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Chapter 28
On the morning of the duel, Harry arrived at the bank nice and early with the people supporting him. Sirius as his second would be the only one allowed in the actual duelling chamber with him, but Hermione, Dan, Fleur, Madam Longbottom, and Tonks would be waiting in the support area.
Both Dan and Emma had wanted to be there as well, but Tonks and Madam Longbottom had both asked to be included. Tonks because Minister Bones wanted someone she trusted there to witness the duel, and Madam Longbottom because after declaring support for him and Harry delivering her LeStrange's head, she had to be seen as supporting Harry. Harry couldn't exactly turn either request down, so Dan was the only adult Granger who was able to go.
Normally turning up too early was a way to upset the goblins, but Fleur had taken the day off so that she could be the one responsible for herding them around the bank. The combat area they were using was actually in one of the lower areas of the bank only accessible by the mine cart rail. Madam Longbottom grumbled a little on hearing this, according to her the carts were not built for old bones.
Luckily it was a time of low customer volume, so the three trips they needed to get all seven of them down didn't result in a lot of people having to wait for the opportunity to visit their vaults. The tunnel trip was a lot shorter than any other trip on the mine carts Harry had ever taken; it seemed the cart barely had time to get up to speed when it was pulling to a halt at a tunnel carved from solid rock. It had to be fifteen feet wide and even taller than that. Harry had no trouble believing the rumour that Gringotts could keep dragons down here if the tunnels were that big.
Once they were all together again, Fleur led them down the spacious tunnel. There was a gateway and the dark cave with rough-cut stone walls gave way to bright lights, with delicately carved relief that had been white washed and gilded. Harry took a look at the carvings and saw they were all of goblins in vicious combat. It seemed that the goblins really wanted everyone who came down here to know there was a fight at the end.
They all went and sat in the area where Harry's supporters would be watching from. It was a large viewing area with rows of stone benches reminding Harry of a Roman gladiatorial arena where the fights were as much for entertainment as honour. Being here gave Harry a chance to see the arena for the first time, even if thick windows of what he was sure were actually slabs of clear quartz rather than glass kept him and others from being able to interfere in any way.
The room was about as wide as a basketball court and about one and a half times as long. The floor was sand and the walls were solid smooth stone that supported a vaulted ceiling maybe thirty feet high. There was no cover, nothing to hide behind, and no opportunity for a loss by leaving the area of battle save for the two doors, one at either end.
Harry could step out if he wished, of course, but doing that would immediately lose him the match, so that was a last resort. Still, as much as not having any cover would hinder him, it would hinder his opponent just as much. The other observation room was directly across from them, and about thirty minutes before the match Harry could see people over there. While he could see Malfoy's parents, McNair, and a few others he didn't immediately recognise, he didn't see Draco there anywhere.
The sound of boots on stone steps had Harry looking towards the doorway and Bonesnapper appeared. From the look on his face he was there on official business, not just to chat. "Warlock Potter, it is my duty to inform you that your challenger has taken ill this morning and his second will be fighting the duel in his place." He didn't sound for one second like he believed that Draco was actually sick.
Harry decided to go for a laugh. "Oh no, what am I going to do now? I have been surprised by a completely obvious betrayal from a family called Bad Faith. How could I ever have predicted such a thing?" Harry's overacting and the fact that he had actually predicted this in their last meeting had the goblin fighting to keep from cracking a smile.
"This is serious, Warlock Potter," he said, managing to keep his voice solemn.
"Sorry Bonesnapper, you're right. But I trained assuming this was their strategy. I acknowledge the message and thank you for delivering it. How long until we move down to the hall?"
"You can go down any time now. Just remember if you try to harm or harass your opponent before the duel, you will forfeit the duel and the Malfoys will be in line for the House of Black and all her assets." Bonesnapper said, which Harry translated to 'don't do anything stupid. We don't like the Malfoys either and we don't want them to have more influence.'
Harry was just walking out of the room to make his way down to the arena when a troupe of goblins made their way into the viewing area and took seats on the stands. Harry turned to look at Bonesnapper. "You never mentioned this being open to spectators."
