Stepping forward Lexi held her wand out to the little dueling master guy. He was cute. She kind of wanted to hug him...but she restrained the desire to do so. Heh. Barely. Her trusty wand was 11 3/4" Willow with a Sphinx Claw core and was said to be quite sturdy. Or so that's what the lady at Ollivander's had told her when it chose her. Time to see what the dude thought of it. Smiling she said, "Name's Lexi Kennedy, sir. My strengths are with hexes and charms. I also have an affinity for fire, sir. My weakness is perhaps my anger. Sometimes I let it override my better judgement."

* * *


Lexi weaved her way through the crowd looking for ooooone boy in particular. Hehe. Some might say it was a bad idea, but if she saw someone else casting on him she might have a bird about it. Better she than anyone else. Mhm.

Coming up beside Salander she winked at him and asked, "Need a partner, Sal?" There was not much inflection in her tone to show it was a question. More that she WAS going to be his partner. Indeed he was.

She flexed her wrist sending her wand sliding into her hand with ease. Winking she then waited for him to ready himself. "You want to practice Flipendo or Protego first?"

"Great! You want to try a shield charm first?" Cael readied his wand, mimicking the back and forth movement of the Professor by using his elbow as the axis.

Swish. Swish. Swish. "Protego!" Cael cried, continuing the motion.

A thin blue light stuttered and sputtered into existence before quickly going out with a small puff. "Huh..." Cael said, scratching his head and smacking his wand against his hand a few times to loosen it up.

Maddy stifled a giggle, she swished her Hornbeam wand in the air and yelled " Protego" a Zap of white light shot out but disapeared as quickley as it came. "Better try that again". Maddy counted to three inside her head, "Protego!" This time the light stayed for a bit but then faded.

Jesifur tried to catch Alyssa off guard, she pointed and squiggled her wand at Alyssa and shouted, "Flipendo". At the very same time she hear Alyssa say the same, thinking fast Jesifur held her arm out and tried the shield charm. "Protego" she said as she waved her arm right to left on an elbow axis and back again.
She stumbled backwards a few steps just as the lightest blue bubble appeared in front of her.

"Ooof, you got me Alyssa," she laughed.

"Guess it really is a difficult spell to work," Cael smiled sheepishly as he swished his wand back and forth through the air to get used to the motion. He gave up as his second attempt ended even more badly than the first. Not even so much as a spark out of the thing. Maybe it was mad at him for smacking it?

"Er, sorry wand," Cael apologized, giving it a reassuring pat. The man at Ollivander's had told him that wands had feelings after all. "Well should we try a couple Flipendos then?" he asked his partner.

"Oh, how terribly rude of me! My name's Caelius. What's yours?" he asked as an afterthought.

Standing a safe distance away from Jes, Alyssa yelled over,"Alright, Jes, I'm ready whenever you are. Remember jinx followed by shield. Let's do it!!"

Alyssa stood feet slightly apart, making sure that she had her balance. Whipping out her wand, she pointed it at Jesifur and squiggling it a little she yelled, "FLIPENDO!!" and saw a beam of light aim right at Jesifur.

On hearing Jesifur point her wand at her and chant the same words, Alyssa immediately waved her wand horizontally in front of her from right to left and back again and quickly said "PROTEGO!!".

She felt a vibration but nothing hit her. "It worked!!" Alyssa looked over to see whether Jesifur was okay.

Kennedy was nervous. This was going to be his first time dueling with someone...and first time of being targeted. He looked around and rubbed the back of his neck. Hmm, who needed a partner, 'cause he needed one. "Any fourth years need a partner?" he asked, shyly.

Alyssa looked over at Jesifur. "You okay there??". When she saw Jesifur wave back, she was glad that neither of them had gotten hurt.

"Want to try it again? This time double attack? Jinx followed by block followed by Jinx and finally block again or any way you want it. I'm ready when you are".

Immediately Alyssa had to go on the offensive as Jesifur sent the jinx her way. Waving her wand right and left and back with an elbow axis rotation, she fended off the jinx with the Shield Charm, "PROTEGO!!"

