Pre-Chapter A/N: Welcome to September, guys! Let's smash whatever goals we've set ourselves this year. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
It sounded like a gong being rung, the sound my spells made as they blasted his mage shield to pieces. Not even seconds after he dared me to bring my best to bear, he was already backpedaling. I had a theory. I had power to spare. I wasn't just the magical power and potential of a single person. I was two. Doom had offered intellect and other skills, but no magic. Tom Riddle and Harry Potter had been the ones to offer their magic to this combined being. And neither of them were lacking when it came to magic.
Even at fourteen, Potter had enough power to put 80% of full-grown wizards and witches to shame when it came to his power. Riddle, on the other hand, was already in the top 2% of what this world had to offer when it came to magic by the time he made his first horcrux, but that wasn't what he had offered. I took everything from Riddle from before he made the horcrux in terms of knowledge, but I took the sliver of magic he had left to guard the horcrux, and that was magic from a fully-realized Dark Lord at the height of his powers.
Considering he had lost his entire physical form and needed years to recover enough to become anything close to a threat, it was more than likely that he had left all—or at least a substantial amount of—magic behind. My guess was somewhere around 50%. So, long story short, I had magic to spare. Even when I had gone through the second task, the only time I'd been tired was after being drained by the dream eater, and from what I had found out, most people didn't survive more than a minute under the thing. I'd gone for a few, and then still had enough magic to finish the rest of the task on my own terms.
So that was the power that Volkov had so arrogantly called out. And he was going to feel it today. I sent piercing hexes, each one the size of my head where they could have been the size of bullets with regular amounts of magic channeled into them. He rolled to the side, avoiding the spells wholesale. He countered with a barrage of spells of his own. I slashed my wand through the air, bringing my magic to bear.
The shield practically shook the air with the power that had gone into its formation. None of his spells even managed to so much as pressure it. He ripped up even more rubble in my direction. I banished it straight back at him. His shield allowed him to avoid most of them, even as some of the rubble proved too fast and peppered his frame.
"Confringo," I muttered, sweeping my wand from left to right. I sent two blasting curses, each one hissing in the air as they flew. The first one hit the shield with so much force that he was forced to take a step backwards. The second shattered it and sent him flying straight into the water.
He hadn't gone past the boundary yet. Usually, I would just threaten to electrocute the water, and that would be that. If he had any sense, he'd yield, and if he didn't, he'd be in for a shocking situation. But no. He had asked to see my power, yes. I was determined not to disappoint him today. Even without his awareness, he had gotten a promise from me to show him my best, and I did not go back on my word. I pointed my wand at the water even as he swam his way towards one of the platforms. A wave rose in front of him, carrying him and then slapping him back into the water. The water churned, forming an orb out of the mini-river we were fighting in the middle of.
And then the river rose, my opponent held in the middle. He'd managed a bubblehead charm at some point, and so he was in no danger of drowning as I lifted him out of the water in the center of the orb. I looked over at the referee. He didn't seem keen on ending the duel even if there was no chance of Volkov escaping. I sighed before breathing out.
"Glacius," I muttered, channeling the stillness that was ice into the water, commanding the molecules to arrest their momentum. It froze from the outside in. Everything but a small ball within the ball of water froze. Volkov was the one in the smaller orb, and I watched him as he shivered uncontrollably. The water in there wasn't cold enough to turn to ice, but it was close enough that the difference was just a few degrees.
He shivered almost uncontrollably. He tried waving his wand to cast some sort of heating charm, but the water was mine. I locked a tendril around his wrist, preventing him from moving. The ice was perfectly clear, so he could see my deadpan expression. There was no reason for him to waste my time any further, and still, he did not move.
Well… The tendril around his wrist snapped it in a single, savage movement. He screamed, but between the bubblehead charm and the water and the ice, there was no way for us to know. I commanded the orb to float forwards, coming towards me until it came to a stop, and then with a flex of my power, the ice shattered, the water fell, and Volkov fell to the ground. His wand, released when I had snapped his wrist, flew over to me.
"Winner: Potter," the referee said. And wasn't that just a sound I loved to hear. Almost as much as the screaming of the crowds as I became the second person to make it to the finals. Harry Potter vs. Ifeoma Okonkwo, the screen flashed to display both our names and our pictures.
"And so the finals are set. This is going to be one for the history books, ladies and gentlemen. Harry Potter of Great Britain will face Ifeoma Okonkwo of Uganda to determine who will rise as the Under-17 Dueling Champion," I heard Russo's voice ring out.
