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Harry easily side-stepped a stunning spell and then ducked slightly to let a disarming charm fly over his head, ruffling his hair.
It was a bit unfair to his opponent, who for once was actually the same age as him, but he was essentially just using this duel, and the tournament in general as a practice ground.
Another step forward.
The face of his 14-year old Russian adversary tightened into an even bigger grimace as the distance between the two duelists shortened to only five steps.
Harry's ability to sense magic had not been developing particularly quickly after the initial gains in the sense-deprivation chamber back in first year, but it had been developing.
He sidestepped a curse, this one a bit darker than the previously used magic, before deflecting a bombarda right back at his opponent and blowing him off the platform.
Finite, a wonderful spell with many, many applications. Delete the targeting aspect of an incoming spell you were familiar with, and redirect it. Harry was starting to appreciate the ability more and more each year.
"Harry Evans is the first to defeat his opponent," the announcer of the tournament said, or at least so Harry thought. The announcement was happening in Finnish. It turned out that without the imperialist nature of the muggles, there was no real lingua franca in the magical world.
Shaking hands with his opponent Harry hopped off the platform, nodding to the referee who was giving him an appraising look, before going to join Flitwick on their assigned bench.
"Were you making fun of your opponent intentionally?" The Charms Master asked with a frown.
"Of course not," Harry replied in a blase tone as he watched his defeated enemy get chewed out by what must have been his instructor. "But if I don't have to reveal the progress of my spell repertoire, why should I?" he asked rhetorically.
The brackets that Flitwick had brought over yesterday had been, relatively interesting to say the least.
He didn't know how much the match-ups were influenced by chance and how much by interests, but it was curious that the only two 14-year olds found themselves facing each other in the first round. Even if his opponent would have his 15th birthday in a few weeks.
"Well lets just hope you didn't make an unnecessary enemy today," Flitwick said with a sigh, raising his hands to rub at his temples.
Harry didn't reply and swept his eyes over the rest of the duels still happening. Nothing special in particular was happening yet, people were keeping their best tricks for later, just like last year.
The brown-haired 17-year old Habsburg was giving a fairly dominant showing against a similarly aged Hungarian girl. He finished his duel with a quick disarming charm barrage and threw Harry a hateful glower as he exited the stage.
The boy had improved a lot. An extent that wasn't achievable without a lot of very hard training. It seemed that whoever had been judging his performance last year hadn't been satisfied and had upped the requirements for the dilettante noble.
"You seem stressed, Filius. Something on your mind?" Harry eventually asked as his mentor brooded and the initial participants were cut down from the initial 64 to 32.
"The brackets are suspiciously easy for you this year," Flitwick muttered. "First a 14-year old, then either of your next opponents are only 15 and after that just a few 16-year olds of no particular skill. Assuming you win you'll only face your toughest challenge in the semi-finals against Antrakosis."
"That's hardly easy," Harry replied lightly. "He did knock me out last year, after all."
"He's 17 this year, his last chance to win. He'll be trying hard," Flitwick agreed. "But four relatively easy duels to the semi-finals doesn't happen much."
"It begs the question how much of the tournament is being led by market principles. I had a decent showing last year, considering I was only 13 years old at the time. Now I'm 14, the same age as Grindelwald back then. It could garner interest, sell more tickets," Harry mused out loud as the crowd clapped when another duel ended. It was a very Wimbledon-esque crowd. Mostly high-society who occasionally clapped with the backs of their hands, but the lower capacity Finnish arena was half-full, which hadn't been the case for the U17s in Austria last year.
"Britain has lost interest in duelling a long time ago," Flitwick said. "Perhaps I helped, as the sport caters to a specific crowd that doesn't like being represented by a half-blood, but now I'm seeing that the sport is experiencing a downwards trend even in other countries. Back in my day the U17s had to carefully select participants and rejected many to not overwhelm the audience with more than 128 duellists. Now I hear they had to send out personal invitations to even fulfil the 64 participant quota."
"The youth of today," Harry tssked. "They only know how to eat pizza, drink beer and watch Quidditch. Deplorable."
Filius gave him an odd look. "Perhaps. Regardless, I have my suspicions as to why the brackets were arranged in such a way."
Harry shrugged. In the muggle world all combat sports were inseparable from their promotion channels. People didn't want to just watch a few guys wail on each other, they wanted a story. How else did you explain the WWE? Or the amount of views that Mayweather vs. McGregor had pulled back in his previous world?
If duelling wanted to create a similar phenomenon, they would have to vastly reorganise the sport. A once a year tournament setting just didn't invest the viewers as much as a league did. Several duels a year, one person being the reigning champion, the others having to fight their way up the ranks for the privilege of challenging for the belt. Staging the matches in the hometowns of one of the participants to drive ticket sales and atmosphere. Some preliminary matches before the big event to keep people there longer. Sell some snacks and drinks. Arrange different bands to play in between matches as entertainment.
Fundamentally duelling lacked one thing to make this a feasible reality. Television. Without it a large audience couldn't be gathered regularly. Having to be physically present to watch the duel, or listening through the radio, were very high barriers of entry to a sport. Visuals were where it was at.
Harry thoughtfully ran a hand through his hair as the next round of duels were announced. The 32 would be cut to 16, then to 8. Tomorrow from 8 to 4, then 4 to 2 and then finally on the last day, in the morning of the adult tournament, the finals of the U17 would open the venue for the actual event of the season.
