Hermione
This was all happening too fast, way too fast. Two seconds ago she was enjoying a breakfast with her friends in the dining hall and in the blink of an eye she was getting portkeyed to Merlin knows where. It had all happened so fast that she hadn't even managed to take out her wand before her world started spinning and the portkey had pulled her through.
Her world twisted and turned, bent and shook as the magic stretched her body and moved her to its destination. It was all happening so fast, the final task of the Triwizards' Tournament was already starting. She tried to calm her nerves but was finding it difficult to do so with all of the pressure the portkey was putting on her. Her world continued to spin until finally it stopped. Her feet found solid ground and she opened her eyes, ready to begin.
A familiar view opened up before her, a view that brought an overwhelming wave of happiness over her. She was standing on one of Durmstrang's tall towers, the very same tower that she had spent the greatest night of her life on with Harry after the Yule Ball. The view was almost exactly how she remembered it, only instead of the landscapes around her being lit by the stars they were being covered with the radiant orange, purple glow of the sunset over the green German hillsides.
It was a picturesque view. A view so great that she was nearly willing to just skip out on participating in the final task so she could enjoy it for a little longer. The rolling, tall green grass on the hillside of the castle was waving in the wind and with each change of direction seemed to change to a new shade of vibrant green in the wake of the sunset's light. The patches of tall trees scattered around were casting long shadows across the grounds underneath them.
From here you could see everything. She could see the different farm patches of land that bordered Durmstrang. In the distance she could just even barely make out the field of tulips that she had passed on her way back from Anklam with Fleur.
The longer she stood there the harder it was to turn away. Her lower lip had begun to tingle and instinctively her fingers had come up to brush them, remembering the passion of Harry's kisses that night, many months ago. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a second of bliss, a second to enjoy the moment. The second passed and she opened her eyes and drew her wand out from its holster.
When we win the task, I'll bring Harry back up here again. She thought to herself as she turned from the railing and made her way to the trapdoor. She lifted the trapdoor and climbed down the ladder with a quiet haste into the storage room beneath. If her memory served her right the door from this storage room would lead her to the fourth floor of the castle, somewhere in the west wing.
With her wand raised she reached out for the handle and turned it slowly. The door opened and a sliver of light crept into the dark room. She only allowed the door to crack open a few inches before she peered outside. Her eyes went wide with surprise at what she saw.
Durmstrang's castle was filled with students! The fourth floor hallway looked how the halls around the classroom normally did during the week. Students in Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang robes were walking the halls, chatting away like today was just any normal day.
Some students were walking in a hurry, their schoolbooks and bags in hand like they were about to be late to class. Other students were walking more slowly, caught up in what looked like a fun conversation with the witch or wizard walking next to them. Right outside of her door there was even a group of Durmstrang boys kicking a magical-hacky-sack around and laughing loudly when one of them messed it up.
Her feet were glued to the floor of the storage room. She had certainly not been expecting all of the students to be here! When Durmstrang's Headmaster had told them they would find themselves alone in a mock-up castle she had expected to be, well, alone. This was quite the opposite though. She was certainly not alone.
Is this why all of Hogwarts had really come today? She wondered, curious if coming to cheer them on had only been part of their reason for being there today. She stood still, planted to the floor of the storage room for a little while longer, wanting to observe the situation a little more, hoping that something or someone walking past might potentially give her a clue that could help her with this task. She watched the students, none of which seemed to look over at her head peering through the crack of the door. She, waited and watched until finally she saw someone that she recognized.
"Luna! Luna, over here!" she whispered as loudly as she could without drawing too much attention to herself as the blonde witch walked past her, a mere five feet away. Luna ignored her calls though and her the Ravenclaw third year's eyes never left the book that she was reading as she continue walking down the hall and got lost in the crowd of students out of Hermione's sight.
"What a bitch!" she huffed. She knew that she and Luna had not talked much since Marik and her had broken up but jeez she was still a Hogwarts student and could have helped Hermione out a little. She remained behind the door for a little while longer, hoping someone else she recognized would walk past her. She wasn't sure exactly how long she stood there but after a decent amount of time she again saw someone she recognized, only, it was Luna again.
Just as she had earlier, the blonde girl walked the same path she had before, her eyes never leaving the book she was reading as she past Hermione and again got lost down the hallway in a group of students.
"Umm, what?" Hermione found herself saying as she watched Luna disappear. She turned her head to the group of Durmstrang boys still playing magical hacky-sack beside the door. She watched as one boy kicked the ball to another. The boy closest to her seemed to be the least experienced in the game; each time they kicked the sack over to him he fumbeled with his feet and missed kicking the sack badly. She listened to them laugh and then watched again, this time more intently.
"Brown hair kicks to guy with long hair. Long hair guy shows off real quick then kicks to blonde hair. Blonde hair kicks back to brown hair who kicks it to. . ." she watched as the boy closest to her again fumbled with his feet and missed the sack badly, exactly as he done before. The other boys laughed loudly, their laughter echoing around the hallway, exactly like they had before.
