Hermione had no idea that there was a dueling room in the dungeons. She was kind of irritated about it, actually. Why had no one told her this?

The Dueling Room was leftover from when Professor Flitwick had led a dueling club when he was younger. It had a raised dais with flaking paint on it, and there were chunks taken out of the dais and the walls around the area – allegedly purposefully left behind, so students could see the scars of magic and remember the implications behind the act of dueling.

Hermione figured it just added to the drama of the entire thing, or Flitwick had eventually gotten sick of fixing his students' mistakes.

There was a large window on one of the walls, charmed to look like it was sunset outside, providing a slanted, golden light to the room. There was plenty of room around the outside of the raised dueling dais for spectators, which Hermione imagined would come in handy for any dueling club participants not presently engaged in a duel. As it was, that area was now cluttered with onlookers who had heard of the duel one way or another and had come along to watch before Snape had shut the large, heavy doors.

It was significantly more people than Hermione had expected.

The third year Slytherin class was there, of course – as if they would miss it, after Draco's dramatic declaration at dinner. Harry, Ron, and Neville were there as well, as was Cedric and a handful of Hufflepuffs, a couple of whom Hermione recognized from the Diggory Christmas party. Susan and Luna were there too, brought to watch by Blaise, who had gone to inform the rest of the coven that their ritual would be delayed. There were several older Slytherins present as well, watching Draco with curious and skeptical eyes. Hermione wondered what Draco had told them, or just how they had learned of the duel.

While Draco and Cedric got set up and prepared on the platform, Susan Bones drifted over from the Hufflepuffs to where Hermione was extracting Ron's blood in the corner, shielded from sight by her coven members.

"Cedric told them he was worried about you getting too close to people who are known to be Dark, and that Malfoy took offense," Susan told Hermione. "It's clear he still cares about you and doesn't want to ruin your reputation."

The rest of the coven relaxed slightly, exhaling in relief. If Cedric had told the full truth to his friends, things could have gotten worse fast.

"This is entirely your fault," Hermione hissed at Ron. She shoved her wand into his arm just a little harder, making Ron yelp quietly. "Entirely. Your. Fault."

"I just wanted the galleons…" Ron sulked, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"This is rather interesting, though, isn't it?" Susan said, grinning. "The Ministry of Magic greatly looks down on duels, and there's been repeated efforts to get them banned in the past. An honor duel for another's honor, though, is seen as noble and chivalric. I'm curious to see how it goes."

Ron snorted.

"Diggory's two years over Malfoy," he said. "Fat chance of Malfoy lasting more than a minute."

"It depends what rules they agree to," Luna said, tilting her head. "If there are few limits, I imagine Draco might fare well against Cedric."

"Really?" Neville looked surprised. "How so?"

"Well, Cedric is a nice person…" Luna glanced at Susan.

"One of the best," Susan agreed.

"…so he's not likely to try and actually hurt Draco," Luna continued. "He wouldn't want to be seen as a bully, beating up on a younger kid. But Draco isn't nice—"

"Understatement of the year," Blaise quipped, smirking.

"—so he's more likely to try and seriously hurt Cedric," Luna finished. "If there aren't rules restricting certain types of spells, Draco might stand an advantage."

"Wait, really?" Ron looked surprised, ignoring as Hermione continued draining his blood into a jar. "It's not like Malfoy can cast the Unforgivables or anything, though."

"There's things other than the Unforgivables that can hurt people," Susan said, annoyed. She glanced sideways at Hermione. "Like a Cutting Curse, for example."

Luna just looked at Ron. "Do you think Lucius Malfoy would let his son come to Hogwarts without an arsenal of curses he could use?"

Ron seemed to consider this, then faltered.

"Ah—yeah, that makes sense," he agreed, sobering. He lowered his voice. "I wouldn't be surprised if Malfoy knew Dark magic. My father's always telling me that Lucius Malfoy learned Dark magic at the right hand of You-Know-Who."

"Miss Granger."

Finishing just in time, Hermione quickly capped the jar of blood and gave it to Blaise, who made it disappear into his robes. She fished out ten galleons and gave them to Ron, before she turned, seeing Snape looking at her, one eyebrow raised.

