56 ; order
The miscarriage didn't have a lasting impact on Sirius and I the way that Fleamont did. In fact, it had the opposite effect. We managed to truly figure out how to comfort one another, as we were both hit pretty hard by the grief after Remus left.
It was still nothing compared to Fleamont, but it was still very sad.
Albus finally relented to allowing me to come to an Order meeting under the agreement that it would be followed directly by the dueling thing.
He suggested that Sirius and I allow the Tonks' to watch the girls again, because it would be a very long meeting and he wanted as many participants as possible. He wanted skill sets ranging from advanced, to less than ordinary, to Lily level. He also suggested that Lily ask her parents to watch Harry, which she obliged to.
It was Sirius' idea to let them come to our home, so that there were no members of the Order that would be excluded from the event because they were protecting the Tonks' and our girls. I pitched the idea to Albus, and he agreed, saying it would free up Eilene and Alastor in particular.
To say I was nervous would be an understatement.
I knew I could hold my own in a duel, and I knew I could do it better than anyone, but I'd be a fool not to acknowledge that I relied heavily on being able to sense my opponents magic.
But I wanted to prove myself more than anything, so I sucked it up, and I forced myself to calm the hell down. None of them would actually hurt me, their only goal was to disarm me and prove that I was capable of being defeated. The only people who knew about my ability to preform wandless magic was Dean, Kayla, Lily, James, Remus and Sirius.
They also happened to be the people I was worried about dueling the most.
The meeting took place on the 22nd of November, Kayla had asked her parents to watch her kids for the day, just so she could watch. A lot of the members of the Order were going to extreme lengths to be able to attend. It was a Saturday, so Minerva, Flitwick, and Albus' absence wouldn't be questioned too extensively. There weren't classes, and it was Slughorn's Hogsmeade weekend.
In total, there were over twenty witches and wizards in the building when I arrived. Some of them weren't official members, rather Aurors that Albus worked closely with.
Lily, James and Remus greeted Sirius and I first. Lily immediately went on a quick rant about how there were wizards in the room that even she would not dare to take on. She looked at Alastor Moody pointedly, as well as the fact that Minerva and Albus both appeared to be in dueling attire.
The meeting started as any other, we went around the room and reported in. Obviously I had no reports, so they just skipped over me and moved onto Dean. He reported about the continued safety of my home, stating that the closest attack had been on a town five hours away.
The Death Eaters had no idea where I was.
They, then, quickly had a segment similar to my improvised intervention regarding my reckless apparating after visions, this time directed at Lily and James.
I had been entirely unaware of the conversation even existing, as Sirius had never told me.
Albus was pushing them to do the Fidelius Charm.
He used Dean's confirmation that my home was still as safe as it was two years ago as ammo against their protests that they were already safe enough. Minerva cut in with the simply fact that they had moved four times since their son was born because Death Eaters had gotten too close for comfort.
I found myself watching Remus during this. He seemed to be heavily on the side of having the Fidelius Charm done, continually stating that if I were their Secret-Keeper, both of our families would be safe. Sirius made the same point, simply stating, "Jemina is the person they would suspect of being the Secret-Keeper first, and the only chance they have of getting to her is if I tell them where she is, and I'd rather die."
Lily and James continued to refuse, saying it was their choice.
I stayed silent, choosing to silently berate my brother's stupidity. I agreed, however, that it was their choice. Even if I believed they should do it, I could not force them to make the decision. Especially since I would ultimately refuse to be the Secret-Keeper. My only reasoning is that it would be far too easy, and the target on my head would increase tenfold. If I was the one person stopping Voldemort from getting to Harry, he would kill every single person I had ever known.
I could not put that many people at risk.
Eventually the subject changed to me. There was not a lot of debate on whether I should be allowed to join select missions - which Albus was clear that no matter the outcome, if I was allowed, it would be few and far between.
At this point, I would settle for going to a cafe to get everyone coffee.
So, Albus quickly transformed the area to be suitable for the event. There was a twenty foot, heavily padded mat in the middle of the floor, spanning from wall to wall. The wall at each end was similarly padded. I quickly took my position on one side, about five feet away from the wall. Albus stood in the middle, turning in place as he looked at everyone crowded around.
I barely noticed Peter cowering behind Remus, and I knew that Albus would pit me against Wormtail first.
"Peter," Albus smiled widely as he caught a glimpse of the shaking boy behind Remus. An impressive task on it's own, considering Remus towered over a vast majority of the Order. There was one person who was even comparably tall, and that was Kingsley Shacklebolt. He wasn't an official Order member, but he was an Auror and an ally. He was one of the Aurors that Albus trusted deeply, and allowed to participate in order to truly test me. Kind of super intimidating, as he was taller than Remus. I barely heard Peter squeak, "Would you mind going first?"
"Do I have to?"
"I won't hurt you," I said, using the same voice I frequently used with Esme when she was frightened or upset. Peter seemed to respond to it the same way that the girls did, and I knew that Sirius would comment on it later. Peter quietly moved out from being Remus, rubbing his hands together under his chin. I noted how much that action reminded me of a real rat, "You can tap out, if you want to. But try your best to take me down, okay?"
Peter nodded quickly, drawing his wand as he trembled. I looked at Albus with clear disdain, but he watched me with amusement.
