#815 - Duel Club

More than half a month passed in the blink of an eye, amidst a snow-covered pine forest in central Sweden.

Anduin took out a Nordic map from his pocket, carefully located his current position on it, and marked it.

At the same time, besides the mark he had just made, there were many scattered marks on the map.

Clearly, Anduin's gains during this period were not small; these marks should all be traces of Slytherin's past stops.

However, despite obtaining quite a few clues, Anduin now wore an extremely conflicted expression.

The reason for this was ultimately due to the awkward sense of direction and time perception of the Serpentwood wand…

During Anduin's search, he marked every place that Serpentwood remembered Slytherin had stopped on the map.

And after this period of carpet searching, he had indeed obtained a large amount of information, as could be seen from the dense marks on the map.

Logically speaking, this was indeed a great progress, at least proving that Slytherin had indeed stayed in Northern Europe for a long time back then.

And through these marks, it was possible to roughly depict Slytherin's movement trajectory.

But the problem was that these marked points had no chronological order at all.

In other words, Anduin had no way of judging where Slytherin had arrived first, or in which direction he was moving.

He couldn't even figure out whether these marked points were left behind during Slytherin's first or subsequent trips to Northern Europe.

So the more he searched, the more clues he got, and the greater the interference it caused to Anduin.

Now, from the map, he could only roughly judge that Slytherin had stayed in Norway and Sweden for a period of time.

The other party seemed to have landed on the southern coast of Norway, then moved up along the coastline, and when he came to central Norway, he suddenly turned right and wandered around in central Sweden for a while, but then went straight up again, coming to the northern coast of Norway where he was now.

But this was just Anduin's speculation based on experience; it was also possible that the route was reversed in order, and of course, it was also possible that this route was wrong from the beginning, and it was also possible that it was the result of the other party entering and leaving Northern Europe multiple times.

“If we look at it from a normal logical point of view, Slytherin's next destination may be in two directions, one is to move towards Finland from the northern coast, and then either go south into the Finnish interior, or go east into Russia.”

Anduin stared at the map in his hand and muttered to himself.

“But the other party may also go north into the Arctic Ocean, and then either go to Greenland or directly into the Arctic.”

“Of course, all of this may be wrong, maybe people landed in northern Norway and then went south.”

Considering all the possibilities, Anduin couldn't help but shake his head helplessly, “It seems that there is no way to track down Slytherin's final destination in the short term, but what can be determined is that at least during this period in Northern Europe, Slytherin did not encounter any accidents, at least from the information given by Serpentwood.”

“That is to say, the place where Slytherin encountered Herpo was either in the east or in the north, and of course there is a small probability that it was in the south, but that area has entered the central area of ​​Europe, so the possibility is small.”

Anduin sorted out his thoughts in his mind, and then sighed again, “It seems that it is impossible to lock down Herpo's range of activities in the short term. Let's go back to Hogwarts first. The next search will be more efficient with both Serpentwood and the magic net.”

At this time, more than two weeks had passed since he returned to Europe, which meant that the Christmas holiday at Hogwarts had long ended, and even several days of classes had passed.

If Anduin continued to stay in Northern Europe, the school would definitely have opinions, and he still had a large number of experiments to continue at the school.

However, Anduin didn't intend to give up on tracking down Herpo. He planned to speed up the deployment of the magic net in Northern Europe as soon as possible. After all the communicators with detection backdoors were released, he would use local wizards to conduct reconnaissance.

Even if he couldn't collect intelligence from the locals, it didn't matter, because confirming that Herpo was not in Northern Europe was also very important information, so this was equivalent to letting them help troubleshoot.

At the same time, when he had time, Anduin would continue to follow the clues provided by Serpentwood to trace Slytherin's past footprints.

Thinking of this, Anduin carefully put away the map and took out the Serpentwood wand.

“The search for fear is coming to an end for the time being, what are your plans?”

Anduin didn't intend to take this wand, which once belonged to Slytherin, for his own. His Dark Arts was his most tacit partner, so no matter how well they matched, he wouldn't let Serpentwood follow him. Now, the two of them could only be considered as partners at most.

Moreover, it was after all a relic of the founder of Hogwarts. As a wizard from Slytherin, Anduin felt that he had an obligation to find a new home for it.

But this also depended on Serpentwood's wishes. If the other party was unwilling to cooperate with other wizards, then it could stay with Anduin and accept his support, or rather, maintenance.

Of course, if Serpentwood was willing, it could stay at Hogwarts and accept everyone's admiration, or it could be replanted as a tree.

“Fellow traveler!” Serpentwood seemed to enjoy working with Anduin very much, so it replied without even thinking.

“Sorry, I have my own wand. You can follow me all the time, but I can't use you to cast spells often.” Anduin honestly revealed his cards to Serpentwood.

“Heir!” After understanding Anduin's meaning, Serpentwood didn't struggle too much, after all, it wasn't particularly rich in emotions.

Want to follow the heir?

Anduin nodded secretly, but quickly became entangled again, because as far as he knew, the only direct descendant of Slytherin was Voldemort.

But he couldn't entrust Serpentwood to that psychopath, what if the other party used Serpentwood to deal with him in turn?

So after thinking about it, Anduin could only reply, “Understood, I will introduce him to you when I find a suitable heir, but before solving the fear, you should stay with me first.”

“No problem!” Serpentwood showed a very straightforward attitude, even a bit indifferent. After all, it hadn't existed as a wizard's wand for hundreds of years, so it wasn't in a hurry at all.

After understanding Serpentwood's wishes, Anduin carefully put it away, and then returned to England through the portkey.

It was already night when he returned to Hogwarts, but what Anduin found strange was that he couldn't see many people in the corridor. It was clearly still early before curfew.

