Victoria walked into the arena, she needed some practice. She waited for someone to duel her.

Professor Lawson walked into the dueling arena and spotted Celandine Toussaint at once. He walked towards her and also noticed that Mr Morgan, was not here and Mr Upstead was sulking in the corner. Well he could watch and maybe learn something from Celandine.

"Okay Miss Toussaint, I am here. What is it you would like to work on first?" He gestured for her to follow him up onto one of the dais'.

Victoria turned round when she heard the professor voice, maybe she should come back later or should she stay here and watch.

"Hi Professor!" Celandine greeted cheerfully. "Oooh. Well. I suppose I should practice the things I learned last term first? Focused shielding? And then ummm I need to work on a stronger cast for my hexes, jinxes and curses. I can cast a bunch really, really fast, but I want to be strong."

For example, how cool would it be if she toughened up enough to give Cope a run for his money?

It didn't cross her mind to think about one day competing with Nico or Kayla, though she was sure she could at least surprise them, maybe.

"Okay then we'll do a bit of shielding first." Marcus walked ten paces away from Cela and then turned and faced her. Without giving her any warning because what is the point of that? He pointed his wand at her and cast a silent Babbling Curse towards her right.

It was a habit from practicing with her brother that made Cela immediately put a shield up as soon as a wand was pointed at her. She had no idea if he was going to cast, and when he did, considering she couldn't hear the incantation or tell the direction of whatever it was was being cast, Cela flicked her wand free from her holster and cast a pretty sturdy general shield charm, "Protego!" The bubble flashed around her when it was hit by something, an impact on her right side. She adjusted her stance, her left hand holding her wand up warily.

"What was that?"

Lyra turned around to see a Ravenclaw walking in the arena. A first year too... perfect. 'wait what was her name again? alice?...no..uh..victoria! yea thats right..i hope" she thought and walked to the girl trying to ignore the professor and the fourth year
"hey, you wanna duel?"

"That was the Babbling Curse, Miss Toussaint and very smart to cast a general shield but if you want to do a focus shield then you need to wait until the spell has been cast." Marcus grinned at the Ravenclaw, she was going to be a pretty good dueler. "Okay I would suggest that you watch my wand carefully, as I am casting non-verbally you are not going to get that warning. But if you watch my wand movements then you should be able to focus on that spot."

He raised his wand once again and pointed to her left but at the last moment he flicked it towards her feet and cast the 'Duro' spell at her shoes.

OOH. She knew the wand movements for that one! She could tell, based on what he was casting at her that it was the duro charm and it was a technique she knew to aim at someone's shoes and give them stone feet! A Toussaint specialty as it were!

"Protego!" Celandine cast a focused shield at her feet and grinned at Professor Lawson. If she wasn't practicing shielding right then, she'd have tried something else. Her eyes sparkled with it, making it obvious that she had other tricks up her sleeve against that particular spell.

"Trying to turn my shoes into stone, sir?"

Marcus watched as Celandine cast another superb shield charm and he was impressed at how fast she was. He hoped that Mr Upstead, was taking notes of this.

He noticed the look in her eyes and raised one brow. "Not at all Miss Toussaint, certainly not those pretty shoes." He chuckled and gave her a wink. "Show me what you got Celandine, I know you're just dying too."

"Well, if you feel like casting that charm again," Celandine sort of skittered around a bit in excitement and beamed at Professor Lawson, "I might show you something super duper neat."

She took her stance and waited.

He eyed her warily for a moment before nodding his head. "Okay then." Marcus pointed his wand back at Celandine's feet, "Duro!" He watched the flash of light and waited on tenterhooks to see what she was going to do.

"Serpensortia!" Celandine immediately cast, a snake coming from her wand and meeting an almost immediate and unfortunate end as it got hit by the duro charm and promptly turned to stone. This is what Cela had been intending of course and whipfast, she cast again, "Confringo!" The stone snake exploded outwards into firey pieces, which spun towards Professor Lawson.

But miss smartypants wasn't done yet, since charms and tranfiguration were her specialty,

"Gemino!" She'd been practicing a bunch and while she couldn't make the duplicates actually solid, it was intended for distraction anyway. So like, which bits were actually bits of firey former-snake rock? Hmmmmm?

Aaaaaaand she waited for the verdict, bouncing in her eagerness.

