The Bell girl pivoted to avoid what looked suspiciously like an Entrail-Expelling Curse (it was harder to tell when Sirius couldn't feel the magic, and obviously the screens didn't reproduce that), blocked a gout of veela fire with an old-fashioned Lycian Shield. It still blocked veela's native fire just fine and it was quick to cast, but — Sirius winced as a dark bone-breaker sailed straight through it to catch the girl right in her wand-shoulder — it wasn't much good against anything else in this day and age.
She went down, hard. For the space of a breath, Sirius thought it was over, they were definitely going to finish her off, but (Sirius suspected) the veela boy realised that the Durmstrangers were eyeing him up rather than closing in on Bell for a reason — obviously they were preparing to double-cross the Beauxbatonnais, or rather, preempt the dissolution of their alliance. Both foreign schools' teams had to know that once they managed to knock Hogwarts out, their common cause would be so much history.
The veela paused, giving Bell time to numb and immobilise her shoulder with her left hand — impressive, it wasn't as difficult to do healing charms on yourself as it was to do them on someone else, but very few mages could so smoothly and easily switch to casting with their off-hand, especially when they were in pain — and cut one of the Durmstrangers' feet out from under him before hauling herself back to her own feet. Good on her!
The elf who was observing their fight obviously thought themself to be a bit of a dramatic director. They zoomed in on her face, just long enough to see her set her jaw stubbornly against the temptation of yielding and mouth the incantation for her cutting curse, then popped to a different spot for a wide-angle shot of all three of her attackers, the veela's eyes wide with surprise as the Durmstranger still on her feet spun to see her teammate falling to the ground— and back, to watch a challenging smirk spread across the injured girl's face — and then out again, as the Durmstrang girl cast a couple of battlefield healing charms at the boy now clutching at his left ankle and the veela flicked off more ribbons of fire to hem her in—
Sirius grinned. She wasn't going to last much longer, but she was going to go down like a fucking Gryffindor, damn it, fighting to the very last.
He was distracted from the dramatic showdown — which had itself distracted him from Harry's breakneck race to evade the best bloody seeker in the world — by a scoff from Totally Not An Auror David. "Predictable!"
The metamorph was looking at one of the screens showing the area around Fort Hogwarts, the five remaining attackers — the lilin who was with Cæciné at the beginning of the fight (he let his eyes flick back over to the screen where Little Bella was still just barely holding her own, and clearly loving every second of it, not that Sirius blamed her, there was nothing quite like being pushed to your limits in a good fight) and two of the Durmstrangers, including their Junior Champion, had come to join Fleur and the other remaining member of her initial strike team — appeared to be making a quick and dirty cantrip dispersal bomb.
"How do you mean?" Chloé asked, sounding somewhat offended on her niece's behalf.
"Well, they already learned they can't just flame in without meeting significant resistance, and the Beauxbatonnais already tested the walls and came under heavy fire doing it. If they want to make a decent assault on the walls they need a distraction, which means dropping something big and messy in the middle of the fort and getting away quick— Look, the Hogwarts team are already moving to counter them!"
Sirius chuckled. "I know you're a cursebreaker and not, say, an Auror, David," he reminded him. "But how would you break that fort, with the resources they have on hand?"
"The bomb idea is good," he admitted. "But conjured animals would be better than a simple explosive to propel damaging cantrips. Transfigured into statuettes so the veela can transport them, with timed reversions staggered so the defenders are forced to deal with multiple waves. And on the outside, if they're enchanting siege equipment why not just make a ramming shield to get close enough, and use cooperative casting to jam a vanishing ram straight through the walls?"
"Isn't the Vanishing Ram a Category Six spell?" Sirius reminded him. He was pretty sure it was. One of his favourite battlefield curses was similar — an annihilation wave shaped like a cutting curse. Dumbledore had given him absolute hell for using it at Glastonbury, even though it wasn't like there were a whole lot of other ways to take out a bloody giant solo, and they'd been about to be overrun, damn it! (Plus there was a delightful irony in using spells de Mort had invented against his forces...)
