[1990 Pt.5]
Hestia and Tonks circled each other within the confines of the large ring they were in. Both of them were waiting for Judas to cast the spell that would mark the beginning of their mock duel.
The man did not disappoint them as a few seconds after they started circling each other, a small blue beam of light erupted from his wand and surrounded the ring in the glow of a Protego Invertum. The spell would allow for spells to move into the ring but not outside it.
Hestia and Tonks, however, did not immediately start trying to disarm each other. Both of them had decided to put on a show for the newest members of their group.
It was to nobody's surprise when both Hestia and Tonks simultaneously pointed their wands at each other before casting their respective spells silently.
The ground in front of Tonks tore itself open and small rocks rushed towards Hestia before being interrupted by the thick column of water that had rushed from the tip of Hestia's wand.
Tonks raised an eyebrow, her expression mocking, as she countered with a display of her own. A chunk of the torn ground floated gracefully into the air, reshaping itself into a rapidly spinning pyramid. As the cascade of water collided with the sleek, whirling pyramid, it deftly shielded Tonks, redirecting the deluge away from her with elegant finesse.
While in an actual fight, the conjured pyramid would have been banished towards an enemy, Tonks did not want to maim her best friend and thus would be using it for defence only.
Hestia also knew that the pyramid could not be banished towards her and thus slashed her wand towards the centre of the ring.
Tonks narrowed her eyes as the centre of the ring was hit by Hestia's spell and sprouted a small purple flower that seemed to glow. Tonks was not sure of the spell's nature and thus decided that it was time to fling some spells at Hestia.
Five different beams of light left the tip of her wand in quick succession and rushed towards Hestia in a wide arc that she would not be able to dodge she jumped to her left and brought the tip of her wand to her right before firing a banishing charm which increased the range of her jump from a small jump to gigantic leap.
The spells missed Hestia and hit the shield at the ring's edge before they dissipated against it.
As Hestia was leaping away from the barrage of spells, Tonks banished the pyramid at the purple flower trying to probe the new spell her friend used. The pyramid moved towards the flower with a furious speed before it was stopped by a root tearing through the ground, grabbing it, and hurling it back towards Tonks who used a reducto to prevent herself from getting bludgeoned.
"You finished it?!" Tonks gave her friend a surprised look even as Hestia grinned at her exclamation. She had been working on that spell for two months.
"No more pesky animated transfiguration to intercept spells," saying this Hestia launched as a body-bind curse towards her friend following it closely with an expelliramus.
Tonks grinned before a protego materialised in front of her and absorbed the two spells before she returned fire with the same two spells. Hestia did not attempt to dodge as the spells were intercepted by another root tearing the ground and absorbing the spells.
"Looks like we are at a stalemate, Tia," Hestia nodded at her friend's words since Tonks couldn't take her down without the use of potentially lethal spells while Hestia could not hope to go against Tonks' transfiguration without the use of blasting and cutting hexes.
The two girls smirked at each other before they started circling each other again. Tonks' smirk turned into a sly smile before a jet of thick orange flames rushed out of her wand and rushed towards the flower. Hestia grimaced even as she waved her wand and vanished the flames.
"So the flower is the anchor that keeps the spell together, doesn't it? Quite the big weakness isn't it, darling?"
Hestia looked at her with a mocking expression and was about to quip back when an expelliramus rushed out from the wand of Cedric Diggory towards her. She became aware of the spell because of the cry of panic from Waynewood and the bright red colour of the spell. Instead of trying to block, she simply used her banishing technique to jump away from the spell.
Hestia internally cursed as she knew that if the spotters were getting interested thanks to the stalemate then the fight would end soon when one of them finally got either Tonks or herself to slip up.
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Alan shouted as he saw Cedric cast a spell at Hestia, almost moving to give the backstabbing git a piece of his mind when he was pulled back by Judas who was looking at him with a smirk.
"Mr Watson that-"
"- What Diggory did is completely normal here, Mr Waynewood. You can't expect to think that people won't try to take a potshot if given the chance in a real fight. Whenever you enter the ring in the future, you won't be training for a fair fight but active combat. Potshots and stray spells kill more people than the actual duels. Keeping a check on your surroundings is far more important than getting lost in the joy of battle."
Alan calmed down and Nathan could see the gear turning in the boy's head. He seemed conflicted, as he nodded his head and sighed, "I get your point, sir. It does seem quite logical to implement such a system."
Mr Watson smiled before saying, "Normally, they would have to just be content with the light of the spell but your shout must have helped Ms Jones regardless."
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The fight as Hestia predicted did not last long after Cedric and the seventh year started to throw spells at them as well. It was finally decided when the seventh year broke through one of the shields Tonks hastily projected. She obviously rolled away from the subsequent spells but Hestia did not let the chance go and petrified her friend.
Nathan could say that his perspective about magical fights had changed. Before this fight, he had imagined a duel between equals to be like a game of chess where both sides tried to outwit their enemy but now he knew that while chess was a good way to portray a duel, there were a variety of ways that the whole could be upturned for either side.
As the shield surrounding the ring disappeared and Tonks got released from her bindings, Nathan and Alan were busy inquiring when they could start duelling for real.
"Not anytime soon, the most you can do right now is pretty limited. No, you two first need to bring up your speed of casting to acceptable margins. Now let us go back, you two will cast the petrification hex on the dummy as fast as you can for ten seconds."
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A/N:
Hope you liked the chapter. This duel doesn't seem all that impressive when you remember that wizards can call upon a lot of magic that can be very lethal even with their advanced healing.
It never made sense to me why most fics have their characters train in dodging or duelling only when there is a plethora of other things a fighter has to keep track of during a fight.
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