I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own Harry Potter. On an unrelated note, I figured I'd add footnotes to this. Because everybody loves footnotes, right?

Harry James "Fucking" Potter-Black,* otherwise known as the bane of Alexis Narcissa "Fucking" Malfoy's existence. Alexis Narcissa "Fucking" Malfoy. Otherwise known as the bane of Harry James "Fucking" Potter-Black's existence.

They didn't like each other very much.

Harry was an orphan, famous for something he couldn't even remember, something that resulted in his parents' deaths, and raised by his childish godfather, Sirius Black. Alexis was a pampered princess, arrogant beyond all belief, but oddly estranged from the rest of her family. While certainly proud of her lineage, she was too pragmatic to believe that muggle-borns and half-bloods were inferior to purebloods, meaning that both of her parents treated her somewhat coldly. Harry, on the other hand, was absolutely adored by his godfather and his best friend, Remus Lupin.

Harry was an only child, given attention rather than expensive toys and gifts. Alexis was the younger of two twins, only ever cared for by her older brother,* but showered in the best things money could buy to compensate.*

Harry had the darkest, messiest, hair most people had ever seen, so black it looked midnight blue when it moved. Alexis, despite her dark blue eyes and slightly pale skin, had pure white (and perennially neat) hair, the colour of fresh snow, which appeared pale blue when the light hit it in just the right way.

Harry was a Gryffindor, brave and noble, self-sacrificing and willing to put others ahead of himself. Alexis was a Slytherin, cold and calculating, more than happy to set others up to fail if it meant she gained the smallest possible advantage.

It often seemed that the only thing the two had in common, other than how much each loved to complain about the other, was their skill with a wand. Dumbledore was quite proud to say that Hogwarts had rarely seen such a prodigy, let alone a pair of them, in its millennium-long history, and he fully expected them to grow into a pair of wizards more formidable than he ever was. More formidable, even, than Tom Riddle, whom he would readily admit (now that he was dead)* was certainly the more powerful wizard of the two of them.

And so, Dumbledore wasn't particularly surprised when Harry stormed into his office one day after a potions lesson, which was shared between Gryffindor and Slytherin house.

Fortunately for Harry, he had no intention of pursuing the subject past his OWL year, which had only three months until its end.

"Can't you do something about her, grandfather?"* he snarled, pacing like a madman.

"About whom, Harry?" Dumbledore asked unconcernedly, eyes twinkling madly. They always seemed to twinkle more when Harry complained about Alexis, which confounded and infuriated him beyond belief.

"About Alexis!" he nearly screamed, magic flowing off his body in waves. "She's so- argh!There are no words!"

"What has she done this time?" Dumbledore asked, smiling slightly.

"It's the way she talks! Like she's the best thing to happen to the universe since its genesis! But we all know, we all know, that she's nothing special!"

"Yes, quite a conundrum," Dumbledore replied placidly.

"Well?" Harry demanded, rounding on Dumbledore, his magic beginning to pool at his feet before lifting itself up to to swirl around him.

"Well what, my lad?"

"Can't you do anything about her?! She's the worst!"

"Ah, yes." Harry stared at him expectantly for a second before- "I fear that I have no recourse against a student being arrogant, Harry. And you know, she is rather talented. Much like yourself, no?"

Harry gaped at him. "That's not the point!"

"Then the point is . . . ?" Dumbledore's smile was only growing as the conversation kept going on, much to Harry's frustration.

"She's just so full of herself!" Harry complained, dropping into a chair in front of the desk.

"I believe that your original point was that she has an inordinately high opinion of herself?"

"Yes," Harry muttered resentfully, slumping further into his chair.

"Surely you of all people realise that she is, in fact, quite gifted?"

"Yes."

"Then there surely isn't any problem?"

"But- She- I- She's so- She's so- There are no words!"

"Harry, I quite agree that Ms Malfoy is something of a braggart-"

"That's an understatement," Harry muttered irritably.

"but," Dumbledore continued, "surely you realise that someone as talented as she is likely to be?"

"I'm not!" Harry snapped. "I'm every bit as good as she is, but you don't hear me parading around the school bragging about how easily I mastered whatever spell!"

