Chapter 6: Chapter 6 Practice and Tragedy

Walking through that mahogany door lit of a doomsday clock, a spotlight that was slowly widening, threatening to burn him away. Inside the door was who he now knew as the headmistress, a tall woman, ‘big boned’ as she claimed it, but she wasn’t fooling him, on the left was the transfiguration professor another tall individual yet Alex doubted he was half giant just tall and lanky while his face was haggard as if he hadn’t sleepy in years, His name was Adélard Hubert and if his multiple world-class publications in the field of transfigurations were to prove anything it was his skill in the field. Standing to the right of the headmistress was a woman who he knew as the Charms professor, average in skill similar to the personal guards of the emperor that he so graciously gifted after the attack.

 

In Front of the trio of teachers was a table holding a piece of parchment that would spell his doom if he lost, flanking the table was his proxy sent by the emperor due to his magical guardians being unable to attend, while opposite to them was Sylvie and her proxy as neither the king nor queen looked like the man that stood next to her.

 

‘Break, Break, break’ he thought, looking at his opposite hoping she would crack under the pressure of such an oath and forfeit.

 

As the initiator of the duel Sylvie started.

 

“I do solemnly swear under the eyes of the magical will that my signature is true and just, so mote it be,” she said with her wand pointed to the ceiling, followed by her proxy then it was Alex’s turn.

 

Signing his name on the paper he began the oath while his finger was pointing to the sky “I do solemnly swear under the eyes of the magical will that my signature is true and just, so mote it be” after which Alex had wandlessly made the oath to Sylvie’s surprise the trio of teachers began their oaths.

 

“We the supervisors of this contract under the eyes of the magical will do solemnly swear these signatures are true and just”, in a flash of fire the contract broke into seven pieces and flew into the stomachs of each of the signers, if any one of them were being forced into it then those who lied would suffer under incurable boils for seven full months.

 

“Now you will have to tell me” Sylvie giggled a bit before leaving with her proxy

 

“Give this back to my grandfather,” he said slapping the Bamboo annuals into the chest of his proxy while looking at the closing door “And make sure nobody sees it”

 

“Headmistress if I may?” Alex voiced at the leaving half-giantess “may I be excused from next week's classes to prepare for the duel?”

 

Turning to look at the haggard man she threw the problem to another.

 

“Well I see no reason to deny, you will need all the practice against her” Adélard replied for the headmistress “just don’t forget to fill out your class sheet and turn it into me”

 

“If the head of Ombrelune has no issue, neither do I” Madame Olympe Maxime voiced before leaving with the other teachers.

 

‘Good, I doubt I'll win with cheap parlor tricks, I'll need more time to practice spells she hasn’t seen.

 

Laying on his bed he threw a ball up in the air, it was a calming quirk he had done since he was able to throw it, and it always produced an expected result: throw it up, it will come down. He had done it when he found out that he had to make friends in middle school to ‘look normal’, when he learned of the magical world, and now he was doing it to no end.

 

Logically the best thing to do is counter her best subject which wasn’t a difficult thing to do, yet he knew nothing about her- other than she was one pestiferous woman- while she also definitely had tutoring from hired help due to her status as royalty. He was torn between finding such a weakness using his greatest power as she did, the Chinese Imperial Family’s inevitably massive information network, or to focus on his strengths which were charms. 

 

Exiting the room he went to the owl nests yet when he opened the door a floating envelope which promptly fell. Noticing the wax seal was from his family, the Zheng family, he grabbed it out of the air and opened it. The only thing inside the envelope was a piece of paper with ‘Transfiguration’ on the middle of it.

 

“Well that's maddeningly unhelpful” he muttered but with the wax seal, which would be very hard to fake, he trusted it. If his family believed he should focus on transfiguration then transfiguration he would focus on. Heading to the library, a location he had only been to once in the tour, he was going to look through all seven years of transfiguration for something that could be useful. 

 

Walking into the library he could tell instantly that it was deserving of its legendary reputation, especially in the fields of potions, transfiguration, and herbology with tens of thousands of books lining massive multi-story bookshelves. Finding the section with the bronze plate sticking out of the side declaring itself the transfiguration section. Finding the basic textbooks of each year conveniently at the bottom he grabbed each and placed them on an empty adjacent desk, starting with year one he cared little for the parlor tricks, the turning a match into a needle would be practiced when he started but first, he needed an end goal, something to practice for. 

 

Soon lunch was upon them, which Alex would not miss as he skipped breakfast and had barely eaten last night, placing the first through third-year textbooks back he swiped the rest into his ring. He doubted they would be missed over a few hours when many copies were next to their empty positions.

 

On normal days such as that the students would dine in the dining halls. Thus he headed to his house’s dining hall and not the grand ballroom. With an almost endless variety of foods, he chose a simple item: a Croque-Monsieur, a sandwich with ham and cheese. 

