This Sunday's Dueling League ended in Ravenclaw's victory. Having languished at the bottom for over a month, Ravenclaw was the first to grow restless and fielded a full lineup of starters. Whether in the lower-year or upper-year division, the oldest students they sent out were unstoppable.
Fighting depended first on skill, then on the power of one's spells. Ravenclaw students might not have the same fighting spirit as Gryffindor and Slytherin students, but their superior spell control made up for it. They rampaged through the dueling arena and vaulted Ravenclaw to second place on the standings.
That left Hufflepuff and Slytherin in last and second-to-last place respectively. Slytherin had yet to exert itself, while Hufflepuff was simply weak.
Hufflepuff's first-place ranking, won thanks to Cedric's sudden burst of brilliance, had been snatched away by Gryffindor after the second week of matches. The following rounds had only gotten worse, and now that seven rounds had concluded, Hufflepuff's score had fallen all the way to last place.
After watching the match, Roy considered reopening the "Little Bee Roy Class" in Hufflepuff while on his way to Snape's office to brew Potions. If things continued like this, Hufflepuff had no hope of retaining last year's House Cup. Based on Roy's previous calculations, Hufflepuff needed at least second place in both the Quidditch Cup and the Dueling Cup to have any chance of overtaking Slytherin, which was already far ahead in House points. That was assuming Slytherin did not win either event.
Just as Roy was thinking about this, the person responsible for keeping him from becoming champion appeared before him.
Roy did not understand how, despite both of them walking from the Great Hall to Snape's office, Aisling always arrived ahead of him. Their Potions had now both reached the heating stage, and