186 Chapter 186: Circular Reasoning 

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14 February 1994, Hogwarts

Cassius Warrington would admit without any shame that he wasn't the most talented student in Hogwarts. He wasn't even the most talented wizard in his year. But he was probably one of the most hard-working students in his house.

He wouldn't really say it out loud, but he thought it hard enough; most of the students in his house were spoiled rotten and barely had a bad day in their lives. It showed, really, when it came to how petty they could be at the sign of something they considered to be a slight. It was proof that people would always have something to complain about, no matter how comfortable their lives were.

Cassius wasn't like them. He had to earn everything he ever got. After all, he was the son of a Squib, who happened to be a descendant of some healer who received an Order of Merlin a couple of centuries back. His mother, a French witch who had recognized the name, married his father, with dreams of wealth and prestige. She didn't find any. While they couldn't be considered to be poor in the broad definition of the term, the Warrington family wasn't drowning in gold, like she hoped. It took her years to find that out, keeping out hope that there was some hidden treasure that her husband didn't tell her about.

There wasn't.

When she finally lost hope, she divorced his father without a second's thought, taking most of the meagre fortune that Cassius' grandfather left them, and didn't even look back as she moved to France once more. She didn't even leave enough for Cassius' own Hogwarts education. He was ten at the time. His sister, Ivy, was two years old and hadn't really realized what had happened.

The only thing they had left was their family home, something that they couldn't sell without the rest of Magical Britain knowing about it, something that would ruin his and his sister's chances in their world. Status and heritage mattered a lot in their society, and selling a family home was one of the most shameful events that a magical family could suffer. It meant that they officially lost their status and Cassius would jeopardize his sister's future just for a couple of years of comfort.

Cassius' father worked himself to the bone in the muggle world to buy their clothes and groceries. They couldn't really exchange it to galleons and Cassius sometimes wished that he was a muggleborn. Things would have been a lot easier if they could exchange pounds for wizarding currency.

So, to buy his school supplies, Cassius volunteered in shops, which were upgraded to part-time positions during the summer. He did it under an alias, of course, and he was easily able to save enough gold to be self-reliant. Of course, when he realized that he was very good at potions, Cassius made even more gold by selling potions under the table to the students during his school year. It was enough for Ivy to grow with magic. He bought her magical toys, magic books, and even a small training broom.

He even had enough gold left over to buy himself a broom. It wasn't a fancy one, but it was more than enough to try out getting into the Quidditch team, something that he achieved, until that brat Malfoy got his father to buy Flint seven Nimbus 2001 brooms, and bought himself into the team, kicking Cassius out.

He really hated the brat since then, although his anger lessened when his father was killed the previous summer.

The long story was that these spoiled children didn't know how to do anything without someone holding their hands. They never worked a day in their lives. They never had to even make an effort to do anything.

Cassius worked his ass off in school and his other activities. He rose so much that the Court had personally invited him. It took him two years to progress from a pawn to a knight, and he had gained much from it. But he had also ended up with a lot of expectations on his shoulders.

Expectations that he was coming to regret, now that he had started to face Longbottom. It was a no-win situation, much like how the Potter boy had to deal with in this tournament.

Slytherins weren't blind. They knew that there was something between Dumbledore and Potter. It was one of the biggest reasons why no one tried to ally themselves with the boy, who obviously was one of the most talented students in school. No one wanted to get into the headmaster's bad side, especially while staying in his castle.

Potter did hide himself pretty well, staying in the background as a talented student, nothing more, until Dumbledore just proclaimed that he could be the second coming of the Dark Lord without a single speck of evidence. It was obviously nonsense, but people started to pay attention to Harry Potter, and the boy did not disappoint. The entire tournament was a bad thing for Potter. He couldn't use anything too advanced, which would prove Dumbledore right, and he couldn't afford to lose, which would make him the mockery of magical Britain.

Cassius needed to impress people for the opportunity to be invited into a guild, or for an apprenticeship. He could be offered internships, and maybe even actual jobs. Potter was the opposite. He needed to impress people, but not too much.

And by Merlin's beard, did the boy find that fine line somehow. His performance in the first task was as amusing as it was impressive. The way he beat Lucien Bole in just a few seconds, with a simple spell, was insane. He recognized the spell. A stunning charm specifically made to go through Protego shields. It could have ended so badly, yet it just worked somehow.

He had to admit that Potter had style.

Yet now, Cassius had his own dilemma.

Neville Longbottom.

The boy who lived.

The Gryffindor might have had some hard times in the past year or so, with the whole Breaking the Statute of Secrecy with a flying car, breaking into the common room with Polyjuice, being declared insane because he thought he fought a Basilisk and slayed it with a sword, and that was the tip of the iceberg.

He became a pariah in the Gryffindor common room, slowly losing his popularity as people realized that he was a relatively talented wizard, but definitely not the second coming of Merlin that Dumbledore alluded to.

However, outside the castle, the boy was still a celebrity, and the future head of the Longbottom family. People still cheered for his name.

