Chapter 16 - Chapter 14 - Trying Out Not Trying Out

I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter franchise

After escorting Fleur back to her carriage and then writing Dumbledore a strongly worded letter regarding Krum that he had Dobby deliver straight into the man's office, Harry was up late into the night creating the charm that would activate if Fleur was attacked by any variety of aura magic. The charm's finished product was a small cylinder attached to a necklace made of magically fortified hemp. If/when Fleur's amulet activates, the charm would warm up, then it would vibrate, then it would light up in the direction that the attacking magic was coming from. It was a simple little gadget (comparatively speaking), but it had taken a lot of tinkering to iron out all of the kinks.

For the first time in quite a while, when Harry woke up from less than three hours sleep, he wasn't at one hundred percent. Still, he was good to go, even at a ninety, and he ran his usual routine without too much lost time.

Of course, when Harry finished his morning run, Dobby was waiting to hand him a nutrition potion, but he also held a letter from Dumbledore. In this letter, Dumbledore explained that he spoke to Karkaroff about the extremely subtle attack that his student perpetrated on Fleur, and that the man reacted by becoming extremely defensive. According to Dumbledore, Karkaroff pointed out that Krum could not be severely punished for anything since there was no evidence of a crime, but that he would speak to the boy about his very public disrespect towards Harry and Fleur, keep him on the ship for meals for the next several days, and then keep a closer eye on his movements from this day forward.

After reading the letter, Harry's mouth thinned out into a tight little line, because once again, Dumbledore was turning out to be ineffectual in the extreme. Then again, Harry could definitely make certain that Fleur and his friends were informed about the boy and acting with great caution by the time Krum reemerged from his ship. He could also practice using his aura based abilities properly without letting his shroud come into contact with an object that will hurt it, which would allow him to fight Krum without having to keep his aura contained within his body. He could do this by enlisting Fleur's aide, and having her try to hit him with her allure as he dodged and attacked. Fleur's allure was superficially similar to Krum's miasma, excepting of course the fact that they were nothing alike, but it was the similarities in how these two magics moved through the air that would allow Harry to maximize his preparation.

Suffice it to say, Harry had every intention of destroying Krum if he ever tried what he did the night before ever again… but eventually, he also intended to seek justice by whatever means necessary, because no one would get away with the kind of disrespect and hostility that Krum had aimed in Fleur's direction just the night before…

Not long after reading Dumbledore's letter, Harry met up with Neville in the weight room, where the boy's cheerful and relaxed demeanor slowly but surely smoothed out the worst of his anger and frustration. An hour later, after racking a curling iron that he'd been using for a shoulder exercise, Harry sat down atop a nearby bench, and then turned to regard his friend. "Do you think Hannah would be interested in a double date with Fleur and I?"

After smiling at the question, Neville adopted a thinker's pose. "I'll ask, but I can't be a hundred percent certain she'll say yes. I think she'll hesitate because you and Fleur are both kind of... larger than life."

Harry gave his friend a sidelong look at that, and then just shrugged because it was true and he knew it. "I assume you've been working on convincing her that I'm not scary."

"Scary isn't the right word, Harry," Neville replied, while putting down a curling weight. "Hannah knows that you're a nice guy, but I don't lie to her about your life either. She knows that big events happen around you, as if you're a fulcrum of some kind. She also sees how high profile Fleur is and how everyone stares at the both of you. Hannah's a behind the scenes kind of girl. You get me?"

Unfortunately, Harry did get what Neville was saying. Hannah wasn't one to stand out. It was to the point that Harry only knew she even existed because of her close friendship with Susan Bones. "Okay Neville, I get it. If Fleur and I are going to spend time with you and Hannah, it'll probably have to be in here and in secret. Something like this perhaps." Harry imagined a dinner placement on the far side of the room and it appeared almost instantly.

Neville smiled and pointed at Harry in appreciation. "I think I can swing that much, and I can show Hannah the RoR in the process. We'll most likely have far more success involving Hannah in our gatherings after she meets you two."

Harry smiled in agreement as he wrapped up his lifting routine.

Smoothies followed the workout and then the two of them started walking down the various stairs towards breakfast.

Neville smiled at Harry's noticeably eager face as they approached the Great Hall. "You have it really really bad, Harry," he pointed out with a laugh.

"Shakespearean romance bad," Harry admitted, with a shake of his head as they walked into the Hall.

Fred, George, Selene and Fleur were already sitting around Hermione at the Gryffindor table, where they appeared to be having a very fun and lively conversation.

"Then Harry jumps on its back and shoves almost his entire wand up its nose," Hermione declared, as she both laughed and shook her head at his crazy actions.

"No way," exclaimed Selene. "'Ee leapt onto a troll's back for you? 'Ow was 'ee not killed?"

"Another boy in our year named Ron Levitated the distracted troll's club out of its hand and then dropped it on its head by accident," Hermione clarified with a shrug. "The troll was knocked unconscious."

Harry was extremely relieved to see that his sister didn't get upset upon mentioning the redhead. Nonetheless, he decided that he'd change the subject at the very first opportunity. In the meantime, he did have something to add to their current conversation. "It took me several hours of scrubbing to have peace of mind that my wand was clean again," he offered as he and Neville sat down amidst the ladies. Then, as he settled in place, he rested his hand on Fleur's lower back and whispered a good morning into her ear.

"Good morning 'Arry," Fleur returned brightly before kissing him on the cheek. "'Ermione... Mione." Fleur looked at Hermione for permission and then smiled when the girl nodded... "Mione 'ere was just telling us of young 'Arry and 'is misadventures."

"Oh?... Like what?" Harry grinned, as he dished himself up some food.

"We shall not say, except zat eet ees all very cute and embarrassing." At this point, Selene was smiling at Mione conspiratorially.

After casually doling out the rest of his meal, Harry steepled his hands on the table as if he was a high power corporate executive. "Oh reeaally," he inquired, while staring at Hermione with a very mischievous look upon his face. "Do you two want to hear the story about how Hermione brewed a Polyjuice Potion during second year?"

"You wouldn't," gasped Mione, with a completely appalled expression upon her face.

Harry looked up at the ceiling, with a very obvious 'I am thinking about it' look on his face. "I know you hated it, Mione, but it's also a very cute and embarrassing story..."

Hermione was turning just a little red now, as she felt her extreme introversion kicking into overdrive.

Quickly turning in her seat, Fleur gave 'Arry a pleading look. "I zink I will defend poor Mione 'ere by explaining zat we were 'arrassing 'er for zese stories. I don't zink eet ees necessary to tease 'er."

For just a single moment, Selene looked completely betrayed by Fleur, but then she just couldn't help the grin that slipped back onto her face.

Hermione positively beamed at Fleur in her gratitude.

Leaning forward on her elbows, Selene lowered her voice to just above a whisper. "Speaking of bullying 'Arry... Earlier zis morning, Fleur 'ere made an example of four girls from 'Ufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Zese girls demanded zat she stay away from You at wandpoint…"

At Selene's words, Harry looked concerned for just a split second and then increasingly frustrated during the five seconds that followed that, at which point his face finally settled on a look of resolve. Turning towards his girlfriend, he adopted a somewhat feral smile on his face with his butterknife tightly fisted in his hand. "I hope you were very... thorough, Fleur. I'm not worried about you being bested by untrained children, but I want you to send a strong message to the rest of them..."

After immediately nodding her agreement, Fleur leaned in to kiss 'Arry's cheek again. Her lover had just reacted exactly as she'd hoped he would, and she wanted him to know it. "Never fear, my 'Arry. Een but a few moments, ze attacking girls were Petrificus Totalized, turned a bright fluorescent green color and magically affixed to ze ceiling." Fleur adopted an exaggerated arrogant pose as she dusted off her shoulder. "I didn't train wiz a professional duelist all summer long for nozzing after all. I'm more zan ready to crush your fanbase for you."

As Fleur playfully balled her little hands into fists, Harry couldn't stop an extremely satisfied smile from slipping onto his face. "I appreciate your efforts, love. Feel free to keep Collin Creevey away from me while your at it."

