Disclaimer: I don't own the dystopic world of Harry Potter where laws are unevenly enforced by design.

A/N: 20 votes on my poll, 11 of which are to keep Harry as is, so be it. Thank you all for voting.

Chapter 9: The Dunsel at Dunstable

The terrible, livid face of Voldemort, with wide, mad, red eyes and snake nostrils, glared at him.

"Give me the Stone!"

"Go to hell!" Harry declared.

"Don't be a fool," Voldemort snarled, "Better to save your own life and join me, or you'll meet the same ends as your parents…they died begging for mercy."

"LIAR!" Harry shouted.

Quirrel walked backwards toward him, bring Voldemort closer. Voldemort was smiling.

"Yes, boy, your parents were brave. I killed your father first, he put up a courageous fight, but your mother needn't have died. She was trying to protect you and died begging for your life. Now, you will give me the Stone or her death will have been in vain."

"NEVER!"

Harry sprang towards the black flames, but Voldemort screamed: "Kill him!"

Quirrel whirled about with his wand pointed at Harry. "Avada Kedavra!" A jet of green light came out of Quirrel's wand Harry could only watch helplessly as it hit his chest…

"NO!" Harry Potter woke up in a cold sweat. He rubbed his forehead and his fingers brushed lightly against his lightning bolt scar; his room was still dark and he fumbled about for his glasses, finally finding them and putting them on. The clock by his bedside mocked him with its display: 2:59 A.M.

Harry pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes. Last month he had faced Voldemort and survived again, yet although Quirrel had died from the rebounded curse, his master still lived and every time Harry had one of these nightmares—which was to say every night for the past few weeks—he had woken up drenched in a cold sweat and wondering where Voldemort might be now.

Karen's reaction to what had happened the previous year had been entirely predictable; she had been shocked and horrified by the facts that Voldemort had possessed a teacher with seemingly no one realizing it, that Elizabeth had been sent into the Forbidden Forest for a detention, and that Voldemort had tried to kill him. In fact, she had been almost as upset at him for going into danger as she had been at Dumbledore, and she had threatened to ground them—literally as well as figuratively—if they ever pulled a stunt like that again.

She'd tried to get him counseling but that unfortunately was one of many areas where the Wizarding World lagged far behind the muggle one. While Mind Healers existed, they only treated people who had been subjected to a mind-affecting magic like the Memory Charm or the Confundus Charm. Even the concept of psychiatric counseling was completely foreign to the Wizarding World; if it couldn't be cured with a potion or spell, then it wasn't considered a problem. Muggle counseling was of course out of the question because of the Statute of Secrecy.

He was slowly coming to terms with the fact that Quirrel's death was not really his fault. Quirrel's possession had been slowly killing him anyway—that was why he'd had to drink the unicorn blood: not for Voldemort directly, but to give himself strength which Voldemort could absorb. And it had been Quirrel's own curse which killed him, and Harry himself hadn't actually done anything—just as he hadn't actually done anything to Voldemort to the first time around. Quirrel had been dead, one way or the other, the moment he'd allowed himself to be possessed by Voldemort. Yet even though Harry knew those things on an intellectual level, emotionally he still felt responsible. It was easy for someone to say in the abstract that they weren't going to feel guilt over the guilty getting what they deserved; actually seeing someone die because of you was entirely different. Especially when you knew your own involvement had been pointless.

Harry lay there on his bed, trying to go back to sleep, but it seemed that just as he drifted off he was rudely pulled back into the world of the waking by his alarm clock. Harry reached over and jammed his fist down on the snooze button with far more force than was necessary, then turned over and curled up in his bed. Five minutes later it went off again. Harry rolled over, winced at the sunlight coming from the window, unplugged his clock, and then rolled back over and pulled his sheets and comforter over his head. He had just drifted off again when a loud knocking came on his door.

Harry sighed and Elizabeth opened his bedroom door; unlike him, she was already fully dressed in a blue skirt and a black-strapped top.

