The morning of the finals dawned gray and overcast, heavy clouds hanging low over Paris. Rowan woke before sunrise and performed his Occlumency meditation in the empty common room, watching dawn break over the city through the tall windows.
The Grand Arena was already filling when he arrived for breakfast in the tournament dining hall. Students from all seven schools were present, but the usual morning chatter was subdued. Today was finals day. The individual duel would conclude at noon, followed by the medal ceremony in the afternoon.
"Nervous?" Sterling asked, sliding into the seat across from him.
"No."
"Liar." But Sterling grinned. "I would be. Beaumont's good. Best duelist Beauxbatons has produced in a decade, according to the French delegation."
"She's predictable," Rowan said, spreading jam on his toast. "Skilled, but predictable."
"Let's hope you're right."
The Grand Arena was filled to capacity by the time the finals began. Rowan made his way through corridors packed with spectators, past groups of students wearing their school colors, past professors and ministry officials, all heading toward the main arena to watch.
At the entrance tunnel, he stopped. Thousands of people filled every seat, packed the aisles, stood along the walls. The noise was overwhelming. A wall of sound that made his breath catch. He closed his eyes, reached for his Occlumency, found his center. The crowd couldn't duel for him. Only the match mattered.
When he opened his eyes, his breathing was steady.
Apolline was already on the platform, warming up with precise wand movements. She wore ceremonial Beauxbatons robes in powder blue silk, her blonde hair pulled back in an elaborate arrangement. When she saw Rowan, she stopped and inclined her head formally.
Perenelle Flamel stepped onto the platform between them, her silver hair gleaming under the enchanted lights. As Tournament Master, she would be overseeing the final match personally.
"This is the finals of the Individual Dueling Championship," she announced, her voice carrying to every corner of the vast arena. "The standard rules apply. No Dark magic, no permanent harm, first to be disarmed, knocked unconscious, or forced from the ring loses. This match will determine the gold medal winner."
She looked at each of them in turn. "Competitors, approach and bow."
Rowan and Apolline met at the center of the platform and bowed.
"You have fought well to reach this point," Apolline said quietly. "But I will not lose to a first year."
"We'll see," Rowan replied.
They returned to their starting positions.
"Wands at the ready," Flamel said. "Begin!"
Neither moved immediately. The crowd fell silent, a thousand people holding their breath.
Apolline struck first. Her wand traced an elegant spiral, and a shimmering barrier materialized around her. It wasn't a standard Protego, but something more complex, a shield that seemed to bend light around its surface, making her form slightly distorted behind it.
Rowan recognized the principle if not the exact spell. A continuous shield that would protect her completely but drain magic constantly. She was waiting for him to exhaust himself trying to break through.
He didn't oblige. Instead, his wand moved in a quick circle. "Velocitas!"
The spell washed over him, and the world seemed to slow fractionally. His reflexes sharpened, his movements became faster. It was subtle, but in a duel, subtle advantages mattered.
Apolline's eyes narrowed. She hadn't expected him to waste time on enhancements when he should be attacking.
"Mens Acuta!" Rowan cast again. His thoughts became clearer, faster, his tactical mind accelerating.
The spell came from Advanced Techniques in Mental Magic, the incomplete manuscript by Erasmus Moonstone he'd found in the Room of Requirement and later gifted to Iris. They'd studied it together after Christmas, but this was the first time he'd used it in actual combat. He'd been saving it, waiting for a moment where the mental acceleration would provide maximum advantage.
This was that moment.
Apolline's shield flickered. Maintaining it while he enhanced himself was costing her magic, and he hadn't even attacked yet.
She made her decision and dropped the shield. "Stupefy! Expelliarmus! Flipendo!"
Three spells in rapid succession, her wand movements fluid and precise.
Rowan's enhanced reflexes let him dodge the first, deflect the second with a quick "Protego!" and simply sidestep the third.
"Incendio!" Apolline sent a stream of fire across the platform. Rowan countered with "Aguamenti!" The water met flame with an explosion of steam.
Through the steam, Apolline was already moving. "Glacius!"
Ice spread across the platform in an expanding wave. Rowan's footing became treacherous. "Duro!" He hardened the ice beneath his feet to stone, giving himself purchase.
Apolline used his momentary distraction. "Depulso!" The Banishing Charm shattered his stone footing and sent him sliding backward across the ice toward the platform's edge.
Rowan jabbed his wand down. "Arresto Momentum!" He stopped his slide just two feet from the edge, breathing hard.
"Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus! Impedimenta!" Apolline pressed her advantage with a rapid combination.
"Protego!" Rowan's spherical shield formed around him. The dome-shaped modification he'd perfected in practice. The three spells splashed harmlessly against its curved surface, deflected by the all-directional protection.
But maintaining the spherical variant was exhausting. Rowan dropped it after two seconds and fired back. "Stupefy! Expelliarmus!"
"Protego!" Apolline's shield caught both. "Incarcerous!"
Binding ropes shot toward Rowan. He severed them mid-flight with "Diffindo!" and countered with his own spell. "Flipendo!"
