HP : TRIUMPH

Harry grinned back at him and trotted away waving over his shoulder.

.-.

Harry hung his phone up and sighed. The last notice out of the way. He'd had to phone Randal to tell him he'd be gone so the teen could tell their football coach. He glanced at the charmed suitcase and satchel by the front door and the rest of his spotless first floor. Everything was ready, he just had to wait for Griphook's portkey for tomorrow.

The goblin had sent him a letter explaining that there was a pastry competition happening that was open to all and any. You just had to pay the entrance fee which was about a hundred dollars. Easily done. The only catch was Harry would have to travel there. He'd opted for portkey instead of catching a muggle plane. Faster and easier. Griphook even said he would purchase the international portkey so he knew it would not be tampered with. Harry had agreed. Harry's hotel and everything would even be taken care of by the goblin.

Harry had questioned as to why the goblin was doing this. The goblin had informed him that all goblins were good investors and if they saw something that benefited their client they would make the client aware of it. This pastry competition, if he won, would win him a sum of money and recognition for his Café. Griphook actually thought he could win and it made Harry smile.

Now he would be off tomorrow morning to enjoy a cooking competition and just a vacation.

real green tea. He gave the drink an appreciative look and decided he was going to be buying a lot of Japanese tea before returning to Britain. It was much better. Soon he had a meal of curry on rice in front of him with some stir fried vegetables.

He found himself silently enjoying his meal and just relaxing, catching snitches of conversation around him. He heard about a child painting his room neon green and another conversation of a man planning his wedding. He heard people talking about the latest robes and some talking about some books. One conversation though caught his attention.

"Did you hear of the tournament tomorrow?"

"No. What's happening?"

"There's a duelling tournament tomorrow at Sakura Park. Anyone can sign up for fifteen galleons."

"Anyone?"

"Yup."

"We should enter!"

"Why do you think I told you about it? We'll have to get there at about seven to sign up. Sign up closes at nine but there will be a line."

Harry smirked over his drink.

Harold hadn't been expecting that.

"…What?"

"I don't care what it costs. I want to hire you."

"…Sure."

Harry spun at that one word. He felt something flare in his chest as he tried to breathe evenly. He was going talk to them. He released his breath in one big 'whoosh' and started to laugh, a tad hysterically. It took him a good five minutes to calm himself. Harold was watching him oddly but said nothing. Harry decided to start the conversation again.

"Can necromancers do anything else?"

"Of course. We can also summon demons."

Harry blinked in shock and Harold gave smirk.

"I suppose you do not know of demons then. Demons are in fact real beings that are divided into two groups; Demon Beasts and Demon Creatures. Demon Beasts are loosely based on the animals of earth. Hellhounds, Cerberus, imps, gargoyles, Nightmares, and so on. They are aware and have basic instincts but very little intelligence. Demon Creatures are more intelligent with varying degrees. Some are barely smart enough to count as above beasts, but some are even more intelligent then us humans. The Creatures have their own hierarchy with the strongest ruling as King over the demon plane."

"Demon plane?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Of course. Demons live in a plane that rests beside our own. They can only spend a limited time in our plane of existence. Planes or realms of reality exist outside of our own. The demon plane and the Fae realm are the most well known and the only ones we actually know anything about. The Fae realm holds elves, faeries or fae, pixies, Pegasus, and other such creatures. They are where the concept of Heaven and hell came from as they are polar opposites. A famous Necromancer thousands of years ago pained a picture of both realms together fighting, one above and one below. He added wings to the Fae and horns to the demons after being blessed to see the Fae and Demon realms. It got out to the muggles and bam! Heaven and Hell drawn for the first time. Of course, now we only know how to summon demons. Before, Necromancers were once able to summon beings from the Fae realms. Those powers were lost to us centuries upon centuries ago."

survived a deadly curse you would be treated like royalty. You would be protected, trained, allowed to grow and learn. You would have had friends and riches and a wonderful life." Koji whispered. "We take care of what we cherish and you would have been cherished."

