Pre-Chapter A/N: Welcome to October, guys! Let's smash whatever goals we've set ourselves this year. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
This time, instead of just food, the box had been stocked with potions as well. I noticed one that was the familiar amber of a pain relief potion, and I chugged it down in seconds while I turned to the bowl in the center of the room. Next to it was a card with the writing, 'For your neck,' on it. The pain potion, while fast-acting, had done nothing to affect the itching sensation I still had, so I dipped my hand in the bowl with little waiting and began to lather it over my neck. It was cold, I hissed, but then I was dipping my hand in for more as it brought instant relief to my pain.
So neither of us had been wounded in the first round, and so they offered just food. Now they offered something for my neck. Okonkwo was uninjured, but chances were they would have offered something for her exhaustion. Maybe a pepper-up potion? It would make sense. And it would also mean that I couldn't expect to go into the third round with the advantage of her being on her last legs. I turned to look at the rest of the potions and noticed one with the telltale deep red of the pepper-up.
I considered taking it immediately but changed my mind. It worked from the point it was taken, so while it would banish my exhaustion now and essentially return me to full, it would come at the cost of that additional energy essentially running out at twice the speed. It was best if I took it when I was near empty when it came to reserves. But by the time that happened, the duel should already be over. Because I had seen enough. Okonkwo was a powerful witch and a worthy opponent, yes. But she was not my equal. And it was time for her to learn that lesson.
XXXX- IFEOMA OKONKWO
She walked up to the platform with a bounce in her step. She had been so close last round. She just had to push a bit more this time. Push more and avoid pushing too much still. She'd hit her limit, and without that energizing potion, she'd be on fumes right now. But what did that matter? The point was that she was ready now. She had her opponent's measure, and she was better.
She just had to show the card up her sleeve.
He came out of his box with the same languid stroll. The one that said he had something better he could be doing and that he was bored with all this. She hadn't known what to expect from the Boy Who Could Not Be Killed, but the fact that he would be so arrogant had not been on her list. Wealthy, spoiled, pampered—of course he was arrogant beyond belief.
"Bow," the referee called out to them, and he straightened up, suddenly shifting and becoming alert on a dime.
"Now, begin."
She hurled herself backward, barely able to avoid a spell that was the size of her head. What? And then there were another two. She struggled to roll out of the way. Still, he tracked her movements with unnerving accuracy. She bent her head to avoid another thick spell.
And then she tried to backhand one, gathering magic around her hand. She slapped it, and instead of it moving immediately, the intent bore down on her, the sheer power of it. She had to heave, putting all her power behind it to slap it away. What? What kind of monster was he?
The next spell hit her too quickly for her to do anything about it. Straight to the midsection. It hit harder than any of Dami's punches during combat class. She doubled over.
"Sorry about that one. I could have sworn I held back on it more than that," he said, and she saw red. Held back? Was he trying to mock her? She pulled on her gift. She was the blessed of Ala herself, the great mother. She would not lose to this spawn of Ekwensu. Unkillable or not, he would fall before her.
She fed the ground that special energy she had been blessed with and watched as the plants shot out of the ground. Each one had multiple colors on it—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, everything. It was a whole rainbow. She waited to see what these ones would do, but her opponent did not.
"Oh, this trick again. Come, I'll show you a spell I know you haven't seen before." He slashed along his own arm with a wave of his wand. He drew the blood from it as it followed his wand, drops flying through the air as they followed his wand movements.
"Ignis Maledictus Sanguine," he said, and then the blood burned. It turned a bright green that followed his wand as he directed it at her plants. She smirked. Those were Ala's creations more than they were hers. And as the Colonizers—his people—had learned on more than one occasion, they did not burn. At least, they did not burn before today. Because his fire touched them and nature herself wept as they began to burn.
"Oh, you didn't expect that? Cursed blood fire is what they call that spell. It's Black Magic with a capital B. Within the rules though, because I won't let it get anywhere near you," he said.
"Now will you yield, or will you make this last longer than it should?" he asked, a lazy smile on his face, holding his wand like her threat was over. No. She couldn't disappoint her people here. She had to win this. It was not a question of if she could. She must.
"Arghhhh!" she screamed her rage, summoning her magic as she slapped her fingers together, triggering her trump card. The last thing she saw was the disappointment on her opponent's face, and then his glowing red wand.