David gave him a very feminine pout.
Sirius smirked back, wondering whether he should teach that one to Little Bella, eyes flicking over to her again. She'd definitely be able to pull it off, but— He winced as she took a solid hit with a light stunning charm. Not enough to keep her down (it would hurt her and slow her down while she fought it off, but he'd hit her with similar shite sparring enough she'd figured out how to resist), though Cæciné obviously thought she was out. She turned away toward the four other fighters — Bell was still on her feet, if only barely — and had taken several steps away from Bella by the time she managed to work through the stunner and—
What the actual fuck?! That sentiment was directed at both Bella and the Cæciné girl, because Cæciné had tanked the spell Bella had thrown at her back using the earth-attunement magic she'd laid at the beginning of the fight (which was both weird and cool and he wanted to learn that), but mostly Bella, because that definitely did not look like a normal spell! It didn't feel like a normal spell, either, both in that he could feel it from all the bloody way over here, and the way the chaotic and destructive energy sent echoes through the aether, reminding him more of Pandora laying hands on Frank — channelling her Patron directly to heal him after Evans (and/or the Dark) burned that curse out of him — than anything else. Not magic imbued with chaotic or destructive intent, but magic drawn directly from Chaos and Destruction.
What the fuck are you doing casting black magic you fucking moron?!
Sirius couldn't be the only person here who would recognise that — Andromeda had definitely noticed, for one, eyes briefly going wide in an expression which, if he didn't know better, he'd say looked an awful lot like surprise and fear (she...did know that Bella would never hurt her, right?) — and he didn't even want to know what it would've done if it had actually hit someone.
Thankfully, Flitwick didn't seem to have noticed, his attention fixed firmly on the fliers — Harry and the Diggory boy had managed to lure their pursuers over to the Fort, get some ground support, good... (He barely heard Bill ask, "And can you actually transfigure conjured animals? I thought layering transfigurations always destabilised them.")
Also, how the fuck are you casting black magic you bloody madwoman?!
She'd have to be fucking possessed, which, yeah, okay, she'd told him about Eris, but she'd have to be a hell of a lot more possessed than she'd implied in that post-riot conversation. Granted, Sirius didn't have a lot of experience with dedicated ritualists, aside from Little Bella...and the original Bella (who he hadn't known was a black mage until they'd been well into the war)...and de Mort (who wasn't dedicated to any particular god, but had been on more familiar terms with several than Sirius thought most ritualists were)...and Evans (same as de Mort, really)...and Pandora (obviously)...and Cassie (who was totally obvious about her thing with Artemis, even if she never admitted it)... Okay, so he probably had a lot more experience with white and black mages than most people (at least in Britain), but— But he was pretty sure that there was a difference between being possessed enough to chat with their Patron in their head like a certain snake-faced bastard, and being possessed enough to do magic like a god. For a god to do magic through you?
Whichever, that was still like...
Gods and Powers... That wasn't why Angelos kept calling her 'Sister', was it?
He would like the answer to be no, but it seemed horribly plausible that it was — that Little Bella was a bloody avatar of Eris.
Fuck.
The Transfiguration mistress from Miskatonic turned to smirk at Bill. "Layering transfigurations causes them to destabilise exponentially more quickly, yes. But if your conjurations are balanced well enough, they will still last long enough to do significant damage."
Right, yes. Focus on your bloody stupid cousin giving away his game. That sounds like a much better idea than thinking about the fact that your House currently consists of you; an escaped war criminal who happens to be one of the most terrifying people in Europe, and is currently trying to stir up an anti-Statutarian revolution because everyone needs a hobby, Siri; and a fucking goddess (or...like a tiny piece of a goddess, whatever)...who either didn't think this fact important enough to mention at any point in the past however long she's known, or doesn't know...and you're supposed to be the one keeping them in check.
"Balanced well enough, in this case," Andromeda added drily, "meaning well enough to last several days if not otherwise disturbed. I doubt they have anyone on the field who could do so, any more than they have someone who could break that ward dome."
