Chapter 32: The duel ends.

On the other hand, Ethan was surprised with the course of things, he had a clear advantage over Severus, he only needed to be a long time on the offensive to oppress him and he could finish him off, ending the duel.

But for some reason Severus always managed to keep him from staying on the offensive, he always managed to make him go on the defensive when he was about to take advantage of him.

'TCH, fucking hell, the wanker looks bloody creepy while dueling, I feel like if I lose he'll kill me for sure' Ethan complained as he watched a Severus with black robes, black eyes, black hair, and a natural grim aura he emitted that made him look even grimmer than he already was.

'And they said Dementors were scary, this guy is the bloody grim reaper' Ethan mentally grumbled again as he saw Severus' eyes, dark, cold, deep, and piercing.

Severus, contrary to the common thinking of the others, was enjoying this duel as never before, he felt he could lose at any moment with the slightest mistake, but that only made him more excited, the best part was that he only had to focus on one person, which gave him many more options to seek to win.

The duel went on for quite some time.

While Ethan continued to use his incredible fire magic to oppress his opponent, Severus used every spell he knew with great skill and unique ingenuity that made Ethan's attempts to win come to naught.

In a decisive moment, Severus managed to stop another of Ethan's attacks and decided to take a chance with an idea he had.

Severus deflected one of Ethan's fire attacks and then took the opportunity to quickly recite "Alarte ascendare" to raise Ethan just a few centimeters and leave him destabilized for a few moments.

Apparently, the spell was successful, as it managed to destabilize a lot, causing him to slow down his constant attack.

"Bombarda" recited Severus causing a small explosion.

Ethan had reacted quickly with a "Fire Enchantment" to protect himself, but to his surprise, Severus' "bombarda" was not directed at him but at the ground where he was standing.

Ethan fell backward, he was already destabilized by the previous spell that made him levitate a few centimeters, and now adding the shattered ground he was on the fell easily, but the instant this happened he resumed his posture for the duel, and very enraged he prepared to resume the offensive with his fire magic.

"Incarcerous" Severus invoked some ropes over Ethan's body that was just recovering from the fall, this prevented Ethan from resuming the offensive because his movements were restricted.

Ethan instantly burned the ropes invoked by Severus.

But Severus only needed that time when Ethan focused on the summoned ropes to cast his other two silent spells in sequence with which he hoped to win.

"Verdimillious" Severus conjured a cloud of green "gas" that attacked Ethan and at the same time defended and covered him.

Then Severus cast the other pink silent spell in sequence, but this one seemed to have no effect on Ethan.

"Fire Enchantment-Evanesco," while Ethan who had freed himself from the ropes quickly conjured two quick spells in sequence one that defended him and another that undid the part of the cloud that attacked him, quickly dealing with the cloud of "gas" that attacked him.

But Severus wasted no time and cast another spell from within the cloud that still covered him.

Everyone saw a spell with a green light come out from the cloud where Severus was.

This spell hit Ethan in his fire shield, but to everyone's surprise, it didn't hurt him in the slightest, but just like before he was lifted off the ground but this time it was much worse as he was hoisted into the air by their ankle.

Severus kept him hoisted into the air, making Ethan unable to do anything about it as he did not know this strange spell and did not know how to counter it.

The silent spell cast on Ethan was: "Levicorpus".

It was a Jinx created by Severus himself.

Even though Ethan had no way to escape the spell now, he did not stand idly by and launched from the air an offensive on the surroundings with a fire attack the instant he could, managing to hit Severus' weakened protego in his offensive.

It was surprising the speed with which he conjured his fire magic and the ease with which he had to master it despite being in the air totally unbalanced, Ethan had already proven to be an expert in the mastery of fire as he never took more than a few seconds to free himself from the various traps that Severus put him during the duel and return to attack as if nothing.

The fire hit Severus' protego destroying it and throwing him backward with great force.

Things had taken an unexpected turn for the audience, everyone thought that Severus had managed to get the victory thanks to that last spell, but he was now on the ground due to the impact of the fire.

When everyone thought that the duel was defined because Severus had received a strong blow that made him fall backward at the end of the stage.

Ethan began to show signs of daze, he seemed to be totally disoriented trying to sort out what was happening around him.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Why is he acting so strange?"

"Mmmm maybe that gas cloud affected him."

"Yeah, it could be."

"He seems really dizzy."

"That, maybe being upside down in the air for so long made him dizzy".

These were some of the comments from the students, but among all those watching the duel, only Professor Ava Hale knew exactly what had happened and she was very surprised.

Taking advantage of the fact that Ethan seemed to be dizzy, Severus who was lying on the floor pulled himself together from the blow and started to get up slowly and calmly.

His body, hair, and clothes, were all bruised from the fire, the blow had left him in very bad shape.

'Bloody Hell, that hurts' Severus complained as he struggled to get to his feet.

When he finally stood in front of an Ethan who was apparently still dizzy, Severus just stared at him with a small smile.

'But that sure was quite a duel, I should thank him later, it was quite interesting getting to my limit' Severus thought.

On the other hand, everyone who saw this scene where Severus stood up with his black robes and bruised hair along with a cold, penetrating, and dark look that was accompanied by a slight smile, couldn't help but think that the reaper himself had risen again to take Ethan once and for all.

And the truth was that Severus did look very sinister, contrary to his casual, kind, and calm attitude, in the duel he had shown a cold, hard, calculating, dark and sinister attitude, which made the hair stand on end more than one.

He seemed like a completely different person.

