Marik
"Oh come on!" he groaned out as he found himself once again walking into a large, dust covered broom closet. Beauxbatons castle was the most annoying place Marik had ever been to in his life-by far. Not only was this place way too big for any normal school to be, the layout of the floors and the rooms made about as much sense as a troll reading poetry.
Beauxbatons was more like a palace than a castle and Marik had zero experience navigating palaces. So far in the final task he had encountered at least sixteen gardens, eleven fountains, forty-one chandeliers, and at least a dozen enormous stone-carved statues; all of which where way too extravagant looking to be inside a school. Any other day he might have appreciated the sights and opulence the French school provided, today, however, he was ready to just burn the whole damn place down to the ground. That would potentially make finding his way to his friends a hell of alot easier.
The Durmstrang Headmaster was evil, to say the least; not only had the Headmaster started Marik off in a castle that he had never been to before, but the evil Headmaster had also put a twist on this task by seemingly enchanting every door in the French castle to lead to some other random place in the castle, which had made trying to learn his way around pretty much impossible.
Marik had yelled at himself a number of times for not bringing a watch along with him. He guessed by around this point in the final task he had been roaming around aimlessly for at least two hours. In that two hours the only excitement he had so far was a sneeze that had caught him off guard.
Marik had begun the task out on the grounds of the castle, next to the many large greenhouses and farming patches of Beauxbatons. His immediate plan from the start had been to make it to the main hall of the castle. That plan had quickly been shelved though; either Beauxbatons had no main hall or if it did than it could only be found by opening some random door in the castle that he had yet to find.
He had found enough broom closets in the school by this point to house every broom ever made it felt like. He would open one door, enter a broom closet, open the broom closet's door and end up back in another random part of the castle. By this point in the task this process had been repeated at least fifty times and needless to say Marik's patience was running thin.
He was honestly hoping that Harry or Hermione would just win the task already and save him from this torment. The competitive side of him was craving action but the impatient side in him was quickly winning the battle and was begging for this task to come to a close already. He would like to think that he would still be able to find his friends, but if things continued at this rate he knew that it was about as likely as Snape wearing a pink tutu to potions class.
Beauxbatons had been as quiet as a dead mouse the entire task. There had not been so much as a whisper heard in the castle's halls, let alone the sound of spells being fired off. He couldn't help but wonder if the other two castle's had been just as quiet and if his friends were having as rough a time as he was. During their preparations they had predicted before the task that they would most likely all find themselves starting off in a different castle. Marik had been confident that he would be the one to end up at Hogwarts and kept his fingers crossed the entire time in the tent before the task started; that obviously had not happened though.
Knowing how lucky he was always was Harry had probably been the one to get Hogwarts, which meant that Hermione had probably ended up in Durmstrang; so that meant both of his friends were better off than he was. They all had the same initial plan; to find each other as quickly as possible. So, regardless of how frustrating ending up in the same broom closets over and over again was, Marik had to put his impatience aside and continue forward with the plan.
Presently he seemed to be on one of the higher floors of the castle, in what looked like a hallway similar to the classroom hallways of Hogwarts. Large, intricately carved wooden doors lined the sides of the halls and spinning crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling in between each set of doorways.
The steady stream of illusion students ignored all of the rooms along the side of the hallway here, just as they did throughout the rest of the castle. Instead, they marched in their patterns down the center of the hall in a constant flow. Marik mosied over into the center line of students and marched at a steady pace along with them further down the hallway. He knew that he had been on this floor before, the one good thing about Beauxbatons 'palace' was that the immaculate statues dotted throughout the castle each looked a little different than one another; they had been the only reason he had any idea at any point of where he might be in the castle.
So far he knew bald guy holding bow was the third floor, hot girl with harp was fifth floor, and weird fat guy with cake was on the second floor. He was currently passing bald guy with bow so that meant he was somewhere on the third floor of the castle. He had checked a number of the doors on the side of the halls on this floor, all of which had a thin slash at the bottom of the door to let him know he had been inside them before. With no better strategies for finding the main hall of Beauxbatons or his friends presently in mind his current plan was to just continue marking and opening doors. Eventually he had to get lucky-right?
