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3 May 1995, London
But this… This had potential. This was the weakest Dumbledore had ever been before, and Harry had every intention of capitalizing. Harry pointed his wand at the man smugly and spoke up, "What was that about handling me again?"
And just like that, the duel began anew.
Dumbledore's first move was to conjure a jet of fire, which Harry was able to fight against by conjuring a gust of wind, which sliced the fire into two. With Dumbledore weakened thanks to the ward Harry cast, his authority over space manipulation was destroyed, allowing the young wizard to conjure a giant pulse of space that warped the very ground itself, trying to send his opponent away.
However, his opponent easily transfigured the ground beneath him, allowing him to maintain his balance, and modified the ground around them into giant fists made of rock, trying to squash Harry like a bug.
Thankfully, Harry was able to use alchemy to turn the stone into water, which he manipulated, sending it straight back to the former headmaster. He warped space in front of it to mess with the man's rhythm, but Dumbledore vanished it with a flick of his wand.
That seemed to calm things down slightly. Dumbledore stopped there, his wand raised, and spoke up, "So it is true. Grindelwald said that you found a way to mess with our connection to our patrons. I thought he might have been exaggerating. I did warn him of your potential, but even I never imagined anyone doing this. If only you could have seen the Light. You could have been wonderful, done so many things and perhaps even changed the world. But the past is the past and here you are, helpless and alone, even your mother's prized lieutenant abandoning you like a coward."
Harry snorted, "You seriously think that Remus Lupin abandoned me? He ran away, but not from you. He wanted to warn the others. You didn't convert all of the Lycans did you, just the young and reckless. You always did like to prey on desperation. He should have apparated by now with the anti-apparition wards being destroyed, telling them all about what he heard. After all, you just admitted to killing Lily. How many do you think will be desperate enough to join you now."
Oh, that thought must not have crossed the former headmaster's mind because he stiffened, "See, even now. I had planned on converting the Lycans, giving them purpose, and now I will have to kill them. Do you see what you've done? You have doomed them, not me."
Harry shook his head in disappointment, "You're the one planning on killing them."
Dumbledore took this chance to attack Harry from behind by animating some debris to impale him. The young wizard, who had activated his divination, saw it coming, and dodged it, turning it into a liquid metal, which he used to block an incoming spell.
Harry dodged right as a slice of wind threatened to cut him in half, preparing a spell to dodge the incoming spear of light. He used his liquid metal to negate a bolt of lightning and let out his spell.
Space and time were warped by gravity, as a ball of pure darkness moved towards the former headmaster. The way the man's eyes widened showed that he didn't see coming, and he waved his wand in a very complex pattern, in a burst of light, the proto singularity that Harry had created fell into pieces.
Harry quickly used the pieces to try to stab Dumbledore, using his divination as a guide. He conjured a chain of light which redirected one of them towards Dumbledore's heart, planning on using it after the pulse of Light Dumbledore would probably release. However, instead of it being successful, Harry found himself having to dodge blades of light coming at him. He was able to shield against them with his liquid metal, but the impact sent him flying back and giving Dumbledore enough time to regain himself.
"Do you seriously think that divination gives you an advantage here, my boy," the man retorted, "I have fought with Gellert countless times, and believe me, your divinations pales before his own."
Harry grinned, "Is that so? He definitely didn't see himself getting his ass kicked back in Greece."
"Gellert underestimated you. I will do no such thing."
"He also fought me while I was exhausted and drained. You don't have that luxury."
Harry discreetly tried to activate another runic array to trap Dumbledore, but it refused to do so, unstable magic flowing through it. Damn it, the headmaster must have seen it coming, especially considering how he used the energy to conjure chains of light to bind him. The last Potter activated his invisibility cloak, phasing through it, and channelled his family crest, creating a gigantic pulse of corrosive magic, destabilizing them.
Harry found himself being attacked by a gigantic phoenix made of pure light, and he conjured his own raven to stop it. Dumbledore conjured a gigantic blade of fire and sent it at Harry, who used alchemy to turn it to water and used the excess energy to cast a gigantic beam of light at his opponent.
Unfortunately, Dumbledore used this energy to power a rune matrix of his own, which stretched to the very end of the farm. Harry had done his best to keep an eye on his own ward, making sure that Dumbledore wouldn't mess with it, that he missed Dumbledore making one of his own.
Slowly but surely, hundreds of gigantic rock golems grew from the ground, with the Light obviously coursing inside them. They went up, slowly but surely, with weapons in his hand. He could feel Dumbledore trying to overwhelm his ward, negating his connection to the Light. He had to act very quickly.
