Chapter Fourteen
After all the teachers had worked on healing and releasing all of the students after the duel, Hannah saw Professor McGonagall talking to Madame Maxine and the three judges. She couldn't hear what they were saying but she heard things get quite heated. Professor Longbottom led them back to the bus whilst they were still arguing so they didn't get to see what happened. Hannah almost felt sorry for Madame Maxine and the judges though, she certainly wouldn't want to be on the bad side of Professor McGonagall; she scared Hannah with just a look if she'd done anything wrong and aside from that she'd heard stories from the Great Battle of Hogwarts in 1998 about the things she had done. Tales get exaggerated over time and Hannah knew this, but somehow she found it very believable that Professor McGonagall would animate all of the suits of armour in the castle to create an army to set upon the attackers of the castle.
Dana was leaning on Silv as they walked back to the bus as he arm was still causing her problems but none of them knew what had been done to it though they'd told her it would recover over the next couple of hours. Once they were back on the bus and Professor McGonagall was with them as well, they had a debrief of the duel
'Don't waste your time trying to heal something like a leg that has been transfigured into stone' Professor McGonagall said to Maggie 'healing spells are never going to have any effect on a transfiguration and you certainly shouldn't attempt a delicate and major restorative transfiguration during a duel.' Maggie nodded solemnly. 'If you must do something to help if a similar situation recurs, then protect the student until they are able to continue duelling.'
'Yes Professor' replied Maggie, who knew better than to argue and Hannah thought she looked as though she was feeling guilty about it.
'You did a great job though' said Hannah. 'And thanks for trying to fix me, you couldn't have known when you came over what a horrible thing they'd done to me.'
'Yes' said Professor McGonagall, 'and against the rules of the competition, although not everyone seems to hold that same opinion.' Professor McGonagall's lips pursed as she said this and Hannah could almost feel the anger coming from her.
'Lawrence' said Professor McGonagall, moving on from the subject she found so disagreeable. 'You must be more careful when you choose to dodge rather than block, to make sure you aren't putting a team mate into the line of fire instead.' Professor McGonagall looked pointedly at Dana at that point. 'That was a particularly nasty spell as well as I'm sure you can tell, and she had no opportunity to defend herself.'
'What was it they did to me Professor?' asked Dana, still clutching her injured arm.
'It looks to me to be a fermentation spell' she said with disgust. 'I believe the French witches and wizards use it commonly on their grapes for the purpose of making wine, it isn't a spell which was designed to be used on people, especially not living people, and yet on of these students used it during an official inter-school duel.' Professor McGonagall really spat out the words and Hannah could see how upset and angry she was with the Beauxbatons team and its teachers.
Dana looked disgusted at hearing what had been cast on her arm and Lawrence looked as though he was going to be sick, probably imagining what would have happened if he hadn't dodged and it had hit him thought Hannah.
'We shall not lower ourselves to such vile spells however' said Professor McGonagall, sitting up tall and sounding proud of her team. 'But next is the individual round and we have been focussing mainly on the group duelling as that was least familiar and needed practicing as a group, so let us discuss our tactics for the next round.'
They ate a hearty lunch on board the bus rather than in the Beauxbatons dining chamber as they usually did, as Professor McGonagall said she couldn't trust anyone at Beauxbatons, muttering things about 'cheating' and 'dangerous' under her breathe. They were all very impressed with the steak and kidney pudding Professor McGonagall made, and impressed how she made it all using magic as well, never dirtying her hands once.
By half past three, they were all quite nervous about the individual rounds. Hannah's leg didn't like it was fully recovered, it still felt quite stiff so she was limping a bit and she wasn't as nimble as she usually was. Dana's arm was in a sling as it was going to take some time to recover from her ordeal but luckily it wasn't her wand arm and she was determined to do the best she could in the individual rounds.
'Do you think we got enough points to win this morning Professor McGonagall' asked Lawrence and Hannah thought he probably needed an ego boost to give him the confidence he needed for the next rounds.
'In my opinion you should have scored more points than the Beauxbatons team' replied Professor McGonagall. 'But then my opinion is also that two members of that team should be disqualified and they haven't been so I don't think my opinion is of much consequence I'm afraid Mr Lancaster.'