And Harry felt a trill run up his spin. The man made it so tempting to stay. He made it sound as if Harry would have been loved. As if Harry would have been loved for his power and skill and for being Harry, not for his fame or his money. He would have been cherished not mindlessly worshiped by sheep. And Harry wanted to cry. Here was a man who'd barely known him for twelve hours and he'd already spotted what Harry had always secretly wanted someone to discover. He'd seen through Harry's act and barriers. He'd spoke all the words Harry wanted to hear.

Harry took a shaky breath and leaned into the fingers that had returned to softly stroke his cheek. Koji's one hand still rested on his lower back though, holding him close.

"You deserve to be cherish." The man said softly, breath ghosting across Harry's face.

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I want to be cherished." He admitted, voice lower then even a whisper.

For a moment there was silence. Then Harry heard a door open.

"Ko-"

The call ended abruptly and Harry opened his eyes to look to the door. The teen in the doorway looked about nineteen with shaggy brown hair and dark brown eyes. His face was a soft tan that had paled at the moment. He was staring at Harry and Koji in horror. Harry realized they looked like they had just kissed, or were going to, and looked as if Harry was straddling the older man. The boy spun and vanished back out the door.

"Shit." Koji hissed jumping up, careful not to dump Harry but set him on his feet even in his haste.

He ran out the door after the boy leaving Harry alone. Harry moved to the window and peered out. Koji had overtaken the boy and wrestled him to a stop. He could see them shouting at one another. He watched in surprise as Koji drew the boy into a vicious kiss. The boy fought a moment before relaxing into the kiss. When the kiss broke Koji pulled the boy close, leaning his forehead against the other's and lips moving silently. Harry felt envy bubble in him. They looked so happy. He wished he could have someone kiss him and chase him when he ran, for no other reason then they cared.

No one did though. And Harry knew no one might ever.

After a few minutes they started back towards the house. Harry straightened his clothes and got ready to leave. He reached the door the same time as the other two. The boy blushed and looked off. Koji met Harry's eyes. Finally the man gave an odd smirk.

"Come visit some time."

Harry paused.

"I…I would like that." He said softly.

Then he swept past the two men to find an alley to portkey from.

.-.

Harry sighed and brushed himself off. As soon as he had arrived at his house his three cat-kneazels had attacked him with purrs. Even the sour males had rubbed up against him happily.

"I take it you missed me." He chuckled as he left them on the couch.

He had to unpack his bags, check on everything, stop by both neighbours to tell them he was back and then go see Griphook. He paused as he came to the stairs and wondered if he would ever take Koji up on his invitation. The man had struck a cord in him and Harry knew he would like to see him again.

Somehow during their exchange earlier the man had slipped a piece of paper in his pocket containing all the finalists floo addresses and even coordinates for portkey or apparation.

Harry smiled slightly to himself, spirits lifted slightly and he headed out the door towards the Henderson's. After half an hour of tea and chatter in which Harry gave the family the souvenir he'd brought them Harry headed to Dorothy's. His visit to her house was a quick one as she was heading out before he came. They exchanged a few words and then Harry was heading back to his house.

Unpacking was quick as he had magic after all. His new silver trophy was set on a bookshelf in his room, used as a book end and hidden mostly from sight except for the soft flashes of light it gave off.

When that was finished Harry decided Griphook could wait and set about to check the house over and eat.

.-.

Harry found himself staring in awe at the building. It was beautiful. It was painted a nice sky blue on the outside, framed in white and violets. A large metal wok sign hung over the door that led into the store. Large windows took up the front of the store giving a wonderful view in and out of the store. Right now though, white paper on the inside blocked that view. Likewise, the sign was covered in some heavy tarp.

A human disguised Griphook gave Harry a vicious smirk and pushed the front door open for him. The door's window was also covered. As Harry stepped inside he stepped into a large rectangular room. The floor was just wood and the walls were a plain white but it was nice. The far left hand corner had an indent into it. A small hall led to a set of plain bathrooms. Across from the hall containing the bathrooms was an open door way into an unfurnished kitchen. Between the hallway that divided the kitchen and the bathrooms was a large mirror that took up the wall. It was just out of sign from the main room.