"Why are you still in bed? Did you forget what today is?"

"Friday?" Harry said blankly, his mind feeling like it was made of clay.

"Hermione comes over today."

In a flash Harry sat straight up, no longer feeling tired. "Really? She is? When?"

"Soon," Elizabeth replied with a smirk. "Now get yourself showered and dressed, loverboy."

Harry flushed at term 'loverboy' and Elizabeth walked out, closing the door behind her. Harry had talked to Hermione on the phone almost every day since getting back and Elizabeth couldn't resist teasing him about it. Harry grabbed his clothes and toiletries and went to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later he was showered and dressed in jeans and a shirt.

"Is she here yet?" Harry asked as he dug into his breakfast.

"Relax, Harry," Karen said. "She's not coming over until dinner."

Harry scowled and turned to glare at Elizabeth, who grinned shamelessly.

"Why did you tell me she'd be here soon?"

"So that you'd get up, of course."

Harry sighed. "Still no mail from Neville?" He asked.

"Nothing," Karen replied.

"He mentioned his grandmother was a strict lady," Harry said. "But I didn't imagine she'd be this strict."

Most of the day was spent cleaning the house and preparing dinner. Harry found the mindless chores a refreshing diversion. At 5pm the doorbell rang; Harry darted over to the door and opened it; three people stood in the doorway but Harry only had eyes for the girl in front, who was carrying an overnight bag.

"Hermione!"

"Hi, Harry."

She stepped inside, dropped her bag and they briefly embraced. As the others entered Karen and Elizabeth arrived.

"These are my parents," Hermione said as everyone shook hands.

"I'm Karen, it's good to meet you, this is my daughter Elizabeth and my godson Harry."

"I'm Richard, good to meet too." said Mr. Granger.

"Helen, a pleasure," Mrs. Granger said, then turned to Harry. "We've heard so much about you, Harry, Hermione can't seem to stop talking about you."

"Mum!" Hermione's face turned bright red. Her father just mussed up her hair.

"You know it's true, dear," he said. Harry closed the door, took their coats and hung them up.

Karen led them into the dining room, which she had set with their good dishes, and they took a seat. While the meal was served conversation flowed freely.

"So, Harry," Mr. Granger. "Hermione tells me that you play a game called 'Quidditch' that involves flying around on broomsticks?"

Harry smiled. "That's right, there are four balls and seven positions. The balls are called the Quaffle, the Bludgers and the Snitch. Three of the players are Chasers and it is their job to score points by putting the Quaffle through one of three goalhoops; each goal is worth 10 points. The hoops are guarded by another player, the Keeper. Then there are the Beaters who use bats to hit the two Bludgers, which fly around randomly attacking players. Don't worry," Harry quickly added at Mr. and Mrs. Granger's suddenly concerned expressions, "We all wear padded armor and the Bludger's are programmed to not inflict lethal or potentially lethal injuries, their purpose is simply to add an element of chaos to the game. The Beaters job is to keep the bludgers away from their team and hit them toward the opposing team. Then there's my position, the Seeker. It's my job to find and catch the fourth ball, the Snitch, which is very small and fast. Catching the Snitch is worth a hundred and fifty points and also immediately ends the game."

Mr. Granger frowned. "That sounds a bit unfair, though, if one player can provide such a substantial gain over the others and win the game single-handedly."

"Actually the team that catches the Snitch isn't always the winning team," Harry explained. "Depending on how long it takes to find the Snitch, it's possible for the other's side's Chasers to build up a big enough lead that they still win even if the other side catches the Snitch. It's happened a lot actually, and some teams even have that as their standard strategy because while pretty much anyone can become a Chaser, Beater, or Keeper with sufficient practice, Seeker is a much more specialized position and requires a certain amount of innate talent."

"Of course," Elizabeth added, "there have been times when that is a valid criticism, like against Hufflepuff where you caught the Snitch within seconds."

"Yeah, that was a bit of an anti-climax," Harry admitted, "especially after how hard Wood had drilled us in the weeks leading up to the game."

