Chapter 12 – Into the Arena

With the last of his flying qualifiers set for the coming weekend, Harry was able to focus on his duelling during the week. He had his lessons, of course, but getting through those was easy especially with duelling sessions waiting for him on the Tuesday and the Friday. Aside from Moody, most of the professors were reasonable when it came to their students' extracurricular activities ahead of the Tournament.

Not exactly forgiving, but much more reasonable than Harry would have expected of them given prior performance.

Harry spent the afternoons after his lessons in his little dungeon hideaway working on his spells, taking what felt to him like an absurd amount of time to figure out the Mirror Charm. He still couldn't cast it properly every time, but sometimes was better than never, he supposed.

Flitwick held his duelling tournament for the Juniors on that Tuesday's session of Duelling Club. It ran late, pushing right up to dinner, but Harry didn't mind. Students from the rest of the school had been allowed to come and watch for the very first time, and the Hall was packed almost to bursting – with even some teachers who usually went home after lessons coming to watch. After the previous week's taster the Juniors had attempted to go all-out on the stage, and a dazzling array of different strategies and techniques had been put on display.

Even though the Juniors had shown off some interesting things, Harry thought almost all of it was too advanced for the Novices to even attempt. Battle transfiguration and advanced hexes and hex deflection were things for OWL and above and were banned in the Novitiate besides. Harry still saw some useful things come out of it. McGonagall had started teaching them to conjure all sorts of things, including some animals which could provide a useful distraction in duels, and Moody's Auror apprentice had been working through a nice set of hexes with the class, too. Nothing as adventurous as Harry would have liked, but a start.

By the time Friday's Novice duelling tournament came, Harry felt quite well prepared for what was to come. A few more of the Novice level aspirant duellists had quit between the announcement of the tournament and the tournament itself – including Theodore – so Harry didn't think the event would run quite so close to dinner as the Juniors' had. The presence of the rest of the school did worry him just a little bit – he'd never duelled in front of an audience unfamiliar with the duelling process before and one never did know how a crowd could react. Harry had made it that far and the crowd in the Great Hall at the Friday session was nothing compared with the crowd that would be present in the real competition, so he felt like it would be good practise.

"Ooh, there's a lot of people here!" said Tracey once the Novices had assembled along one side of the duelling stage. The spectators occupied the space directly opposite them, near to the doors to the Entrance Hall. "I hope we all do well!"

"There's more than I expected," said Blaise. "Especially just to watch the Novices. But we can't back out now…"

"We'll all be fine," said Harry, partially because he felt reasonably confident, and partially because he wanted to convince himself of it. "We've done loads of practise in Duelling Club and I know we've all been doing our own, as well. So we'll be fine."

The wriggling mass of anxiety in his stomach did disagree somewhat, but Harry ignored it.

Blaise nodded along with him anyway.

"Not to get soppy on you both, but I do think all three of us will make it through to the real competition," said Blaise. "It's a bugger to disarm you, Harry, and Tracey, you're a monster with that Mirror Charm. So I reckon we'll all get through."

"Oh, thank you, Blaise," said Tracey. "I think so too!"

"Settle down, settle down!" called out Flitwick from his position in the middle of the duelling stage. "I know we're all very excited to watch the duelling this evening, but we can't get started without a few announcements!" He waited for the students in the Hall to quieten down, and then continued. "Tonight's tournament will be a simple knock-out tournament with all of the Novice duellists who have agreed to participate. A lost bout results in an ejection from the tournament. We have sixteen Novices who have agreed to duel this evening, and we've set a time-limit on each duel—no more than five minutes for every bout—so we shouldn't delay dinner by too much, if at all!"

Harry thought about what Flitwick had said, then realised if he did poorly, he'd get to fight one duel – but if he did well, it would be four.

"The pairings have been decided ahead of time and can be viewed on the board at the far side of the Hall near to the doors," Flitwick said with a little gesture towards a big chalkboard with the first round of draws written over it. "Now for the sake of efficiency we shall begin without any further fuss," said Flitwick. "May I call Miss Katie Bell and Mr Ernest Macmillan to the stage for the first bout?"

Harry moved closer to the chalkboard with the draws on it to get a little look while he waited for his turn. He scanned the board and saw that Blaise had been paired off against Susan, and Tracey against Marcus Belby from the year above. Harry himself had his first bout with McClaggen, which he thought was sure to go in his favour. McClaggen preferred a strong offensive to anything else, although from what Harry had seen from other Duelling Club sessions, wasn't always able to back that up with enough skill to make it work.

From a quick look at how Flitwick had drawn the brackets, Harry saw that his third round opponent would probably be either Draco or Terry Boot from Ravenclaw. Harry didn't rate Draco or Boot's potential second round matchups even though one of them was Ernie. Of the two, Harry thought Draco as the more challenging option. Draco had been more concerned with his flying than with the duelling, but Harry had seen him sneak off to practise like everyone else.

"They're ready to start!" said Tracey, drawing Harry's attention away from the fixtures board. He wrenched his gaze back toward the stage where Katie Bell and Ernie were preparing for their first and possibly last bout of the night.

"I hope Ernie does well," Harry muttered to Tracey and Blaise, "but I'm not sure he's as good as Bell..."

