Harry Potter
And the
Doomspell Tournament
Last time, three of the soon-to-be most infamous duels in history went underway, with all of Harry's friend prevailing just barely. Now Ivan String, his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, must step in the ring with the dreaded vampire revolutionist leader, Garef.
Now it seems one of the heroes is about to face the unkillable, possibly one of the most dangerous beings in the world aside from Voldemort himself.
Of course, String is not without his own skills and abilities, but will they be enough to defeat Garef himself... once more?
Chapter 7
Cry Havoc
Garef stared at String - and laughed.
"You're hilarious. You should just kill yourself and get it over with!"
"Is that why a young boy destroyed you last year? Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."
"Very funny. Do you want too feel what it's like to be a pile of ASHES?" Garef spewed out a pillar of fire that just missed String, stopped by the killer green curtain.
"How can he do that?" Lupin demanded.
"I'm a lot stronger than last year, that's for sure!" Garef informed him, and spat more flames at a very fleet-footed and very worried String, who threw off his robes, which had just caught fire, and tossed them out of the ring. He threw his dark hair back and revealed a number of items on a chest-belt, including a semiautomatic pistol, which he whipped out and fired. Garef was unfazed, even when one of the bullets went straight through his forehead.
"Silver. Ooh, it burns." He laughed, and spat out the bullet.
"How-" String didn't ponder long, but next pulled out an oak stake and leapt for Garef, who caught him by the throat in midair and began to squeeze. As hard as he could. String's neck constricted under the pressure.
"BWA-HA-HA, are you ready to die now?"
"You-" String managed to mutter.
"It was a rhetorical question, you know." There was a loud CRACK! And String fell to the floor, completely lifeless.
"No!" Hermione shouted at the top of her lungs, running toward the ring, her wand out.
"No, Hermione!" Ron and Lupin pulled her back.
"He killed him, HE KILLED HIM! PROFESSOR STRING!" She fought to get to the ringside.
"Miss Granger, stop it!" Snape suddenly spouted.
"SHUT UP, YOU, JUST SHUT UP..."
"Miss Granger, PLEASE! There's nothing you can do. Don't go getting yourself killed!"
She gave up and whimpered.
"Now you." Garef turned and pointed at Harry.
"What?" Harry demanded.
"Are you afraid? I want revenge, Potter, for what you did to me last year. It was rather painful, you have had this coming for a long time-"
"GRGHRGHHH!!!" Garef bent forward slightly, a short, silver blade protruding through his left side.
"Professor String!" Hermione shouted.
"That's... my name..." String laughed mildly, holding the hilt of the blade.
"You... scum, you back stabbed me!"
"You would have done the same to me." String justified, twisting the blade. He pulled a cross off of his belt, and brought it onto Garef's forehead.
"GAAAAH!!!" It slowly began burning through his skull. "I just killed you!"
"Not exactly. But you're the best damn chiropractor I've ever met." String rolled his head around a little.
"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" A familiar voice shouted, binding String and making him drop the cross. Garef pulled the blade out of his chest and bellowed at him.
"What? It couldn't be!" Harry shouted.
"They've cheated him!" Dumbledore pulled out his wand.
"No, it just bounces off!" Harry reminded him. "But that voice! It couldn't be!"
"Be who?" Dumbledore asked him, but Harry was already gone.
"I'm about to make your worst nightmare come true!" Garef bared his fangs, lifting String off his feet with one hand.
"Forget you!" String spat in his face, still unable to move otherwise.
"Very good." Voldemort laughed icily at the shorter death-eater, who was directing his curse at String.
"Of course, just a few more seconds, master." The shorter death-eater acknowledged him.
"Well, here's one victory, one of the aurors who killed some of my most faithful death-eaters!"
"IMPEDIMENTA!" Harry bellowed, knocking the shorter one aside. "EXPELLIARMUS!" His wand flew off. Voldemort scowled.
