ars longa
Blair finally feels alive again when their Defense against the Dark Art instructor, Professor Haywood, announces the advent of a duelling club.
Her magic sings in her veins. It is Orion himself who trains her and her brothers in the art of dueling. “A Black never shows up to a fight unprepared,” he warns them. Blair relishes it.
Blair is always raring for a fight.
On the day of the first Dueling Club meeting, the room is packed. Professor Haywood has grouped the fourth and second years together. Blair sees Sirius gesturing wildly at her and Reg. “Family reunion!” he mouths, wiggling his eyebrows. Blair crosses her arms, but smiles at him.
Professor Haywood enters the room, clapping his hands loudly. “Okay, kids! Lend me your ears!” He uses strange turns of phrase - he is a half-blood, and proud of his muggle heritage.
“Before we begin, I’d like to have a dueling demonstration from two of my best fourth year students, so all of you know what I expect from you.”
The room falls quiet.
“I’d like to call on Sirius Black and Lily Evans to the platform.”
Sirius lets out a whoop. Professor Haywood raises a brow. “I trust you to be responsible, Mr. Black?”
Sirius grins and sweeps their professor a bow. Somewhere in the background, James Potter shouts, “I’ll protect you, Lily!”
Evans rolls her eyes and shoots a wordless stinging hex at Potter. He gives out an undignified shriek. Blair stifles a laugh. Serves Potter right for disrespecting her. Didn’t his parents teach him pureblood courting traditions?
Sirius barks out a laugh. “I’ll get back at you for that, Lils.”
Lily smirks. “I’d like to see you try, Siri .” Blair admires the mocking tone in Evans’s voice.
They bow to each other.
It is evident to the trained eye that they are evenly-matched, but Sirius looks like he is winning at first. He is always on the offensive, no surprise there, given his propensity to throw himself into danger. Orion has attempted numerous times to train Sirius out of this, to no avail. “We train ourselves well, Sirius, but Blacks never run to fights.” Sirius only grins at this warning.
Sirius swiftly throws a number of spells at Lily, but she parries all of them with a bored flick of her wand. She deftly dances around Sirius’s casting, but doesn’t send out an offensive spell of her own.
Blair sees the opportunity that Lily is waiting for.
Sirius slows for a second. It takes only the most observant eye to catch it, but Lily has been dutifully waiting for Sirius to tire out, so she sees it.
She directs a Bombarda at Sirius’s end of the platform and it collapses. Sirius falls. The force of the spell is so strong that he is thrown to the wall behind him. Lily then sends a stunning spell in his direction, a look of excitement painted on her face. Blair can almost see a palpable glow emanating from the older girl.
The room is still silent. Lily approaches Sirius as if to give him a hand. Instead, when she reaches him, she steps back, and whispers an Incarcerous, binding Sirius to his literal hole in the wall.
Sirius bursts into laughter. “Well-played, Evans. Well-played.”
The room rings with applause, Blair’s included. Admittedly, here is a muggleborn that she actually admires.
She spies Dan from the corner of eye, his gaze directed at Lily Evans, enraptured.
Alright, so maybe there are actually two muggleborns that she admires.