Chapter Five

It was late Friday night.

The denizens of the castle were all asleep.

All that was except for Harry.

He was under the cover of his Invisibility Cloak.

Slowly tracing his way through one of the passageways out of Hogwarts.

The moment he was free of the wards he Apparated to the place one of the older Slytherins told him about.

There he set about Transfiguring his appearance to better blend in with the more adult clientele.

With his disguise in place he threw off his cloak and headed towards the door.

It was a large door made of solid metal.

He knocked on it and watched as a slit opened up.

Two pitch black eyes glared out at him.

“Password” the gruff voice from the other side demanded.

“Victory” Harry said.

The slit shut with a slam.

Then mere seconds later the door flew open with a loud creak from its hinges.

The giant of a man (almost Hagrid sized) wearing long dark robes stared down at him.

“Entrance fee” he demanded.

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pouch of coins.

The man weighed it in his hands before nodding towards the stairs that went down into a seeming pit of darkness.

Unintimidated, Harry squared his shoulders and walked down as though he owned the place.

Just one floor down and Harry was met by a wall of noise.

The crowd cheering loudly, their attention all focused in the middle of the large room

Harry looked around to see a large warded off duelling platform in the centre of the room.

On either side were a Witch and a Wizard hurling some incredibly dark magic at one another.

Harry watched on struggling not to vomit at the fallen lump the Wizard fell in as the Witch raised her wand in victory.

The crowd all caught up in the moment cheering along to her victorious roar.

“What am I doing here?” Harry thought to himself.

He then shook his head “you know why you’re here. You need more duelling experience. And not of the official variety either” Harry reminded himself.

After all there is only so much he could achieve duelling training dummies in the Room Of Requirement.

And as he had already proved he was superior to even the seventh year students.

“Still not good enough though” Harry thought despite their praise.

If not for the fluke of gaining Elder wand's allegiance Voldemort would have wiped the floor with him.

And he was determined to become his actual equal this time around.

Even if it required attending some shady duelling competitions to do so.

With that in mind he focussed on the announcer.

A pompous looking wizard in expensive robes.

His hair was slicked back and his face was a passable Malfoy impression.

“Who else has the guts to challenge our champion?” he demanded.

Those in the room looked between one another.

None seemed keen on the idea.

“What no one” the announcer sneered.

“I’ll take her on” Harry said standing up.

“Oh, and what’s your name?” Demanded the announcer.

“Jaime Evans” Harry said.

“Look everyone the Mudblood thinks he stands a chance” the man said, setting off a round of jeers.

Harry then listened as the man began giving odds on how long before Harry died and bets on hown gruesome a death he would have.

If anything it only proved to annoy Harry even more.

“I’ll show you” Harry thought.

He then threw over another bag of gold.

“Put all that on your pet duellist begging for mercy” Harry said.

He then entered the warded duelling arena.

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It wasn’t anything like the kind Lockhart had him and Malfoy duelling on during his first second year.

It was of a more oval shape giving more room to manoeuvre.

Harry made his way to his starting position.

There he glared down at the Witch who was looking at him like she had already won.

The moment the announcer yelled “begin!” they quickly moved into action.

Harry began by sending some probing attacks her way to determine exactly what he was dealing with.

Her with overpowered (and very dark) magics designed purely to harm and cause damage.

The first stage of their duel was over relatively quickly.

The warm up as it was quickly gave way to pure unbridled blood lust from both competitors.

Harry barely dodged a curse he remembered Mrs Weasley using on Bellatrix.

The result of which doing nothing but pissing Harry off.

And so as various flashes of light flew between them Harry dodged dipped ducked dived and dodged as he slowly closed the distance between them.

Once the distance was too small to allow such actions to continue Harry began batting away curse after curse with lightning fast reflexes honed from hours upon hours of Quidditch Practice.

Before long the sneering expression of his foe gave way to one of actual fear.

The reason being Harry using his pure magic to overpower and bat aside her spells resulted in his eyes glowing an eerie Killing Curse Green and him gaining an almost visible aura of magic around him.

In her fear she left herself wide open for a counter attack from Harry.

Fortunately for her he only sent a stunner her way.

Immediately she dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

The announcer quickly announced Harry the winner.

The crowd booed and jeered due to his non lethal takedown of his enemy.

Harry however didn’t care he was happy he won.

Granted there were aspects of the duel he felt he could have done better.

He would pocket his prize money and leave heading back towards Hogwarts.

