Chapter 22

The wind whistled harshly in Harry's ears, the wide, flat expanse of the quidditch field acting like a funnel for the cool spring air. He turned in a slow 360. It never ceased to amaze him just how much grander the pitch looked from the ground. He'd been here before, of course, for practice, but the writhing masses in the stands above heightened his feeling of being dwarfed tenfold. The throngs of spectators stuffing the looming grandstands were specks from down here; thousands of little screaming sprinkles that had come from lands near and far to see the crème de le creme battle it out on this cool spring day.

'Gotten your galleon's worth yet?' Harry thought, glancing at the dark tunnels that quartered the pitch, leading from the field to the inner bowels of the stadium. A medical station of sorts was hidden there, beneath the spectators, so close by necessity. It was a good thing, too. Except for Victor Krum, every other contestant who'd lost had needed that quick medical attention. Some of the students who'd lost were still being treated, almost an hour later. Only banning the unforgivables effectively meant that there weren't any rules at all, since nobody'd actually use one of those curses in front of so many people anyway, and that lack of restrictions meant that the fights so far had seen many nasty bits of magic flying every which way. He too was guilty of casting some less-than friendly curses at his previous opponent, the Beauxbatons girl who'd show her skill in the preliminaries. Their fight had been the first of the tournament, and he'd won after finally catching her with a finger-breaking curse he'd hidden in another spell's shadow. A pair of the standby healers had had to help the poor girl off the field, but her shattered thumbs-up told him she'd be okay. The crowd had loved that, and so had he. They'd be meeting again at some point in the coming days, no question about it. He'd make it up to her then.

Right now, though, he had more important things to focus on: his match with Hermione was about to start, and his old plan to beat her if they met had been thrown out the window. Destroying his friend with an overwhelming telekinetic assault had seemed the best way to walk away from their fight the victor, but there was a problem.

She was the one who'd been matched up against Krum in the first round of the single elimination tournament, and he'd been just as shocked as the Bulgarian to discover her ace. She'd been visibly upset upon having to reveal it so early, but Krum had been the real deal, and his brutal, in-your-face style had forced her hand.

A clone. The girl had managed to somehow flip one of conjuration's fundamental contentions on its head, and create an honest to God clone of herself. It hadn't seemed she'd been able to conjure more than the one copy, luckily enough. He could only guess at how sophisticated and accurate to herself they really were, but one thing was made crystal clear almost immediately after the second Hermione had appeared on the field: it could cast, and not just that, it could cast just as fast as she could. Krum hadn't stood a chance against her two pronged assault, and had fallen to a flawless pincer maneuver shortly thereafter.

Which brought Harry back to the present moment. His telekinesis was strong, but it wasn't horribly versatile, just yet. He was getting better at multitasking with his signature spell, but was still years away from being able to fight two entirely separate battles at once. Hermione's clone had simply dissolved when her fight had ended, so he wouldn't have to hold back against it, but if she really wanted to win, all she'd have to do is block his vision for a moment. If he didn't know which Hermione was the clone, he'd be forced to pull his punches and treat them both like they were the real witch. She'd do it too, he knew. It was part of what made her so formidable: she held 'fair fights' in famously low esteem.

Regardless of whether she did or didn't use his decency against him, Harry would still be forced to fight against two Hermione Grangers, which was a big enough problem on its own, one that he didn't have an answer to. Her river of spells style was almost unbeatable in a fair match up, which was why he'd been hoping to crush her the instant "Go!" was called. With the odds stacked further in her favor, Harry was going to have to improvise if he wanted to win.

'I may even have to use that,' he thought, standing still in the blowing wind. There was a white circle around his feet, painted directly on the grass, which marked his starting position. Hermione was walking hastlessly towards her own circle, some twenty yards away. In his mind, avoiding Ron and Hermione until the final fight would have been preferable. Whether he should or not, he felt confident in his ability to handle Fleur, who'd also made it to the final four, without employing the ace up his sleeve. 'It won't do any good saving it if I lose here,' he told himself, steeling his resolve.

Hermione reached her painted circle and stood in it, apparently bored with him and everything else as well.

Harry grit his teeth. He had a monstrously skilled and intelligent opponent right in front of him: focusing on the final fight here would only lose him this one. The referee, a new one, who hadn't proctored the preliminary matches, was only now stepping on the field. Judging by the hitwizard's sluggish pace, they still had a few minutes to kill.

"Doin alright?" he asked. Honestly, the referee could take all the time in the world getting into position, as far as Harry was concerned. Maybe he'd figure out a way to counter Hermione's technique by the time the lazy guy was ready to call go.