"They're all on repeat. . ." she whispered to herself and watched the boys one more time to confirm her theory.
Slowly she pushed open the door a little further and took one step out into the hallway, closer the group of Durmstrang boys. Her wand was ready in her hands, ready to cast a spell at the slightest shift in the hallway. Quietly she slowly made her way up to the boy who kept missing the sack and reached out her hand, cautiously trying to rest it on his shoulder.
As her hand closed in on the boy's shoulder no one around her still seemed to notice that she was there. None of the boys were looking at her and none of them made any comment about her being behind the boy. Her hand touched where the boy's shoulder should have been, but made no contact with skin or robes; instead it just passed right through.
"They're all copies, just illusions." she whispered to herself and quickly ran over to another boy and tested to see if he too was just an illusion. Again her hand went right through the other boy. She turned and made her way over to the middle of the hallway and stood planted at the center. All of the students paid her no mind though and a large number of them simply walked right through her along their path, as if she wasn't even there.
All of them were just illusions, every single student in the hallway. They were all just like the thought projections produced with gemino spell she was so familiar with. Slowly the realisation of what this all meant in regards to the task sank in.
"Oh fuck this is going to be tough," she groaned. It was only a hypothesis at this point but if the rest of the three castles were like the hallway she was currently in was, finding an opponent or even an ally would be like finding a needle in a haystack. With crowds of students as large as this you could potentially walk by someone and never know you had.
She remained in her position at the center of the hallway thinking, the cogs turning violently in her head as she processed every scenario and idea concerning this discovery that she could think of. An idea came to mind; she lifted her head and turned it on a swivel to look at the students around her. She stood their watching them, looking to see if her theory played out.
Even though she was risking a lot by just standing in the middle of the hallway she was the type of person that had to know things. She had to test her ideas out first before taking action. There was too much at stakes here in the final task to take risks. She needed a firm grasp on things first before she moved forward.
She continued to take in the students walking around her and counted each time she saw Luna walk past. When she got to five Lunas she was satisfied that her theory was true. Tons of different students had walked past her, but not a single one of them was a Triwizard Champion. The copies only seemed to be of normal students, which meant that if she saw a champion in the crowd they would have to be the real deal. With that new information in mind and knowing that she had most likely spent too much time in one spot she followed the crowd down the hallway.
Durmstrang castle had been her home for nearly ten months now. The hallways, classrooms, and staircases had become much more familiar to her, Harry, and Marik over the school year. After learning of what the last task would entail a month ago they had taken a little time each day to map out parts of the castle. Each day they had made it a point to go out and explore a new area too, just to ensure that they knew Durmstrang about as well as one could.
As familiar as she might have become with the castle over the year if any Durmstrang student ended up in the castle with her they would certainly still have an advantage over her. She had been hoping to end up in Hogwarts where she would have the greatest advantage but Durmstrang would have been her second choice.
Even with all of their research on Beauxbatons they had received little to no information on the French school. Fleur had been an impossible to crack safe with information on her school as well and had provided them with absolutely zero useful information. Hermione couldn't blame her friend though, they hadn't told her anything about Hogwarts either.
Hermione knew where she was in Durmstrang's castle presently, and as she walked along with the crowd of students she tried to think of where she should go. The fourth floor, the floor she presently on, was the study and research floor of the castle. Most of the rooms were dueling rooms, potions labs, study rooms, and the largest feature on the floor was the Durmstrang library.
It was hard to imagine that it would be worthwhile checking each individual room in the castle, especially each of the hundreds of study rooms. There was no real reason for any of the champions to go into one of those rooms unless you were just planning on sitting their all task and waiting to pounce, which Hermione guessed was a potential strategy for someone to take.
To be honest there wasn't any real reason to go into any room in the castle. The point of the task was to survive. Libraries and study rooms wouldn't really help her accomplish that. No-what she really needed to do, if she really wanted to survive, was find Harry and Marik. If she could even find just one of them their odds of winning the task increased substantially.
Headmaster Karkaroff had explained to them a month ago that would be able to move freely from one castle to another throughout the task. The Headmaster also told them that they would each find themselves separated from their teammates, which to her most likely meant they were each in a different castle and it was the same probably for the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons' champions as well. The question now was how - how did they move from one castle to another. That was the answer she needed to find out and the sooner she did the better.
She left the main stream of students making their way down the middle of the hallway and turned to the library door. The detour to the library would be a quick one; she just wanted to check out things out and test another one of her theories.
One line of the Headmaster's speech had stood out to them as they planned for this task all of last month. 'What you find among the many familiar hallways and rooms may be different than what you are used to'. Perhaps that meant that even though she knew this door in front of her led to the library that maybe it wasn't books that she would find inside. With caution she reached out to the door and slowly pulled it open.