While nodding enthusiastically to 'Arry's plan, Fleur grabbed up one of his hands and squeezed it under the table. As their conversation came to a sudden end, she was left smiling with a manic intensity down towards her breakfast.

Everyone else sitting at the Gryffindor table ended up looking back and forth between Harry and Fleur with confusion plain to see upon their faces. Why was Harry so damned happy to use Fleur as a meat shield or bodyguard between himself and all of the lightning bolts? Not only that, but why was Fleur so visibly ecstatic about it?

"Speaking of dueling, I was reading something here that has me worried..." Hermione interrupted everyone's visible confusion by pulling out the Daily Prophet newspaper and putting it down on the table in front of her. "Harry, Fleur... What was the name of the mercenary band that Harry took out this summer?"

At Hermione's question, Fred and George swiveled towards Fleur and Harry, in very sudden and intense interest. Neither of them had heard anything about Harry taking out any mercenaries until now, and it looked like they were both hooked. Slowly but surely the Gryff girls also tuned in and began staring at the two of them expectantly.

At first, Fleur only intended to reply to Hermione's question, but then she suddenly noticed that she had the entire table's undivided attention. Looking aside at Harry for direction, she was surprised when he just waved his hand in a dismissive fashion. It appeared that he didn't really mind his closest friends knowing of his actions.

With that much figured out, Fleur turned back towards everyone and performed some game-show prize revealing arm motions in Harry's general direction. "Over ze summer, my 'Arry seengle 'andedly dismantled a group of slavers called ze Black Band, after zey came to my 'ome, ze Delacour manse een force and were een ze midst of abducting my younger seester and I. My mozzer, fazzer, seester and I were all Eencarceroused and magically restrained een my fazzer's study when 'Arry arrived on ze scene, realized zat we were under attack, Disillusioned 'is body, and zen stalked around my 'ome, stunning and Eencarcerousing ze five men patrolling ze 'alls. Zen 'ee kicked een ze door to my fazzer's study like a professional 'it-wizard, and protected my entire family, while at ze same time dueling three professional mercenaries all by 'imself. 'Ee stunned one man and zen punched a second man unconscious, but since ze mercenary leader was casting an unbroken string of very strong curses towards me and my family, 'Arry did what was necessary to protect us… and… 'ee killed him."

Fleur wilted just a little bit at this point, and adopted a somewhat troubled expression on her face. "Arry was so 'eeroic... and yet 'ee felt terrible for killing a man een front of my leetle seester. 'Arry ees very special," she concluded in an extremely soft voice, while grabbing up her lover's hand and pulling it down into her lap.

"No

Way," whispered, Fred and George together

George continued speaking for the both of them. "We actually read about how the Black Band were caught and taken to trial, but the circumstances were never fully explained. The Daily prophet had us believing that it was the work of a magical task force of some kind."

As Fred turned back towards Harry, his face looked overawed. "Just how good are you, Harry?"

Prompted by Fred's question, Fleur turned back towards Harry and crossed her arms over her chest. "Zat ees a very good question and one zat I have been trying to feegure out for a while now." Meeting Harry's eyes, Fleur hit him with a full force pouty expression that she could immediately see doing damage to his heart. "You some-'ow sidetracked me wiz your charm 'Arry... We never ended up dueling."

After exaggeratedly leaning back in his chair, Harry cat stretched his arms above his head and then dropped them down to his sides. "All part of the plan, Fleur... I have an image to maintain after all... I couldn't have you magically stomping me all over the Delacour lawns."

"Riiight," Fleur immediately drawled out, in a massively disbelieving tone. "Zis wouldn't 'ave any-zing to do wiz ze fact zat you are a borderline chauvinist, white knight, wiz a 'ero complex, would eet?"

Hermione immediately choked on her drink and started peeling out in loud, out of character laughter. "Who described Harry as that?"

"'Arry did 'imself, at ze end of ze summer, when I told 'im I didn't need 'is 'elp wiz ze tournament zis year. 'Ee basically said tough, deal wiz eet, 'ee doesn't 'ave eet een 'im to stay uninvolved." At this point, Fleur's voice contained a mixture of both fondness and exasperation.

Neville shook his head at Harry's people saving tendencies, but then he decided to defend his friend in the funniest way possible. "Oh Harry knows that you're capable Fleur. In fact, he's described to me in great detail just how capable you can be. Although... I think the term he used was 'frightening in the extreme.'" At the tail end of his explanation, Neville started laughing at Harry's comically betrayed look.

With a nearly perverse smile on her face, Fleur leaned in towards Neville as if she was a stalking predator. "You, my dear Neville, are a treasure trove of eenformation on my 'Arry. 'Ee told me 'ee tells you essentially every-zing. Een ze future, I may start pumping you for eenformation."

At this point, Neville looked like he'd dug himself into a hole, because he was beginning to understand just how frightening Fleur can actually be.

With a small shake of his head, Harry leaned towards Selene in a similar fashion to Fleur. "You, Selene, are a treasure trove of information on my Fleur. Fleur has explained to me that she tells you essentially everything. Not only that, but you're also the type to enjoy spilling your guts about it." Turning his head towards Fleur, Harry smiled and then gave her an extremely significant look.

"Deal," Fleur immediately declared. "No eenterrogating ze friends."

Harry nodded with a very amused smile on his face.

Neville deflated in relief.

Selene looked disappointed.

Hermione took that moment to regain everyone's attention towards her newspaper article. "The Black Band is what I was worried about Harry. The leader of the Band broke free in transport to England yesterday. Reginald Harkenen was scheduled to go through our Veil of Death today but went missing in Floo transit. He's currently being hunted by both English and French Aurors, but as of this morning, they had no leads towards his whereabouts."

In the silence that followed Hermione's news, Fleur turned just a little bit pale in her alarm. As that moment came to an end however, her complexion quickly improved as she became extremely angry instead. "Zat 'man' ees a monster, hoo preys on children. I zink zis time eet will be me hoo takes ze cretin down."

Resting his hand on Fleur's waist again, Harry leaned in towards her ear. "I don't think we'll need to worry for long love. Reginald is a high profile target, stranded in a foreign country. He won't have many resources or places to hide."

Fleur still looked angry, but she started to calm down as 'Arry continued to rub her lower back.

While taking in his two very concerned friends, George decided that he'd change the subject to something a little less disturbing. "Please try out for the dueling team today, Harry. Tryouts are this afternoon and classes are canceled. If you're even half as good as I think you are, I can place money on you with completely absurd odds and make a killing."

As several people at the table laughed at George's plan, Harry just casually waved off the idea. "Nice try Forge, and I saw what you just did by the way. We all know that I'm way too busy to get involved with yet another club. I'm not trying out for the Dueling tournament and then neglecting our team. I already have a lot on my agenda between the Quidditch tournament and following Fleur around like a lost little puppy." Leaning back in his seat, Harry adopted a somewhat wistful expression. "I'll admit that I'd have liked to see how I stack up though. I did a lot of dueling training over the summer with Lupin."

In response to Harry's puppy dog comment, Fleur had dropped a hand onto his upper thigh, but now that she was back under control, she smiled at the rest of the table. "You guys are missing out. I only saw a few minutes of 'Arry dueling, but 'ee ees beyond talented at eet. 'Ee zinks and moves so fast, eet ees eencredible."

Up until now, the Gryff girls had just been listening to the conversation as they ate, but at Fleur's words they all looked at each other in a moment of silent communication. Apparently, Angelina was their chosen representative this time, because she leaned in and caught Fleur's attention. "Oh we believe that. About a month ago, we saw Harry lay out Malfoy in an extremely humiliating fashion, without even using magic."

"Oh?... 'Ow so?" Fleur was giving Harry a sidelong look at this point.

Katie fielded this new question. "A few days before the Quidditch team tryouts, Malfoy pulled out his wand and cast a high impact curse at Harry, with very little warning. Harry sidestepped the curse as if he had all the time in the world and then started moving so fast he was only a blur. In just a little over a second, Harry was inside of Malfoy's extended wand arm and slapping the ponce right off of his feet."

As Fleur and Selene giggled, Fleur buffed Harry's shoulder affectionately. "Zat ees a very French way of dealing wiz a rival 'Arry. We 'ave obviously rubbed off on you."

