(Word Count: 1,296)
Harry walked up to the left-hand stage that Mr. Lazard was on and casually unstrapped his shoulder cape and tossed it back towards Sirius. It folded itself back up neatly in the air and landed softly on his lap. The crowd went wild at his casual use of wandless magic.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your host, Quentin Canards, and I cannot believe what I am seeing! Here in the first match to kick off this year's U-15 dueling tournament, we have the Boy-Who-Lived himself, savior of Magical Brittain, Harry James Potter! And wait just a minute folks! Was that wandless magic? I believe it was! Harry Potter took off his dueling cape and wandlessly sent it back to Lord Black! Judges, any insight into how difficult that would be?" Mr. Canards said, turning to the experts sitting beside him.
"Casting wandlessly requires great concentration and control over your own magic. Only the most powerful wizards could pull it off," Mr. Robards said in awe.
"Hmph, that's only for you European wizards. In Egypt, and in any other country Uagadou teaches, wandless magic is nothing special. Everyone learns how to control their own magic like that. Though, I must admit, to see someone as young as Mr. Potter accomplishing such control is impressive. He must have started practicing at a very young age," Madam Fahmy said.
"Madam Fahmy's right. Outside of European-influenced countries, wandless magic is still the main method of magic. Anyone can do it, but it would take years of practice to do what Mr. Potter showed us," Mr. Arjun said. "However, it should be said for the listeners, this is a wanded tournament only. Wandless magic is not allowed in the actual match. It's why we don't see very many contestants from Uagadou and the East Asian part of the world, who don't teach wanded magic."
Back at the stage, Harry walked to his starting position. He glanced over to the empty dueling table on the right. When he saw the two stages in the center, he had thought they would be running two matches at a time, but it seemed not.
He glanced at Mr. Lazard, who gave him an eager nod, as if saying "Keep it up, kid! Bring the attention of the entire wizarding world!" That's when he realized they were giving Harry's match its own spotlight in order to get more people to come watch.
Mr. Lazard turned to the other end of the stage, and announced, "His opponent is Alphonse Queneau, who just finished his third year at Beauxbatons academy! This is actually his second year participating! Last year, at only 12 years old, he fought his way through to the third round! Quite impressive in his own right!"
A young boy walked up onto the other side of the stage. He was dressed in the Beauxbatons' athletic wear. Every school had them, despite not having any P.E. classes, but it was mostly only the quidditch players that got them. Meaning, this Alphonse Queneau may be a part of his school's team.
Mr. Lazard hopped off the stage, and made his way back to the judges table before turning around and continuing. "Now, Messieurs Potter and Queneau, to the center and greet each other with a bow!"
The two opponents made their way towards the center of the stage. Harry took the time to observe his first opponent. The boy looked somewhat resigned.
"Best of luck," Harry said politely in French.
The boy grimaced. "I won't go down without a fight," he said with determination. "At the very least, I won't embarrass myself."
"Good." They bowed and went back to their starting positions.
"Let the match… begin!" Mr. Lazard announced dramatically.
Queneau went on the offensive immediately, shouting out, "Aculeo! Expelliarmus! Incarcerous! Vermillious!" Queneau had to use each spell's wand movements, so the chain was rather slow.
Harry took his time, confidently sidestepping around each spell as they came. "Ruptura, Expelliarmus." He sent out a shield breaking charm, quickly following it up with the disarming charm. Harry took the liberty of saying the spells out loud, just to give the boy a chance to know what was coming, though he didn't bother with the wand movements. There was only so much he would hold back.
Queneau hastily sent up a Protego, but the shield breaking charm had smashed it apart effortlessly. Even though he could set up a shield charm, which was rather surprising considering it was a 5th year spell, Queneau apparently didn't know about its counter charm.
The Expelliarmus arrived right after and Queneau's wand flew across the stage into Harry's waiting hand. Queneau stared at his empty hand in shock. "No way… so quickly?" He muttered.
In the background, Canards the radio announcer was quickly relating the events of the duel as they happened. "Queneau opens the match by going on the offensive, sending a string of spells one after the other! But Potter faces the barrage calmly! He goes to counter with a combo of his own, and—OH NO!—Queneau's been disarmed! The match is over, Harry Potter wins! Judges, let's play it back. What happened?"
"Queneau casted a shielding charm, Protego, to defend against Potter's spells. Although Protego is a 6th year spell, it's not too hard to learn the basics, so it's not too uncommon to see it even here in the U-15 circuit. In fact, most U-15 champions have won in the past because they master this spell early on. However, it seems that Potter learned its counter, the shield breaking charm, Ruptura. It was able to easily break through Queneau's shield, allowing for Potter's disarming charm to hit," Mr. Gaseling gave his analysis.
Harry tuned them all out and went to hand Queneau's wand back. Really, it didn't make much sense that being disarmed was an instant loss. Being hit with any other spell would just be a point and the match would reset for another try. Even Stupefy wouldn't be a win. The judges would just reenervate them, and continue.
He idly wondered if he should have gone a bit easier on him and hit him with something else, but dismissed it. He didn't know the kid, so might as well get it over with quickly.
The next two matches began shortly after. Mr. Lazard had stepped away from the spotlight and there was a younger woman officiating. It seemed that Mr. Lazard wanted to handle Harry's matches personally.
"Harry, do you want to stay to watch, or should we head out?" Sirius asked.
"Let's stay for a bit. I want to see what my competition looks like," Harry said.
"It's good you're not letting your win get to your head, Harry," Flitwick said. "There's always some surprising talent to watch out for. If you get overconfident, they can take advantage of that and win."
None of the next few matches had anything worthwhile happen. Many of them were third or fourth years, and it didn't seem like any of them studied ahead to learn any special tricks. There was one match where one kid knew protego, and he won easily. Still, these matches all dragged on, with wins usually coming from points.
Not that they were boring. Far from it. Usually, when a spell was fired without the proper intent behind it, it would just send the target flying backwards, as seen in the movies. This was especially easy to do with spells like Expelliarmus, with the word "expel" right in the incantation.
So they ended up just watching kids get flung end over end across the stage. It made for quite a funny show. Harry just wished there was popcorn.
Without any more noteworthy matches, the first day of the dueling tournament came to an end.