October 16th, 1995
"Miss Chaunte, will you please tell the class what one must do to prevent violence in an already heightened situation?" Umbridge's smile was sickeningly sweet, the sort that you could tell was built from layers upon layers of bitterness.
I huffed, a gesture that I knew wasn't wasted on her, as her smile faltered ever so slightly, and stood up. The satisfaction of that sight gave me more than enough fuel to answer her silly question despite the cowardice that it was laced with.
This is a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, not a lesson on diplomacy.
"Well, I guess you'd try to come to a compromise?" I said, more of a suggestion than an actual answer. "That way, you could both give some or gain some for the sake of a peaceful agreement."
"You guess, Miss Chaunte?"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and instead opted to force a fake smile of my own. Quiet laughter came from a few people around me, though it wasn't as if they hadn't dealt with the same sort of thing from Umbridge. If anything, they were probably laughing at how redundant this entire scenario was.
"You told us yourself, Professor, so no," I responded, "I do not just guess." My eyes flickered to the clock on the right wall beside me in an impatience to leave that I could only hope was concealed from her prying eyes.
"Very well," she said, "You may be seated."
She had scanned around the room and picked around ten people to answer some questions for a "review" that she stated would be our ticket out of her class. It wasn't that I minded, it was nothing more than a set of annoyingly simple questions about the day's lesson, but I was aggravated at how long she'd draw this out when we could have been finished twenty minutes ago. It was like she always found the need to push things as far as she could take them.
And the ones that had spoken out against her before were her favorite toys.
Harry had told me the stories of how she would single him out from the rest, asking him frivolous questions that she clearly knew the answers to in an effort to draw unnecessary attention to him. Luna suspected that her goal was to have him in the spotlight more often so that she could make embarrassing him even worse when she had the chance, one that he wasn't giving her, much to her frustration.
He wasn't the only victim of this either; Hermione and Cho, as well as Neville and Ginny in an instance or two, were also called out for saying something that Umbridge didn't particularly like.
I sat down and shifted a little to get comfortable in my seat. There were still two more people left, which I assumed was the equivalent of ten more minutes of watching them become her prey until she decided her appetite for torture was satiated.
"Looks like she's moved on to a different chew toy now," the boy next to me joked. I had come to know that his name was Amadeus Parkinson, brother of the dreaded Pansy Parkinson.
A Slytherin.
He had caught me off guard with how well he concealed the arrogance and bitterness that seemed to run through his bloodline according to the words of none other than himself. It amazed me with how much of an effort he was making to remain nothing more than a wallflower away from all of the attention that was being unwillingly given to a lot of students from Umbridge and other students themselves.
He wasn't one for drama, certainly not one for extended conversation unless it was a quick sarcastic remark, but those qualities often meant that he wasn't exactly one for niceties. There had been more than one instance where I've had to discreetly kick his foot from under our desk to keep him from continuing on and saying something that would set Umbridge's fury alight.
Of course, I'd hear it from him afterwards, but I was pretty sure that he was so used to it by now that he just accepted it as a part of life. In all fairness, I had already explained to him where the gesture stemmed from several times.
I let out a half-sigh half-chuckle, hoping that there was an unknown deity that was counting the seconds and waiting for a chance to get us out of this awful class.
"Why does she even have to do this?" I frustratedly hissed, "We could have been done a good while ago and had time to actually study some more without her pounding it into our heads yet again."
Amadeus shrugged and had the same idea as me to take a quick peek at the clock to our right. He rolled his eyes at it as if it were a living being that wasn't giving him the results he wanted; we had half of an hour left in Defense Against the Dark Arts, which meant we'd still be stuck here even after the questions were out of the way.
"I'd say that the old bat just wants to talk to someone other than those lousy cats of hers," he said with a bitter smirk, one with little effort to conceal his contempt, "But she enjoys herself entirely too much. Makes me sick."
He raked aside a cluster of black hair that had begun to inch towards his right eye. He then closed both of them and sighed, splaying his arms out in front of him on the desk and laying his head down.
"Wake me up when she's done rambling, will you?" I didn't hear another word from him.
Knowing that I was alone to myself while Umbridge was interrogating the other students and Amadeus was acting like more of a napping cat than a snake, I slipped my hand into one of my robe pockets and produced a small folded piece of parchment. The letters "L" and "S" were hastily written on the top of the paper once it was unfolded, standing for, of course, "Luna" and "Selene."
