An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Forty-Seven

A/N: For people who don't really know how brackets work, teams (or individuals) get assigned numbers (usually based on skill) and compete against each other based on that. The highest "seed" faces the lowest seed first, the second-highest and second-lowest seeds are against each other first, etc. For a double-elimination tournament, no one is out of the tournament until they lose twice. So, after the first round of games is over, the winners of each round go up against each other and the losers of each round go up against each other. Whoever loses the game of two losers is out of the tournament, because they will have lost two games.

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Now that I was seventeen, I could officially use magic outside of Hogwarts. Thankfully, Strange didn't take his vow to have a wizard duel as soon as he saw me again literally, and we spent a nice Christmas dinner and evening without any fights. I showed off a few of the things I'd learned, using magic to light candles and summon dishes to me from across the table. It was fun, and relaxed, and even though I was tempted to break out the Canary Creams, I resisted in favor of a peaceful night. I drifted off to sleep in my own bed after hours of laughing and talking, feeling perfectly relaxed.

That all disappeared in a cloud of smoke the next morning.

I woke up from one of those dreams that felt like you were falling to find I actually was falling. Through a sling portal, straight from my bed and onto the floor of the training room at a stupidly early hour.

"Time to settle this wizard contest."

I looked up to see Strange standing over me, his arms crossed. I glared at him and pushed myself up off the floor to find my entire family gathered in the training room, Loki and Wanda standing just behind Strange.

"None of you wanted to come wake me up gently?" I demanded, glaring around the room. Nobody looked even slightly guilty as they all nodded, some of them not even trying to hide their laughter. "Fine. Let me go change, and then I'll kick all three of your asses."

I talked a good game, but actually, I was pretty worried. I wanted to win so badly, but Strange, Wanda, and Loki were incredibly intimidating obstacles standing in my way.

I took my time changing, trying to get in the zone and get out of my own head. I could do this. I'd been training with my friends for this. I just had to focus, calm down, and use all the strategies Nat, Clint, Steve, and Bucky had taught me to use in a fight.

I strutted out of the training room and over to the three other magic-users, keeping my chin up and trying to appear confident.

"Alright, how are we doing this?" I asked.

"Bracket system," Strange replied. "Double elimination, random numbers assigned for seeding since we have nothing to base that off of."

"Okay, sounds good. Have you done the seeding yet?"

"We did it while we were waiting an eternity for you to get changed," answered Loki.

"And guess what?" said Wanda. "You're the one seed!"

"Top dog, ready to be upset," Strange added arrogantly.

"Hey, number one seeds are usually the ones that win the whole thing," I shot back. "You've got bad odds."

"I'll take skill and bad odds any day," he said. "Now let's go, Wanda's the four so you two are up first."

"This is terrible," said my Uncle Clint, stepping away to the side of the room to give us space. "I don't know who to cheer for!"

"I do! Let's go Alexa! You got this honey!" my dad piped up. I rolled my eyes at him, moving to the middle of the room with Wanda. Jarvis put up a barrier around us to protect the spectators from wayward spells.