He does not find a favourable first opponent.
It is Lily – still Evans, he idly muses – who crosses wands with him upon arrival. And though she is only nineteen and he is three years her senior, though her experience with magic does not reach even half of his, she is pushing him back. And fast.
Averill Rosier may be talented, but Lily Evans is the embodiment of effortless grace. She dances out of the way of Charms and Curses, cancelling Transfigurations before they even fully form, never once using a Shield Charm of her own.
She doesn't need to. On the battlefield, she is a whirlwind of silver robes and auburn hair and pure Magic.
She does not forget to unleash a hellstorm of Charms in return, all uncannily on target, even as she keeps up her very unconventional defence.
Averill notices only then – body and mind almost fully occupied with not dying – that Lily Evans isn't even paying him her full attention.
No, he sees another three of his comrades out of the corner of his eye, focused intently only on her, the kind of focus that belies their growing fear. He almost wants to laugh all of a sudden, because another thought enters his mind. Ludicrous, he wants to say to himself, dismissing it, but he can not deny what his mind has already discerned.
Suddenly it's clear as day. Lily Evans is winning.
Averill identifies one of the Duellists as Auclair - the recruiter and the Dark Lord's contact in Hogwarts for most of his years as a student. He is not as graceful as he is in practice duels, spotting a limp that is barely noticeable but there nonetheless. The usual perpetual confidence on his face is missing as well, replaced with a tremendous concentration as he tries to keep up with the Magic rapidly thrown his way.
It is a disconcerting sight.
The two others fighting Lily fare even worse than either himself – barely keeping pace as he is – or Auclair.
As he watches on in fascinated dread, one of Lily's Charms yields a result at last, destroying his comrade's hastily conjured Shield Charm in a violent shower of crimson sparks. The second spell that connects sends the man flying into the air with a strangled scream, until he hits the ground, limp and unmoving. He is probably – hopefully – unconscious.
Who knows, a voice in his head whispers, maybe he's dead.
He doesn't have time to ponder this interesting question any further, however, because Lily's assault turns more ferocious than ever before. It becomes exceedingly – unbearably – difficult to weather the attack, let alone send anything in return.
There are no longer any conscious thoughts running through his mind. It's about pure, primal survival now, and so Averill acts on instinct anone. His wand moves through the air faster than it ever did before, Shields, Counter-Curses, Un-Transfigurations, Deflections – all of it cast on impulse, relying on long hours of practice. But somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he knows he can not keep this up for long.
Averill doesn't perceive how much time passes until he slips up. He could have been fighting for a quarter minute, or it could have been two hours. The only thing he sees in his single-minded focus is his Counter-Curse failing – he'd guessed the wrong Curse – Lily's spell not fizzling out mere inches from his chest as intended, and then –
Pain.
He is flying through the air, arms and legs flailing about, until his back hits something very solid with an accompanying Crack. His back feels as if it's on fire, his entire body feels battered, broken, and it seems he lost the grip on his wand while mid-flight.
Despite it all, he is grateful to be alive.
He can not just lie here, gasping for air forever, though. He is too curious for his own good. Curious about how the Battle is progressing, of course, but he is also curious about her. So, leaning on the wall he flew into earlier for support, he sits up, using his barely adequate Occlumency to quench the sudden flare of pain in his back and chest.
Though unsuccessful, it was worth a try anyway.
There is something there to distract him from his injuries other than Occlumency though. Lily Evans, it seems, decides to go on the offensive. No longer is she weaving, ducking, deflecting, oh no, no longer is she a whirlwind. Now she is an unstoppable force, advancing step-by-step towards her only remaining adversary, her eyes intent, her face hard.
Her wand spits out jets of light so fast they blur together in a rainbow of colours and Averill thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his life.
It takes only seconds of the concentrated attack for Auclair to be hit with no less than five spells in quick succession. Petrified and unable to move, his eyes rolling back into his head, Auclair goes limp and falls to the ground, defeated. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Maybe he'll stop being such a pompous prick all the time, Averill thinks.
Meanwhile, Lily Evans scans the area for more adversaries, and her eyes land on him. They are the purest emerald green, with some unidentifiable emotion playing in them – he'd never been good with that – but there is something he can see there. Her eyes hold the same unidentifiable quality, the same unseen weight as the Dark Lord's do. That the eyes of his former Headmaster do.
He thinks hers are infinitely warmer than either.
Lily's wand snaps forward then, her expression unchanging, and the distinctive crimson of a Stunner rushes at him at speed –
Until it dissipates harmlessly on an almost solid-looking silver Shield with a pitiful whining sound.
"I see you have not yet learned your place, Miss Evans," says a voice, vibrating with malice and rage and power.
The voice of the Dark Lord himself.
Turning his head to his left, Averill sees him, and what an utterly glorious sight it is.
