[1990 Pt.17]

A|N: Drop some reviews for the fic if you have something you would like me to improve.

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[October 17, 1990.]

Nathan, along with the other seven of his team members, found himself on the banks of the black lake. Each of them was carrying either a Cleansweep 27 or a Nimbus 1500. All of them were bought with the contributions of all the members of the house for the house team.

Nathan looked towards Philip, and said, "We are really lucky that there is no dense fog. It would be a nightmare to try to pin Weasley down in such a weather with how good a flyer he is."

Philip nodded before he looked at his wristwatch, a coming-of-age gift from his mother, and said, "The weather isn't great without the fog either way. I feel like I am standing under a storm with how the winds are blowing Grey. Tonks morph only as you ascend. Mount your brooms, boys and girls, this is going to be the best and worst flying experience of your life."

All of them put one leg over the brooms as they looked towards the sky where they knew the Ravenclaw that both Philip and Charlie agreed upon, was standing with a watch in his hand.

The signal for the start of the match was given when Nathan saw green sparks flying into the sky.

The effect of the green sparks was immediate, as the team of eight immediately hovered off the ground and pivoted their brooms forward to move forward and float slowly above the murky black and foreboding surface of the Black Lake. Nathan made it a point to not look down towards the water. The lake had always made him uneasy due to how evil and creepy it looked and a small voice at the back of his head was really cursing Nathan for deciding to participate in the gauntlet.

He quickly shook his head as Hestia said, "All right everybody, sticking, warming and cat's feet charms on yourself, your wand and the broom, quick. Tonks change up when we start to ascend. The protean charm between the gauntlets just went off, both sides are over the lake, and the game has begun."

Nathan instinctively followed the command before he looked towards where he knew the Gryffindor team would be. He couldn't see anybody there. It could have been because of the

Nathan unsealed his lenses to highlight each of the Gryffindors, and muttered, "Smart move," before he turned towards his team and saw one of them conjuring metal which was then being transfigured into the shape of paper planes by Tonks.

'They are bastardizing the memo charm that the Ministry uses to carry memos to the various departments. Resourceful.'

Nathan stopped admiring the piece of magic before he aimed his wand in the direction of the flying lions and said, "They are under disillusionment charms, I used a divination spell. Three of them are climbing high while five others are rushing towards us in a straight path from their take-off area. That is all the answer I got from the spell."

Hestia nodded at Nathan's words before she said, "The five below are probably going to rush us into close fights while the three snipe us from above. A good way to take us down one by one."

Nathan nodded along with his teammates and Philip said, "We are staying close to the surface of the lake, yes? You girls can ride up while we take on the rushers. "

Hestia nodded before she glanced at an intensely focused Tonks and asked, "Are you done?"

Tonks nodded slowly, looking at the dozen metal planes floating in the air around her and said, "They should be enough."

Hestia nodded before she looked ahead and said, "Let's FLY THEN!" 

Nathan, Philip and three other seventh-year boys rushed towards the five Gryffindors rapidly, with Nathan being in the lead as he guided them to the Gryffindors, though they made sure to make it look like they were rushing towards the area from where the Lions took flight.

Nathan smiled internally as they were just about thirty meters away from running into the ambush the Gryffindors had set up for them. He shouted, "About thirty meters ahead of us, close to the water, HIT THE WATER!"

Most of his team, including Philip went for blasting hexes aimed at the water in front of them while Nathan gave a feral smile as he pointed his wand at the water of the lake below himself.

He felt the subtle warmth of his magic turn into a raging, howling flame as the water of the lake rose up in a tide of water that seemed to grow in size.

They hit the curtain of water that the blasting hexes had risen up from the water and the Gryffindors found themselves faced with four ready wizards firing hexes and jinxes at them even as a tidal wave rushed towards them.

Of course, the ambushers while a little surprised were not caught off guard and were easily able to shield themselves before returning fire with their spells.

Nathan smiled in a little satisfaction as he turned his head towards Philip and gave him a nod before he pointed his wand at himself and let his disillusionment charm cover him. The prefect gave him a smirk and a small bow before he shouted, "To the girls!!!!!" and turned his broom up to fly towards the three girls who were being chased around by Weasley and his two supporters. One of them, Nathan noted, was a Ravenclaw.

The Lions, of course, did not want the puffs to disengage so easily and immediately tried to chase his four fellow teammates.

Tried being the keyword. As they tried to disengage, five tendrils, one for each of Nathan's opponents, broke off from the tidal wave of water and tried to smack them into the water.

Some of the wizards tried to evade while others tried to blast the tendrils using explosion charms. Both methods worked before the destroyed thick tendrils of water immediately reformed into two thick pillars and rushed back at the fliers in a more frenzied manner.

After some more attempts at destroying the water pillars and trying to run away, one of the fliers decided something better and screamed, "GLACIUS MAXIMA!"

The scream was followed by more screaming from the lions ranging from Confringo, Bombarda Maxima and Glacius Maxima.

The effect was immediate, as Nathan's animated elemental spell froze before being obliterated by the combined explosions and bombings.

Nathan could have probably halted the attack but he would not put so much effort into maintaining a spell that had already served its purpose.

He let the disillusionment charm fall, the lions looked at him in surprise before they grinned and launched five simultaneous disarming and stunning hexes at Nathan just held his wand up like he was casting a lumos and all the spells froze in the air.

The Lions froze in awe as they looked at the spells that seemed to be frozen in time.

"Ladies, Gentlemen", they did not reply as they looked at him warily but Nathan gave his wand a lazy flick regardless and incanted, 'Spatium Dispergus' mentally and reality seemed to glitch for a second around the five spatially-frozen spells before they winked out of existence.

"Shall we?"

It was satisfying to watch their horror of the spell as they felt its power flow over their skins. They may not have particularly great magic-sensing skills but the sheer density of Nathan's spell was enough to be picked up even by their underdeveloped magical senses.

'House of the Brave, indeed. Though they should be trying to help Weasley, he is a good flier, but even he won't last long against seven wizards and witches. Though I shouldn't blame them, at the end of the day, they aren't in a war.'- Nathan thought as two wizards practically threw themselves at him.

He could see three others actually pause a little before they looked in the direction where Nathan had just seen Weasley and his one remaining Ravenclaw teammate flying as the Ravenclaw shielded both of them desperately. The eighth member of the team was probably out of the game by now.

They shouted to their friends to clean me up before they rushed towards Weasley.

Nathan did not pay attention to them, he had done his job well enough as he had told his teammates he would do. His actions had tired out the three reinforcements that were going towards Weasley while he was taking down the other two.

Nathan counted this as success on his part even as he dodged the spells from the two fliers. If his fellow badgers couldn't defeat the opponent even now then Nathan wasn't going to use potentially lethal magic to bulldoze through the match.

------------------------------Author|Notes----------------------------

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