Dumbledore promised to look into getting Harry into Azkaban, but suggested that, unless he got some notification that time was of the essence, it might ideally wait until the Easter holidays. Remus agreed, at least as far as he wanted Harry to have mastered the Patronus before going, and thought it might take the three months in question.

So Harry had nothing to do until early April besides practice.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Finally read in, the headmaster was very interested in testing the extent of Harry's abilities. On arbitrary evenings, Harry would be sent an invitation with a password to his office (always some form of candy), to demonstrate or try something that the old man had thought of. While he hadn't learned anything new, Dumbledore at least was increasingly excited about the breadth of his abilities. And didn't mention the obvious potential for cheating in class, so that was nice.

Harry was also fielding quite a few questions about video games. Unfortunately, his depth of knowledge was only a month of playtime and a few games played. But he mentioned that he still had the game computer in question, and the headmaster's eyes got wide as he asked to borrow it. While his detection spells came up with nothing unusual about the device, he wasn't thwarted. It turned out that the Room of Requirement was somehow able to respond to, "I need a room with electricity where I can plug in and use a muggle electronic device."

After that, they were often unable to get into the Room for their own purposes while Dumbledore was inside, using it to play video games as "research."

It was fine. The lack of immediate crises gave Harry more time to hit the library. By the beginning of March, the number of shelves he hadn't been through was significantly smaller than the number he'd cleared. And that was with quidditch practice with Wood and spell practice with Remus also taking a lot of time.

He'd managed to get up to 16s in his core magical skills (and 17s in Charms and Combat Magic from the practice with Remus), as well as 11s in his elective skills. He'd also picked up another smattering of random general skills that happened to be covered in the library. Purely on practical capability, Remus thought that he was at the point that he might do pretty well on his OWL tests, which he wasn't meant to take for another three years.

And on a Monday night on the first of March, he'd get to put that skill to the test again: Dawlish had finally scheduled another school-wide dueling club for after dinner. They'd done a few smaller clubs over the last couple of months, separated by year to give people more chance to duel against their peers. Harry had gotten good enough that he really wasn't getting any challenge from the others. Even Draco had stopped embarrassing himself trying to duel Harry. But the opportunity to go up against the upper years… Harry was hoping for another chunk of XP like he'd gotten before the winter holidays.

Dawlish seemed content to oblige. "Right. We're going to do exhibitions tonight," he led off, once everyone was assembled in the great hall, once again set up like it had been in the winter. "I want you to pay attention to what the winners are doing. And the losers. What works for dodging spells? What works for landing a hit? Was it dumb luck or a real strategy?"

Flitwick and Snape had come back, and with Remus also attending it was interesting that each of the houses had an adult representative, since Dawlish had been in Hufflepuff.

Snape paired against Flitwick again and lasted significantly longer than he had previously, obviously having been practicing and considering his strategy since his defeat. There were a few more obvious moments where if he'd gone with something more deadly, he might have won, and Harry thought he could see the potions professor check a desire to bust out some dark magic to grab that victory.

Then Dawlish paired with Remus, and the two of them were much more evenly matched. Remus went with some standard bread-and-butter spells, produced quickly and well: given the last couple of months of teaching Harry to shield and stun, he'd really rounded out his own use of those spells. Dawlish favored the disarming charm and various binding spells, more used to fighting to lock down an opponent. Slowly it became clear that, while Remus had fought in the war as a young man, he'd had less actual experience fighting other wizards than Dawlish. For all that he was one of the more political aurors, the man did regularly find himself in spell combat with magical criminals. Remus was slowly being pushed back, and eventually ran out of space to dodge as Dawlish landed a spell to wrap him in conjured ropes.

"Questions about the spells that were used? Bring them up to Lupin or Flitwick in your classes," Dawlish instructed, as soon as those exhibitions were finished. "Now, what you've probably been waiting for… who wants to line up to have another go at Potter?"

Harry took his place on stage right as the contenders formed up by year. None of the second-years wanted to get annihilated again, not even Draco, and hardly any third-years got in line. Well, a couple of people from Gryffindor showed up just to show they were willing (and Cormac, because he couldn't admit he wouldn't win), and a few of the other kids he'd beaten at winter break wanted another chance. Behind them, in the fourth-years, his friends on the quidditch team lined up, just out of curiosity, as did the Slytherin quidditch players, and a few others from the other two houses. Cedric was at the end of the pack, not looking as confident as his housemates thought he should be: he knew how close the match was the last time. The fifth-years and up were waiting to see if Harry got through the fourth-years before getting in line.

And then Harry started grinding.

Match after match, all he really had to do was dodge and look for an opening. He might have been tempted to try some of the new spells he'd been learning, but the disarming charm was efficient and dodging was free for him. In an endurance match, the most important thing was to not slowly empty out his magical stamina: he figured he needed to keep it topped off so he'd have it if a contender actually proved a difficulty.

