Early next morning, I learned that I would be dueling in the first round starting at eight in the morning. There were thirty-two opponents in the fourth-year division. Which meant that if I wanted to win, I would have to win five matches in a row. Unlike the December tournament, this was single elimination. One loss, and you're out.

There were only two of us from Hogwarts competing. The other contender was a fourth-year Gryffindor named Adrian. He wasn't a member of the Silver Spears. He was in the same club as Anna, the Dragon Fangs.

When it was time, I made my way down to the dueling ring. The previous day, I learned it was nick-named the pit. Most of the pit was filled with sand, but in the center was a large stone dueling ring.

As I stepped out onto the sand, my eyes scanned the seats in the stadium. I found my family sitting as close to the pit as possible without actually being in the pit.

Rebbeca waved at me and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Yeaaah Alex! Kick their asses!"

I hid a grin seeing Grandma's eyes widened as if she couldn't believe Rebbeca had just cursed. She dragged Rebbeca close and whispered something in her ear. Probably something to do with acting like a lady.

Seeing the rebellious look on Rebbeca's face, I knew Grandma had lost that battle. If she wanted a proper lady, she would have to focus on Sasha.

Not wanting to bring attention to herself, Sasha just silently held up Athena with one hand and used the other hand to wave Athena's paw at me.

Dad showed his support by cupping his hands to his mouth and shouted similar encouragement.

Mum, on the other hand, did her very best to embarrass me, "Alex, be careful, baby."

A warm heat flooded my cheeks. You would think I would be used to Mum's antics by now. She always seems to find new ways to embarrass me. But that was my family in a nutshell, embarrassing, warm, and loud. Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

As I made my way to the ring, I noticed a few of my competitors pointed towards me, mocking my family's vocal show of support. I narrowed my grey eyes in annoyance. No one makes fun of my family, at least not without consequences. I memorized each of their faces. Should I meet any of them in the arena, I will be sure to show them what true embarrassment looks like.

The stone that made up the dueling ring was a dull brownish color. The ring was a large circle ring fifty feet across what had a single line carved across the center, dividing the ring into two parts. None one was allowed to cross the line without forfeiting the match. Likewise, if one of us were tossed out of the ring, it would also be considered a loss.

Since my opponent was already on the left side of the ring, I made my way to the right. Each side had a smaller circle that we were required to be in at the start of the duel.

It was known as the starter circle, and it was something of a mental trap in dueling. While winning the duel was technically all that mattered. There was a point system used to rank duelers, and one way to earn a lot of points was not to leave the starting circle for the entire match. If I'm being honest, being able to brag about bringing down an opponent without being forced to move is also part of the attraction.

Those who ranked at the top were the most famous duelers, and fame was half the reason why many people got into professional dueling in the first place. Plus the money, the top-ranked duelers tended to earn the most as well.

Of course, this being the junior leagues and a single-elimination tournament, points don't matter as much as they do in the professional leagues.

Once I got in the ring, I got a look at my first opponent. He stood at a little over five feet, and his skin was the color of smooth beige. He had dark eyes and short black hair, and judging from the intense gaze he was shooting my way, he seemed to be trying to initiate a staring contest.

Ha, he obviously didn't know that he was challenging someone who had weekly staring contests with a bored Lamassu. And while I rarely won, I was confident enough to claim that I was one of the best.

He was introduced as Kazan, a student from Mahoutokoro. His robes had turned bright red and had streaks of gold running through them. Mahoutokoro robes change color depending on the student's grade. The gold streaks told me that he had some high marks, but since they weren't completely gold, it was probably only in a few classes. I had no idea what the red meant, but my intuition told me to be careful.

Seeing how he was so intense, I figured he might be one of those people who might get offended if I didn't react the same way. Hoping to goad him into making a mistake, I gave him a lazy smile which turned into a wide yawn as I gave the impression that I wasn't taking him seriously.

From the narrowed red glare I received, I think it worked. However, a small voice in the back of my head told me that giving my opponent even more reason to want to hex me wasn't the brightest idea.

Oh well, let's see what Kazan has to offer.

As we waited for the referee to signal the match, Kazan's body language reminded me over a coiled spring that was tightened and itching to be released. As for me, I kept projecting a lazy vibe, even though on the inside, I was tense and ready to draw my wand at a moment's notice.

The tension built and built as I tuned out the crowd and waited for the signal. When the referee announced the start of the match with a loud green bang coming from his wand, Kazan and I made identical moves—drawing our wands.

My wand was concealed inside a dueling holster Dad had made for me. The holster was a small two-inch metal tube strapped to my wrist. The tube was enchanted with an undetectable extension charm and was able to conceal my foot-long, ivory-colored aspen wand.

A simple wrist movement released my wand, and it shot forward into my wrist. Across the dueling ring, Kazan did the same.

