As far as Liz could tell, the magical world didn't have very many sports, as such. Part of it might just be that there were fewer mages in general, so they didn't have the population to support the big professional sports stuff they had on the muggle side, but Liz also thought these things just worked differently? Mages still had plenty of games and stuff that they would play sometimes in their little villages — she was told football, or at least something similar to football, was actually really common; apparently the Irish clans were always playing quasi-informal matches of one (which Liz didn't recognise the name of) with each other as a sort of friendly competition — but they didn't have nearly as many people who did it as a career, with the big leagues and everything that went into that. For the most part, people just did it for fun, in their spare time.
There were only really two exceptions: quidditch, and duelling. Between the two of them, duelling was probably the more universal. Quidditch took a larger investment, since they needed a really big pitch for it, the particulars such that the stadium couldn't be easily adapted for anything else, and also enchanting techniques had developed to the point that broomsticks good enough for professional use were extremely expensive, presenting a significant barrier to entry for the average person. Some teams did provide broomsticks for the people on their team, but of course that required whoever was funding the team to have the cash on hand for a dozen of the things, which was a serious amount of gold to drop on something so frivolous. Also, quidditch was very much a European thing — more than that, it was a British thing, hadn't started spreading around the world until relatively recently, by magical standards. By now it'd penetrated through most of Europe and the Mediterranean, a couple places in India and the Far East, but outside of Europe proper really only popular in places with stronger European influences (especially anywhere the Empire had gotten before the Statute).
So, for a variety of factors both economic and cultural, quidditch wasn't nearly as universal among mages as, say, football was with muggles. Duelling was far more widespread, and involved more people numerically. Unlike all the shite that went into playing a proper game of quidditch, a duel really only required each participant have a wand — also wards to protect the spectators from stray spells, but those weren't so hard to do, and even palings could work in a pinch. Since the environment necessary was less restrictive, they didn't need the big specialised stadiums quidditch did, and a lot of professional duelling rings doubled as theatres for, like, music and plays and shite. And when they did use specialised things, particularly for the big professional tournaments, they didn't have to worry about muggles spotting people flying around — most of them were in major cities, underground, where they could use space-expansion to make as big of a field as they liked and not have to worry about it.
(Liz still wasn't sure why they couldn't do the same thing with quidditch, but for some reason the League required all games be held outdoors, and were resistant to that rule being changed. People made a bunch of excuses about what authentic play was supposed to be like, whatever, seemed dumb.)
Like quidditch required a broom, duelling required a wand, but that wasn't nearly as much of a barrier to entry — after all, practically everyone already had one of those. Wands hadn't even been a European thing to begin with, first invented in Mesopotamia. From there, they spread to Egypt (back when they were still building pyramids) and then to Greece (before ancient Greece was really a thing), and from there across the Mediterranean and through Europe; at the same time, they spread east to Persia (though so long ago Persians hadn't existed yet), and then India (also before Indians were a thing), and then into China, and from there most of Asia. They'd even been carried into Sub-Saharan Africa by traders in the Indian Ocean, and a bunch of islands in the Pacific long before Europeans had even known the ocean existed — really, the only place that hadn't had wands before the modern era were the Americas. They used to be much rarer than they were now, since people had gotten better at enchanting they were much less expensive than they used to be, but these days people considered a wand all but mandatory for everyone in the magical world.
Pretty much every culture in the world had had some kind of warrior...martial arts...thing, and over the centuries that had transitioned pretty easily into duelling being a thing. It was better than, like, swinging at each other with swords, since it was way easier to do it without risking the loser dying — Liz had read that right there was a large factor in it growing popular in the first place, less dangerous than sword duels and shite — and also much flashier and more entertaining for the spectators than just hitting each other. It was also just fun, and the skill barrier was actually lower than for quidditch, since you only needed to know a few hexes to have some basic little duels for fun — they'd done a bunch in literally first-year Defence. The proportion of people who occasionally did a little sparring for the hell of it was way higher than it was for quidditch, a lot of mages all over the world had at least some experience duelling.
Besides people just doing it for fun between friends, or formal duels to settle disputes, or sometimes at public events (apparently some holidays had public duels as part of the occasion), of course there was also professional duelling. The system was somewhat complicated, but also surprisingly straightforward when you just ignored all the fiddly little details. There were technically multiple international leagues, and the politics between them could get sort of...intense, but they were mostly geographical, the membership rules were similar, and they shared a single ranking system, so it didn't really matter which one a person was in.
Basically, everyone had a score in the ranking, and every time they duelled another member the victor was recorded, which resulted in changes in their score, depending on what kind of match it was and what their scores were. There was a complicated equation determining how that worked, which Liz didn't really understand — the basic idea was, if their scores were too close together it didn't affect them much; if their scores were farther apart the higher person would gain less if they won and the loser dropped less if they lost, but if the higher person lost they lost more and the lower one gained more. It was a whole complicated thing, Liz didn't entirely understand how it worked, just that challenging people with a significantly higher score than you was actually a good move, if you thought you had a shot.
When Liz had been talking about it once, Hermione asked if it worked like chess, because apparently chess players had some kind of lifetime ranking...score...thing? Liz hadn't known, Hermione had ended up explaining, and yeah, that did sound similar. Weird coincidence, that.
Anyway, all the international leagues would throw big tournaments on occasion, and all the participants (who were required to be members of one of the leagues) would have their wins and losses recorded, affecting their score coming out of it — the tournament just worked on a bracket sort of thing, so depending on how the scores come out the victor of the tournament might not actually go up as much in the rankings as other people, it was complicated. Sometimes there would be local tournaments, rich people throwing one for the hell of it or at public events or whatever, and those counted too. Members could also just fight whenever if they bumped into each other and felt like it, or plan a big proper exhibition match if they wanted to show off, and those counted toward the ranking too — if it wasn't an officially sponsored event there was a form they were supposed to fill out and send in to one of the leagues, it was a whole thing. So even between tournaments there were duels going on all the time, sometimes only a single fight and sometimes a little bundle of them together, sometimes planned out ahead of time or on very short notice, there was basically always something going on somewhere, meaning there was a whole lot more activity for fans to follow than for something like quidditch.
And because individual duellists tended to be more visible than quidditch players, sponsorships were way more common. While it didn't take as much equipment, there was still some — there was protective gear people were allowed to have, particularly involving enchantments in boots and the glove of their off-hand, and of course their outfits tended to be colourful and dramatic (there was some showmanship involved, after all), apparently there was a whole niche fashion industry around professional duellists. Also, duellists tended to travel around a lot, participating in tournaments all around the world or just meeting up with other members here or there for smaller events, and travelling all the time could get expensive quick. It was really common for companies to pay for duellists' expenses in exchange for using them in advertisements, or to write books about or with them, or make the clothes they wore to tournaments and then sell copies to fans, all kinds of things. A lot like football in the muggle world, really — some of that happened with quidditch too, but it was more visible with duelling.
Sometimes, countries with domestic organised crime or even insurrectionist or Dark Lord problems would hold a big tournament, offering to pay for all the participants' expenses, in hopes that they'd get up to some vigilantism while they were in the area. Which Liz thought was weirdly hilarious, though she hadn't been able to explain when Hermione asked why she was smiling about it.
Duelling was also rather easier to get into than quidditch. While there were a limited number of quidditch teams, and the competition to get one of the spots could get pretty intense, all you had to do to become a professional duellist was go to an office for one of the leagues, fill out some paperwork, sign a couple forms, undergo a medical exam from one of their healers, pay a small membership fee, and bam, done — once that was all lined up you could show up to the next tournament, or start getting into duels with members, that was it. When they were doing the big event tournaments you could even sign up there, in the couple days before the fighting started, it was really easy to get into. Of course, it was hard to do well, because battlemagic was very complicated and the skill necessary to survive a duel against even middling professionals was absurd, but getting a foot in the door wasn't a problem.
You could get in that way, but most people didn't — most professional duellists had gotten their start while they were still in school. The ICW — which, despite the "international" in the name, was a European organisation, there were three equivalent organisations in other regions of the world — held regular tournaments for students, managed by the International Duelling League — which, also despite the "international" in the name, was also a European organisation, mostly operating within ICW members — and similar things were also done in other regions of the world. Unlike the looser, do what you want when you want to thing the professionals had, the ICW held a total of two tournaments for students, one during the winter and one the summer — they had a similar scoring system to the professional leagues, people's performance tracked across however many tournaments they participated in, but those tournaments were the only thing that counted to it. People who participated in the student tournaments would automatically get into their league of choice on their graduation from school (after paying the membership fee, of course), and they started with a score on the ranking based somehow on their ranking in the student version, though it wasn't a strict one-to-one, Liz wasn't sure how it worked exactly. Pretty much all the big names in duelling had started in these tournaments for kids, since it was great practice to get started with and they got a leg up in the ranking, but there were occasional exceptions.
These student tournaments also weren't like the professional ones, where duellists mostly operated independently, in that the vast majority of the participants were on school teams. Each school participating in the programme had a team of at least seven — or fourteen, seven each for junior and senior divisions (OWL and NEWT students) — though some schools actually had multiple teams. Though the teams were separate — if a school sent more than one team, they couldn't move people from one team to another during the same event, they had to stay with the team they started in. All these tournaments had three events: there were one-on-one duels, which everyone on the team had to participate in; three-on-three, where a team was required to field at least two trios, leaving one person out, but could have as many trios as they wanted, the same person in multiple groups; and then big fights where two entire teams went at it all at once, which could apparently get really crazy and intense. Like for professionals, in addition to the brackets everyone was scored individually, and there was also a team score, and there were prizes for getting the highest team score even if that team didn't win the seven-versus-seven team tournament, which was kind of confusing, Liz wasn't entirely certain how it all worked.
But anyway, the point was, Hogwarts had a team they sent to these tournaments — they weren't the only British team, in fact. There was a school somewhere in Oxbridge that sent one for the junior division only (they didn't have a NEWT programme there at all), and the one in Ireland she'd heard about a few times (which was the same country on the magical side) actually sent two teams for both divisions, though the Hogwarts team generally performed better, as it tended to be filled with rich noble kids who often got private instruction at home other people couldn't afford. The Hogwarts team wasn't the best in the ICW — it would be weird if they were, there were dozens of teams that participated — but they were actually toward the top, probably due to that rich noble kids thing, though they were less well-known for their performance in the tournaments and more for producing people who would go on to become famous professional duellists. Cassie Lovegood was the big name at the moment, but Flitwick had been nearly as famous a generation ago, both of whom got their start on the Hogwarts team — across the seven student tournaments Lovegood had been in, she'd never once lost a match in the singles event, setting a record that would probably never be broken.
The entire point of the duelling club at Hogwarts, so far as Liz could tell, was to recruit for the team. They did a lot of practice and play fights and drills and whatever during the year, so it was just good for training people's skills, yes, but the team members spent the whole time (when they weren't practising themselves) keeping an eye out for potential new members. And the fact that the team members didn't participate in the tournaments at all, instead watching from the sidelines, was kind of a dead giveaway.
There were three tournaments in total over the course of the year — one before winter break, one before easter, and another before they left for summer. Each of them had two separate brackets, split by whether they'd taken the OWLs yet or not, though Liz wasn't sure how they were set up exactly. She was pretty sure they tried to make sure people's first couple duels were against people in their own year, but it didn't always work out that way. The school was rather small, so the club was also rather small, so there didn't tend to be that many people participating, though there were far more people in the room on those days than usual — these were the only days the club welcomed spectators.
The winter tournament this year landed on December the Fifteenth, the last Wednesday of term, and Liz would be participating for the first time.
The Hogwarts duelling ring was on the ground floor, behind the Grand Staircase off Helga's Gallery. There was an old story that Hufflepuff and her family (who'd apparently been fucking vikings, the standard Founders story didn't mention that) were the ones who'd wanted one in the first place, which was why it was so close to where they'd lived, but Liz was pretty sure it wasn't nearly that old — as Severus and Flitwick had explained walking through Gaunt's place last spring, Hogwarts had changed a lot over the centuries. (Also, modern duelling rings just in general weren't that old, so it was a silly thing to believe in the first place.) It was a rather large space, looking to be roughly the same general size and shape of the Great Hall, the ceiling arching high overhead...despite Liz being all but certain there simply wasn't room for it. She thought their Arithmancy classroom should be right there just under the ceiling, and she suspected Transfiguration overlapped with it too, but oh well, magical buildings could be like that.
(Though, that it seemed like the room had been crammed into a space too small for it also suggested it wasn't nearly old enough to have been around in the Founders' time — Liz thought the explanation that it'd been built in the run-up to one of the major goblin rebellions back in the 19th Century made way more sense.)
The design of the room wasn't anything like the Great Hall, though. The entire thing was made out of wood a warm brown, the floorboards trod smooth by thousands of boots over the years but still a little rough to the touch on the walls. Against the longer walls, toward the middle of the room, were sets of stands, one bench after another after another, rising to meet the walls halfway up — which was a fair amount of seating, though really not enough to fit everyone in the school, on tournament days the professors conjured more seating on the other two sides of the ring. The ring itself was the only stone in the room, a platform about shoulder-height on Liz made of off-white granite, a big circle several metres wide, plenty of room for two people to run around and throw spells at each other. Enough to do doubles too, though trios would be pushing it, the teams actually practised trios and their big group stuff on the grounds.
During normal duelling club meetings, they mostly ignored the ring in the middle, instead spreading out all over the space, the stands folded up against the walls to make more room. (Folded up they took less space than they rightly should, which was very neat, there must be collapsing enchantments in there.) The older students were all taught palings to keep spells from flying all over the place — the younger students didn't have the power to cast those themselves, groups of older and younger were mixed together so they could get help with that. The only thing they used the ring itself for in meetings was when someone was demonstrating something, or on occasion members of the team showing off for fun.
Which was convenient for Liz, since she could put the memory of these demonstrations in her pensieve and analyse them in detail — she thought that'd helped her with her footwork, if nothing else, copying what she'd seen people do to figure out how it worked. As awesome as the book Dorea had given her for Christmas a couple years ago was, that was one thing it didn't really help with that much.
The tournament hadn't quite started yet, but it would be getting going soon enough that everyone was probably here already. Liz doubted the entire school had shown up, but it was probably most of it, a good two hundred people packed into the room — classes tended to wind down a little in the last week before break, so it wasn't like most people had anything more pressing to do. The stands were packed, but even with the conjured extra rows there wasn't quite room enough for everyone, people milling about on the floor between the stands and the ring, excited chattering filling the air as people waited for Flitwick and Vector to finish setting up the brackets. They weren't the only professors here either, Liz had also spotted Babbling, McGonagall, Sprout, and Sinistra, and Severus and Pomfrey were sitting together (with Babbling, chatting with Severus, Liz was pretty sure they were friends) on one of the bottom benches — they were the Healers in the school, so they were probably sitting at the front so they could swoop in quick if anyone got hurt.
There were even plenty of adults around besides the professors — it was pretty common for the parents of kids participating in the tournaments to show up to watch. Parents were a rare sight at Hogwarts, but the exceptions were quidditch matches and duelling tournaments, when there tended to be a fair number of them. On a few rare occasions, a parent would appear to bring a kid out for a special occasion in the family, like a wedding or a funeral or something, but that was really it.
