Chapter Number: 18
Chapter Name: The Dueling Demonstration
Harry was the first to wake up in the morning. Saturday was his usual "sleeping in" day but for some reason he woke up early that day. The wake up itself was very nice. All night long he had smelled vanilla & spice and when he awoke he saw the source. Hermione's head was in front of his nose and he had smelled her conditioner. As he was absentmindedly admiring her locks of frizzy hair, a thought sent him scrambling off the couch. ' What would people think if they came in now... more importantly what would Ron think...' thought Harry, panicking before realizing that it was just before six o'clock in the morning and the likelihood of anyone being awake was the same as Snape giving the Gryffindors a hundred points.
He decided that the best course of action was to wake up Hermione.
" Hermione. Hermione wake up." He said gently to her ear.
" No daddy. I don't want to go to kindy today" She chewed on some of her own saliva making some noises before saying, " No kindy please..."
Harry chuckled at the thought that Hermione actually ever not wanting to go to school. It was impossible to believe considering how much she enjoyed doing her homework. ' She probably slept here all night... I better put her in bed.'
He gently picked her off the ground and headed for the girls' dorm. It didn't take him long to find the room that Hermione shared with others of the same year. He just looked for a room that was clean but also had a lot of books and an empty bed.
Fortunately for Harry the door was open and that none of the girls were awake yet or so he thought. There was a solitary figure in the shadows that he had missed. He put her down on the bed and tucked her in and left her a note before quietly leaving the room.
When the warm noon sun finally streamed through the window of the dorm and onto the face of Hermione, she was surprised to wake up in her own bed. Not only that but she was also tucked nicely inside her favorite blanket featuring a flying book and a small girl chasing after it. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out how she had ended up in her own room, but the answer came when she found a small note on her bed written in Harry's unmistakably shoddy penmanship.
Hey Hermione,
You really shouldn't have gone to sleep like that... I mean... Do you know how hard it was for me to carry someone as heavy as you... I'm joking. I could have been expelled for putting you back in the bed. Not that I minded going in there. All those girls and only in their cute little pajamas...
Harry
P/S: I tried "moonwalking" but failed miserably. I can hardly believe mom ever did this. The pain was there almost before I could get out.
Hermione knew for security they had to call his now powers his original stupid name. Having grown up in a muggle orphanage, they were sure Tom Riddle would know what the muggle term Astral Projection was - it was Hermione's idea to do this. She had thought that their communication should be as vague as possible when they weren't talking to each other.
Hermione couldn't help but grin at the note. Harry had acquired an unusual sense of humor in the summer and she suspected it had something do with the two days he was missing. ' Why does he seem older,' thought Hermione for the third time after she had found him alive. Her heart was buzzing with excitement, when she thought of all the cookie adventures the three of them would be having that year.
After a quick shower she headed down stairs wearing a shirt that she had "removed (without the permission of the owner)" from Harry's trunk after she thought he had died. When she reached the landing she saw Harry jog into the common room in his light blue T-shirt and swimming togs that Dudley had abandoned several years earlier. The room was empty except for those two. Hermione couldn't wait to talk to him when Ron came crashing through the portrait hole and collapsed on the floor in front of Harry's feet.
" Hey! Ron you ok, Buddy" asked Harry, kneeling down to the floor, with genuine concern in his voice.
" Yeah...I..'m...just...a...litt..le... tired." Ron replied who was still not done with his panting. Ron had agreed to go running with his friend in the hopes that when Harry gets all the attention from the girls, he'll get some as well. But all the girls it seemed had either forgotten about Harry or just weren't interested that day. Though Alicia had jogged with them for about an hour before she had to go to the meeting of the Quidditch captains to organize that years Quidditch games.
" Well, you need to get in shape for..." Harry stopped when he saw Hermione come down the stairs in slightly loose denim trouser and very nice white shirt that she wore with the bottom part tied in a knot in front of her.
' Wow! She looks great...' thought Harry, very uncharacteristically, until he saw that she was wearing his only piece of muggle clothing he had ever bought for himself. ' HeY! That's the shirt I bought from Harrad's! So that's where it went to...'
He debated whether or not to tell her something in regards to her appearance but decided against it as Ron was there. When Harry stopped talking in mid sentence Ron looked up to see the cause. Ron's mind stopped working for a moment before he recovered saying, " You look ...err... nice Hermione."
Hermione waited a few seconds for Harry to say something but when he didn't she said rather curtly, " Thanks. At least one of you have the decency to say so."