His modified Knockback Jinx, cast with the counterclockwise twist he'd developed, curved through the air in an unexpected arc. Apolline had to dodge awkwardly, her shield positioned for a straight-line attack.
"Ventus!" She conjured a powerful gust of wind that disrupted Rowan's positioning, forcing him to plant his feet more firmly.
"Glacius Maximus!" Rowan thickened the ice across the entire platform, making it treacherously slick for both of them.
"Incendio Maximus!" Apolline countered with even more fire. The ice melted rapidly, creating pools of water that then turned to steam under the continued flames.
The platform became a battlefield of fire, ice, water, and steam. Visibility dropping, footing treacherous, the environment itself a weapon.
Through the obscuring mist, Rowan fired blindly. "Stupefy! Expelliarmus! Petrificus Totalus!"
He heard Apolline's shield deflecting them, then her voice cutting through the steam. "Ventus Vorago!"
A spiraling vortex of wind formed, clearing the steam but also pulling at Rowan's robes with tremendous force. He fired spells through it, but they were caught in the wind and spun off course.
"Incendio!" Rowan fed fire into the vortex.
The flame caught in the spiraling wind, creating a tornado of fire that grew rapidly.
Apolline's eyes widened. She cancelled her vortex quickly, but fire spread across the platform.
"Glacius!" Rowan froze the flames mid-burn, creating bizarre sculptures of frozen fire. "Reducto!" He shattered them, sending ice shards in all directions.
Apolline deflected most with a shield, but several got through. While she was focused on defense, Rowan launched his fastest chain yet. "Stupefy! Expelliarmus! Flipendo! Petrificus Totalus! Incarcerous! Immobulus! Confundo!"
Seven spells in under four seconds.
Apolline's response was equally impressive. "Protego! Finite! Protego!" She alternated between shields and counter-spells with remarkable speed, blocking or cancelling five of the seven spells.
But the sixth, the Freezing Charm, was cast with the counterclockwise twist, its trajectory curving unexpectedly around the edge of her shield. It caught her wand arm, slowing it. And the seventh, the Confundus Charm, slipped through while she was dealing with her frozen arm. It struck her, and her next spell went wild, firing off to the left instead of at Rowan.
The crowd roared. For the first time in the match, Rowan had landed a significant spell.
But Apolline was a veteran of seven tournaments. She'd been hit by worse. She shook her head, clearing the confusion faster than most could, her mental discipline impressive. "Finite Incantatem!" She dispelled the confusion and the freezing charm with one powerful counter-spell.
"You are very good," she acknowledged, breathing harder now. "Better than I expected. But I have not yet shown you what I truly learned at Beauxbatons."
Her wand began moving in a pattern Rowan had never seen. Complex, flowing movements that incorporated what looked like dance with precise magical gestures. It was beautiful and terrifying at once.
"Ballerina Mortis!"
The signature French spell. Shadows erupted from the platform itself, solidifying into semi-transparent copies of Apolline. Four perfect duplicates that moved independently, each holding a shadow wand.
Advanced combat magic. The duplicates weren't solid enough to physically harm him, but they could cast real spells. He was suddenly facing five opponents.
All five cast simultaneously. "Stupefy!"
Five Stunners from five directions.
"Protego!" Rowan's spherical shield formed around him, blocking attacks from all directions. The five Stunners splashed against the curved surface.
But maintaining the spherical shield against five simultaneous impacts was exhausting. Rowan felt his magic draining rapidly. He had perhaps three seconds before the shield collapsed under the sustained assault.
He made a split-second decision. Drop the shield and move before they could cast again.
Rowan deliberately dropped to the platform, falling flat just as his shield collapsed. The duplicates' follow-up spells passed over him.
While prone, he cast wandlessly with his left hand. "Finite Incantatem!" A general counter-spell aimed at the nearest duplicate.
It flickered and vanished.
Still lying down, Rowan rolled and fired with his wand. "Ventus Maximus!" A powerful wind dispersed two more duplicates, their shadow-forms too insubstantial to resist the gust.
But Apolline, the real one, was already casting. "Fulmen Saltare!"
Lightning erupted from her wand tip. It struck the platform near Rowan and arced toward him, too fast to dodge from his prone position.
The lightning hit his chest, and Rowan felt pure agony lance through his body. His muscles seized, his vision blurred, and he tasted copper. For one terrible moment, he thought he might lose consciousness.
But his Occlumency training saved him. The mental discipline that allowed him to organize his thoughts, to maintain clarity even under extreme stress. It let him push past the pain, maintain focus even while his body screamed.
He forced his wand to move, channeling magic despite the lightning still coursing through him. "Protego!" The shield formed weakly, but it broke the lightning's connection, cutting off the electrical flow.
Rowan stood on shaking legs, his robes scorched, his chest aching where the lightning had struck. That had been close. Too close.
The last duplicate was still circling. Rowan needed to end this quickly before Apolline could hit him with another lightning spell.
He made a desperate choice. Time to use every option he had.