Lightning and War

The Malfoy Duel

“You know that you can’t interfere to help Abraxas in any way, or the challenge isn’t valid?”

“Why did you assume that I would cheat to help Abraxas?”

Harry managed to roll his eyes without looking away from the breakfast in front of him, which he was tearing through at a steady rate. Tom assumed he was trying to accumulate strength for the battle they would have to carry to Dumbledore. “Oh, I don’t know. Because he’s your Knight and you hate the Malfoys and cheating is how you do things?”

“It’s not how I do everything. I didn’t win you with the help of cheating.”

“You would have if you thought you could get away with it.”

Tom paused for a second. “Well, yes, but only because of how much the goal mattered to me. You should be flattered if you think about it.”

Harry snorted and looked up at him. “I just want to make sure that you understand the rules. The Malfoys have to win or lose completely by themselves under the rules of the challenge, or the loser becomes a slave to the winners.”

Tom felt his fingers loosen their grip on the spoon. “You never said that,” he whispered. “How can—it’s already unbalanced in that Abraxas has to fight two people older than himself at the same time.”

“Abraxas knows. Do you think he would have made the challenge without thinking about what the consequences are?”

“He’s always been impulsive,” Tom muttered, his mind already spinning into ways to help his Knight. If he could launch one of the very mild mind-control spells that would be able to target a mind as disordered as Claudius’s before the duel—

“No.”

Tom rolled his eyes at Harry as Harry’s fingers clamped down on his wrist. “You have no idea what I was going to suggest, and no standing to say that it would be a good idea or it wouldn’t.”

“I know you were going to suggest something. What part of ‘the rules’ didn’t you understand?”

“An interference in the duel that no one could detect, something that could be a natural consequence of an idiot like Claudius or Martina getting ready to duel their only child—”

“The magic will know.” Harry’s voice was soft, but his pressure on Tom’s fingers nearing painful. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There are certain rules that absolutely must be met, like the one about Abraxas challenging them rather than the other way around. Any interference, and he becomes a slave to them. That’s the way it is, Tom. I know you want to help him, but I need you to accept that you can’t.”

Tom flexed his fingers warningly, and Harry got the hint and pulled his hand back. But he didn’t take his gaze from Tom’s. “Are you going to listen to me and refrain from interfering?”

“What happens if I don’t?” Tom asked, mostly to get an answer.

“I’m going to Stun you right now and put you to bed for the duration of the duel.”

The infuriating thing about Harry was that he would absolutely do something like that. Tom snapped his head down in a reluctant nod, but kept his eyes locked on Harry. “I will pay you back for that insult,” he said softly.

“If you think of statements of reality as insults, you’ll be waiting a long time to pay me back,” Harry said, and returned to his breakfast.

Tom’s scowl appeared to have no impact at all.

*

Harry told himself it was ridiculous for his own breath to come short as Abraxas faced his parents across the dueling ring, an oval of seared grass that Harry had constructed with several spells from his wand in front of the Potter house. But Harry knew exactly what was at stake, and he had read a record of a Malfoy who had lost a duel in the past, in his first world. The description of the slavery that had fallen on that person, and that could fall on Abraxas, was heart-wrenching.