The Intelligent Potter

*** Present

"What's her problem, I thought she'd love someone who could resist her allure." Hermione asked.

"I completely thrashed her at the duelling cup, she was one of the favourites to win the thing before I came and knocked her out in the third round." Harry informed Hermione.

Hermione nodded in understanding, "You can have that effect on people when you beat them." Hermione mentioned lightly.

"Are you going to enter the Triwizard, Hermione?" Harry asked curiously.

Hermione hesitated before shaking her head, "I don't want any part of the controversy associated with the tournament."

"Controversy?" Harry said confusedly.

"Honestly Harry, do your research before deciding whether or not to enter a tournament! Not only has the tournament ended in the death of many of its participants, but its winners were often left with life-long injuries. The Ministries have assured people that the tournament is completely safe this year…but most don't believe it, especially with that fool Bagman in the sports ministry." Hermione said.

"Dumbledore had a say in it, he wouldn't let us participate in a tournament that could leave us killed." Harry spoke.

Hermione spoke hesitantly, "He may be a good man and a great teacher, Harry, but you have to admit that he isn't the best at preventing danger. Anyway, it was Professor Black that wanted you in the tournament more than the Headmaster anyway."

Harry nodded, a little apprehensive at this point but still determined, "Well, I'm still entering."

At the end of the meal, Dumbledore stood, "It's time for the goblet to be opened, you may now enter your name into the fire, beware, if you're under 5th year, think long and hard before entering. I have worked tirelessly with the Ministry to make sure the tasks are not dangerous, but severe embarrassment can be just as dangerous sometimes."

Dumbledore's eyes scanned the crowd before smiling gently, "Off you go now, unless you wish to enter the tournament."

Hermione stayed with Harry as he went to enter his name.

Dumbledore descended down from the stage and peered at Harry closely, "Be careful Harry, and come meet Arcturus and I at the regular time today."

Harry nodded, "Yes, Headmaster, but I need to go for the duelling tryouts just before, so I might be a bit late."

Dumbledore nodded, "That'll be fine, just show up as early as you can."

*** Duelling tryouts

Filius Flitwick stood at the front of the room with Arcturus alongside him.

"All of you prospectives will be duelling Arcturus, I will decide who the best are from your performances, if you believe you could increase your performance, you are welcome to a second try but that will be all." The short Charms Professor spoke.

Arcturus began to pick students randomly to duel.

Several third and fourth years tried their hand, and were fairly competent because of the training for the Lord of the Blacks.

Even still, Arcturus patronised then for a bit before completely knocking them over with a simple lazy spell-chain.

Oliver Wood, Harry's Quidditch captain was the first candidate of interest.

Wood started out with a fairly conserved offense, and Harry noted idly that he was preparing himself for defence.

As expected, Arcturus suddenly burst out a huge spell-chain, in anticipation of this, Wood blocked the majority of the spells, pulling up a shield and moving out of the way.

Suddenly Wood seemed to be completely on the offensive, hoping that Arcturus had overextended on the attack, not knowing even a hundredth of the man's potential. Unfortunately for the Gryffindor keeper, Arcturus simply batted all of Wood's spells out of the way before responding again with several spells, this time giving Wood no reprieve from his attack.

Wood stumbled backwards, barely able to keep up with the spellfire, gritting his teeth but standing his ground despite the onslaught of spells.

He took a step forward, trying to gain ground on Arcturus to intimidate him but only managing to get the Defence professor to raise his fighting another notch.

Arcturus transfigured the ground beneath Wood to mud, which Wood depulo'd at Arcturus and jumped out the hole created by the loss of mass.

Arcturus took the opportunity to vanish the mud and simply stun Wood, while he was undefended.

Flitwick squeaked in excitement as Wood was rennervated, "Good job, Mr Wood!"

After that, there were some other lackl.u.s.tre performances, then Cedric.

Harry was excited for his friend, knowing that Cedric was likely to get onto the team.

Cedric began fairly cautiously, throwing spells at Arcturus at a pretty good speed, but not overcommitting to any lengthy attacks.

Arcturus began fighting back, immediately moving onto transfiguration and innovative battle.

Cedric grit his teeth but managed to negate Arcturus' attacks using techniques learnt from the duelling cup.

Arcturus nodded with respect at the Hufflepuff's skill before throwing an elemental assault at an unsuspecting Cedric.

With the quick burst of water, Cedric was drenched and on the floor. A quick stunner caught him as Arcturus finished the duel with a flourish.

Flitwick seemed positively delighted at the result of the battle and called up Hermione to be next.

Arcturus did not waste any time with his pupil. He started out with a warm-up spell-chain which Hermione blocked and sent back in fairly routine fashion. The two bounced spells back and forth, Arcturus firing quickly, Hermione just a second behind in countering them.

A sheen of sweat came onto Hermione's forehead, stamina wasn't her best area, but Arcturus wasn't even winded, increasing the level of his attack, continuing spells but interlacing bursts of water and air.

Hermione countered this using Earth elemental magic, with which she was fairly proficient. She pulled stone out of the construction of Hogwarts and blocked Arcturus' attacks with it, banishing the broken pieces at him and following it up with her own assault of spells, in set spell-chains that could have overwhelmed a weaker wizard but barely affected Arcturus, who sprung into action, blocking all of the spells quickly and turning a few around, sending them cruising back at Hermione.

Despite her success at keeping him back so far, Hermione was pushed really onto the defensive and was unable to get a strike in, finally being completely overwhelmed by Arcturus and knocked out by a sneaky wall of air.

Arcturus had began to sweat a little but that was nothing compared to the buckets of sweat and heavy panting of his combatant.

Flitwick seemed awed by Hermione's performance, out of words.

Harry went up next, and didn't even give Arcturus the p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e of starting like Hermione did, he threw a quick spell-chain at Arcturus, sending another one before the first had even hit, knowing already that all of it would be batted aside by the oldest Black.

With a deep breath, Harry called on his key weapon.

Harry summoned a burst of fire from his wand, sending it jetting at Arcturus who battled it with a tidal wave of water that materialised from his wand, which was moving at the speed of light.

With a grunt, Harry managed to evaporate the water, but only just managed to bat aside the incoming spell-chain that Arcturus sent to finish him off.

He fought the elemental game with Arcturus a little bit longer, before the Lord Black raised the battle another notch and completely destroyed Harry, knocking him out against the wall with a banishing spell, while Harry was defending from his Basilisk of fire and his oncoming volley of area damage spells.

After not very long consideration, the results were sounded out.

"The members of the duelling team of Hogwarts are… Cedric Diggory! Hermione Granger… and Harry Potter! The substitutes are Angelina Johnson and Oliver Wood!" Flitwick said happily.

*** End of Chapter