Hello there. So, here's the new chapter, let's get some of this tension out of the air! So...the duel, I hope it will seem realistic to you, critics are always appreciated (btw thanks to the people writing reviews^^) Now why are you reading this anyway, on with the chapter!


Sunday brought fog and a piercing chill with it, everything was covered in a thin layer of frost and the sun stayed hidden within the mist so that it could be made out merely as a pale round, similar to the moon.

To her own surprise Hermione felt less tense than yesterday: did she have to duel one of the most skilled and dangerous witches of the century?

Yes.

Did she finally have a clear goal, which would most likely resolve at least some part of her problems?

Also yes.

She was determined and focussed and would let no opportunity slip to get the best preparation possible. This meant taking a little trip to the library first – her friends wouldn't be awake for another hour or so anyway and so she could present them with her results at breakfast. She had a clear picture in mind of what she needed: A summary of the greatest duellists of their time, a book of easy hexes and jinxes and some of the material, which she had gathered previously.

She was about to place the books on the librarians table, when her favourite companion in this time line involuntarily snapped her out of her train of thoughts.

"Afraid, you might lose your pretty little head on Friday?" Bellatrix taunted, to which Hermione said nothing, "Or aren't you looking up information to possibly save your butt?"

Hermione for once noticed that the other witch didn't get that much under her skin, partly because she was right and also because at least the near future was laid out clearly in front of her: She would fight against this girl, there was a high chance of her losing and as well for the duel to turn out to be a rather unpleasant and painful affair, but then it would be over.

So she calmly responded: "Matter of factly I am." gave her opponent a almost sincere smile and turned towards the librarian, who handed her the forms to fill out. While she filled those out she could practically feel the waves of astonishment radiating off of Bellatrix and inwardly grinned at that – finally a day that didn't start of as crappy. She finished with signing her name and turned to leave.

Of course Bellatrix, in that way quite predictable, had to have the last word, "Well if you think that books will help your pitiful skills to-"yet she didn't get any further with her sentence, as Madame Pince shushed her and gave her the death glare which would make generations of students shiver and rather keep their mouths shut when in the library.

Without taking further looks back Hermione left the library and went to sit in the common room, browsing through her newly accomplished tomes, taking a few spare notes and waiting for her friends to untangle themselves from their bedsheets.

Another familiar face came by her desk before Harry or Luna showed up – that of Molly Weasley, no, Prewett, she mentally corrected herself. Molly made a beeline for where she was sat and bent slightly towards her. "Is it true?"

Hermione looked up, giving her a smile. "Is what true?"

"That you agreed to duel Black!" Hermione sighed, "Word travels fast, huh?"

"So you did! Hermione, sweetheart, that's great! Finally someone, who shows that brat that blood status and wealth doesn't make you royalty! If you need something – anything really – just ask."

Hermione was pleasantly surprised and frankly overwhelmed at that. "Oh, Molly, that is...so sweet of you! Thanks, really."

Molly gave her a wink, "No problem, dear. Won't you come down to have breakfast? Can't have you starving cause of all the studying you do."

Hermione shook her head in amusement, "Don't worry, I'm just waiting for my long sleeping friends and – oh, actually there they come, let's go!"

Sitting down and pointedly ignoring the whispers that seemed to follow her today, Hermione clapped her hands together. "So, I've thought everything through and here's what I figured out: I suspect that Bellatrix has previously received some form of training as it seems common for pure-blood families to already teach their children magic at a very young age and also some of that spells, which at the school would never be taught. For example Malfoy in second year's duel-club already new some advanced, borderline dark magic and as said that was in second year. In addition I think that Bellatrix is way more skilled than Malfoy ever will be and would also be searching knowledge on her own. That all summed up leaves her with a definitely wider range of spells than mine with most likely also quite a lot of them being unrecognizable to me and able to get behind my defences."

Her friends first stayed quiet at that, then Harry cleared his throat, "So you're saying it is hopeless?"

