/Author Notes/
Between the conflicting position of Hermione and Cormac in the previous chapter, who do you think makes more sense?
I as the author think that the issue at hand is a nuanced one where you can't say one party is completely right and the other completely wrong but still I personally feel that Hermione is much more sensible and comes from a better ethical position than Cormac.
These are children that he wants to recruit to resist a government. They might not understand what such a thing might entail but he does. He understands perfectly and plans to exploit their sense of justice to wage a crusade against the Ministry and Voldemort. It is a selfish, manipulative and cruel thing to do to children. Cormac also treats himself as 'special' which also is messed up. He needs a lot more growing up to do and this is what the fic is truly about. His struggle with himself.
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The room shifted to accommodate the duel. The four people that had stepped for the duel were unexpected to any but Cormac. Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell had taken over a corner of the room.
Cormac couldn't help wincing a little as he looked at Spinnet, who was grinning in malicious delight at him. He had once grabbed Katie's breast during one of Gryffindor's late night parties the previous year. The girls had probably been waiting for a chance to serve him a well deserved ass-kicking for his actions, having probably forgotten about him due to how the Triwizard Tournament ended.
'I mean, that squishiness was well worth the heated stares!'– A part of his mind offered and Cormac wanted to choke the life out of it immediately, but he decided to ignore it and focus on the fight as Angelina of all people came to referee the match. Cormac did not protest despite the clear conflict of interest.
If he got wrecked after all that shit-talking then he deserved the beating.
He shook his head, trying again to clear his thoughts as he focused on the four targets in front of him. The win condition for both sides was disarming or inability to continue for the opposing team on the discretion of the referee. Nothing that could cause lasting damage and not be healed with a quick potion or counter-curse, pain was not mentioned.
'Breathe,' he told himself, keeping his body relaxed, his wand rested at his side aiming at the floor as Angelina counted to begin the duel. Potter had his head tilted like a viper waiting to strike at his prey. Granger looked like she was repeating the chain of spells she was going to fire at him in her head. Alicia, he noticed was holding her wand tightly, too tightly. Katie already had it pointed at him, like a fucking eagle about to claw at its prey.
"–ree! Fight!"
The Gryffindors did not wait a second more, four bolts of spells rushed at him. Three of them shouted their spells, the fourth was silent. Cormac couldn't care about any further details.
He silently cast his own spell a moment after them. There was a cracking sound as air from around Cormac was very quickly compressed into barrier of air through the use of transfiguration. A solid barrier of highly compressed air. The spells splashed uselessly against the wall even as the group fired off more spells. Harry frowned as his third spell fizzled uselessly against the invisible wall. He paused, his green eyes narrowing in understanding.
"That's no variation of the shielding charm," he muttered, his mind racing.
Without hesitation, Harry shifted tactics. Raising his wand, he unleashed a Confringo. The blasting curse hurtled forward, blazing like wildfire, aimed directly at the heart of the barrier. The force of the explosion roared through the hall, destroying away Cormac's protection. The others of his group took immediate advantage of the breach. And cast three disarming charms at the center of the shield right where his curse had hit.
"Accio Harry Potter's socks." Cormac had expected them to go around his transfiguration rather than use the exploding charm on his spell, so he was a little startled but he cast his own spell without any delay.
He grinned as Potter soared foot-first, his balance stolen by the unorthodox move. Just as suddenly, Cormac released the spell, letting Harry crash to the ground in a heap between himself and the other three opponents.
The Gryffindor Seeker had no time to regain his footing. Disoriented, he spotted the barrage of spells meant for Cormac now streaking toward him. With a desperate flick of his wrist and hastily spoken incantation, Harry conjured a shimmering shield that materialized just in time.
The spells collided with the shield, sparks flying in a harsh, disorienting display of light and sound. Though the force of the impact sent Harry sliding back across the floor, he remained unharmed. It was a testament to his raw skill and reflexes.
"I wasn't done Potter. Accio." Cormac tried summoning the hunched over seeker again but he cast a dispelling charm to negate the effects of the spell immediately. This greed was a mistake on Cormac's part as Granger and the other two got a clear shot at him and took it.
Years of Quidditch and rigorous training kicked in. With lightning reflexes, Cormac conjured a solid block of ice in an instant and banished it at the two spells racing toward his torso. At the same time, he sidestepped, narrowly dodging the third spell aimed lower at his crotch. Cormac could actually feel the malice and rage radiating off the hex that one of the girls had sent at him. Whatever that had been, it was definitely something to avoid getting hit with.