"I will leave you the privilege to live only if you leave now, simply because I want to kill you myself." Voldemort informed him.
Harry glanced over his shoulder, and indeed, he had prevailed; String was struggling once more.
"Hang in, there, sir!" Harry made his way back to his side of the ring.
String was furious, now. He'd had quite enough.
"Go ahead! I'm going to kill you once and for all!" Garef bellowed.
"For my sake, I hope there's a little human left in you!" And with that, String thrust his knee full-force into Garef's genitals.
Garef silently released his grip and stopped silent, bending over, and then let out an animal howl. String rolled over and snatched up the blade from before, returning, and with one clean slice, took off Garef's head.
Now there was just his head and his body, but Garef's head began screaming at him.
"BASTARD! It's not over! I'm gonna pay you back in spades for that one!"
"He's like a giant, annoying mosquito." Hermione told him.
"Yeah, but when a mosquito bites you, do you turn into one?" String laughed, and used his wand to light up Garef's body. It soon dissolved into a pile of ashes.
"Hey! Don't do that! Oooh, you got me pissed now, I'm gonna kill you for that!"
"Shut up." String turned his wand on Garef's head.
"HEY! NO! DON'T!"
PLAAAM! String's wand left a smoldering crater where Garef's head had lay, cutting off Garef's momentary scream
"Well, that was easier than I expected." String hopped out of the ring, ignoring Voldemort's furious wails of anger and frustration.
"You beat him in a fraction of the time Harry did last year!" Ron applauded him.
"Well, I used to do it for a living, you know." String informed him.
They were now four matches into the Doomspell Tournament.
***
Neville, Seamus, Dean, Stan, Colin, and Sharon were staring out the common room window at the great swirling pillar of cloud, that had grown in the last hour from a hundred feet to over a mile into the sky.
Nikki and Chuck soon joined them for a view.
"It's incredible." Dean was awed.
"It's hard to believe the fate of the world is being decided as we speak, in our own backyard." Sharon muttered.
"Kind of exciting!" Colin piped up. They just stared at him.
"Hey, everybody, where's Marshall?" Chuck asked as he entered.
"Or Ron or Hermione, for that matter?" Nikki added.
"They went out to wish Harry good luck-" Colin informed them, and paused in horror.
"No way." Neville paled as it dawned upon them.
***
"The next match will definitely be to our advantage." Voldemort announced. "Pettigrew, my loyal (snicker) follower , shall challenge Sirius Black."
"No problem." Sirius pulled out his wand and made his way to the ring.
"Be on your guard, something is not right!" Dumbledore told him.
"Good luck, Sirius." Harry hugged him, despite the fact that he was around so many people.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody roared.
"Thanks, but I got it covered."
"Black!" Snape bellowed. Black faced him.
"What do you want?"
"Don't be a fool, the Headmaster is right. We know Pettigrew is a weakling and a coward, especially from our school days, but there definitely is something up! Don't be arrogant, and..." He reached into his pocket, and tossed Sirius a vial. "Drink it when you need it. You'll know when." Sirius looked at the vial for a moment, a thick, grey liquid sloshing around in it.
"Very well. Thank you all."
"I am growing impatient!" Voldemort shouted.
Sirius got into the ring and watched as a hooded figure made it's way in, a little short and a little wide. He raised his wand and waited...
Pettigrew ripped off his cloak, revealing his face, and in one hand, a wand, in the other...
The other seemed to be composed of shiny chrome, shiny almost as if it were made of mercury.
Pettigrew gave an evil smirk.
"Old friend. It's been too long." He said.
"Yes, I've waited a long time for this. What happened to your hand? I thought you only lost a finger."
"I lost this hand for my master, and soon I'll take your head for him." Pettigrew threw his wand aside.
"Pettigrew! Do not be arrogant!" Voldemort shouted.
"I've got this." Pettigrew told him.
"Insolence! Idiocy! Finish this quickly, you fool!"
"Go ahead. Take your best shot." Pettigrew coaxed him.