"Not bad," Hermione answered, the beginnings of a smug grin teasing at the corners of her lips. "Thinking about Ginny and this prize money I'm about to win us. Trying to decide whether to buy that nice set of enchanted bedroom kit or put the galleons away for the future. I like to think I'm the kind of gal who'd invest a sudden fortune, but goodness, Harry, you haven't lived until you've seen Ginny bound and gagged. She's a doll in latex and leather. Oh, we really need to get together again, the four of us- it's been too long."

Harry snorted. She was trying to distract him. "It hasn't even been three weeks," he said, though he didn't disagree. He could always go for another little orgy. Duh.

"You're right," she said, shrugging. "It'd be a good way to congratulate me though, don't you think? A nice full body massage from you and Gin and Gabrielle… I can't wait."

Harry thought she was entirely too sure of her chances of winning. Her smug smile and smug voice and that smug glint in her eye… It pissed him off. Fuck his lack of a plan, he'd make Hermione pay for looking at him like that one way or another, clones or not.

"Sorry," he said, doubt fleeing his voice, "but I've already promised to show Fleur what all the fuss is about after I kick her turkey arse and win this tournament." He stepped forward with a grin, flashing his canines, toeing the circle's edge, and clenching his fists tight enough to pop them. Hermione's smile dropped. "After that though, you're free to stop by with your girlfriend and congratulate me till the cows come home. Just make sure to cancel any plans you may have for tomorrow before you come," he said, leaning back with a smug grin of his own. "If you ask real pretty, I may be willing to teach you a thing or two about in that case, you're better off canceling your plans for the entire week."

Hermione scowled through a blush, conceding their little spar. "You're as slick with your words as ever," she said, quieter now that the proctor was almost in position, "but let's see how well you manage to back them up, Harry. That fat cock of yours isn't going to help you out this time, bucko."

Harry's eyes widened in epiphany.

Hermione didn't like that look, not one bit. "What?" she asked.

Harry ignored her. The referee was finally in position. All they were waiting on now was for the announcer to introduce the match. Then, they could begin.

"You twos ready?" the hefty hitwizard asked, wiping grubby fingers on his single striped uniform. "Don't want to forfeit or nothin?"

Hermione answered with an icy scowl.

'So judgmental,' Harry thought, a bit fondly. He wasn't much impressed with the referee either, but didn't harbor the same distain for more, well, laidback blokes as Hermione. It did remind him of an earlier thought that had crossed his mind, though.

"Where's that vampiress bird?" he asked, drawing the ref's eyes. "She proctored some of the preliminary matches. Is she here?" He'd forgotten about her till today, but the thought of meeting back up seemed interesting.

"Oh, her?" the ref asked, snorting a leaky boogey back up his nose.

Hermione's lips thinned and she looked away.

"Said she's not feelin too well. Traded assignments with me- not that I wanted to. She gets to kick back an relax on Third Task guard duty, and I've gotta stand out here 'fronta all these folks with a goblinflu! 'S bullshit, 's what it is."

Harry resisted frowning and settled for a nod. It didn't make too much of a difference to him, in the end. He had more important things to focus on, and as the announcer began nearing the end of his annoyingly long introductions, Harry drew his wand and did just that.

"And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, starting right now, not delaying any longer, kicking off this very moment! I~t's, SHOWTIME!" the announcer said, striking a massive gong.

Harry didn't have the time to properly insult the announcer in his head; from the moment the gong started ringing, Hermione was on him, sprinting straight up the field.

"Petrificus," Harry said, sending the paralyzing spell at his approaching friend as quickly as he could. It wasn't the best spell for winning duels- unlike its brother spell, petrificus, minus the totalus, would only immobilize the part of Hermione it hit. As a tradeoff, though, it was a curiously fast-flyer.

He hadn't exactly been expecting the spell to connect: it'd been a potshot, more than anything. Even so, Harry couldn't stop his brows furrowing as Hermione literally split into two, technically dodging both left and right, his white-green petrifying jinx flying harmlessly between both of her.

'Already?' he thought, hunching over and turning rapidly as the Hermiones flanked wide. The memory of an article he'd read last summer, in the muggle newspaper, came to him unbridled. 39 year old Lord Jeremy Baton, a once-respected man who'd been born into his wealth and actually done some good with it, had apparently grown bored of his perfect, boring life. Yearning for the thrill of danger, Lord Baton spent a pretty chunk of change and chartered himself an African expedition. Vernon had suggested rather definitively, not to Harry, of course, but to Petuna, that the good chap had gone mad, but Harry wasn't so sure. 39 was about right for a mid-life crisis, he thought, and hunting lions would get anybody's blood pumping. Whatever his motivations, Lord Baton's trip did not go well. According to the paper, his guide had fallen suddenly ill and died while they'd been out, leaving him alone in the African wilds, lost and undersupplied. They'd found his clothes and a few of his smaller bones almost a week later. Hyenas, the paper'd said, that's what got him. A whole pack of the buggers, stripped him clean.