'I think you won' said Professor Longbottom happily. 'I thought you were all great, I was really impressed!'
'Thanks Professor' said Lawrence and Hannah literally saw his chest puff up.
'You should be thinking about the next round Mr Lancaster' scalded Professor McGonagall. 'This one takes place in the Beauxbatons Dining Chamber and is one-on-one duelling so there is little to be gained by dwelling on a duel with no relevance to the one coming up.'
'We learnt about them though' said Dana. 'And that's definitely relevant.'
'We learnt they have no regard to your lives, that much is certain' said Professor McGonagall who was still bristling with indignation about it all. 'Now gather yourselves together, we want to make sure we arrive in good time.'
They had their last looks over the books they had brought and got their wands together, each of them taking a deep breath before they left the bus and headed towards the Palace of Beauxbatons for the final stage of this round of the competition.
They walked into the dining chamber, striding confidently even though that wasn't how they felt. The members of the Beauxbatons team weren't there yet so the confident swagger which was intended to make them a little less confident didn't have the effect they had wanted. The same young wizard teacher who had acted as announcer on the quidditch pitch came over to them when they had entered the room and led them over to one side of the room. He then rushed back to the centre of the room, amplified his voice again and said in an excited voice 'Elèves de Beauxbatons, souhaitez la bienvenue à vos champions, l'équipe de duel de magie de Beauxbatons!' The room exploded into applause and the Beauxbatons duelling team walked into the room looking very pleased with themselves. Hannah just about managed to hear the announcer repeat himself in English over the sound of the applause. 'Students of Beauxbatons, please welcome your school champions, the Beauxbatons Duelling Team!'
Hannah was very pleased that they had arrived after the Beauxbatons team before the team duelling round as this was very intimidating and she thought it was a bit unfair that they didn't get an announcement when they arrived but on second thoughts, she decided it would probably be worse to get the announcement and have no-one applaud for them.
The Beauxbatons team were taken over to an area at the opposite side of the dining chamber by the announcer and the applause eventually died down. The Hogwarts team was still suffering from the earlier duel with Hannah limping and Dana's arm in a sling but the Beauxbatons team seemed to be in perfect health, which Hannah thought was likely to further enrage Professor McGonagall as that means that the Hogwarts team were casting responsible spells and the Beauxbatons team weren't but they still appeared to not be being punished for it. Hannah just didn't feel as angry about it as Professor McGonagall seemed to though, no, not angry but she did feel a little scared. There was a tiny part of Hannah which was worried one of them might break all the wizard laws and just A.K. her, which meant casting the killing curse, Avada Kadavra, for which there was no defence and it would kill instantly. No matter how badly they would be punished for it, she would be dead before anyone could do anything about it. She knew they would never do that though, they wanted to win the competition, they didn't have any personally against any of the Hogwarts team so she knew the worry was silly and would never happen but it was a tiny niggly worry nonetheless which was digging away at her confidence.
'Your attention please' said the amplified voice of the announcer wizard from the centre of the room and the chatter in the room quickly disappeared to silence. 'We shall now 'old the draw for which students will be duelling against which students.' He waved his wand and a large glass ball that looked like an oversized crystal ball from a divination class at Hogwarts appeared on a table in front of him. 'I 'ave 'ere the names of the students from both school teams' he said holding up slips of parchment before he dropped them into the bowl and Hannah could see them flying around inside it like there was a tiny hurricane inside it. 'The pairings for the individual duelling round will now be chosen' he announced. Hannah could almost hear the whole room hold its collective breath.
The wizard waved his wand and two pieces of parchment shot out of the top of the glass ball and floated down to the announcer's hand.
'Yolande Mouschard and Lawrence Lancaster' he read out from the parchment and the students in the hall politely applauded. Hannah didn't know which one of the girls on the team Yolande was but Lawrence was smiling.
'Ha!' said Lawrence triumphantly 'A girl!' and Hannah thought Lawrence was mad for thinking that somehow the student being a girl would make it any easier to beat her, especially considering nearly all of the champions chosen from Hogwarts were girls.
