Chapter 58.5- Doom Days

Perhaps it was cruel, altering the intent of the spell so that it wrapped him in with the rats that were presently biting down on his skin. It did mean that he yielded faster than I’d ever seen anyone do so in this tournament. He didn’t even spend a second considering it. I vanished the ropes and rats once I heard the words I was quickly becoming accustomed to— “Winner: Potter”. It felt good to win.

I walked towards my opponent, expecting to see some disenchantment on his face. Instead, his previously focused expression had given way to wide smile.

“You’re better than I thought, Potter” His Spanish accent was barely audible. But the fact that it was at all meant he was speaking English and not just trusting the translation enchantment to do the work for him.

“Thank you” I said with a smile.

“No, really. I thought you’d give me a hard fight yeah, but that I had your measure. Do you know that you’re between 30-35% faster now than you were during your previous duel?” He asked, and if he noticed that the question stumped me, it did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm as he launched into more questions.

“Do you know that you have the second highest spell variety in the tournament? The same with your transfigurations. Is there a reason you use so many different spells and creatures?” He asked next, and then before I could answer that question, he was on the next one.

“Your spell deflection as well. You must be using a different technique than the standard abverto, yes? I can’t see how you could have varied it to increase the speed of the deflected spells so consistently” he continued, and I smiled when I realised just what I was facing. Angel Serrano was a massive nerd. That was it. He was a nerd for duelling, and that made a shocking amount of sense. It explained why he was so focused on all the other duels— why he was so quiet all the time.

The referee coughed in my direction, and I nodded, reaching out and tapping the older boy on the shoulder.

“They’ve got to move on to the next duel.” I said. He flushed an amusing shade of red.

“Oh”

“Don’t worry. Let’s step to the side and I’ll answer all your questions. The first one was about my speed, yes?” The sheer joy that appeared on his face could not be mistaken for anything else. And for a second I wondered if I’d made the right choice. Naaa. It was good to talk to someone that was neither the serving staff, nor Sirius.

XXXXXX- NYMPHADORA TONKS

“Another set of killings. Bones is on my arse, Moody, and that means the Minister is on hers, and that can only be because the Prime Minister is on. his. Do you see how far this goes, Moody?” Scrimgeor did not scream. He was not the type to. Instead he spoke in a stern hissed whisper that did an equally good job of communicating just how pissed off he was. The answer to that question in this case was very. He was very pissed off.