“I don’t know why you even invited me here,” said Violet.
“Didn’t want you to miss out,” said Cormac. “That’s all.”
“Hush,” said Sparrow. “I have to make a speech.”
This
evening, the colonnades of the Dueling Club Courtyard had filled nearly
to the point of being a fire-safety hazard. Yet no student had dared
venture out beyond the columns, until Sparrow had promised to protect
the audience. That was enough for people to start filling the space
close to the bridge, so that Sparrow could actually get through the
crowd and out to the stage.
She didn’t know whether Jocasta or
Jill had blabbed, but word had certainly spread fast in the space of two
hours. Good heavens, it felt as though half the school was in
attendance. Along with half the teachers. Including Rubeus Hagrid. And
Hermetray Budge. And Headmistress Minerva McGonagall. And Madame
Pomfrey.
Sparrow considered the possibility that, when she had
informed her Headmistress of the event, a portrait had been hiding in
its frame instead of following orders to vacate, and the word had spread
from there.
Miranda stood in the far distance at the bridge, next
to Hagrid. Had she blabbed? No, of all the people in the school Miranda
was the least likely to gossip. She couldn’t exactly do it from inside a
greenhouse.
Sparrow caught a glimpse of a high green pointy hat
peeking over a rampart far above. Alright, so the information had spread
far enough to reach Blaise. Which meant everyone in the castle was
going to hear about how this all played out. Including what Sparrow
said.
For a moment, she was frozen in terror. But then she
realized – this was also her opportunity to perform. And to save someone
else from harm.
She stepped out onto the dueling stage, pointed her wand at her throat and whispered, “Sonoroninus.” Then she turned to her audience.
“Friends!”
she said, in a voice that none could miss. “Fellow students, teachers
and all. You have come to see the thrill of battle, and some of you have
come to be certain that none come to harm. For you have heard that
tonight will be a match to remember, between two of the school’s
foremost duelists. You have heard of a battle for glory, between Jillian
Patil and Jocasta Carrow.”
The audience cheered and whistled.
“And
yet – I will tell you the truth of this battle, as I understand it. As I
have your attention now, I will invite you to consider love. For I have
been told that you all hold it in high regard.”
The audience fell silent.
“To
begin with, I offer an apology to Percival Bulstrode, for my childish
slander against him. I will not seek to explain my reasons for sullying
his reputation, because I do not believe they would excuse me, nor do I
seek an excuse. All I wish to tell you is that, if any of you still
believe he was unfaithful to his true love, you are mistaken, and I am
the source of that mistake.”
Now the crowd started to murmur. And the murmurs did not sound happy.
“I
have hoped that he has not been injured by anyone wielding righteous
fury. How much of a fool I have been, for failing to consider that
possibility, for failing to ask after his fate, knowing even in the
moment that I had done him evil! Could I then say truthfully that I love
him?”
Now the audience began to murmur excitedly.
“Could I say I love anyone? Could I say I love you all? It would be an assertion I had failed to support.”
Now the murmurs sounded confused.
“You
all know me as the mad girl, the dent-head, Miss Jones of the Sky-High
Pie. I can tell you that the things I have proposed, I have done out of
love for all people. For all of you, some of whom I know, many of whom I
do not know. I have feared for your futures, stifled by secrecy,
stuffed within hidden alleys, cut off from your families in remote
castles – if we grow up to be loving people out of such places it is
because we love each other, and not because our lives are easy. How
tempting for me to think a life lived openly would thus be joyous!
“And
yet, if I assume such, if I inform none, if I try to change the world
without so much as a by-your-leave, then all could perish. I could not
say with any truth that I loved the people of the world, and then turn
around and break all the walls down before knowing what the consensus
might be.
“Nor, on the scale of this school, could I say I loved
you all and remain as haughty as I have been. I confess that I looked
down upon you all for your conduct, and so interposed myself in all
conflicts, so that a protective habit became condescending. If you love
each other then my shield need not be raised so often. I do not think
you ever needed my shield as much as I gave it to you.
“Nor, on a
personal level, could I say I loved you all while doing awful things to
individual people, as I did to young Master Bulstrode, as I did to my
dear Jocasta Carrow, as I did to my dear Cormac McKinnon, as I did to my
dear Jillian Patil. If I can find a way to atone for my sins against my
friends perhaps I can say in all truth that I love them.
“And
that is one sort of love, the kind that is for all, like the flames of
hearth fire in a happy home. Yet there is another, one I have felt
myself, one you are all, perhaps, more experienced in considering. I
speak to you of love tonight because I believe many of you are here to
see such a thing play out here on the dueling stage.