Inside the library nothing looked out of place from the norm. There were students in here just like there were in the hallway, even the Durmstrang's librarian could be found behind the counter at the room's center and just like normal her copy seemed to be yelling at a student. With her wand raised, Hermione turned and made her way deeper into the library.
Wanting to have cover in case of a surprise attack she lowered her stance and crept in between bookshelves, pausing in her strides only long enough to look between the shelves at her surroundings. She weaved in between the shelves of each section of the library trying to be as thorough with her searching as she could be.
She doubted most of the champions had the patience to sit and wait in one room. She was confident that almost everyone would most likely be moving around trying to find their school mates. Still, she wanted to be thorough with her searching of the rooms she did enter just in case. Maybe, just maybe she might find something to help her win the task.
After a complete sweep of the final section of the library Hermione was satisfied that she was the only real person inside the room. Satisfied with that she turned back down the final row of shelves towards the door of the library.
"Ahhh! Stupefy!" she screamed in a panic as someone had managed to get behind her. Her spell flew right through the person though and collided with a loud bang with the bookshelf behind them, causing all of the books to fall loudly on the floor.
It took a second for her to catch her breath from the startle and she quickly saw that the person behind her was just an illusion of a random Durmstrang student. She took a moment to try and calm her nerves but was put on full alert again as she heard movement somewhere in front of her. Her eyes darted around her, looking for the source of the noise.
It appeared to be coming from around the bookshelf that she had just hit with her stupefy spell. She raised her wand, ready for someone to pop out from behind it. Nobody came out though and she quickly realised that the sound was not coming from behind the bookshelf but from all of the books that her spell had knocked off of the shelf. She watched as the books on the ground began to twitch one on top of the other and her eyes went wide as the book on the top of the pile levitated up into the air, around eye level with her.
Like a dart the book shot from its spot down the row of shelves she was in between towards her. Her reaction was too slow and the book collided with her arm sending a burning sensation throughout her body.
"Oww!" she screamed as she looked down at her arm as the book fell to the floor. A large burn hole had appeared in her robes. "What the hell!" she exclaimed as she looked her robes over and the burn mark that she could see now on her skin. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement again as four more books had levitated up into the air.
"Oh no you don't!" She turned down towards the other exit of the row of shelves and went into a full sprint as the books began chasing after her. Like running through a maze she ran through the rows of shelves in the library trying her best to dodge the books chasing after her and somehow make it to the door.
Each time one of the books following her missed and collided with one of the shelves more books joined in on chasing her. She corralled the books into a long line like a snake behind her and as soon as she made it to an open space section of the library turned to face them with her wand raised.
"Impedimenta!" she shouted the spell, hitting a large number of books with the movement slowing spell. Her spell had managed to slow a large number of the books chasing after her but more crept around the corner and continued on in high pursuit. She turned back around from them and with the door in her sights put all of her energy into running as fast as she could.
She pointed her wand at the door and slung it open and practically dove through it out into the hallway. As soon as her feet crossed the boundary of the doorway she waved the door shut and heard a dozen loud bangs as the books collided with the door on the other side.
She quickly rose up to her feet and dusted her robes off. If anyone was nearby then they had definitely heard all of that. She had been careless in there, allowing herself to scream loudly like that and shout out spells. With her wand raised and her eyes scanning she fell back into the main line of students at the center of the hallway and followed their path.
So the Headmaster had not been lying. Attacking books was certainly not something she was used to finding in the library, at least in the non-restricted section. At least she had proven his point to be correct although how that actually helped her she had no idea.
The main stream of students seemed to be heading towards the staircase that lead to the third floor and Hermione decided to stick with them. There was the possibility that each room could have something dangerous inside like the library had so she didn't really want to start just checking rooms randomly at this point. She would never be able to forgive herself if she ended up getting eliminated by a trap like attacking books.
She decided her plan at the present should be to get to an open part of the castle, somewhere where she could get a good vantage point and look for a way to either of the other castles or to find her friends. As she made her way down the steps to the third floor two main areas of the castle came to mind.
The dining hall would be a good spot to camp out at. She could easily make sure the large doors were closed and would know as soon as they opened that someone had entered. However, the dining hall didn't really give her the best chances of finding someone else. Once she was in there she would be stuck in there.
The only other real option she could think of at the moment was the main hall of the castle. The main hall not only had doors leading to the grounds and the dining hall but it also had a number of other rooms attached to it, along with staircases leading to the first and second floors. It was the best place in the castle to see a number of different spots at once, however, that also meant it would leave her open to attacks from potentially a number of different spots.
That was a risk she would have to take though. Wondering around in these random parts of the castle decreased her odds of running into someone and that included her friends. She turned from the main group of students she had been walking with and headed across the third floor towards the main staircases leading to the main hall.
Without any trouble she made it to the main stairwell of Durmstrang's main hall and from the second floor balcony took a look around. The parts of the castle she had been at before had been practically empty compared to the main hall. Half of the the entire castle's students had to be here.
