"Expelliarmus."
I left the area of the charm's effect before counterattacking.
"Rictusempra."
"Expulso."
The charm that I had aimed at Mary came back to me. This is one of the properties of the Expulso charm that we had discovered—it can reflect spells, but its precision is not absolute. For example, if I used Expulso while holding my katana, it would be somewhat like playing baseball, so you have to be very precise to send it back to its original target.
My own charm hit me, causing uncontrollable laughter that started to hurt.
After Marie cast the counter-spell, I finally calmed down and caught my breath again.
"Congratulations on your victory."
"Thank you. Now I lead with 45 wins to 44."
Since our third year, we have enjoyed training by dueling. It was the best way to practice spells, and in addition, we gained a lot of experience for real combat.
"You're really strong, Marie, because you just chained five wins in a row."
"Yes, but I had to experience defeat and analyze your fighting strategy first to truly understand how to fight you. Now, I feel that unless you use your katana, I could beat you every time."
"We'll see about that."
We leaned forward and got into position before attacking.
"Expulso!"
"Protego Totalum!"
A new wave of light from our spells filled the room.
As the fight intensified, Hermione entered the room with red eyes, which made me lose my concentration. I was hit by a dancing charm and then lost my wand to an Expelliarmus.
"46 wins to 44."
"What's wrong, Hermione?"
I didn't pay attention to Marie, who was celebrating, because I had the impression that Hermione needed to talk.
Apparently, Harry received a Firebolt for Christmas, but the problem was that there was no letter, meaning it was anonymous.
Hermione suspected that it could be a gift from Sirius and that the broom might have been tampered with to cause Harry's death.
Hermione's assumption isn't entirely unreasonable because the Black family is very old and extremely wealthy. Buying such an expensive broom and then selling it wouldn't have cost Sirius much (even if I assume he didn't actually purchase it himself).
I assumed I knew the rest because I had overheard Hermione and Professor McGonagall discussing it during the Christmas feast.
And, as expected, that's exactly what happened. The professor confiscated Harry's broom so it could be thoroughly inspected.
"I understand, and you weren't wrong to do what you did. The only problem is that Professor McGonagall should never have said it was going to be dismantled."
"But that's the normal procedure."
"Yes, but if we look at it from his point of view—he lost his Nimbus 2000 and then won an extremely expensive and more efficient broom. He didn't even have time to test it before it was confiscated, and then he was told it would be dismantled. I'm sure he imagined that instead of getting his Firebolt back, he'd receive a pile of broken wood."
The problem with all this is that Harry doesn't consider Hermione's good intentions, so he and Ron decided to stop talking to her.
"It's completely stupid to refuse to talk over such a trivial matter. You might have saved his life, and instead of understanding your feelings, he's ignoring you."
Hermione began to cry because all the resentment she was unfairly experiencing was too much for her to bear.
"Don't worry, just stay with us while they calm down."
This one choice was the beging of the change of the entire story of Harry Potter, transforming the powerful bond of the Golden Trio into a mere ordinary friendship.