The melody of a horn breezed through the air. It was rhythmically repetitive, sounding in perfect fifths and fourths, without even the metallic rustling of valves up and down in position. Percy found the harmonies, such as they were, quite pleasing but would just have soon had a more varied repertoire.

He rose up and tapped it. It fell silent.

"Play something appropriate," he muttered, turning around to change his clothes. What did he want? Funereal? Stirring? Fast? Slow? Something with a melody, that could draw to a finish.

Dubiously, he took it in hand, and pressed some of the valves. They bounced back up. He pressed his mouth into the horn, trying to breathe into it. It made a noise like dinner exploding. He set it down on the bed.

Only the taste of the breakfast enlivened the meal, which otherwise consisted of Oliver's doomed attempt to find any deformation in the tessellated ceiling pattern.

"You know," Percy offered after one too many glances over, "even the slave-owners would thank you for ignoring them when asked."

The words struck home. Oliver tensed up and took a larger, sputtering bite of the breakfast but made no reply. No, that was no good—trying to drive a wedge between them had been Oliver's goal all along. And, Percy supposed, you were worth more to slave-owners alive than dead.

Except Bagman.

Except them to Bagman, because Oliver had defied him and Percy had tried to stop it. Bagman, who had a wand and his freedom, slaves at his beck and call, was afraid of them, was trying to get rid of them. He wouldn't let either of them go free, not if he could help it. So he, Percy, could be Bagman's opponent.

And Oliver was there, trying to pretend he didn't care anymore. Percy had to be his opponent, too.

There would apparently be no preliminaries. Bagman was there, waiting in the kitchen. Gone was his excited smile, replaced with an impatient arch of the eyebrow. For one wild moment, Percy wondered what would happen if he hurled his breakfast plate at him. They'd punish him, but what of that? It couldn't be any worse than having to fight Oliver.

But there would be no honor in that.

So he walked on, a half-step ahead of Oliver, back through the tunnels. Oliver had several leg guards to slip into, try on, shove back and forth, rotate around and around. Perhaps his complaints about the practice equipment had been somewhat justified. After that long, how much had he forgotten?

"Need any help?" Bagman smirked.

In response, Oliver slipped on a metal helmet.

"Is there anything going on outside?" Percy asked. Bagman hadn't cast the transparency spell.

"Animagus race or somesuch." A dismissive shrug from Bagman. "Won't be long."

It beat the alternatives, Percy supposed. It beat them so considerably it hardly counted as a fair fight.

They stood silently, Oliver adjusting the toggle on the round shield to no visible effect. Maybe the magic only worked once the fights were really on? Then why not practice with them?

We could take him, Percy considered mouthing, but decided against it. He was wearing a helmet, after all, and Oliver couldn't see.

A spattering of footsteps, no, applause, from above, and Bagman waved them forward. "Right, then," he said, before Disapparating.

As they strode out onto the sand, Percy glanced up, past George and the others, and tried to catch a glimpse of the topmost box. Maybe Scrimgeour would be standing alone—there. Staring forward, wearing as simple a robe as any, was the man with yellow eyes.

And then below him, the light flashed forth from the official's wand. It seemed to sear out a musical note, or maybe that was the cry of the voices around him, distorted by his helmet.

That was his first order of business. He swung the toggle all the way to the side, to breathe more easily while waiting to attack. Across the way, Oliver seemed to be doing the same thing, albeit without the advantages of a magical helmet.

Percy stepped forward, trying to tune out the flutter of heat and cold rushing through his sword. The round shield was too big. It'd be blocking almost everything reachable. Maybe he could wait until Oliver hurled it at him? Once again, he conceded that the helmet-doffing stratagem was probably never going to work twice, although if it got a rise out of Oliver it might almost have been worth it.

Instead, he darted forward again, only for Oliver to lunge down, his shorter height making it an easier reach for his spear to catch Percy's legs. Without thinking, Percy gripped higher up the sword, so it was easier to dash forward and strike near Oliver's chest. In response, Oliver reached for the toggle to shrink his shield, until it was small enough to crunch the sword and flip it into the air. Percy, momentarily disarmed, leaped for it; Oliver crouched down, whipping the spear down to gouge Percy near the other ankle.

