Zhenya was ready to strike again. She ran over, in a jumble between all other students, to the Hufflepuff team. The lonely, lonely, Hufflepuffs. Would they somehow manage to beat the SlytherDorClaw team? She wasn't sure, anything was possible, but surely three against one was pretty tough odds to beat. Those Hufflepuffs though, they're made of TOUGH stuff! Anyway, she ran towards a yellow flag, amongst other yellow, red and green ones, and pointed her wand at it, picturing it as a nice, pretty, GREEN flag. "Colovaria!" she said, and darted off just as she saw it had changed to green. WOOT!

Back to the base camp, she saw another yellow one amongst the red flags. Red and green, actually. She decided she would take one for the TEAM and fix it back to its original colours. "Colovaria!" she said, pointing her wand at it and picturing the yellow changing to read. It did, and she sighed. She did want to change it to green, but it WAS a red flag to begin with, so it is a red flag once more.

Aaaaand BACK to the Hufflepuff banners, which were still steadily turning other colours, though the badgers seemed to be really on top of changing them back. Kind of. Maybe.

Toby was definitely limping now, but he didn't even pay much attention to it, preferring to just run it out and all that. He embraced the burning in his lungs by this point, 'cause it was just proof of all the legwork he was doing, running back and forth and keeping busy. He felt alive and all that. Alive and busy.

He headed straight for one flag in particular, a green one rippling gently in the breeze. This one stuck out because Toby was preeeeeeeetty sure he'd only just fixed it. Though again, it only made him smile, because trying to keep up with and on top of all the changes was pretty thrilling.

"Colovaria!" A point of his wand later, and the green flag was back to yellow once more. Without stopping, Toby looped back around and ran back across the border again, not a doubt in his mind that when he came back it would likely be red or green again.

Further and further in he went, keeping his eye out for another flag to hit. If he was totally honest, he'd already spotted a couple of green flags, but it seemed unfair to hit one of those when almost all the flags he'd fixed back at the base had been turned green. Soooooo, a red one was what he was looking for. And it wasn't long before he found one.

Toby jogged to a halt right by it and stopped for a moment, leaning forwards with his hands on his knees, just for a few moments while he caught his breath again. Constant running, man. It was fun and exhilarating but when you got worn out, it happened all at once. And Toby wasn't going to LET himself get worn out, see?

Huff. Puff. Breathe. Okay.

"Colovaria."

Toby pointed his wand up at the red flag and, again, watched it turn yellow. Not bad, not bad. A couple more seconds to make sure he'd really caught his breath, and OFF he went, looking for more flags to turn.

Ahhhhhhh.

These Slytherins were FAST. Lux honestly didn't even know where they were coming from. O_O

Before her eyes, more and more flags were turning enemy colours. Well, she was going to have some say on the matter and something had to be done about it. While she still wanted to turn some of the flags red, that was not possible if her House was to stand any chance at all. Even though the odds weren't in their favor, it was still worth a shot to try for Hufflepuff.

They weren't called hard-working for nothing.

Eyeing the flag that Zhenya had just turned green, Lux pointed her wand at it. "COLOVARIA!" There, fixed.

Angel was enjoying this, she was totally going to be using this spell loads when she was older, she could change her shirt colour without having to buy a new one and she could totally paint her bedroom pink without anyone complaining about it or it taking her ages to achieve, but that was still a whilst away didn't they have to be seventeen or something before they could do that?

Angel decided it was time to go after another flag, it seemed most in this area was already changed so she decided that she would have a look around, she started to jog around weaving in and out of the trees hoping and praying that she would be able to get this done.

"Colovaria." Angel was running when she suddenly saw a yellow flag, she pointed her wand at it and thought of the colour red and she was delighted when the yellow flag changed colour. This game was awesome, could they play it again in the next lesson?

Instead of heading back this time, Toby had gone further into the other side's 'fort', figuring he was bound to find some more hidden flags way back here. In actual fact, he was jogging along for ages until he finally spotted another one he could change colour. When he saw it, Toby was still a good thirty feet away, but he still stopped dead in his tracks.

A though had suddenly occurred to him, and he wondered just how far away you needed to be for this charm to work. Maybe it was different with everyone, or maybe you had to be real close, or maybe as long as you had good aim, it would work. They'd been going for long enough that Toby was inclined to experiment with his next go to find out. He closed in just a few more steps and raised his wand to point it at the green flag, squinted down the length of it, and tried the spell.