Of course, so many people in such a small space had their minds pressing up against Liz's, like a constant roaring in her ears, but it wasn't that bad. She'd already recovered from her most recent (very low) episode, at least somewhat, and she'd taken precautions this time. Last night she'd gone to bed early, using a sleeping potion she'd brewed to make sure she slept the whole night, and she'd flat-out skipped Transfiguration this morning so starting off on a bad note couldn't push her into a bad mood that would only get worse over the course of the day — she'd sent a note to Severus last night telling him she planned to, she was pretty sure he'd warned McGonagall, so Slytherin shouldn't lose points over it (not that she cared if they did). She had gone to Arithmancy, Charms, and Divination, though those didn't bother her so much. Divination could get slightly annoying sometimes, as Trelawney paid rather more attention to her than she used to when not making proclamations of doom, which then had the rest of the students focusing on her for at least a few moments whenever she did, bombarded with thoughts and feelings, if only for a flash.
Apparently she'd felt Liz getting nudges, suggesting Trelawney was legitimately a Seer, which was honestly baffling...but once she'd realised Liz was a Seer she'd stopped pretending to predict her death, instead making a point of asking her every once in a while if she was picking up anything — which she usually wasn't, and when she did it was only a vague feeling she couldn't put words to anyway — so, mixed bag there.
Lavender and Parvati did hate Liz now even more than they used to because of it, which was honestly just funny, entertaining enough to be worth it.
But anyway, Liz had also been avoiding the Great Hall today. She'd gone to the kitchens for breakfast (when she was supposed to be in Transfiguration), and asked Nilanse to bring her dinner in her room. She'd meant to ask the Hogwarts elves for something, but Nilanse had gone back to Clyde Rock and the elves there had made dinner for her themselves, which... Well, it had taken longer than Liz had been anticipating, but she couldn't really complain — apparently Nilanse had been paying attention to what Liz ate and taking notes, and, Liz didn't know what the stuff they'd made was called, but fucking hell it was good. The meat was duck, apparently, and they'd somehow stuffed it with some creamy herby shite, and Liz had already known she preferred rye bread, and it was handy to mop up the gravy dribbled over the top, which had a bit of spice to it she couldn't pin down (cumin, yes, and...cloves, maybe?) and mixed surprisingly well with the filling leaking out of the duck, and she had no fucking clue what the vegetable bits were, but— Good, it was good, that was all, really good. Maybe she should let the elves cook for her more often...
(Nilanse had done a little happy dance when Liz had told her how good it was, which was weirdly adorable, so there was that too.)
Whether her precautions had helped or she was simply on an upswing, the presence of hundreds of minds pressing in on her didn't bother her that much. She couldn't keep everything out, but the things that seeped in weren't even that bad — the anticipation and excitement on the air was almost a physical thing, making her skin tingle and her heart skip, almost pleasant really. So, she'd be fine, she was pretty sure. She'd see how it went when she was actually fighting, getting intrusive thoughts and feelings from hundreds of people clinging at her would probably be distracting...
"Oh, Liz! There you are!"
Since Liz hadn't been at dinner, she was arriving a little late — after confirming with Flitwick that she was on the roster, she'd barely slipped past the stands toward the middle of the room when someone was shouting her name. As short as she was, it was impossible for Liz to see through the crowd, but while she was still trying to spot whoever that was Hermione suddenly materialised only a couple steps away. "Oh, Hermione, hi."
Hermione shot her a little grin, slightly giddy, apparently affected by the ecstatic energy of the crowd even without mind magic. "You weren't at dinner, I was wondering where you got off to."
Right, she hadn't seen Hermione since Arithmancy this morning, she must not have mentioned she didn't intend to show up. Leaning closer and raising her voice a little, she said, "I was taking a break, to make sure I could handle all this," waving a hand vaguely at the crowd. "Sorry if I worried you." She wasn't, really, that's just what people said.
"No no, it's fine, I was just wondering." She was lying, just a little, but she wasn't annoyed over it, which was what mattered. "Come on, we're all sitting together over here." Hermione held out a hand, so they wouldn't get separated winding their way through all the people — somewhat reluctantly, as though uncertain whether she should.
But it was only Hermione. Liz took her hand, let her lead her off through the noisy, excited crowd.
Seated in a clump near (but not at) the bottom of one of the stands was what seemed like the entire study group — Liz didn't see...she was pretty sure that was Tony, so it was Michael they were missing, and Lisa wasn't here, but everyone else. Which was a fair number of people, the study group Dorea and Hermione had put together was practically half their year. As Liz and Hermione approached, climbing the aisle along the side, a few of them called out to them, as Liz got close enough to hear Morag shouted, "Hey Liz, you fighting?"
She didn't feel like shouting to reach everyone, so she cast a charm to carry her voice instead. A normal sound amplification charm would attract too much attention, so she used one she'd picked up from her favourite charms book, one that didn't actually make her voice louder, just made sure everyone she wanted to hear her would. She didn't know how that worked, exactly, and she didn't know what it sounded like since she'd never heard anyone else use it, but it was very neat. "Yes, I'm in the tournament this time."
Which really should have been obvious, she thought — Liz only ever wore trousers for quidditch and duelling. During dinner, she'd changed out of her school robes and into the denims and one of the jumpers she'd gotten in the muggle world this summer, pulled on her quidditch gloves on the way out the door. (Plus the scarf Tracey made her ages ago, of course.) She didn't exactly dress like this very often, unusual enough she honestly still felt weird wearing trousers. It wasn't so distracting she'd have difficulty concentrating on what she was doing, it was just a little uncomfortable — especially when she was just walking around, most of the time when she was wearing trousers she was on a broom.
It turned out, she was hardly the only person in their study group who'd be in the tournament this time — Tracey, Susan, Terry, Morag, Megan, and Tony had all entered too. Most of those weren't a surprise, as they were all in the duelling club too, though she'd thought Tracey and Susan would both be too shy to duel in front of the entire school. Susan claimed Draco was also fighting, and Hermione had heard Fay Dunbar talk about it, but besides that they didn't know who else in their year might be participating.
Most of the time running up to when the duels started was taken up with introductions. All of the study group members in the tournament had had family show up, even a couple others had made the trip to watch their kids' friends, and obviously everyone wanted to meet the Girl Who Lived — thankfully nobody was especially irritating about it, Liz honestly suspected the adults had all been warned not to make a big deal about it ahead of time. Both of Terry and Morag's parents had turned up, Tony's mum and his older brother (who'd graduated last year), and Megan's dad was here.
Tracey's mum was here, and she'd come with another woman who'd wanted to watch and visit Daphne and her little sister (who was also sitting with them today): Heli Babbling, who'd co-authored the book Daphne's mum had given Liz on her birthday. It was obvious the Greengrasses knew this woman really well — Astoria was squished in right next to her, whispering and giggling to each other — and she had apparently come here to see them, Liz didn't know what was up with that. (Also, there were several piercings scattered across her face, lips and nose and eyebrows, yet weirdly not her ears, didn't know what was up with that either.) Hannah's mum was also here, supporting Susan, which wasn't a surprise — both of Susan's parents were dead, and her aunt was very busy at the Ministry, apparently Hannah's parents had been around a lot when she'd been growing up.
Liz belatedly remembered Tracey's mum had knit her a jumper for Christmas first year, blurted out thanks for that (abruptly while someone else was talking, oops). She wasn't wearing it at the moment, because it was just too warm to duel in, but she did like that thing. At least people seemed more amused by the interruption than annoyed, so.
They were sitting chatting for only a few minutes before the professors were done setting up the brackets. There was nowhere they could pin a sheet where everyone could see it, so Flitwick just cast an illusion high overhead, the thing stretching in a big square over the ring and the stands, which was a neat trick. The layout of the bracket was strangely circular, branching out at angles — the names were big enough that it wasn't difficult to read, and after a bit of looking around Liz realised they'd arranged it so third, fourth, and fifth years would duel other people in their year for the first couple fights, only starting to mix up the years higher up the brackets. There was also some weird shite in the middle, the box for whoever lost a duel matched against another loser, and... It was complicated, but Liz didn't have to think about that, just go up whenever she was called.
Since the names around the edges were all grouped by year, it was easy enough to find all the third years — besides the people in the study group, Draco and Fay were both participating, and then there were Theo Nott, Zach Smith, Dean Thomas...and Ronald Weasley.
Liz groaned. "Hey, Tony! Please beat Weasley, I don't want to have to fight him in my second match." Of course, that would only happen if she won her first match, but she didn't doubt that she would — she knew Zach was decent from club meetings, but she was better.
Tony leaned around his brother to throw Liz a sarcastic salute. "Yes, ma'am, consider it done."
As confidently as he was joking about it, Liz wasn't sure. Tony wasn't particularly great...but then, she had no idea if Weasley was any good at all, so she guessed she'd find out.
They did have a lot of duels to get to — that big tangled mess up there was only for third through fifth years, the NEWT students wouldn't start until after they were done — so Flitwick didn't delay for a second before welcoming everyone to the tournament, and calling the first pair down. The first duel was Tracey and Dean Thomas, one of Weasley's friends — he was one of the few muggleborns in their year who'd declined joining their study group. With a chorus of good lucks and kick his arses from their group, Tracey picked out to the side stairs and down, making it to the platform a couple seconds after Dean. Once they were up top, Flitwick tapped the platform with his wand, and the duelling wards kicked on with an almost audible snap. Flitwick introduced the pair quick, really nothing more than their names and their house (of course it was a Slytherin–Gryffindor match opening the thing), both giving quick bows — rather more formal and practised in Tracey's case, being a noble kid she'd probably been trained how to do it properly as soon as she learned to walk — and counted down from three.
Tracey immediately opened up with a hex of some kind, practically the instant Flitwick called the start, taking a few shuffling steps to the side as it flew, Dean caught it on a simple shield charm — contege, not protege — a second hex was flying but Dean ducked under it, while still crouched sending a hex at Tracey with an underhanded flick. Whatever it was, Tracey skipped to the side even while casting one hex and then a second one right after it, Dean dodged the first but was hit with the second — a weak bludgeoning hex, looked like, just knocking him back a couple steps, but before he could recover he was struck with the red flash of a stunning hex, and he collapsed to the floor unconscious. Tracey let out a breath, tension visibly dribbling out of her shoulders from even this distance, in the second before the crowd starting cheering.
(Liz grimaced, covering her ears — that was far too loud.)
Altogether, the first duel had only lasted maybe fifteen seconds, but Liz didn't expect many of them to take very long. The way hexes and curses tended to go, it only took a single hit, a minor mistake, for a fight to be over — unless the skill levels of the duellists were very close, or the one at a disadvantage got creative, magical duels hardly ever lasted longer than half a minute or so. Which was a good thing, because as many fights as they had to get to this would take all night if they took too long.
Even as Tracey stepped off the platform, the second pair were called down — Morag and Draco. Liz noticed how rigid Morag's posture was as she climbed down the stairs, hands fisted at her hips, the by-now familiar signs of an irritated Morag. She was probably assuming she was going to lose. When they were both on the platform, after their bows to the audience, Draco shifted to put his left foot back, his weight tipped partway onto his toes, ready to spring in any direction — which was one of the basic duelling forms, someone must have taught him that.
Probably his mother, given that Narcissa Malfoy — well, Narcissa Black, at the time, Dorea and Draco were second cousins — had been in the duelling team when she'd been a student. There were records of these things in the library so, out of curiosity, Liz had looked up the history of the team — and so she'd discovered that her mother had been on it too, she didn't know if anybody had mentioned that. Her time on the team had actually overlapped with Cassie Lovegood's (and Draco's mum's), they'd even won the seven-on-seven tournament in the winter of her sixth year, which was a neat fact Liz hadn't learned before.
Anyway, if Narcissa really had taught Draco, Morag was screwed, and she knew it. This duel was even quicker than the first one — Morag shot off a spell immediately, apparently hoping to get lucky, but Draco didn't even bother shielding it, taking a step to the side and nailing Morag with a hex that knocked her off her feet, landing hard on her back, her wand bouncing out of her hand. Draco summoned it to himself, and that was that.
After that, Susan fought Terry, which was also a really quick fight, Susan flattening him in the space of a couple blinks. Liz was a little surprised, though she probably shouldn't be. As quiet and nice and friendly as Susan was most of the time, the woman who'd raised her was an Auror, had been Director of Law Enforcement for most of Susan's life. Supposedly there'd been Aurors around at her house a lot too, so she'd probably picked up things.
Of course, after Terry was revived from the stunning charm, Susan helped him up to his feet — Liz couldn't hear what they were saying, but she was certain Susan was apologising for kicking his arse. Because Hufflepuffs.
After that was Megan and Fay Dunbar — Liz mostly only knew Fay from pick-up quidditch games, though this year she was actually on the team (Katie shifted over to seeker to free up a chaser spot). They'd had one game so far, and Fay wasn't excellent, decent but not up to the standards set by the other three Gryffindor girls. She was actually a better beater, but no way was one of those spots opening up until after the Weasley twins graduated. Apparently she was pretty decent at duelling, rather aggressive, advancing on Megan while throwing spells, a shield Megan cast — a full protege, which wasn't bad for a third-year — was violently shattered with a muddy green shield-breaker, Megan hit with a binding hex before she could recover. Theirs was the longest and flashiest duel so far, but still couldn't have topped thirty seconds.
And then it was Liz's turn.
At the call of her name an expectant hush swept the room, followed with whispers, curiosity and excitement zeroing in on her with far more intensity than she'd been feeling from the crowd before — Liz grimaced, shrugged off as much of it as she could, but was still left with feelings clinging at her, eyes crawling over her skin like ants. Distracted by that, she was a little slow getting down to the platform, Zach beating her by several seconds. She climbed up, Flitwick tapping the platform once she'd passed, and—
She gasped — the minds of the crowd were just gone, cut off entirely by the wards, leaving the air around her gone abruptly silent, only the tense, anticipatory tingling of Zach's thoughts left behind. Oh, this was much better, she thought, grinning over at Zach — the sudden change in her expression surprising him a little, a shade of nervousness slipping through his head — this should be no problem at all.
Liz flicked her wrist at three, her wand falling into her hand, when Flitwick called start she was already moving, shuffling forward with a twisting jab, "Stupeat!" Zach dipped out of the way of the stunning hex, wand moving to cast something, but Liz was already turning to follow him with a downward swish, "Deprime. Adure, vellantur—" skipping forward a step and jabbing forward, "—cude!"
The first hex wasn't a normal point spell, but had an area of effect, pushing down on Zach's head — he stumbled under the weight, falling to his knees, his robes against his stone making him slide a few inches. But even while fighting against the hex, "Contege!" the circular shield popped up in time to catch the scorching hex, exploding into a flash of heat and fire, through which Liz's plucking hex sailed through unhindered. Zach yelped, as the fire cleared she saw he was gritting his teeth, blond hair falling loose from his head in a wave as the hex advanced — the plucking hex did no actual damage, and a hair growth potion would fix it, but the pain from all the hair on a person's body being plucked out was very distracting — shakily pushing himself to his feet again, and even through that he managed another contege.
Of course, just like way back in first-year Defence against Dorea, Zach's basic shield charm shattered like glass under a hammer from Liz's overpowered bludgeoning hex. Zach was knocked off his feet, crashing down to the ground, "stupeat," and it was over.
