The Intelligent Potter

*** Le Present

Both Harry and Cedric had gotten into the fourth round, Harry was undefeated while Cedric's 79%-win rate just about got him through to the fourth round out of the 5 round tournament.

Harry started the fourth round which had only 8 contestants remaining.

Harry had observed his competition carefully.

Cedric was a threat but limited in his magical avenues and would be simple enough for Harry to overpower despite having a good head on his shoulders and relatively strong magic.

Fleur Delacour was a veela with good technique but would ultimately not prove to be much of a challenge.

Misa, the Japanese witch had displayed the most skill outside of Harry himself, and so far was seeming to be the biggest challenge for Harry, because she knew a variety of spells as large as his along with decent battle transfiguration and alchemy.

There were one Chinese Wizard who had a relatively small magical core but played really fast to overwhelm his opponents.

Surprisingly, Bulgaria's foot in the duelling door was in fact, the Quidditch sensation Victor Krum who would become the youngest player to ever play a world cup next year. Krum was powerful and knew several Bulgarian spells and questionably grey magic that had so far given him the edge against his opponents but his reaction time was by far the slowest among the remaining duellists which would put him at a severe disadvantage against most of the remaining players.

There was one remaining champion from India, Ram or something like that who was skilled with Parselmagic, magic used in Parseltongue, a skill indigenous to India, though Harry would have an advantage of knowing what Parselmagic was being used, being a Parselmouth himself.

Then there was the Wizard from the US who had stayed in too.

The first match pitched Victor Krum against the American wizard which Krum narrowly managed to pull off, his strong magic being enough to barrel straight through his opponent's shields.

Ram was put up against the French girl, Fleur Delacour who was completely out of her depth in the battle and at a complete disadvantage, being unable to speak Parseltongue, she lost within 30 seconds of the battle beginning, in a pretty embarrassingly easy duel.

Cedric was put up against Misa, a battle in which he sadly had no hope but put up a valiant effort, fighting hard against the Japanese girl, going hard at it and putting her on the back foot for the first minute before she pushed back and completely annihilated Cedric.

Harry felt slightly bad for his countryman but focussed on his battle against the Chinese wizard, defending himself expertly and pulling off a fairly textbook victory, by blocking his opponent's spell, and shooting a quick expelliarmus-stupefy chaim.

The next round was the semi-finals, narrowed down to the last 4, Misa, Ram, Krum and Harry.

Harry's first game was against Krum, another fairly easy win, though Harry had to overpower his spells to break through Krum's shield.

Then he sat down to watch the game between Misa and Ram.

"This ought to be interesting." Harry commented to Cedric who was sitting beside him in the audience.

Ram began the game, playing it safe and defending Misa's attacks, sending back his own spells to keep the pressure up but not going all-in on a push.

Misa raised the bar on the spells, but Ram kept pushing her back, further and further, switching to Parselmagic spells and completely owning her in the battle.

Only her extreme skill, kept her duelling the match though it was obviously one which she was losing.

In desperation, Misa flung herself to the ground and muttered some stuff, her wand glowing bright.

Suddenly, a huge hole appeared under Ram, making him stumble and fall into the pit, while Misa now had a large spear in her hand, that she ran at the disoriented Indian with.

Thankfully for Ram, he immediately put up a Parselmagic ward while he regained his senses, pushing Misa away, and giving Ram the opening to stun her.

Harry clapped along with the rest of the crowd, he would be facing Ram, who seemed to be dangerous enough to beat Misa with relative ease.

Harry took his stance against the Indian boy and immediately started casting, to which Ram started casting in Parselmagic and Harry could hear what he was saying.

While latin was a fairly powerful root for magic, Parseltongue was practically laced with magic making it far stronger than the regular latin spells that one would use.

He was hissing words, ~Cut~, ~Sleep~ and ~Burn~ seemed to be his favourite ones, and knowing his spells gave him an advantage of knowing exactly what Ram was casting.

Despite being relatively evenly matched, it really seemed like Ram was getting the better of Harry, his Parselmagic spells giving Harry quite a bit of trouble with their powerful nature.

Harry decided to finally pull all of the stops and retaliated with a burst of fire that Ram put out easily with a simple ~Water~ that produced almost elemental levels of water and created a great bunch of smoke but before Harry could throw that at Ram, Ram announced, ~Dissipate~ and the smoke dissipated, leaving Harry somewhat compromised.

Harry defended himself desperately as Ram tried to take advantage of his surprise and went all in with the push, throwing spell after spell, and Harry was pushed back further.

Harry created a large shield of ice that would hold a couple seconds but was surprised to hear a crack from behind him and a stunner approaching quick.

Harry sliced through the spell and barely had time to register that the boy could apparate before being pushed back against his own ice wall.

Ram got closer and closer to Harry, his spells becoming harder, faster and quicker.

Harry smiled viciously, this gave him just the opportunity he needed, his sword was out of its sheath in the blink of an eye and Ram had no way to block the long slice across his c.h.e.s.t.

Ram stepped back and gurgled slightly as a trickle of blood slipped from his lip and Harry struck him hard with a stunner that pushed him back several paces, his eyes rolling up into his head as he collapsed and the medics rushed in to magick away the wound.

Unfortunately, their dittany wasn't working as quickly as expected, the healers looked to Harry, "What did you do?"

"My sword is alchemically created, it's magic resistant." Harry explained.

The medics cursed, They revived Ram, "Well, your c.h.e.s.t will take a few weeks to heal but we should be able to prevent any scarring."

The Indian competitor smiled ruefully, "Good game, though I really thought I had it in the bag."

Harry grinned too, "Friends?" he held out his hand.

"Friends." Ram repeated and shook Harry's hand as they exchanged owl addresses.

"Well, it's time for the trophy ceremony." One of the medics said and Harry moved in the direction that he was supposed to.

"In first place… Britain's saviour… Harry James Potter!"

Harry took his golden trophy.

"In second place…Asian u-18 champion, Ramesh Mahadevan!"

Ram went up and took his own silver medal.

"In third place… from the world-acknowledged best-duelling-school Japan School of Magic, Misa Amane!"

Misa went up and took her award as well.

Harry smiled joyfully, he had three new friends AND he had won the duelling tournament.

It had been a good summer.