Figaro Sellaphix vs Ariadne Gamp
First Round, Remembering Day Tournament 2010
7:15pm on the 4^th of May

They were the first to go in tonight's heat, the second night of the tournament.  Figaro had been pit against Ariadne Gamp who was known to be just about as loud as he was.  He was really happy to be paired with her because he knew they'd have a giant time. 

In a knot of his friends, Figaro bounced up and down on his toes, cricking his neck from side to side.  He made a show of warming up like a muggle pugilist.  He was in a Hufflepuff-crested black and gold dueling vest.  He danced forward and back, jabbing his wand silently in big stances and giant sweeps, readying his wand hand.

"First round knock-out, Sellaphix, don't bother with disarming her."

"Mate, you can't pull off that spell.  Don't even try!"

His friends offered advice and support and they chattered loudly on their end of the dueling stage.  He saw Ariadne at the other end.

"Oi! HARRY!"  When he had her attention he pointed at his eyes with two fingers, then turned the fingers onto her. 

"What do you want Smellypig?" Ariadne replied, hands on hips, and a glint in her eye. It was all bravado, the two of them were determined to make this duel fun to spectate as well as trying to win it.

"Just y'know don't put him in Nagde's hut for too long, Ari, because we need the paper out on time…"

"I'm sure he'll be able to write with one eye." Ariadne explained, full of beans.

"We're having a DUEL, not a DANCE OFF!" She called to Figaro with his flouncing.

But it was soon time to take their places, back to back. There was some elbow jabbing as they did, some ankle kicking until Professor Storm aimed a hex at their feet and uttered something about disqualifying them both.

Then there were the obligatory number of steps down the platform away from each other, Ari taking deep breaths to fill the bottom of her lungs while she had the chance before bang, they turned on the spot and she flung her first -

one she could do non-verbally at least - Digilock

- and then threw up her shield, though it was imperfect, she hoped to hinder Figaro from his first impressive, showy spell that he might throw at her.

"Finger trouble?" She called at him, taking more of a crouched position than before, to help stability and to make herself a smaller target.

Figaro probably enjoyed the laughter at he and Ariadne's pre-match prodding more than he should have, because Ariadne was far quicker on the draw than he.  He didn't even realize she'd cast until his practiced grip on his wand was suddenly gummed up!

Instead of allowing the wand to cradle in his fingers, his fingers suddenly stuck together and he could only manage a sort of claw.  Digilock! 

"Bollocks!" Everybody laughed.  He needed to set her back on her heels...

"Accido!"

With her harms up in guard, he hoped that something down about her ankles would do the trick.

Tipping on her balance from Figaro's quick, but ham-fisted casting, Ariadne wobbled on the other end of the platform, and set her jaw at Sellaphix.

"Want to make me dance, eh, smellpants? Praeuropedes!"

Lightning sparks shot from her wand to Figaro's feet, which she maintained with her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth, balance regained.

She didn't fall!

Figaro immediately recognized the brightly colored light that lit a path between he and Ariadne.  "Faster than you!" Figaro laughed and skipped back to avoid contact.  For a moment the two stared each other down and no spells few between them.  Cheers from both camps egged them on, Ari's shield spell shimmering. 

"Time for a Sellaphix specialty.  Hope you're hungry, Gamp!  Eveomovirmes!"  Figaro had a personal intimacy with this hex perhaps far greater than anyone.  He knew it, how should I say, from the inside out.  He flung his casting arm in a powerful stabbing arc aiming right for her middle.  He hoped the brute force of his casting would pop the bubble and find home.

Bugger it! Her shield had begun to diminish with her concentration on witty retorts to Figaro, and the spell caught her stomach.

Big, juicy slugs burst up her throat, and into her mouth, and she bent double, hit with the first wave of wriggling live slugs from her mouth. It wasn't the most ladylike thing she'd ever done in front of a crowd in her life, and there was a peal of laughter around the room and ew, followed by screeches from younger years as she staggered towards the edge of the platform and vomited a second load quickly into the crowd, pressing her wand to her throat choking out

"Vomito Confuto" which wasn't the most effective, but gave her enough time to sling another spell at Figaro before another slug made it out of her mouth.

"Impedimenta!" if it landed, it would slow Fig down for a few seconds, enough for her to land another stronger curse, and perhaps knock him off his feet.

"Blaargh!" Another load of slugs projectile vomited from her mouth, covering the front row.

