บท 26: Tournament Ends
Hadrian woke up early. Yesterday, he had trained very hard. He didn't know if it was the Dragonlord blood within him that allowed him to train with such vigor and not feel the brunt lethargy of fatigue - but he was grateful.
He woke up early because he wanted to go to the Gift Shop.
There was another purpose, aside from buying a souvenir for himself and Daphne, who was due to participate in the tournament the next year. That purpose was...to buy a rule book. The duellists were only told the basic do's and don'ts of duelling and like many other sports, there were lots of rules and regulations that players and referees had to abide by.
Hadrian was looking to circumvent one particular rule, but it also aligned with his goal of becoming familiar with the sport he would no doubt be continuing. One of Hadrian's aspirations were to become a Duelling Champion. To be specific; Hadrian wanted to be the Duelling Champion that won the title the most times.
Whilst it would be challenging, most of the time - the best things were.
Hadrian trotted over to the Gift Shop, it had many clothing and collectibles on sale. As well as a rack of small, little black books that had the title: 'International Duelling Circuit Rules & Regulations', written in bold, white letters.
Hadrian picked it up, paid for it with the galleons his grandparents had sent him and rushed back to his room.
In Hadrian's room, he looked through the book, hunting for a specific rule he desperately wanted to find out.
He scanned the book and after a few minutes of searching, found it. Hadrian was looking for the rule on the matches, more specifically, the rule that explained whether or not he had to stay in the arena to watch matches he wasn't participating in.
It claimed that the Duellists had to remain on the premises, but other than that, they were free to go wherever. They only had to worry about arriving on time for their duels.
This made Hadrian very happy because he would be able to practice before or after his duel. This rule would work extremely in his favor if his duel was either the first or last duel - or anywhere close to those times.
Hadrian wanted to work on the new spell that he had unlocked this morning. According to the Grimoire, Hadrian had mastered the Capturing Spell 'Extienis' to a suitable degree that it thought he ought to start practicing the next spell.
The Spell-Duplication Spell seemed like an extremely useful skill. The spell allowed the user to 'split' a spell into two and send 'both' of the spells to their opponent.
The first spell 'Extienis' and this new spell, 'Duplaro', worked very well together as the perfect countering combination. Hadrian would be able to catch the spell of his opponent, pour his magic into the spell to increase its strength before splitting the spell and targeting multiple areas or enemies.
He closed the rule book and donned on his duellist clothing once more. Today was the day the tournament would be reaching its conclusion. Where the winner would be dubbed the Champion.
He made his way to the Aunriton training area, where he began practicing the Spell-Duplication Spell and the Capturing Spell.
He trained for a few hours before Angelica, Natalie, Demetri, and Isaiah found him. Side by side, they made their way over to the arena.
"Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen to the last evening of the U12 International Duelling Tournament!", the referee boomed out.
He stabbed his wand in the air and the projection rune flared up, displaying a table of the semifinalists and who they would be facing.
Hadrian found his name very easily. He was the first!
It seemed that he would be facing one Fleur Delacour in the first match of the semi.
Hadrian looked across the body of contestants and found her locking her gaze onto him. Once she had realized that she was caught staring, she turned her nose up at him and swiveled her head to face the opposite direction.
Hadrian's eyebrows twitched heavily, '...I'm going to enjoy knocking her out of the competition.'
The referee finished going over the rules, like he did the day before, and beckoned Hadrian and Fleur to make their way over to the arena.
They both bowed and awaited the flare.
Once the referee let it off, Hadrian immediately began throwing as many spells as fast as he could.
Hadrian threw a body bind curse at her, then a knockback jinx and a finite to restore her.
As she made her way up, Hadrian tossed a Jelly Legs Jinx and a Dancing Legs combo, causing Fleur to kick her legs wildly. Ultimately she landed on the floor.