"Yes, and I imagine that she finds that rather off putting," Dumbledore said, surprising Harry out of his anger.

"How would that . . ."

"Harry, what you still don't seem to understand is that you are no ordinary wizard. You and Ms Malfoy have more potential than any other student to have passed through these halls in centuries, myself included. By downplaying your own accomplishments, you downplay hers by association."

"That . . . is stupid," Harry decided at length. "She shouldn't need-"

"But she does, Harry. Please do try to be less hard on her in the future," Dumbledore requested, smiling internally at his choice of words. It was perfectly plain to the adults of the castle how Harry and Alexis felt about each other, and the fact that neither of them knew it was a source of endless amusement to many a staff member.

"I- I'll think about this. Thanks, grandfather." Harry stood, dismissing himself. He had no intention of laying off Alexis for as long as she insisted on behaving as she had been, but if she toned down her bragging, and stopped doing whatever she did that made his heart skip a beat every time he saw her smile (whatever it was, Harry had been unable to identify it, which he knew meant that it must have been a particularly subtle form of passive magic), Harry supposed he could tolerate her.

She did, after all, have some positive qualities, if one only knew where to look. Harry flattered himself that he was one of very few people who did know, though he hesitated to voice the thought, even to himself.

The way she moved reminded Harry if the part-veela champion from the previous year's Tri-Wizard: she carried herself with a casual elegance and grace that was rather disarming and utterly impossible to replicate, despite it seeming to come so naturally to her.

He couldn't deny that she was actually rather good-looking. The way she did her hair, with her long bangs tied together with thin black ribbons in two long bundles,* leaving them dangling on either side of her face, the rest of it falling to the small of her back, was unlike anyone else Harry had ever seen or known. Harry didn't know why, but for some reason, it always put him in mind of the story his grandfather had told him about the man who was cursed to forever stand beneath a tree whose fruit would move itself to avoid him, thus leaving unable to eat anything while simultaneously having a constant reminder of that fact not two feet from his face.

Her eyes, which one would expect to be red based on her hair colour and skin tone, were actually bright blue, like two spheres of cobalt. Harry had once, to his shame and horror, caught himself staring at them. In hindsight, he was just glad that he had done so before she did.

And, as frustrating as he found it, his dorm mates absolutely would not shut up about her figure. As much as he wanted to, though, he couldn't disagree with them, and he hated himself for it.

Even beyond the rather obvious physical traits, she was one of the best duelists he had ever had the pleasure of facing. In fact, the two of them had dueled so much and so often that they could do so for over an hour with their eyes closed, and the only one who would get hurt would be whoever was stupid enough to step between them.

If he was being honest with himself, he had to admit that their regular fights in the school's dueling club were the highlight of his week, almost without fail. The fact that he came out on top more often than not didn't exactly hurt, either. The only exception all year had been the week when Sirius had left for an evening on a date and came back with a red hand-shaped mark on his cheek and a stupid grin on his lips.* Harry had laughed himself stupid, and Sirius hadn't even seemed to notice.

He also knew, though it was a closely guarded secret that had discovered only by accidentally catching her in the act, that she often helped younger students master some of the trickier spells they had to learn. Truth be told, her advice with regards to the engorgement charm had been spot on.

"But she's just so annoying!" he snapped at the empty hallway. Deciding that his shouting at nobody was a bad sign, Harry decided to turn in early. Clearly he was stressing himself out, and clearly it was all Alexis' fault.

The other Slytherin girls in their year, Pansy Parkinson, Tracey Davis, Daphne Greengrass, and Millicent Bulstrode, all talked about Harry a lot. That, in and of itself, was hardly surprising to Alexis. She would be the first to admit, before Harry himself, even, that he was an extraordinary spellcaster, every bit as good as she herself.

What did surprise, and infuriate, her was the things they said about him. Rather than discussing his rather superb abilities, or his somewhat colossal failures as a person, they discussed his looks. Potter this and Potter that, but "this" was always his eyes and "that" was always his hair. Never the things that made him him.

