AN: With this chapter, we come to about half-way through the tournament. Now, I've started introducing fae, slightly, with Aqua and I will say that I know almost nothing about them so if anyone can suggest where I can read up on them than that would be great. At present, I have a fellow author named 'The JP' that is giving me a run-down and answering whatever questions I have in that regard so give thanks to him! As far as third year is going to go, this is the year that will start to deviate pretty greatly from canon. I know that the last two years stuck pretty close but this is where I say F that and do my own thing, I hope it works out okay.
Forum link on my profile or here: forum/Fate-s-Gamble-Behind-the-scenes/139203/
Please enjoy the chapter.
Beta'd by: NIX'S WARDEN
Chapter 38 – Two More Matches
It was now the second round of the tournament and Harry was stood at one side of the arena, watching the other end and waiting for his competitor. The man didn't take long, he soon appeared, and he seemed to be downing a few potions on his way in.
His opponent was Owen Wood, a relative of Oliver Wood at Hogwarts, and he was massive. Owen was a Scotsman and he even wore a kilt. He had bulging muscles in both his arms and his legs, something unusual amongst wizards. While wizards very rarely got fat, something to do with a kind of homoeostasis effect with their magical cores, they didn't often exercise their muscles. The man across from him obviously did though, and he looked like quite the tough cookie with his beard and hard brown eyes.
Clutched in one of Owen's hands was a handful of small stones, Harry was quite curious about them, and across his back was a huge two-handed claymore sword. The stones were probably meant to be thrown, they likely had some runes carved onto them, the sword was obviously meant to be used in close quarters but Harry didn't see a visible wand on his opponent.
That wasn't to say that his opponent didn't have a way to cast magic, there were other methods after all. Some cultures used staves, some staffs, some had rings but what they all had in common was that they were all wooden and all contained a core material. A cane or walking stick could be made into a magical focus and Harry had noticed that the hilt of Owen's sword was wooden despite it being reinforced by bands of metal, silver by the looks of it.
Both competitors bowed to each other from across the arena and then the start was called. Harry remained where he was, curious as to what his opponent was going to do. Owen, as soon as the start was called, threw the stones in his hand across the arena.
The stones scattered and Harry's eyes caught the light emitted from the runes that had been carved onto them. About two dozen of them had been scattered about the place and, after assuring himself that they had no effect that activated on physical contact or pressure, Harry picked one up. He kept one eye on Owen who, after drawing his sword, merely stayed there watching him with a grin on his face.
Harry cocked his head to one side as he looked over the runes. The most prominent runes, the ones the arrays were centered around, were Hagalaz, for disruption, Thurisaz, representing magical power and Naudiz, representing need. Harry considered all of this for a moment before an idea occurred to him. Harry drew his wand and tried to cast a Lumos spell.
The spell was unsuccessful, he didn't feel any kind of connection to his wand, right then it was just a special stick. Harry laughed, it seemed to surprise the audience. They were even more surprised when he gave a small bow to his opponent but when he straightened he stopped laughing long enough to speak.
"This is a rather amazing bit of rune-work." Harry complimented his competitor. "It's a bit simple and requires a bit more energy to maintain than some more complex and efficient wards do but it serves its purpose. That purpose, unless I'm mistaken, makes it impossible to use a wand, possibly any general magical focus, when near these ward stones, correct?"
Owen chuckled. "Aye Laddie, you got that right." He grinned at Harry. "I admit, I wasn't expecting you to pick it up that easily and quickly but now you know and I'm going to ask you to yield to me." Harry cocked his head to the side before asking.
"Why would I yield? All you've done is stop me using my wand."
"Because you don't stand a chance, Laddie. Look at me, I'm a muscle-bound mountain and you're a shrimp. I mean no offence but there's no way you could overcome me and I even drank several potions to boost my speed, strength and reactions so my victory is guaranteed. I mean, what weapon do you have to fight with?" Owen asked.
Harry smirked. "Now, that is rather intimidating." He said. "Or it would be, if I wasn't also capable of wielding a blade." With that, Harry drew two black keys from where they hung on his belt, the blades appearing from the hilts that he kept there.
A wide smile split Owen's face. "Oh, confident are you?" He asked. "Well, let's see how this works out." With that, Owen launched himself across the arena towards Harry and Harry sped across the arena to him.
Harry was not going at his full speed but he still had to reinforce himself to keep up with the potion empowered Scotsman. The bulging muscles of Owen were not just for show, he was fast and strong. The potions the man had drank had also boosted his abilities to somewhere between E and D rank speed. Closer to E than D but still, it was honestly quite something.
Owen gave a mighty swing downwards and Harry twisted side-ways to avoid it, intending to cut Owen's side and claim first blood. Things did not go that way though as Owen managed to redirect the sword slightly and Harry was forced to throw himself sideways to avoid getting split in two, his black keys coming between them to take the hit.
Harry rolled away and looked at his opponent again. Whereas Harry had a wide stance due to being so low to the ground, bent over with one hand on the floor and his knees bent so he could dart off in any direction he chose, Owen's stance was different.
