Chapter Eleven
With three rounds gone it is 1-1. Sweat soaks my undershirt. Swaddles my sleeves. As I march back to my dugout, I reckon what Daph said is true: the adolescent body cannot cope with the stress of five rounds. Not at this level.
Trace is a big miss.
Grimsditch has played this smart. She kept me on the run for the first two rounds. The judges gave her the second by a narrow margin. Then in the third she took a break. I battered her subordinate and won quite comfortably, but he's softened me up. He landed a couple of body shots: even with the basilisk padding, those have winded me.
I'm breathing hard when I settle down. I strip. Daph kneels in front of me and gets to work on the bruising around my solar plexus.
"I'd throw the kitchen sink at her," I gasp, "but at this point I'm not sure there's a kitchen sink left to throw. Christ, I feel like a fucking mouthbreather. A total waste of space. Could really use a pepper up right now, Daph."
"Use a cheering charm," she suggests.
"I'll pass. I want to go in there and focus, not bounce off the walls like a crack addict."
"It's 1-1." She swivels her wand. The bruising yellows. The pain dulls. "You have no obvious injuries. Why are you this overwrought?"
"She's toying with me," I snarl. "And to top it off she's fresh, I'm not. I have half a mind to throw caution to the wind and do what I did against Chang; this won't end well if it gets to round five."
"Relax." She places a palm on my chest. "Deep breaths, Harry. Yes, that's it, there you go . . ."
The lava coagulating in my lungs dissipates.
"You're letting the occasion get to you," she murmurs. "We've talked about this— no pressure, not anymore. You've earned the right to fight Madam Grimsditch; you've got ten minutes, so take it minute by minute. Enjoy every second that's left. Let the experience be its own high, let it calm you, centre you. . . there you go, yes, yes . . ."
My foul mood is a mixture of several things. The bruising stings, but that's not it. I have an inferiority complex when it comes to Alex. There are two people on the planet who can claim superiority against me in Transfiguration: Albus Dumbledore and Alexandra Grimsditch. I'm also prone to losing my head when I can't blitz past someone through sheer talent alone.
When those things combine— when I'm caught in the moment— I need someone to smack me on the upside of the head and remind me of things I already know. Daph does that for me. In those ninety seconds, no amount of tactical advice would've helped. But her encouragement brings back clarity. She's right— it is 1-1. So what if Alex is better? As long as that scoreline holds, there's still everything to fight for.
I open with the armoured abomination that I used against Shacklebolt. It sunders the ground, bellowing. Hoarfrost besmears its visage. Sentience crackles in its eyes.
Unlike Shacklebolt, who used Gubraithian fire, Grimsditch simply raises an unimpressed eyebrow.
She arcs her wand.
The arcane construct I've invoked combines three branches of magic: conjuration for its creation, dark arts for the sentience and firepower, and charms for the animation.
Grimsditch goes for the animation charm and unspools it.
It is insane— I've never seen it done before, because the charm is intricately interwoven and very hard to isolate. You have to have an innate sense of magic to be able to localise and tweak a spell that forms the smallest but most vital cog in such an esoteric entity.
She makes it look easy.
The violet fire in the abomination's eyes gutters and goes out. It freezes mid motion, club raised, jaws unhinged in a truncated roar.
Four more flicks— this whilst gracefully skipping past the spellfire I spray at her— and each of the entity's limbs are separated from the torso. She levitates the unassembled construct, then transfigures it into an armada of snowballs, each the size of my head.
She carves smileys into them.
She enchants them.
And for the next thirty seconds my shield is pelted with guffawing snowballs, each singing: we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas . . .
My eye twitches.
My wand blurs into a flurry of activity. Innumerable adamantine chains puncture the flooring. Grimsditch slaloms through them, giggling. Eventually she gets bored and turns them into party streamers. She whirls her wand and confetti drifts from the ceiling. She conjures herself a conical hat. Conjures a replica of a frosted pastry. Floats it midair and mimes eating it.
"Mmm, de-li-cious. Want some, Harry?" The question is punctuated with celebratory pops.
The twitching intensifies.
The ground around her is a reeking, smoking, hollowed out ruin. Through her arabesques and pirouettes, I've stuck to my word and thrown everything and the kitchen sink at her.
Even with the distraction of those chains, nothing has come close to finding its mark.
I try cutting the distance. Try being the key word. A cavalcade of spikes halts my forward thrust. They're shaped like shark teeth; they form a serrated fence. They spread out and cut the arena in half. It separates us— her on one side, me on the other.