A large number of students were grouped up in different areas of the main hall and stood stationary as they talked to the other illusions around them. An enormous group of students were walking up the staircases to the other floors and as one group left her sight another group entered into the main hall from another hallway downstairs.
She scanned the area, looking for a good vantage point to move to. The second floor balcony, where she currently was, was honestly probably the best position. From here she could almost the entire hall, however, that also meant the entire hall could see her just standing there, and it did not help her that none of the students walking around her were standing still to give her cover.
She had read enough dueling history books to know that high ground meant everything in a duel so if she planned on sticking around the main hall area she should probably remain on the second floor. It would be good too if she could somehow draw the other champions to the first floor of the main hall that way she guaranteed herself the higher ground in a potential fight. Another idea came to mind. It was a good one but would take some time to put in motion which could be risky.
If she could secure and hold the main hall that would increase her friends' chances of finding her. She didn't like the idea of playing the waiting game, but at the moment it seemed like her best option. She was confident in her dueling ability if another champion found her before her friends did. She was even more confident that if she laid out some traps and fortified the main hall to her benefit that her odds were even better.
"Alright Harry-Marik-you guys are going to have to come to me," she whispered to herself and moved back into the crowd.
There were five major travel points into and away from the main hall. The dining hall, the front door, the two stair cases leading to the second floor, and two main hallways leading to the first floor classrooms. Her plan was to set up traps in each one of those main travel points.
She made her way over to the first staircase and crept halfway down it to the middle stair. Quietly she enchanted the stair case with the sticking spell, waddiwakka, as well as the sonorus spell. If anyone triggered the trap they would be stuck to the stair and be forced to cast a counterspell. Thanks to the sonorus spell as soon as they did their voice would boom across the hall and she would know exactly where they were.
She made her way over to the other set of stairs and proceeded to the same trap on the staircase before making her way down to the first floor of the main hall. With caution she crept through the illusions of students towards the door of the dining hall, which was currently closed.
"Diffindo," she pointed her wand at the bottom of her battle-robes and cut a small strand of fabric off them. She ripped the fabric in two and transfigured both halves into two thin pieces of string.
Using another sticky charm, she stuck the first string in between the crack of the door and enchanted it with the reducto spell. As soon as someone opened the door the string would immediately explode; not only letting her know where the champion was coming from but also hopefully giving them a good blasting at the same time.
She made her way over to the closed front door of the castle and repeated the process, this time using the wind explosion spell, aeriacta, so that she could easily distinguish the two explosions from each other. The last two main travel points were the two hallways that led under the stairs towards the first floor classrooms.
Unfortunately, in the first hallway there weren't many objects that she could enchant or use to signal her. She settled on drawing an invisible boundary line that would single her as soon as someone crossed it. The second hallway, however, had more things that she could use to enchant. Stealing the idea from the attacking books in the library she enchanted two of the benches at the end of the hallway with the oppugno spell, which would cause the benches to attack a target if they walked by.
As soon as she finished the spell she made her way back to the center of the main hall. This is where her plan really kicked off. Raising her wand she cast one of her favorite spells, the geminio spell. She pushed her magic out and created nine other illusions of herself. She looked them over quickly and was satisfied that each of them looked just as good as all of the other students' illusions.
She ordered each of her illusions to spread out across the hall. Four of the illusions would be walking around the first floor slowly and to make them more realistic she ordered them to look over their shoulders periodically and occasionally crouch and creep. With the remaining five illusions she ordered them to hide in spots around the hall on the first floor.
The goal wasn't too make her illusions hard to see-no-quite the opposite actually. She wanted people to be able to find one of them easier. Her hope was they would see it, attack it, and give her the element of surprise, plus the odds of one of her friends seeing her and calling out to one of the Hermione illusions would be higher if they could easily find one of them.
Happy with her traps and her plan she made her way back up to the second floor, being careful to step over the trapped step. Once she was back on the second floor she moved away from the crowds of students and hid in a corner that gave her the best vantage point of all of her traps. From her position the only trap she couldn't see was the front door but if that trap was triggered she would know in a hard beat and could move quickly.
When she arrived at the corner she cast a notice-me-not spell and the best dillusio, concealing spell, that she could cast on herself. If someone looked hard enough they would probably be able to see her; hopefully, though, they would trigger one of her traps before that happened.
Now it was time to wait. She knew her plan had one fatal flaw to it. If Harry or Marik triggered one of her traps that could be potentially very bad for them. Still, she figured even if one of them did trigger a trap they could probably repair any damages her traps did quick enough.
After a few minutes of waiting in her corner she had already begun to memorize some of the paths the illusions down in the main hall followed by looking for the illusions that stood out more than others. A Durmstrang girl with bright blonde hair that was easy to spot made her way from one one of the hallways all the way across the main hall before exiting out of the other on the other side. The process seemed to take what Hermione guessed was around two minutes each time before the blonde girl disappeared down the hall only to reappear again a few seconds later in the first hall.