"Colovaria."

Toby concentrated extra hard this time, finding that he could actually do just that, seeing as he was so pumped up and really getting into this class activity. He would have waited with baited breath to wait for the flag to change colour, except that it happened almost instantly. Toby smiled to himself at the site of the yellow flag waving, feeling kinda proud, then headed off again in the same direction he'd been running. Though slower, this time, because pain was happening.

Norah ran further and further into the enemy territory with a good deal more arm waving. Arm waving always helped, everybody knew that. She contemplated climbing a tree to get a better view and actually find another flag, but Quigley probably wouldn't be very happy if she fell out of it and broke in half. That'd probably hurt, too. Holy hippogriffs, she was turning into her mum. Who ever thought THAT would happen? Not her, that was for sure. What would Marcel think.

Just to make sure this whole transformation-into-a-mum thing wouldn't get too real, she held her wand in front of her like a sword as she charged forward. "EN GARDE, FLAG!" Well, first she needed to find a flag. Details, details. Whatever. She had only dropped her wand once twice three times before she caught some red up high in a nearby tree. Hopefully it was actually a flag and not a bird or something. NO WAIT. She took that back. Hopefully it'd be a really really cool red bird, like a phoenix or something! Those were magical 'n stuff, it'd probably help the Puffers right? If she asked nicely?

The fourth year squinted as she walked forward until she was right below the red. Nope, no bird. Just a Gryffindor flag. Sigh. Pointing her wand, she cast "Colovaria" and watched the red turn yellow. She PROBABLY should turn back and do the whole defense thing, but that also probably wouldn't have been as fun. Plus then she'd have to go all the way back and her legs really didn't feel like doing that anymore. What was the point of legs if they got too tired to keep doing their number one job called running? She'd have to file a complaint.

MAN, those Hufflepuffs weren't backing down, were they? Everywhere he looked, more and more yellow flags kept cropping up which only made the boy sigh. When was this gonna be over? Because as fun as it was, it was also very freaking tiring and he wanted some food.

Trying not to think about food -- which was incredibly difficult, by the way -- Grayson made his way towards the Hufflepuff fort, bumping and shoving past quite a few people as he went. With the amount of things going on here, it was hard not to. This was either a case of shove or BE shoved.

Reaching the fort, the Slytherin pointed his wand up at the closest yellow flag and said, "Colovaria!" Huh. He must've been getting a lot better at this than he thought because it didn't take long for the flag to change to a nice shade of Slytherin green. A smug expression crossed his face as he turned away from the flag to look at--

.................. No. Sigh. NO.

Now he had to run aaaaaaaaaall the way back towards the other side of the ditch simply because some loser had decided to attack one of their own flags. Jeez, those Puffers. Grayson cast a quick glance back at the flag he had just turned green before sprinting back over towards the other fort. It was time to fix this bad boy.

"Colovaria!" There. Done, yo.

Another flag belonged to Gryffindor and Hufflepuff was one less. However that didn't mean the badgers were slouches and not still fighting to change other flags to theres. They would go down with a battle of spells. And Benny was still going to contribute to the rising count of colored flags belonging to the other three houses. The sixth year moving towards another yellow flag, having learned it was easier to focus and get the spell to work when he was closer than trying to do anything over distance.

"Colovaria!" he cast with a point at his target. The boy first imaging the yellow flag changing to blue and then seeing it happen in front of his eyes as the spell took hold. As he lowered his wand he noticed a red flag being changed to yellow. Nope...not happening on his watch.

"Colovaria!" he cast again as he took aim at the flag that had been changed by a younger Hufflepuff. It didn't change all the way and so he moved closer and raised his wand once more. "Colovaria!"

There...all fixed to red.

Hahahaha that was pure gold. Had he been the type to give in to wild bouts of laughter and excessive cackles he might have but he was still Maddox Quigley and could only smirk his delight as an entire house went down in a matter of minutes. Ah the beauty that was war.

His eyes shone with new purpose when he saw the last of the Hufflepuff flags go down.....possibly TOO amused...as hinted at by the look Miss Brown had shot him. Could you blame him though? This stuff was hilarious but ah the game was over and they had other places to be.

