Harry, Draco and Ron: Vampire Hunters

Chapter VII. The Duel and the Feast.

I am an outcast on the path of no return,
Punisher and Swordsman, I was born to burn,
Black wind always follows where my black horse rides,
Fire's in my soul, steel is on my side...

- Manowar, "Black wind, fire and steel".

Harry was quite nervous. Actually, he was so damn nervous that he spilled his potion twice, leaving nice deep black scorch marks on his desk, the horrible smell produced by that arousing interest in Snape instantly.

"And just what do you think you're doing, Mr. Potter?" he asked, the all-too-familiar loathing of people that bore the name 'Potter' lighting up his eyes with black fire.

"Er... Sorry, professor..."

"Sorry?" Snape gave a hollow laugh. "That might've been fifteen points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter, but it'll be only 10 since you made me laugh."

"He says it like he's doing me a favour, while he isn't," Harry thought angrily as all the Slytherins broke into laughter.

*****

"Next time before you agree to duel you should think twice," said Hermione. "Now you've got Gryffindor House into trouble because of it."

"Like he wouldn't've taken points for something else if not for this," said Harry defensively.

"Yeah, he's right. Give the man a break; he's about to be killed by Malfoy," said Ron.

"Nobody's going to kill anybody," said Hermione. "I doubt that O'Brien will even let them duel."

*****

There was a pretty large sign at the entrance to the Great Hall that said that there will be a Halloween Party for students of years four and up, which was practically like a ball, except not as formal.

"So, before it's too late," Ron said dramatically, turning to Hermione, "Hermione, will you go with me?" he asked with the intonation and the face like he was asking her to marry him at least.

"Of course, Ron Weasley!" she replied, smiling happily.

*****

However, she was proved wrong in her assessment, as the first thing Malfoy did after entering the class was walking up to O'Brien and whispering something to him.

"Very well, I see we have a duel on our hands," he said as he paced in front of the sitting students. "Here's what we'll do - Mr. Malfoy shall duel Mr. Potter, while those who do not wish to see that event will be practicing magical duelling, as we'll arrange a magical duel after the sword one finishes."

Harry's heart sank. This meant he was in more trouble than he originally asked for. For starters, he was to duel Malfoy, and then he might be also forced to do a magical duel... This was a bad day after all.

"Of course, Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy shall be relieved from the magic duel if they wish," O'Brien added. Both stated that yes, they wished.

"Very well, choose your weapons then," he said, "and make sure you wear some protective gear."

Harry walked towards the weapon racks. He was not good with a sword, since the only time besides the last lesson of Duelling was when he battled the basilisk down in the Chamber of Secrets, and he had Fawkes the Phoenix to help him then; so he was extremely nervous.

He saw that Malfoy chose a broad sword, and settled onto the so-called 'bastard' sword - called so since it was a bastard child of a short sword and a longsword. The two boys stepped onto the fighting arena in the middle of the room, dropped their robes to the side, and just stood there, exchanging glances. Malfoy's was full of malice, while Harry's was a mix of doubt in his strengths and that insane light that meant that Harry was about to do something heroic and (probably) stupid. Harry himself was wearing an old (and therefore expendable) grey t-shirt and jeans, while Malfoy wore the same set of plain clothes (a white shirt and black trousers) like the one he wore when he duelled O'Brien.

"You may start when ready," said O'Brien as he turned around to Hermione. "Now is the time you were waiting for. Wish to have a go at magic? Find yourself an opponent."

But Ron was not paying attention to what Hermione answered as he was staring at the duel of Harry and Malfoy.

*****

"So, Potter, ready to die?" drawled Malfoy.

"No, just very ready to kill you," Harry replied, raising his sword. Malfoy did the same and they were off.

Malfoy started with a simple thrust that Harry parried easily, then he tried a side swing, which caught Harry by surprise, yet his Quidditch-honed reflexes saved him from that one as well.

"What's the matter, Potter? Scared?" Malfoy sneered.

"Sod off and let me die like a hero!" Harry spat in reply and thrusted his sword forward, this caught Malfoy by surprise as Harry's sword left a small cut on his left forearm.

"Take that, you sodding git!" yelled Ron from his bench.

Malfoy made an angry face, and, with a feint of a frontal attack, slashed away from his right, thus achieving a rather deep cut at Harry's left shoulder. Harry winced at this point, yet said nothing.

"Go, Harry, go!" Hermione yelled to everyone's surprise.

"Make him sorry for being born, Draco!" Blaise Zabini yelled, being the only Slytherin besides Malfoy that was attending these lessons.

