"Before the first class of the Duelling Club officially begins, let's have some appetizers." On the stage, Dracula glanced at Snape with ill intent, and raised the corners of his mouth slightly. "I will give you a small demonstration together with Professor Snape."
Since you want to take Dumbledore's place, don't blame me for being rude!
To the little wizards below the stage, Dracula's smile seemed quite evil.
But given that Snape has never been popular among the young wizards, except for the young wizards from Slytherin, the young wizards from the other three academies were all cheering for Dracula loudly, hoping that he could help them teach this annoying Potions professor a lesson.
"Professor Dracula, help us beat Snape up!" Ron also joined in the fun and shouted.
However, maybe Snape was paying special attention to him and Harry. Even though there were quite a few little wizards shouting like this, when Ron shouted this in the noisy crowd, Snape's sharp eyes still swept over them accurately.
Ron shuddered suddenly and looked at Harry trembling all over.
"Oh no, Harry, Snape has discovered that I said something bad about him again..." His mouth was stretched into a painful trapezoid, and his whole face wrinkled. "What should I do? Will he get rid of me in the name of a duel?"
Harry looked at Ron sympathetically and patted him on the shoulder. "Have a nice journey, Ron!"
Ron's expression became even more bitter.
Now he could only stare at the stage in the center of the auditorium, hoping that Professor Dracula would beat Snape unconscious, so that he might be able to survive...
On the stage, Dracula, who Ron had high hopes for, was already standing face to face with Snape at the front and back ends of the stage.
"Dueling is a traditional activity in the wizarding world. It is not just two people taking out their wands and fighting each other. There are many rules and restrictions." Dracula told the young wizards in the audience, "For example, now, before the duel begins, the wizards on both sides have to bow to each other as a sign of courtesy."
He smoothed his black and red cloak and bowed gracefully to Snape.
Snape's face was solemn. After bowing politely, he held his wand tightly against his chest with a serious look.
Harry and other young wizards who knew Snape were very surprised by this scene.
They originally thought that given Snape's character of never looking people in the eye, he would most likely not bow honestly to his opponent.
However, today Snape had changed his usual careless expression and looked serious, and even his bow was very proper.
They had never seen such a cautious Potions Professor!
Under the astonished gazes of many young wizards, Dracula and Snape had already saluted each other. Next, they held their wands in front of their chests like swords.
"As you can see, the duelists will hold their wands in a specific position," Dracula said to the gradually quieting crowd. "If it's a formal duel, the referee will count. If it's a private duel like ours, both duelists can count together."
"On the count of three, we will cast the first spell immediately. Of course, in a friendly duel like this, neither side will use highly lethal curses to kill anyone."
Hearing Dracula's words, Ron in the audience showed an extremely disappointed expression.
"I'm still waiting for Professor Dracula to use a killing spell to completely get rid of Snape!" he whispered.
At the side of the stage, a very enthusiastic little Gryffindor wizard had already volunteered to be the referee of this duel. He stood by and loudly counted to the two professors.
"one two three-"
The moment the number "three" fell, Snape raised his wand suddenly over his shoulder.
"Expelliarmus!" he shouted.
Suddenly, a dazzling red light flashed on the stage and instantly hit Dracula.
Dracula, who was under a spell, remained motionless, seemingly without any reaction to the spell. However, the wand in his hand flew high into the air and landed directly in Snape's hand...
"Ah? Professor Dracula's wand has been removed?!" Seeing this scene, the audience was in an uproar.
The young wizards could never imagine that Professor Dracula, who was expected by the three academies to defeat Snape, had his wand removed after just one exchange of moves with Snape, leaving him with nothing but bare hands.
How to duel without a wand
After a brief silence, several other Slytherin students, led by Draco Malfoy, suddenly cheered and began to applaud excitedly.
"Is the duel over like this?" Ron stared blankly at the two professors on the stage. The huge gap made him feel empty inside.
Harry also opened his mouth, "No... No way..."
Hermione, who was standing nearby, was holding a notebook and was about to record the key points of the duel on the stage. When she saw the result, she looked up blankly, put down the feather pen in her hand and picked it up again, not knowing what to record.
"I don't think it's right."
Just then, a nice boy's voice sounded beside them.
Harry turned around and saw that Cedric Diggory, a fourth-year Hufflepuff student, had come to a position close to the stage and stood next to the three of them.
He also held a notebook and a quill in his hands, with the same idea of Hermione taking notes.
Beside Cedric, Fred and George, both with fiery red hair, winked at Harry and the other two.
"Harry, you're right to listen to Cedric's analysis," said Fred. "He's a very dishonest person. He often secretly goes to Professor Dracula to give him some special treatment."
"So he definitely knows more about Professor Dracula than we do." George took over the conversation and said, "Because of this, we specifically asked him to be our technical consultant!"
"Technical advisor?" Harry asked doubtfully.
"That's right." Fred said in a low voice, "We made a bet with those Slytherin idiots between Professor Dracula and Snape, and bet on how long it would take Professor Dracula to defeat Snape."
"In order to prevent you from being so rude to us again like you did at the end of last semester, we specially found a consultant to set up this bet to ensure that it is foolproof!" George also whispered.
Harry was stunned for a moment, then he remembered that he had been losing control of his emotions from time to time some time ago.
Looking at Fred and George's performance, Cedric smiled helplessly at Harry.
Cedric is a very upright model student, and was originally reluctant to join the Wesley twins' bet... But after these two childhood friends who grew up in the same village kept nagging him, he finally agreed to be their bet consultant.
Of course, there are other reasons.