"I'm not going to attack an unarmed man." Black said. "Even if he did betray his own friends, kill them, frame me. Pick up your wand, you coward."
"Oh, but I don't need it." Peter laughed, and pointed at black. "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSIA!" Black was lifted off his feet, and Pettigrew tossed him about the ring.
"Hilarious! I've waited so long!" Peter directed him to fly into the death-curtain.
"BLACK, NOW! THE POTION, NOW!" Snape shouted at him.
"What?" Black uncorked the vial, and swigged it down in one gulp, without the slightest idea what it would do.
"What? Where'd he go?" Peter demanded.
Black landed on the ground just short of the wall.
"He has a lot of power behind that spell to levitate me around with that." Black realized. "But he'd, have to have lost his concentration or lost his sight of me to..." Then Sirius realized; the potion had made him invisible.
"Looks like it's back in my hands." Sirius quietly slipped around behind a very confused Pettigrew, who then spoke up.
"As you have seen, I threw him straight through the side of the ring. The Kedavrus curse has killed him. I win."
"Pettigrew, behind you!" One of the death-eaters shouted. Sirius was shocked. Had the potion worn off already?
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Sirius pointed his wand straight at Pettigrew's head. The green light blinded him for just a moment, and then...
Pettigrew still stood. He raised his hand in the way of Sirius's wand.
"What is that thing?" Black demanded.
"Watch and learn." Pettigrew laughed, and grabbed Black's wand, and splintered it with his bare hand. Then he went for Pettigrew's throat.
"No rush, just die." He laughed louder and louder as his grip tightened.
"You know, I could finish you in and instant, but this is just too much fun." He laughed. Sirius looked him right in the eyes.
His eyes were pale. Beyond pale, they were white, completely.
"You're not the old Pettigrew!" Sirius managed to choke out.
"Maybe not."
"Finish him!" Voldemort screeched. Black wrenched free, and dove for the edge of the ring, where he found Pettigrew's wand, just sitting there.
"That hand..." He muttered. "Block this!" Pettigrew raised his silver arm, and Black shouted, "DISPELIO!"
The arm turned a variety of colors, then back to it's old chrome.
"But..." Sirius was shocked; the spell should have nullified it.
"What's going on?" The color had returned to Pettigrew's eyes. "What's going on here?"
Black raised the wand once more. "It ends..."
"No! Match called for now! It is currently a tie!" Voldemort shouted.
"WHAT? YOU CANNOT DO THAT!" Sirius rounded on him.
"I will do as I please and see fit! Both of you, out of the ring, before I kill you." Sirius swallowed, and stepped out. So did Peter.
"What does this mean?" Harry asked Dumbledore.
"I don't know, it appears Pettigrew was possessed. I would imagine even with his distinct advantage he would normally still be apprehensive to step in the ring with Sirius."
"I see."
"But I do know one thing. It's my turn." He exhaled loudly.
"Black." Fudge stepped forward. "Black, I don't believe it."
"Believe it." Sirius told him.
"Pettigrew." Fudge muttered. "That little sneak. So, are you both really unregistered animagi, as Dumbledore said?"
"We are." Sirius said blandly, and stepped past him.
"Good job!" Harry patted him on the shoulder.
"Thank you! So who's next?"
"Look." Harry suddenly hushed. Dumbledore stepped up to the ring, and when Voldemort announced, stepped in to face Karkaroff.
"Dumbledore."
"Karkaroff. So I take it the rumors are true. Do you really teach your student's the Dark Arts?"
"Of course. Why not? Everyone has to learn to defend themselves, and I go on the offensive. CRUCIO!"
"DEFLECTUS!" Dumbledore halted the curse.
"So are you going to come to your senses, Karkaroff? Everyone deserves a second chance. You've already had yours, but I hate to see this happen to people. It's not like you've killed anyone."
