Chapitre 12: The Hogwarts Champion and The Tournament

"Wake up, Harry!" Ron called from across the table, throwing a walnut at his friend's lowered head. Ignoring the pair of disapproving looks the veela sisters flanking the incubus wore, Ron stressed, "It's almost time!"

'I am so fucking tired,' the raven locked boy thought miserably, cursing the Harry of twelve hours ago who thought staying up all night was a good idea.

"I'm up," he murmured, lifting his head to shoot an unamused, bloodshot look at his friend.

"Long night?" the redhead asked cheekily, unaffected by Harry's death glare.

"Ronald!" Hermione hissed, pink glossed lips pursed.

"I may have gotten carried away," Harry admitted, using his creature strength to crush the walnut Ron had tossed at him between his fingers, picking at the tasty insides slowly.

"Is this the part where you say, 'but you should see the other guy?'" Ron asked with waggling eyebrows.

Gabrielle giggled, and the redhead's eyes glazed over a little. With the help of Hermione and her elbow, however, he quickly regained full control of his faculties.

"Piss off," Harry groused back good naturedly, flicking a little of the demolished nut at his friend.

"I can smell you on that woman from here," Fleur added her two cents in quietly, shooting a look up at the dark skinned astronomy professor, who was deflecting questions from her peers as she ate her meal standing up.

"Your nose is freakishly good," Harry commented, even as Ron and Hermione sputtered, looking between their tired, dark haired friend and Professor Sinistra.

Ron sniffled, with watery eyes, and said, "You do me proud, son."

"Shut up, Ron," Hermione sniped, and then to Harry, scolded, "That's very irresponsible, Harry. What if you were caught?"

Harry just nibbled on a cheesy breadstick and shrugged. Hermione didn't really seem to appreciate his lack of concern.

Suddenly, Ginny settled down on the bench to Hermione's side, distractedly asking, "Why's Professor Sinistra standing up?" to which her brother, Gabby, and Fleur all laughed, while Hermione blushed and Harry shrugged again.

"It's a mystery," the boy-who-lived commented sagely, licking his fingers clean.

Ginny shot the group suspicious looks and said, "Yeah. Anyway, they didn't announce the Champions yet, did they? I got caught up in the library."

"I'm still here, so you should know they didn't," her brother boasted. He had wound up putting his name in the goblet after all, having felt inspired after watching his green eyed friend enter earlier.

"Yeah right," Harry, now a little more awake, smirked. "I'm going to win everything by a mile," he bragged, throwing an arm around Gabby as she rolled her eyes. "A thousand years of Potter!" he cried dramatically, waving another cheesy breadstick in the air.

"I'm smarter and faster than both of you," Hermione objected with heat, just as competitive as her two male friends. "I'd say you had a chance at the quidditch tourney, but you've spread yourself too thin. I'll win the comprehension tourney, of course, and sweep the dueling as well." Raising trembling fingers to her lips, the witch let out a mad giggle and added, "And then I'll use my winnings to bribe my way into the Department of Mysteries at last."

Harry and Ron shared an exasperated look as their friend stared off into space, gripping half her face with a hand.

"Er- right," Fleur said, looking a little concerned. "Anyway, don't you children zink you're getting a leetle ahead of yourselves?" Flicking her hair over her shoulder, the French veela condescended, "Zere are adults taking place in zese competeetions, you know?"

"More important zan zat," her little sister cut in, with Harry's arm still draped over her, "zere are zose of us weez real talent." Grinning up at Harry, she asked faux-archily, "Why do you zink someone as young as me was allowed to compete?"

"Figured it was 'cause you're so cute," Harry joked, earning a sharp elbow to the ribs from a red faced Gabrielle, who shrugged his arm off angrily.

"What did you two sign up for?" Ginny asked politely, hiding a scowl at the byplay.

"Just ze comprehension," the younger veela answered, her scowl falling away as she answered. "I have a talent for enchanting."

Harry mussed her hair at that, and received a series of brutal elbows in return. Ron winced in sympathy, but the rest of the group ignored it.

"You'll find out een a second," Fleur said confidently, pointing up at the raised platform the professors and staff sat at. Filch was struggling to heft a large wooden chalice to the middle of the platform, and when he finally dragged it to the designated point, Headmaster Dumbledore stood from his seat and called for silence.

After a brief speech about the honor, distinction, and glory that would surely befall the contestants and victor of the Triwizard tournament, the most powerful wizard in the room, and probably the world as well, swished his wand at the Goblet of Fire, as it was known.

It was aptly named, too, for the wood charred away in seconds to reveal a regal glass and silver design, and an erupting blue flame that blazed from within it's rim.

The hall watched on, enraptured.

"The first contestant," the wizened old wizard called out, snatching a folded parchment from the air as the goble spat it out, ignoring the scorched edges as he unfolded it, "from Beauxbatons, Mrs. Fleur Delacour!"

The response from her schoolmates was polite, but a little frigid, the reason for which Harry could guess. The rest of the hall was applauding too, though none were as loud as Gabrielle, who was clapping in delight and pride as her sister rose, a confident grin pulling at her lips attractively.

"See you in a second," the veela whispered to him as she past.

Harry hoped she was right, but in that moment he was just happy for his new friend/rival, and shouted his congratulations after her.

Once the French veela was out of sight, the hall settled back down, just in time for the flaming chalice to spit out the next name.

"From Durmstrang, Mr. Viktor Krum!" Albus Dumbledore called, and the applause was twice as loud this time. Everybody was excited to see the professional seeker compete, and his schoolmates banged on the Slytherin table in a show of solidarity as the serious looking teen made his way towards the front.