"There's probably a lot of money to be made in creating the magical version of the television and creating a more content-heavy duelling league," Harry mused.
"Well, the adult tournament does require the participants to reach a certain standard in the more regular national events," Flitwick said.
"Of course, but in comparison to the way fights are run in the muggle world, this is amateur hour," Harry replied, before shaking his head. "Not important," he determined. "Any information on my next opponent?" Anyone who wasted their reincarnation on becoming a capitalist in the magical world had as little brain as they did imagination.
"15-year old Gaspari Szcheinwvly. Old Polish family, they always send their duellists here at age 15. One year of experience, one year of climbing, one year of potentially winning the championship. It's a tried and tested formula," Flitwick said. "Very traditional style, prefers to overwhelm the opponent with a barrage in the beginning before winning with a stronger grasp of the fundamentals. Good for saving energy when one has more experience, not a great style for a beginner whose fundamentals will usually be outmatched in comparison to a more mature opponent."
"Question is," Harry started. "Are my fundamentals better than his?"
"Doubly so, almost, I'd say. You've improved significantly in comparison to last year. Unfairly so, considering your broad scope of interest," Flitwick replied.
Harry steepled his fingers under his chin and looked out from their little cove at the four duels happening in parallel in the middle of the arena. To go from 32 to 16 you needed 16 duels. Four times four.
"I'm up last," Harry said eventually. "More credence to our theory. But, I think that the Habsburgs are just as interested in winning this year as the duelling committee seems to be in making my path easier. How come he's facing the toughest schedule?" he asked.
"The old aristocratic families that allied themselves with Grindelwald have just begun returning back to the fold from the fringe of society," Flitwick replied distractedly, watching the spell exchanges with flickering eyes. "They might have the power to bribe a referee or two, put a member of their family in the committee, but influencing the decision-making of an international organisation is beyond them. If they had that power, would they be so desperate to win? They even hired Pierre as an instructor. Nothing against my erstwhile rival, but he's only ever been a second-rate duellist. After all, he never finished higher than runner-up."
"And whose fault is that?" Harry joked.
His mentor cracked a smile. "Guilty as charged."
The two of them continued to joke around as the duels progressed and Harry's turn came ever closer. It was important to keep an atmosphere of levity when facing a high stakes situation. The body and mind had to be relaxed to enter the flow, not rigid.
Harry thought about the Habsburg situation. The family had attempted to cheat last year. They'd doubtlessly do so again this year. Snape had promised him protection so that he could fulfill his part of the bargain.
But, well, thinking about it. If the backing behind Habsburg was powerful they would have already won last year. Sending out a mental probe against a participant and hoping for the best was hardly the height of cunning and power.
They wanted a figure-head to elevate their position in the neo-Grindelwald movement bubbling under the surface of European politics, but only weak forces were dependent on a figure-head in the first place.
Snape wanted Habsburg to lose because he wanted half-bloods to lead the charge in the next revolution, not pure-bloods.
With a wizard like Snape at the front, the half-blood half of the wannabe revolutionists immediately became more credible than the pure-blood half who was seemingly putting all their hopes on a teenager.
Snape was no Lord, but in the books there had been a clear class of wizard and witch right beneath Voldemort and Dumbledore. Moody had taken down a dozen wizards with him when he died, and Snape had been the only other wizard capable of flight. Bellatrix had been hyped up a lot, but perhaps her stint in Azkaban had disrupted her potential and led to her getting skill-checked by Molly Weasley of all people.
Harry thought that he could see a bit of Snape's game here. The man needed Habsburg to fail, because that increased the strength of his own candidature. While the pure-blood faction scrambled for another fitting figure, Snape could continue growing his influence and entranching himself.
The only reason why Snape had so connivingly tried to get Harry on board in knocking out the Habsburg was because the Neo-Grindelwaldians seemed to not wish to interfere with each other too blatantly, or else the man was certainly capable enough of sabotaging the boy himself.
It was a complicated mess and Harry barely even had a quarter of the puzzle pieces, but he felt he was getting a sort of idea of what was happening.
If Harry defeated Habsburg without Snape having to sabotage the pure-bloods, then the man could simply say, 'well if your candidate actually lost against a 14-year old, then he truly mustn't be very competent. I'm afraid this lowers your credibility considerably.'
The pure-bloods would then reply. 'Hurr durr we are dumb as shit, why did we think we could manufacture greatness in a world where magic makes meritocracy inevitable. We must have eaten too much lead as children, lol, lmao.'
At which Snape would say, 'Obviously…'
"Harry, Harry," Flitwick said insistently, causing the boy to awaken from his daydream.
"Huh?" Harry said intelligently.
"It's your turn," his mentor said while rolling his eyes.
"Ah," Harry replied, looking at the referee who was giving him a stern look and tapping at the watch on his hand. His opponent for the match didn't look too pleased at the delay.
"Sorry, I was busy daydreaming," Harry said something to the boy once he finally got on stage.
The older boy frowned at him. "jesteś głupi?"
Harry didn't understand Polish so he could only assume that the guy accepted his apology.
Not that it mattered much, one minute later the Polish boy was getting carried off in a stretcher and his words would forever remain a mystery.
Sad.
To that Harry could only say. "Kurwaaaa."
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AN: Slowly building momentum… Finnish the arc, hahahahahahaha. Read ahead on Patreon!