Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The two shoals of fish wavered, pointing wands uneasily.

'Hold your fire!' shouted Harry, and a similar cry came from General Malfoy.

There was a moment of held breath.

Then the seven Sunshine Soldiers swam up to join Dragon Army.

There was a triumphant cheer from Dragon Army.

There were cries of dismay from a third of the Chaos Legion.

Some of the other two-thirds smiled, though they shouldn't have.

Harry wasn't smiling.

Oh, this is so completely not going to work...

But Harry hadn't been able to think of anything better.

'Special Orders Two and Three still apply!' shouted Harry. 'Fight!'

'For the Chaos Legion!' roared twenty Chaotic Legionnaires.

'For Dragon Army!' roared twenty Dragon Warriors and seven Sunshine Soldiers.

And the Chaotics dived straight downward, as all the traitors got ready to strike.

Granger: 237 / Malfoy: 220 / Potter: 226

Draco's head darted around frantically, trying to weigh up what was happening; somehow, despite his greater forces, he'd lost the initiative. Four small Chaotic forces were being pursued by four larger Dragon forces, but because Draco's forces were the ones trying to force an engagement, it meant that they had to follow where Chaos ran, and somehow that was producing concentrations of Chaotic force that would fire into the exposed sides of Dragon -

It was happening again!

'Prismatis!' shouted Draco, raising his wand, and that shield you could see even through the water, a sparkling multicolored flat wall wide enough to shield Draco and the five other Dragons with him from the Chaotic force that had just started firing on them as they swam past, and that let the other five Dragons turn their attentions back to the Chaotic force they'd been chasing -

There was a tense moment as sleep spell after sleep spell crashed into Draco's Prismatic Wall, and Draco was hoping to Merlin that none of those four Chaotics had learned the Breaking Drill Hex -

Then there was the bell of a Dragon victory, and the Chaotic force spun head-for-foot and began swimming away; and Draco, his hands now shaking slightly, dropped the Prismatic Wall and lowered his wand.

Fighting in water was more exhausting even than fighting on broomsticks.

'Do not pursue!' Draco cried to his soldiers as they started to follow, then, 'Sonorus! REFORM ON ME!'

The Dragon forces started converging on Draco, and the Chaotic forces spun around and began pursuing the Dragons on the instant - Draco swore out loud as he heard the bell of a Chaotic victory, someone hadn't gotten their Simple Shield oriented right - and then the Dragon forces were in supporting range of each other and the Chaotics were moving back into the murky distance.

Somehow, despite their numerical superiority, the Dragons had scored three times against the Chaotics and the Chaotics had scored four times back, and he'd heard one Dragon spy get executed. Either Harry Potter had thought of a lot of very good ideas very fast, or for some unimaginable reason he'd already spent a lot of time working out how to fight underwater. This wasn't working, and Draco needed to rethink things.

It looked like everyone was having trouble aiming while swimming, too, the battle might last long enough that time would be called... the distant underwater moon was only half full now, that wasn't good... he had to rethink things fast...

'What is it?' said Padma Patil, as she and her force swam over toward Draco.

Padma was his second-in-command; she was clever and powerful, and better yet, she hated Granger and saw Harry as a rival, which made her trustworthy. Working with Padma was making him realize the truth of the old adage that Ravenclaw was sister to Slytherin; Draco had been surprised when his father had told him it was an acceptable House for his future wife, but now he saw the sense of it.

'Wait until we're all here,' Draco said. The truth was, he needed to catch his breath. That was the trouble with being the general and the most powerful wizard, you had to keep using magic.

Zabini came in next, commanding a force of two Sunnies and four Dragons, one of whom was Gregory keeping an eye on Zabini. Draco didn't trust Zabini. And neither Draco nor Zabini trusted the Sunnies enough to make them a majority of any unit; they were supposed to be loyal either to Draco directly, or to Granger who'd been fooled by the promise that the Dragons would be betrayed in the end after both forces had been depleted, just as Harry's more trusted Chaotics should've been fooled into not shooting at the Sunnies by the promise of their firing fake Sleep Hexes and switching to support Chaos later; but it was possible some of the Sunnies were loyal to Chaos and weren't firing real Sleep Hexes and that was why Dragon wasn't winning the way their numerical advantage should've let them win...

The next unit that approached was depleted, three soldiers holding wands on two other soldiers, who were swimming with empty hands.

Draco gritted his teeth. More traitor problems. He needed to talk to Professor Quirrell about having some way to punish traitors at least, conditions like these were unrealistic, in real life you tortured your traitors to death.

'General Malfoy!' shouted the commander of the problem unit as it swam up, a Ravenclaw boy named Terry. 'We don't know what to do - Cesi shot Bogdan, but Cesi says Kellah told him that Bogdan shot Specter -'