"Nuh uh," she says, singsong. "Not that little trick again, sweetie. Don't try getting handsy."
I wrench out a chunk of the fence through sheer force of will. I transfigure it into a flock of monstrous metallic birds. I set them on fire for good measure.
"Go!"
The flaming birds rocket towards her, screeching.
The size of the flock forestalls her animation charm trick.
But not her mastery over transfiguration.
She snaps her wand— we struggle for control— sweat beads my forehead— and much to my disbelief my control snaps like a stretched-out rubber band. Five feet from her, my constructs come to a halt.
I prepare myself— I expect her to flick them back at me.
Instead she turns them into a flock of pigeons. They spin around and dive bomb me. I instinctively throw up a shield . . .
. . . just to have it spattered with pigeon poop.
"I'm going to cleave your skull in," I snarl, seeing red. There's mockery, then there's straight up disrespect. My ego cannot take this literal shit anymore.
"Ooh, I do love a violent man," she croons, swaying. "Go on then, let's see what you can do."
I stab my wand. The surface around her brays and breaks. She arcs her wand— there's a brief golden swell. It wafts outwards. Then she finds herself entombed in marble and concrete.
A wrenching, pulverising twist later, it is over.
Or, it ought to be.
"Hey, it's dark in here!" A muffled voice from inside the crushed tomb complains.
The tomb disperses into motes of light. Grimsditch emerges, patting the dust off her cloak.
She theatrically shivers.
"Whew, close call," she whistles. "But disappointing still. I expected more, Harry."
How . . .?
That glimmer . . .
She charmed the stone into sponge, I realise. Anticipated what I was about to do and altered the internal properties on the fly while allowing the externalities to stay the same.
I backpedal. I put some distance between us. I point my wand upwards. I start garbling obscure glottal rhythms.
"Hm?" She looks up. "Oh, this is interesting."
There's a meteor percolating in the Heavens. It protrudes from the firmament, a dew drop. It glistens, gains sheen, gathers mass. Throbs and expands. Boreal blasts accompany it.
Grimsditch waves her wand like an orchestra baton. She chants under her breath.
A sixty-foot dome shimmers somnolently. Everything it encases is sapped of colour.
With a triumphant howl I slash downwards.
The meteor descends.
It goes through the dome, which ripples.
My grin widens.
And then my jaw drops.
The meteor starts to lose momentum and mass. It diminishes with every inch it gains. The air around it ripples monochrome. By the time it reaches Grimsditch it is the size of an egg.
She closes her fist around it, crushes it, then turns the residue into a bouquet of roses.
She waves the bouquet at the spectators, who go wild.
Arcane shielding charm, I think dumbly. Time reversal, fucking hell.
And for the first time in the tournament I acknowledge that I am well beaten.
This does not mean that I give in. With three minutes gone in the fifth round, and with the score now 2-1 to Grimsditch, I still try turning the tide. But everything is met with the same response— I try tactical setups that are invariably outthought; I try forcing her in one direction but she merrily skips the other way; I bombard her with some of the strongest stuff in my repertoire but she turns them into foam or flour or feathers or sea water. And the height of my humiliation arrives when she enchants a cord, turns it indestructible, then has it pursue me for a minute in an attempt to hogtie me. As I scamper about, reduced to a headless chicken by my failure to cut the rope, a spell sneaks through and tangles up my shoelaces. I go down with a resounding whump. The rope taps my leg, then inverts itself into a concerned question mark. It disappears, and I'm left with the chastening task of getting back on my feet, the audience's laughter stinging my ears.
I centre myself. I take a deep breath.
Calm. Keep calm.
There's one last trick up my sleeve.
It is a spell I've never shown anyone; it is also my greatest accomplishment. Under ordinary circumstances, and against an ordinary opponent, I would never even consider using it; but with the clock showing ninety seconds, and with Grimsditch looking increasingly put out by my failure to test her defences, I swallow my pride and go for it.
"Alex!" I shout. "Gimme fifteen seconds of prep and I'll show you something that'll blow your fucking mind."
The correct response to this, of course, would be to laugh dismissively and paste your opponent's entrails to the ceiling. It is what I would have done. It is what any sane duellist on the circuit would've done as well.
But Grimsditch wavers. She looks at the clock. She knows she's through, knows there's no need to risk it.
She has an internal debate with herself.
Her curiosity wins out.
"Better than the meteor?" She demands, lowering her wand slightly.
My smile is all teeth.
"Once in a lifetime stuff."
Her wand dips even further. She props it against her thigh.
"Show me."