"It's perfect Griphook." Harry smiled looking around.

"It needs to be furnished of course." Griphook smirked. "But I thought you would wish to do that yourself."

Harry nodded. Then he frowned.

"About the magical part…"

"Already taken care of." Griphook smirked.

Harry blinked but followed the goblin to the hall and the large mirror. To Harry's shock Griphook stepped into the mirror and sunk through like it was a wall of water. Harry tentatively reached out and pushed his arm through the mirror. It felt like the barrier at Platform 9 ¾. He stepped through completely and fell into the same hallway. Or what looked like the same hallway. The only difference was that everything was reversed. Harry stepped into the main room and found that there were actually a few more differences. All magical.

"This is the second part of the store. It's not visible from the street. This part of the building looks like an old office from outside on the muggle street." Griphook smirked.

Harry could remember seeing a an old greying building next to the store that looked used, but looked like one of the buildings no one ever needed to really go to. The wall inside the store still contained large windows looking out on the muggle street but there was no front door. Instead the door had moved to the wall across from the front one. Harry opened it and peeked outside to find himself looking into an alley of red brick that was quite wide, but not used as a street.

Harry threw a cutting hex at the man before he even bothered to move. The man dodged though, rolling to the side and throwing a sickly purple hex at him. Harry avoided it with a quick side step and then started launching spell after spell at the man. Two minutes later he was tap dancing while playing a pretend guitar and chirping. Harry grinned widely as the judge chuckled and announced him the winner as the healer came by to undo Harry's spells.

.-.

Of course.

Of course he would be the unlucky one. The one to fight twice. He sighed and swung himself onto the stage. He drew his wand and found himself facing a man who looked to be older then any of his opponents so far.

Harry watched him carefully. He waked with grace and carried a refined air about him. His hair was to his shoulders and curly, drawn into a low ponytail, and dark grey matching his dark grey goatee, but he didn't look all that old. He looked to be about fifty, but even that was pushing it. He had the sharpened lines of fifty, but was much too handsome to be called old. He had aged gracefully and looked like an aristocrat.

The man gave Harry a curt nod of his head and tucked one arm behind him as he raised his wand straight out in front of him. Harry spread his feet evenly and licked his lips nervously. This man was more dangerous then the other ones. And Harry caught a glint from a sword at his waist.

A shrill whistle started their battle. With lightening precision the man cast three spells at him. Harry threw up a shield seeing as he couldn't dodge them and ducked as one made it through. He threw a cutting spell that collided with another spell the man had cast causing both to vanish in a burst of sparks.

The man eyed him and then flicked his wand out sending out a large stream of fire. Harry bared his teeth in a smile. Elemental spells came easy to him, they were his specialty and this man had just stepped onto Harry's home ground. He threw out his wand and a huge fireball erupted from the tip and roared across the field. It sucked up the man's own stream of fire and continued on. Harry saw the man's eyes widen and he dropped, rolling out of the way barely in time. The fire ball dissipated three feet from the platform because of the warding shields around the spectators.

Harry and the man had a brief breather as they stared at one another. Then the man lashed out and a whip of blue light formed at the end of his wand. He snapped it out to Harry who slashed with his wand casting a severing charm. It had no effect of the blue whip which hit his squarely across the chest. Harry flew back and managed to land a foot from the edge. Harry felt a growl rise in his throat as he snarled at the man. Harry threw his wand out.

"Serpensortia!" He hissed.

A large black snake shot from the end of his wand, over five feet long and hissing.

:Attack that man.: Harry hissed at it.

It lunged at his opponent who was staring in stunned surprise. Harry heard a cheer from the crowd as the man was forced to leap away from an attack and focus on the snake that was much faster than any normal snake. Harry struck as the man faltered only once. He was soon hitting the hard ground with a dull 'oomph'. As Harry was announced the winner he banished the snake and hoped down to hold a hand out to the man. The man eyed him from his position on his back before reaching for his hand with a smirk.