"Yet. AVADA-"
"EXPELLIARMUS!" Karkaroff was thrown off his feet and landed on his back in the center of the ring. His wand flew aside.
"You-"
"Calm down!" Dumbledore now showed the same flare of fury as he had last year and the year before, Harry now realized, the kind that he showed only when he was truly furious.
"Dumbledore... you know, as a fellow... you don't have to..."
"No, I don't and I won't. Leave with me, Karkaroff, this match is over. There's no need for anyone to die anymore."
"Very true." Karkaroff stood, and began to follow Dumbledore out the ring. That was it. The shortest match. Of course, Karkaroff didn't want to fight, and Dumbledore didn't want to kill. He stepped through the curtain first, but when Karkaroff walked into it, the green veil did not part.
THUMP! Dumbledore looked back to find Karkaroff on his back, his eyes wide, dead.
"YOU!" Dumbledore turned to Voldemort. "You did that! That was your fault!"
"THE DARK REGIME HAS NO ROOM FOR COWARDS AND THE LIKE! HE GOT WHAT HE DESERVED!" Voldemort bellowed. "Now, the final match will begin now! Potter, in the ring. You shall face my bodyguard now!"
"Your bodyguard. Of course." Harry said.
"Of course."
"Of course you would be to afraid to face me yourself."
"What?" Voldemort had never had anyone speak to him like that before.
"Just get in the ring and let's get this over with."
"Go." Voldemort directed the shorter death-eater, one of the last between himself and Pettigrew. Harry entered the dueling ring and Voldemort's bodyguard unhooded himself as he stepped in.
No.
It couldn't be.
But Harry was not surprised.
"So, Potter, we meet again." Came the drawling voice.
"So we meet again, Draco."
A/N: So what did you think? Please R&R!!! I've got nothing else to say right now, but I hope you liked it. A lot of you are wondering why Voldemort didn't kill the winners with the curtain. Ask Dumbledore, he knows about dueling rules and the like. But for now, how will Harry fare now that he must face his former rival once more? We'll find out, in the next chapter!
And the
Doomspell Tournament
Last time, three of the soon-to-be most infamous duels in history went underway, with all of Harry's friend prevailing just barely. Now Ivan String, his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, must step in the ring with the dreaded vampire revolutionist leader, Garef.
Now it seems one of the heroes is about to face the unkillable, possibly one of the most dangerous beings in the world aside from Voldemort himself.
Of course, String is not without his own skills and abilities, but will they be enough to defeat Garef himself... once more?
Chapter 7
Cry Havoc
Garef stared at String - and laughed.
"You're hilarious. You should just kill yourself and get it over with!"
"Is that why a young boy destroyed you last year? Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."
"Very funny. Do you want too feel what it's like to be a pile of ASHES?" Garef spewed out a pillar of fire that just missed String, stopped by the killer green curtain.
"How can he do that?" Lupin demanded.
"I'm a lot stronger than last year, that's for sure!" Garef informed him, and spat more flames at a very fleet-footed and very worried String, who threw off his robes, which had just caught fire, and tossed them out of the ring. He threw his dark hair back and revealed a number of items on a chest-belt, including a semiautomatic pistol, which he whipped out and fired. Garef was unfazed, even when one of the bullets went straight through his forehead.
"Silver. Ooh, it burns." He laughed, and spat out the bullet.
"How-" String didn't ponder long, but next pulled out an oak stake and leapt for Garef, who caught him by the throat in midair and began to squeeze. As hard as he could. String's neck constricted under the pressure.
"BWA-HA-HA, are you ready to die now?"
"You-" String managed to mutter.
"It was a rhetorical question, you know." There was a loud CRACK! And String fell to the floor, completely lifeless.
"No!" Hermione shouted at the top of her lungs, running toward the ring, her wand out.
"No, Hermione!" Ron and Lupin pulled her back.
"He killed him, HE KILLED HIM! PROFESSOR STRING!" She fought to get to the ringside.
"Miss Granger, stop it!" Snape suddenly spouted.
