The Serpent of Durmstrang // A Harry Potter FanFiction

Chapter Eight

"Again!"

Harry quickly learned not to give his professor any more advantages during their training sessions, especially since he was not keen to sporting more bruises than necessary. In effect, he learned to hone his reflexes early on during the first few weeks of the year. Now almost two months in, he could say that he had improved significantly, especially since his bruises were becoming less and less each week.

A giant slab of concrete was sent his way, to which Harry quickly responded with a bombarda spell that smashed into the slab and obscured both party's vision with the plume of dust. With a flick of his wand, the chunks of concrete was transfigured into spears of ice, which Harry banished towards his professor.

Harry didn't expect to win, but he hoped at least one of the ice spears hit its mark. However, the absence of any cries of pain or surrender made him even more vigilant. He knew how tricky Professor Gregorovitch was, and while his training was harsh, Harry knew that the man was not even trying.

As expected, a flock of bees had pushed through the still dusty divide between the two. The bees were angrily buzzing and were were already swarming around him. With a slash, Harry cleaved the oncoming bees into two group, and quickly mass transfigured them into to slabs of concrete. He placed both slabs in front of him on after another, just in time as a javelin was banished his way with such a force that it split the first slab into two, and was finally impaled three inches deep into the second slab.

Not wasting any second, Harry transfigured the broken slab into wolves, and sent them towards where the javelin was banished from, while the second slab of concrete and the javelin he transfigured into an aegis, which he positioned just to his left.

Without warning, a loud gong-like sound resounded from his transfigured aegis. Harry didn't even seemed fazed, as he concentrated any attacks from his right side. True to his prediction, his professor had sent another set of metal poles towards him.

The poles were black, and had very sharp ends to them. He had once made the mistake of getting hit by them, and thought he was a goner. It seems, however, that his professor always made sure to enchant any sharp objects he transfigured to hit like a truck, but not pierce the skin. The speed in which Petyr Gregorovitch transfigured and then enchant was faster than Harry could ever match, especially since from what he could see, it took the professor the same amount of time doing both while Harry could only transfigure in the same amount of time.

Harry twirled his wand, and instead of transfiguring the rods, he quickly turned them around and sent them back towards his professor. The dust seemed to be settling, and he could see the vague outline of Professor Gregorovitch just to his right. With a smirk, Harry watched as his Professor was hit by two of the rods he sent back. He could see that the Professor had wobbled a bit, before crumpling onto the floor.

"Got you!" Harry smirked, banishing away the rest of the dust cloud, only to find that the figure he had hit was not Professor Gregorovitch, but rather a mannequin made to resemble him.

Before he could say or do anything, he felt a blunt force hitting him from behind, and then everything turned black.

Petyr Gregorovitch smiled, as he vanished the aegis that Harry had ingeniously used to protect one side of his vision. The young man had gone through leaps and bounds in the past few weeks of training, and reminded the man of himself under Dumbledore's tutelage. Harry had adapted quickly to the simple exercise they had been doing as training. The task was simple, which was that the two casters had to retransfigure whatever their opponent sent towards them. A back and forth transfiguration duel, to define it much simpler. Harry had soaked it all in, and while they had encountered some issues of Harry sticking to a handful of transfiguration patterns, which was mostly the usage of small animals, they had been able to break through that quick enough. Now, Petyr was proud to say that his apprentice had become quite a formidable opponent, although still very predictable.