Hitting with punching bags.... that may have been a better idea, although Vickers couldnt help but swallow unconsciously. He eyed Tom the dummy and tried to imagine it being a typical bulky punching bag. Would it make a whole lot of difference to him? Might not, as it would do nothing about the state of his hands, which suffice it to say were used more for reading than fighting.

He has to do something about that mmhmm...

"If you're doing it all wrong... I couldnt tell...." he grinned haplessly, watching Vivi spar a few more times "Wrong or not I'm just trying to do what you're doing...." which wasnt anywhere close to Vivi's moves. He prepped his arms up again and paused before adding "Maybe I ought to learn how to hit properly first..." or clench his fists so he doesnt end up breaking his fingers.

Ah but now the Ravenclaw blond mentions a technique where he doesnt have to figure out how to clench his fists. Base of the palm against the nose? Heck it already sounds painful. "Alright...." he murmured as he turned back towards the dummy, then stretched those long fingers up, pressing them together like how Vivi did....

... he lunged at Tom again, palm jutted out, smacking it against the center of Tom's face. The dummy reeled back from the impact, and although something still stung at the base of his hand, he had certain better results than the punching efforts he did earlier. "Hey yeah!" he jumped up and down the balls of his feet in jubilation, and paused, suddenly conscious at how shallow he must've looked. "Uhm, right.... well that worked."

Vivi settled back into her stance again, although Vickers' jocular tone drew her back around with her hand on her hip and a smile on her lips. Was he... flirting with her? A bit? She had never been good at this sort of thing, and so she just couldn't tell. Maybe a bit? A bit... she was going with a bit of flirting.

"You should be a little less excited about the fact that you just drove that dummy's nose into his brain and killed him. But I'm very impressed with you. Next time I'm on a dark deserted street, I want you guarding my back." All true, actually, even if she said it with a smile.

"Oh, I heard that you shouldn't put your thumb inside when you punch. You'll break your thumb when you really hit something." She clenched her fist to show him and then turned to smack Gellert-the-dummy. Why was it so satisfying to hit something? Did Vick feel the same way, or was she sort of a sociopath?

"Once we get really good, I'm going to use that dance spell to make the dummies fight back. Not soon, but eventually."

There was something in that grin of Vivi's that Vickers clearly noted, as it lit up her face tremendously, but as always he failed to understand what it truly meant, what she perceived from him. Would it have helped him if he was some kind of mind reader? Maybe... but more so unlikely, as such reactions from a girl as lovely as this Ravenclaw blond would have sent him all flustered--reeling even-- to have his words or actions be read so easily like street signs.

.....Drove that dummy's nose into his brain and killed... Whoah is that what he just did? What he could do? Those icy blues grew large as it gazed back at the dummy. He can kill with those moves? There was a part of him that was partly terrified, partly ecstatic. After all, Vivi had enough confidence in him to back her up in dire straights.

Right... no thumb when clenching his fists.... He balled his fists again, flexing his fingers a few more times, trying to get it nice and solid. Taking his cue from Vivi he launched forward and slammed his fist into what should be the diaphragm part. His fist still stung but it wasnt as bad as before. In fact he was getting used to it...

He did another set of punches with both his fists in quick successions. There was that rush flowing through him that he hasnt felt before... a kind of aggressiveness that wasnt part of his usual nature.

He paused to catch his breath. He turns his head towards the Ravenclaw blond and panted back "Dummies fighting back?" he was a little nervous about that. After all he just got somewhat used to punching things...

Now that... that was a Ravenclaw learning curve right there, and Vivi tried not to be all proud!mama bear in his direction. Improved form, improved results... Vickers might feel awkward about this now, but he was definitely improving in leaps and bounds. He'd be a pro in no time at all.

Which was a shame, because this was fun, in its way.

"It makes me feel bad that I like this stuff. Sometimes, I mean. Like it isn't what normal people... normal girls are supposed to enjoy." She turned back to her own dummy and hoped that he hadn't even heard that little confession. She'd just... smack the non-face off her dummy for now. Her little fists and that long blond ponytail were a flurry as she whaled against the pretend foe, but when she stepped back, she was smiling.

