Show mercy, my foot!
The Prefects wanted to swear out loud. They'd already thrown everything they had at him!
Every spell, every trick, every ounce of magical strength—and still, not one of them had managed to gain the upper hand.
Samuel, who'd been the first to attack, was now turning green with frustration.
That night, when he'd judged Marius' magical reserves as "comparable" to his own…
He realized now just how disastrously wrong he'd been.
Comparable? No.
This wasn't even the same league. Marius' magical power wasn't "equal" to theirs…
It was crushingly superior.
Where on earth was this guy getting all that magic!?
His sustained spellcasting and physical energy left the four Prefects dumbfounded.
He was defending himself with grace and ease—against four of the strongest underage wizards in Hogwarts.
By now, even Samuel's own teammates were giving him side-eyes full of blame.
Thanks a lot, Samuel.
You said he'd max out after defending against three? Boom—immediately proven wrong.
You said he'd run out of magic? Boom—he's still going strong.
Is your face hurting yet from all those slaps?
Or are you secretly a mole sent by Marius to sabotage us with false info?
Samuel wanted to cry from sheer injustice. "This doesn't make sense! He's just a first-year! How can he have so much magic!?"
But reality didn't care how impossible it sounded.
-----
Professor Sprout had a hand over her mouth in shock. "Dear Merlin… even I wasn't this powerful at his age!"
McGonagall's face was pale with disbelief.
Considering Marius' young age, his magical strength was borderline terrifying.
Normally, a young wizard's magic grew with age. Magical development and years were strongly linked.
Older students almost always had more raw magic.
But Marius Cloud seemed to have broken the rules.
Or, McGonagall thought with growing unease, perhaps he hadn't broken them at all…
Perhaps this really was the amount of magic he naturally possessed at his age.
And if that was true—
Then what would he become when he grew up?
-----
"He's… stronger than he was on the train that day… How is that possible?"
Quirrell—no, Voldemort—watched through Quirrell's eyes, his expression dark and unreadable.
He was one of the few who could truly gauge the depths of magical growth.
And what he saw in Marius made his soul twitch.
This progress rate... it's inhuman.
-----
"He must've taken a magic-enhancing potion!" Kelly hissed through clenched teeth.
"Don't forget—he's the sole heir of the Cloud family! He has access to the best resources! A few rare potions wouldn't be surprising!"
The other Prefects visibly relaxed at her words.
Yes! That must be it.
Kelly raised her voice, rallying her team: "So stop hesitating! Keep attacking! We just have to outlast the potion!"
The battle exploded again into chaos.
Marius stood alone at the heart of it, and yet he moved as calmly as a dancer waltzing across a battlefield.
Four elite duellists, and yet none could break his rhythm.
Gone were the sneers and doubts.
No one was calling him crazy anymore.
Now, those who had called him crazy were the ones being laughed at.
-----
"Go, Mr. Cloud! Beat them down!"
Brunel yelled with wild passion—completely ignoring the fact that one of the Prefects Marius was fighting was his own sister.
Kelly heard her voice and gritted her teeth in frustration, but she had no strength to spare.
She made a silent vow: Once we're on break, I'm dragging that brat back home and giving him the beating of his life!
Barry and Joseph, watching from the sidelines, had also realized it—
The tide had turned.
The duel had shifted from "take Marius down" to "let's just survive this".
The four official Prefects had lost the initiative.
They had lost momentum.
And most importantly—they had lost confidence.
Steve felt a chill crawling up his spine as he faced Marius.
The boy didn't feel like a person anymore—more like a towering wall, a mountain with no peak in sight.
No matter how hard they pushed, there was no end to him.
What if…
What if we're the ones who run out of magic first?
-----
"Spread out!" Kelly suddenly shouted, snapping them out of their panic.
"Use our numbers! Attack from all sides! He's not invincible!"
That's why she was the seventh-year Prefect. That one shout brought clarity to the team.
She's right!
Even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had been defeated in the end.
How could a first-year student like Marius be truly invincible?
"Got it!"
"No problem!"
"Let's do it!"
They repositioned quickly, surrounding Marius from four cardinal directions.
Marius, however, simply shook his head with quiet disapproval.
"At a glance, your tactic seems reasonable…" he said calmly, his voice cutting through the air like a scalpel.
"But against a wizard vastly above your level—it's nothing more than a foolish blunder."
Spreading out only made them easier to pick off—one by one.
Group coordination would've been much harder for Marius to counter. But now? He could strike at them individually.
Kelly and the others scowled, not believing him.
We'll see who's laughing when you're surrounded, they thought.
From four directions, they launched their attack.
Steve and Lisa moved in from front and back.
Kelly and Samuel flanked from left and right.
Four directions.
Four powerful spells.
A perfect trap.
Unless Marius had three heads and six arms, there was no way out of this.
The entire student body held its breath.
It was a textbook no-win situation—
But then again, Marius had already rewritten the textbook.
Somewhere deep in every spectator's heart, a quiet hope stirred:
If it's him…
Maybe… just maybe…
Even the professors were silent.
All eyes were locked on one boy.
On Marius Cloud.
They wanted to see—
how the impossible would be defied once more.
--------------
T/N:
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