He stands there tall and proud, his black robes elegant as ever, his posture absolutely perfect. There is a sort of predatory grace to his movements as he walks a little bit towards Lily, his face morphed into something rather more malicious than usual.
As he approaches, Averill notices the subtle signs the Dark Lord engaged in the Battle before he came here, his black robes covered in a couple smudges of dirt, a little part of his left sleeve torn off. He twirls his wand with the same confidence he always does, though, and his red eyes shine with as much power and authority as ever.
He seems uninjured, and Averill is reassured. As if that was ever a question, he reminds himself.
Lily looks unsure for the first time that day, her eyes darting about, no doubt assessing the Battle still ongoing around them. Averill permits himself a smile, for Lily was the exception, not the rule. All around them the Headmaster's Order is in retreat, not truly routed but pushed back further and further.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees numerous furious duels fought around them, flashes of light and a variety of sounds both near and far. There are many more of the Order's Silver Cloaks lying on the ground, though, than there are the Black Cloaks of his comrades.
Lily must see it too, for her eyes turn colder than they have been moments before, her face settling on a curious mixture of resolve and apprehension.
Both the Dark Lord and Lily are holding their wands at their sides, pointed at the ground, but by the way they look at each other it is obvious that is going to change any second.
"I have no interest in speaking with you, Voldemort," Lily says then, her head held high, but the grip on her wand tightens further than is healthy.
His Lord looks a tad amused for a second. "It is I who decides, my dear, not you. Your say is irrelevant."
With those words, the Dark Lord raises his wand into a distinctly lazy Duelling Stance.
Lily Evans taps the Order's emblem on her right breast with her own.
And then three Curses black as night leap out of the Dark Lord's wand as one, their target appearing to be Lily's face.
By the almost comical widening of her eyes, Averill supposes she knows what the Curses do. With the way they almost warp the air around them with malevolent blackness, Averill does not wish to know himself.
"PROTEGO SERENUS," Lily shouts out her first verbal incantation that night, her face rapidly paling and eyes filling with terror. Her wand is going through a myriad of complex motions, too rapid to really discern the spell's makeup.
The Curses seem to be traveling slower than most, though, giving her ample time to do as she will.
Averill thinks nothing comes of Lily's defence, until the Curses appear to hit something just shy of Lily herself with an incredible booming sound. It reverberates all around the little town, some duels up and down the streets stopping.
The Curses do not dissipate, though, as any others would, instead trying to eat through the barrier Lily erected. They create furious flashes of light at the points of contact, but both Averill and Lily look on nonetheless.
The Dark Lord does too.
He remains there, with a small smile on his face, merely observing. It is a contrast to Lily, who has desperation written clearly on her features, who seems to be trembling where she stands, the Curses coming even closer than they already are –
Until her face firms in resolve once again, and framed by the black light given off by the Dark Lord's spells it is a terrifying expression. Terrifying, and oh how fucking magnificent.
"FLAMINIS RUGIENUM," she shouts out again, and in those words there is a defiance Averill hears – against the Dark Lord, the War itself, and perhaps even against the world in general. As Lily's previous protection falls at last, the spells attacking her are met with a roaring flame of the deepest green.
There is a brief struggle, but the flame consumes the Dark Lord's Curses in less then a second, expanding rapidly until Averill no longer sees Lily behind them.
The flickering fire continues to travel towards Averill's Master, looming ever larger, ever hotter, ever faster –
And the Dark Lord is frozen. There is an expression there he never saw before on his face. It is pure, unmasked surprise. Incredulity, even. The Dark Lord's eyes are wider than normal, his eyebrows raised, his mouth half-open.
That expression only lasts a second.
Then Voldemort snaps out of it, his wand traveling in a wide horizontal arc above his head. The sound he emits is not a particular incantation, Averill thinks, but more a primal roar, calling forth something that is without a doubt among the most powerful of magics.
One's own Will.
The fire noticeably shudders, halting its advance, but not receding either. The flaming tongues almost touch the Dark Lord's robe, until he repeats his previous defence again and again.
There is a determined sort of look on his face now, his eyes wild and angry as he drives back the green menace at last.
With a final sharp twist of his wand, the Dark Lord succeeds in extinguishing the flames entirely, only a burnt landscape left to testify to their presence here.
And Lily Evans isn't there any longer. Looking around him, in fact, Averill does not see any Order Members either. They seem to have withdrawn from the Battle altogether, at her command. He remembers her tapping her wand to the Order's emblem.
Averill doesn't entirely know who lost here and who won here today, but what he does understand without a shadow of a doubt is that something has just fundamentally, irrevocably shifted.
And so as he leans back against the wall he was blasted into mere minutes before, his thoughts running very far from his injuries, the Dark Lord screams.