Hermione considered her response for a few moments. "I would never consider a situation to be entirely hopeless – after all look at for example you: Would you expect a kid with glasses to escape the darkest wizard of all time? Probably not. So I have kind of a plan that might – and only might lead to me not being completely screwed."

Harry nodded reassuringly, "Give it to us."

"So one good thing is that a large part of Bellatrix' knowledge of the dark arts she is yet about to gain, meaning I at least have a good chance of not catching an unforgivable on the way, another one is, that I have sort of analysed her style from what we got to see at the department of mysteries."

"Blimey Hermione," Harry shook his head in disbelief, "we were running for our lives and you what?- analysed the death eaters way of fighting? Where is by the way their psychological profile and most importantly: What did Lucius Malfoy have for breakfast. Was it cereal? He does strike me to be the cereal type."

Hermione slapped him on the back of the head. "Harry Potter, I will not excuse my habit of trying to learn whenever I can. After all at least some of the death eaters are very powerful witches and wizards and it's never bad to know your enemies. Apart from that I didn't analyse them when we were fleeing. Believe it or not: Even in my eyes surviving has higher priority than studying."

She pretended to overhear Harry's murmured "Since when?" and continued, "From the little we have seen, I would say Bellatrix is quite offensive when fighting, rather attacking than defending, deflecting spells, rather than using shields in order not to be put into the defence, I'd guess. She is very quick, dodging part of the spells sent her way and responding with a vary of them herself. Now I wouldn't say she has anything that could directly be seen as some kind of weakness - "

"So she's invincible?", Harry blurted in.

"Don't be ridiculous, Harry, no one is and if you'd be so kind to let me continue I might explain how. Most of her spells are what you would call direct attacks, meaning spells directed at the victim to harm them immediately rather than using the surroundings for indirect attacks. Even such a thing as conjuring up a snake, as Malfoy did to fight you, officially counts as an indirect attack since technically he isn't fighting you himself at that moment. Spells such as stupor, flipendo or the unforgivables are direct ones and more likely to be used by Bellatrix, although I suspect the former two would be a little too harmless for her."

"So her entire attack will be focussed on you." She could see his eyes lighting up as he understood. "So what you want to do is basically turn her style around and try and beat her with opposite weapons!"

"Exactly. I am planning to use my surroundings as much as I can and try not to get in the way of her direct attack – should that happen I might have one opportunity to defend myself: I found a quite powerful shield charm in one of the books and was actually kinda thrilled about it, but frankly I would most likely get hit before I can even begin to conjure it up. Also sadly it is only one spell and if it was that easy to become a decent duellist, many would have mastered that skill. But back to business, the surroundings. We're having the duel at the lake, which means I have rocks, a few spare trees and water as utensils. Also I think it can't be bad to learn a few quick cast minor hexes to distract and annoy her. Are you guys in?"

"Naturally." Luna said, "after all we are friends."

Hermione smiled. "Great, so room of requirement then?"

"Yup, but first you should eat or Molly might just turn into a fury." Harry joked.

After breakfast they made their way towards the room of requirement, stopping in front of the bewitched wall. "Okay, so what shall we think of?" Hermione asked.

"Let's just start with "we need to learn how to duel" Harry shrugged and so they did.

A low rumbling could be heard and there it was: A plain wooden door. Hermione took a step forward and pulled at the handle to reveal...a forest? The room consisted of marble, its ceiling high and similar to that of a gothic church, but while the upper parts of the room shone in a clear white, the ground was almost completely covered in grass and moss, various trees peeking through the layer of plants, some nearly reaching the ceiling. Some of the trees held lanterns at their lower branches and the walls were covered in books. The three friends were in awe of that peculiar spectacular, the room had once more created.

"This is lovely, a bit like the room of Mr Firenze." Luna hummed.

"It's perfect." Hermione grinned, "Now let's get down to business, to defeat that Black."

They took their wands out and as some sort of warm up threw some stinging hexes at each other, trying to dodge them and using the peculiar surroundings as cover. After about ten minutes they decided to put in a little pause, sweating already.