The stream of students turned their path in accordance with the bending of the hallway, leading into another long hall of classrooms. None of these doors had marks on them yet so Marik headed to the first new door on the right, checking over his shoulders for any sudden movements as he broke free from the line of illusions.
"Defodio," he whispered out the digging spell, carving a thin line at the bottom of the door. Satisfied with his mark, he grasped the handle of the door and let himself inside.
To say that he was surprised was an understatement. For once opening a classroom door had actually led to a classroom. Whether or not this was the actual classroom the real door led to or not he didn't know but still; he was just happy he hadn't ended up somewhere out on the grounds again or another freaking dusty closet.
As exciting as opening up a classroom door and actually ending up in a classroom was, being here didn't help him win the task. With an impatient groan he turned back to the door, allowing himself a sigh as he did so, knowing that upon its opening he could end up anywhere in the castle. That didn't happen though, the door wouldn't budge. He pulled on the handle harder, twisting the knob as he did so. The door remained fixed though.
"Oh fuck me! This task blows! Sorry Harry, Hermione-I couldn't help you win the task because I got stuck in a Beauxbatons potions classroom! The good news is I finished my potions end of year project though!" he quipped to himself. He pulled on the door again, harder this time but it still didn't budge. He raised his wand at the door and took a step back.
"Alohomora!" he cast the unlocking spell at the lock on the door. Instead of the clicking sound a lock makes when it is unlocked a loud thud panged in the room behind him. Marik turned to face the sound, a nervous shiver running down his skin.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me. EEK!" he screamed out, a less than manly-scream as a potions flask flew inches away from his face and smashed on the door behind him, sending shards of glass everywhere. "What the bloody hell!" he shouted out into the room. Two more potions flask and a large caldron where now hovering in the air, a few feet above their tables. Marik swallowed a loud, nervous gulp as he watched them hover.
Like rockets the cauldron and flasks shot off towards him. Without any hesitation he bolted from his spot in front of the door and started sprinting around the room, dodging shards of glass and potion fluids as the objects barely missed him and collided with the parts of the room behind him. One after another more and more objects came flying after him and loud crashes of glass reverberated throughout the room as he ducked and dodged.
"Fuck-Oww!" he moaned out in pain as a large shard of glass hit his wrist, leaving a large gash and a lot of blood in its wake. "Screw this! Finite incantatum!" he bellowed out the spell, slowing the movement of everything flying across the classroom towards him. "Whew," he sighed as he took a moment to catch his breath. He only had a moment to relax, however, as three of the large cupboards lining one side of the classroom began to shake and quickly march towards him.
"Oh no you don't! Reducto!" he shouted the blast spell out, aiming for the center cupboard. He had put enough power behind the spell for its explosion to damage the other two cupboards as well, hopefully. His blast spell collided with the cupboards, filling the room with chunks of wood and sawdust as it exploded outwards. A loud scream filled the room as the sawdust and wood floated down to the ground.
Marik tried to cover his ears with his hands as the shrill scream died down. It was nearly impossible to see in the room through all of the dust. He strained his eyes and squinted; he could barely make out three large, black-hooded figures through the dust and falling wood. As the final sounds of the scream rang through his ear the three black figures shot from their spots and to Marik's surprise began flying around the room in a chaotic frenzy. With his wand raised he watched them fly about and immediately recognized what the figures were-they were dementors.
He was more than familiar with dementors. The dementors of Azkaban had been placed around Hogwarts for a large portion of last year and Marik had watched the creatures a number of times. The way their bodies and cloaks moved through the room like a foggy-smoke was also something he was more than familiar with. The smoke of their robes and the dark auror they emitted looked just like his robes did whenever he moved quick enough. No matter how many times you saw them it never dimmed the impact they held on you. They were truly terrifying creatures, like the stuff out of a horror film.
The three dementors bounced around the room, their trails of smoke extinguishing what little light remained, leaving him in darkness. Of course I come across the one creature I suck at fighting against. He took a second to calm himself, at the moment the dementors weren't paying him any mind so that gave him a little time to ready himself for the patronus spell; a spell that to this day he had never once successfully cast.