The cheering of the crowd was very loud, but Liz felt a grin twisting her lips anyway, a suppressed giggle itching in her throat — she did like winning. The wards being brought down, the intrusive cacophony of a couple hundred minds slamming over her head, might have dimmed her pleasure somewhat, but still, maybe this wasn't so bad.
Hmm, she should maybe consider looking into doing this professionally after Hogwarts. It would be something to do while poking away at Mastery study, anyway...
When Zach woke up, he was a little annoyed about Liz plucking out all his hair, even though Pomfrey was already there with a potion to fix it. She hadn't really thought about it, in her defence, the downward swish of the depressing hex went right into the circular flourish of the scorching hex which went right into the dip and upward flick of the plucking hex (which then went right into the exaggerated somatic form of the bludgeoning hex she'd figured out way back in first year). It wasn't like she'd been trying to, what, humiliate him or whatever, doing that in front of the whole school, it was just what had felt natural to cast in the moment. Which wasn't really an apology, but Liz wasn't sorry, so he'd just have to be happy with that. Zach grumbled, but he did offer her one of those weird wrist-clasping things purebloods did instead of handshakes — which got a comment from Flitwick about good sportsmanship and more cheering from the crowd, which was completely unnecessary, but okay — so she was pretty sure she hadn't just made herself another enemy. She already had far too many of those, as far as she was concerned.
Speaking of which, Weasley did beat Tony after a couple quick exchanges. Because of course he did.
That was the last duel of the third years, Flitwick moved right on to the fourth years without pause. The first fight was Sadhbh Monroe and a Gryffindor Liz vaguely recognised by sight called Cormac McLaggen — oh, actually she'd overheard some of the fourth years complaining about him, supposedly he was really annoying. Apparently the fourth years were also starting with a Slytherin–Gryffindor match, because of course. This fight took a little longer than most of the third-year's duels, Cormac's protege solid enough to hold back Sadhbh's hexes but Sadhbh light and quick enough on her feet Cormac couldn't hit her with anything. After nearly a minute a curse from Sadhbh — Liz didn't recognise it, but she'd risked pausing for a second to concentrate, so it must be more powerful than her previous spells — exploded against Cormac's shield with a bright flash of light, the force sending him stumbling backward. Distracted, the shield dropped, and Cormac was hit with a stripping hex — his wand was whipped out of his hand, sent flying across the ring, clattering against the floor and bouncing outside of the wards. Technically the duel was only over once someone was incapacitated, but Cormac bowed — stiffly, obviously irritated — forfeiting the match.
The second fight was Katie Bell, the Gryffindor chaser who'd been promoted to seeker this year — much trickier than Towler had been, their autumn game a few weeks ago had been frustratingly close, Liz had barely managed to squeak out a win — facing another Gryffindor girl Liz didn't recognised called Bellchant. This one was a much shorter duel, a rapid flurry of hexes and Bellchant was unconscious on the floor. Next was Laoise Monroe (both Monroe sisters were competing) and Ravenclaw Evan Tugwood, who Liz only knew as a cousin of Olivie in her year, but it hardly mattered that she knew nothing about him, because he only lasted maybe ten seconds. And then there was Slytherin Ceinwen Selwyn and a Gryffindor named Fawley Liz had hardly heard of. Liz didn't really like Ceinwen — she was one of the few Slytherins who still made a point about hating Liz for stupid reasons, and Liz had caught several very racist thoughts by accident over the years — but unfortunately it turned out she was a pretty good duellist: it took a little while, Fawley clearly had some practice, but he took a nasty hit with a scorching hex across the shoulder after nearly a minute, knocked out a second later.
Next was Ravenclaw Avery against Gryffindor Atwell, the Gryffindor taking the win after maybe twenty seconds. And then there was Ravenclaw Ollivander against Hufflepuff Andrews — Hermione was pretty sure Andrews was the only muggleborn in the tournament (and Daphne confirmed it), which wasn't really a surprise, since the nobility tended to teach their kids basic self-defence before even starting school. (Liz would argue she counted as muggleborn too, but not the point.) This duel was probably the longest yet, the pair slinging spells back and forth in an uneven, stuttering rhythm, spells flashing against shields or continuing on to dissolve into sparks on the wardline, the excitement in the crowd keying up as the intense fight went on. Their styles were very different, Andrews more aggressive, her wand motions sharp and harsh, defended with quite solid-looking shield charms, Ollivander more deliberate and methodical, almost delicate, preferring to step lightly out of the way of spells instead of shielding, wand hand moving smooth and graceful, and a few times he even deflected hexes, which was a slightly insane skill for a fourth-year to have. Until, finally, Andrews cast a spell at a shallow angle, and then a slicing curse straight at Ollivander, making him dodge — and then his feet slipped, the spell Andrews had shot at the floor apparently making it slippery. Ollivander was tagged with a stripping hex before he could recover, his wand summoned to Andrews's hand. There was plenty of cheering at the sudden, surprise victory — and also some thoughtful muttering, the muggleborn having just beaten an Ollivander, of all people.
Next was Slytherin Damian Rowle (one of Ceinwen's cousins, also an arse) against a Hufflepuff named Grey Liz didn't know, which was another rather intense duel, the ring filling with flashes of fire and shaking booms as spells resolved, but a much shorter one, Grey getting clipped in the hip with a slicing curse he hadn't quite managed to dodge. While Pomfrey fussed over Grey — it wasn't a bad hit, he didn't need to be rushed away, but that did need to be healed before he could return to the stands — Flitwick started the next match, a Hufflepuff Carpenter against Ravenclaw Eustace Scrimgeour, who Liz had heard was Emily Scrimgeour's younger brother. This duel was a quick one, a shield-breaker shattering Carpenter's protege and then a stunning hex knocking her out.
Since fourth and fifth years both had uneven numbers of people, the next duel was fourth-year Ravenclaw Dylan Smethwyck against fifth-year Fred Weasley. This one also didn't take very long: Smethwyck missed an invisible tripping jinx, nearly planting face-first on the platform, Fred summoned away his wand. (Beaten with a weak prank jinx, how embarrassing.) Then there were Slytherins Cassius Warrington and Camilla Flint, Mark's little sister — Camilla flattened Cassius in five seconds flat with a pair of surprisingly powerful curses, Liz had had no idea Camilla was that strong of a mage. Next was the other Gryffindor beater against a Ravenclaw Liz had never heard of called Glanyvwl, who only lasted maybe fifteen seconds before falling. Ravenclaw Prewett beat Hufflepuff Peakes and Slytherin Eirsley (a younger cousin of the lower-division team's captain) beat Ravenclaw Prince, neither duel particularly interesting.
Cedric against Morgen Yaxley, though, was one hell of a fight. Morgen was apparently pretty good with elemental magic, flinging around fire in a variety of bright colours, red and yellow and blue and green — not really fire fire, but spells that took the appearance of fire and could kind of act like it in some ways, it varied — and Cedric actually whipped out conjuration, which was insane for a fifth-year, blocking incoming flames with glass and then banishing it — red hot, dripping from the heat — straight at Morgen, skipping out of the way (interrupting her fire magic) or dissolving the glass with overpowered dispels. Conjured birds — realised with a charm, which was much easier than freely conjuring glass, Liz could do the same thing with snakes — harassed her, swooping in at her head at inconvenient moments, while they traded spells back and forth, more fire met with more glass, Liz thought she saw Morgen cursing as she clearly realised her fire magic was worse than useless and decided to stick to curses instead, both mages powerful enough the crackling and banging of the impacts against shields was audible from here. Both of them had shields shatter on them, from shield-breakers or just too-powerful curses, but they were both quick enough on the jump that they avoided follow-up spells again and again, the crowd cheering as the duel went on and on, spells only seeming to grow more powerful and explosive as the pair grew frustrated and desperate, oohing at near-misses, back and forth and back and forth, Cedric was knocked back as his shield shattered again, stumbling and tripping, but he rolled over his shoulder and popped right back up to his feet, narrowly missed by two more hexes along the way, shielding a third spell before retaliating with a dense stream of hexes to almost deafening shouting from a section of the stands dense with Hufflepuff yellow—
And then Morgen, abruptly, dropped to the floor unconscious. For a second, Liz could only stare uncomprehendingly — she hadn't even the seen the spell that had taken Morgen out, and she'd had a shield up! (it must have been a polarised spell, those sometimes slipped through a protege no problem...) — and she wasn't the only one, the room lapsing into silence for a shocked breath. But then, practically as one, the cheering started, roaring so loud Liz clapped her hands over her ears, grimacing against the noise.
Not that she could blame them — that had been very impressive, from both Cedric and Morgen.
By comparison, Gryffindors Alicia Spinnet and Kenneth Towler (last year's seeker) were much less exciting, Kenneth taking a win in hardly twenty seconds with spellwork that seemed very basic after the show Cedric and Morgen had just put on. And then it was back to the third years, starting with Tracey and Draco — Tracey had been psyching herself up ever since Draco's win, moodily staring down at the ring in near-silence, her mind hard and focused. Draco was very good after all, and it was also personal, since Draco had bullied her for years when they were children, at tea parties and birthdays and whatever else with all the fancy nobility. Draco had let up at some point since starting at Hogwarts — not that he'd had any kind of change of heart, of course, he was just playing nice with Liz's friends for the sake of staying on the quidditch team — but it was dead obvious that they still really didn't like each other, and not just because Liz could read minds.
Of course, Tracey lost anyway, knocked to her knees with a bludgeoning hex and then knocked out with a stunning hex, after maybe twenty seconds at most — as much as Tracey definitely wanted to curse the shite out of him, Draco was simply the better duellist.
Liz took a glance at the brackets, and confirmed she'd be fighting Draco after her match with Weasley. Tracey would have to settle for Liz kicking his arse for her.
After that was Susan and Fay — this duel was rather intense, Fay's more aggressive style very flashy and dramatic. But Susan's shields were more than able to hold up to multiple hexes before failing, Susan occasionally throwing out a hex but mostly seeming to wait for the opportune moment. Until, after maybe half a minute, it came, Susan whipping out a quick stunning hex — in the middle of a string of hexes from Fay, Susan ducking out of the way even as she cast — the red spellglow striking Fay before she could react, dropping her limp to the floor. As decent as Fay was, it was bloody obvious which of them had more experience in these things.
And then it was Liz's turn again. Brushing off a couple concerned questions from the others, worried Weasley might try to actually hurt her, getting held up briefly by Susan with more of the same concern on the way, Liz ended up getting to the platform some seconds after Weasley. He was already standing there, waiting, glaring across the ring at her, the hateful tension in his posture so blindingly obvious she really didn't need mind magic to guess what he was feeling. His mind was hot and sharp, like the dry blast of air out of a stove, somewhat more controlled than the raging inferno Vernon could get but still unpleasantly familiar, eyes crawling over her skin like ants, her neck tingling as she pushed more magic into her mind in preparation to defend herself — completely by instinct, she didn't even know how to make it stop.
There was a rigid, anticipatory tension about him, a determined glee, as though he thought he would accomplish something with this duel, somehow — either actually beat her, or at least in having his arse kicked prove to everyone she was the evil murderer he'd convinced himself she was.
Unfortunately for him, she didn't have the patience for this.
Flitwick called a start to the duel, Ronald cast immediately — a pain hex, she knew, not the same one Liz preferred but not bad — but Liz had already dipped to the side, the spellglow zipping by her left shoulder as she took a second to aim, summoning a feeling of frustrated impatience (which wasn't hard for her to manage at the moment, thankfully). "Verveikt."
Ronald got a shield charm up — a proper protege, and a pretty strong-looking one, too. But it didn't matter. The polarised hex slipped right through the shield — casting ripples in its wake, like a rock thrown into a lake, the magic glittering where the light caught it — the purplish spellglow continuing on to meet Ronald's chest right on the centreline. Even as his body fell, unconscious, Liz turned her back on him and walked away, ignoring the stunned gasping and cheering from the crowd.
Maybe not putting on the best show for their audience, but Liz had long ago run out of the patience to deal with Ronald Weasley's shite.
After that, they had the second round for the fourth years. The less skilled half of the participants eliminated, these duels tended to last longer than the first round, more flashy and energetic. Sadhbh was just as quick and light on her feet as in her duel against Cormac, but Katie was fast enough to meet her. And apparently more powerful: Katie ended up winning when she pinned Sadhbh down with a few quick hexes, forcing her to put up a shield, which she then shattered with a blasting charm, Sadhbh hit with a stunning hex before she could recover.
The other Monroe sister then faced Damian Rowle in a long, brutal fight — both of them took multiple hits before it was over, scorching and bludgeoning and pain hexes, but they always managed to duck out of the way of follow-up spells, powering through their injuries to keep going. A bad hit had damaged Laoise's left shoulder (maybe dislocated, but probably not that bad), she pinned her arm to her side with a sticking charm to keep from stressing it, and Rowle's hair had been set on fire, partially burned away and leaving uneven curly scorched bits, trails of blood staining his clothes from a cutting hex. In the end, a conjured bird from Rowle (mediated through a charm, of course, they were only fourth years) was transfigured into a solid ball of bronze by Laoise, who then banished it right at Rowle, hitting him hard in the stomach — his breath was forced out of him, falling to his knees, a stunning hex knocking him out a second later.
Liz could feel the concern wafting from Dorea and Hermione next to her — not for Laoise or Rowle, worrying about their friends getting hurt in their own fights — but she pretended she didn't. Not like she hadn't already known it could get messy, this was just the kind of shite that happened in duelling sometimes.
Next was Atwell and Andrews, which was the quickest fight of the lot, Atwell not presenting Andrews nearly as much trouble as Ollivander had, Andrews won before too long. Meaning the muggleborn girl had now beaten two boys from old noble families — Liz was sure some people in the audience were just thrilled about that (she thought, smirking to herself a little). The next one was Selwyn and Scrimgeour. This one lasted for a few minutes, loud and flashy, flares of fire and bright spellglows, the air shaking with the shattering of shields. But it only took maybe ten seconds for Liz to have a good feeling about who was going to win: Selwyn's movements were broad and sweeping and harsh, almost seeming to scramble from one spell to the next, while Scrimgeour appeared far more composed, the placement of his steps and flourishes of his wand far more precise and measured, more thoughtful than the wild, undisciplined energy on display from Selwyn. Scrimgeour's spells were rather less dramatic-looking, plain spellglows unbroken with area-effect or elemental magics — but he clearly knew what he was doing, because Selwyn was dropped with a simple hex in the middle of casting yet another fire spell.
Not that Liz was surprised — the Scrimgeours were an old military family, they probably started teaching their kids how to fight as soon as they were old enough to hold a wand.
The last fourth year fight was Carpenter and Smethwyck. They had both lost last time, but Smethwyck's first duel had been against a fifth-year, and apparently Flitwick decided that meant he got a second chance — and Carpenter's first match had been with Scrimgeour, which Liz guessed also wasn't fair. This duel was rather less flashy than the last, but both of the fighters were clearly competent, spellglows quickly zipping back and forth to be dodged or caught on well-formed shields. The ending, despite how comparatively simple it was, Liz thought was actually quite impressive: Carpenter hit Smethwyck's protege with a shield-breaker, which Liz knew was very disorienting — the destructive interference tended to knock her off balance, and could make it difficult to cast magic at all for a few seconds — but as soon as it hit Smethwyck dove to the floor to land on his side, robes sliding against the stone, Carpenter's follow-up hex sailing through where he'd been a second ago. Still lying on the floor, Smethwyck managed a weak tripping jinx through the interference, and Carpenter stumbled, the jinx not strong enough to knock her over but enough to keep her on her heels long enough for Smethwyck to get off a stunning hex. Not bad.
