Beauxbatons [Charlie Weasley]

Duel

Dark, velvety chairs line every inch of the theatre, the dark, carpeted stairs lit by twinkling lights on either side that hover in place, as if guiding their guests to their seat. The seats seem to wrap around the entire room, which is so massive Isabelle can't even see where is ends, each individual chair facing the rectangular stage in the room's centre.

There's two people on the stage already, wands slashing through the air here and there, jets of light zooming in every direction. Sometimes the spells miss their opponent and go flying out into the audience, but they're absorbed by an invisible barrier that stops them from hitting anyone in the chairs.

There's a panel of serious-faced judges next to the spotlighted stage, watching the duellers and making a note here and there on a piece of parchment in front of each of them. The rest of the audience is leaning forwards in their chairs, happy-faced and bright-eyed, excited to be watching the best of the best right in front of their very eyes. Isabelle glances around at the audience for a moment, just catching the hint of a grin and the glimpse of a twinkling eye here and there before the onlookers fade into the starry, sparkling ceiling way above her.

Maisie stands in front of the French girl, her hair the length of her collarbone and made up of messy blonde and brown waves. She glances back at Isabelle behind her, flashing the golden-haired girl a grin, before turning back around to face the two duellers on stage.

They're very good, Isabelle will give them that. They're also both the seconds, however. Each dueller has a second, you see, and every time they face off, their opponent has to defeat both them and their second, in order to win. The wizards in front of Isabelle have defeated both the initial duellers, and now their seconds are facing off, so whoever wins this, wins overall.

If Isabelle's being honest, she reckons these seconds are better at duelling than the originals. Sometimes that happens — a duellers can decide whether they want their second to be better or worse than them. It can work either way — if the initial duller's better, then most of the time they'll be able to defeat both their opponent and their opponent's second, and their own second won't need to be used — or, if their second's better, then they can see how far they can get by themselves, maybe defeating one of their two opponents, before having faith that the strength of their second will secure their victory.

Maisie claims that second option is exactly what's going to happen with them tonight — she reckons she might defeat the main opponent if she's lucky, but then she'll be defeated and Isabelle will have to face off their opponent's second, and take the victory for them both. Isabelle doesn't know what's going to happen, if she's being honest, but she's actually really excited.

It took a bit of convincing on Maisie's part to even let Isabelle be her second in the first place, because normally only registered duellers are allowed to compete, and Isabelle's not qualified. But Maisie managed to pull it off, most likely by exaggerating Isabelle's abilities, and here she is, with Ollie, Noah and Charlie somewhere in the audience, ready to give them a show.

The thousands of seats around them erupt into cheers: one dueller has gained victory over the other. Isabelle claps along with everyone else, the two victorious wizards beaming as the judges officially crown them as the winners and they move on to the next round.

There's four rounds in total, and this is the first round, with sixteen pairs going head to head against each other. Obviously, only eight teams are victorious, and they move on to the second round, where they face off different opponents. Four are then victorious from that, and they move on to the semi-finals, before the two victorious pairs of that duel move on to the finals, where only one team will be victorious. Maisie seems to be under the impression that her and Isabelle will win the entire competition. Isabelle kind of hopes she's right. That would be pretty cool.