Returning his girlfriend's smile, Harry leaned in to return fire with his shoulder while whispering the words, "feel free to rub off on me more…" Then he quietly laughed at Fleur's minor blush and turned his attention back towards the rest of the table. "Mione said it best at the end of the welcoming feast. The more I can embarrass Malfoy without using magic, the better. He's a devout blood purist, so being physically slapped off of his feet must be a complete nightmare for him. I'm making it look like any Muggle can kick the crap out of him..."

"Oh zat ees just evil," Selene slowly breathed out. "I love eet!"

Turning towards Selene again, Harry gave the girl a somewhat deadpan look. "You know… You're a sweetheart Selene, but you also frighten me sometimes."

Everyone at the table nodded before they broke out into scattered laughter.

The only thing anyone would talk about all morning during classes was the dueling team tryouts that were happening later that afternoon. All during Professor Flitwick's Charms and Professor Babbling's Runes classes, the students discussed who was going to try out, who had the best chances and why.

While Harry enjoyed the commentary just as much as everyone else, he eventually grew somewhat tired of being asked if he was planning on taking part. He was forced to explain several dozen times that his only real concern for this year was the Quidditch team, only for the lion's share of the people he was speaking to to give him weird looks as if they didn't truly believe him.

Truth be told, Harry would've liked a chance to take part in the Dueling Tournament, but both Lupin and Dumbledore had flat out ordered him not to. They both said that they didn't want him to reveal too many of his skills. He could use his magical shroud to perform a wide variety of extremely rare abilities, and all of them were a closely kept secret.

As the bell tower of the school chimed the lunch hour, Harry and Hermione left Runes and quickly made their way to lunch. They were in a hurry today because they were looking forward to watching the dueling tryouts with the rest of their friends. If they wanted to get good seats up in the stands, they'd need to tear through their lunch as fast as possible and then run out to the lawns, where the event was taking place.

About halfway across the Great Hall, Harry and Hermione met up with the rest of their equally excited friends and they all crashed down in their seats. As he received yet another healthy and nutritious meal from Dobby, Harry looked around the Hall, scrutinizing all of the people that were already eating their lunches. "I guess no Gryffindor fourth year is taking part in the Tryout huh? I mean, no one I've spoken to at least."

At Harry's remark, both Seamus and Dean's heads snapped up from their food to look over at him. Leaning forward over the table, Seamus quickly gestured for Harry's attention. "Haven't you heard," he asked, with an incredulous expression on his face. "Ron's been talking about nothing else for three whole days now. He's been ranting about how he didn't seriously try out for quidditch, because he was gearing towards being the dueling team captain..."

The twins and Harry exchanged a look, followed by a silent moment of understanding. Despite the fact that Harry basically already knew the answer, he asked the question anyway. "Has Ron been?..."

"Nope," George immediately replied.

"Not

a

speck

of

training," Fred finished, succinctly... "He's doomed."

Looking down at his food, Harry pushed some carrots around with his fork. It appeared that he still had enough concern for his ex-friend that the prospect of him getting publicly demolished troubled him. Ron wasn't a terrible wizard per se, but he wasn't naturally gifted either. If, as the twins were saying, Ron hadn't been training up until now, the boy wasn't going to make the team, let alone make team captain...

Very suddenly, something in the air smelled like absolute perfection on earth, distracting Harry's attention away from Ron as if the boy had never even existed. Excitement, fulfillment and desire transcending merely the sexual, assaulted him, as his senses were inexorably drawn towards the source of that scent. In the end, his eyes landed on the Entry Hall double doors just in time to catch sight of a woman entering the Hall.

Fleur Delacour was joining him for lunch.

As his new girlfriend caught him staring in her direction and then beamed a smile at him in return, Harry started to understand what she'd meant the night before by "her body going to great lengths." Gods... It had only been a single day... It was hard to believe that the attunement process Fleur had spoken of was happening so quickly, but the proof was in the goosebumps that were developing on his arms in response to the thrill he felt thrumming throughout his nervous system… Fleur Delacour was becoming a trigger to his senses, an intensely powerful temptation that he actively needed to resist.

"Good afternoon my love," Fleur purred out in very quiet French, with a knowing smile upon her face. "You already knew that I was entering the Hall just now..."

"Yes… I did," Harry replied, in return French as he happily accepted a soft kiss on the cheek. "I caught the scent of something wonderful coming closer. It's not something that I can describe... I just knew that it was you and it was like..."

After taking a seat and running a hand along Harry's waist, Fleur leaned in a little closer to whisper in his ear. "I think we both know what it is you are describing, 'Arry. I could sense you as well, even though my sense of smell is nowhere near as acute as yours. You might even need to strengthen your Mind Occlusions again, for these sensations are only going to become stronger over time. These changes are going to continue until approximately three weeks from now, by which point you will be white knuckling it not to ravish me right here in the Great Hall." By the time she was finished delivering those words, Fleur was smiling with a noticeably whimsical expression upon her face.

"You look like you're looking forward to it," Harry pointed out with a grin.

"I am merely... excited... about our future together, 'Arry..." Having adopted an extremely fake look of doe-eyed innocence, Fleur clearly wasn't trying very hard to deny Harry's claims.

Smiling in return, Harry lowered his voice even further as he pointed out the obvious. "I suppose you understand that none of this attunement stuff is even necessary…. like, at all…"

"Yes, yes, I know that. I feel that much in your aura, but it pleases me that we have this opportunity," Fleur leaned in to whisper back. "We are perhaps the very first veela/human couple that will ever voluntarily undergo this process, as under normal circumstances, a human man would be far too eager or would be under far too much discomfort by now. By the end of this next month, I will be magically attuned to you and to you alone, which will allow the two of us to find immeasurable amounts of satisfaction in each other…" Fleur lightly rested her hand atop her lover's thigh as she leaned to within an inch of his ear… "It'll be worth it, 'Arry."

Harry smiled even as he felt yet another shiver course up the length of his spine. "Okay, okay, I'm sold. Just… please… don't tease me too much…"

"I promise I won't tease too much," Fleur immediately agreed, while adopting a very self-satisfied and contented smile on her face. Then she just barely whispered the following two words. "Just enough."

With that much figured out, Harry and Fleur joined the rest of the conversations taking place around the table, during which time, Harry found out that Fleur wasn't going to be a member of the Beauxbatons Dueling team. Apparently, the dueling team at Beauxbatons is both large and famous… but it was also notoriously corrupt, with many of its members being the sons and daughters of 'patrons' who have donated absurd amounts of wealth to the school… With that being the case, Madam Maxine didn't have much choice in the matter but to field the best witches and wizards available among the ranks of her pre-existing dueling team.

A team of which Fleur was not a member, as she straight up refused to buy her way onto its roster.

While Harry's first instinct was to become righteously indignant on his girlfriend's behalf, she merely waved off his concern because the dueling tournament simply wasn't her target of interest. She was going to be the Beauxbatons Champion in the Triwizard Tournament, and she knew it, thus, she was not all that concerned about any of the side-events that would be happening at the school.

And in the end, Harry completely agreed with Fleur's opinion, which did a lot to help him take her school's outrageous corruption in stride. Hogwarts was dangerously neglectful, Beauxbatons was corrupt, and Durmstrang was noticeably dark… It did appear to Harry that finding a worthwhile magic school wasn't such an easy task to accomplish.

Just ten minutes after everyone sat down to eat their lunches, the twins suddenly popped up to their feet and gestured for them all to move out. They'd been eyeing up the lawns where a set of stands were being erected to view the tryouts from, and now that the structure was completed, they were eager to go outside. "Okay guys. Let's go watch a tragically unmotivated and delusional young Weasley try out for the dueling team," Fred called back as he backpedaled his way towards the Entry Hall doors.

At Fred's words, Hermione emerged from the book that she'd been reading, put her hands on her cheeks and adopted a tortured expression upon her face. "Oh no!... He isn't?... Is he?"

"Yes, yes he is..." Fred replied with a pained grimace of his own. "Ron Weasley, who hasn't gotten off his ass or out of our common room for anything but meals and classes all damned year, is trying out for the dueling team. He also appears to believe that he'll somehow, defying all common sense, become team captain."