And then they were to the fifth years again. Camilla's fight with Fred Weasley was slightly ridiculous, serious duelling spells mixed up with silly prank jinxes — which, while not really doing any damage, were distracting. And Weasley got pretty clever with it too, a jinx that made a whole bunch of ball bearings — Camilla's boots slid on them for a second, but she managed to stay on her feet, a wide-angled banishing sending them all flying away from her — exploited to give Weasley transfiguration material, the ball bearings turned into wires and ropes and birds and mice and flying needles and whatever the hell he came up with. Camilla was maybe the better duellist, but Weasley's weird, unpredictable style overwhelmed her with nonsense — a bat bogey hex (ugh, hated that thing) distracted her long enough she got pelted with a (half-sized) transfigured bludger, which had her stumbling long enough for Weasley to get her with an ankle-hook hex, yanking her off the ground to hang upside down by one foot, where it was easy for him to get her with a stunning hex.
George Weasley's fight with Prewett, on the other hand, was over very quickly. He started up trying to get his tidal wave of confusing nonsense going, but she just bulldozed through it with a couple dispels and an overpowered banishing, nailed Weasley with a stunning hex while he was on the back foot. And after that was Cedric and Eirsley, which wasn't a very interesting fight either, Cedric knocked her out pretty quickly.
The fifth years had ended up with an uneven number of fighters, so Camilla got a second chance against Kenneth Towler — Liz didn't know why it was Camilla who got it, maybe the professors had just set it randomly. Still looking slightly dishevelled from her slapstick fight with a Weasley twin, Liz could see the simmering frustration on her face from here, and she flattened Towler in ten seconds easy, putting her back in the running.
At this point, the brackets started getting really weird and twisty, the losers from last round paired up with the other losers. (Except the fifth years, that didn't start in their bracket until the next round.) The people who hadn't lost yet still went first, though — which meant it was Liz's turn to fight Draco. There were a few calls for good luck, Hannah made to pat Liz on the back on her way by but she managed to duck away from it.
She was still close enough to catch a hot flash of irritation from Susan, glanced back to see her leaning in close to Hannah, saying something. Probably trying to get Hannah to stop touching her without asking first, which, as useless as that probably was, Liz appreciated anyway.
Draco made it to the platform before she did, looking strangely tense — and he felt strangely tense too, his nervousness and uncertainty filling the air inside the duelling wards. (Not the nicest feeling to be stuck around, but it was much better than the constant tempest outside of the wards, so she wasn't complaining.) As soon as she was close enough to hear without him needing to shout, he said, "I don't intend to go easy on you, and I know you won't either. No hard feelings, I hope."
Um, well, of course not, it was just a game. Too confused to respond right away, while Flitwick introduced them again Liz noticed his eyes flick to the side, just for a blink. She followed his gaze to find two people sitting in the front row of the stands — expensive robes in black and blue and white, the cloth glittering in the light; the man had long, straight, impossibly white blond hair, the woman's black and curly but with a lock at the front charmed the same white (Liz had the feeling the man's was charmed white too, like Draco's, there must be a purpose to that). The man held a cane, his hands loosely folded on top, watching calmly but intently. The woman was really pretty, her features long and sharp and dramatic, skin smooth and flawless, dark eyes glimmering, Liz realised she was staring and forced herself to look away. Liz had seen them in pictures in the Prophet before, but even if she hadn't she would still be able to guess those were Draco's parents.
"No, I won't be going easy on you either. And I'm not sorry I'm about to embarrass you kicking your arse in front of your mummy and daddy." She forced a smile, hopefully getting across that she was mostly joking.
Draco's eyes narrowed for a second, annoyance sparking around him. But then he seemed to get the message, the annoyance quickly shifting into a wavering (reluctant?) amusement, he rolled his eyes with a huff, his lips twitching a little.
And then Flitwick was counting them down, three...two...one...
"Verveikt!" "Stupeat!"
"Haldist, incide, dis— Protege!" The blasting hex slammed against Liz's shield charm, the effects were held off but the force still tipped her back a couple steps, fractures running through the shield, she dispelled it before Draco could try to shatter it. "Deprime, stupeat, shite..." Liz skipped out of the way of a spellglow, narrowly missing it — orange-ish yellow, the feel of the magic on it sharp and clinging, didn't know what that one was — got up another protege in time to catch a follow-up cutting hex.
Her own cutting hex had clipped Draco over the shoulder, a seam in his shirt opened up, but it hadn't done much damage, maybe only the faintest sign of blood visible from here. Draco instantly snapped off a shield-breaker at the appearance of the protege; Liz simply dropped the shield, the twisting green-black spellglow hitting her in the chest but uselessly fizzling out, even as she cast another binding hex, a bludgeoning hex, a scorching hex — and then ducked out of the way of another spellglow she didn't recognise, shielded a scorching hex.
"Scintillate!" The spell left her wand as a blueish spellglow, but quickly resolved into a wave of sizzling sparks, expanding outward as they went, Draco cast a big hemispherical shield, glimmering a pleasant pale orange, to protect himself from the electricity — bad move. "Comminue," the shield-breaker shot out of her wand, interference stinging at her fingers, but she didn't wait for a second before casting more, "Deprimo, incide, privetur!"
The shield-breaker shattered Draco's neat pretty shield charm, sending him stumbling, the first hex pressing him down to the floor, hitting knees first but he continued on into a roll, neatly evading the cutting hex. Instead of raising a shield to block the stripping hex, his wand moved in a flick, firing off a barely-visible jinx, more noticeable as a shimmer in the air than anything, flopping over onto his side to let the hex pass over him. Liz skipped out of the way of the jinx — a basic tripping jinx, she could tell when it got closer — casting a stunning hex as she went, but Draco popped up to his feet, shuffling a bit to the side on the way, avoiding her hex even as he cast his own, Liz barely managed to dodge the scorching hex, the bright spellglow carrying on to hit the wards behind her with a crash and a roar of flame, she grit "ventum" through her teeth, the basic wind charm blowing the fire away before it could reach her.
Okay, that was close. Almost even got her while he was down too, clever little shite...
Liz sidled out of the way of a stunning hex as she cast, "Cumfulmine lacera!" She clenched her jaw as the curse yanked at her magic, all the little joints in her hand burning in a flash — a complex blasting curse with an elemental element, one of the more powerful spells she could cast at the moment, and slightly insane for a thirteen-year-old — but the spell resolved properly, a bright blue-white spellglow lancing across the circle. "Comminue!" Draco got a shield charm up, barely in time, the curse slammed into the shield with a harsh boom-crackle, the initial impact opening up cracks, a dozen fingers of lightning released to claw at the air, Draco dropped it before the shield-breaker could hit, but the lightning was still there, drawn into the lingering magic from the shield charm like a lightning rod. He scrambled back but not fast enough, he let out a strangled yelp as one of his legs was hit, stumbling as the muscles in his leg seized for a second, his trousers catching alight.
And yet he still managed to dodge her follow-up stunning hex and then shield a stripping hex, god damn it...
Her string of depressing-scorching-piercing-stunning hexes was interrupted partway through with a cutting hex, and then a piercing curse — looked like someone was getting frustrated. Liz didn't want to hold still long enough to shield them both, she leapt to the side, but she didn't get quite far enough away, the tail end of the cutting hex lashing her left arm. She grit her teeth against the flare of hot pain, "ĭoto, ĭoto," that would keep it from bleeding too badly, she ducked out of the way of another spellglow, fired off another complex blasting curse; Draco dodged this one rather than try to block it again, the spellglow zipping past him to slam into the wards as he cast his own hex, then skipped out of the way of the lightning spreading from the impact, favouring his scorched leg a little.
That was a binding hex coming at her — Liz decided not to bother avoiding it, focused on casting, "Abduce, accio, stupeat." Draco's hex struck her in the chest, conjured ropes springing into existence, magic snapping out to yank her arms in to her sides. Liz drew in a breath, clenching her fists, and pushed, tingles flared over her skin and her head spun, little coloured spots dancing before her eyes, but the wandless spell worked, the ropes dissolving into sparks and her arms freed. Dizzy, she staggered a couple steps— "Contege." —blocked another hex from Draco, gasping for breath.
She faintly heard Flitwick crowing at the wandless magic, the crowd oohing and cheering. It was hardly a unique skill, people did that in professional duelling all the time — in the book Dorea had given her, Cassie Lovegood claimed a wandless dispel was an absolutely basic skill everyone should learn — but it had taken a lot out of her, let's not do that again.
"Steðjinn detti!" she called, with a sweeping jab of her wand. She'd looked this spell up, Dora had used it against Quirrel and she'd been curious — a band of distortion formed in front of her, like a shockwave racing out across the circle at Draco. He threw up a shield to block it, but it hardly mattered, the force of the concentrated front of wind picked him right off his feet anyway, sending him tumbling back, hitching up against the wards. People weren't supposed to touch duelling wards, sparks in blue and green and yellow crawling over his robes, he scrambled to roll away, but the spell didn't just affect him, the explosion of wind filling the entire space staggering Liz a little, her hair and scarf whipped around her head, squinting her suddenly very dry eyes against it. Pushing against the wind to aim, "Stupeat!"
Draco managed to avoid it, of course, pushing up to his knees as a he cast a hex, immediately following with a shield to catch her follow-up spell. She dodged the hex, even as she cast, "Cumfulmine lacera!" The curse exploded against his shield, the snapping crackle of lightning filling the air, but Draco had learned the lesson this time, as he dropped it he pushed himself away, skidding on his back...into the wards, multicoloured sparks snapping across him again — but that also meant he was cornered now. "Stupeat."
Her heart jumping in her throat, even as she said the last syllable of the hex, her hand finishing the wand movement, she noticed the bright white spellglow flying right at her. Draco was wide open, his wand hand on the floor as he tried to stand up, the stunning hex would take him out...but if she moved to block or dodge whatever this spell was she would miss her shot. She had to eat it.
The red of the stunning hex zipped out of her wand, straight at Draco, once it was gone she started stepping to the side, so the spell wouldn't hit her centreline, started to duck—
She was struck in the shoulder, and there was a flash of intense, white-hot pain, Liz gasped, falling to her knees as the agony radiated outward, she shivered. Ignoring the piercing, burning ache as best she could, she squinted through her swirling vision, and yes, good, Draco was facedown on the floor, unmoving, she had managed to hit him...
Despite the pain, Liz still felt herself grinning — told him she'd kick his arse...
There was a sudden pressure around her head, alien feelings buzzing at the edges of her mind, but they seemed oddly muffled, distant — the pain was a good distraction, she didn't really have the attention to spare for— Her chest convulsed, and she was coughing, which was bloody painful, wrenching at the wound from whatever spell that was she'd taken, her other senses stopped working entirely for a second as she was overwhelmed with a surge of white-hot agony, seeming to claw its way through her chest pounding across her shoulder and up her neck. She fought against the urge to cough, shivering a little, trying to swallow whatever that was trying to crawl up her throat.
When she came to again, she was on her hands and knees...and there were speckles of blood on the stone. One hand came up, a little shaky, to wipe at her face, her lips and her chin wet and warm — her fingers came away bloody. Leaning back on her heels, Liz pushed her hair out of the way, pushing her scarf flat and pulling at her shirt to get a good luck at her shoulder. A hole had been punched through the cloth, jumper and vest, high on the right side of her chest...and then through the skin beneath it, a little circle about as wide around as the pad of her thumb opened up, a trail of blood dribbling down her chest and sticking to her vest. Liz couldn't see how deep the hole went, all the blood in the way, but that she was coughing up the stuff made her think it was probably pretty deep.
That was a piercing curse. She'd been hit in the chest with a piercing curse.
...Huh.
Liz coughed, letting out a groan as the pain flared higher again — ow, ow, ow...
She felt a mind approaching her, hot and sharp, she tensed for a second before she realised it was Severus and relaxed again. Crouching down next to her, she opened her eyes to find a little phial of greenish-blue potion held in front of her face. "For the pain. Can you walk, or do you need help getting to the benches?"
"I can walk." Honestly, her legs weren't hurt at all. She downed the potion, shivering at the cool relief dribbling down through her — like a big gulp of an icy drink, but continuing on past that, tamping down the worst of the pain in her shoulder. It wasn't completely gone, no, the potion leaving behind a tense, hot ache that flared sharper with each breath, but it was much better. Shaky, her head still spinning a little, she had trouble getting up to her feet, Severus wordlessly offered an arm so she clung at it, slowly shuffled off the platform on shivering knees.
She felt Severus cast a spell, not aimed at her but the floor behind them. For a second she was confused, before realising what that must be: Severus had vanished the blood she'd left on the floor, so nobody could use it as a focus to curse her. Good thinking.
Another cough shook her, her hands reflexively tightening on Severus's arm, grimacing against the tearing in her chest — ow. She wiped at the blood dribbling from her lips with the back of her hand, and kept walking.
Liz was sat down on a conjured chair, Severus peeling back the hole in her clothes a little with the help of a couple cutting charms. (She was too distracted to be embarrassed about that at the moment, and besides, the hole was still small enough nobody would be able to see anything.) After a couple quick analysis charms, Severus said, "It appears the damage is relatively minimal, but I presume you wish to continue in this pointlessly violent exercise, and the interventions I have at my disposal that will have you functional in time for your next match are few. I must use light magic — this will be unpleasant."
Calling this a pointlessly violent exercise was kind of funny, Severus had recommended she try for the duelling team in the first place. How did he think that was going to go? Brushing off the thought — though by the tingle of annoyance she caught from him, she had the feeling he'd picked up enough to guess what she was thinking — she nodded. "Do it."
It wasn't really that bad, enough that Severus taking a moment to warn her seemed kind of unnecessary, but maybe the pain potion helped a little...or maybe repairing her spine had simply set an unreasonably high bar when it came to painful healing procedures. It did hurt, sharp intensely hot pain stabbing through her chest, like hot metal against her skin — and she could guess what that would feel like pretty well, as she had burned herself more times than she could count on pans and shite when she was a little kid — and not just against the surface but piercing inside. Liz grit her teeth, clamping down on her throat to keep herself from crying out, her hands gripped so tight on the sides of the seat that her arms shook a little, as Severus cast over the hole in her chest, not so much an incantation but a litany, a long string of words under his breath, not done with the rhythm and pitch of normal speech, not so much muttered as gently sung...
And abruptly the spell was done, the fire lifting away to leave a lingering, dull ache. Relaxing with a shivering sigh, her head tipping against the back rest, Liz took a moment to gather herself before pushing magic through her body — rather like when she'd done that wandless dispel, but to no real purpose, just making it move. For a blink there was a tingle of interference in her shoulder, but then the unpleasant heat of light magic was washed away, and the pain was gone completely, as though she'd never been hit with a piercing curse at all. Well, not entirely, it did still feel a little sore, but more like the ache after a hard quidditch practice, no big deal.
She blinked as Severus cast some more spells at her, what was he— Oh, cleaning and repairing charms, getting rid of the blood and fixing her clothes, right. Slightly embarrassing, she could have done those just fine on her own, but okay. "Thanks."