It held the details of our next meeting, which was tonight, of which we'd had several in the span between our first one and now. We were supposed to be learning something new tonight, as Harry had stated in the slip of paper, but what it could possibly be was beyond me. Our group had already learned the Disarming Charm rather quickly in the span of a week, which in of itself was quite an accomplishment considering the fact that we didn't need a professor to do so.
Around 8 o'clock, I read to myself, The same as usual, then.
One of the perks of sneaking through the halls at this time was that it became increasingly easier to discern if someone was headed your way, the difference between the occasional sounds emanating from the castle itself and someone's footsteps, and what routes to take, of course. Making our way to the Room of Requirement, as Harry and most everyone else had taken to calling it, with Luna was as simple a task as could possibly be.
"There," Umbridge addressed the class a little too loudly, startling me from my thoughts, "It seems that some of you paid attention. Well done, children."
Amadeus jolted awake and cast her a glare, while a sigh or two of relief escaped the lips of several other students, and I wished that I could kick their feet so that they wouldn't push her to hand out yet another assignment in the time that was left in her class period. I silently thanked my lucky stars that she paid them no mind.
Only a few minutes were left to waste while we all waited for the bell to ring, a loud booming sound that echoed through the halls and startled me into standing up most of the time rather than of my own free will. Hogwarts was in stark contrast to Beauxbatons in this aspect; my old magic school would give light yet easily noticeable chimes from the bell towers. Everyone certainly wouldn't think twice about moving to their next period, though, since failure to do so would have resulted in a lecture in front of an entire class of drama hungry students. Not exactly the most joy inducing experience.
"A-ta-ta, not you, Miss Chaunte," Professor Umbridge said to me when everyone began filing out of her classroom. "Stay for one moment if you will."
This wasn't a suggestion, I could tell. I had no choice but to stay for however long she expected of me to see what she wanted from me.
I could practically feel my heart sink. My chest tightened at the prospect of whatever twisted game she wanted to play. Whatever she wanted from me, it couldn't possibly be good. I found myself propping my side against one of the bookshelves on either side of the entrance to her class.
"It's come to my attention that you were caught dueling in the halls?"
My heart might as well have stopped beating at that point, as my entire mind went numb with panic. How do I respond to this? How could she possibly have found out about that incident that happen two months ago?
She gestured to her desk far behind us, which was partially consumed by thin, neatly organized stacks of paper that I had been noticing were steadily accumulating over the past several weeks.
"You see," she continued without giving me the slightest chance to answer, "I was recently tasked with sifting through information on my students so that I may..." A moment's thought.
"Better suite their educational needs."
Lies.
I swallowed the thick lump in my throat and stood straight up from where I was leaning. "So, am I in trouble, Professor?" The answer was obvious to me; what other reason would she breach such a topic if it wasn't to bait me into detention?
"Why of course not, though you did act rather rashly. You were, of course, given no consequences as you were unfamiliar with the rules here." Her blue eyes reminded me of a book, one with a sweet and flashy cover that hid her true intentions. She could probably see the mixture of surprise and relief in my own brown ones.
My left hand stroked my right one from habit, and though the scars there weren't nearly as apparent as they were during the first week that they were present, one could feel them. They were a little too smooth compared to the rest of my skin, raised ever so slightly above it as well. Of course, they wouldn't be there if Umbridge's twisted sense of punishment hadn't identified me as a lovely little target.
"I merely have a request for you, Miss Chaunte."
My blood turned to ice, and I stiffened. Only the gods could possibly know what twisted thing she wanted me to take place in.
Wait a minute, I thought with a dawn of realization, Is she trying to blackmail me? No, she could only give me detention, she'd poke and prod at something else if I refuse her...but what could she possibly want?
"What is it, ma'am?" I choked out, the bitter lump lodging itself in my throat again. I suddenly felt a rather dull thumping in my head, most likely the early warning of a future headache.
"Ah, so wonderful to see children eager to help a wonderful cause." Her head tilted to the side some to further her facade of innocence.
"There seems to be a certain amount of students," she explained, "Gathering themselves to practice irrelevant and obsolete magic that just happens to be against the curriculum that was so carefully laid out by the Ministry of Magic."
It didn't take a genius to understand how she had come to possess that knowledge to begin with.
That prick, Zacharias. He didn't come back to learn, he came to give her more info on top of whatever he had already told her!
