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"Your silly tricks will not work on me." He said, before shooting a gout of flame from his wand, forcing distance between himself and Harry.
Harry fired more sets of sparks, both red and green to keep some amount of offensive pressure up, but seemed as though he wasn't able to stop Ivan's assault. Harry came up with one last play. Harry shot forth an overpowered Red sparks, once more causing Ivan to close his eyes as Harry pulled off his shoe. Harry then lined up his target and banished his shoe straight into Ivans face. The other boy barely had a chance to react as the boot launched itself into his face, and he managed to fire off a stunner in Harry's direction. Harry, now with legs of two different lengths, was unable to dodge the stunner in time, and was knocked out. Ivan, having taken a shoe to the face, was sore but still conscious and was declared the winner.
Harry was innervated a few moments later, coming to and looking around, seeing Flitwick, Andy, Ted, and Nymphadora around him. "Sorry I lost guys." Harry said, looking down.
"My boy you did excellent! That maneuver with your shoe was brilliant, perhaps your gambit didn't work, but you did remarkably. Your opponent, Ivan, is the son of a great dueling prodigy, and his older brother Victor was a regular in the junior divisions before he started playing Quidditch. Ivan was simply more experienced, especially in a tournament setting. You performed far better than I ever could have imagined for your first time. Take this and learn from it, then next year you can show everyone how far you've come." Flitwick said. "Now, you're needed at the stage to receive your trophy. Once that's over, you can spend some time with your family before I must escort you back to Hogwarts."
The Trophy ceremony was very short, with Ivan receiving a Gold trophy for his first place finish, Harry receiving a silver one for his second, and the Irish boy and Spanish girl receiving bronze medals for their third place finish. From there, Harry and the Tonks went to a restaurant just down the street from the arena, and had a celebratory dinner, which Flitwick was invited to join them, but said that he was unable to, needing to speak with some of the organizers about next year's events.
Ted got out a camera and set it up on the table after their meal, having Harry hold up his trophy with his new family around him. They got the picture, and Ted said he was going to get it framed and put up on the wall in the living room. Their first full picture as a family. Harry teared up a little at that, and looked to Ted and Andy.
"Thanks Mom, Dad. I hope it's okay to call you that." Harry said, as Ted and Andy quickly wrapped him up in a hug.
"Of course of course. We're your mom and dad as long as you want us to be. Oh, I wish James and Lily were here, I know they'd be SO proud of you."
Harry simply smiled, and embraced the warmth his family was giving him.
There may be a basilisk at school waiting for him, but as of right now, Harry felt invincible.
Harry returned to Hogwarts late the night of the tournament, sad that due to the timing of the matches, he was unable to watch any of Fleur's matches. She agreed that it was unfortunate that their competitions were overlapping, but appreciated his support. They agreed to write over the summer, and keep in touch. Harry was ecstatic about making a new friend, especially one that enjoyed dueling like he did, since none of the other Sphinx Club members shared his passion for the sport.
Breakfast in the Great Hall came with a surprising announcement from Dumbledore: "Dear students, it pleases me to inform you that one of our own recently performed quite well at a dueling tournament. Harry Potter of Ravenclaw came in a very close second in the Dublin Duel Day competition, which is the largest dueling competition in the Eastern part of Europe. Please give him a round of applause for his exceptional performance."
A polite round of applause came from around the room, and Harry shrunk into the bench as to become as invisible as possible. He didn't even win, so he wondered why they even bothered mentioning it. Hermione and Padma were having none of that though, so they pulled him up in his seat, keeping him from hiding under the table.
"You did great Harry, you need to let people congratulate you." Padma said, Hermione nodding alongside her.
"She's right. You did phenomenally from what Professor Flitwick told us. He even promised to let the Sphinx Club view his memories of the event. We'll be doing that this afternoon." Hermione said, squeezing the hand she was holding.
"Besides, you need to be more confident about your placement. It's harder for us as your girlfriends to reward you for doing a good job if you shy away anytime we mention it." Padma said before leaning in and kissing his cheek. Hermione got the message and kissed his other cheek as well, causing Harry to turn a very bright shade of Gryffindor red.
Classes continued mostly as normal for the day, although Padma and Parvati did have to occasionally push Harry in front of people wanting to congratulate him on his tournament results, a few even asking when he started learning to duel.
That afternoon, once classes ended, all eleven members of the Sphinx Club filed into the club room, where Professor Flitwick was waiting with an unfamiliar object.
"Hello Sphinx Club members! We're going to view my memories of watching Harry's duels, so you can all see how he did. Harry, please get a quill and parchment and take notes on your performance, think about how you can improve, we'll speak about it after the viewing." Flitwick said, dancing around the object excitedly. Small vials Harry recognized as being full of memories sat atop the object.