Chapter 130
To The Death!
The entire school had been looking forward to the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam. And the turnout was bigger than any quidditch game this year. James was pumped. It felt like he'd been preparing for it forever.
His heart was pounding as he stood in the arena surrounded by people of all ages. First years to seventh and teachers alike were all there their attention was focused solely on him.
It was perfect.
He stared at the púca that had changed to his own reflection, only a little shorter. Remus had done research on púcas, which ended up being a good thing as the extra credits questions had been about the creature when transformed púca's no longer had a mind of their own they become their target mentally as well as physically. That was why they were so rare, because when a púca transforms it can't return to its original form ever again. Your cat could be a púca or your owl, your wife or brother could have been replaced by one. You could even be one and have no idea, all your memories fake, your friends, family, and loved ones, stolen. The only known way to identify a fully transformed púca is that when the creature dies, it's body vanishes into nothing regardless of what it is transformed as.
Not exactly a convenient way to find out if your mum has been replaced by a glowing orb.
There are actually some theories that the earliest wizards were actually the children of a pair of púcas who coincidentally hooked up. James didn't buy it but that was neither here nor there.
The púca across from him, however, was only half transformed. It wasn't a natural state of being for the creature and was a result of quite a bit of powerful magic on Professor Svalinn's part. He didn't know what the difference between a full transformation and a half one but it was safe to assume that the half state allowed Trix to change back to that little flying ball. Which he thought was adorable, though he'd never admit it.
It didn't look cute now as it smiled at him with his own face. It was handsome, though, he'd give it that.
"Ready?" The ex-auror looked at him and James nodded, "go."
"Stupify!" Both participants yelled the moment the okay was given. James dodged with a roll into the shadow of a tree before the spells had a chance to bounce off each other.
The arena itself was the size of the quidditch pitch, was the quidditch pitch actually, and looked like a small town, with trees, roads, and even small houses, (well normal sized houses, they were just small to him.) Everything was in place to simulate a real fight but the death eaters.
James peeked out from his tree, the creature was gone, no doubt taking cover as well. His mind raced, how do you fight yourself? He'd had a plan, of course, but he couldn't remember it now.
He'd known it was a bad idea to study so much.
"Reducto," he heard his own voice yell and the tree he'd taken cover behind disintegrated into a pile of ash.
James' quidditch reflexes kicked in throwing a spell fight back without a moment of hesitation, however, he wasn't the only one with those reflexes and his opponent threw up a shield charm just before the curse hit him.
James laughed, his shield charms at the time this copy was made were awful. A simple explosion had his doppelganger ducking for cover again. James knew he couldn't wait long for a follow-up attack. Healing was something he'd been forced to learn the hard way. Though Sirius was better at quick fixes, his healing was more long term. It took him longer, but he never even left a scar. He advanced on the creature's hiding place a spell already on his lips.
However, his lips weren't fast enough. Instead of healing it had set up a trap, expecting him to advance, it had positioned itself on a window above his head so he wouldn't see it at first causing him to hesitate. He only just caught sight of his copy giving him a confident smirk, despite the blood staining it's shirt, as he fell. The ground swallowed him whole and he berated himself for falling for such an obvious trap and giving the púca a chance to heal itself.
By the time he got himself free of his tomb his doppelganger was gone, which was odd when he thought about it. The creature was supposed to be him in both mind and body and it had just tried to bury him alive. Friend or foe, James knew he would never leave someone to die like that. And that means...
James smile as he managed to get his breath back and waved a hidden wand at the tree he knew Trix had hidden in and nonverbally transfigured its leaves into a swarm of angry hornets.
There was a cheer from the crowd, who had seen the púca hide there, but the creature was ready. It's useless shield could, at least, protect it against a few bugs. He followed up with a stunning spell that was blocked by a wall it transfigured from the bees. He considered ducking for cover but couldn't find the point. He'd seen what his opponent was capable of now and wasn't impressed. Had he ever sucked that bad? That wall was so pitiful it was still buzzing. Clearly there had been some sort of mistake when it scanned him. Sure, transfiguring so many living creatures into one non-living object was difficult and the largest number of things they'd covered in class was four at a time, but he'd never been that bad, right?
