Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Daphne felt her excitement grow as Angelina Johnson beat her opponent, some Beauxbatons boy. The reason was that as the two left the quidditch pitch, two names were called "Domenica, M from Durmstrang against Greengrass, D from Hogwarts."
Trying to steady her breathing, she excitedly walked onto the stage, bowing to her opponent. Finally, the signal was given and Daphne jumped into action. She didn't want to reveal her ice prowess so early, which quite severely limited her options.
Using a trick she had learned from Harry, she raised a protego and let Domenica's first spell strike it. To her relief, the spell barely affected her shield. While this wasn't a definitive sign of her power, Daphne certainly liked her chances.
In return, Daphne collapsed her shield onto the next spell and sent a stunner back. Rather than dodge, the girl raised her own shield, which noticeably shook upon contact.
Making the most of it, Daphne started a fairly basic spell chain, hammering against Domenica. While her Durmstrang opponent was able to get a few attacks back, Daphne was left disappointed. Having grown used to duelling Harry, she had expected Domenica to be somewhat equal to him.
Instead, Daphne felt like she was fighting in slow motion, each attack coming painfully slow. The only reason the fight was still happening was because the girl's defence was just good enough to counter Daphne's attacks.
Which was precisely why Daphne started mixing up her spells, utilising their different speeds and trajectories. As she had hoped, her opponent had to work harder to defend herself, meaning Daphne's blasting curse tore down the central shield.
Before Domenica could even react, her stunning curse struck home and ended the fight. With the impartial judge calling the duel in her favour, Daphne happily joined Harry in the stands.
To Daphne's annoyance, Harry's duel had easily been the quickest yet. He had used his petrification beam, which his opponent Poliakoff tried to shield against. It had taken the judge longer to figure out what had happened.
It didn't help her mood that Harry had still been half asleep when he left the arena, she wished she could just wake up and win a duel.
Together they watched "Ritchy, W." beat "Rowle, A.", another Ravenclaw. They seemed fairly well matched, which dragged their duel out.
Finally it was Cedric's turn, fighting against a Durmstrang girl called "Dominik, F."
"Look how he relies on transfiguration." Harry pointed out, waving at the small army of dogs that surrounded the Champion. The ease at which the Hufflepuff had summoned over a dozen of the animals managed to spark quite a strong sense of envy within her.
"Against Dominik, he doesn't really have to worry, but if he sticks with it he won't beat Fleur. Against her fire, he'll be unable to get close to her. At least he has the sense to use a few charms to protect himself."
Despite his limited attacks, the sheer number of transfigured animals easily overpowered his opponent. They decided to skip the next three duels as they got lunch, getting back just as Krum started his 2nd duel.
"Rakewood, O." tried to put up a good fight, but Krum completely crushed her. She was spending most of her time moving around, while Krum was being conservative with his spells.
Daphne diligently noted his proficiency in fire, lightning and blasting spells. This indicated he preferred brute force attacks, which concurred with his Triwizard performance.
"Krum's biggest strength is definitely his power. He's easily the strongest out of the three true champions, which works scarily well with his magical potential. Some of the spells he's throwing around are stronger than I could manage, although he definitely doesn't regenerate quickly." Harry shared, staring down at the duel intently.
"He's stronger than you? I thought you said you were the strongest in the school?"
"Ehh, no but also yes. I have more magic in total, meaning I would always beat him in any endurance test. However, I can only channel a certain amount of that power at once. Krum barely has 1/4th my power, but it looks like he can channel more power at once.
"So, if he shot his strongest spell at me, it would break my strongest shield instantly. But, if I continuously attacked his shield, he'd eventually fail long before I would. Given how much damage he inflicted on his dragon, I certainly wouldn't fight him head on."
"Yeah, like I'm going to try and overpower someone like that." Daphne agreed sarcastically. "That's why I'm glad it's you that'll be fighting him, while if I'm lucky I get to fight Frenchie."
"Funnily enough, your hit and run style would be better against Krum. He's slow to regenerate, so you could wear him down. But Fleur regenerates insanely fast, so if you take too long between attacks, she'll have completely recovered."
Their conversation was interrupted by a deep boom, as Krum's explosion charm erupted against Rakewood's shield, which blasted her entirely off the stage.
The next duel ended with Naomi Shinso from Slytherin winning, relying almost entirely upon her charm work and quick enchanting. By the time the duel was over, parts of the arena were floating aimlessly in mid air, while a vivid blue fire flared in a corner.
According to Harry, the entire arena was bathed in Naomi's 'Chartreuse Green' magic. The second duel started off far less exciting, with the Beauxbatons boy hiding behind his shield, right up until 'Stanislav, L' from Durmstrang broke through it with fire.
Unlike any fire spell she'd seen before, Stanislav held the tip of his wand and blew, creating an animated stream of flame. She could hear the roar of the flames all the way in the stands, but without Harry she couldn't tell what it had been.
Finally Harry entered the arena, facing off against Roger Davies, Ravenclaw. Daphne expected Harry to start with his paralysis beam, which he had used so successfully before.
