Chapter 339 Duel (2 in 1)

Half-blood House Head Greengrass indeed treats half-blood students with kindness just like how she treats pureblood.

As if she was not half prejudiced against Cedric's bloodline, she sat down in front of his bed.

Before, seeing her act like this, Cedric would have only been relieved that there was still such a Professor at Hogwarts, but now, he was truly nervous.

"No, no, Professor, there's nothing seriously wrong with me, I just need to rest for the morning, and I'll be able to go back to class in the afternoon."

Had he known that Professor Greengrass would be coming to see him specifically, Cedric would not have asked his roommate to help him take time off, even if he was tired.

But Greengrass didn't seem like she was going to leave right away, and she and Cedric chatted for a while longer about his usual studies and life, until she stared at the hair of the boy lying on the bed.

"Why there's a straw of grass clippings in your hair, boy."

The half-blood head asked suspiciously as she reached out and removed the blade of grass from Cedric's head.

Cedric's two hands, hidden under the covers, instantly balled into fists, but the expression on his face remained insistent and unchanged, instead, he replied with forced composure.

"I was so tired after coming back from the pitch yesterday that I fell asleep without a shower and probably failed to tidy up my hair."

At his answer, Greengrass didn't look suspicious as she casually tossed the grass clippings into the bin and finally patted Cedric on the head as she got up.

"That's not a good hygiene habit, don't forget to take a shower when you get up later, and I can approve an extra half day off for you if you still need the rest in the afternoon."

Watching her show signs of leaving, Cedric hurriedly waved his hand as he regained his composure.

"No, Professor, I'm not in that bad of shape yet, I'll go to my afternoon classes as usual."

Hearing him say this, Greengrass had no intention of staying on in the dormitory, and she turned to leave, leaving Cedric alone at last.

Cedric looked at the door to the dormitory room, which had been slammed shut again, and lay back down on his bed.

He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then carefully lifted the covers, the light from the window shining in, and he could clearly see that a corner of the robe he now wore was missing.

***

"Swedish Short-Snout Dragon, about two dozen golden snitches flying around it, Hoss, come on, hopefully, we can complete our morning objective by lunchtime."

Staring at the dragon that was sprawled out on the meadow not far away, sleeping with its eyes closed, Jon made notes on a piece of parchment he had morphed while he straddled Hoss's back again and greeted him as they went in search of the next dragon's abode in the Forbidden Forest.

Even if the Forbidden Forest was big, with Hoss at his side it wasn't much trouble to search the whole forest, and the lecherous mule was so familiar with the entire Forbidden Forest that he could clearly spot where a group of uninvited guests had recently arrived.

So half the morning was spent marking the coordinates of the dragons in the Forbidden Forest. Apart from trying to get an orderly count of how many dragons the judges of the Triwizard Tournament had released into the Forbidden Forest, Jon also wanted to take this opportunity to find Emil.

Jon always felt that he had entered the Forbidden Forest not just to win the tournament task, and if Voldemort really wanted to rely on winning the tournament to complete his ultimate goal, then there was something more to this person named Emil.

He had already shown his brutal side at the champion selection banquet, but Voldemort still had the confidence to let Emil and Draco enter, so he must have his reasons.

Jon would never believe that the man had held this tournament for the sole purpose of letting Dumbledore reclaim France and Hogwarts castle with minimal casualties.

He must have had an ulterior motive, and it was highly likely that this intention would be achieved during the tournament task.

Hoss led Jon through the Forbidden Forest like the wind, and soon they were near the next dragon.

Yet before they could see the true face of the dragon, a roar full of fury pierced the sky of the Forbidden Forest!

"Roar!"

Jon quickly hugged Hoss tightly around his horse's neck and signalled for him to stop, and Hoss took his cue and led Jon to a stop behind a tall tree.

And as the surrounding scene, which had been receding, became clear, Jon got a good look at the behemoth that had shot up into the sky.

It was a bright green dragon, and if it had been lying on the grassy ground in the forbidden forest, the colour of its body would have blended in perfectly with the vegetation, so that its presence would not have been so easily noticed.

The Common Welsh Green Dragon, a native dragon species of the British Isles, is one of the more amiable kinds among the dragons, and usually just enjoys eating sheep and avoiding people in their daily life.

If it was in such an angry state, it was obvious that someone had provoked it.

Sure enough, it waved its wings and charged into the sky above the forbidden forest, and then the head of the dragon opened its bloody maw towards the ground below!

"Boom!"

High temperatures instantly enveloped the entire area of the nearby fifty metres!

Golden yellow flames erupted from its mouth and then began to sweep across the ground, the flames igniting the trees and grass, causing the countless animals living around it to begin scrambling to escape.

The heat also affected Hoss, who is a magical creature himself, and he was instinctively afraid of the dragon's wrath.

Rather than making things difficult for him at this moment, Jon got off him and told him to go hide on the outskirts for a while, while he narrowed his eyes and focused on the figure that was bouncing up and down in a sea of fire, escaping the dragon's breath.

Emil.

After searching all morning for the dragons in the forbidden forest, at last Jon met him in this place.

He looked like he was expecting to enrage the Welsh green dragon, or perhaps it was entirely possible to say that he was deliberately enraging it.

Trying to catch as many golden flying snitches as possible around the dragon here without a flying broom would be quite a difficult task; the golden snitches could be extremely swift and would fly, making it basically unlikely that the spell would hit them even with a wand, not to mention the fact that there would be a dragon next to them as a distraction.

So, Emil found a clever way out, instead of thinking of the dragon as a kind of hindrance, he let the big guy help himself to attack the golden flying snitches.

