Chapter 22
CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEFS, there were actually many types of duels, the most famous of which was formal duelling- the kind that took place in Round One. In formal duelling, the participants could only use their wands as their offence and defence. The objective was to either disarm, stun, injure, defeat, or kill each other in order to force submission, and thus a winner would be decided. However, to make it more audience-friendly, duelling tournaments restricted the use of unforgivables, summoning anything from outside the ring and killing. Polar to this was informal duelling, also known as free duelling. In free duelling, one could use both their wand and physically fight their opponent if they wished and just like their more civilised companion, no unforgivable or summoning could be used. It was important to note that free duelling was also illegal in Britain.
Personally, Lyra enjoyed the third type of duelling, called translucent duelling for some odd reason, which involved a battle of the individual branches of magic with each branch having its own method of duelling. It was vast and a tad confusing, but it was lovely to watch.
In a proper duelling tournament, there would traditionally be three (arithmetically, a powerful number) rounds featuring all three types of duelling. Usually, the first would be formal duelling, the second would be translucent duelling while the third would be free duelling.
However, since free duelling was sadly illegal in Britain, the last round would be yet another try of formal duelling.
Before the second round of the tournament began, the referee called both Lyra and her opponent, seventy-three-year-old Edgar Macmillan towards him and asked them which branch of magic they would like to duel in.
"Transfiguration," Edgar told him confidently before turning to Lyra. "Would you like to change it?"
Lyra shook her head. "No, I like transfiguration as well."
"Excellent!" The referee exclaimed with a clap of his hands. "I'm glad the two of you agreed on a branch so quickly. Usually, the competitors argue about it forever without compromising."
"I think the duel will be quite interesting then, don't you?" Lyra drawled, a smirk dancing on her lips. "After all, if both of us agree without protest, doesn't that mean that we are confident with our skills in the branch of magic?"
Edgar laughed. "I couldn't agree more." He said with a grin. "You truly are so much like my sister!"
Lyra smiled at the good-natured compliment, but the Slytherin in her that wished to be the best and only person recognised wanted his blood.
Transfiguration translucent duelling did not mean that they took turns transfiguring each other and Lyra was fully prepared to hex any ignorant person with magic flowing in their veins who assumed such.
Transfiguration translucent duels were majestic and beautiful to watch and was essentially a battle of symbolism and quick thinking.
With the help of a coin toss which would decide which of the contestants would go first, both opponents would take turns transfiguring a glowing floating ball provided to both of them into something, which the other would then counter. Considering this branch of magical duelling relied more on imagination, creativity, quality of transfiguration and speed of response rather than the standard speed and power, victory could go to anybody.
They would have five seconds to respond and the referee would decide whether a response was appropriate and could qualify or not.
Predictably, transfiguration translucent duels tended to be extremely short most of the times unless there was a rare combination of two transfiguration masters facing off, and usually, it was the process of deciding which branch of magic would be used in the translucent duels by the contestants that took the longest.
Edgar and Lyra bowed to each other -properly this time, a full curtsey- and took their places on opposite ends of the ring, their glowing floating ball hovering in front of them respectively.
Even with the noise of the roaring crowd, Lyra could still faintly hear her brothers booing Edgar and Grandmother Malania shouting embarrassing tales of her older brother from their childhood.
The referee cast a spell, preventing any sound from outside the duelling circuit to reach the ears of the competitors before signalling the duel to begin.
Since Lyra had lost the coin toss, she had to start. Pointing her wand to the ball in front of her, she gave it a wave, making the ball change its shape. What initially looked disfigured soon turned into a mighty basilisk, fangs and all, making Edgar raise an eyebrow.
He flicked his wand and his ball began to change its form, becoming a rooster whose cries were fatal to the basilisk.
Lyra swiped her wand, her basilisk became a black mamba snake, who was the natural enemy of a rooster. It was rather ironic in a sense, really.
Edgar transfigured a badger to counter her snake and smirked, making her understand the metaphorical meaning behind the action as well considering he had been a Hufflepuff while she was a Slytherin.
With a mocking smile, the snake became the Hogwarts crest, showing that the snake and the badger could be united after all. Lyra side-glanced to the referee and he nodded, signalling that the meaning was understood and acceptable.
Edgar nodded approvingly, swishing his wand and turning his badger into a bouquet of flowers consisting of a green willow (false love), yellow carnations (disdain, rejection, disappointment) and a black rose (hatred and despair), obviously referring to how the Hogwarts was divided.
Lyra smiled softly, transfiguring the sorting hat in front of them, which sang of the strength in unity every single year and was proof that different minded people could come together.
Edgar turned his bouquet into flames, taking the literal route on how the sorting hat could be destroyed.
