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It starts when Katie Bell laments Gilderoy Lockhart (a not uncommon occurrence).
“Ugh!” she said, falling onto a couch in the Room of Requirement. “It sucks that the idiot finally got Duelling Club reinstated after so many years, and immediately botched it! Honestly, with Dumbledore put off it and Umbridge being such a bitch, we’ll all have graduated before they even think of getting it back.” She pushes herself onto her elbows, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Not fair.”
Roger Davies nods along, trying and failing at making Protego Maxima less . . . minima beside her. “Right? This is what’s going to get us to pass our test, but god, what I wouldn’t give to try out some of these spells more.”
Harry listened thoughtfully a little ways away, keeping an eye on the Creevey brothers as they got more and more creative with ways to fling their arms while casting in a way that kept the spell going.
He was busy. Everyone was busy. The professors were breathing down their necks, Umbridge was a constant threat, and Harry had enough to do managing the DA. But . . .
Damn. They were right. Merlin, it would be fun.
Hermione thinks it over carefully, after Harry hesitantly proposed the idea to her.
“It would have to be less often,” she thought aloud, twirling a quill in her hand. “The DA meets once a week, so it would have to be once every two weeks at the most.”
Harry nodded along, pulling a book from the library shelf that they were perusing. “And I wouldn’t be able to do as much with it. Quidditch is canceled, but correcting the work I’m setting everybody takes time, plus doing all the research to figure out what to teach, and making sure I’m not wrong, it’s just-”
He cuts himself off, looking down at the cover before sliding the book back into its place. He gives her a wry smile. “It would be really fun.”
She can’t exactly argue with him there. The DA hadn’t just exposed her own weaknesses as a witch; it had given her back the kind of zest she first felt for magic when she saw McGonagall transform into a cat for the first time. The DA was like a big, fun after-school club like the ones on tv when she was small.
Duelling though . . . it had different potential.
“Let’s talk to Ron,” she settled on. He would have a better idea on the practicality of all this than her.
Until then, hmmm, maybe she could consider testing the Galleon enchantment on some Sickles.
Ron, predictably, loved it. He pumped his fist joyously as they walked through the courtyard.
“It’s our best idea to date,” he said, practically vibrating. “When can we start?”
“Slow down,” Harry laughs. “There is so much more to consider.”
Ron shrugs, lowering his voice as a group passes by them. “What’s to consider? It’s duelling, so we only tell fifth years and up. Meet once every two weeks, early in the mornings because no one cares about curfew if it’s early enough, and we keep it in the Room that everyone knows. Easy.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow to Harry, and he nodded in concession. “Yeah, I should have gone to you first, Ron.”
Ron pumped his fist again. “Oh, I’m gonna pummel Fred and George.”
Hermione ends up using the Sickle idea, and on their first meeting, with confused fifth, sixth, and seventh years gathered, points at Ron and Harry. “You can thank them.”
“For what?” Lee Jordan asks, flicking the silver coin in the air. “You weren’t exactly forthcoming on what this is.”
Ron puffs up his chest, and points to the open floor that the Room has provided. “Welcome to Duelling Club!”
George’s jaw drops, and Fred nudges it shut.
No one has any other questions.
Upon the conclusion of their first meeting, with three small injuries, two slight burns, and one still-sleeping Terry Boot in the corner, Dean Thomas raises his hand.
“I have a proposal for the group,” he says, and Harry waves for him to give it. “We should rename it Fight Club.”
Seamus turns to him, puzzled. “I mean, yeah, I guess that’s true, but how’s it any different from Duelling Club? Or just calling it the DA still?”
Hermione and all the Muggleborns, and halfbloods who know what he means, give various grins, chuckles, and full blown laughs.
“First rule of Fight Club!” Hermione announces gleefully. “No talking about Fight Club!”
Everyone returns back to their dorms, some having the name explained to them on the way, and no one thinks to argue. After all, no one will be talking about Fight Club.