"Stiff competition," Ginny commented, sharing a conspirital look with Hermione next to her as the Bulgarian athlete disappeared behind a door. The girls giggled.

Ron looked torn between swooning over the quidditch star himself and scolding the two, Harry was amused to note. When he noticed Gabby looking as well, though, he scowled.

"From Hogwarts," Dumbledore began again, a little pride seeping into his voice as he caught the third and final piece of torn parchment out of the air with the reflexes of someone ninety years younger, "Mr. Harry Potter!"

"Damn!" Ron shouted good naturedly, while Hermione and Ginny, along with the rest of Gryffindor house and the hall, applauded, somewhere between Fleur and Viktor's levels of applause.

Harry knew that that was probably due to the age gap between the other contestants and himself, and indeed a good portion of the hall's occupants sported confused looks. Even Gabrielle looked a little surprised, though she still smiled and clapped for him.

Standing up, Harry just smirked, knowing that he'd earned his place in the competition. After the near-disaster that was his first year, he'd spent the subsequent years training himself into the ground, knowing that the threat of Voldemort lingered, waiting to strike. It was his diligence that had birthed the competitive spirit he and his friends shared. While he probably couldn't sketch a ward as well as half the seventh years, or brew a potion as well as, well, almost anyone in his year, what he could do was beat the shit out of anyone in the hall, save for the teachers, and even then, only a couple would be able to handle him. His combat magic and physical training were impressive, regardless of his age, and the Potter scion knew that that was why he'd been chosen.

Walking with his head held high, Harry smiled at his twinkling headmaster and followed his pointed finger to the door he'd seen Fleur and Krum disappear behind.

Slamming the door open, Harry cried out, "Honey, I'm home!" to which the quidditch star just frown-grined and Fleur deadpanned, "Welcome home."

Smiling at his competition, Harry hummed, "Hmm, so, a French Veela, Bulgarian superstar, and British folk hero walk into a bar, eh?"

Krum grunted what was probably suppose to be a chuckle, but Fleur frowned at him, complaining, "Don't say 'veela' like that's the only extraordinary thing about me. I should immolate you for that."

"Don't be like that bird-brain," Harry teased back.

Five blue flames sparked to life on the tips of the scowling teen's fingers and Harry smirked, lifting his hands into a fighting stance even as the Bulgarian drew his wand.

"Contestants!" one of the tournament officials, a mister Bagman, if Harry remembered correctly, cried out jovially as he entered the room, stopping dead in his tracks at the scene before him.

"Fleur!" the too-tall French Headmistress scolded, her voice much softer than the incubus would've guessed. "What do you think you're doing?"

"What were they trying to do to you, Viktor?!" the scruffy looking Igor Karkaroff cried dramatically, drawing a deeper scowl from the teen, who'd looked happier a moment ago than Harry had ever seen him before (although since he'd been rather busy during the World Cup, he hadn't seen him catch the snitch, to be fair).

"Harry," Dumbledore said gravely, but his eyes twinkled all the same, and Harry knew the old man was more amused than anything.

The rest of the meeting, after the three powerful students stood down, went by smoothly, with the mismatched duo of upbeat Ludo Bagman and dour Bartemius Crouch Sr. taking turns reviewing the details of the tournament, and unhelpfully revealing that the first task would test their adaptive skills by being a complete mystery. They denied it when he brought it up, but Harry still had a suspicion that the tournament organizers simply hadn't thought of anything yet.

When there were no more question to be answered, the three champions were released for bed. Karkaroff led a surly Viktor Krum away, but Dumbledore and Headmistress Maxime had started a conversation, so Harry and Fleur were free to walk back on their own.

When they opened the door, they saw that the hall was deserted, almost a full two hours having passed while they were being given an overview of the tournament.

"It's later than I thought it was," Harry commented, strolling down the dining hall with his fingers interlocked behind his head. "I'm tired as hell."

Fleur looked at him in mild concern, asking, "'Ave you seen to your needs yet?"

Harry just smiled up at her and said, "Nah, but I'll be fine. I've got a date with one of my yearmates in a broom closet tomorrow morning. Romantic, eh?"

"Not really," Fleur replied dryly, although a hint of red was dusting her cheeks. The two of them reached the double doors of the hall, and she asked, "Where ees your Parva Dux? Gabby made eet seem that you usually had her near."

Harry patted his pocket lightly, answering, "Snoozing. Unlike me, she can sleep through class and not get in trouble. She's been out of it since last night."

"You really did that with one of your professors?" the French witch asked lowly, blushing a little more and looking around to double check that they were alone.

"Yeah," Harry said, looking at her oddly. Shaking his head fondly at her embarrassment, he explained, "It doesn't mean anything, you know? It's like…" he tried, searching for an appropriate euphemism for what he felt. Finding none, he bluntly said, "It's like having sex for money, but instead of that I do it to stay alive. I don't really mind!" he added empathetically when he saw the dawning horror his comparison had drawn from the veela. "I get to have sex with beautiful women all the time, and it's done great things for my ego," he joked. His smile grew slightly strained, something Fleur picked up on, as he added, "If I was an emotional kind of guy, it might bother me, but I'm not, and it usually doesn't."

"Usually?" Fleur repeated questioningly, looking at Harry softly. "Is that why you said you weren't going after Gabby?" she hazarded. When Harry looked up at her with wide eyes, she was quick to add, "I see ze way you act around 'er- eet's different zan you are wiz the ozzers."

The incubus did his best to look incredulous, hoping to make the veela doubt herself, but when she held her expression, he just sighed, letting the dark look he'd been holding back slip over his face.

"So what?" he asked bitterly. "Regardless of anything, I still have to fuck somebody I hardly know tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on."