"That was some good spell work kid."

"I'm not sure I would have won if not for my parseltongue surprising you." Harry admitted. "You were a bit faster then me and you appear skilled with the weapons at your side."

The man chuckled and stood, walking with Harry to an empty seat on a bleacher.

"We were quite evenly matched." He said in his deep baritone voice. "But I don't have as much magic as you."

Harry blinked.

"How can you tell that?" He asked curiously.

The man smiled and shrugged. Then he started to eye Harry. When he said nothing Harry turned to watch the next matches of the third round.

.-.

"As there was a double-knock out last round the matches have been evened out to twelve competitors left"

.-.

Harry stared down his opponent, a short Japanese man who seemed to be twitching ever few seconds. A whistle set the man off and before Harry could blink spells were barring down on him. Harry raised his wand and cast a shield as quick as he could before throwing his own spells back. Spells clashed against his shield and the few that made it through clashed with his own spells. Harry flew back from the force of the colliding spells and slid across the platform on his shoes, leaning forwards to brace his weight. As he got up he summoned up as many snakes as he could with in ten seconds. There were actually quite a few.

Soon his snakes were swarming the man.

.-.

"Should I call you snake charmer." The older man from his last match smirked as Harry joined him on the bleachers again.

"Just call me Harry." Harry smiled.

"And you may call me Harold."

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." Harry hummed.

Harold was eyeing him again.

"Who is your duelling instructor?" He finally asked.

Harry blinked.

"What?"

"Your duelling trainer."

"I don't have one." Harry blinked again. "I just practice on my own when I have the chance."

To Harry's surprise Harold burst out laughing.

"To think. I was beaten by an untrained fresh out of school teenage."

"What makes you think I'm out of school?" Harry asked with a raised brow.

Harold started to laugh even harder.

"An untrained schoolboy." He laughed uproariously.

Harry couldn't help but smile himself. When the man finally finished laughing he crossed his legs and leaned back, arms resting on the back of his seat. He smirked widely and looked back to Harry.

"So what school do you attend?"

"Hogwarts." Harry said easily.

"Hogwarts! Bah!" He scoffed. "I'll admit it has some of the best teachers but they are all held back by their ministry and can't teach to their full potential. It also has nothing but the basics."

Harry perked up. He'd never heard this before.

"Can you explain more?"

"Of course. Hogwarts, though filled with very competent teachers, all masters in their subject, is not a good school. The potions professor, though one of the world's top potion masters, does not nor want to teach. Flitwick is one of the top expert duellers of the world and he's stuck teach tickling charms and levitating charms. McGonagall renowned transfiguration mistress is teaching children how to turn buttons into beetles. Sprout, a herbolgist known even to the thick forest of Brazil, is potting new born mandrakes. Vector, a woman who has come up with five new arithmetic equations to help make hundreds of new spells is teaching classes of barely twenty. So on and so on. Besides that Hogwarts has not held a DADA professor for more then a year in twenty six years. The only extra classes are arithmacy, Ancient Runes, CoMC, History of Magic, astronomy, and Divination. The only useful ones are CoMC, Astronomy, and Arithmacy and even those are limited because of the British ministry. Runes would be added to that list but Hogwarts only teaches you how to recognize and draw runes. They give no lessons on how to wield the power for runes. In history of magic you have a ghost teaching you only about goblin wars. And in Arithmacy you only learn the equations, not how to use them to make spells. They have no classes such as offensive magic, History of Light and Dark magic, swordsmanship, wizarding etiquette, finances, Latin, other languages, wand making, portrait making, animagus, Wandless magic, spell making, the magic of music, occlumency, Legilimency, or anything else. You are seriously hindered if you go to that school. You can only get hired in Britain as other countries take education much more seriously and have much higher standards."

Harry blinked in numb shock as he ran these thoughts through his mind.