Hermione immediately looked up and down the Gryffindor table as if she would warn Ron away from his extremely unwise choice of action. Too bad for Ron, he'd finished stuffing his face long ago and was already outside.

After giving Hermione a tight hug with his aura, Harry rose to his feet and extended out his arms to help up the women sitting at his sides.

"Well, let's go find some seats before zey are all gone," Selene exclaimed, with a carefree and happy smile. It appeared the prospect of Ron suffering a public humiliation hadn't fazed her in the slightest.

After sprinting up the erected stands, Harry settled into a bench seat and then acted to claim some space to either of his sides. Even as he threw down his cloak and bag to call dibs on some territory, the Hogwarts Quidditch team quickly congregated and settled into place all around him. Harry was immediately grateful that his team had quickly encircled him, because Susan Bones and the rest of the Hufflepuff chapter lightning bolts were flooding the seats outside of their numbers. The way these girls moved in one large and purposeful group made them look like they were an army settling in for a siege.

After meeting up in the Entry hall, Cedric and Cho ended up sitting just a row in front of Harry, where they were enjoying the same human shield that he was, and were apparently in the process of becoming an item. From their held hands and happy smiles, Harry surmised that the two of them would soon become quite the power couple, which was going to end up breaking many, many hearts. Harry was happy for the both of them and listened to the story of how they met with great interest. Needless to say, he laughed out loud when he found out the circumstances of their initial meeting as well as the topic of their very first conversation... At one point in the past, Harry had carried a torch for Cho, the pretty Asian Ravenclaw, but any interest he'd once held for the girl had been completely obliterated by Fleur as if it'd never existed in the first place.

Speaking of which…

After everyone settled in place on the stands, Harry ended up with Hermione on his right hand side and Neville sitting on his left. There was just one person missing that would make this scene perfect, and she'd been hot on his heels the entire time they ran up the stands. While Harry knew for a fact that Fleur was very close by because of her scent, he'd lost sight of her during all of the mad scrambling for seats. Just as he was about to look around to find his errant girlfriend, Harry suddenly felt two smooth, cool, heavenly hands, on his neck and upper shoulders from behind. Turning around in his seat, Harry beamed up at both Fleur and Selene who immediately grinned right back down at him.

"Good luck focusing on any-zing at all, wiz Fleur sitting 'ere be-'ind you," Selene offered, with a visibly amused smile on her face. "Fleur will surely end up fussing all over you ze entire time, so you will not catch any of ze dueling."

Turning back towards Selene, Harry arched an eyebrow in question. "What's the best part of going on a date to the movies, Selene? The movie or the company?"

"Good boy," Fleur breathed into Harry's ear, in a way that caused the boy to shiver from his head to his toes.

Over the next minute or two, the stands filled to bursting, as wizards and witches from all four houses walked up to the large platform to check in with the judges. During which time, Harry leaned back against Fleur's knees and then whispered up to her over his shoulder. "I was thinking of releasing my aura throughout the arena just in case there's someone out there with some real talent. With my magic paying attention for me, you can be as distracting as you want, and I won't miss a thing..." There was a joke in Harry's voice, but it was only half-hearted. In reality, he knew for a fact that Fleur was about to distract the living hell out of him, and that her allure was about to completely immerse his body in response to his magic.

Leaning forward, Fleur whispered her response while rubbing her cheek against her lover's temple. "I don't mind zat idea 'Arry, but eef zere are any eenteresting spells, you must show me 'ow zey work."

Nodding happily, Harry quickly cast out a huge net of his magic throughout the whole entire dueling arena, at which point his body was completely immersed within a dense cloud of Fleur's strongest and most concentrated allure. Almost immediately, he could feel his cheeks and neck warming at the intensity of it all, but Fleur's allure felt somehow more… intimate these days… less domineering. Harry found himself smiling at the thought of that, as he settled in to watch the show.

Down on the dueling platform, there were twenty Hufflepuffs, sixteen Ravenclaws, twenty-one Gryffindors and twenty-three Slytherin of several different years, all intending to take part in the tryout. When Harry confirmed that quite a few seventh years were taking part, he became optimistic that there'd be at least one or two decent duels in the program. Then he caught sight of a familiar face amidst the hopefuls, and he sighed because what he saw was less than promising. Ron was lounging confidently with the rest of the Gryffindor representatives, who unlike him were all stretching, hopping around to warm up and looking extremely serious.

Around the time Harry finished observing all of the mingling around competitors, he suddenly felt two soft hands rest atop his shoulders, rub forward over his chest, and then begin drawing him backwards in his bench. A pulling that he didn't resist, with the end result being that his body was eased back between Fleur's knees, so that his arms ended up draped over her thighs as if they were the armrests of a chair. Then, when the back of his head was pulled flush to Fleur's trim little belly, he felt her fingers begin combing softly along his scalp, neck and shoulders, and a soft sigh of pleasure leaked from within his mouth. Oh, oh dear Gods, this felt good...

Suffice it to say, between Fleur's hands gently combing his scalp, being surrounded by all of his friends, and the entertainment that he was about to watch, Harry was an enormously happy man. With a contented sigh, he leaned his head back to look up into Fleur's eyes, and she dropped her face over his shoulder so that he could whisper in her ear "This is my newest Patronus memory, love..."

A blush, a squeak, a pair of thighs squeezing Harry's ribs, a soft exhalation containing bottomless emotion… Fleur loved what Harry just said, and the way that she was holding him reflected the intensity of her feelings.

Unbeknownst to the idiot couple up in the stands, several professional dueling judges, presumably hired by the Ministry, stood in a disciplined line on the far side of the platform, wearing uniforms a little too tight for Harry to ever be seen in. Professor Moody was the teacher appointed to be the liaison between the Ministry staff and Hogwarts, and it appeared that he'd be the one leading the dueling tryouts as he was standing in front of these judges with a businesslike expression upon his hideously scarred up face. His appointment made sense considering the fact that he was the Defense against the Dark Arts Professor, but the man didn't look the least bit happy to be shouldering the responsibility.

Nevertheless, when it was time, Professor Moody walked to the closest side of the dueling platform and then addressed the audience with a Sonorous spell magnifying his gravelly voice. "The tryouts for the Hogwarts dueling team will be starting very soon. The contestants will all be assigned a number and then the tryout duels will happen in randomly selected, one-on-one rounds. While the contestants pick their number out of a hat, we, the judges, will be erecting an invisible four point barrier, using runes that have been painted into the corners of the platform. This barrier is designed to contain any and all of the spells that are cast during the duels, but will not stop the duellists from retreating on purpose or being cast out of the platform. If you will remain patient, this will take but a few moments."

During the next three minutes, four of the judges walked up to the four corners of the platform, where they focused their magic on activating their part of a Rune-based spell painted on a tile on the floor. Harry's magic followed these proctor's efforts with great interest, as barrier magic was a really useful avenue of study. He was also really, really good at it, which he proved by almost immediately figuring out how the four point barrier actually worked. As soon as the barrier was both activated and fully charged, the proctors returned to their original positions without a word.

After the tryout hopefuls cleared the platform, the first one-on-one duel finally began. The duels were, for the most part, very, very mundane, with your average stunners and jelly leg curses flying around, with very poor aim and very few results. For the most part, Harry enjoyed how clumsy some people were more than he did the actual magic being used. One seventh year Ravenclaw by the name of Harris did manage to defeat his opponent with a pretty cool conjure vines spell that Harry had never heard of before. He mentally cataloged the spell as new and interesting in his Mindscape and then returned his attention back down to the platform.

Ugh…

By the looks of it, it was time for the great redheaded git to have his turn…

When the words Ron Weasley, number forty-three, were called out, the boy in question sauntered up onto the platform like a B movie tough guy. Then he did something that Harry hadn't seen coming. He turned to stare directly at Harry, and he proceeded to give him what amounted to a threatening stare.

The twins looked at Harry, then at Ron again, then at each other, then they began shaking their heads in frustration.

