Doom Days (Harry Potter/MCU Crossover)

Pre-Chapter A/N: It's here. The last chapter of the year (for some of us). Some of us are already in the New Year so happy New Year everyone. Here's this week's chapter a tad bit earlier for your enjoyment. The next two chapters are up on Patreon(www.patreon.com/Oghenevwogaga) as always. There's a handy little December discount on both monthly and annual plans. If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my Patreon(www.patreon.com/Oghenevwogaga) page- nice way to support this story, and me while you're at it. Enjoy! 

NOTE: The holiday discount on Patreon(www.patreon.com/Oghenevwogaga) runs out on the 2nd of January (GMT), so hurry while stock lasts. 

"And so what do you do when someone fires one of these buggers at you?" 'Mad-eye' asked the class of seventh years as he fired another blood boiling curse at the dummy on the opposite end of the classroom. We stood around him in two parallel lines. The man refused to allow anyone stand behind him holding a wand so we watched from different angels as he showed off one of the more well-known pieces of dark magic. The blood blowing curse was a nasty piece of work, but part of it being so well known meant that the counter curse was equally well-known. 

"Get the hell out of the way" Mctominay said to chuckles from the Hufflepuff end of the classroom and titters from the Ravenclaw end. Even with these houses, there existed a smaller but no less fierce rivalry. Ron had called it the fifth for third place. 

"Fair choice, Mctominay, but something a bit more inspiring, please" 'Mad-eye Moody' replied, fake eye darting around his skull and making most hesitate to meet his gaze. 

"Yes Potter?" He asked, calling out to me. 

"I didn't raise my hand, Professor" I replied. 

"And yet, I've called on you anyway. Don't tell me the boy-who-lived is only good at using dark arts and not defending against them. Would make the rest of the time you spend here very awkward, don't you think?" He asked, drawing laughter from most of the class. The Hufflepuffs were howling with it. 

"The counter-curse" I replied. 

"Yes, of course it's a bleeding counter curse, but what is it?" 

"It's the bloodsettling spell. It also serves as the counter to the blood-freezing curse as well." I replied, allowing the sarcasm wash off me like water on a stone. His head was mine sooner or later. 

"Yes. Correct. A handy bit of knowledge of the dark arts you've got there, Potter" he needled. 

"One would assume that to be the point of this class" I replied airily. Whatever he was looking for, he would not get it here. 

"Defence, Potter. Defence Against the Dark Arts. That's the point of this class. Not their use." 

"Then one would wonder why you've shown us more dark arts than actual defensive spells against them so far, Professor." 

"10 points for the cheek, Potter. I do not appreciate it." I nodded at the 'punishment', not caring one way or the other. A dead man could have his last gasps. 

"Moving on, we will also cover the blood-freezing curse. Another nasty bit of work. Another question, why can the blood-freezing curse not counter the blood boiling curse? One would assume that the solution to having all the blood in one's body taken to the boiling point would be cooling it down a bit." He said, leading the class on. 

I watched as the Hufflepuffs began to debate among themselves in whispers. 

"It works, doesn't it?" One finally said out loud almost making me face palm. 

"Of course it doesn't. That's not how magic works. It's only logical that the blood-freezing point cools the blood down from boiling but there's no guarantee it would stop at normal temperature. It's far more likely that it would keep going till its frozen the blood itself" One Hilda Connerty from Ravenclaw spoke out. 

"Well reasoned" Moody praised, making the girl blush. Her answer was wrong, I thought to myself with a raised eyebrows wondering if this was Crouch's play. Teach us wrongly so we'd be less placed to fight the death eaters when the time came? 

"But ultimately wrong. Magic doesn't care one whit for your muggle logic" he boomed. 

"Now, Potter. Tell me what happens if you use a blood-freezing curse on someone under a bloodboiling curse?" He demanded. 

"The body bloats until it explodes. Both spells remain active until a counter curse is used. Considering a thing can not both boil and freeze at the same time, it settles for a spontaneous rapid dissasembly" I said with an internal chuckle at the reference that I knew no one would understand. 

