章 23: Snake Whisperer

Hadrian turned to Angelica.

"Don't lose.", he said as he placed his hand on her shoulder.

Angelica smiled and nodded before her face settled into one of determination and confidence.

"I've trained for this, I can't lose when the tournament has only just begun."

Hadrian's response came in the form of an encouraging smile.

As Angelica made her way onto the arena's platform, Hadrian focused on her opponent, Nkonkoni. He was keen to see how the students from the elusive school of Uagadou duelled.

Nkonkoni was taller and had a more athletically inclined physique. Hadrian stared intently at her face, trying to examine whether she was nervous or not. As they bowed, Hadrian couldn't help but notice that Nkonkoni had a look of total indifference.

The referee shot the flare out of his wand and thus, the match had begun.

Angelica began peppering Nkonkoni with a barrage of spells, Nkonkoni avoided them with adopted ease.

This continued for a few seconds before Nkonkoni made a swiping hand gesture whilst shouting, "Flipendo!", a blue light shot out from her palm.

Angelica dodged the spell, but whilst doing so, she was caught by a knockback jinx.

Angelica was hurled to the other end of the Arena.

A look of frustration marring her features, she began casting a flurry of spells.

Nkonkoni did well to dodge most of the spells in Angelica's chain but was eluded at the end by a 'Lumos Solem' followed by a low powered diffindo.

The cutting charm struck her on her thigh, slicing it slightly.

Nkonkoni grit her teeth, before settling her face into one of indifference once more.

While her face showed indifference, her eyes betrayed all meaning of the word. Nkonkoni began moving her hands in wild gestures, pointing and waving her hands intently. If spells hadn't been released as a result of these gestures, one would think she was fighting with the art of contemporary dance.

Nkonkoni's spell casting was significantly slower than Angelica's but the unfamiliarity of facing a wandless magic-user hindered the Aunriton 3rd year.

Angelica had the advantage in the way she could bat away incoming spells, whereas Nkonkoni had to dodge.

Nkonkoni rolled out of the path of an incoming incendio before pointing at Angelica and shouting, "Tarantallegra!".

Angelica's legs kicked to the side of her body, jerking her to the floor.

Wand tightly clenched in her hands, Angelica threw a tickling spell at a Nkonkoni.

Nkonkoni doubled over on the floor, gasping for breath. She stayed completely still, in fear of moving and bursting out into laughter. Meanwhile, Angelica scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could before firing off a full-body bind curse.

Angelica sauntered over to Nkonkoni and raised her wand to meet the girl's face before pressing it into her temple.

The arena roared with applause and whistles.

Angelica turned to face Professor Andy who was hopping around the champions box, clapping and smiling as hard as his face and body would allow. She then swiveled her head to look at her peers, who were also wearing face-splitting grins.

" I told you I would win!", Hadrian heard her shout amidst the loud clapping.

Hadrian nodded resignedly, as he smiled back at Angelica whilst she made her way back.

The Yakuza referee then called for the next two contestants to come up, a pair of Ilvermorny students.

Hadrian didn't pay attention to this fight, he was thinking about his fight that was coming up soon. There was one more match before it was Hadrian's turn, then he would be fighting Aleksander Tsankov.

Hadrian was forming strategies in his head. If Aleksander proved to be a very strong duellist, Hadrian would be forced to reveal his trump cards. Hadrian was confident that he would be able to best Aleksander without his aces, but he also wanted to test out his spells, specifically the 'Extienis Spell' and maybe his wandless ones, if it came to it.

Hadrian was brought out of his stupor with the raucous clapping and cheering that engulfed the arena. During the crowd's excitement, Demetri stood up. Hadrian watched as he closed his eyes and whispered words of self-assurance to himself.

"Demetri!", Hadrian shouted as the boy took off towards the arena's platform.

Demetri swiveled his head to meet Hadrian's gaze.

"Don't lose."

Angelica looked at Hadrian and smirked.

Demetri scoffed in response and replied saying, "Don't worry about me, I'm going to win this tournament and become the Professor's real apprentice."

Demetri stalked off onto the stage.

"Don't worry about him Hadrian, he's only acting like that because he's afraid to let down Professor Andy.", Angelica said, gazing apologetically into Hadrian's eyes.

Hadrian shrugged, "Professor Andy said we should always go into a duel calmly - Demetri's only setting himself up to lose."

'So much for water under the bridge.', Hadrian mused.

Hadrian then turned to look at who Demetri would be facing. It was the same skinny Indian boy that copied Rishu Nayar's dance.

Hadrian watched as the boy, who the projection rune showed was named Din Kapil, once more did the Jig. Hadrian found himself shocked to see that the Nayar did the same dance in response!

'They must have some sort of relationship. Din Kapil is probably Nayar's apprentice!', Hadrian thought, 'I sure hope Professor Andy doesn't make me do something as embarrassing as that.'

