If the earlier Fiendfyre Curse could still be explained away as collateral damage, then this Sectumsempra attack was a completely deliberate strike.
Its purpose was simple. To kill the opponent.
And in a way, in the eyes of Ginny and Luna, this death was even more shocking...
"..."
Ginny pressed her lips together hard.
She was a Gryffindor, and her sense of justice was undeniably strong. But beneath her carefree exterior, she was far more sensitive and thoughtful than she looked, so at that moment, she did not speak up to accuse Draco of being wrong.
She might have had her biases against him, but she was not the sort of girl who did not know how to be grateful.
On the contrary, so as not to interfere with Draco's movements, Ginny simply pressed her head against his back and did her best to ignore the Killing Curses streaking past her ears, close enough to hit her by the barest margin.
Only, her uneven breathing quietly betrayed the thoughts she could not put into words...
Draco, completely unaware of what the girl behind him was doing, remained focused on the battle. In the next second, after climbing even higher, he accelerated straight at the enemy once again.
The Death Eaters, finally reacting, shouted warnings to their companions.
"Stop spacing out. Do you want to end up like Oggy?!"
"Listen up, he is not as simple as we thought!"
The moment they saw blood, the Death Eater leading this mobile squad immediately understood what kind of opponent they were facing.
A student who had not even graduated yet?
What a ridiculous joke.
That merciless attack, along with those superb flying skills, had already carved themselves deep into everyone's mind.
Without question.
This was a powerhouse.
...
As long as you were a wizard living in the wizarding world, there was no way you could have grown up without coming into contact with Quidditch.
In fact, during their school years, being able to represent one's House on the field was an important experience, and one worthy of pride.
That said, not everyone was born with talent...
Whoosh, whoosh!
The tearing sound of the wind by their ears, the blood staining the sky, and the sight of their companions dropping like rain.
That scene sent a chill through the Death Eaters below, who could do nothing but watch.
Even for people as vicious as they were, seeing familiar faces, people they knew, turned into helpless insects beneath someone else's wand was still something they could not calmly accept.
They were the ones who had once treated killing like a game.
Now they had become the ones being toyed with.
At the same time, those standing beside Barty Crouch Jr. could already feel the increasingly unstable fluctuations of magic around him.
Clearly, the Dark Lord's most trusted subordinate was not remotely satisfied with how things were going...
"Stop him!"
"Damn it, he vanished again!"
"Where did he go? Find him!"
"He is right above you, idiot!"
"Urgh!!"
Another invisible strike.
Another Death Eater jolted once, then tumbled straight off his Broomstick.
As the same scene repeated again and again, the girls, who had initially felt uneasy, gradually began to adapt. Of course, that was also because they were moving so fast that they could not clearly see the way those Death Eaters were dying.
In any case, once they got used to it, Ginny and Luna began trying to observe the battle around them, along with Draco's unhesitating flying and that resolute profile of his.
His already handsome face somehow became even more captivating once he turned completely serious.
Just as Ginny was starting to drift in a daze, Luna's distinctly ethereal voice suddenly sounded by her ear...
"Expelliarmus."
"Luna?"
A red flash tore through the air, unmistakably the mark of the Disarming Charm.
It did not hit its target, but it still threw the unprepared Death Eaters into a brief moment of confusion.
The spell had come from Luna's hand. After staying quiet for so long, the witch from the Lovegood family no longer seemed willing to remain silent.
Draco merely spared a quick glance over his shoulder before looking forward again.
So she adapted already. Faster than I expected.
Truth be told, Luna's actions did not surprise Draco.
Or rather, he had never thought poorly of Luna at all. She was just a little too quiet, and with that expressionless little face of hers, no one could ever tell what she was thinking all day long...
Just as Draco's attention split for a moment, Ginny's slightly trembling voice rang out as well.
"I... tch, Expelliarmus!"
"Oh?"
"Watch where you are going, you idiot!"
Draco's sudden glance back, along with that doubtful look in his eyes, made Ginny cry out in embarrassment and anger.
Was he looking down on her?
I can help too, all right?!
Muttering that to herself inside, Ginny's movements grew quicker and fiercer...
...
The dark clouds were gradually scattering.
Light poured down across the earth.
High in the sky, Draco wheeled through dazzling aerial turns and all kinds of high difficulty maneuvers that would have made Quidditch fans scream themselves hoarse.
At the same time, his precise attacks, aided by his extraordinary dynamic vision, turned the battlefield into a rain of falling Death Eaters...
To the Death Eaters, Draco had already become a nightmare.
But in Ginny and Luna's eyes, he looked entirely different.
It had to be said, that overwhelming sense of safety, along with the way he made hearts race, was something no girl could possibly ignore.
Even Ginny Weasley, who had started out deeply biased against Draco, had to admit that the tall figure leading them through the magical light made her heart pound.
Even Luna seemed drawn in by this version of Draco.
Do not be fooled by Luna's usual look of indifference. As her friend, there was no way Ginny could miss the change in her.
After all.
A hero would always touch the softest part of a girl's heart...
At that thought, Ginny let out a quiet sigh.
Because without realizing it, she had suddenly started comparing Harry and Draco in her mind.
Could Harry do all this?
Probably... not.
While the two girls were lost in their thoughts, the Death Eaters on the other side were trapped in utter misery.
Compared to the Death Eaters, who only knew how to charge recklessly, accelerate blindly, turn crudely, and fire spells that never seemed to hit anything, Draco was steadily eating away at the gap in numbers.
And all of it came from the overwhelming advantage created by his extraordinary skill...
Calling it a battle…
It would be more accurate to call it art.