Ignoring the fact that very few full grown wizards could have pulled it off as well as his clone had he used it's perceived inadequacy to boost his own confidence. The creature dropped out of the tree. Lily claimed he was arrogant, but James knew she was wrong. Arrogance was believing yourself to be better, or stronger than you actually were. James, however, was just as brilliant as he saw himself as. He was beginning to recognize that he had flaws, but he couldn't yet fathom the depths of his own vanity.
In his own mind, he wasn't arrogant, Snape was arrogant, and this creature, as it gazed at him with his own cocky grin, was arrogant. But was convinced something had gone wrong when it copied him.
They both fired, James being faster then his younger self got the hit in and had plenty of time to spare to dodge the disarming spell. The púca didn't have that luxury and when James looked back his clone had changed into a beautiful stag. It's coat an elegant light brown, and a full set of antlers. It had, almost unnoticeable, light rings around its eyes in the shape of his glasses.
His animagus really was a beautiful creature.
James grinned and bowed at the cheering crowd, judging that fight over. As far as he knew it was impossible to cure yourself of a full body transfiguration into an animal as your mind was changed as well. He'd chosen the stag because he knew it so well, making the human transfiguration significantly easier. Even then, there was nothing easy about a full body human transfiguration. It was his best subject and even he hadn't been sure he'd pull it off.
The crowd was defining, amazed at the fourth year that just accomplished a feat that was only taught in NEWT level classes and he reveled in the praise.
The Professor came down and changed the stag back into a púca. It flew around her head a few times and James imagined it complaining about getting beaten.
"Brilliant," Svalinn gave him a clap on the shoulder, "bloody brilliant."
He intended to inform her of all the flaws in her copy but she shooed him off to the quidditch stands which had been lowered for the event.
Their class was all forced to sit in one area, annoying but it also meant that Lily was sitting not far from him. Surely his awesome fight had impressed her, all girls wanted a guy who could protect them.
"So, wha'd you think, Evans? Pretty cool, huh?" he lounged in his seat forcing the two students to scoot over as he put his feet up on their seat. She gave him a dirty look when she saw it but the two ravenclaws didn't seem to mind.
He could hear Sirius whispered something to Remus, but ignored them.
She forced a fake smile (he knew it was fake because he'd watched her laughing with her friends before and her smile was much prettier than the one she gave him now) and she shrugged.
"Well you did have an easy opponent," she said sharing a look with one of the ravenclaw girls who giggled.
It took James too long to realize he was being insulted. It wasn't until Sirius whined that Lily was trying to kill Moony and James turned and saw the werewolf in question laughing himself silly into his own lap that James got the joke.
"Hey!" he tried to protest but the teacher returned to the stands.
"Ready?" she asked Peter. Wormtail's face was blood red, fear was written on it plain as day. Peter gave a squeak that she took as a signal to go regardless of the actual intent.
Peter's fight was duller than a sack of gobstones. Both participants promptly hid for the first five minutes. It was only when Professor Svalinn threatened to fail him that the rat got out and pretended to look for his counterpart. This lasted for another five minutes before the ex-auror got bored and vanished all of the props leaving the two little mice nowhere to hide.
"I thought he was a gryffindor," Svallin whispered to him at that point and James grimaced.
"More like a gryffindor in training."
Even though it wasn't an interesting fight. The púca didn't do much in the way of fighting, but there was an explosion at the end so it wasn't all bad.
James didn't know Peter even knew how to do that. Peter was escorted to Madam Pomfrey who was on standby just in case. She already had a full tent.
By the time Remus was up James was bored out of his mind. There were a few interesting fights here or there but mostly it was ravenclaws thinking a lot and gryffindors throwing hexes around. Few people seemed interested when Remus stepped out into the arena, James could see why. Remus was skinny and looked even weaker than usual because of an approaching full moon, but James watched with rapt attention. He'd never seen a werewolf fight before but he was fascinated by the idea.
When Remus stepped out into the arena and the púca changed Remus winced. Perhaps realizing just how noticeable some of his scars were, or maybe he just thought it was weird looking at yourself, James had.
