Chapter 63 - Summoner’s Court; First Round

***** Regular chapter ***** A/N: Happy Father's Day! To all the Dad's out there, we appreciate everything you do! 🫶 side note, this is unedited, as I'm currently heading out to lunch with my pops! Hope you all enjoy! *****

"Woooo! Let's go Hermione!" Harry cheered his best friend, as she cast her 2nd summoning charm of the match.

Summoning it skillfully, Harry watched as she pulled the ball, and started it rolling it towards her, releasing it when it got to the 20 point section!

Harry thought she might have screwed up and released it too early, but to his surprise, the ball continued rolling avoiding the moving obstacles, and perfectly came to a stop in the middle of the last section, worth 50 points!

"YEAH!!!!!!" Harry cheered along with the rest of the crowd, at Hermione's skillful shot!

It was the next day after the preliminaries, and the first round of the Summoner's cup was now in full swing.

The preliminaries yesterday had been quite the exciting event. With only 25/128 students making it through, the cream of the crop had risen to the top, and made for an exciting last few rounds.

And Khan had surprisingly ran into a few more people that he was familiar with, while watching those last few matches. Aside from Luna, who nobody could miss thanks to her fancy headpiece, Khan had also ran into Ronniekins, and the Twins, who were cheering on their sister Ginny.

The twins in particular, were quite excited with their little sister, and her skillful display, completely dominating the field of younger students. They set off numerous pranks, much to the amusement of everybody watching.

Ron in contrast, appeared rather subdued, no longer close friends with Harry and Hermione. Although he was cheering, Khan could tell that he was not nearly as energetic as previously.

Interestingly enough, he had also ran into Ms Daphne Greengrass, who was present that day, to cheer on her younger sister.

Khan was quite surprised by that particular bit of information. He didn't realize that the interesting blonde who was researching obscure curses had a relative; they looked nothing alike!

Daphne had long flowing Blonde hair, with piercing blue eyes, and appeared quite noble and cold in appearance. In contrast, her sister had warm dark brown hair with short bangs covering her forehead, bright brownish green eyes, and a bright smile.

She also appeared quite skilled in the Summoning charm, as she ending up winning one of the preliminary spots, by the end of the day.

The preliminaries had finished late into the evening yesterday, with the losers bracket taking up a bit more time.

Luckily for Khan, after the successful preliminaries that first day, All the participants were more than a little excited for the official first round to start.

The venue seemed even louder and more boisterous than yesterday if that was possible, with even the Drumstraung and Beauxbatons students now joining in the festivities.

The first round, had come and gone, and both Harry and Hermione had easily won their matches, moving on to the next round. It also helped, that they both had played numerous games of Summoner's court, in preparation for Harry's first task of the Triwizard Tournament.

Interestingly, with the increased skill of all the older students, the matches today went even faster than yesterday, each of the students participating today having some skill with the summoning charm.

This allowed Khan to run not just the first round of the tournament, but also the second round. This meant that by the end of that weekend, the competition would be cut down from 609, to 128 contestants!

This also have Khan the opportunity to showcase his first planned summoners court variant that 2nd round.

The contestants had discovered the next day, after they had all played their first set of rounds, that Khan had made some additions to the summoning board.

Two large boxes had been added to each game board, charmed to automatically move back and forth, sweeping across the board in a repetitive movement.

Now, not only would they have to work on their spell control, they would also have to time and control their shots to avoid the moving obstacles.

(A/N: first variant from the game when you learn summoners cup).

As such, Harry was currently cheering on Hermione in her 2nd match of the day!

She was facing down a 4th year Ravenclaw, and was appeared to be easily winning the match, her first 2 balls sitting in the 30 and 50 point area's respectively.

Contrast this to her opponent, who had both his shots land within the 20 point area, she was sitting at double his points, with only one shot each to go!

The crowd suddenly roared, increasing exponentially in volume, startling Harry, as well as the contestants.

Looking over to see what the commotion was about, he saw the crowd part like the red sea, with Khan and Fleur walking arm in arm, apparently arriving to this court as well, to cheer on Hermione from up close.

Khan made his way to stand close by Harry, standing arm in arm with Fleur, watching his friend compete, with a small smile on his face.

This however, had the unintended consequence of putting a unique sort of pressure on the contestants.

Hermione of course, was feeling pressure from Jordan watching her, especially since he was arm in arm with Fleur, now that she was no longer there to keep them separated.

In addition to showing up Fleur, she intended to display just how much of a genius she was, and prove that she was his equal!

The Fourth year Ravenclaw boy, funnily enough, was facing a similar kind of pressure to Hermione; wanting to impress his idol. Although Khan was a growing celebrity and idol in Hogwarts amongst all the houses, it was much more pronounced in his own house, Ravenclaw.

Originally, the Ravenclaw house was often forgotten about, or dismissed as simply 'the smart house'. They had no truly outstanding or popular students, nor were they individually social enough to maintain a large friend group.

But now, things were completely different. They had Jordan Khan! No longer were they looked at as the house of nerds and bookworms!

As a result, many of the Ravenclaws, had their confidence pushed to new heights, and those that were not with OWLs or NEWTs studies, had joined Khan's tournament, wanting to show their support and hopefully impress their house idol.

