Disclaimer: I own nothing; it all belongs to J.K.Rowling. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was the last full day of the school year. There were a few final projects and presentations in morning classes, the last classes of the year. All students had finished their papers and taken their final tests. All except for twelve brave young souls. It was these twelve students, who were sitting in the Defense classroom with their most favoritest Professor ever, Professor Potter. Though in fairness, as first years, they didn't get to have Professor Flamel last year, like everyone else.

Three students from each house. These were the best of the best. Well, more likely these were the twelve who got permission slips signed by their parents. "Alright gentlemen and gentleladies, this duel is going to be the basis for your final grade. Whether you win or lose, whether you get taken down immediately, or strike down your foe quickly and decisively will not affect your grade. Your grade will be on your ability to stand before adversity. To show off your dueling skills and put in your best effort. You do your best out there, you show me what you can do and every one of you will get an Outstanding."

Harry stood up and was pacing with his hands behind his back, like a general addressing his troops. "I have intentionally kept the details of the duel from you. You will not be dueling each other as you may have anticipated. In actuality, the twelve of you will be working together, all at the same time dueling one single adult man. Do not let his size and age intimidate you. I won't lie to you. I have personally tutored the man for well over an hour and a half." Harry explained with a somber serious face.

First year Hufflepuff Samantha Fickersly began giggling. "An hour and a half?"

Harry nodded. "I said well over an hour and a half, but yes it was less than two hours."

The class began to relax and momentarily stopped picturing the ultimate warrior trainee to Harry Potter. Someone extremely powerful magically and with the strength and stamina of a greek God. Little did they know, that what they had been picturing was pretty much the exact opposite of what they were getting.

Harry smiled and said. "I'm glad to see you realize I've been tutoring you all for a lot longer than him. I wouldn't have asked you all to do this if I didn't believe in you. Truthfully, I really don't know who is more likely to emerge victorious. You may win, you may not, but I promise you, this duel will go down in history."

The twelve first years all exchanged wary looks before nodding resolutely.

"Thank you all for coming." Harry addressed the large crowds from his podium. "My partner, Nicholas Flamel and I have been experimenting heavily in the capabilities and limitations of stored magic existing outside of time and space, and establishing triggers to release that magic. The implications of these discoveries, that are only possible with the use of Dementor's blood, are staggering."

Harry continued and pulled out a small firearm. Most of the crowd remained silent, though there were a few gasps. "I can see a very select few of you recognize what this appears like. It is by all appearances a muggle firearm, and were more of you familiar with them, you would most likely be horrified at its capabilities. They fire bullets, small shaped pieces of metal at extremely high-speed that will tear through the flesh of a human like a hot knife through butter. Among muggles, if you get shot by one of these, there is a high probability it will kill you. Firearms, or guns, are extremely destructive and dangerous."

Harry lifted it higher in the air to show most people what it looked like. "This is not a muggle gun though. This is a shell that I have enchanted and imbued with some of the storage capabilities possible through a specially constructed subspace. Most guns have an extremely loud retort when they fire, and are limited by the number of bullets they hold, until you reload it. This has no bullets, but instead has over ten thousand above average strength stunning spells."

Harry spotted Rita Skeeter, took aim, and fired. Rita's eyes were wide and she wasn't ready. The spell smacked her between the eyes and she slumped into unconsciousness. "Thank you Miss Skeeter for demonstrating so capably." Harry happily stated to the unconscious woman. "It's that easy to use. You pull the trigger and out shoots a spell just the same as if you aimed your wand and incanted Stupefy." Harry saw several confused faces. "I can see why you're curious as to the point of a device like this," Harry said waving the gun in the air. "Well, the real beauty of it is that anyone can use it. Children who cannot legally use magic, or who aren't skilled enough to cast a Stunning spell with the strength of an adult could use one of these." Harry paused and added, "Squibs could pull the trigger just as easily as any adult wizard could." Before the masses could wrap their mind around that one, Harry immediately continued, "But this is a very simple example, and now we will see a slightly more advanced one. Rather than pulling a trigger, the stored spells can be released through the use of a word and stored within rings inside a wooden chute. Something far more intuitive to us as we incant words to cast spells through wands. So, here, for you, I would like to introduce the combatants of a duel that will change the way you think of magic."

