your disobedient servant, fabian prewett (disobedient) wrote in raveled, @ 2017-01-31 22:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! decade: 1960s, ! decade: 1970s, ! log, bellatrix black lestrange, fabian prewett |
Week 2 Prompt IX: Elective - Duelling Club
WHO: Fabian Prewett and Bellatrix Black (Lestrange)
WHAT: Two duels
WHEN: Late fall 1968 / Late fall 1978
WHERE: Hogwarts / Tinworth
WARNINGS: Lethal violence, unforgivables, poor sportsmanship
Duelling Club was one of the very few breaks Fabian allowed himself to take from his ongoing NEWT revision. Watching other students and taking his own turn served as not just exercise but as a form of practice for the Auror studies he hoped would follow on next year. He could see strengths and weaknesses as he watched the students currently in the centre of the Great Hall: wand too low, shield too high, the inevitable ending as the sixth-year student disabled the youngster she was dueling with a strike to the leg. He cast his gaze over the other competitors. Only a few stood out to his eyes as challenging duellists. When they called the next pair, it was one of those whose name was announced. Bellatrix Black, striding to the line as if she owned the school, wand held loosely and casually. And then his own. Fabian grinned lazily and made his own way to the line on the far side of the room, turning to present his side in correct and proper form, raising his wand to regulation height, and waiting for the signal to begin. Bella didn't smile back. Instead, there was a brief sniff of acknowledgement that might have made Narcissa proud as she took her spot across the room from Fabian. Cordiality had a time and place, and it wasn't here. "With a brief reminder that a perfectly respectable end goal is to disarm and that we are not here to cause injury to each other—" Bella sighed loudly and rolled her eyes, having given up on the idea of sportsmanship years ago "—opponents, please take a bow… and you may begin!" Another student may have hesitated to size up her opponent, but Bella was predictable only in speed and ferocity: "Petrificus Totalus!" Child's play and she knew it, but it was a decoy followed non-verbally with an explosive jet of ice. Fabian liked to study his opponents so he had an idea of what he was getting into. Bellatrix's tendencies were well known, so his bow (neck bow, perfunctory) was quick and he was already moving before the word "begin" had finished echoing round the room. The petrification spell was easy to dodge even in the confines of the dueling lane, and Fabian popped up a shield on which the ferocious ice jet shattered. Shielding was not his strong suit, but he'd been working on it so he wouldn't fall short in his Auror application, nor in his recommendations. As the shield took Bellatrix's blow and shattered, Fabian, still moving, hurled a flaming hex back at her: a wide slash of fire covering perhaps two-thirds of the width of the duelling lane, and no more only because of the onlookers. The flames hurtled down the Tinworth lane towards her; behind the mask, Bellatrix let out a shriek of laughter. The cut in her side was bleeding sluggishly, but she paid no attention to it, instead sending a blast of wind at the fire that sent one strand spinning back to her opponent and the other straight into a house. "Happy? I wonder if the children will be able to get out before the roof caves—" Fabian caught his own flame on the tip of his wand, and twirled his wand arm over his head to catch some of the rest of it as the long tendril of flame whirled out like a whip. Gideon would have to be responsible for the remainder. Not the first error he'd made in combat and unlikely to be the last either. Still attached, the flame came round and spun toward Bellatrix's feet, moving faster than the whip it was emulating had any right to. "I'll be happier when I cave your head in," he called back, the glamour on his voice and face rendering him unrecognisable. The many-storied house beside them was now smoking and crumbling, the sound of high-pitched screams echoing around them. Bella felt a swell of satisfaction in her chest, but didn't pause to look as she fired off another spell at Fabian—if anything, she fed off the increased chaos. She lept away from the whip of fire only a second too late; a hiss of furious pain escaped her and then the ground around his feet began to tremor and crumble. Sometimes the best defence was taking it on the chin and punching back. The shielding in Fabian's dragonhide jacket couldn't absorb the entire impact of her spell. He felt something give, probably a rib or three. Gideon was going to have something to say about that afterward. The good news was the force of it knocked Fabian back hard enough that he was able to scramble back from the edges of the crumbling ground. Fabian's wand whipped round again, his soft-voiced spell uttered by reflex to complete as his wand finished its arc, catching a burning timber from the house and transfiguring it into heavy iron, whose suddenly-heavier fall now curved toward Bellatrix. "Mr Prewett! Miss Black!" The referee's disappointment was clear in her voice. "You are not supposed to destroy the dueling arena as part of your duel." Fabian would do his innocent look and his studying-the-works-of-Auror-Moody routine later. After they'd called time on his duel with Bellatrix, which was still going. As she dodged another spell, Bella wondered briefly whether her non-wand wrist was broken or just fractured—but that too was something to be dealt with later. And their referee's comment was a good reminder to use the environment. Her next was aimed not at Fabian but at the ground around his feet: "Glisseo! Ha!" In the confines of the duelling lane, there wasn't going to be much avoiding a spell that greased the whole width of it. Fabian leapt back and almost made it, but his right foot landed on the edge of the spell-slicked area--and his leg went out from under him. Even as he slipped, though, he twisted and brought his wand up to put a hard, angry stunner where instinct told him Bellatrix's arc of motion would be. There was only one thing to do as the stunner sped towards her, and that was to hit the ground, hard. Down Bella went, a yelp of pain as ribs slammed against the floor, then slipping and sliding—her own spell hadn't been as well-contained as she'd meant, and she could almost hear her father's chuckle: "What do I always say about falling on your own sword?" The shield she threw up was not fast nearly enough; Fabian's transfigured iron beam punched against her side, knocking her onto the ground with a terrible cracking noise. A moment, and she pulled herself up, gasping mouthfuls of Tinworth's salty air. "This—much too long—Avada Kedavra." Fabian threw himself down to dodge the Killing Curse. You couldn't take that one on the chin. His ribs groaned--so did he--and he felt something else give in that stoved-in part of his ribcage. Oh, Gideon was going to complain. But at least he'd be alive to hear Gideon read him the riot act! No time to waste, though: he needed to keep moving or the next one really would kill him. Fabian rolled and started to push himself to his feet, his wand tracking where he thought Bellatrix should be, and the spell forming on his lips as-- -- the sound of air displacement and, by the time Fabian had thrown the petrification spell, a Sonorus-enhanced voice. "This is the DMLE. Hold your position and drop your wand at once!" A scream of fury and frustration escaped Bella's lips as she Disapparated. Bugger all that for a lark. Fabian finished pushing himself to his feet, grimacing at the painful twinge and the scrapes and bruises that were accumulating from his falls. His opponent had vanished; now he had to find Gideon and get out of Tinworth without either of them being unmasked. It didn't take Healer training to tell Fabian that his ankle was either badly sprained or possibly broken. He started to get to his feet as best he could on the slippery floor, then remembered to Finite Incantatem her spell and-- -- "Halt!" The referee's voice didn't need enhancement to be heard clearly over the murmurs of the crowd of students. "That's quite enough from both of you. This duel is officially a draw. Opponents, shake hands, and then you and you," being two younger Slytherins "--take them to the infirmary. Separately." With the slippery spell reversed, Fabian struggled his way upright and hobbled over to Bellatrix, hand extended politely. "No thanks," Bella said flatly. While the comment was ostensibly aimed at the younger Slytherins, her gaze didn't leave Fabian and her hands remained squarely at her sides. "I'm sure I can find the infirmary on my own." Fabian, who wasn't too proud to take help, smiled again and bowed from the neck, the best he could manage without risking stumbling on his ankle. Sometimes it was wiser to let your opponent have the last word. |