"Maybe he'll surprise us all," Blaise said, although his tone left Harry with the impression he thought it unlikely.

The Hall gradually fell into silence as Bell and Ernie bowed to one another before Flitwick started the bout. Katie started with a spell sequence in a fast staccato, which Ernie had to scramble to defend against with a series of quick and dirty Mirror Charms.

Bell managed to keep Ernie on the defensive with a couple of follow up sequences, until Ernie found his footing.

"Avis!" cried Ernie with a jab of his wand.

A small flock of squawking, flapping birds fell out of the end of his wand and swarmed around Bell.

"Not bad," Harry said to himself. The birds looked a bit on the small side, but it was probably a better bit of conjuration than Harry could have managed.

Unfortunately Bell vanished the birds easily in one go – the product of her extra year of experience, Harry assumed, since the second years hadn't even started vanishment yet. But Ernie knocked out of her rhythm nevertheless. Ernie cast another couple of spells including a Jelly-Legs Jinx at Bell, which she deflected with a series of Mirror Charms.

Ernie paused, seemingly stuck for something to do.

"Go on," muttered Harry. "Just do something..."

"Expelliarmus!" Ernie said with his wand held out, hand shaking slightly.

Scarlet light shot from the end of Ernie's wand and the Disarming Charm hit Bell square in the chest, but her wand barely twitched in her hand. Ernie's face fell, and Harry knew then that he'd lost the duel to Bell even though Ernie boy probably didn't realise it yet.

Bell sent back a barrage of spells, some of which Ernie had to physically dodge to avoid, until she shot off her own Disarming Charm and knocked Ernie's wand from his hand.

"Well done to our first duellists!" said Flitwick once Ernie had picked up his wand. "It is not easy being the first pair up to duel, but both of you performed admirably. This bout, however, goes to Miss Bell—decided because of her successful Disarming Charm. A round of applause while our duellists depart the stage, please."

Harry joined in with the rest of the Hall as they clapped Bell and Ernie out. He was disappointed for Ernie but he had been beaten fairly by Bell in the end. He obviously hadn't pushed his Disarming Charm hard enough, but then, Ernie never did push his advantages. Too kind-hearted, Harry thought.

Flitwick called up the next pair of duellists – Hermione Granger and Emily Poulton from Adder group – and Harry pushed Bell and Ernie out of his mind to watch.

In Harry's estimation Granger wasn't an especially talented duellist, but she had an excellent command of spells of all kinds and was able to rattle them off in quick succession. In practise bouts Harry had seen first-hand that her spells lacked the raw power behind them to be worrisome on their own, but coupled with her speed in casting, she was able to do some damage.

Harry didn't think Emily Poulton would make it past the first round.

Almost immediately after the count Granger sprang into action. True to form Granger started the duel with a well-practised spell sequence.

"Locomotor wibbly!" said Granger, moving right into her next spell at the climax of her first. "Furnunculus!"

Granger spun around into the third spell in the sequence – a dazzling charm Harry hadn't spent much time with - only to slip in a Knockback Hex as well right at the end.

Granger hit Poulton with each and every spell.

Poulton hit back with a shaky, and poorly-performed, sequence that was meant to end with a Stinging Jinx but which she fumbled and which just let out of puff of smoke instead. Granger deflected the properly cast spells with an easy Mirror Charm, then conjured two separate flocks of birds on either side of Poulton.

While Poulton struggled to vanish the swarming birds – an ambitious choice given the second years' lack of instruction – Granger made her next move. She cast a series of minor jinxes on Poulton in quick succession, then while the other girl was attempting to deal with the birds, fired off a Disarming Charm. Poulton dropped her wand immediately with half the birds still pecking at her, oozing pustules growing and bursting repeatedly all across her face.

"Ooh, that was rough," muttered Tracey. "Emily's going to hate that! She didn't even get a single hit in!"

"Ah, yes, well done to Miss Granger," said Flitwick after the conclusion of the duel. "That was an excellent display of the Agile Form which we have been working on with the Novices these past weeks. As you may have surmised, it is a duelling technique where many spells are deployed against the opponent to overwhelm their defences. It was used quite successfully by Miss Granger, to poor Miss Poulton's detriment. Well, there is always next time!" Flitwick said. "A round of applause for our duellists before the next bout, please!"

Harry clapped along with everyone else. Granger's win was unsurprising, at least to Harry. Poulton had never stood a chance, not against Granger. The match-up felt a little unfair, if he were to be honest, but he supposed Flitwick had made his decisions for a reason.

Flitwick called up the next pair to duel – a pair of boys from the year above. Neither managed to do anything particularly interesting to Harry. Another bout after that Flitwick called upon Tracey and her opponent, Marcus Belby, to get up onto the stage for their duel.

"Good luck," Harry said. "Not that you need it!"

"Win," said Blaise.

"Thanks, boys," said Tracey. She got her wand out of her sport robe pocket and made sure her hair was tied back before moving up onto the duelling stage to start her duel. Tracey bowed to Belby and then waited for Flitwick to begin the duel while taking a solid defensive stance.

Shield Stance, Harry thought. He hadn't done much practise with it himself.