Waiting was boring and only led to her anxieties and nerves increasing the longer she sat there. Watching the students and trying to memorize their patterns was all she could do to try and calm her nerves. Her fingers found themselves crossing on top of her wand as she hoped that Harry or Marik would find her soon.
As she remained in place waiting, thinking about Harry and Marik helped to calm her nerves a little. One of them was in Hogwarts she was certain. That meant at least one of them had the advantage over their opponents. Whoever was in Beauxbatons was unlucky, but hopefully they would be okay or find one of the other castles soon. Regardless of the castle they may be in she knew both of the boys could handle themselves. They would be okay-she on the other hand was the one she was most worried about.
"Waddiwasi!" the words of the unsticking spell boomed throughout the hall, perking Hermione's ears up as she turned her head to the two staircases lining the main hall. "Shit!-Quietus!" the voice bellowed out the counter spell to her sonorus spell, but not before Hermione was able to see where the yelling voice had come from.
Her trap had worked beautifully. Walking down the staircase closest to her, she could easily spot Beauxbaton's champion, Weiss Marceau looking over her shoulders as she crept carefully down the stairs. Hermione's eyes followed her.
The French champion was on full alert now; her eyes darting all over the hall for the source of the trap. Weiss's face looked like it was trying to find out if the trap had been placed by someone or if it was a trap that had already been in place. This was Hermione's chance to make a move.
With a wave of her wand she ordered one of her thought projections to run behind Weiss and throw a spell over her head. The illusion Hermione did just that, running past Weiss into another crowd of students and sending a bright purple spell over the witch's head.
With incredible reaction time, Weiss dove and rolled into another crowd of students and turned to where the spell had come from, ready to attack the person who had sent it at her. Hermione's illusion was already gone though and before Weiss had anytime to look for it she ordered another one of her thought projections to run behind Weiss again and throw another spell over Weiss's head.
Her second illusion repeated what the first had done and Weiss once again was diving and looking for the source of the spell. Hermione knew she could only do this for so long, eventually Weiss would catch on that none of the spells were hitting her. Keeping her eyes on the French champion, whose back was currently turned from Hermione, she left her corner and made her way over to the first staircase.
Weiss was scanning the crowds of the students maniacally but thankfully hadn't seemed to find anything yet. Hermione pointed and aimed her wand. "Confringo," she whispered the spell out and just as it left her wand she slipped into the stream of students walking on the second floor towards the other staircase. To keep Weiss from turning around she ordered another one of her illusions to run in front of Weiss this time.
Weiss immediately cast a red colored spell into the crowd but Hermione did not wait to see if it had managed to hit her illusion. Hermione's confringo spell collided with the back of Weiss and her robe's were immediately engulfed in flames. Taking advantage of the chaos and her stealth she aimed her wand at the French witch again.
"Reducto," she whispered out the spell again before slipping back into the crowd of students walking the second floor balcony.
Her confringo spell had worked perfectly. Weiss struggled briefly to get her fiery robes off and even from where Hermione was walking she could see the girl had some minor burn marks on her now bare arms. As soon as Weiss managed to put out the fire she was nailed in the back again, this time by Hermione's powerful blast spell. Weiss was sent flying twenty feet across the hall where she collided with the wall with a loud thud and a grimacing snap.
Weiss screamed out into the hall in pain, causing Hermione to briefly flinch. The scream was only momentarily though, in a second the girl was back on her feet, her eyes scanning the hall again. In Weiss's current position she would be able to see Hermione's spell coming from the second floor, so Hermione was forced to hold off on casting for the moment. She needed to draw the girl back into the middle of the main hall where she could attack unseen from multiple sides.
Weiss seemed to be holding her ground though and stood with her back against the castle's brick wall and seemed to be mumbling a few spells quietly. Hermione her another loud snap followed by another scream from Weiss as the girl's lips stopped moving.
Guess she fixed whatever had broke.
Hermione turned and walked back to the other side of the second floor, making sure that she kept moving to avoid being seen. Weiss remained planted though, and the longer they stood like that the more nervous it made Hermione. Going back to her old plan, she ordered one of her thought projections on the other side of the hall to crouch and send a spell towards Weiss.
A bright yellow spell spun through the illusions as it made its way across the hall and Weiss was once again on the move. Hermione watched as the French girl made her way back towards the center of the hall and cast a spell that Hermione couldn't hear. Hermione ordered another illusion to run past Weiss and try to get her turned around.
Weiss turned right on cue, unfortunately not in the direction Hermione had been hoping; instead Weiss ignored her thought projection and her eyes went straight towards where Hermione was walking. Before Hermione had time to register how on earth Weiss had managed to find her the French girl had sent a massive blue ball of flames right at her.