"Yes, traditionally any fight in this arena is open to the goblin public to watch," BoneSnapper said a little shiftily.
"Are you telling me I'm paying to be made into your entertainment? And what traditionally happens to the gold made from the spectators? You know what, I don't care." Then he turned away from Bonesnapper to face Hermione and Fleur. "Fleur, Hermione, do me a favour, put up to a thousand Galleons on me to win."
There were a few goblins around them that got some rather interested looks at the idea of gambling on the match. Harry just walked down the stairs that led to the passage leading into the arena. "You coming Sirius?" he called to his second, who was quickly saying something to Fleur.
The sand shifted under Harry's boots as he tried to walk across it. It was going to make moving around harder and slower if he relied on his legs. That was going to make dodging tough. However, it wasn't all bad news, as if he was thrown into the floor somehow the sand would soften the blow. Actually that was probably why it was there to begin with to cushion goblins as they threw each other about.
-ϟϟϟ-
Back in the stands Fleur and Hermione were suddenly surrounded by eager goblins looking to discuss the terms of the bet. A few tried to talk odds, trying to bet as little as possible to potentially get as much of not only the one thousand Galleons they had heard Harry stake, but also the other one thousand that Sirius had matched before following Harry, as they could. But the two future Potter women weren't the type to be taken for suckers. They insisted on any bets being one-to-one; for every Galleon you staked you would get a Galleon if you won.
A few of the goblins were not interested after that. According to them, Harry had a proven track record when it came to duels so he was the favourite. However, more than a few people took the bet. Hermione and Fleur each put in some of their own money to cover some of the bets. Hermione had the equivalent of about forty Galleons, and Fleur, who actually had a job, bet about a hundred. Both of them bet on Harry to win, though Fleur was careful to make sure that any kind of draw meant the bet was void. Either way, anything but a draw would mean a lot of gold changing hands.
"Good morning apprentice," said a voice, and Fleur turned to see Viperclaw taking one of the empty spots on a nearby bench.
She smiled at him. "Viperclaw, I thought you were busy today? I didn't expect to see you down here."
"A window opened up in my schedule and I thought why not come watch? It's not every day I get to see two wizards fighting. That's your man down there, right?" he asked, nodding through the window at Harry.
"Yeah that's Harry, and this is our other betrothed Hermione. My future father-in-law Dan, Harry's cousin Auror Tonks, and Ally of House Potter, the Regent Augusta Longbottom. Everyone, Viperclaw here is one of the goblins I work for." Fleur introduced everyone.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Hermione said warmly. "Fleur has mentioned you a few times. Something about stuff she can't talk about save the fact that the documents you were working on were in French."
Viperclaw gave Hermione a toothy smile that slightly unnerved the girl. "We do need to keep the private business of our clients confidential. You wouldn't want us casually saying anything about House Potter to outsiders, after all. It goes both ways. But yes, sometimes having a native speaker of another language comes in very helpful."
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From his side of the arena, Harry watched as his opponent for today came out of the opposite tunnel. McNair was carrying not only his wand but his monster-sized executioner's axe, which meant for it to be legal in this fight it had to be enchanted in some way. Harry could object in theory, but he was planning on utilising the same loophole. The shield bracer on his left forearm would fall under the same classification, not to mention the collection of toys he had prepared for this encounter.
As McNair walked in, he looked Harry in the eyes from across the room and Harry felt a stab of pain from his scar. Fuck, he thought. That pain could only mean one thing: Voldemort was here and most likely he was using McNair as a meat suit. That meant Harry wasn't fighting McNair, but Voldemort. This duel just got a whole lot harder.
Harry considered his options. He could try to report it to Bonesnapper under the grounds that Harry was either technically fighting more than one person or that amalgamation of Voldemort and McNair wasn't McNair and didn't qualify as Malfoy's second. But he didn't have any proof of it, and even if he did it's possible Voldemort could argue he was the second the entire time, no matter what name he called himself.
