13 Duelling Date

The week had progressed as expected, nothing out of the ordinary. Hadrian had made great progress on all his subjects, the greatest being Study Of Ancient Runes, of course.

They found that there was nothing they could do to stop Hadrian when he was in that class, much to his friend's annoyance. It also seemed that Professor Miyoshi favored Hadrian, maybe in hopes of making him her protege?

His work on Transfiguration had also made great progress too, his designs had become much more complex and intricate. The only thing he needed to work on is the speed of his casting, but other than that, he was doing swimmingly.

Hadrian had also become quite popular in his year, which in turn made his friend group popular too. All in all, he was having a great time at Aunriton's.

He would be lying if he said he didn't miss his grandparents, but he knew that he would be seeing them soon. He pushed down those thoughts in anticipation of today's lesson, he was going to be learning under the resident duelling teacher!

Hadrian got dressed and ready and stood outside the House Dragon dormitory, waiting for Daphne. He waited for 5 minutes before Daphne emerged from her dormitory.

"Hey, Daphne! Are you ready to go now?", he asked.

Daphne smiled when she saw Hadrian waiting outside, but didn't respond to his greeting.

Instead, she stuck out her hand, palm facing down, right in Hadrian's face. Hadrian looked at the hand, confused before realization struck him. He grabbed her hand and gently brushed his lips against her knuckles.

Daphne nodded in approval, her cheeks slightly red, "I'm all ready now, let's go."

Hadrian smiled and grabbed her hand before running. Sounds of laughter echoed in the halls as they ran out the door to the duelling arena.

They arrived at the Arena and saw that it had been split into three distinct areas, with Professor Andy walking around, and setting up the different training dummies in said areas.

Hadrian and Daphne saw that Demetri was helping Professor Andy with picking up the test dummies and moving them about. He walked over towards the Teacher-student duo and asked them if they needed any help.

"Hadrian, Daphne! Welcome to Duelling Apprentice Class! Demetri seems to be struggling with the Training Dummies, go help him out.", said Andy.

Hadrian and Daphne nodded and went up to Demetri to assist him.

"Hey Demetri!", said the two first years.

"Hadrian, Daphne. Come to help me have you?", said Demetri as he smiled at the pair.

"Mhm," said Daphne as she watched the boy struggle.

"Why don't you use magic and levitate them?", asked Hadrian, puzzled.

"Spell Resistant. Has to be, if we're going to be sending 'Diffindo's' and 'Incendio's' at the thing." replied Demetri.

Hadrian and Daphne accepted the explanation and help him set up.

When they were finally set up, they saw the final 3 students appear.

Hadrian and Daphne were introduced to the trio, with a handshake and small chat, they became acquainted with their duelling peers. The other students all then branched out to their separate areas in the duelling arena, leaving Hadrian, Daphne and Professor Andy all alone.

"Now I know you two are doing well with the counterspell 'finite', so instead I'm going to teach you the spell 'diffindo'. While it is a simple spell to learn, it can also be dangerous. If you overcharge the spell it may lead to someone's head being decapitated, but it is still a move commonly used in Duelling. Just be careful, 'kay?" said Andy, who looked at them with a stern expression.

Hadrian and Daphne slowly nodded their heads.

"Good, now this is the wand movement...", he said, brandishing his wand and aiming it at the Training Dummy.

He left them to their own devices after checking that they knew everything they needed to get started. After around 30 minutes, he came back and saw them firing diffindo's one after the other before taking short intervals to rest.

He went over to them and asked them to send their strongest and weakest charged diffindo.

Hadrian had done well for his two attempts, Andy smiled and nodded.

Daphne had done well too, but Andy noticed she struggled to focus her power into the spell.

"Hadrian, help Daphne with her strong charged diffindo. You seem to have better control over your magic, not to say that Daphne doesn't. It's just that you will need to be able to control the amount of power in spells if you want to be able to duel effectively.", he said, before walking off.

Hadrian nodded, while daphne looked down at the ground.

"Daph. Don't worry, Andy picked you for a reason.", he said, frowning at her low confidence.

"D-daph?", she said, as a rosy tint began to form on her cheeks.

