A.N: This is my first attempt at fanfiction in a few years, so here's hoping I'm not too rusty. This is the first of the six stories that are planned to eventually comprise the Grandmaster and Apprentice series. This is going to become increasingly AU as it goes on, but even in the next few chapters I'm going to take some major liberties with both the History of Magic and the nature of Duelling and its relationship to Charms, Transfiguration and DaDA.

Summary: Having realized that he desperately needs to learn to defend himself, and disillusioned with Lockhart's Duelling Club, Harry decides to find himself a proper teacher, and chooses none other than retired Duelling Grandmaster Filius Flitwick.

Rating: A provisional T, though though this may change by the end of this story, and later parts of the series will almost certainly be rated higher.

Disclaimer: All characters and recognizable elements belong to JKR, everything else probably belongs to me. I have no problems with people using original elements from this story provided you let me know in advance and acknowledge the source.

The morning after Lockhart's aborted attempt at a Duelling Club, Harry woke to the news that the snow that begun late last night had turned into a blizzard. As he looked outside the dormitory window swirling with thick grey snow, Harry could just see the school grounds carpeted so thick with snow that it came halfway up the walls of Hagrid's cabin.

Pulling on several baggy jumpers, Harry made his way downstairs into the Gryffindor common room and headed over to the notice board, where a hastily posted notice stated that his Herbology class had been cancelled. Given the state of the grounds, Harry was hardly surprised; the only people who might consider going out in this kind of weather were Hagrid and Professor Sprout, in the most part because they had no choice.

Content to settle in and laze around until Transfiguration that afternoon, Harry left the noticeboard and settled himself down by the fire, hoping it might restore some feeling to his toes and feet.

Gazing into the hearth and watching the dancing flames, Harry tried to distract himself from the cold by thinking back to the look on Lockhart's face as he went flying down the duelling platform and into the wall.

As much as Harry hated Snape, he couldn't deny that it had been absolutely brilliant watching Lockhart get taken down a peg like that. But thoughts of the greasy git blasting Lockhart into a wall soon turned to what had happened next, and the leaden lump that had settled in Harry's stomach the previous night returned.

Not only did he apparently possess an ability linked with the Dark Arts, but the whole school was now convinced that he was the Heir of Slytherin and the Hufflepuffs thought he was a raving loon.

Last night he'd decided to apologize to Justin for the misunderstanding in Herbology, but it now seemed that wasn't going to happen. Briefly, Harry considered trying to find Justin before realizing that the chances of that weren't particularly high given the weather and the size of the castle, let alone the fact that Justin's friends would probably be playing security detail. Justin would probably be heading home for the Christmas break, which would give him time to cool off, and Harry could find him and explain next term when he got back.

Thinking about next term, Harry idly wondered whether or not Lockhart's so-called 'Duelling Club' would continue to meet after the Christmas holidays. Given how much of an utter debacle it had been, he supposed not.

It was a shame really; Seamus had been right – Duelling lessons might very well come in handy one of these days.

They certainly would have been a welcome resource during his encounter with Quirrell at the end of last year; Harry would much have preferred to defend himself with his wand than burn someone to death with his bare hands. And even last night they would have meant an alternative to revealing his new-found talent as a Parseltongue to most of the school.

Given that Professor Dumbledore had seemed convinced that Voldemort would continue to try and return to power, in fact, Harry thought that getting Duelling lessons was starting to sound more and more like an excellent idea.

But the question was where to get them; Dumbledore had made it very clear that he thought that there was a time and place to tell Harry anything, and Duelling lessons sounded like something else that he couldn't know until 'one day, when he was ready'. Lockhart was clearly useless; the bloody git hadn't even been able to teach him how to defend himself against Draco, let alone an incorporeal Dark Lord, and though Snape seemed competent enough, the greasy git would never agree and Harry wasn't sure if he would want him to.

Harry racked his brains for another option; another teacher in the school both likely to know how to duel and willing to teach him. Harry's concentration was broken by the sound of Hermione's voice as she and Ron settled down and began using their time off to play a game of Wizard's Chess, and the answer came to him in a flash of memory from last night.

Hermione had said that Flitwick was supposedly a Duelling Champion when he was younger, though Harry found it hard to imagine his kindly Charms Professor even getting angry, let alone Duelling someone. Professor Flitwick had always had somewhat of a soft spot for him as well, or at least it seemed that way to Harry; the combination of his unexpected support when Malfoy had taunted him about his Nimbus 2000 last year and the excited squeak the gentle man had given when they had first met being two major cases in point.

The one problem, the realization of which broke Harry from his moment of self-congratulation, was how to convince Professor Flitwick to teach him. The Professor was a busy man, and Harry normally had homework to be done, beside which there was no guarantee that Flitwick wouldn't simply turn him away and tell Dumbledore, or worse encourage him to go to Lockhart.