Whereas Harry attacked in a linear, striking pattern, like a snake with the added mobility and turning speed of a spider, Owen had a wide stance with his knees slightly bent, ready to flex to take a hit or add power to his blows. His claymore was raised with the hilt held in both hands to in front of his sternum, ready to swing in pretty much any direction. Harry gave the man a fanged grin then struck again, increasing his speed a bit more.
Owen still managed to get through it without injury, though Harry came closer to claiming blood this time. It still wasn't Harry's full speed but it was more than Owen's was. The muscled Scot gave a laugh and called out to Harry.
"Fast little bugger, aren't you?" Harry's only reply was to once again charge at Owen like he had twice before but, instead of retreating like before, he darted to the side when he got closer and did a quick three point turn before striking at Owen's shoulder blades from behind.
Harry only managed a pair of shallow cuts though as Owen had launched himself forward when Harry was part-way through his strike but Harry didn't let up on him. Increasing his speed once more, Harry darted after Owen and went for his joints again, the legs this time.
Harry once again only managed shallow cuts but Harry knew that a series of shallow cuts could be more effective than a single strong hit, they would drain his stamina and pile up over time. Harry had to duck and dodge the claymore that came swinging for him and took advantage of his low stance to target Owen's ankles.
That is how the fight went from then on, Owen giving powerful swings that Harry sometimes only barely dodged and Harry returning with a series of small, almost inconsequential, cuts. Harry didn't get away scot free though, one of Owen's strikes got a little close for comfort and opened Harry's cheek up which bled profusely.
That led to Harry getting a few hits in as Owen seemed to be rather surprised by Harry's black and purple blood, something that Harry hadn't shown anyone before. The wound kept bleeding though it slowly closed, slower than Harry had expected it to and he thought that Owen's blade may have an enchantment that impeded regeneration on it.
"You sure you haven't drank any enhancement potions. Kid?" Owen asked Harry. "And what the bloody heck is up with your blood, that isn't red?"
"No potions for me and, well, red blood is for humans." Harry muttered, just loud enough for Own to hear. He was rather grateful that he was a little ways away from the audience and Harry had cast an obscuring charm on his cheek so that no one would be able to tell it wasn't red. Owen was a bit close for that though and had immediately noticed the difference in colour to what it should have been.
"Don't worry, they won't hear about the boy-who-lived being not fully human from me. It does make me wonder where it came from, creature inheritance?" Owen asked. "It would explain the hair colour possibly."
Harry shook his head as he charged towards Owen again, darting about the place constantly in an effort to dodge the claymore the older male was swinging. "Nah, I was born fully human as far as I'm aware." Harry managed to twist around the sword that had switched from a vertical cut to horizontal slash. "That didn't come until later, not that I regret it."
Owen snorted as he stepped back and raised his blade for another blow, twisting his upper body to make a circular swing around himself to gain some space. "Don't mind me, there are rumours that my ancestors mated with the Sidhe. Whether that is true or not, I couldn't say but I am a bit more open-minded than some others."
Owen took Harry by surprise by switching from swings to a fast jab that caught Harry in his left shoulder. The blade, enchanted to be better than mundane steel, slid right through his body and out the other side. Harry ignored the pain he was feeling and actually went towards Owen which surprised the older guy. Harry then leaned forward, his body almost at the hilt of the blade before stabbing downwards with one of his black keys and impaling it in the arena floor.
Owen raised an eyebrow as Harry left the blade where it was and backed up, pulling himself off the blade. He grinned and went to continue the fight but found his body wouldn't respond to him. He was confused about this for a moment and thought about what was different before his eyes fell on the blade that had pierced his shadow.
"What kind of enchantments are on your blades? I'm guessing that it's not entirely normal, but then what is in this tournament?" Owen asked Harry.
"While black keys can have spell sigils put on them for various effects, there are two things that they all can do. One is that they have a greater effect against the undead, inferi, ghouls, vampires, those kinds of things. The other thing is hat when they pierce someone's shadow, that person becomes unable to move." Harry informed him.
Owen began to laugh, his mouth and eyes being pretty much all that he could move at present. "I see. I suppose I should apologise, my overconfidence is to be my downfall then. I know when I have been beaten and I yield to you. May we have the chance to fight again in the future."
The match over with, Harry released Owen from the black key's influence and the two of them clasped arms in a show of respect for the other. Harry then walked off towards the exit, trying to hide just how much pain his arm was causing him. While it was nowhere near as debilitating as that time when Sasha had bitten him to form their bond, it was still rather painful and it was healing incredibly slowly.
xxxxx
Harry ended up in his room and had taken his shirt off to take a closer look at his arm. The blade had slid into his flesh and out again easily, leaving a rather clean cut behind. Harry teleported one of his general healing potions to himself and downed the contents. The potion tasted foul but it was nevertheless effective as his flesh began to knit itself back together slowly over the next hour and a half. The potion should have done it in ten or fifteen minutes but, as Harry had suspected, there was almost certainly something about that Claymore that had prevented it healing as quick as it usually would have.
Harry got some fresh clothes together and headed off to take a shower. It was while he was in the shower that Aqua turned up once again. Harry was simply washing his body down when he heard her wet footsteps right next to him, but then again he supposed that anyone's footsteps would be wet in a shower stall. He opened one eye, his blindfold still in place and looked at her.