"And that's the end of it! Everyone bring it in." He would leave the flags for a moment longer so they could admire their own handy work now and even on their way back up. Maddox removed the charm with immediacy with the expectations the students would start trickling in again as beat and broken as some of them seemed to look out their on the field.....Hopefully they had a light class next. Arithmancy maybe.

"That...was bloody brilliant entertainment. Give yourselves a pat on the back." For keeping him well awake this lesson. "Just a few things before you head back up." Did he mention they were trekking it back up? No? They were. "Goes without saying that team Gryffindor/Slytherin won and each house will receive 15 points, with Slytherin winning an additional 5 for capturing the most flags." His gaze shifted next to the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. "Ravenclaws, you were the first to be conquered, by that condition it means Hufflepuffs come last for failing to protect their partners in war then ending up decimated by all others. That's the thing with war. The moment you fail to protect your allies, they find new ones. 10 points to Ravenclaw and 5 to Hufflepuff BUT." There was always one of those, wasn't there? "You get another 5 for being the most supportive of your house. I saw Hufflepuffs making banners blue instead of yellow, that went a long way while it lasted and shows you understood the concept of dying if your partner goes down and team work."

Which brought him right back to something else. "Gryffindors? Slytherins? What didn't you understand about working together for this exercise? What was all that in house firing?" He was tempted to nick 5 points from each of them for being so dumb but no. "It was poor strategy on your part and almost cost you the war." Something to remember. "Now then, we're through for today. Have a good one." He'd...stay behind to remove the flags....yeah.

OOC: I'll leave the thread open a little longer in case you wanna post reactions and leaving <3

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Running down the last part of the steep ravine, Marsha grinned. Sure, it was early in the morning and she felt like she could sleep after all of these tactics - but who cared? This was so much fun…. and to make it even better her team had conquered Ravenclaw and were now battling to eliminate all of the Hufflepuff flags.

She heard one of the older boys shout ‘resistance is futile’ and giggled. She didn’t get the pop culture reference, or even really realise that there was one to FIND… but that didn’t mean that she didn’t find the entire thing hilarious and amazing and soooo much fun.

RUUUUNNNNNNN.

Hehehehe. ”Coooolllorvaria!” The Welsh girl said with a grin, her wand pointing at the ground. She wasn’t focusing on changing anything, so the charm did nothing… at least not until she finished filling in the gap between her and the next Hufflepuff flag. ”Colovaria!” she repeated, this time pointing her wand at the flag she was intending to change to red

As Professor Maddox called them back, Marsha ran over. She had lots of energy nooooowwwww. Urgh, she didn’t want to have to go and sit down in her next class, she wanted to play! Sigh. School was hard sometimes.

Oh well.

She looked around at the flags with a smile on her face as she listed to the Professor. Whoops, maybe she should have made some flags green as well…. either way - at least they won… right? Yes, though Slytherin were getting more points - not that that was too much to win back at another point in time.

Still with a grin on her face, and her hair wind-blown out of his neat ponytail she had had at the start of the lesson, Marsha smiled at the Professor. Instead of climbing back up the ravine straight away though, she moved over to him. ”Professor… will finite.. like you used earlier… work to end everything that we cast? Or is it only certain things?” She frowned slightly, unsure of the difference - if there was one. ”Or will it only work on illusions? Or…?” ope, she was out of examples, but she knew it would be a good thing to try and learn… Very handy!

Zhenya was just about to run over to fix the flag that Lux had changed back to yellow, but as she started towards it, Professor Quigley spoke again, so she stopped to listen. That was it? The end? Oh dang... but... THEY WON! SLYTHERIN WON!? She felt a bit sad that the team SlytherDor had tried to sabotage each other. Zhenya was just wanting all the flags to be green, that was her goal, she hadn't though too much about team work. Oops. Sorry Quigley.

But it was the end, sigh. "Professor did you need help collecting flags?" she asked, quite enjoying the space to run around outside, rather than being stuck in a classroom. Though any classroom with a trampoline and squishy roof was fun.

And... they finally reached the end. Slytherin won, which was no real surprise with that Ethan clone running around, and... what?

Ravenclaw hadn't come in last?

The logic behind Quigley's declaration was strong, but... still. She'd already let herself think Ravenclaw had been losers for losing all their flags, so to hear that they weren't last felt pretty good. She'd almost regretted not staying behind to protect her own house's flags, but... if she hadn't been on offensive, who would've been? She was quick and nimble and built for offense. She was just doing what she had to do.