There again... violence was making her feel better. Or the physical activity part of it was, at least. "We're a long ways from dummies fighting back. We'll call it our personal final exam." She paused and shuffled her feet. "If you're about through, I guess we should call it a day."

Okay...no more climbing walls. There had been plenty of that this term already - climbing in general. Kurumi pulled out her parchment with her notes on it and read them over while she thought about how best to go about this while sort of just standing there awkwardly in the middle of the arena. Try to disarm each other by doing weird things to each other's fingers? That could work. Only there was one problem...

Kurumi could never raise her wand against her best friend.

Which made Kurumi wonder why she had agreed to this in the first place. Oh no, wait. She did know why. Because Selina had asked her to hang out and do the assignment together. When Selina asked her to do something, Kurumi did it without hesitation. Just like Selina did for her. It was part of their bond.

Flopping down on the dueling platform, Kurumi removed her wand and began practicing her jabbing movements while she waited for Selina to show up.

Jab jab jab jab jab.

Okay, so TECHNICALLY Selina was not late. If they were looking at clocks, then yes, she was late. But if they were not looking at clocks then she was not late. It was just a small little hitch... looking at the ACTUAL time. Technically doing things with your best friend meant that there was no time constraint so the fact that Selina was twenty minutes late on "clock" time did not mean that she was really late. Technically speaking according to friendship time.

So she leisurely walked into the Dueling Arena to meet up with Kurumi. In case her friend was mad because she was working on "clock time" Selina had also brought muffins, which she had gotten from the elves in the kitchen. That was why Selina was late by clock time anyway, the redhead had been in the kitchen eating cake all afternoon. It was her post game ritual win or lose. Something about red velvet made her just smile.

Waving to Kurumi with a mouth full of muffin, Selina choked out, "Ima heruh... weady to work?" Yummy muffins.

Jab...jab...jab jab jab jab jab...

Maybe Kurumi should have transfigured all the cookies in her sock drawer into pocket watches so that 1) Selina couldn't be late on excuse of stuffing her face and...well, no, that really was the only reason for that.

Jabbing some more, Kurumi began muttering the incantation under her breath. "Torparticus...Torparticus....Torparticus...Torpart icus...." She hadn't actually had time to practice that spell during the lesson - mostly because Nessie had turned her fingers into sausages - so this could be a mild disaster. What if she like...removed all the bones in Selina's fingers? LITERALLY turned them to jelly or something?!

Oh Merlin...this was a bad idea. If Selina didn't have working fingers then she couldn't grip things...which meant she couldn't hold on to her broom...which meant she couldn't play Quidditch...which meant that she would hate Kurumi for taking away one of the loves of her life...

o__________________O

OKAYTHISDUELINGWASABADIDEA!!

Kurumi quite literally squeaked when Selina eventually showed up and she spun around so quickly that she ended up spinning several times before finally facing her best friend. "SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELINA!" she said, wibbling already as she threw her arms around her best friend. "THISWASASTUPIDIDEAANDIDON'TWANTTORUINYOURFUTURECAR EERASAQUIDDITCHALLSTARSOLETSJUSTHUG."

Vickers returns to the duelling arena, nervous once again but for completely different reasons. This DADA task would require him to actually try the spell out on someone to find out if what he's doing actually works. Unfortunately that someone happens to be none other than his beloved Louisa, who he seriously didnt want to hurt in any way.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" he asks nervously as he turned to face her, the worry clearly etched on his face...

She had already practiced these spells with Cassia and she basically got them right pretty quickly. being a seventh year did have its perks. The hard part of walking into this arena was to convince Vickers that he could practice with her, and you could say that Louisa had to practically walk with him regardless of his refusal. "I told you. I'll be fine, I did this. " Aspen made her fingers pretty used to the feeling of jelliness NO THANKS TO HER so yeah, Louisa preferred to do this with someone who didn't want to genuinely hurt her; Cute little kid, or her boyfriend.

And Vickers had this protectiveness and tenderness in him that she liked to step over - not strongly but more like show him that she wasn't used to be so cherished.

The Ravenclaw walked into the arena, dropped her backpack on the floor and stood facing him with a smirk. "If you can't do it, I'll have to seriously hex you first." Not that she'd be able to. Vickers was no Joao or Paulie, he was Vick and too endearing to be hexed.