As the two Hermiones ran around him clockwise, an even 180 degrees between them, Harry couldn't help but imagine himself as the old English Lord, underprepared and outnumbered against an opponent he'd be lucky to take in a one-v-one on a normal day. She was fast, he thought, faster than humans ought to be, which meant she'd used some accelerant charm without him noticing, without her speaking it. He blinked.

Two spells lashed out at him like mambas, twin orbs of star-shaped obsidian buzzing through the air for center mass. He sidestepped them, and lashed out with his wand at one of the Hermione's with a buckshot of welting hexes, hoping a spread would improve his chances.

It didn't. Drawing a mute circle in the air, the Hermione he'd targeted blocked all of his sizzling beads with an octagonal shield, never breaking her stride.

A skin shrinking curse slammed into his back with the force of a raging bull, buckling his knees. He just managed to stay standing by the hairs on his chin. The skin of his upper back was shrinking fast though, pulling his arms up and to the sides as a square-foot of skin became a square inch. It hurt like a motherfucker with a barbed dick on Mother's Day, but he pushed himself through the pain and cast the counter, having to duck and roll out of the way of another pair of spinning obsidian stars as Hermione tried to capitalize.

'Fuck!' he thought, rolling again to dodge another two stars. He didn't recognize the spell, which boded poorly for him. Whatever they were, they were fast, and Hermione seemed confident that if she could hit him with one, she'd win. Harry had called his witch friend many things over the years, mostly in his head, but even there, he'd never called her a fool. If she thought they'd end the fight, she was probably right.

'Am I going to have to use it already?' he wondered, jumping backwards and unleashing a wide, crescent attack at the witches. It had the potential to hit them both, and would do some horrific things to their nervous system if it did, but Hermione and her clone both dodged it with time to spare, making the point moot.

"You're going to lose, Harry," Hermione said.

"Surrender," her clone said.

"It'll save you a trip to the medbay." She summoned a clump of turf from behind him, almost catching his dodging form in the head as it flew to her.

"And me a tongue lashing from your girlfriend-"

"Not that I'm opposed to that."

"Of course," her clone conceded, lazily dragging her wand down through the air in an arc. Three orbs of light hovered in its wake, like a traffic light. With a smirk, the spells shot forward, twice as fast as even Harry's petrificus had been. All three caught him in the chest and sent him tumbling.

"Gotcha!" Hermione's clone said, a vicious smile exposing her pretty teeth to the stadium as her friend's body fell to the ground.

"It's not like you to brag, Hermione," the voice of the incubus on the ground whispered into the clone's ear. The body on the ground stopped rolling, and revealed itself for the straw decoy it was. The clone's eyes grew wide and bulged in disbelief, and the true witch herself spun around, but neither of the females could stop him from so close. Transfiguring his wand into a sword, in the likeness of Godric Gryffindor's, Harry gripped its handle with both hands and swung, putting his inhuman strength to good use. The transfigured steel slid through the clone like a cloud, relieving it of its head in one silken blow.

The crowd gasped and shrieked in horror above them, only falling still when the headless witch before him crumpled down and dissolved into sand and smoke.

The real Hermione's eyes were wide and full of horror. "J-Jesus Christ, Harry!" she said, clutching her wand and pointing it at him. "What if that'd been the real me?"

Harry smothered a giggle. She still didn't know!

"I'm sorry, Hermione," he answered her gravely, transfiguring his wand back into its natural form. "I can't allow myself to lose here, no matter what."

"Are you fucking crazy?" she asked, shrill voice echoing throughout the stadium.

'Ouch, harsh,' he thought, showing her nothing but resolve on the outside. On the inside, he was finding himself rather tickled by her reaction. "Surrender, Hermione. I won't hold back if you don't."

Her eyes locked onto his hands as the runes for telekinesis blackened.

She grit her teeth. "Tch, yeah right," she said. A brief cloud of smoke obscured her as she split again.

Harry though she looked rather pallid after this casting. 'How taxing is that magic?' he wondered.

"I get it, now," she said, her and her clone spreading out once again.

