Marik

His body had never been more thankful in his life than it was right now. For the past few lessons with Kingsley they had been working on breaking body binding spells without a wand. At first the topic had seemed like one that was extremely interesting and Marik had been very excited to the lessons. However, after five minutes into the first lesson he had quickly started to dread returning to Kingsley's lessons each of the following times.

Kingsley, Marik learned at the start of their lessons earlier in the year, had been an auror for the Ministry of Magic for most of his professional life. Throughout their private lessons Kingsley had exchanged numerous stories with him about certain situations he had been in throughout his career, and how he was able to complete his missions. One thing was made clear through all of these stories and that was that Kingsley definitely knew what he was talking about, and all of his amazing stories were very believable as soon as Kingsley showed off his magic.

Kingsley's magic was incredible to watch, and Marik had honestly never seen someone capable of casting as many complex spells as Kingsley could. Kingsley's magic and lessons had really been a major part of the reason that Kingsley had quickly become his favorite professor after replacing Quirrell last year. Even though Kingsley was his favorite professor and his private lessons had helped him learn so much new magic, breaking spells wandlessly sucked. Like really sucked.

The method of practice Kingsley had chosen for their lessons was to hit Marik with a high-powered binding spell and then have him proceed to try and break from the bind. After the first attempt he quickly discovered that Kingsley would not be holding back with the power in his spells at all, which also sucked.

Kingsley had told him that the more he got used to being hit with high powered spells the more his body would get used to defending against them. He had gone on to learn that part of the auror training regiment was similar to this style of training. Aurors in training were subjected to high powered stunners, binding spells, and other spells all to make their bodies used to them.

As an example Kingsley let Marik hit him with a stupefy spell at full power to prove his point. While the spell still made Kingsley fly across their training room and almost knocked him out, because his body and magic were so used to being hit by stunners he was able to recover much quicker than someone who was not used to the spell. It really was quite impressive and would certainly be something useful to learn.

So their training sessions from that point on had been him getting nailed by powerful binding spells, flying across a training room, and attempting to break free from the binds. His first few lessons had been complete failures. Ninety percent of the lesson was Kingsley waking him up from unconsciousness. Their last lesson had also been pretty much a failure as well, besides the fact that he had been able to break through one of Kingsley's binds for the first time. Although even with his first success, all of the bruises and aches he had earned in the process made the celebration short lived.

Today he had to force himself out of bed and to Kingsley's classroom for their training session. His entire left arm was now more a giant bruise than an arm, and his legs were so sore he had begged Harry to let him share his hospital wing bed and potions that morning. Luckily though the magic gods or someone out there in the world was looking out for him. When he arrived at Kingsley's office Kingsley told him that their private lesson was cancelled for the day. Marik never thought that he would be so happy to miss out on learning magic in his life. Today though he was ecstatic.

With his lesson being cancelled that meant his entire afternoon was free. Which meant he could finally have a day of sleep! He was practically skipping as he made his way towards the Slytherin common room. With the newly annual Hogwarts dueling tournament coming up in the first week of December his teachers, for the most part, had been giving them all less homework and readings so they all had time to practice. Luckily for him since he won the EMSDC over the summer he did not have to participate in this year's tournament until the summer tournament, so that meant that he could use all the extra free time now for sleep and end of year projects.

The way the dueling tournament worked now that there were official winners for each year was that the winner of the other two schools and Hogwart's tournament for each year would go on to take part in the EMSDC tournament over the summer like he had. The winner for each year at that tournament would go on to fight the years previous champion and try to take the title of champion from them.

So that meant he would not have to participate or take part in the tournaments until the final round of the summer tournament. In the final round he would just have to compete in one duel to defend his title. Therefore while the rest of the school was busy practicing their dueling today he would be catching up on his sleep, and later maybe working on having the best end of year projects.

Sleep is such a beautiful word. He thought to himself as he glided to his common room in a daze. He had come to Hogwart dreaming of doing nothing but learning amazing magic, but at the moment he desired nothing but learning how soft his pillow would be when he got to his room.

