Early the next morning, Kate appeared in the Great Hall with her left hand wrapped in gauze, and the news that she'd hurt herself yet again spread swiftly through the small school.
After breakfast, Hermione was so furious she wanted to go and take revenge on Malfoy—she'd seen this injury before, and it was exactly the same as the one Kate had received that time at the Quidditch pitch.
Everything about Kate, she remembered with perfect clarity.
Luckily, the Harry-and-Ron pair were there and managed to hold her back.
"It's just that I scraped it a bit while I was snatching his wand away, that's all. It's no big deal," Kate explained in a low voice, still holding a book up like a shield.
They were in the library now, after all, so it was better to keep their voices down.
But Hermione still sharply sensed something was off: "Snatching his wand? He raised his hand against you?"
"Uh—" Kate faltered for a moment. "Just a friendly little spar. Since Slytherin lost the match, everyone was in a bad mood."
Harry timidly raised his hand: "But I distinctly saw you giving me a thumbs-up from the stands at the time."
Right—maybe that was the very reason Malfoy was so angry, cursing at her and no one else.
Kate shot him a sidelong glance, and he obediently shut his mouth.
"Anyway, next time he picks a fight, you're not allowed to hold me back!" Hermione huffed, looking just like an angry little beaver.
"Yes, yes, yes, next time I absolutely won't hold you back," Kate said, hastily nodding while forcing down a smile.
In any case, for the foreseeable future, she and Malfoy probably wouldn't have any contact beyond sharing classes, let alone any conflict.
Having finally coaxed Hermione back into a good mood, Kate was just about to settle down to her homework when she looked up and saw Madam Pince standing before them with a kindly look on her face.
Uh-oh.
The four of them, driven out of the library along with their homework, exchanged glances and shook their heads helplessly.
Never mind—they'd find somewhere else to do their homework.
"But actually there's some good news," Harry said, struggling under his pile of books as he pulled out a sheet of paper. "Look, my aunt actually signed the consent form!"
Ron's eyes lit up with delight: "Brilliant! That means you can come on the study trip with us, Harry!"
At last he wouldn't have to watch Kate and Hermione being all cozy together by himself.
"That's right—I'll hand the consent form to Professor McGonagall in a bit!" he said, then turned his gaze. "Kate, have you handed yours in?"
"Oh, Grandpa Rand's letter hasn't arrived yet—it should be here soon," Kate lied calmly. "Don't worry, the moment the form comes, I'll go sign up."
In truth, she hadn't told the old butler about this at all; she'd only said she was going to stay at school to help Dumbledore with a few things.
The old butler had always been on good terms with Old Man Dumbledore. Seeing that she'd grown so close to his old friend in just over a year, how could he possibly object?
"That's wonderful—the few of us can all be together again on the study trip!" Hermione said excitedly, grabbing her uninjured hand.
Kate could only smile and say nothing.
As they made their way across the entrance hall, they saw a small crowd gathered around the notice board, reading the words on a piece of parchment that had just been pinned up.
Seamus Finnigan—the one who, in the films, was that famous king of explosions—excitedly waved them over.
"They're starting a Dueling Club!" he said. "The first meeting is tonight. Maybe we can learn some decent techniques that'll come in handy later!"
Ron read the notice through and asked eagerly: "So which professor's going to teach us?"
"Lockhart, probably," Kate said placidly. "Last time I went to the Headmaster's office, I saw his Dueling Club application sitting right there on Dumbledore's desk."
Harry couldn't help frowning hard: "That'll be a complete disaster."
By now, apart from the little girls still besotted with Lockhart's charming smile, practically the whole student body knew his teaching ability was an utter mess.
"Maybe he just can't teach?" Hermione tried to put in a word for him. "You all know that in those books he wrote, you couldn't kill those monsters without good dueling technique."
Kate's expression shifted, and she casually gripped Hermione's hand tight: "All right, then let's go and see tonight just how good his dueling really is."
So they found a spot to do their homework, working until dusk before hurrying off to the Great Hall.
The long dining tables had vanished, and along one wall a gilded stage had appeared, lit by several hundred candles floating overhead.
Almost the entire student body had turned up, and the whole Great Hall was noisy and clamorous.
Kate scanned the crowd a few times. She spotted Malfoy and Cho Chang, but she didn't see Luna.