"If you would join me…" he drawled, his tone expectant.

"See you," Hermione muttered, and she went over to join Snape.

Once she reached Snape, his voice lowered, and his sarcastic manner dropped.

"Do you have any idea how a courting duel of honor works?" he asked her. It wasn't an accusation, merely an inquiry, and when she shook her head, he took it upon himself to explain. "Both parties will be dueling over the perceived insult, but as the offended party, you are the one who gets to establish what rules they will use going forward."

"Me?" Hermione's eyes grew wide.

"You," Snape confirmed. His eyes glittered. "As such… depending on what the desired outcome of the duel is, you might be more inclined to one set of rules over another."

Hermione bit her lip. "Erm. What are the sets of rules?"

Snape went over them quickly. Duels could be fought to several different victory conditions: disarmament, unconsciousness, injury, defeat, or death. Certain types of spells could be allowed or disallowed, depending on the nature of the duel.

"In a formal duel, the Unforgivables are always excluded," Snape told her, "though if you ever find yourself dueling on a true battlefield, know that your opponent will have no qualms trying to murder you as best they can." His eyes glittered. "Other classes of spells often excluded are curses with permanent effects, curses that could potentially maim or seriously injure, and spells that affect another person's senses in some way."

Hermione blinked. "Affects the senses?"

"A Blinding Hex, for example," Snape said, raising an eyebrow, "tends to distinctly limit a duel in favor of the one who can still see."

"Ah," said Hermione. "I see."

Snape lowered his voice further.

"Depending on the desired result of this duel," he said, "I would advise different sets of rules."

"Oh?" Hermione asked. She looked out at the two boys. Draco was doing stretches with Theo on one side of the dais, while Cedric was talking with his friend in low voices on the other side.

"If you want Mister Diggory to win, it is far simpler," Snape said. "He has a larger arsenal of spells at his command – merely prohibit curses that could maim or seriously injure, and he will have more weapons at his disposal to use."

"And if I want Draco to win?" Hermione asked.

Snape's eyes were thoughtful.

"Mister Malfoy has a significantly smaller arsenal of spells that he knows," he said, "but a significantly higher percentage of those spells are potentially dangerous or Dark."

"Lucius Malfoy wouldn't be likely to let his son come to Hogwarts without an arsenal of curses at his disposal," Hermione said, echoing Luna.

Snape glanced down at her. "Precisely."

Hermione bit her lip.

"Let's go 'until defeat', then, shall we?" she said. "If a person can't fight back for one reason or another, or if they forfeit, then they lose. But not to the death."

"A wise decision," Snape drawled. "Your mercy is incredible to behold."

Hermione ignored the sarcasm.

"No Unforgivables, and no Silencing spells," Hermione added. "Anything else is fair game."

Snape looked surprised.

"Silencing spells?" he questioned.

"Cedric's probably started learning non-verbal casting, and Draco hasn't," Hermione said. "That'd be distinctly unfair for one over the other."

Snape raised one arched eyebrow.

"Mister Diggory has probably learned Stunning Spells as well," he remarked, "and he will have that advantage over Draco."

Hermione shrugged. "Then hopefully Draco can dodge." An idea occurred to her. "Wait."

Snape glanced back at her.

"I want them each to have exactly half of the platform," she said. "We'll say I want to make sure it's a fair fight, that no one tries anything sneaky and tries to catch the other off-guard by punching them muggle-style. But draw a line across the platform, and neither is allowed to cross the line. They each get their own side."

Snape snorted. "Miss Granger, these are two pureblood scions. Turning an honor duel into a muggle brawl would never cross their mind."

"I know that," Hermione stressed. "But that's the excuse we'll give for allotting them each half of the platform. You see?"

Snape gave her a long, thoughtful look, before a slow smirk crept onto his lips, his eyes flickering with amusement. A moment later he straightened, striding to the center of the dais. His robes were billowing, and for a moment, Hermione wondered if Snape was enjoying the drama of the situation, too.

"Send in your seconds," he intoned. "Let us see if satisfaction can be obtained."

She decided he was. No one's robes would billow that much if they didn't have a sense of melodrama.