But the holidays had started, and for just over two weeks Harry had no homework to be done and Flitwick had no classes to teach. If there was ever a chance that Harry could persuade the Professor to teach him, it would be now. Even if he was only given a few lessons, or taught 'til the start of the next term, Harry knew he would still be better off than he was now.

And there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that Flitwick might actually be willing to take him seriously and teach him Duelling on an extended basis.

Now that Harry had a plan of action, all that remained to somehow force himself out of the comfort of his armchair and the warmth of the common room and go forth to make an attempt to enlist Flitwick's co-operation. Harry walked over to the table where Ron and Hermione were playing and watched as Ron's queen mercilessly pummelled Hermione's rook before dragging it off the board.

"I'm going out for a walk." Harry told them, and was met with a puzzled stare from Ron and a distracted nod from Hermione, who seemed to be concentrating very hard on the chessboard, though from the looks of the game it wasn't making much difference.

"Just don't be late to Transfiguration," Hermione said distantly. "The last thing you need right now is to annoy Professor McGonagall."

Harry nodded and made his way out the portrait into the corridor, waving to the Fat Lady as he started to make his way towards Flitwick's office. The corridors were freezing, and Harry hoped that even if Flitwick wouldn't teach him to duel, he'd at least agree to teach him how to do a Warming Charm.

Flitwick's office was the thirteenth room along one of the two corridors that the West Tower and the Owlery sat at the intersection of, Harry knew, but he was unsure as to which corridor it was in. He'd never had reason to visit his Charms Professor before, and Harry was somewhat concerned about getting lost.

With Slytherin's Monster on the prowl, lingering in the corridors searching for something was hardly the safest of actions, and so Harry quickly turned to the right and headed off in search of the Owlery.

The one advantage to Flitwick living on the Seventh Floor was that failing anything else, Harry could simply keep on walking if he were to get lost and he would eventually find himself back at the foot of Gryffindor Tower.

At least he would in theory; when dealing with the castle, it was sometimes hard to say whether the classrooms and corridors actually were where you thought they were.

The corridors were as cold and deserted as Harry had expected, and he pulled his arms into the oversized sleeves of his multiple jumper-layers for warmth. Shivering slightly, he wandered along the corridor until the corner staircase that led up to the West Tower and then the Owlery came into view.

Walking over to stand by the staircase, Harry turned back the way he came and counted thirteen classrooms away in the opposite direction from the West Tower stairs before trying the door in front of him. The door was unlocked, but all Harry saw when he opened it a crack and peeked through was a dusty old storeroom cluttered with unused junk.

Pulling the door shut again, Harry headed back towards the staircase and began to count doors once again round the corner in the other corridor. The thirteenth door was open again, but all that was inside the room was an empty classroom with a stack of desks in the corner covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.

This seemed rather odd to Harry; he was sure that Flitwick's office was along one of these corridors, and thirteen doors down from the Owlery was a direction that had stuck in his head and sounded right enough that he'd assumed that it was correct.

Having checked the thirteenth door in both corridors and found nothing, Harry was quietly concerned that he was loosing his mind. He turned around and walked back the way he had come and counted thirteen doors until he found himself standing at the Owlery door facing the corridor that led back to Gryffindor tower.

As Harry walked along wondering exactly how he'd managed to lose his way with possibly the clearest set of instructions in the world, he absently continued to count doors in his head; ten doors, nothing.

Eleven doors, nothing. Twelve doors, nothing. Thirteen doors...

Staring into the cheerful and well-lit room before him, Harry was thankful that Professor Flitwick wasn't in view, because he was certain that his mouth was hanging open in a fairly humorous fashion.

He had seen this room before not five minutes ago; he had walked up to it and gone inside to find nothing but a room full of junk, and now Harry found himself looking through what he would swear was exactly the same doorframe into a completely different room.

Taking a tentative step forward, Harry's gaze was caught by the bronze plaque on the door that read;

Filius Flitwick
Charms Professor
Head of Ravenclaw House

Harry was as sure that hadn't been there before as he was that this warm and cozy office had been a storeroom the last time he went inside.

Stepping further into the pleasant warmth, Harry noticed that the room looked like a tornado had hit it; there were sheets of parchment and scrolls scattered all over the chairs and bookshelves and the multitude of paper towers covering the desk swayed back and forth as though ready to fall at any moment.

Professor Flitwick was nowhere to be seen, and so Harry stood just inside the doorway and fidgeted for a minute or two before knocking loudly several times. After a few moments there was no response, so Harry knocked again, and when there was still nothing, he called out.

"Professor Flitwick?"

He received no answer, so Harry found what looked like a chair in the corner of the room and excavated it from under a large stack of papers and books before setting it in front of Flitwick's desk and settling down to wait.