For example, he was planning to buy a gift for a girl recently, but his pocket money was not enough, so he thought it would be nice to earn some extra money from the twins...
"In fact, in my opinion, this duel is far from over." Cedric analyzed, "Look at Professor Dracula's wand, which is now in Professor Snape's hand. Do you find anything wrong?"
Harry and Ron looked over blankly, then shook their heads blankly.
Hermione looked over as well, then her eyes widened in sudden realization.
"Oh, yes! Professor Dracula's wand is not this one!" she said excitedly. "When he taught us, Professor Dracula's wand was pure black and very delicate. We couldn't tell what kind of wood it was made of. But this one is light brown, like ash, and looks a bit like Ron's broken wand!"
"But does this have anything to do with the outcome of this duel?" Fred came over and asked, "Could it be that Professor Dracula's wand was not handy today, so he was accidentally lifted by Snape's spell?"
"I don't think that's possible," Cedric said. "Look at the expressions of the two professors on the duel stage."
The others looked over and found that Dracula looked calm, as if he had no extra feelings about losing his wand, just like it was all planned.
Snape looked at the ash wand in his hand hesitantly, then raised his head to look at Dracula.
"Dracula, what are you doing?!" He gritted his teeth and spat out these words through his teeth.
However, Dracula did not answer his question. Instead, he looked calmly at the young wizards in the audience and slowly talked about the duel situation on the field.
"Did you see that? Professor Snape just used a very beautiful disarming spell to disarm me." He said briskly, as if he was not the one being disarmed.
"The Disarming Spell was invented by Elizabeth Smaugling, a duelling master in the 14th century. This spell was used very well in later duelling competitions."
Dracula just remembered that more than six hundred years ago, when he had just met Nicolas Flamel, a dueling master who was all the rage in the magic world appeared.
The wizard used the disarming spell he invented to such perfection that few people could defeat him in a duel.
At that time, Dracula went to fight with Smaugling, who invented the Disarming Spell, with great interest. Later, he found that Smaugling was only good at using the Disarming Spell. When she met Dracula who didn't even use a wand to fight, she immediately lost her composure and was quickly defeated by Dracula.
During this dueling club presentation, Dracula happened to tell many young wizards about the origin of the Disarming Spell.
In addition, he also wanted to advise the young wizards not to rely too much on wands, otherwise if they met someone like Dracula who didn't have a wand, they would probably suffer a great loss.
"As we all know, wizards in the magic world are very dependent on their wands. Some serious wizards will even lose their sense of security without their wands." Dracula explained seriously, "Therefore, the successful casting of the Disarming Spell can defeat most wizards."
"But there are exceptions to everything—"
After saying this, Dracula suddenly raised his right index finger towards Snape.
"Expelliarmus."
The next moment, a red light brighter than Snape's previous disarming spell shot out from Dracula's fingertips and hit Snape hard.
He was knocked off his feet and flew suddenly to the back of the stage. The magic wand in his hand was thrown high into the air and finally landed in Dracula's hand.
Snape's eyes tightened, and at the last moment before falling off the stage, his figure suddenly turned into a black phantom and abruptly landed on the edge of the stage.
The young wizards in the audience first exclaimed in amazement at Dracula's spell, and then, when they saw that Snape did not fall under the duel stage, they sighed with regret.
Among them, the three brothers Fred, George and Ron sighed the loudest.
"See? Even if the opponent has been disarmed, we still can't let our guard down." Dracula curled his lips and said to the little wizards.
"There are always some wizards who are more skilled in using spells and can cast spells without a wand. So, for opponents who have lost their weapons, I suggest you cast a petrification spell or a stun spell in time to make them completely lose their ability to fight."
"like this-"
As he spoke, Dracula raised Snape's birch wand that he had just seized.
"Stupefy."
A pale red spell shot towards Snape from a distance.
Snape gritted his teeth, rolled over on the spot to avoid the Stunning Spell, then raised Dracula's ash wand that he had just taken with the Disarming Spell, and shouted -
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Dracula didn't care about the petrification spell that Snape was about to cast. He even put down his wand, crossed his arms across his chest, and watched him cast the spell as if he was watching a show.
In the audience, Fred and George were watching Dracula's actions anxiously.
"Why isn't Professor Dracula moving again? It's easy to fail if we are careless!" George murmured anxiously.
"We've invested all our remaining Galleons in this. Please don't let us lose everything, Professor Dracula!" Fred stamped his feet in anxiety.
However, the scene that the little wizards had imagined, in which Dracula was hit by the curse, did not happen.
After Snape recited the spell of petrification, the wand in his hand suddenly trembled, and then a spark flashed on the wand -
The light of the petrification spell suddenly emitted from the end of the wand!
"What?"
Snape's eyes narrowed, but his body reacted quickly. Almost at the moment the spell lit up at the end of the ash wand, he immediately threw away the wand in his hand and fell to the ground sideways.
Because he reacted in time, he managed to avoid most of the magic power released by the petrification spell. Only his left arm was touched by his own petrification spell and became stiff.
However, Snape forgot that he was still at the edge of the stage and fell to the ground, which meant that he fell to the bottom of the stage -
With a sound of "winter", Snape fell heavily to the ground below the stage.
The little wizards around immediately retreated a long distance, fearing that they would accidentally become the punching bags of the bad-tempered Slytherin Dean.
Thus, a rare vacuum area appeared around Snape...
"That's another thing I want to tell you." Dracula looked at Snape's embarrassed appearance on the ground and said happily, "Don't use other people's wands casually after you seize them. There may be some traps in them."
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