Harry could run, just step away and refuse to fight. But that would give the Malfoys a hand on the resources of House Black. Sirius would become a target just so they could hand the gold over to Voldemort. It would be a disaster. Harry knew his only option was to fight. There was nothing stopping him from Stepping away later if he needed to.
Sirius came up to Harry's shoulder and started giving him a pep talk. "Harry, I want you to know I won't be mad at you if you back out of this. The Malfoys would only get their grubby mitts on the black family after I die. I'm sure we can deal with them permanently long before that. If you need to run, don't hesitate. Remember, this time you have nothing to prove, hit him hard and hit him fast. I'll make you a deal. Win in under three minutes and I will pay for your honeymoon. Twenty eight days and nights wherever you and you ladies want to go. How does that sound?"
Harry sighed. "Impossible. McNair has Voldemort riding shotgun."
Sirius didn't understand the meaning of riding shotgun, but context was enough to tell him that McNair was possessed. "Fuck… I will go tell Bonesnapper you are withdrawing."
Sirius was just about to walk away when Harry caught his arm. "No." Sirius turned back, looking shocked. "No, I got this. I have a plan and I can always Step out if I need to."
"Promise me you will walk away from this, Harry," Sirius pleaded, more seriously than he had ever asked Harry for anything before.
"Trust me Sirius, I have no plan on dying here. Hermione would drag me back just so Fleur could kill me again if I did something like that." Harry was being flippant, and both he and Sirius knew it was because he was worried.
"Second, it's time for you to clear the field. This is a duel of honour during a recognised blood feud. To that end, the rules are a little different so if you will indulge me for a moment. All restrictions on killing are removed for this duel. However the restrictions on Unforgivable curses are still in effect. Other victory conditions are that your opponent is unconscious or bound for longer than twenty seconds, your opponent has no magical focus for longer than twenty seconds, or your opponent leaves the arena. Are there any questions from the duelists?... no? Good the match will begin when I start saying the word 'go.'"
"Three. Two. One. Go!" Bonesnapper counted down to the start of the duel. As soon as he started to say the word go, Harry threw two orbs the size of golf balls. One was filled with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, something he'd been able to get from Fred and George. The orb would shatter on the ground and spray the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder into the surrounding air. The powder would then fill the space with a pitch blackness that nothing could see through. The other orb that Harry threw up and forward was one of Hermione's signature flashbang rune stones.
As soon as they left his hands, Harry Stepped. Not far, just far enough that the cloud of darkness was between him and his opponent and to Harry's left. The point was simple, he wanted McNair to lose sight of him. Harry then cast a Disillusionment charm on himself. It wasn't as good as his invisibility cloak, but he was hopeful it was enough. Sure enough, as Harry was Disillusioning himself, spells started to fly through the area he had just been standing in. Harry started to edge around the cloud to see what was happening.
McNair was blinded, but it hadn't stopped him from firing off spells with deadly accuracy at where Harry had been only half a second earlier. Harry raised his wand, took careful aim, and fired a silent cutting curse. He was hoping to take the man's head off and end this quickly.
Unfortunately, McNair swung around his axe and caught the spell perfectly on the head of the axe. The axe glowed with an eerie pale blue light for a second before it sputtered out. McNair then swung the axe towards Harry and a line of blue energy came from the axe and started across the arena at Harry. It was too wide to dodge either side, so Harry Stepped to the other side of the room. He looked across at where the line of energy was shot at him, and he found a seven-foot-long cut in the wall where the magic had hit. The cut in the wall was deep enough that if the spell had actually hit Harry, there would have been two halves instead of one whole.
Harry let off another cutting curse of his own before immediately Stepping away again. The same thing happened again. McNair caught the spell on his axe, and despite his vision having not cleared yet, he was able to target exactly where Harry's spell had come from. Then McNair, either knowing he hadn't hit Harry or just suspecting that Harry had dodged his attack, started firing his unusual cutting curses at random. Harry dodged one, Stepped away from another, and even ducked under one as they were all being fired at chest height.