Tracey allowed Belby to make the first move. He shot off a nasty looking hex first, which Tracey had to spin to avoid, then followed it up with a series of petty jinxes while Tracey re-established her defensive posture. She met each of Belby's jinxes with a perfectly executed Mirror Charm, reflecting them away from her. Most of them went awry, but she managed to hit Belby with his own Pimple Jinx.

As a series of massive pustules broke out upon Belby's face, Tracey sandwiched a Knockback Hex between two Nudging Charms, all of which struck Belby right in the chest. The Knockback Hex didn't push the older boy very far. Although her defence was solid, Harry had noticed she struggled when it came to the attack, but that coupled with the Nudging Charms would win her a nice little set of points if the duel went to time. While Belby staggered backwards, Tracey moved slightly to the side and fired off a nifty little sequence.

"Locomotor wibbly!" said Tracey as she spun into the next spell with a flourish. "Tarantallegra!"

Tracey kept spinning, and kept casting, too. Not quite so fast as Granger had, but still faster than Belby. Her Tap-Dancing Jinx missed, flying just wide of his head, and Belby managed to deflect the others away from him with Mirror Charms of his own.

Belby hit back with a spell Harry didn't recognise at all which hit Tracey right in the arm despite her Mirror Charm. The skin on her arm, right up to her neck, started to redden and crack. Tracey grimaced as the spell's effect spread, but stood her ground, though her wand hand shook visibly.

"That looks nasty," observed Blaise. "I wonder what it was."

"Me too," said Harry. He felt bad for Tracey, but Flitwick would fix the spell after the bout. Any spell that sailed right through a Mirror Charm – even one cast as well as Tracey's – was a spell Harry wanted to know about.

The pair of duellists traded spells for what seemed like an eternity to Harry compared with the previous duels, but neither of them was able to finish it conclusively. Tracey's Mirror Charms were too good, and since she'd been hit once with a hex already, she'd evidently wised up and had started to move around a bit more. Harry thought she could have won the duel several times throughout, if only she'd taken a more offensive approach, but Tracey always did favour a strong defence. Nevertheless Tracey did manage to get in a number of hits with a diverse set of spells, so Harry thought she might have won it on points anyway.

A win on points had probably been her strategy all along, Harry supposed.

Harry watched as Belby got more and more annoyed at his inability to strike Tracey, with the result being a much sloppier stance, with several of his spells completely missing her even without her Mirror Charms or dodging. In the end, Flitwick called time on the duel at the five-minute mark and stepped up onto the stage. He immediately reversed the hex on Tracey's arm, then removed the burst pimples from Belby's face, before turning to address the crowd.

"That was a different kind of duel to the ones we've seen already this evening," said Flitwick. "A wonderful example of the importance of a strong defence! Professor Snape has graciously agreed to judge the points for our duels this evening, so in just a moment we should have a result for you all! But well done to both Miss Davis and Mr Belby!"

Harry watched as Tracey stood still on the stage waiting for her score. It was a tense few moments as Snape totted up the points from the duel. Harry wasn't entirely sure, since he didn't know the precise scoring criteria, but he thought that Tracey had won the duel. Perhaps not, given the hex Belby had landed on her arm and the way she'd had to start moving around in excess of what was considered proper, but Harry hoped that she had won.

"Miss Davis wins," said Snape after a few moments. He didn't elaborate, although Harry could tell Flitwick had expected him to because the little wizard had waited for Snape to continue.

After accepting Snape wasn't going to go into any detail of why Tracey had won the bout, Flitwick offered his own bit of elaboration.

"Miss Davis has evidently mastered the Mirror Charm and deployed it efficaciously to avoid—and in some notable cases, reflect—Mr Belby's jinxes. Mr Belby lost quite a few points near the end of the duel for spells gone awry. A round of applause for our duellists, please."

The students and staff members gathered in the Hall clapped Tracey and Belby out as they left the stage. They were about half-way through by then, and Harry thought his own turn would come up soon.

The next pair to duel was Draco and Terry Boot, a fellow second year from Ravenclaw. As Harry would hopefully face either of them in the second round, he paid close attention to their duel.

Boot opened the duel with an opportunistic Disarming Charm, although it didn't dislodge Draco's wand from his hand. It wasn't a strategy Harry would have tried, since it would have resulted in a reduced number of points, but it was a fair try for a knock-out tournament. Draco responded with a spell sequence consisting purely of hexes, which meant Boot had to jump out of the way of each of them.

Draco's spell sequence was one of only a couple allowed at the Novice level consisting purely of hexes, which rendered the Mirror Charm totally useless. Harry had looked at them all himself, although most of them used several tricky hexes, and he'd only really practised with one of them because of that.

Boot dodged Draco's hexes and when he'd recovered, lashed out with his wand.

"Flippendo!" cried Boot, and sent back a powerful Knockback Hex which hit Draco right in the chest. Draco staggered backwards from the force of the hex although he did manage to stay standing. The hex did its job, though, and allowed Boot to press his advantage with a couple of jinxes and a Disarming Charm.

"Expelliarmus!" said Boot.

Draco didn't attempt a dodge. Boot's spell hit but failed to even make Draco's wand twitch in his hand. It did make him pause, and his rhythm was broken – a spell died at the end of his wand, spluttering out with a pitiful flash.

"Nice comeback from Boot, there," muttered Blaise. "Shame about his Disarmer."