After grabbing a few young wizards and asking, he learned that the school had posted a notice today about opening a dueling club, and most of the young wizards were basically gathered in the Great Hall now.

Anduin felt very strange when he heard this news. With the atmosphere of total war and the level of proficiency in combat magic that Hogwarts had before, someone actually dared to open a dueling club?

Wasn't he afraid of causing trouble?

You know, Anduin only dared to let the young wizards sweat in the dungeon. If these bear children were allowed to cast spells randomly outside, especially in the castle, those students who didn't know the severity would probably cause big trouble.

For a moment, Anduin suddenly became very curious about the professor who advocated opening the club.

Could it be Professor Flitwick? It seems that he is the only one who is more interested in dueling.

Thinking of this, driven by curiosity, Anduin also moved to the Great Hall.

And after seeing the situation inside clearly, Anduin suddenly realized, it turned out that Lockhart did it, then it was no wonder.

At this time, Lockhart, who had changed into a gorgeous dueling uniform, was standing on a high table decorated as a dueling platform, talking eloquently.

However, Lockhart was not introducing any dueling skills, but was boasting about his glorious past adventures, while posing in what he thought was a handsome pose.

Most of the young wizards under the stage had an impatient expression while listening to Lockhart's narration, and a few girls were listening with great interest.

Anduin looked around, and then found Snape hiding on the periphery. Seeing this, he immediately quietly leaned over.

Snape also noticed him at this time, and immediately complained after he approached, “Did you know to come back, you guy? The second half of the semester has already started for several days!”

“Hehe…” Anduin lowered his voice and chuckled twice, “Don't worry, I have arranged all the courses at the school. Even if I'm not here, the students won't fall behind.”

“Is your so-called arrangement to hand over tactical training to a dog to teach?” Snape rolled his eyes, “I have received more than one complaint these days saying that Hogg insulted people verbally during class. I really don't know what you were thinking.”

“There's no way, someone always has to keep an eye on the courses.” Anduin敷衍 with a casual sentence, and then looked at Lockhart in the center of the Great Hall, “What's going on with him, why did he create a dueling club?”

“Isn't this all because of you!” Snape lowered his voice especially when he said this, “The matter of the Chamber of Secrets has already spread in the school.”

“In addition, a young wizard was also attacked and petrified a few days ago, plus McGonagall's overt and covert publicity during this period, now the students not only deeply believe in this, but are also made panic-stricken.”

“And at this time, the worry-free Lockhart naturally jumped out to join in the fun. In my opinion, his so-called dueling club is purely to show off, probably because he is jealous that your dungeon is too popular.”

Snape roughly recounted what had happened recently.

“But with the students' current strength, it would be too dangerous to let them use self-defense spells in the school. You must know that they are not wearing tactical suits now!”

Anduin looked at Snape with some hesitation, “How could you agree to such a thing?”

“Hmph, it's good to let these little ghosts suffer!” Snape curled his lips indifferently, “With me watching on the spot, I won't let them have any big problems, and this has also been approved by Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall.”

“Professor McGonagall, are you sure?”

Anduin could understand Dumbledore's agreement, after all, that old guy doesn't do anything serious all day long, but is that strict and conservative Professor McGonagall willing to take this risk?

“Hehe.” Snape seemed to find this matter very interesting, and couldn't help but smile, “I found that ever since the Chamber of Secrets incident came out, Professor McGonagall has become like a different person, and her mentality is much worse than before.”

“It seems that your experience in the past half month has been very interesting…”

Anduin also discovered that Snape and McGonagall seemed to be having a lot of fun. One was thinking about pranks, and the other was thinking about teaching the young wizards a lesson. Sure enough, there is no lack of bad tastes at any age.

Just as the two were whispering, Lockhart on the long table greeted Snape over here. It turned out that he was preparing to conduct a practical exercise, and the young wizards who turned their heads also discovered Anduin who had returned to school.

“Ah… Anduin, you're finally back.” Lockhart greeted Anduin diligently, “Would you like to join me and demonstrate to everyone how to conduct a wizard duel? Of course, if you haven't tried this sport, I'm willing to demonstrate it again for you.”

“Professor Wilson is the champion of the most recent National Wizard Dueling Competition, don't you know that?”

Ginny rolled her eyes at Lockhart from under the stage. She now felt that this new professor was more and more incompetent, both in terms of knowledge and practical skills.

“Uh… haha, I was just joking with Anduin when I saw him returning to school. Of course I know his dueling strength.”

Lockhart laughed awkwardly twice, then skipped Anduin and re-invited Snape to the stage to cooperate with him in the demonstration.

But with Lockhart's level, how could he be Snape's opponent? Almost as soon as the two finished their salutes, Lockhart was blown away by a blasting curse.

However, he didn't care about making a fool of himself, just said a few nice words to敷衍.

Afterwards, Lockhart began to recruit volunteers for further demonstrations.

Soon, Harry and Ron, who were selected as volunteers, stood on the dueling platform, and at this time Lockhart was still enthusiastically telling everyone about the precautions in the duel.

But when Harry and Ron started to officially fight, he saw what was outrageous.

As soon as the countdown of three was over, Ron was seen shaking his wand, conjuring two ice blades in front of him, and rushing towards Harry.

Faced with the attacking Ice Blade Incantation, Harry reacted very quickly, directly shooting out an [Arc Lightning] that he had just learned recently to shatter the ice blade.

Then the two showed everyone what a battle between wizards was like. Various lightning, flames, and impact bullets flew around in the air.

At the same time, their parries and dodges were also exceptionally timely. In just less than ten seconds after the start of the battle, the two sides had exchanged several rounds.

And the real trouble was that although they were having a great time fighting, the escaped and missed spells, as well as the spells that were parried and spread out, became the real trouble in the hall.