"There really is a Duelling Club!" Ron clapped his hands happily. Hermione and Harry, however, both looked incredibly thoughtful.
Professor Hamilton didn't seem like she would be very good at dueling. Hermione had spent hours searching through the Hogwarts library and hadn't found a single mention of her. Consequently, she was not optimistic about Professor Hamilton's chances.
She subconsciously assumed Professor Hamilton would lose to Lockhart.
Harry's view was the exact opposite. He vividly remembered her performance when he encountered her in Knockturn Alley. Not only did she effortlessly evade the Killing Curse, but she also took down a dark wizard in an instant.
He didn't think Lockhart possessed that kind of ability, despite all the grand tales he had heard over the past few days.
"Who do you think will win?" Ron asked at just the right moment. "Professor Hamilton or Lockhart?"
"Professor Hamilton!"
"Professor Lockhart!"
Harry and Hermione shouted their answers simultaneously.
"Professor Lockhart is an incredibly experienced wizard," Hermione argued, raising a challenging eyebrow. "Harry, you might not know this, but he once defeated a dozen trolls all by himself."
"He even tamed a wild dragon!"
"That's just what he wrote in his own books," Harry argued, shaking his head dismissively. "I saw Professor Hamilton fight with my own eyes."
"You didn't actually see the end of the fight," Hermione corrected him primly. "Weren't you temporarily dazed by the Killing Curse?"
"But when I recovered, that dark wizard was already knocked out!"
Listening to the two of them suddenly start arguing, Ron laughed. "Why don't you two make a bet?"
"Whoever loses has to treat the other person—and me—to snacks from Honeydukes."
"Why are you included in the winnings?" Harry and Hermione glared at Ron at the exact same time. "Who do you support, anyway?"
"Ah... I don't support anyone," Ron stammered, shrinking his neck down into his robes. "One is Lockhart... and the other is..." He glanced up at Lyla with a look of pure terror.
Clearly, the memory of her accidentally broadcasting the Killing Curse was going to stay with him for quite some time.
The professors on the stage naturally had no idea what the students were whispering about. Lyla, in particular, was currently standing on the platform with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
She was incredibly nervous. Although she had won two dueling championships at Durmstrang Institute, she hadn't been participating as a Professor back then!
If she lost a match as a student, it wasn't embarrassing... but she was a Hogwarts Professor now!
'If I lose too badly, wouldn't it... wouldn't it look terrible?'
Lyla gripped her wand tightly and slowly stepped into position, standing back-to-back with Lockhart. The famous wizard was a full head taller than her; the top of Lyla's head barely reached his shoulder.
'Phew... deep breath... deep breath...' Lyla took a few shallow breaths and forced her eyes open. She gripped her wand tightly, listened to Lockhart's command, walked a few steps forward, and then spun around.
Facing Lockhart's confident, smiling face, Lyla felt a sudden wave of calm wash over her.
'It's just a wizard's duel...' she reminded herself. 'Just like Muller always said: When facing an enemy, as long as you give it one hundred percent, it doesn't matter even if you lose.'
'Oh right... I absolutely cannot use the Dark Arts here at Hogwarts, can I?' Lyla pursed her lips beneath her mask, reminding herself not to accidentally cast any dark magic and cause unnecessary trouble for herself.
"I yield the floor to you, Professor Hamilton," Lockhart said with a highly exaggerated flourish, sweeping his robes back and bowing deeply.
Lyla pursed her lips and offered a stiff, silent bow in return.
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
"Begin!"
As Lockhart shouted the command, Lyla raised her wand. In that instant, time seemed to slow down to a crawl around her.
'What spell will Mr. Lockhart use? A Fiendfyre Curse or a Blasting Curse?' she wondered frantically. 'Ah... this is Hogwarts... so it should just be Expelliarmus, right?'
His arm movement was incredibly slow, far slower than many of the students Lyla had observed in class... but she didn't relax. Instead, she gripped her wand even tighter.
Believing herself to be the weaker duelist, she prepared to dodge Mr. Lockhart's opening spell and then counterattack the moment an opportunity arose. Launching a preemptive strike was, after all, a surefire way to expose one's own weaknesses.
But... Mr. Lockhart's wand movements were just too slow. Lyla felt she could easily cast three or four spells in the time it took him to simply raise his arm. He hadn't even completed the starting motion for his spell!
'Is this a genuine weakness? Or is he deliberately revealing a flaw to lure me into a trap?'
Lyla couldn't make up her mind, so she simply held her wand at the ready, watching Lockhart intently.
"Expelliarmus!"
Finally, Lockhart flicked his wrist and cast his spell. It was a very thin, weak beam of magic, perhaps only as thick as a finger.
'But it's so much faster and more covert because of that... Mr. Lockhart truly is amazing!'
'Then I can't afford to show any weakness either!'
Buzz!
Whoosh!
A silver spell streaked through the air, passing cleanly through the black-robed figure, only to shatter it like an illusion. In the very next flicker of the Great Hall's candlelight—or perhaps in the blink of an eye—the black figure completely reformed directly in front of Lockhart.
The first thing to materialize was a wand. A silver wand that was pressed firmly against Lockhart's throat.
'Huh? Was that too fast?'
Every single student in the Great Hall widened their eyes, watching the impossible scene unfold in shock.
From their perspective, Professor Lockhart had dramatically waved his wand to cast Expelliarmus, and then Professor Hamilton had simply vanished from her spot in an instant.
The very next second, she was already standing there, holding her wand directly against Lockhart's throat.
The entire duel had probably lasted little more than a second.
But in just over a single second... Professor Hamilton had definitively won.
Nobody could believe a duel could end so quickly. Lockhart stood there completely bewildered, his outstretched wand not yet retracted. Lyla was equally surprised.
She pursed her lips and stared at Lockhart, unsure if she should cast another spell. Originally, she had fully expected Mr. Lockhart to immediately use a Shield Charm or Apparate away to create distance.
She had even prepared to cast Stupefy the instant he moved... but Mr. Lockhart hadn't moved an inch. He simply stood perfectly still, as if he had been waiting for her to magically appear in front of him and raise her wand.
'Did Mr. Lockhart go easy on me?'
That was Lyla's first genuine reaction.
The Great Hall was dead silent. After a few brief moments of quiet, only Luna Lovegood began to clap cheerfully.
"Ah... Hahaha..." After a few agonizingly suffocating seconds, Lockhart let out an incredibly awkward laugh. "Professor Hamilton is truly amazing."
He forced a smile, waving his hand and raising his wand in surrender. "I lost."
"Ah..." Lyla slowly lowered her wand, feeling completely bewildered. She didn't snap out of her daze until Lockhart physically grabbed her hand and raised it in the air to declare her victory.
'Mr. Lockhart, you definitely went easy on me, didn't you?' Lyla looked up at him, seeing the same charming smile as before, only it looked significantly paler now.
"Well done, Professor Hamilton," Lockhart continued loudly. "You successfully demonstrated the most vital essential of wizarding dueling to the students."
"And that is to always keep moving!" he declared, looking down at the shocked students. "Now, everyone, please don't be surprised."
"This was simply a pre-arranged, incorrect demonstration between Professor Hamilton and myself."
'This... is that so?'
Lyla's face was a mask of pure confusion beneath her silver disguise. 'How did I not know about this?'
'Or... did Mr. Lockhart actually give me a subtle hint before the duel started, and I was just too nervous to notice it?'
While Lyla was still trying to recover her wits, Lockhart had already started calling pairs of young wizards up to the stage to practice.
In a way, Mr. Lockhart's use of the "Confundus Charm" on the entire student body was performed with uncanny skill.