"Now, the Ministry as a whole would be rather grateful to you if you were to, say, seek them out? We might even be so inclined to offer you some sort of reward if you were to accept."
It seems as if he hasn't alerted her to individual members...but why?
I took in a sharp inhale of breath. Looking her dead in the eyes, then glancing over to the clock only to see that I was coming close to a point where I'd be late to Professors Flitwick's Charms class, I made one of the fastest decisions I'd ever made.
"What exactly does this arrangement entail?"
My body became a battering ram, specifically one that pushed its way through the student body while I hastily made my way to the spot that Luna and I would usually meet up at before we strolled to lunch. I needed to urgently speak to her, and I felt a little guilty when I saw her beam at me from where she was propped against a pillar, a book tucked neatly beneath an arm.
"Oh, there you are, my beau-"
"Luna, we need to talk."
I swiftly but gently grabbed her arm and brought her to one of the girl's bathroom that wasn't too far away, and she thankfully didn't resist. Lucky for us, the hand washing phase of the lunch period had passed, meaning that we had the entire area to ourselves.
"Sele, are you okay?"
Three simple words. "Are you okay?" All that was needed were three words alone to make what little composure I was able to retain through Charms class fall apart. Tears starting to force themselves against their prison until they eventually shattered their barriers and spilled from my eyes. I collapsed onto the bathroom floor on my knees, the polished stone tiles becoming a cold battleground for my internal emotions.
Luna was quick to react, kneeling down and wrapping me tightly in her arms. I gripped onto her robes and let out the storm that had been inside of me. I was frustrated, upset, and angry, not just at Umbridge or anyone else, but at myself for accepting the Professor's proposal.
My girlfriend simply sat there with me on the floor, her arms wrapped around me as if she were shielding me from the world, and her mouth whispering sweet words of comfort that were barely perceptible through my loud, uneven breathing and sobbing.
I had put this operation in jeopardy, and for what? Because I had thought that the prospect of spying on Umbridge while giving her little or nothing was a good idea. The gravity of the decision failed to register with me until I had mulled it over for a few minutes, at which time I began to realize how easily a single misstep could cause everything to fall apart.
Luna gently pried me from her, and while I couldn't help but give mild groans of protest from the noticeable lack in contact, I knew that trying to talk to her while muffled against her isn't exactly optimal.
She held me at arm's length from her, both hands resting on my shoulders. Her expression conveyed a deep worry and concern, but she remained composed for me, something that I had always admired her for. She never failed in amazing me.
"Selene," she said, and I was a little startled to hear her use my full name, "What's the matter? What happened to you?"
I took a moment to compose myself. My shaky hands made their way to my face to wipe away the mess of tears that were now beginning to dry there. The crying had stopped, but that only meant that the only other way to release this guilty feeling would be to explain myself with words.
"I betrayed you, chérie." My heart was racing. I knew that I quite possibly could have worded that better or gave her more information to run on, but it was a start.
She didn't say anything for a moment, rather lifting one of her hands up from my shoulders to brush aside a stray cluster of brown hair from where it had begun to cover my face. When I dared to sneak a peak at her, I could see confusion and warmth, but not any wild emotions such as anger. That was a good sign given how little I had told her.
"How could you possibly betray me?" She whispered, "You must be over-exaggerating again, love."
She shook her head and smiled a little, but wasn't inconsiderate in doing so; her eyes retained that same worry from before. Their warmness was almost startling, though pleasingly so.
"I..." I started, only to drift off and search for my words for another moment.
"Umbridge wanted me to help her find everyone that's working against her."
Luna frowned. "And, of course, you said no."
"I said yes."
I plunged into my explanation of what Umbridge had tasked me of all people with. The request, the potential blackmail, how I thought it would be an excuse to spy on her and protect Dumbledore's Army, none of it went unheard by her ears. She carefully listened as I spoke, stroking the back of my hand when I had to pause for thinking or breathing.
She never once became upset or disturbed at my revealing of how my unique kind of stupid had ended with me being somewhat "in league" with Professor Umbridge. Quite the contrary, actually, as a smile graced her face when I was finished.
"I don't quite see what you're so worried about," she said, "If anything, this is a brilliant opportunity to make sure she doesn't find us out."
She leaned forward with the wild look in her eyes that I loved so much. "The Nargles don't seem to particularly like her, either."
