The lead up to the fight is better than the actual fight but here it is.

~*~*~​

Carl Henderson’s eyes went wide with fear when Alastor pointed his wand at him. The grimy little man scrambled backwards until his thin shoulders hit the pub’s filth-caked outer wall. His hands came up in a placating gesture but the Auror didn’t lower his wand.

“You’re my snitch Henderson. I pay you good gold to tell me things. You don’t get to tell me no,” he said, his voice a rough smoker’s growl.

Henderson whimpered and curled in on himself, becoming smaller and more pathetic like a dog that’s been beaten before and expects to be beaten again. Alastor regarded Henderson without sympathy and pressed his wand-tip to his chest, letting the warmth gathered there soak through the man’s too-thin shirt.

“Or instead of paying you to tell me information, I can make you tell me,” he said, “but either way I want some information and I want it now.”

Henderson whimpered and Alastor felt a moment of shame when he saw real fear written large across his battered face. He hardened his heart and reminded himself what Henderson was – thief, smuggler and killer, though he had never been convicted of the last.

Ustulo! A burst of dull orange light flashed from Alastor’s wand-tip, scorching a neat circle into Henderson’s skin while leaving his shirt untouched. He cried out briefly in a thin voice but went quiet after the initial shock of pain had subsided.

“A snitch who won’t speak is just another criminal,” Alastor said, “a criminal who’s informed on his mates. I wonder what Tommy Cooper would do if he found out who put me onto his brother …”

“You wouldn’t do that! It’d be murder!”

Alastor smiled. His curling lips twisted that scar that had been gouged into his cheek by a hag’s knife. “Barty Crouch would let me feed you to a demon if he thought that it would help us identify Cooper’s source in the Office. It wouldn’t be hard to set a trap around your identity.” Alastor filed that thought away for later. It really wouldn’t be hard and I’d love know who’s tipping Cooper off.

“The Yellow King!”

“What?” Alastor demanded, refocusing his attention on Henderson.

“The Yellow King, for fuck’s sake. You know the pub in Knockturn. There’ve been some whispers about some bad shit going on there, people going in and not coming out. Skinny Jack – you know Skinny Jack?”

Alastor knew of at least four guys named Jack who Henderson might have been referring to; all of them rail thin addicts. “The one with the limp?” he guessed. He needed to know the source of the information in case he had to follow up later.

“No, that’s Jack the Gimp. Skinny Jack’s the one missing some fingers on his left hand,” Henderson said helpfully.

Alastor knew who he meant. Jack Gallagher, an ex-enforcer for a narcotics syndicate out of Bristol before his addiction had destroyed his usefulness. “I know of him.”

“Yeah, anyway, he went looking around. He’d heard that there was some work to be had there. Instead, he got out of there sharpish when he saw the muscle that the owner was keeping on the premises. Serious, heavy guys Jack said and not just thugs. Talented boys and girls, a couple of them from respectable families even, if you believe Jack. Dangerous people, Auror Moody.”

Alastor considered that. The Yellow King was deep in Knockturn Alley, kilometres from the Diagon Alley entrance. It had a reputation as a place where stuff got done.

“Elias Burke owns the Yellow King, doesn’t he?”

“He’s the minority owner,” Henderson corrected. He relaxed fractionally now that the threat of violence wasn’t quite so imminent. “A while ago, must have been seven or eight years, Burke brought out the old owner. He was the public face of a two man partnership. I don’t know who the other owner is, Burke represents him and he isn’t telling.”

Alastor pocketed his wand and produced a small moneybag. When Henderson reached for it he pulled it back.

“If we have to go through this next time I’m cutting it in half,” Alastor said, then handed the bag to him. “Now get out of here.”

~*~*~

“Do you have to do that?” Savage asked irritably as Alastor finished rolling a cigarette and lit it with his wand.

The younger man drew deeply on the slender cigarette and expelled a cloud of smoke. “Yes, I do. It isn’t like I’m ruining all the clear air in here.”