Students reacted with a mixture of revulsion and laughter as the great Ariadne tossed her snails all over some first years.  Figaro himself thrust his fist in the air and crowed in triumph.  His trio of sidekicks began a chant for Ariadne to 'Eat slugs! Eat slugs! Eat slugs!'

Figaro might have found space to end the duel then and there had he not been startled into a brief gloating celebration.  It should have been the old one-two, slugs then a disarming spell.  But instead, he ate Impedimenta right in the chest.  It felt like falling into a bucket of molasses, suddenly sooo sloooow and stiff.  He could barely move.  It took an immense amount of effort to adjust his arm even a few inches, to try and turn his head round to see what Ariadne would cast next.

"Fffiniiite..." he strained to cast, "incaaaannntatuummmm..."

The damn slugs kept coming, and Ariadne's hands went to her stomach as she bent double seizing a breath and flinging
"Accido!" in a raspy voice towards the incapacitated Figaro, stealing more time for her with the belches of garden pests.

"Blaaaargh!" She was bent full double, and the slugs came full force, all over the staging before her. The chanting from Figaro's mates was ever stronger and the yelps of disgust as slugs slapped down onto the platform and the nearby students evanescoed the entrails off their clothes as best they could was making her head swim with the vomiting.

She gasped for air, her stomach aching as she looked up finally at what had become of Figaro, hoping to cast the disarming spell to win, when she stepped forward to get her balance back, straight onto slugs and lost her own footing into the goo...

Figaro's attempt to end Ariadne's well-cast Impedimentia didn't work as his pronunciation was far to garbled to focus the magical intent into spell.  And so when Ariadne's Tripping Jinx hit him, he toppled backwards at full speed like his foot had been swept out from under him.

That hex and the fall seemed to break Imepedimentia, but it was too late.  He was flat on his back, his wand clattered to the floor and skittering beneath the feet of the onlookers. 

The referee immediately stepped into the center of the dueling stage, arms extended to each player.  Figaro had scrambled to his feet to see Ariadne laying in slop. 

"She's down! She'd down!" he claimed, pointing.  But he hadn't seen her fall - who had fallen first? And did she still have her wand?

Your call, Kit! Dice roll or your imagination! Up to you!

I used "pick any number in the world, Tom" with odd for Ari to win, even for Fig. He picked "121 million" without context, so it's your lucky day Fig.

The humiliation of it! Not only was she belching slugs, but she'd fallen backwards into the gloop, and her wand had sailed out of her hand and clattered off the platform into the crowd who had been trying to scourgify off her projectile vomit from moments before.

"She's down! She's down!" she heard Figaro yell and rolled onto her side, catching sight of him on his bum too, and no wand in his hands either. Somehow they'd both lost them, and Ariadne couldn't quite remember if that meant she could launch at him with a fist, or whether they weren't finishing it off like siblings.

"By sheer luck," the professor's voice addressed the room, and Ariadne saw him look left and right between the two of them with a dissatisfied sneer at both of his Defence students, "Sellaphix is victor, for retaining his wand a moment longer. Gamp report to Nagde for a bucket."

"No!" She yelped, and scrambled to her feet, "You utter -" but she didn't manage to call Figaro the very rude word she'd wanted to, as the biggest belch of slugs launched from deep in her guts with a splatter and a chorus of ewwww! from the onlookers.

Figaro's claim of victory turned out to be right on the money, but barely.  As coincidental, as cheap as the win was, Figaro threw his fists in the air in triumph.  Both boos and cheers greeted the news, but Figaro didn't care.

"Shake hands, idiot."

Someone off stage barked a reminder of dueling etiquette and Figaro leapt to.  Of course he wanted to congratulate Ariadne!

He trotted towards the center of the stage to meet the professor and his dueling partner.  He extended his hand.  "Bloody brilliant, Harry.  And gross.  But brilliant.  Good match."

Damn and blast! That was over shorter than she'd hoped, well, unless it had ended in a single blast and she was standing over Figaro with a foot on his chest victorious.

Figaro remembered to be a gentleman and extended his hand to thank her for the match.

"Thanks Smelly," Ariadne managed, clapping a slug guts covered hand to his before he could flinch away and grinning, wiping her other arm across her mouth to get rid of the slime.

"Oh, oh Merl-"

"Ew, Gamp, use a bucket!" One clonked by her feet, transfigured from whatever was to hand.

It was too late to have caught the next load of slugs. Sheepishly, and a little smug, she released Figaro's hand and buried her head in the bucket.

"What?" She asked from within, her voice echoing inside the wooden bucket, "your parents never taught you to share?"