It’s not as easy to hold onto Fight Club as it is the DA. Sometimes they skip a meeting, too many people inundated with the reality of school. Sometimes Harry arrives at the Room and everyone has slept in, which he can’t really blame them for.
But even when it’s harder to do, it becomes worth it when he sees things like this.
It’s Parvati vs Padma, alone in the center of the room. Everyone is patiently waiting for them to start, some with quill and parchment.
The pattern is this: a pair fights, everyone comments on how they could improve, rinse and repeat. It’s less structured than the DA, which is a relief to Harry. Usually they use what they did in the last DA meeting to improve the fight, but even so, it’s more of a hangout. A hangout where two people fight as viciously as they can, and everyone comments.
Sometimes someone suggests a more efficient wand movement or incantation. Other times someone will demonstrate how to move around a certain spell. Frequently, someone will jump in and ask to see how someone did something insane.
No matter the pairing, everything is exciting to watch, and Harry can let himself sink back into an armchair and appreciate just how good everyone. He may be a ‘professor’, but here he is most definitely not.
What he is, when the Patil twins go up, is nervous.
They are vicious on a good day and downright destructive on a bad day. They know every one of each others’ spells, despite being in different houses, and they could track the others’ movements blind. Everyone who is in the Club for this kind of violence can’t wait for the Patil twins to fight.
And it’s their lucky day.
“Ready?” Harry asks, watching them set their footing firmly. Both nod, and Harry can stop the Weasley twins exchanging money out of the corner of his eye.
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Start.”
It’s an immediate volley, and Harry recognizes each jinx and counter, every conjured and vanished object that flies back and forth. The twins' voices overlap as they bob and weave, calling out incantations interwoven with insults.
“Fuck you! Alarte Ascendare!”
“Bitch! Lacarnum Inflamare!”
The spectators are no better, clamoring over each other to call out encouragement and suggestions. It was ruled early on in the club that distractions are allowed, expressly to improve the attention of the people duelling. Most just use it as an excuse to heckle the way they would at a Quidditch game, if Quidditch wasn’t cancelled.
“Get her ass! Reverse her knees!”
“RA-VEN-CLAW! RA-VEN-CLAW!”
“Don’t fuck this up Parvati, I have Galleons riding on this!”
“Explosions! Fire! Don’t hold back!”
The last one is Ron, who has gleefully been appointed ‘Sanctioned Distractor’. While the crowd was best for verbal distraction, Harry had agreed that duels rarely will ever be unimpeded by outside forces. The trio developed a list of things that could go wrong in a fight, and Ron set to include them every fight.
That is why the room started shaking with a faux earthquake, tripping up both twins and causing a rogue Sternius to fly towards the crowd. Harry lazily blocked it. That was his job on the sidelines.
With a last “Cunt!” from her sister in the second she was recovering her footing, Parvati was hit with a block of ice that encased her to the neck, freezing her wand with it. Padma’s jaw dropped just a little at the success.
Harry stomped the floor with his foot three times. “Ding ding ding! Padma Patil is the winner!”
Both cheers and groans emanated from the crowd as money was exchanged and congratulations given to both the winner and loser. Padma moved forward to gamely melt Parvati from the ice, the two shaking hands in the center.
“Silent spellcasting?” Parvati asked with a groan. Padma shrugged, trying to hold back her grin.
“Just a little thing I’ve been working on.”
Hermione clapped twice, bringing the room's attention to her. “You know the drill. Comments?”
Parvati and Padma stayed in the makeshift ring as people one by one gave critiques to their work, nodding and asking questions when needed. Harry stayed mostly silent until everyone had said their piece, Parvati and Padma returning to the fray with high-fives and pats on the back.
“You have something, Professor Harry,” Lillian Moon, fifth year Slytherin, said loudly. The crowd turned the attention to him in a way he still wasn’t used to, and he shot Lillian a shy smile.
“I mean, I’m not sure,” he defended, but Parvati waved it away.
“Speak,” she demanded, before adding with a wry grin. “Don’t worry, we can take it.”
Harry huffed a little, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, ok. Padma?”
The Ravenclaw twin nodded.