A layer of noxious smoke hung in the air inside the Yellow King, stinging people’s eyes and suffocating their sense of smell. It reminded Alastor of sneaked cigarettes in unused classrooms back at Hogwarts, the air blue with smoke and the thrill of forbidden delights running through him. It reminded Savage of why he didn’t smoke.

“I thought you were quitting. You know, for Elsa?” Savage smirked as he said her name.

“We broke up,” Alastor said and Savage stopped smirking. “She accused me of cheating on her with Amelia Bones.”

There was a lot of talk around Amelia Bones in the Auror Office. She was a handsome woman, not beautiful but someone men watched all the same. She was also good with a wand and did her job without serious complaint, something all Aurors appreciated.

“Did you?” Savage asked. “You spend a lot of time with her.”

There were rumours about Moody too, that he could talk a witch out of her robes faster than he could sling a curse and he could sling a curse pretty damn fast.

“I went to school with her brother Edgar, we’re mates. He asked me to look out for her. Besides …”

“Women are to be served consecutively, not concurrently,” Savage said, finishing a line that Moody spoke every time someone asked him if he cheated on his girlfriends or had more than one. “Do you think there’s anything to what you’re snitch told you?” he asked, deliberately changing the topic.

“I reckon there might be. You see the booth behind me, the one in the corner? You recognise who’s in there?”

“Three kids, one older guy. The older guy’s Antonin Dolohov and he’s not that old, maybe twenty-five. The others are Hogwarts age. The boys are Lestranges. I forget their first names. I recognise them from when Patrol brought them in for questioning about a nasty bit of muggle-baiting. Their father smoothed it over. The girl’s Bellatrix Black which should tell you just about everything you need to know about her. She’s meant to be one of the best young duellists in England.”

“Wasn’t she banned from the professional circuit recently?” They were speaking normally, trusting to the general cacophony to cover their words and the knowledge that nothing attracted attention faster than two men exchanging furtive whispers.

“A five year ban for a slew of minor offences,” Alastor agreed. He kept up with professional duelling. He’d once considered it as a profession. “A mate of mine who works for the Grand Tournament judges thinks gold changed hands to keep criminal charges being considered. He reckons she’ll be our problem soon enough.”

Savage grunted his acknowledgement and openly looked around the room. It didn’t attract attention. The Yellow King was the type of place where customers kept track of each other. He spotted three enforcers for a smuggling crew operating out of London. They were clustered around another man he recognised as one of the crew’s lieutenants. There two potion dealers doing steady trades on opposite sides of the barroom and a flow of prostitutes bringing johns in off the street and taking them to the rooms upstairs.

“If I didn’t know better I’d say we were looking at a base of operations for a crime syndicate – we’ve got dealers, hookers, criminal associates and muscle all in the one room. You don’t get that this peacefully without there being someone on top enforcing the peace,” he said.

“I agree. The smugglers are here to make a deal. Bill Otter does all of his crew’s negotiations. The heavies are here to make sure he gets home alright. The hookers haven’t got into a fight over a john yet like usually happens when you get this many of them working in one place and usually when two dealers try to work the same place one ends up dead or in St. Mungo’s,” Alastor said. “Did you notice how they keep looking at the booth with the kids?”

“I did, they’re not the bosses though. Keeping the peace here is scut work. The question is, who could convince four rich little purebloods to do scut work for them?”

“I’m going to take a look around,” Alastor said. “Henderson said something about people coming in and not coming out. I want to check the basement, see if there’s anything there.” It was an article of faith amongst Aurors that when people were trying to hide something they buried it. The Ministry of Magic was a fine example.

“I’ll stay here. In two minutes I’m going to put a call in to the Office, there’s enough here to justify a raid. If Crouch has a response team standing by like he promised they should be able to hit this place in less than ten minutes,” Savage said. He tapped his watch meaningfully. It was linked to another watch in the Auror Office with a protean charm. By manipulating the hands Savage could signal for immediate assistance, call in a raid or announce an all clear. Crouch wouldn’t be happy with the last one, not with what it was costing him in overtime to keep a raid team on duty. He trusted Alastor’s judgement enough to do it though.