Cassius knew that he could beat Longbottom easily. It wasn't anything personal, or an attack on the boy's intelligence or magical power, but at the end of the day, Cassius simply had two years of magical training over him. The issue was that he couldn't afford to humiliate him. He couldn't make it too quick, since most of the spectators bought their tickets to see him. He couldn't lose, of course, that would threaten his position in the Court as well as remove many prospects in the future. His sister was even in the crowd cheering him on. He had bought her a ticket when he saw how enthusiastic she was about seeing her big brother compete. She loved the first task, and he didn't want her to see him lose to a boy two years his junior. 

Hence the pressure.

He expected an easy fight that he would have to hold back immensely to make slightly entertaining. Those expectations were stiffed after the first spell Longbottom cast impacted his shield, and he felt like he was hit by the Knight bus.

What the hell? Wasn't Longbottom supposed to be a third-year?

Thankfully, it looked like power was all there was to it. The boy did learn a bit of duelling, but not enough to bridge the gap between them. Other fifth years could have easily lost his position if they didn't attention.

Of course, that's when Longbottom pointed his wand and bellowed, "Reducto!"

It was an instinctive response, but Cassius wordlessly cast a shield charm moments before the spell impacted him.

GONG!

The sound was almost deafening. He could have been seriously hurt if he hadn't taught himself wordless casting. He was planning on keeping that a surprise in his OWL exams. He heard that examiners liked to bump up a grade if someone showed them a piece of magic that was above their presumed education.

Cassius leapt to the side right away, reacting on instinct. Lucky he had, for several curses sailed through the space he had occupied a second or so earlier. A spell chain, now? Quite a good one, too. The wand movements had been perfect and the casting had been fast - very fast. Accurate, too.

Was it just him, or was that precision missing at the start of the duel? Did Longbottom want to make him drop his guard with a false sense of security or did he somehow get better during the fight?

When his opponent's next volley was strategically placed to lead Cassius into yet another onslaught, his eyes narrowed. It didn't matter what Longbottom was playing at. He was done holding back.

Instead of using a standard shield charm, he used a repelling shield and overcharged it. The spell coming his way was sent flying back towards Longbottom, whose eyes widened and ducked. The boy did not expect the overcharged shield to move outward and send him flying back.

Cassius' lips curled upwards as he sent a stunner at the downed boy. This expression quickly turned slightly baffled when Longbottom somehow rolled away and retaliated with a wordless wind-cutter mid-roll. Cassius was able to shield against it, of course, but who did that?

This was a school tournament, not a warzone. And yet the boy released a torrent of offensive spells that was just so far above what a third year should have been capable of. Still, Cassius easily kept up, and traded a few spells with the boy, before becoming fed up and deciding to try out transfiguration instead.

A couple of the debris around him were turned into small rats that ran towards the Longbottom scion, who simply pointed his wand at them and yelled out, "Bombarda!"

Who the fuck used an exploding charm on rats?

The rats were vaporized, but half of the duelling platform blew up as well. Cassius was able to redirect the debris with a "Depulso Maxima!"

The dust settled to reveal a coughing Longbottom who had a bleeding cut on his cheek. The look in the boy's eyes was of burning hatred. The blood on his face made him look feral.

Wasn't Longbottom's instability supposed to be a bunch of rumours?

Cassius was so distracted by the look on Longbottom's face, that he almost missed him yelling out in anger, "Lacero!"

WHAT THE FUCK WAS WRONG WITH THIS KID?

Cassius dove to the side, knowing that this spell would tear through most of the shields he knew. This was straight-up Dark Magic. It wasn't technically a banned spell since it was technically a variation of the cutting charm and could be treated easily enough.

His dodge put him right in the target of a blinding curse. Cassius hastily yelled out, "Protego Horriblis!"

The shield barely held, but it thankfully did. He wanted to see what the crowd was thinking about the boy who lived casting fucking dark magic in public. Was Longbottom an idiot or something? This could easily destroy his reputation.

He decided to focus on the duel in case Longbottom did something insane again. He would end it quickly. No longer holding back in the slightest, he conjured a dozen bolas that he banished towards Longbottom.

Most of them didn't hit but a couple hit his knees at very hard speeds. Cassius cast three punching charms in quick succession. Longbottom fell to the ground, and the older boy decided to end it with a disarming charm, followed by a stunner.

The boy must have tried to send another spell his way since he didn't have the time to shield or dodge, but he couldn't with his wand missing from his hand. Before Longbottom realized what had happened, Cassius' spell hit him in the chest, finally knocking him out.

That was a lot harder than he thought it would have been.

He turned towards the spectators, only to hear screaming for some reason. Why were they screaming? Did something happen?

Cassius attempted to take a deep breath, only to feel a burning sensation in his chest. Huh, he didn't remember being hit with a spell. He put his hands near where the pain was coming from. Why was there red paint on his hands?

Was this blood?

Confusion and shock overtook him as he tried to make sense of it all. The crowd faded into a distant echo as his vision blurred. Cassius struggled to stay upright, feeling a wave of dizziness. The only thing he thought about was concern for Ivy seeing him hurt. His legs gave way, and the last thing he saw before darkness engulfed him was the concerned face of Professor Flitwick rushing towards him. Then, everything went black.

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