"SHUT UP, YOU, JUST SHUT UP..."
"Miss Granger, PLEASE! There's nothing you can do. Don't go getting yourself killed!"
She gave up and whimpered.
"Now you." Garef turned and pointed at Harry.
"What?" Harry demanded.
"Are you afraid? I want revenge, Potter, for what you did to me last year. It was rather painful, you have had this coming for a long time-"
"GRGHRGHHH!!!" Garef bent forward slightly, a short, silver blade protruding through his left side.
"Professor String!" Hermione shouted.
"That's... my name..." String laughed mildly, holding the hilt of the blade.
"You... scum, you back stabbed me!"
"You would have done the same to me." String justified, twisting the blade. He pulled a cross off of his belt, and brought it onto Garef's forehead.
"GAAAAH!!!" It slowly began burning through his skull. "I just killed you!"
"Not exactly. But you're the best damn chiropractor I've ever met." String rolled his head around a little.
"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" A familiar voice shouted, binding String and making him drop the cross. Garef pulled the blade out of his chest and bellowed at him.
"What? It couldn't be!" Harry shouted.
"They've cheated him!" Dumbledore pulled out his wand.
"No, it just bounces off!" Harry reminded him. "But that voice! It couldn't be!"
"Be who?" Dumbledore asked him, but Harry was already gone.
"I'm about to make your worst nightmare come true!" Garef bared his fangs, lifting String off his feet with one hand.
"Forget you!" String spat in his face, still unable to move otherwise.
"Very good." Voldemort laughed icily at the shorter death-eater, who was directing his curse at String.
"Of course, just a few more seconds, master." The shorter death-eater acknowledged him.
"Well, here's one victory, one of the aurors who killed some of my most faithful death-eaters!"
"IMPEDIMENTA!" Harry bellowed, knocking the shorter one aside. "EXPELLIARMUS!" His wand flew off. Voldemort scowled.
"I will leave you the privilege to live only if you leave now, simply because I want to kill you myself." Voldemort informed him.
Harry glanced over his shoulder, and indeed, he had prevailed; String was struggling once more.
"Hang in, there, sir!" Harry made his way back to his side of the ring.
String was furious, now. He'd had quite enough.
"Go ahead! I'm going to kill you once and for all!" Garef bellowed.
"For my sake, I hope there's a little human left in you!" And with that, String thrust his knee full-force into Garef's genitals.
Garef silently released his grip and stopped silent, bending over, and then let out an animal howl. String rolled over and snatched up the blade from before, returning, and with one clean slice, took off Garef's head.
Now there was just his head and his body, but Garef's head began screaming at him.
"BASTARD! It's not over! I'm gonna pay you back in spades for that one!"
"He's like a giant, annoying mosquito." Hermione told him.
"Yeah, but when a mosquito bites you, do you turn into one?" String laughed, and used his wand to light up Garef's body. It soon dissolved into a pile of ashes.
"Hey! Don't do that! Oooh, you got me pissed now, I'm gonna kill you for that!"
"Shut up." String turned his wand on Garef's head.
"HEY! NO! DON'T!"
PLAAAM! String's wand left a smoldering crater where Garef's head had lay, cutting off Garef's momentary scream
"Well, that was easier than I expected." String hopped out of the ring, ignoring Voldemort's furious wails of anger and frustration.
"You beat him in a fraction of the time Harry did last year!" Ron applauded him.
"Well, I used to do it for a living, you know." String informed him.
They were now four matches into the Doomspell Tournament.
***
Neville, Seamus, Dean, Stan, Colin, and Sharon were staring out the common room window at the great swirling pillar of cloud, that had grown in the last hour from a hundred feet to over a mile into the sky.
Nikki and Chuck soon joined them for a view.
"It's incredible." Dean was awed.
"It's hard to believe the fate of the world is being decided as we speak, in our own backyard." Sharon muttered.
"Kind of exciting!" Colin piped up. They just stared at him.
