Chapter 7- The life and times of Draco Malfoy (SI)

Something most people did not realize was that dueling was as much about understanding magic and being powerful as it was about understanding. Not magic in this case, but your opponent. This was why the Room had provided me with as many books about psychology and cold reading as it did about dueling techniques, stances, and spell chains.

What that knowledge told me about Abramovich was that she was vain, bad tempered and most of all self-conscious about her image. I got the first and last from the way her hair was done up so precisely as to not let a single strand out of order, and considering we weren’t allowed to use any glamour charms while dueling, it was clear that this was the result of at least an hour of hard work. The way she preened as a result of the crowd’s applause was also gave it away. Her scowl when her eyes met my casual uninterested look allowed me to confirm the second of my assumptions, and she didn’t waste anytime before spitting out, ‘Go back to your mommy, Little boy’,

I got quite offended at that. Regular use of magic along with a healthy diet had conditioned my body and I was easily as tall as most sixth years. I didn’t reply though, just put another placid smile on my face, relaxed my stance and waited for the referee to begin the match. He looked down at the two of us asked if we were ready, to which she replied with a barked out ‘yes’ and I replied with a quick nod of my head. Neither of us took our eyes of the other, we were too well trained for that. He began the duel by releasing a bang of magic from his wand and we were off.

She began with a quick organ rupturing curse, aimed center-mass which was barely within the rules, and I replied by batting it away and conjuring a flock of crows with silver beaks, that I then commanded to attack her.

A wave of her wand sent out a controlled firestorm that burnt up the birds and continued towards me. This was cute, assuming I didn’t have McGonagall’s elemental transfiguration book then this might even have worked. I wrenched the fire from her control with a twist of my wand. She was more powerful than me. I knew that going in, everyone here would probably be more powerful than me, but skill could bridge the difference in a multitude of ways. This was one of them.

I took the firestorm heading my way, bent it around myself and condensed it into a single dense ball of fire that I sent thundering into her side of the arena. The referee gave me a harsh look at that but since I didn’t aim it at here, I didn’t even get a warning. The dust caused by the impact of the fireball and the arena wasn’t clearing up as quickly as it ought, and I knew something was off. I sent a gust of wind from my wand to clear up the smoke and found nothing on Abramovich’s side of the arena. Not nothing per se, there was a lot of rubble and debris from the explosion but Abramovich herself was nowhere to be found. I didn’t waste anytime in transfiguring some of the rubble into a horde of bees that I then commanded to scour every part of the arena.

It didn’t take very long for another wall of fire to proceed from a different part of the arena and immolate the bees. I focused all my attention over there and sent as many offensive spells as I could at that spot. Bludgeoners, stunners, disarming spells, tripping jinxes and even the tongue-tying hex rushed from my wand with a screaming fury and had Abramovich abandoning the protection of her disillusionment spell and hunkering behind a shield.

From that point, the duel was as good as over. Between my barrage of spells, I transfigured some of the rubble behind her into a large dog that wasted no time in attacking her from behind and grabbing her wand-arm between its teeth. The referee waited a few seconds to see if Abramovich had anything else up her sleeve and called the duel in my favor when she quit struggling.

The crowd went wild. There was cheering, jeering, and screaming from all three student bodies. Someone even sent out fireworks.  I went back to my seat with a sense of accomplishment filling me. I knew she wouldn’t be my most difficult opponent in this tournament, because while she was skilled, she was nowhere near what I would expect from the best of Durmstrang, a dark arts academy, or even Beauxbatons, a school with dueling as one of its main focuses.

The referee gestured for silence once again and called for the next duel which was to be between Cho Chang and Jean-Paul Allaire. They both got to the arena with little fanfare and quickly assumed their dueling stances, and I had to double-take. Jean-Paul’s stance was perfect. Knees sharp, feet facing forward, back straight, arm straight, wand arm held aloft, pointing at his opponent, with his eyes trained on his opponent. The reason this was so impressive was the fact that he did it so casually. He didn’t even check himself to make sure he had it down and he didn’t make any adjustments after assuming the stance. This was the sign of years and years of training. I knew Beauxbatons had dueling as one of their core courses but was this the kind of skill they all had? Was this the power of years of training under competent instructors? I took a deep breath and pinched myself.