Hermione dove to the floor as the ball of flame burst on the ceiling over her head and drops of blue flames starting raining down around her. She rose quickly back up to her feet and moved away from the raining flames, trying to disappear back in the crowd of students. Hermione was nervous that she would be unable to find Weiss again, but the blonde girl had made herself easy to spot as she sprinted across the hall towards the staircase she had entered the main hall from. Hermione couldn't let Weiss make it up the stairs, she needed to maintain the high ground for as long as she could.
"Glisseo!" she pointed her wand at the stairs just as Weiss reached them and they all rapidly turned into a large ramp that Weiss slid quickly back down to the bottom. Hermione aimed her wand at Weiss and was just about to throw another blast spell the witch's way when Weiss disappeared. One second she had been there and the next she was gone.
A soft popping noise echoed through the hall behind her and Hermione turned around.
"Schneezzard!" The blonde witch cast the snow blizzard blast spell towards her with a rage and Hermione was rocketed backwards in the wake of the chilled blast. A chill went over her body and her teeth started chattering as her body went numb from the cold and was flung backwards down the ramped staircase. The blast had knocked the wind out of her and she was finding it hard to compose herself as she slid chaotically down the ramped stairs. "Glacia sagitas!" shouted Weiss from up the staircase.
Hermione heard Weiss's second spell but was sliding so uncontrollably down the stairs there was nothing she could do about it. A few ice arrows planted themselves in the ramp around her and Hermione was hopeful they had all missed her.
She wasn't so fortunate though. As her body collided with the floor of the main hall two arrows pierced through her left hand, causing her to scream out into the hall in agony. A few splotches of purple entered her vision as she looked up the staircase at Weiss, who now had the high ground. Hermione mentally ordered all of her remaining illusions to fire spells up at the French girl, hopefully making her hesitate long enough to let Hermione slip into the crowd of students and regain her composure.
Eight bright balls of magic flew from around the hall towards Weiss, who thankfully threw up a quick shield, giving Hermione just enough time to unpin her hand from under the two arrows and get to her feet and move back into the crowd of students. Hermione heard another soft pop and looked up to the top of the stairs where Weiss no longer was.
How stupid were we to not think that some of the older students would be able to apparate. She screamed internally at herself as her eyes darted around the hall. The pain in her hand was throbbing and making it immensely difficult to concentrate. She ordered all of her illusions to start running around the hall, hopefully one of them would draw Weiss out.
Weiss remained hidden though and Hermione's nerves grew. She slowly crept around the hall trying to catch a glimpse of Weiss before she found the real Hermione.
"Aisuterra!" Hermione heard the spell cast from somewhere in the hall, but she couldn't pinpoint where exactly. The spell was a smart one. The entire floor of the main hall turned to ice, making it extremely difficult to walk without slipping. She had to do something, at this rate Weiss would beat her, even with Hermione's strong start.
"Incendius maximus!" She ordered all of her illusions to cast illusions of the same spell along with her. The hall's floor was covered in flames, some real and most not. The intense heat of Hermione's flames quickly melted a large portion of the ice covering the floor, allowing her to once again move easier. She caught a brief glimpse of the glimmer of a shield spell on the other side of the hall and sprinted closer towards it.
"Rensa maho," she whispered the chain magic spell out and spun in a circle as she arrived near the center of the hall, whipping the chain in a large circle around her. Hermione felt her chain collide with something and a moment later heard a loud slam as the weight in her chain got lighter. She turned to the source of the collision and saw Weiss collecting herself off the ground only a few feet away, looking quite beaten up in between the bruns and bruises showing on her skin.
"Displodo!" Hermione shouted out the blast spell this time, tired of hiding and wanting to put much more power behind it. She ordered more of her thought projections to start moving as her spell soared towards Weiss.
"Aisufury!" Weiss countered Hermione's blast spell without moving or hesitation. Hermione held her spell open and their spells met in the middle of the hall before exploding into a powerful release of magic, sending snow and scraps of the main halls floor everywhere. Hermione was knocked backwards but rose to her feet quickly and pushed back forwards.
"Stupefy, reducto, rubyflamen!" As she pushed forward she threw a stunner followed by a powerful blast chain into the dust and snow towards where Weiss had been.
"Protego totalum!" She could not see Weiss but she heard her spells collide with the witch's shield. Hermione continued to push through the snow and dust until she burst through the other side and saw Weiss limping in front of the staircase on the other side of the hall.
"Stupefy!" Hermione threw the spell towards the French champion who had only now just realised Hermione had closed in on her. With another soft pop sound Weiss disappeared from the bottom of the stairs. Hermione closed her eyes and listened for the second pop. She heard it, just barely, from somewhere behind her. Without hesitation she turned and sprinted towards it.
She had to push through more dust and snow to get there but eventually she made it to the other side of the hall. Her eyes went wide and a smile crept over her face at what she saw. Weiss was right next to the dining hall door, and she was slowly limping towards it. Hermione licked her upper lip, crossing her fingers over her wand, and praying to the magic gods again to help her out as she watched.