Hermione watched as Theo and the Hufflepuff boy went to Snape, who began talking to them both. It only took a minute to see both boys shaking their heads, and as Snape nodded, they turned and walked away.

"The duel will proceed," Snape said silkily. "Will the combatants please approach the dais?"

Hermione watched as Draco mounted the couple stairs up onto the left side of the platform, Cedric doing the same from the right. Draco looked stone-faced and determined, something fiery in his eyes, while Cedric looked pained and annoyed. He kept glancing at Hermione, his eyes anguished and apologetic, but Hermione could only wince and offer a faint smile each time.

Snape gestured at the wall behind him with his wand, behind and above Hermione, and the two wax discs appeared, magically enlarged, the white rose (also enlarged) stuck to the stone between them, lower down on the wall.

"Miss Granger has requested a duel to the defeat, not the death," Snape said.

"Fine by me," Cedric said shortly.

"Me too," Draco quickly agreed.

"She also requests you restrict your spells to exclude the Unforgivables," Snape said, "as well as Silencing Spells."

That seemed to throw both of the boys.

"Silencing Spells?" Cedric repeated, questioning. "Not Stunning Spells?"

"Silencing Spells," Snape repeated, eyes glittering.

"I agree," Draco said. "No problems here."

Though Cedric looked thrown, he shrugged.

"Sure," he said. He glanced down at Draco, dismissive. "Would have probably helped this one more than me, anyway."

"Hey!" Draco objected.

"Miss Granger also has one last request," Snape said. "To keep the level of honor about this duel, she wishes to equally divide the dueling platform in half, with a line neither can cross. She hopes this will prevent any physical altercations or 'sneaky muggle attacks', and preserve the formality of the event."

Both boys looked surprised.

"I've never heard of that, but that's more than fair," Cedric said thoughtfully. He glanced over at Hermione, then back to Draco. "I'd hope we wouldn't need such a protection, but who knows what sneaky methods some people will resort to?"

Draco scowled at Cedric, but this time, he didn't respond.

"Take your positions," Snape instructed, interrupting before they could have a spat.

Shooting last cutting looks at each other, Draco and Cedric stalked off to their respective ends of the platform. As they prepared themselves, Snape waved his wand, and a bright white line diveded the platform neatly into two halves. Hermione drifted over to her friends at the side of the room. Tracey had joined them at some point, though Millie was still nowhere to be found.

"I've got five galleons on Cedric against Tracey," Susan whispered to her. "What do you think?"

"I think it's going to be a lot closer than we think," Hermione murmured back, looking at the sharp glint in Draco's eye. "I think we're in for a surprise."

"Bow to your opponent," Snape drawled.

The two boys bowed to each other, neither breaking eye contact the entire time.

Snape withdrew his wand. With a gesture, a lone enlarged white petal floated over from the rose, hovering above the dais.

"When the petal touches the floor, you may begin," he said, stepping back and climbing down from the dais. "In three—two—one—"

The petal began to fall, drifting to the ground, and it had barely kissed the platform before the duel began.

Spellfire flashed between the boys, both casting as fast as they could, wands whipping through the air as they cried out incantations. The hall grew loud almost immediately – not only were both boys casting curse after curse, but the sparse crowd was cheering, egging their favorite dueler on, and the large room resounded with noise.

Cedric's spells were ones Hermione recognized: the Stunning Spell, Incarcerous, the Knee-Reversal Hex. He was a bit slow with casting, she noted - he probably had little to no experience casting spells back to back to back in a frantic environment. Each spell, though, however slow, left his wand perfectly cast each time. And Cedric was able to produce a fairly decent shield against Draco's spells, to Hermione's surprise – each time a new curse came at him, Cedric would cry "Protego!" and the spell would bounce off harmlessly.

Draco wasn't able to make a shield, and he seemed to know it; instead of trying, he took to dodging, twisting and ducking to avoid spells. Draco was a good deal more lithe than Cedric, who had at least four inches on him (to say nothing of his broad shoulders), and Draco was able to move fast, casting while he was running or ducking Cedric's spells.

