The Cursed Chronicles: Year 6

Chapter 53

Albus knew with an uncomfortable certainty that he could not keep this up for long. How to rectify this situation, he had no idea. His mind was a blur, he had to fix this, but he needed to focus all his efforts on the battle. It was exhausting.
His friends had gathered around the dome, shouting at him and at each other, trying to figure out how to get past it.
"I have to admit I'm impressed," Katrina mused. "You are holding your own quite well."
"Flattery won't get you anywhere," Albus grumbled.
"It won't last much longer, I'm afraid. With her skill and mine combined, you are no match."
"Do you ever stop talking?"
"She's fascinating isn't she?" Delphi continued, paying no heed to Albus. "I mean how did this little worthless twig come to possess so much talent, I wonder? There's something to be said about the effort she put into her skill, but there is something else here, something....fascinating. She has magic just coursing through her blood. She and I are not so different."
"She is nothing like you!"
"Pride is your hubris, Albus," she chastised. "After all, isn't that why we're here? Because of your pride? Because you were too proud to be there for your friend? Too proud to see my plan unfolding so perfectly beneath your upturned nose?"
"Your plan is failing! My friends have already defeated your other champions! Even if you do defeat me, what could Katrina do? She's talented but she'll never make it past McGonagall and the other staff! What do you hope to accomplish?"
"Once again, dear Albus, you fall short of the bigger picture. I've sacrificed mere bishops to get my queen to the king."
"You just said they were all queens!" He cried, exasperated of this riddling talk.
"Do you play much chess, Potter? Perhaps that's why you seem to be failing so miserably. There are only two queens in chess. I've stolen yours and made her mine."
"And that, what? Makes me the king?"
"Now you're catching on."
"And why is that?"
"Isn't it obvious? The king is weak, but has strength in his loyal followers, and is, in the end, the key to winning everything."
"And HOW is that?"
"Albus, why do you think I'm here? Why do you think I have wasted all of this time when I could have so easily killed you the last dozen times I had the chance?"
"I don't know!"
"Because you are the thorn that I cannot rip out of my side, you are the crowning jewel on the masterpiece of my misery. I want you to watch the world you love burn, I want you to sit alone in the darkness knowing that I have won, and you have lost, and that all that you love is nothing but ashes and bones, and I want you to scream and mourn and sob because you know that it is ALL YOUR FAULT! I want you to lose everything, the way I lost everything at the hands of the wretched POTTERS!"
"Fueled by her rage, Delphi was pushing Katrina closer and closer and Albus knew he had mere moments. He had to make a decision. And then he noticed that the entrance to the maze lay within the barrier, and that it's magic was fending off Delphi's. He bolted, tearing into the dense fog. He could hear Katrina's scream behind him, part rage, part vindictive delight.
"Coward! You cannot hide from me, Potter!" He could hear him following her, but he kept moving. He knew that eventually he would be cornered, but it was buying him some time. Obviously he was not going to defeat her in combat, that was clear, so he would have to find another way to neutralize her. If he couldn't defeat her, he's have to beat the imperious curse, right? How does one do that?
"PATHETIC! This is how it was always meant to be! You cowering in the shadow of my greatness!"
She was becoming a little erratic, apparently. Think, think, think. The only ways to defeat an imperious curse are for the caster to break it or become otherwise unable to maintain it, or for the victim to defeat it themselves, with sheer willpower. But obviously Albus wasn't going to make it to Delphi without defeating Katrina first, and if Katrina was fighting back, she wasn't doing a very efficient job. So how was he going to pull this off.
Albus burst out of the maze, depositing meters away from the deadly dragons stationed in this clearing. Somehow they were much less intimidating now, with Katrina in his tail, than they had been earlier when he had been through here. Katrina burst out of the maze, frighteningly close behind him. He dashed straight towards the dragons, a desperate attempt for cover. Katrina simply waved her wand and the magic containing the dragons disappeared. They roared and flew away, and Albus tried not to think about the havoc they would cause.