He concentrated back on their lessons of the spell. The patronus spell requred immense concentration, near perfect wand movements, and most importantly-an overwhelming sense of happiness to cast successfully. He briefly closed his eyes, trying to think of a memory that brought him happiness. An image of Hogwarts up on the hill, across the water of the great lake came to mind. A memory of his first year's boat ride, when his magical life truly began. He allowed the smile that came along with the memory to cross his face as he raised his wand towards the center of the room.
"Expecto-patronum!" he shouted the spell out, putting all of his might behind it. Nothing-not even a wisp of magic left his wand though. "Oh come on! Expecto patronum!" he tried again-but still-nothing.
He was expecting the dementors to swarm him now. There was no way they had not heard him shout out the two spells out into the classroom. He waited anxiously-ready for their attack and ready to try to make a quick escape out of the room. Nothing happened though, the three dementors just continued to ignore him and swarm around the room chaotically, like birds trapped in a cage.
Huh. He thought to himself, scratching his head at the current predicament. Why weren't they coming after him? Maybe dementors don't have ears? He thought for a few moments, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
"Wait a sec-" he whispered as the information he had learned over the years on the dark creatures came to mind. Dementors feed upon human happiness, causing depression to anyone near them. Getting close to a dementor can result in every good feeling or happy memory being drained right out of you. He remembered the lesson from their dark arts class.
He didn't feel depressed at all though, maybe a little a frustrated from still not being able to cast a patronus but not depressed. He still had happy memories too, and there was three dementors circling the room around him; that meant their effects should be three times as bad. They weren't though. He felt fine and none of the dementors seemed to have any interest in giving him their kiss or sucking his soul out of him.
These couldn't be dementors then; if not dementors then what where they. He scratched his chin again. Hmmm . . . "Boggarts!" he called out into the room, having landed on an idea. It made perfect sense. Boggarts could take the form of almost anything in the world. They could look just like a dementor, only without the deadly side effects. The three dementors had come out of cupboards too, which also made sense. Boggarts were known to hide in small dark places like closets and cupboards.
It was a little a odd though still. He was surprised that his boggart would reveal itself as a dementor. No one knew what boggarts actually looked like, they always took the form of whatever you feared the most. Sure dementors were scary looking but Marik could think of a lot of things he was more scared of then dementors. To be honest he wouldn't even say he was scared of dementors; if anything he was fascinated by them. That had been the whole reason he had tried to make his robes resemble the robes of a dementor in the first place.
Back in their second year his boggart had been a giant bee, which everyone had promptly made fun of him for and he had spent weeks trying to explain how terrifying the hellish flying bugs could be.
He had come across another boggart in a supplementary lesson with Kingsley sometime last year too. That time the boggart had turned into his dead body, surrounded by his family and friends' bodies. He found it a little unlikely that since then his deepest fear had turned into something like a dementor. Still-these things certainly didn't seem to be real dementors which meant a boggart was the next best thing.
"Riddikulus!" he cast the spell towards one of the dementor-boggarts. The spell collided with the dementor, who proceeded to give another loud scream. Nothing besides that happened though. The dementor stopped screaming after a few seconds and then just continued to glide around the classroom as if nothing out of the sort had happened.
"Huh," he mumbled out as he scratched his head; none of this making any sense to him. Well I guess that rules out boggarts then. His mind immediately started trying to think of another possible answer. After a few seconds of thinking though he forced himself to stop. Finding the answer didn't help him win this task. He just needed to get out of this room, not find out what these dementors really were. Staying in here and trying to solve the puzzle only put himself and his friends at more of a risk.
Slowly he crept towards the door of the potions classroom, cautiously placing one foot in front of the other. The dementors, boggarts, garden gnomes, or whatever they really were, continued to ignore him. He made it all the way over to the door without so much as a twitch out of line from them. He tried to open the door again but failed as it still seemed to be tightly locked shut. He took a few steps back from the door and raised his wand.