Harry had now had enough sandbagging and stepped up before McNair could get his vision back. "Bombarda!" he cast, not aiming for the man but the sand at his feet. McNair tried to catch the spell on his axe, but Harry had aimed it just a little too low for him to reach, and the spell impacted on the ground, exploding in a cloud of kicked-up sand. Harry saw McNair knocked backwards before the sand obscured everything.
Harry Stepped again, making sure his Disillusionment was still up and waited for a few seconds for the sand to finish falling so he could see his opponent. Harry planned to finish him off with a Cutting Curse the second he saw him laid out on the floor. Unfortunately, in the two to three seconds it took for the sand to clear, McNair had disappeared.
Harry remained still, as unmoving as something with only two legs could be. His eyes darted about looking for the telltale shimmer of a Disillusioned opponent, but there wasn't one. Either McNair was doing the exact same as Harry, keeping perfectly still to keep the Disillusionment from failing, possibly running down the time until he could see and hear again. Or he had done something else to conceal himself. Either way, this put Harry in a tough spot. He could either act, blow his cover, and become a target, or he could wait and lose the advantage he had gotten himself. Seconds ticked by as Harry tried to think of anything he could do.
However, Harry must have waited too long because suddenly the sand to his left burst and a massive snake lunged at Harry. He only had a split second, not long enough to dodge, Step, or shield. Well, not a shield as one would expect in a regular wizarding duel. The large round shields spring into existence and the snake bounced off it. The purely physical attack was not enough to dislodge the shield from its place off Harry's arm.
Harry had enough time to dodge back and put some distance between him and the snake. "You'll need to do better than that Tom," Harry hissed in Parseltongue.
"So you figured it out, Potter," The possessed McNair who had transformed into a massive snake hissed back.
"Before the duel had even begun. Wasn't Slytherin supposed to be crafty and cunning? I wonder what he would say about his last descendant being so… predictable," Harry said, purposely baiting Voldemort now.
"You dare!" The snake shouted at him.
"Of course I dare. I'm a Gryffindor, not a slimy cowardly snake who we all know has no balls anymore." Harry was successful at angering Voldemort, the snake lunged at him only to be met with Harry's Cutting Curse. It didn't stop the snake or do as much damage as Harry had hoped, but he had at least scored first blood.
The snake struck at Harry again, and once more Harry's shield stopped it. Only this time it was enough that the shield fell away, landing in the sand with a soft thunk. The snake shifted back to being McNair. Harry expected him to start swinging with his axe again, because there was no way his vision wasn't clear now. However, McNair started to wave around his wand and a large amount of sand started to shift and move as it was transfixed into four bloody massive snakes. There was nowhere for Harry to hide from them, as even in the fading patch of darkness the snakes would be able to smell him.
For a second Harry considered the same trick he had used with the fire snakes that he encountered during the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, a long spear through the mouth. However, he quickly decided against it. For one, there were more snakes, and for two Harry didn't think McNair or Voldemort, whoever was in charge in there, would stand back and watch. Harry would have to contend with five opponents.
One of the snakes struck, but it was obvious and Harry had plenty of time to step away. With nowhere on the ground safe, Harry Stepped up into the air, changing to his falcon form and keeping him well out of reach of the snakes.
There was a little kerfuffle as McNair called for a win by ring-out. Bonesnapper was about to award the victory when Harry gave a screech, informing everyone that he hadn't left the arena, he was just not on the floor. McNair tried to argue the point, but the rules that the goblins had set out were clear as long as you remained in this room the duel continued. Still, revealing where he was so that he didn't forfeit the duel wasn't exactly in Harry's best interest, because now the big axe came back into play. Still, Harry was a small fast-moving target with excellent manoeuvrability. Even when Harry couldn't dodge by wing alone, he could still Step mid-flight.
He didn't have any trouble dodging the unusual cutting curses, and as long as he stayed up the snakes couldn't reach to strike at him. After about the tenth curse, Harry could see that McNair was getting tired. Those wide-sweeping cutting curses probably took quite a lot of power to do. Harry was just thinking that it may be a good idea to remain in the air while McNair wore himself out when the curses stopped.