I made a note to chastise him about pitting Peter Pettigrew, the most easily frightened person I knew, against me first. Peter had seen me duel before, he knew he had reason to be afraid.
Albus started the act of using magic to distract me, nearly knocking me off of my feet as he did so. There was not a single person in the room whose magic even held a candle to Albus'.
All he was casting was Lumos.
Very quickly, the rest of the room began to light up. Everyone was actively trying to cast the brightest Lumos, causing them to use more magic than they typically would. I took a moment to cast a dimming spell on the area within the mat, as the light was borderline blinding.
The intensity of the magic swirling around me was insanely overwhelming. This is what I was afraid of. I didn't know how to handle more than twenty talented people actively casting at the same time. I had never dealt with a situation like this. The closest thing I had ever dealt with was in school.
Marbles.
I couldn't focus on my own magic while everyone was casting around me. It was physically impossible to have all of this magic knocking into me, and be able to cast anything of my own that was anywhere near substantial. I wasn't prepared for the onslaught of waves of magic.
I did not know that the Order of the Phoenix had as many extremely strong members as it did.
For several moments, I tried so hard to adjust to the waves of intense magic pounding into me. It was incredibly difficult, and eventually I simply had to transfigure my ring into a marble to float beside me.
I would be unable to tell if Peter - or anyone - cast a spell at me, but at least keeping the marble with me allowed me to concentrate enough to be able to actually look at Peter.
We both proceeded to bow, and take the proper stances. The longer he watched me, with terror in his eyes, the more I was able to become accustomed to the feeling of constant thundering into my body. It was like I was a metal rod in a lightning storm.
Nobody in the room had any idea how this felt.
It was quite a while before Peter mustered the courage to send any spell at me, and when he did, it was a weak disarming charm. I blocked it with ease, even though the charm fizzled out before it got halfway across the ten feet between us.
I raised an eyebrow to Peter, trying to encourage him to try anything else. I guess he took it as I intended, because he quickly shot a spell at me. I blocked it, sending a very gentle disarming charm back at him. He managed to block it, but just barely.
It was a quick, yet slow, duel. He took another minute before he sent anything else at me, and this time it was a Full Body-Bind, I blocked the spell, and sent a slightly faster disarming charm back. He was unable to block it, and his wand went flying out of his hand.
A few people took the time to pause their Lumos to applause, offering me a moment to catch my breath.
"Albus, you are aware that you casting Lumos, with Lily, Remus, Minerva, Kingsley and... Eilene would be enough to completely disable my ability to sense magic, without causing me to nearly pass out, right?"
"No, but that is useful information. Does having twenty people using magic at once overwhelm you?"
"Very much so. I'm getting used to it, but it is very slow. There are a lot of extremely strong people in this room, and it will take a lot of getting used to. However, I don't get that liberty during an ambush, do I? Forget it, continue."
Albus nodded, smugly, before he looked around.
"Any volunteers?"
Silence. There were still many people casting Lumos, so I was still being ran over, but the marble helped an intense amount.
Eventually, Albus chose a man named Fenwick. I had never met him, but he seemed to be a lot more courageous than Peter, as he threw a stunning spell at me the moment that we rose from the bow.
For several long moments, I blocked every charm, curse, jinx and hex he sent at me. And he sent them in quick succession. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins, and my response times, even while there was magic drowning me from every single direction, were much quicker than I had anticipated them to be.
The duel lasted three minutes, and that was entirely because Fenwick was sending the spells in such a fast manner that I had very little time to cast anything of my own, and everything I did manage to squeeze in, was blocked or parried within seconds. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that I could do nonverbal magic. Fenwick was not shouting the way Peter had, but he was certainly loud enough to easily hear.
I quickly realized that my best bet would to be actually dodging the spell as I sent one at him nonverbally. He seemed to completely underestimate me, and I knew that everyone in the room - aside from my friends - did.
I wanted - no, I needed - to use that to my advantage for as long as possible. It was realistic, as the Death Eaters underestimated my abilities every time they had fought against me. I allowed them to, because I did not know what I was capable of.
Now I had the chance to prove to myself, and everyone else here, that I was just as strong as they were.
I waited until Fenwick became even more cocky, taking a bit longer between spells, to enact Plan Dodge. I had come up with the stupid name while trying to block the twelve spells he had sent at me in the time it had taken me to come up with the plan.
He threw a stunning spell at me, and then a disarming charm.
I ducked under the disarming charm, missing the jet of light by an inch, shooting a very quick nonverbal disarming charm at him.
I watched in glee as his eyes widened, and his wand flew from his hand. There was a small eruption of applause. I took a moment to take a deep breath. This was harder than I had thought, but only because I hadn't expected the constant casting to be so overwhelming.
It wasn't as bad as it was when it started, but it was still very tiring.
My only defense against the parade of magic stomping all over my face was the single marble, and the duel itself.
They gave me a moment to breathe before someone actually volunteered.
I groaned, loudly, when I saw that it was an overly arrogant Sirius.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Of course I am. Have I ever gotten the joys of being at the receiving end of that wand?"
"That's my point. You and I have never dueled."
"Are you scared, Potter?"