“Call this
Romance, call this Passion, call this what you will. To me it is the
heat of a hearth fire when it catches new logs, and springs up bright,
merry, roaring in joy. Quite a sight to behold, and dangerous to stand
too close. Yes, I have been there. I am still there. But tonight is not
my battle, nor do those who own this battle compete for my hand – oh no!
That would make this more easy. No, they compete for each other,
against each other.”
Again the murmurs were confused.
“For
lately love has begun to spring up between them. Or can I say, it has
smoldered for some time? Only now does it begin to burn bright. And yet –
they each come to the relationship with questions un-answered, issues
not yet reconciled. And each of them is just a little too nervous about
each other to reconcile those issues…save when they stand here, the
dueling stage, the heart of their power.”
Students who had been
pestering each other, yawning in boredom, fiddling with their nails,
laughing at jokes, now stood in rapt attention.
“They decided to
have out their issues here, on the field of battle. But this is no mere
grudge match! Oh no! For each of them has wagered upon this duel some
things that are dear to them.”
From the crowd arose a low rumble of laughter. Some people were pointing to Sparrow.
“No, they did not wager me. That would be quite romantic, would it not?"
The crowd was full of laughter.
"But they need not compete for my hand. They already have my hands."
Now the crowd was full of laughter and wolf whistles.
"As
I say, they did not wager me. No, they have wagered their future
courses of action. Whoever is the victor shall gain one price from the
other. Jillian! Will you please come to the stage.”
Jill stepped out, striding tall and proud. Many in the crowd clapped and whistled for her.
“Jillian
the Roaring Dragon! Fearsome is her flame and many of you have quavered
before it. If she is victorious, she asks that Jocasta no longer play
pranks upon the people of the school.”
From the crowd arose a gasp.
“Jocasta! Will you please come to the stage.”
Jocasta pranced her way out to Sparrow, grinning like a madman, as many in the crowd cheered for her.
“Jocasta
of the Swift Wings! The clever duck, the darting fox, the floating
butterfly, the stinging bee! Many of you have felt her sting! If she is
victorious, she asks that Jill no longer attend the Dueling Club.”
Now the entire crowd gasped.
“For
each has injured others with such careless actions! By fire hurled with
abandon, by frame-ups through impersonation! And yet, if either would
cease such conduct, they would feel they had lost parts of themselves,
and they would return to such behavior once more. So they have wagered
these parts of themselves, in order that a loss on the field of battle
will better bind them to the promise, for the honor of the battlefield
is central to their souls. Now, will the members of the dueling club
please make themselves known!”
Thirty students stepped out from
between the columns. They were greeted with much applause, though none
of it came from the teachers.
“The senior members of the club will
serve as referees, and resolve any disputes that may arise. I do not
expect such reconciliation to be necessary, but please do not obstruct
their views of the battle, lest the validity of this fight be disputed.
We begin in a moment.”
The members of the dueling club stepped
backward, standing between the columns instead of hanging back within
the colonnade. Sparrow pointed her wand at her throat and whispered, “Quietus.”
Then
she turned to Jocasta, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Please,” she
said. “Give this fight your all. If you have any thought of throwing the
match, let it pass away.”
Jocasta snorted. “Kinda sounds like you’re impugning my honor.”
Sparrow turned to Jill.
“You
have nothing to fear from me either,” said Jill. “And I am glad that
you want this fight to be completely real. I was a little worried you
had turned a private conflict into a Professional Wrestling match with
all your theatrics.”
“I fear the audience has done so already,”
said Sparrow. “They expected a grand narrative, I gave them one. Was any
part of it false?”
“No part,” said Jocasta. “Just a little overdone.”
“You will both give your all, then?”
“I will do my best,” said Jill. “Pray you never see my all.”
“I’m just praying she keeps that shield up,” said Jocasta.
Sparrow left the stage, and took her place between the columns. She raised her wand and shouted, “PROTEGO!”
What
sprang up within the courtyard was not quite like any shield Sparrow
had ever done. It was not a plane, nor a dome, but a cylinder, whose top
was either lost in the clouds or not there at all. It was far more
translucent than usual, thereby affording a better view to all
spectators. It was an oval cylinder, wide enough to touch both rows of
columns, long enough to reach from the audience at the bridge to the
stone wall behind the stage.
It was also the first shield in two years that gave Sparrow any sense of requiring effort to sustain.
Uh oh.
Jill
and Jocasta were holding their wands pointed to the ground and bowing
to each other. Well, no calling things off now. The fun was about to
begin and so was hers.