Unfortunately for Harry, Voldemort was many things, but he wasn't stupid. McNair looked around, smiled, and hit Harry's discarded shield with some type of Transfiguration spell. Harry's once proud shield was now what looked like a pile of Japanese throwing stars. Harry was confused for a second, but then he understood McNair's plan a split second before he pointed his wand at Harry shouting, "Oppugno!" The throwing stars shot off from the floor and shot at Harry like heat-seeking missiles.
Throwing stars may not be big to humans, but to a peregrine falcon, they were giant spinning blades of death. Even one of them would do serious damage if it were to hit him in this form. But if Harry turned back, there was nothing keeping him in the air, and that would leave him to the nonexistent mercy of the four giant snakes. Harry out-flew them for as long as he could, flying frantically to keep sometimes just inches ahead of them. Then, when he couldn't move fast enough he Stepped to the other side of the room, directly over McNair.
The stars followed Harry and he started flying about dodging all over again. Just when he would need to Step again to avoid them he did, only he didn't appear on the other side of the room like McNair expected. It took him a few seconds scanning the ceiling, then looking around for Harry, before considering where Harry had actually stepped to: the ground directly between his legs. He spent so long locating Harry that he never had the chance to think about the stars that were currently taking the most direct path to Harry, which was through McNair.
The man yelled in pain, and Harry Stepped away back to where he had originally started, the Darkness Powder now completely dispersed. Harry shifted to his human self and gambled. With McNair currently distracted from the redirected attack, Harry hoped that his control on the snakes had weakened just enough. In Parseltongue Harry hissed out, "Bite him," while pointing at McNair.
The snakes listened and gave Harry the opportunity he needed. As they struck, sinking their fangs into McNair's limbs, Harry pulled out his mother's wand. Focusing on the memory of the first conversation he had with his mother, and how much his mother had to have loved him to actually be able to leave him her magic, he cast. "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" And just like before, the green doe, the symbol of his mum in the strange green of his mother's magic that protected him from Voldemort, burst from the wand and charged at McNair. Once more, Harry got to watch Voldemort's spirit being ripped from a body. If he was honest, this was getting repetitive now.
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Hermione and Fleur were watching the fight while clinging to each other. They had understandably both completely forgotten about Tonks and Madam Longbottom as they focused on Harry. He hadn't told them that this duel was going to include killing your opponent as an option, and since Bonesnapper had announced it the two had been terrified they would lose Harry. The fear only got worse once Harry was on the run from giant snakes. The lightheartedness of negotiating bets was squashed by the reality that they could be about to lose a third of their hearts.
The goblins, however, were having the time of their lives. The girls heard more than one bragging about all the gold they were about to make from Harry dying. Then, things changed. Harry's Step so that McNair took his own attack had lifted the girls' spirits and shut up a lot of the goblins. When Harry then used the opportunity to take command of the snakes, the goblins who hadn't bet on McNair were cheering. Then there was outrage at the shade of Voldemort coming out of McNair. Cries of cheat, dishonour, and other words in their own language that neither woman understood yet didn't feel the need to get translated because the meaning was clear enough.
They watched as Harry boldly walked up to McNair, now that he was restrained by the snakes under Harry's control. Heavily panting from the energy he had had to put in to keep ahead for the throwing stars, Harry dropped something onto the Death Eater's head, causing McNair to vanish. That should have been the end of it. Voldemort's shade had once more fled and McNair was sent to the goblin prison. The duel was over, and all that was left was to process Harry's victory. But then, something unexpected happened. Hermione's first thought was that the Patronus was going to deliver a message from Harry. Fleur's thought was that it was incredibly beautiful. Then they both thought something along the lines of 'what the fuck?' as the Patronus charged through the glass as if it wasn't there and into Viperclaw, who screamed as a second shade of Voldemort was forced out of the goblin.
There was understandably a lot of surprise on the faces of the goblins all around them. Some looked horror-stricken, others reached for weapons. But more than half were focused on Viperclaw, who was screaming as the foreign soul was being ripped out of him. Flooded with empathy for the man after having experienced this herself, Hermione raised her wand and hit him with a stunning spell. Then pandemonium broke loose.
A/N
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