Harry quickly caught on to the fact that she had worn the shirt to somehow intimidate him or even worse get a complement out of him. Or at least that's what his brain reasoned. ' This could be fun.'
" Are trying to start a fight Ms. Granger?" said Harry in a mock voice that resembled Snape's.
" So what if I am?" retorted Hermione, sounding a bit more serious than Harry had hoped for.
" OK... You name the time and place" said Harry.
Ron was surprised at how easily his two best friends were going at each other's throats just because of a small matter of Harry not complementing her. " Harry, I think you should apologize and complement her" said Ron taking a side with Hermione.
" I think not!" said Harry indignantly, " If I liked what she was wearing I would have had said so! Denim trousers and a white shirt -ugh."
Hermione lost her slight smile. If Hermione hadn't been so worked up about Harry's comment she would have had remembered that it was Harry's shirt that she was wearing and she could easily deflect the insults to him, but she did not. " You...Youu... I'll get you for that Harry Potter. You wanted to know the time and place? Uh!?"
Harry had never seen Hermione so riled up before and though it was a bit mean of him, he achieved his aim in getting her to have a duel with him. " Great hall. After Lunch. I'll organize it with Mr. Pasha. I'll beat you up in front of the whole school and I won't even get in trouble for it." She stormed out of the room after that.
Ron was very surprised at Harry. He had never seen Harry act like that before toward Hermione except when she had told Professor McGonagall about getting a Firebolt. So it was not a surprise when he asked, " What was that about?... Oh! Don't tell me... It's that time of the month again isn't it?"
" Ron. Don't be jerk." Reprimanded Harry for using such a crude expression.
" It's like this.... You know how me and her got taught the Dueling techniques right..." he waited for Ron to nod. " Did you know she did Martial Arts for three year.. THREE YEARS .. before coming to Hogwarts? She also knows a hell of a lot more spells than I did when we practiced. Those two facts combined are a very bad thing. Well, I had to find that out when we practiced together. I was the one getting physically beaten up... I got her good on spells but only three times I managed to hit her physically. I think I can beat her now and this is my chance to get some of my dignity back."
" You do realize if you loose to her that your reputation will be gone." said Ron.
" If I lose, then I deserved to lose and you should know by now the only people's opinion I gave a damn about is you, Hermione, Sirius and Professor Dumbledore. Well, any way... we need to grab a shower and something tells me its' going to be a long weekend either way."
When Hermione mentioned to Ali Pasha and offered to do a Dueling match to help increase the number of participants he was sold on the idea. For the next half an hour the rumor spread around the school that there would be a Dueling match to get students to signup to more than one class of Dueling. Harry ate very little since too much food had a way of making him sleepy. Ron on the other hand had no such compunction; in the middle of his late lunch the plates vanished leaving him very hungry. Ali Pasha stepped in the middle of the tables and loudly cleared his throat bringing silence to the room.
" Ahem. Attention please." When the room noise had died down enough he said, " This year all fourth year and up", Hermione made a gesture of "two" from where she was, to say that it was second year and up. " Excuse me, second year and up, are required to take Dueling as a subject at least once a week. With the darklord back in power it's advised that you take it three times a week and as an elective on the weekends as a club type activity. Now, I have taught two students amongst you already a few of the basic moves. The technique is more of a way of thinking than anything else. It teaches you to understand how best to use physical attacks with the magical ones. It's been part of the Moroccan wizarding culture for over a thousand years, though the revival of the technique was during the Shozar wars some thirteen years ago." He paused to see general reaction of the crowd. He could see the students were interested when everyone came closer.
" Now I ask the participants to come up and demonstrate. Harry. Hermione."
The pair made their way to where Ali Pasha was. Surprisingly no one clapped or cheered. They were all too anxious to see what would happen. Most of them had seen the disaster at Lockhart's attempt at starting a Dueling club was. When he clapped his hands and all the tables disappeared. He then snapped his fingers and Harry and Hermione's clothes changes into more appropriate loose fitting clothes. They bowed to each other and took out their wands.
" Begin" said Ali Pasha. Harry opted to take a stance that he knew, but it was unfamiliar to both Ali Pasha and Hermione. Hermione though surprised recovered quickly.
She yelled " Impedimenta", hitting squarely on his body. Since she was very close to Harry she decided to try a high kick on his face but Harry surprised her by grabbing her ankle in mid air and turning her body a full 360 degrees before letting go. Hermione fell to the floor with a loud thud, but she was back on her feet very soon since Harry tried no counter attack. Harry just grinned.