"Marik! There you are!" someone shouted from behind him stealing his attention from his daydreaming.

"Huh?" he mumbled as he turned around, and left his daze. The voice had come from Hermione.

"I thought you had lessons with Kingsley now? You better not be skipping Marik!" Hermione shouted, accusing him with a glare.

"I'm not skipping Hermione, Kingsley cancelled. I'm going to get some sleep now," he answered her and turned around towards his common room again. He immediately tried to return to his sleep filled day dream. He could already imagine the sheep he was about to start counting. He was practically drooling as he thought about getting under his covers.

"No you are not. You are going to come help me practice dueling for the tournament. Harry is still in the hospital wing, and even if he wasn't I wouldn't practice with him right now anyways. So I am calling in my favor you owe me now!" Hermione argued.

"But Hermioneeee. Sleep!" he pleaded, as he turned around and made his best puppy-dog-eye impression.

"Marik you said you would help me practice extra this year for the tournament! Plus you said you owed me for those pep-up potions I brewed for you!" Hermione responded. Damn her and her arguments that make sense.

"But. . . but. . . sleep. . ." was all he managed to say back, as he pointed desperately towards his common room. He was too tired to think of a better counter argument.

"No buts! Come on Marik you can sleep later," Hermione said and grabbed his arm. She dragged him halfway across and up the castle to their usual spell practice room that they had practiced in for most of their first year. He made it a point to pout as much as he could along the way. Damn my common room being right next to their potions lab.

Hermione had been very bitter about losing to Harry during the last tournament. Most of that bitterness had disappeared once her and Harry had become good friends, but the distaste for losing had remained. Hermione made it quite clear to he and Harry coming into this year that this tournament she would be bringing out the big guns.

From what Marik saw when they had the few chances to hang out and talk during her free periods Hermione had been hitting the charms and transfiguration books hard this year. Hermione was clearly a witch on a mission this time around and when she set her mind to something there was truly no stopping her. And this year Hermione had clearly set her mind to winning the tournament, among everything else.

"Okay, so what do you want me to do?" he asked her, sounding defeated when they arrived at the classroom.

"I want you to duel me. I have been practicing some of the material in the notes you gave us from Flitwick along with some other stuff I want to try out," Hermione answered, his body shivered in an exhausted pain at the word duel. He had brief flashbacks of Kingsley casting spells at him. Even if Hermione's spells were weaker than Kingsley's were he wasn't sure how much more his body could take.

"Okay, is there anything specific you want me to use or don't use?" he asked her.

"No shadow magic. Since no one besides you knows how to use it I should practice against spells I might actually face. Anything else I'm okay with though. Don't go easy on me Marik I'm serious! I want to win this thing this year and no one else is going to go easy on me," Hermione ordered from the other side of the room as they raised their wands.

"Of course not. I never go easy on you!" he replied truthfully.

He would not go easy on her, after all she never went easy on him. Plus if she really wanted to get better she needed him to give it his all. His body seemed to perk up and gain some energy as they readied themselves. He had not dueled anyone outside of Flitwick since his duels in the tournament so it would feel good to blow off some steam here, plus he may actually be able to hit Hermione, unlike his 0-53 record against Flitwick so far.

"Three. . . Two. . . One. . . GO!" Hermione shouted and they were off.

From their previous duels he knew Hermione tended to go defensive in a lot of her strategies. Starting defensive in a duel didn't necessarily mean that you were going on the defensive though, that much he had learned through his lessons with Flitwick.

Flitwick would lull you to sleep with a number of defensive spells and trick you into thinking you had an opening. It would be at that point when he would make his move. Just like in sports sometimes in dueling the best offense was a good defense. Hermione was smart too with her dueling. She utilized her defenses just like Flitwick did sometimes as a way to set up her offense. That meant every spell she cast had the potential to be a bluff or a setup to better her defense while she lowered his.