Beyond them, bursts of noise.

Percy landed, adjusting his helmet to take off at a run. Even then, his legs slowed him down, but it didn't feel any more difficult to breath, at least not compared to his preexisting fear. Oliver took off, beyond him, but he was quickly angling towards the wall. Percy tried to grasp the growing size of the oncoming faces. They'd near the boundary in three steps, two, one...

He angled a moment early, that time grasping the sword near its hilt so he had more time to turn it. Oliver, pressed aside, tried to leap past, but a surge of chill gave Percy the interval he needed to strike blindly, out of reach, and hit a slumping target.

For a moment, the spectators were there in front of him, close-pressed to watch each stroke of the blade. Then he'd angled away, and they were invisible again.

Oliver had backed away, his sprint indicated by footprints in the sand. If there was blood dripping down, it had fallen into the hollows left behind. That time around, he'd staked out a position with plenty of distance from any wall. No, maybe Percy was misjudging the distance. If anyone was smart enough to expect Percy not to come up with the same strategy twice...

Flipping the toggle again, Percy approached slowly. One heavy step, two, and then not a third. The round shield came skimming low to the ground, crashing into his leading leg and then, as he sidestepped, bouncing off his trailing leg.

Well, Oliver had thrown the practice raptors around. Even Spinnet had. It couldn't be too hard, just to pick up another weapon and hurl it? He bent down, grasping the round shield, and fiddled with the toggle. Sure enough, one direction grew it into a more defensive piece of armor; the other shrunk it down into what he could only assume was a more throwable scale. Hoisting it up to his hand, he threw it across the way.

It sank unevenly, and then Oliver was there, plucking it out of the air and charging forward as the crowd sung. Where Percy's stronger arm hung awkwardly in the air, unused to the throwing motion, Oliver's spear quickly followed. Percy, in retaliation, lashed out with the sword, but he had yet to switch it over to his strong hand in the absence of the shield, and Oliver easily turned that aside.

That time, as they pulled apart, Percy did notice blood splotches, though he could not have said whose. Oliver was growing the shield again, almost daring Percy to reach out, to find a weak spot.

The edges, maybe, or below. Percy lunged, and the spear knocked his sword aside, struck again, and found only the spear deflecting him, once more, and all too quickly the spear was darting through space. It didn't overshoot the mark, didn't give Percy time to chop at the arm that held it, just sped to fling back every blow.

Back and forth they clashed, and Percy decided to act before Oliver had time to reintroduce the shield. After one counterblow of the spear, he pulled back the sword faster than Oliver could strike and followed its momentum away from the spear and down, further, until his balance gave way entirely and he rolled to the ground. The crowd moaned, as if more moved by the ruse of a fall than any injury he'd borne, but Oliver was aware of just when, and when not, he'd struck true, and stabbed out with the spear. Or perhaps he wasn't aware. He'd have spared no blow, either way.

Instead, Percy continued to pivot on the ground before reaching up with his sword. The angle was awkward, but from behind it barely mattered. He could wait for it to chill before slashing, drawing a deep wound through Oliver's back.

Just as quickly, the shield had flown into his face, preventing him from doing much more damage. As he reached out for his sword, he felt the spear whiz by as Oliver slashed wildly, as if trying to slice off Percy's head then and there.

Louder and louder the spectators roared, and Percy stumbled backwards as Oliver clambered to his feet. How impressive could it really have been? They'd been fighting for what seemed like far too long. There was never any keeping track of time. One errant swipe could not thrill the watchers any further, surely...

He paced back, tripping over something metal in the sand, losing his balance and exacerbating the pain in his ankle. And yet Oliver had no shortage of armor, while his own sword remained in his hand. What could have gone wrong?

Oliver rushed forward, spear at the ready, and Percy took off to the side. Immediately, Oliver had spread his trailing arm back, toting the shield behind him. Percy stepped backwards, trying to catch his breath.