And at least they weren't the Gryffindors and Slytherins who, despite winning the game, were being reprimanded. Whoooops.

They were free to go, then, but... there were flags still all over the place. Someone else was volunteering to help with the flags, and Sophie wanted to help, too. "Professor? I'll help gather the flags, too." She didn't wait for his permission - because why would he say no to extra help? - and went ahead to start collecting them.

Okay nevermind, he took it back. Not all of them would look worst for wear after the exercise, just look at this little Gryffindor. She looked like she was still bursting with energy which kinda made him feel bad for whoever had her next. In his lesson, she was given the chance to expel most of the energy...the next guy better have the same idea...

"That's correct, Miss Hanover. In most cases, a simple 'finite' does the trick of 'finite incantatem'. Both will put an end to charms. Transfiguration spells however require a different incantation." In order to effectively change them back but he would leave that to Bellaire to explain.

It was not his field, not by a long shot.

Maddox heaved himself off the rock at last, figuring he would need to get this done at some point. Sure they would disappear on their own at SOME point but the man was good with his wand work and they would be there for days. It'd look messy and he wasn't so sure the Groundskeeper would approve.

Oh? What's this? Help?

"Yes please, I'd really appreciate that Miss Burton, thank you." Awful nice of her. "Vanishing them should do the trick."

Welp, didn't even need to give a response did he? Maddox chuckled at Miss Brown, admiring her spunk even after a long war that was sure to be draining. "Much appreciated, Miss Brown, like I said, vanishing should do the trick nicely."

From nothing they came and to nothing they would go again. With them volunteering to help...did he...still have to do anything....?

Eh, probably. That way they could get out of this ditch sooner.

Henric looked up when he felt a pat on his back. Oh it was none other than Ethan. That was very nice of him, but he was still regarded as the enemy.Eh...he was tired...he let go whatever bad feelings left in his body and smiled back at Ethan,"Yeah I'm fine..thanks man.." Henric was dying of thirst..people...he needed water...water...Henric cast the water spell and out shoots fresh water from the tip of his wand. He gulped down a few mouthfuls while watching the battle took place in front of him.

Finally, it was over! The war was over! Fuuu...he didn't think he could go on any further. He got up from his position and regrouped with the others. Aww...Hufflepuff was last again. Oh well...they had fun and Henric felt proud for his housemates because they support each other greatly during the activity. He also felt a little bad for not defending the Ravenclaws flags well. It was very hard to defend both houses at the same time...but he tried his best atleast.

"Thank you, professor for this great lesson...I will help as well with the flags,"Henric offered.And off he went with the vanishing charm too.

Ooo helping and practicing spell work at the same time! Zhenya smiled at Professor Quigley "Alright, vanishing it is," she said, having originally thought she would run around and collect them all. Still, being outside was what she was enjoying the most. She pulled out her wand, having put it back in her robe pocket, and decide she could get a little bit of running in, whilst helping with her spell work. "Evanesco," she said, moving her wand with the incantation at the flag and seeing it disappear. She ran to another flag and did the same thing, and watched as that flag disappeared. WOO! She ran between a few more until she became slightly out of breath, and then she just tried to long-distance vanish the flags. "Evanesco," she said, a few metres away from one flag. It vanished, so she tried a few more from standing on that spot, and watched as they vanished.

Aaand it was over. Done.

Ethan stretched his arms over his head, and kept his wand under his sleeve. That was, indeed, a good game, even if the Lions attacked their fellow group mates. He followed the rest of the class towards Quigley. It was quite obvious who won, but he didn’t realize the amount of green banners that were left in the field. And for that, they got an extra 5 points for it. Huzzah!

Quigley surely did not leave any stones unturned, eh? The professor reprimanded them however, of the unnecessary attacks that transpired during the game. Ethan was sure that he wasn’t the first to attack his fellow lions, so he crossed his arms and eyed those wearing the crimson and gold ties. He won’t follow through of course IF they did not start attacking.

But who was he kidding? They won, and that’s all that matters. The older Slytherin turned and gave Henric a pat on the back as soon as the rest climbed back up. “Well done, chap. That was pretty noble of you guys.” Seriously, the kid should take it as a compliment considering that it came from a Slytherin.

And was he going to help? Probably not. He’s pretty beat, and they’ve got another class coming up. He needed to get some food again down his stomach, and take a quick, warm shower. Yep, sounds like a plan. “See you around, Professor.” The seventeen year old waved goodbye to the man, and up he went back to the bridge.

