Who: Severus and Rabastan What: Duelling practice When: June 26 1980, early evening Where: The Lestrange training property Rating: PG-13, some language Status: Completed!
As Rabastan landed on a northern Scottish slope, he glanced at the darkening sky. He supposed that the air would become quite cool by the time they left the vicinity. Thinking quickly, Rabbit worked on the wards which traditionally only allowed the Lestrange men into the property. Since the only common bond between Severus and himself was the Dark Mark on their left arms, he quickly changed the ward to allow anyone with the Mark into his father's land. Even though others could arrive now, only a Lestrange could access the buildings on the site. That was the beauty of old magic - you could keep out the intruders very efficiently.
Rabbit had known after the unsuccessful Order massacre that he should have been brushing up on his skills early and often. Unfortunately, time had been rather elusive recently. He had owled Severus the coordinates of the place. The message would explode if anyone but Snape opened the letter. Upon reading it, it would incinerate thus preventing anyone else from viewing the top-secret information. Rabbit had learned long ago to take every precaution no matter what a certain schoolmate thought of his ability to be secretive. He had forgotten how cold the night air could be here and he shivered under his travelling cloak while he waited.
After stretching a little and cracking his wrists habitually, Severus apparated to the exact co-ordinates that had been provided for him by Rabastan. He landed in the very same position he'd left in, and it was nice to be able to do that now. Initially, when he'd first obtained his apparition license, he always ended up stumbling embarrassingly. His gaze lifted from the floor to the figure standing nearby. It was refreshing to have an equally punctual acquaintance.
The dark-haired young man nodded curtly in the man's direction. "Rabastan," he piped up, breaking the silence and shoving his hands into his robe pockets in a vain attempt to keep them warm before duelling, "I hope you have not been waiting long."
Rabbit's eyes brightened when he spotted Severus arrive. It would be excellent to get out of this cold air. He shook his head, "No, I arrived just ahead of you to drop the wards." He decided to change the wards back now in case he forgot to do so after duelling. He did not fancy the thought of someone like Rowle stumbling upon the place. Severus could leave through that ward anytime he wanted now that he had arrived. "Let's go in, mate."
He trudged over to the front door and placed his left hand on the door, taking his wand in the right while muttering a long incantation that his father had taught him all those years ago. As the door swung open, the lights clicked on in anticipation of their arrival. His father had bought excellent duelling equipment nearly thirty years ago and the stuff actually remained completely intact. He had stopped short of bringing animals like chimeras and manticores in because the creatures likely would have run out of food between visits and destroyed half the building. Rabbit pitched his cloak over the nearest chair and stepped on to the duelling platform. With a cocky grin, Rabbit twirled his wand and waited for his friend to ready himself, "I am ready when you are, Severus. What do you think of the place?"
Severus, hands deep in the crevices of his pockets by now, followed the younger Lestrange with a sense of curiosity. He didn't really know a lot about Rabastan other than the things everybody knew, and that he liked the company of prostitutes. Even that wasn't information that was relevant any more, since he started his delightful little courtship with... whoever it was. Severus didn't really care. What he did care about at the moment was improving his reflexes and movement. Not his duelling skill, he was confident enough, he just needed to avoid silly mistakes like getting caught by things that weren't even involved in his duels. The duel with Alice Longbottom had cost him the Marchwood kid and a nice little chinwag with the Dark Lord.
He was soon hit with a blast of warm air that required him to remove his exterior robes. He then proceeded to take out his wand from the pocket and face Rabastan. He hoped that he didn't get any bright ideas and manage to transform this into a duelling session. Severus gave a little shrug, if only to wipe the grin from Rabastan's face. "It's adequate," he answered, before pausing momentarily, "What do you recommend for improvement of physicality? Reflexes and the like."
Rabastan personally had been hoping for a duelling practice so his face fell a little at the mention of physical fitness. "Well obviously, it helps that we're spry young gents, Severus." He delayed momentarily while hoping for a response, "But I mean the reality of the situation is that some people take to running in secured areas every day or several times a week. I know Father used to get Dolph & I up every morning after we turned 8 or 9 to run two miles with him. He also trained us to fence to improve the art of duelling. Once he even formulated some exercises to improve our dodging and agility. So we were out there dodging his curses and jumping behind stationary objects only to move again before Father could blow apart the random birdbath or swing set."