"Expelliarmus" cast Severus after a few moments of standing up, disarming Ethan, and taking his wand.

"Alright that's all," Severus said, and then with a snap of his fingers, he undid the effect of the spell he had put Ethan in, thus drawing the attention of everyone present to the fact that he was the cause of the dizziness Ethan had.

'What spell was that?" wondered everyone watching , even the teacher had her doubts, but she had a general idea of what it could be.

"This...uh?....what happened?.... My wand!" exclaimed Ethan the moment Severus released him from the spell.

"Simple, I won," said Severus calmly but amused at Ethan's clear confusion.

"You, When did you take it, impossible, I had hit you with my spell and then..." started Ethan as he saw that Severus had his wand.

Severus just shook his head.

"When I conjured the gas cloud that surrounded us I also cast in sequence an inconspicuous and very fast silent spell called 'Confundi ultima' which makes one lose total awareness of what is happening for a few moments, it's like having a blank mind, that spell takes a few moments to take effect, that's why it didn't affect you instantly" explained Severus.

"I see, similar to the 'confundus' spell that instantly stuns and disorients the affected person, but still, how did you have time to conjure and cast two spells of that degree in just a few seconds?" Ethan could now understand the situation better, but still, he had not given Severus enough time to cast two spells of that degree of difficulty in such a short time.

"That I can answer for you if Mr. Prince will allow me," said the teacher who stood with the rest of the students watching the duel.

She looked at Severus for confirmation.

If he didn't want to reveal it, she wouldn't say anything.

Severus just nodded, it saved him from having to explain himself and he had no problem telling because he had already completed the necessary paperwork to be credited with creating the spell and it would be published shortly, so sooner or later it would come out.

And he knew that someone of the professor's level would notice the characteristics of his spell.

"The spell cast by Mr. Prince called 'condundi última' may have similarities to the 'confundus' we know, but unlike the 'confundus' spell that is required to be cast individually, this spell seems to be able to be attached to the magical sequence of other area magic spells such as Verdimillious" explained the professor.

"Wow, pretty amazing, I didn't know about such a spell, looks like it's my loss Prince, the next duel we have I won't be so careless," said Ethan shaking her hand by way of greeting without seeming annoyed or resentful with the result, rather, he seemed excited to duel again.

"Sure, as long as you honor the wager I'm always available for another duel," Severus said calmly but with a teasing tone as he shook Ethan's hand and handed him his wand.

Ethan seemed to remember the 300-gallon wager and his eyes seemed to lose the competitive gleam they had.

'Looks like Ethan Hale isn't as much of an idiot as I thought, at least he has his good stuff' Severus weighed in.

After that, the class ended and several students in the class asked the teacher about the spell and where they could find it to learn it.

The teacher told them that it was impossible to find this spell since it does not exist in any book because it was a creation of Severus Prince himself.

Then they asked about the other spell that Severus had used to lift Ethan's ankle, and the answer was the same.

Which surprised all the students since two such interesting and useful spells were created by the same wizard who was younger than them.

Many thought of asking Severus if he could teach them the spells, but after witnessing the duel between Ethan and him, they did not dare to do so as Severus now gave them quite a shiver when he looked at them with his deep, dark black eyes.

After class, Severus went to his dormitory next to Ethan.

They were both a mess so they had to shower and change after that duel they had.

The two of them talked quite a bit after the duel.

Ethan was impressed with Severus' skills and had many questions to ask him.

As for Severus who preferred to ignore him at first, he was now also intrigued by Ethan's ability to manipulate fire so perfectly, that he seemed like a pro at using it.

The two spent the rest of the day together talking about various things related to dueling, magic, and all sorts of spells.

They only separated for dinner, apparently, Ethan already had another group he was hanging out with and invited Severus to sit with them, but he preferred his own table where Freyja and Gwen were already seated.

During dinner, unknown to Severus who was conversing with Freyja and Gwen, many students from the dueling class started talking about the duel he had against Ethan.

The next day, Severus went to his classes, as usual, spent time with Freyja and Gwen, but now also converses in his dormitory with Ethan about all sorts of things.

The first two classes of the day with Professor Locklear were just as interesting as the Magical Chemistry class.

While the History Potions and Potioneers class with Professor Spilman were just as boring and tiring as last time.

"What do you plan to do this weekend?" asked Freyja happily during dinner that day.

"Well, I was planning to stay at the institute and finish studying the things that were not clear to me from some of the subjects we had, not all of us are like Prince who doesn't seem to have a problem understanding everything they give us instantly," said Gwen looking with mock resentment at Severus.

"Hey, don't look at me like that Gwen, the same thing would happen if we were in transfigurations, you have a great affinity for transfigurations and I have a great affinity for potions" Severus defended himself calmly.

Freyja just nodded while Gwen pouted prettily.

"And you Severus, what do you plan to do?" asked Freyja with a little less enthusiasm than before as she remembered that she would also have to stay behind to study several things she didn't quite understand.

Even though Severus was helping them both in many things, the SCoP program was not normal, it was an intensive program that tested all genius students in potions, and only people like Severus would see the classes of the program as a common class.

That was why most of the students in the program had to stay and study over the weekend.

"I'm going to go to the Muggle and magical world in the USA, I have several things to do regarding my family and I also wanted to see the country" Severus explained.

"You have to tell me everything when you get back, yes? pleas, pleas" said Freyja with puppy dog eyes.

Gwen just smiled amused while Severus just nodded unable to deny those eyes.