Duel

Harry jumped out of the way of a flash of light. He dared to glance behind himself where the spell had hit the ground. Blades of grass were knotted in a straight line at an arms length. Hermione had aimed a simple schoolyard jinx at him! "Seriously?"

A soft giggle revealed Hermione's apparent amusement: "Why should I not?"

A growl escaped Harry's throat. His girlfriend barely whispered her incantations. She had made steady progress at casting silently. She assumed that she would be moving her lips silently by October.

Harry could only guess how hard it would become to duel her in December when she planned to only have to think of incantations. He was already having very real problems right now because he only found out which spell had been sent at him when it hit him of something else. It was this frustration that commanded his voice: "I've never seen you use that spell before! How many spells do you even know?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That was a charm."

"Well how many charms do you know than?"

"Do you really think I would fall for such an obvious attempt at..."

Harry imitated Hermione and mumbled: "Expelliarmus!" A red jet of light surged at his girlfriend.

The spell bounced of her shield. Again.

Hermione's wand had moved at a wicked speed. Again.

Her wand was a very sharp contrast to herself. She was still standing on the same spot since they had come down from the castle. So far she had only bothered to turn from backing the Forbidden Forest to looking at it because Harry had circled her.

"You really thought I could be fooled!" Hermione huffed offendedly. "You expected me to let my guard down just because I was speaking." She glared at Harry who shrugged her complain off. "And by the way: That disarming spell was not strong enough. I would have been able to hold onto my wand even if I had not blocked it."

"What can I say? It was worth a try." Harry rose from the ground with a groan. There was barely a part of his body which was not hurting. He really felt like he had strained all of his muscles. On top of the jerky movements necessary to evade Hermione's aiming wand, he had been hit by more spells, jinxes and – obviously – charms than he had dared to count. His left shoulder hurt the most! That was his own fault though: He had tried to roll like he had seen on TV.

"Lets head back to the castle. You are done for today." Hermione said unconcernedly.

Harry objected stubbornly: "I'm fine."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You are fine? You can call yourself lucky that I made a new pot of healing salve."

Once more Harry tried to launch a surprise attack.

Hermione flicked her wand casually, casting yet another shield charm.

"How did you know?" He asked bewilderedly.

"You attempted to take me by surprise at least a dozen times. When I was about to roll my eyes, I knew you would attack."

The teenage wizard fell silent. It was painfully obvious that Hermione was out of his league when it came to dueling. He mulled her obvious advantages over and finally said what he had been thinking for quite some time now: "You've to teach me the shield charms you're using."

Hermione's lips became very thin. Even a stranger could have foreseen, that she was about to decline: "If you don't want to use Protego, you have to use at least five - no make that six - other shield charms. At your learning rate you would master at best three or maybe four shield charms in time for the Third Task."

When Harry opened his mouth to disagree Hermione just talked over him: "Additionally, you have to recognize if your opponent is about to use a spell, charm, jinx or curse. Before he finishes casting. Meaning that you have to recognize it only by the first syllable and the mirrored starting movement of your opponents wand. This will not work for two reasons! You do not know enough magical incantations by heart. And you only guess which are charms and which are spells. You are better of with an allround shield charm. And the best one of them is Protego."

Harry groaned: "So you want to tell me that I can't use the more effective Shield Charms because I've not done enough cramming?"

Hermione smirked lightheartedly. "That sounds about right."

A number of curse words slipped out of Harry's mouth. Harry's frustration broke loose: "I'm not standing a chance against the other champions. Just look at them! Even Fleur is towering over me. She called me a little boy, when we met after the Goblet of Fire spit my name out. And she was right! Maybe I should not start at the last task? I could just accept the punishment of the Magical Contract. I'd just lose my ability to perform magic after all. That's not such a big loss. I've lived without it before coming to Hogwarts. I've obviously not done anything worthwhile over the last four years anyway!"

"I know that you under great stress but pull yourself together!" Hermione snapped. "You are a great wizard. Who has ever heard of someone able to cast a Patronus at your age? I am telling you: You are on the right track! You need to exploit your strengths."

Harry countered Hermione's argument: "Relying on my reflexes and trying to evade all of your spells is not doing me any good!"

"What are you expecting? You only trained for a month so far. Twice a week. You have become way better at dodging and shielding. However you can only come so far over the course of a few weeks."

Praise was rarely offered by Hermione and was therefore completely unexpected by Harry. He only noticed in hindsight what she had actually said. He was quite astonished: "You think I'm a great wizard?"

Hermione's nose twitched.

Harry mouthed her usual complain for Hermione: "Don't make me repeat myself."

The witch nodded amusedly and expanded her former statement: "You have always been better than most."

"Not nearly as good as you though."

"I never noticed you making an effort." Hermione said sharply.

Harry frowned. "I trained a substantial part of the last school year to master the Patronus Charm."

