Chapter Three.

A few days later…

After the incident on the first night, settling back into Hogwarts was difficult for Harry. It was Thursday night and people were still going out of their way to spread rumours about that first night. Some of latest involved Polyjuice potion and a witches' witch who wanted to get into Hermione's pants, several different one's involving Love potions, and one saying he had had an orgy in the sixth year girls' dorms with any and every girl from fourth to sixth year.

Those who valued their lives didn't mention anything about Katie and by extension her roommate Leanne; as Katie was prone to curse anyone who mentioned her in relation to the rumours in her presence. Harry was just relieved that the school week was nearly over. The first meeting of the Duelling club was after dinner and Quidditch trials for the Gryffindors were the following day.

-HP\KB-

The golden trio wandered into the Great hall at eight o'clock and saw that the house tables had been banished and the duelling platform from their second year sat in the centre of the room.

The hall slowly started filling up, student of all four houses from first to seventh year. About ten minutes later Professor Flitwick entered the hall, followed closely by Snape. The two immediately began constructing duelling wards around platform so that any stray spells wouldn't hit any unsuspecting students.

Flitwick stood in the middle of the platform and motioned for the students to gather round. "Hello everyone, there is an excellent turnout isn't there, and from all four houses. How wonderful! Now we're not going to be doing any actual duelling today. There are going to be two exhibition duels and I think I should inform you that Hogwarts was offered a place in the schools duelling championships next year so the teachers had to elect the captain for the provisional school duelling team and we had to pick from the seven or so students we knew had proper duelling experience." He paused for the chatter to die down. A schools competition meant more exchanges with Beaubatons and Durmstrang. "The Duelling captaincy is to be shared between the reigning under-seventeen and under-nineteen all England duelling champion Daphne Greengrass and Harry Potter, whose qualifications I think speak for themselves. Now I would like the two captains to come up to the platform and give us the first of our exhibitions." Said Flitwick before steeping off the platform."

Harry looked over at Slytherin's blonde Ice Queen; she had a competitive glint in her eyes. She stepped up to the platform at Snape's end, bringing back memories of Lockhart's doomed experiment with him and Malfoy in second year. Flitwick was to be their referee.

Harry took a quick glance over at Katie before stepping on the padded platform. She looked worried; in truth so was Harry, although slightly relieved that he had studied up on his NEWT level defence when he was teaching the DA. They never actually got to learning any of it of course but he still remembered some of it… mostly.

"Duellers, Ready!" Flitwick shouted as he stepped onto his referee's platform. Harry and Daphne walked towards each other. They met in the middle and Flitwick shouted "Duellers, Bow!" Harry bowed low and drew his wand. "Duellers salute!" the both did a wanded salute and spun on their heels and walked towards the ends of the platform. "On 3…" said Flitwick. They both nodded. "One…Two…Thr…"

Daphne didn't wait for him to finish counting and sent a silent Bludgeoning curse straight at Harry. He blocked it, but only just. He replied with a string of combo's; stunner, followed by two disarming charms and a tickling hex.

They handily traded spells for about a minute and a half before Daphne started going for some of the darker, but still legal spells. "Timere maxima!" she shouted. The dark purple spell harry barely recognised as the Curse of Ultimate Fear. It was like a spell version of the boggart, except without the laughing, you had to get rid of it like you would the real thing. It struck Harry right in the chest, for a moment it seemed as if nothing happened but then Harry started feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up, his breath became ragged and visible. As the two continued to exchange spells the effects of the spell got gradually worse. And just as Harry felt like he was about to pass out he saw it. Just out of the corner of his eye there was a 'dementor' he gathered all the happy memories he could muster. The 'dementor' began floating towards Daphne's end of the platform now. Harry dropped his shield charm and shouted "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Prongs shot out of the end of his wand and charged down the fake 'dementor' and Daphne's spell broke.

Harry was getting tired and decided to replicate last time a bit too much. He spun around on his heels for maximum throwing power and said "Serpensortia!" a long python shot out of his wand and landed in the middle of the duelling strip. He then did as close to a shout as he could in Parseltongue. "Attack her! But don't kill her!"

"Yessssss Ssssspeaker" said the snake.

Daphne simply set fire to the snake and continued her onslaught, but this time with less dark spells.

