If you would quickly take position.”
Ralph moved readily out onto the open floor, his eyes still locked on Odin-Vann, his wand held out at waist level. As always, Ralph’s wand looked fairly ridiculous. Thick as a broom handle, its sharpened tip still bearing traces of lime green paint, the instrument would be laughable to those who didn’t know that it was, in reality, a broken-off segment of Headmaster Merlin’s legendary staff, gifted to Ralph after he had mastered it back during his first year.
Odin-Vann stepped forward to bow stiffly, a polite smile on his face. Ralph did not bow in return. Instead, he struck, suddenly and powerfully, before the professor had even straightened upright.
The bolt of red spat from the enormous wand in Ralph’s outstretched fist. In response, Odin-Vann’s wand jerked upright and slashed across the red spell, blunting but not quite deflecting it. The dulled bolt caught him in the shoulder and spun him around, stumbling and flailing, his coattails flying like bat wings.
Ralph stepped forward, sighting down the length of his arm. He fired again, an orange spell this time. The blinding streak caught Odin-Vann in the back of the knee and he buckled, his leg momentarily useless. His wand jerked upright again and he spun around on his good leg, following its movement, an uncertain gleam in his eye. He was surprised by Ralph’s attack. James could see that. But he was also angered by it.
“He’s using nonverbals!” Deirdre hissed aside, not taking her eyes from Ralph. “Since when does Deedle know nonverbals?”
“That’s not Deedle, don’t you know,” Graham answered in a low voice. “That’s Dolohov!”
Ralph fired again, still stepping forward, closing the gap. This time Odin-Vann managed to block it, but the sheer force of the blow pushed him backwards several feet, scraping his boots on the stone floor as he leaned into the force.
“Deedle,” Debellows called out, but his voice was drowned by another crack from Ralph’s wand. An arc of pale green lightning writhed toward Odin-Vann, striking his chest even as his wand fired the counter-jinx uselessly into the air. The professor blasted backward and struck a bookshelf, which vomited its freight of books, peppering the professor and the shocked students nearby.
“That’s quite sufficient,” Debellows announced, raising his voice to a formidable boom. “Mr. Deedle, or whatever you prefer to call yourself—”
A blast of yellow sparks shot across the room, this time from Odin-Vann’s direction. The spell ricocheted off the ceiling and floor, spraying its force uselessly, but distracting Ralph briefly. The professor flung himself upright from the tottering bookshelf, kicked a scatter of fat textbooks aside, and raised his wand again.
Ralph saw and fired another of the pale green lightning bolts.
James assumed that it was a repulsion hex, although it was impossible to tell, since Ralph continued to fire without speaking any incantations.
Nonverbal spells, James thought, his eyes widening. Odin-Vann has no idea what to protect himself against.
And yet, this time Odin-Vann did protect himself, if only because Ralph cast the same spell twice. The professor’s wand swept up, producing a shimmering shield at the very instant that the green bolt lanced across the room. Ralph’s spell struck it and rebounded back toward him. The big boy strafed sideways, turning as he did, so that the bolt arced past and struck the door, leaving a blackened starburst on the ancient wood.
Ralph spun back toward his opponent and thrust out his wand once more.
“Sectumsempra!” he shouted, firing a blast of livid blue.
James’ blood went cold. Sectumsempra was a vicious attack, barely known and never used in dueling practices. Also, it was Ralph’s first spoken hex. He seemed to have run out of nonverbals to attempt.
Odin-Vann slashed at the blue bolt, his wand-hand moving jerkily, as if it was spring-loaded. Ralph’s spell obliterated in mid-air.
Ralph tried again, lunging aside as Odin-Vann trained his wand on him. “Incarcerous!” His voice was hoarse, strained with both concentration and inexplicable vehemence.
A spray of ropes snaked toward Odin-Vann, writhing to incapacitate him, but the professor had found his footing now and was striding forward himself, meeting Ralph’s attacks head-on. His wand lanced upright, drawing a streak of flaming red in the air, and the ropes pattered to the floor as worms of ash.
Ralph struck again, and again, but Odin-Vann barely blinked now. He stepped forward with each deflection, closing the distance between them, forcing Ralph backwards toward the door. The professor was smiling now, or at least showing his teeth in a sort of mirthless rictus, his wand hand moving as if of its own accord, slashing and thrusting, jerking in his fist like a living thing. Ralph was breathless, calling every spell he could think of, faster and faster, but to no avail.
Odin-Vann’s wand met each one with its counter-jinx, so quickly that James could barely keep track. The crackle of spent magic, acrid and electric, filled the room and made James’ hair prickle. The flashbulb pop and sizzle of the duel was almost too blinding to watch. By comparison, the rest of the room was a gloom of astonished, staring faces.
Finally, as the confrontation reached its breathless, explosive zenith, Ralph’s back thumped against the classroom door. His elbow struck the wood and the wand fumbled from his hand, trailing sparks and steaming like a log in a fire. Odin-Vann swept his arm forward in a blur, stopping just short of Ralph’s upraised chin, touching the tip of his own smoking wand to the boy’s throat, and freezing there.
The room was suddenly thick with stunned silence. James blinked against green after-images of the duel, each spell momentarily burned onto his retinas. The only sound now was the huff of Ralph’s hard breath as he stood against the door, pushed up onto his toes, his head tilted back from Odin-Vann’s pointing wand.
“I daresay, to the both of you,” Debellows exhaled, shaking his head slowly, “you might do well to learn less spellwork… and more when to quit.”