Cursed With Curious Minds | Hp Next Generation

50 - Duels and Kisses

McGonagall froze for a moment as she entered the room, bewildered by the sheer amount of dark magic contained within its four walls. This moment of hesitation gave Zach enough time to grab his disarmed wand and start shooting spells at McGonagall. It appeared he wasn't against using dark magic, and so McGonagall was having to spend most of her energy blocking, rather than attacking. However, her movements were swift, and fast, and she had only cast non-verbal spells so far, whereas Zach had nowhere near as many years of experience and seemed to be casting spells with fierce anger rather than calm and calculated movements.

"Woah." Astrid said in wonder, marvelling at the duelling skills of their headmaster. Although she quickly looked away as she rushed forwards to help her friends.

With Zach's energy focused entirely on holding off McGonagall, whatever spell he had used to tie everyone up had weakened, so Astrid just began untying the ropes with her hands.

"I'm so glad you're alright." Astrid said to Ophelia.

"Me too." Ophelia replied, as the two shared a quick kiss before Ophelia turned to untie Toby and Astrid went over to Delilah.

"Did you apparate all the way from Diagon Alley?" Delilah asked, already sounding impressed.

Astrid smiled. "You bet I did."

When everyone was untied, Astrid felt an urge to join in and help McGonagall, but she felt that her interference in their battle would probably hinder more than it would help, so the rest of them watched in awe. It seemed by this point that it was now Zach on the defence, while McGonagall had managed to switch to casting offensive spells. However the battle was heating up, and after a few moments, Zach had given up with the defensive tactic and the two of them were going full-out in attacking each other.

McGonagall was keeping her spells civilised, aiming for Zach and Zach only, but he didn't seem to care. His spells were hitting all sorts of objects, and bouncing around the room. Various vials of potion had smashed on the floor and paper from the cursed books was flying everywhere. Thinking quickly, Astrid cast a quick levitation spell to leave the paper suspended in the air and lead it away from the battle; a curse from a book was the last thing anyone needed right now.

More objects began to fly around the room, and as a vial of some purple potion came flying towards Ophelia, Toby jumped out from under the table to send it flying in the opposite direction and pulled Ophelia under the table with him, casting a quick protection spell over the two of them.

"Thanks." She breathed, not entirely sure what just happened.

"Anytime." Toby responded.

The battle raged on, and at one point a jar containing a large fang exploded, which caused the fang to shoot across the room and impale itself into the wall. James looked at the object with intense curiosity as it began to leak a blackish liquid.

"Basilisk venom..." he muttered under his breath, really hoping he was right.

Launching himself right through the crossfire, James ran with determination to reach the fang protruding out of the wall.

"James!" Delilah screamed, thinking he was doing something stupid, and immediately casting some short-lived, but strong, protective charms around him.

James made it through unscathed, and pulled the fang from out of the wall. He quickly took the coin out of his pocket, and without hesitation, stabbed it with the fang. The coin exploded in a black cloud and emitted an ear-piercing scream while the coin itself singed and burned as the venom made its way through the metal.

"No!" Zach screamed, noticing what had happened.

This moment of hesitation from Zach was all McGonagall needed to disarm and apprehend him. She cast magical ropes around his arms, and stuck his feet into the ground.