They continued to just trade spells for about five more minutes; but then Daphne sent a string of Bludgeoners towards Harry, who dodged the first two and blocked the third… but the fourth, broke his left arm and the fifth hit him in the chest sending him clean off the platform. "Greengrass Winner!" Shouted Flitwick "Potter don't move!" He said as he and Snape rushed over to Harry lying broken on the floor. "Hospital wing do you think?" he asked Snape who simply nodded and immobilised Harry's boy and levitated him out of the hall and started walking towards the hospital wing.

When they got there Madam Pomfrey just shook her head and told Harry he could have his usual bed. Snape put him down and went to talk to the elderly matron. "Broken left arm, and at least two, possibly three broken ribs. Now I need to get back to the great hall." She nodded and he walked out of the ward his cloak billowing out behind him.

"Now Mr Potter, not even a week into the school year and you're already in here to see me." Chastised Madame Pomfrey. "Now let's see what the problem is shall we." Harry was still immobilised so he was unable to speak. "Ah, okay…" said the nurse after casting a few diagnostic charms. "Harry, you have a broken arm , two broken ribs and some of the others have cracked. Oh dear me, and a punctured lung I'm going to fix the ribs now but this going to hurt quite a bit." She waved her waved her wand and even through Snape's immobilisation spell she could still hear Harry scream. After the ribs were fixed she mended his lung was able to lift the immobilisation spell. Harry sat up and puked over the side of the bed.

Madam Pomfrey just vanished it with her wand. Harry sat back up again. "Please tell me I don't have to take any Skellegrow this time Poppy." He wheezed out. She laughed and shook her head.

"No Harry you don't. I'll fix your arm in a minute. It'll be sore for the next couple of hours like your ribs, but you'll still be able to make those damned Quidditch trials of yours. But I'm keeping you in overnight for observation." She replied before going off to her office and coming back with a tray of potions. "Now this'll just take a minute." She waved her wand and his arm fixed itself back in place. "Now take these…" She said pointing at the potions on the bedside table."…just before you want to go to sleep. The first two are pain potions which will make you drowsy and the last on is a dreamless sleep potion. You're also excused from the first three classes tomorrow. Now I'm sure after your friends are done downstairs they'll come up and see you, so if you can hold off on the potions till then and they won't come crying to me." She smiled and bustled off back to her office.

Another twenty minutes passed and then the doors burst open to reveal Ron, Hermione, and surprisingly Katie and Daphne. Hermione got to the bed first and hugged him. He winced as he was still very tender on his ribs as well. "Oh Harry!" said Hermione as she withdrew and sat on the chair next to his bed. "How bad is it?" she asked noting that he was already healed it couldn't have been very serious but still there was a lot of things that were no big deal in the magical world that could kill you otherwise.

"Punctured Lung, broken arm, two broken ribs with some of the others cracked. Madam Pomfrey said she's going to keep me in overnight for observation and let me off the first couple of classes tomorrow." He smiled. "She left me some dreamless sleep potion, so hopefully I'll get my second full night of uninterrupted sleep in two years."

Katie and Daphne shared a look. "You duelled well out there Potter." Said Daphne, who was leaning on the end of the bed. "…even if you were a bit sloppy." She teased. "But in all seriousness, you did well, but you slipped up a bit with the snake, but I can work on your bad technique another time…co-captain. See you around." She waved before walking out of the ward.

"Sorry about leaving you guys short tonight." Said Harry. He wasn't actually sorry at all one less awkward conversation with Hermione about Katie and one less conversation with Katie about everything.

"Oh it's okay" said Hermione. "Since you're technically a Slytherin prefect when you can't patrol with us Daphne fills in for you." There was silence for a moment, and then Ron and Hermione just sort of left leaving Harry and Katie alone.

"I'm glad you're okay…" said Katie, smiling. Before Harry could say anything she got up and kissed his forehead. "Quidditch pitches, tomorrow, at four. Don't. Be. Late." She whispered before walking out the door; leaving a very confused Harry sitting up in his bed. The trails weren't due to start until five the next day…

He decided not to think about it until the morning. He drank the pain potions quickly as he knew the tasted rather vile. He then drank the dreamless sleep potion. To his surprise it actually tasted quite nice… like blueberry ice cream, not that he had much experience with what that tasted like either. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow

-HP\KB-

A/N: So this is (a slightly edited) Chapter 3. As Always review and tell me what you thought of the new chapter. Will be back to regular posting soon (that's once a week if you're just joining us.)

Until next time

- Slygrifflepuffclaw