This fight started differently than the others, neither party had any inclination to fight so they kinda just stood there staring at each other for a while before Remus laughed at himself and let off the first curse. It didn't take long for the fight to become chaos after that. With curses and charms being only the tip of the iceberg.
It wouldn't be obvious to those out of the loop but when he looked for it, James could see the werewolf in every move Remus made. He could see Moony close his eyes and take a deep breath searching for the other werewolf by sent, and he saw Trixy ignore its wand completely to come after the original with its bare hands.
He'd expected Remus to be a logical fighter with a hidden wild side, instead, his brother fought almost entirely on instinct and quick reflexes, mixed with his own intelligence.
It would have been terrifying to watch if it hadn't been Remus. Instead, it was just fascinating. The crowd surrounding the arena got more and more excited as it went. They cheered when Remus hit his counterpart with a jinx, and gasped when Trixy tackled Moony to the ground, wand in his face and all.
Remus kicked the púca off of him, his own wand pointed at it as he let off a spell of his own. By the time Trixy hit the ground she was once again just a little glowing ball with wings and the battle was over.
The crowd went crazy, it was the most attention Remus had ever received from the student body, and he didn't appear to be enjoying it. But, then again, that was Remus for you.
Of the people he was interested in Lily was next.
The first thing he'd noticed was that she'd gotten prettier since the Christmas holiday. Which was weird since you couldn't improve on perfection, but if it messed up on his it probably messed up on hers also.
Her degree of improvement wasn't even subtle. Favoring charmwork she was in complete control the entire fight and he half fell in love with her as he watched. She danced around the arena ducking under cover in the recreated arena, but not hiding behind it. She was clever and in control while Remus had been quick and surprising.
Sirius was all of those things.
The pup went last due to his name being first in the alphabet for their year, much less just their class. He looked almost identical to his counterpart having hit his growth spurt last year. The only difference was that Sirius' hair had been shorter back in January.
The fight started much like James' had, with both opponents trying to get the first hit, but that was where the similarities ended. Where James had been trying to hit and use it as a distraction to find some cover, Sirius planned to miss. Knowing his opponent was going to start the same way he was, as it had for eight out of nine fights, he started with a flair spell that didn't require him to hit anything. Filling the arena with light blinded more than just his opponent, by the time they could see again the púca was bleeding at the temple and neither Black had moved.
Sirius fought like a classic pureblood like he was in a duel. No hiding under cover, no running around like like a chicken with its head cut off looking like an idiot. Sirius looked elegant and dignified even as he flung curse after hex after charm.
It was almost infuriating, to be honest.
At first, Sirius had complete control, just as Lily had, and then the púca gave ground.
It was a show of weakness that Sirius pounced on, forcing the copy further and further back until it began to get desperate. This is where James began to worry. A desperate Sirius was never a good thing.
James climbed over the crowd to the professor's side intending to voice his concern when it became unnecessary. He could hear Sirius curse when the doppelganger's spell broke through his guard and blood covered his robes with unnatural speed. James called out a warning, though he risked failure by interfering when a follow-up attack was shot. Sirius ducked behind a stone fence, cover now becoming a necessity. James could no longer see him but it was safe to assume Sirius was attempting to stop the bleeding, however possible, and he knew Sirius well enough that he didn't think the púca would let that happen.
This fight was getting dangerous, Professor Svalinn gave a curse as she too realized this was going too far and ran out of the stands. James followed close behind, this, however, left them at a severe handicap as they could no longer see what was happening, He could hear the sound of the fight still going on. James trusted that Sirius was stronger then he'd been five months ago, however, dark magic didn't heal normally and Sirius was already hit.
As they closed in on the sound of fighting James saw something that made his heart stop.
A flash of green light lit up the building Sirius had retreated into and the fighting sounds stopped.
A/N) Darn it, Sirius! Stop creating so much drama! I want to talk about someone else for a change! He's such a screen time hog, even on the other character's chapters he's still got to steal the spotlight.
I know, I know, he's getting a lot of focus, but I've been planning this since I created Professor Svalinn and I didn't realize it would be around the same time of his prank on Snape. After their fourth year ends the focus will shift to include James and Remus more, due to the responsibilities that are given them in their fifth year. So HOPEFULLY Sirius will leave me alone.