This was when Hadrian thought it was prudent to end the match, as an immobilizing spell was thrown at him, he captured it and tossed it back towards Fleur.
He then hit her with a flurry of Knockback Jinxes, causing her to fall out of the platform. It seemed that amidst the out-of-platform-flying that Fleur was showcasing, she had dropped her wand.
Hadrian walked over and picked it up.
The crowd broke out into a cacophony of clapping and shouts. Some of the people were berating Hadrian for treating a girl like that - completely forgetting that it was a duelling tournament.
Hadrian went back into the duellist's area, before slipping away and into the tunnel that lead to the Training Area.
He desperately wanted to get a hang of the Duplaro spell and he knew that there was quite sometime before the Finals.
He quickly began running through spells, chain casting, and mock-blocking spells.
Hadrian did this for a half an hour before he went back into the Duelling Arena. Many of the young duellists had noticed his disappearance and were looking at Hadrian weirdly.
Hadrian glanced up to see who was duelling and found that it was Din and Angelica. Din seemed to be forcing her back, Angelica was stuck on the defensive.
Suddenly, a well-timed parseltongue flipendo knocked Angelica to her knees. Din took that moment to place her in a body bind and relieve her of her wand. Din was announced the winner.
Hadrian turned to Isaiah and asked, "What did I miss?"
"Natalie lost against Antoine. Nkonkoni lost to Althea. Rai lost to a guy from Ilvermorny - I think his name was Bishop or something.", he replied.
Hadrian nodded, "So, this was the last semi-final match?"
"Mhm.", Isaiah sounded, "Where were you anyway?"
"Practicing."
"Why wou-", Isaiah began before he was cut off by loud audience's roar at the referee's announcement of the beginning of the finals.
It was down to Antoine, Hadrian, Althea, Bishop, and Din.
The projection rune began moving the names around until it arranged the names into pairs - the pairs that would be fighting.
The first pair was Althea vs Bishop.
From the first few minutes of that match, it was clear who the winner was. Althea seemed to be more...comfortable on the arena, dodging, weaving, and attacking without hesitation. This was the key distinction between her and Bishop, so it came as no surprise when he lost quite pathetically.
The pair after them had been Hadrian and Din.
This match was wildly anticipated, with Din's parseltongue spells and Hadrian's 'original' spells, it was a 'must-see' .
Hadrian began that match, sparing no thoughts on whether he would hold back or not.
Din was an adept duellist and from what Hadrian gathered from his previous duels, liked to toy with his opponents.
Hadrian had one advantage over Din...well it wasn't as much as an advantage than it was a nullification of his greatest skill. Hadrian could also speak the language of the snakes.
Instantly, Din had gone to his signature duelling style: summon a myriad of snakes to distract the opponent, whilst pelting them with parseltongue flipendos.
Hadrian ignored them, swiftly jumping over the snakes, stepping on their heads.
His only goal was getting closer and closer to Din.
Din fired off a snake in Hadrian's direction before enlarging it mid-air.
Hadrian stopped in front of the snake and hissed, 'MOVE!'.
The snake, shocked and confused, moved instinctively out of the way of the speaker that demanded it to.
Hadrian fired off a flurry of knockback jinxes at Din - who was momentarily perplexed by Hadrian's reveal.
Din was thrown off the platform, his wand thrown somewhere in the crowd.
Hadrian looked at the referee expectantly, who quickly announced Hadrian's win. Hadrian looked up at the Champion's box and saw the perturbed expression written on Professor Andy's face. To the right of Professor Andy stood Rishu Nayar, who was also peering at Hadrian inquisitively.
Amidst the raucous applause and cheers, Hadrian looked at his friends, who were looking at him as if he was a puzzle.
'Professor Andy was right...Hadrian does have a lot of secrets.', Angelica thought to herself.
Next was Althea and Antoine.
This match ended quicker than most expected, it probably had to do with the convincing wins Althea had garnered in her matches during the tournament, but most people expected her to either win or just about lose.