The worry on his face barely eased even with the overly confident response from his girlfriend. He almost agreed to let her try the spell on him first, but truthfully the success rate of her spells of this nature was unquestionable. Louisa didnt need practice; he did.

"Well... ok" he said finally, as he stepped further back and took his position at one side of the arena. He raised his wand then after a few more anxious seconds his wand twitched into the shape of an inverted U and he uttered "Petrificus Digitirus..."

The spell flew from his wand..... and barely grazed Louisa's right shoulder.

Nerves. It even messed with his usual impeccable aim....

Sometimes she did wish some of her arrogance would snag on him maybe with time? because his humble nature just made her feel bad every time she used that tone with him, or saw this nervous look on his face. However she kept the smirk on her face and took her place in front of him with her wand in her right hand, she wasn't going to use it but just in case... ahem.

With Cassia she was deadly nervous about letting a twelve year old try the spell on her hand but now she was confident, BUT the fear of his spell being too good and actually painful. She kept her chin high and waited for him to say the words.

Whoosh!

She squinted her eyes shut instinctively, feeling her ponytail react to the change of atmosphere near Louisa's shoulder. It took one second for her body to relax again and she took her relaxed posture back, with a less wide smile this time though. "I suddenly remember the circus. You know when a man throws a knife at a spinning woman." Nervous chuckle.

The muffin decided to be very difficult to the redhead in question who was munching on it. The cardinal rule of food was what down did NOT come back up, but the muffin decided to try and make a reappearance when Kurumi ran over to Selina and threw her arms around her in turn squeezing her very hard. The strength of the squeeze meant that Selina's body would NOT let her eat the food she was trying to consume, instead it was pushing the muffin back out of her system and was threatening to end up all over Kurumi's clothes.

Pushing Kurumi away from her and pulling herself out of the death grip of love hug, Selina attempted to say, "Eating a muffin... don't want to get you dirty." Instead it came out as a muffled, "Weating da woofeen... wun't anna et you wirty!" She hoped that Kurumi was smart enough and had known Selina long enough now to understand that those words were Selina-had-food-in-her-mouth-talk.

Swallowing her food, she paused for a moment. Wait, WHAT had Kurumi even said. All she had gotten in the midst of her momentarily turning into a can of spray cheese was something about Quidditch.

O_________________________________________________ _o

WHAT ABOUT QUIDDITCH?! Oh Merlin, WHAT had Anya done this time? Did Tag and Keller get in a fight again. Was Alice biting people throughout the hallways with ne'er a care. Was Melanie forcing Lafay to have a tea party... ugh... her team. And MERLIN FORBID any of the others did something silly. She just needed a nice hot bath.

Rubbing her temples, Selina said, "What about my team...? WHAT did they do...?" She was getting too old for this. Sixteen was a precious time. Pretty soon she'd be too old to eat the cookie stash by herself...

...on second thought? Yeah, she'd be fine.

Kurumi was semi squishing Selina right now. HER FINGERS! Selina's fingers!

Kurumi ended up repeating the same sentence again, only it was clear that Selina didn't understand what she had said so it was time to take a deep breath and try again. "N-N-Nothing happened with your team," Kurumi stammered. "I was just thinking that...maybe this isn't such a good idea because I don't want to be the reason you can't play Quidditch anymore," she mumbled as she squeezed her best friend a little more tightly and sort of snuggled her face in her hair.

Kurumi eventually pried herself off Selina and took a few steps back while looking at the ground, wand still in hand. "You know...I could accidentally cause permanent damage to your fingers..."

Just as Selina was going over all of the ways she was going to make her entire team suffer for whatever stunt they had pulled, Kurumi suddenly let Selina in on her little freak out. It was not anything that her team had done- although she was still not convinced that they were one hundred percent innocent- but more so that Kurumi was afraid she would hurt Selina's fingers thereby hurting her chances of being a professional Quidditch player. Funny she said that...

But she simply smiled at her friend and pat her on the head, "Kurumi, I'll be fine. And even if I'm not I can go to the Healer and she'll clean me up just fine. You have nothing to worry about. Now can we get on with this, Rumi?" She adored her best friend for caring, but she had taken a little ride before on the crazy train. Now it was time to get off and stretch her legs on the sanity side of the world by SELINA!