The announcer waved his wand again and again two pieces of parchment shot into the air from the glass ball and floated down to his hand. 'Sabine Cuvier and Margaret Gibbs' The students politely applauded again. Hannah looked at Maggie and she just shrugged, she didn't know what any of the French team were called either so none of them had a clue which ones were being called.
'Francine Forquaist and Silvestris Quinn' came the next announcement, followed by polite applause once more and Dana and Hannah exchanged looks as the last two to be drawn.
'Honoré Lacroix and Hannah Crescent' and the hall erupted into whoops and cheers. Hannah was stunned, not expecting this reception, she hadn't thought she'd stood out in the group duel at all and then she realised they were all cheering for Honoré Lacroix who had his hands in the air, soaking in the applause. It was the large boy who had turned her leg to stone in the group duel and Hannah's heart sank. This boy cast seriously dangerous spells, apparently with no recourse and was revered by the school so he was obviously not going to be dissuaded from casting more dangerous magic.
'Finally, Bénédict Vigne and Dana Dawson' said the announcer over the cheering and applause still filling the hall.
Hannah knew then that almost every person in that hall not only willed her to lose in her duel but expected her to as well. She could have let that get to her and feel like she couldn't possibly win but she decided to fight back. They might expect her to lose but maybe that was to her advantage, she needed to do the unexpected to succeed, she needed to beat this boy and put him in his place.
'Duels will be fought in the areas marked out on this side of the dining chamber' said the announcer wizard, indicating the area behind him where the judges were currently gathered. 'Please gather here in your respective positions now.'
Hannah felt a bit rooted to the spot as it was happening so fast and she wasn't the only one since none of the team had moved. Professor McGonagall started urging them to walk over towards the duelling area and they all started walking over there and Hannah couldn't help but think of a funeral procession.
They stood on their marks in the order their duels were called with the Beauxbatons students lining up opposite them and waited for further instructions.
'All duels will occur simultaneously' the announcer said 'and marks will be awarded for duelling skill and spell difficulty by our judges.' He gestured to the three judges who were stood over to one side now, who nodded in acknowledgement. Hannah couldn't help but think that it was unfair for the duels to happen simultaneously as the judges were bound to miss something.
'Take your positions' said the announcer and Hannah readied herself with her bad leg planted forwards and her wand braced in her right hand. 'Duel!'
Hannah immediately dropped and rolled to one side and then yelled out 'Protego!' putting up a shield in front of her. A red jet of light streamed past her where she had just been stood and the Beauxbatons boy seemed momentarily confused.
Hannah knew she needed marks for a variety of spells so she didn't want to go for the quick end to the duel. She took advantage of him being momentarily thrown to yell 'Densaugeo!' just as he yelled a spell back her which exploded in green sparks onto her shield but dissolved the shield. As the Beauxbatons boy clasped one hand to his mouth and tried to cast a spell at Hannah but nothing happened, she yelled 'Locomotor Wibbly!' and the boy's knees gave way beneath him. He put his hands down to break his fall and Hannah saw the result of her previous spell as his front teeth had grown to now be level with the bottom of his chin and judging by his last attempt at a spell it was having the desired effect of making his spell casting difficult.
Hannah paused a moment to think what she should cast next for maximum points and he heard the boy trying to splutter out a spell from the ground.
'Titillando!' she shouted with a thrust of her wand but as she cast the tickling hex at the boy, he managed to cast his spell at her and it felt like a knife had ripped open her whole side. She looked down to see her robes soaking in blood and she felt faint.
'Stupefy!' she managed to cast at the boy before falling to her knees clutching her side. She turned her wand round on herself and tried casting 'Episkey', the healing spell she knew. It had little effect but it did give her a brief surge of energy which she used to check her opponent was knocked out cold and shot sparks up into the air from her wand before falling completely to the floor and everything going dark.
'Miss Crescent! Miss Crescent!' Was that Professor McGonagall's voice? thought Hannah. 'Miss Crescent, can you open your eyes?' That was a good question thought Hannah, could she open her eyes. She focussed on her eyelids and cracked them open before slamming them shut again as the light was too bright. 'It's too bright for her' said Professor McGonagall. 'There Miss Crescent, it's dimmer now, you can open them now.'
