A/N: TheHonoredFour has been stealing my story and posting it under the title Harry Potter: London's Silent Alchemist. All 52 chapters are available on Pat and RR but they are charging for chapters Ko-fi. If y'all could help me out, I would greatly appreciate it.
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The next morning dawned bright and clear. The individual duels would take place throughout the day, with multiple matches running simultaneously in different arenas. Rowan's match was scheduled for ten o'clock in Arena Two. One of the smaller venues, suggesting the organizers expected it to be a quick, unremarkable defeat for the young British student.
He arrived early, wand in hand, and found the arena already filling with spectators. Most were students from various schools, come to watch what they expected would be an amusing mismatch. Some pointed at him and whispered. Others laughed openly.
Yamamoto arrived precisely at ten, bowing formally before taking his position at the opposite end of the dueling platform. His robes were pale gold, which Kogawa had told him meant top marks in every subject at Mahoutokoro. His left hand held the fan of ofuda loosely at his side.
The referee, a stern French witch, positioned herself to the side.
"This is a regulation duel under International Confederation rules," she announced in English and then French. "There will be no Dark magic, permanent harm, or interference from spectators. The duel ends when one competitor is disarmed, unconscious, or forced from the ring. Competitors, bow to each other."
Rowan bowed, and Yamamoto returned the gesture with perfect form.
"Wands at the ready."
Rowan raised his wand, settling into the dueling stance Hecat had drilled into him over months of practice. His mind was clear, his emotions perfectly controlled through Occlumency, his magic ready to respond.
Yamamoto raised his cherry-wood wand in his right hand. His left drew back slightly.
"Begin!"
Three strips of paper sailed from his left hand in a spreading fan. They ignited with pale blue light the moment they left his fingers and detonated in sequence, three concussive blasts arriving from different angles within a half-second of each other.
Rowan's wand slashed downward. "Protego!" The silvery shield materialized just in time, curving slightly in front of him. The first blast splashed against it like water against glass, dissipating into sparks. The second hit from the left and the barrier absorbed it without rippling. The third came low, aimed at his feet, and broke against the shield's lower edge.
Across the platform, Yamamoto's eyes widened fractionally. The first crack in his composed expression. A first year shouldn't be able to produce a shield that strong or that stable against a triple-angle assault.
He adjusted immediately, his stance shifting forward. Two more ofuda appeared between his fingers. He threw the first at the platform between them, and it erupted on contact, orange flame spreading across the wood in a rushing line. Before Rowan could react, the second strip hit the flames. Water burst from the paper in a controlled torrent, and the collision produced exactly what Yamamoto wanted. A massive cloud of scalding steam billowed across the platform, obscuring everything.
Through the white fog, Rowan could hear movement. Soft footsteps shifting position.
He dropped his shield. Maintaining it blind would waste magic. Instead he fired through the steam, spacing his spells to cover different angles. "Stupefy!" Aiming left. "Expelliarmus!" Center. "Incarcerous!" Right. Three spells in rapid succession, his chain casting smooth and practiced.
The steam began to clear. Yamamoto had moved during the confusion. The Stunner struck an ofuda that hung in the air before him, glowing faintly, and the spell died against it. He sidestepped the Disarmer with fluid grace.
But the binding spell's conjured ropes caught his right leg mid-dodge, wrapping tight around his calf and ankle.
Yamamoto's wand sliced downward through the ropes and they fell away, severed without a word. Silent casting from a fifth-year who didn't need incantations for utility work. But it cost him a crucial second of positioning. A second Rowan didn't waste.
"Flipendo!" The Knockback Jinx, modified with the counterclockwise twist he'd developed, curved through the air in an unexpected arc. It caught Yamamoto in the chest before he could raise another defense, and the impact sent him stumbling backward three full steps. "Petrificus Totalus!" The Body-Bind followed immediately, racing toward the off-balance duelist.
Yamamoto's wand swept up and a shield flared to life, catching the Stunner with a flash of light.
They both paused for half a heartbeat, reassessing.
Yamamoto's breathing had changed, shallower on the left side. The Knockback had done more than it appeared. Rowan himself was breathing harder than he'd like, the rapid chain casting depleting his reserves faster than normal practice.
Then Yamamoto drew a longer strip of paper from inside his sleeve. Wider than the others, covered in dense brushwork. His wand touched it once, and it left his hand.
The paper folded itself in midair. Impossibly fast, creasing and twisting and growing until it was no longer paper at all. What landed on the platform was a hawk the size of an eagle, wings spread wide, its body rippling with pale light. It shrieked and launched itself at Rowan's face.
Shikigami.
He ducked the first hawk and didn't fire at it. Kogawa had warned him about this. Shikigami were sustained by the caster's concentration, and any Mahoutokoro student worth their gold robes would ward the paper against fire and basic spells. Destroying them one by one was exactly what Yamamoto wanted him to waste his energy on.
The second and third shikigami took shape and joined the first. Three paper hawks wheeled above the platform in a tight formation, their movements coordinated with predatory intelligence. Yamamoto stood behind them with his wand raised, conducting.