That child probably wouldn't like this sort of occasion, she thought, and gave Hermione's hand another squeeze, leading her into the press of the crowd until at last they reached the foot of the stage.
Gilderoy Lockhart strode onto the stage, resplendent in robes of plum purple.
Facing him, having come up alongside him, was Snape, still wearing his signature black robes, his whole person looking especially gloomy.
Though whether that was just because he was being set off against this gaudy peacock, who could say.
Just as Lockhart was still smugly delivering his speech, Kate watched the stage and couldn't help bursting into laughter.
"Look," she whispered into Hermione's ear, "don't those two professors up there look just like a gaudy peacock and a black bat?"
Hermione blinked, her bright eyes darting back and forth over the pair, and she too covered her mouth and started laughing—not forgetting to give Kate a few light smacks: "How can you slander the professors like that, you're awful!"
"You clearly think they look alike too," Kate said, suppressing her laughter and letting Hermione swat at her.
As they spoke, Lockhart—in the name of instruction—issued a challenge to Snape.
The result was just as expected: he was knocked flat on the ground by Snape's Disarming Charm, drawing a chorus of gasps from the crowd.
"The gaudy peacock got blasted away by the black bat," Kate couldn't resist teasing her again.
Hermione, who a moment ago had been a little anxious over Lockhart's defeat, heard her words and couldn't help bowing her head and laughing again.
Just then the demonstration above finished, and Lockhart, having finally struggled to his feet, wanted to pick two students from the crowd to come up and try, and at a glance he caught sight of the two of them giggling among the crowd.
"Student Shafiq, please come up and give it a try."
He kept firmly in mind the rule Kate had set for him—that he mustn't get too close to Hermione—so he simply picked her herself to come up.
The words were barely out of his mouth when the students over on the Slytherin side erupted into a chorus of jeering cheers.
Inside the Snake House, who didn't know Kate's abilities were exceptionally strong? Otherwise, given the way she spent every single day hanging around with Gryffindor, she'd have been disciplined long ago.
It was precisely because even the older students could only end up getting schooled by her instead that she was able to keep doing exactly as she pleased.
Who knew which poor soul would be unlucky enough to be drawn as her opponent.
Up on the stage, Snape gave them a knowing look, as though realizing something, and a faint smile crept across his rigid face: "Potter, you come up!"
In the crowd, Kate couldn't help frowning, her gaze lingering on Snape's face for a moment.
What was this old bat up to?
Using her to take Harry Potter down a peg? Or trying to use Harry Potter to probe her abilities?
If it was the latter, then it was because lately she'd been in contact with Dumbledore far too frequently, and on top of that she'd taken part in the investigation into the Horcruxes.
Although Snape himself couldn't openly take part in this investigation, no doubt there was a great deal Dumbledore would tell him.
Putting herself in his shoes, if it were her, she too would worry that it was far too dangerous for a wet-behind-the-ears little brat to be involved in something like this.
She had already made up her mind beforehand that, no matter who she faced, she'd hold back as much as possible—making a fool of herself in front of the whole school didn't matter, since she didn't care about such things anyway.
But if this duel had some other purpose behind it, then she'd have to give it more consideration.
She propped herself up on the stage one-handed and lightly sprang up, then turned and reached out a hand to Harry, hauling him up in one motion as well.
"Thanks, Kate." Harry patted her shoulder. "Your hand's still injured—is it going to be all right?"
"It's fine. My hand's a bit inconvenient, true, but we could try it like this…"
Kate blinked and finished murmuring to him in a low voice, then turned and walked to one end of the stage, bowed facing her opponent, and raised their wands before their chests like arrows.
"Raise your wands and get ready!" Lockhart called out loudly. "On the count of three, cast your spells—and remember, no curses that could cost a life!"
The two of them raised their wands high at the same time, and the moment Lockhart counted to three, they each recited their incantations.
"Incendio!"
"Bluebell Flames!"
One red and one blue, two streams of fire shot out from the tips of their wands at the same instant.
Down below, Hermione clenched her fingers, nervous and bewildered: "Why would they use those two spells?"
In students' duels, fire was definitely not a commonly used spell—it appeared far less often, at the very least, than those prank spells.
"No idea," Ron said, arms folded and looking perfectly relaxed as he watched the two on stage. "Maybe they agreed on it beforehand. Who do you think will win?"
Hermione shook her head: "By rights, Bluebell Flames are a very weak kind of fire—most of the time they can only be used to keep warm.
