-8-
"Melissa Picquerry and Hermione Granger."
Melissa stood up and walked over to where the bushy-haired girl was standing.
A part of her was a little bit perturbed that Harry's first opponent was now hers, and she wondered if that was deliberate on the professor's part.
She had been watching the duels and taking part in the ones she was called up for. Duelling was not really her strong point, even if she was good at it, unlike Harry who was a born and natural duellist and fighter. She was a scholar, an academic, but she had become envious about how creative her lover and boyfriend were when it came to studying more magic for his spell repertoire, that she had decided to join in.
Tournaments like this were all the rage at Ilvermorny and had been traditional for generations; some had theorised that after Isolt Sayres's fight with her crazy and dangerous aunt, she had wanted her students and their future descendants to be prepared for the inevitable, and so tournaments like duelling was written in, and had become traditional ever since.
But the academic in Melissa delighted spending a lot of time in the libraries at her school and using it creatively in a less formal environment. But something told her that Hermione Granger was cut from a different cloth; it hadn't taken her or Harry long to learn who Charlus Potter's friends were, but unlike a certain Ronald Weasley and Seamus Finnigan, Hermione was not only cleverer than them, she was much calmer, too. She wasn't a belligerent bully like Charlus, who had tried causing Harry problems he didn't need.
Hermione had done her best to keep out of the fighting, and Melissa had hoped to find an opportune moment to actually speak to the other girl, and sound her out. Perhaps this was the best start.
Both of them got into position; it soon became very clear to Melissa that Hermione, despite her confidence in some areas, was not exactly comfortable with this. She had a strong spell repertoire, that was for certain, but the way she waved her wand…. Well, she and Harry had heard enough about Charlus Potter's friends to know Hermione, a Newblood, what was called a Muggle-born in this country, spent a lot of her time reading books, but it was clear while she was good at memorising books and using it, she didn't grasp the hint witches and wizards didn't need to flick their wands so precisely.
But hadn't Melissa been guilty herself of doing the same thing, before Harry had told her and taught her to be a bit more out of the box?
And…there was how they quickly found themselves evenly matched, without the other giving into the temptation to lash out or use more draining curses and spells; both of them were using spell chains that ingeniously mixed and matched different spells from transfiguration and charms.
With a twist of her wand, Hermione sent a silent disarming curse, but it was quickly blocked by a hastily conjured block of granite Melissa generated; silent casting was taught alongside verbal spells in Ilvermorny instead of it being taught so late at Hogwarts, in Ilvermorny it was just to ease a witch or wizard into mastering magic quickly, but it was clear that kind of intelligent thought wasn't predominant in Hogwarts.
Melissa retaliated by blasting the block of stone into little bits and sent them towards Hermione, who managed to barely stop them from hitting a shield charm.
Melissa was starting to see no matter what she did, Hermione would be able to match her. She wondered for a moment if she could conjure her patronus, and see if it would have the same effect, but she decided that would be too unfair since it didn't seem like a good move. And it seemed that the professor quickly worked that out as well.
"I call a tie," he yelled.
Both girls ignored the groans of disappointment from many of the students - out of the corner of her eye, Melissa caught many disappointed and angry looks from the Slytherin students; it hadn't taken the Ilvermorny students that long to discover that the Slytherins of this generation were watered down in terms of attitude to the likes of Gormlaith Gaunt; they were all bark and no curse, and they were so anti-muggle-born that they failed to recognise their innate strengths.
Melissa stepped towards Hermione, casting a freshening charm over them both. "Great game," she complimented the brunette.
Hermione panted a little, staring at her in annoyance, but she nodded. "Yeah," she said in agreement, but Melissa caught a hesitant look on her face.
"What's wrong?" The American girl asked curiously.
"Nothing."
"Don't lie, let me guess; Charlus Potter told you not to talk to me or any of Harry's friends?"
Hermione sighed but she nodded. In truth, she wasn't happy with the way her best friends were going out of their way to demonise Harry. Okay, she had to admit the other Potter twin had been brutal against Charlus, but once she had found out the reasons behind their mutual dislike she had been horrified. Lily Potter was seen as an icon among muggle-borns, discovering she would actively abandon a child, never mind two, was horrifying.
"Harry's not a monster," Melissa's voice was quiet without giving in to her anger. In truth, she had long since adopted the same indifference towards the matter Harry showed, but it was hard without Charlus and his parents causing more grief. "And besides, aren't you your own person? Why don't you speak to Harry yourself?"