Once the raid team hit the building people would start bolting and burning evidence. Alastor wanted to look around before that happened.

Alastor stood and made a beeline for the back of the building where a sign announced that there were toilets. He went in and relieved himself alongside two other men, watching the mirror over the wash basin out of the corner of his eye to see if anyone followed him in. No one did so he finished his business and slipped out, turning left towards the basement instead of right towards the barroom.

He moved with purpose and a drawn wand so that people would think he belonged but so that he was prepared to curse anyone he encountered. He spelled his way through a locked door marked KEEP OUT, easing it shut behind him. A spiral stone staircase was hidden behind the door. It was steep and worn smooth by heavy use but well maintained. Apart from the wear there were no cracks or other signs of decay.

Alastor descended the steps slowly, his senses alert. The lower he went the more aware he became of a vague smell of decay. It wasn’t strong, just a vague whiff like someone had tried to clean up but couldn’t quite manage or be bothered to properly eradicate the smell.

Stepping off of the last stair he found himself in a short corridor with half a dozen doors set into the walls. He tried the first door on his left. It opened easily and revealed a small, empty room with three more doors, one set into each wall. Each one, he knew, would lead to a different room or another set of doors. It was magical space, a complex but effective way to gain additional space. Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley were built on those principles. It was also very illegal without Ministry approval because the slightest mistake could have devastating results.

Moody closed the door and checked his watch. He’d been gone for six minutes. The raid team should have been well on its way. We’ll need a lot of manpower to do a proper search.

“Slowly turn,” a voice ordered from behind him.

Alastor closed his eyes briefly and swore silently. He turned, keeping a firm grip on his wand, and found two figures dressed in black robes with bone-white masks standing on the last step. There was barely enough room for them to stand side-by-side.

“How’d you know? The door wasn’t alarmed. I checked.”

“The floor’s charmed,” one of them said. Her voice was distorted, magically disguised, but still noticeably female.

Alastor nodded and filed that away as something to check for next time. “So you’d be Death Eaters then?” There were a few intelligence reports circulating through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement about a new group of dark wizards who’d been linked to a recent spate of murders and other criminal activities. The Ministry’s line was that they were a new crime group but Alastor and a few other Aurors thought that they were something more sinister.

“We are,” the woman said proudly.

“Put your wand down,” the other one said in a male’s voice.

Auror eyed them languidly and smiled. “I am an Auror,” he said and then fell silent. There was nothing else that needed to be said. He whipped his wand across his body, trailing electric blue sparks, finishing with a sharp thrust at the Death Eaters. The sparks streaked towards them and expanded, coming together to form a net that crackled with energy.

Confined as the Death Eaters were it was impossible for them to raise their wands, let alone use them properly. The female neatly solved the problem by stepping back and pushing her male companion into the neat. He screamed in pain as it caught him and sent waves of debilitating pain coursing through his body. The woman stunned him as he struggled against the net, her posture suggesting disgust. The net’s colour faded to a duller blue as the man folded in on himself and fell to the ground.

“I’m not that fool,” she warned.

“You’re duelling an Auror, little girl,” Alastor said dismissively. “Of course you’re a fool.”

With a snarl the girl stepped forward, over her partner’s unconscious body and into the corridor. Alastor held his ground, letting her get closer. She didn’t stop until less than an arm’s length separated their outstretched wands.

Alastor felt light, like he could walk on air and his body was thrumming with excitement. This, he thought, is better than bad sex.

He lunged, silver light darting from his wand-tip. She swiped her wand, deflecting it into the door Alastor had opened with a glimmer of nearly invisible magic. It hit the wooden door with a twanging sound and shattered it into dozens of pieces.

