Duelling

Duelling is the wizarding world's formal answer to single combat: two spellcasters face each other, bow, and fight with magic alone. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone introduces the custom when Harry is challenged to a midnight wizard's duel and has the conventions explained to him on the spot, seconds included. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets gives the practice its first classroom treatment with a short-lived school Duelling Club, which teaches the etiquette, the accepted stance, and the Disarming Charm, Expelliarmus, as a duellist's basic tool. Beyond such formalities, duelling also exists as a regulated sport, related to genuine magical combat roughly as fencing is to swordplay. Among students, the challenge remains mostly a matter of honour and nerve.