The dim, sickly yellow light of the bathroom flickered, casting distorted shadows across the wet tile floor. The dripping of the broken faucet sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden, suffocating tension.
Orion stopped dead. His wand was immediately back in it's holster, he did not want to be disarmed before he understood the situation. He simply raised his hands, palms open and empty, backing away from the central pillar of sinks until his shoulder blades brushed the cold, damp stone of the far wall.
Harry Potter stood in the doorway, his holly wand leveled directly at Orion's chest. His face was pale, his jaw set, and his green eyes burned with the absolute, unshakeable conviction of a protagonist who had finally caught the villain monologuing. Beside him, Ron Weasley clutched his spellotaped wand, looking equal parts terrified and triumphant.
"I told you, Ron," Harry breathed, his voice tight with adrenaline. "I knew it. He's the Heir. And now we have proof."
Orion maintained his posture of surrender, though internally, he was calculating the velocity of a Stupefy versus the distance to the door.
"Proof is a very strong word, Potter," Orion said, his voice smooth and remarkably calm given the circumstances. "I am standing in a girls' lavatory after curfew. While that is undeniably a breach of protocol, and certainly a detention-worthy offense... it hardly constitutes evidence of a blood-purist terror campaign."
"You were right next to the sinks!" Harry accused, taking a step into the room, his wand unwavering. "You were trying to open the Chamber!"
"I was inspecting the plumbing," Orion lied seamlessly, leaning against the wall. "The water pressure in the dungeons has been erratic all week. I assure you, my interests are purely infrastructural."
Harry's grip on his wand tightened until his knuckles were white. He didn't even blink at the obvious falsehood. He turned his head slightly, not taking his eyes off Orion.
"Ron," Harry ordered, his voice ringing with a newfound, commanding edge. "Go. Run to Gryffindor Tower. Get Professor McGonagall. Tell her we caught Malfoy trying to open the Chamber of Secrets."
Ron hesitated, looking nervously between his best friend and the seemingly defenseless Slytherin. "Harry... are you sure? Malfoy is... he's strong. What if he—"
"I'm not letting him go this time," Harry stated flatly, his jaw clenching. "We need a professor to see this before he tries to spin another lie. Go. Now."
Ron swallowed hard, nodded once, and bolted down the corridor, his footsteps echoing wildly as he ran for reinforcements.
The heavy wooden door began to slowly swing shut, leaving Orion alone with the Boy Who Lived.
"Well," Orion sighed, lowering his hands slowly, though he refrained from releasing his wand from his holster. "This is certainly a dramatic escalation, Potter. But you are jumping to massive, structurally unsound conclusions."
Harry glared at him, stepping further into the damp room, placing himself squarely between Orion and the exit.
"You always act like you're a step ahead," Harry spat, his voice dropping to a harsh, angry hiss. "You always look down on us. You orchestrate everything from the shadows, making everyone else look like fools. But not this time. You were overconfident. You slipped up."
Orion watched the boy. The raw, desperate need to be right, to have a tangible enemy to fight, was radiating off Harry like heat.
"He's not going to listen to logic," Sparkle observed from her invisible perch, sounding resigned. "He's in full hero mode. He needs a villain, and you're wearing the green tie."
"I suppose dialogue is futile," Orion murmured to himself, his blue eyes narrowing slightly.
He decided to test the waters. To see if the humiliation of their previous duel had sparked any actual growth in the Gryffindor, or if he was still relying on sheer, dumb luck.
"Let's see if you've actually learned something, Potter," Orion challenged softly.
The shift was instantaneous.
Orion's wrist snapped upward in a blur of motion. The Hawthorn wand shot from the dragon-hide holster into his hand with a sharp click.
Harry didn't freeze this time. He anticipated the movement.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry roared, firing a blinding red jet of light the moment Orion's wand cleared leather.
Orion's wand arced upward in a smooth, continuous motion. "Protego."
The blue, shimmering dome of the Shield Charm bloomed just in time. The red light smashed against it, dissipating into harmless sparks that rained down on the wet tiles.
Orion felt the impact against his magical core. It was significantly heavier than last time. He's been practicing, Orion noted with a flicker of genuine surprise.
Orion dropped the shield and retaliated instantly, firing a standard, red Disarming Charm, eschewing his personalized green variant to maintain his cover.
The red light streaked across the bathroom.
Harry didn't try to block it. He threw himself sideways, hitting the damp floor in a surprisingly agile roll, the spell singing the air where his head had been a fraction of a second before. He came up on one knee, his wand already tracking Orion.
"Diffindo!" Harry yelled.
Orion's eyes widened. A Severing Charm?
A sharp, invisible blade of magic hissed through the air. Orion twisted his torso violently, diving behind the thick, central pillar of sinks. The spell grazed the edge of his dark cloak, slicing a neat, four-inch tear through the heavy wool before shattering a mirror on the far wall with a loud crack.
Shards of glass rained down into the puddles.
"You won't get away this time, Malfoy!" Harry yelled, his voice echoing over the sound of breaking glass.
Orion pressed his back against the cold porcelain of the sinks, his chest heaving slightly. He processed the exchange with rapid, clinical precision.
