Year Two — Chapter 8: The Ritual Duel
The challenge came at night. Not in the open yard, but whispered in corridors, carried by torchlight and silence.
Mikhail Vostrikov, a fifth-year known for dabbling in rituals best left buried, had tired of hearing Ivar's name. He invited him — no, dared him — into the ritual chamber, with half the dormitory gathered at the door to watch.
"You pretend at inevitability," Mikhail sneered, his pale eyes sharp as glass. "But power borrowed is still borrowed. Show us what is truly yours."
Ivar stepped into the circle calmly, wand in hand. "Good evening," he said softly, Parseltongue curling like smoke. "Let's begin."
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The Duel
Mikhail's runes flared first — jagged, violent, drawn in blood. He called fire and shadow in a clash of opposites, hurling them in a storm meant to overwhelm.
Ivar didn't block. He rewrote. His wand cut the air, reshaping Mikhail's runes mid-flight, twisting them into forms unrecognizable. Flames coiled, shadows bent. Then he added his own voice — three languages layered at once.
Latin: structure.
Norse: weight.
Parseltongue: resonance.
And then he threaded it with what only he carried — Helheim hellfire and the Peverell's death-aura.
The result was monstrous and beautiful: a serpent of green-black fire that moved like it lived, each scale shimmering with the cold weight of death. It struck not at Mikhail but around him, binding without burning, a coil of inevitability.
The older boy froze, wand slipping from his fingers. The chamber itself groaned under the weight of the magic. Students at the doorway gasped, some stumbling back, others unable to look away.
Ivar lowered his wand. The serpent dissolved into ash and silence.
"You borrowed," he told Mikhail, calm as ever. "I inherited."
The duel was over.
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Aftermath at Durmstrang
By morning, the whispers had become wildfire. He bent another's ritual. He summoned fire that carried death itself.
Some called him monster.
Others called him leader.
But none dared challenge him again.
Jannik grinned over breakfast. "You're terrifying, you know that?"
"Good," Ivar said. "It saves time."
Klara only nodded. "And it means no one dares to touch us, either."
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Britain's Echo
Word traveled fast. By spring, even the Ministry had heard of the "ritual duel in the north." Details twisted in the telling — some said he had summoned a basilisk of flame, others that he had raised the dead — but all agreed: the Black heir was becoming something no school could contain.
At Malfoy Manor, Lucius read the accounts and tapped his cane against the floor, frowning. "Too fast," he muttered. "The boy is climbing too fast."
Narcissa, standing at the window, spoke softly. "Would you rather he crawl?"
In Hogwarts, Dumbledore studied reports of the duel with a furrowed brow. "Hellfire and death's shadow," he murmured. "And he is but twelve. If Harry Potter is the prophecy's child, he will not walk alone into destiny. He will walk beside a rival — or an enemy."
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Alone
That night, Ivar sat again in the ritual chamber, silence heavy around him. His wand pulsed faintly in his grip.
"They whisper of me in Britain now," he said into the stone.
The shadows stirred. The chamber whispered back: Not whisper. Fear.
Ivar smiled faintly. "Good."
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⚡ End of Chapter 8
Would you like Chapter 9 to show the professors formally declaring Ivar has "graduated out" of several subjects, elevating him to a near-peer — or to focus on the growing perception among students that he is less a classmate and more a commander, someone they instinctively follow?