 

It was decent, he had eaten good Chinese ham and cheese but one thing the Chinese simply can’t succeed at is bread, the muggle invention of cheap white bread pushed out of machinery they can do that sure it's just flour and water, and boom, no, they can’t do genuine flavorful bread that the world would recognize as theirs like the French’s Baguette, Germany’s Pumpernickel, or Italy’s Ciabatta, never before have you been excited for wonder bread over a warm, crunchy baguette. 

 

Finishing his lunch quickly he left when a few people hadn’t even started to eat, sure his etiquette teacher, Ms. Lavigne- a french woman- would want to beat him black and blue, but he had bigger things to worry about than such trivial things.

 

Once again he was on his bed throwing that ball up and down, he had read the rest of the textbooks which gave no clues on his direction, there was one spell that allowed one to cast a barrier where one wouldn’t be able to cast transfiguration, a two-edged sword. However, that spell was simply quoted and never mentioned how to perform it. 

 

Of course, he could spend six months constantly pouring through notes and textbooks until he found it but he didn’t have six months, another option was to ask the librarian but that was another failed prospect as he doubted he would even be able to learn the basics required to cast such an advanced spell. He had tried transfiguration not 30 minutes prior, it took almost 30 tries to transfigure a simple pebble into a needle.

 

With no other real option than to play at his strengths, he decided to strengthen his skill in charms. Walking to the library he planned on first putting back the ‘borrowed’ books then he would continue practice with either the more advanced books on charms but if they were anything like the year one set, he would be using the ones given to him by his grandfather which weren’t just regular Compendiums of student charms, they were advanced magic tomes filled with lethal spells taught to The Chinese Imperial Hit Wizard Corps.

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‘My bad luck is biblical!’ Alex thought while looking at a group of women turning into the library, while they didn’t stop their conversation they did pass a few glances to the handsome teen walking next to them. conjuring the books out of his ring and onto his forearm he prepared to place them and be done with it but he didn’t expect the gasps and exclamations of a shock coming from the group as if they were children watching a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. 

 

Forgetting how rare such spatial devices were he wanted to slap himself but he refrained, sure it wasn’t a total secret that such devices were worn on the hands of Chinese royalty, there were only ~30 in existence and they were all tightly controlled by the imperial family thus sight of them and their mysterious magic was rare. In actuality, it was just an over-processing of a certain type of gemstone along with a simple spatial charm such as one on a magical suitcase, nothing Alex found so shocking.

 

Trying to not focus on their ignorant reactions he placed the books back and disappeared beyond the bookcases encasing the table, quickly he had found the charm section but like he feared it was simply stretched beyond necessary measure to allow students of lesser talent and skill to keep up, he, however, needed no such help. 

 

Once again passing the table the group who now had textbooks piled up around them, they had all turned their eyes onto his ring, he could feel the curiosity, the jealousy and greed, not even the Spanish princess could even lay one finger on such a priced strategic magical object. One could expect a king's ransom for such an object let alone if one figured out its method of creation it could prove to be the path of nigh-infinite riches or infinite troubles. Calmly he passed the group and left heading to the park to find a private space to practice.

 

A private space on campus was a very difficult place to find, with older students hiding away from teachers and staff doing god knows who in the forest nearby, open fields dominating the surrounding area he found little privacy anywhere but his dorm room was a very poor place to practice the exploding charm.

 

‘The cliff behind the area the carriage dropped me off’ thinking of locations he was running dry due to his lack of exploration outside of the building ‘that could actually work’

 

Unfortunately, he was not a world-class climber, thus that cliff was totally out of reach but the area he was now was properly obscured by the path up the tall hill. While he wants to begin learning the big spells, he knew he wouldn’t win against someone with four years more formal education with definite informal education in the form of very skilled instructors similar to Mr. Babbeley-which reminded him that he had a lot of organizing of the ever-growing pile of memories after this duel and his total lack of any requirement to deal with this incredibly exasperating woman- with flashy big spells when his foundational spells such as ‘Expelliarmus’, ‘Protego’, ‘Stupefy’, ‘Finite’, and of course the incredibly useful ‘Langlock’ spell, when he has a grasp of these spells and their limits then he is planning on learning a flashier, more powerful spell if the time would allow it.

 

Looking around for any people, and seeing none, he conjured his staff to practice the most important fundamental spell for combat, ‘Expelliarmus’. While he has no partner to practice with he will use a trick taught to him by his favorite of his personal guard back at the palace, Yang Qi, the use of fruit or Conifer cones. If they explode you obviously did it wrong, if they simply eject from the tree then the spell was a success; the only downside was they were still targets not moving humans.

 

Over a few hours of practice over each of the spells he once again found his overwhelming talent in charms which made them incredibly simple and much easier than the more complex field of transfiguration while potions, herbology, defense against the dark arts for the few hours he did perform them in the imperial palace were in the middle ground of difficulty.