He was honestly starting to worry that it wasn't much fun for the people watching, as he repeated the same routine, over and over. His opponents were trying different things. Fred and George, especially, knew what he could do and tried to catch him in obscure prank spells that he'd previously had a hard time dodging. But he'd just gotten too good since their duels over the summer. He even managed to tick over into another point of Basic Dodging in the middle of one of their matches. And with his OWL Combat Magic getting close to maximum, he was as fast and accurate as a skilled fifth-year.

Finally, the fourth-years were winnowed out and it came down to Cedric, who was looking even less confident than he'd started. They bowed. They started casting. After a minute, it looked like it might go similarly to the last time, with Cedric's strong shield charm able to block Harry's lower-year spells. But Harry had also been building up other magical skills, like transfiguration. "Avifors!" he incanted, after throwing some pebbles from a pocket onto the ground. It was a second-year transfiguration, but usually one that took a lot of time. When Harry cast it, each turned into a crow, perfectly formed, and began to flock at Cedric. Well, if Harry was right about the word for a group of them, to attempt a murder. Having to drop his shield to try to burn the birds out of the air with a fire-making charm, Cedric wasn't able to defend against Harry's disarming charm.

"Oh, well done!" he heard Flitwick note to Remus. "Minerva will be sad she missed this. Don't see many students managing combat transfigurations."

Harry canceled his transfiguration so the remaining birds would leave Cedric alone and returned the boy's wand. "Good show, Potter," he shook Harry's hand, seemingly not that put out at the loss. "I'm going to really have to practice for the next time."

The fifth-years took a minute to coalesce, which suited Harry, since it gave him time to recover the magical stamina he'd spent on Cedric. All of the students, themselves about to take their own OWLs, seemed to recognize that Harry was somehow fighting on their level. Did they dare risk losing face by being beaten by a 12-year-old?

Harry was curious how much XP they were worth. After all the points for the fourth-years, his bar was getting really close to full.

Bole and Derrick, the beaters from the Slytherin quidditch team, decided that it was worth the risk to prove they could beat the Boy-Who-Lived, and moved to the front of the line. Without their names floating over their heads, Harry wouldn't really be able to tell them apart. But, as it happened, Lucian Bole went first.

"Going to take you down, Potter," the older boy insisted, sketching only a short bow. He'd been watching, and thought he had a solution to Harry's skilled dodging: area-effect spells. "Reducto!" he yelled moments after Dawlish told them to go. The object-shattering curse wasn't quite as overkill for a duel as it seemed to all the students gasping at the attack: it was optimized to destroy objects, not flesh, so probably wouldn't kill Harry if it hit him dead on. And Bole had targeted the stage in front of him, hoping to just create enough shrapnel that dodging would be useless.

He wasn't expecting Harry to yell "Protego!" and catch the powerful curse on a magical shield that was taught in fourth-year. He wasn't expecting that shield to hold against the followup stunning spell he'd sent Harry's way (expecting him to be staggered by the initial blast). And he certainly wasn't expecting Harry to immediately throw his own "Stupefy!" as he dropped the shield.

Bole keeled over, stunned, in a match that had lasted maybe six seconds.

It turned out that fifth-years were worth 125 XP. Harry grinned. He had a sliver of bar left until he leveled up. Derrick blanched, where he was next up. Especially when Dawlish announced, "I didn't think I needed to say that spells that destroy the dueling stage are banned. I better not see any more reductos! No bombardas, either. If you can manage a confringo, it's right out."

Harry checked that his spellbook had recorded those incantations, so he could try to learn the spells later. They sounded useful.

Peregrine Derrick, without access to explosions, tried to catch Harry with his own trick, "Avis! Avis! Avis!" he quickly incanted, conjuring several of his namesake falcons. Harry could only assume he'd decided to make that his own signature spell, due to his first name.

If he'd been a normal second-year, Harry's "Finite!" shouldn't have effortlessly caught all of the birds and counter-spelled them back into so much quickly-fading magical mist. In the audience, Cedric mentally kicked himself for not thinking to just try that against Harry's crows. Harry used the disarming charm, and Derrick shielded. The Slytherin tried a leg-locker curse, but Harry dodged.

The match actually went on for nearly a minute. It turned out that Derrick was a good duelist for his year, and wasn't going to be surprised by Harry's new tricks like Bole had been. He even had a couple of levels on Harry, so probably had more magical stamina. But what he didn't have was Effortless Dodge: the Slytherin boy was clearly becoming winded jumping out of the way, and having to shield more often, while Harry was carefully managing his own, probably-smaller pool of magical stamina by dodging as much as he wanted. Finally, he saw an opening, and disarmed the older boy.

He was a little worried that he'd emptied his own magical stamina for the next duel, but the XP from Derrick was enough.

125 Combat XP Awarded
Level Up!

Along with the lights and trumpets, Harry felt suddenly fresh as a daisy, as his bar refilled right in front of his eyes. And he'd tacked on another 50 points of magical stamina to boot.

Next up, Beatrice Haywood, the Hufflepuff prefect, saw Harry's grin and did not like her chances…