HP: The Duelist of Hogwarts - 434

Chapter 434: No Holding Back

Just now, Hagrid had shielded Grawp. Now, Grawp was shielding Hagrid.

But just as before, Grawp was no match for the other giants. His size and strength were already at the bottom of their kind. Even with the will to fight for Hagrid, all he could really do was endure the blows a little longer than Hagrid could.

Sean watched Hagrid huddled beneath Grawp’s bulk. Even in a moment this desperate, Hagrid still did not call out to him or Madame Maxime for help. Never dragging his friends down, always thinking of them first—that was Hagrid’s greatest virtue, and the very reason he belonged in the Order of the Phoenix.

Sean dropped his Disillusionment and raised his wand.

For some reason, looking at Grawp hunched protectively over Hagrid made him think of his own brother, Caesar. That alone was enough to stir a faint, unlikely warmth in him toward the giant.

Boom.

The ground shook, swelled, and suddenly split. Massive hands of packed earth and stone burst up from below, seizing giants by the limbs and torsos and slamming them against the ground, cliff faces, and crude wooden halls. The giants’ innate resistance to magic was immense, second only to dragons. But Transfiguration acted on the stone and soil around them, not on their bodies, and was untouched by that resistance. No matter how strong they were, pinned by fists of rock, even giants could not tear themselves free at once.

“Hagrid, get Grawp out of here. Now!”

The giants’ territory was wrapped in some special magic that made Apparition almost impossible to perform with any accuracy, never mind Side-Along Apparition. Anyone foolish enough to try Apparating in here would most likely leave half their body behind. Sean had never intended to use Apparition to evacuate Hagrid and Madame Maxime.

If he did, the odds were good he would deliver back not two living, breathing people, but two mangled heaps of flesh.

At Hagrid’s urging, Grawp looked uncertainly from the pinned giants to his brother’s battered figure—Hagrid’s face bruised blue and purple, one arm hanging uselessly at his side with the bone clearly broken. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, Grawp made up his mind. He scooped Hagrid into his arms and started striding for the edge of the giants’ camp.

When Sean saw Grawp carrying Hagrid away, he allowed himself a small breath of relief. As long as they were here, he could not fully cut loose.

He shot Madame Maxime a look as she reappeared with her wand in hand, signalling her to follow. For a moment, she wavered. From where she stood, Sean’s situation looked far more dangerous than Hagrid’s. But thinking of Sean’s strength—and of his clear intention—she nodded to him once, turned, and ran after Grawp and Hagrid.

With Madame Maxime gone, Sean could finally stop holding back.

By then, the stone hands he had conjured were beginning to burst apart as the giants tore themselves free. One after another, they wrenched loose, grabbed whatever weapons lay close to hand—huge clubs, massive stone axes, the odd rusted slab of metal shaped into a sword or hammer. They spread out, cutting off the camp's exit, and closed in around Sean.

He did not understand a word of their roaring, and he had no intention of learning.

Talk was useless. This was a fight.

“Ahhh!”

“Raaah!”

“Ha!”

The giants bellowed as they charged.

One of the leaders came first, taller than most, wearing a dented metal helmet and a rust-streaked half breastplate. He swung a gigantic iron battle-axe straight down at Sean’s head.

Sean’s body snapped into motion, strength and speed exploding from him.

He sidestepped the falling axe, letting it crash into the earth. His hand shot out and seized the back of the axe-head. As the giant heaved the weapon up for another blow, Sean used the momentum, leaping lightly onto the giant’s shoulder. He levelled his wand at the huge eye inches from him.

Eye-Binding Curse.

A flash of violet struck the eye. The giant howled and went instantly blind, thrashing in panic.

Sean’s left hand twitched. A whip of crackling lightning, Fulgur Flagellum, sprang from the tip of his wand. With a sharp snap of his wrist, the lightning whip lashed across the back of the giant’s helmeted skull. The metal helm became the perfect conductor. In an instant, the high-voltage current surged through bone and brain. The giant went limp and toppled, smoke curling up from the seams of his armour and a nauseating smell of overdone meat filling the air.

The first giant hit the ground, and more weapons came crashing down in his place. Clubs and axes rained toward Sean with no regard at all for their fallen comrade.

Even with the physique of a human troll, Sean had no intention of letting that barrage land. He cracked Fulgur Flagellum outward again. The whip coiled around the neck of a giant at the edge of the ring. With a sharp tug, Sean let the pull fling him forward, threading his way through the gaps between the descending blows.

He slammed into the target giant’s face, boots planting against its nose. As a massive hand clawed up towards him, Sean flicked his wand. The lightning whip vanished. A shock of cold burst outward.

Frost Domain.

Ice raced across the giant’s body in a heartbeat, freezing him solid mid-reach. His hands hung motionless on either side of Sean, entombed in shimmering blue-white.

Boom.

Black smoke burst from the ground and hurled Sean skyward.

The dark vapour billowed and solidified into two enormous smoky hands. Each one shot out to seize a giant by the head and shoulders, smashing the pair together with bone-rattling force.

A lesser wizard would have been knocked unconscious instantly.

For the giants, it was only enough to daze them. They shook their heads, roared, and lurched back to their feet, coming at Sean once more.

This level of magic resistance, combined with their bodies, really was a nuisance.

Sean swept his wand again. The ground heaved and rolled like a storm-tossed sea. The giants lost their footing, staggering and flailing to stay upright.

In that moment of imbalance, Sean vanished.

He reappeared at a giant’s throat, wand already cutting a line through the air.

The edge of Sectumsempra bit deep. A crimson smile opened across the massive neck. Blood fountained out. The giant gurgled, choking on a spray of red, and crashed to the earth, dead.

LV5MAX Disillusionment Charm, together with LV5MAX Sectumsempra—an assassin’s pairing at the very top of its craft.

Sean turned to repeat the manoeuvre on a second giant.

Just as he raised his wand, a beam of dull yellow light shot in from the distance and slammed into his chest, driving him down and pinning him hard into the earth.