'Until I find somebody to love me,' he added to himself. 'If that's even possible.'

"Harry," the older veela whispered, stepping forward to embrace the upset teen.

He preemptively moved back, however, leaving the blonde to frown, a little hurt.

"Don't," he said, looking at her fiercely. "There's nothing for it, anyway." Shaking his head, he took another step back, adding in a voice that was raised a little, "Besides, I'm happy this way- what teenage boy wouldn't be? I can sleep with anygirl I want!"

"But you can't really be with any of them, can you?" she asked softly.

Harry recoiled, and then scowled at her hatefully. His eyes were suspiciously bright.

Realizing her mistake, Fleur shook her head and gasped, "'Arry!" but he was already storming away, shooting one last painful look at her over his shoulder before he disappeared, using the same invisibility spell from before.

"Oh no," the French veela whispered to herself, distraught. "I shouldn't have said that."

"How was the party last night?" Susan bones asked, slowly sinking herself down onto Harry. "Mmm, that's nice."

Harry was sat on the ground, his school pants around his knees as he leaned back and let the Bones heiress set the pace, the broom closet they were in still a little dusty despite his spells.

"Fine," he answered without much emotion, closing his eyes and letting the redhead kiss his neck.

"Something wrong?" she asked, grinding her hips in a circle.

Harry sighed out pleasantly and denied, "No."

Sitting more upright on him, the Hufflepuff began bouncing lightly on his lap. Pulling her robe loose, she whispered, "Kiss my breasts."

"Okay," Harry agreed, leaning forward to latch onto her perky nipples, letting his incubus instincts run on autopilot.

The redhead hummed and sighed in appreciation, tossing her hair back as she sped up a little.

"I w-was surprised," she started again after a few minutes, her speech halting as she continued to bounce and grind on his entrenched member, "when your name came ou-out of the goblet. It's enchanted to choose the- the best, you know?"

"Hmm," Harry hummed noncommitedly, lightly scratching Susan's thighs and knees. "I guess."

The girl laughed a little and said, "You don't seem very impressed, Harry."

When he didn't respond, she slowed to a stop, lowered on his lap.

Leaning back, she looked at him and asked, "Is everything okay? Should I stop?"

"No!" he blurted out, and then, shaking his head, he more softly repeated, "No, I've just got some stuff on my mind. A bit of a headache, too." Grinding his hips up against her's, he smiled a little and encouraged, "Please, keep going."

Susan didn't look entirely convinced but refrained from pushing.

Leaning forward, she hugged the Gryffindor to her bared bosom and began again in earnest.

It wasn't long after that that the two teens came, filling the small dusty room with their moans.

Reaching down to kiss the boy's lips, Susan slowly stood up, extracting his softening member from her tender womanhood. Grabbing her wand, she tapped it to her belly, which glowed a soft blue at the contact.

"You don't have to do that," Harry informed her, pulling his pants back up. "I make sure to take care of that on my end prior."

"I figured so," she agreed, buttoning the top of her shirt back up, though not as high as she'd had it before. "Still," she said with a shrug, "better safe than sorry."

Standing up, Harry joked without thinking, "Don't want anymore Potter's running around, eh?"

He immediately tensed, his wide green eyes locked with Susan's more mundane brown. As the seconds ticked by, the incubus, rapidly filling with dread, opened his mouth to backpedal, but couldn't find his voice.

All at once the young witch smiled and seemed to relax, and before Harry knew what was happening, she'd reached out and snagged him by his red and gold striped tie. Reeling him in like a fish, Susan began kissing him passionately. When she released the blinking boy, she whispered teasingly, red in the face, "Not just yet," and fled from the closet, her hair still a little messy.

The incubus stared at the door, a blush slowly climbing up his neck as the seconds passed. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. Reaching his fingers up, the blinking boy touched his lips gently.

"Master?" Bell's tinkling voice called out from within his pocket. "Is the coast clear?"

Shaking his head clear and raising an eyebrow at the peeking blue head in good humor, Harry answered, "Well I sure hope so, otherwise I'd be in a bit of a jam right now, don't you think?"

Blushing at his implied chastisement, Bell nonetheless flew the rest of the way out of Harry's pocket. Buzzing in place a few feet from his face, the fairy spotted the happy crinkle in the corners of her master's eyes and asked, "Feeling better? You haven't gone that long without since you first came into your inheritance."

"Much," Harry nodded, only half to Bell's question.

"Still," the Smallguide began, a concerned frown crinkling her eyebrows lightly, "you should be careful using the same girls again too soon."

Harry felt his lips tug down at the word 'use' and his good mood evaporated.

"I-I don't mean it like that!" she was quick to insist, spotting the expression. "All I meant to say is, your magic probably won't be satisfied if you don't wait long enough before revisiting girls you've already been with, that's all." Shaking her head, Bell added, "I know how you feel about them."

"Yeah," Harry answered a little bitterly, thinking to himself, 'I doubt that, seeing as how I don't even know.'

Bell's face fell as she picked up the false tone in his voice.

Feeling bad for making her feel bad, Harry just sighed, tired of thinking about it.

"Forget it," he suggested, moving towards the door. When Bell slid into his pocket, he lightly patted her through the fabric of his robe and added, "I've just got a lot on my mind, is all."

"Okay," she agreed in a small voice, and Harry felt his face sour in self-disgust.

There wasn't a lot he could do though. Like he'd told Fleur, regardless of his feelings, he would have to continue as he had been, seducing and bedding one witch after the next. It had been easier when there'd been no one he wanted to date, but between his developing relationship with Gabby, and now Susan and her teasing comments, which he had no idea whether or not she'd really meant, Harry was quickly learning the downside to his creature heritage.

