The stillness came first.
It settled over the Great Hall like a held breath, thick and deliberate, pressing in on every surface until even the enchanted ceiling seemed to dim in response. The wards hummed softly beneath the stone floor, a low, living vibration that made the air feel denser, as though the room itself were bracing.
Alden stood at one end of the warded space.
Inquisitor Vane stood at the other.
They did not move.
Vane was already coiled tight, every line of her body drawn inward with tension. Her jaw was clenched hard enough to show, shoulders raised, wand lifted and pointed without ceremony. She looked like someone prepared to strike first and justify it later, eyes bright with a brittle kind of certainty.
Alden, by contrast, looked almost relaxed.
He stood loose and balanced, weight evenly distributed, wand hanging low at his side as if it were an afterthought rather than a weapon. His posture gave nothing away—no challenge, no fear, no anticipation. If anything, he appeared mildly detached, as though he were waiting for a lecture to begin rather than a duel.
The difference did not go unnoticed.
In the front rows, the first years whispered nervously, some of them gripping the sleeves of older siblings or housemates, eyes flicking between the two figures at the center of the floor.
"Is she going to start?" someone breathed.
"Do you think he's really going to—"
Behind them, upper years leaned forward, expressions sharp with expectation. They were waiting for fireworks. For something loud and unmistakable that would justify all the tension, all the rumors.
The Slytherins were quieter.
They watched without speaking, eyes tracking details rather than spectacle—the angle of Vane's wand, the way Alden's shoulders remained loose, the absence of tension where there should have been some. A few exchanged brief looks, unreadable.
Across the aisle, Ravenclaws were already whispering in clusters, speculation tumbling out in rapid murmurs.
"She'll open with Bombarda—"
"No, too obvious, she'll try Diffindo to test his shield—"
"Watch his stance, he's not preparing a counter—why isn't he preparing a counter?"
At the edges of the Hall, the professors observed.
McGonagall stood rigid, hands clasped tightly before her, lips pressed thin in a line that betrayed nothing but readiness. Flitwick had leaned forward slightly, eyes bright behind his spectacles, fascination barely contained.
Snape watched Alden.
Not Vane.
His gaze was fixed on Alden's breathing, on the minute shifts of balance in his stance, on the way his wand hand remained still—not tense, not slack, simply ready. There was no approval in Snape's expression, but there was recognition.
Dumbledore's attention lay elsewhere entirely.
He did not watch their wands.
He watched their intent.
In the stands, Harry felt uncomfortably cold.
This didn't feel like a school duel. He had seen plenty of those—clumsy, noisy, full of shouted incantations and bravado. This felt… wrong. Too quiet. Too focused. His stomach twisted as he glanced at Alden, then back at Vane, the memory of a graveyard pressing unbidden at the edges of his mind.
Ron shifted beside him, jaw set. He was braced for violence, for something explosive and final, hands clenched as though ready to react even though he didn't know how.
Hermione sat very still, eyes darting between the wards, the professors, and the two duelists. She was counting rules, cataloguing conditions, trying to reassure herself that this was contained—that it had to be.
At the center of it all, Alden and Vane remained motionless.
The seconds stretched.
Vane's grip tightened.
Alden did not raise his wand.
And in that silence—heavy, deliberate, unforgiving—the Great Hall seemed to understand, all at once, that whatever came next would not be a performance.
It would be a lesson.
"Wands ready," Dumbledore said calmly.
The words cut through the stillness like a blade.
Vane's lips thinned. She did not look at Alden. She did not acknowledge the crowd, the professors, or the wards humming beneath her feet.
"Bow," Dumbledore instructed.
Alden inclined his head—precise, controlled, minimal.
Vane barely dipped her chin, eyes never leaving him.
"Begin."
Vane struck.
There was no courtesy spell. No pause. No test of distance or defense.
"Bombarda!"
The word was torn from her throat with raw force, her wand snapping forward as the spell detonated midair and surged toward Alden in a roaring wave of concussive magic. Stone cracked beneath its wake, fragments lifting from the floor before the wards caught them.
Gasps tore through the Hall.
"Incendio!"
Fire followed immediately—too fast, too aggressive—white-hot flames spiraling forward in a brutal arc, heat washing over the first rows despite the wards.
"Diffindo!"
A cutting curse screamed through the air, layered atop the others, sharp and lethal in its precision.
The spells collided, stacked, fed into one another—an indiscriminate barrage meant to overwhelm through sheer volume. Vane advanced as she cast, boots striking the stone hard, jaw clenched, eyes wild with vindication.
She was shouting now—accusations tangled with incantations.
"Dangerous—reckless—dark—"
Alden did not move.