I let out a small laugh, though it probably ended up sounding more like a choking sound or another sob. It felt good though, as it always does to feel a pulse of happiness pierce through the shroud of turmoil, radiant and bright, like a warm ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds after a storm.
The relief of knowing that she wasn't even upset at me for making such a reckless split-second decision was immeasurable. That aside, I still needed to know what I should do.
"Luna," I asked, much calmer that I had been before, "What's going to happen? What am I going to do about all of this?"
She thought on this for several moments, though they felt far more like hours. The way her eyes focused on a single spot of the tiled floor beneath us made it clear to me that she was working everything out carefully in her head.
Her brows furrowed in concentration, and while she didn't appear have all of the answers that she wanted, she spoke.
"You can't exactly tell her that you want to leave, now can you?" She said, "But if you give her false leads or nothing at all, she can't find us."
I nodded. What she said was true, and I had already considered it, but it still felt very strange and foreign to me, as if I were stepping foot onto enemy territory as a soldier of an opposing army. This entire ordeal felt unsafe and risky, and while Luna was in fact being logical in her approach to it, that didn't mean I liked where this train of conversation was going.
"Luna," I pleaded, "Please, no..."
She leaned forward and wrapped me in a hug, and I buried my face into the crook of her neck, inhaling the sweet scent that always carried itself with her. As always, she was so very cozy and warm, which felt amazing compared to the light chill of the school halls. It felt like snuggling near a warm fire, the soft cracklings being her steady breathing, which made me feel more than a little disappointed that I would have to let go at some point, but I did so when the time came anyways.
Luna's eyes evenly met mine, their mesmerizing silver-ish blue peering into my own, reading everything, and understanding everything as well.
"This is something that we need to do, Sele," she said with a soothing tone to her voice, "She wouldn't much appreciate you saying 'no' to her anyways since you've already agreed."
I couldn't find a flaw in that logic either. Refusing Umbridge at this point would be foolish, as she'd without a doubt find some way to make my life a living hell. Detention would only be the beginning, I was sure, a watchful eye would follow me whenever I was in her presence like a hawk circling its prey.
My shoulders slumped in defeat; Luna was right, there was nothing that I could do to change the fact that I'd be a one-sided double agent of sorts. I could think of much worse things that I could do compared to funneling lies to the toad, it was the fear of how our other friends would react to knowing these things. Would their trust waver? How would they possibly feel knowing that I was technically in league with the one that we were trying to resist? Of course, this entire situation might help to keep her off of our backs, but surely they'd still have their doubts.
"How do I tell Harry? How do I tell anyone about this?" The thought of them thinking that it was in my capabilities to betray them stung like a slap across the face. I'd never want them to see me as a traitor in any sense.
Luna smiled. "Oh, that's quite simple, really," she replied, "It would probably be for best if you didn't tell them." Something in her eyes revealed that the smile wasn't there to downplay the seriousness in her words.
I'm just supposed to lie to my friends? I mean, well, is that the only way?
"You probably see it as lying, but I see it as protecting them. It would only make things more complex for everyone." She let out an exaggerated sigh, adding, "This already makes my brain hurt something awful."
Of course she knows what I'm thinking.
A sigh of my own escaped my lips, but this one was real, though much more in relief than frustration or anything else that Luna would have probably expected. Of all the outcomes that I had imagined for this conversation, this certainly wasn't one of the ones that I had seen happening; she wasn't upset or disgusted, and it didn't seem like she believed that I'd betray Dumbledore's Army, much less her.
She brought herself closer to me once more, only it was meant for a different kind of contact than before. Her lips pressed themselves onto mine, soft and warm, soothing even, coaxing me into silencing any doubts that I had before. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around her neck as she had done several times before in the baseless fear that she'd vanish into this air, or perhaps that I'd wake up and finally come to the dreadful realization that this was all a dream.
No, what I felt was very much real. My ever-growing and ever-present love for her, the dancing butterflies in my stomach, the firm yet comfortable way her arms were wrapped around me, even the way I was kissing her a little bit more roughly than I had intended to; these were proof that this was reality - my own reality. A dream come true.
Even after she slowly but surely removed her lips, the pleasant warmth remained in my chest, a blossom that was far too strong to die. It was madness; I had seen plenty of those cliché Muggle romantic movies, but everything that they had shown me were insignificant when compared to the real experience. It's strange how being around someone and completely memorizing their face, their emotions, everything, has the sweet reward of being able to notice the things such as love, kindness, and compassion.