Opening the door and stepping out, Harry reluctantly thought about his future.

As far as he could see, there were only a few ways his life could go. In the best possible scenario, there would exist a girl, who loved and accepted him despite everything. They'd date as he saw to his needs as normal, and then when his Choosing came back around, he would opt for his other set of instincts and they would live happily ever after.

The Choiceling frowned at the thought as he began walking down the deserted hall.

While he'd still been away from school over the summer, Harry had been hopeful this would be the case. Now though, as time past by and the reality of the situation began to reveal itself, he was beginning to realize how unlikely that was to actually happen. The girl would either have to know about his daily activities and accept them, something that was obviously impossible, or he'd have to somehow keep it a secret, which would be equally dubious and almost guaranteed to blow up in his face horribly.

More likely, he would eventually stumble across a girl who found the idea of an open relationship exciting. It wasn't what he wanted, hypocritical as that made him sound, even in his own head, but Harry though he could make it work. In this situation, he would never get to choose his faithful, monogamous instincts, something he wanted to do very badly at some point in the future, but at least he wouldn't be alone.

Supposing he didn't meet such a girl, or that he did and they just didn't connect, Harry reluctantly acknowledged that there was a very real possibility that he would have to continue on as he was until he died, having sex with an endless list of women but never making love with a single one. The thought wasn't horrible, but he knew that if the Mirror of Erised was still in the castle, it would show him a small family, and not a long line of satisfied women.

'Women,' he thought to himself, heading towards the courtyard slowly, 'who would all go on to marry and have families, with regular guys who wouldn't have to cheat on them.'

It was a unattractive thought.

There were more possibilities than those three, of course. Perhaps there was a potion to trick his instincts into letting him stay celibate long enough to cultivate a meaningful romantic relationship. Maybe playing the role of the playboy uncle to whatever kids his friends eventually had would be enough for him. 'Or,' he thought with a grim smile, 'maybe Voldemort will render the point moot. Who knows?'

Quickly getting fed up with the useless train of thought, which he'd been going over in his head again and again since Fleur had seen through him last night, Harry felt his frustration and restlessness settle in his limbs.

Luckily for him he'd reached his destination, and just in time too.

"Allrighty then!" Ludo Bagman's overly cheery voice called out, reaching through the amassed throng of students in Hogwart's main courtyard easily, ringing in Harry's ears despite his being at the back. "As it is now exactly twelve noon, I shall begin the Dueling Tourney overview!"

Harry, after standing on a bench, was able to look over those who'd shown up. He guessed there to be almost a hundred students, most of them with the black robes of Hogwarts wrapped around their shoulders, although Beauxbaton's blue and Durmstrang's red clad students had shown up as well. Harry spotted his friends and Fleur near the front, looking around quizzically, probaby for him. After a quick headcount, Harry was reasonably sure that the entire Durmstrang conference was in attendance, with half of the French students there as well.

The young incubus all but tuned the ministry official out, catching the rules of, 'no permanent damage, no illegal spells, stop when you opponent yields, is incapacitated, or the mediator steps in, don't go out of the ring,' blah blah blah, all standard stuff Harry had already known.

"Come on," he whispered to himself.

"And so, because so many of you courageous young men and women have shown up to test yourselves today, we will be holding a series of preliminary matches now!" With his declaration, Harry tuned back in, taking note of the long line of white robed figures who'd stepped forward from behind Mr. Bagman.

'Hitwizards,' Harry realized with some surprise.

There were five of them, two women and three men, all with at least one black band wrapped around the top of their robes, a denotation of the number of targets they'd brought in.

'Or brought down,' the young incubus realized, his eyes fixed on one witch in particular who looked like an old timey cartoon villain, striped in black and white as she was.

Perhaps sensing his gaze on her, the woman turned away from her eyepatched colleague who she'd been listening to, training white-blue eyes on him from across the courtyard.

A shiver went down Harry's spine as the hitwizard frowned at him suspiciously. He knew he shouldn't, but the incubus was simply too frustrated and restless to smother the dangerous, toothy grin that pulled at his face.

This was a woman he wanted; to fight and to fuck.

Her eyes widened at his unexpected expression, but a moment later she returned the look.

Her teeth were black as pitch, and pointed, every one of them.

'Vampiress,' he thought to himself, surprised.

The urge grew.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, perhaps, Harry was broken from the impromptu staring contest by the shifting student body. Regretting his inattentiveness, the wizard was forced to bully a fifth year Hufflepuff into repeating Bagman's instructions. Apparently they were to step forward and draw a number, which would determine who they would face as the number of contestants was whittled down to the final eight. Those eight would then compete in a single elimination tournament, which would be held in a more public setting at a later date.

With a hundred students in attendance Harry realized that the preliminary matches would take the better part of the day, even if they went five at a time, as he assumed they would judging by the number of hitwizards that had been brought in.

Shuffling forward with the crowd, Harry eventually made it to the front, drawing '69' from the basket, something he rolled his eyes at.

"Harry!" he heard from behind, recognizing Hermione's voice over the dull roar that saturated the large, square courtyard.

"Yo," he greeted with a small smile, his previous woes seemingly diminished just by the presence of his friends. "Fancy meeting you guys here."

From behind the witch, Ron and his sister snorted at the joke, but Fleur, who had latched onto their little group rather quickly, just kind of hovered awkwardly.

Harry wasn't sure what to say to her, but he did find the sight of such a magnificently beautiful girl shifting from foot to foot to be a little funny looking.

His anger at her faded a smidge.

"Where's the rest of the gang?" Harry asked, not spotting Neville, Luna, or Gabby.