"Yeah, I was just thinking it sounded better. If you don't mind that is.", he said.

She stopped and stared at Hadrian, thinking.

'Oh no, she doesn't like it...', thought Hadrian, worried he might have offended her somehow.

Then, she smiled and said, "I don't mind.", Hadrian smiled at this in relief, "Only if I can call you, 'Rian'."

Hadrian spluttered, "W-what...?"

"Rian. Short for Had-rian", she said smirking.

"Fine.", he said as he breathed out a sigh of exasperation.

Hadrian then grabbed her wand hand and pointed the wand in it at the Training Dummy.

"What you have to do is... focus your magic at the tip of your wand and let it build slightly. Then release it, but you have to concentrate.", said Hadrian.

Daphne, however, was not listening, she was doing her best impression of a tomato. At least that's what it looked like with how red her face was.

"Daph, did you get that?", asked Hadrian after not hearing a response from the girl.

" Um! What...? Can you repeat that Hadr- I mean Rian.", she said, quickly separating her hand from his.

"Hmm okay, you better listen this time though!", replied Hadrian.

15 minutes later, Daphne had gotten down the key to focusing her magic. Professor Anderson had come over to check her progress and was pleased. He also told them to stop practicing 'diffindo' and to work on their counter, just like in class. They did the counter practice for around 10 minutes which left them 5 minutes to relax.

Hadrian and Daphne sat in one of the stands in the arena and talked for the last 5 minutes. The conversation wasn't very thought-provoking or interesting. They were playing the 'guess my favorite this' game.

Either way, they had fun, and they couldn't wait to practice some more next week.

The lesson ended with Professor Andy calling them over and telling them they did a good job and to keep it up. They were only first years, so they didn't need to learn about duelling stances and techniques as of yet, merely the basic spells and how to add power and reduce power.

Hadrian had seen how the second and third year duelling apprentices were practicing. They were doing actual duels!

Before they went to the stands for their break, Daphne had asked them why they were training so hard and one of the third years said that they were going to be competing in the U12 duelling tournament in Japan!

This made Hadrian very motivated, you had to be very good to be offered a spot in a duelling tournament where people are older than you. Hadrian asked them how they were able to get a spot, and their answer was, 'Prof. Andy recommended us for it, all third-year duelling apprentices have to compete if you go to Aunriton.'.

Hadrian decided that he would make it his goal to get recommended in his second year.

After they were dismissed, Hadrian and Daphne went to the Playground where their friends had said they would be waiting for them.

They saw Theo and Roan hanging upside down on the monkey bars, reading comic books.

'Bat...Man? How is that a heroic power...? and Robin? Isn't that a tiny bird...?', thought Hadrian, bewildered.

"Hey guys, having fun...?", said Daphne, equally perplexed at the titles of the comics they were reading.

"Uh-huh.", said Theo, nodding his head, up and down frantically. This, of course, led to him falling on the floor, to which Roan responded to by laughing his head off...Before also falling on the floor.

Hadrian grimaced at both of their drops and shook his head at their idiocy.

They were helping them up before the rest of their friends came by.

"Hey guys, how was duelling?", asked Oliver, a bitter tone in his voice.

"It was fun, we got to learn a new spell and talked for a bit.", said Daphne - with Hadrian nodding his head in confirmation.

"Cool, now can we go inside? I wanna go to the library.", said Crow.

Theo and Roan looked at Crow as if he had gone mad, "Go to the LIBRARY?", they said.

"You must be off your rocker, Crow.", said Theo.

"Crow's right, we have to get started on our homework," said Daphne.

"Yeah. I agree with Daphne! We need to finish our homework!" said Oliver.

Roan and Theo glared at Oliver, ''Traitor.", they spat.

Hadrian watched the exchange and chuckled inwardly.

"Fine, let's go do our homework and then tomorrow we'll have the day off. How does that sound, Theo, Ro'.", said Hadrian.

Roan bristled at being called 'Ro'.

"Fine, let's go. But tomorrow we are not doing any reading or homework!" said Roan as he dragged a refusing Theo across the floor.

Hadrian, Daphne, and Oliver laughed at Theo's expense before following them.

No one had noticed that Crow had already made his way inside.