Understanding (Neville Longbottom)

46

Rockwood and I began to walk slowly in a circle. I gripped tight my wand and focused on what I was seeing; I told myself that I had battled many adversaries now, I could do it again. After all, I just needed to be quick on my feet and my brain had never failed me.
But all the reassurances I was telling myself only reminded me how panicked I felt, and how unpredictable the man in front of me was. His first attack had been a spill of acid: very uncommon choice... He was probably a practitioner of combat magic.
He didn't show any sign of movement other than the slow pacing of our circle; his wand was incredibly still in his hand. But I saw a minuscule twist of his wrist and acted on instinct.

From the tip of his wand came out thorned vines angrily biting the air, eating the distance between us.
I made them wither mid air, they became brown and wet and squashed to the ground in front of my feet. But before they touched the floor I had already sent a purple flame in his face.
He was as quick in getting rid of it, with a slash of his wand he transmuted it in harmless smoke.

"Oh you're quick" he said emerging from the grey black mass.
We had stopped moving now and we looked at each other waiting for one to move "But it won't last".

He had no intention of attacking again, at least not immediately.
But I had no time left.
Adrenaline was cursing through me now, but it wouldn't last forever. My senses would dull and I would get slow. If I had a fighting chance, it wasn't going to last.
I attacked.
I morfed the stone under his feet into an ondulating wave of bricks, and I launched myself closer to him to minimize the destructiveness of his blows.
But I had miscalculated: Rockwood didn't care about his safety just as long as he hurt me.
He let his legs be engulfed in the stone and generated a water bomb.
I had to run backwards to evade it and, in the meantime, he freed himself and sent a shower of knives on me.
I was so tired.
I managed to not get hit in vital points, but the blades opened my skin on my left leg, my abdomen, my right arm and the left wrist. I wasn't fast enough anymore.

"What is it? Are you tired?" He taunted me, taking his stance once again "It's going to be over very soon"

I was desperate.
I made my movement as sudden as I could to take him by surprise and it worked: I formed an airless bubble around his head.
It began to suck away the oxygen from his lungs. The shock of it made it even easier for him to loose his breathing air, and he began to gasp and gag, pointing his wand at the bubble.
Whatever he threw at it though, passed right through. He waved his arms around, breaking the bubble for milliseconds and getting just whisps of breaths. He fell on his knees.
It wouldn't be much before he fainted and I could release him.

I checked my wrist with the corner of my eye to make sure I wasn't losing too much blood.
That was enough.
I was thrown backwards and landed on my back.
The impact had been incredible, all air came out of me and for a second I couldn't remember how to put more into my lungs. My head hurt terribly. I let it fall on the cold stone. My body was giving up, not much strength left to give.
"You've made a mistake, you little bitch!"
I could only hear him, because he was out of my field of vision, but his voice sounded more like that of a beast, without breath and hateful as it was.

I didn't know the spell he used, but it was one of the most wretched I had ever felt on my skin: an incredible pressure pushed against my body, flattening me on the floor, to the extent that I couldn't even move a muscle; the weight was so heavy, it was impossible to breathe, my lungs simply didn't have the space to expand. I tried to maintain a cool head but I quickly realized I had no way out of this. My legs, arms and torso began to ache. My head, bent to the side so that my left cheek was pressed on the cold stone, felt full and about to explode. I closed my lids over my eyes, feeling an intense pressure from behind them.
I panicked.
I completely lost it for a minute: I was terrorized to die like that, exploding, crushed, like a bug under a boot heel.
I tried with all my might to move but I didn't, not a single hair.
All it did was making me even more aware of every inch of me pressing into the stone.
Except for a very slim and uncomfortable section of my hand that was touching wood.
My wand.
I had tried to get some air into my lungs for a while now but without success. I was getting lightheaded and hoped I would faint before I could feel the pain of my organs being squashed, but the fuzziness of my brain actually distracted me from my terror.
I wasn't technically holding my wand, but my hand was firmly planted on it. I had seen people perform magic holding their wand just between the tips of their fingers... Why not try? With the corner of my eye I could see the tip of the wand was pointing towards my feet, where Rockwood had been when he had attacked me. A minute had passed now but he hadn't come to taunt me, I had no idea if he was still standing there or not... But I didn't have much choice.