Right, yes. David. Meda. Stupid metamorphs and their stupid unnatural transfiguration abilities.
"Really? I could," Sirius said, casting a cushioning charm for the metamorph before anyone could comment on his casual assumption that people could just do transfiguration like that. (Or at least people who hadn't been lied to about what was an acceptable degree of detail for every bloody conjuration they'd done between the ages of nine and twelve, Sirius was still a little annoyed about that two decades later.) "Back in, oh, I don't know, sixth year? I conjured a chimera and transfigured it to look like Ian Mulciber's cat."
"I knew that was you!" Cissy exclaimed, the chance to offer a fifteen-year-overdue I knew it all along apparently distracting enough to drag her away from her precious trick-flying. "It destroyed the entire bloody Common Room when it reverted!"
Sirius laughed at her tone of outrage. (At least the House didn't include Cissy anymore — that was something, he guessed. Goddess of strife or not, Little Bella was definitely more fun than Cissy...) "I know you knew it was me, that was half of what made it so funny. The other half was McGee not believing you."
"Hey, not to interrupt the trip down memory lane, but what are they doing with those stones?" Emma asked.
"Enchanting them to un-transfigure the spears which make up the palisade, I think," Lise said. "That would be why the defenders are attempting to cover them with vines. What I want to know is how Hogwarts knows precisely what their attackers are planning."
"Fred and George," Bill said, pointing at the screen which showed one of his brothers talking to Hermione and the violinist. "They're bonded twins. The other one's up here somewhere with Gin. They refused to sit with Mum after their fight, earlier, so I'm not sure..." He trailed off, eyes scanning the crowd for his siblings' distinctive hair. "Oh, bloody hell..."
"Wha— Oh, bugger..." Sirius muttered, realising even as he spoke that Lise wasn't the only one who had realised that the Hogwarts defenders were responding to threats before they became apparent, and he wasn't the only one who had put it together that they were using the Twins to spy on the other teams from up here. A flicker of spellight caught his eye, not the first, Gin was already on her feet, batting it back toward the caster — a small contingent of Durmstrang students, it looked like, forcing their way through the crowd.
Her brother looked around, shocked — apparently he hadn't noticed the approaching attackers. If Sirius had to guess, he'd say Gin told him to pay attention to the Task, she'd handle it. (Which she probably couldn't, at least not alone, but they were surrounded by other Gryffindors who were already catching on that they were under attack, they'd be fine, no, Sirius, do not go intervene, they're just kids and she definitely wouldn't appreciate you implying that she needs your help.) The Twin in the arena broke off his narration for a second, but then shook his head in response to something Hermione asked — a very clear 'What's wrong?' 'Nothing, don't worry about it' interaction.
Mini-Malfoy yelped, drawing Sirius's attention back to the screen where Harry was pulling himself back onto his broom, shaking off the effects of whatever spell had nearly knocked him out of the air, then flushed, as he realised about half of their group had turned to look at him admit (if not in so many words) that Blaise was right and Harry was always distracting his snake.
There was an explosion inside Fort Hogwarts, which briefly drowned out the music as Fleur and Ingrid launched their attack and then, what seemed like only seconds later, Alice's boy was flipping out because the veela started setting his plants on fire while he was controlling them (which was fucking cruel, and this was Sirius saying as much), and then—
"Hey! What just happened?" Emma exclaimed, pointing at a different battle. "Why are Lyra and Blondie working together, now? Where did those people come from?"
Flitwick grinned, all sharp goblin teeth and childish glee. "Ah-ha! It appears Durmstrang has decided to steal a march on Beauxbatons, now that Miss Bell is out of play!"
"And Bella never really was very good at sharing," Meda added, her delivery so very straight Sirius couldn't help sniggering a bit.
Eris is a jealous goddess, isn't she...
Yeah, he decided. That was definitely going on the list of shite they were going to have to have a serious talk about along with overconfidence and situational awareness.
(This whole responsible, adult-like Lord of the House thing? Vastly overrated.)