Harry dodged Malfoy's horizontal swing, and when his opponent's sword finished the full arc, made an uppercut punch, wincing slightly as his fist collided with Malfoy's jaw, the cut shoulder aching horribly. This was getting heavy. Malfoy, who definitely did not expect a fist-fight, was a little disoriented, thus letting Harry finish the job by slicing away at Malfoy's chest, ruining yet another of his shirts. Malfoy was already going to strike back as Harry stopped, pointing at him.

"Fight over, you're bleeding," said Harry, his hand pointing at the cut across Malfoy's chest that, indeed, was bleeding quite strongly. "I win," he concluded calmly.

"You were lucky, Potter, it won't happen again," Malfoy growled in response.

"I'm sure it won't. I won't duel you anymore," Harry replied as he wiped his sword from Malfoy's blood and turned to see what was up with his shoulder.

*****

"Alright, it seems that Mr. Malfoy failed with his noble task of holding up the family honour as a swordsman," O'Brien concluded. "Seems that a name is not everything yet, while Mr. Potter proved that any sport, even such a physically-undemanding one as Quidditch, hones your reflexes well. That'll be five House points to Gryffindor, I suppose."

All of the Gryffindors present cheered while Malfoy's face was darker than the darkest cloudy and moonless night ever imaginable.

"And now, Miss Granger shall be offering herself as an opponent to anyone wishing to test their spellcasting abilities. Anyone?" said O'Brien enthusiastically as Hermione stepped out into the fighting arena.

A single raised hand was visible among the audience. Blaise Zabini.

"Alright, step right up then. Here's the magical fight of today - Hermione Granger versus Blaise Zabini!" O'Brien announced cheerfully.

"I wonder if he's as optimistic when it's real combat..." Harry thought, remembering Lockhart suddenly.

Both opponents faced each other, drawing their wands and bowing slightly, keeping their eyes on each other. Then, as quick as a lightning, both whipped their wand hands out.

"Rictusempra!" Blaise yelled.

"Stupefy!" Hermione yelled.

As the spells left the tips of their wands, both of them jumped aside from where they were standing before, thus evading each other's spells.

"Expelliarmus!" said Blaise, grinning in a very evil manner.

Hermione dodged the spell, shooting back with a spell Harry never saw (or heard) before. As it hit Blaise, Hermione turned around quickly, turning her back on her opponent. Harry was about to voice his disagreement with such a foolish tactic as he saw that, with a loud crack and several puffs of smoke, Blaise and Hermione exchanged places, thus making Blaise completely unprotected.

"Stupefy!" yelled Hermione, her spell tripping Blaise over and thus ending the fight.

"Marvellous!" O'Brien yelled merrily. "You definitely are quite talented, Miss Granger! That makes it another five points to Gryffindor!"

*****

"Harry beat Malfoy? In a sword duel?" Ginny's eyes were wider than any dinner plate Harry had ever seen.

"Well, I was quite lucky..." he started, but she cut him off.

"And Hermione beat Zabini? And that gave Gryffindor ten House points?"

"Not much, but provided we'll be duelling quite a lot in that class..." Ron said thoughtfully.

"Alright, stop counting money you don't have yet!" said Hermione. "We've got DADA now!"

*****

The next few days were quite uneventful until they got to Transfiguration, which meant the start of Animagus tests.

"First you fill out these papers," McGonagall said, passing out pretty thick stacks of tests, that ran through lots of psychology stuff, as Harry noticed. "Then we'll move on to actual detection of your affinities..."

"Excuse me professor, but why are we filling out the papers if the detection of our capabilities is done via a spell?" Hermione asked.

"The spell only tells you if you can be an Animagus, while the tests tell you which animal you will probably be turning into once you finish your training," McGonagall explained.

The test was quite long and dull, as Harry had to answer a series of questions that all started with the words "What will you do if..." and had a dozen or so answers out of which he had to choose only one. He wondered if he'd ever be something larger than a chipmunk with such answers as McGonagall paced around the room, telling them how important it is to be honest with their answers. Once they finished, the papers folded themselves up and McGonagall collected them.

"I will be checking your results along with the results of students of other Houses and years above yours, as they are also taking part in this experiment, and that means you'll know the results in a week or two. Meanwhile, in the next Charms lesson you have professor Flitwick and I shall run you through the spell test," she said.

"How exactly does that spell work, professor?" Harry asked.

"Well, it has to be used on a person that is to be tested, it creates a small light on the chest of the person tested, right next to the heart," here Harry wondered where would the light be on Malfoy then, if at all, "and the colour of that light will show what you are. A red light indicates an Animagus and a green light - a non-Animagus," she explained, "and now the lesson is over. You may go."