Antoine proved himself to be a very capable duellist. He used very easy spells that required no incantation, such as the tripping jinx or the sponge-knees jinx.
This gave him an advantage over most of the other duellist. It was apparent that it was this that gave him an advantage over Althea, who lost within the first 3 minutes of the duel.
After that match, it was the Final. The tournament allowed a grace period of 15 minutes to allow the contestants to rest.
The Arena brimmed with anticipation and the tension. It was now certain that the tournament was between Hadrian Black and Antoine Flamel. Two boys from notable families.
Hadrian stepped up to the stage, he had expected to be duelling Antoine in the finals. Whilst Din was good, he was quite the one-trick-pony.
Antoine stared at Hadrian. Antoine had very dark brown hair, split with a middle-parting. He had dark brown eyes to match his hair and a pale,paper-like skin-tone.
They bowed.
The flare shot up into the air, alerting the two boys that the match had begun.
Hadrian flicked his wand, "Ebublio!".
Antoine dodged and threw a mix of cutting and disarming charms.
As the duel progressed, Hadrian became faster and faster with dodging and attacking - quickly becoming accustomed to Antoine's duelling style.
Antoine threw slug vomiting hexes, knockback jinxes, tripping jinxes, anything, and everything he knew!
Hadrian, who was in the process of dodging a spell aimed at his feet, was caught by the disarming charm.
Hadrian's wand flew half-way between him and Antoine.
Antoine ran towards the wand.
Hadrian, who was honestly quite peeved at himself for getting disarmed, thrust his palm towards Antoine and shouted, "Flipendo!".
Antoine was flung back by the spell. Sprawled on the floor - he looked at Hadrian shocked. This emotion was mirrored by everyone else in the arena, judging by the silence.
Hadrian then made his way closer towards his wand and willed it to appear in his hand as he rolled on the floor, dodging a spell from Antoine - who had just been released from the stupor he found himself in.
Antoine was now smiling, growing more and more excited, "Show me more! Show me more, Black!".
Hadrian grinned and caught one of Antoine's spells, hurling it back at him. Antoine then sent another spell, a charged disarming spell - Hadrian caught the spell, poured more magic into it before shouting, "Duplaro!".
The spell split into two before it was thrown at Antoine. One of the spells went wide but served as a distraction - which ultimately lead Antoine to be hit by the other in the shoulder.
The crowd roared in approval, they had just seen another one of Hadrian's 'original' spells!
Hadrian smirked, he shouted, "Obscuro!", blinding Antoine momentarily before shouting, "Petrificus Totalus!", with his wand-free hand pointing at Antoine.
Antoine froze up, his mouth fixed in a large smile.
Hadrian briskly walked up towards him and use the levitation charm to bring Antoine's wand to his hand.
"THE WINNER OF THE U12 INTERNATIONAL DUELLING TOURNAMENT IS HAADRRIAAN BLAACKK!!", the referee exclaimed.
Hadrian stood in the middle of the arena, under a large spotlight that beamed down on him.
He bowed, amidst the fluttering of cameras and tremendous, thunderous applause.
Professor Andy bobbed up and down in the Champions box whooping and shrieking, "That's my apprentice! Hahaha!..."
In the duellist area, Demetri looked up at Hadrian, envious but resigned - he just knew Hadrian would win.
The rest of the duellists looked at Hadrian with a mix of admiration and jealousy. One contestant, a Quarter-Veela looked at Hadrian in awe. Fleur was bitter about being beaten so easily by the boy, but she couldn't help but admire his skill.
The yakuza referee walked over to Hadrian, enchanted mic in hand.
"Do you have anything you want to say, Mr. Black? Don't be shy, this is your moment.", he said as he handed Hadrian the mic.
"I want to say thank you to my Duelling Teacher, Professor Anderson-", another spotlight formed and zeroed in on Aurian Anderson, who waved at Hadrian with a large grin on his face.