Harry nodded in agreement. As nifty as the Disarming Charm was, it wasn't foolproof and Boot evidently lacked the willpower overcome Draco's desire to keep his wand in hand, having failed twice already. Harry reckoned Boot could manage it with a third if he got it in right after hitting Draco with a few hard spells, but probably not otherwise. In that scenario the only thing to do was play for points, at least according to all the duelling journals Harry had read in the library.

Draco recovered quickly enough.

"Serpensortia!" he said.

A fat snake erupted from the end of Draco's wand and fell to the stage with a great thud, which slithered about. It appeared menacing, but for Harry, who could understand what it was saying, it was just confused. Harry supposed that being conjured into existence suddenly was quite jarring.

"I'll have to watch for that one," mumbled Harry to himself. A snake was no trouble for him assuming he used his abilities as a Parselmouth to deal with it, but he didn't want to do that. Harry felt as if keeping that ability tucked away in his back pocket for another, rainier, day was a much better idea – not to mention the potential fall-out of revealing himself as the newest Parselmouth since Voldemort. But a snake that large would prove difficult to vanish, especially in a duel, and without him having formally studied vanishment.

Boot seemed to be having a similar thought, as the snake remained stubbornly on the duelling stage despite the boy's frantic attempts at vanishing it. It was beginning to get a bit irate, which Harry thought was reasonable in light of Boot's repeated attempts at vanishing it.

Draco used the Ravenclaw boy's distraction to hit him with a series of jinxes, including a nasty Tap-Dancing Jinx which sent Boot dancing off across the stage, away from the snake. Then Draco waited, smirking, until Boot got far enough away before vanishing his own conjured snake with a flick of his wand. Then, with a quick motion, Draco disarmed Boot.

Boot dropped his wand and went tap-dancing off along the duelling stage, a great big scowl plastered across his face. Flitwick dispelled Draco's jinx and waited a few moments for Boot to get back into position before he formally ended the bout.

"Well, that match goes to Mr Malfoy. A very effective use of conjuration to distract his opponent—many a wizard would struggle to vanish a snake of that size under these conditions! A testament to the practise young Mr Malfoy has put in these past few weeks, perhaps," said Flitwick. "Mr Boot's opening gambit of an immediate Disarming Charm is of course an excellent strategy in a knock-out tournament, and it is a pity for him that it did not work! Alas, such is the weakness of the Disarming Charm—it doesn't always work! A round of applause for our duellists before we invite Mr Potter and Mr McClaggen to ascend the stage for our next duel, please!"

Harry took a moment to steady himself before he got up onto the stage. He'd never forgive himself if he tripped in front of everyone watching. Harry made sure he had his wand properly in hand before getting up onto the stage, then he placed himself opposite from McClaggen.

The bout didn't worry Harry much. It was against McClaggen, who had the confidence of ten men but the talents of not even one – but as it was his first proper duel in front of a big crowd, Harry wanted to do well. He had the added pressure of being 'Harry Potter' to contend with, too, which was an unwelcome bit of additional worry but one that was never going to go away.

Harry waited for Flitwick to count them in and gave McClaggen another look over. The older boy was brash, bold, and prone to underrating the importance of defence. All things Harry could work with.

"Three… two… one!" said Flitwick. Harry reacted immediately, casting a quick Knockback Hex at McClaggen. The hex hit him square in the chest and knocked him a few steps backwards. Still, the bulky Gryffindor found his footing easily and hit back with a clumsy spell sequence Harry recognised as the Novice's Friend. A minor hex followed by a couple of jinxes. Easy enough to perform, but easy enough to withstand, too.

Harry had been working on his Mirror Charms, so he sidestepped the first spell as he got into the right mind-set for a Mirror Charm, and then swished his wand to deflect the next two. They didn't go quite where Harry wanted them to, but they didn't hit him, so he counted that as a win.

Harry stepped forward slightly and brought his wand up into his next spell.

"Furnunculus!" he cast, sending a Pimple Jinx which hit McClaggen on his forearm as the other boy moved to deflect it. McClaggen sent back a Bubble Jinx followed by something Harry belatedly recognised as an Insect Jinx – a nasty little spell that caused the victim's face to transform.

Harry didn't trust his Mirror Charm to deflect the Bubble Jinx, so jumped to the side to avoid it, then caught the Insect Jinx with a hasty Mirror Charm. While Harry dealt with the Insect Jinx, McClaggen slipped in a quick Tripping Jinx which caught Harry totally unaware.

Almost as if his shoelaces had been tied Harry stumbled and fell over, and only just avoided falling flat onto his face with a quick motion of his free hand. He rolled out the way of another of McClaggen's spells, then got to his feet shakily.

He grimaced at McClaggen, then thought about his next move. He had to get the other boy back for the Tripping Jinx somehow. He thought about conjuring something, but he could only really manage birds, and birds didn't seem like the right response.

Harry paused for the briefest of moments to consider what to do next.

"Impedimenta!" Harry said clearly. This time, McClaggen didn't bother with a Mirror Charm to deflect, instead stepping out of the way of the Impediment Jinx. That was what Harry had been waiting for – while McClaggen was reacting to Harry's first spell, Harry cast a swift Jelly-Legs Jinx.

