Harry Potter and the Wandless Magic

Chapter Twelve: Facing Fears

As the summer drew to a close, Harry looked back at all he had accomplished in such a short amount of time. His time at the Dursley seemed like they had happened to someone else a lifetime ago. No longer was there any fear of beatings or starvation. He had a family who loved him, and Hermione who liked him very much.

During the last week of August, Gruknot led Harry into a large empty room. Ten training dummies were arranged in a circle facing the center of the room. Gruknot gestured for Harry to take the center spot and the young wizard hesitantly obeyed.

"This is a bit more than we've practiced in the past," Harry commented.

"This is your final day of training for this year, Mr. Potter." Gruknot grinned. "And you won't just be dueling them. If you manage to defeat them, I have a surprise opponent for you."

"Who?"

"Maybe it's a what. Don't think about it. You already have a difficult fight on your hands. Ready?"

Harry took in a deep breath, drew his wand and let it out slowly. He saw Gruknot arch an eyebrow at the use of it, but the goblin said nothing. With a wave of his hand, the dummies came alive, wands brandished and all trained on him.

Before they could utter a spell, Harry went on the offensive. "Confrigo! Expelliarmus! Stupify! Bombarda!"

The dummies silently fired spell after spell at him, making no attempt to defend themselves. Once they lost their wands or were hit by a spell, they stopped moving. In seconds, Harry reduced them to 8 but even in an ambush, 8-to-1 were horrible odds.

A disarming charm flung his wand away from him. He rolled away from two stinging hexes and a red hex he didn't recognize. Reaching for his wandless magic, he swung out his hand with a single shout. "REDUCTO!"

The force of the blasting hex decapitated two of the dummies and burned a hole in another's throat.

3 down, 5 to go.

A red spell struck him and every nerve in his body lit up with pain beyond anything he ever felt. If Uncle Vernon had ever wanted to beat the magic out of him, this would have been the way to do it. Somewhere in Harry's brain remembered the name of one of the Unforgivables, the Cruciatus. It was well-named as the Torture Curse.

His body still spasming, Harry silently cast a Protego shield on himself that caused three more spells to ricochet. As he wobbled to his feet, he took a step back to steady himself. That proved to be a very lucky thing since another red bolt past directly in front of his face from his left, missing him by inches.

Harry reached for his magic and pulled up two stones from the floor and flung them toward the two dummies on his left. One of them had cast the Cruciatus Curse at him. Both seemed to have the same idea to cast it again because a red curse blasted the rocks to bits but thankfully, did not allow the dark magic to pass through. Bits of gravel riddled the floor and peppered Harry's arm as he threw out two Hurling Hexes. The dummies fell flat on their backs.

3 left, Harry marked as he sidestepped two hexes.

"EXPULSO!" He bellowed as he took a glancing Petrificus Totalus to his right harm which suddenly went limp. To his satisfaction, another dummy exploded which in turned knocked another over to crack its head on the stone floor.

"Finite Incantatem," Harry uttered as he focused on his limp arm, and a surge of magic flowed into it.

The final dummy cast a golden beam of light from its wand that struck Harry in the chest. Instead of pain, a lovely floating sensation filled Harry up. Gone were the worries of the duel and what else Gruknot might have planned for him. What did it matter now that the world was so perfect?