She laughed, her voice ringing with excitement that Alastor also felt. A brown curse erupted from her wand, bringing with a putrid smell that reminded Alastor of European battlefields and camps that still gave him nightmares. He flicked his wand and the broken pieces of door shot into the path of the curse, becoming brittle and rotten as they touched it.

The smell provoked memories of overwhelmed healers, hasty burials and armies of inferi and a rush of white-hot rage that eclipsed his excitement.

“Laniatus!” He slashed his wand and a shaft of violet magic shot for the Death Eater with a sound like tearing flesh. Her countercurse hit it mid-air and it blinked out of existence. He pressed forward, wielding his wand like a whip. Her silver shield charm shuddered and cracked as he struck at her, each blow bringing the sound of a cracking whip with it. It didn’t break though.

Alastor switched tactics, slapping his wand against the wall. The wall rippled and a stone hand emerged, reaching for her. She spun towards it, quick and confident, and hit the open hand with a blasting curse that peppered her with a shower of stone shards. His fluid wandwork made the floor beneath her porous and she began to sink into it just as the whole building shook under the force of some great impact. That was the raid team hitting the building. Crouch favoured raid team leaders who favoured shock and awe.

Her wand-tip gleamed purple an instant before ravenous light spewed from it, consuming the stone walls. Alastor dived through the shattered door the moment he saw the purple light. He recognised it from the war.

The witch laughed again, this time with a hint of madness.

Alastor blew one of the interior doors of its hinges and charged through it as the witch turned the curse onto the room, not bothering to free herself from the floor that had hardened around her. He took three steps and stopped abruptly.

“Fuck.”

Three men were in the room hastily pulling on black robes and white masks while unmade beds suggested that they had been woken from a sound sleep by the raid team.

Alastor swiped his wand in a heavy, upwards backhanded motion, hurling a blast of force at the trio. It picked up everything in its path – beds, wardrobes and trunks – and tossed them through the air to crash against the shields that the Death Eaters summoned along with the blast of force. Alastor conjured a thin yellow curse that scythed through their shields and made two of them spasm uncontrollably as the foreign magic cascaded through their bodies. The third – one of the Averys Alastor thought – took most of the curse on his non-wand arm and encased his arm in a glowing green glove to contain it there.

The sounds of fighting in the bar grew closer and Alastor heard the mad witch hurl a killing curse. He closed with Avery, determined to finish him and attack the female Death Eater from behind. He deflected Avery’s slashing curse and conjured scalding steam in a cyclone of wind around Avery The Death Eater screamed but Alastor held the conjuration, knowing from experience how long he could hold it for before the injuries became life threatening.

It was a curse from behind that broke the conjuration, not Alastor. It tore through his leg and left it hanging by a slender thread of flesh. He fell, his screams joining Avery’s. Bellatrix Lestrange loomed over him, her mask gone and a burn marring the right side of her beautiful face. Her eyes were wild and she turned from Alastor to hurl curses back into the room behind her.

Alastor fired a curse at her back but missed, hitting the roof instead. A shower of small stones hit her as they fell, ruining her attempt to summon a shield. She staggered sideways, out of the path of an incapacitation curse. Alastor could see Savage coming through the door and more Aurors behind him. He felt a spike of satisfaction through the pain. Prodigy or not, Bellatrix was done.

The satisfaction died when she disappeared in a flash of blue light. He saw the feeling reflected on Savage’s face for instant before it turned to concern.

“Secure the prisoners and get a mediwizard!” Savage ordered the men following him as he knelt next to Alastor, his wand moving over his leg as he worked to stop the bleeding. He pointed his wand at Alastor’s chest and the last thing the injured Auror saw before he succumbed to unconsciousness was red light.

 

New Challenge if anyone wants it.

Lupins worst day.

When Lupin was bitten by Greyback and his Parents driving him off.