"Waiting for us over there, saving seats," answered Ginny, nodding her ginger head towards the far end of the courtyard.

Following her nod, Harry caught sight of the courtyard's newest addition, a set of metal bleachers, tall and large enough to accommodate the competitors while they waited as well as those who'd shown up to watch the spectacle, of whom there were plenty.

"That's a lot of spectators," Harry noted.

"No shit," Ron answered, shooting his dark haired friend a grin. "Some Mortal Kombat shit is about to go down here mate, where else would everyone be?"

"How do you even know what that is?" Hermione asked incredulously.

Ron was too busy judo chopping the air to answer her.

"What numbers did you guys pull?" Harry asked, steering the group towards the rest of their friends.

"Six," Ron boasted, waving the square parchment with a big black 6 painted on it. "That means I'll be one of the first up there."

"Forty three," Hermione answered. When Harry looked at her a little confused, she explained, "I'm pretty sure the numbers were randomized."

That made sense, Harry figured.

"I drew ze number ninety nine," Fleur added, a little hesitantly. A trying smile from Harry seemed to relax her a little, and she added more steadily, "Eet seems zat you are correct, 'Ermione."

"Now you've done it," Ron groused dramatically, receiving Hermione's signature elbow to his ribs.

"I'll take pleasure turning you into a frog in the finals, Ronald," the witch said dangerously.

"As long as a kiss can turn me back," the redhead hedged teasingly.

"Again with the references," Hermione noted. When Ron slowly lowered his guard, she dug her elbow into his ribs again.

Ignoring his cries of "Sabotage!" Harry and the rest of the group began climbing the steps of the bleachers, eventually reaching the rest of their friends near the top.

"Hey guys," Harry greeted, sliding in between Luna and Gabrielle a little closer to the middle.

They greeted him back and everybody sat down, including Ron, who seemed to have already forgotten that he was about to be called down.

The hitwizards seemed to be warding off the courtyard into five sections, so Harry figured his red headed friend had made the right call to have a seat after all.

"Hullo Harry," Luna quietly greeted, leaning in against his shoulder as he settled down on the bench.

Smiling at the willowy girl, Harry murmured back a, "Hullo," of his own, making the girl's eyes crinkle as she smiled at him.

When she turned to look back at the hitwizards, who seemed to almost be done with their preparations judging by the five impressive blue-tinted rectangular prisms that divided the courtyard, Harry turned away too, towards Gabrielle.

She was in her Beauxbatons uniform, sans hat, and he thought that the light blue suited her. Despite his recent musings, the incubus felt his stomach flip as his gaze met her's.

A moment that quickly grew strained passed where both teens waited for the other to speak first, but as neither did for progressively more time they ended up just sitting there, staring at each other. Harry opened his mouth to rid them of the awkwardness, but then stopped when she did too at the same time.

They both closed their mouths to let the other speak.

Harry felt his face warm in embarrassment, even as Gabrielle's cheeks reddened and she asked, "Do you have something to say or not?" Obviously turning her own embarrassment outward, she added, "You've been staring at me for like three minutes."

"I have not," he denied, looking away.

The young wizard could feel her stare on his face, but he refrained from looking back at her.

Gabrielle huffed and looked away.

Down in the courtyard, the hitwizards seemed to have finished the last of their preparations, leaving five translucent blue rectangular prisms to divide the large courtyard into what Harry thought must be dueling zones.

Ludo Bagman began calling for contestants one through ten to head down, and Harry put the exchange with Gabby out of his head. Grinning as Ron swaggered his way down the bleachers, cocky grin firmly planted on his freckled face, Harry wrapped a companionable arm around Luna's narrow shoulders and leaned back, eager for the matches to start.

"Your friend seems very confident in himself," Gabrielle commented, not turning to Harry as she did.

Said Choiceling lifted his chin in pride, admitting, "He has reason to be. Me, 'Mione, and that freckled fuck have been beating the crap out of each other for years now trying to get better at fighting." Grinning at her incredulous expression, and in victory at having made her look back at him, Harry elaborated while one through ten were directed to their respective rings. "He'll be more impressive once we're in the final eight where there aren't any restrictions, but even playing by the preliminary's rules, well… Just watch."

And so she did, turning her blonde head back towards the paired students below. There were six Hogwarts students, three Durmstrang boys, and a French girl. There were no duels set up where two foreign students would fight, each instead faced against one of the black robed English students. Ron too was paired against one of his countrymen- a seventh year Ravenclaw with dark hair who looked far too pleased with his apparent luck.

For his part, Ron was simply bouncing on his toes, grinning as he forced his blood to circulate faster.

With a loud bang from the tip of Bagman's wand, five duels began.

Gabrielle watched with wide eyes as four of the five duels began with the expected trading of spells, some of which were more impressive than others. In the second to farthest ring however, a different type of match began.

Ron's Ravenclaw opponent started with a standard disarming spell, a textbook opening move that was fast, great for probing, and would end the match immediately if it landed.

The somewhat gangly redhead snared the blue orb out of the air with his willow wand and flicked it back. To the young veela's surprise and puzzlement, the parried spell flew back at it's creator with all the haste of a slug.

"I've never seen that before," the French witch admitted. "But I don't really see the point either." Looking at Harry and then back, she added, "At zat speed eet seems eet would be simple to dodge, no?"

On the field, Ron had cast a weak-looking shield charm, which his opponent tried to take advantage of with a hastily shouted shield breaker. To his obviously mounting frustration, the redhead simply dropped his defensive spell and flicked that back at him too.

"Mmm," Harry hummed back affirmatively. "But look."