"Wood?"

"My Quidditch Captain," Harry explained. "Oliver Wood, a rising 6th year and a very good Keeper, but also a fanatical taskmaster."

"Hermione also mentioned," Mrs. Granger added. "That tomorrow you'll be going to see a different sport?"

"The Dunstable Dueling Championship, yes," Harry said. "Dueling is also a sport, you can think of as roughly equivalent to say, boxing or wrestling."

"Interested in that too, are you?" Mr. Granger asked.

"In dueling, yes," said Harry. "A long time ago the custom of dueling was also as widely practiced among wizards as it was among muggles, but attitudes changed and today it's very rare among wizards to settle a dispute with a duel. Of course, since both sides have magic, wizard duels often last a lot longer and are almost never lethal."

The conversation moved to discussing classes and their other classmates, though finally they went down to the basement so that Hermione's parents could see what she'd learned.

"I must say," Helen observed as they headed down the stairs. "This 'Trace' seems quite unfair to students like Hermione."

"That's probably the point," Karen admitted with a sigh. The Trace was absurdly easy to get around; not only was it fooled by the same Masking Spells that one could use to make oneself unfindable by owls, but any kind of area ward like a Fidelius Charm or an Anti-Apparition spell also interfered with it. "Unfortunately, there is a lot of discrimination against first-generation mages; it's stupid, but at the moment there's not much that can be done."

"Could you cast these 'wards' on our house?" Arthur asked.

"I wish I could, but I'm not a certified ward-caster, so I would hesitate at trying." The basement was divided into two unevenly sized rooms, separated by a door near the staircase. The smaller room was finished and full of bookshelves; the larger was carpeted but otherwise unfinished. "Here we go," Karen said.

Hermione drew her wand from her holster; unlike Harry and Elizabeth, who wore their holsters on their belts, Hermione had a wrist holster that could be concealed by a sleeve. Karen conjured up chairs for herself and Hermione's parents, and Hermione started the demonstration. She began with Transfiguration, starting by turning matchsticks into needles and working her way through the first year curriculum until she briefly turned Harry's glasses case into a snuffbox. Then she switched to Charms and showed off all the different things you could do with the Hover Charm.

Finally, when she moved on to Defense, Karen put up Cushioning Charms on the floor and walls so that Hermione could use Harry and Elizabeth as mostly good-humored test subjects for the Leg-Locker, Full-Body-Bind, Knockback and Knockdown Jinxes. They then took turns showing off the slightly more advanced jinxes and curses from Harry's 'Curses and Countercurses' book and from his mother's notes, using conjured dummies for most of them.

"Come on, Hermione," Harry finally said. "Do you want to see our library?"

"You know me too well, Harry," Hermione said with a grin. She linked arms with him and he led her and Elizabeth to the other room. It had a door to the outside, rugs on the floor, and bookshelves lining every wall along with a few chairs and a desk in the middle. He flicked on the lights and Hermione started scanning the shelves.

"So," Harry said to Hermione. "What do you think?"

"Don't take this the wrong way," Hermione said. "But I was expecting it to be bigger. I was expecting your whole house to be much bigger."

Elizabeth snorted. "What? Like some huge country mansion with more rooms than anyone could practically use, a library with more books than anyone could ever read, a garden out front and a Quidditch pitch in the back?"

"I know, I know, it sounds totally ridiculous," Hermione acknowledged. "But still, you're both from old and well-to-do families, so I just figured..."