"Locomotor wibbly!"

McClaggen's legs collapsed underneath him, sending him to the floor of the duelling stage. He stuck out a hand to steady himself and prevent his face smacking into the stage. McClaggen scrambled to cast another spell at Harry, but quick as a flash Harry brought his wand up and around into a swirl and caught McClaggen with a Backfiring Jinx.

McClaggen's own spell rebounded on him, and his face blew up like a balloon. It kept inflating larger and larger until it eventually stopped when McClaggen's face looked like the back end of a baboon.

Harry thought that was an acceptable response to McClaggen's Tripping Jinx.

Harry grinned, then readied himself to cast a Disarming Charm, but then on a whim cast a Leek Jinx first. McClaggen's ears sprouted a pair of massive leeks which grew larger and larger until they started to droop.

"Expelliarmus!" said Harry. McClaggen dropped his wand instantly.

"This bout goes to Mr Potter," said Flitwick. He made short work of fixing McClaggen's legs, face, and ear, then turned back to address the spectators. "A very well-timed Backfiring Jinx from Mr Potter decided this duel, I should think—had Mr McClaggen hit Mr Potter's wand-arm with that Inflation Jinx, we would be having a very different discussion indeed! An excellent example of how the outcome of a duel can change within a single moment! A round of applause for our duellists, please."

The crowd in the Hall started to clap, and Harry felt the fluttery stirring of pride in his chest. It was good to win, even against McClaggen. He offered his hand to the big Gryffindor before they descended from the stage, and McClaggen shook it, although with enough reluctance Harry could almost taste it.

Harry left the stage while Flitwick announced the next bout, and returned to Tracey and Blaise to watch it, although he couldn't really concentrate on it after his own match with McClaggen. He watched the remaining first-round bouts disinterestedly, but most of his attention Harry spent on reviewing his own bout with McClaggen. He kept finding places where his footing was off, or where he could have used a different spell.

Harry reluctantly drew himself out of his review when Flitwick announced a brief break between the first and second rounds.

"We all made it through," Blaise observed in the lull between rounds. "Can't all make it to the win, though."

"We've got each other next, you and me," said Tracey, nodding towards the fixtures board where Flitwick was updating the matchups. "It's exciting!"

"I'd say good luck," said Blaise with a little smile, "but I wouldn't mean it."

"Oh, don't be so awful," said Tracey. She pushed against Blaise's shoulder lightly. "I'll wish you good luck, anyway," she said. "Since I only want to beat you if you can put up a good fight."

"I'm up against Weasley. Er, Fred, not George," said Harry. "He's a tricky one…"

Blaise shrugged.

"I'm sure you'll do fine. That was a good Backfire Jinx, you know. You got it in just at the right time."

"I almost thought I wouldn't," Harry admitted. "I'm glad it worked, though."

"Flitwick's starting the second round!" said Tracey. "We should get ready."

The three young Slytherins got back into place to watch the duels from their side of the duelling stage. The first of the second round of duels was between Draco and Katie Bell, and Harry watched it keenly as whoever won would be Harry's opponent next. Draco approached his duel with Bell in more or less the same was as he had with Boot, with liberal use of hexes and conjuration. He even trotted out the snake again.

"Ev—evanesco!" said Bell. Her spell did nothing and the snake slithered about, cautious.

"Why is thisss?" Harry just about heard it wonder. "Where am I?"

"But it's not the snake that's the problem," murmured Harry as he watched Draco disarm Bell as she worked on vanishing the snake.

"Evanesco!" tried Bell again. Her second attempt got the job done and the snake vanished into nothingness.

But Harry was more interested in what Draco was using the snake for than in what Bell was doing to combat it. The snakes hadn't done anything either time Draco had conjured one. Instead, the snake had been a distraction rather than an active danger, and Draco had used it to slip around Bell's defences while she was busy doing something else. At least Harry could safely ignore the snake, and if it really came down to it, he could just ask it to do something else. Not what he wanted to do, but not a problem, either.

The bout went to Draco for a successful disarming, which meant it was Harry and Fred Weasley next. Harry had watched his first-round match against Chang and found his strategy to be very tricky indeed. Weasley knew a surprising number of obscure spells and wasn't afraid to use them in weird ways.

"Good luck!" said Tracey as Harry walked onto the stage.

Weasley started the duel not with jinxes or hexes, but a series of bizarre charms which all produced some sort of loud sound, bright light, or strange smell – along with a copious amount of hazy smoke. Smoke seemed to fill the cavernous Great Hall, spewing forth seemingly endlessly from Weasley's wand.

A bit unsure how to respond, Harry conjured a quick little wind to rid himself of the smoke and smells, then threw out a quick and wide Mirror Charm to block Weasley's first jinx. Harry planted himself firmly onto the stage floor, not overly keen to move around with all the smoke.

Weasley seemed quite at ease with noises and bright flashing lights, so Harry didn't fancy his chances with a revisiting of his improvised flashbang – although it remained a decent fall-back option.

So no lights, sounds, or smells for Weasley, Harry thought. What else is there?

Harry dodged Weasley's next hex and chanced a bit of transfiguration.

Harry conjured up a little swarm of bees right behind Weasley's head, and shot off a nice, easy spell-sequence right after to distract from the swarm.

