[1990 Pt.16]

The platform Patricia had created for herself shuddered as suddenly a large chunk of it was blown away. Patricia herself steadied her footing and thanked her foresight for making the centre of the pillar out of iron.

That also brought her to the question of how her opponent had destroyed the pillar from underground.

She was about to cast a freezing charm on the floor before she herself stiffened: Why was she assuming that he was still underground?

She immediately performed the wand movements for a Homenum revelio charm and snarled internally as she found her opponent at the edge of the arena under a disillusionment charm of all things.

[break]

Nathan felt a detection charm pass over him thanks to his magical sensing abilities and rolled his eyes as he saw Patricia stiffen before she tried to play it off and look like she was confused about his location. He could see her slowly performing the wand movements for a human transfiguration spell.

'She wants to turn me into a mouse?'

Nathan dropped his disillusionment charm immediately after aiming at the chunks of rock he had carved out of the pillar using his blasting hex. The rocks turned into several snakes which started to slither themselves up towards Patricia.

Nathan shielded himself from the invisible transfiguration spell before he found himself shielding and batting aside a relentless barrage of spells. He could see the ground around him getting destroyed as he knocked aside several non-lethal but annoying hexes. He did not return fire even as Patricia got more and more agitated as her relentless assault did not yield the result she imagined.

She paused and raised her wand high above her head to cast a stronger spell- probably a battering hex, but her concentration finally broke as the snakes he had transfigured finally got their chance and ambushed the prey they had been asked to hunt.

Nathan watched as she vanished three of the snakes in front of her, even as the largest snake, a green anaconda finally wrapped around her leg before throwing both her and itself off the platform at Nathan's urging.

As the two fell, Nathan cast an expelliramus at Patricia which disarmed her before hitting her with a cushioning charm.

"Grey wins!" Philip announced before he vanished the large snake as he walked up to the girl and helped her get up before he said, "Good fight, Patricia."

Patricia looked a little whiny as she pouted and said, "I-I lost. And he," she pointed at Nathan, "isn't even breathing h-hard."

Nathan chuckled and said, "I exercise regularly. I have great endurance." It was a lie, of course. All his ability was the result of regularly trying to master spells that killed their casters if used without due expertise. Physical ability and magical ability were both mutually exclusive. Though physical ability did help when using magic. It was still something a user could enhance using rituals, though Nathan had only ever dabbled in the most basic of rituals that were used for enchantment and weren't sacrificial in nature.(Sacrificial rituals were very dangerous and were not something that Nathan could afford to play around with.)[1]

Patricia gave him a deadpan look before she said, "Sorry if I find that a twelve-year-old has more stamina than a seventeen-year-old. Gender doesn't matter in this case."

Nathan gave her a sheepish smile before he turned to Philip and asked, "So am I clear for the spot?"

Philip blinked before he nodded, "Yeah! All of you had two matches and we arranged it in such a way that all of you had your chance. Had you lost, Patricia and Nico would have fought for the final spot, but, you winning against her secured the spot for you."

Nathan nodded before Philip said, "Follow me. We need to discuss the plan for tomorrow."

[break]

A gauntlet was a method of conflict resolution that was often employed by the Prefects in an unofficial capacity to resolve conflicts that might involve students of several years across two houses.

Now how did this method work? There were a total of eight wizards on each side, one of whom was called the Prime. The prime was a player with a gauntlet on their non-dominant hand. All the other side had to do was take out the prime or hit the gauntlet with a spell.

The catch? The whole fight happened on brooms above the Black Lake. And there were other restrictions. The first being that the prime could not use spells. Their only way to defend themselves was to fly. Anybody who hit the water was out of the game and the game continued until one of the primes was out of the game.

Nathan found himself sitting around seven other students as the other students dispersed to other dormitories or moved to other parts of the common room.

One of the seventh years asked immediately after he sat, "So, any ideas about how we are going to beat Weasley? Because we are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to the flying ability of our prime."

Nathan looked at Hestia, seeing if she would react to the insulting words. He was surprised to note that she actually nodded in agreement. The boy had stated it as a fact that he assumed all others in the group knew, Nathan was of course unaware so he asked, "And why is that?"

The boy glanced at Nathan in bemusement before he cracked an amused smile and said, "Not a quidditch enthusiast, are ya? Weasley's the best flyer in the school. The bloke's never been grazed by a bludger in any of the games he has played in the past five years. Hestia is a good enough flier but she ain't better than Weasley."

Nathan nodded before he looked at Tonks and asked, "Why are you not the Prime? I mean you can turn into any of us. All of us could wear a replica of the gauntlet and they would have to take us all out to find you."

Tonks grinned like a cat and said, "Because the Prime can't use magic. Tia and I are about equal when it comes to flying but she is good with charms and I am good at transfiguration. I could still turn into her but transfiguration allows for more 'flexibility' in a gauntlet."

Everybody nodded before one of the girls raised her hand and said, "This is the first time I am actually participating in a gauntlet and I wanted to inquire about a rule."

Philip nodded before saying, "Ask away. The gauntlet isn't normally used because the houses don't normally try to organise lynchings in the school. I blame the Dark Lord and those snakes for this."

"Are we allowed to use magic on our prime to help them and could we use Draconifers or Avis in combination with an engorgio to get some more reinforcements during the fight? And what does the Dark Lord have to do with the gauntlet?"

"You can use magic to help your prime, Bonnie.

I won't recommend either unless you can conjure larger and faster birds using the Avis. The Dragon conjured from the spell can't fly, it is a trait only actual dragons can replicate and something of that weight and a wingspan has no business flying without magic doing the heavy lifting. It would be more efficient to create a metal or elemental transfiguration and enchant it to fly.

The last one is because I have acquired a habit of blaming the Dark Lord for any of the bumps in my life. Not like the damned madman can make the world any more miserable." Nathan was very tempted to shake his head at the irony of the words, but nodded in agreement with Philip's words, in spirit at least.

From there, the discussion grew more animated as the members of the Hufflepuff house team for the gauntlet started bouncing ideas that they thought would be useful. Some of them were outrageous but Nathan still had to give their thinkers and planners credit for their creativity in using magic.

It was thirty minutes after curfew that they finally decided to go to their common rooms satisfied with all the planning and scheming they had done.

 ---------------A|N---------

[1]: I will discuss more about sacrificial magic in the future just like I will do so for rituals.

Drop powerstones so that I get placed higher in the rankings if you liked the chapter. And support me on Pa-atreon for early access. I go by my profile name there too