Snape stood near the platform and announced," this is a duel of honour between Gemma Fawley and Damian Knight. With the approval of headmaster and acceptance of the participants, this duel is held in the great hall with students of Hogwarts themselves as witnesses and under the supervision of professors ".
He turned to Damian and then to Gemma Fawley who is not on the platform yet but stood at the opposite ends. Snape continued," Lethal spells, dark magic and any artifacts or enchanted equipment is forbidden to be used in this duel. As long as one disarms their opponent , the duel will be over. As agreed the two participants are not allowed to fatally wound each other ".
The crowd is looking forward to the duel. Damian scanned Gemma and indeed, he saw her cheating. She has artifacts, she is wearing them all. Her clothes are enchanted. There are runic patterns hidden in her clothes. And her ear rings are artifacts that will increase penetration power of spells and also increase the spell damage.
The runic patterns on her clothes are hidden in the patterns of the snakes and frills. They increase the power of spells too. And her wand has an attachment. It imbues the spells with darkness. The darkness will not cause immediate damage instead it will slowly corrode someone's mind. It won't have the impact immediately instead it will work gradually. And also these are rigged with self destruction enchantments. So even if someone discovers this trick, she can just self destruct them and destroy the evidence.
As expected he underestimated these purebloods. Is he scared? No. Is he excited to fight? Yes. Because he found a new way to increase power runic enchantments. They can also be sewn into his clothes. He found this idea very interesting. He wants to see how effective this method will be.
Damian couldn't keep the grin off his face. Gemma looked at him seriously while he rubbed his ear with his hands with smile gently flicking his ear as fi to say ,' I know you're cheating ', Gemma seemed to have caught the gesture but she just gave him a glare filled with disgust.
' so what if you know, I can destroy them all from inside out and leave no evidence ', Gemma thought. But to her surprise, Damian didn't expose her. Instead he gave her disdainful look. This irritated Gemma too much. She whipped out her wand and Damian also grabbed his wand standing with a calm look.
His Occlumency running to keep his emotions in check before the duel. He looked at Gemma while Snape started the count down," 1, 2, 3 ", the duel started.
" Bombarda ".
Damian shifted his body avoiding the explosion spell. He looked at Gemma who fired a barrage of spells at him. All lethal as they're enhanced by darkness. Damian cast a protection charm while Gemma used an unexpected spell," sectumsempra".
Damian felt a chill and jumped few steps away, an invisible blade cut through the platform. His expression hardened. This spell is a kill blow forget about fatal injury he may lost his life if he stayed there. Gemma gave him a mocking look and taunted while firing spells," what? Scared are you? You should have thought of the consequences for going again- ".
Her words abruptly stopped when a pillar of Earth smashed into her stomach sending her back. Sure the runic enchantments provided defense against magic, but against physical blows they did absolutely nothing.
" Ow, that will definitely hurt ".
" This is what happens when one talks too much ".
" *Scoff*, what a disgraceful tactic in a duel ".
" Disgraceful? This duel doesn't allow lethal spells. She fired one that can practically slice someone off. And you his one disgraceful ".
" Heh, as expected of a Slytherin. The sorting hat is right to sort him there. He is cunning for sure ".
" Pffft, hahahaha, I can't hold on any longer. See the expression on her face ".
Gemma looked at Damian with disbelief and pain. She never expected he will transfiguration of all things in a duel. She knew combat spells especially black magic, but transfiguration is something she never used in a duel even though McGonagall gave lessons on that.
In her eyes, transfiguration is a weak subject and takes too much time to cast while dark magic and lethal spells will swiftly do the job. Damian isn't finished, he further transfigured the platform itself into a spikes but he didn't transfigure the area near Gemma into spikes. Instead he turned it into mud.
He has too much magic, so why not spend it. Gemma's expression isn't good. She tired many lethal spells to cut the spikes off as they proved to be too much hindrance to her. Meanwhile Damian waited for correct chance while throwing spells at Gemma from the gaps in spikes.