"Merlin's beard, this school should really consider gym class," Harry breathed, "my condition is about as high as that of a withered potato."

"True.", Hermione laughed, "I mean, one could go running in the morning or something, but honestly who does that? Maybe Dumbledore should consider doing something."

"Ah, yeah, I'd also like to see him jog over the castle grounds, beard tucked in his yoga pants..." Harry said with a big grin on his face.

Hermione punched him on the arm, "Thank you for that image, Harry. Now let's get going again, spells don't learn themselves!"

They went through most of the spells, they had studied with the DA, and also some transforming ones such as a charm to turn herbs or similar things into marbles to make the opponent stumble. Hermione wanted to focus on dodging and deflecting, as she felt she would be in great need of that and before they even knew two hours had passed.

"If we continue this I don't see, why you shouldn't stand a chance against her, Mione." Harry grinned from his position, lying on a rock.

"Nothing is ever impossible." Luna added.

Hermione gave a tired smile, "Well, at least this managed to calm me down. You guys don't mind continuing this throughout the next week? I've got some spells in mind..."

On Monday they had charms with the Hufflepuffs. At the beginning of the lesson a tall boy wordlessly handed Hermione a box of foam mice , patting her on the shoulder as he went by.

Hermione exchanged looks with her friends. "You think, that's for...?"

"Clearly."Luna said smiling.

"Gathering my incredible investigation skills something tells me we're bad at keeping a low profile. No, wait actually I myself am rather phenomenal at that, could you imagine a single person whispering my name, when I enter a room?" Harry grinned.

On Tuesday they had transfiguration, a lesson that in spite of being one they shared with the Slytherins, Hermione was looking forward to. Professor McGonnagall's classes never failed to be intriguing and brought a sense of normalcy with them.

They were put into pairs, Hermione ending up with Luna, Harry with Bellatrix. Not missing his stiff posture Hermione kept throwing worried glances his direction. He had been relatively relaxed, considering the circumstances, yet when directly confronted with one of His future followers – she knows his temper all too well.

The topic of today's lesson is the Crinus Muto spell, meant to change one's hair colour and texture. As a start on the topic they're supposed to change each others eyebrows. To Hermione's luck Luna was put into Ravenclaw for a reason, the witch despite her oddities – or even because of them, she was beginning to think – was brilliant in her own kind of way, listening attentively to McGonnagall's instructions and openly asking Hermione for advise before performing the spell.

When they were given green light Hermione went first, concentrating on the wand movements, performing them once without and then with the correct words turning Lunas left brow a bright purple. McGonnagall gave a fond nod. "Excellent, Miss Granger. Ten points to Griffindor."

A snort could be heard from Bellatrix and something that sounded like "for a mudblood".

Hermione rolled her eyes at that, the insult never personally affected her, for having non-magical parents is nothing she's ashamed of, yet the prejudice and pointless hate that's implied always manages to wind her up.

Other than her Harry did not keep that thoughts to himself: "How bout instead of constantly putting others down you actually do it yourself or is throwing hollow comments the only thing you're actually good at?"

Hermione bit her lip in order not to laugh. Harry might not always think before he speaks, but honestly right then she loved him for that – the slightly shocked look on the dark witch's face was priceless. Luna was probably right, there aren't many who stand up to her. Hermione's no fool, Bellatrix Black is not a regular bully and the fact that her escapades aren't being tolerated by everyone might slow her down for one moment, yet she most likely wouldn't just stop like that. They had a big storm coming.

"Aw, standing up for your dirt-blooded girlfriend, are we?", Bellatrix taunted.

Hermione tried to telepathically tell Harry to keep his mouth shut – it didn't work.

"Oh, I don't have to, I think she's quite able to proof that she's capable, more capable than most of you grean-tie-narcissists on your high horses anyway."

Luna gave the bickering pair a mildly interested look, "That was rather creative, the wrackspurts swirling around them might have thrown that in his head."

