章節 53: Good, good, good! Mafalda is courting death!
Oleandra and Mafalda stepped on to the stage assigned to them and walked up to the centre, facing each other. Oleandra glanced around her; Draco and Potter were glaring at each other, not daring to look away from each other for even a second; Daphne and Granger were chatting about something, but she was too far away to hear what about; Weasley was busy doing last minute fine-tuning, wrapping an extra layer of Spellotape around his broken wand; and Longbottom bowed too low and accidentally headbutted his partner, some other Gryffindor boy whose name escaped her.
"Eyes on me, Greengrass," said Mafalda, her voice dripping with animosity. "Wouldn't want you to find any excuses for your loss when I wipe the floor with you, you poor excuse for a witch."
Oleandra's eyes narrowed, but she didn't respond to the taunt. That stuck-up know-it-all wouldn't know what hit her, and that would hurt her more than words possibly could!
"Face your partners!" said Professor Lockhart, "and bow!"
Mafalda did an exaggerated curtsy, as if to mock Oleandra's status as a noble daughter of the Greengrass family. She used to be much more civil, but the constant bullying she had endured as the daughter of a Squib and a Muggle in Slytherin had turned her originally calm and gentle demeanour into a cold and abrasive one. She might not have connections and blood, but she had oodles of ambition!
Oleandra returned her curtsy with a perfectly executed bow.
"Wands at the ready!" shouted Professor Lockhart. "Now remember; use only the Disarming Charm. We wouldn't want any accidents, would we? Now on the count of three— one . . . two (Flipendo!) . . . three—"
The moment the teacher said two, Draco, on the stage to Oleandra's left, cast the Knockback Jinx on Potter, sending him reeling. But Oleandra didn't have the leisure to be watching others, as Mafalda, surprised by Draco's early cast, also incanted her spell an instant in advance.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Expel— ow!"
Oleandra was a moment too late; the Disarming Spell was quite the mouthful. A ray of red light hit her and travelled up her arm; forcing her wand out of her grip. But she wasn't about to let things end this way, not after what Mafalda had said to her. In fact, by disarming her, Mafalda had done her a favour; Oleandra was much more comfortable forming hand seals with her right hand. Her middle finger snaked over her index, forming a Þ shape.
"Thursaz!"
There were no fancy effects, no light shows or sound effects. There was only a satisfying "oof" as Mafalda was sent flying off the stage, landing on the hard stone floor of the Great Hall, where she lay groaning as she held her stomach. Oleandra could be quite vindictive when she wanted to.
All of this happened within mere moments; her wand was still airborne, from when it had flown out of her hand. With a deliberate flick of the wrist, Oleandra plucked her wand out of the air.
Oleandra was feeling pretty good about herself right about now as she spun her wand around her thumb, the child's equivalent of spinning one's revolver before holstering it.
"If I'm a poor excuse for a Witch, I wonder what that makes you, Miss Prewett?" Oleandra gloated. "You can't defeat me, despite cheating and despite the fact I was unarmed. I— whoops."
Oleandra had to stop monologuing, since she had just dropped her wand. Feeling extremely uncool, she had to stop her speech right then and there to pick it up from the ground. Luckily for her, Mafalda was in too much pain to notice, and everyone else present was too busy looking at Weasley's stage, which had erupted in green smoke.
Seamus Finnigan's spell had exploded as usual, causing Ronald Weasley's Spellotape to unravel. Weasley's broken wand had affected the Disarming Charm he had cast on Finnigan in unknown ways. Finnigan's eyes were wide open, but otherwise he was completely unresponsive, and his skin was turning the colour of chalk.
Meanwhile, on the stage next to her, Potter had been hit by a Dancing Legs Charm, while Draco had been hit with the Tickling Charm; they made for a strange sight, with Potter dancing some sort of jig as Draco rolled on the floor laughing, though Professor Snape had soon put an end to that with the general-purpose Counter-Spell, Finite Incantatem.
Daphne and Granger were seemingly one of the few rare pairs to actually conduct the duel according to the rules. They both bowed to each other, then Granger went off to retrieve her wand from the ground, while Daphne went to join her sister.
"The armour of Elhaz is pretty handy," noted Daphne. "Its hand seal is easy to perform, too. If I hadn't used it, we would have tied. How was your match?"
"See for yourself," grinned Oleandra, pointing behind her with her thumb.
Daphne briefly looked over her sister's shoulder and saw Mafalda emptying the contents of her stomach into a nearby bin.
"Poor girl," she said lackadaisically, shaking her head.
While this was happening, Professor Lockhart was desperately trying to salvage the situation, which had degraded far beyond his expectations. Nearly half of the duelists had elected to use their favourite spell instead of the Disarming Charm they had just been handed, inflicting a variety of injuries or ailments on their opponents. Some others had simply taken a bad fall off the narrow stages after being hit by a wayward spell.
After sending a few students to the Hospital Wing, he decided he had a better idea than teaching them the Disarming Charm.
"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells," said Professor Lockhart, looking somewhat flustered.
He regretted uttering those words the moment they came out of his mouth. The Shield Charm wasn't the easiest spell to learn, usually being taught to sixth years. If one had to count, about half of the Ministry of Magic's personnel couldn't conjure up a halfway decent magical shield, though Aurors all had excellent mastery of the spell.
Lockhart knew he couldn't cast it, so how on earth was he going to extirpate himself out of the grave he had just dug himself?
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