And even then, they talked about the wrong things! Never once did they mention that lopsided smirk of his, the fire that burned in his eyes, the natural grace with which he carried himself, the joy that he radiated during a good duel, or the way his eyebrows scrunched together when he was deep in thought. After five years of detesting each other, Harry and Alexis knew each other better than they knew themselves, so she considered herself something of an expert. Therefore, she felt that she spoke with some authority when she said that her dorm mates had no appreciation whatsoever for Harry's best physical features.

And nothing, not a word, about his many, many, negative traits. Nothing about his recklessness, his naivete, how incredibly spoiled he was, how he squandered his own potential, how little he appreciated his own vast magical talent. Yes, there was little doubt in Alexis' mind that Harry James "Fucking" Potter-Black was one of the worst things to happen to Hogwarts in a very long time.

And yet, here were these girls, one of whom was otherwise quite sensible,* ranting and raving about him like he was the second coming of Merlin. In what universe did they believe that they, who clearly knew so little about him, were actually worthy of the few positive traits he possessed? Granted, they were wholly eclipsed by his many failings as a human being, but all the same, Alexis couldn't help but bristle with indignation on his behalf at times.

"Something needs to be done," she said to herself. Sitting in a corner if the common room slightly apart from the other girls in her year, she distinctly heard the words "love potion."

"Preferably soon."

"Alright, folks, we're doing something a little different today," Sirius, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor (and thus the person in charge of the dueling club), announced once everyone was present at the meeting that Saturday. "Harry and Alexis against everyone else."

Harry did a quick headcount. Three students had failed to show up that day, meaning that the he and Alexis would have to take down forty other students, since the club had forty-five members total. It would be difficult, and it would certainly require very creative use of non-combat magic, but it was definitely possible.*

"Excuse me, Professor Black," piped up Hermione Granger. "Um, I'm sorry, but are you telling forty students to attack two other students?"

"Yup," Sirius confirmed, sounding distinctly unconcerned.

"Don't get in my way, Harry," Alexis instructed, sounding bored. As she spoke, she drew her wand in her left hand and took a fighting stance. Her wand was raised with her wrist twisted, making it easier to make the wand movement needed for most spells designed to impact a large area. Her left leg was slightly in front of her right with her knees very slightly bent.

"Same to you, Alexis," Harry said dispassionately. His own stance was much less aggressive: his legs were further apart with his right placed about a foot ahead of his left and his knees bent much further than Alexis' were. His wand was raised, but not held in a way that would make it easier or harder to cast any particular type of spell.

The differences in their stances reflected the differences in their fighting styles: Alexis liked to stay put wherever possible and use the best spells in her arsenal to end things quickly, while Harry preferred to move around, using weak spells to disorient his opponents and letting them tire themselves out before going on the offensive and finishing them off with a few well placed stunners.

Once all of their opponents had taken their places, and once Sirius had safely hidden himself behind a series of protective barriers, a loud ringing was heard, signaling the start of the duel.

Alexis instantly twisted her wrist, shooting out a stunner cluster. Harry started sending minor jinxes into the crowd of their opponents, disarming, disorienting, and partially petrifying them. Nine of their opponents were taken out of the duel in the first fifteen seconds while another twelve were weakened, leaving another nineteen standing, armed, and with full control of their bodies.

Harry cast a displacement spell on the wall near where the four Weasleys still in school, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny, were all standing, as well as another a few inches in front of him.* He sent eight stunners into it before canceling the spell and turning back to the rest of the battle, not even bothering to check if his stunners connected.

Alexis, meanwhile, was sending low-level curses into the crowd of students almost indiscriminately. Within the span of a single minute, she had managed to land three bone breakers, two cutters, eight body binds, and four stunners. Harry, meanwhile, was stunning and binding all of the students whom they had weakened but left conscious.

Within minutes, more than half of their opponents were down, ironically making it harder for the two of them. Up to that point, the large number of students in a fairly small space made it much easier to hit them, since they were grouped together in clusters. Once they were able to spread out, thought, they were able to put up more of a fight.

By the five minute mark, Harry and Alexis were facing fifteen of the more skilled duelists present: the Weasley twins, both of whom had managed to avoid Harry's earlier assault on their family, Hermione Granger, Daphne Greengrass, Blaise Zabini, and ten upper level students whom they only knew by reputation.