"Fumous!" he shouted the spell out to start the duel. Large bellows of black smoke poured forth from his wand out towards Hermione. The spell wasn't meant to hurt her in any way, but it would provide him with good cover and at the same time lower her vision of the dueling field.

"Gemino!" he heard Hermione cast a spell he had surprisingly not heard of from the other side of the smoke.

"Muffliato!" He cast the silencing spell on himself so Hermione would not be able to hear his spells. His smoke had ended up not working to his favor as he was currently unable to see what Hermione's spell had done. However, the smoke did give him more time to prepare for his next move. "Protego totalum." He cast the area protection spell around him and waited, not wanting to risk anything desperate before he found out what Hermione's spell was.

"Deprimo, stupefy!" The spells were cast but from the sound of the casting it sounded like multiple people had cast the two spells. His own smoke was sent flying towards where he was standing but just fluttered around his shield in the wind.

In the smoke's wake what was left was very surprising. Instead of one Hermione casting a stunning spell at him there were six Hermione's all with their wands' raised along with six stunners headed his way. Luckily they all collided at the same point and were erased by his shield.

This is very impressive Hermione. He thought to himself. She really had been doing her homework and was certainly bringing out the big guns. He would have to step up his game.

"Incarcerous!" He pointed the spell towards one of the Hermiones and instead of casting a shield spell the Hermione just took the ropes to the chest and disappeared.

So five of them were just illusions. Which meant that only one of their spells was the real deal to. Well one down and now just the real Hermione to find. This was kind of like Russian roulette, hopefully he wouldn't get shot.

"Expelliarmus, stupefy, aguamenti!" The remaining five Hermione's sent off a flurry of a spell chain towards him. Luckily they were all still located in one direction in front of him so he would not have to defend himself from multiple directions. If he had been surrounded he probably would of been a goner already.

"Erecto, protego, suincendius, luximo!" He countered her spell chain with a more powerful spell chain of his own.

The erecto spell he cast brought up a stretched piece of the ground in front of him which took the brunt of Hermione's disarming spell but also as a result exploded upon impact. Luckily his protego shield blocked the chunks of brick and stupefy spell Hermione had sent at him. The next two spells in his chain he owed credit to Flitwick.

The suincendius spell was one that Flitwick had taught him in their last lesson. Normally it was used to counter the incarcerous spell but he put it to use to counter Hermione's aguamenti spell. The spell resulted in his entire body catching on fire, which thankfully did not burn the caster. However, the intense flames covering his body turned all of Hermione's water into steam in the room as it hit him. Which is where his luximo spell came into play. The lightning spell sent a shockwave of sparks through the mist and towards the remaining five hermiones.

"Aisu arma!" the Hermiones cast the ice spell in unison. The mist in the room turned into a solid block of ice and fell to the floor with his lightning spell disappearing in it. As soon as the Hermione's cast the spell they started running forwards towards him. "Stupefy, stupefy, petrificus totalus!" the Hermiones said in unison as they fired the next spell chain at him.

Unfortunately this time all of the Hermione's spells were more spread out so he would not be able to dodge them all or deflect them all with one shield. He would just have to guess which ones he thought were illusions and which ones were the real deal. Hopefully he was lucky.

"Protego, protego, protego!" He threw up three quick shields around him in the locations he guessed might hold the real Hermione's spells. Luck seemed to be on his side. On two of his shields the spells just disappeared when they hit them which meant they were probably the illusions. On his third shield though Hermione's first two stunners were powerful enough to destroy the shield which resulted in him getting nailed in the chest with her binding petrificus totalus spell.

Not as bad as Kingsley's at least. He thought to himself as he flew limp across the room. Even with as sore as he had been, and as bad as the spell hurt, he was thankful it was just not another spell from Kingsley. He waited a second to get Hermione caught off guard before he started to focus his magic. Luckily for him Hermione's binds were a lot less strong than Kingsley's binds normally were and he was able to wandlessly shatter through them quick enough. The remaining Hermiones seemed caught off guard as he quickly jumped to his feet.