I simply rolled my eyes as I approached my spot on the mat. My last name wasn't even Potter anymore, but whatever.
Sirius looked smug, and I was more determined than ever to wipe that stupid look off of his face. The arrogance, likely believing I'd take pity on his poor masculine pride, would not last long.
The moment we bowed to one another, I pulled up and shot a spell at him. He had little time to react, but he did block it successfully. He threw a hex at me, one that would make me break into a fit of sneezing, and didn't seem surprised when I blocked it seamlessly. It went on for a brief moment, Sirius shooting hexes and jinxes at me - mostly stuff that would distract me long enough to sneak a stun in. I blocked each and every one of them, and when I grew tired of the onslaught of hexes, I began to throw spell after spell at him.
I used every hex he had thrown at me, but I did them one after another. The moment that the spell left my wand, I was immediately casting another one.
He managed to block three before he got hit with a stinging hex, followed immediately by being disarmed.
The look on his face as it swelled was priceless, the complete and utter acceptance of defeat.
I countered the stinging hex to save him from the obnoxiousness of it, smirking wildly at him as he moved back to stand next to a hysterical Lily and James. They found his defeat more amusing than even I did, probably because he'd been mumbling about beating me the entire time.
She didn't give me any sort of a moment of a break before she was on the mat across from me, an eyebrow raised in amusement. I took a deep breath as I watched her get into position.
I was not looking forward to dueling Eilene.
However, I was determined. I knew that she was a very talented duelist, and if I could beat her in a fair duel, it would be relatively safe to say that I could beat most of the people in the room.
Not including Albus, because... obviously.
We bowed to one another, and she wasn't even out of the bow when she sent the first hex.
She'd done it nonverbally, and I barely caught the glimpse of a jet of light.
Rude.
So I immediately blocked it. If she wanted to play in silence, we could. If she wanted to duel nonverbally, I was down.
There were more nonverbal spells that I created than were taught at Hogwarts. I created more spells intended to be used nonverbally than most people ever learned. There were not a lot of spells that could be cast nonverbally unless you dedicated a long amount of time to learning them. I could safely assume that Eilene hadn't spent as long on learning nonverbal spells as I had spent creating them.
The nonverbal part of the duel only lasted ten spells from her before she began to quietly say them. Even when she began saying the incantations, I continued nonverbally.
While the previous duels were almost entirely defensive, with Fenwick, or offensive, with Sirius, this duel was an even match of the two. With every spell that she blocked, she sent one back at me. She wasn't quick firing them, and I knew she was strategizing. Eilene knew that I could block spells sent one after another so it appeared that she was finding a balance between strength and speed that I couldn't easily defend against.
She didn't find one.
The second I noticed she wasn't quick firing was the moment I realized she didn't expect me to. I had matched my opponents pace, firing as quickly as Fenwick had been, or as slowly at Peter was. I never took a cheap shot because I had the opportunity. I always waited until I had a clear opening, or a plan.
This was my plan.
She sent a curse at me, I blocked. I waited the same amount of time she had waited before I sent a charm at her. It was blocked, and she took a long moment before she sent a hex.
I blocked it, and then quick fired two charms - a stunning and a disarming.
She blocked the stunning spell, her eyes wide in shock, but she couldn't block the disarm.
Her wand went flying, and she grinned widely.
The duel had lasted the longest, but it was not at long as the next one. It took everything in me to make sure that my groan was internal when another redhead approached the mat. I knew Lily would want to duel me, but I had hoped she wouldn't.
I knew Lily was strong. My previous opponents were all strong in their own ways, especially Eilene, but Lily was different. She was unwavering in her desire to win. There was one thing that Lily Potter was more than she was kind.
That was determined.
The duel lasted nearly twenty minutes, at a very quick pace. She sent hex after jinx after charm, never letting up on the onslaught. At this point, I could barely feel the magic pulsating around me - I was far too focused. I would be damned if I lost to Lily.
I evenly matched her every step, there was not a time she sent a curse at me that I didn't block immediately. I knew Lily's patterns, the littlest of ticks before she casted a spell. I had picked up on the tiniest of clues over the years. I did not need to feel her magic radiating around her to know when she was about to use magic. I could see it in her face, even when she was nonverbal.
There was this thing she did with her eyes, every single time she focused on casting, her eyes would narrow on her opponent, and then widen as she awaited a response. She didn't know she was doing it, and I was - as far as I knew - the only person who picked up on it.
No matter how talented Lily was, she was not able to do wandless magic.
When the twenty minute mark hit, I knew that if I didn't end the duel soon, she would wear me out. She had a lot more endurance than I did. In my desperation to end the duel, I took all of the focus that I had in me, all of the energy I had at that moment, to throw two spells at her in the quickest succession that I possibly could.
The first was a bat-boogey hex, and the second was the freezing charm.
I had tried my absolute hardest to send them so quickly after one another that she wouldn't even know the second one existed until she was immobilized.
The last thing I expected was for them to be nearly simultaneously. The split second after Lily blocked the bat-boogey hex, she was frozen in her spot. I expected there to be the shortest of times between them, but not that short.
For a moment, I wondered if I could actually cast two spells at the same time.
I unfroze Lily, who simply beamed with pride. She seemed very unfazed that she lost.