—
I entered the room to find a Goblin practically barking at Sirius while my godfather reacted with nothing but amusement as they spoke. "You cheating, lying wizard," he snarled.
"You were more than happy to take my money knowing who I was," Sirius said, staring straight at them.
"We can offer your initial stake plus a significant bonus. Risk-free." The goblin's lips curled.
"How significant?" Sirius asked.
"100%."
"Doubling my money? How kind of you. But then again, if I keep my bet going, what's the possible windfall coming my way?"
"There is no guarantee that the boy will win the duel. We are offering you a good deal here," he said with audible menace.
"A goblin? Offering a good deal? Harry, please look outside and tell me if pigs are flying," Sirius chortled. He was lucky the goblin was unarmed. I was almost certain the thing would have stabbed a blade into his neck by now if he had one. Unarmed or not, I slipped my wand into my hand and watched the proceedings with a careful eye. It seemed Sirius's bet had been with the goblins. Ugh. What an infuriating man.
The goblin envoy clearly agreed, as his skin was nearly red as he stomped out of the room.
"You never told me you placed your bet with the goblins," I said, looking at him.
"Well, I never intended to. You see, I was going to do things all fit and proper like, you know? Place the bet at the official bookmakers. So I did. But then they had a limit of a thousand galleons. One of the goblins must have overheard me being forced to bring down my bet, and so they came to me with an offer. I place my bet with them, and they guarantee it for any amount I stake," he said.
"You said it was a sizable sum last time. Sirius, I think I need you to be more specific now. How much did you bet with the goblins?"
"Thirty thousand galleons," he said.
"Lovely. And what were the odds?" I tried not to say anything about how much he had staked here. In truth, I'd probably have wanted to get in on the action, but the tournament had strict rules about that.
"Considering I was placing my bet before the tournament even started, and on a contestant that had never dueled competitively before, and on top of that happened to be younger than all the other contestants? They gave me 50-to-1 odds," he said. I whistled once I finished the math.
"Well, I can see why they're pissed. Are you sure they'll pay, though?"
"Most definitely. They're not exactly from one of the bigger clans, so they were all too willing to take the risk, but even the middling goblins have some serious gold on them. They'd probably have to liquidate an investment or two, but they can definitely afford it."
"I didn't ask if they had 1.5 million galleons to give you, Sirius. I asked if they would. Two different questions, no?"
"Are you surprised that I just happened to place a bet with goblins who walked up to me with an offer? Shouldn't I have been more careful? Done more investigation? Made sure they could pay?"
"Yes on all accounts, Sirius. Yes on all."
"And yet, I didn't. Because while Goblins are known to be greedy bastards, everyone expects them to keep their word…" he said meaningfully. Okay, I could see where he was going now.
"So if they don't pay you, all you have to do is raise a stink about it, and then they lose reputation points."
"Even worse. Not all the goblins are related. Just like wizards have different families and nations, Goblins have different Clans and Tribes. The thing is that wizards look down on them, so most people don't know this. The goblins are fine with this misconception because it means trust earned in another country carries over worldwide. But what happens to that trust if word spreads of goblins refusing to honour a bet? The other clans would waste no time in finding the erring goblin and using them as an example. And then when that happens, they'll still see to it that I get my money," he said.
"Well, someone's thought this through."
"Yeah, well, they've been trying to buy me out of my bet since before the quarterfinals. That's their best offer yet, but something tells me they'll come back with a much-improved one by tonight."
"Will you take it?"
"Hell no. I'll be taking all my gold, baby. On that note, do be careful about what you eat or drink. They have no compunctions about cheating to get ahead of a bet. Especially if I can't prove they did it."
"So you think they'd poison me?"
"Maybe. Or they'd simply add something to your food to make you fail the medicals tomorrow before the duel. If you get disqualified for doping, they win, after all."
"I'm starting to think that this bet of yours wasn't worth the trouble," I said.
"Look around. That bet of mine is going to pay for all this and then still have enough left over for us to get you all new robes," he said.
"I have no issue buying my robes myself," I sniffed.
"I've seen the bills, and I've seen your accounts. If you keep running through them at present rates, you'd be poor as a Weasley by the time you turn twenty," he said.
"I'm sure I'd have found something to do by then. But back to the issue, you think the goblins will come back with an improved offer which you are then going to reject, and then they'll try to fix the outcome of the duels themselves?" I asked, getting a nod in return. Of course. That was just fucking perfect.