Seeing no way out, Harry used some of the energy his wand absorbed when the connection to the ley line was established, and used it, alongside his crest to cast a completely circular cutting charm, which would cut out any form of magic.
Dumbledore dodged the attack, but most of the golems didn't. They fell down on the floor, cut into pieces, before slowly reforming once more. Harry used that to discreetly send a spell flying in the air, before speeding up his personal time and dodging the incoming attack. He created chains of ice, manipulating them to bind the golems, and dodged a beam of light from Dumbledore.
He destroyed the golems by channelling his magic through the chains, but the rune wasn't affected. He could feel Dumbledore coming disturbingly close to destroying the ward, but his first spell must have worked. A gigantic bolt of lightning hit the centre of the rune matrix, destabilizing the magic inside, and making it blow up.
This distracted Dumbledore enough to force him to shield properly, which Harry used to his advantage, warping himself right behind the man, with a sword of ice in his hand while channelling the power of the resurrection stone. However, the headmaster saw it coming, creating a pulse of light, sending Harry flying back, but not without having cut the man slightly in the cheek.
The former headmaster gasped slightly in exertion and slowly put his hand to his cheek, seeing his blood. He growled in anger and with a flick of his wand, white flames erupted from the entire ground, destroying everything that remained into cinders.
Harry conjured a magic circle, sending him flying into the air, before using his ice age spell to counter the effect. He noticed a purple beam of light coming at him. Harry warped space to redirect it behind him, only to be hit with some kind of weird invisible spell that stabbed him in the abdomen.
He groaned in pain at that, but he had enough time to create a portal in front of him to protect himself from the incoming onslaught of spells. However, some weird obscure spell shattered the portal in front of Harry sending him flying back.
The older wizard slowly walked towards Harry as he was kneeling up, doing his best to suppress the agony he felt with every move, "You have put up quite a fight, that I must admit. I can see how Grindelwald could be so easily tricked. But this is the end, Harry Potter. I wish you fare better in your next adventure."
Dumbledore sent a white spell at Harry, only for him to activate his cloak, letting himself phase through it, and conjuring an ice spear imbued with the power of the resurrection stone. He threw it towards the former headmaster. It was a very clumsy attack. The throw was slow, predictable, and would have probably not killed Dumbledore.
As he expected, the older wizard grabbed the spear right as it was about to impale him. He grabbed it with a curious look on his face, "Fascinating. I thought such soul magic was lost. I do wonder…"
Whatever Dumbledore's next response was silenced by a grunt as the spear extended itself, just as Harry enchanted it to do, stabbing the former headmaster in the shoulder. Harry continued by sending a banishing charm at the spear, only to be sent flying back once more by the magical release.
Whatever fake kindly demeanour Dumbledore had earlier was replaced by the snarl of hatred on the man's face. He cast a cutting charm, which Harry barely dodged, followed by a wave of white flames that Harry redirected, but not without being burned quite severely.
Seeing no other way out, Harry absorbed the magic with his elder wand and transformed it into a gigantic black raven, which flew into the air, ready to swallow Dumbledore whole, only to be dispelled with a flick of the man's wand.
The headmaster was about to retaliate against Harry, only for him to conjure a very lifelike illusion of Arianna Dumbledore. The former headmaster froze in his tracks, probably flabbergasted more than anything, but it was enough for Harry to activate the rune matrix he had been carving discreetly during the duel.
Dozens of chains appeared from thin air, surrounding Dumbledore, binding every limb to the ground, before stopping, completely frozen in time. The surprised Headmaster barely had the time to deflect the attack from Harry, who had warped space to appear behind the man. The ice sword Harry was holding was interrupted by one made of Light, but the former headmaster didn't expect the small dagger that Harry used to stab the man in his gut.
Dumbledore yelled in pain and Harry was barely able to get away from a pulse of white fire which obliterated the chains and everything around Harry.
The two bloody opponents gasped in exertion as they stared at each other. The older man spoke up with a rasp, "You cannot win, boy. You must know that. You don't have Lily to sacrifice herself against you. You're all alone."
"I don't have to win, Dumbledore. I just have to make you lose."
A loud howl interrupted whatever Dumbledore was going to say, and hundreds of transformed Lycans entered the crater that used to be a farm. Harry groaned when he realized that their eyes were glowing white. They were all staring at the two of them from behind. Dumbledore had probably told them to stay away since they wouldn't really survive near their duel.