Hannah slowly opened her eyes and saw Professor McGonagall towering over her and she was lying on her back.
'Is she alright?' Hannah heard Maggie's voice say.
'She will be Miss Gibbs, but you must give her some space' said Professor McGonagall.
'I'm alright' said Hannah and she tried to push herself up onto her elbows but a pain in her side felt like she was being stabbed with a knife and she fell back down, moaning with the pain.
'Do not try and move Miss Crescent!' said Professor McGonagall sternly. 'You have been very seriously injured, you must rest.'
'What happened?' asked Hannah, remembering something about her robes being covered in blood but not what had happened to cause it.
'Your duel was against a highly irresponsible student' said Professor McGonagall, clearly very annoyed. 'He has been disqualified as a result of his actions and thankfully we were able to save you.'
'Professor Longbottom went rushing over to help you!' said Maggie, who sounded keen to tell Hannah her version of the story. 'He was casting spells but nothing was helping you.'
'What did he do to me?' asked Hannah.
'He cast a particularly nasty spell which I shall not repeat' said Professor McGonagall, 'which tore you open down one side and would have killed you if you hadn't had some highly skilled wizards very close by.' Hannah thought she almost heard a tiny sob as Professor McGonagall was speaking and it hit her how close she must have been to dying.
'They stopped all the duels as soon as they saw something was wrong' said Maggie, 'we all couldn't believe what he'd done to you.'
'Did we win?' asked Hannah, realising they must have worked out the scores by now. 'Or do we have to do it again?' she asked thinking she couldn't go through that again.
'They totalled the scores as they stood at the point the duels were suspended' said Professor McGonagall, 'but they haven't yet announced the winners. They did at least announce that the boy who did this to you was disqualified for casting a life-threatening spell. Something they should have done after this morning's team duel if you ask me' she bristled.
'I made some tea' said Professor Longbottom bringing a mug over to where Hannah was lying.
'Let's see if we can sit you up' said Professor McGonagall who waved her wand and Hannah felt herself be pushed up from behind her back, Maggie stuffed some pillows down behind her and she felt herself get lowered back down onto the pillows as Professor McGonagall waved her wand again.
Professor Longbottom handed her the mug of tea and Hannah said 'Thank you Professor' as she hugged the mug. She saw she was laid in her own bed on the Hogwarts bus and she wondered how they had moved her there but then on second thoughts she didn't want to know as it was probably embarrassing.
'How are you feeling now?' asked Professor McGonagall.
'Better' said Maggie who could feel her energy returning the more she drank of the tea. She looked suspiciously at the mug in her hand and then at Professor Longbottom. 'Did you put something in here Professor?' she asked him.
'I brought a few plants I thought might come in useful' replied Professor Longbottom smiling.
'It's good' said Hannah, drinking down the last of it.
They filled Hannah in on what had happened with the other duels. Lawrence had won his duel within twenty seconds but Professor McGonagall didn't seem very impressed by that as she said he wouldn't have got many points for it. Dana was close to losing her duel but Maggie and Silv had both seemed in control with their duels and no-one else had sustained any lasting injuries other than Hannah. It sounded like the points might come out pretty level from the individual duels and Hannah knew that by rights they should get the most points from the team duel in the morning but what they should get might well be different to what they will get so they'd just have to wait and see, it was going to be close either way.
The announcement of the scores and consequently the winners was to be at eight o'clock in the dining chamber and so at ten minutes beforehand, Professor McGonagall had transfigured one of the dining chairs on the bus into a wheelchair and they carefully levitated her into the chair before levitating her and the chair down the stairs and off the bus. Professor McGonagall put a spell onto the chair to make it really smooth no matter how many bumps there were on the way and they were all in the dining chamber ready for the announcement in time for eight o'clock.
The Hogwarts students were led to a table to sit at when they arrived at the dining chamber, with no Beauxbatons students sitting with them at the table. Hannah felt all the eyes of the room on them and was sure they were hating her for the boy they all seemed to love being disqualified, though she hoped they at least felt bad for hating her since she was currently in a wheelchair and was amazed she'd even made it to the dining chamber.