His Time Turner allowed him to enter the castle at almost exactly the same time his younger self was leaving.

Where back in his dorm room he examined the memory in his Pensieve confirming anything he really did have to work on.

Mostly it came down to things like economy of motion and spell selection.

He only really won because he overpowered her.

“I can’t keep making those kinds of mistakes in a duel” Harry thought.

“I also need to drill myself in the basics” he thought.

And thus began forming a plan of doing exactly that.

And so the following day he convinced Lockhart to form the duelling club.

“Man, that guy is easily manipulated,” Harry thought.

All he had to do was convince the man that Harry wanted to enter the duelling circuit after Hogwarts and of the fame that would come his way if he trained the Boy-Who-Lived to become a world class duellist.

Obviously he knew Lockhart wouldn’t be able to train anyone.

Because of that he convinced him to get Flitwick to agree to become his “assistant”.

With the Charms Professor’s wealth of experience on the duelling circuit the sessions proved to be much more informative than the ones that Snape participated in.

“Not surprising considering Snape is a terrible teacher” Harry thought.

Soon the duelling club became one of the most popular pastimes in Hogwarts.

Flitwick also seemed to be having a ball passing on his knowledge and experience to those who genuinely wanted to learn from him.

Obviously Harry was first in line in that regard.

He was easily the most serious of students there.

And due to Lockhart letting it slip that Harry wanted to enter the duelling circuit after Hogwarts, Flitwick ended up taking Harry under his wing.

This resulted in personal lessons outside of regular classes.

It was nice having an actual mentor and not having to muddle through things alone.

Harry also grew close to the man.

Especially when Flitwick told him that he was his Mother’s master during her Charms mastery.

This resulted in many stories shared by the Charms professor about Lily.

Something Harry was immensely grateful for.

As it was the first time he got to hear more about his Mother.

As such Harry had to admit he profited greatly from his plan.

This coupled with his repeated excursions into the underground duelling league allowed Harry’s skill as a duellist to flourish in no time at all.

“Still not enough though” Harry thought when comparing his skill to the ones he saw in the battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore.

“But it’s definitely a start” he thought with a grin.

Due to him keeping himself so busy (and not having any Dark Lord related issues to deal with this year) time moved on pretty quickly.

Before he knew it his second year had come to an end.

It came as no surprise that Slytherin won the Quidditch cup on the back of his performance as Seeker.

And as expected he aced his exams with O’s across the board easily claiming the top spot.

The following places were all taken up by those in his now expanded study group.

And due to it being the end of their second year they had to choose their electives for their upcoming third year.

Harry had no intention of doing a Hermione and choosing all of them

Instead he chose Care Of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy.

And while he didn’t expect to learn anything new in Care Of Magical Creatures he really only chose it to try and prevent Draco from getting buckbeak marked for death.

It being one of the things in the timeline he planned to change practically from the beginning.

The leaving feast saw Ravenclaw win the House cup pretty much on the efforts of Hermione alone.

Which considering how much of a deficit she had to dig Gryffindor out of the first time around came as no surprise really.

Well her and Luna were really the point gaining monsters of the house of ravens.

Because of that (and every member of the study group looking out for her) Luna had a better start to her Hogwarts career.

Harry quickly put a stop to any bullying she could have received for her creatures.

And all it took was teaching those who thought her odd about Thestrals.

Thus proving there were creatures that only some people can see.

“That was a stroke of genius on my part” Harry thought as he smiled across to the Ravenclaw table where Luna was happily smiling and talking to Hermione.

No doubt in another one of their debates.

“Not a bad way to end the year. I could certainly get used to this” Harry thought.

Before he knew it they were back on the Hogwarts Express.

His friends had grown in number by quite a large amount over the year.

Due to this they spread across several compartments.

The journey back was enjoyable with people mingling between each compartment.

All of them happily talking about what they were going to be doing over the summer.

Harry proudly stated he would be staying with his Godfather.

Of course he had to also maintain the blood wards at Privet Drive in order to keep his Mother’s protection as strong as possible.

Fortunately between the two Vanishing Cabinets he would be able to sleep there in the evening and return back to Grimmauld Place during the day.

Thus he would have the best of both worlds.

What’s more, due to how protected Dudley's’ Second bedroom was, the Dursleys wouldn't even know he was there.

And for the first time Harry could remember he was actually looking forward to a summer outside of Hogwarts.