...okay, bad example, but still...

So she untangled herself from Kurumi and said gently, "Now... can we do this or do you need a snack?" Because Selina could really go for a snack. If they wanted to break the redhead would be a hundred percent behind that move. Snack break was a good idea always.

The Healer? Well, that didn't make Kurumi want to just crawl into a hole and never come out? "O-Okay..." she mumbled. "Although I really don't want to make you go see the Healer either." Because the Healer was sort of scary and didn't seem to like Kurumi very much so if Selina went there because of something she had done then there was a less chance that she would get proper care from the woman...

Okay...no more thinking about all that.

"Oh, um, right," she nodded, glancing down at her wand and giving it a few aimless flicks. "So....I was thinking that maybe we both hold on to something with our nonwand hand and try to make the other drop it using the two spells...or we could try to disarm each other...like in a proper duel..."

And she couldn't believe that she was about to duel with her best friend. Crazy.

It was just the bloody healer. Selina played Quidditch, she was virtually on a first name basis with the woman. Going to the Healer was not as big of a deal as Kurumi was making it out to be. Then again, Kurumi did have her tendencies to be, how did Selina word it, CRAZY. Yeah, crazy was a good word. A really, really good word. But it was okay because Selina was nuts too. In fact, Selina was almost certain that Kurumi WAS crazy because of Selina.

"Relax, Kurumi," Selina said petting Kurumi's head like a kitten. She found that Kurumi liked that. "It's just the healer. I promise I'll be fine, okay?" Take a breathe, cutie pie. Everything would be JUST fine. And if it wasn't, um, they'd deal with it when the time came.

So now they were actually going to duel. She smiled at her friend and headed over to her side to get ready to duel with Kurumi. The redhead was just assuming that Kurumi would start first, since, well, she asked SELINA to help her with the homework assignment. So she invited her, she got to go first, "Whenever you are ready, Rumi?"

Meow? Kurumi almost felt as though she should meow or at least try to produce some cat ears since Selina was petting her in this way. Promises...Selina was another person who never broke a promise to her. Like Lewis and Treyen. Well, to the best of their abilities at least. Not the point. Point was that Kurumi knew she could trust Selina...evenifinthebackofhermindshewasstillterrif ied.

"O-O-Okay," Kurumi said as she gave her wand a few more jabs. Torparticus first...since she hadn't done that one too much in the lesson. "Violet eyes on her best friend's wand hand, Kurumi bit her lip. "Normal dueling rules. You can try and block with Protego and everything...but the two of us can only cast Torparticus or Petrificus Digitirus to try and disarm each other." Sounded good, right?

Taking her dueling position, Kurumi jabbed her wand towards Selina's wand hand. "Torparticus!" And the spell went shooting at her best friend...which if it hit would hopefully only numb the limb to the point of immobility...or Selina would just block it.

There were a lot of things that Selina really loved about Kurumi. She was smart, probably the smartest girl in their school. She had a huge heart- whenever Selina needed to talk Kurumi was always there for her best friend on her best day and her worst day. She made ROCKIN' cookies. That was Selina's favorite attribute about her best friend, not that she would ever tell her that. But the one thing that Kurumi was admittedly not that good at was, well, dueling. Kurumi could PERFORM the spells very well, but her best friend had too nice of a heart to REALLY hurt Selina. Her heart could not be in it. Even if she were, would Kurumi REALLY be able to hurt Selina? The sixth year did not think so.

"Kurumi, breathe." Selina said to her stuttering friend, "We'll be fine. And we won't hurt each other. Even if we do... we have a healer, okay?" TIME TO DUEL LIKE DONKEY KONG! No wait, that was SO not right. She was missing something. Ah well, the saying was close enough.

Lifting her wand and bowing to her friend a little, Selina got her wand at the ready. The redhead was a little surprised when her friend struck so quickly, but she was ready. Flicking her wand, she said, "Protego!" Turning around she threw another spell at Kurumi, "Petrificus Digitirus!" It was not exactly moving in a straight line... but Selina was flustered from Kurumi's move.