Luna brushed her lips on the tip of my nose in another reassuring kiss. She had more of a playful smile for that one; the kiss on my lips were for actual comfort, this one was simply because of the fact that she could. I hummed in contentment.
"You know that I love you, don't you?" She asked, a hand still resting on my cheek. I couldn't do anything but smile.
"Always."
"The Stupefying Charm, or simply the Stunning Spell," Harry explained to the gathered students, "Is excellent in the way that it incapacitates your opponent without causing any lasting damage."
Everyone looked on with eager eyes, several shuffling about in excited anticipation for the phase they were eagerly waiting for, the part where they could put the spell to practice on the dummies that the Room of Requirement had conveniently placed for us in a semicircular fashion around the crackling fireplace. I eyed them anxiously. A demonstration would be needed for the students, and since I could cast the spell quite fine, I was the one that Harry had chosen.
Luna gently squeezed my hand and gave me a sidelong glance, a short and sweet smile following. Her lips moved, barely perceptible, whispering to me in a manner that I wouldn't have heard if she were any further away from me.
"There's no need to be nervous," she reassured me.
"I don't feel like embarrassing myself, chérie."
"I see no reason why you would. Harry wants you up there for a reason, doesn't he?"
A breath released itself from where I didn't know I was holding it. She was right, as she always was. I knew that I worried to much about little, insignificant things, but I was grateful that she was here to steady me.
"You think so?" I asked. My index finger traced a small heart onto her palm.
"Oh, I know so. I'd say that I'm a witness to what you can do when you have..."
She smiled once more and nudged me slightly, a playful and loving gesture, one that made me forget my worries. A discrete kiss on the cheek, a hum of satisfaction, and the comfortable shift of her moving closer to me, close enough to where she could have leaned against me; compacted into such a short moment, I almost found myself cursing the fact that it would be over far too soon.
"...the proper motivation."
I could practically feel the room grow several degrees hotter, and my face was probably visible proof of that. The sudden urge to focus particularly hard on one of the practice dummies was most definitely the source of the quiet chuckle from Luna. She thankfully dropped the matter, for which I was immensely grateful. Being overly flustered here of all places wasn't exactly what I had mind for the evening.
Hearing Harry explain the uses and requirements for the upcoming lesson gave me a strange feeling, something close to nostalgia, though I'd never want to go back to those times.
The Stunning Spell was something that every Second Year learned at Beauxbatons in our Charms Class, sometimes Third Years depending on shifts in the curriculum or the necessity of that knowledge. I was lucky enough to go to school there when they drilled the spell into Second Years ("lucky" wasn't much of an ideal word), meaning that I had more than enough time to practice and refine it until this moment. In fact, it was one of my favorite spells to use; its efficiency despite its simplicity was something that I rather appreciated. My knowledge of the spell was the issue for me at the moment, though.
It wasn't just the select three of Ginny, Luna, and Umbridge that had known of my casting of the Stunning Spell in the halls during my first week. Harry had caught on to this piece of information somehow, presumably from a slip from another student through the ones that had been the self-proclaimed "victims" in the duel. Not only did he find out about the incident, he was also informed on what I had used in the fight itself, and that's why I'd be used in a demonstration against Harry.
"Now," he said, producing his wand from his robes, "Selene, would you come here for a moment?"
A few people cast some curious looks my way, and I guess they were just as interested in this practice match as I was in its outcome. Practice, that's exactly what it was, only I couldn't help but wonder how I'd fare against the one that had been teaching us.
It was an exciting prospect, besting him, but I moved those thoughts aside to focus on the demonstration itself, hoping that I wouldn't embarrass myself. It's not as if I were a cut above the rest in wielding the Stunning Spell anyways.
I placed myself opposite of Harry where we were to duel in front of the massive fireplace. I assumed my stance, one that I had adapted to during the week prior. It was what I liked to think of as a mixture of both Luna and Ginny's, my left hand held in front of me as if in a chopping motion, wand held in the same position but a small bit further outwards. My legs were the same as they were previously, one behind the other. Harry assumed his own stance as well.
He held his wand with his hand beneath it for a forward and slightly upward thrust. I adjusted my grasp on my own to do the same, as he was still our teacher, and learning from him was still part of the process no matter how far along we were on the path of mastery for this spell.
That explains why I always suffer a sort of drawback when I cast it, I noted, It's simply because shoving my arm outwards from this angle and immediately bringing it back causes me to jerk myself.
