Snape vs. Malfoy

"MALFOY! Turn and face me, coward!" Snape roared, his eyes blazing with the fires of awful grief and even more terrible hatred. "Or are you only capable of killing children, you murdering bastard?"

Lucius whirled, wand raised, to face his former schoolmate, a pleased smirk stealing over his features. "Ah, Severus! The spy shows his true colors at last. How does it feel, old friend, to lose that which means everything to you? To be betrayed as you betrayed me?"

"I was never one of you, Lucius! Never! You might have seduced me into darkness as a boy, but you never had my true allegiance even then."

"You pledged your soul to the Dark Lord, Snape! You can't deny that!"

"I do deny it, Lucius! You may have had my body and my potions expertise, but my soul remained my own, and the shadow taint never touched it. My Occlumency saw to that—a defense that not even your so-called omnipotent Dark Lord could break. Face me now, Lucius, and I will show you once and for all the real Severus Snape!"

"Oh indeed? Severus Snape the cripple? Severus Snape the sniveling beggar? The friendless outcast? The half-Mudblood hated by all his students? Is that the Severus Snape you mean?" Lucius laughed mockingly.

"You'll find out, won't you?" Snape growled, then cried, "Metamorphia arachnia!"

The spell streaked towards the fair-haired necromancer, who waved his wand and blocked it contemptuously. "That the best you've got?" he taunted, then howled in shock when a swarm of bees descended upon him as well, for Severus's first spell was a feint.

Lucius went backwards, beating at the angry insects frantically, before he managed to cancel the spell. But his handsome face was now covered in bee stings.

"Well, at least your face reflects your soul now, Malfoy!" Severus sneered. "Bloated and ugly as sin! Sectumsempra!" he thought at the other wizard.

At the same time, Lucius yelled, "Crucio!" one of his favorites.

Snape spun his wand counterclockwise, using Whirlwind Deflection, and the Torture Curse was rebounded and hit Avery instead.

Lucius screamed in agony as five deep slashes appeared on his body. But he managed the counterspell before he lost too much blood. "Nice try, Snape, but you forgot you showed me that one during your seventh year, didn't you?" he panted, his face gray. "Terra impermia!"

The earth cracked open at Severus's feet, but Snape was not caught by surprise. He transformed into his Animagus form, a black peregrine falcon, and soared to safety.

Severus the Falcon streaked high into the air, then dove down at the earthbound Lucius, talons extended, blurring through the air at over two hundred miles per hour.
But just as his talons struck Lucius' head, the other wizard transformed into a king cobra, and Severus's talons closed on it instead, leaving bloody furrows in the snake's scales.

Lucius Cobra struck at the black falcon, who released his hold a scant second before the snake moved, and the cobra's strike missed by a hairsbreadth. The falcon shrieked its disdain and took to the air again.

Lucius coiled and spread his hood, hissing his fury at the taunting black bird, who appeared to be everywhere at once, a streak of lightning on ebony wings.

Twice more Severus dove at the cobra, and Lucius avoided the falcon's talons by the barest of inches. Only one of his return strikes managed to score on the bird, and then he only caught a mouthful of the falcon's tail feathers.

Lucius began to weave and sway sinuously, trying to entrap the dark falcon with his mesmerizing loops and endless circles, hypnotizing the bird into stillness. But Severus was no ordinary falcon, and though the dance of the cobra was beguiling, and a part of him wanted to stay and watch it forever, another part of his mind reminded him that it was a trap, and he broke the hypnotic pattern before he walked down Lucius' throat.

Hissing in rage, the cobra blurred, becoming a man once more. Wand extended, he summoned up a mighty gale that knocked the falcon end over end, spinning out of control.

Snape managed to release the falcon shape just before he slammed into the ground, which would have been fatal for the bird. As it was, the bone-jarring landing made him gasp in pain. His left leg was twisted beneath him and he struggled to get to his feet, teeth clenched, using the Blackstaff like a cane.

"Does it hurt, Snape?" Lucius taunted. "If Black were here he'd give you a new name, Snivellus! Snape the Gimp, he'd call you, the greasy beggar of Hogwarts."

Snape's eyes flashed murder at the other man. "Better a cripple than a child-killer, Lucius the Lackey! At least I don't kiss the ass of any man rich enough to buy my soul. Was the price worth it, Malfoy? To crawl to your master on your hands and knees like a dog and lick his boots? All honor to the Dark Deceiver!" Snape laughed mockingly, gaining his feet at last.

"You know nothing of my relationship with the Dark Lord, Snape!" Lucius cried, very red-faced. "NOTHING!"

"I know that you sold yourself into slavery, body and soul, Malfoy. He OWNS you, Malfoy, just like a wand or a boot. You are nothing more than a tool, to be used and discarded. And what's worse you put the collar about your own neck and threw away the key!"

"SHUT UP, SNAPE!" Lucius howled. "I'm no slave!"

"Poor Lucius. Still denying the truth, after all this time." Snape mocked. "Here's a taste of your own medicine, slave boy! Arciae arctica!"

A jet of freezing mist flew out of Snape's wand, enveloping Malfoy in a bluish gray fog.

When it cleared, Malfoy was encased in ice up to his neck.

Snape chuckled mirthlessly. "Oh, look! It's a slave on a stick!"

Lucius began muttering the countercharm frantically, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

"How dare you mock my husband, you Muggle-loving freak?" Narcissa, shouted, and lifted her wand to curse Severus from behind. "Avada—"

"I don't think so, harpy!" Trish screamed. "Dessicare!"

Narcissa gaped at her, her eyes wide in her pale face, then she began to wither and crumble to dust, turning into a mummy.

"Cissy?" Lucius gasped, the ice half-melted from his body. "No!"

"How's it feel to lose the one you love, huh?" Trish cried. "D'you like it?"

Lucius snarled wordlessly and sprang at the girl, blurring into cobra form.

But that was what Severus had been waiting for. He brought the Blackstaff down on the cobra's back, the instant before it could react, for there was a period of a few seconds inbetween changing forms when the wizard was vulnerable to a precisely-timed strike, his mind disorientated from shifting shapes.

The holy silver tip struck the cobra hard, breaking its back in two.

The snake flailed and writhed on the flagstones, unable to move, flopping about like a worm on a hook, utterly helpless. Its fangs closed on empty air.

"Now who's the cripple, Malfoy?" Severus demanded.

The cobra spat at him weakly.

"And so you die as you have lived, a slave to darkness," Snape pronounced, then brought the Blackstaff down for the last time. "That's for my daughter, Lucius!"

The king cobra lay broken and bloodied on the floor, the fiery eyes dimmed forever, and Voldemort was now short one of his most powerful sorcerers.

"That's what you get, Malfoy, when you mess with a Snape," Drake said softly, glaring down at the broken body before giving it a vicious kick. "King snakes always win over cobras." Then he stared at Severus with tears in his eyes. "Sir, we've got to help Arista. She's still alive, but I don't know for how much longer!"

Snape moved then, dropping the Blackstaff with a clatter, to kneel beside his stricken child and gather her into his arms. "I'm here, Arista mine," he crooned. "Don't go, sweetheart. Stay with me." He murmured a Springbok charm, heedless of the tears blurring his vision, and sprang away towards the Hospital Wing with the speed of a gazelle, unhampered by his crippled leg for once.

Well, will they be able to save Arista? And was that not a really cool battle between Severus & Lucius? How did you like Snape's Animagus form? Fitting? Yes or no?