"Are you a professor?" He finally asked.

"What gave you that idea?" Harold blinked.

"You just sound like one."

"Well I'm not. I'm a Necromancer."

Harry stared in shock.

"Those are real?" He gasped. "You can actually raise armies of dead skeletons and zombies."

Harold burst into a fit of laughter that made Harry huff. When the man finally calmed he chuckled and patted Harry's knee.

"Necromancers are not what muggles make them out to be. Necromancers, in fact, can only raise the dead as inferi and we never even contemplate doing that. We can temporarily bring the spirits of the dead back to this plane, and we can exercise the spirits, ghosts, already here."

Harry's breath caught in his throat.

"You can communicate with the dead?" He asked, his voice shaking.

"Yes. We usually do it for a living. People who wish to speak to a deceased relative or friend usually come to us. It's costly but most don't care."

"No, I don't think they would." Harry rasped, his chest constricting.

He swayed as realized what this meant. Harold's hand gripped his shoulder to steady him.

"Easy there child." He said soothingly.

Harry's hand snaked out to grab the man's shirt as he gazed at him. Harold drew back in surprise at the hardened eyes that did not belong on a child that age.

"You can summon any spirit?"

"Yes. We only need our specialized spells and magic, and a focus, usually something that belonged to the person, to bring them to this plane. I can keep a spirit here for about two hours."

Harry let him go and closed his eyes.

"I want to hire you." He rasped.

Harold hadn't been expecting that.

"…What?"

"I don't care what it costs. I want to hire you."

"…Sure."

Harry spun at that one word. He felt something flare in his chest as he tried to breathe evenly. He was going talk to them. He released his breath in one big 'whoosh' and started to laugh, a tad hysterically. It took him a good five minutes to calm himself. Harold was watching him oddly but said nothing. Harry decided to start the conversation again.

"Can necromancers do anything else?"

"Of course. We can also summon demons."

Harry blinked in shock and Harold gave smirk.

"I suppose you do not know of demons then. Demons are in fact real beings that are divided into two groups; Demon Beasts and Demon Creatures. Demon Beasts are loosely based on the animals of earth. Hellhounds, Cerberus, imps, gargoyles, Nightmares, and so on. They are aware and have basic instincts but very little intelligence. Demon Creatures are more intelligent with varying degrees. Some are barely smart enough to count as above beasts, but some are even more intelligent then us humans. The Creatures have their own hierarchy with the strongest ruling as King over the demon plane."

"Demon plane?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Of course. Demons live in a plane that rests beside our own. They can only spend a limited time in our plane of existence. Planes or realms of reality exist outside of our own. The demon plane and the Fae realm are the most well known and the only ones we actually know anything about. The Fae realm holds elves, faeries or fae, pixies, Pegasus, and other such creatures. They are where the concept of Heaven and hell came from as they are polar opposites. A famous Necromancer thousands of years ago pained a picture of both realms together fighting, one above and one below. He added wings to the Fae and horns to the demons after being blessed to see the Fae and Demon realms. It got out to the muggles and bam! Heaven and Hell drawn for the first time. Of course, now we only know how to summon demons. Before, Necromancers were once able to summon beings from the Fae realms. Those powers were lost to us centuries upon centuries ago."

He sighed almost regretfully and Harry digested this information.

.-.

"Because of a few injuries and exhaustion in the last round the competitors have been narrowed down. There are four more matches ladies and gentlemen."

.-.

Harry eyed the woman in front of him with a slight frown. She had fired spells at him as soon as the duel started but they were much slower then his last opponent's and weaker. How had she made it this far? His well aimed blasting spell threw her from the platform and won him the round. He hopped down and strode back to the bleacher Harold sat in. He frowned, sitting down beside the man.

"Is it just me or did she seem weaker then my last matches?" He asked Harold.

The man eyed him with surprise.

"I don't think you've realized it, but the higher you get the more worn out you get. After more then three matches an average person would start to tire and his spells would become weaker and slower. You don't seem to be exhausting yourself at all. In fact you can still fire spell after spell without even panting. You've got some of the best magical stamina I've ever seen."

"Oh." Harry said dumbly, watching the matches.

.-.

"We're down to our final four people." The judge smiled at the crowd. "We are a bit short on time though and so we will be having only one final battle, a melee; One for one in a four way fight."

A cheer rose and Harry frowned as he made his way to the platform. He hopped up onto it and took his place in one of the four corners. The other three opponents were a small busty brunette, a tall blonde man, and a tank of a red head man. Harry slid his wand into his hand and waited for the signal, eyeing the other three. The brunette woman was practically vibrating from excitement while the Blonde man was just grinning as he eyed them. The red head man (whom was built like a tank) was just watching them all silently.

As soon as the whistle went everyone burst into movement. Before Harry had even realized it the blonde and the brunette had leapt back to back and started firing spells at Harry and the red head. Harry ducked and rolled cursing as he realized the two knew each other and had teamed up. Harry realized though, that he was faster and more agile then the two. He darted forwards hoping to get closer. As he did so he found the brunette frowning and aiming just for him while the blonde focused on the red head.

Harry rolled out of the way of a spell and threw his own. His reducto sent the woman ducking while pulling her partner down.

"Throw up a shield dammit." The blonde yelled at her.

She nodded and started to do so. Harry wasn't sure what shield it was so he did the next best thing. He leapt at her and slammed into her side. He wasn't that big himself but the busty woman wasn't much larger then him so when he hit her they both went down. They rolled, grappling on the ground. Harry didn't know any professional moves but he'd fought off his cousin enough to know how to get out of a grappling fight. He rolled from the woman and raised his wand before she even realized he wasn't fighting her close up. He blasted her across the field where she rolled off the stage.

Harry ducked just in time to have the red head blast over him and drop to the ground next to the brunette. Harry looked up and rolled to his feet in time to avoid another blasting hex. Before he could do anything though the blonde grabbed his wrist in which he held his wand and twisted it till Harry yelped and dropped his wand. He grabbed at the man's hand hoping to loosen his painful grip as he glared into blue eyes. The blonde eyes him and gave a wide grin. Harry felt a shudder roll down his spine and glared hard at the man.

"You look delicious." The blonde purred. "How about going on a date with me later?"

Harry glared even harder.

"Don't be like that." The blonde smirked. "I could show you a really good time."

Harry lashed out with his left leg, lifting it straight up. The man released his hand and dropped to the ground, knees together and hands going to his groin. Harry glared at the pained blonde and he was blasted off with a wandless blasting hex.

"And we have our winner folks; Number 429. We will now have a half an hour break to set up the final battling platform and the ordering of the matches for the last ten competitors."

Harry slid from the platform and made his way through the crowd to his place on the bleacher next to Harold. The man eyed him before giving him an odd smile and a curt nod.

.-.

Harry followed the referee that had come to get him into the tent near the center of the row of platforms. He stepped in to find nine other people sitting or standing about the tent. The referee cleared his throat and all ten looked over at them.

"As you are all here, the other referees and I will now organize the matches while the main platform and bleachers are set up. We ask you stay in this tent until everything is ready."

Then he left. Harry hesitantly took a seat in a chair off to the side and gazed at the people through his bangs.

"So!" A short blonde woman with cheerful green eyes said suddenly gaining everyone's attention. "My name is Rena Petrov! I'm a Russian magical law enforcer. I enjoy joining duelling tournaments on my vacations and I've won five so far. I'm twenty eight and have a boyfriend at the moment!"

She looked to the man beside her expectantly. He blinked back at her.

"Well." She said. "Your turn."

The man sighed and mussed his deep red hair. He was tall and built.

"I'm Darri Agnor. I'm a magical architect. I enter tournaments when I have free time. This is my fourth tournament. I've won only one but came in second in two others. I'm forty one and dating."

