The students started picking opponents. Things like this always came with little private calculations—everyone wanted to duel someone around their own level, or a bit weaker, so they wouldn't embarrass themselves.
As for the students everyone agreed were strong, hardly anyone wanted to challenge them. Skyl was obviously one of those, but plenty of people still came to invite him—and without exception, they were all girls.
Just looking at their shy, bashful, sweet expressions, it was pretty clear most of them were using "dueling" as an excuse to get close to him.
Skyl turned no one away. He beat several same-year witches in a row. After losing, their eyes sparkled, their cheeks flushed, and they didn't look angry at all—if anything, they looked pleased. Because Skyl never made them look foolish. He patiently traded spells back and forth with them; the outcome was never in doubt, but it was still entertaining, and his opponents got to show off their own style.
At that moment, a Ravenclaw girl opposite him used [Avis]. A dense burst of multicolored parrots shot from the tip of her wand and swarmed Skyl. He simply waved a hand, and the parrots turned into streamers that rolled back and tied the witch up. The girl let out a delighted squeal and toppled onto the floor like a caterpillar. The students nearby cracked up laughing.
"Again! Again!"
Lockhart's eyes shone as he watched. He wanted to spar with Skyl too—but someone beat him to it.
Draco Malfoy stepped over the older girl lying on the floor, climbed onto the stage, and said to Skyl, "Hey. I'm challenging you."
Draco's two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, went pale. Another ugly little Slytherin witch shrieked, "Draco, come back! He'll kill you!"
Skyl had heard the way those little snakes talked about him behind his back—how he was always alone, ridiculously strong, and therefore must be plotting some grand plan to overthrow the world, the perfect model of a new-age villain. For Draco to stand up and challenge him really did take courage.
"Hello, Mr. Malfoy." Skyl gave him a small nod. "Looks like you're planning to defeat me?"
"That's right." Draco said something startling. On his face was a strangely familiar kind of smug triumph. "Your era is over, Skyl. Soon everyone will know who the best student at Hogwarts really is—who the strongest wizard in this school really is."
The girls weren't happy.
"Get down, Malfoy," they said. "Stop cutting in line, okay? You're not even up yet."
Draco ignored the chattering girls and pulled out his wand. He'd disliked Skyl for a long time. Maybe Skyl didn't care about a child's resentment—but to someone Draco's age, even a grudge this small was the kind you carried for life. Now he wanted to beat Skyl in front of everyone and wash away the humiliation.
"Take out your wand!" he shouted.
"I no longer use a wand," Skyl replied. "Before we officially begin, Mr. Malfoy, do you need me to remind you of any safety rules?"
"Don't bother." Draco deliberately raised his voice. "I know wizard dueling inside and out. What, are you scared, Skyl? Don't worry—I'll go easy on you."
His shouting drew the attention of spectators from the other platforms in the Great Hall. When they saw a second-year daring to challenge Skyl, they couldn't help finding it ridiculous.
Snape strode over with a cold expression and cut in. "Draco. Get down."
Draco usually obeyed Snape, but this time was different. He shot his Head of House a haughty glance and wore an exaggerated grin. "Don't worry, Professor. Skyl and I are just having a friendly exchange—setting an example for everyone. I'll send him off the stage in one piece."
Everyone who heard that looked at Draco like he was staring down a dinosaur that had just escaped Jurassic Park.
Skyl had proven his exceptional casting ability more than once in Defense Against the Dark Arts. So what, exactly, made Draco so sure he could win?
Harry and Hermione were gathered with a few others.
"Do you think Draco's lost his mind?" Ron swallowed hard.
Harry watched Skyl calmly. "I'm more interested in whether Mr. Skyl is angry."
"If it were me, I'd tear Draco to pieces," Hermione said with such sincere seriousness that the students around her felt a chill and instinctively edged away.
Onstage, the two bowed to each other, stepped seven paces apart, and counted one, two, three.
Draco struck first with a crisp, well-executed [Protego], rattling it out at lightning speed. Then he pointed at Skyl and shouted, "[Reducto]!"
A fierce red blast sprayed from his wand—bright, glaring, and terrifying. A hit like that wouldn't just shatter a fragile human body; it could punch a hole through a thick stone wall.
And right now, Skyl was still flesh and bone. After losing his abundant divine power, he'd fallen back into the awkward reality of being short on magic. If he wasn't holding Mora's Book, his combat power was only comparable to Dumbledore in a normal state—pathetically weak by his own standards.
If that spell landed, he'd be blown apart.
No one expected Draco to be able to release something so powerful. Even Skyl—proud and careless—didn't have time to raise a shield. The curse struck him head-on.
Boom!
A deafening roar erupted. The stage looked like it had exploded, and rolling smoke billowed up, swallowing Skyl's figure in the choking haze.
Draco's face lit with excitement. He didn't stop. He kept firing spells into the smoke—[Reducto], [Confringo], [Diffindo], [Petrificus Totalus]…
Bang, bang, bang!
The smoke grew thicker with every blast.
Everyone was coughing too hard to speak. Professor McGonagall flicked her wand and summoned a strong wind that scattered the haze.
On the far side of the stage, Skyl was still standing there, perfectly fine. Every one of Draco's vicious spells had hit him—and yet Skyl's plain wizarding robes didn't even have a wrinkle.
"How is that possible?!" Draco stared in disbelief.
Skyl adjusted his collar. This upgraded, enchanted robe could absorb magical energy completely. As long as it wasn't forced to take an overwhelmingly massive magical impact in a short time, it could convert incoming magical beams, bolts, and other energy attacks into Skyl's own magicka.
He was, after all, the foremost figure of the College of Winterhold—a grandmaster of magic from The Elder Scrolls. Making a magic-absorbing robe was easy.
If you wanted to break his defense, you'd be better off using something physical—summoning torrents of water, rivers of lava, steel, and the like.
"Mr. Malfoy," Skyl said with a gentle smile. "Shall we begin properly now?"
He waved a hand. The stage beneath Malfoy suddenly collapsed into a vortex, a spiral of vicious suction that swallowed him whole.
Draco screamed. Struggling did nothing. His voice faded deeper and deeper into the whirlpool. The stage floor twitched slightly, like an abyssal mouth chewing.
Then the vortex reversed—spit!—and launched Draco back out. He flew into the air, and his clothes burst apart. The odds and ends he'd been carrying scattered into the air like fireworks: prank toys, snacks and candy, folded newspapers—everything fluttered down onto the crowd.
Thud. Draco hit the floor like a fish thrown onto land, face buried, too mortified to look up.
The young wizards dodged the falling junk, pointed at Draco—now wearing nothing but a torn pair of shorts—and roared with laughter.
"Look! Look! Malfoy's underwear has little teddy bears on it!"
"His butt's pretty pale, huh?"
In the crowd, Lockhart got smacked on the head by an old diary that fell out of the "fireworks." He yelped, picked it up, and flipped it open—inside was Gilderoy Lockhart's autobiography.
The idiot Lockhart's eyes brightened. He really did want to understand his own past, but he'd never had the chance—so he secretly tucked the diary into his robes.
He pushed through the laughing crowd and tried to help Draco up. Draco's face was beet red. He shrieked, flung Lockhart's hand away, and then ran off sobbing. Draco's two cronies laughed for a moment, then realized what was happening and hurried after him. Snape frowned and followed as well—he'd noticed something off about Draco tonight. There had to be a secret behind it.
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