It worked, just about. As Weasley dealt with Harry's spells using the Mirror Charm, some of the bees stung Weasley, who swore loudly. It gave Harry a chance to fire off a Leek Jinx which hit Weasley on the hand. A pair of long, fat leeks sprouted from the ginger wizard's ears, and Harry followed the Leek Jinx up with a Twitchy-Ears Hex.

Weasley's ears – his leeks -started to twitch uncontrollably, and Harry stifled a smile. It wasn't the time. Weasley didn't seem to mind the transformation, either, as he was grinning from ear-to-ear –leek-to-leek – at his waggling plants.

Weasley didn't wait around to give Harry a response. He shot off several spells that produced more loud and flashy effects – bangs and sparks mostly – but which didn't seem to do much of anything. Harry felt safe enough ignoring them and hit back with a series of hexes. Weasley managed to dodge most of them, although got struck by Harry's last Knockback Hex. When he recovered from that, he sent back a little charm that hit Harry square in the face.

Harry felt his nose go hot, and it grew larger and rounder until it was a fat, red ball on the centre of his face. It didn't hurt, but it did make it difficult for Harry to see what he was doing.

General Counterspell? Harry thought. He could try it, maybe dispel the bulbous nose, but then thought the better of it. It could take up too much time and end up not working anyway – much better to stay on the offensive.

Harry slipped in a couple of simple spell sequences to sandwich a more complex series of hexes, but maddeningly, Weasley deflected or dodged them all with seemingly no effort at all. He barely moved. Weasley sent another flurry of pointless, silly spells at Harry, some of which Harry needed to jump out of the way to avoid.

Harry fought to control his frustration. Most of Weasley's spells didn't do anything, or if they did, it was something silly – one turned the skin of Harry's left hand into a sparkly rainbow pattern. But they would surely result in Weasley accruing a decent number of points just for the hits, let alone whatever he could grab for style. Harry had to end the duel decisively, or he would lose on points when Flitwick called time.

Harry moved out of the way of another silly spell, stepping to the left with a jerky motion, and considered his options. He could try a Tripping Jinx, and then a Disarming Charm as Weasley fell. Weasley had decent footwork, but maybe...

No chance, Harry thought.

How about conjuring ice? Harry wondered. Ice on the stage, then a Knockback Hex... But Harry hadn't done any practise with conjuring ice. Instead, Harry cast his flashbang combination twice in quick succession, then fired off a Disarming Charm with as much iron as he could muster at Weasley.

"Expelliarmus!" shouted Harry.

Light shot from Harry's wand and hit Weasley on the leg. Fortunately, the older wizard dropped his wand. Harry sighed in relief –he didn't think he could have managed the full five minutes with all of Weasley's antics.

"This duel goes to Mr Potter," said Flitwick. "An interesting display from both of our competitors—I daresay the most flamboyant of the duels we've seen so far tonight! Well done to both of them! Now, boys, if you would both come here so I can get to undoing all those spells…" said the little wizard.

Flitwick made short work of Fred's twitching leeks for ears but spent a bit longer undoing the various strange effects Weasley had applied to Harry. As the two boys returned to their friends, Fred stopped Harry.

"Nice duel, that," said Fred. "Good work on the ears. No hard feelings—I had fun!" He offered Harry a hand, which Harry took and shook. "Hopefully you'll beat Malfoy."

"Er, yeah, it was good," said Harry. "But—thanks."

Fred grinned and walked off, and Harry re-joined Tracey and Blaise to watch the next duel between George Weasley and Hermione Granger.

"Ooh, well done, Harry!" said Tracey quietly. "That was good! I've got to find out where Weasley got some of those spells!"

"I can't imagine either of them has ever cracked open a library book," said Blaise, "so God knows where he got them from…"

George Weasley's strategy and tactics didn't seem to differ much from those of his twin, at least as far as Harry could tell. Both favoured similar spells with funny rather than harmful effects, and both were surprisingly good at the actual wandwork. Weasley's approach appeared to frustrate Granger, who had some trouble finding an effective response. She tried firing off standard spell sequences between her deflections of Weasley's few – but well-placed – jinxes, but Weasley had a silly counter to all of them.

Where possible, it appeared to Harry that Weasley was trying to enrage Granger with his silliness and general demeanour. He landed a spell that made her shoes bright pink; another that added big frilly bits to the ends of her robes; and yet another that made her bushy hair shine with rainbow glitter. To her credit Granger managed a series of flawless Mirror Charms, with her wand in exactly the right place to reflect Weasley's spells back at him – but none of them worked because Weasley wasn't using jinxes.

It was a good tactic, Harry thought, especially against someone like Granger. Weasley kept racking up points for hits and probably for style, too, while Granger became ever more flustered at her inability to score a hit despite her technically correct form and casting.

Harry thought it would have worked and won Weasley the duel if Granger hadn't got a hold of herself. Instead, Granger seemed to realise that Weasley expected her to fall back into the spell sequences she had learned and drilled and memorised – so she stopped using them. It was a risky move, at least in Harry's estimation, as Granger had probably spent the past few weeks perfecting all the things they'd been shown.