Again Hermione assumed the role of aggressor. She yelled, " Moms serkia" and a blinding while exploded in front of Harry's face. The light temporarily blinded Harry, surprisingly enough the spell only worked on the person it was aimed at. Hermione followed through by tripping Harry. She then locked Harry in the same position as she had done before in Morocco - the one that she knew Harry couldn't get out of.
Hermione managed to elbow Harry five times in the face before Harry could see again. When a small treacle of blood came out of his lips Harry saw Hermione regret written all over her face for hitting him too many times.
' Don't think that way Hermione. You can't think that way when you're fighting... Well I'll just have to piss you off now don't I,' thought Harry, as he threw Hermione of him the same way he had done when they were in Morocco.
" You have to do a lot better than that Hermione." Teased Harry, as he wiped away the blood from his lips. Hermione didn't like to be teased and she forgot ever regretting hitting him too many times. So when Hermione went full force all of a sudden the whole room let out a collective gasp. She knew from experience before Harry didn't get hurt as much in his mid-section so she had to target his groin and upper torso.
After three minutes of intense attack she managed to land one good spell on Harry. Harry was fast and he managed to avoid all her physical attacks. Realizing Harry had been trying to make her tired from the beginning she went into a defensive stance. But the defensive stance makes you wait for the other person to hit you. Harry did no such thing. Harry was still trying to off balance Hermione. Harry started to circle her. After a few nerve wracking seconds (for Hermione), Harry did something she hadn't seen before or read about, which by it self was a big achievement.
He yelled, ' Illuoi Mulcast'. Suddenly Harry's clones surrounded her... thirteen to be exact. Though trivial in terms of use it was a very complicated spell and only handful of people knew how to do it since it requires a lot of metal focus to do it. Ali Pasha, gave a knowing smile at that as he knew of only one other person who could do it and that was during the Shozar Wars and that was done by none other than that man who brought about the end of the war. She tried desperately to see which one was the real one when they all spoke making the whole room reverberate with the combined voice of the thirteen Harry Potters.
" Confusing isn't it?"
Hermione though she found which of the clones was the real one but before she could attack it all the clones disappeared leaving only one right behind her. Harry tapped on her shoulder and said, " Tag. You're it".
The room filled with laughter as they realized Harry was just teasing her. Hermione was furious, at Harry for treating the demo a game, though she knew it was a result of a "fight" between them. She started to run after him, causing the great hall to be filled with laughter again. Then she got a brilliant idea to cast a 'quick' spell on herself.
For the next few seconds she was almost a blur as she moved faster than the eye could see properly. When she caught him, she pummeled his face and groin area with punches, elbows and hexes. Though the hexes didn't stay long but the blows made him bleed and bruise. Hermione wasn't the only one who hit the other one during those blurring few seconds. Harry managed to give her some of her own medicine, when he blocked several of her attacks using moves that she had taught him and then retaliating with his own blows. But since she had the head start by the time the 'quick' spell wore off Harry fell to the floor.
" Ha..ha.. Potter getting beaten up by a girl" said Malfoy who had forgotten that the same girl had rendered him useless on the train the day before. " Shut up, Malfoy. I'm concentrating.", said one of the 6th year prefects from Ravenclaw who held his wand tip right to Malfoy's nose.
When Harry fell to the floor after the beating he almost lost grip on his wand. Which would have had meant that he was defeated. His male ego told him it was time he stopped playing. He stood up and cast a spell on himself. It was too low to be heard by anyone else. "Stupefy" yelled Hermione as a bright blue beam of light sizzled through the air before bouncing off something invisible very close to Harry's body. The stray spell went right through the invisible shield that Ali Pasha had erected and hit Draco Malfoy. Draco flew through the air and hit the wall right behind him. Professor Snape, realizing the invisible shield was too weak since the amount of area it covered was relatively large, got Professor McGonagall to join him to set-up shielding charms.
When Hermione saw the stunning curse just bounce off Harry's shield she decided to try the biggest and most powerful legal curse she could do. She yelled, "Aureus Incendio" (meaning golden Flame). Her entire body was engulfed in yellow flames until the flames started to move to her wand. She aimed straight at Harry not knowing the full strength of the shielding charm.
Hermione had expected for the curse to go right through the shield, but when the spell was cast she quickly realized that Harry's strategy had worked. She was too weak to do the spell at full power. ' Should be enough though,' thought Hermione as she put everything she had into it.
Hermione was wrong... but not by very much. When the bright yellow beam reached the shield Harry had no idea, what it was. He felt his shielding charm weaken and collapse behind him. Harry redirected his powers to the front of the shield barely managing to hold on. If Hermione had put an ounce more of her magic in it Harry would have had been consumed by the yellow flame.