The block of ice exploded into steam and water as the two spells struck it, obliterating his makeshift defense. But the trio didn't let up. Spells kept flying, relentless and coordinated, forcing Cormac to stay on the defensive.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Potter lining up his shot, wand steady, eyes sharp. Cormac's mind raced. They were boxing him in, whittling down his defenses. If he didn't act now, they'd overwhelm him once he started running out of stamina.
Dropping the shield charm he had in place and sidestepping a bone-breaker, Cormac waved his wand around to tear chunks of stone from the dueling field. The shattered stones hovered midair, trembling slightly under Cormac's inexperienced telekinesis.
Cormac smiled at Potter even as he waved his hand and launched the rocks at the trio with sharp cracks, someone from the trio, cast a shielding charm. The impact was loud. And Cormac could see that Potter was tempted to take his eyes away from Cormac to look at his allies.
But he didn't. Cormac would have made him pay if he had but Potter relented and then the two danced.
Cormac fell to a knee as a disarming charm whizzed past his head, while Harry deflected a weak cutting spell with practiced ease. The duel intensified, their movements a blur of wandwork and reflexes. Jinxes, hexes, and charms flew between them with reckless abandon, a storm of magic crackling through the air.
In the brief lull as the trio regrouped, Harry and Cormac engaged in a frenzied exchange. Each managed to land minor hexes—a stinging jinx here, a tripping spell there. Both quickly dispelled the effects with unraveling charms, their focus never wavering. The clash was relentless, each testing the other's limits, neither willing to give an inch.
"Stop ignoring me!" Cormac's eyes furrowed at the angry scream from Spinnet even as she conjured birds that rushed at him. He glanced at Potter before he plucked a few strands of his hair and transformed them into small dog-sized dragons. It was common knowledge that you couldn't transfigure something mundane to magical but what he had done was the closest one could get.
"Apoligies Alicia. You have my full attention now." Two dragons rushed at her. Breathing fire at the birds and turning them to soot.
The other two guarded him even as Potter tried to take potshots at him. Before being joined by Bell and Granger who were whispering to each other.
Potter glanced at the dragons and said, "They don't have venom do they?"
"Nah. But still wouldn't recommend letting them bite." Potter rolled his eyes. Both sides heard one of the dragons fighting Spinnet screech as she roared while waving her wand, using destructive and unraveling spells one after the other. The dragons were being affected by far less so than a normal transfiguration would have.
Cormac watched as Granger and Katie still whispered to each other and decided to try something, novel. Waiting for Granger to meet his eyes for a second.
"Legilimens."
He locked eyes with Hermione for a fraction of a second, launching a mental battering ram. Her gasp told him it landed, but he severed the connection almost immediately. There was no time for more. Harry's stunner and Katie's cutting charm were already racing toward him.
He sidestepped the stunner while one of the dragons rushed to take the cutting charm. A bubble of air formed at the tip of his wand and he threw it at the trio. It was slower than a normal spell and Potter and Bell immediately focused on the very intimidating dog-sized beasts with sharp teeth. The two were using repeatedly casting Bombarda, which was actually damaging the dragons and causing blue and green blood to fall on the ground.
Cormac grinned as he willed the bubble to burst. It was an early detonation that could have caused more damage if performed later. But he was not trying to poison them using nitrogen, merely disorientation through a blastwave.
And despite that Potter still managed to fire one cutting hex at him.
'Man the guy is practically carrying the team.'
Cormac side-stepped it but decided that he would not press his advantage on the trio. Instead, he aimed his wand at Alicia Spinnet, who had finally subdued one dragon by killing it and broken one of the wings of the other.
She was about to land a killing hit on the crippled transfiguration but had to jump to dodge his first stunner when she saw its light from the corner of her eye. Cormac made sure that she could not dodge the second.
"Spinnet's down!" Angelina called, he could hear the annoyance in her voice.
"Bombarda!" Cormac barely raised a shield charm to defend himself from the debris the spell launched when it hit the ground in front of him.
It was not enough. A very small piece of debris managed to get in before the shield charm settled. The wind was knocked out of his lungs as he felt something hit the side of his stomach. The pain nearly made him topple over, even as his eyes watered.
His free-hand immediately touched where he felt that he had been hurt and he felt something wet. He brought his hand up, it was stained in blood.