Harry smiled cheekily, "I would like you all to give a healthy round of applause for our Hogwarts representatives: Elizabeth Burkley, Derek Chance, Cyrus Evers, Samantha Fickersly, Jason Myers, David Ruppert, Sarah Silver, James Simpleton, Ginny Tallywick, Evan Tinker, Augustus Wells, and Zoe Zipperdiddle."

The crowd politely applauded as the extremely nervous youngsters all came out from behind the curtains and stood on the dueling area that had been set up.

"Yes, for those of you unfamiliar with these bright young students, they are all on the brink of finishing their first year here at Hogwarts." Harry explained happily. "And yes, they will be receiving credit for this duel."

Harry took a deep breath and smiled. "These twelve students will be working together, and representing Hogwarts. Their challenger is a single person I would like to introduce to you all now. Please give a warm welcome to my muggle cousin, Dudley Dursley!"

Dudley, and his massive mistake-me-for-a-whale body, came strutting out from the curtains behind Harry. The crowd was sitting there shocked and not a word was being said.

Harry triggered a special little spell he had stored, and it sounded like the crowds had begun cheering and clapping. Dudley was eating it up clasping his hands together up in the air on his right side, and then his left, always a fan of being in the spotlight. The rousing applause was building Dudley's confidence, and apparently the sight of all those in attendance staring at him silently with their jaws open stupidly, did nothing to deter him.

Harry let his fake applause settle down, and continued. "Yes, it is true, Dudley here is about as muggle as they come, and wouldn't even be at Hogwarts if I didn't exclude him from the notice-me-not and muggle-repelling wards. This duel will be to unconsciousness, and it will be a completely magical duel. Wands only, no knives, daggers, swords, or quarterstaffs. The twelve first years versus my tubby muggle cousin."

"Oi!" Dudley yelled. "I'm big-boned!"

Harry agreed. "Excuse me, I meant my big-boned tubby muggle cousin."

Dudley rolled his eyes though he was smiling.

The crowd was still sitting there in shock. A number of flashes from photographers were going off, but no one had begun ranting inappropriately or asking questions yet.

"Combatants, to your sides, please." Harry intoned. He was impressed to see the twelve first years had apparently agreed on an order and were standing in two rows of six.

"Hogwarts contingent, are you ready?"

"Yes, sir!" They yelled in unison, all of them holding their wands up in front of their faces. Harry had to stop himself from chuckling.

"Dudley, are you ready?"

Dudley pulled out his thick brown stick. "Oh yeah. Bring it on, baby!"

Some of the first years looked a little scared.

Harry looked left and right, made sure the charms protecting the dueling area were still secure and yelled, "Begin!"

Immediately, all six first years in the front row cast spells. A couple petrifications, a couple tripping jinxes, and two stunners. None of the students were vastly proficient at magic considering they were twelve years old, so this unified effort was impressive.

Dudley saw the magic heading his way and shook his stick fervently. "Shield!" He yelled while wiggling his stick. A shield erupted around him and deflected all the spells.

The first years looked amazed at the impressive shield Dudley was holding up. They certainly couldn't cast one that big or that would block all those spells. They hadn't even reacted when Dudley began snapping his stick like a whip and yelling, "Stun! Stun! Stun! Stun! Stun! Stun! Stun!" over and over again until he cast nearly fifty in the span of a minute. The first years squeled and scattered around wildly under the onslaught. Five of their members were down. One of the first years, Ginny Tallywick, cast Ennervate on her classmate and saw nothing happen. "They're not waking! He killed them!"

Harry yelled out into the dueling arena. "In a duel to unconsciousness you're out once you're unconscious. No one has been killed."

Ginny Tallywick yelled back, "Thanks Professor Pott-" and that was as far as she got before she was nailed in the back with a stunner.

Dudley smiled. "Gotcha!" He couldn't believe Harry was actually letting him practice his old favorite hobby: picking on younger kids. Perhaps he wasn't as malicious about it as he used to be, but it still was fun.