In what Hermione guessed was an attempt to hide and recover Weiss opened the two large doors of the dining hall with her wand, thus triggering Hermione's trap. With a loud bang Hermione watched the string on the door explode and Weiss's body fly across the main hall. The French girl's body collided with the wall on the other side with a gut wrenching crack and fell to the ground limp.
Without hesitation Hermione sprinted to the girl, not taking a risk that she might be able to still get up and duel.
"Stupefy, expelliarmus!" At point blank range she stunned Weiss and caught her wand, officially ending their duel.
She beat her! She had fucking beat her!
Hermione fell to her knees, exhausted and in pain. The holes in her hand throbbing even more now as the adrenaline from the duel quickly wore off. Her breath was heavy, and catching it was immensely difficult. She was sweating profusely and had taken a few too many hits during the chaos of the duel but, still, the smile from moments earlier had remained on her face.
That had been one of the hardest duels of her life but she had somehow managed to pull a victory out of it, even if it had been a little too close for comfort. Never again would she let anyone tell her that she thought about things too much or that she over planned things. Her planning and overthinking had won her that duel.
"Ow!" she groaned out again as the pain in her hand grew worse. She had to do something to mend the wound or wrap it. The two gaping holes were bleeding profusely and if she left them untended she would be a goner in the next duel for sure. Next to her on the ground Weiss's body slowly vanished and Hermione guessed that meant she had been officially eliminated from the task. Hermione stood up slowly from her knees, her legs shaking a little as she did so.
The main hall looked pretty chaotic at the moment. The floor was a mixture between dust, rocks, ice and snow and even a few blast marks from spells dotted the walls. If someone else stumbled in here they would definitely be on high alert and looking for someone. If she was going to treat her hand she needed to do it somewhere other than here.
She sunk into a line of students and followed them down the hallway a ways before she came to a girl's bathroom that she was familiar with. Hoping that there would be some toilet paper inside that she could transfigure into bandages to treat and wrap her wound she opened up the door and headed inside. With a loud click the door closed behind her and locked automatically.
"Oh come on," she groaned out as she looked out into the bathroom and saw that she was not alone. In fact it was the quite the opposite.
A large club came sweeping across the bathroom smashing through each of the stalls like a knife through butter. Shards of wood flew into the air as each stall chaotically burst into nothing. Hermione only just barely managed to dive onto the floor before the club crashed into the wall over her head.
Of course the one bathroom I go into in this God forsaken castle has two mountain trolls in it.
"Of fuck oh fuck oh fuck!" she bellowed out as a second club was being swung towards her spot on the bathroom floor. Like a rock rolling down a hill she rolled across the floor with as much speed as she could just out of the impact of the second club. Her legs were still feeling like jelly, so getting up to her feet quickly was tough. By the time she was back up on her feet the first club was being slung towards her again. Her normal reaction was to throw up a shield spell, unfortunately magical shield spells did little to nothing against non-magical clubs.
She ducked and bolted from her spot, just barely managing to dodge the club and not run into the other troll in the tight quarters of the bathroom. A few of the sinks and toilets that had been hit by the club of one of the trolls were now spewing water out all over the place, soaking her and the floor of the bathroom with water. The second troll had finally realised that his first swing had missed her and was slowly rearing up for another swing.
"Accio water!" Hermione bellowed out the summoning spell, pulling all of the spraying water in the room into a large ball at the room's center. With careful concentration she moved the flowing ball of water towards the second troll who stopped his swing to cover his face as the ball of water engulfed him.
The troll did not enjoy being drowned in the ball of storming water currents and began to frantically wave his arms around. Hermione quickly realised trying to drown a troll in a small bathroom had been a mistake. In its panic the troll's frantic arm and club flailing managed to hit literally everything in the bathroom. After banging all of the mirrors, stalls, and sinks with a mighty swing the troll's club also managed to even collide with the other troll.
As the other troll became annoyed from being hit with a club Hermione ended her summoning spell before the frantic troll managed to accidently hit her. Hermione's hand was pulsating with pain and she was starting to feel dizzy from the loss of blood. She needed to end this altercation with these two trolls quick before she lost too much more blood.
With a deep breath she calmed herself and focused her magic intently. She scanned the room for anything that would work for her next strategy. After finding a large shard of one the mirrors near her foot that would suffice she raised her wand and cleared her mind of all the chaos in the room. "Aevuminfintorro!" She fell to her knees as her time-based magic spell drained her magical core intensely.
The large shard of mirror appeared in between the heads of the two trolls before it shot off through the first troll's head to its next determined location. This time magic spell was the same one she used on the minotaur in the first task. The spell caused its target, in this case the shard of mirror, to travel through time at intense speeds from one location to the other. Just like with the minotaur those locations happened to be on the other sides of the trolls' bodies.