There were five spells floating between Ron and his dark haired schoolmate now, three of which were the same blue as the first disarming spell, with a cherry red stunner and the shield breaking spell floating lazily back at their caster as well, a few feet of space between the spells. The senior student had stopped casting, realizing how ineffective his spells were proving. On top of that, his deflected magic was slowly getting closer, and couldn't be ignored for much longer. If Harry had to guess, the Ravenclaw's plan probably went something like, 'wait, block the spells, try something new.'

"Bad idea," Harry commented, leaning towards Gabby a little as the Ravenclaw threw up a very solid looking shield spell, protego, he noted absently. "Watch this."

Grinning triumphantly, Ron cast a spell he and Harry had designed together, fatistulti, which took the form of a fluorescent green net that launched from his wand.

The web-like curse flew into and caught the five slow, suspended spells in it's path, maintaining it's blistering speed as it did so.

With how solid his protego charm looked, Harry supposed that the older student may have even weathered the surprise assault, had his shield breaker not been a part of the tangled mess. As it was, however…

The multicolored net slammed into the flat-footed seventh year with all the force of a rhino, sending him flying back violently. Luckily for the unconscious teen, the hitwizard's erected wards were padded with at least some cushioning charms, and he was left to flop mostly harmlessly to the ground.

There was wild cheering throughout the bleachers at the redhead's victory, partially because theirs was the last duel to finish and partially because of the spectacular way in which it ended.

"Wow," Gabby breathed, blinking at the grinning ginger's downed opponent, who was being sent to the hastily erected medical tent off to the side. "Zat was eempressive. Where did 'e learn to duel like zat?"

Harry just shook his head and said, "That overly strategic crap he does is all his. We've all kind of etched out our own little styles over the last few years."

Ron was climbing back up the bleachers while the next ten were summoned down to the courtyard for their matches.

Gabrielle turned back to Harry and asked, quietly, "Is that how you were able to take down those… those two?"

Harry grit his teeth at the thought. No matter how caught up he got in his own personal dilemmas, the more serious troubles that bubbled up all around were never too far from the orphan's mind. There was a reason he and his two pseudo-siblings had been training themselves so harshly.

Gabrielle's face betrayed none of her thoughts on her narrowly avoided nightmare, and Harry felt a little awed by her composure. Reaching out slowly, he captured her petite hand within his own, squeezing for comfort.

"It helped," he admitted. "But even if I were a muggle I still would have went after them- with rocks and sticks if I had to, to protect you."

Her whole face, which seemed to be set in a somewhat standoffish scowl most of the time, softened, and she turned away to smile at her feet.

Even once Ron had made his way back up and received everybody's congratulations, the teenaged veela left her hand in Harry's.

The next couple sets of bouts went by quickly enough. There was a general buzz of excitement hanging over the gathering, but two matches in particular had drawn Harry's attention.

Viktor Krum's match had not been especially interesting in and of itself, but the knowledge that the Bulgarian quidditch star favored a quick and brutal dueling methodology could prove invaluable in the future. The stocky teen had proven the style's effectiveness well enough by putting his Hogwarts opponent down within the first few seconds of their bout.

Of greater interest to the spectating incubus was the match between contestants number 39 and 40. A Slytherin seventh year and a crooked nosed Durmstrang boy, neither of the two possessed noteworthy skill or power. It was their mediator that interested Harry, as the teens had drawn the black and white striped vampiress as their judge. Perhaps forgetting himself or perhaps simply hoping it would fly under the radar, the Slytherin, in stereotypical fashion, had let loose with a foamy grey spell that Harry recognized as a not-quite-legal flesh parter, which was subtly different than a cutting curse. The vampiress had levitated one of the square stones that made up the courtyard in an instant, blocking the spell and saving the foreign student a prolonged stay in Saint Mungo's. The moment the Slytherin's spell had been stopped, the ice eyed hitwizard stunned and bound him, an affronted look about her like she'd taken personal offense to his foolish gamble.

Harry had barely seen her wand come out, and the stunner she'd sent had been pointed like a dart rather than shaped in typical orb fashion. It, too, had been extremely fast.

After that round of duels, it was Hermione's turn to head down. Harry only offered the witch a knowing smirk and nod, to which she sniffed and turned away grinning, but Ron's cheering was rambunctious enough for both of them.

"'Ermione seems as zough she would be quite good at zis," Gabrielle commented. Fleur, just to her sister's side, looked over and nodded in agreement.

"Does she?" Harry asked, looking down at his female friend. "I mean, she's an absolute monster to fight, but I always thought it was an ironic fact, since she kind of carries herself like a bitch."

"'Arry!" Gabrielle scolded, aghast.

"Hey!" he defended, shaking his head. "It's not that she is a bitch, Hermione's like the nicest person I know once she opens up. I just meant that she goes to great lengths trying to act properly most of the time. But she strikes the two of you as a good duelist, huh?"

When the still frowning veela dipped their chins in agreement, Harry just hummed and added, "I suppose her bouts of nerd-induced mania are a little telling…"

Back in the courtyard, oblivious to the conversation going on about her, Hermione was flipping her wand between her fingers rapidly, the soft thunking sound it made as the vine wood connected with her feminine digits rhythmic and unnerving.

Her opponent was a fit looking Beauxbatons boy, who was alternating between shooting her flirty smiles and her wand uneasy looks as they both waited for the rest of 41 through 50 to get into position.

Back in the stands, Harry watched on as the final two students stood opposite one another, already shaking his head as Hermione's wand continued to dance between her fingers back and forth.