Harry chuckled. "Actually only the Blacks are old money; although my parents were reasonably well off, that's only because my ancestors earned that money the hard way. The only house that I 'own' is the one in Godric's Hollow where my parents were murdered, but that's been condemned and turned into a memorial." Only in his great-grandfather's time had the Potter's reached roughly the same social status as the Black's, which was why Great-Auntie Dorea hadn't been disowned for marrying Great-Uncle Charlus, though Great-Grampa Henry's outspokenly pro-muggle politics was why there was only a 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' instead of a 'Sacred Twenty-Nine'. Great-Grampa Henry had also been only the second Potter to sit on the Wizengamot, with the first having been Ralston Potter back in the 1600's. "

"And while my extended family does come from old money," Elizabeth said. "The Black Family has regrettably fallen on hard times and currently has this house, plus a decrepit one in London currently haunted by doxies, mad portraits and a nutter house-elf. All of the decent people on my family tree are either dead or cast out, most of them both. The only reason I even have access to what's left of the family fortune is because there's literally no one else left to claim it."

Harry continued, "So, no, neither of us has any properties in France, the Caribbean, or anywhere else in the world. There aren't any titles of nobility in the Wizarding World; no one calls themselves 'Lord' except for Voldemort. I'm not the secret heir to Atlantis, Avalon, Merlin, or any of the Four Founders."

"We each only have one vault in Gringotts." Elizabeth chimed in.

"The only ring I'm ever going to wear is my wedding ring. My only notable ancestors are an eccentric herbalist named Linfred of Stinchcombe, Ignotus Peverell who created my Invisibility Cloak, and my grandpa Fleamont who invented Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and dueled everyone who made fun his name."

"Darn," Hermione said dramatically. "There go my plans for world domination."

And then the three of them burst out laughing.

After Hermione's parents had left Karen had them all change into their pajamas. Harry, wearing long green bottoms and a red top, took a seat on the sofa in the living room. Hermione, wearing pink, took a seat on one side of Harry while Elizabeth, wearing blue, sat on his other side. By acclamation they decided to watch the Back to the Future trilogy. When Karen came to check on them at midnight she found all three of them asleep, with Hermione resting her head on Harry's chest. Smiling, she tugged a blanket over all three of them and went to her bedroom.

Harry's eyes blinked open the next morning and he was immediately aware of three things: one that the sun was shining in his face through the window, second that he hadn't had any nightmares, and third that was some kind of weight on his chest. Blinking and looking around, he noticed that it was Hermione, still asleep; she looked so peaceful and content in that moment, almost angelic. At last she stirred and looked sleepily into his eyes.

"Good morning," she said, straightening up and rubbing her eyes. Harry took the moment to the rub the sand out of his eyes as well.

"It is a good morning," Harry said. "Haven't slept that well in a while."

"You make a very nice pillow, if a bit lumpy," Hermione replied.

Elizabeth came in already dressed. "Well, now that you two lovebirds are up, we can have breakfast." Harry and Hermione both flushed at her comment and stammered incoherent protests that they were just friends.

(*)

"Okay, Mister Potter," Hermione said hours later after they crawled out of the Floo at Dunstable. "You dragged me along to this, so you might as well start explaining what exactly I'll be seeing."

Harry grinned at her, then said. "Okay. Dueling as a sport has two types. The first is formal dueling, this is the oldest style and also requires incredible amounts of patience: both on the participants and for the viewers, because it is very slow paced. One person attacks with a single spell, the other defends with a single spell, then they alternate. Lots of rules about what can be cast, how fast you can cast, what you are and aren't allowed to use, lots of different fouls and penalties, lots of different variants depending on what both participants agree to. It's a very rigid and, well, formal style of fighting and the duel ends when someone is disarmed, immobilized or otherwise incapacitated, or drops their wand in surrender."

"How very civilized," Hermione quipped.

"But these days formal dueling has mostly fallen by the wayside, save for its occasional use as a tool to settle disputes. This is probably what Malfoy was thinking off when he was challenging me. The second type, which is what I prefer, is called Freestyle Dueling. Unlike Formal Dueling, Freestyle Dueling has far fewer rules, which all basically boil down to: No killing and no illegal magics."

"What's an illegal magic?" Hermione asked

"Any magic whose use is proscribed or restricted by the Ministry," Harry said.

"So basically," Karen added, "Anything that the Ministry has classified as 'dark magic' or a 'Dark Art'."

