Harry Potter The Long Lost Malfoy

"But running away isn't really a Defense tactic, is it?" Harry stood up and wiped some of the sweat from his forehead. Ted was a sadist when he wanted to be, drilling Harry and Draco in dodging, various shields that were much more draining than most of the spells they practiced in class, and running and leaping that they could use magic in their muscles to enhance.

"Of course it is." Draco had the superior expression on his face that made Harry wish, sometimes, that they weren't brothers, so he could get away with punching him. "When you retreat from a greater force and live to fight another day, that's still a victory."

"Yes, it is." Harry didn't think it was his imagination that Ted looked a little amused at Draco's pompous tone of voice, but he nodded at both of them. "I understand the impulse to stand up to your enemy and always win, Harry."

"Henry's a Gryffindor." Draco acted as if he wanted to emphasize Harry's full name since neither Ted nor Tonks used it. "It's no wonder he thinks that running away is dishonorable or something."

"That's not it!" Harry blushed a little hotly when Ted stared at him. "All right, it's part of it. But I also think that if you leave an enemy behind you, they might just curse you in the back."

Ted smiled. "Those aren't bad instincts, Harry." He ignored the way that Draco grumbled Henry not quite under his breath. "But especially as an underage wizard, you'll encounter plenty of people who are stronger than you. If one of them is trying to kill you, then running away is both honorable and practical."

Harry nodded slowly. He already knew that Ted was stronger than him, a lot more so. And he was sneaky, too. He'd caught Harry off-guard time after time with fairly simple jinxes and hexes that Harry would have said he was protected against.

"Now," Ted muttered, and took a step back. "I want to try something a little different. Stand over there, and I'll fling some spells at you. But they'll hit this shield first." A sharp sweep of his wand, and a glowing white wall of light separated Draco and Harry from him. "I want you to tell me, before they hit the shield, whether they're the kind that would be good to run away from, or whether you can stand up to them."

"What if we've never seen them before?" Draco demanded.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually." Ted winked.

Harry watched closely as Ted stood there for a second, his wand dangling in his hand as if he'd forgotten that he'd drawn it, and then he whirled around and began sending spell after spell at the shield. Harry thought it would be too fast at first, but then he realized that Ted was repeating the same spell three or four times, so they had a good idea of what it looked like.

The first one was the Stunner that he'd taught them. "Deflect!" Harry called.

"Run away!" Draco yelled at the same time.

Harry frowned at him, and Ted stopped casting. "Tell me why you said what you said. Draco, you first."

"Maybe Henry knows a shield that can stand up to a Stunner, but I don't. And if a Stunner hits you, then it's really easy for your enemies to capture you."

Ted nods. "Those are good, well-reasoned points." He looked at Harry, who scowled a little. It sounded as if Ted thought that Harry's points wouldn't be the good, well-reasoned ones.

Harry tamped down on his irritation and tried only to concentrate on the question that he'd been asked. "I could dodge it. A Stunner doesn't move fast, compared to some of the spells that you've been showing us. And I do think that I could raise a shield strong enough to hold one off."

"Do you?" Ted smiled, and this time, there was a nasty edge to the expression. "Let's see you do it, then." With a snap of his wand, a section of the wall between them disappeared right in front of Harry, and Ted stepped forwards, obviously aiming his wand and making a big, exaggerated show of it.

"Protego!" Harry bellowed, instinctively going for the first Shield Charm that Ted had taught them. It was also the most powerful, but that meant it was going to drain them faster, as Ted had explained.

Ted's Stunner was most of the way to him before the shield sprang up in front of Harry. Harry frowned with concentration, feeling the sweat pouring down his forehead faster than it had when Ted had made them run around earlier.

But he'd claimed that he could do this. That meant he had to. Harry recklessly fed more and more magic into the shield, and it glowed blue-white. For a second, the light was bright enough to fling shadows onto the wall.

Ted's Stunner hit it and vanished in a roar of red sparks. Harry let go of the shield a second later, with a gasp, and sagged to his knees.

"Henry!"

Harry thought distantly that there always seemed to be someone around screaming that whenever he did something just a little bit difficult. He reached up and patted Draco's hand as it snatched his shoulder. "I'm all right, Draco."

"That was a stupid tactic to use, in some ways," Ted murmured. "It would leave you vulnerable to anything that an enemy wanted to use immediately afterwards."

....

Do you want to read ahead by more than 60 exciting premium chapters?

Then join my p*atreon right now.

Link: p*atreon.com/Sonic_Spectre (Remove the *)

Free members can unlock upto 2 chapters.