The following two weeks flew by, and the next thing I knew my cousin Omar was returning from his first year at Uagadou. When he came aboard the ship he was mobbed by his mother. Running her hands through his long dark curly hair, she fretted "You look exhausted, have you not been getting enough rest at that school because if you want, I can head down there. I know the headmaster, how dare he not ensure his students get enough rest. What kind of school is he running over there."

As she continued making threats, Omar shot me an embarrassed look and rolled his dark brown eyes at his mother's worrying. Seeing that I covered my grin with my hand, Omar remarked, "I don't know what you think is so funny, seeing how 'lively' your mom is, I imagine your homecoming will be ten times worse than this."

His remark wiped the smug smile right off my face, and I blanched, thinking about the scene that my mother was bound to make at the Hogwarts Express train platform. Seeing my expression, Omar laughed.

John greeted his son with a hug and said, "So I have a little surprise for you." Pulling out several tickets to the South American regional dueling finals, whose final winner would go on to the International Dueling Competition.

Omar's eyes widened at the sight of the tickets whooping in excitement, turning to me he asked, "Have you ever been to a dueling competition?"

Shaking my head in response, "My mom doesn't approve of them."

"You're gonna love it," he assured me.

After rubbing Omar's head, John said, "Well, I guess we better get the ship moving if we want to make it there by tonight." Walking over to the ship's wheel, John pulled out his wand and began waving it around as if conducting an orchestra.

Immediately the ship began to react to his inaudible commands; ropes began lashing loose items down, preparing for the journey ahead. Other things, like the giant umbrella melted into the deck after the ship had finished preparing itself for the trip. The ship shuddered as it began to slip down beneath the water.

As the ship sank below the water, an invisible bubble surrounded the boat, keeping the water from flooding into the ship. Once the vessel was fully submerged we headed towards a shimmering stream of light, and John shouted. "Everyone hold on."

As soon as the ship entered the steam of light, the ship's speed rapidly increased. The stream of light didn't head in a straight line, sometimes it was near the surface, and at other times near the bottom of the ocean. It even backtracked a few times.

Turning to my uncle, I questioned, "Are these natural pathways or wizard forged paths?"

With a shrug, he responded, "Nobody knows for sure, what we do know is that they have been around for thousands of years. Not that many wizards still use the ancient waterways, I imagine there are less than 100 ships worldwide that are even capable of using them. There are just too many other ways to travel long distances now. But thousands of years ago, this was one of the most efficient in crossing continents."

A few hours later, John maneuvered the ship out of the waterway and made the boat rise back to the surface. Once we broke free of the surface, I noticed land in the distance and asked, "What part of South America is that?"

"That's Brazil," John responded. "The dueling finals are held outside of the city of Salvador."

After John dropped anchor he decided that we would fly in on brooms. To make sure no muggles saw us, he cast the disillusionment charm, which would make seeing us very difficult.

By the time we made it to the other side of Salvador, the sun was starting to sink behind the horizon. We kept on flying until John motioned for us to follow him down. We landed on a large hilltop that was surrounded by trees. At the bottom of the hill was a small dirt path that ran off into the jungle.

Motioning Omar and me to follow, John strode off as we made our way through the twist and turns of the dirt path. Eventually, we came upon a warehouse in the middle of the jungle. There were no other signs of habitation anywhere. It was like this building had sprung up all by itself in the countryside.

Guarding the doors were two stone jaguars. When my uncle showed the tickets to the jaguars their emerald eyes glowed for a moment then dimmed. After confirming our tickets, they stood aside to let us pass.

The first thing I noticed upon entering was the noise, on the outside, the only sounds anyone could hear were that of the jungle. Once we came in, the noise level increased as there were thousands of wizards packed into stands that rose from the bottom to the top.

Omar and I eye's widened at the sight of so many wizards. I got my uncle's attention and asked, "How many wizards do you think there are here tonight?"

Looking around, he shrugged and said, "Probably around a few thousand or so."

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At the bottom of the stands, sunk twenty feet below the ground, was a circular platform with a diameter of fifty feet. As we took our seats on the bottom row, I ended up sandwiched between Omar and another English wizard who had a unique ring with a silver spear etched into it.

Soon after sitting, the first match was announced, there would be twelve wizards and witches competing tonight, with only one moving on to the International Dueling Conference. The first two competitors entered the round platform and went to opposite sides and stood inside two-foot circles.

On the platform, there were many lines and circles marked into the ground. Curious about what they were, I asked Omar, "What is the deal with all those lines in the platform?"

