The last morning of the school year dawned bright and deceptively peaceful.
Birdsong drifted over the lawns.
Sunlight glimmered across the Black Lake.
Students laughed and lugged trunks toward the Hogwarts Express, relieved to finally go home.
But for House Draconis?
Peace was a lie.
A violent, explosive lie.
Because today—on this sacred final day—Cassius stood as judge, arbiter, and neutral overseer of a tradition he absolutely had not intended to start but was powerless to stop:
The Draconis Girl Battle Royale.
The reward?
A place among one of three seats.
Three highly-prized, dramatically fought-over, absolutely ridiculous seats in his private compartment on the ride back to London.
Last year had been a mess.
This year?
After their intense training, it had become a war.
~
The arena was just the Draconis training yard, though expanded to make the casting of aoe spells less effective against all of them together.
The contest was about to begin, and while Cassius served as the judge, he had assistants this year, mainly Professors Snape, and Lupin.
Each standing on opposite sides of the 'arena' prepared to step in to extract a girl should her defeat be determined rather than watch them sustain actual harm.
The battle itself was going to be a real world, full intensity battle with very little held back.
Only a scant few rules existed;
1. No lethal spells
2. No Forbidden magic
3. Attacking a surrendered opponent results in disqualification (no bullying)
4. Judges rules are final (If they say you're out, you're out.)
Standing on his own raised platform looking over the setup like an ancient emperor about to watch a gladiator match Cassius sat, raising the final question.
"Everyone ready?"
""We are!""
The six witches—Hermione, Daphne, Cho, Ginny, Astoria, and Luna—stood across from one another in a loose circle, each wearing their dueling robes, wands already drawn being gripped like predators about to strike out on a hunt, intense burning desire flickering in their eyes.
Cassius raised his arm up high above his head.
Letting it linger there only for a moment, before he lowered his arm.
"Begin."
~
Ginny was the first to move.
Not surprising, of the six she was the most battlecrazed.
"INCENDIO MAXIMA!"
A wave of fire roared forward.
Daphne countered smoothly with a cry of "GLACIUS!", turning the flames into a cloud of steaming mist.
Cho took advantage of the concealment, firing a precise "CONFUNGO!" that forced Ginny to tumble aside.
Hermione launched an entire chain of spells—stunning, binding, and disarming charms woven together in rapid succession.
Astoria shrieked gleefully and charged straight through them, shield charm glimmering, before tackling Hermione bodily.
Both girls rolled on the floor.
Hermione screamed, "Astoria, stop BITING—!"
"It's a distraction technique!"
"It's assault!"
Luna floated sideways past them, humming, seemingly untouched by the pandemonium, as she cast a gentle but strangely unstoppable hex that caused Daphne's boots to sprout feathers.
Daphne's eyes widened. "Not again—!"
She shot upward ten feet into the air, flailing.
Luna waved cheerfully.
Cassius rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I need a rule about gravity manipulation next year."
~
Cho darted across the field, movements fluid, casting spells as if conducting a symphony.
One shield.
One stun.
One silent cutter.
Each perfectly placed.
Ginny, by contrast, fought like she was trying to start three bar fights at once.
"REDUCTO!"
Cho leapt aside.
"DEPULSO!"
Cho countered with a graceful arc of her wand.
"SERPENSORTIA!"
Cho screamed as a snake appeared at her feet.
Cassius winced. "Ginny!"
"What? It's not lethal!"
Cho blasted it into glittering particles and fired back—
"VENTILARE!"
A gale-force wind hurled Ginny twenty feet backward until she slammed into a conjured cushion.
Cassius did appreciate Cho's safety instincts.
Ginny groaned and staggered up, hair aflame.
Literally.
"Oh come ON!"
She dove back into the fray.
~
Astoria and Hermione were still locked in a vicious magical wrestling match.
"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"
Astoria bent backward like a gymnast, barely avoiding the spell.
"Locus Solem Slipio!"
Hermione yelped as her shoes suddenly lost friction, sending her skating helplessly across the grass.
