You're a wizard, not a berserker!
Adrian winced at the sight, but he knew Irene was nothing like Professor Quirrell, who'd been weak and stayed in one place. She wouldn't just stand there and take hits. Moving around during battle was normal for her.
So the first thing he needed to do was limit her movement.
The purple flame barrier in front of her lost control and slowly faded. As Irene steadied herself, more dummies had already activated. Adrian shamelessly hid behind several of them, using them as shields while controlling the others to attack from the front, left, and right.
Maybe feeling that this offensive wasn't strong enough, Adrian decided to block Irene's only escape route. He waved his wand and pointed at the square wooden tables behind her.
"Accio tables!"
Under the pull of magic, several wooden tables rolled and flew toward Adrian's position, with Irene caught right in the middle.
The tables weren't small. Even the purple flame barrier from before couldn't have burned them easily.
Adrian figured that even if Irene won, she should at least be flustered. But instead, she started laughing, a sound that actually scared him a little.
"Confringo!"
Irene's voice rang out across the practice room. She pointed her wand, and orange flames ignited, crashing into the flying tables.
On contact, several tables exploded into pieces with a loud bang, then got swallowed by flames.
Sawdust and ash drifted down from above, dimming the light from the magical lamps. The entire practice room was covered in gray haze. A dark ghostly fire rose in the middle, but when Adrian looked closer, he realized it wasn't ghost fire at all. It was a small cluster of Fiendfyre!
The activated dummy that rushed forward was instantly burned to ash. Adrian swallowed hard. Fortunately, the cursed fire quickly disappeared. He wasn't sure if Irene couldn't maintain it or if she was just afraid of burning him alive.
"Ventus!"
A violent wind blew through the training area, sweeping away the floating sawdust. Irene's expression was somewhere between a smile and not, the magic patterns on her rings flashing faintly as she walked toward Adrian step by step.
What followed was a storm of dazzling magical light.
Blue was the Stunning Spell. Purple was some kind of fear curse. The black-gray one Adrian didn't recognize, but getting hit by it definitely wouldn't end well.
Adrian struggled to construct magical barriers in front of himself, but the various spells came too fast. The barriers he'd just built got torn to pieces in less than a second.
The available obstacles and debris around him had been smashed in the first few rounds. Now, besides him and Irene, the practice room contained nothing but wreckage.
The activated dummies around him took a few more hits and collapsed to the ground.
Adrian even wondered if Irene needed to say incantations at all. How had she trained such inhuman casting speed?
After resisting for a while longer, Adrian finally noticed the abnormality in Irene's right-hand glove and the magical glow flowing across her rings.
You're cheating!
Adrian almost shouted it out loud, but while distracted, he didn't check properly. A black light hit him. The reflective barrier built by the Protego charm flashed briefly, bouncing the light back toward Irene before breaking and disappearing.
Irene barely glanced at it. The black light extinguished automatically before getting close to her, while the badge on her wizard robes gradually dimmed and developed a crack.
"Expelliarmus!" Irene didn't give Adrian the slightest chance. After breaking through his Shield Charm, the Disarming Spell followed immediately.
Having lost his last protection, Adrian instinctively almost spent grade points to activate the experience card and use the Unicorn's Shadow. But in the end, he held back. After all, this wasn't a real battle. It wasn't worth the cost.
After that moment of hesitation, the wand in Adrian's hand flew high and landed in Irene's grasp.
Irene reached out to catch it, then pointed her wand at Adrian again.
"Levicorpus—"
"Wait... I surrender!" Adrian raised his hands without hesitation, but it didn't work. His body quickly turned upside down under the effect of magic, leaving Adrian staring at nothing but Irene's legs.
"In a real battle, enemies won't let you go just because you surrender," Irene said, crouching down and tapping Adrian's forehead with her wand.
After delivering that lesson, Irene waved her wand and put Adrian down.
"I've never seen anyone use that many magical items in ordinary combat practice. You were cheating," Adrian said as he got up from the ground, feeling defeated.
After fighting for so long, he could obviously see that during the battle, Irene had relied on blessings from numerous magical items to achieve overwhelming strength.
"Magical items are part of a wizard's power too!"
Irene spoke the words like a lesson, but her heart was bleeding. Many of the magical items she'd used before were one-time enchantments, difficult to repair after being destroyed.
Reproducing them would take enormous energy and a lot of Galleons.
She could only say that Adrian's strength had truly exceeded her expectations. To preserve her dignity as a mother and not be embarrassed in battle, she'd had no choice but to burn money.
___
After Adrian got his wand back, he thought over the previous battle. He had to admit that Irene's strength was incredible.
Even at the beginning when she'd stayed on the defensive, she'd easily defused his attacks. When she'd gone on the offensive later, all he could do was barely defend himself.
Adrian figured that even if he used blood magic, he couldn't be sure of winning. Irene obviously hadn't used her full strength just now, many destructive spells couldn't be used in practice battles.
Thinking about this made Adrian feel somewhat disappointed, and Irene naturally noticed. She said with a smile, "What, you won't be satisfied until you beat me?"
Adrian shook his head frantically when he saw Irene's smiling face. He didn't want to experience being hung in the air again.
"So can I learn the Patronus Charm now?" Adrian didn't forget the purpose of this battle and hurried to ask.
Irene reached out to straighten Adrian's clothes, which had gotten messy during the fight, then asked him to cast the Patronus Charm once. She wanted to see what she'd need to teach.
"Expecto Patronum!" Adrian waved his wand, and white mist poured from its tip, gathering more and more around the two of them. Faintly, they could hear a unicorn's neigh.
A feeling of tranquility and peace surged into both their hearts.
The peculiar sight surprised Irene a little. A normal Patronus Charm didn't look like this.