The young wizard prepared himself to deal with the attackers interfering, just in case, only for another howl to freeze the battlefield. From behind Harry, around an equal number of Lycans arrived, led by the familiar figure of Remus Lupin. They stared at their former brethren, ready to attack them at a moment's notice, but not doing anything else.
Whatever unspoken cease-fire between them broke when Dumbledore created a gigantic beam of Light, ready to eradicate Harry with a single spell. Harry could have dodged it, could have redirected it, or dealt with it in dozens of different ways.
But it wouldn't achieve much. Even weakened, Dumbledore was the superior wizard. It was close, but the gap in experience was still there. He couldn't beat Dumbledore, not with the way he had been fighting before. He needed to do something more, something reckless, something that Dumbledore would never see coming.
And he did just that.
As the beam of Light came towards him, Harry used his Elder Wand to absorb as much power as it could from the attack. It wasn't perfect; Harry could feel himself getting shocked by the energy of the attack that bypassed the absorption rate of the wand, but it was enough.
Then Harry threw an ice spike through a portal, which got Dumbledore to let up slightly. Finally, when Dumbledore resumed his attack, Harry did something that he hadn't done since the duel with Grindelwald, he sang, mimicking the exact attack that Dumbledore had sent at him, with the exact same intensity.
Both beams of light met in a gigantic pulse of magic, which sent the Lycans flying through the air. However, something happened that no one bar Harry expected. Instead of this becoming a battle of wills, a contest of magical might, the white beam turned gold, and both opponents slowly floated into the air.
Priori Incantatem, the reverse spell effect, is the event that occurs when two brother wands meet in combat. However, this wasn't what occurred. It was completely unprecedented, something that history had never seen before. Two counterparts of the same wand, the Elder Wand, from different universes, cast the exact same spell at each other, and reality itself didn't know how to handle the situation.
In a small fraction of a second, the laws of magic froze, as if an error occurred that was never meant to happen, and it wanted it to be resolved. In this short period, Dumbledore and Harry became equals, and the younger wizard used his opponent's sheer shock at what he was witnessing to overwhelm him.
Dumbledore was at his weakest, completely cut off from the Light, injured, and confused about what happened. He barely had enough time to react before Harry furiously pulsed his magic, and put everything he had into the spell, which completely vaporized the older man's arm.
And just like that, the spell was broken, and they both fell to the ground. Harry groaned as he righted himself up while doing his best to ignore Dumbledore's pained screaming. He thought he might have won the fight but when he looked up, he noticed that the Light had already started to regrow the man's arm.
The young wizard slowly stood up and walked forward and limped his way to his wand, only for Dumbledore's own wand to fly towards it by itself. Both of them vibrated before merging into a single one with a pulse of light.
Harry grabbed it hesitantly and the moment he grasped it; he felt like his hand was glued to the wand. Power, pure power coursed through his veins, overwhelming his magic circuit which started to overheat in exertion, while also being cooled by his family crest. He hissed in anger but still stared at his new wand in awe.
Dumbledore seemed to have also done the same before growling, "The Elder Wand… You really took everything from me."
Without any warning, a gigantic surge of power came from the Champion of Light. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, which shattered everything around him, including the ward Harry put in place to mess with his connection to the Light.
Dumbledore started to glow white, slowly turning into some kind of second sun. Harry didn't know what was happening, but he knew that he wanted no part of it, especially when the old man started to release pulses of magic, each one more powerful than the last, making it very hard to stay standing. Harry used the power of his new wand to open portals to take away the rest of the Lycans.
However, before he could open one for himself, one of the Light-enhanced Lycans ran at him, ready to kill him. Harry conjured a dozen ice spikes impaling the former werewolf before using the resurrection stone to grab the soul from his body, channelling it to send the same attack he injured Grindelwald with towards his counterpart.
A kaleidoscope of light emerged from the Elder Wand, fracturing the very fracture of reality, hitting every dimension at once, and flying towards Dumbledore. Harry was barely able to open a portal to escape, not even knowing for sure if his attack even did anything. From the scream of pain and rage, and the sound of a deafening explosion, he must have done something right.
Harry quickly closed the portal as it was getting even harder to see anything, and appeared in front of a horrified Daphne who was staring with shock at his injuries. He gave her a slight grin, "You should see the other guy," before falling down unconscious.
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AN: I'll be completely honest, the pressure I felt while writing this chapter was pretty high. This was the first legit duel between Dumbledore and Harry and the expectations were high. I had to rewrite this like four times to make it stick and I'm pretty happy with the result. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.