"- I also want to say thank you to my Duelling partner, Daphne Greengrass. She's been very helpful and encouraging during practice.", the crowd 'oohed' and whistled at Hadrian teasingly.
"Last but not least, my grandparents, Charlus, and Dorea. They've given me everything that I could ever ask for and they will never know how thankful I am for that.", Hadrian ended.
The crowd became even louder as all the duelling champions made their way down to the platform.
They lined up in front of Hadrian as he was guided towards the first champion, Fillius Flitwick - the half-goblin.
"That was an exquisite performance! Especially for one so young...!", he said as Hadrian shook his hand enthusiastically.
Hadrian repeated this a few more times until he reached Rishu Nayar who smirked at him and hissed, 'Owl me If you are in Mumbai one day, I could coach you on the spells of serpents.'
Hadrian smiled back and hissed in reply, 'I will. Just don't think that you'll be replacing Professor Andy as my Teacher.'
Rishu threw his head back and laughed aloud.
At the end of the line stood Aurian Anderson, Hadrian's teacher.
"I am very proud of you, Hadrian. So young, yet so talented. Not to mention, secretive.", he said, eyebrow raised. "Now that I know your full capabilities, training is going to become much harder!", he continued, eyes glinting with mirth.
Hadrian sweatdropped, "I...am so glad."
Professor Anderson ruffled his head as he summoned the trophy from the approaching referee. The referee looked at Aurian, affronted, but knew better than to throw a fit at the Two-Time Duelling Champion.
He handed Hadrian the trophy, as camera flashes surrounded the Teacher-Student duo.
Hadrian was then guided to a room filled with reporters and photographers. When he asked Professor Anderson why there were so many, he responded, "The Duelling Champions are rarely seen together at an event, it probably won't happen for a very, very long time."
The reporters were relentless in their questioning. This increased even more once they asked about his age, to which he honestly replied.
This lead them to ask why his grandparents thought it was fine to allow a 9-year-old in a duelling tournament and other questions among that route.
One reporter hailing from Britain's 'Daily Prophet' had asked why the parents of James and Lily were looking after him and if he was their hidden son or the bastard of Sirius Black - who was infamous for being a womanizer and a someone who didn't like to take responsibility for a vast majority of things.
Hadrian didn't know how to reply to that, so he chose to ignore it and answer a different question. The press conference took around an hour, 15 minutes of it being about Hadrian, the rest being questions for the other Duelling Champions.
After the conference, Hadrian made his way to his room and was shocked to see Charlus and Dorea standing by the door!
Hadrian ran towards them, lunging into their waists.
"We are very proud of you, son.", Charlus said as he ruffled his hair.
"So, so very proud, Hadrian.", Dorea continued.
"What are you doing here?", Hadrian asked.
"Well then, I see we're not wanted. Charlus, let's leave Mr. Champion Duellist here, shall we?", she said as she began walking away - wearing a smile hidden from Hadrian's view.
"No!... I didn't mean it like that.", Hadrian exclaimed, grabbing onto Dorea's hand.
"We know, Hadrian. We were only teasing.", she said as she turned and pinched her handsome grandson's cheeks.
"We're here to take you home. Professor Anderson said it would be fine, but we have to return you back to Aunriton tomorrow. ", Charlus said, answering the boy's previous question.
Hadrian then quickly retrieved his trunk, which was shrunk by Charlus. They made their way outside and with a stab at the fob watch Charlus was holding, which just so happened to be a portkey, Hadrian was home once more.
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MIKK
MIKK HarryLuna fanfics are so fluffy - ilikeit.
Tournament Arc over. Sunday will be the end of the 'one chapter a day' upload schedule. It will be every other day starting from next week - Ik I wrote this in one of the previous AN's - but some people might have skipped it.
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https://discord.gg/xAwFaGr
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ty for reading :)
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