Alyssa immediately did a 360 turn, pointed her wand back at Jes and yelled "FLIPENDO!!"

She only had a second to see Jesifur fend off her jinx before she had to go on the defensive again as she saw another jinx flying at her. "Whoa!! She's fast!!," Alyssa thought to herself. She quickly waved her wand again from right to left and back again, and yelling "PROTEGO!!" to throw up a shield. This time she fell on one knee to make herself a smaller target. Pointing her wand one more time at Jesifur, with a squiggling wave, Alyssa sent the knock back jinx back at Jes.

"FLIPENDO!!"

She then lowered her wand and hoped that Jesifur wasn't sending any more jinxes her way.

Why did it always seem that whenever Gideon was involved there was another girl involved? Kurumi couldn't help but giggle at the situation. "Thanks you guys, but I think this practice might be better in pairs," she said with a polite bow. After all, the little man had said to make pairs and not trios.If I can't find..."
"...someone!"

Kurumi bowed again politely to Gideon and the Ravenclaw before heading over towards the Slytherin boy. "H-H-Hello," she said timidly. "I-I need a partner as well. Kurumi, fourth year Gryffindor." Although her robes probably told the Gryffindor bit.

Cael's partner was really focusing on her shield spells and he didn't want to interrupt her again so he decided to go ahead and practice a few Flipendos by himself.

Wriggling his wand in the complex serpentine pattern he cried, "Flipendo!" while pointing his wand at the floor so as not to hit anyone accidentally. This time the spell worked.

Perhaps a little too well.

When the concussive force of the air met the floor he actually managed to knock himself a few feet straight up into the air with a surprised, "Gah!" Landing on his bum awkwardly in exactly the same spot he had been standing, he burst into the 'you're not really sure what the heck just happened, but it was awesome just the same' kind of laughter, rubbing his bruised bum as he picked himself up off the floor.

Louisa saw the other fourth year this Kurumi - she knew there was an M in her name! - spoke to. She nodded when the Prefect bowed, never understood the bowing gesture but she figured it was something respectful and quite interesting.

"Okay." Holding her wand rightly in her hand, she face Gideon again and took a few steps backward. "Do it." She couldn't help the cracking her voice gave at the end of 'it', Louisa was a coward and she hated confronting people who seemed so confident and good, which was why she attended the lesson. The girl needed to be stronger. She had to.

Gideon nodded accepting Kurumi's answer and her bow not quite sure of the reasoning behind her giggles but then she was a girl and he probably wouldn't understand. And then it seemed the offered partnership wasn't necessary as another fourth year made its appearance and Kurumi spoke up to him to partner up with the other boy. Turning away, Gideon returned his attention to his own partner, listening as she spoke up once more.

"Alright..." he replied taking her 'do it' as permission to make his move. "Flippendo!" he cast, his wand moving into the squiggly line that his hand directed it in his attempt at the knockdown jinx.

"H-Hi," Kennedy said, nervously at the girl. His green eyes caught sight of the Prefect badge on Kurumi's robes and he gulped. Oh God, he was going to get beaten and beaten bad. "I-I'm Kennedy...um, Slytherin." He tugged dumbly at his robes where the Snake emblem was. He really hoped these jinxes they were going to use didn't hurt much.

Either Vashti really was the only sixth year here...or they were all hiding from her. Both were possible, she thought. She supposed she was allowed to partner with a fifth or seventh year since those were still pretty close to her own year, but it seemed like all of them either had a partner already or were hiding from her as well. Merlin.

But Mr. Spenser had said they could practice the Sheild Charm alone, so Vashti decided she could do that until she found a partner. She was fairly good with them already, but it never hurt to practice. So for the next few minutes she practiced the wand movement without using the incantation, just to make sure she got it right, then used both the wand movement and incantation together. After a few successful (and a couple unsuccessful) tries, she suddenly wondered whether she was allowed to practice this spell nonverbally. He hadn't said anything against practicing that, had he? Hmm...