"Expelliarmus, expelliarmus, expelliarmus!" He cast three disarming spells at the Hermione's in front of him.

"Prot…" was all the stunned at his actions Hermione was able to get out when his spell collided with the real her and sent her wand flying towards him. Damn that had been a good duel.

"Holy shit Hermione. That was impressive as hell," he congratulated her as he gave her back her wand.

"How did you do that?" Hermione asked, still looking perplexed.

"I did a bind breaker wandlessly. It's what I have been working on with Kingsley the past few lessons on. That was actually only the second time I have ever got one to work though," he answered sounding proud of himself.

"That was amazing! It completely took me off guard. I thought I had won! I was just about to start celebrating," Hermione replied, obviously still thinking about the duel.

"So what tips do you have? I really thought I had you there at the end," Hermione asked him.

"If we would have dueled last week you would of. That cloning spell was amazing. Although next time you use it you should try and get them to spread out more. In the beginning I didn't have to dodge or defend more than one spot still since all the spells were coming from the same direction. At the end though I was screwed since they were so spread out. If you surrounded someone with that they wouldn't stand a chance unless they got lucky," Marik answered her honestly. It really was a great strategy.

"Yeah, that is a good idea. I was just caught up in actually getting it cast successfully that time ya know? What was that body fire spell you did by the way? That came out of nowhere and scared me half to death," Hermione asked curiously.

"The suincendius spell. Flitwick taught me it in one of our last lessons. It will be in my notes along with the bind breaking stuff that I was going to give you and Harry tomorrow. Speaking of spells coming from nowhere spill the beans on that cloning spell. I've never heard of something like that before," he answered her.

"Its called gemino. You can create a thought projection of yourself with it. Depending on how much magic you put into it you can create any number of projections. I only made five others since I didn't want to use up all my offensive magic juice," Hermione explained.

"Wow. It is really impressive magic. You should keep that one between us. If you use that during the dueling tournament I don't think anyone will have a defense against it," he responded.

"Not even Harry?" Hermione said Harry's name with an angry look on her face.

"Haha, why are you still holding a grudge against Harry Hermione? And no I don't think even Harry would have a defense against it at the moment," Marik laughed.

"Because he didn't tell me that he might be in danger. I tell him everything and he chose not to tell me something this big. What would have happened if he had gotten hurt worse than he did! We could have protected him or at least helped him keep an eye out," Hermione was clearly flustered at the topic still. Since the day Dobby the house elf had popped up she had been in a constant bad mood, and it seemed she had not let up any today.

"First off you have not told him everything. I know for a fact he does not know how yo…" He started.

"Shut up!" Hermione shouted interrupting him.

"Second, he didn't tell you because he is Harry and he didn't want you to worry. Hogwarts is just as important to him as it is to us. If he had told us you would have gone all protective over him and made him walk around the school with a body guard at all times.

Plus just like you are now you are worrying sick all the time that something bad is going to happen to him. He probably just wanted things to be normal Hermione. I can't really blame him for it either. You know how he doesn't like talking about anything like that," Marik tried to point out.

"Still, he should of told me," Hermione said stubbornly with her arms crossed.

"I know Hermione. I tell you what, how about we don't tell him about your cloning magic and we let you surprise him with it during the tournament as a way to get even?" Marik offered trying to cheer her up.

"See Marik this is why I keep you around, smart ideas like that," Hermione said, putting on a smile for the first time in a while.

"I think that is the first time you have ever called me smart Hermione," Marik joked, but it was also probably true he thought.

"And it will probably be the last," Hermione said with a smug grin. "Come on let's go again. I'm starting to get hungry and want to get one more good duel in real quick."

"Alright. Try not to use the cloning spell in this one and mix it up. When me and Flitwick do back to back duels he doesn't let me use the same spells again except for shield spells. He says it will train me to think better on my feet so you try to do the same thing this time," Marik said as he made his back over to his side.

"Okay, same for you then," Hermione replied as she readied herself. "Ready?"

"Ready," he replied.