Draco's spells were all meaner than Cedric's. While Cedric was casting spells aimed at ending the duel, Draco was casting hexes meant to hurt. He kept firing off Stinging Hexes, though one had yet to hit, as well as the Impediment Jinx and the Bucktooth Hex. As he got more and more frustrated with Cedric's ability to shield, he started snapping out Cutting Curses, which sent a chill up Hermione's spine, her instincts tingling with bad memories.

Cedric glowered at Draco the entire time. It was clear that while he was trying to win, he was trying to maintain a sense of dignity about the entire thing – hardly throwing himself all over the platform and running around like his opponent was. Hermione wondered if that was his pride speaking, or Draco just wasn't strong enough of an opponent to require anything more. He wasn't able to get a firm hit on Draco, though – he couldn't cast spells quite quickly enough back to back to prevent Draco from dodging each time.

And he couldn't get closer to get in a quick hit, Hermione noted, watching Cedric glower with frustration at the white line dividing the platform more than once. If Draco wanted to dance around and dodge at the back of his half of the platform, giving him more time to react to Cedric's spells, there was nothing Cedric could do.

Despite Draco's dodging, Cedric's ability to hold a shield and conjure it again and again seemed to be giving him a distinct advantage, though the shield was looking thinner than it had been at the start. No matter how Draco ducked and dodged, Cedric was able to stay in one place to take aim at Draco, while Draco frequently missed getting even close to Cedric, casting on the run as he was.

"There's no way," Susan said, watching. "Cedric's not even breaking a sweat."

"Malfoy's a Slytherin," Tracey shot back. "He's thinking. He'll come up with something."

Indeed, as they all watched on, Draco attempted his Serpent-Summoning Spell, the same one he'd used against Harry the previous year, but to Draco's clear frustration, Cedric got rid of the snake with a lazy Banishing Charm without even pausing to hesitate. Cedric seemed to grow more and more annoyed, changing over to use slightly more aggressive spells, attempting to hit Draco with a powerful, focused wind, with Levicorpus, and even the Jelly-Fingers Jinx.

It was this last one that finally hit Draco, and it was a near save, Draco diving to grab his wand as it slipped from his suddenly-useless other hand.

"Nice," Harry said, nodding approvingly. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

Draco was eyeing the platform beneath Cedric's feet as he dodged another Stunning Spell. Hermione would have been thinking similarly – if you couldn't hit your target, what else near the target could you manipulate that could allow you to affect your target indirectly?

Draco's eyes narrowed, and he dodged a Disarming Charm.

"Episkey!"

Cedric was across the platform, and Hermione suspected he had no idea what spell Draco had just cast, but when it went right through his shield to hit him harmlessly in the leg, Cedric faltered, alarmed, and Draco grinned.

"Stupefy! Expelliarmus! Stupefy!"

Cedric's counter-strategy to Draco's strange spell that had managed to enter his shield was to cast as fast as possible, and Draco only narrowly avoided being stunned and disarmed by diving across the platform, skidding on his stomach and chest as he snapped his own wand at Cedric, taking careful aim.

"Ferula!" Draco cried.

Hermione had never seen the spell cast at a distance before; she'd only ever seen it used by tapping a wand on someone's limb. Draco's determination seemed to overcome this limitation, and a burst of white light shot at Cedric, who quickly shielded.

Like the Healing Charm before it, though, this spell was able to enter Cedric's shield without difficulty, hitting him in the wand arm. Cedric cried out in surprise as bandages spun up his arm, strapping it tightly to a splint conjured from nowhere, and though he still held his wand in his hand, he couldn't bend his elbow with the splint.

"His shield views it as a friendly spell," Hermione breathed, realizing. "It's a healing spell. I didn't know shields could tell the difference between kinds of spells!"

"Magic's based on intent," Blaise commented. "If Cedric's shield was getting weaker, it makes sense it'd filter out openly malicious spells instead of trying to block them all."

"Expelliarmus!" Draco shouted. "Expelliarmus!"

Cedric managed to dodge the first Disarming Charm, and he threw himself to the ground to dodge the second, but he'd miscalculated how difficult it was to get to one's feet when one arm was splinted in a cast.

"Expelliarmus!" Draco yelled again.