Rabbit continued his explanation, "There's any number of physical activities that one can do to aid in that way also. For example, some of the books by light wizards that I have read suggest exercises performed by Muggle athletes. As loathe as I am to admit it, I have put several of the techniques to good use. I could give you a few books from my shelves here that explain those methods better than I could now." Over the next hour, he gave a demonstration of the various exercises for Severus to join in if he so desired. Stepping back at the conclusion with sweat dripping down his brow, he wiped it with a towel which he conjured out of the air and handed Severus a jug of cold water and another towel. Waiting a few moments to catch their breath, he glanced at him, "What do you say we duel now?"
Severus felt positively repulsed at the mere prospect of running. Severus Snape wasn't the type of man to get up at stupid o'clock and go for a leisurely jog around the neighbourhood. He almost snarled at the suggestion. Obviously, he wished for improvement in his physical abilities, but it would take a lot of persuasion and possibly a smidgeon of force, to make Severus go and purchase some clothes suitable for excessive exercise. He was pale and pallid, somewhat unhealthy, and not much more than skin and bones for a reason. He wasn't an athletic boy. He never even liked running with Lily in the park when they were friends. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind his right ear, Severus also mentally dismissed the prospect of fencing. The last part however, ironically the most violent, sounded the most ideal, as long as the curses would not have a long-term effect on his body.
Needless to say, the reluctant Death Eater was just that - reluctant. Consequently, this made his actions lazy and half-hearted. Effortless. He wasn't sweating as much as Rabastan was, but he was still quite exhausted. While he was sick to the back teeth of duelling, Severus found Rabastan's proposition too tempting to decline. Anything but this torture. "Very well," he replied simply, retrieving his wand. "Although, as regretful as I am to spoil your fun, I intend to use mediocre spells that will cause no long-term damage to the body. I trust you do not mind?" He was tempted to add that he was sick of being broken and hurt, but shouting his failures from the rooftops wasn't Severus' thing. Rabastan already knew of course, that Voldemort had punished him well (he was a big fan of throwing Severus into walls and dropping him from ceilings - it made him wonder whether or not he was partial to ragdolls as a child, some kind of complex), but Severus wasn't about to go on about it and make himself appear even more of a failure to the Dark Lord. He already felt guilty enough about feeling some hint of hostility towards Voldemort, after reading the article from the future, the one that documented the Potters' deaths.
"No that's fine, I don't fancy getting hurt again like I did at Lestrange Manor. Bella removed all the bones in my fucking arm," Rabbit was still rather pissed about the end result of that duel. He had left early that day, probably earlier than he had needed to but he didn't really care what Bellatrix thought of him. Hell, he didn't care what anyone thought except those Death Eaters he considered closest to him like Alecto, Lucius, and Severus. Quickly taking a long drink of water, Rabbit put down the glass on a neighboring table and hopped aboard the platform. Since Severus already had his wand out, Rabbit cast a nonverbal densaugeo curse at Severus's face which he followed with a quick tarantallegra at his feet. Meanwhile, he held his wand at the ready as he waited to deflect incoming spells.
Severus' observant eyes caught Rabastan's sudden change of stance and laid-back attitude, and deflected whatever was coming at him with a quick, sharp protego. He paused for a brief second, presuming that his spell was successful, before shooting a nicely aimed expelliarmus at him. Severus, while being fully aware of the benefits and advantages of non-verbal spell casting, much preferred verbally duelling. He liked to be able to vent his anger into a scream or a heartless utterance. Not to mention that half the time, the spells that Severus was fond of using, nobody knew what they were or what they could do so it didn't matter if he announced them beforehand or not. His love of the Dark Arts, he confidently assumed, was unrivalled by almost all of his fellow Death Eaters. Of course, he hadn't the right to use such spells now, but he was so used to verbal casting, he didn't much fancy switching just for one duel.
Straight after, he decided to fire an incarcerous at Rabastan, before stopping straight after he'd cast it. His mouth felt quite numb, his lips were... stretching? Severus' left hand flew to his mouth and an expression of shock passed across his pale features. His teeth were growing, that bastard Rabastan. Severus wondered why it had been ever so easy to deflect his spell. He cursed loudly, what sounded suspiciously like a snarled "fuck" but one couldn't be sure. His teeth, now thrice the size of his original set, were distorting any attempts of coherence. He felt like kicking himself. He had not acted fast enough again. This was what he had come here for. A wave of anger swallowed him whole, and he cast another spell. He thought briefly of Sectumsempra, but his logical side decided against it. The battlefield was no place for unnecessary anger. An ironic rictusempra was sent Rabastan's way, non-verbally. Who would be laughing now?, he thought bitterly.