The remaining students were all the best ones at shields, but even theirs wouldn't be able to take more than one stunner from Dudley before they'd need to be recast. The first years seemed to be working together even more now as two spells came at Dudley from different sides. "Shield!" was yelled just barely in time and Dudley was safe. He reached into a pocket and pulled out another stick. He was holding up the shield with the original stick and began snapping down the other calling out "Stun!" David Ruppert couldn't get a shield up in time and fell to floor unconscious.

"Hey!" Samantha Fickersly exclaimed. "That's not fair!"

Harry again spoke over the silencing charm. "The rules were magic only and wands only. There's no limit on the number of wands. If you get disarmed, you could try picking up a fallen comrade's wand just as easily. And besides, Dudley only has three wands."

"Hey!" Dudley exclaimed. "You didn't have to tell them that!"

A spell smashed into Dudley's shield and it finally fell. "Oh crud," Dudley exclaimed turning his attention back to his opponents. "Shield!" He quickly called again and kept that shield up. Remembering his training, Dudley this time yelled out "Aye Carumba!" Small red pellet projectiles arced slightly through the air straight past the students' shields and smacked into them with a soft 'Thwap!' The first years' natural reaction was to scream bloody murder and run around relatively aimlessly hoping to dodge these new dangerous items. "Oww!" Cyrus Evers yelled. "You hit me in the eye!"

"Sorry!" Dudley yelled back.

"Is that a hot tamale?" Cyrus asked finally examining the new projectiles closer. It passed the sniff and lick test, so Cyrus decided to bite down and find out. He smiled and happily yelled out, "They are hot tama-" and once again, lack of concentration cost another student their place in the duel.

Dudley seemed content to just keep on calling out "Stun," "Shield," and "Aye Carumba" as he stuck with a steady rotation of those spells. A couple more students fell to his quick attacks and it was down to just two first years and Dudley.

Derek Chance and Samantha Fickersly were the last two. They worked there way back next to each other and were having a whispered conversation.

Dudley saw this as his opportunity and dropped his shield. He began rumbling straight toward the last two kids. He was using both hands, snapping his sticks forward yelling "Aye Carumba!" over and over again, pelting the two first years with a steady stream of hot tamales. They both started shrieking and turned to run away from the rapidly approaching obese man and his scary cinnamon flavored hailstorm. Neither had a chance as stunners slammed into their unprotected backs as they had turn to run away.

"Yes!" Dudley screamed. "I am the king!" Dudley was elated and pumping his fists into the air. "That's right! Who's the muggle now, bitch!"

"Dudley!" Harry scolded firmly, bringing his cousin back to reality. "Congratulations." Harry turned to the still stunned crowd, none of which were applauding, despite the audio of applause echoing. "Dudley Dursley is the winner."

Dudley looked around and shrugged. "Don't I get like a championship belt or something?"

Harry rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. An especially feminine crown appeared on Dudley's head. Harry whispered, "Now you get to go wake the students and congratulate them on their duel. Be nice, and you can tell them they all got Outstandings." Dudley nodded and began casting "Wake!" on the kids.

Harry went back to the podium. "And so now we've all seen a muggle win a magical duel." Harry stated simply and smiled. "Any questions?" It was said so innocently and calmly, you'd think nothing of it, but not even Harry could completely hide the twinkling in his eyes.

Every reporter there began franticly waving their hands in the air. Harry was pleased to see his mass silencing charm was frustrating those just yelling questions out. Harry pointed to a pretty young witch in the front row. "Please state your name, and what publication you represent before your question."

"Judith Dark, International Sorcery. I'm not sure the best way to phrase the question for you, but the gist of it is: What the bloody hell?"

"Language!" Harry chuckled and scolded, "There are children present. And to answer your question, yes Nicholas and I have nearly perfected self-spelling wands, and yes we've made wands muggles can safely use as you all just witnessed in the duel."

Harry pointed to an older gentleman.

"Steven Hogwash, Modern Magical Combat. Can you at all expound on how this is possible? Or what limitations there are?"