"Yes?" He asked. "Is there something I can help you with miss Water Nymph?" Harry's brow crinkled up for a moment. "Though, isn't a Water Nymph more accurately called a naiad?"
Aqua raised an eyebrow. "I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised you know that and yes, I would be called a naiad. That's a Greek word though and I have distanced myself from the term, I suppose that now you know it, you may as well refer to me like that. The closest German equivalent is Nixie and the English is Jenny Greenteeth, the Scottish have their Shellycoats. To be honest, it is like the difference between a dark and a pale skinned human and their cultures and whatnot rather than us all being completely separate species like humans and monkeys."
Harry snorted. "I see." He said. "Now, is there a reason that you decided to visit me while I'm in the shower? Despite not being human yourself, I'm sure that you are aware of the normal human ethos and that appearing in someone's shower deviates from that."
"Oh? Not human, you say. Well, I think that I can confidently say that you aren't either. Human blood is red, yours isn't." Harry shrugged unconcerned at that, Aqua continued though. "You also don't really seem to care that I'm in here, you haven't reacted in anyway to my presence at least." She sounded a bit miffed at that.
"True enough." Harry nodded. "If there is any part of me that is still human, it is a very small part that I don't much care for." Harry then began to wash off all of the remnants of body wash, shampoo and conditioner that were left. "As for me not caring, well, I don't. I have fewer morals than is standard for humans and the concept of nudity is something I am fine with, I wear clothes for reasons other than simply covering up."
He did as well. Harry's clothes were all there as protection and for warmth as well as to satisfy the sensibilities of everyone who saw him. Harry's mind was rather unlike that of a regular teenage boy's. Whereas a regular teenager would see a naked female as a sexual object, Harry simply saw it as a person in the flesh and nothing more, some might say that he was broken but that's who he was and he was completely fine with it.
Aqua pouted but Harry was sure she was just putting on an act. "Well," She said. "There is water here." A mischievous gleam appeared in her eye and Harry became instantly wary of whatever she ideas were running through her head. A quick metal communication with Fran and Liz told him that he was currently the only person in the area, everyone else seemed to be either watching the tournament, participating or were in their rooms, probably checking their equipment.
Harry's eyes flickered up to the shower head as a lot more water started coming from it. "How about a little water fight?" Aqua asked and Harry barely had time to register her words before he was assaulted by a blast of freezing cold water. He spluttered for a moment, getting his breath, before he retaliated with spellfire.
xxxxx
Harry turned up soon after amongst the audience, his hair still rather damp from the water fight he'd just had with Aqua. He saw that Zelretch had the Daily Prophet out and Harry shot a glance at the front page before having to take another look. Zelretch noticed what Harry was looking at and took the cover off the paper and handed it to him.
"Huh," He said. "How stupid can you get?"
"What is it?" Waver asked with a cocked eyebrow. "And why are you still wet?"
Harry shook his head before looking again at the article in his hand. "My hair is still wet because I've just had a water fight with a Naiad and magical methods of drying my hair can do damage to it, something I don't want. As for the article, you remember the Weasleys?"
Waver nodded but obviously his Japanese magus friends didn't know. "Well, they are a rather poor family." Harry explained for Rin's, Shirou's and Sakura's sakes. "According to this, they've won a prize draw. The stupid part is that they're not saving any of it but blowing pretty much the whole thing on a trip to Egypt for a month. Granted, they have a son who works as a curse breaker there but really? They can't even afford wands for their children and as soon as they get money they spend it, it's no wonder they're poor."
Harry shook his head before using a warm air charm, one of the few that he'd actually use on his hair, and began to try and get the last of the dampness out of his black and purple hair. Harry looked over at the duel to see that it was Apolline Delacour versus another woman.
Now that her seeming control over men didn't give her such an advantage, Harry actually got a look at how good she was in a duel. It was rather impressive, she obviously knew what she was doing. The only thing that Harry might fault her on was her seeming fondness of fire type spells, she kept using flame-whips, fire balls, walls of fire and Harry was sure that the creatures formed of fire that were running around the arena were examples of fiendfyre.
Harry shook his head at what Apolline's opponent was doing. While elementally water beat fire, the rules of magic didn't necessarily agree. No amount of water would ever put fiendfyre out and it seemed that Apolline had a strong affinity for that element, further lending it strength.
He shook his head when the French woman's opponent cast one hell of an overpowered Aqua Eructo that covered the entire arena in an inch or two of water. That was probably a bad idea as the water soon became steam and Harry started grumbling about having just about dried his hair out, since he was in the front row he had gotten hit with a lot of the steam.
The problem here was that the fiendfyre creatures could be commanded to seek out body heat and, as long as she was careful and had a strong will, Apolline Delacour could remain unaffected by it. A scream from the arena, one that didn't come from Apolline's side, let Harry and everyone know that the latest spell had come back to bite the woman on her arse.
A few basic wind spells later and the steam was cleared from the arena to reveal no new damage had been done to Apolline Delacour but her opponent was badly burned. The match after that didn't last long as the burned woman was severely hindered by her injuries and Apolline Delacour was pronounced the victor.
"Huh, so it's her, is it?" Harry muttered and Euryale raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? Have a crush on an older woman, do you Harry?" She teased him but Harry shook his head.