Harry jumped backwards so that he and Alexis were standing back-to-back. "Ideas?" he asked casually.

"Curse them until they go down," Alexis answered, sounding as though this should have been obvious.

"Ever the strategist," Harry replied evenly, silently conjuring several snakes. "Attack everyone but me and the irritating girl behind me," Harry hissed.*

"You'd better not've told them to attack me," Alexis said, shooting five reductor curses followed by stunner at each of the Weasley twins.

"Tempting, but not particularly helpful at the moment," Harry responded, smirking, before casting an area of effect spell at the ground, disorienting Hermione, Daphne, and Blaise. He followed up with a stunner directed at each of them, which they were too discombobulated to dodge or shield against.

That left only the ten six and seventh years, who were just finishing dealing with Harry's snakes. Recognising that their opponents had the momentum, they all fanned out to circle the two reluctant teammates.

Harry bounded forward just as Alexis took a single step in the opposite direction, the former animating three of their opponents' robes to attack their wearers while the latter launched a brutal assault against one of the others, who went down in a matter of seconds. Harry spun and cast a shield around them both just in time to intercept the stream of retaliatory jinxes and hexes.

While the nine upperclassmen were trying to break through the shield with brute force, Harry cast a series of blasting curses at the ground while Alexis prepared for another attack the moment the shield went down.

Harry transfigured each of the pieces of rubble at his feet into a dog, making two for each of the nine students still fighting against them. He dropped the shield and pointed his wand straight up, conjuring a muggle barbecue sauce of which Sirius was rather fond around the nine of them.

The dogs' noses all twitched in eerie synchronicity before they launched themselves at their targets. Two students went down: one of whom was targeted by four dogs and a stunner from Harry, the other a single dog and an unnecessarily powerful series of blasting curses from Alexis. Another two went down a moment later from the combination of their robes continuing to inhibit their movement and being jumped by overenthusiastic dogs.

Six left, Harry thought. Let's do it. For the first time during the duel, Harry dropped all pretense of defense to focus entirely on offense, launching nine stunners in quick succession: one at the boy still struggling against his robes (which hit its target easily), and four each at the two others closest to him. Both shielded, though the first one's shield was shattered by the third stunner, leaving him completely open to the fourth.

Alexis, meanwhile, was launching curse after curse at the other three, knocking one out in seconds and another within the next minute.

Two left. Harry aimed a blast of wind directly at the last person facing towards him, followed by a banished chunk of rubble from his earlier destruction of the floor. The boy blocked the wind with a specialised shield spell, but couldn't react in time to do anything about the stone that followed it up. Harry sent a stunner at him before he could get up, just as Alexis shattered her last opponent's shield and launched a body bind at him.

By unspoken agreement, the two of them turned to face each other the moment their respective final opponents had gone down. Sirius, true to form, elected not to intervene. Both silently sent a bolt of lightning at the other, the two shots meeting in the middle. Harry and Alexis circled each other for several seconds before simultaneously ending their spells, Harry twirling his wand slightly as he pulled it back.

Alexis shot a bone breaking curse at Harry, which he spun to avoid, charming the ground at her feet to act as a trampoline, making it easier to jump. Harry charged her, dodging three curses as he went, and used the extra give in the floor to leap over Alexis' head, catching her momentarily off-guard.

Harry managed to land a dizzying hex on her before she got a shield up. Alexis spun out of the way of the body-bind that she knew was coming as she cast the counter-curse on herself. The two regarded each other for a moment before Harry sent a stream of bone crushing hexes that managed to shatter four of the five shields Alexis threw up.

Dropping the last shield, she slipped effortlessly into a spell chain,* sending a bone breaker, a blood boiler, a cutter, a reductor, another cutter, and finally a particularly nasty curse that lengthened its target's bones at him. With each spell she cast, she took a step forward, and Harry took a step back.

Rather than dodging or shielding, he deflected* the curses, sending them to the walls on either side of him. When Alexis had cast her last curse, she immediately flicked her wand, as Harry knew she would, to send up a shield meant to block powerful spells at the expense of letting weaker ones through.