A Severing Charm. He used a lethal cutting curse in a school duel. Orion's mind raced. That is definitively not Second-Year curriculum. He shouldn't know that yet.
Before Orion could fully parse the implications of Potter's suddenly expanded arsenal, a red light flared around the edge of the pillar.
"Stupefy!" Harry cast.
Orion barely managed to throw up a hastily conjured Protego. The Stunning Spell slammed into the shield with the force of a bludger, nearly knocking Orion off his feet. The blue dome flickered and held, but the sheer kinetic weight of the spell was staggering.
A Stunner? Orion thought, staring at the dissipating red light in disbelief. That is an advanced spell. Canon Harry didn't master the Stunning Spell until his third or fourth year. He definitely shouldn't be slinging them around like confetti right now.
"You buffed him," Sparkle's voice was a mixture of awe and accusation. "Your presence. Your constant victories over him. You humiliated him so badly that you forced the plot to accelerate his combat development. He's been grinding off-screen."
"Fantastic," Orion muttered, dropping the shield. "I accidentally created a competent protagonist."
He couldn't rely on simple deflection anymore. He needed crowd control. He needed a distraction.
Orion stepped out from behind the pillar, his wand moving in a complex, fluid spiral. He tapped into the profound realization he had achieved over the summer, perceiving the aggressive, frantic nature of a swarm.
"Avis!"
A loud bang echoed in the bathroom. From the tip of his Hawthorn wand, a flock of four, large, aggressively noisy magpies erupted. They didn't fall to the floor; they burst into the air in a flurry of black and white feathers, their sharp beaks snapping, their caws deafening in the enclosed space.
Orion didn't need to cast Oppugno. His intent was clear.
The magpies descended on Harry like a feathery dive-bomber squadron.
"Gah! Get off!" Harry yelled, swatting wildly at the birds as they swooped around his head, pecking at his glasses and pulling at his hair.
Harry fired a wild Disarming Spell into the swarm. It missed the birds completely and sailed toward Orion.
Orion sidestepped the red light easily.
"Stupefy!" Harry cast again, abandoning accuracy for volume, blasting one of the magpies out of the air in a burst of red light and feathers.
Another Diffindo hissed past Orion, slicing the top off a cubicle and sending stones across the floor.
"Damn it, Potter," Orion growled, his patience evaporating. "Stop this madness before you demolish the plumbing entirely."
He needed to finish this quickly, before McGonagall arrived and found them trying to kill each other in a flooded bathroom.
He needed to overwhelm the boy's newly acquired, frantic reflexes.
Orion raised his wand high, channeling a surge of raw, elemental power. He didn't hold back the visual flair this time.
"Lumos!"
Four blinding, searing orbs of pure white light detached from his wand tip. They didn't orbit him; they shot directly toward Harry's face like miniature suns.
Harry, still swatting at the two remaining magpies, looked up. The intense, magnesium-white light hit his retinas, blinding him instantly. He cried out, throwing an arm over his eyes, stumbling backward blindly.
Orion didn't hesitate. He aimed his wand straight up at the high, vaulted ceiling of the bathroom, targeting a heavy, iron pipe running across the rafters.
"Carpe Retractum!"
The thick, glowing orange rope of magic shot upward, wrapping securely around the iron pipe.
Orion gave a sharp, powerful tug. He didn't try to pull the pipe down; he used his own momentum.
He vaulted off the slick, wet floor, letting the magical tether swing him in a high, sweeping arc completely over the central pillar of sinks and directly over the blinded, flailing form of Harry Potter.
He released the spell at the apex of the swing.
Orion plummeted, landing in a perfect, silent crouch directly behind Harry, his dragon-hide boots splashing softly in the puddles. He looked like a predator executing a flawless, predatory strike from the shadows.
He straightened up instantly, his wand already leveled at the back of Harry's neck.
Harry, still blinded and disoriented by the flashing lights and pecking birds, spun around wildly, his wand raised blindly.
He was a fraction of a second too late.
"Petrificus Totalus," Orion stated coldly.
The spell struck true. Harry's arms and legs snapped together with an audible crack. His body went entirely rigid, his jaw locking shut. He toppled backward like a felled tree, hitting the wet tile floor with a heavy, painful THUD.
The magpies, sensing the threat was neutralized, scattered around before dissolving. The blinding orbs of light dimmed and vanished, plunging the bathroom back into its usual, depressing gloom.
Silence returned, save for the dripping of water from a tap.
Orion stood over the paralyzed Boy Who Lived. He lowered his wand, his chest heaving slightly from the exertion. He looked down at the rigid, furious green eyes staring up at him from the puddle.
Orion let out a long, heavy sigh, running a hand through his dark hair.
"This," Orion muttered to the empty room, "is going to be incredibly hectic to explain."
He had won the duel. He had proven his superiority once again.
But as he heard the distant, echoing sound of hurried footsteps approaching down the second-floor corridor, Orion knew the real battle was just beginning. The protagonist was down, but the narrative consequences were about to arrive in the form of a very angry Deputy Headmistress.