Chapter 45 - Dueling with Professor Flitwick

Harry ducked and rolled to the left just in time for a stunner to phase past him by a few centimeters.

He had no doubt in his mind that if Flitwick was taking this seriously, then he was have sent two more stunners to the places where he would try to dodge, which would have ended with him being stunned.

But just like Flitwick, he was not giving his all in the duel.

For one thing, they were only use low level spells against one another.

For another, he was not wearing his robes for this dueling session since Flitwick had told him that he would never learn how to dodge properly if her relied overly on his charmed clothes which might prove to be dangerous in an actual battle.

So here he was. Jumping from one place to another like a fool, trying to save his skin from the monster known as Filius Flitwick who seemed to be enjoying this way too much then he should.

Harry transfigured a shield from the floor in order to take a breather but the shield was destroyed but a weak reducto curse the very next second and he was forced to duck and dodge the next few spells once again while he tried to throw a few of his own every now and then, most of which didn't even reach anywhere close to the Professor.

He realized that despite being a genius in charms, transfiguration and other subjects, he was absolute pants in a duel.

And his aim with a wand was absolutely horrendous to the point that he wondered how the original Harry Potter had ever managed to hit anything with it.

Then again, deep down he knew that it wasn't the wand that suċkėd. It was him.

Oh well. Practice makes perfect.

He dodged a few more red stunners from the professor but he had been doing this for some time now and was too exhausted and too slow to dodge anything and before long, a stunner struck him in the left shoulder, effectively ending this pathetic duel.

He woke up with a start and found Flitwick stowing away his wand while standing beside him as he himself laid on the ground in a sprawl.

One thing knew about duels was that Dignity was the first causality of any duels.

"You did good Mr Potter." Flitwick said with a huge smile "You've got an athletic build and have great reaction time. Not many new duelists are able to dodge as well as you did back there."

Yet despite all the praise, Harry felt lost.

He knew that Charms, Transfiguration and Ancient Runes were far apart from Dueling.

There was the fact that his aim was absolute shit. And even without it, he found it hard to concentrate properly while he was being pelted with spells.

He lost almost all of his concentration while fleeing for his life and coming up with a successful plan to defeat an opponent seemed like a far fetched dream.

He knew that unlike the other subjects that came easily to him, Dueling was something that he would have to work very hard to improve.

But he also knew that he had advantages that other didn't have. Like three times larger mana capacity than an average wizard of his age.

Then there were his enhanced weapons like the hand gun that he was still adding new charms on. He had yet to use an enhanced weapon against Flitwick because he knew that his weapons were dangerous but in a real life and death situation, he would not shy away from using every advantage that he had.

Then there was the enhanced defensive robes that he was working on. He knew that at this point, they were only capable of stopping low level spells but this was just the start.

His end goal was to neutralize every spell in existance so that he would be able to get the ultimate defense.

Of course, he knew that such a thing would be almost impossible to achieve as there was no such thing as an ultimate defense but he would still try to make his defense as strong as possible.

Aside from that, there was the human transfiguration that he was working on that would improve his senses in a real battle.

So even though Dueling was a weak point of him, he knew that he would be able to make do with all his other skills. Still, it would be better for him if he learned as much as he could from the Professor.

After all, it was not everyday that an International Dueling Champion takes out his time to teach you.

"Thanks Professor." Harry said and stood up from the ground and dusted his robes off before realizing that he had recently charmed it to clean itself.

But then again, habits die hard.

"That will be all for today Mr Potter." Flitwick said with his usual enthusiasm "If there's nothing else, then I'll meet you tomorrow at the same time." Saying that, he turned to move but Harry already had something on his mind that he needed to consult the professor about.

"Wait Professor." He called out and Flitwick stopped on his tracks and turned around to look at him curiously.

"There is something I wanted to ask you about?"

"Something?"

"A charm." Harry nodded "A very complicated charm that I've heard very few know about and that even fewer people can perform."

Now Flitwick looked thoroughly interested. "Which charm would that be Mr Potter."

"The same charm that my parents used in order to hide from the Voldemort." Flitwick flinched at that name and Harry inwardly frowned at this. He had forgotten how every wizard and witch in the magical world feared the Dark Lord name. But the fact that even his own teacher was frightened of that name left a bad taste in his mouth and put things into larger perspective.

As of yet, he was far weaker than Flitwick.

And Flitwick in turn was far weaker than Voldemort.

Who in turn was a bit weaker than Dumbledore.

Yup. Becoming the world greatest wizard was going to be a long road. But that's not what he needed to focus on right now.

"I heard that my parents used the Fidelius charm to hide from the dark lord. And that he was utterly incapable of finding them and would have never been able to attack them if they were not betrayed by their own friend."

"Where did you hear that Mr Potter?" Flitwick asked sadly, looking a bit pale at he memory of his lost students.

"It was written in all the newspapers from back in the day." He lied smoothly. "It's not really much of a secret when you think about it." He said and pretended to look sad at the memory of his not-parents.

"I'm afraid I've never used that charm myself as I've never needed to. But I know a thing or two about this ancient charm. Tell me Mr Potter, what do you want to know about the charm?"

"The first thing I want to know is that if this charm was so powerful and if it was so good at hiding people then why didn't more people use it in the last war?" he asked.

Flitwick smiled sadly at that and started his explanation which went on for the next half an hour during which Harry continued to ask questions upon questions regarding the charm for when he himself would need to cast the charm.

Turned out that only a very complicated charm that very few people are proficient enough to cast.

Moreover, it was a very ancient charm. Perhaps one of the most ancient charms. So very few people know how to cast it.

Those were one of the few simple reasons why it was not widely popular in the last war.

After the explanation, Harry thanked the professor profusely before leaving for the rooms.

Truthfully, he had wanted to cast that charm on three adjacent rooms and make Penelope or Hermione the secret keeper. Plus a house elf or two for food and coffee and other basic necessities.

That way, no one would be able to tell where he spends most of his time and all his projects and experiments will remain hidden.

The problem was that even if he knew how to perform the charm, which he didn't at the moment, he was still not powerful enough to cast the charm right now.

At least he was not powerful enough to cast the charm on three whole rooms.

Perhaps he'll cast the charm on one single room and then use other charms to enlarge the room and divide it in different sections so that his time travelling counterparts won't be able to see each other in case something goes wrong.

After all, playing with time might be beneficial but if you do something wrong then the repercussions might be just as bad. So he was very careful whenever he used the time turner.

He looked up front and realized that he had already taken various shortcuts and reached the last room in the 6th floor in the east wing which was so abandoned that not even the people inside the portraits bothered to come here.

He shook his head and entered the room where all his books and study table were kept in a neat and orderly way, no doubt the actions of one Hermione Granger.

Then he took out the book on ancient charms and dived into it with full fervor.