Without giving the other girl a chance to reply, Melissa turned and walked away. She knew Hermione would likely be getting an earful from Charlus, but the other twin would see it as a chance to spy on Harry. But when that happened she and Harry would be ready for it.
-8-
"Fleur Delacour and Harry Potter."
Harry stepped forward slowly, gathering his energy for the upcoming duel. The duels had been going on for the last three hours, and it had proven to be an eye-opener. He had duelled several students from the other three schools, and it was clear all of them had their own strengths and weaknesses, and he had duelled all but two of his competitors. He had duelled Viktor Krum only a quarter of an hour ago, and it had been a truly interesting (polite word for it) duel; if there hadn't been any rules, and they could have been allowed to use whatever spells they wanted, there wasn't a shred of doubt in his mind the duel would have resulted in one of them dying, or winding up fatally wounded.
But as he stepped towards Fleur Delacour, feeling her Veela allure as he came closer, making him instinctively dial up his occlumency barriers, he prepared for the duel ahead. He had seen Fleur and many of her fellow students duel, and he'd even duelled a few of them himself, and he knew her primary strengths lay in enchantments, elemental magic which focused on fire magic and curses, and with her heritage backing her up, she was an extremely powerful and gifted witch. But maybe there was a way he could turn her chosen areas against her.
The two of them bowed, Harry noticing that she was looking at him with unabashed interest, and even lust. Harry raised a brow in surprise, he hadn't expected that.
"Shall we?" Harry smirked at her.
Fleur smirked back at him, "Definitely," she smiled.
As they got into position, Harry started casting a spell chain. He fired two patronus charms at her, followed by a lighting spell and several transfiguration spells aimed at the flagstones right underneath the half-Veela's feet, which turned the stone into water. The surprised and indignant shriek that came from Fleur's throat as she found herself doggy paddling was hilarious, but she came back at him with a fiery vengeance, and Harry had to dodge several fire elemental spells, which he blocked at the last minute while sending several elemental spells back at her, but he mixed it up with ice and water spells.
Harry conjured a pair of mirrors right behind Fleur, and he bounced spells off of them, forcing her to jump and dodge different fronts, the duel heated up even more.
But Fleur was smirking at him as she got into the duel. Harry was surprised when she conjured a patronus herself, a patronus in the shape of a beautiful eagle, but Harry waved it off and launched his patronus again, and the cougar chased the eagle before they both vanished into wisps of mist. Not for the first time, Harry wished that the teachers would let him use more powerful and darker spells; it was holding them all back, but this was just to showcase some of the student's best skills. Getting tired of the duels, Harry decided to come up with a new plan.
-8-
Fleur and everyone else were surprised by Harry suddenly creating a powerful tornado in the middle of the Great Hall; everyone felt the effects as it began picking them up, forcing the teachers to cast charms to stop everyone flying into the vortex, but for Fleur Delacour, the effects were even more devastating. The tornado was aimed and directed straight towards the French witch, and she wasn't able to fight it…but then Harry cancelled the spell out.
Harry lowered his wand, signifying he'd had enough, but sadly that was not enough for Fleur.
Shrieking with rage, Fleur leapt back into the fray, her Veela side coming undone with her self-control, and she began lobbing fireballs last him, as she hurled herself at him.
"STOP HER!" Melissa shrieked urgently. "STOP HER!"
"FLEUR!" Madame Maxime boomed, making many students jump. But it did not affect her transformed student.
But Harry was already moving; he conjured a huge bubble of water and dropped it on her like muggle kids dropping water-filled balloons on each other. The water here drenched Fleur, dousing the flames, but making the harpy shriek in rage before Harry hit her with several charms to calm her down.
"I'm sorry, Miss Delacour," Harry said as Fleur calmed down, and changed back. He wasn't repelled by her harpy appearance at all, in fact, it only made her more interesting to him. "I only conjured the tornado to end the duel, I wouldn't have let you be killed in it."
"How am I supposed to believe that?" Fleur snapped, inwardly embarrassed, horrified by her lack of control, but at the same time she was calm enough now to recognise what he was saying. "I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have done that."
She was furious but mostly with herself for attacking a powerful boy, so powerful that his magic leaked off of him in waves and endeared him to her Veela side, and the fact he was handsome and had a nice body was only the icing on the cake. She was upset she might have lost a grand possibility for a mate.
"It doesn't matter; my little sister has a temper, too," Harry said. "She is one of the sweetest people I know," Harry added wistfully, "but when she gets mad, she gets mad. I won't take this personally. To be honest, I found your form to be amazing. See ya around," he walked off, leaving Fleur behind watching him go.
She didn't notice the looks coming from some of the Ilvermorny girls.
