06-14-2017, 03:54 AM
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#7 (permalink)
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  DMACFirecrab
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 739
|  h:80 m:55 f:10 Gryffindor for life Notorious Niffler
Dueling was not shaping up to be how she'd thought it would be, but that was probably only because she was dueling one of her best friends. Emmeline still felt extremely conflicted by this point, even though they'd been dueling for a while now already. She didn't really care too much if she lost this one, because that would mean that Stasya would win. At the same time, she knew that she wouldn't get any better -- and neither would Stasya, really -- if she just gave up or stopped putting any effort in. She also thought that maybe, hopefully, they were both learning something by choosing spells that wouldn't hurt the other person while still trying to find a way to win. Emmeline had practiced a few basic jinxes that she wasn't willing to use against Stasya, like the Leg Locker Curse, for example. So there was a lot more strategy involved here than throwing jinxes at her opponent and trying to win a slug fest.
The first year's gaze had been studying her friend's eyes, facial expressions, and wand hand intently -- she figured that glancing between them might give her an edge. She saw the disappointment flash across Stasya's face when she'd gotten around the Tarantellgra jinx, and chalked it up to curiosity on her friend's part. Emmeline was curious what that looked like too, and to be honest, a small part of her had briefly thought about maybe taking the hit just to see. Most of her had been a little freaked out by the idea, though; not that she thought out-of-control legs would hurt exactly, but the idea of not being able to stand while someone else -- even someone she trusted -- had a wand on her was kind of a little scary.
When Stasya started the swish-and-flick movement, Emmeline's eyes were fastened on her friend's wand arm so she was expecting the spell. She didn't have time to dodge it or deflect it (was it possible to deflect spells?), but she did recognize the wand movement right away, so she was ready. Her wand began levitating out of her hand, following the commands of Stasya's spell, but Emmeline followed it up quickly. She stretched allll the way out to her very tippy-toes, and managed to snatch her wand back out of the air before it levitated completely out of her reach. This happened in a matter of seconds in real time, probably, but to Emmeline it felt like forever. Being without a wand was worse than being on the floor, for sure. She hadn't realized how much she'd come to depend on her wand in the past few weeks at Hogwarts when she'd obviously never had one before that, but now the thought of losing it in a dueling situation was as bad as being hit with a curse in her opinion.
The first year bounced back down to her feet -- literally bounced, because of the Spongify'd floor -- so she was a little off-balance when she touched back down with her wand clenched tightly in her hand. She wasn't thinking when she cast a new spell; she would never have cast this one if she was thinking. Instead she'd been worried about losing suddenly: losing her wand, the duel, her parents' respect, when bluebell flames shot out of the end of her wand in Stasya's general direction. Emmeline couldn't remember saying the incantation, but she must have unconsciously because she certainly couldn't do nonverbal magic. Panic made her mind blank for a second before she remembered that her bluebell flames never burned. They were just warm and kind of ticklish; the bluebell flames charm was one of her best spells and she'd practiced them so often all over the place that she must have cast them on instinct. But she knew they never hurt or burned, because she'd accidentally cast them ON her hand instead of above it several times while she'd worked on the spell. So Stasya wouldn't be hurt by the flames even if she didn't manage to get out of their way.
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