Instead, he silently thrust his wand outwards, sending out the yellow Mollesco hex, completely bypassing both incantation and wand movement. He then tilted his head to the side, letting Roger's stunner wiz past, red light illuminating his face as it did so. On the other side, Roger needed to utilise the bubble-like Protego Maxima shield to block Harry's spell.
Pointing his wand at the ground, Harry forcefully whipped it up towards Roger, arm tense as if he was pulling a great force. Hurriedly, Roger sent a chain of coloured spells at Harry, all of which were neatly dodged. By then, a fissure began to spread from Harry to Roger, until a large shiny black orb broke free of the ground and smashed through Roger's shield.
But, before it could travel further and hit him, Harry's unnoticed exploding charm struck the orb and detonated it, knocking the other boy to the ground unconscious.
In total, the entire duel had been less than six seconds, despite the almost leisurely way Harry had acted.
As Harry left the arena, the officials did their best to repair the damage. Even with the brief patch job, Fleur gave the cut a speculatory look as she took her spot across from Angelina Johnson.
With the round starting, the two witches immediately began firing spells at each other. Interestingly, rather than rely on a shield Johnson magically raised from the recently softened ground to block Fleur's attacks. In return, Fleur began summoning a wall of flame, just as Daphne was called to the waiting tent.
From within the tent she could hear bits of the duel, but without any visual indicator it was impossible to know who was winning, right up until Fleur was announced the winner.
Her own fight against Ritchy was far less impressive, with both of them relying on conventional curses and hexes, neither having the luxury to show off. Finally seeing an opportunity, she wandlessly formed a block of ice on her hand, with which she blocked Ritchy's blinding curse.
With her other hand, she was able to strike him with a freezing hex. Even as he was being covered in ice, Daphne took the time to disarm him, definitely finishing the match.
"Congratulations, you did good, only three more rounds to go." Harry declared when she finally rejoined him, not looking up from Cedric's match.
"Yeah, against Frenchie, Diggory and then either you or Krum." She replied, even as she let herself get excited. Aside from Harry, she was the youngest in the tournament, meaning she hadn't expected to get so far.
"Actually, it's still in the air if Cedric will win, Stimpson is pretty good. But, admittedly I don't think it's a mistake that the four champions aren't going to meet until the semi-final. I'd almost say the organisers deliberately gave us four bad opponents in the first round, but I wouldn't want to upset anyone."
Right as he finished, Cedric tapped his wand against the ground, from which a small head and shoulders started to emerge. Gradually an arm formed as the creature pushed itself out of the arena floor.
Whistling appreciatively, Harry leaned forward excitedly, clearly impressed.
"Apparently I didn't give Cedric enough credit, a golem! He must be drained, but assuming he can avoid being hit he'll win." Harry announced enthusiastically.
"Wow, you seem way too thrilled about this. Is it really that big of a deal? It is made of dirt after all." Daphne asked, unimpressed.
"Daphne… You're a pureblood, how do you not know what a golem is?"
"What, you think we sit at home being told the abc's of the entire world? No, we're mostly expected to just pick it up as we go along, with the rare expectation of a family profession. So tell me, 'Oh all-knowing half-blood' what a golem is."
"Well, it's a magical spirit that exists within an artificial body. For an earth golem, they are essentially indestructible and will keep repairing itself until it runs out of charge. But they are insanely hard to power, it's probably taking most of Cedric's magic just to create itself."
"Can't she just trap it? Seems like a pretty weak attack."
"Trap it with what? If she uses the ground then she's just given the golem more material to work with. That thing will keep building itself for as long as Cedric holds it, so any trap won't last long. Freezing it might work, since it's the wrong element for it, but you'd need to be quick."
As if to prove his point, Stimpson blew the head off the golem as it lumbered towards her, which did absolutely nothing to stop its march. Instead the dirt it was made of shifted and ran over each other until a new head formed from the stump.
By now, it was bigger than a house-elf and still pulling material from the ground. While Cedric was sweating heavily, he was smart enough to keep behind the golem, letting it shield for him.
No matter how much damage Stimpson dealt, the golem relentlessly reached her, at which point it effortlessly lifted her and slammed her into the ground. Instead of stopping, the golem seemed to be doing its best to bury her into the ground through brute force, right up until the official ended the round.
"See, I told you golems were cool! Remind me to ask him how to make one, I've looked but nobody would tell me."
"I wonder why." She muttered, looking at the dying golem with a healthy amount of fear.
"He must've learned it from his dad. As a spirit, golems must fall under his department's responsibility. Good news is, he's clearly got some affinity for earth, which won't affect you but will severely affect Fleur."
I wanted the entire Duelling tournament done in this chapter, but right as I got ready to write my keyboard shelf exploded apart, which made it considerably harder to write.
Still struggling to get used to the temporary position my keyboard's in, which has noticeably slowed me down. Hopefully the parts come soon so I can fix it.
Things I think need explaining:
- Characters: A fair few made up characters in this chapter, most inconsequential. It's honestly shocking how few named teenaged characters exist in canon that are older than Harry.