— XXXXXX—
I watched her from across the room. Watched her out of the corner of my eyes while I kept Sirius in my sights with the rest of my attention. He was certain that the goblins' way of cheating would involve trying to change the outcome of the duel by messing with me, and while that was a possibility, I gauged their chances of success to be middling at best. There was another possibility he hadn't considered. While they wouldn't kill him once they had a debt to pay him for fear of the reputational damage, there was a chance they would do it now before any debt became due.
It would be much harder to trace things to them if they removed him before he won the bet. So I watched him as he walked from table to table. I reached out to a passing tray and picked a flute off it. Tapping my wand against it assured me it had not been altered in any way, so I took a sip as I walked out of the corner and towards my quarry.
This was the Finalists' Banquet, so no Cece or Angel. This was probably a chance for the sponsors to get to meet those who would be dueling the next day. The kind of exclusive access that people paid good money for, I knew. Julian Russo, if he had been the one to put this all together, had to be a man of considerable intellect or expertise.
Everything about the tournament had basically gone without a hitch. And from the number of people I was seeing in this hall, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the Ministry had made a massive amount of gold from this, even despite the considerable investments that had gone into raising a town from the ground and creating a stadium better than any that most people had ever seen before. It was the kind of event that someone could decree as their magnum opus and not be judged for doing so. It was just that good. And from what I could tell, Russo was still looking into moving upwards.
Why else would he be schmoozing and making himself available to all these people? She was surrounded, I noted as I got closer to her. Well, that would have to be fixed. I waved my wand, creating a smaller-scale version of my earlier aversion ward. I was probably going to get a reputation for using these by the time this was over, but I was sure they'd care more about the fact that I won than about any perceived rudeness. Okonkwo smiled happily, allowing people to excuse themselves. I leaned against the nearest pillar, sipping my wine.
My assessment of her turned out to be accurate. She hadn't even reacted to the aversion ward going up. When the last had left, a man and a woman who nodded in my direction before they did so, she turned to me with a smile on her face.
"You're quite rude," she said, her voice having a musical tilt to it. I scoffed.
"Just not interested in wasting my time with this lot. What makes them special? Gold? What value is gold when we wield magic that can bend reality to our wills as we wish?" I said.
"Well, you underestimate them. Mr. and Mrs. Mafell didn't seem all too bothered by your little ward here, and they didn't fail to see through whatever charm you've got up that's only letting me see you out of the corner of my eyes," she said, her lips quirked.
"Oh, I'm sorry about that. Forgot I had it up, even. Well, that's all good for them. Probably some enchanted object made by a far greater wizard," I said, twisting my wand to disable the minor illusion.
"Do you have a hatred for gold? That would be hypocritical, would it not?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, and before she spoke, she stepped into my space, trapping part of my robes between her fingers and feeling it.
"I might not be from around here, but even I can tell that these are expensive. Most of the sponsors are wearing robes made of this same material, except while those are cut in a way that makes it clear they are intended for special occasions, you even duel in yours," she said.
"I don't have anything against gold itself. We live in a world of magic, so how could gold be your primary concern? There's a million things you could be doing, questions you could be answering, things you could be learning. I don't like them because they already won this game. They're some of the richest people in the world, and what do they do with it? They sit atop their mountains of gold, attending galas and banquets like this every other week or so, so they can laugh with each other about how much gold they have while doing nothing useful with it." I took a breath. I had lived my first life forced to cater to and understand people like this.
"I dislike them because they are wasted potential—not worth your time or mine," I said finally.
"I disagree. That gold you scorn would go towards hiring enchanters to help make new greenhouses for my people, to hire storm tamers to prevent the rainy season storms this year that run over our farms, and maybe even professional beast hunters to get rid of the worst of the creatures that call my part of the world home. You, Harry Potter, can scorn gold because you have it in large amounts. I cannot. And that is why I must win tomorrow. I do it not for myself as you do, but for a whole village that stands behind me. Now, if you would excuse me, I have to go speak to those people you despise."
"You're begging them for gold?" My incredulity slipped into my voice.
"Most definitely. I don't have it, they do."
A/N: Like he says, our verison of Doom spent a whole life playing these games. Now he just wants to prove he is better with a wand in hand and a curse on his lips. Some characterisation of Okonkwo here. While yes, her people do have magic of their own, African magic is far less structured than the Western equivalents. That makes them stronger in some things, but weaker in others. And in this case, she hails from a village with few skilled magic users and little to trade to get more skilled users to help them. So she comes here to get the gold and connections to help their situation.. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.