He'd have liked to pin her with his telekinesis in that moment, her and her clone both, but the truth was that he'd only managed to dodge two of her stoplight spells. The red one had caught him in the shoulder as he'd cast his decoy.

'Dammit,' he thought, hiding a grimace as what he'd guess to be a flesh-eater ate away at his skin beneath his clothes. It was slow going, and if Hermione had any sense, a treatable variation, but that didn't mean it wasn't bloody stinging. He'd have to speak to counter it, and giving Hermione an opening like that at this point would mean certain defeat. He grit his teeth as stealthily as he could and ignored it.

Around him, Hermione was once again employing her hyena technique: poking at his backside over and over with different spells when his attention was on the other her. She cast a net filled with spikes at him, and he split it in half with a fiery crescent. Her clone summoned a dozen gelatin balls the size of watermelons and banished them at him, and he maneuvered through them like a gymnast, watching as they landed and rolled across the ground, so heavy and sticky they ripped up patches of turf like eggwashed cheese might breadcrumbs.

'Trying to pin me down,' he thought, using his telekinesis to send the next batch of globs back, when she cast them again. 'Smart, of course.'

She simply dispelled the orbs and shielded against his telekinesis. He wasn't able to press the advantage, instead having to dodge another barrage of trapping spells from behind by the skin of his teeth. All Hermione had to do was catch him with one of these types of magic and he'd be toast. She'd done well to recognize the opening her previous strategy exposed her to: while spamming fast, one-hit-down spells from two directions would bring most people to the ground quick enough, Harry had the advantage of inhuman physical attributes and reflexes- he was able to dodge through that kind of barrage, and seize the small gap that'd inevitably show itself as she rained small on-hit curses and hexes at him. Now, utilizing slower, but much, much larger area-of-effect spells, and ones meant to immobilize him once they connected, she'd sealed that gap, and forced him into a frustrating pickle.

Taking care that she didn't catch on, Harry spied the real Hermione as he dodged over a sudden pit-fall trap. Contrary to what she may have thought, he was able to tell between her and her double. The only problem was that unless he used his trump card, he wouldn't be able to capitalize on his advantage anyway. If he could attack and block with his telekinesis at the same time, he'd be able ignore her clone's attack and focus all of his psychic power down on the real her. He was certain he'd be able to incapacitate her that way- too bad he wasn't quite to that level yet.

Of course, if this were an actual fight to the death, he wouldn't have this problem. He could just block the attack from behind with his telekinesis and cast something strong enough to neutralize the frontal attack and attacker. The only problem with using that strategy here was that he couldn't think of a spell that was both powerful enough to do that and precise enough to guarantee Hermione didn't get seriously injured at the same time. Whatever crazy thought had invaded her head in the heat of battle, he'd cut his own throat before doing her real harm. Fiendfire, a lazerbeam curse, groundspikes- there were plenty of ways to kill an enemy in this situation, just no good ways to knock a friend out.

Except…

Two titanic earthen hands sprung up from the ground, reaching for him with their massive digits, intent on crushing and immobilizing.

He jumped high over them, just as they came together in an ear-splitting thundercrack. He forced his eyes to stay open despite the fragmenting clay, and so saw as Hermione capitalized on his airborne status, conjuring a sheet from above that mummified him in half a second. In the other half of that second, it hardened into stone, and began to plummet back to the earth like the rock it was, holding him hostage for the ride.

Harry couldn't help but smile while he fell, even as an entirely new rune blackened in on his hand. 'Using my own spells against me,' he thought, channeling his trump card. 'Naughty girl.'

The stone sheet disappeared, and then the clay hands disappeared, and then, one by one, the multitude of other missed traps and snares Hermione had sent his way disappeared too.

Harry landed on the loose earth beneath him gingerly. With a quick bit of focus on it, even the flesh-eater on his shoulder stopped its incessant gnawing, disappearing and leaving his poor butchered skin behind to finally start bleeding.

Hermione watched all of this with wide, unbelieving eyes. Unbelief turned to confusion when her clone failed to disappear. Confusion turned to grim uncertainty as the blood began soaking through his shirt on his shoulder, quickly staining more and more of the garment.

"Harry," she said, muscles tensed.

"What did you do?" her clone asked.

He grinned smugly, a bit like she had at the beginning of their bout. "Like it?" he asked, unminding of his oozing wound. He'd be okay. "It's my newest invention. You have no idea how hard it was to keep this from you, it's just so Hermione from top to bottom. You're really the one who's going to be unstoppable with this, after I teach it to you."