"Three. . . Two. . . One. . . GO!" Hermione shouted and immediately she started moving. He immediately started to mirror her movement and ran in the same direction. "Aisuterra!" Hermione started the duel off with an ice-make spell. The ground all around his half of the dueling room immediately turned to ice. He found himself getting off balance and decided to just go with the momentum. Dropping to both of his knees to better control his sliding he turned on the ice with his wand raised.

"Diffindo, erecto maximum!" He countered Hermione's ice spell with two spells that would help him balance the dueling field.

His first spell created a large crack in the center of the floor On Hermione's side, forcing the moving Hermione to one side of the room. His second spell was aimed only at that side of the room. Six different spikes of brick erected themselves from the ground. Hermione was quick enough still to dodge the first few but his last two spikes nailed her in the legs and forced her to her knees as well. He knew that would not be enough to beat her though.

"Silencio, obscuro, protego totalum!" Still on her knees Hermione fired off another spell chain and protected the area around her body as she tried to stand up. He would need to act fast if the idea in currently his head were to work.

"Gravitas, impedimenta, stupefy, protego!" Getting off a spell chain as complex as that one while sliding on ice on your knees was tough, but he just managed to get it off in enough time.

His first spell was another new spell that Flitwick had taught him in one of their recent lessons. The spell created an area of strong gravity that pulled and held the target into it, making it near impossible to move in. The result was exactly what he had hoped for.

Hermione had protected herself from direct spells with an area-protection shield. However, area-protection shields were good only for direct impact spells and would not help against his gravitas spell. Hermione's body was sucked out of the shield she was in as she tried to stand up and was forced into the spot on the wall where had aimed his spell. His impedimenta spell slowed down both of Hermione's offense spells enough to give his stupefy time to act.

Now unprotected his stupefy spell had no shield to worry about and impacted straight with the stuck Hermione. Her body went unconscious before his final protego spell even went up. Another tough duel, but another win for him. After allowing himself a moment to breath he made his way over to the other side of the room and brought back Hermione to consciousness.

"Oww my chest," Hermione groaned out as her eyes opened.

"Oh I don't wanna hear it! Imagine getting hit with fifty of those in an hour by Kingsley then whine!" he replied, not feeling any pity for Hermione.

"You kicked my ass in that one. I was struggling to think of any spells that I hadn't used yet," Hermione said, as she got to her feet.

"See how much it makes you think. It forces you to expand your arsenal of spells. Remember mine and Harry's duel in the finals last year?" he asked her.

"Yeah what about it?" Hermione asked.

"Harry tried to use the exact same strategy on me that he did with you in our duel. I was able to use that to my advantage and beat him because of it. If your opponent knows all the spells you know how to cast you can't hope to win," he explained, channeling his inner Flitwick.

"Yeah, it makes sense. I guess I have a long way to go still," Hermione pouted.

"Yeah, you do. But we all do so don't be hard on yourself. You know a shit ton of spells, it's just getting to the point where you can remember them all in the heat of a duel," he replied.

Thanks for your help Marik. I'm even more motivated now to kick some ass in this tournament and train even harder now. But let's go get some food now I am starving," Hermione said and again grabbed his arm and began to drag him through the castle.

"Slow down Hermione you are going to rip my arm off at this rate," Marik pleaded as she continued to drag him. They made it through the empty third floor hallways and down the stairs to a second floor corridor when he saw something out of the corner of his eyes.

He stopped her and pulled her back to where his eyes were now fixed.

"Hermione… Look…" Marik said nervously, not entirely sure of what exactly he was looking at.

"What Marik? Stop playing around I am hungry!" Hermione responded. When her eyes found where his eyes were locked her face revealed the same reaction his had.

Something shiny on the wall had grabbed his attention as Hermione had dragged him through the halls. Shimmering in the torch light foot-high words had been daubed on the wall.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR,

BEWARE.

"Marik, what does this mean?" Hermione started to ask him looking worried.

"Hermione look there is something hanging from the candle bracket," Marik pointed out. As they inched closer to the wall they could make out that the something hanging was in fact a black cat. It looked dead. . .