He respectfully nodded. "We'll just cast the spell a few times at each other, Selene."
I nodded in return. "Am I allowed to dodge?"
"By all means, that'd make things more interesting," he said with a grin, "This meeting tonight is only going to fit in the demonstration and a few motion practices anyways."
"Right, thanks."
I shifted my head a little so that I could see Luna out of the corner of my eyes. She was clearly watching, but her expression was unknown to me as her face was outside of my field of vision. I chose to imagine her smiling that warm and dreamy smile of hers, the one that I couldn't ever resist.
Harry moved forward a little bit, noticing that I was distracted, but this caused me to whip my head back around and give him a mock scowl.
"Hey," I said, "None of that." I shook my wand a little to suggest an early start if he were to move any further, and he stepped back to where he was previously positioned.
"Fine, fine. Are you ready?" A nod from me. "Alright then...
"Go!"
A lightning fast and effortless whip of his wand alerted me that he was planning to make the first move. I leapt away from where I was standing, and thankfully so, as a jolt of red burst past me only a few feet away. A few murmurs from the crowd of students could be heard, sounding to be mostly of surprise.
I landed in a crouched position, one knee pressed against the cold stone floor, forcing me to face Harry from a lower point. His wand hadn't retracted from where he had cast the Stunning Spell, making for a perfect follow-up attack on his part. There was only a split second to think, but there was still only one move that I could make.
If I can just make a quick counter, then I might be able to catch him off guard.
I jerked my arm up from where it was steadying me in my position and thrust my wand hand outwards, loosening my grip around it to make it easier for me to change its direction at a moment's notice.
Harry took a heavy step forward to support his own thrust, his wand flicking in an upwards motion.
Now!
I swiped my hand in that same fashion as he had in an effort to collide my next spell with his. It was a tactic that my mother had instilled in me: If you couldn't outmaneuver or overpower an opponent, you could at the very least bring the match to a stalemate until you found an opening to exploit.
"Stupefy!"
"Stupefy!"
Two bright crimson lights clashed together, other smaller, inconsequential sparks flying from the collision and streaming past both of us. The spells vied for control, twisting and flashing in a quite marvelous display for nothing more than a practice match, until they could sustain the power struggle no longer; they burst apart in a flash of blinding light.
It was the perfect cover for casting the spell for a final time despite being blinded, as Harry was blinded as well and likely hadn't moved from where he standing before the blast. I took a shot in the dark, positioning my wand around the direction of where I had remembered him being, but was disappointed when I hear the whoosh of the red beam striking nothing but air.
All of a sudden, my eyesight came back to me all at once, paired with a stinging pain that coursed through my body, and I seized up like a flower pulling its petals closer to keep alive during the dead of winter. In my mind I already knew what had happened, but I wasn't sour or upset, as this had been quite a bit of fun for me. I could only hope that Harry felt the same way.
It took a good moment or two of me coughing on my knees for me to be able to breath a little easier, as he had struck me square in the chest either by skill or sheer luck alone. Luna was kneeling by my side in almost an instant. She didn't seem at all fazed that people were seeing her like this with me, nor did she seem embarrassed when she brought a steady hand up to my chest, under which my heart was racing from both the duel and her touch.
"That was quite incredible," she said. One of her hands held itself up to me, containing my fallen wand. I took it with a smile before struggling to bring myself to my feet, the effects of the stun not fully faded from my muscles, but I luckily had her to wrap an arm around me and pull me up.
Harry took a few steps towards us now; he had been addressing the gathered students about what the spell had done, all while I was gathering myself so that he would be able to speak with me as well. I felt Luna's grip on me tighten some, but I knew it wasn't purely from protectiveness since it was only Harry coming to us.
He held out his hand, a gesture of respect, and I reached out and grasped it to show him my own. The sting of defeat, regardless of if the duel was nothing more than a practice match, wasn't at all present. It was fun, what point was there in being bitter about a match that taught me more about what I needed to improve on than I knew before? Sure, it did sting a little, especially considering how Harry somehow managed to stun me through his blindness, but it wasn't something to dwell over.
"That wasn't bad at all, Selene," Harry acknowledged, eliciting a smile from me, "But I think we both have some things we could work on."
I laughed and nodded before twining my hand with Luna's and replying, "I think you're right, but that was still good fun above all else."
"Didn't embarrass you too bad?" He smirked.
"In your dreams, Potter."