"Correct again, Potter. One would mistake you for a scholar of the Dark Arts at this point." 

"I don't see why you'd ask questions you wouldn't expect answered" I shot back, not allowing the underhanded comment slide. 

"From a NEWT class with seven years of experience with magic, yes. But shouldn't fourteen-year-olds be messing around with summoning spells and the like?" He asked with a sardonic smile. 

"I'm better" I said instead. 

"Yeah, I've heard many a dark wizard say the same. Just don't go in their way and we won't have a problem. Am I clear?" 

"Crystal." 

"Good. Now we can move on to practicing the counter-curse. The headmaster hasn't greenlit using this on any of you so we'll be practicing with this dummy here" 

"Yes, McKinnon" He said with a sigh, turning to one of the Ravenclaws with her hand up. 

"Professor, how can we practice a counter curse on a dummy?" She asked. Good question. A very good question actually. 

"With this here dummy. It has multiple enhantments that make it able to sense magic when cast upon it. If it's primed with a correctly cast spell, then it will be able to detect when another instance of the same spell is fired at it. So I will use the counter curse first, and that will set it to detect your attempts at casting it as well. When you succeed, it will light up green. If you fail, it will light up red and I will deliver the adequate punishment" he said. 

"Punishment?" 

"Nothing too severe. This is a spell best learned under some form of duress. Ordinarily, it would be the duress of your classmate and partner moaning in unimaginable agony as their very life essence was heated to the point where it would become nothing more than red steam leaking out of them. Since that isn't available as I'm not allowed to use that on any of you and I definitely won't be using that on myself, you will learn under the threat of a stinging hex. I assure you, I'm quite practiced with them" 

"That's barbaric" Someone called out and I barely managed to swallow my laughter. They sounded so much like Hermione in that moment. 'Moody' obviously did not care for their objections on the matter, and we began in no time. 

Mctominay was eager to go first but he failed to cast the counter-curse correctly and dropped to the floor, moaning in pain after Moody jabbed his wand at him. My left eyebrow went up without intending it to when he rose covering one half of his face. A stinging hex wasn't the most painful spell out there. There were plenty simple and not so simple pain curses out there, but the stinging hex was unique in that it operated with localized pain. Needless to say, the face was one of the more agonizing targets available. 

After that, the rest of the class seemed shy to go up. His mate, Jurrien, visibly stepped backwards as 'Moody' beckoned on him to take his turn. I sighed and walked around all of them. Tom Riddle had attended Hogwarts at a much more brutal time than present day. People in Doom's universe had mocked Dumbledore for being an uncaring old man who turned a blind eye to the happenings at the school. I silently wondered what they would have thought of Armando Dippet. The blood boiling and blood-freezing curses were staples at Slytherin House before Riddle got the run of the place. I stabbed my wand, not even bothering to mutter the incantation and the dummy glowed a bright green. 

I ignored the way 'Moody's' false eye followed my every moment as I returned two my place just as surely as I ignored Mctominay's venomous stare. In the end, apart from me no one other than the McKinnon girl managed to get it correctly on the first try. On the second, a female Montague (shocked me that she actually didn't look half bad) and Mctominay managed the spell. By the third time, half the class of twelve had gotten it. That was when it sunk in that these people were actually some of the best that Hogwarts had to offer. Defence Against the Dark Arts Instruction was patchy at best, and they had Lockhart for a teacher during their OWLs so only the most talented would have managed to secure the Exceeds Expectations that the NEWT level of the course required as a pre-requisite. 

That brought another thing to mind. If poor education was deciding who made it to the NEWTs in each course and the standarised tests never got easier to account for poor tutelage then Dumbledore's failure to address Voldemort's curse on the position was inadvertently limiting the number of competent applicants for positions like Aurors and Hit-wizards. Even worse, they were not only limiting applicants for specialized positions but making sure that the general public was poorly suited to taking matters into their own hands. Beautiful. 

