Chapter 20:

The dueling team was sitting in the Hufflepuff common room going over some final preparations, while Darrel was in his element, "Now Ravenclaw may not have the best quidditch team, but in the past, they have had an admirable dueling team. One that is usually always first or second. There spell variety in the older years is what's generally the killer, so remember if you don' recognize it, dodge it. The lineup for today is going to seed 2,4,6,8,10,12, meaning, myself, Diggory, Macavoy, Preece, Applebee, and Potter will be taking up arms today. Harry you are going to have the honor of opening up the tournament with a victory. Now let's all head to the Great Hall as a unit, PUFFS FIGHT?"

And the team called back, "TO WIN!"

This led to the dueling team leading the way to the great hall with the rest of the house following shortly behind the team. Harry was a little nervous opening up the tournament for his house, mostly because he knew as it was there were already going to be a lot of eyes on him, and now he was going to start the show.

Arriving in the great hall it was clear the Ravenclaws had been there for quite some time, as they were all exchanging simple stinging hexes and the like to warm up a bit, and their uniforms were admittedly cooler than the badger's yellow and black. Harry did humbly think that the name Potter did look pretty good on his black and yellow uniform though.

The uniform consisted of a tuck-in shirt, with your seed number and last name on the back, and some pants that were your house's alternate color, for Hufflepuff thankfully that was black. Harry thought that Neville's Gryffindor gold look ridiculous as pants, and the Slytherin silver didn't look much better. Ravenclaw had the superior-looking jerseys in Harry's opinion, black and blue, which were pretty easy to manipulate. The eagle on the front of their jerseys' however didn't look near as cool as the Hufflepuff badger the young Potter thought.

All trivial thoughts of uniform went out the window though as Harry saw Remus, Lily, James, Sirius, Jack, and Rosalie sitting in the stands waving up at him. The heir to the Potter line smiled up at his family, as they took to the opposite side of the dueling platform, which was a long solid mantle.

From what Tonks had told him this was the Jr. standard for dueling, while the adult standard of dueling had a circular ring. Harry thought the straight line would actually require more skill, but then again he wasn't a dueling pro just yet, so he kept his opinion to himself.

Dumbledore stood in the middle of the ring giving encouraging smiles to all the students present when he called out, "With both teams here the match will be underway soon. Today's match-up is Ravenclaw Vs. Hufflepuff. I will be today's judge, and will be happy to watch such promising young duelists attempt to gain glory among their peers, and attempt to take home the dueling gauntlet!"

Harry had yet to see the dueling gauntlet, but from what he was told it was a lot like the quidditch cup, only bigger. Tamsin Applebee and Harry exchanged spells for a few minutes in an attempt to warm up.

Applebee was one of those free spirit types that Harry had taken a friendly interest in. The girl was in the third year, and she had a mean streak a mile wide when it came to dueling. The brunette however was kind outside of dueling practice and was often seen helping Muggleborns as she herself came from the muggle world.

Dumbledore after some time called the match to a start announcing, "Both twelfth or eleventh seed duelists please enter the dueling pitch."

Harry looked across to see a third-year boy stepping onto the platform clearly excited that he was going to get his first match-up against a first-year, however being a Ravenclaw meant that you never underestimated your enemies as that would be disastrously unwise. Dumbledore's voice carried throughout the great hall as he called match proceedings, "Mr. Potter, Mr. Stretton, face each other, bow."

Both boys gave each other a low respectful bow, but Harry had a feeling it was more because he was the boy who lived, than the fact that he was his opponent's dueler. Something that Harry could tell by looking at the starstruck boy in the eyes. When they reached the other side of the pitch, the cheering suddenly stopped, while Dumbledore counted down, "3...2...1...Begin!"

Harry immediately let his instincts cut in, and took a fake step forward throwing his arm out towards his opponent as if he was going to cast something powerful, but when the young man stepped back to throw up a shield nothing came, but that forced him onto the defensive. With two stunners followed by an overpowered disarming charm, the boy was put out of the duel before he could cast a single spell.

This led to an eruption from the Hufflepuff section, and Harry received a motion from his captain that signaled he wanted to have words with him before they continued. Before this happened though Harry went over to his opponent helping him up and shaking his hand, "Good luck in your next duel mate."

Micheal Stretton was many things, but arrogant or mean was not one of them, "I would wish you the same, but it's against my house, so I will have to pass on that. Good charm work, maybe next time!"

Harry smiled at the boy and then walked over to his captain while the audience applauded his good sportsmanship. Darrel kept a very serious look on his face, but when he started speaking he could hear the excitement, "Well done Harry. You already did your job. Anything you can win after this is going to be just a pat on the back. If we all eliminate one dueler, we win every time. Do what you can, but don't overtax yourself, so the team can get in there and win this thing."

Harry nodded as he stepped back into the pitch to see Marietta Edgecombe step into the slot. Dumbledore called the pleasantries and introductions, and as they bowed Harry knew the dueling level caliber just went up a notch. The ninth seed dueler was only a year above him, but age was nothing but a number. As they pointed wands at each other, she did not even wait for Dumbledore to say begin, the moment the number one came out of his mouth a spell was fired, " Reducto!"

Quickly scrambling out of the way it was clear that this Ravenclaw was not going to make the same mistake as her housemate. The girl was fast and she sent a barrage of blasting hexes at him attempting to blast him off the platform, but after dodging the first two curses, Harry threw up his full shield, which caused his dueling captain to explode with cheering, while the rest of his housemates just applauded, clearly confused why their captain was so excited.