The fun began with an explosion.
That
was the easiest way to describe it – that in the space of a short
breath the column was filled from end to end with a swirl of fire, as
high as three windows above the courtyard. The shock of the impact sent a
shiver down Sparrow’s arm and into her spine, nearly causing her to
lose control of the shield. It was by slim chance that she managed to
keep her grip on her wand.
In that same moment, the audience
shrank back, wondering if they themselves had got in over their heads.
But they could see the fire splash against the shield, and terrified
cries gave way to excited ones, as the fireball itself died down.
And when it did, Sparrow had a moment of dread, for there stood Jill, and Jocasta was nowhere to be found.
Until
she appeared out of thin air behind Jill and fired off a stunning
spell. Ah, that was Jocasta. Never where you expected. The audience
cheered her reappearance, and people started talking about how she
appeared to have mastered apparition.
Jill dodged the stunning
spell by a hair’s breadth and then fired off her own. A wild miss, or so
it seemed, until it ricocheted against the shield and straight at
Jocasta’s back. But she had already vanished, and appeared behind Jill
to try the same trick again.
Again Jill dodged the stunner. And
again. And again. Each time by a fraction of a second. Sparrow began to
think she would lose soon. The girl looked like she was breathing
heavily already. She must have used up too much energy in her opening
gambit. And yet Jocasta was also breathing heavily. She was not
apparating around the field – that was impossible. She was transfiguring
herself, again and again. Too much. It had to be more work than it
looked like, especially to change so much mass in an instant. So both of
the girls had tried new gambits that they couldn’t handle for too long,
and were forced to keep trying them because they were evenly matched.
And
in the meantime, Sparrow was steadily losing strength from the way she
had overestimated her own abilities. She hoped one of the combatants
would fall soon.
Yet neither would surrender so easily. A new
gambit began, with Jill firing off stunners at random directions every
second, filling the whole courtyard with ricochets of red light. Perhaps
she hoped to stun Jocasta a moment before she herself was stunned, and
leave the final decision to the referees after all.
And yet –
still she had enough strength left to toss herself down on the ground
and dodge the cage of red beams. And Jocasta had enough left in her to
continue transfiguring. Sparrow had to hope that nobody else in the
audience would put two and two together, and realize Jocasta was an
Animagus. She also had to endure a slight increase in the effort that
the shield took to maintain, as it suffered the impacts of dozens of
spells at once.
At the end of that attack, there stood Jocasta
once more, breathing heavily, enough to make it obvious from a distance.
And she was breathing more heavily than Jill, whose time on the ground
had allowed her to rest a moment, to regain a slight bit of wind.
Perhaps
that was Jill’s real gambit, then. A game of attrition. Jocasta had
always won against Jill by winning the game of attrition, because she
was deft enough with her dodging and her shields to put as little effort
as she needed to in the act of weaving through a hail of fire. And Jill
always preferred the use of straightforward overwhelming force, instead
of deceit, so she was never able to wear down her opponent fast enough
before Jocasta saw an opening.
But this time, she had thrown
Jocasta off-balance with an overwhelming force from all directions at
once, forcing the girl to rely on a more costly strategy from the
outset, keeping her on her toes so she would keep clinging to that
method, thereby wearing the girl down in minutes instead of hours.
But that depended on keeping her on her toes, which meant a constant barrage. If she paused, it gave Jocasta a second to think.
And
Jill let that second pass. So Jocasta was able to take the initiative.
She fired a stunner at Jill, who rolled out of the way just in time.
Then another, and another. Now Jill was being led into the more costly
strategy, unable to rise and suffering the blows of the stone itself as
she kept out of the way. Now Jocasta was breathing more easily where
Jill was losing ground.
That was, until Jill did not dodge.
Jocasta
was forced to dodge this time, for Jill had managed to cast a shield –
no larger than a hand, yet placed in just the right spot, at just the
right angle. Clearly Jocasta wasn’t expecting it. Nobody was. Jillian
Patil, the Roaring Dragon of the Mountain, did not cast defensive
spells. And yet there it was.
So, Jocasta was forced to dodge by transfiguring again. Which was precisely the moment Jill had been waiting for.
“VENTUS!”
It
was not as if a breath stirred outside the shield. But everyone on the
outside could see the swirling dust and straw of the courtyard, and they
could hear the roar of the wind. They could see it nearly pick up Jill
from her supine position. Whatever must have been happening to the poor
fly within? Perhaps it was getting dizzy. Whatever the case it was much
too dangerous for a fly, so Jocasta appeared out of the air in the next
moment.