Harry nodded. "The short answer is the magic is sort of held in a stasis completely unable to be affected or even detected. We've been experimenting with a variety of ways to trigger the magic's release, both from simple speech, with some safeguards, or actions, like pulling a trigger on a firearm. There are a lot of ideas I'm sure we haven't even thought of yet, but I felt a good first step would be introducing the idea of being able to sell magic, in addition to self-spelling wands, for informed muggles and squibs. In terms of limitations, there haven't been very many."

Steven Hogwash stayed standing and asked, "Excuse me, did you say sell magic?"

Harry nodded. "Sure. Think about it: A new Dark Lord or Lady rises, and his or her band of followers are terrorizing everywhere. So you just walk on down to the hardware store, and pick up a Fidelius charm to hide your home. Not a lot of people can manage a piece of magic like that, but properly stored and contained, you could keep it on the shelves indefinitely. It would be especially useful because muggle-borns and squibs are all too often the first ones targeted."

Harry pointed to a man waving his hand fervently.

"Jimmy Taylor, Photographer for the Daily Prophet. Can you wake Miss Skeeter? No one else's Ennervate seems to be working."

Harry smiled and nodded. "Yes, I can." Harry immediately turned and pointed to an attractive young woman.

She was chuckling at Harry's answer to the last question. "Elise Kitterbicken, Witches Weekly. Are you seeing anyone?"

Harry groaned and banged his head on the podium. Nicholas came up behind him. "I'll field this question: Yes, he is." Harry smiled at Nicholas and Nicholas very reluctantly pointed to a middle-aged woman.

"Sheila Van Wilde, Witches Monthly. This question is for Mr. Flamel. Are you seeing anyone?"

Harry burst out laughing finally understanding Nicholas' reluctance to call on her. Harry leaned forward and said, "I'll field this one: Yes, he is." Harry reluctantly pointed to Jimmy Taylor, who was waving fervently with a frown.

"Jimmy Taylor, again. Would you please wake Miss Skeeter?"

Harry frowned and said, "Fine." With a wave of his hand, Rita snapped her head up as if she had just abruptly woken from a nap. "What? What'd I miss?" A few reporters were chuckling. "Oh, is the duel over?" She said with a yawn.

Before she could get her bearings and remember just what happened, Harry said loudly, "That's enough questions for now. Thank you all for coming and we will be having punch and pie as a send-off to another wonderful year at Hogwarts. But before we go, I think we should all give another round of applause to our combatants." Harry exclaimed while clapping and bowing towards the twelve students chatting quietly with Dudley. "And perhaps even for our muggle winner, Dudley Dursley."

The twelve kids around him all cheered and Dudley actually blushed. Harry was a bit in shock and barely registered the fact that Dudley was getting some applause from the audience, and it wasn't even manufactured by Harry this time.

"Listen, 'Arry, I'm real sorry I missed your duel." Hagrid said before leaning forward to whisper to Harry. "I was meeting a guy about a water wyrm."

Harry looked up at Hagrid curiously, who was nodding and smiling giddy as a school girl. Harry shook his head and chuckled. "That's okay Hagrid. You can just read about it in the papers tomorrow."

"Thanks, 'Arry. I knew yeh'd unnerstand." Hagrid beamed at him before stopping and noticing someone standing over by a buffet table. "Excuse me, 'Arry. There's someone I'd like t' talk to."

Harry followed Hagrid's line of sight and saw his cousin. Harry chuckled and patted Hagrid on the back. "Alright, Hagrid. I need to go make sure the reporters aren't hounding the first years."

Hagrid just nodded dumbly keeping his sights on the mammoth young man who had caught his eye.

Hagrid was watching the young man intently. Hagrid grabbed a plate and put a few snacks on it and stood up next to the other man. Hagrid checked that the coast was clear and quietly said, "Momen' I saw yeh, I knew. Even wit'out the height, I could tell."

Dudley turned to the huge and oddly familiar looking burly older man. This was an odd start of a conversation. "What did you know?"

Hagrid continued. "I jus knew…knew you were like me…Was it yer mother or yer father?"