We went through five more duels before things started to get really difficult. I dueled Fabian and Gideon Prewitt, separately, and managed to beat Fabian quicker than Gideon for the sole reason that I dueled Gideon first, and Fabian had very similar movements and tricks. After them I dueled Alice and Frank Longbottom, back to back. Next was Emmeline Vance.
The five of them were all very talented witches and wizards, and so the duels took quite a bit of time. I was quite glad that we the meeting was held so early in the day, it gave us time to get through more duels than we would have otherwise.
I was still undefeated.
My next duel was with my own brother.
He was one of the duels I simply didn't want to happen. Out of all of the people in this room, James was the only person I had ever dueled before. He was the only one who knew enough about me, and my dueling style, to beat me.
And he almost did.
The duel went on for twenty minutes, and James very easily began to overpower me. He knew that I couldn't take on as many stunning spells as he was throwing at me. I was capable of blocking them, but similar to Fenwick, I couldn't get a spell in. James knew that if he simply overloaded me with spells, he stood a better chance at tiring me out.
I could tell he was enjoying himself, and I had to admit that I was enjoying myself too. James and I had dueled a handful of times throughout the years, mostly practicing things we'd learned in Charms and DADA. This caused James to know my dueling habits better than anyone in the entire world did. This also meant that he was the only person who could surprise me during a duel. The only person able to catch me off guard. That was because he knew what I expected during a duel, and what I didn't.
So that is why James was nearly able to stun me.
We'd been dueling for quite some time at that point, but I knew all of James' tricks. I knew every trick he used to catch an opponent off guard, I knew every trick he'd use to stun someone before they knew what was happening. I knew his tricks, but it wasn't one of his tricks that nearly caught me off guard.
He used one of my tricks against me.
He'd been overloading me with hexes, over and over again. Nonstop for several minutes, and finally, he threw a nonverbal spell at me the moment before he threw another at me. It was in such quick succession that I just could not block both of them. I blocked the nonverbal spell, but I didn't block the next one.
"Melofors!"
That little prat used the pumpkin head charm against me. Within a second, my vision was obscured by orange. I could not see and I couldn't hear.
Despite having a pumpkin as a head in that moment, I was still smart enough to know not to stand still. I couldn't see or hear, but I knew better. An idea popped in my head as I reminded myself that staying still was a bad idea.
In the moment that the idea happened, I dropped to the ground. In the same swift moment that I dropped to the ground, I shot a nonverbal freezing charm in the same direction that James was in.
I quickly countered the pumpkin head, ready to block any further charms.
The feeling that overcame me when I looked at him and saw that he was frozen in place was indescribable. The expression of confusion - likely caused by my sudden collapse - and realization the moment after. I quickly unfroze him, smiling as I did so.
"Damn, Jem," James grinned as he patted my shoulder, "Could have given me a chance."
"Nah."
James snorted as he moved away from me, back to Lily.
After him they decided to give me a bit of a break. There were several people who had decided they actually didn't want to duel me, likely because they'd decided that I was able to defend myself on their own. The vast majority of the people who were still looking forward to dueling me where those who were confident that I could not defeat them. They were the most arrogant of the bunch. Anyone else was just looking for a good duel, and wanted to have fun.
A lot of people left, primarily because the meeting had been going on for hours. It was still early in the day, so we had plenty of time to get many more people in.
The first duel after the break was Remus.
I knew it wouldn't be easy to beat him, but he was the only person fully aware of what I was capable of. That made him more cautious and calculating. I knew that I had to disarm him before he got the chance to use a Full-body bind or stun me. There were few things that could prevent me from doing magic, and those were two of them.
Even with wandless magic, I needed to be able to move my hands. I had figured out that doing the general movements worked far better than any other method. The amount of time I'd spent on trying to learn how to best preform wandless magic meant that I was capable of teaching it.
I really wanted to teach Lily.
The duel between Remus and I lasted for several minutes, but not as long as most of the others. It was not because he was weaker, or less capable, but entirely because I was far more aggressive than I had dared to be prior to this. I needed to be aggressive. I needed to stun, disarm, or full-body bind Remus before he had the chance to stun me. Remus was incredibly talented at taking the opportunities offered to him before his opponent was aware that the opportunity had been presented. He was very good at finding the weak points of a person, and exploiting them in a duel.
That meant he was a very dangerous opponent. If I couldn't beat Remus, Albus would barely allow me out of my home. He certainly wouldn't allow me to participate in missions.
So I used his weaknesses against him. He put far less power into his spells as others did, far less than he was capable of, but his speed made up for that. He was not a weak duelist, as he could cast extremely powerful spells, he just didn't if it was in this setting.
He would not be as rough with me as I would be with him.
I sent several extremely powerful stunning spells at him in a row and watched as he blocked each one of them. I got a good idea of how strong his shield charm was. So I put as much strength as I possibly could into a nonverbal full-body bind, and even though Remus used a shield charm in time, just a bit of the spell broke through the charm. This meant that he was momentarily distracted.
His wand went flying from his hand as he stumbled backwards.
Remus nodded, an expression of surprise on his face. It felt good to know that even after throwing a dozen spells I had created, most wandless and nonverbally, I could still surprise him.
