The leader's face twisted in irritation as Nova continued walking toward them, completely unfazed by the tension in the air. The older boy's grip on his wand tightened until his knuckles whitened. Being ignored infuriated him in a way nothing else did.
"You bastard!" he shouted, and without hesitation he fired a curse that crackled through the air with a sickening density.
"OSSIFRACTUS!"
It was not schoolyard magic. It was a curse meant to maim and break bones.
The other eight boys reacted instantly, emboldened by their leader's aggression. They raised their wands and unleashed their own spells, each one steeped in the unmistakable stench of dark magic. Violet streaks, muddy green bolts, and crimson arcs shot across the corridor, the combined force strong enough to make the stone walls vibrate.
Fleur's breath caught sharply. She recognized the nature of these spells instantly, and the realization drained the color from her face. These were curses designed to break, to bind, to destroy. Nothing about this attack was harmless or controlled.
"No! Move!" Fleur cried out desperately, her voice raw with fear. "Dodge it!"
But Nova did not dodge.
Instead, he turned his head just enough to give her a charming smile and even had the audacity to wink at her. It made Fleur's heart stutter in confusion and disbelief. There was something intoxicatingly effortless about the gesture, something that matched the overwhelming power she sensed from him.
Nova looked at Fleur with real admiration, truly a girl blessed with both brain and breasts. Being able to hold out this long against nine attackers was genuinely impressive, especially when they were casting dark magic without hesitation.
Afterall giving Fluer and her sexy body one last glance, he finally faced the oncoming barrage.
The leader's Bone-Shattering Spell reached him first. Nova did not raise a wand, did not conjure a shield, and did not utter a single incantation. He simply lifted his hand and brushed the back of it through the incoming curse as if swatting away a harmless insect.
The spell disintegrated on contact.
It vanished in a flash of light so abrupt and final that the leader froze, his mouth hanging open. His eyes widened in a way that bordered on terror, unable to process what he had just seen. He had cast that spell with full confidence that it would crush bone and burst muscle, yet this stranger had dismissed it with the back of his hand.
Fleur's reaction was no less stunned. Her lips parted soundlessly, her wand slackening in her grip as she stared at Nova. She had heard stories of powerful wizards, but this was beyond anything she had imagined. Even her Veela instincts struggled to comprehend the magnitude of power radiating from him with such casual ease.
The remaining eight curses reached Nova next.
He lifted his hand again, but this time he did something different. Small circular portals—perfectly smooth, swirling with clean spatial magic—manifested in front of each spell. The curses slipped into the portals like arrows through a window.
A fraction of a second later, nine new portals opened behind each caster, barely a few centimetres from the backs of their heads.
The spells re-emerged.
The boys screamed and dove forward, hitting the ground in frantic attempts to avoid their own curses. The spells collided with the walls where their skulls had been seconds earlier, leaving scorch marks and cracks. Panic rippled through the group, the fear in their eyes shifting from arrogance to pure horror.
Nova watched them with quiet indifference. "If you are going to play with dark magic," he said calmly, "at least learn not to stand in front of your own spells."
Then he raised his hand again.
A wave of invisible force surged forward, slamming all nine boys against the nearest wall in one synchronized impact. Their wands flew from their grasp, clattering across the stone floor. The wall groaned from the force, dust drifting down from the ceiling as the boys slid downward with dazed, breathless groans.
Before they could even think of recovering, Nova made another gesture. The entire group lifted from the floor as though pulled upward by giant unseen hands. They hung suspended helplessly, limbs flailing, eyes wide with panic.
With a final refined motion of his fingers, their black robes twisted and shifted, the fabric reshaping itself into thick, reinforced ropes that wrapped around their bodies. Their arms were pinned to their sides, their legs bound tightly. The ropes snapped into place with a firm magical click, ensuring none of them could move more than an inch.
When Nova lowered them, they were left hanging in mid-air like trussed-up insects awaiting judgment.
Silence filled the corridor.