Harry launched a disarming hex at her almost before her shield finished forming. The spell connected, though it didn't knock her backwards as Harry had hoped. Harry shot a steady stream of low-level curses at her, all of which she expertly dodged as she made her way steadily towards him.

She leaped on the pseudo trampoline which Harry had created earlier and since forgotten about, landed behind Harry, and wrenched his wand out of his hand. Harry twisted his hand so that he was gripping her wrist and flipped her over him so that she landed on her back.

Harry was leaning over her, their faces inches apart and facing opposite directions. The two were breathing hard, physically exhausted from their fight. They stayed like that for a second before Alexis took both of them by surprise by grabbing a fistful of Harry's hair at the back of his head and pushing his lips onto hers.

Harry, caught completely off-guard, did the only thing that felt natural: broke away, got to his feet (hauling Alexis up with him by her shirt), and pulled her into a searing kiss the moment they were both standing again.

Harry learned fairly quickly that their kisses were a lot like their duels: both of them constantly battled for dominance over the other, neither of them ever granted it. He vaguely remembered hearing something about girls "melting into kisses," which Alexis was adamantly refusing to do. Harry was half tempted to shout, "melt, damn you!" but decided it wasn't worth breaking away.

Alexis, meanwhile, had absolutely no idea what she had been thinking, but she was also enjoying herself too much to stop and question her own actions. It was the result that mattered, after all.

"Ahem," came Sirius' distinctly fake cough. Harry and Alexis leapt apart, the former blushing madly while the latter looked completely impassive. "I'll just leave you to it, then. Lock the door on your way out." And with that, he left, grinning like a madman the whole time.

An awkward silence ensued, which Harry broke with the most insightful comment he could muster under the circumstances. "Err," he muttered, not entirely sure what had just happened or what it meant.

"I still hate you," Alexis said, her expression still neutral.

"Naturally," he replied, smiling slightly.

"But I suppose you aren't entirely terrible."

"Nor are you," Harry interjected, returning the ever-so-thoughtful compliment.

"And you are a pretty good kisser," Alexis continued, ignoring him completely, "so I guess we can try to make this work."

"I was hoping you would say that," Harry said, grinning from ear to ear and taking a single step forward. "Now, about that 'pretty good kisser' thing . . ."

They didn't leave for quite a while after that.

Yeah, I'm still kinda iffy on the inclusion of footnotes, but I figured they were the best way to provide certain information that's important to the characters, or just to clarify stuff that doesn't make sense, that would be awkward if it was included in the actual story. This probably won't be a thing that I do all the time now, but I'll see how I like it for a few more fics and decide case-by-case if it makes sense to do it with any given story.

* Harry was raised primarily by Sirius, hence the reason he took his name. It isn't the typical "Lord Potter-Black" thing, although that can lead to some fun times, as well.

* She and Draco used to be close, but then they started school, where the latter was constantly shown up by the former. He tolerated it for about three weeks before throwing a tantrum and basically deciding, "screw this, I'm outta here."

* Not to keep her happy so much as to keep her quiet. The Malfoys aren't exactly a happy family, huh?

* The earliest point of divergence from cannon in this story is the fact that Voldemort only made a single Horcrux: the locket. The second was Kreacher successfully destroying it after Regulus stole it, meaning that Voldemort died properly when he tried to kill Harry Halloween 1981. Also, obviously, the fact that Harry was born insanely powerful and the fact that Malfoy has a twin.

* Harry and Dumbledore aren't actually related, but the former was raised in the castle (secretly, of course) with the latter as a grandfather-like figure, so they treat and refer to each other as though they were.

* I had a lot of trouble describing what I had in mind here, so just think Shino's hair from SAO II, only with longer bangs and hair at the back of her head that goes past her neck. And yes, I'm referring to Shino, not Sinon.

* The grin was mostly from the fact that he went out with a woman who actually had the balls to slap him when he made her uncomfortable. He never went on another date with her, but the two became close friends over the next few years after Sirius apologised for being too forward.

* The sensible one is Daphne, who isn't actually interested in Harry beyond his rather impressive abilities. She mostly just praises him to spur Alexis into action, being that she's a Slytherin and therefore is unable or unwilling to do things directly. Also, to maintain the 40 student count from cannon, Lilith Moon doesn't exist in this universe. Somehow.