Harry shook his head in long suffering because unfortunately Ron's current behavior wasn't out of character. One thing did have him curious however. "Uhhh, shouldn't Ron be focused on his opponent rather than me? I'm just sitting here minding my own business after all..."

Turning back towards Harry, George put a hand to his chin in an overdramatized thinker's pose. "Well... I must say Harry... You are looking mighty comfortable right about now, being spoiled completely rotten by the lady."

Turning around to look back at Harry, Fred suddenly pressed the heels of his hands up to his temples. "By the Gods! My brother is right! We might both start scowling at you any second now!"

Fred and George looked at each other and then they both began laughing with perfect timing.

Selene giggled as well from her spot next to Fleur. "Just look at you 'Arry, lounging between Fleur's legs as she lovingly massages you. Eet ees cute to zose of us hoo aren't jealous. 'Owever... You are so obviously 'appy, eet must be just killing zis Ron character… Jealousy appears to be zat boy's defining characteristic."

As a wave of bashfulness swept over Harry, he started straightening back up onto his bench... At which point, he was caught and held firmly in place by Fleur. She'd put both of her hands over his chest, rested her chin atop the top of his head and then proceeded to wrap both of her legs around his waist just for completion's sake. "Stay still, 'Arry. I am enjoying giving you ze attention you are currently receiving. I refuse to be less 'appy merely to placate ze delusional red-'ead."

"Hear, hear," called out Alicia, who had never liked Ron in the first place. She didn't like his attitude about women playing quidditch (Ron is of the opinion that the Holyhead Harpy players are chosen primarily for their sex appeal. The fact that he's not entirely wrong doesn't help his popularity at all...).

"Well you heard the lady," Harry declared with an exaggerated look of long suffering. "It appears I have no choice but to continue with the 'torture.'"

Everyone just shook their heads at their very, very, VERY happy friend.

Down on the platform, the person that Ron would be Dueling was called up and ended up being a second year Hufflepuff girl by the name of Mary McDonald. Right from the get go it was obvious that Ron had zero respect for the younger girl and he wasn't interested in acting like he did. It was bad enough when he was just swanning about the dueling platform dismissing her presence entirely. The situation became that much worse when he suddenly turned to look at her and an amused smile appeared on his face. "Are you sure you should be up here at all, little girl?! I don't want to hurt a defenseless little firstie!"

Out in the stands, every second year Hufflepuff slapped their hands to their faces in almost perfect unison. The idiotic redhead Gryffindor had just said every single taboo word imaginable. Bloody Mary was going to blow a gasket…

While she wasn't necessarily one to brag, the fact of the matter was that Mary Macdonald was one of the top witches of her entire year. What this meant was that Ron Weasley's unbelievably dismissive attitude was pissing her off beyond all measure. She was also angry because he'd said she still looked like a firstie in front of the entire student body, and her lack of growth had always been a major sore point for her. At this point, only one thing was for certain. This ridiculous looking garden rake of a Wizard was going to pay!

When Professor Moody yelled out the word "begin," Mary started dashing to the left, just to get ahead of anything sneaky this Weasley character might throw her way. She needn't have bothered. As if he was nothing but a simulacrum training doll set on easy mode, her opponent planted his feet and began casting scattered Expelliarmus spells, without any technique or finesse whatsoever. Within just ten to fifteen seconds, Mary came to the conclusion that she was facing off against a complete amateur, scoffed at the boy's unbelievably arrogant attitude and then stopped dodging altogether. Up until this point, she'd felt nervous because she mostly relied on a four spell chain-cast combo that she'd practiced to perfection. Well, not any longer. Now that she'd actually met her competition, she found herself feeling kind of cheated instead. This was supposed to be her dueling debut, and instead of being a challenge it was just being given to her like fish in a barrel. Well, no matter. If this was going to be an easy win then she'd go out of her way to make it look easy…

After erecting a buckler sized Protego shield in front of her body, Mary just stood where she was and waited. Then, after blocking a single sloppy and slow moving disarming spell, she shook her head and began dashing directly towards her opponent. At this point, she was completely unconcerned about anything this Ron boy might decide to send her way. Unless he was a world class caliber actor, (and she very much doubted that he was) then this Ron character was a piss poor duelist and a sitting duck for her attacks. Soon enough, she'd arrived in the midrange and was perfectly placed to launch a flurry of different spells. First things first though. It was time for a bit of a distraction.

After loudly calling out the spell that she was casting for her opponent to hear, Mary launched a single Incarcerous spell in his direction. The spell was nothing special, she merely wanted the boy to have to dodge. She seriously didn't intend for this one rope binding spell to immobilize her opponent. It shouldn't have. It was ridiculous.

It did.

Ronald Weasley hadn't foreseen Marry using a summoning spell at all, let alone something area of effect like a net. Due to the fact that he was expecting a magical energy based attack, he wasted no time erecting a Protego shield in front of his body, which of course wasn't going to do anything to stop a two meter wide physical net. With his one and only defensive spell thwarted, Ron immediately panicked, attempted to jump out of the way and failed. While he was still leaping through the air, Ron's legs were wrapped up in the netting, causing him to land hard on the platform and roll several times.

After releasing an involuntary scoff of surprised amusement for everyone in the stands to hear, second year Mary Macdonald shook off her surprise and continued moving.

From where he was still stuck on the ground, Ron rolled back up into a seated position, threw out his wand and tried to hit Mary with a frantically cast stunner spell. His last, desperate effort sailed uselessly across a completely empty platform…

Mary was gone.

After looking both to the left and to the right, Ron wondered where his opponent had gone off to. He racked his brain trying to figure it all out. What kind of amazing magic had she used? How had his opponent completely disappeared from the platform like she had? Unfortunately, that was the moment that Ron's thoughts were interrupted by a swell of growing laughter emanating from the stands, and his blood ran cold…

Mary McDonald hadn't disappeared from the platform in some grand, Merlin-esque magical whirlwind. The fact of the matter was that such an effort wasn't even necessary. Instead, she'd very simply run around the prone, flailing, defenseless boy, and was standing right behind him. Mary was in the midst of twirling her wand in her hand, while she stared down at the ponce at her feet, with an extremely bored look upon her face. After shaking her head at this arrogant boy's complete lack of anything even resembling skill, Mary slowly raised her wand and banished him clear across the platform. While her anger at the boy may have given her spell a little more power than she'd desired on a conscious level, she wasn't unhappy with the results.

Ron Weasley screamed like a girl as his body careened across the platform towards the corner closest to the crowd, bounced along the platform, rapidly rolled through the spell-barrier without ever slowing down, and then ragdolled down onto the ground to the sides of the stands. By the time the boy crumpled into an ungainly heap in the dirt, his body was covered in grass, dust and mud, and his eyes were swimming from both the rapid rotations that his body had just undergone and the blow his head had received when he slammed into the earth.

The twins immediately shoved their knuckles deep into their mouths, as they violently shook in tightly restrained laughter. They were desperately trying to keep it down because of family solidarity, but it... was... hard.

The Gryff girls, Neville, Cho, Fleur and Selene didn't have the same hangups however, and they laughed good and hard for about half a minute, before finally managing to calm back down again.

Cedric had a knuckle firmly deposited into his mouth just like the twins, because as always, he was trying his very best to be a class act.

Harry and Hermione just shared a look and a moment of silent understanding. Neither one of them could stop themselves from feeling sympathy-embarrassment for the newly concussed redhead. Harry found himself wondering why he would feel so much empathy for a guy who treated him as poorly as Ron does. He finally came to the conclusion that since they'd been very close at one point, this was just a lingering attachment of some kind.

"Winner by ringout, number thirty-two, Mary McDonald," professor Moody called out, with a noticeably mischievous grin upon his face. "It was an excellent banishing spell indeed. The next duel will be between number thirty-four and number twenty-one!"

Ever since the end of the last duel, Harry had been sensing something within his aura shroud, and he was beginning to grow concerned that it was going unnoticed. Weren't these Ministry proctors supposed to be professionals? One of Ron's legs had slammed down against and smeared the Rune cluster painted on the audience's side of the platform, and the barrier wall was down as a result. As the next two participants, Malfoy and Ernie Macmillan entered the platform, Harry slowly sat forward in his growing concern. Fleur noticed when her lover's attention sharpened, so she leaned forward onto his shoulders and whispered into his ear. "I know zat you dislike zis Draco Malfoy boy, but why ze sudden eenterest?"