"Reducto!" he shouted out the blast spell. His spell collided with the door and sent another round of dust out into the air. When the dust settled he smiled as he could now once again see back out into the castle. The three dementors gave out another loud scream and Marik covered his ears again as they rushed through the newly opened door, out into the castle.
As the last trails of the dementor's smoke left the inside of the classroom Marik followed their path out into the castle. This time the door seemed to have led him to another crowded classroom hallway, much like the one he had just been in. He checked around in the immediate vicinity to see if any of the nearby doors had marks on them or if there were any large statues he recognized. None of the doors around him had any marks though, and the only statue in his sight was one that he had not yet seen.
That was a good thing-well, kind of. It meant that he had not been to this part of the castle before at least. He slipped into the line of marching student illusions and slipped out of the line as it approached a large window on one side of the hallway. He stopped and peered out of the window. Based on the view it appeared that he was on the first floor of the castle and that was definitely a good thing! The main hall had to be somewhere on this floor, although, knowing how crazy the layout of this place had been so far it would not have surprised him in the least to find out that the main hall was on the top floor. Everything else in this damn castle seemed ass backwards so why not that to.
He stepped back into the line of illusion students and walked along with them, making a mental note to remember skinny guy with staff was a statue on the ground floor. He wanted to follow the hallways on this floor for as long as he could before he started opening doors again. He had been trying to get to the first floor this entire time and wanted to check out as much of the floor as he could before moving on. The hall went on for a bit before turning at a right angle into another long, straight hallway.
This hallway, unlike the one he had just been in, had large mosaic windows lining one of its sides and a few doors dotted along the other side. Long, rolling hills of green grass and bright flowers could be seen out of the windows along with the occasional opulent fountain and bench on the grounds. Marik had not been on that part of the grounds yet either and would have to put a mental note to check it out later if all of his door searching turned up nothing.
"Thanks for leaving a trail of breadcrumbs," a voice whispered from somewhere behind him. Before Marik could even blink the hallway was filled a bright yellow light and in a flash something was colliding with his back, sending him flying like a bullet into the wall of the hallway. A reverberating crunch sounded as he hit the wall and ringing filled his ears. Marik could taste blood in his mouth.
With the help of the adrenaline coursing through his veins he fought through the scorching pain and lifted his head up; trying to make sense of the situation and get his head back on straight. His eyes followed a long trail of blood droplets on the ground that led down the hall. At the trail's end he could make out a figure walking towards him. His eyes were blurry from the collision with the wall but even through the blurs there was no way he would mistake that smug smile. It was Dedrick.
Marik cursed himself for allowing the bastard to get a hit on him. He was disappointed in himself for not noticing the Durmstrang champion right behind him. The blurriness in his vision disappeared as Dedrick crept closer and Marik pulled his gaze from the boy to himself as he tried to get to his feet.
Marik was currently sat in a large pool of his own blood. He searched his body over, looking for the source. His stomach was killing him, but there were no wounds anywhere on it. He could only guess that the crack he had heard before followed by the present pain there meant that he most likely broken a rib. The bleeding seemed to all be coming from his wrist, where the cut he had received from the glass in the potions classroom earlier seemed to have grown.
Oh god damnit Marik you are an idiot! He internally screamed at himself. A trail of breadcrumbs. He had been so caught up in the moment and in all of the adrenaline of the tournament that he had completely forgotten about the cut on his wrist. He had been bleeding down the hallway ever since he had left the classroom, literally leading Dedrick and anybody else right to him.
"That was a good hit-," he paused as the pain in his wrist grew and matched the severe pain level of his stomach. The adrenaline in his body seemed to be disappearing, making it hard not to shout out in pain. The cut was pretty deep and blood was dripping from his wrist at speeds and in amounts that did not make him feel good. He didn't want Dedrick to know how bad he was hurt though so he tried to mask his face with a confident grin and play it off. "You should have finished me off in one hit though, now you've missed your only chance."
"Oh I could have, and the thought did cross my mind. But what fun would finishing you off in a single attack be? No-I want to enjoy this," Dedrick bellowed down the hall, his annoying grin growing.