"You get to chose your next opponent," Albus had said the moment that Remus was back beside Sirius. He had moved forward just a bit, and it seemed like he wanted me to chose him. I knew that Albus would not volunteer before everyone else had gone, but I also knew he was looking forward to dueling me, likely more than anyone else in the room. I was most weary to duel him, as I knew he could do wandless magic much better than I could. Besides, I did not want to show off that skill just yet. I wanted to use it against someone that would not expect it. Someone that I would have no other chance to defeat, and Albus was not that person. He watched me expectantly for a long moment, "Go ahead."
I looked around for quite a bit. At this point, I knew everyone's names. There were more Aurors than not, and a very large distribution of non-members. Albus trusted all of them, and they frequently helped the Order, but they were not active members. They were, simply, allies.
Just like my parents were.
It took me a moment to decide. I didn't want to duel someone I knew had a strong chance to beat me, like Albus or Flitwick, but I didn't want to duel someone I knew would be too easy.
I definitely didn't want to duel Minerva, mostly because I was afraid to. She is the one of the only people I had ever known talented enough in Transfiguration to easily and successfully transfigure a human being. I was not looking forward to the likelihood of being turned into a cat.
So, I chose Dean.
He was one of those who weren't too interested in dueling me. He'd been by my side throughout the vast majority of duels I had been in and one of the few people who'd seen me close to losing a duel. He was one of the only people who'd ever had to actually save me. That meant he knew my weaknesses better than anyone else could ever dream of. He knew what I could not handle, in any capacity.
I wanted to get it out of the way.
Dean moved to the opposite side of the mat, an eyebrow raised as he watched me get into position.
"Why'd you drag me into this?"
"You know exactly why."
He nodded, soft and almost unnoticeable. It was all the conformation I needed to know that he knew I wanted - needed - to prove to myself that I could handle someone who knew how to beat me.
The duel was long, and far from easy. Dean was clearly not going easy on me, as he knew exactly how easy it could be for me to get one spell in when he wasn't expecting it. He knew how calculating I was, how quick I was. He knew how easily one little misstep could hand me the win.
And he clearly wanted to win.
I had to resort to trickery. There were very few rules during these duels - the glaring one was not to actually harm one another. There was no rule about trickery.
It wasn't exactly as bad as I made it sound, as I simply did something similar to what I had done with Fenwick. There were few spells that could work the way I intended this to.
So I used the dancing feet charm.
My plan was to speed up the duel a bit, get Dean to start casting spells quicker than we were at that time. If he was casting quickly, and got into the rhythm of casting a spell the moment after he used a shield charm, I could sneak a spell in the moment he casted one of his own. I just needed to be quick, and aim properly.
He would know what I was doing the moment I did it, and he'd be able to block the spell... if it was aimed at his chest. The shield charm that we'd been using blocked spells specifically, instead of creating a silver shield in front of us. It was a spell that Dean had learned during Auror training, and subsequently taught me. It was one of very few that could block a killing curse, but it was very difficult and needed incredible concentration. There was no room for error with it.
It took me weeks to learn it.
I figured that Dean was giving me a bit of assistance with the whole proving myself, as I knew the moment that I used that charm the first time, every Auror in the room felt a bit more respect for me.
Regardless, I had to beat him, respect or not.
So I started to speed up the duel. Dean seemed a bit more on edge, likely sensing that I had a plan. I just hoped that he didn't know what I was trying to do.
I shot a spell at Dean the moment he shot one at me, and he blocked it as soon as he noticed it. I ducked and shot another spell directly at his feet. He wasn't able to block the spell, and immediately his feet began to dance against his will. I took the moment of distraction from him and immediately disarmed him.
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I smiled. I realized that he couldn't do wandless magic, and couldn't walk to his wand while his feet were dancing. I smiled again, sheepishly this time, before countering the charm and allowing him to get his wand.
Dean nodded at me, another almost unnoticeable nod, as he moved back to his spot. He was standing close to Lily, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, but was beside a few Aurors he knew. They were from his class of trainees.
I took a moment to breathe, watching Albus as he looked around.
His eyes focused on a spot, but I noticed that he was watching Alastor Moody. What I did not notice was the expectancy in his eyes, the mutual understanding that Alastor exhibited as he moved towards the mat. I didn't see the silent exchange of words, and I desperately wish I would have. Maybe I would have been more prepared.
"You've been able to win every duel thus far. Impressive, but you've gone against those similar in age. Can you do the same for someone with many years of experience on you?"
"Let's see."
I had been playful in saying it, but there was nothing to be playful about.
Moody didn't even go into a bow before he was throwing curses at me. Some of them were nasty curses too, and so I was doing everything in my power to avoid getting hit by even a sliver of a single one of them.
The magic swirling around me was easier to compare to white noise in the background than anything else. I was still hyper aware of all of it, but it was no longer distracting. It was simply as it was. That meant that the only reason I knew that these were nasty curses was because I knew them. He was using curses that I had taught myself in my seventh year - curses that were not taught during any of our classes. They all came from a book I had gotten out of the Restricted Section in the library - a book of very dark curses that were comparable to the Unforgivable Curses.