Granger conjured a little flock of needle-nosed birds and sent them flying at Weasley with a nifty little charm Harry wanted to look up later. Then, without missing a beat, produced a series of flashes and bangs at either side of Weasley's head. While he was dazed from the flashes, Granger sent a flurry of little spells at him, ones that mimicked the silly spells he'd used on her. A colour change for his robes – to bright yellow – and a spell that gave his shoes little wings. While Weasley dealt with the birds pecking at his head, Granger got off a sneaky little Disarming Charm that sent Weasley's wand twitching out of his hand.

"Oho!" said Flitwick. "A very colourful duel indeed! A round of applause to our duellists for a very entertaining bout! It does of course go to Miss Granger for the successful disarmament of Mr Weasley—but were the bout to be decided on points, it would have been much harder to pick a winner. A very stylish bout, I must say. Now, our next duel—and the final duel of the second round—will be between Miss Davis and Mr Zabini, but first I should fix the, ah, products of our last duel." He beckoned Granger and Weasley closer to him and went through all of the spells, reversing them, until Weasley stopped him.

"I want to keep the wings on the shoes for a bit, if that's alright," Harry heard Weasley say. Flitwick let him, although Harry couldn't imagine why anyone would want a pair of useless little wings on their shoes.

"Good luck!" said Harry to Tracey and Blaise as they walked up onto the stage. He didn't know who he wanted to win. He was better friends with Tracey, but Blaise had the more interesting duelling styles. He decided to be completely neutral. Whoever was the best duellist would win, and that would hopefully be the end of it. No arguments, no bad feelings. In theory.

Harry reckoned it was possible for either of them to win. Tracey could stall Blaise with her defensive approach and mastery of the Mirror Charm for the full five minutes. But Blaise was fast with his spells and had developed quite the nasty repertoire of jinxes and hexes if his earlier duel with Susan had been any indication, so it could go either way.

The two young Slytherins traded spells with one another as soon as the countdown ended, although neither of them really managed to gain an advantage. Blaise kept up his barrage of spells, but Tracey kept up with her Mirror Charms and nimble footwork too. The duel dragged on until the five-minute mark, when Flitwick decided it in favour of Tracey on the basis of points scored.

It was a boring strategy, and not one Harry would have wanted to employ, but he did have to admit it got the job done. Blaise left the stage with a sour look on his face. As happy as Harry was for Tracey, he wouldn't have wanted to lose that way either.

"Er, well done, Tracey," said Harry. "Bad luck, Blaise. Still, you both did well."

"I don't know if your little bit will work against Granger, though," said Blaise tersely. "You've got her in the semis."

Tracey frowned.

"Ooh, I know," she said in agreement. "I bet she'll use those birds again and I've not even tried with vanishment so I don't fancy my chances. But I'll give it a go."

"And you've got Draco," said Blaise, turning towards Harry. "I'd hoped to have him in the finals, wipe that smug smile off his face. You've seen how he's been the last couple of weeks? Sneaking off to God knows where and coming back conjuring bloody snakes? The most we've tried in class is water and everyone's here with birds and snakes and all sorts… So, I mean, win if you can. It's the next best thing to me beating him, anyway."

Harry nodded.

"I'll try. Honestly I'm a bit surprised he's managing snakes that big. I can do bees, but I've been trying really hard… Snakes…" said Harry. Thinking on it, Draco's sudden ability to conjure snakes was an oddity. Conjuration was one of the more difficult disciplines within transfiguration, with only little bits and pieces taught before third year at the earliest. For Draco to conjure snakes was an impressive feat, and Harry wondered if maybe he'd found an upper year to give him pointers.

He didn't have any more time to think on it, however, as Flitwick called both he and Draco up onto the stage for the first of the semi-final matches. The winner of their bout would go on to face Granger or Tracey in the final.

Flitwick counted them in, and Harry shot off a couple of nice jinxes to start, although Draco deflected both of them. Draco didn't waste any time with the duel, starting with his sequence of hexes, all of which Harry had to physically dodge. Harry hated having to do it, since if it came down to points he would suffer for 'excessive movement', but it was the only option.

"Impedimenta!" Harry cast as he stepped out of his dodge. "Flippendo!"

Both spells flew true, but Draco deflected the jinx and stepped aside to avoid the hex.

Harry conjured up some bees again, confident he could manage the feat now that he'd done it under similar conditions once before. He brought them into existence just to the side of Draco's face to apply the maximum pressure, then hit him with a Nudging Charm while he was distracted.

Harry followed that up with his sonic boom, which sent Draco staggering back a few steps, although not quite as far as Harry would have liked. Draco recovered quickly and vanished the bees with an easy flick of his wand, then sent back a nasty little torrent of hexes, including particularly worrisome Toenail Growing Hex which Harry didn't want to get hit by. He dodged them, then did his little flashbang to stall for time.

Draco was better at duelling than he had any right to be. Better than Harry could have expected given Draco's usual performance at school. Harry wasn't quite sure how to approach the problem. Draco had always been better at transfiguration and seemed to have got vanishment down on his own. The limited number of things Harry could conjure were essentially useless to him. Bees might serve as a nice distraction, and possibly he could steal Granger's trick with the attacking birds, but Draco would just vanish them.

