"Practice makes perfect, and that concludes the demonstration! Now, I will come among you and pair you all up. Professor Snape, if you would be willing to assist me..." Lockhart began to organize the students' duels.
Snape approached with a murderous look on his face. His reputation was so formidable that many students instinctively recoiled when they saw him. Just because Lockhart could best him didn't mean they could; they weren't fools.
Seamus and Justin were paired up. Harry and Ron tried their best to get close to Lockhart, but Snape walked up to them first. "The dream team should be broken up, I think," he sneered. "Weasley, you can partner with Finnigan. Potter—" He seemed to want to vent the anger from his own defeat on them.
"Draco, I think the saviour would be a very suitable opponent for you. Let's see what kind of person you can turn the famous Potter into. As for you, Miss Granger." Snape turned his gaze down to Hermione.
"You will pair with Pansy." Snape found a Slytherin student nearby.
Hermione let out a sigh of relief. This gave her a chance to get close to Pansy. She had intentionally walked a few steps in that direction earlier, and she hadn't expected it to actually work.
"Face your partners!" Lockhart called out from the stage. "Bow!"
The two walked slowly onto the stage. Harry was extremely nervous; he still remembered the miserable state Ron had been in at Hagrid's hut.
"Raise your wands and prepare!" Lockhart said loudly. "On the count of three, cast your spells to disarm your opponent—only disarm—we don't want any accidents. One—two—three—"
The two held their wands over their shoulders. When the count reached three, they turned around. Whether it was due to nervousness or something else, Harry struck first. He raised his wand and pointed it directly at Draco: "Expelliarmus!"
A faint red light shot out. Compared to the one Snape had used earlier, the colour was much duller, and the speed was slower.
This spell was undoubtedly deflected by Draco's Shield Charm.
"Python Coil!" Draco raised his wand and chanted quickly, but nothing came out of the tip of his wand.
"I said, only disarm!" Lockhart looked at Draco with some dissatisfaction, but Draco smiled and said, "This magic is even safer than the Expelliarmus."
"How is that possible!" Ron said indignantly from off the stage. "Breaking the rules should mean losing points."
"The spell mentioned a snake?" Hermione's heart skipped a beat. For days, all the students had been on edge because of the Basilisk that might or might not exist. There was a buzz of whispering below the stage; everyone had heard the spell mentioning a snake.
Harry was focused and waiting intently, but he noticed that Draco's wand didn't react after he cast the spell. However, he wouldn't underestimate his opponent; he didn't believe Draco would make such a low-level mistake.
Soon, Harry heard gasps from below the stage. He looked down and saw a python coiled around his waist, hissing and flicking its tongue. Its emerald green eyes were staring straight at him, and it was winding its way up his upper body. Aside from the initial moment of fear, Harry, strangely enough, felt a compulsion to trytod communicate with the snake; he felt that if he spoke, the snake would understand him.
"Can you let me go?" Harry asked, staring at the snake.
It had no effect.
"Hermione, what's wrong with Harry?" Ron couldn't help but ask. "Is Harry talking to the rope?"
"I don't know." Hermione shook her head. She was also very puzzled, and she couldn't understand what Harry was saying at all.
The students below only saw a corner of Harry's robe begin to unravel into threads, which then reformed into a rope that tightly coiled around Harry, seemingly trying to restrict his movements, while Harry was uttering some syllables they couldn't understand.
"Is he talking to that rope?" a Ravenclaw student asked.
"Or perhaps it's another counter-curse?"
Harry desperately searched for words he knew, commanding the snake he saw. He didn't know how he was emitting those strange syllables, but his intuition told him the snake could understand. However, reality dealt him a ruthless blow; the snake's head had already wound around his neck, and it was opening its bloody mouth, baring its fangs, and viciously attacking his neck.
Meanwhile, the students saw the rope tightening around Harry's neck.
"Draco, that's enough. The victor is decided." Snape interrupted the duel.
"Of course, Professor." Draco had been keeping his eyes closed the whole time, seemingly very confident in his spell, standing motionless opposite Harry as if deep in thought. "Finite Incantatem!" He suddenly pointed his wand at Harry.
Harry saw the snake slowly retract from his body, and then, in the blink of an eye, it vanished, as if it had never appeared.
The students below felt this duel was very boring. It was far less exciting than the duel between the teachers.
Lockhart, however, spoke up: "What an exquisite spell. It reminds me of an old Eastern proverb, called 'Winning without... without what was it?'"
"Subduing the enemy without fighting." A black-haired girl in the crowd added.
"Yes, yes, yes, that's it. You all know my ideal is world peace, and this spell is just perfect for my taste. Ten points to Slytherin!" Lockhart raised his wand and said cheerfully.
Harry was still staring blankly across the stage. Even though his opponent had already stepped down, he still hadn't come to his senses. He was completely confused, not knowing what exactly had happened. It wasn't until he heard Hermione and Ron calling out to him that he snapped out of it; he needed to yield his spot to the next pair of opponents.
He walked off the stage numbly, the image of the snake still appearing in his mind.
"Oh, Harry, why are you spacing out? You could have just pulled that rope off with your hands." Ron couldn't help but complain, as he felt Harry's loss was too strange.
"Rope?" Harry looked at Ron in surprise.
"Did you see something else?" Hermione asked. Her intuition told her this magic wasn't that simple.
"I only saw a snake," Harry said slowly.
"It was clearly a rope; everyone saw it." Ron looked at Harry in disbelief, but he believed Harry wouldn't lie, so he was even more unable to understand.
"It must be that he combined several spells, creating a hallucination while simultaneously unravelling and reassembling his robe," Hermione stated her deduction.
"Alright, then there's nothing to be done." Ron sighed. He felt that if he had seen spiders during a duel, he wouldn't have performed any better than Harry. For most people, snakes were creatures worthy of fear.
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