Fleur stood frozen several feet away, her wand still raised but her ability to speak long gone. The battle had shifted so quickly, so decisively, that her mind struggled to catch up. She stared at Nova as if he had stepped out of a myth rather than walked down a hallway. The power he displayed was not simply overwhelming.
She exhaled shakily, the sound barely audible.
Nova brushed a bit of dust from his sleeve as if he had merely shooed away a minor inconvenience.
Fleur was left standing in utter disbelief, her heart pounding as she stared at the man who had turned a nightmare into nothing more than a display of casual dominance.
Nova dusted off his sleeve with deliberate slowness, then finally turned his attention back to Fleur and started walking towards her.
Nova stopped just before her, his gaze a slow, deliberate inventory of her form. His eyes traced the elegant line of her neck, dipped to the dramatic curve of her hourglass figure, lingered on the powerful length of her legs, and then returned to the proud swell of her breasts. He was not looking with simple appreciation, but with the intense focus of a connoisseur.
"Hello, beautiful miss," he said, his voice a low, smooth baritone that seemed to resonate in the suddenly quiet corridor. "I am Nova Ashbourne. And to what do I owe the pleasure of learning the name of the witch who fights with such fire?" He let the question hang in the air, a clear, flirtatious invitation.
Fleur noticed the unabashed path of his gaze, the way he consumed every detail of her physique with his eyes. A lesser witch might have blushed or felt a flicker of self-consciousness, but Fleur was not a lesser witch, she was a Vella. Instead of shrinking from his attention, she met it head-on.
She straightened her posture, her shoulders pulling back. The subtle shift caused her breasts to lift and press against the fabric of her robes, a movement that instantly recaptured Nova's intense attention.
A slow, confident smile graced her lips. "I am Fleur Delacour," she announced, her voice a melodic counterpoint to his, carrying the pride of her lineage. "Of the House of Delacour. Champion of Beauxbatons Academy for this Triwizard Tournament."
Fleur's gaze softened, the fierce warrior melting away to reveal the grateful woman beneath. Now that the immediate danger had passed, the tension in her shoulders eased, and her breath steadied. She looked at Nova without fear this time, only a quiet sincerity that made her expression unexpectedly gentle.
"Thank you," she said, her voice warm and carrying none of the earlier panic. "You saved my life."
A slow smile tugged at Nova's lips, one filled with amusement and charm. He stepped just a little closer, not enough to crowd her, but enough to let her feel the warmth of his presence. Fleur inhaled sharply, her heart giving one startled flutter.
"You know," Nova said, his tone soft and thoughtful at first, as though he were merely making conversation. "People usually offer something in return when someone steps in to save them from a very unpleasant fate."
Fleur blinked, flustered but listening.
Nova's smile shifted—smooth, wicked, and a bit too confident. "A gesture of appreciation, perhaps. Or a small favor."
His eyes dipped briefly, appreciatively, over her elegant figure before returning to meet her gaze with an unashamed glint.
Then, with a velvet-smooth drop in his voice, he murmured, "So tell me, mademoiselle… aren't you going to reward me?"
Fleur's breath caught in her throat as her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink. She sensed his intention instantly. She felt the weight of his stare, the way his eyes seemed to burn right through her robes to the soft flesh beneath, his gaze growing increasingly lustful.
If it had been anyone else, she might have slapped them, or spat a curse that would make them regret their audacity for the rest of their lives. But this was Nova. He hadn't just saved her; he had dismantled nine dark wizards with the effortless grace of a swatting a fly.
The overwhelming power radiating from him was a tangible force, a primal magnetism that she found impossible to resist. And being so devastatingly handsome was certainly a significant plus.
Fleur's own lips curled into a flirty, confident smile. "Indeed," she purred, her voice a silken promise. "A hero needs to be rewarded by the beauty he saved."
She took a deliberate step closer, her scent filling the small space between them. "But first," she said, her eyes flicking towards the nine bound figures hanging in the air like forgotten laundry, "let's deal with them. I don't want them to see me rewarding you."
x------x
[CHAPTER 155: (SOUL MAGIC: SOUL CONTRACT) IS AVAILABLE ON MY P@TREON]
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