Which is to say, she appeared in the air. She was hardly weighty enough to avoid being lifted by it. And oh my yes, she did look dizzy.
But
Jill was not looking at Jocasta, for she remained facedown, wand up,
perhaps believing that would be enough for now. So Jocasta had enough
time to recover from the dizziness that she could simply float around in
the tornado, firing spells from every direction without having to waste
energy on movement.
Of course by that point Jill had realized
what was going on and was deflecting everything. My, she had improved
her defensive technique quite a bit from the beginning point of having
none. And in such a short time.
Sparrow was desperate for one of
them to end the fight now. She was beginning to shiver all over with the
effort of maintaining her shield. She nearly dropped her wand before
Cormac came up by her side and helped her keep her arm steady. And then
Violet stood next to her on the other side and put a hand on her
shoulder. At that she began to get her second wind.
And at the
same time, the whirlwind continued. Why? What was the point, if it was
giving Jocasta the advantage? Why would Jill bother to maintain – oh.
Jill
had finally learned to anticipate where Jocasta would be. She had
dodged one last spell, grabbed the girl by the hand, dragged her close
and kissed her hard on the mouth.
Humph. Without even asking.
Well, Jocasta clearly didn’t seem to mind. Nor did Sparrow, who let the
shield fall at last. Nor did the crowd seem to mind, judging by the
whistles.
“FOUL!” yelled one of the referees.
Oh come on now.
The
crowd was now grumbling. Some of them were insulting the referee.
Neither Jocasta nor Jill looked happy to be hearing this either.
“Illegal use of non-spell effects for dueling purposes,” said the referee, a 7th-year Slytherin by the name of Felonius Fimblewinter.
“Seriously?” said Jill.
“Its
in the rules,” said Jocasta. “Section 9a, as I recall?” She let go of
Jill and strode over to the referee. “But my dear Mister Fimblewinter,
that kiss did not break the rule as it is written, surely? A kiss is
hardly combative. I would say this match has ended in a draw.”
Felonius went to consult with the other referees. They discussed the matter for a few seconds.
One of them giggled.
“My dear Miss Carrow,” said Felonius. “Tell me truly now. Was it a French kiss?”
“Why, um. Yes.”
“Then
the decision of the referees is that your tongues were battling for
dominance, and that it therefore counts as combative. So the fight must
begin again.”
A peal of laughter went up from the audience. Jocasta turned beet red. Jill’s face was flushed.
Beside
Sparrow, Cormac was looking like he was trying to hold in his own
laughter, and suffering for it. Sparrow nudged him. That set him off.
Meanwhile, Violet had a much more solid poker face. But she also had a
bare hint of a smile.
Sparrow wasn’t sure whether to feel like
laughing or crying, because it meant she had to raise the damn shield
again. She slumped onto Violet’s shoulder and said, “Cormac, can you
please go deliver a message to those two?”
So the crowd was forced
to endure yet another timeout while Cormac spoke to the combatants.
Everyone was getting impatient now. Why wasn’t the shield up? And why
was Jill walking towards the bridge? And why was Jocasta walking towards
the wall? Were they breaking up or something? Already? No way. And wait
a second, why were Jill's eyes glowing red? And why were Jocasta's eyes
glowing green? Were they both going to explode? Where the hell was the
shield? Alright so the two girls were facing each other at a real long
distance, maybe they were going to snipe each other with stunners –
In
the next instant two streaks of light, one red and one green, had
crossed paths in the precise midpoint of the courtyard. Jocasta now
stood where Jill had started, facing the bridge. Jill now stood where
Jocasta had started, facing the wall.
For a moment, no one spoke. Jill was doubled over as if in pain.
But then she rose.
And held two wands aloft.
If
anyone in the castle was not attending the duel that evening, they may
have been close enough to watch the initial proceedings. Or they may
have been father away, and wondered where those flashes of light and
gouts of fire were coming from. But it would have taken quite a bit of
distance from the dueling Courtyard for one to avoid hearing the crowd,
as it roared for Jill’s victory. And even those too far to hear a faint
hint of the noise might have noticed a slight tremor in the floor.
As
for what was occurring in the courtyard, Jocasta had staggered through
the crowd and then fallen to her knees before Miranda, just for the sake
of dramatic effect. Jill was still standing, barely, because she wanted
to keep up appearances, but she did not have to put in much effort
because there was a crowd of people supporting her. Cormac was in the
crowd, hollering with everyone else. Violet had remained by Sparrow’s
side, in case the girl started to vomit blood.
And Sparrow decided that it was a perfect time to fall asleep.