Frustrated Gemma shouted," Bombarda Maxima", the professors frowned. They lost count of the number of time Gemma violated the conditions placed upon this duel. Almost all spikes are blasted away and Damian hurriedly used protego to defend against the spikesflying towards him from the blast.
Then Damian casted a weather charm, the lightning bolt spell. " Fulmen ", lightning shot from his wand and touched Gemma. He didn't use much power. The spell hit Gemma yet she gritted her teeth and stood there taking the power of the spell. She fired spells afterwards.
Diffindo.
Impedimenta
Petrificus Totalus
Bombarda
All kinds of spells are thrown at Damian who either nuetralised the spells or used a shield charm to defend. If buth doesn't work he will dodge. This duel pumped up others. Damian eyed twins who winked at him and gave him thumbs up. So the betting is done enough.
Just then Gemma used another dark spell," Tenebris Sanguinem ", Damian saw a dark mist and immediately cast," ventus ", a small tornado appeared took the mist and grew into a dark tornado that gave a cold and eerie vibe," Finite Incantatem ", the small tornado and the dark mist that enveloped in it both disappeared. The professors expressions are not looking good. Whatever that spell is, it must be very deep dark magic. Gemma frustrated cast another spell," Exanimus Lacerare ", a dark bolt shot from Gemma's wand while Damian cast the same spell again," Finite Incantatem ", they collided mid air and disappeared. But the consumption for this spell increased too. Damian felt this curse takes much more power and used more of his mana. and he is right to do that.
' let's wrap this up shall we? ', Damian thought and fired a spell," Lumos Impulsio ", a strong blinded almost everyone in the great hall before another shout is heard," Experlliamus ", Gemma tried dodging or clenching her wand tight after hearing it. But her reaction is very slow as she is now covering her eyes. She felt the spell hit her and her wand flew from her hands.
When the light disappeared, Damian is holding two wands and said," I guess this is my victory then ", the great hall fell silent. " Also Miss Fawley, it looks like you broke some rules during the duel. Like attaching something to your wand to boost your power. Unfortunately, even that didn't help you win this duel against me ".
Gemma looked at her empty hands blankly. Except her wand, all other enchantments are rigged with self destruction runes. The handle beneath the wand can't be given a self destruction rune because there isn't enough area. Now, after her defeat if her cheating is to be exposed, she will lose everything. Her family will mostly likely view her as a disgrace. She glared at Damian. She will make him pay for all the troubles he brought up her one day.
Other students who heard those words whispered among themselves. Snape and McGonagall meanwhile have stern looks. Snape snatched Gemma's wand from Damian before examining it. He took the handle attachment and his face says it all. McGonagall also examined the handle and said," Gemma Fawley and Damian Knight, to the headmaster's office now ".
Damian winked at the twins who seemed to be allowed smiles. As for why they're like that.
20 minutes before the duel :
" Place another betting pool. This time, it's whether Gemma Fawley will cheat or not. Will she be exposed or not? Will she break rules or not? Will she used lethal spells or not? Accept bets from the three houses. Slytherins are not necessary. Among the factions news may have already reached to everyone. We'll make another wave of profits through this ", Damian suggested.
" But how are you so sure she will cheat? ", George asked.
" How are you going to expose it ", Fred asked.
" As far as we know. Slytherins will definitely have backup plans for things like this ".
" At least that's what dad told us ".
" Do you a reliable source of information on that ".
" More over there are professors, they will stop the duel immediately if something happens ".
" Yes, how can she break the rules when the professors are there? ".
" Another faction gave me a heads-up on the information. As for exposing her, leave that to me. She will definitely break the rules with the confidence she got from her cheats and the professors will do nothing even if she cheated. Why? Because this is a duel of honour, even if one breaks the rules, unless the opponent calls for aid or give up the duel, no one can interfere with it. This duel holds the diginity of House Fawley and my own pride as stakes. This is a rule set by the ministry, a duel of honour between two people cannot be interfered by external factors unless asked by the participants themselves. And Fawley's hold the seat in board of governers in Hogwarts along with power in ministry, they won't risk cutting funding from families because of a muggleborn ".