Even a first year would have been able to hit Cedric now, struggling on the ground to get to his feet as he was, and as the burst of red light hit Cedric, the spell pushed him over and back a few feet, his wand arcing through the air towards Draco, who nimbly caught it with the reflexes of a Seeker, and he gave Cedric a nasty grin.

The crowd broke out into cheers interspersed with loud boos, and Snape stepped forward.

"By way of disarmament, Draco Malfoy has won this duel," Snape announced. He bowed slightly to Draco and stepped aside, moving away from his place at the center-side of the platform, and Draco grinned. He aimed his wand at wall, where the enlarged discs had been hung above the enlarged white rose.

"Diffindo!"

The Severing Charm cut a deep gash across the wax of the Diggory Seal, and Hermione watched as color began to seep out of it, running down the wall. When it reached the rose that hung beneath the crests, the rose began to turn red, petals stained with the color.

Once all the color had drained from the Diggory Crest, leaving just a whitish wax disc on the wall, Draco made a flashy gesture with his wand, and the rose was pulled from the wall. It shrunk back to a normal size as he levitated it over to Hermione. He raised an eyebrow expectantly, and Hermione wordlessly stepped forward to pluck it from the air where it hung.

"It was an honor to defend your honor," he said, giving her a very dramatic bow. His eyes glinted as he glanced at Cedric, whose friends were helping unwind his arm from the splint.

Hermione didn't know the right words to say back, or the etiquette for this sort of thing in the slightest.

She settled for sigh. "Thanks, Draco."

Draco's smirk widened, the small crowd still cheering. "Believe me, it was my pleasure."

He turned and strode off towards Cedric, whom Snape had already made his way over to. The duel over, Hermione walk around the platform back to the rest of her class, where Daphne immediately demanded to see the rose.

"It's red!" Daphne exclaimed. "Oh!"

"Is that not normally the case?" Hermione asked, surprised. "It seemed like Draco was symbolically bleeding the Diggory House crest onto the rose. I would have expected it to be red."

"Well, in the stories and legends, it is always red," Daphne admitted. "But in reality, I'm fairly certain that the color the rose ends up reflects the feelings of the defeated towards the lady in question."

"I think I've heard that," Susan chimed in. "I heard a story about a rose turning black, once, when a suitor had impure intentions toward the witch he was courting."

"For the rose to be red…" Daphne gave a tragic sigh, looking up at Hermione through pitying eyes. "…that means Cedric really loved you."

"It means no such thing," Hermione said flatly, folding her arms.

"Hermione, I know you are new to—"

"No. Think about it logically," Hermione cut in. "Flower colors and meanings are things that people ascribe to flowers. There's no innate meaning of flower colors – just what people once upon a time decided each one symbolized."

Daphne looked somewhat confused, but Susan looked thoughtful.

"Blood, though? Blood is an innate thing," Hermione said. "Draco was symbolically bleeding Cedric's House at the end of the duel. That makes sense. And blood is red, Daphne. That's all it means."

Daphne looked disappointed. Tracey looked thoughtful.

"Does that mean if someone dueled Pansy and she lost, the rose would be a different color?" Tracey asked.

Susan blinked. "What?"

"Pansy's got troll blood," Daphne said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Her blood's a different color." She turned to Tracey. "It might? I think it's probably the 'blood of the House', so it'd depend if it was the entire Parkinson line that had troll blood, or if it was just Pansy herself."

Susan looked at Hermione and Tracey incredulously.

"You can't seriously—"

"We can talk about it later," Hermione said, tapping a finger on the side of her nose and giving Susan a meaningful look. "Right now, we all need to clean up and get ready for the Blood Debt ritual. We don't have that much time left before curfew."

"You're not getting away just yet," Tracey said in a sing-song voice, grinning at Susan. She stuck out her hand. "Five galleons please!"

Susan groaned but paid up in good humor, smirking at Tracey as she smirked back.

"That was exciting, really," Susan commented, looked back over at the platform. She glanced at Hermione. "Maybe some of us should look into reforming a Dueling Club, yeah?"

Hermione's lips curled upwards as she imagined the possibilities.

"It definitely wouldn't hurt."