Not a step. Not a flinch.
He lifted his wand.
The air in front of him changed.
Umbra Velo unfurled soundlessly.
It did not flash or flare. There was no explosive resistance, no dramatic rebound. Instead, the space before Alden smoothed into something dark and glass-like, as though reality itself had been polished and turned aside.
Bombarda struck first.
The force folded inward, the roar collapsing into silence as the spell slid sideways and vanished, absorbed without impact.
The fire followed.
It did not explode. It dimmed—colors draining, heat bleeding away—before thinning into nothing, swallowed whole.
Diffindo never reached him at all.
The cutting edge bent, warped, then unraveled as if it had forgotten what it was meant to do.
Silence fell.
Not stunned silence—wrong silence.
The kind that follows an explosion that never happens.
Alden stood untouched, wand still raised, expression unchanged.
The air around Umbra Velo shimmered faintly, dark and smooth, like shadow stretched thin across glass. Then it stilled.
Someone in the stands whispered, very softly, "It didn't… bounce."
"No," another murmured. "It just… stopped."
Vane froze mid-step.
Her spellcasting faltered—not because she chose to stop, but because something fundamental had failed to behave the way it should have. Her breathing hitched, eyes flicking from Alden to the space where her magic had disappeared.
"What did you—" she began, voice sharp with disbelief.
Alden lowered his wand slightly.
He had not moved from where he stood.
The first volley had ended.
And suddenly, for the first time since she had entered the Hall, Inquisitor Vane looked unsure.
Alden's wand dipped.
He regarded the empty air where the last of Vane's spells had vanished, head tilting slightly, as though considering a half-finished thought.
"…Is that all?" he asked mildly.
The words carried. They were not loud. They didn't need to be.
A few students gasped. Someone let out a nervous laugh that died immediately.
Alden looked back up at Vane, grey-green eyes calm, almost curious.
"That's adorable."
Vane snarled.
Whatever fragile thread of restraint she had left snapped cleanly.
"You arrogant little—"
She didn't finish the sentence.
"Incendio!"
Fire burst from her wand again, this time in rapid, pulsing jets rather than a single wave. Alden moved.
Not quickly.
Not dramatically.
He stepped sideways, boots sliding across the stone with quiet precision.
"Aresto Momentum."
The flames slowed as though plunging into syrup, their forward rush arrested midair. Alden turned his wrist slightly, redirecting the stalled fire in a gentle arc that sent it spiraling harmlessly into the warded ceiling, where it guttered out in a shower of sparks.
Vane had already chained the next spell.
"Bombarda!"
Alden was already elsewhere.
He moved again—two steps this time, fluid and economical—wand snapping up only at the last moment.
"Finite Absolutum."
The word struck like a snapped thread.
Vane's spell didn't explode.
It stuttered.
The concussive force collapsed inward on itself, unraveling into a weak pulse that fizzled out against the wards with a pathetic crackle.
Vane blinked.
"What—"
"Diffindo!"
The cutting curse screamed toward where Alden had been.
He wasn't there anymore.
Alden pivoted, cloak flaring briefly, movement so clean it almost looked rehearsed. He did not block the spell. He simply let it pass—its edge slicing through empty air before shattering against the far wards.
The crowd began to murmur.
"He's not—he's not countering everything," someone whispered.
"He's moving before she finishes casting—"
Vane advanced again, frustration bleeding into desperation.
"Stupefy!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
The spells came faster now, one on top of the other, her voice rising, breath growing ragged as she tried to force the pace. Alden matched her without matching her energy.
He stepped.
Turned.
Redirected.
"Finite Absolutum."
"Aresto Momentum."
His wand movements were minimal—small flicks, precise turns—nothing wasted. Each spell landed not as a dramatic reversal, but as a quiet interruption. Vane's magic didn't fail. It simply arrived a heartbeat too late.
Too slow.
Theo frowned from the stands.
"That's… wrong," he muttered.
Hermione leaned forward, eyes wide behind her hair. "He's not faster," she whispered. "She's just—she's always behind him."
On the floor, Vane skidded to a halt, chest heaving, sweat beginning to bead at her temples.
"Stand still!" she shouted.
Alden did.
For exactly half a second.
Then she fired again.
And Alden was gone.
Not vanished—repositioned.
The space between them felt distorted now, like a stretched string vibrating just out of sight. Time itself seemed to hesitate around Alden, snapping forward only after he'd already moved.
He spoke again, calmly, almost conversationally.
"You're trying to overwhelm me," he said, sidestepping another spell. "But volume only works when the other person is afraid."
Vane's next curse went wide.
The Hall had gone very quiet.