"Uh huh-right. Remind me, I forget-probably because I just banged my head on the wall, did you enjoy our last duel?" Marik quipped as he finally pulled himself back up to his feet, making sure to return the boy's confident smile with one of his own. Dedrick's smile immediately vanished and was replaced by a look of annoyance that Marik could just eat up.
"You sure do talk big for a guy who is standing in a pool of his own blood."
"You sure do talk a lot for a guy nobody wants to listen to," Marik replied.
"Oh I can't wait to erase that smug little grin off your face," Dedrick growled.
"And I can't wait to watch you try. Tarantallegra!" With a quick flick of his wand Marik started their dance, literally, with a forced dance spell. The spell was just a tease, meant to provoke Dedrick into going on the offensive. Marik knew the spell wouldn't make it anywhere near Dedrick, if it did the boy was about as bad of a dueler as one could get. Sure enough with a subtle swipe of his hand Dedrick banished the dancing spell away and sent three bright looking blast spells right back at Marik.
He rolled to his right to dodge the first blast spell that went whirling past him. As he completed his roll he pointed his wand towards the ceiling of the hallway in between the two of them. "Gravitas, protego!" He quickly threw the gravity area spell up on the ceiling, which he would try and use later, before throwing up a strong shield just in time to block the next two blast spells.
"Incarcerous maximus!" Dedrick shouted out the powerful ropes spell, sending a couple dozen ropes flying towards him.
"Impedimenta, reducto!" He countered Dedrick's ropes with his slow-movement spell first and followed it up with the strong reducto blast spell to blast the slow moving ropes aside.
"Restituo, reducto!" Without hesitating in the slightest Dedrick shouted out two more spells.
The first spell was the nullifying magic spell, which Dedrick aimed at the spot on the ceiling where Marik had cast the gravity spell removing his magic. The second spell caught Marik a little off guard. Instead of aiming the blast spell at Marik, Dedrick aimed the spell towards the large windows lining the hallway. In a reverberating clash all of the glass in each window shattered loudly and thousands of shards of glass fell onto the floor of the hallway.
Before even the last few shards of glass clanged to the hall's floor Dedrick was whipping his wand around, levitating hundreds of shards off the ground into the air. Like light on a disco ball the light from outside was reflecting off the hundreds of floating glass pieces as Dedrick summoned them and sent them flying towards Marik.
"Oh fuck! Deprimo, protego totalum!" Marik shouted out the two spells to counter Dedrick before ducking his head down. His first spell, the wind gust spell, sent a large chunk of the glass back towards Dedrick. A lot of the shards still made it through his spell however, thankfully his shield held on long enough to protect him.
"I'm surprised you haven't run into your shadows yet? You know it's the only way you can win duels!" Dedrick snorted down the hallway.
"And what would someone like you know about winning duels?" Marik retorted, trying to poke the bear a little more.
"Well I won against Alina; quite overwhelmingly too if I remember correctly. Though I guess beating someone on her low of a level isn't really saying too much."
"You got lucky against Alina and you would be even luckier to be anywhere near her level," Marik argued. He couldn't believe Dedrick was bringing Alina into this. I told you this guy was an ass Alina!
"Whatever you say! Fulminous!" Dedrick bellowed out the lightning beam spell, sending a wave of roaring yellow light towards Marik.
"Bedeculum!" Marik cast the bending spell and bent it away from him towards the broken windows to his right, sending a wave of lightning crashing onto the grounds of the castle. "Expulso!" He aimed his explosion spell at the feet of the Durmstrang champion.
"Finite incantatum, incendio!" After cancelling Marik's blast spell out Dedrick followed his spell up with a powerful fire spell.
"Aguamenti!" Marik shot the water jet spell right towards the incoming flames, filling the hallway with steam. "Stupefy, expelliarmus!" Marik couldn't see a thing through all of the steam but sent the two spells after Dedrick just to keep him busy.
"Deprimo-" Marik heard Dedrick shout out two spells, but was only able to make out the first one before his ears were filled by the booming sound of wind flying past his ears. All of the steam in the room flew past him into the hall behind him.