First I put distance. Then I close my eyes.
It took me twelve months of trial and error to figure out this piece of magic. It has been witnessed once in history, and no matter the attempts to recreate it afterwards, no one has come close to getting it right. It produces nothing— it has been written off as a failure.
People believe that this is because the spell is amongst the most potent of dark magics. They believe no one but the most fearsome of dark lords could ever conceive something this destructive.
They are mistaken.
They forget the first word of its incantation is protect, not purge.
At heart, Gellert Grindelwald was always a revolutionary. He was a man willing to forgo everything if it meant the triumph of what he believed in— and his cause was not personal enrichment, but what he wrongly perceived to be the enfranchisement of magicals everywhere. For this he was willing to char even himself to ashes.
And that's what makes manifesting his greatest creation tricky. It requires four criteria to be met:
First, a knack for fire spells.
Second, an advanced understanding of shield charms.
Third, a complete mastery over the dark arts.
And fourth— the crucial condition that everyone fails to meet— a desire to protect something or someone that far outstrips even the caster's own survival instinct. It requires such an intense obsession with safeguarding something, that only a self-sacrificial lunatic could ever harness magic this arcane.
My wand moves in its own symphony. As I conceptualise the spell, as I go through the beats, it is Astoria I visualise, her face fulgent, her lips upturned, her eyes aglow. My sweet little sister, so fragile yet full of life— for you I would sacrifice myself a thousand times over.
The wind picks up. The ground quakes. Grimsditch's expression is frozen halfway between disbelief and awe. She finally recognises what I'm attempting. After all, she has seen it in her most precious pensieve memory.
I see her mouth move.
"Impossible."
Yet she does not lift her wand.
She does nothing to stop me.
My wand descends. I gently tap the tile in front of me.
A pause, a beat.
Something flickers, something sparks.
Flames explode in a blue geyser.
Concrete evaporates.
I trail my wand in a semicircle. The flames roil and gush as I go, roaring, shooting skywards. They double back on me. The litmus test. The moment of truth. They circle my shins. Snap at my face. Devour me whole in a winching whirl of blue.
I stand ramrod erect, my face serene. My faith is iron. I remain unburnt.
The flames release my body. Subside from my line of sight. Surround me protectively, raging. Their gyrations are tornado-esque. They are mine to will, mine to command. At the tip of my toe rests the wrath of the gods.
I make eye contact with Grimsditch. I touch the top of my forehead in a mocking two fingered salute.
Her lips are pinched, her eyes are slits.
Her wand cuts through the air quicker than I've ever seen a wand move. It is frenzied, it takes on a life of its own.
A gigantic lotus blooms midair, its petals incurved. It spins. And with each rotation there expands outwards an inflorescence: a schema of seven floral shields, each a different pattern, each thicker than the last.
The Shield of Ajax. The highest available defence in the annals of magic. The strongest known to mortals, fabled to have the ability to withstand even natural disasters.
It makes no fucking difference.
The flames cascade, a tsunami let loose. They incinerate the arena as they go. They bear down on the shields, a seismic surge, and burn through them. Each of the first six shields disintegrates with a pluvial gurgle; the seventh is drowned in a sea of azure. The shield shrinks, hardens, takes on the shape of a chestnut— it cloisters Grimsditch within itself, a final attempt to protect its caster.
It is a hopeless task.
The waves lift the sphere, churn it, then wallop it into the wards. The sphere crashes into them with such force that it bursts like a bubble.
The wards around the arena let out a low wail— nails dragged across a chalkboard.
There is a cacophony of splintering sounds.
A spiderweb of fissures spreads through their surface.
With a defeated sigh, the wards shatter.
One by one they die out. As do the floodlights overhead. Dissolving magic rains down on me, flecked incarnadine, drenched in blue.
Iridescent snowfall.
I rein in the monstrous flames that are devouring the entire arena. I snuff them out.
It is pandemonium in the stands. Pure fucking pandemonium. The spectators are screaming. Crying. Cowering. Some of them scramble for the exits.
I laugh, exhilarated.
I pump my fist in triumph.
And then I spot the judges. Their faces are carved of granite. They gesture at me to come over.
The man who addresses me is the head judge. He's an old man wearing a monocle; his expression is one of apoplectic fury.
"Are you aware that the spell you used nearly burnt down Paris fifty years ago?"
"Yes," I say slowly. "But—"
"So you know." He grinds his teeth. "And knowing that, you still used Protego Diabolica in a space this confined."
"Sir—"
He slams his fist into the table. I go quiet.