Seeing how tense and annoyed Kazan was with me, I figured he was the type to get off an offensive spell as soon as possible. So, I prepared to cast the shield charm at first sight of a spell being slung my way.

But, instead of a spell being sent my way, Kazan smirked at me when he whispered an unknown charm, and he disappeared before my eyes in a hazy swirl of colors.

Why that sneaky little bastard.

While I had been projecting laziness, Kazan had been doing a similar performance, making me think he had lost his cool. It was a subtle reminder that I was now facing the best duelers my age from around the world. They would each have unique strategies.

Scanning the supposedly empty ring in front of me, my mind raced over my options. I heard Kazan, murmur something, and a white object appeared out of nowhere and came flying across the ring. Judging from the spell's origin, Kazan had left the starting ring.

With barely a conscious thought, I silently activated the shield charm, "Protego."

A see-through bluish shield sprung up surrounding me. Although I was tuning the noise from the crowd out, I could still hear the announcer narrate our match. While Kazan's invisibility spell had drawn praise, my nonverbal spell was even more surprising to the crowd. Typically, they wouldn't see nonverbal spells until the third or fourth day of the Tournament.

I was a little surprised when the white substance reached me. It splattered across my shield. From the look of things, I was guessing it was designed for restraint and capture. I narrowed my eyes when I saw that it was slowly growing and enveloping my shield. Onc shield dropped, whatever this substance was would probably collapse on top of me, trapping me within.

Not only that, if I didn't take care of this and go on the offensive, I would always be on the back foot, and Kazan would continue to dominate the match.

A plan formed within my mind, and I went to work. I let the shield charm fade away and simultaneously focused my will on the white goo and swept my wand out diagonally.

"Depulso." I mentally invoked the banishing charm.

The banishing charm was commonly considered the opposite of the summoning charm.

As the white goo flew across the ring back towards its maker, I smiled as I made sure to add a little something extra for Kazan.

"Engorgio, Engorgio, Engorgio."

Three icy blue bolts shot out of my wand and slammed into the white goo. The goo grew larger and larger with each spell until it was nearly half the size of the dueling ring.

As the white goo came down on his side of the ring, I heard Kazan curse, "Chikushō."

My grin turned preparatory when I caught sight of a human-shaped lump where the goo had swallowed up Kazan.

"Not so invisible now, are we?" I muttered.

I figured I only had a few seconds before Kazan freed himself, So I began my own offensive.

"Flipendo."

The knockback jinx worked better than I imagined as Kazan was still struggling to free himself. When the blue spell hit the goo-covered Kazan, he was picked up and thrown out of the ring, giving me an easy victory.

Taking pity on him, the ref pointed his wand at Kazan and vanished the white goo that seemed determined never to let go of Kazan with a lazy flick.

Finally free from his own creation, Kazan's face fell when he realized he was out of the ring and that his place in the Tournament had come to an abrupt end.

Pushing himself to his feet, Kazan shot me a bitter look. I didn't blame him one bit. No one liked having their spells turned on them. Unfortunately for my opponents, it was my favorite way to win.

Although the duel didn't last long, I still worked up a slight sweat. When I got back to our team area, Zack tossed me a towel and complemented, "Nicely done."

I spent the next few minutes being interrogated about my use of non-verbals. I hadn't used them once in any of our dueling practices, and they were just as surprised as the crowd.

The only one who didn't seem happy was Adam. His expression was bleak. The best way to impress possible mentors was at the International Tournament, and I think he sensed his chances at beating me were slipping further and further away.

There was about a ten-minute break in between duels. Since the average time of a duel was anywhere between one and five minutes, I knew I had a couple of hours of free time before I needed to be back for my next duel.

So, I left and made my way to where my family was seated. Once I got close, I noticed another member of my family was there. Uncle John had joined everyone and was in deep conversation with Dad.

I noticed Grandma looking slightly annoyed, and if I had to guess why, it would be the way Uncle John was dressed. His black hair was wild, untamed, and looked like it had never seen a brush before. From the stubble on his face, it was apparent he hadn't shaved in the last week. He had on his customary black leather duster that had half a dozen pockets, each with magical extension charms attached to them.

Overall, the coat looked like it belonged in a box for the homeless. Uncle John loved it.

Personally, I thought Grandma should just be grateful that he wasn't wearing his pirate hat. Outside of defeating the syndicate, I'm pretty sure Uncle John's deepest desire was to go back in time when pirates openly roamed the seas.

When I got closer, Dad and Uncle John ended their conversation, and Uncle John flashed me a wink.

"Good job out there," He said. "Keep that up, and you'll be headed to the professional leagues."

I smiled at him, but before I could say I wasn't interested in going pro, I was swallowed up by the devourer.