"And what did you do the rest of the year?" Hermione asked unimpressed.

"Not very much." Harry conceded with a sigh.

"Your recent efforts are paying off." Hermione thought it was about time to slightly redirect the course of their discussion. "Are you done reading Beronico Sinisi's Lectures on Dueling?"

The change of topic had the desired effect on Harry. A mischievous smirk crept on his face and he quipped: "I even made notes."

He was rewarded with a snort. Hermione had failed to thoroughly suppress her giggle. She glared chastisingly at her boyfriend.

Harry had a very hard time suppressing a chuckle.

"Are you done?" Hermione glowered.

"Yes, I'm done."

"Wonderful!" said on edge. "I wanted to say: You would fare better against anybody but me. You are for two reasons at a disadvantage." Harry listened intently. "For one thing, I know what you are trying to do. I read Sinisi's book in second year as part of my light reading schedule." Hermione rolled her eyes at Harry, when he gaped at. He always did that whenever she mentioned 'light reading'. "And for another thing I saw each and every one of your moves by now."

"You're probably right."

Hermione pursed her lips.

Harry just had to smirk. "Sorry! You're absolutely right."

They stared at each other for a moment. Harry caught himself trying to make a new plan at attacking Hermione. Maybe they should really wrap this session up. That was not what a boy was supposed to do while looking at his girlfriend! And on top of that, he could not even find a single weak spot he had not tried to attack by now... Harry frowned. "There's something I wanted to ask you for a while now. You're standing still all the time. Why are you not following Sinisi's instructions?"

Hermione arched her eyebrows impressively: "I will repeat myself for once: Our strengths differ. It would be moot for me to try and adapt Sinisi's lectures. Dueling techniques for the piste are better suited for me."

"Sinisi says: You are doomed to lose if you try to duel like you are on the piste while you are not." Harry blinked in bewilderment. For once he and not Hermione had been the one to quote a book.

Hermione looked seriously at Harry: "Sinisi is - and I really want to stress this - not always right."

Harry frowned in confusion. He barely stopped himself from blurting out what he thought. He knew: It's not what you say, but how you say it. Especially if you wanted to tell Hermione that she was wrong. "Sinisi was a professional dueler. He won multiple championships." Harry rushed his next words: "I think he is right, when he says that evading a spell is better than having to shield against it."

A smirk graced Hermione's lips. "You know that there is more than one book about dueling, right? I recommended Sinisi's to you because I thought it would fit best to your skill set. Now that you are done with it, you can check the library and try to find the one that fits best to me."

The gears in Harry's head were turning fast. He was guessing correctly that he had to look those books up if he wanted to stand a chance at convincing Hermione of his opinion. His other option was to best her in a duel and in that way prove that she was wrong. A task which would become easier if he unearthed the book she had chosen as her reference. He kept that thought to himself. "What do you think? Can I stand up to Krum and Fleur?"

"Who knows what those two are capable of?" Hermione countered his question with one of her own and instantly started answering it herself: "Krum transfigured his own head at the Second Task. That either signifies that he is a very capable wizard or a very inconsiderate one. I would say that he is a bit of both, which makes him very dangerous. You should always keep in mind that he cursed his dragon!"

Harry accepted that advice with a nod.

"Fleur on the other hand used gillyweed, which could indicate a lot of different things. Maybe she has a knack for Herbology. Or she knew the magical plant by accident. Maybe she lives at the Mediterranean Sea and it grows somewhere close to her home? Or maybe someone told Fleur about it to help her out? We can only guess. The way she handled her dragon however was very deliberate. I saw the wizards handling the dragons nodding at each other. Fleur is very hard to evaluate. She could receive more and purposeful help than any of the other champions or she could be very clever. Better safe than sorry! You should assume that she has a lot of tricks up her sleeve."

"So..." Harry could barely hide his amusement. "basically, you're telling me that I should not be overconfident in my abilities?"

Hermione's nostrils flared. She went on with her rant: "We are poking around in the dark. If you want to make an educated guess at the other champions abilities, you will have to put some effort into it. Frankly said: I have other things to worry about. And so do you. Training to duel already borders on wasting time. You talked me into it. You would be better off investing this time in learning about detection spells and magical beasts."

Harry made no comment on that.

"I told you: I lean towards learning about magical beasts. The traps will be anything but lethal. They will slow you down or maybe get you stuck. But there is no way the British Ministry of Magic would risk to kill or maim a foreign student by using a dangerous or even lethal trap. The press all over Europe would leap onto them and deconstruct all credit they build since they hosted the Quidditch World Cup. It would be an entirely different matter if someone was to be maimed or killed by a magical beast."