"Despite her physical level of attraction and whatever supernatural allure she is releasing, no, the victor of this match was to be my partner in tomorrows round." Harry replied. Euryale pouted, deprived of her chance to tease her little brother.
"So you and her are going to be duelling alongside each other next round, right?" Rin asked. "If that's the case then when are you two going to plan what you intend to do during your match? I know that we've seen her use a lot of fire but that's not exactly much to base a strategy off of. You yourself have only shown your speed, black keys and the messing around you did yesterday, that won't be enough for her to judge much either."
Harry shook his head. "That is true, if we did come up with a plan together but there is a problem." Rin cocked an eyebrow at Harry who smiled at her. "The duel after the two versus two match would pit the victors against each other. If I and Apolline Delacour win tomorrow's match then we will be facing each other on Thursday. As I'm sure you know, the better idea we have of each other's capabilities the better we can plan for the other so working together is a double-edged sword."
Harry stood up a bit straighter from the railing on which he had been leaning. "Nevertheless, to get to that round we would first have to win our doubles match so it may be prudent to try and talk to her later, perhaps when she is watching a match this afternoon."
Rin nodded and Zelretch looked at him curiously. They all knew that Harry wouldn't give everything away and Apolline Delacour was unlikely to give much away either, especially not to one as young as Harry was. They decided to leave it in Harry's hands, that allure she'd used on men didn't work on females and Liz, Fran and Len could always drag him away if he began to drool over her.
xxxxx
As it turned out, Harry met Apolline Delacour sooner than he expected. He had been heading back to his room to work on a little project he had going, one he would most certainly never let Zelretch find out about under ANY circumstances. He had been using his Christmas gift from Waver, the laptop, to try and analyse arithmancy equations and the rules behind them. Like binary, the computer language, used base two, Arithmancy seemed to favour base three, base seven and base thirteen.
Whereas the most common counting used base ten, these alternatives carried with them some magical significance. Harry shook his head, why and who decided that three, seven and thirteen were so special? Nevertheless, Harry put pretty much every spell matrix he knew into a database and started looking for correlations between them.
It was surprisingly effective. It seemed that spells were constructed of many building blocks of short equations that were in various bases but when pulled together formed a spell. It was interesting when he matched wand movements to some of these and found some rather interesting results. A jab tended to correlate with something in base thirteen, a swish with base seven and so on and so forth.
Without the laptop crunching all of the numbers, the calculations that he was currently doing in minutes and hours would have taken weeks or months to complete. This was one part of the project he'd undertaken, one that was progressing well.
What Harry's overall goal was to do was replicating the magic system he'd seen in that damnable anime that Zelretch had forced him to watch, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. From what Harry understood of it, the magic system was composed of three parts that he could equate to Wizardcraft and two that he could equate with Atlas Alchemy but with technology added in.
The Wizardcraft that he could see being involved was Arithmancy and Ancient Runes and Magical Theory. In the show, some of the more major attacks had runic arrays and circles appearing that acted as a focus, amplifier, or other effect as part of the spell. There was also how the spells worked, the devices seemed to be crunching a lot of numbers to get the spells to work and that would obviously involve arithmancy.
The Alchemy involved seemed to be along the lines of Thought Acceleration and Memory Partition, two skills that Harry possessed. What Harry was trying to do was work out how the effects he'd seen in the anime could be replicated and then to use runic arrays and arithmancy to carry them out. His own mental skills would be used to translate this effect into numbers which he could send to his device substitute that would also crunch the numbers and then generate the effect with it being powered by his own prana.
At present, Harry was using his laptop, modified with runes and alchemy, to run these simulations and he was using it as a stand-in for a device for now before he really began to research that part of the project. So far, everything was going well. The defencer and protection spells that Fate and Nanoha used were being reconstructed from the arithmetic calculations from the Protego spell and some wards that Harry had gotten a hold of.
As far as Harry was aware, in the anime there had been seven categories of magic used. There was Attack, this consisted of Shooting, Bombardment, Melee, Area of Effect and Magic Enhanced attacks. Then there was Defence which consisted of Barriers, Shields and Field Negation. Then there were Capture style spells, Bind and Cage. Force Field type spells were split between Circles and Area. Support type spells would Increase your capabilities, Weaken Enemies or help with mobility like flight or teleportation.
Also included were Illusion and Summoning which Harry wasn't going to delve into yet. Of the ones he was looking at, Harry noticed some amusing similarities between his orbs and the basic shooting attacks used. His equivalent of bombardment spells was pretty much limited to Wizardcraft spells that used pressure or fire over an area, nowhere near the power that was seen in the anime.
Harry was hopeful that, once the project was complete, he would use minimal magic power for greater effect. Already, simply analysing and modifying some basic spell structures allowed him to shave wasted energy of his spells and increase his efficiency a fair bit.
Harry was looking forward to Arithmancy quite a bit this coming year. He had looked over some of the textbooks and knew that, initially, it wasn't very exciting. You had to memorise the importance of certain numbers, the reasons why they were important and what they could be used for. Three was a purely defensive number for example, and like a triangle it was a very stable number magically. The number three was often used in wards and had been for a long time.
