Harlow nodded at his words, and filed them away for good use later.

She quickly pulled a hankerchief out of her purse and quickly wiped off the handprints and smudges from her wand. She didn't want to hand over her wand and it wasn't looking its best. That was just sloppy and not Harlow's style.

Harlow stepped into line the line with her wand out for him to inspect. She waited for her turn behind the Gryffindor prefect.

Duelling club. Finally, an EXCELLENT way to spend an afternoon at Hogwarts that didn't involve punching walls or antagonising little kinds. Brilliant. "I'm Ryden Di Marco, fifth year Ravenclaw," she introduced herself, then made a face as he asked why EXACTLY they wanted to join, and their strengths and weaknesses. It was in these types of situations that it was always preferred to subtly lie, because the truth didn't really sound all that good.

"Er, I want to learn how to duel by the rules," the blonde said, and had to pause for a few moments to think about her strengths and weaknesses, because in all honesty she'd never thought about those before. Not duel-wise, at any rate. " I'm good at jinxes and hexes and stuff... And I'm not sure what I'm not good at," Ryden lied again replied, her eyes flicking downwards to the floor before looking back up at the teacher. Why did SHE have to tell him she had anger management issues? Violence issues? It wasn't like he was going to be able to fix that.




After the question phase - during which she hadn't really uttered a word - the dueling wiz asked them all to show their wands. Ryden's hand went to her pocket from which she drew her wand, looked at it fondly, and made her way to the instructor. Her wand wasn't polished or cleaned or anything like that - it was her wand, and it looked just like wands should look in her mind; dark, used, loved. Not scrubbed to put on a show for others. HMPF.

How Gryffindor of him?

Umm...was it? Actually Josh had been thinking that was something everyone should be doing, as a duty, yet...well...he blinked a few times at the man then smiled at the wink. Hehehehe. Maybe he thought that was something good. Good good.

Of course, he had dealed with people before but since hardly any of them was by magical means, the Gryffindor had no idea what rules duelling with magic would have. He could surely guess about that informal magic having no rules as it was duelling to death. Unforgivables would surely be allowed on that one...which those dark wizards would be happy to use frequenty. And regarding that it was a disappointment that he could not use physical means of combat Grrr. He hated them. Or wait...that had no rules, right?

Whatever...at least he was glad that the dueller man was strict about the usage of dark magic which could be figured out from the way he yelled out. Good good.



Curiously watching the man as he explained the moon and stars on the floor, Josh automatically glanced at Evelyn a few times too, to see what she was doing. Eh...what could she be doing? Of course, watching and listening to the man.

And now it was time to...wand checking?

Nice and fine.

Taking his part at the line, the Gryffindor waited the Ravenclaw before him to give his wand before carefully handing his own wand of light coloured hazel wood.

Right she made a mental note of everything Mr.Short and adorable said, then joined the line with her wand out. Yep this should be very interesting. Where they allowed to add their own rules to dueling matches? Perhaps she should ask that. Damage to her hair would upset her greatly. From her space in the line Cassie raised her hand.

"Err Professor? Spenser, are we allowed to customize dueling rules? Let's say we're in a formal duel, can we add our own rules to standard ones, for example, no damaging of hair clothes etc or disqualification or must be stick to the predetermined one?" If they were going to duel today, she wanted to add those rules..no damaging her hair!!!

Jonathan smiled. So his answer was somehow correct after all. He got worried a little bit there. He wasn't fully sure if it was in a sense, correct. He sighed after hearing the professor agreed to him.

The professor did explain the basics. What to do first, second and last. But before doing so, he does need to check their wands for qualifications. Whether or not it is in good condition for dueling. Well, Jonathan doesn't argue there. After all, ever time they go home, his father makes sure his wand is as perfect, so that his performance will never fail in school.

He walked to where the line was and noticed in front of him is Cassie. He took out his wand, ready to hand him. Now, he just hopes it is still in good condition.

Janice lined up with the other students, preparing her Pine wooded and Unicorn hair cored wand in her hands. It should be in a good condition, Janice thought. She hadn't been using it for unecessary things. And plus, she had kept it away from her brother.

Justin quietly pulled out his wand from it's holster ; 11.75" cherrywood with a unicorn hair core and of supple quality. He stepped in line and waited for his wand's inspection.

Selina listened intently as Spenser spoke. This was turning out to be a really cool lesson/club thing. The more he spoke the more she was getting into the whole dueling aspect. Although she had never dueled properly before she was itching to get started.