"Flipendo", Jesifur shouted pointing at Alyssa. Then quickly cast, "protego" waving an arch in front of her. Then she cast another in rapid succession, "Flipendo". As she was about to shield herself again she was hit with Alyssa's spell. Jesifur stumbled back a moment. Then called out, "You okay Alyssa?"

"I should be asking you that question. I saw my jinx hit you. I'm so sorry. I should have slowed down to give you the chance to catch up. Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you should rest for awhile."

Alyssa felt bad that Jesifur got hit by her knock back jinx.

Louisa's eyes saw his hand move and her mind froze. So did her wand-hand. She might as well crouch or jump away instead of blocking the spell. What happened was the obvious though, she'd tripped over and was on her butt in a second, staring up at Gideon.

Groaning she got up and forced a smile at him, her cheeks flushed, "Very good. C-can you do it again, please? I was..." afraid? She didn't know what she was so she left the sentence unfinished and took another step backward. No reasonable explanation to her backing away. She was going to unfreeze her mind this time, she promised her butt - since it was the one to be receiving the consequences.

Harlow looked around and saw that everyone was partnered up and there weren't any other first years.

She signed and walked over to the benches along the wall and sat down to watch the other students dueling.

"Hey!" Cael called seeing a first year sitting alone on the benches.

"My partner is a bit busy right now. Fancy practicing a few Flipendos with me?" he asked with a grin.

"Nice to meet you," she replied, even if the situation was a little ridiculous. First time meeting and then they were going to throw hexes at each other. Seeing as the two of them were fourth years, they probably didn't really need to practice the Shield Charm, but Kurumi hadn't ever tried casting Flippendo before. "Erm, so...I guess we should practice Flippendo...you can cast a Shield Charm alright, right?"

Gideon watched as his magic seemed to work, the jink shooting towards his partner who then seemed to freeze. "Ye ok?" he asked after he saw the spell connect and Louisa get tripped onto her backside. He was about to offer to help her up, even taking a step closer but she was already getting up to her feet on her own.

"Sure," he agreed with a tentative nod as she asked him to repeat so she could try again. Gideon raised a slight eyebrow as she broke off and took a step back further from him. Was she afraid he would hurt her? "Get ready..." he warned this time around just to be on the safe side.

"Flippendo!" he cast once more with the same squiggly wand movement and watched the spell come from his wand tip.

"S-Shield charm?" Oh yeah, he remembered that one. "Yeah, I know that one," Kennedy nodded. His heart was beating furiosly inside his chest that he wondered if others could hear it. He really wished he was wearing a metal suit of armor so if he got hit it wouldn't hurt and it would make it more difficult to knock him down. "You go first," he said. Even through all his nerves he was still a gentleman.

"Hey what's going on here?" Maddy's partner seemed to be practicing with someone else.

occ. Don't take anything Maddy said personally

Partners, right? About the same year? That was...incredibly difficult to find, because most of them seem to be in their first years, and...it didn't seem fair. But then he noticed Vashti practicing on her own. Perfect!

"Vashti," he said, as he walked towards her, "Practice with me, yes?" or on him, he didn't mind getting a few hits if she could get past his shield, of course. He was fairly good, and he could start practicing his non-verbals...but he wouldn't, not yet, anyway.

She paused at his 'ye' and made a mental note to ask him where he was from or why he talked like this. Her curious little head was stinging with the urge to know and if she wasn't concentrating on survival things yes, this was survival. she would've dropped the wand and start an interrogation. Taking a deep breath once he uttered his warning... Louisa's arm moved just as he started to say the spell.

From right to left and back to right, "Protego!" She breathed out. The shield flashed before her right when the spell interrupted it and almost knocked her over again. She'd flailed her arm and managed to stay on her feet. With a proud smile she looked at Gideon . "That was better. It is hard to draw a shield charm so fast." Yep, she'd just admitted that to a Gryffindor. A stranger.

Waving her wand a bit Louisa asked, "Do you want to keep practicing it or.." She glanced around for the little professor. Was he watching everyone? Did he see her fall? Would he send her away and say that she didn't fit for dueling?

Gulp.

Hopefully not.