It was no wonder that someone like Voldemort had been able to run roughshod over wizarding Britain with ease. Few aurors and Hit-wizards compared to when Grindelwald had risen, and a general public unused to fighting and unwilling to consider the possibility of making moves of their own to fight. I'd been reading old articles of the daily prophet in the library, under the ever watchful eye of Madam Pince, and the ever helpful gaze of Hermione- partly to use as an excuse for confronting Crouch here and now, and partly to understand just how Voldemort had brought the wizarding world to its knees the first time around. An additional benefit was that it kept Hermione busy and out of my business. How? I couldn't bring myself to do the tedium of sorting through the multiple useless articles to get to the good stuff, but that was just the kind of stuff Hermione was good at. She'd even suggested doing something similar for Grindelwald once we were done with Britain's Dark Lord. 

Anyway, where was I in the first place? Yeah, Voldemort had done a good job in eliminating the resistance that he would have faced long before he ever even declared his existence to the public. Seven senior Aurors had died in the years leading up to his rise. Seven. Each death was suspicious in their own way. Poison, suspicious accidents, one even died in a duel in Knockturne of all places. Even worse was what had happened to the Veterans. The heroes of the war against Grindelwald. At this point, Dumbledore was literally the only British Wizard who had fought Grindelwald who was still alive. Heroes like Charlus Potter, James Potter's Uncle and Declan Shafiq had been some of the most notable. Notable for the fact that it was at least obvious that there had been something suspicious about their deaths. 

My thoughts flew through my mind at rapid speed as I processed the effects of spotty teaching on the future of the Wizarding World itself and the effects that would have on my plans. 'What plans?' You might ask cluelessly. Doom had never met a world he would not conquer, and Tom Riddle had been much the same. Even Harry Potter had ever particularly been lacking of ambition. The Wizarding world would be mine to rule. It was a given. All that mattered was. Whether they submitted themselves to my power of if I had to drag them kicking and screaming. The class came to an end in no time, and I remained where I stood as the others filed out of the classroom in groups of two and three. 

"What do you want Potter?" He asked with a sneer on his face when he looked back and found me still in the classroom. 

"Just wondering which Bartemius Crouch you are- Junior or Senior" I said with a smirk. A smirk that died very quickly. If my wand had not been in my hand, I would have failed to deflect the stunner that followed my words. 

"Where did you learn that, boy?" He asked with a snarl. A snarl that I matched with one of my own. My magic rose within me as I fired two piercing curses at him. His shield absorbed them with ease but I took the chance to slip in a shield breaker in my next salvo of stunners. I watched with bated breath as he blocked the first two stunners, dropped his shield and moved his shoulder to avoid the shield breaker before putting the shield up again to take the rest of the spells. 

He was quick, he was fast, and he was ruthless, I realised as the duel went on. I dodged away from a trio of piercers and silently stepped away from an explosion curse that I sent back hi sway. He sent it out the window with a contemptuous sneer and then summoned the destroyed glass before rerouting it my way. Fuck. I barely managed to jump out of the way, even as I felt several shards tear through my robes. 

As I rolled underneath an organ rupturing curse and countered with a flock of steel beaked birds, I realised that the main thing keeping me in this duel was the fact that he was fighting in an unfamiliar body. He had basically been forced to remain rooted to the spot because of the disadvantage that came with having a wooden peg for a leg. Well, it was only a disadvantage when you weren't named Mad-eye Moody, I figured. 

He turned the birds to ash with an incredibly dark immolation curse that made me wonder how Dumbledore hadn't been alerted by the wards at this point. Still, I reached out and grabbed the ash with my magic and forced it to envelop the room in a smoky fog. 