"Clearly." Hermione stated dryly. "Do you want to try the spell now?"

"Oh, I'd love to!" Luna smiled, lifting her wand and focussing. The first time she tried nothing happened, the second time around she could see some change happening out of the corner of her eye – a green strand of hair appearing next to her ear.

"Rather good, Miss Lovegood" the amused voice of McGonnagall sounded, "But try aiming a bit better like so." She demonstrated, Luna copying the action and promptly colouring Hermione's eyebrow.

The teacher moved on to the back of the class, the hushed fight between Harry and Black rising in volume: "Your little friend will be shown her place al will you, filthy blood traitor!" she whipped out her wand.

"Miss Black! Stop that immediately!" McGonnagall interjected.

Ignoring her teacher Black aimed at Harry's face, he reacting just in time to pull up a shield, their spells clashing and deflecting, one bursting through the window, the other hitting McGonnagall straight to the head, her eyebrows as well as the straight bun turning an eye-hurting neon orange.

Putting her glasses down on the nearest desk she took a deep breath. "Twenty points will be taken each."

"But Professor-"

"Mister Potter! I will not tolerate such immature behaviour in my class. Now as the two of you are clearly so inclined to show everyone your astonishing abilities, please enlighten us with the correct demonstration of the task at hand."

Harry managed to at least dye half of Blacks eye brow earning a nod from McGonnagall. Black rolled her eyes, as if the mundane task was a personal insult, lazily flicking her wrist and turning Harry's brow red at first try.

"Very well." McGonnagall said, moving back to her desk , putting her wand to her hair on the way, turning it back to it's usual colour.

"Now let's talk about common mistakes that can occur..."

On Wednesday nothing happened, if you didn't count the Slytherins snickering in the corridors and big posters reading "Toujours pur – our magic's cure" mysteriously appearing on the walls. They were taken down quickly by the Professors, but a worried atmosphere clouded the whole day, concern clearly visable on the professors features, some even bothering to say a few words.

On Thursday evening Hermione didn't really feel like eating dinner, pushing the food around on her plate and looking up only to find a certain pair of eyes fixed directly on her. Bellatrix winked, popping a cherry into her mouth. Shaking her head Hermione gave a fake smile and turned towards her friends to participate in their conversation.

Friday after class they went down to the lake, where not to their complete surprise a small crowd of students had already gathered. "Seems like word has travelled" Harry stated drily.

"Yup." Hermione gulped, "They act as if this was the spectacle of the century."

"We'll see." Luna winked.

"Granger!" Bellatrix's voice came from a sunny rock, where she sat, lazily playing with her wand. "What presence to be honoured with. Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." Hermione shrugged, "Let's do this."

They took their stands, the people forming a large circle of excited whispers and some cheers around them. Hermione blocked them out, the blood rushing through her ears dampening any sound.

They bowed and before the first spell had even begun to form in Hermione's head a jolt of red light was already flying her way. Jerking up her wand she just so managed to deflect having to throw herself to the ground in order to dodge the next one. She rolled to the side, the grass to her right now sporting a big smoking hole.

"Aw, what is it, Granger? Are you learning your rightful place already?", another attack accompanied her words, again dodged, "Or does crawling around in the dirt just remind you of home?"

A sudden wave of anger hit Hermione, surprisingly not fully directed at the other witch, but at herself. What was she doing here? Not a full minute into the duel and she was already lying on the ground? She might lose this one but no fucking way she was going to make it that easy for Bellatrix.

A swish of her wand sent the next spell directed at her to the side, forcing a few of the students around them to duck out of it's way and conjured a silent protego to give her room to jump to her feet.

"Found that great courage, Griffindors call their own?", Bellatrix mocked, sending a strong curse that made Hermione's defences nearly scatter.

Without thinking Hermione cast a charm transforming some leaves, before her Protego lost its power and she was thrown back a good two yards.

"Birds?" Bellatrix's tone held unveiled disbelief, she threw her head back in a fit of laughter. From her position on the ground Hermione managed a slightly pained smile. "Oppugno."