"Hey, everybody, where's Marshall?" Chuck asked as he entered.
"Or Ron or Hermione, for that matter?" Nikki added.
"They went out to wish Harry good luck-" Colin informed them, and paused in horror.
"No way." Neville paled as it dawned upon them.
***
"The next match will definitely be to our advantage." Voldemort announced. "Pettigrew, my loyal (snicker) follower , shall challenge Sirius Black."
"No problem." Sirius pulled out his wand and made his way to the ring.
"Be on your guard, something is not right!" Dumbledore told him.
"Good luck, Sirius." Harry hugged him, despite the fact that he was around so many people.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody roared.
"Thanks, but I got it covered."
"Black!" Snape bellowed. Black faced him.
"What do you want?"
"Don't be a fool, the Headmaster is right. We know Pettigrew is a weakling and a coward, especially from our school days, but there definitely is something up! Don't be arrogant, and..." He reached into his pocket, and tossed Sirius a vial. "Drink it when you need it. You'll know when." Sirius looked at the vial for a moment, a thick, grey liquid sloshing around in it.
"Very well. Thank you all."
"I am growing impatient!" Voldemort shouted.
Sirius got into the ring and watched as a hooded figure made it's way in, a little short and a little wide. He raised his wand and waited...
Pettigrew ripped off his cloak, revealing his face, and in one hand, a wand, in the other...
The other seemed to be composed of shiny chrome, shiny almost as if it were made of mercury.
Pettigrew gave an evil smirk.
"Old friend. It's been too long." He said.
"Yes, I've waited a long time for this. What happened to your hand? I thought you only lost a finger."
"I lost this hand for my master, and soon I'll take your head for him." Pettigrew threw his wand aside.
"Pettigrew! Do not be arrogant!" Voldemort shouted.
"I've got this." Pettigrew told him.
"Insolence! Idiocy! Finish this quickly, you fool!"
"Go ahead. Take your best shot." Pettigrew coaxed him.
"I'm not going to attack an unarmed man." Black said. "Even if he did betray his own friends, kill them, frame me. Pick up your wand, you coward."
"Oh, but I don't need it." Peter laughed, and pointed at black. "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSIA!" Black was lifted off his feet, and Pettigrew tossed him about the ring.
"Hilarious! I've waited so long!" Peter directed him to fly into the death-curtain.
"BLACK, NOW! THE POTION, NOW!" Snape shouted at him.
"What?" Black uncorked the vial, and swigged it down in one gulp, without the slightest idea what it would do.
"What? Where'd he go?" Peter demanded.
Black landed on the ground just short of the wall.
"He has a lot of power behind that spell to levitate me around with that." Black realized. "But he'd, have to have lost his concentration or lost his sight of me to..." Then Sirius realized; the potion had made him invisible.
"Looks like it's back in my hands." Sirius quietly slipped around behind a very confused Pettigrew, who then spoke up.
"As you have seen, I threw him straight through the side of the ring. The Kedavrus curse has killed him. I win."
"Pettigrew, behind you!" One of the death-eaters shouted. Sirius was shocked. Had the potion worn off already?
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Sirius pointed his wand straight at Pettigrew's head. The green light blinded him for just a moment, and then...
Pettigrew still stood. He raised his hand in the way of Sirius's wand.
"What is that thing?" Black demanded.
"Watch and learn." Pettigrew laughed, and grabbed Black's wand, and splintered it with his bare hand. Then he went for Pettigrew's throat.
"No rush, just die." He laughed louder and louder as his grip tightened.
"You know, I could finish you in and instant, but this is just too much fun." He laughed. Sirius looked him right in the eyes.
His eyes were pale. Beyond pale, they were white, completely.
"You're not the old Pettigrew!" Sirius managed to choke out.
"Maybe not."
"Finish him!" Voldemort screeched. Black wrenched free, and dove for the edge of the ring, where he found Pettigrew's wand, just sitting there.