Even the wards seemed to hum more softly, as though listening.
Alden shifted his weight, wand low once more, and for the first time since the duel began, he was smiling—not cruelly, not mockingly, but with the faint, unsettling certainty of someone who had already solved the problem in front of him.
Vane faltered.
Not for long—just a heartbeat—but it was enough.
Her wand hovered midair, breath coming hard now, eyes darting as she tried to track Alden's position. The rhythm she had forced earlier had collapsed, her casting broken into jagged starts and stops.
Across from her, Alden stood very still.
He raised his wand—not sharply, not with force, but with an almost idle grace, as though tracing a thought rather than beginning an attack. His voice was low, pitched just above breath.
"Tenebris… Lux."
The spell did not explode.
It unfolded.
A ripple spread outward from Alden's wand, black not in the absence-of-light sense, but in the way ink blooms through water—uneven, fluid, alive. The veil rolled across the stone floor in a widening circle, swallowing torchlight, reflection, colour. It climbed the air itself, rising into a dome that enclosed the dueling space, its edges feathering outward until they brushed high against the enchanted ceiling.
The Hall did not go dark.
Vision failed.
Students gasped as one.
"What—what is that?"
"I can't see—!"
"Is it a ward?"
Even the wards beneath the floor seemed to hesitate, their hum dropping into something deeper, quieter.
At the staff perimeter, Flitwick let out an involuntary sound—half laugh, half gasp.
"Remarkable," he breathed, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. "Simply remarkable—an occlusive field that doesn't extinguish light but redefines perception—oh, I've never seen anything like it—"
McGonagall shot him a sharp look, but she didn't disagree.
Snape's eyes had narrowed to slits, fixed on the black dome with something like grim recognition.
Umbridge made a thin, frightened noise.
Inside the veil, the world was different.
Alden could see perfectly.
The blackness thinned for him, resolving into depth and shape, the space around him outlined in muted silver-grey. Vane stood several paces away, suddenly very visible in her panic—eyes wide, wand jerking as she spun in a tight circle.
"Where are you?" she shouted, voice cracking. "Show yourself!"
She fired blindly.
"Incendio!"
Fire roared—but Alden stepped aside before the heat reached him.
"Stupefy!"
The red bolt screamed past his shoulder, close enough that he felt the air ripple.
Vane turned again, boots scraping stone, nearly tripping over her own momentum.
"Protego—no—Diffindo!"
Spells ricocheted uselessly into the veil, their light swallowed, their impact muffled. To those outside, it sounded like chaos trapped in a box—shouts, cracks of magic, the sharp hiss of curses cutting space.
But inside, Alden moved in silence.
No rush. No flourish.
He adjusted his steps with effortless precision, pacing her panic, watching the way her shoulders hunched, the way her casting grew sloppier, breath shorter, movements wider.
"You can't hide forever!" Vane yelled, voice edging toward hysteria.
Alden said nothing.
He passed behind her as she spun, her wand flashing through the space where he had been a moment earlier. She stumbled, nearly losing her balance, and Alden was already elsewhere, positioning himself with the calm inevitability of someone closing a book whose ending he already knew.
Outside the veil, the Hall was deathly quiet now.
No cheers. No speculation.
Just the sound of Vane's voice—ragged, furious, afraid—and the unmistakable truth settling in its wake.
She wasn't fighting Alden anymore.
She was fighting the dark.
And Alden Dreyse was walking through it unseen.
Inside the veil, the air felt close.
Not heavy—compressed. The blackness pressed in on Vane from all sides, swallowing distance, swallowing certainty. Sweat had begun to bead along her hairline, darkening the collar of her robes. Her breathing was loud now, ragged, the sound of it echoing back at her in a way that made it impossible to tell where she stood.
She spun again, wand flashing.
"Reveal yourself!" she shouted, voice sharp with the edge of fear she could no longer hide.
Alden stood a single pace behind her.
Close enough to hear her breath hitch. Close enough to see the tremor in her wand hand. The pulse in her neck beat fast and uneven, skin flushed with exertion and panic.
He did not raise his wand.
He shifted his weight instead, silent as the dark around them, and drew his fist back.
Outside the veil, no one could see what happened.
They only heard it.
A sharp, unmistakable crack—clean, solid, final.
Not the report of a spell.
The sound of bone meeting bone.
A heartbeat later came the thud.
A body striking a stone.
The black veil shuddered.
Then it folded inward on itself, collapsing without fanfare as Alden flicked his wand in a small, dismissive motion. Light rushed back into the space in uneven waves, colour snapping into place, the Great Hall exhaling as though it had been holding its breath too.