Very few people in the room seemed to know any of them, as everyone seemed confused as to what magic he was using. Minerva and Flitwick both looked unsettled, and Albus seemed unfazed. I should have taken that as the second warning.
The duel went on for quite a while, and it was very grueling. Alastor continued to throw nasty curses at me, blocking every charm, jinx and spell I threw at him before it was even close.
He was being surprisingly aggressive, and every single attempt I made to distract him or sneak a spell in was thwarted. Alastor Moody was as vigilant as they get. There was almost nothing I could do to catch him off guard.
I was certain that I was going to lose unless I used my ability to do wandless magic to my advantage. That was something that very few people could do, and even Moody would not expect it from a twenty year old girl who passed as a fifteen year old. So I figured that if I made it look real enough, when Moody disarmed me, the last thing anyone would expect would be me to full-body bind him.
The adrenaline running through my veins made the events that occurred even harder to comprehend. I was so focused on my plan that I hadn't been listening to his incantations. I didn't recognize the curse before I was on the floor.
He had become increasingly aggressive the moment I slowed down. I gave it five curses, and then two disarming charms before I failed to cast any shield charm in time.
It was such a natural thing, such an expected thing. I had been dueling for hours, most of the duels being very difficult and taxing. Especially on someone so frail, I was growing increasingly tired. But I was far more determined than I was exhausted. Nothing would stop me from proving myself capable of handling the real world, and real duels. Nothing.
Not even an incredibly strong Cruciatus Curse.
As I said, my plan was working. Alastor had sent two disarming charms, and so I allowed myself to fail to cast a shield charm in time to block any spell. Not that it would have blocked the one he sent anyway.
"Crucio!"
I was the last person to realize what he had said, but I was the first person to react.
The impact of the curse hitting my chest caused my wand to go flying from my hand, landing quite a ways away from me. The next thing I felt was the most excruciating pain I had ever felt in my entire life.
I had experienced the Cruciatus curse before, but only in visions. During them, I felt the red hot daggers dragging across my skin. I felt every nerve in my body being split, cut, and burned.
It was absolutely child's play compared to the pain of having it actually performed on me.
The Ministry had legalized the Unforgivable Curses for Aurors, and Aurors only. It equalized the duels against Death Eaters, evened the playing field. Death Eaters were not trained to break out of Imperius Curses, they were not trained to block even the most sadistic Cruciatus Curses, or the most meaningful Killing Curses. It gave Aurors a much needed edge, though very few of them used anything other than the Imperius Curse, and they only used it so the target would stop dueling long enough for another Auror could bind them.
Unluckily for me, Alastor Moody was an Auror who didn't give a single shit about the immorality of using one of the curses.
He was also, clearly, borderline sadistic.
I was fully aware that in order to deliver a truly painful Cruciatus Curse, the caster needed to mean it. It had to be preformed with malicious intent.
According to Sirius, I had crumbled to the ground. I had laid there, still and silent, for a long moment before I let out the first scream. It was, according to Lily, a short and agonized one.
James said that he was certain I was dead, the way that I screamed and then stopped. It reminded him of the time I had stopped screaming in the elevator.
This pain was so much worse.
I think it was the adrenaline and shock. My body could not react to the pain the way I wanted to for a very long moment. I had expect someone to interrupt the curse. I had expected Albus to order Alastor to stop, but nobody said a word. I learned, later, that everyone was just as shocked as I was.
Except Albus. He had told Alastor to do it. He didn't stop Alastor because he was in on it. He wanted it to happen, and so he didn't stop it.
I think a full minute of silence passed after the first time I screamed.
The minute ticked by, and then I began to scream. It was continuous screaming, the kind that was expected from someone being tortured like this.
Remus said that the way I began to writhe was incomparable to anything he'd ever seen before. It was nothing like any of the vision-induced seizure things. I was writhing the way that a beheaded snake does. The way that a gazelle bucks it's entire body when it's pinned by a lion.
I was in unbearable pain.
Shortly after I began to scream and writhe, James began to shout at Albus. Lily said that she could hardly hear him over my shrieking.
Sirius tried to move towards me, whether to disarm Alastor himself, or to tackle him, I don't think he knew. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that I moved.
It was a controlled movement, not just the writhing. I had been in uncontrollable pain for at least three minutes before I was able to focus on anything except the needles puncturing every millimeter of my skin. Three minutes before I could force myself to concentrate on anything but the way that it felt as though someone was holding an open wire to every single nerve ending.
I had to muster every single ounce of concentration, every single atom of motivation.
Every single bit of determination that I had in my entire body, my entire soul.
I took all of that and threw it into the strongest nonverbal, wandless spell that I possibly could.
An extremely weak Levicorpus.
One second, I was writhing on the floor, screaming in agony. Another second, I was able to stabilize my head just enough to meet Alastor's eye. I swallowed my screams, and threw that energy into the charm.
Less than a second later, Alastor's wand was on the floor and he was upside down. The curse broke, and I took the deepest inhalation of cold air that I could.
I could still feel the ghosts of a hot poker being driven into every pore on my body.
Alastor shouted in anger, demanding to know who had interrupted the duel.
I could not muster my voice, so I looked away from him and towards my wand. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to counter levicorpus without my wand. I hoped I had enough in me to summon my wand.
