Voldemort smirked, just a little, a wicked and evil smirk, before making a sharp but smooth motion with his wand. The four blazing rocks soared towards Antonio, splitting the air in their path. Antonio had barely a few moments to respond to the calamity hurtling toward him.
Several strategies flashed through Antonio's mind to deal with the incoming projectiles. He could fire a powerful spell to reduce the stones to rubble or even use a charm to veer their trajectory away from him. However, all these options carried the cost of immense collateral damage.
The Wizengamot would have been badly damaged, which he did not truly care about, but there was a significant chance of the spectators being badly injured or even killed. This was something Antonio wished to avoid at all costs. He did not wish to pay the price of a human life.
Thus, his only remaining option was to directly nullify Voldemort's spell and prevent it from causing mayhem. All these thoughts and his resulting response processed through his mind in a mere split second.
Antonio weaved his wand in an instant.
The rubble and pebbles from the floor and walls, produced by the damage from Voldemort's previous spells, began to move at Antonio's will. They were not great in number, only a small cluster. But it was enough for Antonio to accomplish whatever he was trying.
Antonio continued to weave his wand until these pieces of rubble took the shape of a long needle, which penetrated one of the cracks that had formed in the floor.
The needle emerged instantly from another crack, but this time, it was not alone. Erupting from the crack behind the needle was a powdered form of rock, ground down by Antonio's magic. Very soon, this powdered rock began to erupt from every crack present on the floor. The dust moved and started to coalesce at four points in front of Antonio.
All this occurred in the blink of an eye. Just a moment before the blazing meteors reached him, the coalesced rock powder took the shape of two pairs of arms, four hands in total. The width of each palm was roughly two feet.
Every rocky meteor crashing towards Antonio was intercepted by these four hands. The stones struck the stone limbs with a loud, booming impact.
The arms shook as some of the powdered rock crumbled to the floor. Even the floor on which they were transfixed trembled from the impact. Yet the hands did not budge.
Instead, the fingers closed in, tightening around the rocks in a powerful grip.
The rocks continued to push against the hands, and a battle of magical power ensued. The hands trembled and shook, their bits and pieces crumbling away, but they did not move, nor did their grip weaken. They continued to hold the rocks tightly and with each passing moment, their grips were only tightening further.
The spectators held their breath, recognizing this as a very momentous and significant point in the confrontation. If they had been shocked by Voldemort's display of power, they were now utterly overwhelmed by the sheer display of genius from Antonio.
Even if they themselves could not have performed the spell cast by Voldemort, its magical complexities were something they could have hoped to understand. At least the basics of it.
But what Antonio had done, this was beyond their imagination. They could not have even conceived of doing something like this, especially considering that it had been used for a defensive spell. It was spectacular and brilliant and pure genius.
Similar thoughts were flashing through the minds of Minerva and Voldemort. They could not fathom the nature of the magic Antonio had just utilized. Voldemort was almost stunned into a condition of trance.
The battle between the rocks and the hands continued. Within a few moments, the hands began to gain the upper hand. Their grip tightened beyond the breaking point, and cracks started to form on the blazing rocks. Even the temperature of the stones and the fire burning within them reduced significantly. Finally, the rocks gave way. They shattered into pieces, and all heat vanished from them.
The fragments of rock and the stone hands themselves then crumbled to the floor, as a cloud of dust and debris filled the entire Wizengamot hall.
When the dust and debris finally cleared, every eye moved towards Voldemort and Antonio.
The Dark Lord was standing just as he had been, maintaining his usual calm and composure. But Antonio was different. His face looked pale, and though he was standing tall, he was breathing heavily. His shoulders were on the verge of slumping.
It did not require an explanation for anyone to understand what was happening. Magical Exhaustion.
Antonio Olario had used too much of his magic to cast that previous spell. And if Antonio, with his monstrous magical reserves, could suffer magical exhaustion, the spectators could only imagine the immense toll of the magic he had just cast.
As Voldemort saw Antonio in this state, a glint flashed through his eyes. It was exactly as he had expected. True, that spell had been sheer genius, but he had known that its cost would be enormous, even for Antonio. It was the price Antonio had paid for containing the destruction and saving people from being collateral damage.
Initially, Voldemort had expected that he would gain an advantage over Antonio because of his own limited-range spells. But such was the irony that he was now gaining the upper hand because Antonio was magically exhausted. This was the perfect opportunity for the Dark Lord to finish Antonio, and he was not willing to take any risks.
"It seems that you are on your last legs, Antonio Olario," Voldemort remarked with a cold chuckle.
"Heh!" Antonio let out a tired laugh in return. "You will still have to do a lot more to kill me."
"I know," Voldemort admitted. "I know you can still go on for a few more rounds against me. You could surely stall for time."
"But," he continued. "Now that I have an advantage, I am not going to waste it."
Antonio raised an eyebrow. His mind whirred, wondering if Voldemort had been holding back his full power, but that did not seem to be the case.
Voldemort, meanwhile, looked toward his Death Eaters and nodded. Edmund Bones could wait. Taking out Antonio was the priority. After dealing with him, he could kill Edmund with a single strike.
The Death Eaters received the message and moved. In a matter of moments, they had all shifted behind Voldemort, forming a triangular formation with the Dark Lord at the lead point. It was time for his ace to move.
#
#
#
[Add the book to your collection. Send it some power stones. Leave a rating and a review.]
[Access advanced chapter on P@treon. Replace @ with a. One additional advanced chapter each week on P@treon. ]
[email protected]/imaginarywriter