Hogwarts, dueling grounds.

The smoke gradually dissipated, and two young witches stood facing each other, their small faces tense as they watched each other's every move.

During the lull in the confrontation between Ginny and Irina, the crowd in the stands finally had time to digest what had just happened.

In a flash of sparks, the two first-year girls completed two textbook-perfect exchanges of offense and defense in less than two seconds.

Most young wizards, and even adult wizards, felt that if they were in the dueling arena below, the competition might already be over.

Whether it was casting speed, spell difficulty, or dueling skills…

These two first-year witches were monstrously talented.

Perhaps not necessarily better than Erina and the three prefects, but likely capable of sweeping the third-year students, and even some upper-year slackers.

In fact, in Erina's opinion, if fighting in Hogwarts where "Apparition" is prohibited, even Ministry of Magic Aurors would have a high probability of failing – if they could rely on their harmless, cute appearances to design a plan, Ginny and Irina, working together, could perhaps easily replicate her "Salzburg Hospital siege and reinforcement" campaign from a year ago.

Naturally, Ginny and Irina's skilled and wonderful magical confrontation caused surprise and discussion among everyone present.

"Such fast casting speed, do they practice in the dueling arena every day?"

"Was that… was that wordless magic?! Are the first-years at Hogwarts this good now?"

"It's not wordless magic, it should be a magic impact, but it's indeed very fast—"

Cedric looked seriously at the lower-year girls confronting each other below, explaining to Mr. Diggory, his brow slightly furrowed.

"When Professor Apocalis was a substitute teacher last year, almost all the students knew this technique, but I don't know where they learned it from."

"The strangest thing is that the 'Bat Bogey Hex' released by Miss Weasley, I haven't seen it in any books – magic condenses creatures to attack enemies, this is something that is likely to be involved in the sixth-year and above Transfiguration and Charms classes, but judging from Miss Ivanova's cracking method, it seems to be a bit different from those advanced spells…"

"That's not advanced Transfiguration, that's a variant of the Bird-Conjuring Charm." Just then, a young woman's voice suddenly rang out.

Everyone turned around and saw several Ravenclaw girls carrying a pile of snacks, passing through the crowd and arriving at the core area of the Gryffindor "cheering squad".

The girl speaking had a Hogwarts Head Girl badge pinned diagonally at 45 degrees on her chest, nodded generously to everyone, while distributing drinks and snacks.

"These are the viewing drinks and snacks provided by the Hogwarts kitchen, I see that no one seems to be responsible for ordering here… Penelope, go take a count."

"Why me—" Penelope looked a little restrained at Mr. Weasley sitting not far away.

"Because that's the job of every prefect." Miss Peach pointed to Penelope's prefect badge, and said meaningfully.

"Miss Streepe? Oh, you're really too…"

Arthur Weasley took the initiative to stand up and took the drinks and snacks from the girl's hand.

As he spoke, he glanced triumphantly at Mr. Diggory, unable to suppress the hint of showing off in his calm tone.

"This is Meryl Streepe, Head Girl of Hogwarts, George's fiancée… I originally thought it was a bit too early, but I can't stand the children liking each other, right?"

"By the way, if that kid George dares to bully you in the future, you don't have to indulge him too much, just tell me – I'll help you vent your anger!"

Although she almost missed the dinner time agreed with the Streepe family because of overtime work, Mrs. Weasley reluctantly forgave Arthur after explaining and apologizing.

On the other hand, after learning that Arthur Weasley had been promoted to the British technical director of "s.h.i.L.e.d", the Streepe family was also much more enthusiastic.

The parents of both sides quickly drafted the details of the engagement of the two children – after the end of this school year, George Weasley will be officially engaged to Meryl Streepe.

"…Oh." Amos Diggory said with a flat expression, subtly poking Cedric hard with his elbow.

Mr. Wood, who was originally eloquent, also suddenly became quiet, as if he was hungry, and began to focus on those exquisite snacks.

If the kid in the Diggory family still has some chance, then his Oliver is completely hopeless.

Mr. Wood can only hope that his own blockhead can choose a Quidditch team with more female players after graduation, so that at least he can save a glimmer of hope.

"Cough, cough, Ced, why don't you help introduce…"

Amos Diggory glanced at the group of Ravenclaw girls and quickly saw a yellow-skinned Asian girl.

However, before Mr. Diggory's implied signal could be sent out, Cedric quickly turned his head and looked at "Peach" who was coordinating the distribution of drinks and snacks.

"Miss Streepe, you just said… Miss Weasley's spell is… uh… what variant spell?"