Before he could respond, the blond-haired wizard sitting next to me interjected, "Is this your first match." After indicating that it was my first match, he started to explain, "The line drawn down the middle separating the two sides are boundary lines. If a wizard crosses that line, he forfeits the match. The small rings that the wizards are standing in are the starting position, but if they can stay within the circle for the whole match they are awarded bonus points."

Confused about the point system, I said, "I didn't think there were points, I thought it only mattered if you won the match."

He nodded and replied, "In some ways, you're right, the point system has nothing to do with whether you advance or lose. However, the points a wizard receives in the matches go into a ranking system that ranks everyone in the league. Most often, the ones with higher points are considered to be the better duelist, so there is also a bit of fame that goes with being ranked higher. However, a good duelist knows when to leave the circle."

"Is there a penalty for leaving the circle?" I asked.

His arms waved with excitement, and he passionately continued, "So, the first wizard to leave the circle loses a small number of points. Once he steps out, the other wizard may leave the smaller circle with no penalty attached. But, if he stays in the circle after the other wizard leaves his he gets a bigger number of points for winning the match.. It's a delicate balance to maintain. I've seen many duels lost because a wizard overestimates his skill and tries to get more points and ends up losing the match."

As the first match began, the wizard next to me fell quiet. Not wanting to miss a single moment I stared at the two wizards on opposite sides of the platform. As they arrived at their starting circles they bowed towards one another. I jumped when there was a loud bang, which indicated the start of the match.

Both wizards instantly drew their wands. The one on the right side wearing red and black robes went on the offensive right away. He started by quickly shooting a spell towards his opponent wearing dark green robes.

As a flash of red hurled towards the green-robed wizard, he quickly conjured a shield in position to reflect the spell towards the caster. He promptly followed up with his attack. Both wizards not speaking a word shot spell after spell at each other. After a few rounds of trading spells the red-robed wizard was on the defensive and was forced to move out of the small circle. However, that didn't help him for very long, and soon after, the green robe wizard was able to obtain a victory by hitting the other wizard with a spell that tossed him out of the ring.

The length of the match was only around two minutes, but somehow it felt longer. During the rest of the night, the length of the duels varied, some were shorter, and others were longer.

The green-robed wizard from the first match ended up winning in the end, I found out just before the final match his name was Carlos, and he was the favorite to win the finals.

After all the matches, we made our way back to the ship. Uncle John patted me on the shoulder and asked, "What did you think about the duels?"

After mulling it over for a minute, I responded, "It was different from what I expected. I didn't realize how much strategy went into dueling. I always had assumed that whoever tossed the more powerful spell would win, but it appears that timing and the ability to cast more appropriate spells that counter your opponent is more important. I can't imagine how knowledgeable and skilled some of the best duelists must be. At their level, almost all spells were casted nonverbally. So, they had to guess what spells their opponents were using, based on the wand movement, the shape of the spell. All in the heat of the moment, while trying to remain in the tiny circle. It's impressive."

Nodding in agreement, John added, "By the time most wizards and witches make it to this point they are an experienced and knowledgeable duelist."

In a skeptical tone, Omar scoffed, "Ya, but a duel isn't a real fight, just because someone is an accomplished duelist doesn't mean they would be effective in the real world. There are too many rules inside the ring."

Shaking his head in disagreement, John countered, "While that may be true for a lower-ranked duelist the high rankers have a lot more experience having spells hurled towards them and being able to counter the spell without moving. Not to mention being able to quickly strategize and plan what spells to use in the middle of a fight is something that you have to train into yourself. And while it's true a lot of curses and spells aren't allowed in the ring, I would imagine that if the duelist didn't recognize what that spell was, they would dodge the spell."

After we made it back to the ship, the discussion moved on to what the best match was and who was the best dueler at the finals. Towards the end, I asked John, "How does one become a professional duelist?

Grinning at my question, John smirked, "Why, do you fancy yourself a duelist when you grow up.

"I'm just curious, besides considering the war that just happened, I think that learning how to fight that well seems like a good idea" I defended.

Seeing that I had a point, John replied, "When I was at Hogwarts, there were some dueling clubs still around. Some were secret and hard to get into, but others allowed anyone to join."

After learning about the dueling clubs, I made the decision then and there that I would be joining one. After all, Voldemort would eventually be returning, and I would be prepared for it.

A few days later when I got home, I found my parents waiting for me in the kitchen with a letter with a red wax seal sitting on the table. I ran to the table and grabbed the letter and opened it, and pulled out a letter.

Dear Mr. Fawley,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress