Disclaimer: The great J.K Rowling owns anything and anyone you recognise as from the first five books. I merely used her characters to write this story, because I am talent less. Thank you

Harry Potter was not in a good mood, three days into the school year and he still had not been on his alone for a minute. He needed to keep up the charade, and someone had stolen the map and his invisibility cloak. There were only two suspects, Ron and Hermione. This was why he was so delighted (inwardly) when he caught Hermione and Ron kissing with the map in her hand. Let us join them here…

"Hermione what are you doing with the map? I have been looking for it for a long time" Hermione looked stricken and when Harry summoned the map from her, both she and Ron's faces were white with worry. His eyes travelled to the rings on their fingers, order of the phoenix members rings with an invisibility charm on them. Not that it stopped Harry's charmed eyes from seeing them. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" he looked inside and he snapped, no, it was not a good time to be Tonks, who was currently clueless, as she had stayed behind Harry all the time. Suffice to say when Harry whipped around and shot a blasting curse at her, she did not realise until she had been hit. Still seething, Harry summoned the invisibility cloak, this only served to incense him further – for on the collar of the cloak was written

"James Henry Potter"

Tonks had herself back up but Harry was faced away from her, she did not see the Tom Riddle like expression that crossed his face. She shot a Petrification spell at him, which he slapped away with a hand. The few moments her shock had removed any thought dodging another blasting curse, this time Harry did not hold back.

Minerva McGonagall was extremely irritated, some of her Gryffindors were making a racket, and she expected them to try to lie outright or flee as soon as she opened the portrait. Imagine her surprise when she saw a red faced Ron and Hermione duelling one extremely angry Harry Potter, with a bleeding Tonks on the ground. She barked out, "STOP, WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" they stopped leaving a panting pair of prefects and one smirking Harry Potter. "Well' professor, it seems that these three people were responsible for my invisibility cloak and map going missing". Two words unfamiliar to her flickered through her mind 'OH SHIT' Albus had given her specific orders that she was supposed to side with the others whatever happened. Therefore, she was relieved when her favourite student spoke up, "He is lying, – we were just returning it to him when he saw Ron and I holding hands, then he attacked". "Mr. Potter, that will be 30 points from Gryffindor and a month of detentions, I will not tolerate anymore events like this, is this understood?" The hurt look in his eyes would haunt her for eternity; the blank expression that followed chilled her to the bone. It was the expression she had seen on James' when he had hurt Severus- it was the last time during James last year that anyone uttered the word mudblood. The state Severus had been in was worse than when Severus returned from a particularly painful meeting with he-who-must-not-be-named.

"Crystal" Harry struggled to keep his voice even and some of the bitterness escaped his lips. He turned back to the stairs and climbed up, dropped onto the bed, put up some vicinity detection charms, some privacy charms and finally locked everything into his trunk. Then he shrunk it to the size of a matchbox and transfigured it into a necklace, which, he placed around his neck before falling asleep.

The next morning he awoke to his vicinity charms blaring trumpet; it appeared as if Ron had planned to play a prank on him and had been caught in the magical net. McGonagall came in and this time Harry did not even blink when she verbally grilled him for it. Nor did he point out that magical nets only work when they feel the trespasser is a threat to the caster. He reasoned, one more chance, if she does that one more time I am going to make her regret it. He dressed up quickly then shot off towards the great hall, sighing as all eyes turned towards him as the person behind made use of the distraction and sat down at the Ravenclaw table. Harry chose a seat far away from Ron and Hermione, seating himself instead between Lavender and Anna Rosenberg, a pretty 7th year witch who was distantly related to her.

His arrival caused several girls to blush, but their musings were cut short when Dumbledore spoke up. "I have an announcement to make, we have selected the top four students from each house to take part in a duelling tournament, and the winner of that tournament will face a professor. The first matches will be between the housemates, the top two will advance from there. In the unlikely event, that duellist should beat the professor he/she will receive 100 points for their house and 1000 galleons for their vaults. The first matches will be between the housemates, the top two will advance from there. For each victory against a student, you will receive 20 points. Here are the names of the students in order of the highest results per house order:

Slytherin:

Blaise Zabini

Draco Malfoy

Pansy Parkinson

Theodore Nott

Ravenclaw:

Cho Chang

Michael Corner

Marietta Edgecombe

Luna Lovegood

Hufflepuff:

Zacharias smith

Susan Bones

Ernie Macmillan

Ernest Williams

Gryffindor:

Harry Potter

Hermione Granger

Ronald Weasley

Neville Longbottom

"Mr. Potter broke three records in last year's owls, transfiguration in which he broke his father's old record, charms where he broke his mother's record. The third was the defence against the dark arts record in which he broke a record held by me. He has the best results, as those three are the highest ever; he is followed by Blaise Zabini a brilliant witch who almost equalled the potions record set by our own professor Snape. Enough of an old mans rambling, let the duels begin!"

