To everyone's surprise, Harry's face was twisted with fury, his voice filled with such bitter anger that it was almost as if he were casting an Unforgivable Curse, as if he truly wanted to kill the professor.
But a Disarming Charm was still only a Disarming Charm, and Tver was not Voldemort. With a light flick of the Elder Wand, he sent the counterattacking red light flying aside.
"You seem to have quite a bit of resentment in you, Harry." Tver's lips curled into a teasing smile, making his words sound thick with menace.
"But a Disarming Charm won't kill anyone. Haven't Sirius and Dumbledore taught you that all this time?"
He stepped forward slowly. With another flick of his wand, Michael Corner and Ron, who had been about to take the chance to attack, spun sideways through the air like two tops.
"The battlefield won't wait for you to grow up. When the time comes for a real fight to the death, are you still going to rush in full of anger and let Voldemort crush you like an ant..."
"And die?"
Tver came to a slow stop in front of Harry. The wand in his hand seemed to point at him almost carelessly, yet Harry felt a crushing helplessness, as though he had no way to resist.
His anger crashed into cold reality, and the fear he had thought was gone surged back into him. It was like shards of ice filling his stiff body, leaving him unable to move.
Neville looked at Harry's pale face, then at Professor Fawley, who seemed to be toying with them.
After hesitating for a moment, he could not help drawing his wand. But before he could even say the spell, Tver struck him down mercilessly with a Stunning Spell.
Still, Neville's movement and the sound of him hitting the ground finally snapped Hermione and Draco, who had been standing at the edge of the storm, back to their senses.
The two exchanged a horrified glance. They still did not understand why, but they finally realized that the professor was not joking.
"Stupefy!"
"Expulso!"
Since the professor had said magic was not forbidden, using a little dark magic was perfectly normal, right?
Draco comforted himself with that thought as he strode forward and grabbed Harry, pulling him back again and again, just as Harry had saved him moments earlier.
The two spells came one after another. Even though Tver blocked them with a Shield Charm, the rising dust and sand still obscured his vision.
By the time he conjured a gust of wind to blow the dust away, the last three remaining students had already formed an inverted triangle, two in front and one behind, watching him with full vigilance.
"Not bad. Quick thinking," Tver praised.
Harry, standing at the rear, still looked panicked, but that position allowed him to make the most of his abilities.
Draco and Hermione stood in front. With their decent strength, the two of them working together to withstand Tver's magic was far better than fighting him alone.
Seeing the three strongest students at Hogwarts at this stage join forces at last, Tver finally felt a trace of interest in the fight.
"What do we do? Professor Fawley seems even more excited now..." Draco was starting to panic.
After learning from the professor for so long, no student understood better than him just how unfathomable the professor was.
What made it even more terrifying was that although the magic the professor usually displayed was already enough to broaden Draco's horizons, for the sake of making things easier for Draco and Neville to understand, the professor's spells had still remained within the realm of ordinary magic.
But now, this was the first time he had seen the professor in a truly serious combat state.
"I've actually thought about how to deal with the professor before," Hermione said with a frown. "For example, two people block his spells, two people undo his Transfiguration, and two people provide support and attack. It's not as if we'd have no ability to resist at all."
"But Ron and the others are already completely down. With the professor's strength, even if we used counter-spells on them, they might not have enough strength left to fight."
"So," she sighed helplessly, "relying on one person to block the professor's magic is simply unrealistic."
"What are you two looking at me like that for?" she asked in confusion, noticing Harry and Malfoy staring at her strangely.
"What is wrong with you? You actually thought up a plan to deal with the professor in advance?"
Draco suddenly felt that losing to Granger in grades over the past few years was not strange at all. After all, he had never thought ahead about how to deal with the professor.
"Er..."
Hermione's face reddened. She could hardly say that she had guessed ahead of time that the professor wanted to overturn the Statute of Secrecy, so she had prepared just a tiny few countermeasures, just in case.
"Professor Fawley is our opponent in this competition. It's normal for me to think about these things..."
"Watch out!"
Harry and Draco hurriedly cast two Shield Charms, helping Hermione block Tver's spell.
"On a battlefield, you won't have time to stand around chatting."
Even as he spoke, Tver's wand did not stop. Spell after spell shot toward the three of them at terrifying speed, as if they cost him nothing.
This time, Harry and the others had a much harder time defending themselves.
Aside from powerful spells coming straight at them, they also had to watch out for pits and branches constantly emerging from the grass, trying to trip them.
In this situation, forget counterattacking the professor. If they could last a full minute, they would already have reason to laugh.
As he cast more and more magic, it was clear from how increasingly difficult it became for Harry's group to hold on that Tver's mastery of the Elder Wand was also steadily rising.
It was even starting to feel addictively exhilarating.
That exhilaration was like the reckless freedom that came with using dark magic, as if it were tempting him to fight at every moment.
Unfortunately, Tver was far too good at controlling that feeling.
Sensing that his experiment with the Elder Wand had achieved its purpose, Tver turned his wrist. A spell already flying through the air suddenly swerved in a strange arc, neatly bypassing Hermione's Shield Charm and hitting her with precision.
Draco and Harry froze for a moment. Before they could protect her, they realized the professor was giving them no time to react at all. Two identical spells arrived in front of them cleanly and instantly.
"Bang!" x3
The three of them crashed heavily to the ground, crying out in pain.
Harry felt as though his entire back had been rammed by an Erumpent. It hurt so much that tears nearly squeezed out of his eyes.
Rustle...
Tver crossed the grass and slowly came to stand in front of Harry, looking down at him as he gasped in pain. A mocking smile tugged at his lips.
"I thought you'd have at least some ability to resist. It seems Sirius and Dumbledore's teaching isn't much after all. You're still this fragile."
Harry gritted his teeth and barely forced his eyes open, but he did not dare meet Tver's mocking gaze. His body trembled slightly, whether from pain or anger, even he did not know.
"What? You don't even have the courage to face me?"
Tver felt that if Snape were playing this role right now, he would definitely be far more convincing.
Unfortunately, Snape had shut himself away completely these days.
"If that's really the case, then I might as well do it myself. At least then, you won't die in so much pain..."
He slowly raised his wand, only to be met by Harry's unwilling, furious stare.
"Why?" Harry snarled. "Just because I was born at the end of July, my parents had to be killed by Voldemort, and I had to be treated as his enemy?"
"And why do all of you think I definitely can't defeat Voldemort?"
With a roar, he sprang to his feet under Tver's cold gaze. Before he could raise his wand, Tver hit him swiftly with a Disarming Charm.
But as Harry's wand was knocked away, Hermione's voice rang out behind Tver as if taking over the relay.
"Expelli..."
Yet Tver seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. He pointed his wand backward, and the soil beneath Hermione's feet instantly churned, turning into a vine that bound her tightly.
But the most unexpected thing was...
"Expelliarmus."
A weak, powerless spell drifted lightly toward Tver, so feeble that it only struck the ground at his feet.
Even so, it was indeed a spell that Tver had not guarded against.
Surprise finally appeared on his face as he looked toward the direction the spell had come from.
There, Draco was nearly buried in earth. Apart from half his pale face, only the wand in his hand trembled weakly in the air, as if it might slip from his grip at any moment.
Yet no matter how Tver looked, Draco was still holding it firmly, stubbornly pointing it in his direction.
After a long while, Tver suddenly grinned silently.
It was both resignation at his own mistake and relief that his students had performed so brilliantly.
"Congratulations. You have won the final victory."