Quickly sidestepping the disarming charm, Rabastan spotted his teeth-enlargment hex strike Severus's teeth. He turned his face into an impassive mask as it would not do to laugh at one of his friends' misfortunes. Deep down he put aside the thought that Severus probably should have been able to deflect that one. Deflecting the incarcerous spell with a brisk application of protego, Rabbit marveled at his own shield charm. It had been rather good so much so in fact that it hung around long enough to deflect the rictusempra off course and made it splay harmlessly on the nearest training dummy.
Noticing Snape's teeth which were growing larger by the moment, he summoned a potion from his father's medicine closet. Rabbit explained, "This should delay further growth for an hour or two until you can get something to shrink them." There was no point in continuing a duel when his partner had teeth that did not allow him to duel in that much pain. Rabbit inwardly cursed himself for being too much of a gentleman. It would have been awfully easy watching Severus writhing in pain on the ground when his teeth reached the floor but he supposed that would not be too good for Snape's spinal column.
Severus thought it would be nice to show Rabastan exactly his thoughts on the medicine offered to him with a disgusted/elitist/dismissive 'no, thank you' but seeing as his mouth was fucking well on its way to be as large as his own head, he thought the better of it. All that he could do to show his distaste at the offer was to look upon the small vial with loathing before immediately looking away and casting an emotionally powerful finite incantatem as well as a reducio. They would slowly, but surely, lessen in size. Or at least, he dearly hoped. There would be nothing more embarrassing than dismissing Rabastan's potion so easily, and having to ask for it's assistance after all.
Proceeding his silent charms, he figured he would cast just one more. To let Rabastan know that he could not be defeated by a child's spell, to subtely climb one foot higher on the male dominance/pride ladder as well as, God forbid, to have the tiniest hint of some kind of joke. He cast another rictusempra, after a tiresome mental debate between that and a jelly leg jinx.
Slightly pissed that Severus had decided to turn down his kind gesture, Rabastan called over, "I hope that works for you, mate. That's a very risky move. I've never heard of anyone doing that and besides that you could end up with no teeth left." Now that Snape had turned down his potion, Rabbit nastily cast another nonverbal spell but this time it was the Bat-Bogey hex.
If this worked, Sev could get carried away by bats. That would be quite fitting considering his black cape that made him look like an overgrown bat. He could spend some quality time with his little friends in a cave. Unfortunately, he had spent too much time thinking about Snape flying around like a bat and not about the next curse flying towards him. Upon being hit by rictusempra, Rabbit burst out in laughter at the tickling sensation that he felt all over although the tickling on his feet started his laughing. Quickly casting a nonverbal finite incantatem, he held up his hand to call the duel to an end as he continued guffawing only this time about the picture of a bat-like Snape hovering in an attic. Covering his face with his hands, Rabbit laughed until tears of joy streaked down his face. He could only imagine what Severus must be thinking at this moment.
It seems as though they had both managed to cope well with deflecting charms, as Severus had easily deflected the Bat Bogey, after inwardly reprimanding himself harshly. He had been constantly vigilant, wary, prepared, even though the battle was over. He would never underestimate anybody again. Especially not if he was willing to hex after the duel had stopped. He wouldn't put it past his enemy to have the same train of thought. The unenthusiastic Death Eater just looked on, observing Rabastan with a slight... He didn't even know what it was, but this duelling session had been very, hm, different. Definitely not sticking to the usual conventions, at least.
The duel was over. Thank God. He tentatively lowered his wand, his wariness was screaming at him while his own desires were to just stop with the duelling. He wasn't quite sure what to say in reaction to the spell's effects. It was unnerving.
Rabbit grinned at him and reached out his arm to shake hands, "Good duel, mate. We should get together again sometime." He headed towards the door and placed his travelling cloak over his robes. "It'll be pretty cold out here. We should be able to apparate from just outside the door." Opening the door, he stepped out and bit back a curse at how frigid the air had turned in the last few hours.
Shaking Rabastan's hand, he nodded in agreement. "Certainly," it was still muffled and difficult to understand his speech, but not impossible. It was proving near impossible for Severus not to have sunken into the ground due to embarrassment by now. He maintained a straight face. Or as straight as he could keep it with teeth twice the size as they were originally. "If only for the running." He too, stepped over the threshold and was welcomed by the wind lashing at his sunken cheeks. Turning to his duelling partner, he nodded curtly and disappeared with a loud 'pop'.
Rabastan stayed just one minute longer to make certain the door was locked and the wards were in place before apparating home.