The next man in the 'circle' was a tall south African with beautiful darkened skin and deep honey brown eyes. His hair was black and curly, falling to the middle of his back and held from his face by a red colored headband.

"I'm Elewa Yeboah. I'm a potion ingredients gather in Africa. This is my fifth tournament. I have won one and came in second in two others. I am twenty eight and also single."

His voice was deep and baritone; pleasant to the ears. The next six people in the circle were all Japanese.

"I'm Karin Takashi." The female with short brown hair and an apathetic face said. "I'm twenty and dating. This is my fourth tournament. I've won one and came in second in one. I'm a martial arts sensei."

"I'm Koji Hitachi. I'm thirty two and single. Seventh tournament. Won five, came in second in the others. I'm an English professor." A tall man with scruffy black hair, some black stubble, and a lazy smile said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

"Toru Kyo." A tall average look man said curtly. "Forty one. Divorced. Charms master. Third tournament. Won one."

"Akari Kaoru." A tall female with light brown hair and a soft face said. "I'm thirty six and married. This is my third tournament. I've only placed third in one. I work in a robe shop."

"Shin Jutika. I'm forty two, single, and I work in a book store. Four tournaments, second in all four." Said a man with short spiky brown hair and black eyes.

"I'm Yuuki Sasoke! I'm twenty five and single! This is my third tournament! I came in second in all of them! I like horses and train them!" A small light brown haired one said practically bouncing up and down.

Harry nervously twisted the hem of his cloak as all eyes landed on him.

"I'm Harry. Just Harry. This is my first tournament. I'm thirteen, fourteen in a week. I'm in the midst of opening my own café."

More then one jaw dropped looking at him.

"You're only fourteen?" Rena blurted out. "This is your first tournament?"

Harry shrunk under their gazes mentally, but straightened his back on the outside and nodded softly.

"Ooh!" She grinned falling upon him before he could react.

She hugged him close, pressing his face into her breasts as she practically squeezed the life out of him.

"You're just the cutest newbie I've ever seen!" She cooed.

He knew pink was dusted across his face now.

"You're hair is so cute too! I've always told other men they should grow their hair out. It looks so handsome! And you eyes are just too beautiful for words! Such a lovely green that gives me the shudders. You glasses just accent them and give you a cunning brainy look!"

Harry blushed as he listened to his rambling. Some of the others covered smirks and grins. Harry was finally released as a referee returned to the tent. He was carrying a large white piece of paper. He set it up on an unused chair and they all saw a match pyramid. Harry searched for his name quickly. He was in the first match battling Yuuki Sasoke. The petite man gave him a wide grin.

"The matches will be held on a raised stone platform which we have set up. A small fence will hold the viewers three meters back. A barrier will be set up so if any spells fly past you they will not hit the crowd. A commenter will be in the open area between the platform and the crowd. He has spells to protect him from glancing spells but should you directly try to harm him you will be immediately disqualified. Killing disqualifies you. Torture beyond getting your opponent will get you disqualified. If the commenter/referee says you have lost you have lost. No ifs, ands, or buts. You will be forcibly removed should you argue. Winners will return to this tent when they finish. Losers will join the crowd. First match is in five minutes."

.-.

Harry took a deep breath as he flexed his grip on his wand. Yuuki grinned at him, flipping his own wand hand to hand. The new referee was a man in a black suit with slicked back blonde hair and shades.

"Welcome ladies and gentle men to the finals of the Japan Duelling Competition 1993. We have ten finalists with us today, the best of the best. Our first match will be number 429 vs. number 53. We apologize for not using names but they are withheld for various reasons. Could our first competitors please raise your wands!"

Harry raised his wand parallel to his body. Yuuki copied the movement.

"And begin."

A bell rang out and Harry was already rolling away from a whip. He found Yuuki coming at him with a long whip made of bright orange flames. Harry countered with his own made of water. Steam rose around them as the two collided.

"Wow! They're already at it! We've now seen two expertly cast elemental whips, both strong enough to cancel the other out and create this smokescreen of steam!" Came the voice of

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