"Protego!" Marik threw up a shield to block whatever other spell Dedrick had sent. No spell hit his shield, something had certainly hit him though. In an instant his entire body was sent into a state of shock as his insides felt like they were literally on fire. Sweat began pouring out from his pores as Marik fell to his knees, unable to keep himself standing upright in all of the pain.
His hands were shaking fiercely and water was streaming from his eyes like a flood. This pain was excruciating. His eyes fell down to the floor and out of the corner of his vision he caught sight of the open wound on his wrist. An enormous amount of blood was pouring from the wound.
The blood wasn't flowing like blood from a cut did normally-no, the blood was bubbling out of his wound like lava from a crack in the ground does. What the hell kind of spell had he been hit with?
"Restituo!" Through clenched teeth Marik cast the magic nullifying spell on himself. A shaky breath left his mouth as the pain inside him vanished. His hands were still shaking from the pain before and the water in his eyes remained.
"Something wrong?" Dedrick chuckled, causing Marik to lift his head and stare down the Durmstrang champion.
"I am so glad you and Alina are done so I don't have to feel guilty about what I'm about to do to you," Marik stammered in between heavy breaths as he stood back up. Black spots were beginning to creep into his vision. He had lost a lot of blood and judging from the red floor expanding under his feet he probably couldn't afford to lose much more.
"Oh and what is it that you are going to do-bleed on me?" Dedrick chortled.
"You wanted to play dirty, I can play dirty too. Episkey!" Marik aimed the minor healing spell at his wrist. The spell didn't do much, the wound was so deep and damaged that it was about as useful as plugging a dam with a bandaid. Hopefully, though, it would give him enough time to wipe the floor with this asshole.
"Bring it on bitch! Tornusta!" Dedrick roared as he summoned a tornado in the middle of the hall between them. The remaining shards of glass that had fallen to the floor were picked up in the winds and were getting slung out of the vortex at high speeds across the hall.
"Meteolojinx recanto!" Marik cast the spell that ended all weather effecting spells at the tornado. "Acusio!" Marik quickly followed with the needle storm spell that Bellatrix had used on him back in his third year and Dedrick had tried to use on him during their duel in the first task.
"Erecto maximo, expulso!" Dedrick was on his toes though and never let the needles get close. The Durmstrang champion first summoned up a large wall of rock up from the ground before blasting through it with a powerful explosion spell, sending a wave of large boulders flying back towards Marik.
"Wingardium leviosa!" Marik locked his levitation spell onto the many incoming boulders and sent them flying through the open windows to his right, causing the hallway to shake a little as many of them broke through bits of the castle wall still in place. "Diffindo!" Marik added the seam splitting spell to his combo, aiming up at the ceiling.
A large line began to snake its way from the center of the hallway towards Dedrick. The crack in the ceiling grew and grew until large pieces of the roof over Dedrick's head began to fall.
"Aisuterra! Aisugungiru!" With an ice-make spell, Dedrick covered the cracked ceiling with ice, freezing Marik's diffindo spell in place. With his second spell Dedrick utilized an ice spell that Marik had never used before. The spell summoned huge pillars of ice spikes from the ice on the ceiling that immediately shot off towards Marik at intense speeds, if any of them even touched him, at the speeds they were going this would not end well for him.
The ice was coming at him too fast, there was no way he could get more than one spell off casting normally. He closed his eyes and focused his magic into his arm, specifically into the incendio rune-tattoo as he whipped his wand across his body and shouted out another spell "fulminous!"
With his dual-cast combo Marik successfully countered Dedrick's ice spikes. The silent usage of is rune-tattoo incendio spell seemed to have caught Dedrick off guard. His powerful flames melted each of the large ice spikes, leaving only small streams of water and steam in their wake. Before the water could even make it to the floor of the hall it was being carried along by his lightning beam spell towards Dedrick, who was now forced to shield against fire, water, and lightning all at the same time.
"Protego totalum!" Marik could hear Dedrick shouting out the shield spell just before a loud cracking sound echoed throughout the hall as his magic collided with the shield. This was his chance to change this duel and go on the offensive.