"It's not Draco that has my attention," Harry whispered back. "The barrier on our side of the platform is down and the proctors haven't noticed yet. I can't warn anyone without revealing my abilities, and I can't raise it again from here. I've tried twice already, but the Runes controlling the barrier are destroyed. Turning back towards Fleur, Harry gave her a very significant look. "Just in case, get your wand out will you, love?"

Without a second thought, Fleur nodded, turned in her seat and repeated the news to Selene.

Turning his attention towards Neville and Hermione, Harry simply said the words "wands out guys." His closest friends didn't need an explanation, they just immediately pulled out their wands. Harry nodded his appreciation for their quick actions and then rubbed his chin in thought. "Prepare Protego shields just in case a stray spell comes in this direction from the platform. Warn the team and anyone else who will listen." After pulling out his own wand, Harry turned his attention back towards the platform.

Both Hermione and Neville nodded again before turning to whisper to the people on their other sides.

A pit of nervous tension was growing within Harry's chest, because he didn't like the timing of this at all. Malfoy and Macmillan were both arrogant gits, but they were also skilled spellcasters, with some pretty powerful curses in their repertoire. As the two boys lined up for their duel, Harry begrudgingly realized that he couldn't just ignore this problem with a guilt-free conscience. Rising up to his feet, he looked back at Fleur and then shrugged his shoulders in a defeated gesture. "I'm going to have to go have a talk with Moody about all of this. Dumbledore trusts him, so I will as well."

While biting her lip in response to Harry's aura of reluctant nobility, Fleur nodded her understanding.

It actually took Harry a few moments just to find the man that he needed to speak to, standing right next to the platform. As per usual, Professor Moody was wearing dozens of heavy, magic repelling charms, all over his body, keeping Harry's magic from sensing him at all. While it was common knowledge that the retired Auror was paranoid in the extreme, this was just a little bit ridiculous…

As Harry began to move away, Fleur rested a hand on his waist, and then gave him a meaningful look when he turned back in her direction. "'Urry back 'Arry... I was enjoying you..."

After giving Fleur a wide parting smile, Harry started dashing down the stands to where moody was standing off to one side. If he wanted to stay low profile, he'd have to crouch down and walk in front of the crowd in order to get to the man.

Seventh year Ravenclaw Ernie Macmillan was extremely eager to be a member of the Hogwarts dueling team. He saw his inevitable placement on the team as his ticket to the notoriety that he'd always deserved. Ernie was an excellent wizard with exemplary grades and yet time after time his greatness was glossed over by both his peers and the professors. When he'd been skipped over for the title of Head Boy this year, he'd all but given up on being known for anything at all in his entire seven years at Hogwarts...

Then the Triwizard Tournament was announced, and Ernie had immediately realized exactly what he was going to do. He was going to be both the dueling team captain and the tournament Champion for Hogwarts! All he had to do was win his duel in as dramatic a fashion he could, and his place on the team was assured!

As Ernie stood there on the far side of the dueling platform, facing both the audience and that blond moron Malfoy, he brainstormed several different methods of beating the boy. Then the idea hit him. All he really had to do was one up Mary Macdonald's Banishing spell. Her spell had been simple but effective in the extreme, and it had been a hit with both the audience and the judges. He'd also just really liked the way that the Weasley boy was sent flying like a ragdoll.

In the end, Ernie decided to one up the Hufflepuff girl in the extreme by making use of an extremely powerful but subtle magical tool that his father gifted him over the summer. Ernie had been completely stunned by the power of his father's amulet-driven spell, designed as it was to strip bare about thirty trees before its momentum finally came to a stop. There was just one sticking point in Ernie's plan. He'd been told to never use this amulet unless he had at least two Pepper up Potions on hand, because it would use up almost all of his magic, all at once. Thankfully, Ernie didn't think he'd have to follow up his wind spell with anything else because this was the super dramatic spell that he'd been looking for. It was official. He'd lead with that. He'd unleash the Notosbrutus, the oxygen spear spell.

Across the platform, Draco Malfoy was not having a very good year at Hogwarts. It appeared that every filthy mudblood and blood traitor in the entire school was conspiring against him all at once, and that could mean only one thing. He wasn't receiving the respect that someone of his station was owed. Well… That was about to change. It was time to prove his vast superiority by leading the Hogwarts dueling team...

Looking across the dueling platform, Draco had to admit that there was a second reason for his current excitement. He was really looking forward to hurting that arrogant prick Ernie Macmillan. Macmillan was so full of himself the boy even thought that he could talk back to a pureblood such as him. Draco was the very best of magical breeding, so he couldn't allow some jumped up halfblood like Ernie to think he was his better. He was going to use his strongest fire spell and show the boy some pain. As soon as the duel began, he was going to cast an Incendio Maxima at the fool.

Just as Harry entered the grassy area in front of the audience and began crouch/walking his way over to Moody, the Defense Instructor called out the word "begin!"

Immediately after Moody yelled the word begin, both young wizards began casting their predetermined spells. Macmillan, who was the older, more advanced wizard, was cheating using an spell-amulet, which is why he finished pouring his magic into the super-massive spell quite a bit faster than Malfoy completed his. Macmillan's heavy wind spell Conjured upwards of thirty high speed wind funnel lances and they were three quarters of the way to Draco by the time the boy finally managed to release his wide area fire spell.

It was only after the thick stream of fire finally left the tip of Draco's wand that his eyes widened in sudden realization. Several dozen, razor sharp, funnels of almost pure oxygen, were flying his way and they were about to collide with his fire spell! It was a statement about how dangerous the two conflicting spells were about to become that even someone like Draco Malfoy began furiously backpedaling out of the way. A moment later, he also proved that he was extremely lucky, when he tripped, fell, and then rolled backwards along the platform.

In the end, Draco's lack of coordination saved his life.

When the two complimentary spells met in the air, they instantly exploded together into a fiery conflagration. By the time the two spells were finished interacting, the wind spell's cyclones had transformed into what could only be described as fire funnel spears.

And by some miracle, Draco Malfoy ended up almost entirely outside of the initial blast radius… almost.

If the barrier wall had still been properly in place, the fire spears that Draco and Ernie had created would've been contained. The swirling, white hot, pure oxygen fueled fire missiles, would've rebounded off of the barrier and then swept right back at the two duelists. Both Ernie and Draco would've been incinerated to ashes by the massive fireball that the spears would've become when they splashed against the barrier. As things stood however, the fire spears were free to fly past the edge of the dueling platform completely unhindered. A high velocity stream of flaming tornadoes were now soaring directly towards the completely oblivious audience.

For obvious reasons, Harry had been keeping an eye on the duelists as he dashed across the grounds between the stands and the platform. He was a little under halfway across the field, when he heard the two boys scream out their first spells and felt large amounts of magic being generated.

Stopping in place, Harry abruptly straightened up to his full height as he turned a shocked look towards the dueling platform.

Oh wow… It was bad. It was really, really bad.

An eighteen wheeler sized mass of white hot and swirling flames was flying directly in his direction at blistering speeds. Time seemed to slow down as Harry abruptly realized just how dangerous his current situation really was, and his magic began reacting accordingly. A massive dose of magically bolstered adrenaline immediately coursed throughout his whole entire body, allowing him the ability to think extremely quickly and clearly. Unfortunately, this newfound clarity didn't mean that he had the time required to brainstorm a truly effective plan of action...

Of course, if he started moving now, Harry was confident that he could dodge the flames with very little effort. The problem with that plan was that he'd be dooming all of the people behind him to an abrupt and fiery end in the process...

Damn!

Fleur would probably protect his friends, but... Cute, little firsties and happy, helpful Hufflepuffs that wouldn't hurt a fly... Harry couldn't do it.

Shit!

With his mind made up, the first thing that Harry did was call upon Aethir, because damn... Without her help, this next part would be completely impossible. Harry needed to move fast. He needed to move faster than fast. He also needed Aethir's help keeping the flames from catching upon his clothing and... skin.