"Of course. For the blood loss." It took her a second to realise he was offering her another potion. This one was a reddish black, unpleasantly sticky in her mouth, warm and slimy, blech. Apparently aware of how awful it was, Severus also handed her a cup of water, and she abruptly realised she was quite thirsty. "It will take a few minutes for the blood-replenishing potion to work — if you're still feeling dizzy when it comes time for your next match, use your best judgement as to whether it is safe for you to fight at all. Before bed tonight, be sure to eat something with plenty of iron and salt, especially if you allow yourself to be hit with another curse in a future duel and require a second."
Liz tried not to wince. "Ah. Noticed that, did you."
"Yes," he hissed, giving her a flat, unimpressed sort of look, his mind cold and shifting. "I cannot fault the judgement in principle — sometimes such tactics are what is necessary to survive — but I do wish you would avoid injuring yourself so simply to win a game. An informal tournament between children is not worth risking yourself so. However, given how you fly in quidditch matches, I am aware saying so will accomplish absolutely nothing whatsoever."
"I'm hardly taking any risk — you and Pomfrey are right here, and the duelling wards will put me in stasis if I'm seriously hurt. Duelling is actually way safer than quidditch." Professional duellists did die occasionally, yes, but it was extremely rare during formal events under full duelling wards. (In fact, relative to the number of people involved, people died in professional quidditch more often than duelling, ironically enough — probably just because they didn't have the same emergency stasis wards, so people died before they could get medical care.) After all, it was just a game, the danger wasn't supposed to be real.
Severus scowled at her a little, but didn't argue the point. Whether that was because she was right, or because he knew arguing wouldn't do any good, she couldn't guess. "Regardless. You'll be sitting here until your next match. If you're feeling well afterward, you may return to your friends in the stands."
Oh darn, an excuse to not have to sit squeezed in the middle of a crowd, however would she cope. "Okay. Thank you, Severus."
His lips twitched a little, sparks of amusement dribbling from him, possibly catching that last thought, before he straightened again and walked off.
There was a duel going on at the moment — a competent but relatively tame one, spellglows zipping back and forth to splash against shields or continue on to the wards — but Liz didn't recognise who was fighting. Couldn't be third-years, she knew all of them in the tournament...though sometimes she could have trouble if she only had faces to go on, people's minds were a whole lot more distinct and she couldn't feel them with the duelling wards in the way. Must be into fourth-years already, she tipped her head back to look at the brackets overhead and—
"Hey, Liz. Professor Snape finished patching you up?"
Liz twitched a little at the unexpected voice, flailing around with her mind, then relaxed a second later when she recognised Tracey. With all the noise in the room, hadn't felt her coming. "Oh, um. I'm supposed to give the blood-replenishing potion time to work, but yeah, I'm good. Did you have your go this round already? Who was it, Fay?"
Before Liz could find Tracey's name in the brackets — that thing really was very confusing to navigate — Tracey answered anyway. "Yeah, Fay Dunbar. It was a little rough, Dunbar's better than I expected, but I won after a bit. Not as rough as yours, obviously — I don't think I could cast a complex blasting curse, and did you take that piercing curse on purpose?"
She shrugged. "I had to, I wouldn't have hit Draco if I didn't."
Her mind shivering with a cool, shifting feeling Liz couldn't put a word to, Tracey let out a scoff. "Well, shite, I guess so. I'm not asking you to go easy on me, but I'm not going to be throwing around curses like that either, so try not to mess me up too bad, okay?"
Liz blinked. "Are you my next fight?"
"Yes."
...Oh.
The duel going on ended in a flash, and Liz belatedly realised it was Scrimgeour and Andrews — the surprisingly talented muggleborn girl had finally lost a match, and she had the bad luck for it to be on an elimination round, so she wouldn't get a second go of it. Oh well, she'd put in a damn good showing anyway, no shame in losing to a Scrimgeour. While Liz squinted up at the brackets, trying to figure out what she'd missed, she drew her wand and transfigured her chair out into a bench. Liz was going to be kicking her arse in a few minutes — and the thought was honestly making her a little uncomfortable, though she couldn't really articulate why even to herself — and also Tracey just standing over her shoulder was awkward, so she was inclined to be nice.
Liz first found her own name, started following around the circle from there. Tracey had beaten Fay, and it was Fay's second loss so she was eliminated — and their next fight was with each other, damn — and then Susan had lost to Sadhbh Monroe, who was a fourth-year, apparently they were starting to mix up a little already. Sadhbh had lost her last fight, so not a bad point to start mixing the years, Liz guessed. (Susan was fighting Draco next, which meant she'd almost certainly be eliminated.) Then Katie Bell had fought Laoise Monroe, and it was an elimination round for the fourth-years so Laoise was out of the running, and then Selwyn had beaten Atwell. Liz noticed Selwyn was fighting Katie next, and Katie was pretty damn good, here's hoping the annoying racist bitch got the shite kicked out of her. Scrimgeour and Andrews had come right after them, so Liz hadn't missed that much. Flitwick was counting down Rowle and Smethwyck now, and while Smethwyck was decent she had the feeling Rowle was better, so unfortunately the annoying racist prick wouldn't—
"Liz!" She twitched again at the call of her name, but she immediately recognised the mind it belonged to as Hermione's — ugh, she needed to practise picking people out of a crowd, she didn't like being surprised like this. Hermione climbed over the bench — her chair had had a back, but in her transfiguration she'd moved it down to give herself more material to work with — her robes rustling as she sat down on Liz's left side, opposite Tracey. Somewhat tentatively, giving Liz plenty of time to yank it away, she took Liz's hand, fingers lacing with hers and her other hand gripping Liz's arm just above the wrist. "Are you okay? We were waiting in the stands for you to come back up, but— That hit looked horrible, were you coughing up blood earlier?"
"Um, yeah, I was." They must have been far enough away in the stands to not be able to make it out very well, because admitting it just made the anxiety simmering away in Hermione's head more intense, warm, clinging, nauseating strands of concern clinging at her. Liz grimaced, rolling her shoulders a little, trying to shake them off — which, of course, didn't do shite, it wasn't physically clinging at her. Well, Hermione kind of was physically clinging at her, but honestly that didn't bother Liz as much, it was only Hermione.
Her discomfort must be obvious enough for Hermione to tell, she let out a little, "oh!" and leaned away a little, her hands beginning to loosen. And she didn't... Well, even if she didn't entirely get these things most of the time, she could figure out why people did them, if only from observation. Hermione had seen her get hurt, and was worried about her, and since she couldn't read Liz's mind and see for herself that she was fine now needed to touch her to...convince herself of that, kind of. Liz didn't really get the touching, and it made her uncomfortable sometimes — especially when it was people she didn't know well, or people who just did it too much, like Hannah — but she did understand it in principle.
And she did kind of get it personally too, when she thought about it. She remembered, when Dorea had had her first seizure of the year, and Liz and Hermione had visited her in hospital shortly afterward, when her mind had still felt a little...off — not unpleasant, necessarily, but definitely not normal, the pattern different enough it was hardly even recognisable as Dorea's. (A lot like the difficulty recognising faces after a seizure Dorea'd described, in a way, unfamiliar enough to be a little eerie.) Liz had been worried, because giving a damn about people can suck sometimes, and unnerved by her mind being off, and she could feel that Dorea and Hermione could see her distress (which had been a little embarrassing), and Dorea had offered Liz her hand and... Liz didn't have the words for what she'd felt, she was bad at feelings things, but it had helped, a bit...even if it had been kind of a lot, she'd had to fight to keep herself from crying in public.
(Uncle Vernon hated it when she cried, and even worse when they were in public. God, how old had she been when that happened, maybe three or four, she could barely remember...)
Anyway, she knew Hermione was feeling the impulse to cling at her, and honestly it wasn't the physical grabbing that was bothering Liz so much — it might have done if it were, say, Susan or someone else, but if it were Hermione (or Dorea or maybe Tracey) it was fine. Liz hesitated just for a blink, before grabbing Hermione's arm with her free hand, stopping her from pulling away, and pushing a compulsion into her head. Gently, as much as she could do this sort of thing gently, and Hermione was actually pretty decent at occlumency if she put her mind to it (ha, didn't even mean to do that), so Liz didn't doubt she'd be able to feel it happening, and would probably be able to stop it if she really wanted to.
But she didn't, tensing just for a second as the compulsion hit before relaxing, and then relaxing even further, slumping in place a little. Liz had tried to replicate the feeling from that moment in the Hospital Wing, though rather less powerful so hopefully not quite so overwhelming, and it did seem to take, Hermione not moving to fight it once she realised it wasn't doing anything bad. With just the lightest touch at the edge, Liz twisted a tiny bit of Hermione's mind around to think, It's not the touching that was making me uncomfortable.
Oh shite, Rowle just won, of course...
Her mind sparking warm and soft, tingles crawling over Liz's skin — it was clinging at her a bit, but it wasn't so bad, no worse than the hugging — Hermione let out a little breathless giggle, hands squeezing at Liz a little. "Right, of course. I should have guessed. Um." Hermione hesitated for a moment, clearly uncertain she should say something. Her mind focusing into a razor edge, as happened sometimes when Hermione was concentrating on schoolwork or casting a spell, she thought very, very loudly, impossible to miss: I'm not angry this time, but don't make a habit of messing with my head, please.
"I know I shouldn't, I just figured, since you were all..."
"Yes, I understand why you did it. I don't mind this time — it was kind of sweet of you, honestly — but if you do it too much we're going to have to have a talk." As close as they were right now, Hermione still holding her hand and gripping her arm, Liz could see Hermione was a little worried that Liz would start tweaking her thoughts and feelings to Liz's liking. She didn't think it particularly likely, she did trust Liz (for the most part), but it was a slippery slope she really didn't want to get started down.
"I won't do that, I promise." As she'd written to Tamsyn months ago now, manipulating people's minds that extensively sounded like way too much effort for too little gain. Besides, she mostly liked Hermione's mind the way it was — if she didn't, she wouldn't have gone along with the being friends thing in the first place. She could do without some of the more intrusive feelings, but she was aware she couldn't do anything about that without doing serious psychological damage, so.
Hermione had tried to be discreet, not coming out and saying what they were talking about, but she was unaware Tracey already knew Liz was a mind mage. During that short conversation, a tingle of unease started growing in Tracey's mind, shivering and unsteady. "You mean... Did you just...?"
While Hermione leaned around Liz a little to frown at Tracey, confused, Liz said simply, "Yes."
"That... And you're okay with that."
It clicked, Hermione's jaw dropping a little, eyes flicking between Liz and Tracey — wondering how and when Tracey had found out, and why Liz hadn't said anything about it. (Because Hermione or Dorea would have asked how it'd happened, and that was extremely private.) After a couple seconds, she found her voice. "Ah, it is a little unsettling to consider the implications sometimes, but as long as she keeps it to a minimum, why not?"
"Because it's fucking creepy, that's why not."
There was a flare of something in Hermione's head, hot and angry, her hand tightening around Liz's a little, seemingly by reflex. "It's just as much a part of Liz as anything else, Tracey. We have a right to draw lines as to how much we're comfortable with, but it's always going to be there, whether you try to ignore it or not."
Oh, Liz got it now! Hermione was offended on her behalf, worried Liz was hurt by Tracey calling her creepy. She wasn't, of course, Liz had known for ages that she was a creepy devil child and that's just how things were, but Hermione probably didn't realise that. Especially given what Tracey's introduction to Liz's mind-control superpowers had been, well, Liz didn't take it personally. (Hermione's first brush with it had been Liz knocking out a mountain troll before it could kill the three of them, so, they'd gotten very different first impressions.) Besides, she was only half-listening, paying more attention to the next duel starting up — Ronald Weasley against fourth-year Carpenter, hopefully Weasley would lose and be eliminated...
There was some kind of reaction in Tracey's head, something shifting and uncomfortable, but Liz wasn't really paying it that much attention. Tracey was allowed to be uncomfortable with the mind magic, as far as she was concerned, there was a reason Liz hadn't touched her mind since that day. But Hermione was also allowed to form her own opinion about it, especially since Liz couldn't tell her why Tracey felt the way she did, so.
Actually having friends could be complicated like that sometimes, she guessed. She would say she wished she hadn't gone along with it all from the start, but she didn't, really.
Dammit, Weasley won. At least it wouldn't be her problem — a bit of looking around, and it seemed like Weasley's next match would be against whoever lost Liz and Tracey's (so, Tracey); the loser of that match would be eliminated, while the winner went on the third-year losers track, narrowing down to a winner of the losers. Liz would either be eliminated in her match with...Sadhbh Monroe, or if she won go up into the fourth-year track, so, Ronald Weasley was no longer her problem.
Anyway, after the younger Weasely was Prewett and the second Weasley twin — her last match had been against the other one — which was over relatively quickly. It wasn't quite as quick as the other one, Fred managing to counter her first couple attempts to knock him out, but Prewett didn't leave him enough breathing room to start up the twins' strategy of overwhelming their opponent with nonsense, before long Weasley was pinned, his shield shattered, and then knocked out with a plain stunning hex. After them was Cedric and Camilla — Mark's little sister was better than Liz had expected, but Cedric was even better, Camilla hardly held on for twenty seconds before she was down.
As soon as the match was called, Liz started disentangling herself from Hermione, expecting she and Tracey were up next — but then Flitwick called for Draco and Susan instead. So they were doing the loser track first, okay then. Draco still looked a little dishevelled from their fight, his clothes scorched in a few places, but he was moving as smoothly and confidently as always, whatever damage she'd done healed away. Susan's bow was stiff and tentative, her still-short hair making the grimace on her face easy to make out. She probably realised she was fucked.
But, somewhat to Liz's surprise, she actually did pretty well. Draco had great form, had clearly gotten training from a formal duellist (possibly just his mother), wand snapping from one spell to another pretty damn quick — and his curses packed quite a punch for a third-year, as Liz had seen first-hand — but Susan was lighter on her feet, preferring to dodge rather than shield, shifting smoothly in and out of stances, one to the next to the next. She'd also clearly gotten formal training, but in a different style, much more mobile, where Draco stood still and composed, shuffling back and forth and only occasionally stepping to the side (almost like a fencer), Susan moved mostly side to side, feet sweeping more than shuffling, sudden changes in direction throwing off Draco's aim, seeming to weave between spells almost effortlessly (though actually moving out of the way the second before they were cast).
And Susan's spells also seemed to hit rather hard, the air shivering and Draco's shields cracking from the impacts, but Liz guessed that shouldn't be a surprise — she was one of the best in their year in Charms, and she'd thrown around a bit of power in her previous duels as well. And she had a wide repertoire too, mostly simple spellglows but Liz didn't recognise most of them. True, Liz tended to rely on her magical senses to identify spells in flight, and the wards were in the way, but still...
The duel had gone on for a couple minutes when one of Susan's spells — a pale, silvery-pink spellglow, another one Liz didn't know — slipped right through Draco's shield, meaning it must be a polarised spell of some kind. Whatever it was, Draco didn't drop right away, going a little shaky on his feet but dodging a follow up spell; he staggered, but threw off a cutting hex and a blasting hex and then a fire spell of some kind, forcing Susan to dodge and counter the fire, giving him a second to gather himself.