I reached my hand out for it, sighing in relief when it flew into my hand. All eyes were watching me intently as I struggled to sit up. I sat with my feet tucked under my thighs for a long moment, glaring at Alastor with as much hatred as I could muster.
He went silent as I pointed my wand at him.
"Liberacorpus," Alastor fell to the ground with a thud. "You are so fucking lucky that it is still illegal for me to use that spell against you. I have never felt so much hatred and disrespect for a single human being in my entire life. The way that I feel about Bellatrix Lestrange for murdering my parents is nothing compared to the way that I feel about you right now. If I did not have more moral integrity than you, more dignity, and more heart than you do, I may have killed you instead of simply using Levicorpus. I have never felt so betrayed in my life."
There was nothing but silence. The rage I felt in my soul shadowed any anger I felt towards the people who killed my parents. It made that anger look like joy.
I did not know that this kind of anger was possible.
"And you," My adrenaline spiked, and I was on my feet in less than a second. I had turned to Albus, and the man actually took a step back. "You put him up to it, didn't you?"
He stared at me.
I pointed my wand at him, quickly casting a nonverbal jinx that I had been working on. I had not figured out a way to make it work properly, as it seemed to just make the target blabber on about nothing instead of forcing them to answer a question.
Extreme intent seemed to be the key, as the moment that the jinx hit Albus, words spewed out of his mouth.
"Yes, I did. I wanted to see if you could handle a situation you will inevitably encounter."
The look of complete shock on his face was almost amusing.
"You are absolutely insane, you know that right? What kind of person promises another that they would not get hurt dueling over twenty people, and then DIRECTLY breaks that promise? I have never felt such a complete and utter disbelief towards someone I trusted. This will never be forgotten, Albus Dumbledore. You may be the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, but I believe I speak for a large majority of those that once looked up to you when I say that I have lost all respect for you. I will never forgive you for this betrayal. It may seem insignificant to you, but you were not the one screaming in agony just a moment ago, were you? Of course not, because people tend to have more respect for you than that. Then again, I am just a child, aren't I?"
"Jemina-"
Part of me just wanted to show off, and part of me thought that maybe I would feel better if I actively did something to show my anger. I was not satisfied by rounding on him, and so I resolved to instigate a duel.
I had not expected Albus to fail to block the charm, so when his wand went flying from his hand, I felt an undeniable strike of pride.
One of his eyebrows shot up, and I raised one of my own.
"Duel me. If I can beat you, you are never allowed to exclude me from Order meetings again. You will never have a say in anything I do in my life, ever again."
"If you lose, you will remain in your home, and only attend meetings that I invite you to."
I nodded as I moved back to the mat, my eyes locked on Albus as he followed. He had summoned his wand without muttering a single syllable, without a single twitch of his hand.
Every nerve in my body was alight with adrenaline, and I was anticipating a very difficult duel.
I knew that this was very risky, as if I lost, all of the dueling I had endured would have been pointless. I was fully aware that Albus was frustrated, likely at the fact that I, a twenty year old, just berated him, however old he is, in front of a large room of people that respected him.
There was no other way to say it, I had humiliated him. I could see it in his eyes, the embarrassment and shame. But it was nothing compared to the humiliation that he just put me through. In front of my brother and husband, he facilitated Alastor torturing me, just to try to prove a point. In front of a bunch of people I was desperately trying to earn the respect of, he dehumanized me, and degraded me to nothing but a ball of pain. Albus violated the trust I had placed in him, and made me look naive.
The duel was very long, and very difficult. Every single ounce of anger, of pain, that I felt was thrown into the duel. I matched Albus' every step, I moved when he did, and I reacted before he even had the chance to.
I managed to hit him with two jinxes one after another, but he managed to sneak a disarming charm in. My wand flew out of my hand, but I summoned it back before it got far.
The reserve of magic had opened the moment that I had decided to disarm Albus, and I don't think he expected me to be able to counter every single spell he sent at me, in one way or another.
I was hit with a strong stunning spell, and the shield charm that I had used was unable to block all of it. I stumbled just a bit, and Albus sent another stunning spell at me. I reacted without thinking, blocking it as I struggled not to lose my balance.
Albus and I were throwing incredibly powerful spells at one another in lightning speed. I had a bit of an advantage, being much, much younger, therefore I was just a bit more spry and agile.
That evened out the duel, as Albus was still stronger than I was even with the reserve.
We were the only two people casting any sort of magic in the room, but the speed that Albus was casting in - a shield charm the second his curse left his wand - made it impossible to counter a spell of his before it left his wand. I simply could not tell the difference between a shield charm, and a bat-boogey hex when they were coming from someone like him. But I was incredibly focused, overly concentrated, and vigilant. I took Alastor's advice; constant vigilance. There was not a single spell that Albus sent that I did not notice, that I was not prepared for.
I sent two spells at him in rapid succession, and then put as much concentration as I possibly could into casting a shield charm and a Confundus charm at the exact same moment. It took more out of me than I had anticipated, but it worked. I blocked Albus' full-body bind at the same moment that I sent the Confundus charm at him.
The charm hit him hard, and in the moment that I had, I sent the binding jinx I had used on Remus on Albus. His wrists snapped together like magnets, his wand slipping from his hands.