Hyped up by his idols arrival, the nameless 4th year Ravenclaw, put a little too much force into his summoning charm, pulling it so strongly, that it was clearly going to shoot off the edge of the board.

The student appeared quite disappointed, however what happened next shocked everybody present (except for Khan).

The Ravenclaw student's out of control ball, shot directly at Hermione's ball, sitting in the 50 points area, hitting it! As a result, It transferred its momentum into Hermione's ball, knocking it off the 50 points area, and off the board, his own ball instead coming to a stop in the 50 points area!

Both Hermione and the nameless student looked towards Khan, to gauge his reaction, and see if that move was even legal!

"AHAHA Well done!" Khan laughed as he complimented his housemate. "That move is completely legal, and is actually a tactic I employ when playing this game!"

He remembered using that same strategy to finally beat the original creator of this game, Prof Ronen himself!

"Are you serious!?" Hermione cried in outrage. "That means the score is now 90 - 30?!?"

"Yes!" Khan smiled at Hermione. "But not to worry Hermione, you have 1 shot left, after all. Who's to say you aren't also allowed to use that same tactic?"

She smiled conspiratorially at Jordan's words, before taking careful aim, and casting an overpowered "Accio!" at the final ball. Flying out with force, it flew into the students ball that had knocked her own out of the 50 point spot originally, sending it flying off the board, finishing off the game in style.

The final score had returned to what it was previously, 80-40, with Hermione as the winner!

This new strategy discovery would go on to completely change up competitors strategies moving forward. No longer was the 'meta' about fine spell control over the summoning charm combined with timing. Instead, it completely evolved to also involve power and aim, with numerous students employing the 'knock out' strategy.

In fact, some of the smarter older students, would even begin creating walls with their other balls, to block off and prevent their opponent from knocking off their own high scoring ball.

Back in the present however, Hermione was internally celebrating her victory.

She had done it! She had advanced to the round of 128!

Looking up from the game board, she turned and waved at the watching Harry and Jordan. She was however, quite surprised at the crowd that had turned up to watch her final match of the day. It was not nearly that crowded when she started her match. She was rather flattered that many students had come to watch her.

Unfortunately, Hermione was wrong in her assumption. Khan alone, already attracted a large enough crowd. However, combine this with both Harry and Fleur, you now had three out of the four Triwizard Tournament Champions, all hanging out together and watching the same court.

This of course, attracted quite the large crowd of fans, most of them interested in simply following Khan, watching him go about his business.

This crowd however, was a bit larger, as Fleur was also accompanying him. Although this wasn't anything new, what she was wearing was, and was apparently attracting quite the crowd, as she stood arm in arm with Khan.

Wearing a matching white overcoat with red highlights and gold trims, she also had on skin tight dark blue trousers with knee-high boots, with a white undershirt and fancy looking red undercoat.

(A/N: female thief's coat with Rose Riding attire)

Combined with her shiny silvery long hair and noble temperament, she appeared to match Khan even more than before, attracting a larger crowd than usual, with their gawking at the matching couple.

She appeared quite happy, as she proudly stood beside Jordan, heartfelt smile wide across her face.

Internally Fleur was feeling rather smug, both at Khan having transfigured her a matching cloak after dinner the night before at her insistence, and at having shown all these hussies their place.

After Jordan had made his appearance yesterday in his new drip-inducing outfit, Fleur was more determined than ever, to lay claim to Khan first. He was attracting too much female attention!

Looking back on their relationship this far, Fleur couldn't help but laugh to herself. She had gone from simply interested due to his resistance to her allure, to another lovesick girl. A girl who's Veela magic was actually changing her and urging her to mate with him.

This was unknown to most outsiders, but Veela magic would only actively change Veelas under very unique circumstances, one of them being finding a powerful and suitable mate. Most of the time, their allure was more than enough for them to ensnare their chosen mate.

So for Fleur to actually find someone, who was powerful enough to not only resist her allure, but also affected her Veela magic enough for it to begin changing her, needless to say, she was more determined than ever to make Khan hers.

This was on display temporarily yesterday during her cat fight with Hermione, as she typically was not one to make a public scene and argue with someone, especially over a boy.

It was usually the opposite actually, with boys making a fuss over her!

"Hey Harry! Hi Jordan! Thanks for coming!" Hermione had finally vacated the summoner's court board, and had made her way over to where Khan, Harry and Fleur were watching close by.

Greeting her friends, she purposely avoided greeting Fleur, rather upset at her matching outfit and her closeness to Jordan.

Hermione was looking forward to matching up with Fleur in the tournament, especially after their argument yesterday. She would later find out however, that Fleur did not even join the tournament, choosing instead to spend the entire time support Khan by his side.

"Great job Hermione! I knew you could do it!" Harry praised his best friend in greetings, proud of her performance.

"Yeah! Well done Hermione!" Khan smiled at her, stepping forward away from Fleur momentarily to give her a quick hug in congratulations, before moving backwards into Fleur's waiting arms. "That was an excellent shot at the end there!"

"Thanks Harry! Thanks Jordan! That new board variation with the moving boxes made things a bit more challenging this round!" Hermione complimented.

"If you like that variation, you're going to love the others I have in planned!" Khan stated proudly.

"Are there going to be different ones each time?"

"Oh yes! I have new boards planned for each round. All increasing in difficulty… you guys are gonna love it!"