatest fear was.
Eventually, she ceased trying and turned to Harry whom she had ignored fastidiously. "I shall have to practice on my own time. Now, I will teach you a spell."
"All right," Harry said. "What spell?"
"I'm thinking," Bellatrix said as she bit her lip furiously. A stand with a thick book on it suddenly appeared beside her. She looked at it with surprise. "Remarkable! This room really is a treasure, Ashworth. Copies of this book are extremely rare." She picked it up and began thumbing through the pages. "This one," she declared, pointing to a page.
Harry took the book from her and examined the page. "A personal projection charm?" Harry asked.
Bellatrix smiled brightly and nodded eagerly. "You can use it to fool people into thinking that you're standing in the room with them while you're actually very far away."
"All right," Harry said. "How about you demonstrate?"
"Well… ," Bellatrix said. "I'm not exactly powerful enough to do it, but I'm sure I would if I could."
"That's not fair," Harry said. "If you can't even do the spell, you can't expect to be able to teach me how to do it."
Bellatrix shrugged. "That wasn't part of the rules."
"You're just angry because you can't cast a patronus yet."
"I'm just interested in seeing you achieve great things, Harry."
"Yeah right."
"Are you going to sit here and whine?" Bellatrix asked. "Or are you going to get cracking already?"
Harry sighed and read over the description of the spell, its incantation, and wand movement. Bellatrix had really chosen a difficult one. Harry got the impression from the author's writing that the spell had not been performed by anyone in some time. It had been created in the 1500s, but had flopped because the spell smith had been the only one to successfully cast it. He put the book back where Bellatrix had gotten it and drew his wand. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself standing on the other side of the room. "Ego exertus!" he called.
He felt a strange sensation wash over him briefly, but when he opened his eyes, nothing had happened.
"I guess you'll have to practice on your own time," Bellatrix said innocently.
"Did you see anything happen at all?" Harry asked.
Bellatrix shrugged. "I don't think so. Shall we duel?"
"Yes," said Harry. He was suddenly feeling a desire to beat Bellatrix soundly, and not just for the purpose of winning the right to choose when the next practice session was to occur.
.....
"Well, it's not any purebloods I've talked to lately," Andrew Foxe said thoughtfully. He and Moody were waiting outside the doors of an ongoing Wizengamot session. Both should have been present inside, but they had been on an emergency call to the south of England. It was now too late to bother interrupting. In only a few moments, the session would be finished.
Moody arched his eyebrows skeptically in response to Foxe's denial. Andrew Foxe was the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. His abilities were well respected, but the less-naïve members of society were conscious of the fact Foxe could be very underhanded in both his political and personal life. "Are you saying that Ashworth was lying?"
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that," Foxe said quickly. "I just haven't heard anything. What purebloods does this Ashworth fellow talk to?"
"The Blacks, for one," Moody answered. "Actually, I don't think he talks to anyone else other than the Blacks."
"Orion? I doubt he'd confide in someone like this Ashworth. As for Cygnus, he's hardly the sort that would know anything." Foxe scoffed. "Ashworth is probably blowing smoke."
"Deliberately?" Moody said.
....
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