*****

Charms came pretty quickly as it seemed, and Harry, Ron and Hermione were looking forward to it. However, they were unpleasantly surprised to find out that the Slytherins would be tested along with them as Snape allowed them not to attend the Potions lesson they had at this time.

"Enjoying yourself, eh, Potter?" Malfoy spat. "Just you wait, I'll make you sorry!"

"The only one who'll be made sorry around here is you, so shut up!" Harry replied as professor Flitwick stood out into the middle of the classroom and coughed rather loudly, thus attracting attention. Harry and Malfoy stared at each other for another moment, then turned with the rest of the students to look at the little Charms professor.

"And now we will proceed with detecting your Animagus affinity!" he announced cheerfully, as always. "I will call out your name and then you will come here and be tested!"

Harry thought that he'll see quite a lot of people that way before he is tested himself.

"Brown, Lavender!" Flitwick announced as Lavender got up from her seat and carefully moved towards him. The Charms professor did a very complex move with his wand and, muttering something Harry couldn't quite catch, pointed it at Lavender, who seemed to be trying to cover herself from the impact as if Flitwick cast the Killing Curse upon her. Once she straightened out, however, the light, which appeared exactly as McGonagall explained, was red.

"I'm it, I'm it!" she yelled happily.

Millicent Bullstrode was discovered not to be an Animagus, so was Crabbe.

When Seamus came out, the light seemed to be taking its time to show up, as it appeared severely later than with the previous three people, its colour being green. Goyle, however strange it might have sounded, got a red light, so did Hermione.

That Slytherin girl whose name Harry did not know ("Greengrass," Ron whispered) got a green light, so, as it seemed, to his own relief, did Neville.

"Malfoy, Draco!" Flitwick announced. The other students froze, staring silently, as Malfoy got up and walked out to Flitwick. Much to everyone's surprise, the colour of the light was not either red or green, it was grey.

"What does that mean?" Harry whispered to Hermione. And, for the first the first time in his life, he saw that Hermione Granger, the witch that seemed to know virtually everything, shrugged with a sheepish grin that in itself claimed that this was some kind of an insane joke.

"Hmm, interesting, very interesting, Mr. Malfoy. Would you please go and tell professor McGonagall of your result?" Flitwick said cheerfully (as everything he knew was fun to him, while everything he did not was even more fun and interesting, at least he looked and acted that way).

Malfoy shrugged and left, all of the students exhaling loudly as if they were holding their breath while Malfoy was standing in front of them.

Nott turned out not to be an Animagus as well, while Pansy Parkinson got a red light.

"Wonder what her Animage form is?" Ron asked, grinning.

Parvati Patil got a green light as the moment Harry dreaded came.

"Potter, Harry," Flitwick called, not as cheerfully as he did to others, it seemed that even he was intrigued by the result.

Harry walked up to him, standing there and wondering how it feels... When the spell hit him, he felt it right away, as a sudden chill raced through all of his body, making him wonder the possibility of his blood freezing in his veins for a moment or two. When the chillness subsided and the feeling of the air's temperature came back, he felt as if he walked out of a chilly winter night he spent entirely naked straight into a very warm house and jumped into the fireplace.

He looked down, seeing a red light glittering on his chest. The feeling that engulfed him then was that feeling of sudden pride and comfort he had whenever he won a Quidditch game, returned to Hogwarts from his summer 'vacation' (if it could be called so) or saw Cho smile at him. He suddenly remembered a tiny thing he had entirely forgotten over the events of the last few weeks: he hadn't talked to Cho since September the 1^st! He sat down, nodding automatically at all the congratulations he was receiving, even one from a Slytherin - Blaise Zabini, thinking of how and when to talk to Cho. He'd probably need the Marauder's Map for that, yet he did not know what fate befell it after the fake Mad-Eye moody was captured...

Harry did not pay attention to how Dean got a green light, Ron - a red one and Blaise Zabini - also a red one.

*****

"Cho, I... Listen, I have to tell you that..." he found himself stammering once again.

"Yes, Harry?" she said.

"I was meaning to ask you... I mean, I was a bit taken over in the events lately, so... wouldyougotothepartywithme?"

"What?"

He took a deep breath in.

"Would you... er... go to the Halloween party with me as your... er..." he stammered, trying to find an appropriate word.

"Date?" she suggested.

"Yeah, date... Er... Will you?" he said.

"Let me think..." she said, making a face of intense deep thinking.

"Come on, if it has to be hard then tell me in the face, I can live over it!" he said dramatically. "Unless you were asked out by Malfoy and agreed to it," he added. She laughed.