He asked if anyone did not understand the rules and Selina kept silent. Merlin, she got it, she just wanted to get started. And then the line started to form. She drew her wand and got in line. Time to get this show on the road. The quicker he inspected it the better.

After hearing that he was going to be checking their wands, for one split moment, she thought she wouldn't be getting it back. It was just checking the wand though. Making sure it was in good condition. Of COURSE they would be getting it back.

Now she could just freak out about the fingerprints....

However, she got into the line, flicking her wand out of her wrist holster and waited. Fingerprints were fine she supposed. She could always clean it later. She wouldn't HAVE to clean it later until the specific time she had scheduled in her notebook to clean the wand but...this...this could work. Alright.

Deep breath. The longer this line was, and the more people before her, the better. Then why was it going so FAST!?

Raven took her wand that from her pocket. Hohoho.. she had polished it last night, so it looked better and she held it firmly.

Marilyn eyed the Professor warily. She really didn't like other people touching her things...but she suppose this could be the one exception. Moving forward, she got a better view of the stage and the full moon he'd mentioned.

She really hoped she could do well at this.

Getting in line, she moved to pull out her wand. When she'd seen the paper about Dueling Club the day before, she'd decided to clean it. Not that it was dirty of anything. Not really...

Ugh, hopefully he would go fast. She did NOT like the idea of someone else handling her wand.

Gideon listened to all the various rules being said about dueling, the boy kinda wishing he had something to take notes but oh well, he hadn't thought on that for today's meeting. Paying close attention would just have to be enough. The Gryffindor nodded about understanding the rules and as they were instructed to form a line to have their wands checked, moved in the direction it was forming and joined it. The boy patiently waiting his turn with his hand absently in the pocket that was holding said wand ready to take it out when asked.

Why did he have to yell to emphasize a point? Ira suddenly jumped in her seat when he yelled 'Never'!
Anyways she took out her wand from her pocket and took it for inspection...Her wand was one of those lucky things of hers which were cleaned and maintained regularly, because Ira wasn't much of a tidy person! But, thankfully she had cleaned her wand yesterday night, so it was all gleaming and shiny...

Vashti...somewhat doubted that, but it was nice to know that he believed she could. And who knows, maybe it would happen. It wasn't like she'd ever duelled before, so she didn't really know how her mind would handle it. "I hope so, sir," she replied with a smile.

Then she kept silent as the rest of the students pitched in their ideas of the standard dueling rules, until finally...



...it was time to move on.

Vashti wondered if she ought to be taking down notes on all this stuff. She did have a notebook in her bag... Her mind battled with the thought for a couple seconds before she relented, pulled out the notebook and a pencil - a quill would be too much trouble right now - and quickly scribbled down the rules on the blackboard. She constantly glanced up, watching as Mr. Spenser showed them where they were supposed to stand, and she decided to jot that down too. Her handwriting wasn't the neatest, but she'd try deciphering and rewriting it later.

Now it was time for the wand weighing.

Stuffing her notes and pencil back into her bag, Vashti pulled out her wand and joined the line that was forming. As she waited, she eyed her wand. She'd cleaned and polished it yesterday, so it shouldn't be too dirty. But she wasn't an expert wandmaker or anything, so it might be dirtier than she realized. She really hoped it wasn't, though.

Jesifur stood in line holding he wand out for him to take. She was rather glad she polished it this morning before breakfast.

Louisa blinked when the little man barked. His voice was a lot overwhelming than his size, by the way. Listening intently to what he had to say the girl shifted her weight from foot to foot trying to memorize everything.

Then came the wand checking part. She stepped into the line and waited. Her wand was in her hand in a second as she watched it closely, it wasn't the cleanness part that needed to be checked, right? Because she had used it as a digging object once... and kind of forgot to remove the dirt. Speaking of which, she wiped it with the big sleeve of her robe just in case.

Hmm, Tori hadn't known that stuff about walking to the stars and not crossing into the other duelist's area. Interesting.

She got in line and when she reached the gnome man, she slowly, reluctantly handed over her precious wand.

"It's 10 1/4" Mahogany with a Peruvian Vipertooth dragon heartstring core. Kinda stiff."

But she loved it anyway.

Waiting her turn to offer up her details, the Ravenclaw prefect spoke up clearly. "Ivory Erised, 6th year Ravenclaw" As to why she joined the club..."And I'm here because you can never be too prepared." She stated simply. Her eyes shone darkly, like water before a storm as she continued. "My strong areas are charms and transfiguration. Quick strategical thinking on my feet about possible outcomes , although," she admitted with a rueful smile. "I tend to over think things entirely too often.

