Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
I shattered multiple blocks of granite with powerful curses. Confringo, confringo, confringo, I mentally incanted over and over again, trying to empty my mind of the fury that filled it. With a roar, a blast of blue flames left my wand, scarring the floor and heating a block of stone so thoroughly that it exploded from within. Once it didm, I fell to my knees, spent. The duel with Krum had gone far from well. I'd done ,y best, but he was too fast with the staff, too dangerous. My magic had felt clumsy with the clunky inefficient focus, while his had been razor sharp. In the end, I came joint third with Cedric in the staff duels and bumped down beneath Krum for third position.
There was everything to play for in the third task, and that was even more annoying. I should have been far ahead of everyone by now. I was there better, and it was not even close. I had taken the best of Tom Riddle, who had already been beyond NEWT level and enhanced it to the point that I was certain that even adult wizards would struggle to comprehend. I was a shark in a pot with fishes and I was losing. Losing!
I growled and flicked my wand, shattering another block of cement. I could come up with excuses for each defat, the second task had clearly been a ploy, and the duels were not for me considering I'd never used a staff before. But I knew where that road went. Excusing defeat and trying to dress it up as something else achieved nothing. It just normalized it, made it acceptable. But no. Not for me. Defeat would never be acceptable to me, and that meant I had to get better. I had to do the things that I had hesitated to do before. I had to go th extra mile to turn from merely strong to unbeatable. I had to become unbeatable.
Even if every factor was arrayed against me, I needed to win. And I knew just what I needed for that. The secret lay in the duel I had hesitated to watch for so long. Flitwick had given it to me with the first set of memories as an aside but I had never been able to look at him— Voldemort for more than a few seconds before leaving. The part of me that was Tom Riddle just could not bear the sight. But that was a problem I had to overcome. Voldemort would never have lost even if every rule was designed with trumping him in mind. Neither would Dumbledore.
With a growl at myself for spending even more time speaking instead of doing, I dumped the memory into the pensieve and dove in. The feeling of entering a memory was one that I would never get used to— not fully at least. It was like falling even while standing still. I landed on my feet in Diagon Alley. In the midst of disaster stood two titans.
On one side, Dumbledore. Behind him lay a crowd of the sick, the injured, the dead, and dying. It was the quintessential knight in shining armour situation where he stood before the downtrodden, trying to protect them from the big bad wold. The big bad wolf in this case was Voldemort. And he stood on the other side. His followers— the death eaters stood behind him, egging him on as he faced what the world had known as its most powerful wizard. This was the duel that cemented, Voldemort's legend, Flitwick had said, but that wasn't what had made me hesitate to watch it.
No, what had caused my hesitation was how he looked. This was not the serpentine monster of the movies. This was an older Tom Riddle. The only clear difference between him and the one I had memories of looking at in the mirror was the eyes/ Sure, Voldemort had lost all the baby fat and his cheeks were gaunt but the resemblance to Riddle was uncanny. He and Dumbledore simply stared at each other for close to a minute. To the uninitiated, they might have been doing nothing.
But to those in the know, it was clear that the preliminary parts of the duel had passed already. It had passed in the mental plane where they had dueled with their minds rather than with magic. Now, it was transition to the physical, having clearly ended with a draw. Somewhat predictably, Voldemort was the one to strike first. Except that instead of the jet green of a killing curse, it was a sickly yellow spell that left his wand first. A spell that Dumbledore had to lift a wall from the ground to block. The spell hit the wall, and began to eat into it, making the earth itself rot as it pushed towards its target.
With a flick of his wand, the headmaster sent the wall flying in Voldemort's direction. A Voldemort who roared his will and shattered the stone to pieces before it even came close to um.. This time, Dumbledore went on the offensive. Perhaps he felt a shift in the mood, perhaps he just thought Voldemort was distracted and couldn't react. He sent a familiar red spell. It was a stunner. A stunner that Voldemort deflected with a contemptuous sneer. Except that as the stunner flew into the distance, it arced right around and continued towards him. At the same time, Dumbledore sent two more.
Voldemort was quick— his speed obviously enhanced by more than a few rituals so he managed to keep up with the barrage, deflecting eac spell as it came, until there were ten different streams of light converging at his position. This time, he spun his wand about himself and created a dome oF protective magic. Instead of deflecting each spell ,the dome just absorbed them. Each spell caused the dark lord to grimace but he still bore them all well. When they ran their course, Dumbledore sent his next few spells but they bit onto nothing but air as Voldemort disappeared with a twirl of his cloak.