EEP EEP EEEEEEEP! She had just thrown a spell at Selina. A spell that Selina had thankfully blocked - not that she thought Selina's reflexes were slow enough to cause the girl to not block it or anything. There were only a few times Kurumi had ever dueled - a few times in dueling club, once in class with Kennedy, and then at the Founders Fandango where she had defeated Oakey with a few of her favorite transfiguration spells.

When Selina sent a spell back at her, Kurumi pivoted slightly to avoid it from hitting any part of her while also casting a quick Protego just in case. She didn't fancy any of her limbs going numb right now.

Spinning out of her pivot, Kurumi pointed her wand at Selina again - unfortunately her aim was a little lower than she had intended and was around the girl's knee. "Torparticus!"

There may have been a small yelp that escaped his lips as the spell careened towards Louisa and nearly hit her head. Merlin! How far is her head from her hand huh? He cringed quietly, kicking himself for such an error when the Head Girl cracked a joke. He smiled back sheepishly and mumbled out "Sorry...."

He raised his wand again and breathed in a few times to calm himself down. He has to focus! He stared only at Louisa's wand hand and pushed the guilt aside even for the briefest of moments before flicking the wand stroke and uttering "Petrificus Digitirus..."

... the spell flew from his wand again and this time grazes the Head Girl's knuckles.

Sarah needed a partner for the DADA homework and she decided that probably the dueling area would be the best place to find one. She would practice Petrificus Digitirus first of course... she learnt that first anyway. Now she needed a partner.
"Anyone want to be my guinea pig for Defense against the dark arts homework? I will let you do it on me if you want" she called to all that were in the room. Hopefull someone would heed the call. She did not really want to exchang part, yet being fair was cool. One should do to others the way they wanted for themselves. If she wanted other's to be her guinea pig, she must be prepared to be the guinea pig for others.

OOC: Maybe you can RP it not working the first two times, since we have to practice each spell three times?

As usual, Sierra had waited until the last minute to start on her Defense Against the Dark Arts homework. She'd come to accept that 'last minute' was just her style, so she'd stopped worried about it ages ago. The only thing she actually needed to be concerned about was finding somebody to work with. As she stepped into the room which houses the Dueling Arena, she overheard a Gryffindor asking if anybody would like to partner up.

The girl was even volunteering herself to be used as a guinea pig, as well. That sounded like an invitation to Sierra. Heh. She snuck up behind the girl, her wand aimed. She looped her wand in an upside down U fashion. "Petrificus Digitirus!" she said, sending the spell to the girl.

"You wanna partner up?" she asked, completely after the fact.

Her fingers snapped together so stiffly and her wand clanged at the floor. It was the Snake prefect. Snakes were sneaky and sly so it was probably normal for such a thing. Yet Sarah got quite a fright. She wanted to partner up? Well had she already or not? "sure, but we are doing this fairly - one for one?'. Sarah played by rules you see.
Sarah then assumed that the girl agreed and as soon as her fingers unstiffened she got up her wand.She made the U shape, forgetting to make it upside down and said "Petrificus Digitirus".

Sierra stood back, ready to defend herself if need be, but also giving the Gryffindor a chance to fight back. After all, they were going to be partners at this, were they not? Sierra raised her eyebrows as the girls fingers snapped together and her wand fell to the floor. She hadn't exactly expected it to work so quickly.

Then she nodded as the girl mentioned them doing this fairly. "Yeah, sure, why not?" she asked. After all, she had no intention of this being an actual duel. All of a sudden, the girl fired a spell in her direction, and after growing wide-eyed at the sudden movement, Sierra darted out of the way. Next time, she'd cast a shield.

For now, it was her turn. She looped her wand in another upside down U fashion. "Petrificus Digitirus!" she said.

Vivi needed to retrieve a book she'd left after her last practice session with Vick, and she made her way into the Dueling Arena expecting it to be empty. It was usually empty whenever she had need of it. Today, however, there were plenty of people in there practicing for the DADA homework, and Vivi wiggled her fingers at a few of them as she crossed the room to grab her book off the bleachers.

"Not bad, Greingoth," she called out as she passed. "Try not to get taken out by the second year." Hehe.