Or


Frank and Alice Longbottom Vs The Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr

 

Three fight club scenarios that appeared in my head today:

1. Beetlejuice, still working as a bio-exorcist, is hired to scare away the Addams Family. It doesn't seem to be working.

2. The Slenderman, sometimes known as the Operator, has been kidnapping and murdering children for untold generations. However, you can't kill Casper the Friendly Ghost.

And finally:

3. Captain Planet vs Sailor Moon. Need I say more? No, I do not.

 

Huh. Thanks for bumping this; I've got an unfinished challenge I'd completely forgotten about.

 

The Dumbledore/Yoda will be written!

#believe

 

New challenge, for anyone - Harry Potter vs. a Magical Girl (either Tsukino Usagi, Takamachi Nanoha or Kaname Madoka, or your own preference)

 

A challenge, please?

HP, Dresden Files, DC, Marvel or crossovers between them.

 

I'd like to request a challenge as well(Dresden, Potter, Pokemon, Naruto). The last one was good fun.

 

The battle between Black (or White) (with Reshiram) and N (with Zekrom) in the throne room of N's Castle, if you would be so kind.

Note, I don't really care which has which dragon. It's just that N having the god of ideals makes so much more sense than N with the god of truths.

 

Albus Dumbledore vs Heinrich Kemmler

or

Harry Potter vs Kumori

 

Normal Canon Harry would probably lose to Kumori, though we don't know quite the extent of her abilities.

As much a Dumbledore fanboy as I am, I'm afraid canon Dumbledore would lose badly to Kemmler, who it took the entire force of the White Council to put down.

Fanfic versions of either characters, like Joe's or Shezza's Harry and Dumbledore however might be different case.

Which reminds me, I have a Voldemort vs Cowl fight to write.

 

You underestimate the advantage HPverse wizards have in a straight up fight. I suspect Dumbledore vs Kemmler would be a close one.

 

I was considering the amount of firepower it might take to knock someone like Kemmler down, and I doubt that Dumbledore's entire offensive output = The Senior Council + the Wardens + Brute Squad + the allies they could cobble together. Sure, HP magic is very versatile and has advantages like apparition, but when facing a man who laughed in the face of death and who Mab called a madman, pure brute strength might be the only thing that suffices. Kemmler seems to basically be a smarter, severely OPed version of Voldemort.

 

Who said anything about canon?

As for Kemmler, did it take the entire White Council to just put him down or him and a massive zombie army? I've always assumed that it was the latter.

 

A HPverse wizard who fought intelligently would not use brute force to win a fight against a top tier Dresdenverse wizard, either. As for Kemmler laughing in the face of death...well, we all know there are worse things than death, don't we?

Aaaaand stopping right here before this derails any further.

 

It is assumed that we are writing the duels in terms of what is canonically possible, and not introducing any OP or over-the-top powers the characters have not been shown to be capable of, hence, canon.

With regards to Kemmler

It appears at least his last stand might have been a largely solo one against most of the White Council. At least that's my interpretation of what Bob said.

Now no more thread derailment

 

Nothing of the sort is assumed.

Go crazy, people.

 

If any of you are familiar with the Sinnoh season of Pokemon. Then I'd love to see someone write Ash vs Tobias written either as a 1 on 1 or an actual proper 6 on 6 where Ash realizing he's up against a guy with a team of Legendaries brings out all of his heavy hitters.

The 1 on 1 I'd like to see Infernape vs Darkrai. He has the advantage on types, he's faster and Infernape has his 'super saiyan' blaze shit lol.

As for the 6 on 6 the options for Ash's Pokemon are open to you. I assume you'd be picking Charizard, Sceptile and Pikachu atleast who in the previous journey through the Battle Frontier all stomped a Legendary each.

 

I'm thinking the entire White Council was needed both because he was strong and because he had an insanely huge army of zombies. Not to mention that he had students.

 

I want to see Monkey D Luffy fight ... Well, anyone, really.
I would write it myself, but I still have that Y/D to write.