"Fine, Harry. Just go with what I said before. Try to force him to tire himself out. If you can, banish loose rocks away from him or else he'll use them against you. Don't use the Pebblecoat combo against him, because he'll probably make use of the debris better than you can. Use your legilimency, and don't let him break eye contact the way Fleur did. Don't waste time or energy with minor jinxes and hexes, just use a few, well-placed power curses to take him down."
"Thanks, Hermione. You're a life-saver." Harry chewed happily as he finished his lunch.
"Don't thank me yet, you actually have to win the duel."
Cedric appeared to be up and about, just fine after the short break. A few salves and a dose of pepper-up potion was all he needed. They were all waiting once again in the champion's tent, waiting to be called out. Cedric was resting in a chair, while Fleur and Krum were eyeing each other. Harry stood at the entrance of the tent, peeking outside occasionally. Most of the crowd had returned for the lunch break and the next set of duels would be starting once again.
Once Harry and Cedric were called up, they faced off on the newly-repaired duelling platform. After bowing, they both assumed the same, textbook-recommended duelling stance- knees slightly bent, wand towards the opponent, light on their feet. Harry kept his eyes locked on Cedric's. He's opening with a wide tripping hex and an Incarcerous, Harry read. As soon as the referee signalled the start, Cedric opened with exactly that. Harry jumped over the tripping hex and threw the severing-razor charm, Diffindo novaculis. It cut straight through the conjured ropes and continued towards Cedric, who dodged out of the way. He followed through with another razor charm, cast horizontally and two bludgeoners. Cedric ducked low and blocked one of the bludgeoners. Seeing Harry was still advancing, he cast reductors at the ground in front of Harry's feet. Harry saw them coming, and remembering Hermione's advice, banished the rocks and pebbles away from Cedric as soon as possible.
Seeing what Harry was doing, Cedric then cast another set of reductors at the ground in front of his own feet. Harry ran forward as quickly as he could, but didn't get into banishing range in time. Cedric already levitated several chunks of stone and transfigured them into darts, shooting them at Harry. With a few wind-splitting spells, he pushed most of them off course, but still had to sidestep a few of them, ending up precariously close to the edge of the arena. Instead of banishing the rocks, he decided to switch to bombardment spells- even if it ended up creating more material for Cedric to use, at least the pieces would be flying and hopefully he would be spending more effort dodging them instead of transfiguring them. The first one sent pieces flying everywhere and knocked Cedric off balance, ending his next batch of transfigurations. Harry continued to throw the explosive spells as fast as he could while advancing towards the center of the arena, but the spells were very energy-intensive. Cedric, seeing what he was doing, began using counterspells to intercept them mid-air. Wait a minute, thought Harry. I shouldn't be doing this... I'll tire out before he does!
He was now close enough to use the simple banisher to sweep rocks away from Cedric, so he concentrated on that. Seeing Harry's offensive attack was ending, Cedric retaliated with a combination of stunners and bludgeoners. Harry dodged them easily while continuing to read Cedric, while continuing to banish the loose stones away. Cedric noticed what he was doing and launched a mist out of his wand. Caligo Sequita? What does that spell do? thought Harry. He could read the incantation straight from Cedric's mind, but it was harder to understand the spell he hadn't studied before. The mist was quickly advancing towards him. Once again, he relied on his wind-splitter spell to push the mist off to the sides, but as soon as the spell passed through, the mist changed direction and enveloped him. He was now completely enveloped in fog, and lost his legilimency advantage. He cast another wind-splitter and saw a glimpse of Cedric, but only long enough to tell he was transfiguring something. He blindly threw another bombardment curse, following with an arcing tripping jinx and a wide severing-razor curse. He heard the sound of one of the spells impact a shield as he threw another wind-splitter. Cedric had moved! Turning around before the mist could collect again, he saw Cedric over at his right, launching a series of spells at him. Harry threw up a shield and dodged another, but he suddenly tripped on uneven ground. Keeping his shield up with all his strength, but as he tried to fend of Cedric's unending stream of spells, he knew Cedric was trying to end the duel here. He scrambled to get back up only to twist his foot on another unseen edge, and banged his elbow as he went down. He felt something pass over him and suddenly his breaths were failing. He began to hyperventilate, desperately trying to get some oxygen into his system, but it wasn't working. As his strength faded, his shield did as well, and he was struck with another curse before finally falling unconscious.
Harry woke up a minute later, lying on the platform by the referee. Cedric had dissipated the mist, and he saw what had happened- Cedric wasn't transfiguring more objects to banish at him while he was in the mist, he was transfiguring the rocks closer to Harry, making the ground around him jagged and brittle. There wasn't a single spot of flat ground to stand on. As he got up, the referee gestured to the both of them, and Harry acknowledged defeat. Cedric was declared the winner of his second duel. They bowed and walked off the platform as Fleur and Krum were making their way to theirs.
"What was that spell you used on me, Cedric? The mist thing?"
"It was the chasing mist. It's kind of hard to maintain, and I didn't expect it to work so well against you, actually," answered Cedric. "The nice thing about it is there's no direct counter for it other than a strong gust of wind... not many people use it because blinding spells are easier, but they're also easier to counter."
"Yeah, my wind-splitting spell seemed to do something, but it kept reforming..." Harry said disappointedly.
"Ventascindo? That spell's only good against things that are flying towards you, not surrounding you," Cedric explained matter-of-factly.
"And what would be a good spell to use against it?" asked Harry.
"Oh, that would be sharing my secrets, wouldn't it? We're still competitors, you know." Cedric laughed as he gave Harry a friendly slap on the back. "You put up a really good fight, to be honest. Where did you get the idea to keep banishing all the material off the stage?"
"Hermione watched your first duel. She said you had a knack for transfiguration. Could you tell me what the spell was that made it hard to breathe at the end?"
"Well..." Cedric thought about it for a moment. "I'll tell you what it is, but not how to cast it. It's the reverse-bubble-head charm. The normal bubble-head filters out poisons and other things you don't want to breathe, letting oxygen in. I just cast a reversed version on you."
"But how did it get past my shield?"
"I kind of created the bubble above your head and lowered it down on top of you, actually. I had no idea how long you would have been able to hold up that shield. You've got surprising endurance for a kid who's three years younger than me."
They continued to chat about their duel until they stepped into the medical tent. Harry quickly pointed out his scrapes to the mediwitch, hoping to get out of the tent as quickly as possible to see the match between Fleur and Krum. He knew the duel had started by the time he was receiving his first helping of Speedy Sports Salve, designed to quickly heal up professional athletes' minor scrapes. He couldn't hear anything inside the tent, but he was fairly sure of what was happening- Krum was going to end it quickly with heavy spells, knowing Fleur had already lost to Harry. A scant five minutes later, he was out of the tent. To his amazement, Fleur was holding her own against Krum.
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