The sorting hat in front of Lyra erupted into flames with a flick of her wand and turned into floating ash. Edgar was not stupid enough to take this as a sign of her surrender and surely enough, the ashes slowly came together to form a phoenix, which burned in the flames and rose from its own ashes.
A little frustrated at what he could counter against a phoenix of all things, Edgar transfigured a dark hooded figure, the very thing that took away all the hope a phoenix bought. A dementor.
Raising an eyebrow, Lyra waved her wand, her phoenix now glowing in a silvery sheet, obviously symbolising a Patronus, the only spell known to repel dementors.
Edgar fashioned his dementor into a bluebird, a symbolism of happiness. Except, its wings were clipped and its legs were broken, making Lyra raise an eyebrow and sneak a glance to the referee who nodded its acceptance. Happiness fuelled a Patronus, after all, and Edgar's actions symbolically showed happiness being clipped and broken.
Lyra's glowing phoenix dissolved into mist and from the mist, shapes arose of her father, mother, brothers, grandparents, relatives and friends, saying that as long as they existed, her happiness would never dissolve.
Edgar smiled when his sister's face was seen, and his broken bluebird changed into a streak of a silly green colour of light. The killing curse. What if your happiness is dead?
The portfolio of her family's faces merged into a single strand of rosemary with yellow flowers which meant remembrance and colour symbolised happiness. They won't die, they will forever live on in my heart and mind.
Once again, Edgar chose the literal route against her by transfiguring a rosemary beetle.
Lyra transfigured a mug filled with soapy water, the way to cleanse rosemary from the dreaded beetle.
Edgar created a slingshot, obviously meant to break the mug. Lyra glanced to the referee and once again, he allowed it. It was a bit unfair according to her, after all, the counter was not the mug but rather its contents.
Mad, a swish of her wand caused an Egyptian Redtail dragon to emerge, a large and heavy creature that could easily squish the slingshot with a step.
Edgar retorted with an Egyptian plover, a small bird known to fly into the dragon's mouth and eat the food stuck between its teeth.
There were so many ways that she could have played it, so many symbolic ways considering that Edgar was showing the bravery of the bird. However, Lyra was angry that their match still hadn't been concluded and while she realised that patience was key, she simply didn't care as she transfigured her dragon into a lentifold, knowing fully well its carnivorous appetite and how rare it was to escape from it (only one reported case till date).
Edgar looked put-out by her move for a second, expecting her to play it symbolically as she had usually done and lucky for her -since boredom was slowly creeping into her- he had taken a second too long and the referee quickly declared his time period to think over and the match in her victory.
Perhaps the only person happier than her about winning was Grandmother Malania. The perfect socialite and fearsome dueler reverted back to a childlike mentality in the presence of her brother and alternated between bragging all about her wonderful granddaughter and how Edgar was apparently a proper loser.
Grandmother Malania threw a family-only party at the Planetarium that night and her mother managed to throw a piano in Uncle Alphard's direction while Uncle Cygnus was seeking her father's advice on how to make Leonard Rowle disappear, having heard that Orion had planned out a full-proof mysterious death for Lucius before he had warmed up to him.
Lyra had been laughing at Sirius' overdramatic wails over his fallen scoop of ice-cream when a foreign beautiful owl flew in through the window, it's talons tightly clutching a letter before dropping it into Lyra's hand. She shook her head fondly, Lucius must have bought yet another owl. His family's white peacocks had developed a craving for owl meat recently.
She opened the letter and frowned upon seeing a vertical loopy cursive handwriting rather than Lucius' sharp diagonally leaning one and almost doubled back in a mixture of surprise and horror upon reading who had signed it.
Dear Lyra,
I had the privilege of viewing a memory of your excellent work in the Wizengamot a few days ago. Congratulations on the bill, my dear, it does a lot for our cause but I am afraid that just educating the mudbloods will not suffice. Those creatures could be bestowed with every knowledge regarding the importance of our culture and they would still favour being rudely ignorant. We need more, and I know you will help me.
Your duelling in the first round was most phenomenal and poetic in a sense for you to end with the entrail expelling curse, especially considering your lovely brother had been wrongly hurt by one by another half-blood the year before and once again, I must congratulate you in yet another victory.
I am looking forward to hearing what you do in the third round but I have a feeling it will be as great as yourself. Perhaps you and I can duel someday? I would gladly give you pointers and with my help, dear Lyra, you will be more powerful than you ever dreamed of, greater than anybody thought was possible.
I know you will not need it, but for the sake of formalities, may Lady Fortuna guide your path and look kindly at you. I hope you and your family find yourselves forever in good health.
With Regards,
Lord Voldemort.
And the deities had once again managed to create a rain cloud to hide her ray of sunshine.