Dismayed, Harry threw his bamboo wand against the wall of the Room of Requirement. It bounced off the marble masonry and clattered to the ground with only a whisper of a sound, indicating something Harry knew he should have been aware of earlier. Compared to his old holly and phoenix feather wand, the bamboo wand was much too light. It even felt that way in his hand. Casting spells with it made him feel like he wasn't using a wand at all. He drew his pine wand, which felt a little better, and drew a deep, calming breath.
"Easy does it," he told himself, trying to center his attention on the spell he was trying to cast. Closing his eyes and counting to ten seemed to help a bit as he imagined himself standing next to the far wall of the room. Willing himself to suddenly be next to the wall, Harry furrowed his brow in concentration as he tried to avoid apparating there on pure reflex. Feeling like he had a decently good grip on his mental image, Harry opened his eyes and flicked his wand. " Ego exertus !" he intoned.
A wave of vertigo washed over him, and the room suddenly started spinning violently. Harry clenched his eyes shut, but doing so didn't help the nausea growing in him one bit. He fell, crashing to the floor, just barely managing to prop himself up with one arm until he finally stopped trying to force the spell to work. Dropping the pine wand in exhaustion, Harry rolled over onto his back and stared listlessly at the ceiling for a few long moments until he was reasonably certain he could stand up without his breakfast making a repeat performance.
When he finally did manage to get to his feet, it was only to fall back into a cushy armchair that the room had conveniently placed there for him. With a weary sigh, Harry reached down and picked up his wand before leaning back again. Staring at the piece of wood in his hand, he felt tempted to discard it for firewood because it wasn't good for much else, anyway. Maybe Bellatrix was right, it was time to get a proper wand, no matter how much he didn't want to talk to Ollivander. If he was going to face Voldemort, he wasn't going to do it with a flimsy piece of junk. The wand worked well enough for simple things, like light charms and stunners, but even they didn't come with the ease that Harry remembered from his holly and phoenix feather wand. Incidents had piled up over the last few weeks that had reinforced Bellatrix's comments that he needed a new wand: misfired charms, accidental hexes, spells that had had unexpected results-and not always good ones, either. Minor things had become issues of major concentration for Harry.
And attempting the spell that Bellatrix had challenged him to learn? Not a chance. All of his attempts so far had failed miserably, and in the weeks since their first practice duel, Harry had made the intimate acquaintance of the floor more than once because of it. Most attempts left him dizzy and feeling nauseous, except for the few times when he had gotten stubborn and had kept trying to force the spell to work-as he had done just now. Those cases had left him on his knees with a burning throat that felt as though he was about to cough his lungs out and a headache that several bottles of firewhiskey would be hard-pressed to reproduce. Any sane wizard would've given up on learning the spell by now-or at least would have gotten a new wand before trying again-but Harry had remained stubborn and kept on trying, if only to show up Bellatrix.
Thinking of Bellatrix made Harry check his watch. At this point, he didn't even trust his wand to do a time charm right. When he saw the time, he frowned. She was late for their practice session. Usually, Bellatrix arrived early. It was strange to see her so… not quite energetic but eager to test herself against him. For some reason that eluded him, she seemed to enjoy their dueling sessions, and though Harry had to admit it was good to keep his skills sharp, he didn't really derive any enjoyment from their duels. But she's a heck of a lot better than I gave her credit for, he added silently. However, she still hadn't been good enough to beat him… yet. As much as he hated to admit it, Bellatrix was by far the better duelist, at least when it came to technique and variety. She knew spells both mundane and arcane and had a sharp intellect that made her a potent adversary in combat, and Harry, mainly because he had never formally concluded his higher education, couldn't match that.
The only reason he had the upper hand on her was the experience he had gained during years of warfare and his unorthodox fighting methods. Wizards were woefully unprepared for someone who fought with their bare hands, or fought dirty, and Harry had a lot of experience fighting dirty. During the latter parts of the war, fighting dirty was often the only way for the Order members to stay alive. Etiquette in combat was a luxury they couldn't afford. As a result, he had defeated her in each of their practice sessions, and had thus been able to exercise the option of spacing the sessions out more than Bellatrix would have liked. He didn't hold any illusions that it would go on for much longer, though. Beating her became progressively harder each time they faced off. Apparently, she was adjusting her tactics to his way of fighting and had simply pulled more spells from the myriad she seemed to know. He suspected that she put in extra time studying in an attempt to find a way to beat him.
When several more minutes passed without Bellatrix showing up, Harry turned his thoughts to the book from which she had obtained the image projection spell. He tried to remember if there was anything specific in the text that he had missed. With a brief flicker of his mind, the book appeared in his hands. Harry opened the book and thumbed through it until he reached the correct page. The spell description was brief and limited itself to a couple of lines about the spell's effects and the required wand movements. Just by glancing at it, Harry could tell that he hadn't missed anything; the section was barely a paragraph, if that. With a heavy sigh, Harry rose from the chair. The book vanished when the room figured out that he wasn't going to need it anymore. He was heading for the door when it opened, admitting Bellatrix.
"I thought you'd forgotten about tonight," Harry said.
"I didn't," the young witch replied curtly, dropping the bundle she was carrying on the floor. "Something came up."
"What's that?"
"Lestrange."
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