Ugh.

Some minor burns fine, but seriously...

Thankfully, Harry'd already had his wand out as he was walking towards Professor Moody. For that reason, as Aethir guided him and his reaction speeds accelerated even further, he could immediately get to work. In a split second, Harry thought up and then discarded about fifteen different equally stupid plans, all of which being either completely ineffective or far too complicated and time consuming. That's the reason why, in the end, Harry just poured a ton of raw power towards the problem.

He began by using Transfiguration to move several tons of earth from deep below his feet. He tightly wrapped his outstretched magic around a very wide area of dirt and stone, and then coerced it all into becoming a barrier between himself and the approaching fire. With an unbelievably loud roar followed closely by an ear splitting boom, a tall earthen wall suddenly burst out of the ground. The rapid displacement of that much earth caused the ground at his feet to shake, crack, fissure and crater, as its foundation was suddenly ripped away.

Harry barely even noticed.

His entire attention was still focused on what he had to do next. While the wall that he'd created was a massive and impressive bit of magic to say the very least, he could already tell that it wasn't going to be enough...

The problem was that Harry's wall wasn't going to be anywhere near big enough to stop the wall of fire that was screaming in his direction. Harry could see right away that the flames would just flow around the wall to splash into the audience on either side and that could not be allowed to happen. What that meant was that Harry would need to pour even more power into the problem.

With no hesitation whatsoever, Harry grabbed ahold of yet more earth and clay from the surrounding landscape and concentrated on building two more thinner but longer walls, in front of and to the sides of the first wall. He also angled these two new walls inwards to contain the splash damage of the fire. Once again, with the deafening roar of an avalanche, stone barriers erupted up out of the ground, causing the earth in Harry's general vicinity to split open and crater downwards in dozens of different places. Harry braced his feet wide on the newly pitted and unstable ground, raised his wand, and grit his teeth.

He'd run out of time... The fire had arrived.

During the next split second, the fire funnel spears smashed right into the middle of Harry's three Transfigured walls, with an enormously jarring impact, at which point the extreme heat being generated by the flames started to burn directly through them at an extremely rapid rate.

Despite his hopes, Harry could immediately tell that these super intense flames just wouldn't be stopped by mere earthen walls. The walls were only made of tightly packed together soil and rocks, so they were beginning to turn a cherry red as they melted down into a slag.

Well... Damn.

Harry didn't know what the perfect solution was, but what he did know was that doing nothing was unacceptable. With a growl of frustration, Harry continued his defensive with a massive amount of water spells. He raised his wand and started firing off high power Aguamenti spells by the several dozen per second. Water beams began flying from his wand along the entire length of the earthen walls, cooling down the melting rock. It still wasn't enough. The red-hot blotches visible in the wall were still growing larger at an astonishing rate, especially in the middle where the flame's were far more concentrated. Despite Harry's efforts, the central area of the earthen wall was mere moments away from burning through. Harry could also see that no amount of water was going to mean anything against flames this hot.

Then it was happening. The central area of Harry's defensive wall started collapsing to the ground like a red-hot puddle of partially melted butter.

The flames had broken through the central part of Harry's wall. They were about to crash directly through his body to the audience sitting at his back.

Harry moved.

With a roaring cry of maxed out aggression, Harry dashed forward towards the newly created hole in the earthen wall, wand pointed at the hole as he violently banished away a massive swath of flames, along with all of the red-hot slag that was pooling on the ground. He needed to give himself a place to work from that wouldn't immediately incinerate his feet. Then, even before he arrived at the gap in the wall, Harry erected an extremely large Protego shield directly in front of it, several meters in front of his body. His secrets could be damned.

This moment was do or die, and he wasn't feeling the dying option.

During the split second that he'd won himself, Harry slid into place within the crater that he'd just gouged out of the earth, and braced his feet to the best of his ability. He almost wasn't fast enough. Just as he finished planting his feet, the high velocity wall of flames slammed hard into his three meter wide magical shield, and Harry was almost knocked right back out of the gap.

Despite the fact that he'd already anchored his shield into the remaining walls to his right and his left, there was still an unbelievable amount of force behind the oxygen driven flames. Harry was being pummeled by the concussive force behind the flames, causing him to stagger and slip all over his newly muddy crater. His footing became even worse as all of the water from his earlier Aguamenti spells pooled around his legs and halfway up his calves. Then, all of the sudden, his footing was the very least of his concerns.

While Harry's magical shield could and was stopping the flames, it couldn't completely deflect away the superheated air that they were carrying.

Harry smelled his hair burning, felt his exposed skin taking damage and felt his legs getting scorched under the newly scalding hot water. Then he started seeing tongues of flame breaking through dozens of smaller openings along the length of the wall, both to his right and to his left. His situation was getting worse by the moment, but that didn't really make a difference. It was immaterial. The children sitting in the stands behind him would be cooked to death if he backed away. He needed to hold on. He needed to finish this. With a feral growl of absolute effort, Harry extended his shield outwards even further along the wall, both to the right and to the left, and injected what amounted to a Glacius (freezing) spell into the magic that comprised it as he continued to hold the line.

For a small eternity of time, Harry continued to maintain the Glacius-Protego shield mixture between himself and a hellish inferno, forcing the freezing spell that he was casting to rip the heat out of the air as it splashed against his magical barrier He spent that time gathering yet more magic and pouring it down beneath his feet. Then, when he was finally ready, Harry Transfigured yet another rock wall right in front of the gap that he was standing in. This newest wall erupted out of the earth all at once and in yet another explosion of sound. In his desperation, Harry had forced far more earth into this wall than he had into the first three, causing dozens of deep fissures to explode open in the ground all around the clearing.

Harry couldn't have cared less... He'd been taking burn damage with every single moment that passed, and he'd needed to get this done! The landscaping could be damned.

With this new section of wall finally in place, Harry found himself pointing his wand up at it, while kneeling at the bottom of a water filled crater. As time went by, the water drained out of his crater, into a deep fissure within the earth on his right hand side. Soon enough, the water was gone, and Harry was left kneeling at the bottom of a meter deep, mud filled, bowl-like depression in the ground. Harry didn't even notice the scenery changes. He kept his focus on the wall. While he was reasonably certain the remaining flames didn't have the strength to break through this last wall, he wasn't the type to take these things for granted.

Finally, after an indeterminable amount of time spent just listening to the whooshing and crashing of rushing flames, the wind spears finally lost their momentum and died away. When the cacophony of the fire spell finally ended, Harry flopped back onto his butt in an adrenaline dumped state, just staring up at the sky... Profound relief and happiness were currently doing funny things with his body chemistry. Warring against his skyrocketing adrenaline and self-satisfaction was the certain knowledge that there had to have been a far more intelligent way of dealing with that whole mess. The problem was that he'd be damned if he knew what that better solution was, and he'd just reacted fast. After checking his Mindscape clock, Harry was surprised to find out that everything he'd just done had happened in approximately thirteen seconds...

Silence... Complete and utter silence. Harry was afraid to look... He was also winded magically, which just proved that he wasn't one of the Gods after all. After slowly rising to his feet, Harry started trying to climb towards some dry, stable ground. He failed and almost fell back onto his ass. After slipping several feet back into the crater, Harry finally noticed that his shoes were completely melted through and falling off.

Whoopsie... It was time to do a self assessment...

As he checked himself over, Harry was shocked to realize that most of the hair was burned off of his head, and his eyebrows weren't faring any better. He could also see steam billowing off of his soaked and shredded clothing, causing him to shiver at the senseless drama of it all.

Long story short, Harry was certain that he looked extremely interesting to the audience sitting behind him, and he was reluctant to weather all of the inevitable staring... To both save himself some embarrassment and stall for extra time, Harry completed a hair growth spell on his head, eyebrows and arms. Then, when he had the normal variety of hair in all of the standard locations, there was no reason to put it off anymore. Harry looked for his friends up in the...

Oh yeah... the audience.

Upwards of four hundred people were just sitting completely still up in the stands where they were staring at him as if he was a zoo animal…

Well... shucks. Harry didn't know what else to do, so he just shrugged expressively and spoke loudly into the silence. "Wow... That was scary huh?"