Madame Maxine stood up at the teacher's table and a woman of her size standing up made a big impression on the room and the students quickly fell silent. She spoke in French and then Hannah assumed she said the same thing in English.
'Good evening everyone' said Madame Maxine. 'Welcome back to our champions and to zee 'Ogwarts students. We will be 'earing zee results of today's competition before we 'ave our food so zat we are not waiting through zee food for zee results.'
Hannah assumed Madame Maxine was more articulate in her native language and she was glad that her English was good enough for them to be able to understand as well, even if she had to concentrate to understand it.
'Wizout further ado' said Madame Maxine, ''ere is zee judge from zee Norwegian Ministry to announce zee results.' Madame Maxine sat down and Hannah noticed that for the first time that she had seen, she looked nervous.
The Slavic looking man who was sat with the other two judges stood up and cleared his throat.
'I have the results from today's competition' he said, very briskly and formally. 'Firstly, the team duelling competition. The marks are out of fifty points for each team. Hogwarts team, thirty-seven points. Beauxbatons team, thirty-two points.' There were some boos from students in the hall but most of them just remained silent. Hannah looked around at her team who were all grinning at each other but none of them were vocalising the happiness, and with the points being that close then it still all went down to the individual scores.
'Secondly, the individual competition. The marks are out of ten points for each student. 'Yolande Mouschard six points. Lawrence Lancaster six points.' A couple of boos echoed around the room and Lawrence looked angry when Hannah looked at him.
'Six points, that's ridiculous, I beat her and I beat her fast, I should have ten points, she shouldn't have got any' Hannah heard Lawrence muttering. She tapped him on the arm and put her finger to her lips, she really didn't want the Beauxbatons students hearing him speaking like that or they would be very unwelcome.
'Sabine Cuvier five points. Margaret Gibbs seven points.' Again there were a few boos in the room but Silv was patting a very happy looking Maggie on the back. Hannah couldn't reach her from her wheelchair but she grinned widely at her.
'Francine Forquaist six points. Silvestris Quinn seven points.' The boos seemed to be routine now and Hannah wondered if those students had started to feel foolish at all, but they congratulated Silv around the table.
'Honoré Lacroix disqualified, no points. Hannah Crescent nine points.' Hannah couldn't believe it, her jaw was practically on her lap, nine points! Maybe they had given her some sympathy points or something she thought. She could just about hear her team giving her an excited congratulations over the loud boos that now filled the hall. Evidently the disqualification of their favourite team member hadn't been received well and they likely blamed Hannah for it.
'Finally, Bénédict Vigne eight points. Dana Dawson five points' said the judge. 'This makes total Beauxbatons fifty-seven out of one hundred and total Hogwarts seventy-one out of one hundred. Winners are Hogwarts Team.' He led a round of applause which was only continued by the teachers and judges on the teachers table and on the Hogwarts table where they were up from their chairs except for Hannah and hugging each other. Maggie gave Hannah a huge hug in her wheelchair and Hannah thought she might have even seen Lawrence smiling and he hugged at least one other person in the team which was probably a real breakthrough for him.
They had won the team duel, won three of their individual duels, drawn one and lost one, it was an incredible triumph and seventy-one to fifty-seven was a score which was going to carry them through to the final round fantastically.
The atmosphere in the dining chamber was very morose whilst they ate their evening meal but the Hogwarts students couldn't stop grinning the whole way through. When they went back to their bus they were pretty much dancing all the way back except for Hannah who was still wheelchair bound.
'I am very proud of you all' said Professor McGonagall to them once they were back on the bus. 'You have represented Hogwarts outstandingly and have conducted yourself with dignity and expertise. You all well deserved your victory and you should all congratulate yourselves.'
They were allowed to stay up late that night celebrating although Hannah found at one point she fell asleep in her wheelchair and woke to find she had been moved into her bed. They stayed up celebrating on the dormitory floor so that Hannah wasn't left out though and they couldn't wait to get back to Hogwarts to celebrate with the whole school.