I couldn’t really be getting this pent-up over a stance. He might be absolute shit at actual dueling and might be nothing but a pretty stance. Even as I said that to myself, I knew I was being ridiculous, and when the referee began the duel, he wasted no time in proving me wrong.

He started off immediately with a simple spell-chain of a silencing charm, a disarming spell, and a stunning spell. This was nothing out of the ordinary, but his wand motions and aim were so precise and quick that Chang was barely able to jump out of the way and from there they began a game of cat and mouse. With Jean-Paul chasing Chang all around the arena with his spells and Chang darting in and out, dodging spells with a grace and speed that defied anything I’d ever seen from her. It quickly became a test of endurance. Who would tire first, Jean-Paul who was staying in one spot but firing spells like his wand was a gatling gun or Chang who was twirling, ducking, and rolling to avoid his spells? Magical exhaustion or physical exhaustion, which would come first?

After another five minutes of continuous casting, Jean-Paul began to tire, his spells no longer came as quickly or crisply, and Chang did not hesitate to pounce when he finally made a mistake in his casting. She stopped moving for the first time, allowed his misaimed disarmer to sail past her shoulder and battered his down with her own spells. He was able to shield the first two spells, but a shield breaker tore down his shield in an explosion of light allowing the stunner that followed to send him into the bliss of unconsciousness.

There was less clean up to do after this duel and the referee wasted no time in calling Victor and Fleur up to the arena. A duel between champions. I can’t deny my excitement at getting to see what they both had in store. From what I read about them in the books, I wouldn’t have hesitated to give the win to Victor in my head but the fact that there wasn’t even a dueling contest in the books meant that things would probably not be so predictable. Victor might still emerge victorious, but I wasn’t just going to write Fleur off because of her relatively poor showing in the books. The books were good guidelines for what to expect but I knew that just because the books showed something didn’t make that thing true now that I was here in the Harry potter reality.

They both stood across from each other and the referee sent the signal to begin the duel. They began by sending probing shots at each other for the first minute and Fleur was, surprisingly enough, the one to escalate. She began with an entrails-expelling curse that was barely within the limits of European dueling regulations and would be downright illegal here in Britain. She didn’t stop there though and pressed onwards with a bone-breaker and an organ rupturing curse. Victor wasn’t idle and replied to every curse she sent with a perfectly timed counter-curse.

I was honestly surprised that Fleur was the first to dip into dark magic like this, but I honestly shouldn't be. Veela are dark creatures after all and contrary to what most fanfiction authors would tell you, that was not just because of pureblood bigotry and discrimination. Veela were products of human experimentation and dark magic from a dark wizard who had lived several centuries ago. Dark magic was part of their very being so they would find it much easier than any regular wizard or witch to perform such magic.

The duel continued and while Victor was putting in a valiant effort, he just could not match the storm of dark magic that was Fleur Delacour. You see, dark magic was relatively easy to learn and perform, counter-curses for dark spells were not so easy and it was truly impressive that Victor was able to last as long as he did.

The fuck?

What did I just see?

Victor took a bone breaker to his left arm to retaliate with a blood freezing curse that caught Fleur in her surprise. I was just as shocked as the rest of the crowd. The sheer determination it took to do something like that was unbelievable. Fleur didn’t let the blood freezing curse didn’t have the effect Victor expected as Fleur showed no effects of receiving the curse and proceeded to put Victor down with a couple more spells as his injured hand prevented him from duelling as effectively.

AN; Seems like a good place to end this. Used Fleur as the budding mistress of dark magic in this one since enchantress- Fleur fics are a dime a dozen and I wanted to try something different.