"That's Miss Norris. Mr. Filch's cat," Hermione said, covering her mouth in shock.

"What killed it? Why is a cat an enemy of the heir? Who is the heir? Do you think this is what Dobby was warning Harry about?" he was firing questions off one after another as his mind raced.

"HARRY!" Hermione squealed and took off down the hall. Marik followed. Marik chased after Hermione who had changed direction from the Great Hall and had started to make her way towards the hospital wing.

Once she burst through the doors in just a few long steps she made her way to Harry's bed where she pounced on top of the unfortunate unaware sleeping Harry. Thankfully he looked unharmed from the impact.

"OUCHHH!" Was all that could be heard from Harry's muffled mouth, which was currently covered in Hermione's hair as she hugged him. "Hermione? Ow! Hermione what are you doing?" Harry said through winces of pain. Although Harry's bones had regrown he still had at least another week before he would be fully healed.

"Harry I'm so sorry I was mean to you. I am so happy that you are okay. I was so scared," Hermione said through tears. She buried her head in his shoulders as she cried more.

"What? Why wouldn't I be okay? Marik what did you say?" Harry accused him. Even in that moment it was funny how Harry always assumed he was playing some sort of a joke.

"Muffliato." Marik cast the spell around Harry's bed. "Shut up, I didn't say anything! Me and Hermione just… saw something and it got her worried," Marik explained to Harry as he grabbed a chair next to the bed.

"What did you see?" Harry asked them. Hermione's hair that covering his face as he spoke.

"We saw… It was on the wall… thought it might be you. . . Cat!" Hermione tried to explain through tears.

"Marik?" Harry looked to him to explain what Hermione's random words meant. Harry just pulled the crying Hermione in closer to his chest.

"We found blood writing on the castle wall. And Mr. Filch's cat, Mr. Torris dead," Marik tried to explain.

"The cat is Miss Norris!" Hermione shouted through tears from Harry's chest.

"Right, the cat. Anyways the cat was hanging from a candle bracket, and the writing on the wall said that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware. Do you think this might be what Dobby was warning you about?" Marik explained and asked his friend.

"What? What is the Chamber of Secrets? And who is the heir?" Harry fired off the same questions he had asked moments earlier.

"We don't know anything Harry, yet that is," Marik answered.

"Well Dobby never mentioned anything about an heir or a Chamber so I'm not sure. What did the professors say about it?" Harry asked.

"We don't know. As soon as we saw it we took off here to make sure you were okay," Marik explained.

"Well thanks for keeping an eye out for me. Hermione stop crying please. I'm okay I promise," Harry pleaded. Hermione lifted herself off of Harry and tried to wipe her eyes.

"So do you think this is what Dobby was trying to protect you from? Maybe you should go home Harry," Marik said, concerned for his friend.

"Maybe… And no I'm not going home. For all we know it could have just been a prank or something. Fred and George pranked Malfoy a bunch last week so it could be him just trying to get back at them or something," Harry said, trying to reason with him.

"Then why kill a cat?" Hermione asked as she finished wiping her tears.

"I don't know Hermione. But I'm okay. Let's just wait and see what the professors say and then we will go from there," Harry said trying to calm Hermione down. Looking at Harry he could tell Harry was not entirely confident in what he was saying.

"Well I'm glad to hear that you are unharmed, because McGonagall wanted me to tell you that she needs that paper on Mistakes Made in Animagus by tomorrow. So get working, or she will probably make sure that you are harmed," he said, breaking the silence after a few moments.

"Ughh just kill me now," Harry pleaded at the news.

"Harry James Potter really? After I just came here crying and worrying that you had been killed!" Hermione screamed at Harry and punched his chest.

He couldn't help but laugh at the sight. After a few moments Hermione started laughing too, and Harry soon joined in. It was one of the first times in a while they had all laughed together. Hopefully what the house elf warned Harry about was not true, hopefully this wouldn't be one of the last times they laughed together.

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