Hermione and her clone resumed circling, but much more slowly now. "What are you talking about, Harry?" she asked, at the same time as her clone now. "How did you dispel everything so quickly?" the Hermiones asked in sync.

'Not gonna fool me with that,' he thought. "It's a new rune-based spell," he said, still alternating his gaze between Hermione and her clone. "I won't go into the details here, but it's actually a lot like my TK runespell. I programed all the magic I know into it, and now-" he chuckled, unhappy having to show his ace before the finals but happy at the same time, "whenever it detects one of those spells, it automatically dispels them!"

Hermione and her clone immediately let loose with a flurry of magic, each successive spell different from the last. He immediately recognized them as the magic they'd learned through the Hogwarts curriculum, chronologically, and snorted. They all fizzled out of existence only a few feet from the witches.

Two buzzing obsidian stars zoomed out at him, and he had to dodge.

She stopped casting, and he laughed again. "That was quick," he said, a smile on his lips. His really had some amazing friends, now that he thought about it. "Yeah, you've figured it out- I can't dispel magic I don't understand. Hence those nasty looking curses and your pesky double sticking around."

Hermione seemed to be bouncing back, a cool look in her eye telling of her restored confidence. "I know more magic than you do, Harry," she said, not braggadocios, but factually.

Harry grinned, folded his arms, and looked square at her clone. The tip of his wand poked a millimeter out from under his armpit, aimed backwards at the real Hermione. "I know that," he said, charging and storing a spell in his wand. It was just a dirty jinx, light and airy, easy to sharpen and streamline and condense for maximum velocity. His gamble started now. "The real question," he continued, whittling the jinx to a finer and finer point, spinning it within his wand, still in precast, rotating it like a drill bit to reduce wind resistance. "Is this: how much wood could a woodchuck chuck-"

BANG!

Hermione's eyes shot wide at the sound and an alien bubble appeared around the real her in an instant, as white and speckled as an eggshell but translucent like a membrane. He'd never seen anything like it.

Still…

The tip of Harry's wand was smoking from his sneak attack jinx. His muscles were tensed. His shoulder bled. His eyes were locked with Hermione's. There would be only one way to tell if his sucker-punch jinx had landed…

Hermione stared at him, fighting it, fighting it hard, but, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop it.

She blushed, and grabbed her elbows, knees pressing together.

'Success,' Harry thought, breathing a sigh of relief. His arousal jinx had connected after all. And now, with lust coloring her every thought…

She tried to cast the counter, and he dispelled it before it could leave her wand. He searched for the rudimentary mechanics behind her clone technique. It was complicated, and he didn't know if he'd ever be able to cast it himself, even after days and days of study and practice, but for this, he didn't need to. He was able to grasp enough of it to disrupt the magic fueling her doppelganger. She ground her teeth in frustration and denial, and her legs in arousal and heat. Her bubble was next: also insanely complex, and requiring a delicate touch. He popped it, and she was left defenseless.

Three obsidian stars zoomed at him from the tip of her wand, held awkwardly in her hand as she panted and stopped her body from grinding up against itself in search of release. He researched their gist and dispelled them midair. Her face screwed up in despair.

"It's okay, Hermione," Harry said, a soft look in his eye. "You were great. After I teach you this, I won't ever be able to beat you again, I think."

She sniffed hard, and blinked the beginnings of tears away. "You knew which was me the whole time. Cheater," she said, lips pouting out a bit.

Harry laughed kindly. "Yeah," he agreed, tapping his nose. "Sorry about that."

He pointed his wand at her.

"You still have to come by after you're done with Fleur," she rushed to say, bent over, supporting her weight with her hands on her knees. "I want to know how to cast that."

"Sure," Harry said.

"And a massage too!"

"Of course," he said.

Her shoulders slumped, and she had to hold one of her hands away from her crotch with the other. "Okay," she said, sniffing one more time. "Go ahead, before I embarrass myself anymore."

"Halucinoredening," he said, casting the one other spell he hadn't programmed into the runespell's bank. A pink orb splashed into Hermione's face and became vapor. She breathed it in and immediately fell into a deep, fanciful sleep. He canceled his dispeller and caught her slumping form with his telekinesis, holding her softly an inch off the ground even as she began moaning quietly, 'suffering' the effects of his wet-dream spell.

The crowd was quiet for a long moment, and Harry just stood where he was, taking in a deep breath and enjoying the pleasant breeze. When the wind began chilling the river of blood painting his chest and side red, he started off towards the medbay, his blushing schoolgirl friend floating peacefully behind him.

The announcer declared him the winner, and the crowd went wild.