XXXXX- HARRY J POTTER
Well, I hadn't expected her last gasp to be quite so drastic. She was clearly working with more mojo than it seemed. Its arms shot from the ground first, even as the ground vibrated. I turned to the referee, pointing at her obviously unconscious form. He looked at her and then pointed at the obviously forming golem. I tilted my head, gesturing at her. She was clearly gone. There was no reason for me not to be declared the winner right then and there.
But then he spoke into his wrist, and I had a bad feeling. Because if the Philosopher's Stone formed from strong emotions, and the stronger the emotions, the better, what would be more exciting than a duel that seemed over suddenly continuing? Just as expected, the referee received his order and then pointed for me to continue the fight with the golem. It was a massive thing made of earth. Easily a couple dozen feet tall. Each of its arms thicker than my whole body, and its core as thick as I was tall.
And then its head began to form. It was the visage of a woman, somehow. Just the carved face. There were no other indications of femininity; its body was amorphous and only humanoid in that it had two hands, a head, and two legs. Everything else was just red stone.
The woman's face turned in my direction, the flat lips turning and reshaping into a scowl with the sound of creaking stone. It lumbered one step forward and then punched in my direction.
A punch that had its entire hand shoot off straight at me. I rolled to the side, returning to my feet with a pep in my step as I ran to the side. The hand shot back to the rest of the arm, reattaching itself with a plop while it stepped in my direction again. I aimed a blasting curse at one of its knees, and it tore a chunk of stone off it, but not enough. The detached stones froze in the middle of their flight to the ground before reattaching themselves to the knee.
Self-repair in addition to self-piloting. Very serious mojo this girl had been working with. Another step, and then the golem bent at the waist, slamming a hand right where I had been standing. I danced backward even as I almost lost my footing from the way the ground shook once its palm landed. I ran forward, climbing onto the palm as the golem began to lift its arm again. I used a sticking charm on my shoes to avoid losing my balance, and then when it had brought me high enough, I sent an acid curse at its left eye. There was no chance it felt pain, made of stone as it was, but it reacted like it did, moving its other hand to swat me down.
I formed a rune faster than I ever had and then sent a blasting curse through it.
It shattered the hand just as it was about to hit me. Small bits of stone peppered my form, but a hand in front of my face meant my robes took the brunt of the impact. I moved again, still running down the hand—towards the head this time. It tried to swing the hand from side to side to dislodge me. I followed the motion, jumping off the hand and floating in front of the head for a second. There was no time to use a rune-enhanced blaster, which I was fairly certain would end the fight, so I improvised, instead sending a conjured blast of the most corrosive acid whose formulation I knew straight into her eyes.
The golem stepped backward, hands reaching for her face. Well, more like hand in this case, as the other one was more like a stump than anything else. I slowed down my momentum before I could hit the ground, gliding through the air before I nailed the golem's left foot with a sticking charm. I hit the ground, knees bent, and prepared for more, only to find the golem had gone near-deathly still. I looked at it to find its face; the woman's face that could have vaguely passed for beautiful was now wildly different. The acid had melted half its face off.
It moved then. The golem tore the platform up with it as it moved its feet and slammed itself forward, hand rising and falling with a desire to flatten me against the ground. I sighed. I'd seen that one before. And every trick lost its luster after the first time. She passed through my illusory copy as my real self sped to the right.
The rune I'd been drawing from the moment I had landed on the ground had completed itself now. The symbolism was perfect. An amplification rune that would amplify the effects of any intent-based magic cast through it. And I had the perfect one.
"Confringo!" I audibly screamed the spell to give it that extra bit of oomph. I didn't aim for the head. The target was too small and distant for that. That was what midsections were for. Massive and near-impossible to miss.
My regular-sized Confringo expanded as it passed through the rune until it was about the size of a cannonball. It rocketed through the central mass of the golem before exploding. This time, I didn't even have the strength to raise my hand to block the pieces of stone from hitting me. Note to self: don't use that one except as a killing shot. I could barely put up any struggle as my body blew backward until I landed right at the end of the platform.
"Winner: Potter," the referee's voice finally rang out. Fucking Julian Russo and his silly games. I'd enjoy fucking him over. Just after I got some… rest.
A few seconds of drifting in and out of consciousness was all I needed to remember where I was and what I should have been doing instead. I opened my eyes to find myself on a floating stretcher. The one that carried duelists off when they were too injured to do it on their own. Oh hell no. I twisted my body, rolled off the stretcher, and just about managed to land on my feet. I hadn't been taken far. Still in the hallway leading to the medbay.