Another thing that Harry was ahead on was using number systems other than base ten. He had been looking at binary when he had first started looking at ways for technology to work around magic a year and more previously. In the process, he had learnt maths in binary and he had transitioned into base three, seven, thirteen and sixteen easily, the last one being something of a personal challenge and the most difficult one to date.
Harry supposed that his thought acceleration and memory partition may be cheating a bit, he nevertheless made full use of it. He thought that you used whatever talents you had to their full ability, whether others had them or not. There was nothing good or right about slowing down just to make others feel better, it simply prevented you doing your best.
Anyway, Harry had his laptop set up in his room and he had been checking on how the software was handling the management of the database and he was checking on the progress of his own personal barrier spell. Harry was a little disappointed that it was only at sixty-three percent after being at it for two days but he shrugged his shoulders, it would happen when it happened. He supposed that the difficulty it was having was tying some of the more esoteric defensive spells into one that balanced defence with efficiency. He had put a spell even he couldn't cast yet in there, one that made a solid barrier of hardened air that could apparently stop some of the strongest dark and piercing spells from getting through.
It couldn't stop the unforgivables but Harry had a small plan for that. His plan was for a slight conjuration to be tied into it, summoning transparent hexagonal panels of some kind that would be held in place by the hardened air. The problem there was he was actually stepping into spell creation, something that was only briefly touched on at NEWT level and was more a part of the Advanced and Mastery levels of Arithmancy.
Harry had left his laptop alone, after applying a number of locking and sealing spells to his door in addition to his wards and bounded fields, he didn't want anyone getting in uninvited after all. He turned to head back to the seating and literally walked into Apolline Delacour, well, her chest at least.
Harry sighed as he stepped backwards and looked up into the woman's face. "My apologies, I wasn't looking where I was going." Harry spoke in French, seemingly surprising this woman. "Now that we have met though, would you like to discuss our next match, we are supposed to fight alongside each other after all."
Apolline smiled and, while it seemed warm, there was something in that smile that had Harry curious. "I suppose that is true. Would you like to speak with me as we watch this next match? As I understand it, you are here with some rather colourful individuals and they have certainly caught the eye of many here."
Harry grumbled but agreed with her. Harry was fully aware of some of the looks that his companions had received. There had been the ones who looked at them with lust, he knew some rather beautiful females after all, and some had been curious. There had been looks of wariness from some of those who listened more closely to their instincts and there had been looks by those that had recognised him as the boy-who-lived'. He'd ignored them all of course but he'd been tempted to inflict some bodily harm when a guy tried to put an arm around Stheno and chat her up. He hadn't needed to, Stheno was more than capable of taking after herself, but Harry was not happy about it one bit.
Aside from the fact that legally, Stheno was Harry's mistress, something that Harry tried to expunge from his mind, she was first and foremost family and family was very important to Harry. He had heard about Medusa from Stheno and Euryale, many, many stories and she was the person who Harry mentally moulded himself after, whether consciously or not.
Harry kept close to Apolline as she walked through the crowds, her allure aiding Harry's ability to hide behind layered notice-me-not charms that he'd piled on himself. It seemed to be rather effective as every male had their eyes on Apolline as she walked ahead of him and Harry's notice-me-not charms made sure that their eyes were averted from him, even the females that would declare him 'too cute'. The notice-me-not charms also helped him not get stood on as, despite his growth spurt, Harry was still far from the tallest person ever and was still a little below average.
When Harry arrived at where Apolline's friends and family were, coincidentally almost opposite where his were, Harry noted that whatever allure Apolline had was only in the females. There was a woman there who looked to be no more than maybe five years older than Apolline but felt much older than that. There was also a similar feel between them and Harry's thoughts were confirmed when Apolline addressed her as Mother.
With them was a man, he seemed to be only marginally affected by their allure but his eyes did cloud over slightly every now and then and he had did have a twitch from when he kept refocussing his attention. There were also two young girls there as well, the elder of the two looking to be about fifteen or so and the younger looking around six years old, maybe seven.
"I think my companion here does not need much of an introduction but, regardless, I present Harry Potter. I will be partnered with him in tomorrow's round against the Russian Gorelov and whoever wins this round." Apolline then turned to Harry and introduced her family. "This is my husband, Alain, my daughters, Fleur and Gabrielle, and my mother, Claire."
Harry looked at the man and shook his hand, the introduction seemed enough to garner his attention, before looking at the two girls, Fleur and Gabrielle. The elder one, Fleur, seemed to be looking at him warily but offered her hand, which he kissed, before looking at him carefully. The younger one was different though, she seemed full of energy and was pretty much bouncing all over the place in her excitement. She was babbling so fast in French that Harry was glad he understood the language, if he didn't then he was sure he'd get a headache trying to understand her.
Harry then turned to the woman named Claire and felt just how much stronger this woman's allure was. His mind was strong enough to defend against it and having Holly in there did help but Harry just knew that, if she stopped holding it all back, she could have almost every male here as her thrall.