When the shielding charm finally managed to deflect the blast it headed back to Hermione. Hermione didn't have enough strength to move out of the way of the bright yellow beam so she resigned herself to think that for the next few days she would be in the hospital wing. Something clicked inside of Harry again, the same way it had when Hermione was under attack from the Nundu. He moved faster than he ever had done before and managed to put himself between the deflected magic beam and Hermione. Hermione saw the beam of light hit Harry on his back and engulfing him from the back in blaze of yellow flames, for his trouble.
He let out a scream that stopped Hermione's heart cold. She knew the flame was an advanced sort of stunning spell that disabled the cursed person for a few seconds but she had no idea that Harry would have had screamed in pain. She couldn't even move to Harry's aid when Harry went to the floor in pain. Her eyes started to well up with tears when....
Amazingly Harry got up and literally shook himself off the pain. He yelled to mainly the crowd who were trying to see what was wrong with Harry, " I'm OK. It's just my ankle. I think I sprained it". Hermione then saw Harry walking towards her with a slight limp.
Harry took only three seconds to literally shake off the advanced stunning spell, which was shocking considering the Aurors used them on deatheaters to disable them for between ten to fifteen seconds. It was as if she put a fork in a muggle toaster while it was on. When they were close she could see he was smiling broadly and it had nothing evil in it. She had expected Harry to come to her and curse her with something really bad but to her surprise he knelt down in front of her and presented his wand to her.
It was a sign of his defeat.
The whole hall cheered. Ali Pasha still had the shield erected so every one wasn't able to rush in there and congratulate them on a fantastic performance.
Harry got up and stood next to her shoulder to shoulder. He leaned his head towards Hermione and said, " I was just joking when I said those things about you in the common room. You did look good... I just wanted to get to rile up so we could have a good fight. I'm sorry." He then turned his body to wards Hermione and said, " You can have my shirt. It looks better on you."
Ali Pasha walked through the three shielding charms and started to speak. " Everyone" The hall went surprisingly quite. "I hope you liked what you saw. If you didn't then think about it this way" he looked around the hall to see if Professor McGonagall or Professor Snape or even Professor Dumbledore was there. Finding no one of authority than himself present he said, "... you'll get to beat up both your friends and enemies and you do it all in the name of learning. Don't you wish all your other subjects were like this too?" in response a thundering cheer went across the room. After he finished he told them to go and see Percy in Ali Pasha's class on Monday morning or in the weekends at lunch times.
Harry's injuries hadn't healed yet, since he didn't want to expose his powers to anyone else yet. Hermione was weak from her last attack and had to be carried by Harry to a table that Professor Pasha made appear out of thin air. Once he put her down, he noticed that she was crying. " What are you crying about now? I said I'm sorry... Look if you want me to go on my hands and knees and beg for your forgiveness..." Harry had started to already go down on his hands and knees when Hermione caught him.
" It's not that... I was just wondering why you took that blast for me?"
" Oh That" said Harry grinning a little, " Well... I was stupid, when I didn't attack you after I did that illusion of my 12 other brothers....". His smile just kept getting bigger. " I didn't think that you should have to spend several days in the hospital and miss all the new things that we're supposed to be learning this year."
There was a hint of blush on her face.
' She always gets like this when I say something about her liking school...' thought Harry as he said, " and all because of me... besides I couldn't risk anyone else." Neither Harry nor Hermione had noticed the other two shielding charm go up after the incident with Malfoy. Hermione knew what Harry meant. If Harry had used the shielding charm someone from the audience would have had been hurt. Then Harry's face went a little serious. " By the way... that was one powerful beam. I almost didn't make back before it hit you... Not to mention it almost went through the shielding charm even though I think it was only half strength. What was it?"
" Golden Flame" smiled Hermione, but that wasn't all that she did. Her face was blushing the brightest ever at the complement.
" Ahhh.... Was it supposed to be that powerful?"
" Yes. I'm sorry... I shouldn't have done that..." Hermione tried to finish the sentence but she was interrupted by Harry.
" You should be sorry. But-" Harry used his hands to wipe away her tear. "-not because of using a strong attack on me, but for feeling sorry for it. I told you I wanted to become stronger...." Harry broke off when he heard the unmistakable sound of Ron approaching.
It had taken fair lot of shouting on Ron's part to get Ali Pasha's attention, before being allowed through the shield. Ron arrived just in time to hear Harry offer Hermione to heal her wounds. He wondered whether his friend had gone totally Lockheart on him.
