To the Addams family, a duel is an intimate, beautiful expression of interpersonal conflict. It requires the sharp ring of Toledo steel, the scent of sweat and blood, and a terrifyingly close proximity to one's opponent. A true duel is a dance of lethal physics and psychological warfare, culminating in a strike that leaves the loser either severely humbled or missing an appendage.
The British wizarding concept of a duel, as presented in the Great Hall on a freezing December evening, was a profound embarrassment to the art of combat.
Sunshine Addams stood near the back of the gathered crowd of students, her hands folded neatly over her beige woolen cardigan. The long dining tables had been vanished, replaced by a gilded, elevated stage that stretched down the center of the hall. The ceiling mirrored the dark, snowy night outside.
Gilderoy Lockhart swept onto the stage in robes of shimmering plum, waving to the crowd as if he were arriving at a theatrical premiere rather than a martial exercise. Beside him stood Severus Snape, draped in his usual black, radiating an aura of such intense, homicidal irritation that it practically formed a visible storm cloud over his greasy head.
"Gather round, gather round!" Lockhart bellowed, flashing his painfully white teeth. "Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little Dueling Club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions!"
Sunshine let her eyes glaze over, deploying her Wallflower Protocol with practiced ease. Her face was a mask of docile, slightly anxious innocence. Internally, the sixty-year-old survivor was analyzing the tactical layout of the room.
The stage is elevated, offering no cover, her mind cataloged coldly. The students are packed together in a dense cluster, completely vulnerable to ricocheting spells. They are treating a combat exercise like a spectator sport. It is a miracle this entire society hasn't accidentally exterminated itself.
Lockhart and Snape demonstrated the formal dueling bow—a stilted, ridiculous gesture that involved raising their wands like swords.
"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart beamed to the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course!"
A critical error, Sunshine noted. Never draw a weapon unless you intend to permanently neutralize the threat. Hesitation is a fatal vulnerability.
"One... two... three!"
Snape moved with the speed of a striking viper. He did not shout his incantation; he merely slashed his wand through the air. A blinding flash of scarlet light erupted from his wand tip, striking Lockhart squarely in the chest.
The fraudulent Defense professor was lifted entirely off his feet. He flew backward through the air, crashing heavily into the far wall and sliding down onto the gilded stage in a crumpled, groaning heap of plum-colored fabric.
The Slytherins cheered. The Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors gasped in shock.
Sunshine blinked, maintaining her wide-eyed expression of fright, but inside, a tiny, cold sliver of respect materialized for the Potions Master. It was a clean, efficient kinetic strike. However, she noted with disappointment that Snape did not follow up. He simply stood there, sneering, allowing his opponent to recover. An Addams would have been across the stage before Lockhart hit the floor, a blade pressed to his throat to demand absolute surrender.
Lockhart staggered to his feet, his hair disheveled, frantically trying to play off his total defeat as a deliberate pedagogical choice. He quickly moved the club into student pairings to deflect attention from his humiliation.
Sunshine was paired with a terrified-looking second-year Ravenclaw girl who kept dropping her wand. Because Sunshine was officially registered as a Squib, she was merely instructed to practice the "dodge and weave" mechanics, a task she performed with deliberate, clumsy hesitancy. She tripped over her own beige sensible shoes, apologizing profusely, ensuring she looked exactly as pathetic as the professors expected.
The room quickly devolved into absolute, chaotic mayhem. Spells flew blindly. Children were knocked off their feet, hit with boils, and thrown against the walls. It was a spectacular display of undisciplined magic.
"Stop! Stop! I said disarm only!" Lockhart shouted frantically, completely losing control of the room.
Snape stepped in, extinguishing the chaos with a few sharp counter-curses. He then suggested a demonstration between two specific students: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.
The crowd parted, forming a ring around the stage. Sunshine remained at the absolute edge of the circle, slipping behind the taller form of Ernie Macmillan to ensure her line of sight was clear but her physical presence was obscured.
Harry and Draco climbed onto the stage. The animosity between the two boys was thick enough to cut with a dagger.
At the count of three, Malfoy did not hesitate. He raised his wand and shouted an incantation that produced a sharp, concussive crack.
