52 The First Duels

The next day was the official start of the competition. Juniors dueled first and their slot was in the morning. Their duels were generally less entertaining and didn't gather huge crowds, so spectators were sparse and the time-slot was the worst. The Juniors' duels were followed by Youths in the afternoon.

And after that, the main event would begin – the most spectacular and entertaining part of the tournament – the adults' competitions.

However, just because children's duels were less impactful didn't mean that there was no audience at all. In fact, many people came to spectate in order to scout for some talents among the young.

The Wizarding World had many specific occupations and children not always knew what studies' direction to select. They generally depended on their families' inherent talents or their parents' examples to decide their future path.

Scouts acted like career advisors – they gave good options for talented kids because they got a commission from others for recommending them suitable children. After all, necromancers, druids, assassination organizations and other people or institutions sometimes had a hard time finding talents.

Besides the rare occupations, many other employers also contracted scouts for finding the required people. Even Draco himself wasn't an exception – his Dragon Enterprises was large, and it was hard finding suitable people to operate the business. As such, he had made agreements with several scouting organizations even before his expansion to Europe.

So it wasn't strange when Draco started his official first duel in F Group while being watched by countless eyes. Some looked on with anticipation, while others lost interest when they saw an eleven-year-old facing a thirteen-year-old, who was a head taller than his opponent and seemed to be able to topple the other boy with one swing of his wand.

Draco calmly ignored the mocking gazes directed his way as he stepped onto the platform. He also chose not to hear a derisive snort which came from his opponent.

"And here I thought that your contestant's profile was a joke – to think that you're actually a first-year," sneered Caruso Ricci, Draco's first opponent from Italy.

Draco quirked his lips into a half-smile in response to Caruso's taunt, showing that yes, he would play along with the child if the other insisted, but no – the joke wasn't all that funny.

Caruso seemed to have understood the meaning of the blonde's expression, judging from the fact that his face suddenly darkened. The Italian boy felt a bit like an idiot – he thought that the inexperienced kid would be angered, but the one who was annoyed was still himself!

However, this wasn't Caruso's first competition, so he quickly calmed his rising emotions and straightened himself up under the referee's warning signal.

Why was he wasting his breath on an insignificant kid, anyway? One, maybe two spells, and the snot-nosed brat would go back sniffling to his backwaters school!

"Ready?" the referee looked at the two boys who stood in the arena separated by exactly twenty steps. "Bow to the opponent!"

Both contestants gracefully lowered their heads to each other, as was customary in official duels. Draco made sure to do it with some drama.

'Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to leave an impression,' he thought to himself as he imitated his godfather's best move of controlling his cloak to dramatically flare behind his figure. This move had another positive side to it – it managed to anger his opponent, who had been observing the blond boy out of the corner of his eye.

Draco made sure to flash a blinding smile the other boy's way – since the opponent was beautifully cooperating with himself, why not go all out? Anything less would just waste the previous effort!

Caruso silently gritted his teeth as he straightened his back and took a few deep breaths to calm his increasingly turbulent emotions.

"Duel!" the referee announced suddenly.

The Italian boy quickly refocused on his younger opponent and raised his wand. A defensive spell instinctively flew out before he could understand what was happening.

That kid dared to attack him!

Draco indeed didn't waste his time – as soon as the referee finished the last syllable, 'Expelliarmus' was already flying out of his wand. It was just too bad that his opponent had some experience and possessed good instincts, successfully blocking the first spell.

However, although Draco's starting spell failed, he did manage to take the initiative by putting Caruso on defense. The Italian boy had no way of attacking because the young Slytherin wasn't so kind as to leave a gap in his offense.

Although Draco didn't have the chance to observe his opponent's duels beforehand, he had a solid plan from the very beginning. As such, he didn't hesitate to press Caruso with many quick and insignificant spells, while occasionally casting a more powerful one to make sure that his opponent's mind was focused on guessing his next move.

"Legilimens!" Draco suddenly said calmly, with no warning.

Caruso's eyes widened slightly and he desperately concentrated on his mental shields, his wand movement slowing down.

Before the spell could reach the target, it was canceled with a slight wave of Draco's wand. The younger boy didn't have the energy to waste on exploring his opponent's mind – the spell served as a good distraction and could even be used for another purpose. Its dismissing motion was also the beginning of a new one:

"Expeliarmus!" Draco intoned quickly and stretched out his other hand. Moments later, Caruso's wand made a graceful arc in the air as it flew out of his grip and arrived into Draco's.

The duel was over just like that.

"Draco Malfoy from Hogwarts wins the F Group's duel and moves up in the table!" shouted the referee as his wand released blue sparkles, indicating that the match was over.

The Italian boy was frozen, with his wand hand still outstretched. Finally, he seemed to realize that the easy victory, which he had thought was already in his pocket, turned into a miserable defeat.

The duel hadn't even lasted five minutes!

Caruso's expression was a bit complicated as he watched Draco coming closer. When both boys stood before each other, they simultaneously inclined their heads in a show good sportsmanship. After a moment, they both straightened their backs.

"Good duel," Draco said with a small smile while handing back the foreigner his wand.

"Yes, good duel. I didn't expect for you to be so skilled," the Italian said with a hint of self-reproach. "Next time, don't expect such an easy victory."