"Hello to you too, Madame." Harry greeted her as he bent to kiss her hand as he had done with Fleur and Gabrielle. Claire seemed to be focusing quite intently on him and was getting rather confused, much like Apolline seemed to be about him.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, young sir, but what are you? You might not see us behind that blindfold, though I have my doubts about that, but sight is not needed to feel our allure. You obviously feel it but you remain even less affected by it than my son-in-law and he has a great resistance to it." Harry's eyes flickered to Alain and his eyes seemed to be slightly clouded over. Claire seemed to get his implied question and answered it.
"He could resist a half-veela's allure easily enough, even if it was unrestrained but with myself here along with some of my daughter's friends, well, it is a little much." Harry nodded his head.
"So I was right, you are a veela. I felt the seductive nature of your magic and that was my first theory, I'm glad to see it was a correct one. As for myself, what makes you think I am not human?" Harry asked, his voice conveying amusement rather than reproach. He honestly didn't care that someone could tell he wasn't a human but he was curious about how they could tell.
"Your aura." Apolline told him and at his cocked head, she elaborated. "Veela, Sirens and a few other magical races can see auras and divine things about a person. A human aura tends to shift between white and black but is most often a shade of grey, rather bland really. Yours though, there are certainly parts of it that are pure black and normally that would be rather alarming, especially in one so young, but there is no white or grey in your aura. It is primarily purple and red but there is some brown and green in there as well, it is the most unusual thing I've ever seen as auras are usually no more than two colours and that is rather rare."
"Huh," Harry muttered. "I'll have to find a way to mask that." He then returned his attention back to Claire and Apolline, everyone else was watching the current duel. "As for what I am, I'm not human. To be honest, I don't know exactly what I am and I tend to settle for hybrid."
They seemed to accept that but the elder daughter, Fleur, seemed to catch what Harry had said and looked at him curiously for a moment before returning her attention to the current match. Harry glanced at Apolline and the two of them stood side by side as they observed the duel.
"The Swedish vampire is going to win this one." Harry said. Apolline raised and eyebrow at him, her attention returning almost immediately to the match before them.
"Oh? How do you work that one out? From here it looks like the German is winning this fight." Harry gave a fanged grin before indicating certain parts of the arena.
"Look there, look where the vampire has spilled his blood." Harry gave her a moment to look about the arena. "As Veela have their natural allure, Vampires have a natural control over their own blood even after it has left their body. Aside from that, the swede was faster in yesterdays match, some of the dodging was unreal, and that injury wouldn't have done any damage to his legs so he should still have his full speed available."
Harry was proved right a moment later as the vampire dodged a spell from his opponent and some of his blood spilled onto the German's feet. A grin split the vampire's face as a moment later, the blood turned into needles that pierced the German's feet. As the German hobbled about, the vampire began to incant some kind of spell, indicating the blood that had been spread across the arena.
It seemed to be some kind of binding ritual using blood as a magical catalyst, where most people might have used charged mercury or saliva. The splashes of blood lit up and soon chains emerged from the blood, made from crystallising the blood, and bound 'whatever was not the same as itself' or, in other words, the vampire's opponent.
"It seems you were right." Apolline said, though she didn't sound particularly surprised herself. "I suppose that now is as good a time as any to talk strategy. As I'm sure you can guess, I have an affinity for fire and air, more the latter than the former. I am capable of using my allure to mess with male opponents but it only works on females if they are lesbians and is more effective if they themselves acknowledge that. What about you?"
Harry smiled at her, his fangs in clear view. "My greatest strength is my speed. What people saw against my last opponent wasn't everything. I have prepared rather well and, aside from the black keys and potions that have already been seen, I also have a chakram disk that will return to me when thrown as well as a few other little surprises. As far as spell-casting goes, I prefer spells with shorter incantation and have no particular preference for one branch of magic or another. I do make judicious use of animate transfiguration and animation charms though, I like to overwhelm people with numbers sometimes."
"I believe there is some space below ground where we can practice, do you wish to see how we work together?" Apolline asked and Harry thought about it for a moment. Apolline then spoke again before Harry had replied. "I would also like to face off against you in practise, I believe you will be a rather dangerous opponent despite your few years."
Harry agreed to that and the two set a time of half eight that evening for a practise match against each other, they would both bring two people each from their group so they could practise fighting together. Harry already knew who he was going to bring, what would Apolline make of Arc and Alt?
xxxxx
"Is she always such a ditz?" Apolline asked Harry as the two of them headed off to their rooms, their companions heading towards the camp site outside.
"Yes, she is. I am just glad that she's the only one like that, I don't think I could handle a second Arcueid." Harry muttered back.
It was sake to say that Apolline had been rather surprised at Altrouge and Arcueid, very much so in fact. Whereas Altrouge had taken the fight seriously and been good competition, helping them work out some of the kinks in their teamwork, Arcueid had been quite a disruptive force.
That's not to say it was a bad thing to include her, it was just hard to form a cohesive strategy against them when one of them was just so unpredictable. Altrouge, the could plan for as she seemed to have a vague pattern in her attacks but Arcueid, she was like someone high as a kite. With good teamwork and a bit of luck they could have neutralised Altrouge, at the level she was fighting at anyway, but with Arcueid it was all luck and individual reactions.
Harry supposed that was better than being predictable, it allowed them to find out what they could do when they were forced to think on their feet. Harry was most grateful for his speed as Apolline's answer to everything seemed to be 'Kill it with fire!' no matter what she was doing.