Harry nodded obediently. "You're right. I'll stick to your schedule for preparation." He could not argue with the witch since her plan for the Second Task had worked out so finely. "But I really think we can afford the time to duel two times a week." He needed this to look forward to. He had always preferred practical lessons over theoretical ones. Detection Spells were unbelievably dull. And cramming about Magical Beasts had by now become boring too. Harry haggled for another try: "Once more?"

Hermione sighed: "Fine. One more time. On three."

"One." said Harry eagerly.

"Two." continued Hermione.

"Three!" finished Harry. His wand whipped and he said: "Tarantallegra!"

Hermione's shield was already up when the jinx left the tip of Harry's wand. She trained her own one at him.

The young wizard faked moving in one direction and went for the other. He tried to roll over his right shoulder but was stuck midair by a spell: "Stupefy!"

Harry fell limply to the ground. He lay half curled into a roll.

Hermione aimed her wand to reanimate her boyfriend. She hesitated. She had always been curious how the Stunning Spell affected ones body. However she had never dared to examine. It could have been interpreted in the wrong way easily if she had been seen leaning over someone lying on the ground.

The bushy haired witch involuntary imagined whispering voices. They taunted her, called her desperate and unable to find a boy that would kiss her out of his free will. And despite – or was it 'because of'? – everything she had been through, words hurt her.

However this situation was different. Everyone knew that Harry was her boyfriend. She knelt down next to him. Her fingertips searched for his pulse. It was rather slow but very even. When she put her hand on his chest, she found herself unable to register his breathing. She rolled Harry onto his back and leaned over his face to listen for it. It was impossible to register against the rustling noises from the nearby forest, but she felt his breath on the sensitive skin behind her ear. She found the tickle to be oddly pleasurable.

Her last test was taking a look at Harry's eyes. Cautiously she pushed his glasses back and lifted one of his eyelids. His green pupil showed no reaction to the light of her wand. Hermione hesitated. The color of his eyes was really magnificent. It was an intense green. She glanced at the forest in search of leaves that were similar in color. She found none. With a smile on her lips she thought that somewhere there was an emerald in the same color.

Once the witch was done, fancying her boyfriend, she leaned back until she sat on her heels. She pointed her wand at him and said: "Rennervate!"

It was a good thing that she was no longer bend over him. Harry sat up with a jerk. His head would have bumped straight into hers. Harry's eyes were wide open and he breathed in sharply. He cried out: "What was that?"

"I stunned you." Hermione answered in alarm.

"I... No, that's not what I meant." Harry touched his chest. "The moment I awoke my heart was beating really fast. It was almost hurting."

This description worried Hermione. "Really?"

"Yes." Harry nodded fiercely.

"I used Rennervate on you." Hermione explained frowning at her wand. "The spell is supposed to wake a person up."

"Well that worked." Harry conceded. "But is it supposed to give me the heart frequency of a hummingbird?"

"I am not entirely sure." Hermione answered hesitantly. Her hand went to Harry's neck in search of his pulse. "You seem to be alright now."

"Yeah, I think so too. The feeling was gone after a moment." Harry noticed how close they were to each other. He leaned forward.

Hermione closed her eyes. She had made a correct guess at Harry's intention. One of his hands slid into her tresses. Her head got angled and they kissed.

Harry's free arm snaked around the small of Hermione's back. She did not mind getting pulled into his lap.

Hermione shrieked in surprise, when Harry rolled them both over unexpectedly.

They continued kissing with her lying on her back and Harry half on top of her. The ground was not hard but it felt damp and was chilly. The sun had not done a very good job today. Therefore Hermione felt not inclined to stay in this position for to long. She made Harry roll on his back so she could lie on top of him.

They kissed more and Harry's hands stroked her back up and down with just the right pressure. Sometimes his hands glided to her sides holding and petting her. However he never touched her private regions. Hermione broke their kiss. "You are waiting for permission to touch my breast and bottom, are you not?"

The young witch noted in bemusement as Harry's eyes went wide. He stuttered: "Um... I... well... kind of?"

Hermione smirked mischievously: "Be my guest."

Harry was about to ask if she was sure. Luckily he remembered Hermione's dislike of having to repeat herself in time. His hands slid down her back. Lower and lower, over the hem of her uniform skirt until they finally held her bum. It was pliable and firm at the same time.

A soft groan assured Harry that he was doing quite fine. He watched Hermione's brown eyes flutter. Huskily she asked: "You are not curious about my boobs at all?" before he could answer Harry felt Hermione shift her weight.

Her chest pressed into him in a very familiar manner. His green eyes widened. "You're doing that on purpose?!"

Hermione was torn between amusement and impatience: "Are you going to complain? Now? Of all times?"

Biting his tongue Harry made his hands leave their current location. He slid them at a teasing pace along Hermione's sides. She shivered in anticipation and he was soon rewarded by another appreciative moan.

A/N: Thanks for the many reviews and the huge interest.