"I certainly won't," replied the blond Slytherin amiably. It wouldn't do to disagree even if he didn't think that next time, or the time after that, would be any different.

However, these words were better left unsaid.

---

Truthfully, Draco didn't expect his first match to go completely as he planned. He wasn't sure whether the fact that it did made him happy or frustrated. After all, his biggest hope was to train his dueling skills in this competition.

This duel was similar to hitting a wall in a barrage of spells with no expectations that the wall would ever attack him back. Draco could practice hitting a wall at any time, so what could he possibly gain from the short duel he had just experienced?

Exactly nothing!

Draco decided to attribute the easy victory to the fact that he was underestimated and the opponent had a weak mind. Others wouldn't be so easily angered and provoked, right?

However, he was destined to be disappointed – his duels over the next few days were just as short and easy. Kids, especially the ones just entering their puberty, were easily provoked. Because most of the participants in Juniors' competition were of the age of thirteen, it was understandable that their emotions were all over the place.

Seeing them acting so unreasonably, Draco was very reluctant to go through this period of growth once again.

One of Draco's female opponents acted pitifully - her aim was for him to underestimate her. When that didn't work, she was actually quite offended - it was very clear from her twisting expression.

Draco tried to end the duel quickly because he was seriously starting to get intimidated over the girl's abrupt personality change. After defeating her, the next day his opponent was the girl's boyfriend.

Draco didn't know what happened to his luck, which always seemed to be quite good, but during the Dueling Competition, it mercilessly abandoned him to fend for himself.

The girl's boyfriend kept shouting "You tried to seduce her! She told me that you tried to touch her before the duel!" in between defending from the incoming spells.

Although Draco was quite speechless from those accusations, seeing as he never approached the girl and already started to forget her face, he was also quite impressed. His opponent kept up with the defenses and even had the energy to shout so much nonsense in the middle of the duel. If that wasn't talent, then what was?

After securing another victory and repeatedly reassuring the boy that he held no interest towards his girl, Draco moved on to challenging other opponents.

The later duels were a bit harder. After all, as more people got defeated and the weakest ones were thrown out of the competition, only the strongest ones remained.

Things also started to get more serious for Draco – although many still seemed to underestimate him, believing that his opponents were too useless, not even managing to defeat a first-year, they were also more cautious during the duels because they didn't want to be similarly 'disgraced'.

There were also a few times when Draco was caught off guard in the duels. One of them happened when his opponent used dark magic – it wasn't particularly harmful, but Draco didn't know how to counter it because he hadn't studied it before. Abraxas advised his grandson to wait until he was fourteen and start learning it when his magical core was fully grown.

Of course, Draco agreed at the time, however, while dueling with an opponent who specialized in dark magic, he slightly regretted his decision.

The key to fighting the unknown spells was to avoid them rather than defend against them with a shield, so it was the first time that Draco experienced the excitement of a true duel.

He ran all over the place, twisting his body into unbelievable positions to avoid the incoming spells and create opportunities to form an attack. The blond boy's opponent was similarly very mobile, so he was quite hard to hit – but Draco succeeded.

The young Slytherin believed that he won because all of his training *cough* torture *cough* which he suffered from at Abraxas' insistence, as well as the never-ending dance lessons, were finally showing their worth. He even felt slightly thankful to his teachers for being so demanding and diligent.

Human's mind is a strange thing – it can make even the worst memories seem enjoyable after some time has passed…

After the first week of intense duels was finally over, the spectators were very surprised to find that the contestant who they thought was the least likely to win, actually came out on top of his group. If someone was crazy or drunk enough to have placed a bet on Draco's win before, they were surely thanking the heavens for their unbelievable luck now.

Draco slightly panted for breath as his final duel ended and the results of all groups' leaders became known to all. The stands burst into loud applause, and Draco closed his eyes to savor the moment. When he was a muggle in his last life, he had never experienced so many cheers directed his way all at once.

This was his moment.

This was all for him.

Draco smiled to himself and opened his eyes when he felt the noise start to die out. He prepared to walk off from the platform when his gaze was caught by a pair of pale blue eyes.

Anastasia's face was uncharacteristically emotionless as she stared at him. It was missing her usual foxy smile and her playful disposition was nowhere to be seen.

However, she seemed to be intent on hiding her lapse of character because seconds later she once again looked like a carefree and friendly witch. She rose from her seat, which was in the contestants' are and clapped her hands in support for the blond boy as though nothing had happened.

Draco's body froze for a moment but his expression didn't even flicker to change from the content look. He quickly moved down from the platform and walked up to the Russian girl, looking like a happy boy who just spotted his friend and wanted to say 'hi'.

"Congratulations," smiled Anastasia when he approached within talking distance. "It seems that the last duel didn't pose a challenge – you won it beautifully."

"Thank you. The opponent was indeed less skillful than the one I faced on Thursday," replied Draco as he mirrored the girl's smile. "I hope that I will be able to meet you at the Finals – it would be a true pleasure to defeat the last year's champion."

"We will see about that, Mr. Gentleman," the Russian girl replied playfully. "Unfortunately, I have to say my goodbyes here – I still have some things to take care of. Farewell, Draco."

Draco watched her leave with a smile. As soon as she disappeared in the crowd, his lips morphed into a slight frown and his gaze turned cold.

'What, in the name of Merlin, is wrong with that girl?'