* As soon as someone is knocked around badly enough that they can't keep fighting (stunned, petrified, bleeding badly, broken bones, etc, etc), a house elf apparates them to safety. Yes, the fact that house elves can side-along apparate other people through areas that have anti-apparition protection is a stupid oversight, but it's a cannon stupid oversight, so there.

* A displacement spell is more or less a way of turning a wand into a portal gun: when the spell is cast, a black hole opens in the space where it was cast, and once the spell has been cast a second time by the same wand, stepping through one hole leads one through the other. Canceling the spell destroys both portals.

* Yeah, that's right, Harry's still a Parselmouth despite never having been a Horcrux. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

* A spell chain is an idea that I shamelessly stole from a phenomenal fic called "Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived" by The Santi, which I highly recommend to everyone ever. That said: a spell chain is a series of spells where the wand movement for each spell flows into the one for the next, which makes it much easier to cast a series of spells in quick succession.

*Another idea stolen from HP at BWL: deflection. Basically, the idea is you catch a spell on the end of your wand and bat it away, rather than shielding against or dodging it. The benefit, other than being able to send the spell wherever you want and looking metal as all hell, is that it doesn't require any magical energy, like shielding, or any physical energy, as does dodging. Of course, it also requires the user to stare down a curse until it's an arm's length away, so it's kinda a risk versus reward thing.

AN: This was basically written as a response to the Harry/Malfoy pairing, which I absolutely despise for a few reasons: firstly, they're both canonically heterosexual, so pairing them off doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Secondly, Malfoy isn't really Harry's type: he's immature, doesn't think for himself, and bullies the fuck out of everyone. If the idea is that two people hating each other equals belligerent sexual tension, which in turn equals romance, then that's a pretty weak basis for a relationship, which is why I tried to make Alexis slightly more likable than Draco was during school while still giving her some of the traits cannon!Harry hated in cannon!Draco. Regardless, that's the reason Alexis is Draco's twin, rather than being a gender-swapped version of him: even if Malfoy had been female in cannon, nothing would have ever happened between her and Harry. Ever.

As for everything else here, I'm aware that this fic is . . . pretty terrible. I've been trying to write it for a couple of months, and it just wouldn't cooperate. At all. The fight scene in particular was brutal trying to write. I mean seriously, nobody ever attacks Harry or Alexis other than each other! That said, I felt like I had to get this finished today, so I forced myself to write, and the result is the shaky nonsense you just read. Hopefully the rest was entertaining enough to make up for it; I honestly think that everything other than the mass duel is pretty decent. As for the rest, I've only proofread this once, and my brain was hurting when I did, so if somebody wants to go through this with and correct any logical inconsistencies and/or technical errors, please PM me about it.

As for the sequel to Educational Decree Number Twenty-Six, I've got a few chapters written, but I want to write out the entire thing before I start posting it, since I have a very long history of getting an idea for a story and writing something that, by the time it's finished, has gone through so much editing that it no longer even resembles my original idea. Hopefully I'll be able to write more of it soon, but I've been suffering from some insane writer's block lately, which is part of why I wanted to post this. I'll be working mostly on one-shots for the next few days, so we'll see where that goes. Hopefully it'll break me out of my rut, but we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? Anyways, thanks for reading! Duke out!

PS: So I just got a review suggesting that I add some actual content in between the introductions and the mass duel. Right now, I'm working on doing just that, although it isn't a particularly high priority for me at the moment. That said, I'll keep this fic up and post the revision as a separate story when it's ready. As I mention frequently, my plans are prone to change themselves without my permission, but right now I'm thinking of doing it as a multi-chapter fic where the introductions from Harry and Alexis' perspectives will be the first chapter, the mass duel and its aftermath will be the last, and there'll be two or three chapters in between them. Like I said, it's a very low priority for me, and I'm also incredibly busy with other projects. But, since I'm only (planning) on writing three more chapters max (plus revising the "two" I already have), I hope to have the revision completed and posted within a month of this update, meaning sometime in mid-January, so keep an eye out for it!