Harry knew that a flame-freezing charm wouldn't hold out against some of Apolline's stronger magic but it certainly took the edge off it and Harry made a mental note to try and find something that could negate fiendfyre, a favourite spell of Apolline's.
Harry said goodbye to her when he'd reached his room, one of the farthest underground. Harry didn't know how they assigned rooms, whether by some variable or other or whether it was just random, but he was rather happy down here. Apolline wasn't but her elements were fire and air so underground and underwater really wouldn't do her any favours.
Although, Harry would admit that he was rather fond of the air himself. He'd occasionally gone flying on his Nimbus 2000 and had thoroughly enjoyed it. Harry was a little disappointed that he wasn't on the Quidditch team but, one, he'd never tried out and, two, he had so many projects of his own going on that he was a little busy to do things like that.
Saying goodbye to Apolline, Harry went into his room. The instant he closed the door, Liz and Fran materialised and Len switched to human form. He wandered over to his laptop and saw that the percentage was now up to seventy percent.
"So, what do you guys think about my chances?" Harry asked Liz and Fran as Len climbed into his lap, handing him a brush. Harry chuckled as he began to brush Len's hair, her eyes closed in contentment.
"Well, I think you could do pretty well next round. With that woman at your side, the vampire is going to be crispy barbecue. I had a look and he wears an amulet of some kind, I expect that's what's preventing him from dying by exposure to so much sunlight. Regardless of that though, he'll still have a strong aversion to heat and light." Liz told him.
Fran continued, this time talking about the Russian, Gorelov. "The other one though, he seemed rather fond of gradual destruction spells. He kept casting things that caused rot and decay, not only for organic matter but also directed at spells and the like. While he isn't instantly massively powerful, he seemed the sort to wear someone down instead of overpowering their defences. Fire isn't so good against that so I think that you should deal with him while Apolline deals with the vampire, though you could sneak a helping hand in for each other if you see the opportunity."
Liz nodded. "I think the best thing you can do is to take the Russian out before he has a chance to debilitate you too badly and then enjoy the show as the veela deals with the vampire. Why don't you use some of your potions against the Russian? I know that people now know to get out of the way when they're thrown instead of banishing them back at you but if you cast a spell and shatter it before it hits your opponent then you can cause it to rain down on them."
A little laugh in Harry's head brought Holly to his attention. Let me have a go at him. Can you imagine how shocked they'll be when a twelve-year-old boy turns into a full grown woman? I'd also like to et a few hits in and, since I'm close to being a familiar, I'm completely legal in this tournament.
Harry shook his head and sighed. "Very well. I will start the match by throwing a few random potions towards my opponents, shattering them and then letting Holly have some fun, I suppose she deserves it." Harry's face suddenly broke out into an evil smirk.
"There's something else I've worked out as well, I discretely tested my theory out when myself and Apolline faced off against her mother and her friend, Charlotte. A patronus can have an effect on fiendfyre, what are you willing to bet that my special patronuses can do a little something more than she expects them too? I'll save that for myself versus Apolline, I do have about two hundred patronuses stored in my mind right now and I'm not afraid to use them." Harry's chuckle right then could have been described as downright evil, not that he minded of course.
xxxxx
Harry stood alongside Apolline at one side of the duelling platform while The Swedish Vampire, Ellstrom his name was, and the Russian man, Gorelov. The vampire was stood upright, a neutral stance, and Gorelov was turned slightly away from the two of them with his knees bent, a more defensive stance.
There was quite a bit of tension in the air as Harry and Apolline got ready for this fight. Apolline had her wand raised high in the air, a rather aggressive stance, and Harry was as he felt comfortable, one hand on the floor in front of him and his knees bent and ready for a sudden burst of speed.
Harry's hand, the one that wasn't on the floor, was in his pocket and already had a potion ready. Actually, Harry had his prehensile hair curled around four other potion bottles, all ready to be thrown.
When the start was called, Harry raced forwards, twisting around a spell that Gorelov had sent at him. The Russian seemed to expect Harry to approach him and engage in close quarters combat and cast some spell at the ground at his feet. Harry grinned and cut his run short, letting the potions fly through the air before smashing them using a concussive blast from his wand.
The potions rained down on Gorelov and Harry wondered what potions they had been, he'd chosen them completely at random after all. He then began to shift into Holly's form and gave control of his body over to her. Harry was glad he transfigured his clothes as he shifted, if he had tried to keep them then Holly's large bust would probably have ripped through it.
Everything went quiet when Harry finished the change and left Holly in his place. Even Apolline blinked in surprise at this sudden shift. Her surprise was for a completely different reason though, as had been stated before Veela can see auras and Harry's had just changed drastically, it had been taken over by the brown that had been a part of his aura before.
She was surprised because that was supposed to be impossible, at least that quickly. It was like he had become a completely different person and, as far as she could tell, he had. Even a metamorphmagus that switches gender still retains their 'essence', their natural form as it were and, if you knew what to look for, then those signs were there to be seen.
Not with Harry though, it was like his essence was now female and it had been male before, she was sure of it. She managed to shake off her confusion and continue her duel with Ellstrom, and what fun that fight was. She had a natural advantage over the vampire and she was making it count.
