"I'm fine, mum! Stop embarrassing me!" He whined.
"There's a Swedish Short-Snout, a Chinese Fireball, and a Hungarian Horntail. Who gets who will be random."
"Okay. And if I were to hypothetically cast a spell on one of those dragons, the stomach would be the weakest point of their hide?"
"Yeah, you would hypothetically want to aim between the two creases in the armor right under its wings. Or its eyes or mouth." Charlie whispered. "Er, you know dragons are very resistant to magic, right?"
"I'll be fine!" Harry grinned. Charlie looked doubtful for a second, then remembered all the rumors the Weasleys had about Harry. Lovingly spoken rumors, but uh, violent ones all the same. Harry's grin was disconcerting; if any wizard had the magic to overpower a dragon, it might be this little weirdo.
"I do not doubt that, my friend." He said, suddenly worried about the safety of his dragons.
There was cheering from the Gryffindors scattered about their area that brought their focus back to the front and they joined in some belated applause. Hermione's team was beaming as they accepted their winning trophies. Harry clapped in earnest and stood, letting out a loud yell of excitement.
Dumbledore announced an hour's break between the events for lunch, which was much more interesting than academics, and received another bout of cheering. Hermione made her way over to the group.
She was swept into a hug from her parents.
"Great job, Hermione. It was really impressive." Harry said.
"The question about the quizzlerfluffs almost got me, that was a NEWT level question," Hermione said. "I'm really shocked we won." She looked very pleased everyone had come by to watch her, and thrilled at the surprise visit from her parents. Lunch was a loud affair.
Ron was not enjoying himself though. His eyes darted across the room like he was considering jumping out the windows to flee. Harry couldn't tell if the presence of his family made things more or less difficult for the boy.
"Dueling contestants! This way please!" McGonagall called at the end of the break. Harry grabbed Ron's shoulders and shook him.
"You will be fine! Focus. Pretend the guy is another Death Eater. Breathe, Ron!"
Ron made an odd sound like he'd swallowed the air instead and gave Harry a final, desperate look as he was pulled away to wait with the others.
"Today will be the first round of eliminations, the contestants who win their round will move on to the next competition, two months from now. Contestants, when I call your name, please step up to the platform! A reminder that use of a prohibited spell is an immediate disqualification!"
Of course, with Ron being a Weasley, he was one of the last to compete, which was surely hell for him as he was forced to wait and sit with his nerves.
Most of the duels were entirely pitiful. There was a safety shield set up around the dueling stage which had been an excellent idea because only about one in five people were good enough to land a hit. It did not help that the fights were arranged such that there were a lot of uneven matches, picked by year and alphabetically by last name. Some students got unlucky and faced someone far out of their league, ending the duel with only one or two spells fired. The only people who were on the edge of their seats in awe were the Grangers. It was not as boring as the academics, but it was close enough for Harry to be yawning throughout.
Malfoy did a passable job against Cormac McLaggan. Both were very hot-headed individuals, so they fired strong blasts of stupify at each other. It wasn't creative, but it was at least interesting. Malfoy was lighter on his feet and was able to dodge McLaggan's spellfire, whereas McLaggan was rather trollish in his brawny ability to stand still as a mountain and block everything with a shield. It wasn't a strong shield, but it didn't look like Malfoy had the raw power needed to blast through it. Malfoy finally got him with a disarming jinx, but before the whistle was called, McLaggan tore his way down the stage and dragged Malfoy into a tackle. It was now a fistfight, and poor Malfoy had the disadvantage. He yelped like a scared puppy as meaty fists barreled into his stomach, knocking all the air from his lungs.
"Boys! Boys! That is enough! The match is over! Boys!"
The next interesting match was signaled by McGonagall's long, suffering sigh as she stared at the list before her.
"Fred Weasley, George Weasley," she said deadpan. Excited murmuring drifted across the crowd.
The twins waved to their adoring crowd and gave the other a deep bow. But neither drew their wand after the whistle blew. They stared at each other, terrifying grins affixed to their faces. The crowd waited in tense silence.
One of the twins reached his hand inside his pocket and threw something on the ground, fast as lightning. The bottle smashed and exploded into thick, black smoke, obscuring the view of the duel.
Spellfire tore through the dense fog.
"Is that what they were brewing in the back of my class?" Alabasandria complained mildly.
Arthur looked so proud he might faint, clapping with delight despite not being able to see what was happening.
When the smoke dissipated, Harry was fairly certain the two opponents had switched sides of the platform, but neither looked like they had been hit. Another volley of spellfire began, and they moved at an impressive speed. One would start an incantation and the other would begin the counter before the first had finished and then the other would start a shield before they were finished muttering the counter.
They were completely in sync. When one retreated, the other stepped forward, and they remained locked in intense eye contact throughout the duration. It felt as though most of the fight was occurring inside their heads. Planning a move, preemptively anticipating the other's response, and adjusting for it before uttering a single spell.
As beaters, they had excellent hand-eye coordination and danced around the stage, parrying the spells with a physical block from bouncing the spell off the broadside of the other's wand.
Just as quickly as the shots had begun, they stopped without cue and began to circle each other again. Then they began to empty their pockets, chugging items at the other. A chicken, a mouse trap that chased them around and bit at their toes, small colored bits of rocks - Harry wasn't sure what those were about until one of them landed on a twin, and he screamed in anguish as his face began to swell immensely. He slurred out a spell but it failed through his puffed up cheeks. Enemy disabled, the other twin disarmed him and won.
"Which one was that?" Harry asked.
"Fred, I think."
"George, pretty sure."
"Er, the winner is - this one?!" The referee raised the arm of the healthy Weasley. "Which one are you?"
"I'm not sure," that one said.
"For the love of - pick one, Mr. Weasley!" McGonagall ordered.
"Alright, Fred then, I think."
The twins, freshly de-swollen, joined their group as the stage was cleared of their prank items.
"Excellent job you two, that was really impressive," Charlie said.
"Yeah, I didn't realize you could use the candies in a fight like that!" Ginny said.
Arthur pulled them both into a hug and gave them a proud grin. Molly looked a bit stunned but congratulated them regardless. The twins preened at the compliments.
"Ronald Weasley, Blaise Zabini," McGonagall announced next.
"Harry, wanna bet on how quickly Ron beats his ass," Fred asked.
"Alright, I got a galleon with Nev he beats him in under a minute."
"Hmm. Five galleons if he beats him in under a minute and spends a good half of that minute showing off." Harry thought those were rather poor odds and Fred was just trying to swindle him of his money but agreed.
Zabini, whom Harry did not know much about, except that he was a Slytherin, and thus probably an asshole, did a lap of the stage and waved to the ecstatic Slytherins. Ron jumped into his spot and gave their group a fishlike look as though he was holding in vomit or about to faint. To cheer him up, the Weasley horde cheered ferociously, including some unique, obscene suggestions from the brothers.
"C'mon Ron!" Harry muttered.
"Blast his dick off! Grind his bones into dust, Ron!" The Weasley children shouted to Molly's horror. She did not have enough hands to silence all of them.
"This is a professional tournament, could the audience please settle down," the referee complained. "On your marks, gentlemen. Ready, set, go!" He blew the whistle and Zabini shouted the disarming jinx immediately. Ron didn't even move, it flew several feet to his right. Zabini fired again and again. Ron dodged them all, moving out of the way with precision, and was only required to conjure a shield once.
Zabini panted with exertion. He'd fired off a dozen spells and Ron had countered with nothing. He raised his wand to try something new and in that moment, Ron lept at the opening.
"Expelliarmus, stupify, petrificus totalus!"
....
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