Jumping to her feet as the line began to form, the petite brunette placed a hand to her holster happy that for this at least she was prepared. Wand maintenance was something she took very seriously after all especially considering all the legal proceedings that- She slammed a padlocked metal door on those thoughts and scooted a mental chair in front of it for good measure.

Wand slipping easily into her palm, she smiled softly at the familiar feeling of warmth that coursed through her, tingling down her arm to come to a point of heat in her wand hand where the small ever present blue flame appeared at the tip of it. As always it was difficult to take her eyes off the small blue flame with its flashing purple then white center. The magic of it amazed her. Oh she'd experimented as had the wonderful people of Ollivander's that first year, but fortunately the flame was more of a personality quirk than anything of danger. Completely harmless, nonflammable or even spreadable. Now whether she had tried to light a fire with it...that was neither here nor there. Gripping it softly but firmly in her hand, she held it close trying hard not to think about the court date set at the end of the following year or of all the things that entitled. Instead she thought about the rules of dueling, about bowing and about not even thinking of curses as she waited for her turn in line.

Ah, darn. Cael thought for sure that he had given the correct types of duels, it seemed easy enough to consider it in the sense of attacking and defending; Cael would never dream of doing anything informally. He shuddered at the mere thought.

Walking to the back of the line, he pulled his wand from the holster on his arm and gave it the once over while he waited for his turn. It really was a beautiful piece of work; he loved the extra-smooth, almost satiny feel of the wood (which in his opinion was a great deal more eye-catching than some of those roughly hewn ones).

Eino hurried to the end of the line, anxious to see what the man would say about his wand. He tried to hear what he was saying about the other students' wands, but couldn't quite understand anything. What if his wand wasn't good enough to duel? Would he get kicked out of the Dueling Club? That would be tragic. Eino grew more and more excited as the line gone shorter. Finally, he handed his wand to the man and waited anxiously.

Presley walked up to the new teacher and presented her wand proudly. It was a good wand, and she loved it. However, she was a little nervous about what he called "inspecting to the best of his abilities" or something like that. She didn't remember the exact words. What if he hurt it? Good thing he'd just told her that dancing would make her a good dodger. But anger management might make her a bad dueler in general. She'd be the kid who got frustrated and punched her opponent in the face.

Alyssa was very sure now that she didn't want to take part in the duelling process, and she would tell the Professor, when she stepped up to show her wand to him.

When it was her turn, Alyssa stepped up, "Uh! Professor, I'm not sure that I want to duel with anyone right now. I'm still not confident about duelling, so is it okay if I just stand aside and watch the rest of the students duel? Here's my wand anyway". She handed the wand over to the Professor and stood aside while he examined it. She hoped that he would still allow her to participate in the rest of the class activities, as long as it didn't involve physical duelling.

Kennedy nodded at everything the professor was saying. He almost wished he had brought a notebook to write everything down, but his memory would have to do. He went and stood behind a girl, waiting for his turn.

Why did wands have to be weighted, anyway? Was it to check if they were real. Well, his BETTER be real. He did, after all, pay a good amount of money for it...and he liked his wand a LOT.

Aiden queues up in the line waiting for her wand to be inspected. She wonders what would this cool old man would say about hers. To be honest, it takes her time to perform a single spell properly with wand this rigid.

After introductions were made, and some yelling happened on behalf of the dwarf, little man, Professor, man standing in front of them, Treyen wasn't feeling too great about having shared his weaknesses or rather just the one with that man. But the reason for joining the dueling club was enough to keep him here. Improvement, that was reason enough.

His weakness was, of course, Ellie...but in this case, the dueling case, that only translated into 'distraction', he could get distracted fairly easily and his lack of focus was never a good thing. Yet he'd been working on that ever since he met Kingsley, and that Professor had helped.

His strengths were nothing out of the ordinary, he had quick reflexes, and was amazingly good with spells that required any form of Transfiguration, which was rather odd giving his unchanging nature.

But now he was facing something else, someone else holding his wand. His 11.18 inches, Demiguise hair, Willow wand. Treyen was slightly protective over the wand, and only Conan had managed to take hold of it once. He cleaned it afterwards, of course. He always did. The wand was perfectly polished at all times, even for someone that didn't like to keep it on a holster. Hey! That could be another weakness, right? Because it will take forever to search one's pocket for a wand.

Either way, he made a face, but still took a place on the line. And once the time was right, gave the dwarf man his wand.