A long, thick, violently agitated black snake shot out of the end of Malfoy's wand. It hit the wooden stage with a heavy slap, coiling instantly, its head rising as it let out a furious, threatening hiss. The crowd shrieked and scrambled backward.
Sunshine's posture went rigid.
Beneath her right sleeve, the muscles in her forearm tensed. The goblin-steel mechanism of the Widow's Bite rested perfectly against her skin. It would take a fraction of a microsecond to deploy. One microscopic glass dart filled with concentrated Ricin, fired directly into the serpent's open mouth, would drop the creature before it could strike.
I can kill it, her sixty-year-old mind calculated, her bright blue eyes locking onto the snake's swaying head. I can eliminate the biological threat.
But the golden sunflower locket pulsed heavily against her chest, a burning reminder of the stakes.
If a Squib suddenly executed a flawless, untraceable assassination of a summoned beast in the middle of the Great Hall, surrounded by hundreds of witnesses and two professors, the Wallflower Protocol would be obliterated. Dumbledore would drag her into his office. Snape would use Legilimency. The Ministry would be notified.
She forced her muscles to relax. She swallowed the urge to act, letting the cold, gray numbness of her survivor persona wash over her. She shrank back, grabbing the edge of Ernie Macmillan's robe with trembling hands, perfectly mirroring the terror of the other Hufflepuffs.
Lockhart, attempting to look heroic, cast a spell that merely blasted the snake into the air. The serpent landed with a furious thud mere feet from Justin Finch-Fletchley, a muggle-born Hufflepuff.
The snake reared up, baring its fangs, locking its dark, cold eyes onto Justin.
Sunshine's breath hitched. She liked Justin. He was polite, and he never pressed her about her lack of magic. Watching him freeze in absolute terror triggered a deeply buried, painful memory from her past life—the memory of standing paralyzed while a monster loomed over her.
Harry Potter stepped forward.
The boy with the lightning-bolt scar didn't draw his wand. He looked directly at the snake and began to speak.
The sound that left Harry's mouth was not human. It was a low, harsh, rhythmic hissing—a guttural, chilling sequence of syllables that made the hair on Sunshine's arms stand on end. Parseltongue. The language of serpents. The mark of Salazar Slytherin.
To the rest of the Great Hall, it looked as though Harry was egging the snake on, commanding it to attack Justin. The crowd gasped in unified, superstitious horror.
But Sunshine's mind was not clouded by British wizarding prejudice. She watched the physical reaction of the beast. At Harry's hissing command, the snake did not strike. It lowered its head. It ceased its aggressive posturing and slumped onto the floor, utterly docile.
Harry hadn't attacked Justin. He had saved him.
But the narrative did not care about the truth. Justin, terrified and completely misunderstanding the situation, backed away from Harry. "What do you think you're playing at?" he shouted, turning and fleeing the hall.
Snape vanished the snake with a flick of his wand, his dark eyes fixed on Harry with a look of profound, calculating suspicion.
The Dueling Club was immediately disbanded. The students poured out of the Great Hall, the air thick with frantic, terrified whispers. The rumor mill was instantly ignited. Harry Potter was a Parselmouth. Harry Potter was the Heir of Slytherin.
Sunshine walked back to the Hufflepuff basement, sandwiched between a hyperventilating Hannah Abbott and a pale-faced Susan Bones.
She maintained her mask of wide-eyed, silent terror, but her mind was turning with the ruthless precision of a military strategist.
The boy who was supposed to be the savior of the Light was now isolated, feared, and viewed as a monster by the very people he had just protected. It was a classic, devastating psychological trap. When a society turns on its protector, the protector becomes desperate. Dumbledore would use this isolation to forge an even tighter bond of dependency between himself and Harry.
The chessboard is shifting, Sunshine thought, descending the stone stairs into the warm, earthy sanctuary of the Hufflepuff common room.
She touched the cold steel of the bracer hidden on her wrist. She had held her fire tonight. She had allowed the narrative to play out, protecting her own camouflage at the expense of a boy's reputation.
It was a cold, pragmatic choice. But as she curled up in her patchwork bed that night, the sixty-year-old survivor stared into the dark, feeling the familiar, bitter weight of complicity. She was safe behind her beige walls, but the monsters were officially roaming the corridors, and the absolute worst of the violence was yet to come.