"Not. A. word. There are over five thousand people here, Mister Potter. Here, in this arena. Women, young children. And you endangered them all. I do not care what madness possessed you to do it; I wish to hear no excuses. You are disqualified."
I rediscover my tongue.
"It's not a banned spell!" I cry, outraged. "I checked the manual, I reread it a few times, but nowhere does it say—"
"The manual is a guideline," he hisses, "not gospel truth. Sometimes we expect duellists to use common sense. Something you quite clearly lack. No!" He cuts off my attempt to speak again. "Nothing from you. We're done here; we do not have the time to argue— this panel must go meet the Association and prepare a statement to minimise the fallout."
Further discussion is interrupted by Alex limping towards us.
Her wand's been reduced to charred kindling. Splinters spill from it with every step. Only the handle remains. Her satin robes are half burnt and she's quite clearly lost some hair. She needs a medic but laboriously plods towards us anyway.
"Harry, that was so cool!" She squeals. Her cheeks dimple. Her eyes sparkle. She's become a child again.
Then she spots our thunderous faces.
Her smile fades.
"What's wrong? What's going on?"
"I'm being disqualified," I say in a clipped tone.
"Disqualified?" She cries, aghast, sounding more outraged than I did. "Disqualified?"
She whips around to face the judges' panel.
"A fifteen-year-old just showed y'all the best piece of magic you'll see in your miserable lives," she shrieks, "and you want to disqualify him? For what? Having more talent in his little finger than all of you wrinkled sacks combined?"
"Madam Grimsditch, please listen—"
"No, you listen to me. Lemme tell you what I'll do if you disqualify him. I'll walk out that door and send a patronus to every friend I have in the press. I'll tell them you're discriminating against the kid due to his background. He's killed no one, he's broken no rules. Not a single spectator was harmed. His only crime is using an arcane piece of magic that you fuddy-duddies fear because Grindelwald created it. If the Association did not have the foresight to ban Protego Diabolica, that's your fault, not his. And I promise you, I won't let this stop with the press— I'll have my lawyers sue you morons for every last sickle you have. I'll get this boy the justice he deserves, through the courts if not through you."
She throws out her arms.
"He deserves to compete in a final," she roars. "So let him. I forfeit. Accept my forfeit or face the consequences."
For a second, hope blossoms in my heart.
The head judge meets her threats with an unflinching glare.
"You will find, Ms. Grimsditch, that there is precedent for our actions. In the 1917 world championships, a participant used Fiendfyre. He demonstrated the same degree of control as Mister Potter. No spectators were hurt. Fiendfyre, at the time, was not banned under the rules. The judges decided to disqualify him anyway, because the rules vest them with the authority to do so if they sincerely believe that a participant risked crowd safety. It was contested in the international courts— it was brought before the ICW. Each of those organisations upheld the original verdict.
"Here, the wards have fallen. Here, if Mister Potter's control had been off by a hair's breadth, the papers tomorrow would be reporting on an international tragedy. So you may sue, if you please— it is your right. But it will get you nowhere.
"It is also your right to forfeit, madam. But if you choose to do so, we shall announce that Lacroix versus Gregorovich, which is yet to be fought, will be the final for the world title. Either way, our verdict stands— Mister Potter is disqualified. We shall not, however, upon further consideration, ban him from the circuit, because it was an honest mistake on his part. He is free to participate in future tournaments, as long as he promises to exercise better judgement. Quite frankly, this is a greater relief than he deserves, after the stunt he just pulled."
Alex purples. She's on the precipice of launching into another tirade.
I take the wind out of her sails.
"It's all right," I sigh. "I accept your verdict, judge."
She whips around to face me.
"Harry—"
I ignore her.
"Alex won't forfeit either. She's going to contest the final. Please announce that."
Bitterness wells within me even as I say it. I ruthlessly stamp down on it. Now that the high has faded I'm only left with the truth. And the truth is that Alex had me dead to rights, fair and square. This only ended in a knockout because she gave me the time to set up that finish.
So the way I see it, it is not appropriate for her to martyr herself for my sake.
Alex looks like wants to take a swing at me. But seeing the resigned expression on my face she deflates. The ref, who was listening in, receives a subtle nod from the judges, and he heads to the centre circle of the rapidly emptying arena.
"Round abandoned," he announces. "Grimsditch 2 Potter 1. Grimsditch wins by disqualification. Alexandra Grimsditch progresses to the finals."
"Come with me," Alex says, turning away. She shrugs off the concern from her Second and hobbles towards the exit.