Even used as a means of attack, they shouldn't be able to withstand the flames of the Fire-Making Charm. And yet—"
She hesitated, staring at the clearly deadlocked stalemate up on the stage.
Kate knew so many spells; she had plenty of choices. There was clearly no need for her to pick this weak little flame to go head-to-head with Harry, and yet she'd done exactly that.
Why on earth?
Just as she was puzzling over it, unable to make sense of it, Harry—panting slightly, his head drenched in sweat—looked at Kate's face, which seemed entirely unaffected, and couldn't help gritting his teeth and continuing to maintain the release of the Fire-Making Charm.
"Harry!" Hermione called out to him in concern.
This was already beyond the bounds of an ordinary duel; these two were clearly deliberately expending their Mana, fighting a war of attrition.
But how could Harry's Mana possibly compare to that of Kate, who needed to drink magic-suppressing potion?
Buoyed by the Mana, the scarlet flames blazed up fiercely once more.
But very soon, the unwavering blue flame, as if it had come alive, gradually devoured the red, until it vanished completely.
With a "boom," Harry was sent flying by the blue flame's sudden surge of power, and laboriously picked himself up off the ground.
Kate, meanwhile, was still straining to maintain her blue flame, which danced and writhed through the air like a vine, and a few beads of sweat were gradually seeping out across her forehead.
Seeing that things were taking a bad turn, Snape immediately stepped onto the stage to stop her: "Shafiq, stop the spell!"
But the blue flame, as though it had a will of its own, split its body into several strands that whipped through the air like willow withes, lunging toward Snape.
Just as they were about to reach right in front of Snape, Kate suddenly gave a great shout, and the flame-tendrils abruptly froze, then retracted back into the wand one strand after another.
Kate, panting faintly, half-knelt on the ground, staring at her own wand with a touch of disbelief.
Just now—her flames had actually been alive?
[Congratulations, Host. Through an epiphany gained in the duel, the Bluebell Flames have risen 2 levels at once, reaching Level 9. The Spell Extension function can now be unlocked.]
Her eyes went wide with astonishment. She had originally thought that even with ceaseless day-and-night practice, it would take at least two months to level up.
The Great Hall, which had been stunned into utter silence by this unconventional contest, suddenly erupted into a wave of cheers.
"Kate won! Slytherin won!"
The Snake House students were the first to react, shouting her name loudly below the stage, and right after, the people from the other Houses were stirred up into cheering as well.
Even Gryffindor loudly congratulated her on her victory—after all, she was the one Slytherin they could actually stand to look at.
Kate stood up a little dazedly, listening to the System's notification chime sound:
[Congratulations, Host. For defeating Harry Potter, Academy Reputation +10. Current Reputation: 47.]
You could even gain Academy Reputation on the side for beating the male lead?
She instinctively sought out Harry's voice, and saw him standing in the crowd—grimy and disheveled, yet with an utterly relaxed face, applauding her.
They were friends to begin with, and when a friend won a duel, of course you celebrated.
As for whether he'd be sore about losing to Kate?
You've got to be joking.
As a friend who had witnessed firsthand just how diligent she'd been this past year and more, he had never once believed he could win, on a bit of talent alone, against the top student of the year—someone who was reading at every spare moment and could still tutor him on top of it.
"Oh, what excellent flames!" Lockhart stepped forward, about to show off his learning, but the instant his eyes met Kate's, he abruptly cut himself off.
His financial backer didn't like it when he ran his mouth.
Politely and pleasantly seeing Kate back down off the stage, he then had the students below pair off two by two for dueling practice.
Hermione stuck close by Kate's side, helping her turn down the whole crowd of people wanting to practice with her, and the two of them finally managed to make their way to a corner to rest for a while.
"You scared me to death just now!" she said, patting her own chest, then fixing her eyes pointedly on Kate's injured left hand. "I thought something was going to happen to you!"
Kate scratched her cheek. "Don't worry, I'm not going to lose."
"Winning or losing doesn't matter—what matters is that you're all right." Hermione pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from Kate's forehead. "How about it, can you keep going?"
"Want to challenge me?" Kate grinned, picking up her own wand. "I told you, I'm not going to lose."
Hermione arched an eyebrow, unconvinced: "That's not necessarily true—let's the two of us give it a go!"
"A go it is, then."
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