Astoria cackled and pursued.
Hermione recovered by hooking her wand into the dirt, releasing a burst of force that flung Astoria backward into a conjured wooden crate.
"WHY IS THERE A CRATE?!" Astoria shrieked.
"I TRANSFIGURED IT SO I COULD THROW YOU INTO IT!"
"YOU'RE INSANE!"
"You bit me!"
~
After finally dispelling the feather-levitation hex, Daphne dropped back to earth—literally—landing in the center of the battlefield with the silent menace of an apex predator.
She raised her wand.
And for the first time, she looked annoyed.
A truly dangerous state.
"Enough."
The temperature dropped ten degrees instantly.
Frost spread across the battlefield like rippling glass.
Hermione shivered.
Astoria shrieked again, "SHE'S DOING THE FROST QUEEN THING—RUN!"
Ginny, Cho, and Hermione all scattered.
Luna floated serenely, unbothered as the frost parted around her like she was politely asking it to.
Daphne unleashed a storm of ice shards—not lethal, but fast.
Precise.
Devastating.
Cassius murmured, "Ten points to Daphne for dramatic flair."
Snape meanwhile on the side groaned his son truly was outrageous treating this as a simple game, rather than the life and death struggle that it was.
~
While everyone else blasted, froze, collided, screamed, and sprinted for their lives…
Luna simply drifted.
Casting spells that defied classification:
• A charm that turned Astoria's sleeves into animated snakes.
• A hex that made Hermione's hair levitate straight up, blocking her vision.
• A jinx that turned Ginny's wand temporarily into a squeaky toy.
• A ripple of soft golden magic that caused Cho to forget what she was doing for five seconds.
• A polite tap of Daphne's shoulder with a tiny spark that sent a shockwave knocking Daphne flat.
Luna blinked innocently.
"Oh my. That was louder than expected."
Cassius atop his perch even mused at the thought of testing her blood for possible divine ancestry, as her ditzy powers seemed at times to be beyond human comprehension.
~
The battle had raged for nearly fifteen minutes.
Stone scorched
Magical frost melted.
Astoria had been buried under conjured pillows twice.
Ginny had set herself on fire three separate times caught in the blasts of her own explosive spells.
Hermione was trembling with rage, her hair still floating.
Cho looked like she had run a marathon through a hurricane.
Daphne was dented, drenched, and furious.
Luna was humming, having herself a whale of a time.
It was finally entering the climax.
The girls hurled everything they had left—
Light.
Fire.
Wind.
Water.
Hexes.
Counters.
Stunners.
A storm of color and noise.
Then—
BOOM.
A final explosion of clashing spells sent all six flying.
Cassius watched the dust settle.
Slowly, three figures staggered upright.
Three remained conscious.
Three stood victorious:
Daphne.
Cho.
Luna.
Hermione lay on her back groaning.
Ginny was face-down showing no movement at all
Astoria had been blown skyward and was hanging by her robe from the chandelier, giggling to herself in her sleep.
Luna brushed her hair back and said dreamily, "Oh good. I hoped I'd get to sit with Cassius today. My nargles don't like to be away from him for to long."
Cho bowed lightly to Cassius, though she was swaying.
Daphne simply collapsed onto one knee and rasped, "Mine."
Cassius clapped politely.
"Winners: Daphne Greengrass, Cho Chang, and Luna Lovegood."
Luna beamed.
Cho sighed in relief.
~
With the match concluded and the more serious injuries tended to with Dittany, along with other magical potions and poltices.
The two professors entered a discussion off to the side.
"Severus..." Lupin started only to be cut off.
"I know." Snape his words biting. "If they had fought this hard in that godforsaken dungeon... they wouldnt have needed the two of us."
Then the two looked back, back at the scene of Cassius their student standing over the six girls who were either laying down or sitting while leaning against one another as they recovered from their loves battlefield.
All of this... this carnage... all for an eight hour trainride...
And together they could only gulp in horror at the thought of what would happen should Voldemort ever make the mistake of eliminating Cassius and the girls finding out.