"Yes. I guess it's most likely spell modification – if not, it's a self-created spell."

Miss Peach replied seriously, glanced at little Ginny on the dueling grounds below, and shook her head gently.

"However, even if Ginny is a spell genius, her chances of winning this duel are not very high – the opponent's basic skills are too solid, and her talent is no worse than hers."

As a top student in Ravenclaw, Meryl could see the subtle differences between the two young witches at a glance.

Ginny Weasley clearly seized the advantage of the first attack at the beginning, but Irina's counter-spell was perfectly released before her attack arrived.

This proves that in terms of fast spell release and spell proficiency, the "shadow prefect" from Slytherin is obviously better than little Ginny by half a point.

And in the duel of geniuses, half a point difference is enough to determine the outcome.

…………

At the same time, below the dueling grounds.

After a short standoff of a few seconds, Irina did not choose to continue waiting.

"Aguamenti—"

She waved her wand skillfully towards the top, and clear spring water poured out of thin air, sprinkling towards Ginny's direction.

As Irina took the initiative to release the spell, Ginny, whose nerves were tense, also quickly waved her wand, and a petrifying spell flew straight towards Irina.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

"Snowballs!"

Irina moved a small step to the side nimbly, dodging Ginny's spell, and continued casting spells with great skill.

The next moment, a burst of cold air lingered at the front end of Irina's wand, and with her wand lightly picking, the temperature of the entire dueling grounds suddenly dropped.

Snow and frost flew wantonly in the narrow space.

Bone-chilling coldness spread towards Ginny in an instant.

Although Ginny was not hit by much spring water, the ground in her area was covered with thin ice that was condensing.

White frost seemed to be alive, constantly compressing Ginny's remaining dodging space – field magic, this is a technique Irina learned from the "Black-Clothed Wizard".

Most wizards have certain flaws in their control of magic, they may be good at throwing spells at their opponents, but few people know how to escape from traps. Overly powerful spells can easily injure the spell-casting wizard at close range, and the existence of field magic is based on this concept: compared to directly "shooting" spells, creating a favorable terrain is obviously more ingenious.

More importantly, Aguamenti combined with the Snowfall Charm can create a local low-temperature area in a relatively short period of time.

Low temperature, for most creatures, simultaneously means sluggishness and stiffness.

"I'm very sorry, Ginny—"

Irina said softly, easily dodging the incoming spell.

In a one-on-one situation, wand casting is too easy to dodge, just keep an eye on the opponent's wand and mouth shape.

At least before the opponent masters super-spec skills such as wandless casting and runic casting, movement speed and concentration are the key to determining the outcome.

You know, these days, their "apprentice witches" have been ravaged by Hannah quite a bit – even with a classroom as a buffer, Hannah in an enhanced state can easily dodge their spells and rush to them, and the secret is as simple as a joke: 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, 10 kilometers of running every day…

Perhaps Ginny is no less than her in terms of spell attack, but in terms of comprehensive defense and magic control, Irina is much stronger.

For Irina, she only needs to maintain the low temperature around her and defend against all the opponent's attacks to win without fighting.

In this way, the wonderfulness and her own little vanity are perfectly satisfied.

…………

A few minutes later.

"Looks like… I can't run away—"

Ginny couldn't help shivering, and glanced at her best friend not far away who was walking freely and occasionally releasing spells to resolve her attacks.

From the very beginning, she knew that she was no match for Irina.

After all, Irina's basic skills in magic are too solid, and this gap cannot be made up in a few months.

Even if she has a slight advantage in physical fitness, she cannot rely on "physical magic" to end the battle like Hannah without mastering runic magic.

As for counteracting the frozen area?

The magic difficulty in this is much more difficult to manufacture…

"Hey, why did Ginny Weasley stop? Is she planning to admit defeat?"

"I think it's almost the limit."

Around the stands, people looked at Ginny, who was gradually moving slowly and finally stopped in place, and whispered.

On the other side, Irina also stopped suppressing the spell and looked at Ginny curiously.

"Do you want to walk off the stage yourself?"

"No, I have a super ultimate move."

Ginny shook her head gently, took out a small bag from her arms, and shook it in front of Irina.

"The Hogwarts House Cup, the rules state 'undifferentiated confrontation', which is a modifier I've never seen before."

"Therefore, Percy specifically consulted the meaning of this 'undifferentiated'."

"And Professor McGonagall's reply was: You can use all magic-related abilities and items to complete the game…"

"So?" Irina tilted her head curiously.

"Do you like fireworks, Irina?"

Ginny blinked, revealing a sly smile.

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Yay!