He apparated to the side, but Dumbledore was already moving even before he did so. With a wave of the elder wand— and that was surely the wand of elder held between bony fingers— the ground rose to his control. First the cobblestones turned Tinto a majestic lion that roared and made my bones shake. The lion ran at Voldemort even as a massive proud eagle took to the skies next. Third was a badger as the Hogwarts headmaster called upon the mascots of his school's house to fight for him.
One would have expected that to be the end of it. Surely, someone as learned as Dumbledore would have the food sense to not call upon a snake in combat with the heir of Slytherin. But the old man was craftier than most could imagine. He called a serpent bigger than the other three creatures into existence, and one could see the way Voldemort— for that was Voldemort in truth, human appearance or no— hissed in anger at the affront. An angry hiss morphed into parseltongue in seconds.
"Serve me" He commanded the snake with the natural persuasive magic of parseltongue that caused all snakes that heard it o have no choice bur to obey, nut that did nothing as the snake kept coming.
"Turn around and bite that old fool" he commanded, perhaps thinking the creature had not heard him as this time he spoke even louder. Still, there was no effect as the snake kept coming. He destroyed the lion with a blasting curse, tore the eagle to pieces with some kind off creative cutting curse that cut it into five pieces, and the badger was borough to its knees with a single speck that caused it to fall, trying to gather its innards with its claw as they leaked over the floor. For the snake, Voldemort turned to it with a countercurse, the counter to a deafness hex if I was not mistaken, but casting that spell and dismissing the other creatures and give Dumbledore time.
By the time the snake was turning around to attack Dumbledore, it was already bering torn to shreds by a pack of wolves while bees, humming birds, leopbards, bears, and the likes in great numbers surrounded the Dark Lord. Looking at the two of them, it was clear to see that the standard dynamic that one would have expected with an understanding of who the parties where was being debunked. One might have expected Dmbledore to need a short fight because Voldemort had hum beat when it came to pure magic power and thus could theoretically outlast him, but that was nothing but theory.
In truth, time favoured Dumbledore. It gave him he chance to use his imagination and creativity to its fullest extent, while the expected tiredness one would expect from a man past his prime was nowhere to be seen, a combination of the ever wand, power that had been unmatched in his youth, and sheer magical control, I suspected.
But if time was on Dumbledore's side, then chaos was on Voldemort's. He was like a boulder tossed into the ocean. He looked at every factor arrayed against him and then laughed in their faces. With a vicious slash of his wand, fiendfyre bloomed into being. Now, I had controlled flames before. Fire was literally my element of choice when it came down to it, but what he did? Comparing what he did to what I usually did was like comparing an ember to a firestorm. It was like trying to see the similarities between a running tap and a tsunami. There in a flash, roaring into the air and claiming the oxygen like a stallion covered a mare.
All the creature close to him were incinerated in a single pass of the fire as it flowed around him in a circle. No, flow was a bad word. It indicated a certain level of smoothness. There was nothing smooth about what Voldemort did. It was raw, agrssive, powerful, but not smooth. Not even in the slightest bit. The fire fanned out, taking all Dumbledore's creatures in its grasp and turning them to ash as it moved, coalescing to form a giant serpent.
"Want to play with snakes, Dumbledore. Cower in awe and witness what the heir of Slytherin has wrought." He said, cackling like very stereotypical villain ever as he slashed his wand and the snake reared up before diving down at the Hogwarts headmaster. The old man just watched the creature approach before he waved his own wand. The ground rose under his control, stone turning to sand as it rose before it dove at the fiery snake.
The sand glassed in real time— at least some of it did as it touched the fire— but Dumbledore's magic did not just call upon a few buckets of sand. It was like half the alley between them had been turned to sand with a wave of the man's wand. Of course, that could not be true. It was more like that he'd done the transfigurations with no wand movements, from the second that Voldemort had called upon his fiendfyre. It was still an impressive feat nonetheless as the headmaster, with a wave of his wand and looking like he was out for nothing more than a casual stroll buried the fiendfyre with the sheer weight and amount of sand under his control.
The fire burned blue, and the strain on Voldemort's face was visible as he brought his unbelievable power to bear. Nonetheless, it did nothing to stop the inevitable. The fire fought brilliantly but even as it moaned, groaned and bellowed, the sand was relentless. Every spark that tried to escape was hunted down by a tendril of sand that separated from the main mass. it was like a dance except that Voldemort was trying to lead the waltz and Dumbledore was stomping on his feet at every turn.