"What for?" I ask.
"Just come with me for a minute."
"Wait," I say. "Need to check in with my healer first."
"Make it quick."
I head to the dugout. Daph's already packed her handbag.
"Daph, I'm really sor—"
"I'm proud of you," she says fiercely. A small smile plays around her lips. "What did Madam Grimsditch want?"
"Dunno. She's asked me to follow her."
"Go," Daph says. "We'll talk later. I'll wait around, if you want."
"Yeah, do that," I say. "Be back in a sec', a'right?"
I trail after Grimsditch. We leave the arena and step into the winding corridor. Silence prevails.
"Congrats," I say, to break the ice.
Her dismissive scoff tells me exactly what she thinks of that statement.
"Sorry about your wand, by the way."
"I'll get a new one," she grunts. "Accepting your fate like that was a disgrace."
"They weren't going to change their minds. And you heard him— the law was on his side."
"Fuck the law," she says. "I'd have helped you fight it."
"We'd have lost."
"How does that matter?" she demands.
"Were you aiming for some sort of moral victory?" I ask dryly.
"I was fighting for the soul of magic," she says, through grit teeth. "For what it ought to be, not what the rules turn it into. I teach students, y'know. Never in my life— never, I say— have I seen someone as talented as you."
"You clowned me for four rounds."
She smiles faintly.
"How long have you been using a wand, Harry?" she asks.
"Four and a half years," I say.
"Twenty-three years for me," she responds.
A pause.
"I give it twelve months before you're better than I am," she confesses. "Maybe less. Your progression is frightening. You're probably more talented than Dumbledore was at your age. Certainly more than I was. Two years ago, all it took to drop you were stunners. Stopping that meteor tonight took an ancient magic I've never been forced to invoke before, not even by Lacroix."
"Oh yeah." I start. "That shield. Time reversal, right?"
"It does not reverse time. Not fully, anyway. It degrades a projectile, either magical or muggle, back into its base components."
Her smile grows ironic.
"There are limits, else I'd have used it at the end."
"What's the incantation?"
She considers this.
"It has forty pages of theory," she says slowly. "It's part of my personal library. Got it off a dealer from Iran. Dates all the way back to Ancient Persia. I'll owl it to you at Hogwarts."
"What d'you want in return?"
"Protego Diabolica."
"That's dark magic, Alex. You've never been good at it."
"No need to sugarcoat stuff: I can't cast dark magic at all."
"Then why—?"
"I'm a hoarder. All I want are the workings for that spell. It's one of life's greatest mysteries."
I ponder this.
"I promise not to share it with anyone," she adds.
To be honest, given what I know about the conditions that need to be met, I doubt there's anyone else on the planet other than me who could use the spell.
So I tell her.
She smacks her forehead at the end.
"I dunno how we all missed it."
"Perception. You see what you wish to see. That, and no one would expect selflessness from a mass murderer."
Through all this I've not paid any attention to our path. Now, as she takes a left turn, I realise we're in front of the accounts office.
She pushes open the door.
"Alexandra Grimsditch," she announces to the teller. "Here to take my winnings for making the final."
And I get an inkling about her idea. But surely not . . .
After a set of blips and whirrs in confirmation, the teller hands over the money. Alex leads the way out of the office.
She turns to face me in the corridor.
"They handed me a win in a match I lost." She grasps the bag with both hands and squeezes hard.
"That's not what the judges thought."
"Well, they're wrong. So I don't want to hear any complaints from you about this either. This is your money. Take it."
And saying that, she holds out her prize money— five hundred galleons— to me.
"Alex . . ."
"Take. It."
She shoves the bag into my chest.
My circumstances compel me to accept the gift.
"Thanks, Alex," I say softly.
Her eyes are burning with the same fervour I saw when she first hobbled my way, right after the judges had informed me about my disqualification.
"No, thank you," she breathes. "It was an honor, Harry Potter. I'll never forget facing Protego Diabolica. I'll cherish that memory forever. It's the greatest— truly the greatest— thing I've ever seen. If anyone deserved to be world champion it was you. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
Endnotes:
Thus ends the arc. Hogwarts next. Idk how long a break I take before that— I'm exhausted; I've let this fic hijack my life for the last two months. Yet I must confess to being mostly happy with what I've written.
The Shield of Ajax is a seven layered shield used by Ajax the Great in Greek Myths. More recently, you might also know it as Rho Aias from the Fate series.
Harry got 750 galleons from this tournament. 250 that he picked up right before his semis, and the 500 that Grimsditch gave him.