Oh, no collecting them? That worked better, even. She didn't want to have to make a bunch of trips to dump them off at Quigley's feet, though... she thought he probably would've found amusement in that kind of physical work from her, so she was grateful that he didn't make her do that just for fun.

"Got it, professor. You're welcome." He was THANKING HER... kind of. Appreciating, thanking, same thing. It was about TIME she got some thanks, though. So. Ha. Backfired on you, Quiggles.

Sophie took the opposite side of the ravine from where Zhenya was and made quick, efficient work of jogging across the terrain, casting "Evanesco!" at every flag she came upon. It was no big deal, really. She was used to excessive cardio, and this little task was just adding to her mileage for the day.

"Evanesco. Evanesco. Evanesco." She had this under control.

Wheeee! They got ten points despite failing to help protect Ravenclaw. Quite honestly, Adi had not noticed most of the Puffers doing the same as he had. Turning flags blue, we mean. Wasn't that awesome? Hufflepuffs, man! YOU GOTTA LOVE THEM!

Pleased with his House, Adi bounded off to find Benny and AJ, slipping on more gravel in the process. Heh. This gravel LOATHED him, yo! "Bye, Professor! Awesome lesson!'' This was by far one of the best lessons. Yup, yup. Nooooow. He was going to have to put up with AJ's boasting that Gryffindor had won, he was sure of that. That's what boyfriends were for. Hehe.

Awesome! They got ten points despite coming last. Lux didn't really like losing because she was competitive, but she wasn't a sore loser. The most important thing was that people had fun...that wasn't possible if everyone got grouchy.

Flags needed to be gotten rid of, and Lux WAS tempted to help but others beat her to it. Probably no point in a bunch of people doing the job; vanishing objects wasn't exactly rocket science. Oh well. "Thanks for the awesome lesson, Professor!" Now back to the castle so she could do some reading.

They were done? Merlin. That had definitely been exhilarating. No longer running, Toby headed back towards Professor Quigley's voice to hear him wrap up the lesson, dropping down to sit on the ground as he spoke. His ankle was starting to hurt again now that the adrenaline had wore off, and it had suddenly occurred to Toby that getting back up that big hill was going to be tricky.

He'd stopped listening to Quigley, even though that was super rude of him, as soon as the professor had started talking about this as though it was an actual war rather than a game. That was all too negative and real for Toby, who somehow didn't believe in such things, but instead of getting upset about it he simply tuned it all out. Plus he was focusing on checking out dat ankle, so it wasn't ALL him being horrifically impolite.

Suddenly, it seemed, they were being dismissed. Toby looked up and around at the dispersing students, blinking as they headed back up towards the hill. Right. Okay then. Moment of truth. The seventh year got to his feet again, attempting to test his foot by gingerly putting his weight on it, but also trying not to be too obvious about it.

"Later, Professor Quigley," he called, not knowing quite where the professor actually was, as he limped casually strolled back to the incline and began making his way back up the hill.

THEY WON! THEY WON THEY WON!!!!.....

Zeke was stoked, and NOTHING could wipe the grin off his face as Professor Quigley called out the results, and the POINTS that came with them. His grin only faltered when it was pointed out that they'd attacked their own team mates, PERSONALLY he didn't see the problem with it, it was still consolidating their flags AND on top of that it kept the Snakes on their toes. No sloppy teammates. Yep. Totally legit.

BUT alas... lesson was over, boo, hurrah, he wasn't sure HOW to feel. One thing he did know for sure was that he needed food.

"Thanks Professor!" he called out, waving frantically as he made to head back UP to the castle, in the literal sense. UP. Only, there was surely a more efficient way to get back up, no?

"Sir, can I use draconifors to fly outta here?" he asked. At least he had the manners to ask, THAT in itself should be rewarded.

They were finished? Aww boo! She was having an awesome time of running around and changing the colors of flags. Fresh air, exercise, team work and friendly competition all during one lesson was always a nice change but sadly all good things must come to an end.

When everyone was called back by the professor Hady slid her wand back into it's holster as she walked over. They had won! Whoa and Slytherin had the most flags! Awesome work team. The third year grinned as she brushed some dirt off her pants. "Thanks Professor, this was an awesome lesson," She called out to him with a wave. It was time to hike back up the ravine. Another adventure!