The sand smothered the fire but Voldemort was not done. He fired a killing curse at Dumbledore when the man should not have been playing attention, but the old man willed the sand to his defence and it blocked the killing curse, stopping it in its tracks by smothering it just the way it had smothered the flames.
The Dark Lord, irritated and allowing it to visibly show on his face began a spell chain that even I struggled to recognise. Curse after curse flowed from his wand, each one sizzling as it tore through the air. Three cures passed before I recognised an Egyptian necrosis curse from the Black library, and another four passed before the Peruvian blindness curse I'd come across a few days ago showed itself. He unleashed close to two dozen curses, and I only recognised three of them.
For Dumbledore on the other hand, it was like he was taking a stroll down memory lane. Every spell Voldemort sent was matched with a perfect counter curse. Both men were solent as the grave letting their magic speak for them as a hush built around the alley, only broken by the hisses, clatters, and clacks the spells made contact with each other. Curse against counter curse as Dumbledore matched his Dark other with all ease of a teacher schooling a student.
With a growl, Voldemort wrenched his wand, breaking the stream of curses and creating a fire whip he sent at the headmaster. The old man with a wave of his own wand, sent sand that wrapped around the whip as it came for him. Voldemort flicked the wand of Yew to return the fire whip to his side where it coiled around him for a second before turning into a cobra that sprang at the headmaster in a flicker of motion, so fast it was. Faster even, the headmaster's reflexes were as he turned the serpent to dust in the time it took to cross the distance. Both men watched each other. Voldemort must have been doing his best to hie it, but even I could see the wariness on his face. Dumbledore, in contrast, was unflappable.
Voldemort had fired some of his best at the old man and the old man had simply borne them without complaint. And then the dynamic changed once more with the headmaster springing into the attack. His sand, somehow made even more plentiful in the time since the fiendfyre was put down rose like a tsunami and swept down upon the Dark Lord.
Not, just him however, it went for all the death eaters and people behind him. At least it tried to, as they all disappeared in a whirl of space that marked a tandem portkey's activation. That was the end of the memory, I noticed as I found myself returned to the Room of Requirements.
—
"I watched the duel yesterday" I began today's training session with as I prepare myself to deflect paintballs shot at me t tremendous speeds like we'd been doing for the past few sessions.
"Indeed? Tell me what you learned" Flitwick asked, turning to his teapot and waving his wand. The pot set about making tea within itself while the half goblin moved towards his seat behind the desk.
"That the both of them are worlds more powerful than I am" I said. He nodded.
"And?"
"That's it" I said.
"Watch it again then" He said.
"No, no. I learned that Dumbledore's magical control ended up being superior to Voldemort's power."
"While control is as important a trait as power, that was not the lesson to learn" He said.
"Are you going to tell me?" I asked.
"No. Either you figure out the correct lesson or you never learn it. It will be worlds more effective when you learn it yourself." He said, and so instead of a conversation we ended up facing each other for even more deflection training.
XXXXXX- JEEVAN, THE ASSISTANT
"Come with me" He told the boy, careful not to be too harsh with his tone. The matter was urgent and the situation was die, but Nepal was relying on him now and he could not allow his emotions cause him to lose their one chance.
"Master Jeevan? What do you need me for?" The boy asked, coming out of the tent. The evacuation had gone well. The plan that the Grand Abbott had put in place was working just as he intended it to. He had bought them the required time to evacuate the ministry tower and all the critical artifacts, but beyond that, there as nought they could do. Rudra had kept everything else close to his chest, and so that was what led them here.
In a camp, braving the mountain snow storms, and unsure of where to go next. Just instructions to make sure no harm can to the boy and that when he felt it was safe enough, to assemble a specific tent, prepare a specific type of tea, and then lead the boy within. That was what he had done now.
"Nothing, boy. Just follow me" He said.
"If you don't need me for anything then why should I follow you?" The boy asked, brow raised.
"Because I said so. Now get in here" He said, feeling his patience snap and physically dragging the boy to the necessary tent.
Inside the tent, was empty space, lined with mats and only a single teapot arranged on a small table.
"Come, meditate with me boy" He said, and even if the boy had doubts and fears, he still moved to obey. They both assumed the lotus position and then Jeevan lit the fire underneath the pot just like he had been told to.
With a snap, the teapot began to whistle even if he was sure it had no mechanism to do so, and then came the fog.
A/N: So here's the chapter. This one was a struggle to work through for many reasons. Being physically ill for the most of this week was the worst one, but not the most impactful, tbh. Next two chapters up on patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)( same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.