As a passerby, the girl's numerous mannerisms would probably be overlooked completely, but Harry was closer to the girl than anybody, and knew that her old, over-excited nervousness from when they were little lived on in the girl, manifesting as a number of tics that told of the otherwise composed teen's inner energy. Hermione didn't burst at the seams with the desire to share her impressive wealth of knowledge anymore, and neither did she chatter on endlessly about the finer intricacies as she used to. She did, however, tap her fingers on desks, nibble on the tips of her quills, chew gum, and roll her wand between her fingers at every opportunity. The same energy from before lived on, but with two friends who would listen to her whenever she did want to talk about her interests, Hermione no longer felt the need to do so nearly as much.

Her obsession with dangerous, mysterious, and complex magics, however, was a growing apect of her personality that Harry and Ron were still learning to handle.

Caught up in his thoughts, Harry almost missed it when the matches below began. Focusing on his friend, the incubus watched on as she began her trademark dueling style.

A thin river of spells were flowing from the blurred tip of her vine wand, and with the witch's mouth closed as it was, her opponent was forced to guess what the spells were as they washed into him. The French boy managed to dodge the first two, but raised a shield against the trailing lights when it became obvious he wouldn't be able to avoid the rest of her barrage. Without knowing it was headed his way, the Beauxbaton's wizard was completely unprepared for the shield breaker Hermione wove into her rainbow colored stream. His silver dome collapsed on itself and the boy was left to crumble beneath the tail end of her combination attack, taking three school yard jinxes and a pair of stunners that left him out cold, blindfolded, gagged, and furiously picking his nose despite himself.

The whole 'duel' took less than twenty seconds, and from Hermione's frown was less exciting that she'd been hoping for.

"I 'ave never seen anyone cast as fast as 'er before!" Gabrielle exclaimed, leaning forward in awe. "Zat was amazing!"

"She's a real force of nature," Harry agreed. What was really impressive was that she could almost manage the same river of spells with nothing but dangerous combat magics. Even just using the harmless, easy to cast jinxes and hexes as she was though, Hermione was more than capable in a fight.

The rest of the fights ended and Hermione ascended the bleachers hastlessly, a cool expression on her face.

When she walked by to sit down, Harry pinched her butt.

Watching the 50's duke it out with a red handprint on his cheek, bruised ribs, and a large smile, Harry bounced his leg and waited for his turn to come. The constant fights were exciting, and contestants 52 and 53 were going at it like animals, the first pair of gifted students to be matched against one another. As impressively powerful magic continued to fly, Harry felt his heart speed up as adrenaline entered his bloodstream.

Lightly teasing at Luna's arm through the fabric of her robe, drawing a shiver from the girl who continued to watch the matches as though she hadn't noticed, Harry practically leapt from his seat as one of the two skilled contestants, the Beaubaxton's girl, finally took down her Durmstrang opponent in a tricky triple feint.

Not looking back at his friends for support, Harry was already sliding down the bleacher's metal railing on his bum when Ludo Bagman called for 61 through 70 to start heading down.

Reaching the far slice of converted courtyard early, Harry found himself walking towards his duel's prison striped mediator without really intending to.

"You're over there," the dark haired vampiress informed him, jutting a long nailed thumb over her shoulder.

"Mmm," Harry hummed in agreement. "In a sec. I was hoping I could speak with you, actually."

"Oh?" the vampiress asked imperiously, although a flickering at the corners of her lips betrayed her.

And, well, Harry was an incubus, and an especially good one at that, so…

Adopting an equally snobbish tone, that was far more obvious in it's falseness, Harry peered down his nose at the tall vampiress, which looked silly, and said, "I just wanted to let you know that you have extremely beautiful eyes."

Dropping the look, Harry smiled at the bemused looking hitwizard, or was it hitwitch?

'Hmm…'

"Is that so?" she asked with a smile, flicking her hair back. "Cute little incubus, ain'tcha?"

Not even a little surprised, Harry just grinned sheepishly.

"You caught me," he laughed, smiling at the exotic beauty. Stepping forward, he leaned in close and warned mischeviously, "I'll be nice and warn you- your tight ass is marked. Make yourself scarce after the preliminaries, or else."

Flashing her coal colored fangs, the hitwhatever purred, "Make it through the preliminaries," while running a hand that was hidden from the spectators up Harry's chest,"and when you come to visit, maybe I won't leave you drained in every way."

Grinning toothily, Harry just nodded. Seeing that his opponent was finally almost in position, the incubus headed off as well, stopping at the far corner of the warded courtyard.

His opponent was a very boring looking Hogwarts seventh year, and had he been without the black and yellow tie denoting him as part of Hufflepuff House, Harry would never have been able to place him. Etching a painfully bored looking bow, the boy trained his plain eyes on Harry as he reciprocated the action.

"Duel!" the vampiress mediator barked harshly, signaling the start of their match.

Ducking low on instinct, Harry managed to avoid the brunt of a pig sized electrical frog's leap, his hair standing up a little as the violently buzzing construct whizzed by in a flash of white-blue. Impressed and surprised at the advanced magic, Harry still didn't allow himself to hesitate- sweeping his wand in the ribbiting conjuration's direction, skewering it with earthy spikes.

Turning back, Harry caught sight of his opponent's lack of a reaction to his loss. Casting a modified stunner that flew from his wand in a scatter like buckshot, Harry found himself impressed again when his nameless opponent summoned a square sheet of rock from the ground, effectively blocking his attack in a single move.

However, admirable though the Hufflepuff's skills were, Harry had much more experience in magical fights like this, and recognized the opportunity he'd been given, seizing it and casting a whispered spell on his hand while his opponent's line of sight was still obstructed.

Sprinting full tilt at the boy, who was visible once more, Harry parried a slick trio of notoriously quick jinxes that would have had him doubled over laughing had they hit.

