A Portrait of The Black Heiress (Harry Potter)

Chapter IX: Potter, If You Fall To Your Death, Know I Will Win A Bet

Novembers in Scotland were freezing. No student left the heat of their common room without a scarf and gloves, and most kept their thick cloaks wrapped around them during classes. The day after her adventure with the troll, Professor Snape came graciously by to return her shoes to her, the ones she had left in the bathroom after running for her life. He didn't really say much but at least he hadn't deducted points, or given her detention for her imprudent behaviour the day before.

The next morning was once again an icy one. The Slytherin girls complained loudly about having to go sit outside for a few hours to watch the game in conditions like these. Aglaia, too, was not exactly thrilled to go outside. She didn't even know anyone on the Slytherin Quidditch team. She only knew of them and that was hardly a story to write home about.

However, Aglaia did not have much of a choice in the matter. Blaise Zabini, as disinterested as he was in most things, did seem to enjoy a game of Quidditch. He had convinced Daphne to come with him. Theodore Nott, factionless in between the violence that was Draco, Pansy and Aglaia, spend his time floating around all of them. And with the Duelling club try-outs so close by, he seemed determined to convince no one else to try out.

For the Slytherins, Duelling Club was almost as serious as Quidditch was. For centuries, Slytherins excelled at Duelling, winning all House championships whereas Gryffindor tended to win the Quidditch matches. However, after new rules had been established that severely limited creative solutions to problems to avoid cheating, Gryffindors now held the duelling upper hand and had been winning the competition for years. Nothing was more humiliating than losing an honorary duel to one of the least honourable houses and Slytherin's duelling captain and fifth-year Prefect, Gemma Farley was getting desperate.

The reason try-outs weren't held until late November or even early December is that even first-years were allowed to try out. And they hadn't been waving a wand for all that long, so to protect them against the experienced violence of the older years, they were required to at least know the basics of wand magic before they had to try out against all these upper-years. Aglaia didn't think a first-year had ever made the team, however. Sometimes they did invite particularly precocious lower years to train with them, but they were hardly ever actually qualified for the competition in May. The Duelling Club itself, technically speaking, had unlimited members, as long as they were part of that house. They held meetings every week where they focused on physical and magical forms of combat. These meetings were evaluated by the Duelling Team Captain to see who would become part of their actual competition team. The competition team existed out of ten people per House. Always three Seventh-years, three Sixth-years, two fifth-years, one fourth-year and a single spot was blank. They called it the Seat of Surprise and it could be filled by anyone from a first through a Seventh year. The Seat of Surprise required you to either beat everyone else, or have a speciality that would prove useful in combat. The blank spot was almost always given to a N.E.W.T. student. Although Hufflepuff had one memorable year where they gave a fourth-year a chance because she was a Metamorphagus and quite the proficient dueller for her age. It didn't give them the win, but they had come in second place and that was unheard of. If Aglaia wasn't very much mistaken, the girl had started Auror training straight out of Hogwarts, so she had to have been extraordinary.

Theo Nott had his eyes set on being the first first-year ever, in any of the houses, to be part of the competition team. His strategy was to convince enough people not to try out that Gemma had no choice but to take him. Aglaia hadn't originally been intending to be part of the Duelling Club, but, oh, how she enjoyed frustrating Nott.

"How much money you want to bet that Harry Potter will find a way to somehow nearly die from this game?" said Aglaia nonchalantly as she took a seat in the freezing cold.