"Mr. Potter," one of the mediwitches said. I just shook my head at her and began to make my way to my box. The tournament was over, and so that meant Julian would be making his move to betray the Flamels right about now. I was being used as a mercenary, I knew. An attack dog. The Flamels did not want to lower themselves to what I would probably have to do today, and so they sent me instead.
It grated at my pride to some extent—to be used as a tool as such. But the pay was enough to soothe that. Three vials of the elixir of life. Flamel said each one would give an extra century of life if taken at the right time. They probably saw it as just giving me a few extra centuries to live, which didn't matter to them in the long run because they would have an eternity. If only they knew my plan was far from so humble. The Philosopher's Stone might be the only way to make the true elixir of life, but I had a strong feeling that I could reverse-engineer something comparable if given enough time and samples to work with. I just had to be judicious with my use.
I reached the box, near-struggling to stand. The first thing I did was head towards the pepper-up potions. I looked at the two of them, nodded, and then chugged them down one after the other. I felt warmth spread through my body, lighting up my senses and making me tingle all over.
It felt like I could run a marathon. But the high was fake, I knew. Energy gotten from a pepper-up potion ran out about twice as fast as its regular counterpart. A rate that worsened exponentially when one consumed more than one. At two potions, the rate was about four times as fast. More than that, and it just wasn't worth it to take. I reached into my pocket, feeling for the hidden compartment, and then I whispered in Parseltongue—'Take me to the river.' I tried not to think too much about the significance of Nicholas being able to get my dueling robes, enchant a hidden pocket into them that the anti-cheating measures in the tournament hadn't even come close to finding, and then somehow have the password in Parseltongue.
The pocket deepened, and I reached out, taking out an ornate gold compass. I looked at the gold suspiciously, knowing it could be alchemically created, while I devoted the rest of my attention to the compass.
On its dial was an inscription—"I will lead you where you wish to go. Simply speak the location."
"Take me to Julian Russo," I said, and the compass whirled about before stopping, pointing South. Okay, I could work with this.
I turned and began to march deeper into the stadium. The compass led perfectly, seeming to understand what would confuse me and what would not. It pointed straight when it needed me to go straight, and whenever I reached a turn, it pointed in the direction I needed to go. That was how it led me to places I had never been, parts of the stadium where there was so little traffic that I didn't have to worry about hiding it. I'd already warned Sirius not to expect to see me for a bit after the match, so I was sure that concern was taken care of and no one would be looking for me.
I kept walking until the compass stopped pointing straight, and instead pointed straight to the left. I turned left, finding a wall. Of course, there would be a hidden passage.
I unsheathed my wand with a flourish, stabbing it at the wall. "Reveal your secrets," I hissed, shaping my intention perfectly. It turned out that the spell Snape had used in the Third Book was actually one of the most powerful detection spells known to Wizardkind. It made the Marauder's Map, and the four who had made it, all the more impressive. This secret passage was not quite so sophisticated, I thought, as information began to flood my mind.
Interesting. I tapped the bricks in a pattern that seemed random, and still, they parted to reveal a set of hidden stairs. That was only the first part of it though. There was a ward behind it, I could tell. A simple enough one designed to block unauthorized entry.
I pointed my wand at it, and instead of wasting my time trying my amateur ward-breaking skills against it, I summoned a thin line of Fiendfyre. It devoured the magic that made up the ward in a matter of seconds, swelling as it did so before I snuffed it out with a breath. I walked past the destroyed ward and down the stairs. The compass then led me through a labyrinth of twists and turns until I found myself before a door.
Around its surface were runes etched deeply into the copper that made it up. Another ward. This one much more powerful. But all the power in the world wouldn't matter before this particular spell.
"Fiendfyre," I snarled, summoning my destructive intent. The fire ate into the copper, fighting the magic. I felt it fight my control as it grew stronger and stronger, but all three parts of me were stubborn to the extreme. The fire fought the copper ward, and it fought me. It won only one of those fights.
The copper pooled on the floor at my feet as the Fiendfyre melted an opening large enough for me to pass through.
"Mr. Potter. Well, I admit that I should have seen this one coming," Julian said, not looking even slightly surprised to see me as he stood before a very familiar red stone.
A/N: And so we come to the end of the U17 tournament. The arc itself should end by next chapter as we transition to the next phase. Next four 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.