You wanted to play dirty, well it's time to play dirty. Alina, I hope you don't plan on trying to rekindle your relationship with this asshat, he might not look too pretty after this. A smile crept over his face as he slashed his wand upwards. "Lumos maxima, incarcerous!" Marik started off with the first two spells of a deadly combo that Alina had used on him a number of times. What better way to beat Dedrick than with a combo of Alina's creation.
A blinding white light filled the hall, rendering visuals practically useless. A dozen or so ropes also shot out of Marik's wand towards the other side of the hall where Dedrick was. In the blinding light it would be near impossible to actually hit Dedrick with the ropes but that wasn't the point of this plan.
Marik snagged one of the ropes leaving his wand and slid across the ground of the hall as the ropes pulled him towards where Dedrick would be. At the last second Marik changed the direction of his ropes towards the ceiling, pulling him high into the air of the hallway, flying inches away from the roof . With a slash of his wand he ended the lumos spell, revealing a clueless Dedrick, staring blankly into the empty hallway, standing on the ground underneath him. The smile on his face grew even wider.
He didn't want to risk giving away his position so he again focused his magic his arm, silently sending out a bondy-bind spell with his rune-tattoo magic. He could not have asked for a better result. Dedrick had no idea where Marik was. His spell collided with the Durmstrang Champion and with a satisfying thud his body fell to the floor.
Marik winced a little as he too landed hard on the floor after his ropes had vanished. The severe pain in his stomach was only made worse by the hard landing. Not wanting to risk Dedrick having the chance to break the bind on him Marik stood up and pointed his wand at the bound boy.
"Expelliarmus, levicorpus!" Dedrick's wand flew into his hands as Dedrick, still bound by the body-bind spell, was slung upwards into the air and hung upside down by his feet. With the largest grin of all day Marik limped over to the boy's hanging body and leaned close to the boy's face.
"Marik two-Dedrick zero. Better luck next time little guy-" Marik sarcastically patted Dedrick's upside down shoulder before raising his wand right up against Dedrick's forehead and pressing the wood hard into his skin, "stupefy!"
In a flash of light Dedrick's eyes closed and the boy fell limp to the ground, his face already swelling from the impact of the powerful stunner at point blank range.
"Expelliarmus!" A voice shouted from somewhere behind Marik and in an instant his wand left his hands and soared down the hall behind him. The adrenaline from the duel with Dedrick was wearing off and the pain of his wrist and stomach compounded with the exhaustion of the duel had become too much for him to handle. He painfully turned his head to the source of the disarming spell as his legs gave out from under him and he dropped down to his knees on the floor.
"That was one hell of a show," the new voice in the hall said as it crept closer to him. Marik's vision was filled with so many black splotches and blurs he wasn't able to recognize the person until they were a mere feet away from him. It was one of Durmstrang's other champions, Rosa Westerwelle.
"Thanks," Marik barely managed to pant out. It was so hard to breath at this point; it felt as if he had inhaled shards of glass into his lungs. "You know I can cast wandless magic right?" He asked her with an attempt at a smug grin as she crept calmly closer to him.
"I know. You won't though," Rosa replied confidently, crouching down so that she was nearly eye level with him.
"Magic nullifying zone?" he asked her and received an affirmative nod.
"Placed it under you right after you knocked Dedrick out."
"Why didn't you help your friend out?" he asked her, curious to know the answer. If she had been able to place a nullifying spell around him that quickly after he knocked Dedrick out she had probably been watching at least the last portion of their duel.
"He isn't my friend. Dedrick is an ass and If his father wasn't my Headmaster I might have helped you stun him. Besides, I showed up a little too late to the party to give him any help," Rosa divulged much to Marik's surprise.
"Really? So I wasn't the only one who thought he was ass-ow," another shot of pain went through his body as he hunched over and coughed violnently into his hand. He couldn't tell if the blood in his hand had come from the wound on his wrist or from his cough. "Would it be too much to ask for you to go easy on me?" Marik asked through a half chuckle, it hurt too much to laugh.
"At this point you look like a flick might knock you out, so I don't think I have to go very hard on you," Rosa replied.
"Well then, flick away!" Marik quipped through another wave of violent coughs. "And good luck," he replied with a smile as his vision was filled with a bright flash of magic.
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