And the little blue birds, about twelve or so flew at Bellatrix's head.

Holding her ribs, where she'd been slammed into the ground Hermione rose again, wasting no time as Bellatrix had already taken out half of her feathery opponents, she waved her wand at the grass under the dark witches feet, transforming it into marbles. She didn't look, if she had succeeded, quickly taking cover behind a big rock, breathing rapidly.

An angry yelp sounded and she figured it had worked, a quick glance over the rock showed her Bellatrix now sitting on the floor as well, letting the last two birds go up in smoke.

Hermione gritted her teeth, that was it with her quick break. She whispered a quick Protego and looked over the edge of her cover, her shield promptly getting hit with three spells cast by a seemingly steaming Bellatrix, a quickly advancing Bellatrix.

A rash jolt out of Hermione's wand sent a root of the nearby pine crawling Bellatrix's way. The attempt was stopped before it had even managed to do so much as touch the other witch. Shit. Come on, she had to think, which with merely five steps dividing her from the murderous Slytherin was proofing to be quite hard. She had to gain some space.

In an desperate attempt she jumped up, sending two shockers and a flippendo her attacker's way. She was met with a flurry of spells herself, managing to deflect a few of them until something hot hit her shoulder and made her whole arm go numb. Thankfully it wasn't her wand arm, but the searing pain shooting trough her upper body still made her scream.

But the element of surprise had at least partially worked in her favour as her last spell had thrown Bellatrix backwards. Rounding the rock Hermione threw an expelliarmus and again stupefy, dodging her opponents answers not without struggle.

A quick analysis of the other witch, who had managed to stumble to her feet showed her, that she seemed unable to put her full weight on her left ankle. The thought that, may it be indirectly, she had somehow managed to harm Bellatrix Black almost made her laugh. Basically she'd gotten further than both of them had anticipated.

The bad thing was that the more she managed to pull off the angrier and more dangerous Bellatrix seemed to get. Her dark eyes glinted and a joyless chuckle left her lips as she rose her wand and lunged her next attack with a so far unknown fury. When her onslaught before had been quick, by now one had difficulties following her movements and Hermione found herself unable to do anything other than dodge and deflect, the other witch marching her way.

When only a few steps were left separating them it happened: One spell hit and Hermione saw her wand flying into Bellatrix's hand. She didn't think, just acted out of instinct, lounging forward and taking the Slytherin to the ground with her. The physical attack threw the other witch off her guard and somehow, she didn't know how she had managed, Hermione got a grip of her wand again and rolled to the side, getting up once more.

"Just don't know when it's enough, do you?" Bellatrix spat, getting interrupted by another voice cutting through the air,

"Miss Black! Miss Granger! What in Morgana's name do you two think you're doing?"

Hermione winced at Professor McGonnagall's tone, but at the moment she had bigger problems, like the spell flying towards her face. Ducking she pulled up another shield, just to have it scattered shortly after. Deflecting what looked nastily like a slicing hex she threw an aquamenti at Bellatrix's head and the cut across her thigh she got for focussing on attacking rather than defending was nearly worth the side of a drenched Bellatrix, with her curls stuck straight to her head, blocking her sight. With one angry swipe the hair was out of her face though and she prepared to strike again, when both of their wands left their owner's and flew straight towards their advancing Professor.

"Duelling on the castle grounds! Purposely casting with intent to harm! Never in my time at Hogwarts have I seen such reckless behaviour! Detention! For the both of you. I shall expect you in my office tomorrow evening at 7 sharp."

Hermione ducked at her Professors speech, yet Bellatrix seemed like she was about to respond. "The next words to come out of your mouth better be an apology, Miss Black. That is, if you do not intend to lengthen your two weeks worth of detention?"

Bellatrix gritted her teeth at that, but stayed silent. "Now I will accompany both of you to the hospital wing and you" she turned towards the gathered students, "don't you all have places to be?" With that she strode away, Bellatrix and Hermione quietly following her.