"Makes sense, I suppose," Hermione said with a nod.

"No, not really," Karen replied. "The vast majority of magic is morally neutral, there are only a handful of truly dark magics like the Unforgivables; most of the stuff given that label is just magics that the Ministry doesn't want the general public to know about or use."

Hermione blinked, then asked. "Why?"

"Control," Elizabeth answered with a snort. "Why else?"

"So anyway," Harry continued as they arrived at the private box Karen had managed to reserve by invoking the name of one of the prospective occupants. "In addition to the two types of dueling, there are also different ways of fighting. Not all spells are created equally and where you hold your wand in relation to your body—and how you hold it— determines which spells are easier to cast and which are harder."

Karen got Hermione a set of Omnioculars, she, Harry and Elizabeth already each had one. The preliminary matches started; Hermione split her attention between actually watching the action through the Omnioculars and listening to Harry's excited commentary, with Elizabeth and Karen also occasionally chiming in. Hermione soon noticed what Harry had mentioned about different ways of holding the wand because almost none of them used the standard pose they were learning in schools. Most, instead of holding their wand out in front, held it back at chest level and led with their body though the exact grip still varied widely; a few held their wand over their head like a scorpion tail. Those latter, Hermione noticed, were the ones who tended to cast the most destructive spells that were on the edge of legality.

Unfortunately, Harry's favorite duelist, Erik Lee, did not make the cut for the finalists—doing fairly good against most of his competition and much better in a rematch against the Irish Thomas O'Neill but still getting edged out in the final ratings. The final match pitted O'Neill against Hugo Park—a duelist whom, Hermione recalled, Harry did not have a high opinion of. She soon realized why as Park had a tendency to push against the bounds of even the relatively permissive Freestyle rules, and had a very simplistic approach to fighting—holding his wand in the scorpion tail stance she had observed in other duelists and going straight to blasting away with as much power as possible with little attempt at style, subtlety, or variation.

"He's like a sledgehammer," Harry opined. "All brute force, nothing else."

"It's carried him this far," Elizabeth pointed out. "It may be simple, but it's obviously been effective for him."

"Power has its place," Harry admitted. "But so does strategy and subtlety as O'Neill is about to demonstrate." As if Harry's words had been a cue, O'Neill took advantage of all the rubble that Park's blasting spells were creating by starting to transfigure them into animals, mostly dogs and snakes. Park switched his focus to attacking O'Neill's creations, while O'Neill focused on countering Park's spells and protecting his creatures as they advanced, using spell-chains of counter-curses and Breaker Curses. Spell-chains used nonverbal and point-casting to chain together multiple spells so that they could be cast in a single wand movement, which made them a great time-saver in fights.

Finally, at a critical moment when Park was distracted blowing apart the creatures, O'Neill cracked Park's shield and snuck in a spell-chain known as the Dueler's Hello, so called because it was often the first set of spells cast by duelists—it consisted of a Silencing Charm, a Full-Body-Bind and an Incarceration Spell. All three spells hit Park and he suddenly stopped moving. O'Neill was breathing heavily but still standing, and so was swiftly declared the winner.

"I still don't like Thomas O'Neill for defeating Erik Lee," Harry announced as they left. "But at least he beat that idiot Park."

On their way out they stopped at a stall selling books; Harry immediately spotted three books that he wanted to get, two were the first two books in the best-selling "Duelist's Arsenal Series": 'Fighting Fundamentals' and 'Speed Tricks and Cunning Combinations'. The third was the Dunstable Dueling Championship Almanac, with a complete history of the event and all the major statistics for the past fifty years. Seeing the first two books, Elizabeth and Hermione decided that they wanted their own copies. Karen gave them a long-suffering look but got the books anyway.

"But these are your birthday presents, you hear me?" She told Harry and Elizabeth. "Don't expect anything else except clothes."

"Yes, okay," Harry said, in a much better mood than he had been yesterday morning.

Yes, mum," Elizabeth agreed.