Large spurts of blood shot onto the walls of the bathroom and unfortunately a few even managed to land on her as the shard of mirror gutted the two trolls. With two loud thuds the limp bodies of the trolls fell to the floor and Hermione ended her spell. Another wave of relief came over her as she caught her breath. Trolls were not the mightiest of opponents to face but using that time spell was about the most magically demanding spell she could cast. After a duel with Weiss, dodging troll clubs, and casting that spell she was exhausted.
After she had caught her breath she got back up to her feet and scanned the bathroom. Any hope of using transfigured toilet paper to wrap her wounds was gone. All of the toilet paper had fallen prey to the water still currently filling the bathroom. With little to no other options Hermione waded through the water over towards the trolls. One of the trolls was wearing a straw vest. Hermione cut a small portion of the vest off and carefully transfigured it into a wrap.
She grimaced in pain as she wrapped her wounded hand up in the uncomfy straw wrap. For now the bleeding had been stopped, however, she had already lost more blood than the average person should lose. Her vision had a few splotches in it and she was feeling very dizzy. The water level in the bathroom was quickly rising so Hermione made her way back over to the door. Thankfully the door opened without any trouble.
"Absorbulus!" As Hermione entered back into Durmstrang's hallway before she could so much as blink she was hit with a bright green spell and her body was sent flying down the hall. She tried to throw up a shield spell but no words left her mouth. The spell had hit her like a train and all of the breath in her body had been knocked out. Unable to raise herself to her feet yet all she could do was raise her head to try and see who had hit her with the spell.
"You sure do make a lot of racket," Fleur Delacour shouted down the hall with her usual bright smile. "First all of that noise in the main hall then here in the bathroom. What was in there anyways? Sounded like you were fighting something big."
"Trolls," Hermione gasped out the words as her breath slowly returned to her. "You were in the main hall too? Why didn't you help out Weiss?" Hermione asked, curious to know why Fleur hadn't helped her teammate duel Hermione.
"Unfortunately I missed out on you and Weiss's duel. All I saw was the damage done and you running down the hall. Congrats on beating her by the way, Weiss was probably our best duelist."
"Thanks," Hermione breathed out heavily. "I take it you're not gonna be a good friend and just let me win huh?" Hermione asked with a smile. Hermione and the French girl had become good enough friends this year for Hermione to know that the odds of Fleur letting her win something like this even if they were good friends was zero.
"You guessed right! I will be a good enough friend though to let you get back up to your feet before I cast my next spell though," Fleur replied with another smile.
"Someone is confident," Hermione quipped as she braced herself and rose back up to her feet. She was feeling even more exhausted than she had earlier.
"Of course I am. Ready?" Fleur asked her as she raised her wand.
"Ready -" Hermione replied and raised her wand. For a second both of them just stood there, waiting for the other to cast the first stone.
"Stupefy."
"Protego, expelliarmus!"
"Confrigo!"
"Aguamenti!"
"Obscuro, stupefy, locomotor mortis!"
"Erecto, petrificus totalus!"
"Stupe. . . Hermione tried to cast the stunning spell but failed. Her body felt empty, like she had zero energy and magic left in the tank. Like trying to squeeze the last drop of water out of a bottle her body tried to get the spell off but when it failed she collapsed onto the floor with exhaustion.
"I'm impressed you managed to get that many spells off," Fleur commented as she slowly walked over to where Hermione was on the ground.
"Why? How?" Hermione panted, each word hurt like ice in her throat.
"That little green spell I hit you with when you left the bathroom, that's my signature spell, the magic draining spell I created. I hit you with it as soon as I saw you and ever since it's been draining your magical energy into me. I couldn't risk you casting any of your crazy time magic spells could I? I wouldn't have stood a chance if you had the energy to get a few of them off," Fleur replied.
"Damn," Hermione hissed through heavy breaths. That explained why she had been unable to cast the stunning spell and why she had run out of juice so quick. "You just had to get me back for beating you in the summer dueling tournament didn't you?"
"Yeah, I did. I couldn't think of a better time than today to get even." Fleur kneeled down next to her. "Still friends?"
"Still friends," Hermione tried to smile but was only able to get up a half smile through the pain and exhaustion.
"Good." Fleur smiled at her. "I promise if I find Marik or Harry I'll tell them you said hello."
"They might not be too happy to see you today."
"Oh come on, you guys are always happy to see me!" Fleur laughed, Hermione was too in pain to reply and just gave another half-attempt at a smile.
"I'll see you after the task Hermione."
"Yeah, see you after the task. Good luck Fleur, I'm rooting for Harry and Marik obviously but if somehow it comes to you and Durmstrang, I am pulling for you."
"Thank you Hermione, that means a lot. If it comes down to Hogwarts and Durmstrang I'll be pulling for Hogwarts too. For now though, I'm sorry for this - Stupefy!"
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