"That hand..." He muttered. "Block this!" Pettigrew raised his silver arm, and Black shouted, "DISPELIO!"
The arm turned a variety of colors, then back to it's old chrome.
"But..." Sirius was shocked; the spell should have nullified it.
"What's going on?" The color had returned to Pettigrew's eyes. "What's going on here?"
Black raised the wand once more. "It ends..."
"No! Match called for now! It is currently a tie!" Voldemort shouted.
"WHAT? YOU CANNOT DO THAT!" Sirius rounded on him.
"I will do as I please and see fit! Both of you, out of the ring, before I kill you." Sirius swallowed, and stepped out. So did Peter.
"What does this mean?" Harry asked Dumbledore.
"I don't know, it appears Pettigrew was possessed. I would imagine even with his distinct advantage he would normally still be apprehensive to step in the ring with Sirius."
"I see."
"But I do know one thing. It's my turn." He exhaled loudly.
"Black." Fudge stepped forward. "Black, I don't believe it."
"Believe it." Sirius told him.
"Pettigrew." Fudge muttered. "That little sneak. So, are you both really unregistered animagi, as Dumbledore said?"
"We are." Sirius said blandly, and stepped past him.
"Good job!" Harry patted him on the shoulder.
"Thank you! So who's next?"
"Look." Harry suddenly hushed. Dumbledore stepped up to the ring, and when Voldemort announced, stepped in to face Karkaroff.
"Dumbledore."
"Karkaroff. So I take it the rumors are true. Do you really teach your student's the Dark Arts?"
"Of course. Why not? Everyone has to learn to defend themselves, and I go on the offensive. CRUCIO!"
"DEFLECTUS!" Dumbledore halted the curse.
"So are you going to come to your senses, Karkaroff? Everyone deserves a second chance. You've already had yours, but I hate to see this happen to people. It's not like you've killed anyone."
"Yet. AVADA-"
"EXPELLIARMUS!" Karkaroff was thrown off his feet and landed on his back in the center of the ring. His wand flew aside.
"You-"
"Calm down!" Dumbledore now showed the same flare of fury as he had last year and the year before, Harry now realized, the kind that he showed only when he was truly furious.
"Dumbledore... you know, as a fellow... you don't have to..."
"No, I don't and I won't. Leave with me, Karkaroff, this match is over. There's no need for anyone to die anymore."
"Very true." Karkaroff stood, and began to follow Dumbledore out the ring. That was it. The shortest match. Of course, Karkaroff didn't want to fight, and Dumbledore didn't want to kill. He stepped through the curtain first, but when Karkaroff walked into it, the green veil did not part.
THUMP! Dumbledore looked back to find Karkaroff on his back, his eyes wide, dead.
"YOU!" Dumbledore turned to Voldemort. "You did that! That was your fault!"
"THE DARK REGIME HAS NO ROOM FOR COWARDS AND THE LIKE! HE GOT WHAT HE DESERVED!" Voldemort bellowed. "Now, the final match will begin now! Potter, in the ring. You shall face my bodyguard now!"
"Your bodyguard. Of course." Harry said.
"Of course."
"Of course you would be to afraid to face me yourself."
"What?" Voldemort had never had anyone speak to him like that before.
"Just get in the ring and let's get this over with."
"Go." Voldemort directed the shorter death-eater, one of the last between himself and Pettigrew. Harry entered the dueling ring and Voldemort's bodyguard unhooded himself as he stepped in.
No.
It couldn't be.
But Harry was not surprised.
"So, Potter, we meet again." Came the drawling voice.
"So we meet again, Draco."
A/N: So what did you think? Please R&R!!! I've got nothing else to say right now, but I hope you liked it. A lot of you are wondering why Voldemort didn't kill the winners with the curtain. Ask Dumbledore, he knows about dueling rules and the like. But for now, how will Harry fare now that he must face his former rival once more? We'll find out, in the next chapter!