 

Having already missed dinner- racking up those rule-breaking points- and eaten an lv daguan while looking at the incredibly vast ocean framed from a cliff a hundred meters tall, he could see for 40 kilometers before the curve of the earth devoured the ocean past that point; Upon Seeing that the sun was about to set and feeling tired like butter spread too thinly on too much bread he begrudgingly headed back to the Château.

 

For the next five days such a schedule- of leaving early to the obscured yet small area, practicing basic spells, practicing a few more advanced ones when the basics got boring, then going back to the castle- persisted while no one appeared to be the wiser, of course, he had to make time to make his schedule and at least get a very basic understanding of the material being taught in the classrooms he is so unfortunately not apart of currently, this was usually before bed or right when he woke up.

 

Eventually, the sun dipped below the curve of the earth signaling the end of Thursday and a few hours later would rise to signal the beginning of Friday. Students woke up with cheer in them, after all, it wasn’t common for the Heir of China, the military mega weight of the world, and the heiress of Spain one of the most powerful countries in the world, to duel against each other with stakes such as marriage and the deepest darkest secret. They knew it wouldn’t be a world-ending secret such as how the Chinese are planning world domination, as it was very likely Alexander’s guardians wouldn’t allow such bets to pass yet it was the deepest darkest secret of someone who will be one of the most politically powerful people on the planet.

 

In fact, during the first period so many of the students couldn’t focus on their classwork that the teachers and headmistress all agreed on a temporary stoppage of class at least until after lunch and after the duel, because it was still the introductory week and they would only be missing one class no one cared much, except for Alexander.

 

Why did they care? He thought, how many people will be coming? He thought, his mind was racing, this whole thing was a catastrophic cataclysmic tragedy of epic proportions, if only he read the rule book previous to her asking for that ridiculous duel.

 

Looking outside of his dorm window he could see it, a massive construction that seemingly appeared overnight, it was used for quidditch, however, it would apparently also be used in his duel with most of the student body almost demanding a shot at seeing it otherwise they would have done it in a small paved circle tucked next to the park.

 

Finally, it was time for the duel, and it was no understatement that the cheer was deafening when either of them entered. Seeing the relatively small stone circle similar to the one paved next to Beauxbatons park for the very purpose of dueling, yet it saw little usage in the rare occurrence of dueling.

 

Standing in the circle both the contestants and a teacher stood in an obtuse triangle.

 

“Wands at the ready!” Adélard said looking at the wandless Alex, conjuring his staff in his hand he placed his staff in front of him while all of the students in the stands gawked at one of the most asked questions this year, What was his wand? Even Sylvie was shocked as very few people in France used such foci. Placing their foci at their sides they walked back 7 full steps.

 

“Begin!” he shouted begin and apparated to the sides prepared to stop the fight if any illegal spells got fired or one could no longer fight.

 

Sylvie did nothing but watch in curiosity at what he would do, dipping his staff it touched the ground before he quietly said Inpulsa fluctus’ and with a flick, sand flew at her face with the intention of blinding her.

 

‘Langlock’, ‘Expelliarmus’, ‘Stupify’, a brilliant chain of spells meant to stop one's ability to cast spells verbally, force their wand away, and to finally stun their enemy, equally brilliantly they were stopped. With a simple flick, the sand fell, while with another flick uttering ‘Protego’ a blue shield stopped The ‘Langlock’, and ‘Expelliarmus’ before collapsing while she simply dodged the final ‘Stupify’.

 

Sending an unknown spell of her own Alex quickly used ‘Protego’ to stop it, however, it immediately collapsed after a gong-like sound ringed out. With a flick of her wand spikes shot out of the ground and encased him like prison bars. Seeing no way out without casting multiple spells at a time he decided to use some of the fancier magic to distract. 

 

‘Bombarda Duo’ two exploding charms zipped out of the bars and towards Sylvie who was desperately transfiguring a wall that would be her downfall, the first exploded on impact with the wall while the second sent the cracking and unstable wall flying into bullets which instantly impacted Sylvie crushing bone and tearing almost every muscle in her body. She would have died there if not for the medical team armed with relics and advanced medical magics from Spain, which her father demanded to be allowed just in case.

 

Technically the only one standing in the arena, he had won, yet no one cared about that anymore they were more concerned about the fact he may have just killed the heir to one of the most powerful countries in Europe and by extension the world, none of them wanted to see a war over a child's game, especially the headmistress who was practically whiter than wall paint while her eyes threatened to literally pop out at any moment.

 

The medical team sent by the Imperial Family broke him free from the cage. They looked at him and were relieved they didn’t have the pressure the other medical team was no doubt under. A broken shoulder blade, Six broken fingers, and 12 broken ribs while the rest were cracked and damaged to some degree from the explosion sending him flying back into the rock cage, while he was also bleeding out of both of his ears from ruptured eardrums and to top it off he was temporarily blind from the explosion as well.

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