Chapter 195

Yorkshire Dales National Park.

A ripple began to form across the flat, hilly area, surrounded by endless white hills and illuminated by a bright moon and stars, and a moment later, two people emerged from the swirl: a tall young man of about twenty, with dark hair tied in a bun, in a long, grey coat, dark trousers and high boots; and a girl with loose black hair down to her shoulder blades, in a dark dress down to her heels and the same black boots, which were easy to spot at the moment of landing.

These two were Severus and Bellatrix, who by nine, as previously agreed, had finished their date and moved to a more suitable place for the upcoming duel, where they would definitely not interfere with others.

As soon as the wizard slightly loosened his grip on her waist, Bellatrix turned into dark smoke and flew away from him fifteen metres, and then again took physical form, her hand was already tightly clutching her wand and resolutely looking him in the eyes.

"You know, this is a little offensive, such a feeling that you did not like our time together." with notes of "discontent" in his voice, Severus drawled, making an offended expression on his face, to which the witch only rolled her eyes in response.

"Enough," sharply waving her wand from the bottom up, a blue projectile burst out of it, in a second overcame the distance separating them and was about to hit the Prince in the chest.

But the Slytherin only sluggishly raised his palm and put out a finger covered in a blue glow and without any problems parried the spell to the right, which surprised the girl a little.

"That's the advantage of the non-verbal "Protego", if you learn to use it without a formula, you can change its form as you please," he explained with a smile, and the glow on his finger turned into a small "man", who, raising his head, beckoned with his hand to Bellatrix, from which she narrowed her eyes unkindly.

"I will remember" sharply lowering the wand down, another projectile flew at him, accompanied by a blue flash and without waiting for the collision, she turned into smoke and flew to the right of him, materialised there and again a blue flash burst out of her wand, and then, the aristocrat again turned into smoke and appeared on the other side…..

So, time after time, the witch changed her position and attacked from different sides, and with each second her speed only grew, and the attacks became more and more furious, but the little "man" still hovered around Snape and repelled each attack, from which Black simply could not hide her shock, because Severus himself did not even move from his place, but only watched her with a smile.

And finally, already on the fortieth projectile, she again took human form and appeared fifteen metres from him, in the same place.

"You have good speed." he praised her, from which the aristocrat gnashed her teeth, "But my control is much better and I am not trying to belittle your skills in this way, but tell the truth."

"How can this be "Protego" and how can you reflect it without even turning around?!"

"Well ... it's not difficult." Severus nodded softly, and the "little man" jumped on his shoulder, "It's about my control and sensitivity to magic, when you are going to use a spell after pronouncing the formula, a large amount of magic begins to pass through the body, accumulates in the chest area, and then splashes out of the wand and under the influence of the runes takes a certain shape and properties, so I can determine where you are, thanks to the suddenly appearing magical source, which is ten times larger than in the air."

"But... it's impossible! In addition to the fact that you need to manipulate the Protego without a wand, while also constantly maintaining its shape, you must accurately determine where the spell will fly at you from and direct it there, and in less than a second!"

"Nothing is impossible, everything can be learned, even this, for example, it took me half a year and by the way, what we were doing now is an ideal exercise to improve control and reaction for any wizard who owns the non-verbal Protego." raising his finger up, like a teacher talking to a stupid student, he explained, from which the girl's eye twitched, "Although, if you moved five times faster, maybe you could have hit me, but okay, let's continue."

And a wand appeared in his hand.

"Tch! Ventus!" Making a circular motion with her wand, they were engulfed by a stream of wind and the snow lying on the ground suddenly rushed upward, blocking his visibility.

"Not bad, but…" hot air burst out of his body and right before his eyes, the flakes of snow floating in the sky immediately melted, but the girl's attack did not end there and the "little man" flying next to him managed to intercept the black snake, which was nothing more than the tip of her wand.

"Hey, we agreed to avoid such spells, and your snake was aiming at my neck."

"I don't remember that!" Bellatrix snapped back discontentedly, pulling back the wand, which, having shrunk in the hands of "Protego", jumped out of his embrace and returned to the owner, again taking its original form, and then she lowered her displeased gaze to the ground, or more precisely to the dirt on which she stood and which her dress touched, after all the snow around them melted.