In the center of the floor, Inquisitor Vane lay sprawled on her side, unconscious, wand skittered several feet away where it had clattered across the stone.
Alden stood a step back from her.
His wand hung loosely at his side, tip lowered.
His uniform was immaculate—robes unruffled, collar neat, not a speck of dust out of place.
His knuckles were red.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then the realization hit.
Ron gaped. "He—he punched her."
Hermione's mouth had fallen open, eyes fixed on Alden's hand, then on Vane's unmoving form.
From the Slytherin benches came a ripple—not a cheer, not a shout, but a collective intake of breath, sharp and satisfied.
Flitwick looked as though he might burst. "Extraordinary," he breathed. "Absolutely extraordinary—non-magical incapacitation within a magical occlusion field—"
McGonagall shot him another look. He fell silent at once, though his eyes still shone.
Dumbledore stepped forward, gaze sweeping the scene with calm precision. He took in the unconscious inquisitor, the discarded wand, the boy standing unshaken in the center of it all.
Across the floor, Alden lifted his eyes.
He looked straight at Selwyn.
At Thorne.
At Umbridge.
There was no triumph in his expression. No cruelty. Only a quiet, unyielding certainty.
The message needed no words.
This had never been about power.
It had been about control.
And Alden Dreyse had just ended the duel without casting a finishing spell at all.
The silence didn't break all at once.
It fractured.
A breath went out somewhere in the stands, sharp and disbelieving, and then the Great Hall erupted.
Voices crashed together in a wave—shouts, laughter, gasps, the scrape of benches as students surged to their feet. Somewhere to the left, a triumphant yell cut cleanly through the noise.
"I told you he'd do it!"
"That's five Galleons, Jordan!"
Fred and George Weasley were already halfway onto their bench, identical grins splitting their faces as George waved a small, jingling pouch above his head.
"Pay up, Lee," Fred crowed. "We said unconscious in under two minutes, didn't we?"
"Technicality," Lee Jordan protested weakly. "She wasn't stunned—"
"Unconscious is unconscious," George cut in cheerfully. "Rules were very clear."
From the Hufflepuff section came a ripple of delighted disbelief.
"I didn't think he'd just—punch her," someone said, awed.
"That counts," another replied firmly. "I checked."
Slytherin didn't cheer.
They didn't need to.
They exchanged looks instead—tight smiles, sharp nods, the quiet satisfaction of a plan executed exactly as expected. A few claps started, measured and deliberate, spreading just enough to be noticed without turning into a spectacle.
Across the Hall, the Ministry delegation looked as though the ground had shifted beneath them.
Vane lay unmoving on the stone floor, a mediwitch already hurrying toward her at McGonagall's sharp instruction. Selwyn's face had gone very still, the displeasure there controlled but unmistakable. His eyes flicked once to Alden's reddened knuckles, then away.
Thorne looked worse.
He stared at Vane, then at Alden, something tight and unsettled working its way through his expression. Whatever he had expected from this demonstration, it hadn't been this. Not restraint. Not efficiency. Not a duel that ended without magic finishing it.
Umbridge had gone pale beneath her pink lips, trembling with a fury she didn't dare voice. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides, as though she were physically resisting the urge to scream.
Dumbledore stepped forward.
The noise faltered, then stilled, his presence alone enough to draw the Hall back into order.
"The first duel," he said calmly, "is concluded."
He glanced once at Vane, then back to Alden, who stood where he had been left—wand lowered, expression composed, breathing steady.
"Alden Dreyse," Dumbledore continued, voice carrying easily, "has won."
The reaction was immediate.
Cheers burst forth again, louder this time, less restrained. Someone whooped. Someone else shouted Alden's name outright before being shushed by a prefect who looked only mildly committed to the task.
Dumbledore waited for the sound to crest, then lifted a hand.
"Thank you," he said mildly. "Now—if we are to remember that this is, as agreed, an educational demonstration—"
A ripple of laughter ran through the students.
"—then it is rather important," Dumbledore went on, eyes twinkling faintly, "that everyone can see."
The Hall shifted, students adjusting instinctively, taller ones stepping back, shorter ones craning forward. The wards hummed softly, accommodating.
Dumbledore turned toward the Ministry delegation.
"The next duel," he announced, "will be between Alden Dreyse and Acolyte Thorne."
Thorne stiffened.
Across the floor, Alden lifted his gaze and met Thorne's eyes.
There was no smile.
No threat.
Just understanding.
And as the noise settled once more, as the students leaned forward in anticipation of what came next, one thing was suddenly, undeniably clear to everyone in the room:
This wasn't about spectacle anymore.
It was about what happened when authority was forced to step forward—and found itself wanting.