Varius walked into the dueling arena, ice cream in hand. He came to see what entertainments people had in store for him. Whether they were being flown against the wall, or producing pretty colours out of their wand, Varius didn't care - so long as he was entertained.

It had been a year since his terrifying duel with Daphne, actually. However, looking back on it now, it seemed rather funny. It was during this trip down memory lane that he noticed Cela battling the DADA professor. Clearly he liked to pick on little girls.

He stooped forward to get a better look and watched in amazement as the Professor sent a spell in Cela's direction. "Dodge, dodge, dodge," he chanted. Thankfully she managed to cope with it by casting another spell. "Good job Cela-pants!"

Marcus was definitely impressed she had used a counter attack against his 'Duro' spell instead of just shielding. He raised his wand as she then exploded the stone and the pieces flew towards him.

He cast an extremely strong hot air charm and directed them straight back to her. Oh and the clever little thing had now duplicated the pieces, well now she had to work out what she was going to do.

"Nice work Miss Toussaint!"

"Impedimenta!" Celandine cast on the flying bits to slow them down enough to give her time for two things, "Glisseo!" She cast on the ground from the point about halfway between them and right past the professor's feet.

"Impiriano!" She flicked her wand in a circle and a blue aura shield appeared around her, the pieces of flaming, stone snake bouncing off with a tinkling sound much like breaking glass.

Marcus reacted just as quickly and pointed his wand at the floor. "Finite" he muttered. Then in another quick motion he 'evanescoed' the stone pieces.

In three quick successions he pointed his wand to the left and cast gouging spell, then to the middle where he produced the hurling hex and then to her right he shot off the 'Deprimo' spell. At least one of those should shatter her shield.

This was FAR TOO FUN!

Celandine threw herself flat against the ground, letting her blue bubble shield go. "Tarantallegra!" She aimed at his feet since it was right in front of her. She jumped up, and kept herself in a low crouch as she cast a quick sponge knees curse and dodged to one side to cast a joint reversal at his elbow. "Iunctura adversus!"

She was BEAMING at him, hoping he could see what she meant about her being fast and good with combos and blocking, decent with applying charms an transfigurations in a duel, but not overly strong in the delivery of her hexes, jinxes and curses.

Oh yes she was very fast and he liked that. As her three spells flew towards him, it made all the more easy to shield because they were all pretty much flying at the same time.

Marcus pointed his wand at his feet and brought it up and around his body, casting a strong shield and just before each of her spells could hit. He pushed the shield back along with her hexes and curses. Yes she needed work on those they didn't even make a dent in his shield.

Cela put up her shield and bounced on her toes. "Can you teach me something awesome, sir?"

might have to have him leave, because the timeline with him has gone BLAH
 

...

...

...

Yeah... proof of why Jake did NOT want to be in on this duelling lark. Yeah, Jake had fast reflexes... but the multi-tasking involved was just... ridiculous, right? He couldn't do that. He wouldn't... why would he need to, huh?

Pushing himself up onto his feet, Jake let his feet carry him across the room and over to the door. He wasn't leaving, not yet. That would be a very stupid thing to do. Nope, Jakers was just lingering around in the doorway. He'd always done it in the past, keeping a look-out.

He had his back pressed against the doorframe, so he could still keep an eye on Lawson teh evil one... but...

Siiiigh.

She wanted to practice some spell but she knew that she was only a first year but she could make some spells work, she hopes.

Marcus eyed the young girl for a moment and rubbed his goatee in thought. He flicked his wand at one of the dummies and turned it to stone. "Do you know how to do the gouging spell?" This would test just how strong her spells were. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Jake heading towards the door.


Turning towards the door, Marcus raised his wand. "Stay right where you are Mr Upstead. I didn't say you could leave just yet. You never know, you just might learn something." Honestly that boy had a problem with authority and if he kept going he was going to find himself in detention.

"Defodio right?" Celandine eyed the dummy and tipped her head at it consideringly. "The wand movement is like this, right?" Celandine pushed her wand in a quick jab like she'd seen Nico and Maddox use, angling her wrist with a slight flick.

He moved around her and watched her wand movements. "Yes that's right. And it hurts like a bugger being hit with it too." Marcus chuckled as he now stood behind her, facing the dummy. "Now you have the incantation and the wand movement down. All you need to do now is to concentrate. Remember you have to have intent behind the spell for it to work effectively. So Miss Toussaint, I want to see you put a hole in that dummy."