I used another jinx I had created to create a seal between his lips, rendering him mute. I knew that these would not prevent Albus from casting another spell at me, so I threw one more spell at him.
It was the jelly-brain jinx. It would prevent Albus from being able to concentrate enough to be capable of magic in general, let alone nonverbal and wandless.
Finally, I used a full-body bind for good measure, casting a cushioning charm on the mat beneath him as he fell backwards.
As soon as it was clear that Albus would not be casting any more spells, I took a deep breath.
The silence in the room was deafening. After every previous duel, I had gotten some semblance of applause. Everyone seemed so shocked at the turn of events, starting with a Cruciatus curse, then the fact that I was able to nonverbally, and wandlessly, end that torture, and ending with me defeating Albus Dumbledore in a fair duel.
I approached Albus as he laid there, first countering the jelly-brain jinx, and then the full-body bind and the seal between his lips.
"If you ever betray my trust again, you will lose an important ally. It's not even the fact that you broke your promise that I would not get hurt. It is the fact that you watched me writhe in pain, screaming, and did nothing. You did not tell Moody to stop, you did nothing to help me. You watched, in silence, and then acted as if you had not put him up to it."
"Genuinely, Jemina, I did not expect you to react so badly."
"What did you expect me to do? Thank you for facilitating my torture? Thank you for directly causing me indescribable pain? Did you expect me to laugh it off as though it was a tickling charm? You told Alastor to use the Cruciatus curse against me. I get that it was to see if I could handle myself in that situation, but Albus... I had absolutely zero idea that it was a possibility. When I am dueling Death Eaters, I am fully aware of the chance of them trying to torture, kill or control me. I had absolutely no warning, and I was not even entertaining the idea of it happening. You cannot blindside someone you are supposed to be a mentor, a leader, a friend to, like that. It is so utterly disrespectful and... shameful."
"How long have you been able to do wandless magic?"
"About six months. Esme decided to try to fly, and my wand was in my bedroom. I was not quick enough to catch her, but I was desperate enough to use wandless magic in that moment. It took me another month to do it on purpose. I have spent the five months since then honing that ability."
"And the spells you used? This wrist binding charm?"
"It's a jinx that I created. It creates a magnetic attraction between your wrists that will last until the specific joint counter is used. It would also create the same bind between you and Remus if I used the jinx on both of you. It never wears off, and there is exactly one counter spell that works on it. The incantation is very long and hard to pronounce, so it, like the vast majority of spells that I've created, is intended to be used nonverbally. It's significantly easier to cast nonverbally than even lumos is. All of them are designed with that intent."
"How long did it take you?"
"To create it? It took me a week to create this one, and two days to create it's counter. Levicorpus, the spell that I used on Moody, and it's counter took me four days to create, but a week to teach myself how to do it nonverbally. I have only ever taught it to James, but I don't know if he can do it nonverbally."
"Alright then. Can you unbind my wrists?"
I didn't say another word to him before I used the counter jinx. He stood in front of me, towering over me. I met his eyes without wavering, the simple fact that I had beat him in a duel encouraging me to show him exactly how little I respected him.
Albus began to move away from me, the crowd of people parting like the Red Sea as he passed them. They all adverted their eyes as he stared straight ahead.
My friends darted over to me the moment that Albus was on the other side of the room, and just in time too.
I saw Sirius out of the corner of my eye, and something within me just... broke. It wasn't like a dam of tears, or the one thing keeping me from breaking into a sobbing mess. It was the thing that was keeping on my feet.
My center of gravity felt as though it had been twisted into a pretzel and I began to lose my balance. It was a moment before my knees buckled and I was on my way to the floor. I turned my head towards Sirius just the smallest bit as my knees decided that my weight was no longer a thing that they could support.
He barely managed to grab me before I hit the floor, but that was all I remembered.
I don't know if it was the lingering effect that the Cruciatus Curse had on my already frail body, or if it was the exhaustion hitting me like a train, but the moment that Sirius' arms were wrapped around me, I blacked out.
They were, understandably, worried about me. Sirius, Remus and Dean immediately took me to St. Mungo's, where they informed Arlo of the events. James and Lily remained at the Order meeting, James to take his turn rounding on Albus - his primary focus being on my health - while Lily demanded to know when the next Order meeting would be. She then told Albus, very sternly, that if he did not apologize the next time he saw me, she would force me to leave the Order and move to Alaska.
She was bluffing, but I guess Albus valued my talent more than he did my health. He cared about what I could do, instead of caring about me.
He visited me in the hospital and apologized. It was a weak and empty one, which I refused to accept. He tried to justify his actions, and I promptly told him to get the hell out of my sight. He seemed offended, and so I informed him of the impact that the curse had on my body.
The trauma from my pain receptors going haywire caused my body to think that I was sick and dying. That caused my white blood cells to attack every single red blood cell it could find, attacking large portions of my lungs and muscles. It took Arlo nearly two hours to repair the damage to my lungs, and stop the internal bleeding.
It took five blood transfusions, one after another, to replenish my red blood cell count, and stop my white blood cells from attacking me.
All of the blood in my body was no longer my own.
He seemed unfazed.
"You almost killed me, Albus. Get the hell out."