*Nothing moves in shades of orange and yellow. The fire stifles Barty's tricks, wards him off like ancient magic holding back the malevolent spirits of some dark, long-past age. For a moment it seems as if he's finally been cowed, sent scurrying off to hide and re-think and re-plot. For a moment it seems like nothing will happen at all. And then there's the upwards pull, an all consuming suckling. It isn't clear at first what it is, but then the fire flinches. Some wounded warrior submitting to a low hum - a sound like a distant vacuum, ominous and rumbling and hungry. It's oxygen, oxygen being torn from the hallway, molecule by molecule disintegrating and dispersing. It suffocates the fire, suffocates everything.

But spells have never needed air. Barty's wordless expelliarmus comes from nowhere, is heard by no one but is transferred into existence, energy and force nonetheless.*