Right now, he had more urgent problems. Katrina smiled and marched toward him confidently. Albus hadn't really noticed that under the black cloak that Delphi had apparently put all of her captors in, she was still wearing what she had been wearing when she was kidnapped....the black dress from the third task, it was a bit tattered from the fight, but it was unfair how good she still looked in it, and it was totally unfair that this is what Albus was focusing on when he was surely moments away from death. The cloak billowed impressively behind her as she walked, and it lifted to reveal that while her focus had been elsewhere, her glamour spell had flaked away, displaying the terrible scar on her collarbone.
She looked terrifying.
Albus felt absolutely petrified and for what felt like the first time ever, he had no idea what to do. He was cornered against the bushes, with no direct path to an exit, and to be honest, he didn't see a point in trying.
"It ends where it began, Potter," she said, and then, her voice changed. It was completely, convincingly Katrina, and it broke his heart more than anything else. "Once you showed me the light,Albus. Let me return the favor." They poised to duel again and in that moment, as she lifted her wand, an idea struck Albus. It was unbelievably stupid, there was no guarantee that it would work, and it was more likely than not that it would fail, but in a moment of pure adrenaline, instinct, and overwhelming despair, he following through on the impulse without question.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The world seemed to slow down. Albus watched the tip of her wand ignite with the green spell, and met her eyes. As they connected he saw the confusion register as she recognized a confidence in his that had not been there moments before.
He dropped his wand.
It clattered in the dust and the sound of its impact felt muffled but deafening all at once. The confusion intensified but his eyes never left hers, and he watched something change. The emerald glow of her spell, flying unopposed at his chest, reflected in her eyes as her expression turned to something different- fear.
"Stupefy!" A stunning spell collided with the curse, neutralizing it, and Albus, who had been so focused on the sound of his own heart beating dangerously fast, noticed Bella for the first time.
"What in MERLIN were you thinking?!?" She cried. She prepared to fend off Katrina, but Katrina fell to her knees, holding her head. Bella and Albus watched unhelpfully as she continued to struggle. Finally, there was a loud scream, but not from Katrina, from everywhere. Bella grabbed his arm and pulled them both out of the way as a column of fog, like earlier, collided where they had been standing. Unlike last time, the collision was so violent that it shattered the protective barriers around the task arena and threw Bella and Albus into the grass hillside where the stands had been an hour ago.
Albus tried to struggle to his feet, but Bella held him back, pushing him over the rise in the hill, and casting a binding curse, to witch he protested profusely.
"Sorry, but you've been a little too selfless today for my liking," she explained unapologetically as she poised, watching the scene unfold below, ready to spring into action if needed. Behind them, students were gathering on the next grassy rise. Apparently the chaos at the school had halted in Delphi's frustration.
Katrina Rose to her feet, studying her wand in her hand intently.
"How?" Delphi hissed, because now she stood in front of her. She began haphazardly flinging spells at Katrina, who deflected them deftly.
"Why! Have I! Worked! So! Hard! Just! To have! Everything! Spoiled! By some! ROTTEN! LITTLE! GIRL?!?!?"
She was breathing heavily, hurling cursed left and right in her anger, but none of them got past Katrina's defense. Finally she stopped and stared at Katrina in disbelief.
"How?" Katrina didn't look much more certain herself. She shrugged uneasily.
"I suppose that in spending so much time focusing on Albus' hubris, you neglected to account for your own."
Swiftly, and with precision Flitwick would have been proud of, she cast several spells. Delphi deflected them and they launched into a full-on duel, which everyone simply watched. They must have been in just as much awe as Albus. It was not every day that you watched two extraordinarily gifted witches in impressive combat.
In a surprising turn, Katrina landed a disarming spell on Delphi and her wand flew out of her hand. Rather than disarming her, she casted a levitating spell and allowed her to struggle a few feet off the ground, desperate and frustrated. Albus caught a glimpse of the firm-set expression on Katrina's face. Somehow it was more terrifying than when she had been trying to kill him.
"For the last few years, I have been force to live in fear of you. You have hurt my friends, persecuted those I love, and manipulated me. But now you see what happens when you go too far. You have turned me against my friends for your gain, and underestimated me. You will not make that mistake again. I do not fear you anymore. You will not continue to be the villain in my story. You do not define me." She dropped Delphi and allowed her to scramble for her wand.
"Stupefy." Delphi went limp, stunned on the ground. She had been defeated by the very queen so had claimed as her own strength.
"Checkmate," Katrina announced with a well-deserved smile of satisfaction.