It wouldn't take much more for her to claim victory over her opponent, she'd corralled him with her fiendfyre creatures and he couldn't put them out. She almost gave off her own evil chuckle, her affinity was fire and a vampire's weakness was fire, was there really any hope for him when she used so much of her favoured element?
A light hearted, girlish giggle interrupted her inner gloating and she looked over at Harry, no, the not-Harry as it were. The not-Harry was giggling like a schoolgirl and firing off spell after spell while twisting and twirling out of the way of whatever Gorelov sent her way.
It was a rather innocent sight, the brown-haired, buxom woman spinning about like a little girl at a ballet while she seemed to be amusing herself with her opponent. It was completely different to how Harry fought and it was most off-putting. Where Harry was fast, accurate and struck like a snake, this woman, whoever she was as she was somehow not-Harry despite just having been Harry, was far more lackadaisical but she didn't seem to take a single hit either.
She was skilled, no doubt about that, and she seemed to have an impossibly broad spectrum of spells which she was capable of casting, Apolline didn't think she'd yet seen the same spell twice, but it was so not Harry that it wasn't funny. She'd gotten a feel for Harry's style when they'd had that practise last night and she was honestly impressed, she thought that if Harry had actually been going for a kill then he would make quite he assassin.
Harry's style, when he wasn't experimenting with his potions or whatever had caught his interest, relied heavily on speed and his reactions, which were insanely good, and he always aimed at a weak-point. Whether that weak-point was a joint, a nerve cluster, a pressure point, or something else, it was always the same story. She knew that Harry hadn't shown her everything, just as she hadn't shown him everything.
Her manipulation of fire went far further than what she'd displayed so far, if there was a need for it she could command more than four dozen fiendfyre creatures at much greater sizes than what she was using but she didn't want to give that away if she didn't have to. She wondered what else Harry Potter had hidden up his sleeves.
The end of the fight came soon after that, her and Harry being the clear victors, their opponents simply hadn't been able to match up. She looked across to where Harry stood, exactly as he had been before and not the brown haired woman. Apolline frowned, she didn't actually know a way in which one person could become another aside from glamours, polyjuice potion and other things like that but none of them changed someone's aura. It was most disconcerting and quite intriguing, she would try and keep an ear open to hear whatever people might let slip about one Harry Potter.
xxxxx
Harry was once again back in his room, the one he was staying in for the duration of the tournament, and he was clicking away at things on his laptop. He had had a look at the spell matrix that the laptop had been building and it had looked rather rough around the edges.
Oh, what was there would have worked. It might not have been as good a defence as he wanted it to be, only reaching seventy two percent when all was said and done, but it would have worked to a point. The problem was that Harry's programming was imperfect. He had tried to go for as perfect a defence as he could and then tried to make it as efficient as possible rather than building a spell matrix about both of those things together to get a better balance.
A Protego shield was a good example of efficiency, while it wasn't the strongest shield ever it didn't require much energy. A Prismus Barrier was an example of an extremely sturdy, purely magical ward but it required more units of power to units of protection than pretty much anything else.
No, Harry would have to create his own shield spell from scratch if he wanted to go anywhere with this and he already had the basis for his ideas, a hexagon. Hexagons were rather interesting shapes as far as Harry believed, they were both solid and could be used in a variety of ways.
Harry's initial idea was to go with a directional shield like the round shield in the anime. To do this, he would construct it around base seven, a magically powerful number system that went from zero to six, and have a central hexagon as the anchor point of the shield. He would then use six other hexagons, one for each side of the anchor point, and bind them together to form the shield.
Using this as a base, he could then make a shield using nothing but pentagons and then merge the two ideas to make a complete sphere of protection around himself. The pentagons and hexagons together would make a relatively stable structure and could work quite well as a shield or barrier.
Harry, once he'd noted down his ideas for that shield, began to work on a basic shooting spell. Now, Harry's orbs achieved pretty much the same thing but if he was going to do this then he was going to do it properly. Deciding that an unstable shape would probably be best for the shooting spell, so it could release the force on impact quickly, he decided to use base thirteen to give it more variables as that would be an easier equation to collapse and cause the discharge.
With that as a base, he could rotate the dodecagon to get a roughly ball shaped shot. With the unstable spell matrix, the power in the shot and the mental calculations to guide it, that would be a pretty good equivalent to the basic shooting spells found in that particular anime.
Those two bits, the shield and basic shot, was pretty much all Harry was confident enough to try and construct right now. When he returned to Hogwarts and had someone who held a mastery in the subject nearby, then he might try something like a bombardment type spell. The condition being that he managed to work on optimising efficiency through Arithmancy and amplifier rune arrays.
"I know you're there, whoever you are." Harry said suddenly before turning around in his seat to see who it was that was loitering outside of his room.
He looked and saw a fairly young looking couple, Asian by their features, but Harry had actually seen them before. Actually, he had seen these appearances before. Harry grinned.
"Nick! Penny! I thought you hadn't been able to make it, come in and let's have a chat." The two people stepped into Harry's room and only dropped their illusions when the door was firmly shut and sealed behind them.
"Nice to see you too, Harry. Well, shall we have a bit of a chat then?" Penny asked him, Harry's response was a wide smile.