"Was that a nightmare curse?" Tracey was leaning forward on the bench a little, drawn into the fight — and Liz was too, actually, she hadn't noticed until her glance at Tracey drew her attention to it. It was a pretty intense fight. "I think it was! Where did she pick that up?"
Well, a book, probably — Liz had read about nightmare curses before, but she'd never bothered learning any. They were somewhat difficult to cast, and Liz didn't need them to freak people out, she'd focused on other more practical spells. "You sure? I don't think I've ever seen one cast before."
"One of my uncles liked to..." Tracey trailed off, seemingly realising too late what she was saying, too taken in by the duel. "Anyway, I think it's the same one, the spellglow was familiar."
Liz could feel the spark of curiosity and concern from Hermione, but she had enough tact to not ask about that. "I'm guessing nightmare curses do what it sounds like."
"Yeah, fear, hallucinations, not fun." Tracey was forcing a casual tone, but there was still a dark note on her voice, her mind unpleasantly shivering. Probably trying to fight off memories, Liz knew how that could go...
She nearly reached out to push calm into her head — not the same feeling she'd given Hermione a bit ago, but the same general idea — before remembering at the last second that Tracey definitely wouldn't appreciate it. Hermione's concern about getting into the habit of poking at her friends' minds was clearly reasonable, shite...
Anyway, one of the advantages to nightmare curses was that their counters were somewhat complex — they couldn't be lifted with a simple dispel, and even if Draco knew the specific counter for this specific curse it'd still take a couple seconds to cast it, and he didn't have a couple seconds to stand still doing that. Liz had read that the effects could be ignored with occlumency, but that took constant attention, it was easy to slip while trying to focus on something else (like fighting off an attacker). She hadn't been worried about it, since mind-altering spells tended not to work properly on mind mages, but an ordinary person was pretty much fucked until they could get the curse broken.
But, somehow, Draco actually managed to keep fighting. He'd gone rather paler than before — which was kind of funny, Liz hadn't realised that was possible — his wand a little unsteady, Liz was close enough to the circle she thought she even saw sweat sprouting up along his hairline and down his neck. But he kept fighting, his stance maybe a little unsteadier than before and spells somewhat less focused, but they kept coming at the same speed, hardly even a break in his pace — maybe a little more destructive than before, Susan was probably in for some hurt if one hit, but Liz guessed he must be irritated. She could imagine having to power through magically-induced terror and ignore whatever hallucinations he was seeing and hearing could be terribly frustrating. Regardless, as impressive as that was, Liz doubted Draco could keep it up very long, and—
Crack, boom!
Liz reared back on her bench, surprised by the abrupt noise and flashes of light — Susan had collapsed, fallen to the stone floor clutching at her side, clothes quickly staining red as she shivered and groaned through clenched teeth. Draco must have split her shield and then hit her with something (maybe a mild blasting curse, from the look of it), the spells so close together Susan hadn't had time to dodge out of the way. Draco had fallen too, but just to his knees, clutching at his head with one hand and grimacing, shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths.
As Flitwick called the match, the crowd swept with a mix of cheers and sympathetic oohing, Madam Pomfrey jumped up onto the platform, ran right at Susan and dropping to her knees so quickly she slid across the floor on her robes for several inches. Severus was up there too, robes billowing behind him, detoured by Draco for a couple seconds to lift the nightmare curse before joining Pomfrey over Susan. There were a few spells cast, Severus retrieving a couple potion phials from somewhere, and before long Pomfrey was levitating Susan off the platform, Severus vanishing her blood behind them. Draco followed them off, his steps still looking a little unsteady — his parents weren't that direction, perhaps Severus had told him to go with them for more healing once they had Susan well enough to have the time for him.
There was a brief pause before Flitwick's amplified voice was filling the room again, assuring the crowd that the healers had told him that Susan would be fine, not even bad enough to need to be rushed to Saint Mungo's. (Liz wasn't surprised, magical healing was great and it hadn't looked that bad.) After a brief round of applause for Susan (or maybe the healers?) he moved right on, called Liz and Tracey up for their duel. Liz obeyed, climbing up to take her spot in the circle opposite from Tracey, feeling strangely uncomfortable, nerves tingling along her neck and her chest just noticeably tight.
It was only as they bowed, Flitwick beginning the countdown, that Liz put together what it must be: she didn't want to hurt Tracey.
Or well, she couldn't say she'd really wanted to hurt anyone she'd fought so far — except Ronald, she guessed — it wasn't so much that she didn't want to hurt Tracey so much as she wanted not to. She couldn't articulate to herself why, but as soon as the possibility occurred to her she knew that was it, with a certainty she also couldn't articulate.
Blindsided by the intensity of the unexpected feeling, she was distracted by her own thoughts enough she nearly missed the start of the match.
"Stupeat!" Liz twitched as Tracey's hex surged out of her wand, leaned out of the way barely in time to avoid it. Staggering a step, flicking a binding hex at Tracey under-handed — the incantation hissed and slurred, definitely didn't come out right, but that didn't actually matter — she dipped to the side of a stripping hex. Liz retaliated with a stunning hex, another binding hex, nearly cast a piercing curse before catching herself at the last second (her heart jumping in her throat) and casting a stripping hex instead.
And good thing she had caught herself, because Tracey had dodged the binding hex — apparently worried it'd go through a shield, it was one Liz had picked up from a book, might not recognise it — leaving her wide open to the stripping hex. It hit, Tracey's wand wrenched from her hand to clatter against the stone floor. Liz fired off a stunning hex, but Tracey leapt out of the way, rolling over her shoulder like she was in a fucking action film or something, scrambling to reach her wand just after Liz summoned it. But she was close enough she managed to catch it as it zipped toward Liz, fumbling for a second before getting a proper grip, just in time to shield Liz's follow-up stunning hex.
The crowd around them roaring in appreciation, for a second Liz just blinked down at Tracey. Huh, not bad.
Tracey cast another stripping hex while climbing to her feet, giving her a second as Liz dodged, but only a second, "Verveikt." Anticipating a response, Tracey already had a shield charm up, but she jumped at the sight of the dark hex, dropping her shield and skipping to the side. "Abstrahe." Tracey didn't see the tripping jinx coming in time, tried to dodge but was still hit, her feet yanked out from under her, catching her fall on her palms. "Verveikt." Liz's second attempt with the dark stunning charm hit, Tracey collapsing limp in a blink.
Liz let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding — there, that hadn't been so bad...
While the two of them (along with Hermione) started back up the stands, Liz feeling inexplicably uncomfortable despite the lack of any signs of irritation or resentment or whatever else in Tracey's head, Flitwick called down Katie and Selwyn. Ooh, come on, Katie, kick her arse...
Once Liz got back to their group in the stands, she was immediately waylaid by Dorea, sparks of concern flickering in the air around her head. (Hannah's too, actually, though her eyes were drawn somewhere down near the platform, more worried about Susan.) Apparently, the only reason Dorea hadn't come down with Hermione to make sure she was okay was that the noise of the crowd was making her dizzy, and she didn't want to risk falling or otherwise making a fool of herself in public. That didn't seem normal, noise making a person dizzy, was that a thing that happened?
...Now that Liz was looking more closely, there was an odd tingle in Dorea's head, just the slightest flicker of static — an approaching migraine, most likely, but it could be a seizure too. Liz warned her, and Dorea grimaced, frustration and exhaustion ringing out, she asked Liz to tell her if it started getting worse so she'd have time to get out of the crowd before anything happened. Not sure how likely it was Liz would be able to do that, she had no idea how long it'd been happening and she had more duels coming up, but okay.
Liz just barely sat down before the duel was over — Katie had won, Selwyn laid out on the floor, her robes smoking a little. And that was Selwyn's second loss, meaning the racist bitch was out of the running, good...
Next up were Scrimgeour and the racist bastard. Rowle was quite good, as much as it might annoy Liz to admit it, but Scrimgeour shielded every curse the other boy threw at him, implacably advancing to pin Rowle against the wards. He was switching between different shield charms, seemingly picking them specifically to deal with whatever curse Rowle was casting at the moment, and he must be doing a pretty damn good job at matching shields to curses because they hardly even wavered with the impacts. Before long Rowle was cornered, he tried to escape to the left but Scrimgeour cut him off with a cutting hex, and then fired off a rapid sequence of spells — Rowle was staggered by a bludgeoning hex, shielded the next spell, the shield then shattered with the next, three or four spellglows hit him in quick succession, Rowle flung against the wardline, bound in these odd glowing ropes, and finally knocked out with a stunning hex.
While Flitwick called his victory, Scrimgeour gave Rowle's unconscious body a contemptuous sneer before turning on his heel and walking away. Liz was belatedly reminded the Rowles were a Death Eater family, and the Scrimgeours had fought for the Ministry — she had the feeling Scrimgeour had probably enjoyed that.
Next was Cedric and Prewett — this was one of the longer matches of the evening, hefty curses flung back and forth in a staccato rhythm, the fifth-years even throwing in a bit of transfiguration and conjuration while they were at it, which was actually pretty damn impressive. (Even attempting combat transfiguration was slightly insane at their age.) For all that the magic was impressive, this fight was rather less dramatic than many of the others, both of them seeming cool and professional about it. Liz would still be watching this in her pensieve later, to pick over their footwork at her own pace, but this duel wasn't so exciting, she hardly blinked when Cedric took the win. After that was Fred Weasley and Camilla Flint, this duel much shorter, Mark's little sister transfiguring the ball bearings from Weasley's prank spell into a big fucking cloud of wasps, stunning him while he was busy setting them all on fire — maybe an overreaction, trying to dispel them might have been more efficient, but Liz couldn't blame him, that looked freaky as hell.
Next up was Tracey and Ronald. Liz was slightly worried the most annoying Weasley would take his rage at her out on her friends — by the furious set of his shoulders, she got the feeling he did want to — but this duel ended up being pretty short. Weasley managed to shatter Tracey's shield charm with a spell Liz didn't recognise and clip her with a cutting hex, but then Tracey hit him with an overpowered stripping hex — he was knocked back off his feet, his wand tumbling through the air for a second before Tracey summoned it to her, his clothing over his chest where the spell had hit even fraying a little bit.
(Stripping hexes were meant to "strip" weapons, sometimes other potentially dangerous things a person could have on them, potions and enchanted devices and whatever else, but if enough power was thrown into them they could take off a person's clothes too, the release of the excess energy shredding them to pieces. That was technically an unintended consequence of the mechanism behind how the spell functioned, she'd read, but Liz also thought it made sense — the most effective way to make sure somebody didn't have something dangerous in their pockets was to get rid of their pockets.)
Despite being disarmed, Tracey already in possession of his wand, Ronald didn't concede, glaring across at her and snarling something. Tracey just shrugged, and knocked him out with a stunning hex.
Next up was Draco and Rowle, which turned out to be a long, brutal fight. They were clearly quite evenly matched, Rowle's spells bigger and flashier but Draco's form tight and meticulous — even more than in his previous matches, fighting more conservatively to leave fewer openings. At least it was at first, anyway, like in his fight with Liz as soon as Draco's stance was broken with a hit he started to move more freely, scrambling to avoid spells while firing back his own. Both Draco and Rowle took multiple hits, clothes blackened with fire and increasingly stained with blood, both of them slowing down and starting to limp as injuries piled on, the cheering keying up to a fever pitch as both fighters somehow managed to keep going despite taking one hit after another. Even after Draco took a nasty one, a bludgeoning hex hard enough he was knocked off his feet and crashed to the ground, he still managed to shield Rowle's follow-up hex, spitting out a mouthful of blood — meaning he must have cast that shield silently — before retaliating.
It was several minutes in — both looking like hell, honestly impressive they could even manage to remain standing — when Draco finally managed to get a good, solid hit with a blasting curse, by the pink puff of mist as it landed doing rather more damage than the glancing blows they'd both taken so far. While Rowle writhed on the floor, out of the fight already, Draco bound and stunned him, seemingly on reflex (he hadn't done the same to Susan earlier), before wavering on his feet and falling down on his arse, clearly exhausted.
And then it was Liz's turn, against Sadhbh Monroe, her first fourth-year of the evening. Mostly ignoring the well-wishes from her friends, her spine stiff with tension, Liz climbed down the stands, reaching the platform some seconds after Sadhbh. Liz was only vaguely familiar with the Monroe sisters. The Monroes were nobility — one of the Seventeen Founders, in fact — in Ars Publica, the mostly non-racist Dark, among the small segment of Irish families in the Wizengamot. (Well, "Gaelic", by which mages meant Irish and Scottish, but whatever.) Besides the Monroes, there were only the Inghams, the Urquharts, and obviously the MacDougals, MacCormacs, MacMillans, and MacEwans, and sometimes people included the Scrimgeours too, for a total of seven or eight out of fifty-nine families in the Wizengamot. (Which was vastly out of proportion to the Gaelic population — twenty or so would be closer.) Which was why their names were fucking impossible to spell — "Sadhbh" wasn't difficult to pronounce (basically just "size" but with a V-sound instead), but Liz had no idea how the "dh" in there worked, Gaelic was stupid.
Oh, and, the famous Ciardha Monroe was one of these Monroes, obviously. Liz actually knew way more about the family of the character in the books than she did the author's real family (though the character and his background were at least semi-autobiographical), because Liz was probably the worst noblewoman in the history of ever and just didn't pay attention to these things.
Liz had seen the Monroe sisters around now and then, they were only a year above her, but she wasn't certain whether they'd ever actually spoken. Most times she'd noticed them it was because one of the Carrow twins had gotten her attention for some reason at mealtimes — the Carrows often sat near the Monroes, they'd known each other before Hogwarts. (Apparently the Carrows were vassals of the Monroes, but Liz had no idea how that worked.) She'd assumed they were twins, like the Carrows — fraternal, they definitely looked similar enough to be related but not identical — but apparently they'd actually been born separately, just close enough together and the timing had been right for them to be in the same year at Hogwarts. (Which sounded like it'd been miserable for their mum, but pregnancy and childbirth sounded plenty fucking miserable to begin with.) Liz didn't even know which one was older — Laoise was a little taller, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Hell, the Weasley twins were two years older than Ronald, and he was actually taller than them already, so.
They looked little different than like half of the purebloods in the school — long narrow face, pale skin, curly black hair, the same look was stupidly common, because they were all horribly inbred like that. (Liz doubted she'd be able to tell half of them apart without mind magic.) Though the Monroes had a bit more roundness to their cheeks, a bit more pink in their complexion, eyes a lighter...blueish-greenish something, hard to tell from here. Liz thought there might be the slightest hint of red in Sadhbh's hair were the light hit it but, again, hard to tell for sure.
It didn't help that she was actually kind of pretty, and Liz was trying not to stare.
While Flitwick introduced them, Sadhbh smiled across the circle at her — a wry twist to her lips, her wand idly twirling at her hip (which didn't help with the trying not to stare thing). "You've done quite well so far, Potter. I didn't realise you were so practised with duelling."
Liz was pretty sure Sadhbh meant that, since she was basically muggleborn, it was impossible for her to have gotten a head start before school started, or even really practise over the summers. For a second she frowned at the other girl, but her mind was smooth and pleasant, curious and excited more than anything else — she probably hadn't meant it in a subtly disparaging way, just as a statement of fact. "I'm a fast learner."
"So I've heard." Sadhbh dipped in a measured but graceful bow, Liz was confused for a second before realising their duel was about to start, right, oops. Even as Flitwick began the countdown, Sadhbh said, "I hope you know this isn't personal for me, just a friendly duel."
