The Last Lieutenant

New Year's

The fourth is the challenge that she promised.  

He's bigger than she is, and his spells reflect it, his power falling like punches to her stomach and shoulders and teeth, knocking her down to the ground.  She spits blood onto the cement floor and stands back up, legs shaking, drawing her wand down in a flash and dodging the spell that he sends in retaliation, hearing the crowd roar, and she does not even know whose blood they want to see spilled, it is all just one wave of sound.

"Come on."  He comes too close, grabs her by the hair and pulls her in, a breach of ettiqutte.  She can smell his rancid breath, see the way his teeth have twisted and yellowed.  It's not a pleasant feeling, being under his hands.  "Everyone talks about you like you're some type of god.  Can't you even give them a show."

"I'll give you three seconds to let go of me."  She whispers it to him, so it might even look like an accident.  "One, two..."

He pushes her away but not fast enough.  The blast from her spell catches him off guard.  He had expected her to stumble and had his face half turned to the crowd, his hand half raised like he can command the screams that are coming his way, half jeers and half applause.    

He's holding a lock of her hair in his fist like it's a trophy.

It hits the ground before he does.

Audra just stares at him, at the way the left side of his chest had crumpled in from the force of her fury, like he was just some broken little doll left abandoned on the sidewalk.  It takes a moment, but the whole crowd seems to realize what had happened, a hush falling over the crowd, and it's almost funny, because the owners won't ban her because she makes them money and the duelers won't stop fighting her because they don't want to be called cowards, and no one can even turn her in, because they won't want to admit to anyone that they were at an illegal dueling club.

And anyways, it was a twisted sort of fair.  He was the one who broke the rules first.

She had fought a lot of opponents, but this was the first one that didn't get back up.

By the time she gets back to the forest, she is drenched in blood and weighed down by the gold in her pockets.

Fred had left.  Now it was only George, staring down at Draco with his wand out and lip curled in something like disgust, like he was only  a bug that he was trying to work up the nerve to step on.

"He left."  It was too obvious a statement, but she needed to say something to break the tension.

"Had to.  Order business."  There was a time where she would get to know what that was.  Not now.  "He told me to pass on his love."

"That was nice of him."  She crouches down by Draco and checks his pulse.   It's fluttering, but it's there.

"He's a nice guy.  But me?"  George takes a step closer, just enough that warning signs start to ping inside her head.  "Not so much anymore."

"That was kind of noticeable."  She had intended to play nice but couldn't.  There was no keeping the bite out of her words.  "Could tell when you went straight for the killing curse earlier."

"I was willing to do what you weren't."  George brushed invisible dirt of off his pants.  "What he wasn't.  Which is why I have another message."

"Yeah?"  She was just so tired.  And aching.  And bloody, her own and others, splattering her clothes and soaked into her boots and shining from her teeth, even drenching her hair.  It's falling in limp tangles around her face, plastered to her scalp with blood and sweat.  "Do tell."