"Incendio," the plain-faced boy murmured, speaking for the first time.

A rolling wave of orange splashed out and into the edges of the fight box, spilling down the mostly transparent hallway towards Harry like liquid.

Grinning at the bold tactic, Harry sped up, waiting till he was all but within the inferno to dispel it with a wave of his wand, parting the flames up the sides of the ring like some biblical figure.

A man sized glob of something grey and sticky looking flew down the parted flames at Harry, but by then he was close enough and it was already too late.

Vanishing the gummy blob out of the air, Harry raised the hand he'd cast his spell on earlier towards the boy.

Ron had freaked the fuck out when Harry had first shown off his telekinesis spell, which was more of a jury-rigged enchantment-charm hybrid that had to be burned onto the skin every time, but had since gone on to proclaim it, "The Coolest Shit Ever," which he only did with half of the things he found neat. Different on a fundamental level from the similar looking summoning and banishing spells, Harry's telekinesis allowed complete manipulation of an object, not just in any three dimensional direction, but multiple directions at the same time.

When a thirteen year old Harry Potter had demonstrated this point by removing all the skin from an apple in a single instant, Ron and Hermione both had been quick to imagine progressively more gory (in Ron's case) and complicated (in Hermione's) applications for the spell.

He'd shared the specifics of it's use and theory with his friends, as they all did with all of their breakthroughs, but so far neither of them could manage much more than making a feather fly, and only within a range so small it was pointless.

Harry commanded a much longer range and could control the spell correctly from upwards of ten meters away, and while he didn't do to the skilled, plain-faced boy what he'd done to the apple, Harry did fold him.

Now doing a commendable impression of a pretzel, the seventh year Hufflepuff, whose face had finally adopted an expression other than boredom (confused boredom, now) had little in the way of options for defending himself, and so was stunned by Harry somewhat anticlimactically, ending their intense fight.

"What did you think of that, princess?" Harry asked, wheeling around to face his fight's icy eyed referee amidst thunderous applause.

The vampiress yawned mightily, rubbing at her eye as her black teeth shined in the midday light.

"Very impressive," she said in a way that made it clear she meant the opposite.

Grinning toothily at her, Harry utilized his rapidly fading telekinesis to remotely squeeze the vampiress' bum, elicting a very girly squeak from the suddenly blushing blood-sucker. The woman, literally dressed in a uniform that kept a visual tally of the dangerous criminals she'd defeated, glared murderously at Harry's grinning, backpedaling form.

Turning around and jogging the rest of the way back to the bleachers, Harry shook his head.

'Live in the now,' he told himself. Fresh off a well fought win, with possible opportunities for funny business cropping up all around and his gaggle of cheering friends dead ahead, Harry found himself in a wonderful mood. 'You're too lucky a bastard to mope about the future, old boy.'

He believed it too, for the most part.

Gabrielle's smiling face still made him pause.

Spending the rest of the day smiling, tucked between Gabby, whom he whispered with half the time, and Luna, who he teased progressively more and more, Harry watched with his friends as the rest of the contestants dueled.

Fleur's match was uninteresting, with the veela simply stunning her slower opponent easily. The lingering bitterness Harry was trying to ignore and forget dampened him enjoyment of her 'duel' even more. He was trying to let go of his negative feelings, and the beautiful girl was so apologetic and kind that he was making serious headway in that department, but it had literally been less than a day, so some of the hurt naturally lingered.

Ginny, who had done well in her first match, ended up having to face her brother in the second set, who managed to trick her into stepping right into a spell he'd managed to make fall on her, interestingly enough. She was briefly mad at her loss, but got over it quickly enough as well, and still stayed with the rest of them to cheer everybody on.

Almost all of the subsequent matches were boring, with school yard jinxes, stunners, and disarming spells making up the majority of the students' repertoire. No more especially skilled students bumped into one another, somehow.

The following preliminary sets went by with an equal lack of fanfare until the desired eight contestants remained. Harry and his best friends, along with Fleur and Viktor Krum, plus two Durmstrang boys and the skilled Beauxbaton's girl from earlier made up the 1994 Dueling Tourney's top eight.

As had been explained to them all previously, the matches they would fight between themselves would take place at a later date and a more public venue. The match-ups would be randomly drawn at that point in time, but until then they were instructed to train hard and prepare. The finals would be a no-holds barred (save for the ever forbidden unforgivables) single elimination tourney for the grand prize of 800 Galleons.

Hermione had commented that the victory would be more valuable on a resume, but Ron had been too busy listing off all the features his private island would have to listen (naked women serving a twenty-four hour buffet while he oversaw the Chudley Cannon's training were a few of the teen's tamer plans).

That had earned the ginger boy some elbows.

All in all, Harry thought it had been a pretty good day, despite the ups and downs he was working through. He hadn't been able to track down the vampiress after all, whether she'd heeded his warning or simply held a grudge for his butt-pinching, Harry wasn't sure or too concerned.

He and his friends had all made it to the top eight in the tourney, Susan had hinted at a romantic interest in him, he and Fleur were slowly mending their fledgling friendship, and no less than four butts had been pinched (he had taken a riled-up Luna into an abandoned classroom for some heavy petting after dinner and nipped a jumpy Aurora on his way to bed).

Gabby… Out of everything he did that day, just sitting and talking to the little veela in the bleachers had been the most fun- he'd even missed his name on the third set of the preliminaries because he'd been too caught up in a story she was telling about her love of fruit.

Harry still felt uneasy about his future, but when he hit the pillows on his four-poster and finally fell asleep, he did so with a soft smile on his face.