After a full minute of Harry's shield not even moving Marietta clearly appeared tired, and when Harry dropped his shield, the next spell came so fast, she rose her shield, but magical exhaustion had clearly come over her, and broke her shield and took her to the ground.

The dueling captain Rodger Davies was on the platform reviving his team mate clearly looking furious at the first year who was usurping his lower-tier duelers. This time Harry merely bowed to his opponent, as not wanting to approach the clearly irate Ravenclaw quidditch and dueling captain.

The girl appeared disgruntled but gave the boy a nod of respect and acknowledgment.

When Harry went over to his captain Darrel pounded him on the back, "Two wins in your first match, very impressive Potter. You scrape one more win, and I think Rodger Davies will be the only one that can stand up to three or four duelers. You are doing great, just keep your head in it, and eliminate as much as you can. Rodger won't go down easy, and I'd prefer Cedric and Heidi to get a few shots at him before I have to."

Harry nodded his head in understanding and turned to face the rather large fourth-year Keeper, Grant Page. Knowing this was going to be an aggressive fight, as Grant already really disliked Harry for making him look so bad in the quidditch match. The keeper was the number seven seed in this duel, and Harry being at number twelve made this look slightly unmatched, but Harry kept his nerve, knowing he would need it in this fight against the older boy.

When Dumbledore counted down Harry began smiling as he remembered a lesson that the head of Ravenclaw house had taught him while growing up. He could clearly hear the words of the tiny half-goblin, 'Death Eaters especially have a tendency to be overly aggressive. If you find yourself in a one-on-one fight, don't be too defensive, they may just overpower you at the beginning and leave you no chance to come back from it. Strike hard and fast.'

With those words ringing through his ears the second Dumbledore counted them off Harry took a sprint forward break rolling under the first curse and then barraging the boy with quick and various blasters.

Grant was obviously taken aback by the sudden aggression from the dueler who had kept his cool in the past two matches, putting up shield after shield, but when Harry was suddenly sending out silent freeze charms, and stupefy he knew the match was lost.

When Harry came within five feet of the boy he blasted a shield breaker, then followed it with the Perificus Totalus silent cast, which left the boy completely immobile. In a quick display of pure brilliant tactics, Harry disarmed his opponent and waited for Dumbledore to call it. It only took a moment for the beaming headmaster to do so, and Harry unfroze the boy and handed him back his wand wishing him to look in his next match.

Looking out to the stands Harry could tell his family felt ten feet tall at that moment. With a dueling protegee and quidditch extraordinaire, they knew they had an heir and son to be proud of. James himself looked like he was on cloud nine, despite looking slightly uncomfortable when he walked in wearing badger colors. At that moment the young man felt like he could've convinced his dad to wear any colors except maybe green and silver, and he would've remained at his ten-foot height!

Darrel was bouncing on his toes when Harry made it over to him, "That was a hell of a tactic Potter. The fifth seed dueler is a fifth-year though, if you can win this one, count your lucky cards because that leaves five of our duelers to beat two of their duelers. Robert Hillard is a speed demon, but if you hit him with your chain spell your golden. You take him then all there is left is Clearwater and Davies. I still can't believe they have her at third seed, but hey you're doing fantastic. If you can't beat Robert don't take it hard, but the chain Harry, the chain, should work!"

Cedric was standing next to Rodger and gave the last bit of advice very quietly, "Hillard's father was a death eater Harry, be careful he may be crafty."

Harry looked across the pitch to see a young man standing there with his hands crossed behind his back and no wand in the site. Taking a steady breath of determination Harry trudged forward to take on the OWL student. When the bowing took place Hillard barely inclined his head which made Harry feel a sudden hatred towards the boy.

When they reached the other end of the platform Harry took a final deep breath and when the countdown was over for the first time in many years neither opponent moved. Some people seemed to be waiting with bated breath as the two stood off towards each other. Neither threw a spell, but both stared at each other in an attacking position.

Harry could feel the tension in the room rising, so they started off the fight with an immediate shield breaker, but the curse sailed towards the boy, and he merely flicked his wand and the spell came firing back at him, causing Harry to spin out of the way and see many spells coming at him at with rapid-fire.

Harry threw up the standard protego, but it was instantly broken, and the fire charm was also coming straight at him causing him to reverse the effects with augimenti. At that moment he realized his opponent had yet to say a word. His dueling was completely silent.

The water turned solid as the heat overcame the element and this allowed Hillard to banish the solid rock towards Harry causing the boy to yelp as he was forced to blast it with an exploding hex. This sent rock shards everywhere, and Harry was on the ropes once again by the boy who would not stop flinging the stunning spell at him.

Finally, Harry stopped defending and began to dodge while he threw two spells at nearby rocks causing them to turn animate and fly towards the dueler. Realizing too late what Harry had done, Hillard attempted to destroy the rock creatures, but by the time he had done so, Harry was halfway through his five-chain spell, "Reducto, stupefy, deprimo, expelliarmus, incarcerous!"

It was one of the fastest chains Harry had ever thrown, but that only seemed to make it more effective, because by the last curse his opponent had lost his wand and was effectively tied up. The Hufflepuff stands erupted into cheers. Harry however was just staring at the boy who was giving him a look that could kill. He couldn't understand the aggression, but when the ropes were taken off of him he stormed over to the boy, "You cheated!"