That she wasn't going to enjoy beating Liz up just because she was the Girl Who Lived, she meant. But of course Liz already knew that — she didn't pay as much attention to politics as she probably should, but even she knew the Monroes were as opposed to the Dark Lord as anyone. Liz rolled her eyes, and was about to say something about yes, obviously, I hadn't expected anything else, don't be ridiculous, but the starting signal went off before she could get out more than a couple syllables.
Caught off guard, Liz skipped to the side rather than throw a hex, a binding spell — invisible to her eyes, but perceptible to mind magic as a diffuse sizzling ball of static — passing by to her left. Leading her sideways momentum into the wand movement, "Incide, comminue, privet—" Her heart jumping into her throat, Liz abandoned the stripping hex to leap out of the way of a blasting curse — shite, that was close. Sadhbh had dropped her shield even as the cutting hex struck it, so it was gone by the time the shield-breaker hit, giving her time to get off the curse quickly, clever.
A binding hex followed her dodge to the side, but Liz slapped it out of the air with a narrow contege, no problem. "Scintillate! Deprime, adure—" Sadhbh grounded the static with some kind of paling (again, clever), got off a stunning charm, but the depressing hex hitting threw off her aim a little, Liz ducked under the red spellglow. "—verveikt, haldist!" Sadhbh skipped out of the way of the dark hex, which Liz had expected, but she hadn't led with the binding hex correctly, missing her by nearly a foot, damn.
Ice ran down Liz's spine when she heard a shout of "Cumigne lacera!" — fuck!
She skipped to the left, but she hadn't gone quite fast enough, the bright yellow-orange spellglow (magic so dense she tasted copper and the hairs at the back of her neck stood up), she scrambled to throw up a contege — she hadn't even had time for the incantation, luckily it was an easy spell. Striking the shield at an angle, the curse was deflected just a few degrees, which was thankfully enough to miss Liz, whizzing over her shoulder to explode against the wardline...but the elementary shield charm was shattered under the force, painful tingles of interference crawling up Liz's arm, the impact pushing her hard enough she stumbled. She managed to push into it, not so much falling on her arse as rolling over her shoulder and upright again, her knees hitting the stone harder than she liked. The curse had hit the wardline with a deafening boom and a roar of fire surging to life, "ventum", the breeze scattered the flames before they could reach her.
Goddammit, complex elemental blasting curses were her thing...
Pushing herself up to her feet, she hadn't even stood up all the way before a spellglow was zipping in at her, "protege!" and it burst against her shield — bludgeoning hex, looked like — quickly followed by the swirling green-black of a shield-breaker, Liz dropped her shield before it could hit, but that was immediately followed with another hex — didn't recognise this one, but the magic felt snarly, maybe a binding hex of some kind — Liz flattened herself to the floor to let it sail over her, then rolled out of the way of another — the spell struck the floor with a screeching and a sudden hissing of flame, a powerful scorching hex, Liz grimaced at the hot wind clawing over her — the leather of her boots catching on the stone snapping her to a halt, she jumped back up to her feet again.
Only to be met immediately with another bright yellow-white spellglow. "Protege!" The shield shivered as the blasting hex hit it, on instinct she skipped to the side, leaving her shield to dissolve — and good thing she had, a glimmering light hex of some kind sailed right through it a second later. "Cude, hald—" Shite, Liz barely slipped out of the way of a stripping hex, ducked a bludgeoning hex — that would have hit her in the head, ow... — a cutting hex was coming in, "Protege!" but she was a second too late, the hex catching her across the upper-left toward the tip of her shoulder. She rolled with the hit — pulling away from it meant it'd do less damage — hissing through her teeth at the flash of piercing pain, "Excide, verveikt."
There was a shout of an incantation from Sadhbh, a shiver of light magic, a silvery shield popping into existence around her to intercept the dark charm — for fuck's sake light shield charms? that was bullshit right there — a swish of her wand casting a spellglow, a crescent of light much like a cutting hex but Liz didn't recognise it, soft yellow and swelteringly light.
"Krustallinon!" Liz groaned at the draw on her magic, the joints in her wand arm burning and her head spinning, but the spell took — a wall of blue-white ice six feet high and maybe ten wide appeared in front of her, whatever that spell was burning into it a second later. And "burning" was definitely the right word, flickers of fire visible through the ice, a gush of steam bursting out on the other side, not penetrating all the way through but doing enough damage that the wall was shifting with a constant chorus of cracking noises, bits of ice clinking down to the floor...
And Liz was suddenly having an idea. "Calori, calori." The warming charms had the ice swiftly melting, but not all the way, shrinking down to a puddle of slush and water and stubborn chunks of ice all mixed up. A casual "protege" took care of an incoming stunning hex, intentionally holding back the power going into the spell somewhat Liz hissed, "Stedjinn detti." The hard gust of wind slammed into the mush, the force whipping icy slurry up into the air and right at Sadhbh, while Liz kept an eye out for approaching hexes she quickly cast a couple protective spells at herself, a tight banishing to push away any droplets of water nearby.
Sadhbh had done some kind of spell to lock herself to the floor so she wasn't knocked back by the heavy wind, but that meant she hadn't been able to put up a physical barrier. She was absolutely drenched, her clothes hanging heavy off of her and her hair snarls clinging to her skin, she scrambled to wipe them out of her face with her free hand. She even spit out a little bit of water, glaring across at Liz through a few stubborn strands of hair.
Liz smiled. "Rḗtte."
There was the snap of a shield charm coming into effect, but it didn't matter — Liz wasn't even aiming at Sadhbh. The joints in her wand arm burning again, a deep boom shook in Liz's chest, the flash of light so bright Liz reflexively closed her eyes, the afterimage glowing in the darkness, there was a sharp crackling and sizzling of electricity filling the air for one second, two, a startled, guttural cry from Sadhbh. When Liz opened her eyes, a blob of an odd blue-green still smeared across her vision from the lightning, Sadhbh was conscious but down, moaning through grit teeth as she tried to stand. It might have been Liz's imagination, but she thought she saw streaks of char striped along Sadhbh's trousers.
"Stupeat." As Flitwick called the end of the duel, Liz let out a breath, shivering a little with a voiceless giggle, tension dribbling out of her almost a physical thing. Got scary for a moment there, Liz was barely good enough to keep up with the fourth-years...
After her were fourth-year Katie Bell and fifth-year Fred Weasley, which ended up being a very short duel, and not in the fifth-year's favour. Before Weasley could even start up his pratfall cascade, Katie was pelting him across the chest with a conjured (shite, she was a fourth-year!) and banished bronze disc, throwing off his balance, tagging him with a binding hex before he could recover. It looked like Weasley was a good sport about it at least, bursting into laughter from where he lay flat on his stomach wrapped up in rope — since there were so few people left in the running, Liz had decided to stay right on the sidelines, so she was close enough to hear it — saying something to Katie that made her laugh too. They walked off the platform together, all smiles and backslapping, to the appreciative applause of the crowd. Not that it was really a surprise they were so friendly with each other, they were on the quidditch team together...
Prewett and Camila was a very short fight, Mark's little sister clipped by a stunning hex while dodging a cutting hex, maybe only twenty seconds in at most — bad luck, that. After them were Cedric and Scrimgeour, which went on rather longer. Though, as they were both very composed, formal sort of duellists, calm and collected and restrained, it was one of the less exciting ones. They were very skilled, yes, Liz wouldn't deny that — spellglows were zipping back and forth at a pretty good rhythm, both of their form perfect as they shielded or dodged as necessary, the stream of spells never letting up for a second — but there was less of the flashy, noisy, dramatic stuff going on. Since Liz was standing closer now, she could see more easily how Scrimgeour was moving with his spells, his body twisting or feet shuffling forward or back or to the side, dipping into shield charms or leaning into hexes — those had to be exaggerated somatic forms, if done rather more subtly than felt natural to Liz, which was interesting, she hadn't ever noticed anyone else doing that before.
Scrimgeour lost anyway, Cedric yanking at his foot with a summoning charm when he dropped his defences to let a shield-breaker fizzle out and then tagging him with a stunning hex while he was off-balance, which was clever, but still, neat.
The next duel, the final for the third-years, was a rematch between Tracey and Draco, which was as uninteresting as their first duel. Tracey was pretty decent for a third-year, better than Liz had expected, but she was still a third-year with unexceptional magical development for a girl their age — Liz had at least subsumed that bit of the Dark Lord, so was noticeably more powerful than other third-years, but Tracey didn't even have that. She was leaning on rather more destructive curses than the first time — toward the top of her casting range, the spellglows thin and stuttering, though they did still resolve properly when they struck a shield or the wards — but Draco seemingly had no trouble at all dodging or shielding them. Far more calm than his intense, determined opponent, Draco patiently waited for the opportune moment, until well less than a minute in he hit Tracey with a well-placed and perfectly-timed stunning hex, and it was over.
Soon Tracey plopped down with a huff next to Liz on her transfigured bench, her mind flickering and simmering with frustration and dislike (Tracey and Draco really hated each other), as Katie Bell and Prewett were called up to the ring. This duel was also very short, though in this case coming as rather more of a surprise — Draco beating Tracey had been inevitable, but Katie and Prewett were both very talented, Prewett a year older but Katie already having shown a spark for cleverness that could make up the difference. The duel ended suddenly and anticlimactically, the fire-birds Prewett cast at Katie transfigured into a cloud of needles — which was a neat trick, elemental spell effects couldn't be vanished (or at least not easily), if she did it right that property would be carried through to the needles — which were then banished right at Prewett in a dense hail of sharpened bronze; she managed to scatter them with a wide-angled banishing charm, but as her wand was busy dealing with that a basic stunning hex flew right through in a blink, Prewett dropping limp to the floor barely fifteen seconds after they'd started.
And then it was Liz's turn...against Scrimgeour. As good as Liz knew she was for her age, she was definitely going to lose.
Neither of them took very long to get up to the platform — she hadn't seen him, he must have been on the other end of the circle, but it seemed Scrimgeour had lingered on the floor instead of going back up into the stands as well. While Flitwick set up the duel — explaining that the victor would go on to the final, and the loser would instead compete with whoever lost between Katie and Cedric for third place — Scrimgeour smiled across the circle at her, giving her a nod. Well, one of those little abortive bows the kids from noble families tended to do, but it looked like a nod, his long bright reddish-orange hair shifting only a little more than expected. "Potter."
She ticked up an eyebrow at him. "Scrimgeour. How's your sister doing?" That was just the sort of thing normal people said, but Liz was actually curious, she'd liked Emily Scrimgeour.
"Good, good. Irritating a number of stuffy old people, but that's how it goes sometimes." Despite herself, Liz felt her lips twitching — calling lords and ladies stuffy old people wasn't exactly the sort of thing she expected from noble kids. "Do you remember Deirdre?"
"Oh, yeah, I heard about that." Last year, during the Chamber of Secrets thing, the Auror Rufus Scrimgeour had mentioned that Emily was still seeing Deirdre, her girlfriend from Hogwarts, and her fiancé's family was getting increasingly annoyed about it. "They still together?"
"Mhmm, they have a flat in Cambridge now." Well, that was blatant, was Emily even trying to play along anymore? Scrimgeour glanced away from Liz for a second, eyes flicking to Flitwick as he called for them to bow. They did, Scrimgeour's much more practised and graceful than Liz's, wands falling into hands and feet shifting into stances. As Flitwick counted down, Scrimgeour said, "I can pass along to Emily that you asked after her, if you like."
"No, that's fine. Good luck against Cedric."
"Thanks, Potter, you have fun with Bell."
Flitwick called the start of the duel, both of them moving before the word was even finished. Liz siddled to the side even as she cast a cutting hex, looping the movement into a shield charm, a binding hex zipping through where she'd been standing a second ago, a stunning hex slamming into her shield a second later — and then a pair of blasting hexes in quick succession, Scrimgeour advancing a step with each, her shield shivering under the impacts and beginning to crack. Liz dropped the shield before Scrimgeour could break it, leaping to the right, narrowly avoiding a stunning hex, "escide privetur," she feinted to the right and then skipped back to the left, a bludgeoning and then binding hex missing by wide margins, "haldist, verveikt!"
Scrimgeour blocked the binding hex and casually dodged around the dark spell — in a smooth triangle step, wand swishing over his head as he went, coming down in a hex of some kind. (It was cast silently, Liz didn't recognise the wand movement.) The pale pink spellglow was blunt and wide, and also moved weirdly slowly, it wasn't difficult to dodge, "Transige, excide, verve—" From behind her there was a deep, reverberating thrum, the air shaking around her head enough it made her a little dizzy, a push from behind—
...
—Liz blinked, trying to force her eyes to focus. Everything was blurry, the world reduced to colourful smears around her, her ears filled with cotton, her body gone numb and tingly. Even her sense of the minds around her was confused and run together, a diffuse pressure in all directions, the individual minds making them up indistinguish...
Wait a second...
Liz tried to push herself upright, only realising even as she moved that she was lying on her back in the first place, but a hand on her shoulder kept her from sitting — or maybe it didn't, her head was spinning badly enough she doubted she would have made it very far anyway. There were few people that could be, but the direct contact brought the person's mind to the forefront, far clearer than the more distant crowd: Severus. "Wha'appen?"
Voice low, with just a hint of something sharp, "You were struck in the head with no small magnitude of force. Do you remember?"
"Ugh. No."
"Do you know where you are?"
"Hogwarts, duelling ring."
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
Liz opened her eyes, wincing a little at the light, and squinted at Severus's hand held over her face, trying to separate the blurs of his fingers from the blurs of the ceiling — this would be much easier to do if his hand wasn't moving. "Three."
"Follow the tip of my finger." For something so simple, that was unreasonably difficult — her head was still spinning, and Severus's finger kept jittering in unexpected directions, and also trying to focus her eyes on it was giving her a headache. After only a few seconds Liz gave up, covered her eyes with a shaky hand, groaning. "I need to spell a potion directly into your stomach. Hold still for one moment."
She felt the tingle of magic settling into her, and it was some seconds after that that the potion came into effect, the spinning and tilting of...whatever she was lying on sharply lessening, and then gradually tapering off from there. Liz blinked her eyes open again, squinting against the blurriness, but that was getting better too, the ceiling overhead resolving into recognisable shapes, Severus leaning over her to the right. "That's much better," she said, much less slurred than she'd sounded even to her own ears a minute ago. "Thanks."
Severus nodded. "Can you sit up?"
"Ugh. Let's see." It turned out she could, though it wasn't easy. As much as the world wasn't spinning anymore, she still felt dizzy and nauseous, and a bit shaky — she did sit up, Severus transfiguring whatever she was lying on into a chair with a backrest as she went, but she wasn't sure she would have made it without his hand on her arm. "Fuck, still dizzy as hell. Is that gonna get better?"
"It will, naturally, though it will take time — one must be cautious when healing even the slightest injuries to the brain so as to not unintentionally do further damage."
"Will it be better in time for me to fight Katie?"
"Almost certainly not."
She'd suspected as much. "Right, I'll need to forfeit, then." Which was irritating, but duelling could be a brutal sport, and that was just how it went sometimes — if Liz was too injured to fight, there was nothing to be done about that. Besides, fourth place was still pretty fucking great for a third-year, she'd take it. "Can you tell Flitwick for me?"