"Tergeo," pointing the wand at herself, the girl whispered, drying and removing the dirt from the hem of her dress.

"Expulso!" and sharply pointing it at Severus, she exclaimed. The wizard did not move from his place, but "Protego" nevertheless took the form of a shield, half a metre in diameter, into which a spell flew in half a second later and a weak explosion occurred.

And then, lowering his head, Snape saw how branches mixed with green roots quickly began to entwine his legs, and he also felt how an invisible wave of power rushed towards him.

But instead of panic, the wizard's face was adorned with a grin, the roots were engulfed in flames and waving his wand upward, the spell, which was ready to at least deprive him of consciousness, abruptly changed direction, flying upward and a second later exploded, colliding with the barrier previously set by Severus, so as not to attract unnecessary attention from the "Ministry of Magic".

But Bellatrix did not stop there, as soon as she saw that her attack had no effect, she only became even more inflamed and completely repeated his expression, and a grey aura flowed along her hand, which the next moment burst out of the wand and rushed towards the Prince.

In response, Severus released a stream of flame from his wand, which met the dark spell and engulfed it in a few seconds, but...

"Evarte statum!" the shield that went behind him managed to block Bella's spell, "Variari Virgis!" the aristocrat exclaimed with a crazy smile and an invisible whip rushed towards him.

It, like a snake, went around the Protego and was ready to hit the back of Severus' head, but at the last moment he caught it and it immediately dissipated, and then the wizard turned to the slightly out of breath, but surprised girl.

"It was not bad, although that spell was definitely fatal, and we agreed to do this without them."

"Stop acting like you couldn't reflect them." sighing deeply, Bellatrix muttered tiredly, "You didn't even fight at full strength ... you were just playing with me! And even if I had used the Unforgivables, you would have survived with a hundred percent probability, do you think I didn't notice that from the moment of this ... this ... it's even a shame to call it a duel, you didn't even move from your place and only defended yourself."

"Hmm…" Severus embarrassedly scratched his cheek with his index finger, "If I fought you at full strength, then your chances of winning would be zero. Only Dumbledore can give me a real fight now."

"And my master?"

"I doubt it, I mainly use the fire element." putting away his wand, he simply snapped his fingers and a fireball the size of a football appeared above his left hand, "Elements of light and fire, nemesis of darkness, my fire is a little special, but until you become my wife, I will not tell you anything." Severus winked at her with a cheeky smile, to which she snorted irritably and turned away.

"It hurts to…" but before she could finish, a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and pressed her to a wide, hard chest, "...to."

"And I know what you want…." like a tempting devil, he whispered to her, causing her cheeks to flush, feeling his hot breath at her ear.

But she made no attempt to break free, since she had long since realized that this was a pointless action.

The prince, in addition to magic, was also very strong physically and the aristocrat had already seen how much when they were relaxing on the beach, and she would be lying if she said that she did not like that sight.

"You want to become stronger... you want what happened that day at Grimmauld Place 12 to never happen again, you want to be independent of anyone…" her shoulders shook with each "assumption".

"You're not the devil by any chance, are you?" Bella asked tiredly, looking up at his face.

"Who knows... who knows…"

"What do you want in return?"

"It's okay, I already have everything…" the Slytherin grinned, biting her earlobe, "I'll be happy to teach you a lesson just like that."

"If I could, I'd knock those teeth out of you." Bellatrix measured him with a murderous look, trying to suppress her embarrassment.

"A good goal and I'm sure that you'll achieve it someday, but for now…" sharply leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers, only for a few seconds, and then pulled away, "... you'll have to be patient, my Squirrel." and as soon as he let her go, he immediately tilted his head to the right, missing the wand that she was aiming at his eye.

"Tch! Missed again." the girl quickly turned away, muttering discontentedly, putting the wand back in the holster.

"The day after tomorrow I'm leaving on business, so I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow at exactly eleven in the morning and don't be late," but she didn't answer and simply apparated out of the valley, leaving the smiling Severus alone, "How shy she is…"

.

.

.

.

Thank you all for reading, please vote with power stones. You can read extra chapters of this fic on p@treon.com/lucifer09