The judging panel was specifically positioned and restricted the golden snitches to be bound around the dragon, and as the Welsh green dragon was riled up and spewed its dragon breath at Emil, the flames, which covered a very wide area, also encompassed most of the golden snitches around it.

The golden flying snitches are alchemical items that cannot withstand the heat of the dragon's breath, so once they were baked by the flames, their hummingbird-like wings could no longer flap, and they soon fell to the ground in a straight line.

Emil took this opportunity to dodge the Welsh green dragon's attack while collecting the golden flying snitches that had fallen to the ground, and in just a moment that Jon had found him, he had already made quite a few gains.

This student of Beauxbatons certainly did have a brain and guts, he was able to get the golden flying snitches easily this way, yet he also had to take an extremely high risk.

No matter what species of dragon they were, they were not that easy to deal with, especially when they also had the advantage of aerial superiority, and the wizard's means of counterattack were very limited. Looking at the state of the Welsh green dragon now, Emil must have just used a Conjunctivitis Curse, and that was what made it so irritable.

After picking up all the golden flying snitches that had been burned down by the dragon's breath on the ground as quickly as possible, he rolled to avoid another dragon's breath and then started to flee the site.

It was not as if there were no restrictions on the dragons in the Forbidden Forest, their area of movement had been fixed at the beginning, and there was no way to know what the dragon trainers had used to keep them from leaving the established range, even if they might become enraged, they won't leave the established range unless their lives had been threatened.

So Emil just had to run out of the area, and then he could regain his safety and finally count his loot.

But of course, Jon was not going to let him do that, as he had spent so much effort trying to find him; however, he didn't bother using a sneak attack this time and just stood in the way of Emil's intended escape.

He had already escaped from the green dragon's territory, but the dragon's breath had spread so widely that the only way to be safe was to get further away, but at that moment Jon had blocked the path.

Emil also spotted Jon in the first instance.

He had a somewhat grimy appearance and his robes were torn and tattered from the sparks that had accidentally spurted into them, and compared to what Jon had initially guessed, he was at least relying on his true efforts to compete in the tournament.

With that alone, Jon was going to give him an opportunity for the two of them to settle their conflict head-to-head, rather than resorting to sneak attacks again.

"Huff."

Emil grimaced, staring at Jon and exhaling a long breath as he gripped his wand in his hand and called out Jon's name

"Jon Green!"

Jon gripped his own wand as he stared at the boy, who was a full half a head taller than himself and three years older, on the opposite side of the path.

"No need to be so cordial, Mr Lestrange, as I recall, we're not just rivals, we're supposed to be enemies?"

The Common Welsh green dragon that had been hit by the Conjunctivitis Curse was still roaring behind Emil, it had no way of leaving its territory and could only spit out its dragon breath in a futile effort to vent, which caused the surrounding temperature to rise rather than cool down back again.

"Don't think my family is all that close to those two losers you killed." Emil wiped some of the black ash off his face with the sleeve of his robes, his voice was cold and icy, "To be honest, if I stand on a personal level, I might even thank you, if you hadn't killed my aunt and uncle, it wouldn't be my family's turn to manage the entire Lestrange family now."

Jon said with a soft laugh.

"So you should be thanking me now then? I don't need many thanks, how about giving me all those golden flying snitches you've collected?"

Hearing his words, Emil smiled back, only his smile was a little creepy.

"I guessed you'd entertain such an intention, and I must say that of all the champions, you are indeed the strongest. But at the end of the day, you're only just in your fourth year."

Jon picked up the implication in his words.

"You think you've learned three years more than me to bridge the gap between us?"

"It's a matter of trying, isn't it?" Emil took a deep breath, a viciousness hidden in his gaze, "Even if I dislike that aunt and uncle of mine, the noble blood of the Lestrange family should not have tarnished its reputation at the hands of a lowly person like you!"

The very next moment he uttered the emphasis, a chanting sound spat from his lips!

"Stupefy!"

The red glow pierced through the distorted heat and shot straight at Jon who was standing less than ten metres in front of him!

Jon made no great dodging movements, having experienced the siege of so many Death Eaters in the past year, he had long had a clear grip on spell combat between wizards.

The moment Emil's spell had been launched, he had been able to judge precisely where the spell would strike.

He inclined his head and then waved the wand in his hand as well.

"Expelliarmus!"

The two red lights alternated in mid-air and the stunning spell grazed the edge of Jon's hair, while the disarming charm he had used wasn't dodged by Emil in any way.

A red glow reflecting the spell lit up on him, but soon that glow didn't last long before a series of sounds as breaking glass burst forth!

The next moment, the shield charm in front of Emil shattered with a loud bang, and his entire body was jolted backwards a few steps by the after-effects of Jon's disarming charm.

Compared to his first year, when Jon's full body-bind curse could not even break a random shield charm used by Slughorn, the magic he used with his own magic power alone was now enough to suppress a soon-to-be graduated adult wizard.

This was not only due to the fact that he had not relaxed on his magic studies and training even while experiencing so many things over the years, but also because his own magic power had grown to a point where it had become strong enough, and was completely incomparable to his own three years ago.

Emil was obviously also a little taken aback by the power of the spell.

He had seen Jon kill before, but even if the scene was chillingly bloody, everyone could see that Rodolphus and Bella had actually been killed because they had lost in a physical fight.

It was clear that they were both wizards, and both of them were wizards with more powerful magic and more experience in spell-casting than Jon, but in the end, they chose a way of fighting that was extremely unfavourable to them. What had happened in between was no longer possible to delve into after the couple's death, but it also left most people with no real impression of Jon's level of skill in magic.

That's why Emil chose not to dodge this first spell and tried to take a hard hit with the shield charm to test Jon's skills.

It was just this probe brought his already wary heart to an even more sinking point.

----

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