And then, raising his arm, he discovered what the eyeholes would not let him see. Oliver hadn't been attacking him. He'd been attacking his toggle—knocking it all the way to one side, and then chopping it off to lock it into place. Sure, Percy was able to move more quickly, but that didn't help if his feet were barely holding together. In the meantime, the helmet itself would choke him. It was bad enough in a short fight, but that one was drawing on and on.

He'd have to make an end, and quickly. He struck at Oliver's tilted arm, was pushed away by the spinning shield toward the spear, and had to dodge to evade another strike. Sometimes he thought he felt the sword chill, but maybe that was because he'd used up all his sweat. Gasping for air, he fumbled with the sword, but there was no time to wait for a crippling blow. They drew blood from countless nicks, and then, as the round shield grew again to turn aside his sword, Percy stumbled to the ground.

Get up! he urged his muscles, but they, recalcitrant slaves, would not obey. And if they were slaves, that made him something apart—something not defined by his wounds or his sweat or the lack of air. Just a man, who could love and dream and be brave.

And even a slave, beaten down and overwhelmed, could signal for his master's overthrow. Perhaps not with the same finger they'd prefer to display to their owners, but, through the bloody sand and the engulfing roar, a finger nonetheless.

He tried to turn, to make out the grim lights in the seats, but his eyeholes let little through. He could endure defeat—back to the courtyards and the teacher adjusting his posture, little good that had done him, and Oliver ignoring him—and somehow, Oliver did believe it was a good idea. So Percy could trust him even that much, to go along with it. There were choices to be made, even there.

And death would be nothing. Oliver would be there, would hold him upright, would understand. Maybe he wasn't setting an example for the others—what did they know, about who was sacrificing what?—but it wasn't about them, really. Brutus had missed the mark, there. If he lived, Percy thought, he'd make a note of that.

Yet even after the length of the fight, the wait felt entirely too long as well. Who was that Scrimgeour, a fool who didn't know how to count? It should not have taken long at all. Send up the green flash, let it be over with, but there was no sense prolonging the darkness as he rasped for air once again. A few more moments, he feared, and there would be no use even in Oliver's blade. Or maybe that was Bagman's idea of a punishment, that not even Oliver could touch him at the end.

All around him, he felt the sand move, and the noises from above did not diminish. There was a grunting, and he felt his head bump into the helmet, as if the broken armor itself was attacking him. Percy held his breath—and then the entire helmet was gone. He was staring up into bright light, the official standing above him.

"Where are you hurt?" the official asked, reaching his wand towards Percy's ankle.

"No!" Percy twitched, jerking his legs backwards. "I mean—I lost. What happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure." A couple quick spells and his legs were healing. The skin further up his body knit together, but as he squinted, he could see Oliver standing, his back once again whole. Percy exhaled, taking in another slow whiff of the air, as the wand swept over him once more.

"What do you mean you're not sure?" he finally said. "He won, and they must have sent up red sparks because here you are healing me. Is Scrimgeour just slow? What's the holdup?"

"He's not slow," said the official. "Come on, up with you. Can you stand?"

"Yes, but—"

"I don't know what he's at. You conceded defeat," and he raised his voice slightly so that Oliver, by then turning and looking confused but healthy, could hear, "at the same time."

"What?" Percy blurted, catching sight of Oliver's jaw dropping.

Then it edged forward. "You conceded?"

"At the same moment," the official went on, as Percy stared. The wound in his back had drove Oliver on in a frenzy, and he'd been fading at the last exchange of blows. But he'd held on, enough to knock Percy over without knowing it would take the last of his strength. "I didn't know what to do. You'd been going at it so long already. But Scrimgeour, well, I suppose he doesn't need a crowd to give him orders."

And then he was reaching for the imitation wand, holding that high in one hand and his real wand in the other. He hesitated for a moment, then raised the wand, casting "Geminio!" In a moment, the wooden wand was twinned.

"Go on," he said. "You are both victors today."

Percy reached for one of the wands; Oliver, hands shaking, followed a moment later. They were useless sticks; they could strike no one down, by magic or force. They could be snapped at a moment's notice.

But with Oliver standing by his side, it didn't matter. He was free.