" Harry. Are you trying to pull a Lockheart here? You'll do some kind of major damage to her. Let's just take her to the nurse..." he looked at Harry's face to see there were several cuts there too. " You need some attention too."
" No, I'm not trying to be Lockheart. I've actually done it before." Harry was a little snappish when he answered back. " And before you say anything to me about needing to go through three years of training to do it properly. I did it on my self and Hermione lots of times."
Harry didn't wait for Ron to look astounded before he started to murmur the incantations under his breath. Harry's wand glowed a little before the glow started to stream onto Hermione's face. Ron wasn't sure if he should be pleased or a bit jealous that Harry could do as he said, when he saw several cuts to Hermione's face were gone. He saw her face and hands get Goosebumps and her cheeks turn pink, well even more than before. When he saw her grab on to the tabletop and her knuckles turning white, he mistook the action as one for pain, instead of the almost ecstasy that she was feeling.
Ron tackled Harry to the ground stopping the stream and interrupting the flow of the liquid aura. It did come as a very big surprise to Harry, but he didn't let his mind be clouded with the madness due the sudden attack. " What's the hell is matter with you, Harry? Can't you see she's in pain? Not like Lockheart... My Arse." said Ron in anger.
" Is that what you think?," Harry did not want to laugh but he couldn't stop himself. " Ask her if it hurts?"
After he received injuries at the hand of the Nundu, he tried his hand for the first time at self-healing. This was a lot more complicated than the doing it on someone else, since it required the person to concentrate on two things at once. The way Harry was after his initial fight with the Nundu, he had no choice. He would have had died, if he didn't try it. It was a lot more difficult since there were three things he had to concentrate on. One, performing the spell. Two, the area where the damage was and three, probably the one that caused most problems, remembering to block the pain.
" Ask her. I saw her grabbing on to the tabletop, like her life depended on it. Her knuckled were white. I don't have to ask her. You have the..." he was interrupted by Hermione in mid sentence.
" Ron..."
" What?", came a snapped reply from Ron, before he realized it was Hermione he was talking to.
Before he could have time to apologize she said, " I wasn't in pain. When he does it the body gets flooded with this tingling sensation. It's actually quite nice. When it happens it's kind of hard to keep control of your body." She blushed once more but neither of the boys could tell since her face was already pink enough as it was.
Ron looked back and forth between his two friends before finally saying, " Oh!"
Before he couldn't decided between anger and jealousy, but the recent turn of events made the decision very easy for Ron. He was jealous. He was jealous of his friend because he had a talent that would require him to wait for another six years before he would be able to do it as a job. But more importantly because he wasn't the one giving those tingling sensations to Hermione.
Though an apology came out of Ron Weasley's mouth, Harry could see his friend didn't really mean it. Harry decided that he would let Ron get away with it since he had no intention of confronting him about his feelings for Hermione, in front of Hermione and not to mention the whole school. Besides he didn't want the situation to become like the year before, when Ron did not believe Harry about putting his name in the goblet of fire.
Harry decided that from that point on he was going to be more careful of how he behaved toward Hermione in front of and not in front of Ron. Harry didn't want to loose one of his best friends because Ron was too childish to say how he felt about Hermione or because he thought Harry and Hermione were more than friends. Almost everyone in the school came to shake hands or to pat both Harry and Hermione. Many of the Slytherins actually wanted Hermione's autographs, though it was mainly because she had defeated Harry.
Alicia Spinet waded through the crowd until she was close enough to get Harry's attention. " Harry!" yelled Alicia loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear. Harry started to move towards her. When he reached her she whispered to him, " I need to talk to you after his." Harry wasn't sure what this was about but decided that it was probably about the Quidditch trials. " When?"
" I'll find you before dinner... looks like your public awaits."
Harry though he had seen her blush a little as she left but he wasn't sure why the Headgirl would blush at him. After the match Harry had to politely turn down over a hundred girls asking him to go to the Hogsmede trip with them. Though Harry knew he might have to spend the entire day listening to Ron gripe about Victor and Hermione, he decided that it was better than being gawked at, prodded and pinched at by a million witches he didn't even know. He was sure the events of Morocco would haunt him for a long time to come. More so than his "boy who lived" fame.
For the next five hours Harry had to dodge and evade groups of girls, who thought of Harry's refusal, as a challenge and it was a challenge they all wanted to win. Once he thought he had finally managed to throw the girls off he literally ran into someone....
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END OF CHAPTER
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