"You're the first one asking me out, actually. Alright, I will go with you."

"Really? Wow! I mean... Really?" He could not believe his happiness; he did not even care about what Ginny would say now, as he was at least comforted by the fact that Cho actually agreed to go with him!

"Yes, Harry James Potter, and I will not allow anyone else near you!" she said as she pulled him into a broom closet that was, by a strange and lucky coincidence, near by.

*****

As much as it surprised him, Ginny took the fact that Harry was going with Cho quite lightly as she was going with Seamus, who asked her at breakfast already.

"And she accused me of being unfair to her!" Harry thought, "Never shall I understand the way a female's mind works, never!"

*****

Halloween came fast, faster than anyone expected it to come. The time passed by quite uneventfully, really, as there were no more duels in O'Brien's class, Malfoy was very quiet, as if bothered by something more important than insulting Harry and his friends, Transfiguration went on as usual, except that Animagus studies were starting in two weeks, and the Gryffindor Quidditch team had its first trainings starting in November as well, what meant the election of a new team captain, while Harry and Cho started doing things that couples usually do - kiss each other as a welcome, and, provided they found a fitting place, even have a small snogging session occasionally. Life was never sweeter for Harry Potter...

*****

The Halloween Party promised to be a very interesting event, as, since the first, second and third-years were not allowed (they had a separate celebration feast in one of the roomier dungeons that was re-furnished specially for that occasion), there were rumours of presence of alcohol within the list of drinks that will be allowed.

Harry wore his green dress robes, noticing unhappily that next year he'd need a new set as these would be too short. Ron wore the new dress robes the twins got him - a pretty stunning-looking set of black robes covered with red and oranges patterns of flame that seemed very real when he walked. Harry made a mental note that these robes would be more than fitting on a rock concert.

He met Cho in the hallway leading to the Great Hall; she was wearing a set of dark blue dress robes (that looked more like a dress, but who cared?) and looking almost as happy as he felt. Hand in hand, they entered the Hall...

It was made up in the same way as at the Yule Ball last year - small tables with a stage set up fro whoever would be performing. The rumours of alcohol were proved to be true as a horde of students (mostly male) made their way to the drinks, trampling everybody unlucky enough to stop in their path.

The evening was nice, calm and quiet, Harry and Cho danced, talked, laughed and spent the time wonderfully as if the whole world around them did not exist, or, even if it did, its sole purpose was to make them happy...

*****

That night Harry fell asleep pretty fast, maybe it was since it was already late, maybe because he drank too much, maybe because he was very happy...

...He saw Voldemort, sitting on a stone throne, his eyes almost glowing in the darkness of the room he was in, the dancing flames of the torches casting grotesque shadows of him onto the walls.

Two bone golems, the ultimate non-sentient construction of necromancy, carried the limp form of a man into the room, dropping him in front of Voldemort. The man's dark hair (Harry was unsure of its colour) was drenched in blood; he was badly wounded, yet alive.

"Rise, rise and talk to me," Voldemort said. "Tell me, have you considered my offer?"

The man gave a hollow laugh that was quickly stopped as he started coughing pretty horribly, as if he had some kind of lungs disease or simply had a wound in there.

"Yes, I did, Voldemort."

The dark lord flinched at the notice of his own name. It was the only time anyone called him that way, aside maybe from that boy, Harry Potter, and the old man Dumbledore.

"And your answer will be..."

"No! I will not do what you ask! You may burn me, you may make my life a living hell, yet you cannot kill me!" the man said, then suddenly laughed again.

"We'll see about that," said Voldemort grimly. "Take him away!"

The two golems took the man by his arms and dragged him away...

***********

A/N Another day, another chapter!

Anyways, big thanks go to Irini, Technomad, lovelyginny, Squall, MinyMe, Lauren Malfoy, witchy babie 939, Aryiona, Racky and monkeymouse for their reviews, especially to Irini, lovelyginny and Racky. Without your support, guys (girls) I'd be still finishing chapter three.

Here's this chapter's poll: Should I get a beta-reader(s) (anyone?) - depends on your opinions, and will you wait the extra day(s) necessary for the beta(s) to process the chapter? I'd prefer if you e-mail me with your answers, not post it in the review board... Unless you do it along with the review of course (Besides, this chapter was beta'ed by the kind RavenclawMistress).

Next chapter: How Malfoy spent the party, what a bad thing hangover is and why Malfoy's test by spell gave such a result... Also - the return of The Ring, the paper test results and the start of the Tourney, along with Quidditch captainship elections...