They dove together.
"Protego!" The spherical shield formed around him, the dome-shaped modification he'd perfected during months of practice with Iris. The hawks struck the barrier from three directions at once, talons raking across the silvery surface. The shield held, but each impact sent shudders through it. They pulled away, circled, and dove again.
Maintaining the spherical shield against repeated aerial assault was draining his magic fast. He had seconds before it failed. But the hawks weren't the problem. Yamamoto was.
He dropped the shield and threw himself flat as the hawks overshot. In the half-second before they wheeled around, he ignored them entirely and fired at Yamamoto.
"Flipendo!" The curved Knockback forced the fifth-year to sidestep, and two of the hawks faltered in the air, their flight paths stuttering as his concentration split. "Expelliarmus!" Yamamoto deflected it, but the motion cost him another fraction of focus.
The third hawk dissolved mid-dive, its paper body unfolding and fluttering to the platform in loose strips. "Incarcerous!" The binding spell came low, aimed at Yamamoto's feet. The conjured ropes wrapped around both ankles before he could react.
The two remaining hawks dove at Rowan's back. He heard the wingbeats, spun, and threw himself sideways. One set of talons raked his shoulder, paper edges sharp enough to draw blood. But Yamamoto was bound and scrambling, his concentration fractured, and the hawks were losing coherence. Their movements turned jerky, uncoordinated. The second hawk clipped the platform and tumbled apart into scraps.
The last one came around for another pass, but it was slow now, the light in its paper body flickering. Rowan let it come, waited until it committed to the dive, then sidestepped and let it crash into the platform where it skidded and went still.
Yamamoto was already cutting at the ropes, but bound and off-balance, his options had narrowed.
"Stupefy! Expelliarmus! Petrificus Totalus!" Three spells in under two seconds. The Stunner forced a hasty shield. The Disarmer cracked it. And the Body-Bind, delivered with his modified curve, bent around the weakened barrier's edge and caught Yamamoto in the shoulder.
His body went rigid. His wand clattered to the platform.
Silence fell across the arena for one long heartbeat.
"Victory to Ashcroft of Hogwarts!"
The arena erupted. Genuine shock, disbelieving exclamations in half a dozen languages. The duel had lasted perhaps two minutes, and the result was the opposite of what every spectator in the stands had expected.
Rowan lowered his wand, breathing hard but steady.
He walked over and picked up Yamamoto's cherry-wood wand, then cast Finite to release the Body-Bind. Yamamoto blinked, rolled his shoulders, and accepted his wand back.
"You went for me instead of the shikigami," Yamamoto said quietly. "Most duelists try to destroy them first. That's what they're designed to make you do."
"I was told they're sustained by your concentration. It seemed more efficient to break that than to fight three warded constructs one at a time."
Yamamoto studied him, then gave a single precise nod.
The tournament Medi-wizard was waiting at the edge of the platform, a stocky man with a close-cropped beard. His diagnostic charm traced a pale blue arc over Rowan's torso, then flared amber at his right shoulder where the shikigami's talons had torn through his robes.
He pulled the fabric aside, examined the shallow cuts, and tapped them with his wand. The skin knitted shut, leaving faint pink lines. "Paper constructs always leave residual magic in the wound," he said, moving on to Rowan's wand arm. "I've cleaned it out. You'll be stiff by evening but it won't slow you down. You're cleared for your next match."
"Thank you." Rowan rolled his shoulder once, testing the range, and headed for the corridor. The stares followed him out of the arena. The mockery from the previous evening had been replaced by shock, reassessment, and in some cases, calculation. Students were whispering urgently to each other, pointing at him, already spreading word of the upset victory.
The Hogwarts team was waiting in the corridor outside.
Sterling clapped him on the shoulder, grinning broadly.
"That was extraordinary. You demolished him. Yamamoto's been competing for three years. He was favored to make the quarterfinals at minimum. And you beat him in under two minutes with chain casting that some fifth years can't match."
"He was good," Rowan said honestly, letting his Occlumency shields down slightly now that the immediate pressure was gone. His hands were shaking slightly from adrenaline. "Better than most of the students I've fought at Hogwarts. But he expected a standard first-year duelist. By the time he realized what he was actually facing, I'd already broken his defensive positioning."
"The other schools are going to start taking you seriously now," Hecat observed, her expression pleased but calculating. "That was a very public victory against a strong opponent. Your next match won't have the element of surprise. They'll come prepared."
"Good," Rowan said, meaning it. "I'd rather face opponents at their best. It's more educational."
Greengrass, who had been silent until now, studied him with new eyes. "I take back what I said yesterday. You've earned your spot on this team."
The acknowledgment from the skeptical fifth year meant something.
Rowan nodded his thanks.
As they walked back toward their quarters, Rowan's mind was already moving ahead to the next round. The tournament had eight competitors remaining from the sixteen who'd started. His next opponent would be drawn from that pool. Students who'd also won their first matches, who were also skilled enough to advance.
And now they would all know to take him seriously.