Chapter 218: The Girl Who Ran Away from Home

The process of this year's International Wizarding Dueling Competition was quite convoluted and filled with drama.

Firstly, there was a such a young girl, still in her third year, who surprisingly made her way through the rounds with exceptional magical prowess and reached the finals.

Then, before the final match, the girl's opponent unexpectedly proposed lifting the restrictions on dark magic during the finals, claiming that if it wasn't allowed, he would rather forfeit.

It was quite unfair to her because Hogwarts hardly teaches dark magic, and a student like her wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn it—a rule that clearly favored her opponent.

Furthermore, it presented an opportunity for victory without actual combat.

However, unexpectedly, she chose to forgo the easy win and agreed to her opponent's request.

In the final match, Hermione faced powerful dark magic with remarkable composure and calmness, deflecting any spells thrown at her with impenetrable defense and exceptional improvisation.

Even the fiercest spells could only temporarily put her at a disadvantage, unable to defeat her.

In such circumstances, her opponent became exhausted from frequent use of high-powered dark magic.

When everyone thought she was about to win, her infuriated opponent disregarded the rules and laws.

In front of thousands of spectators, he cast one of the unforgivable curses, the Killing Curse, on his opponent.

Fortunately, Hermione beautifully blocked the Killing Curse and immediately defeated her opponent.

After that, even more dramatic events unfolded.

Hermione's opponent from the previous match, Strife Graves, surprisingly stepped forward and announced that as the Magical Security Supervisor of the American Wizarding Congress, his actual purpose in this trip was to apprehend a suspect.

Hermione's opponent, Emil Barebone, turned out to be this suspect, an infamous murderer who had secretly killed dozens of wizards.

Hermione would rather lift the restrictions on dark magic during the match than give up the final, just to control her opponent and prevent this suspect from escaping.

Subsequently, Aurors from America discovered numerous pieces of evidence of his past murders and even his future plans.

In his plans, he intended to achieve a decent rank in this tournament and then, through secret meetings with fans, kill several lone wizards.

All of this sent shivers down the spines of the audience present, grateful that the Aurors had found this murderer and that Hermione had apprehended him on the battlefield.

Thus, while Hermione became the youngest Dueling Champion in history, she also became the hero who captured the dark wizard.

Hermione gained fame, and the audience was immensely grateful to her; the American Aurors were also very appreciative of her contribution, and countless wizards became her fans.

However, she seemed very uncomfortable with this situation.

After celebrating her victory in the tournament, she immediately returned to her home in the Muggle world, away from the crowds and reporters.

After Hermione's tournament was over, it was the end of July, and now, Alaric still had to deal with another girl.

Penelope had already graduated, and her N.E.W.T. exam results were out. Now, she was considering job options.

Alaric had once invited her to be the owner of his alchemy item shop, but at that time, she declined, saying she needed to think about it after the results were out.

However, before Alaric could contact Penelope, an owl delivered a letter from her, stating that she had run away from home.

It seemed she had encountered some trouble.

So, Alaric hurriedly changed into Muggle clothes, didn't even bring his broomstick, just snapped his fingers, and disappeared from home using Apparition.

Alaric went to the vicinity of Penelope's house; her home was in a Muggle community in London.

Penelope was a half-blood wizard; her mother was a witch, and her father was a Muggle.

The owl delivering the letter came from Penelope's home, but obviously, after running away from home, she wouldn't stay there anymore.

So, when he appeared at Penelope's doorstep, he had to use tracking magic to find Penelope's whereabouts.

Of course, ordinary tracking magic couldn't accurately locate Penelope in the vast sea of people, but Alaric had his own methods.

In this world, there was a triple-decker Knight Bus in the British wizarding world, which would come to the aid of any male or female wizard in trouble and take them wherever they wanted to go—whether the wizard knew about the Knight Bus's existence or not.

The principle of the Knight Bus was to use the Ministry of Magic's monitoring network for wizarding wands, which, although not very useful, could at least determine the location of all wands.

Combine this with some prophecy and detection spells, and you could use wands to find any wizard in trouble.

And Alaric had infiltrated the Ministry of Magic's wand monitoring network, used a detection spell similar to the Knight Bus, and then made some changes himself to target the detected target, easily finding Penelope's location.

When he found Penelope, she was sitting alone on a park bench, carrying her luggage.

At the same time, a young policeman was questioning her, and Penelope's expression was very unpleasant, refusing to say much to the policeman.

Alaric immediately walked up, snapped his fingers, and the policeman fell under a Confundus Charm.

"Sorry, this is my girlfriend. She came from Scotland to visit me, but she missed the train!" Alaric casually provided an excuse.

"Oh... I see. It's getting dark now. Young people like you should not stay out too late. Go home early," the confused policeman replied and then walked away.

After he left, Penelope immediately couldn't restrain herself and rushed forward to hug Alaric's arm, and Alaric noticed that her eyes were a bit red.

It seemed she had some conflict with her parents and had been crying for a long time.

Although Penelope was a knowledgeable and gentle girl, deep down, she was very strong and had a strong will.

Perhaps because of differences in views on the future arrangements, she and her parents had some disagreements.

Alaric gently looked at her, wisely refraining from asking why she had run away from home, and instead helped her with her luggage.

"You ran away in such a hurry and probably haven't had dinner yet. Come with me!"

Alaric led Penelope out of the park and flagged down a taxi.

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