Professor Anderson sneezed in the Champion's box, 'Hadrian better not be thinking about making some sort of looney dance.'

This time Hadrian sneezed as the referee's flare went off.

Demetri began his spell chain immediately, hoping to overwhelm Din.

Din hopped side to side, dodging the spells with an ear-splitting grin fixed on his face.

"Throw some more! This is fun!", Din shouted whilst giggling every time a spell came close to hitting him.

Demetri grit his teeth in anger, increasing in intensity and speed with every spell thrown.

"Haha! Hahaha!", Din began throwing his chain of spells at Demetri.

He shot a dancing legs jinx at Demetri followed by a knockback jinx and a disarming charm.

Demetri flicked the spells away from him, countering with his own chain once more. Din dodged these spells even easier than last time, "Aw, no fair! You're getting boring now.", he said as he pouted - still dodging the spells that came his way.

Hadrian laughed, something that was mirrored by the rest of the young duellists.

"All right! This isn't fun anymore, I'm gonna win!", Din Kapil declared.

Demetri continued his barrage, angry that he hadn't been able to hit his opponent yet - completely disregarding the fact Din hadn't either.

"Serpensortia!", Din shouted.

From Din's wand, a long rattlesnake emerged, sprawled out on the floor, "Engorgio!", he yelled as the long snake grew to a staggering 10ft tall.

Demetri stopped casting and began backing away from the snake slowly.

'Do not harm him or any othersss without my permisssion, understand!', Din hissed at the snake.

'...Yesss, if that is what you wissssh young ssspeaker.', the snake hissed in reply.

Hadrian's eyes widened, Din was a parselmouth. 'Of course! That's probably why Rishu Nayar chose him.', he thought, slapping his forehead with his palms in realization.

Din stood there, that ear-splitting grin widening even more than anyone thought possible.

'He'll probably forfeit now...', Din thought.

Demetri however, did not want to forfeit.

Instead, he threw a rapid chain of full-body bind curses at the snake, locking it in place.

The crowd split into a mix of cheers and boos. Cheers for Demetri's subjugation of the giant snake and boos because they wanted to see the boy fight it.

"Hahahaha! I like it! You didn't run away!", Din shouted once more dodging Demetri's flurry of attacks, "Serpensortia!".

Another snake emerged from this wand, which quickly grew when Din cast an engorgement charm on it.

Demetri swiftly cast a fully-body bind at the snake, mid engorgement.

Din began spuming a horde of snakes, not bothering to make them bigger anymore and opting for sheer quantity.

The militia of snakes encircled Demetri, who looked to be closer and closer to forfeiting until a Eureka moment flashed in his head.

"INCENDIO!", he yelled, as he pivoted on his foot and drew a ring of fire around him. The snakes began to burn up whilst the ones outside of the ring retreated.

Din's smile faltered for a second before he sighed.

"I didn't want to use this until later, but we're having fun now!", the boy yelled.

Hadrian sat up straighter to see what his 'special weapon' was.

'Flipendo', he hissed as a green light sailed out of his wand and it forced the flames to either dissipate or fly towards Demetri.

Demetri was fine however, due to the outfits Professor Andy had given to his 'cute little students'.

The steel mesh plate prevented Demetri from burning, but it didn't prevent the heat that showered Demetri when the flames latched onto his clothes.

Hadrian saw the power the spell had, it was about as strong as a flipendo duo! Imagine the strength of the dragonic alternative!

Hadrian made sure to ask his grandparents for parseltongue spellbooks, he desperately wanted to learn them.

Din began tossing parseltongue flipendos at Demetri, diminishing any flame that he wished to create. Every once in awhile, he would spawn a horde of snakes, the snake militia was reforming.

Reforming and inching closer and closer towards Demetri.

"Stop! I forfeit.", he shouted as a snake wrapped around his leg.

Din instantly jumped into his merry little jig, raising his wand above his head and twirling about the stage.

If one were to look closely, in the champions box, a very happy Rishu Nayar was performing the same merry jig. If one were to look again, they would notice the two very unhappy professors beside him, annoyance marred on their faces.

'He was toying with me. Professor Anderson probably thinks I'm pathetic.', Demetri thought as he stalked off.

Just as he was about to step off the platform, a hand gripped at his shoulders and spun him around.

"Hiya!", a smiling Din greeted Demetri.

"Hey...", Demetri responded, staring intently at his shoes.

"Don't be sad, that's boring! You were fun! Duel me again, 'kay?", he replied, pushing Demetri off the last step with an encouraging slap on the back, not even waiting to hear a response.

Demetri stumbled as a result of the slap, before fixing himself upright. He watched as the boy made his way back into the area where the young duellists were, chatting emphatically with a boy from Beauxbatons.

Demetri smirked before whispering, "Okay.", and walked off towards Hadrian and Angelica.