Draco had excellent reflexes, which Harry had known already from the various flying events they'd both competed in, so Harry knew that Draco could dodge. Catching him unaware would be a difficult task, although Harry was sure it was at least possible. And Draco hadn't conjured his snake yet, either, so Harry had to watch for that. He didn't want to speak Parseltongue accidentally.

Harry took a sheaf out of Weasley's book and sent over a Fart Charm, a little spell commonly used by the lower years as a practical joke on their friends, right under Draco's nose. Draco wrinkled his nose and Harry could tell it had worked, so he cast his flashbang again and followed it up with a Twitchy-Ears Hex. He felt it was a bit boring to use the same spells over and over, but they were the ones he'd practised and knew he could get out under pressure, so they would have to do.

The hex hit Draco as the other boy stood, blinking, after Harry's flashbang, and his ears started to twitch.

Draco's face contorted into a scowl and he sent back a tricky little sequence of two of the nastier jinxes sandwiching a Knee-Reversal Hex. Harry quickly reflected the jinxes with Mirror Charms, but the Knee-Reversal Hex hit him square in the chest. Instantly, Harry's knees migrated to the other side of his legs, and his centre of gravity shifted awkwardly.

"Fuck," Harry muttered to himself. That wasn't good at all. He only knew how to walk the normal way around after all, but he couldn't spare time to fix it now. He didn't even know how to fix it, since he assumed the General Counterspell wouldn't work.

There was nothing to do but try to stand still, which was only the least bad of all his options.

There was nothing to do but try a Disarming Charm. If Harry could end the duel, it wouldn't matter that his knees bent the wrong way. The charm hit Draco right on the wand hand, but his wand stayed exactly where it was.

Harry caught a flash of something behind Draco's eyes before Draco conjured up another snake about a foot away from Harry. Harry wasn't overly concerned by the snake, which was confused rather than aggressive, so he ignored it in favour of watching Draco. He got off a few more minor jinxes, although was unsurprised when Draco deflected them with his Mirror Charm. Harry sent over a quick Colour Change Charm, which struck Draco's robes and changed his Slytherin green to Gryffindor red.

While Harry was occupied with that, Draco hit him with a Disarming Charm. Immediately Harry felt the impulse to just drop his wand, but he fought it. He didn't want to lose to Draco, not on points or because of disarmament. Fortunately Harry kept his own wand in hand, and even managed to cast a quick Stinging Jinx that hit Draco just above the knee.

Unfortunately, Draco ignored the Stinging Jinx and cast an Insect Jinx right at Harry's head. Harry shivered as his eyes melted from his face and reformed into big, buggy compound eyes protruding from his face, and his hair shrunk back into his head whilst a pair of antennae sprouted instead. His mouth reconfigured into an insectoid shape, his jaw replaced by mandibles and maxillae and a selection of other parts Harry had no name for but which now clicked and twitched on his own face.

Harry knew then that he'd lost the duel. They weren't due to start non-verbal casting until fourth year, so with the change in shape of his mouth and the loss of his tongue, that was that.

Draco waited just long enough for Harry's head to finish the transformation into its insectoid form before casting another Disarming Charm. Harry felt it hit and gripped his wand as tight as he could. After keeping his wand in hand long enough that everyone could see it was Harry's choice to let it go, Harry dropped it.

Draco vanished his own snake.

Harry's chest tightened and his face went hot. He'd lost, but there was no point dragging out the inevitable, even though inside he was furious at himself. If he hadn't been hit with the Knee-Reversal Hex, maybe it would have gone differently… but that was pointless to think about.

He'd been hit with the Insect Jinx as well and hanging on without being able to cast a single spell would have been futile, after all. Harry only half-listened as Flitwick recapped the bout. He knew why he'd lost, and he knew what he'd done right – no need to listen to the little wizard as he praised Draco's performance.

To make it all worse, Harry had to wait until Flitwick reversed all the spells to pick up his wand, as he didn't trust his reversed knees enough to try it on himself. Falling over would make the ordeal of losing to Draco in the semi-final of the tournament even worse.

Harry put on a friendly face as he shook Draco's hand after the bout but returned to his friends with a big grimace on his face.

"That was rough, mate," said Blaise, clapping his hand on Harry's back. "There's always next time. I'll fight you for the chance."

Harry grunted in response. Embarrassing is what it was. But then, Blaise had lost to Tracey in the second round, so at least Harry had made it to the semi-final…

"Ooh, I'm gutted for you," said Tracey. "But I've got to go—Flitwick's calling me for my duel with Granger…"

"It's alright," said Harry. "Win, so you can beat Draco, yeah?"

"I'll try!" said Tracey with a toothy grin.

Harry tried to settle and watch Tracey's duel with Granger, but he couldn't quite manage it. He kept running over the duel with Draco in his head, trying to find ways he could have improved his performance. Tracey lost to Granger, anyway.

Harry paid a little more attention to Granger's duel with Draco, since it was the last chance to see Draco lose that day, but by the end he wished he hadn't got his hopes up. Granger lasted near enough the full five minutes but got disarmed just before Flitwick called time by a clever little Knockback Hex to her wand hand.

Flitwick pronounced Draco the winner of the Novices' tournament and sent everyone away to get ready for dinner. Harry accompanied his friends to the dungeon with a great big scowl on his face at the outcome.

His bad mood didn't go away until long after dinner.