“You didn’t mean to cast Glacius, did you?”
Padma’s eyes widened for a moment, before she dropped her gaze shyly to the floor. “. . . yeah.”
Parvati gaped at her sister for a second before whipping her head towards Harry. “How the hell . . .”
There were a few muttered curses among the group, George shaking his head with a growing smile and Ron outright laughing.
“It’s not that crazy,” Harry said, raising his hands. It really wasn’t! “The color was slightly off, and Padma looked more surprised than she would have if she’d been practicing and it worked, and her wand movement was off in a way that didn’t make sense. The Ebublio Jinx, yeah?”
It was Padma’s turn to roll her eyes at him. “Yes, you nerd. This is why we call you Professor.”
It wasn’t long after that they called it quits for the day, people slowly trickling out through different sides of the room until it was only Harry, Hermione, and Ron left.
“You know, they’re all getting really good,” Ron said lightly, making a few pillows dance through the air at the same time, weaving around each other until one bumped into the other and both fell. “Shit.”
“I didn’t think we’d come along this fast,” Hermione agreed, distracted with some parchment.
“Do you think we could beat Auror’s in a fight?” Harry joked, pulling his cloak back on as he prepared to leave.
Ron paused, the rest of the pillows falling. “Well . . . yeah.”
Harry laughed at that, picking up his bag from the floor. “Good one, Ron! See you guys at breakfast.” He was gone through a side door a moment later, leaving a contemplative Ron and a distracted Hermione.
There was a quiet moment, filled only with the scratch of Hermione’s quill.
“Hey, Hermione?”
She looked up to see him staring at the ceiling, a distant look on his face. “Yes?”
“Do you guys know how crazy this is?”
She frowned at the question, setting her quill down. “How so?”
Ron took another beat to think that over, turning the ideas in his head over and over until he had the words for them.
“Well, you guys didn’t grow up with a baseline for what’s beginner or advanced magic, yeah? That’s just normal. And we started the DA to keep everyone afloat, so we could all pass out tests and be ready for next year's DADA class where we might have a competent teacher.”
She nodded at this, not understanding where he was going.
“It’s beyond that now, by a lot,” Ron confessed, turning to meet her eyes. “I grew up visiting the Ministry as a kid, and whenever Dad would show me around, he would let me watch the Aurors duelling. It was the most exciting part. It was also kind of equal to what we’re doing in the regular DA.”
She would have argued with this, and there was a part of her that begged to. But she’d learned enough to know she was out of her depth in this conversation. Ron had grown up around all this in a way she would never be able to replicate. He knew what he was saying.
That didn’t mean she believed it right away.
“What we do in here,” Ron gestured around. “For our Fight Club? Merlin, it’s like watching expert duelers.”
The sentence sits in the air as they both take it in. Ron looks genuinely shocked by the pieces he’s put together, like even he can’t believe it might be true.
Hermione hums to herself. “And you’re sure?”
Ron just nods. “I think you could ask anyone who’s grown up around magic. It’s not . . . usually like this. At least, it hasn’t been since the war.”
She rolls her parchment up and places it in her bag as she mulls it over. If true, then they’re doing something unprecedented. Training masters instead of N.E.W.T. students, fighters instead of students.
But Fight Club is such a small part of their lives. It doesn’t exist outside of here, in the misty early morning. It doesn’t even exist for half of the DA. It’s not part of the story of how they’re all going to ace their exams, or how most of them are waiting for the other foot to drop on what may well be another war.
“I guess Umbridge better be careful, then,” Hermione says brightly, rising to her feet to leave, Ron joining her. “Roger Davies was showing me how to throw a punch the other day, and if I can do it while duelling . . .”
She trails off with a smile, and Ron returns it, throwing an arm over her shoulder as they leave.
“You ever heard of the International Duelling Circuit? I’m thinking we put together a team-”
Hermione cuts him off with a playful shove, and they quietly laugh their way back to Gryffindor Tower.
No one talks about Fight Club. But it exists, and for now, that is just enough.