Dudley felt like he had seen this man's picture before or that he should know him from somewhere. He wasn't sure how comfortable he was talking to this guy. "I don't know what you mean. Both my parents are muggles."

"It was my mother." Hagrid said shyly, ignoring the other man's denials. "She was one o' the las' ones in Britian."

Suddenly, all those memories the therapists had helped Dudley repress came rushing back to him. "I… I should check on… something."

"No don't go." Hagrid pleaded. "I've – I've only met one other before."

Dudley was thinking about surgeries on his ass now knowing exactly where he knew this man from. But he was aware he had been a brat growing up and wanted to get along with Harry's friends so he asked honestly, "One other what?"

"Another half-giant, o' course," Hagrid answered.

Before either Dudley or Hagrid could react a spell came rushing towards Dudley's unprotected back. With a quick flash of light a golden ring zoomed into place and caught the spell before it was even within three feet of Dudley. Two dozen golden rings all quickly appeared completely surrounding the invisible assailant sending a dozen different spells including binding, silencing, petrifying, and disarming in addition to all sorts of revealing and charm disabling spells.

With a thought, the invisibility cloak covering the man was summoned off him. Harry caught the cloak and intoned in a very forceful voice, "I see you paid a little too much attention to the fact that he's a muggle."

Hagrid looked up and rhetorically asked, "Muggle?"

Harry hadn't even paused. "And not nearly enough to who his cousin is."

Hagrid looked at the man in front of him. "Cousin?" Hagrid's eyes widened. "Dursley!"

Harry looked at the bound, silent, frozen, disarmed man. "Andreas Nott. Sending a heart-stopping curse at an unprotected back." Harry shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. I'll see if you can't get a cell near your nephew. Kingsley! My good man," Harry cheerfully greeted the approaching head auror. "You can take care of this trash, can't you?"

Kingsley snickered. "I got this. Enjoy your day, Harry."

Harry nodded and turned back to Hagrid and Dudley. By this point, Dudley had both of his hands clamped behind his back just above his bottom, and Hagrid seemed to be laughing his head off. Harry decided to save his cousin. "Hey Hagrid, I know how you like dangerous creatures."

Hagrid's eyes were wide and he was bobbing his head like a puppy.

Harry chuckled, "I think you might like to meet a good friend of mine who helped make all of this possible. You see the cloaked figure standing by Albus? The one in the robes that seem to be cycling through all the colors of the Hogwarts houses? God I don't know how Albus talked him into wearing that."

Hagrid looked over where Harry was pointing. "The nine foot tall fella?" Hagrid asked.

Harry nodded. "Yup, that's the one. Good friend of mine, named Bob. He's probably one of the most dangerous magical creatures on the planet."

"Really?" Hagrid asked. "I'll see you later, 'Arry. Twas a treat seeing you again, Dudley."

Dudley's whimper goodbye sounded just a little bit like a squeal.

Harry laughed. "Come on, Duddikins, let me introduce you to some of my friends."

Harry led Dudley over to a table set up in the shade. "Dudley, I'd like you to meet Ginny, Hermione, Luna, and Tonks. Ladies, this is my cousin, Dudley Dursley."

Dudley smiled and said, "Hello." He saw nothing but frowns and angry stares in response. Dudley asked "Err Harry, they all look like they hate me."

Harry shrugged. "Well these were my friends growing up. And as you can probably guess, they've heard stories about my childhood."

"Oh," Dudley said finally understanding. "So they don't just look it. They really do hate me."

Tonks and Hermione seemed to be nodding, while Luna and Ginny were quietly growling.

Dudley waved meekly. "Oh well. So, which one of these beautiful ladies is your girlfriend?"

Harry paused, wondering how best to answer that question.

..oo00 THE END 00oo..

Author's Note: Yes. That's how I always intended to end it. Lovely, isn't it? Please drop a line saying you liked this story, if you did. Or call me a crude name, or suggest something disgusting if you didn't.

There's now a third and final story in this little universe's trilogy, a sequel to this Cheekquel. It is called "You Did What!" and can be found from my author's page or at story id 2630300. And unlike this story, it has a much stronger semblance of plot.