"Mum," I complained as I struggled to free myself from her tentacle-like grasp. "Let me go. I can't breathe."

"Fine," she reluctantly agreed but kissed my cheek in consolation before letting me go.

"I'm just so proud of you."

Sensing that another all-consuming hug was on the horizon, I retreated to the safety of Dad's side, where the twins bombarded me with questions, and Athena graciously allowed me to pet her.

Before the next match started, I whispered to Uncle John, "I need to talk to you later."

Uncle John eyed me curiously for a moment before nodding. "Later tonight."

With that out of the way, I turned my attention to the duel that was about to start. It was essential to watch all the matches to get a sense of all my competitor's strategies.

As the duels went on, some were as fast as mine, barely lasting a minute. Others dragged on with the longest match lasting nearly 10 minutes because the two duelers were so evenly matched. It only ended because one of the duelers slipped up due to exhaustion.

It didn't take long for the rest of the matches to conclude. Seeing how my next match was approaching, I left my family and made my way back down to the field.

When it was time, I noticed my opponent was one of those who mocked my family's show of support. His name was Lukas, and he was from Durmstrang. He was wearing dark brown fur-lined robes with red swirling patterns. His blond hair, blue eyes, and large size made me think he was descended from ancient Viking wizards.

When Lukas saw me step out onto the sands, his lips curled, and he jeered, "Look who it is, the little momma's boy."

I had to bite my lip to keep myself from retorting. I cracked my neck to relieve some tension and made my way to the starting circle. I had already planned on teaching this Neanderthal a lesson. But now, I was going to embarrass him. I even knew exactly what strategy to use.

Early this year, during a late-night dueling session with the other Silver Spears members. We spent the evening coming up with the most outlandish dueling strategies. One of Zack's proposals was really out of the box, but it was surprisingly effective when I tried it against Anna. But, the strategy did have a significant flaw. Once you knew what was coming, it was pretty easy to stop it from succeeding.

As soon as the referee gave the signal, I drew my wand. Unlike the last duel, I was not planning on letting my opponent make the first move.

Since I hadn't yet mastered the nonverbal version of this spell, I barked, "Avis."

A small golden bird with a sharp beak shot out of my wand with a loud bang and started fluttering around my head.

Not expecting me to conjure a small bird, Lukas laughed dismissively.

"That's your opening move." He mocked. "You clearly got lucky in passing the first round."

My infamous smug look made its first appearance in the Tournament. Lukas had just made a critical mistake in mocking my strategy, namely because he gave me time to move onto phase two.

"Gemino," I mentally intoned.

Phase two of my strategy was the Doubling Charm. Interestingly enough, the Doubling Charm is, in my opinion, wrongly named. It implies that it's only possible to create a single duplicate when you can through both skill and intent to make multiple copies. And I had been practicing.

Immediately, ten copies of the bird appeared around me. Before Lukas could react, I cast the same spell over and over and over. Each second brought ten more birds into existence. By the time Lukas realized what I was doing, I had a small army of birds flying around me.

Once I deemed I had enough, I went to phase three. From my position, I saw Lukas gulp nervously as every bird simultaneously looked in his direction. Willing the birds into action, all I could hear was wings fluttering and birds chirping war cries as they swarmed in mass towards Lukas.

I smiled when I heard Lukas curse. Panicking, he started firing off spells. Red and blue streaks erupted from his wand blurred towards the small golden birds now mere moments from their prey. His spells had little effect, for every bird he brought down, ten more took its place.

My smug look turned into a vicious smile when the first birds drew blood. Nobody insults my family and gets away with it.

I took a break from casting the duplication charm when I noticed Lukas had abandoned offense to focus on defense. I didn't blame him one bit; there were close to two hundred birds over there, each determined to claw and peck for blood.

Thankfully, the shield charm wasn't unbreakable. A strong enough spell can break one, as I learned in the previous year.

Concentrating on bringing out all my raw power, I abandoned the nonverbal spells and roared, "Reducto."

A massive pulsing blue light erupted from my wand and shot across the ring. When it crashed into Lukas's shield, it shattered it into pieces, and Lukas was swarmed uncontrollably by little blood-thirsty yellow birds. After being clawed and pecked bloody, he dropped his wand, using his hands to cover his face.

Wandless, Lukas took the only action left to him. He fled outside the ring.

Once Lukas crossed the ring, I mentally called off the birds. Outside the ring, a bloody and deeply scratched Lukas was balefully glaring at me. I had the feeling that I had just made a lifelong enemy. But who cares. No one mocks my family and gets away with it.

Now that I had won, I turned my attention to the crowd. While Zack was cackling loudly at the sidelines, everyone seemed to have a different reaction. Some approved of the novel strategy, while others pointed out that the strategy wouldn't be effective again. Because the one thing was sure, no one would let me take the time to build a golden army of birds ever again.