McGonagall barked out, "Potter – Granger", 'yes thought Harry – its payback time'. They both stepped into the now clear and widened aisle and bowed to each other, dropping into a duelling stance. Granger started with an incendio spell, which he deftly avoided, not even having drawn his wand yet. Granger seemed to be an aurors technique called crouch shadow; it was inept in the full light of the great hall. This technique was appropriate in night missions and in hit and run situations – again only those performed at night. Suddenly his face took on a thoughtful frown then grinned as an idea came to him; summoning Hermione's books discretely, he charmed them to block any spells that came his way. A few incendio spells later, Hermione watched horrified as her books burned allowing Harry to disarm her without trouble, it went unnoticed in the hysterical great hall but amidst the laughter Dumbledore declared Harry the winner.

As Harry sat down, he looked across to the Slytherin table; Blaise Zabini was watching him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. She then nodded to him; he nodded back with his own smirk and mouthed good luck. Blaise defeated Pansy and Malfoy defeated Nott. The winners of the other duels were Ron who beat Neville, Cho, Luna, Susan Bones and Zacharias smith.

It was Harry's turn to duel again and this time it was against Luna. It might as well not have taken place as 12 seconds later Luna was sent flying through the air to land with a thud onto the floor, out cold. Harry thought to himself 'Harry 2 filthy scum 0, then 2 down 3 to go' the quarterfinals consisted of, Harry, Blaise, Ron and Malfoy. Harry was drawn against Malfoy, whilst Blaise would have the first duel with Ron. Harry watched what he considered an even duel in which Ron's strategic skills just pushed him to victory.

Harry wanted to finish this as soon as possible, but it was not to be, Harry wished to save his skills for later when he would pick Snape for a duel. Malfoy started with some good spells and Harry used his time to block and dodge whilst searching for a weakness to exploit with weaker spells. Finally, after 15 minutes of trading spells, Malfoy was hit with a stunning spell and Harry was declared the winner.

The final was a disappointment, in the end Harry was extremely angry with himself as early in the duel he had launched a very powerful spell, which knocked Ron out but caused him to come under the scrutiny of the headmaster.

"The winner of this tournament is Harry Potter, who will face a professor of his own choosing IF he is victorious over the defence teacher who was delayed for personal reasons... please give a hand to Richard Marchbanks". Harry bowed while all else clapped; he watched his opponent and began the duel with several powerful bludgeoning spells all of which were blocked with a red shield commonly know as Protego maximus. Harry ducked and sent a stunner followed by a petrificus and surprised Marchbanks with an "EXPECTO PATRONUM". The blinding light was all he needed to launch a simple stunner and catch the professor out.

Silence descended the great hall as they processed the last few minutes Harry potter had defeated the defence teacher before he had even given a lesson. Dumbledore started to clap and was followed by the rest of the hall, Harry was feeling tired so he decided to duel Snape next week to which he agreed.

Extremely tired he asked for a glass of water and sat down to read his letter, he was so surprised he spat out water and reread the note.

'Dear Harry James Potter,

Currently, an investigation is underway into and concerning the events which occurred on the evening of June 26th 1995. We have been informed that it took place within the department of mysteries. Dolores Jane Umbridge has insinuated that you are at fault. It is our duty to investigate such claims, therefore we require you to attend a hearing in which your guilt will be either be confirmed or removed totally.

This will be a rare hearing; Ms Umbridge has been accused of abusing the students under her care, if you have any evidence or involvement in this please bring them so we may analyse or use them inside the hearing.

Yours Sincerely

Cornelius Oswald Fudge

P.S We hope to see you cleared Mr. Potter, as we believe it is a desperate attempt to cover her transgressions. I will see you there.