After a while, things got so boring that Harry started to get a little twitchy. He briefly considered having a look at some of the papers on Flitwick's desk, before remembering the last time he'd decided to go through someone's desk and Filch's rather frightening reaction, and thinking better of that strategy.

Harry had just resigned himself to a long wait, thankful that he was no longer cold thanks to the warmth of the office even if he was bored and starting to become a little impatient, when he heard footsteps outside the door.

"Mr Potter?" A squeaky voice called out from the doorway. "How did you get in here unless..." The voice sighed. "I left the door unlocked again didn't I?"

Turning around, Harry saw Professor Flitwick smiling at him from the doorway, and nodded, feeling a little unsure of himself and his reasons for coming now that he was faced with the reality of actually asking Flitwick.

The Professor stepped inside the room and closed the door, pulling off a blue woolen cloak and hanging it on a cloak hook before turning around to consider Harry.

"Well now, for all that your company is not an unwelcome surprise Mr Potter, I do have to ask; what was it that you wanted?"

Harry could feel his heart pounding in his throat as he swallowed nervously, mouth suddenly dry. Fighting to push the words out, he fought back a rising wave of nerves and anxiousness and said as clearly and distinctly as he could.

"I want to learn how to duel, sir."

"What?" Professor Flitwick squeaked, voice incredulous.

"I want to learn how to duel. From you, sir."

"I heard you the first time, Mr Potter, I was simply somewhat surprised. After all, I was under the impression that none of the students knew about my past achievements unless-" Professor Flitwick cut himself off and smiled ruefully. "The brilliant Ms Granger, of course. And I assume Professor Lockhart's club instigated this desire?"

"Well, yeah." Harry admitted, "But there's more to it than that. It's just - what with the Beast of Slytherin running around - and what happened at the end of last year -" Harry's voice dropped slightly and he half-whispered the next few words, "...and what Hagrid said happened to my parents."

Professor Flitwick was nodding his head sympathetically, and his expression was understanding, and so Harry dredged up the courage to go on.

"And so I was thinking that it would be a good idea for me to learn how to defend myself - Merlin knows that git Lockhart is completely useless-" Harry stopped mid-sentence, mortified, "Um, could you forget that last bit and not mention it to him?"

At Flitwick's nod, he continued.

"But really, school stuff is great but I need to know how to defend myself properly, and I figured you were the only professor who knew how who'd be willing to teach me. Snape - I mean Professor Snape certainly won't, and Professor Dumbledore will just tell me I'm not ready yet, and I really need to learn because I nearly got Ron killed last year, and then I nearly died, and Dumbledore said that Voldemort isn't really dead and I need-"

Harry stopped as Flitwick raised a hand and took a deep breath before pinching the bridge of his nose wearily.

"Mr Potter, until a few minutes ago I though I would never meet a student who rambled more than your mother. Clearly, I was wrong." Professor Flitwick contemplated the far wall for a moment, before turning back and staring at Harry so intensely that he felt like the Professor could see all the way through him down to his deepest darkest self, and was examining all the thoughts he had that frightened even him.

"Mr Potter, if I am to agree to this - and that is an if - then I need to know three things; that you are being honest about why you want to learn this, that you are willing to apply yourself to learning this properly in the way you don't in your classes and that you will treat my knowledge with the utmost seriousness it deserves. If you are not completely convinced of even one of these, then you can tell me now and I will not be angry. If you aren't convinced and you attempt to lie to me - and I can assure you it will be nothing more than a failed attempt - then I will be very angry indeed, and you will not like the consequences."

Professor Flitwick continued to stare Harry down for a few more seconds that felt like an eternity before gentling his gaze, and looking at the bookcases while Harry tried to compose himself and get this breathing and heartrate back under control. When Harry could bear to meet his gaze again, Flitwick's eyes were as kind and good-humoured as usual, and there was no trace of the menacing stranger that had been glancing out at him only moments before.

Flitwick raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and Harry realized that the professor was still waiting for an answer. He only had to think about it for a bare second before realizing that he was quite happy with the conditions his Charms Professor had put forth. Harry had just opened his mouth to say so when Flitwick nodded with satisfaction.

"No need to say it; I can see in your eyes that you're quite serious. Your mother wore the same expression when she came to me asking for powerful Charms in her fifth year."

Harry felt immeasurably nervous; butterflies swarming through his stomach and up his throat as he asked;

"Does that mean you'll teach me, sir?"

Professor Flitwick's lips parted in a mischevious grin, and for just a moment Harry could see a faint resemblance to Griphook and believe the rumours that Flitwick was half-Goblin himself.

"Yes, Mr Potter. I do believe it does."

So, there you have it. Feel free to leave a review expressing anything you want; what you liked, what you didn't, what you think of the idea, my writing or my characterization.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.

Ciao.