It might be her imagination, her mind reading was still a bit unfocused, but she thought she caught a faint flicker of relief. "Of course. There is nothing more I can do for you at the moment, though you should wave for me if you begin to feel worse." He didn't move right away, waiting, so she nodded, and then he was gone.
The rest of the tournament ended up being terribly uninteresting, at least for Liz. Shortly after Severus stepped away, Scrimgeour showed up, seemingly just to reassure himself that he hadn't hurt the Girl Who Lived too badly. He'd been injured too, apparently, by a scorching hex — she didn't remember casting one, but there was a bit of char on his clothes along one shoulder, and his hair was lopsided now, so she took his word for it — though it'd been a quick healing job, he'd be fine to fight Cedric in a few minutes. They only talked briefly before he took his leave again, since it wasn't like they were friends or anything.
Liz's friends did turn up not long after that. Tracey was first, as she'd already been on the floor around the ring to start with, but a couple minutes later Dorea, Hermione, Daphne, and Hannah all showed up as well. It seemed Flitwick had announced her forfeit already — she hadn't noticed, probably distracted by Scrimgeour — and they'd been worried she was badly injured. Which, she guessed she was, sort of, but it was only a concussion (she thought?) she'd be fine, no reason to fret over it so much. Hannah left pretty quickly (going to check on Susan, who'd never returned to the stands), and everyone but Dorea seemed to take her word that she was fine, at least, the clinging, cloying warmth of their concern cooling off noticeably. And Hermione was sitting between Liz and Dorea, so she had a buffer, not so distracting.
...Though, come to think of it, maybe the others (excluding Daphne, who didn't know she was a mind mage, but whose mind was generally quiet anyway) were just making an effort to not overwhelm her, and Dorea couldn't because she was shite at occlumency. Could go either way, she guessed. If it was occlumency, she appreciated it — in fact, her brain must be more scrambled than she realised, because she was getting a little emotional at the thought, she had to pause a moment to focus on her breathing.
(Uncle Vernon hated it when she cried.)
Eventually, Katie dropped by to say hello — as expected, she'd lost against Cedric which, since Liz had forfeited, meant she'd taken third place by default. There was a little teasing, Katie saying she was disappointed she didn't get her rematch — Liz had beaten her to the snitch in the one Slytherin–Gryffindor match they'd had since Katie had been made seeker, though barely — that she guessed she'd just have to wait until their spring game. Katie could certainly try, but Liz would just kick her arse again, she said far more confidently than she truly felt about it, playing along. (Gryffindor had the best team after Slytherin, and Katie was a better seeker than Towler from last year.) After a bit more banter, Katie wandered off — once she was out of earshot, Tracey made a joke about shamelessly flirting in front of them, to huffs and rolls of eyes from the other girls.
Liz hoped her not saying anything to that would be interpreted as her head injury still messing with her, or just her general social awkwardness, and not suggestive of anything more than that. Not that there was anything more than that, she was mostly just confused. Had that been flirting? Katie Bell was pretty enough, she guessed, but she didn't— She generally wasn't great at reading people's intentions (without also reading their minds, and sometimes not even then), so she could admit to herself that she was unlikely to notice (especially when there were other people closer to her, drowning out whatever the person might be feeling), but Liz knew she hadn't meant any of it in that way, just, people on the quidditch teams teased each other like that all the time. She had no idea how people were supposed to tell the difference, and the thought that she might have blatantly missed something like that was confusing and uncomfortable, which was only making her headache worse.
Of course, it was possible that Tracey hadn't noticed anything like that, and was only teasing herself. Liz was sceptical of her own ability to tell the difference there either, so... Oh well.
As unfocused as she was from her head injury, distracted by her own confusion and the conversations going on around her, Liz ended up more or less entirely missing the final match between Cedric and Scrimgeour. She was at a bad angle to see anything — the platform was a few steps above the floor, and Liz was so bloody short, and there were a few people in the way — but she didn't think she would have been able to follow it very well even if she could see it clearly. It felt like the duel went on for some minutes at least, and there was the occasional boom or crackle of a spell resolving to the oohing and cheering of the crowd, and she knew Cedric won in the end, but she didn't take in much more than that.
Flitwick was just wrapping up the lower-years' tournament — saying there would be a half-hour break before the upper-years' started, drinks and snacks were available in the Great Hall — when Liz was startled by a paper aeroplane flying right at her face, she barely managed to slap it out of the air. It bounced off Tracey's shoulder and plopped down onto the floor, Daphne reached around to pick it up. Glancing at the wings, she said, "It's a message. For you, Liz." She leaned around Tracey, holding the paper aeroplane toward Liz.
Oh, right, Liz knew people sometimes sent messages with charmed paper aeroplanes, though she'd never received one herself. Liz took it from Daphne, noting she didn't recognise the hand that had scrawled Elizabeth Potter on one of the wings, unfolded the paper.
Come meet me behind the stands opposite the entrance during the break. I have a proposition for you. —Cynfelyn Eirsley
...Liz knew that name: Cynfelyn Eirsley was the captain of the lower-division duelling team.
She grinned.
The dizziness hadn't quite faded away entirely. Liz did manage to make it up to her feet, though she teetered immediately, one hand jumping to Hermione's shoulder to keep herself from falling. She paused for a moment, fighting against nausea crawling up her throat, focused on slowly breathing in and out. She got offers of help from multiple people, but she brushed them off — she was fine, she just needed a second. Besides, she was pretty sure Eirsley was about to recruit her, she didn't want to give off the impression she was...well, something, anyway. Once she'd collected herself, she did manage to walk on her own with only an occasional stumble, so.
Liz was only vaguely familiar with the Eirsleys, and Cynfelyn in particular. The family was a member of Ars Publica, and one of the few old-fashioned religious types in the Wizengamot. That is, Celtic religion, pre-Christian — the same general belief system as the Mistwalkers, she was pretty sure, though a different subculture. Like a lot of old-fashioned religious types lingering around, the Eirsleys tended to have disagreements with a lot of modern institutions (like the Ministry) or ways of doing things (like private property), and were known to be what Vernon would probably call pinko commie hippies. The Eirsleys, like the Greengrasses, lived in a commune, where everything kind of belonged to everybody (and insisted to anybody who would listen that that was the best way of doing things), and were known for being extremely liberal when it came to a lot of personal freedom stuff, like rights for nonhuman beings and muggleborns, regulations on the practice of magic, restrictions on written materials, and so on.
Unlike the Greengrasses, the Eirsleys were known for being a more militant family, but not in the same way the Scrimgeours were — you were hardly likely to see an Eirsley Auror, for example. They were far more likely to, say, band together with a few friends and allies to attack the homes of known (or suspected) Death Eaters (or supporters), vigilante justice like. Back in the war, the Eirsleys had been involved in a group fighting the Dark Lord's people, kind of like Dumbledore's group, but focused less on indirectly undermining the organisation and getting muggleborns and their families out of the country, and more on killing as many Death Eaters as possible, which at times had put them at odds with the Ministry and Dumbledore's people both. (Sounded to Liz like they had their priorities straight, but she'd already figured out she and Dumbledore's people didn't exactly see eye-to-eye.) They'd also sent a team of battlemages to the Continent to fight with Grindelwald's people, but that wasn't the sort of thing people talked about in public — after all, the vast majority of the nobility had opposed Grindelwald, so it wasn't exactly a safe topic for conversation.
Basically, they were exactly the sort of people who got plenty of duelling practice at home, and so might be expected to end up in the duelling team at school.
Cynfelyn himself, she'd never really spoken to, and didn't know much about. Standing alone waiting for her behind the stands — the noise of the crowd was much quieter here, the magic in the stands partially blocking off the weight of their minds — he was perfectly ordinary-looking bloke, by magical standards. Neither short nor tall, his features plain, long blond hair loosely held back with a ribbon (which would be odd to muggles, but normal for mages), wearing his Hogwarts robes, marked with the blue of Ravenclaw. In fact, he was unremarkable enough that Liz might not even be certain it was him if she couldn't feel him — they'd never spoken directly, but he was always at duelling club meetings, she'd noticed him enough to recognise the texture of his mind.
His hands loosely folded behind his back, he watched her approach, waiting until he wouldn't have to raise his voice to give her a nod. "Potter. Thank you for coming right away."
"Eirsley." She came to a stop a few steps away, hesitated for a second before asking, "What's this about?" Liz was pretty sure she knew, that was just the kind of thing normal people said.
"Let's wait for Bell before we start. This won't take long, but I'd rather not have to start over if she arrives halfway through."
...Fair enough.
They only had to wait maybe a minute or two — Liz's skin crawling with nerves and excitement, she crossed her arms over her chest to keep herself from fidgeting — before Katie slipped around the corner of the stands, the opposite direction Liz had come from. It looked like she'd been rushing a little bit, not wanting to make Cynfelyn wait too long, though her pace hitched as she noticed Liz, just for a second before starting up again, movements quick and sharp enough Liz could hear the cloth shrouding her legs scrape against itself.
"Eirsley, Potter," she said, swishing to a stop. "What's up?"
Cynfelyn nodded at her, stepping back at an angle a little to put both Liz and Katie in front of him. "I'll get straight to the point — I suspect my girlfriend's waiting for me in the Great Hall already. Fifth-years are allowed to stay in the lower division for the summer they take their OWLs, but it's not uncommon for people to drop after the winter tournament so they can focus on revising for the exams. This year, Gamp and Ainsley have both decided to do so, which means that come January we'll have two spots on the team open."
Called it — Liz bit her lip to keep herself from laughing, so Katie got there first, her mind eagerly sparking as she grinned. "And you're asking us to fill them."
"Yes. We've already voted on it, and the spots are yours if you want them."
"Definitely. Potter?"
Liz nodded. "Yeah, I'm in." Though, now that she knew there were only two spots, she was wondering why they hadn't invited Scrimgeour or Cedric — maybe not Cedric, since he was a fifth-year already so would only be able to stick around for that one tournament, but maybe Scrimgeour already turned it down? Oh well, not really her business. "Us also playing quidditch won't be a problem, will it?" She knew Adrian was doing both, but...
With a one-shouldered shrug, Cynfelyn said, "Most likely not — at least for you," nodding to Katie, "but Potter, Adrian says you have a full course load, there might be conflicts. Both of you, owl me your timetables over the break, and I'll see if I can put together a meeting schedule for next term that works for everyone."
"If I have to, I can drop Cambrian." Liz didn't want to, she did enjoy that class, but if it was a choice between the two she would pick the duelling team. Besides, her Cambrian was good enough at this point that she should be able to read the language decently well (if with the help of a dictionary), which was really all she needed it for anyway. "Also, I'm getting a Latin tutor next term, but I don't know when that'll be. Which I guess means I can plan that around our meetings, never mind."
Cynfelyn snorted. "Of course, because it's not like you don't have enough to do already." Liz wasn't sure how or if she should respond to that, but thankfully she didn't have to think about it too long, because they moved on without it. Cynfelyn pulled some papers out of his robes, split them up to hold a couple in each hand, holding the papers out to both of them at once. "I'm sure you're both well aware of the potential dangers duelling involves, so I won't patronise you with the usual warnings. As there are dangers, the I.C.W. needs to cover themselves legally, so go ahead and get your parents to fill these out and sign them, send them to me and I'll pass them along to the proper office at the I.C.W. Oh shite, I'm sorry, Potter — I'm not sure if you'll need to go to Snape or Dumbledore."
Frowning to herself, it took her a couple seconds to figure out what Cynfelyn was apologising for — speaking of parents she didn't have, possibly. A few people in the study group had slipped in the same way before (despite everyone knowing her parents were dead), but honestly she mostly just found the assumption that she'd be offended baffling. "Severus, I think, he signed my Hogsmeade form too. And if the hearing isn't over before the summer I'll be extremely annoyed."
There was a shiver of amusement from Cynfelyn, but it was Katie who spoke first. "Wait a second. You're a Slytherin, so...Snape signed the form and sent it to himself."
"Yeah, I thought that was funny too. Was there anything else we had to talk about tonight?"
"Nope, that was it. Be ready to be put to the grindstone starting in January — you're both promising, but you have a lot of work ahead of you if you're going to do well in the tournament in the summer. Especially you, Potter, we're not going to go easy on you just because you're only a third-year or, well, you."
The Girl Who Lived, he meant. Forcing a smile so she wouldn't end up scowling at him instead, Liz said, "Please, don't."
She must not be hiding her annoyance very well, because there was another shiver from Cynfelyn's mind, his lips twitching a little. "I'll see you in January, then, Ellie, Katie."
Liz didn't miss the abrupt switch to first names. Purebloods could be particular about their silly formality rules — she assumed he was trying to signal that they were friends now, or at least teammates. "Liz."
"Of course, Liz. High times and good fortune, you two," which Liz knew was the thing purebloods said to each other for the winter holiday, like happy Christmas. With a last nod, Cynfelyn turned on his heel, sharp enough his robes swished around him a little, and he stalked off.
"Well!" Katie chirped, turning to Liz. "I guess this means we're teammates now."
"Guess so. Still gonna kick your arse at our next quidditch game, though."
"You've got a lot of confidence for someone so tiny."
"Have you been paying attention in our matches? I've flown against Gryffindor four times, and I've caught the snitch every one."
"At my count, our record stands three to one — and I intend to make it even this year."
Liz forced a derisive scoff. "That one doesn't count, and you know it. Two seconds slower and I would've let the snitch go, two seconds quicker and we would've won."
"Dear oh dear," Katie drawled, smirking, an odd tingly feeling in her head Liz couldn't read, "is that bitterness I hear? Sore loser, Potter?"
...A little bit, maybe. "Have to be a loser to be a sore loser — like you said a second ago: three to one. But I have better things to do than stand here bickering about it, I'm going to go find my friends now."
"Right, I should too. Happy Christmas, Liz." Switching to first names, and conspicuous use of muggleish language, hmm, not sure how to read that.
Oh well, might as well play along. "Happy Christmas, Katie."
The whole way back around the stands, Liz couldn't help grinning to herself, her skin tingling and her chest bubbling, resisting the urge to bounce on her toes along the way — as faintly dizzy as she still was, she'd probably just fall and make an idiot of herself. Fourth place in the school tournament, and after only a few months trying for it she'd already made the duelling team. Not bad, if she did say so herself.
Today was a good day.
Flitwick said there were snacks in the Great Hall, she wondered if there were pigs in a blanket...
Wow, that took forever, ha...
I fucked up and had the Carrows in as fourth-years at first — they're in the year under Liz in this fic. I changed them to the Monroe sisters, but if I missed something, whoops.
Anyway, as those who're reading my other fics may already know, I'm trying to settle into a routine of alternating writing for this fic and By Gods Forsaken when I'm at peak awakeness, and Children of the Gods and The Long Way Around when I'm less awake. The idea is to have plenty of variety to keep me from burning out on any one fic, but also hopefully keep (relatively) steady output. This chapter took so long because I was temporarily obsessed with LWA and needed to get it out of my head; I've been having difficulty sleeping, meaning I defaulted to writing my B fics most days; and also this chapter fought me a bit — writing non-shitty magical combat is hard. Hopefully it won't take that long next time, but I make no promises.
Right, that's all from me. The winter holiday at the Greengrasses' is next chapter, see you then, weeeee...