Cormac stopped breathing. His mind raced as he did what he felt was logical and that was to point his wand at himself cast a summoning charm while keeping its tip very close to the wound. Shattered pieces of stone were summoned quickly out of his body. He groaned in pain as the pieces cut new wounds in the puncture wound. A cleaning charm was cast alongside a wound-sealing charm and a pain-numbing charm to stop bleeding and administer first aid.
Once he was sure that he was not losing blood, Cormac finally took a gasp of air and used every bit of pain and rage in a scream as he conjured a massive column of water in the direction of the remaining three.
The room of requirements was swamped by the torrent of water. Their were screams from the uninvolved crowd as water rained down on everyone. The trio was thrown off their feets and Cormac did not stop as five spells quickly materialized from his wand and rushed at the trio.
This time Potter was in no condition to create a shield and was hit by a disarming charm, stunning charm and nicked by a very weak cutting charm. He was out of the fight, Cormac didn't give a shit about that. Bell somehow rolled around in the ground to avoid the stunning charm aimed at her and was hit directly by the concussion charm meant for Hermione. Taking out her as well.
He heard Angelina calling the eliminations but he was focused on the last member of the team. He had heard Granger casting the blasting hex. The spell had been meant to cause damage, and if he was even a little unlucky and the debris a little higher….
She still had her wand, it suited Cormac just fine. It wouldn't do to stomp on an unarmed opponent. His reputation couldn't take anymore damage.
'Remember the aim, McLaggen.'– He told himself repeatedly even as he watched the girl glaring at him as she pushed herself off the ground.
"That spell could very well have killed me." He heard some of the students murmur among themselves at that.
"You should have thought that before you tried mind-raping me." That was not what he had been expecting. Her eyes were red and he suddenly felt a little guilty. The soaked white shirt and her shivering made her look all the more vulnerable, damn hormones. He truly hated himself.
"I did not peer into your mind. I just gave you a headache. Take it as a lesson to remember that some threats are not immediately visible to you."
Granger scoffed. "Then you should take the blast as a lesson to not drop your guard, even in spars." And there went all his sympathy. Yes, she had valid reason to retaliate especially as she knew some pretty confidential stuff but she had been antagonizing him from the beginning.
"Point noted. I can understand why you might be angry but that was uncalled for.Tell me why do you dislike me so much, you went as far as to abuse me for what?" He knew he did not have the best reputation but he had assumed that if there was someone who would be willing to overlook his reputation to understand his nature then it would be Hermione. She had vouched for Snape after all.
Granger blinked in confused horror. "Do you have zero self-awareness, McLaggen? You are a sexist, a braggart and a liar. You convinced Harry because he is unaware of your deeds. What do you think he will do when he realizes what you did to Katie. Or your comments about Parvati and Lavender. Heck even the Ravenclaws hate your guts, because of what you did to Penelope. The boys in Gryffindor don't know, but when they find out….?"
Cormac sighed. His self-hatered increased just a little more as the girl tore him up using his own deeds.
Cormac lowered his wand as he palmed his face. "Look Granger, trust me when I say this– I want Voldemort gone. I am sorry for being a jackass all these years but please…. let me help."
"Apologies doesn't fix things, McLaggen. Katie still feels uncomfortable around you. Hell, I feel uneasy around you and I don't even know you."
"Look–" He was cut off when Angelina snapped, "Yeah! Yeah! We get it. You are really sorry. Fight, if you win we will hear you out. But forget ever getting close to one of us again, I will kill you if you do."
Cormac shook his head. They would never trust him. Liam had been many things but he had taken pride in never having made a girl uncomfortable of his friend. The remarks rankled him. The part of him that was Cormac was unapologetic and he truly wanted to burn it to the ground at that moment.
"Let's continue shall we?"
Granger nodded before she raised her wand started casting a series of standard spells from the auror handbook. He batted the spells aside or side-stepped them before he waved his wand around in a wide arc.
The water that had been conjured in the room before formed a tidal wave and rushed at Granger. She tried to quickly transfigure it into feathers but the volume was too much and her speed too slow.
She got tossed around by the water once again and just like before three spells were cast. A disarming charm blocked by her shield, a very weak cutting charm that broke her shield and cut her forehead very lightly and a stunning charm that finally put her down.
"Granger's down. McLaggen wins!" Angelina sounded angry and resigned as she announced the result. Cormac felt ill.
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/Author Notes/
Phew! This was a tiresome write-up. The thing I like the most about writing is always the expositions and action. Hope you guys liked the fight. Now many of you might be wondering why is he so much better than his opponents. It will explained in the future chapters.