"Foolish boy, you can't blind this eye" he said smugly, and I grimaced before activating a flashbang hex with a twist of my wand. I'd been able to close my eyes in time, but I was still blinking spots out of my vision when the spell had run its course. As for my hearing, there was naught to be done about that. Hopefully, I was in a much better state than he was, considering he hadn't been ready for the spell. I rolled forwards to avoid two spells that seemed to have been blindly sent into the ash. I could just barely spot his form moving through the ashy cloud and retaliated with a conjured spear that tore through his shield and impaled him against the wall for a few seconds before his form dissolved into mist. I pushed all the ash away with a silent ventus maxima and found that the classroom's windows had been blown out. He'd escaped, I thought with a scowl as I ran towards the window. 

I could see him running along the Castle's grounds as he tried to make his way to the wards. I silently wondered why he was escaping but then I spotted something white and bloody clutched in his hand. I felt a pinching in my right bicep and turned to find it bleeding. When had that even happened?, I silently wondered as I took a few steps backwards before preparing my run and taking off. I used a banishing charm on the castle itself to send me flying ass over teakettle as I flew at him. I've got to move around with my firebolt at all times, I decided as I struggled to stabilize myself. 

I slashed my wand through the air to slow down my momentum and dropped to the ground in a roll. I was right behind him, I realised, and I wasted no time in making him aware of that fact. With a heave, I lifted a wall of earth in front of him. He turned and fired a dark grey spell that I sent back his way at double the speed but he just ducked and allowed the spell to hit the earthen wall and blow it to smithereens. There are four factors that matter in any duel, Flitwick had taught me: skill, power, knowledge, environment, and luck. It seemed the gods were on my side today as he suddenly lurched. The polyjuice was undoing itself, I realised as his body began to bubble up and shift. The fake eye came sailing at me like a rocket, and I snatched it out of the air without thoughts. I instantly dropped it, wary of curses, but nothing had happened. 

I sent a trio of disarming charms at Crouch as his body lurched all over the place, but against all odds, the bastard managed to remain ahead of my attacks, shielding. I conjured several spears that blew through the magical shield but were stopped dead by a metal circular shield with a stylized snake on it. He banished the shield at me, and I twirled my wand to form a blue firewhip that cut through the shield. In the intervening time, the peg leg had popped out, replaced with Junior's very real leg. I took advantage of the lopsided footing as the other leg was yet to transform and turned the ground he stood atop into mud. 

He planted both feet, even with one taller than another and sent several blood boiling curses my way. I almost gaped at the speed with which he managed to chain the extremely dark spell but settled for breathing out and deflecting each spell off to the side as they came. Thoroughly focused on my surrounding, I didn't even notice that I was sending the spells towards several Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students who had been loitering along the grounds and had been drawn towards the duel. 

He switched tacks as his other leg transformed as tried to banish himself out of the mud. His maneuver sent mud flying in all directions and I was forced to bear the indignity of sullied robes as I continued to chase my target. He flew over the destroyed wall and landed on his back. In an incredibly acrobatic feat that bellied his years in captivity, he landed on his back and rolled backwards to his feet. 

In that time, I'd slashed my wand through the air and sent a bolt of lightning flying right at him. He formed a gleaming gold shield to take the attack, but the kinetic energy of the bolt still affected him beneath his aegis shield and sent him flying into the forest. I chased after him but was forced to stop at the edge of the trees as I noticed that the wards did not cover this part of the forest like they were supposed to. 

Fuck. "Fucking hell" I cursed out loud. 

A/N: And that's the duel. Headcanon is that Crouch was one hell of a prodigy during his time in school so he's a tough nut to fight. Powerscaling would put him a few notches below someone like Bellatrix. Also, remember that Doom is nerfed here- he couldn't use anything illegal on account of no wanting to get even more negative attention from Dumbledore. Most of Riddle's dueling arsenal was dark arts, and Crouch actually fought in the war and was a prodigy while in school. It's perfectly reasonable for them to have a semi-even duel with Doom ending up failing to achieve his Win-con. As always, the next two chapters are up on Patreon (www.patreon.com/Oghenevwogaga) . There's a handy little December discount on both monthly and annual plans. If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my Patreon page- nice way to support this story, and me while you're at it. Enjoy!