At first, the audience didn't react at all. They just stared at the smoke, steam and barren earth on the other side of the scorched and ruined earth walls. Then, as the smoke cleared some more, the audience began to see a completely passed out Ernie Macmillan and a very smoky Malfoy, rolling around in pain. The dueling platform, ironically enough, was essentially untouched. The wind had apparently moved the flames almost entirely in the crowd's direction, with just a little bit of it tagging Malfoy on the way by.

So far so good. The devastation had most of the audience's attention. After slowly and carefully exiting his crater, Harry stumbled across a stretch of pitted and destroyed earth, and then started walking back towards his seat. No one present was moving or talking just yet, but now that Harry had moved, the audience appeared to be following him with their eyes.

It was the Quidditch team that finally did it. Fred and George stood up, only to look down at the Gryff girls, Fleur, Neville, Hermione, Selene and Cedric. Once they were all clued in, they all said the words both loudly and in perfect unison...

"HARRY POTTER!"

As soon as that name was announced into the silence dominating the dueling arena, the audience's stunned silence completely shattered and pandemonium took over the stands. Extremely loud yelling and cheering could be heard from every direction and people were jumping to their feet in their excitement.

As chaos suddenly broke out and the closer students started moving in his direction, Harry quickly Disillusioned and scent washed his body. He really didn't feel like being swamped by about a hundred overexcited children at the moment. Easing off to the side as the unruly mob approached where he'd been, Harry moved over to the entry doors of the stands, where he leaned against a wooden pillar, and he waited.

There were several things that Harry needed to accomplish before he could re-emerge back with his friends. He needed to give all of his burns time to heal without gawkers watching it happen. He also wanted to perform a few silent Tergeo cleaning spells on himself to remove all of the dirt and blood from his skin, hair and clothing. Cleaning spells cast directly on your body tend to be uncomfortable because the magical scrubbing is extremely thorough. Nevertheless, Harry considered it worth it under the circumstances. He didn't want Fleur to notice the bloodstains all over his body, realize just how much damage he'd taken, and then worry about his health and safety. Sure, he had several moderately bad burns, but since they were already healing at a rapid rate, there was really no reason to fuss over him. Cycling his magic around the damaged areas sped up the healing process even more and he even used the Episkey charm a few times on top of that.

Soon enough, Harry was clean and injury free again, so he began making his way towards his friends. As he slowly eased his way up the aisle at the side of the stands, the audience calmed down again and the volume went back to normal. Around the time Harry was approaching his own spot with his friends, the visiting proctors finally decided to do their damned jobs. They began speaking to the audience about how they were going to fix both the grounds and the barrier and how the tryouts would continue momentarily.

Immediately after Harry sat down in his spot between Hermione and Neville, two smooth, cool, perfect hands wrapped around his chest, to pull him in tight against a subtly trembling body. For a brief moment, Harry wondered how Fleur always just knew exactly where he was. Then he realized that he didn't care about the whys and hows of the situation. He only cared that she loved him, that her arms felt good, and that she was helping him ease away the very last of his tension.

With a happy smile on her face, Selene's eyes scanned the still excited crowd. She was also amused by the half a dozen proctors that were filling in the various deep sinkholes near the platform. Only one thing could make this moment even more entertaining for her... "Okay sooo…," Selene began, while looking down at Hermione. "Where did he go?"

Turning back towards Selene and then everyone else, Hermione just shrugged with a somewhat helpless grin on her face. "Who knows… He'll be somewhere nearby though, waiting for all the clamor to die down. He just hates the staring he receives after these kinds of events. He doesn't mean for these things to happen in the first place... I mean, he was just walking by and then... Oh! Fire tornado missiles... Since when is that even a thing by the way?"

Without a word, everyone nodded in complete agreement.

"Anyone care to guess how many spells he cast and in what order?" Cedric looked as if he was already trying and failing to do so.

Fred and George just shook their heads. "It was way too fast and unexpected," replied Fred.

"Three rock walls, Aguamenti spells, Protego shield, and an even larger wall, but I'm not sure how many Aguamenti spells... Fifty at the very least." Hermione looked like she was watching an instant replay in her mind. "I'll have to tell him later to just keep building walls. With all of the time he wasted shooting off water he could've made like three more walls."

"I agree, but eef 'ee wants to go zat route, 'ee will need to master earth Conjuration first. At zat point 'ee will need to add 'is own stone to ze mix." When everyone in the group looked up at Selene, she just shrugged in response. "What wiz all ze dirt and stone 'Arry forcefully removed from under ze ground just now, 'ee was actually een danger of 'aving ze earth collapse from underneath 'im. A better way of doing eet would 'ave been to build a trench and zen make ze wall wiz ze earth zat 'ee just excavated." At the tail end of that thought, Selene looked just a little bit chagrined. "Zen again… Eet feels weird to be giving constructive criticism, when 'Arry just moved faster zan I've ever seen a 'uman move before." Even as Selene said that however, she looked thoughtful, as if she was thinking of even more advice that she could give for the future.

Turning back towards Selene, Hermione threw up her hands in a gesture of long suffering. "With Harry this is only the FIRST time he'll face a wall of fire spears, not the only time. I want to rename Murphy's Law into Harry's law. I always give him a rundown, so that the next time he has an easier time with it. He knows why I do it, so he has patience with me."

Leaning forward (and squishing Harry), Fleur rested a hand on Hermione's shoulder and beamed a wide, warm smile at her. "'Arry would be long dead wizzout you Mione, zat ees for certain. You are ees big seester and I love you for zat."

Hermione may have blushed but she also smiled widely.

The entire group soon quieted down and began watching the show. The show was mostly just the proctors trying and failing to restore order...

Since Harry wasn't in any discomfort anymore, he could safely assume that his skin was mostly healed at this point. His friends were also finished discussing him, so there wouldn't be any awkwardness about him eavesdropping... It was time…. As he suddenly ended his invisibility spell, Harry adopted a completely relaxed and oblivious expression upon his face. Fleur immediately secured her hold upon his body by adding her legs to the mix and hugging him even tighter to her tummy.

Hermione was startled for a second at Harry's sudden reappearance, but she rallied quickly and smiled. These days Neville had become used to his friend appearing at random, so he was completely unaffected.

"What'd I miss?" Harry smiled casually at his friends, so that they'd follow his lead and roll with the punches.

After everyone turned towards Harry, they all very carefully didn't make a big deal about what they'd just seen. Not one of them failed to notice that Harry himself wasn't burned, despite the fact that his clothing had over half a dozen large burn holes in them and his shoes had been melted completely off of his feet. No one wanted to be the one who pointed out that Harry was showcasing two impossibly contradictory states of being at the moment, so for now, the matter was put aside.

"Well, the judges did announce that you can join the Hogwarts dueling team as the captain if you want," Cedric informed Harry.

"Pass," Harry replied easily and immediately. "My clothing is ruined. Quidditch doesn't barbecue your shoes. That was sooo damned random by the way. Fire tornado spears…. really?"

Everyone just nodded again in complete agreement.

Even after the dueling restarted, many of the spectators spent the entire afternoon openly staring at Harry. Thankfully he was back amongst his team so approaching him to ask questions was impossible.

In the end, Malfoy and Macmillan never got to duel again. Ernie went to the Hospital Wing of the school with advanced magical exhaustion, and Malfoy had several burns. It wouldn't have mattered if they were physically capable anyway. Neither one of them would have made the team after their little stunt... Beyond the fact that Macmillan blatantly cheated when he made use of his amulet, the judges had come to the conclusion that both children involved in the incident were waaay too dumb to be trained in dueling. Malfoy fed a large stream of flames directly into a massive outpouring of pure Conjured oxygen. Between the two of them they'd somehow managed to cause a stage four, magically fueled disaster that could've killed upwards of two hundred people…

Idiots.

Three seventh years by the name of Katrina Doyle, Jake Hoyles and Ryan Harris comprised the Hogwarts dueling team, along with the second year duelist Mary MacDonald.

Ron was last seen storming off to his bed in the Gryffindor tower, in an extremely embarrassed and resentful, red-faced huff.

To Be Continued

Author's Note:

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