'Use. Shield. Charm. Next. Time.' Grace swore under her breath. She was about to give up when... Aha! A tricky idea popped up in her head. If she couldn't hex Lyra with this too, she didn't know how else. She quickly hid under the dummy, dropping all her efforts to get out. "I think... Ooh my neck!" she shouted under it, her voice muffled a little. Her voice sounded she was really injured. And it was partly true, her neck did ache a bit, along with her limbs and she wasn't even counting the wetness! So yeah, she wasn't lying at all. But this didn't prevent her thinking evil spells.

Did she just heard Grace's voice? Yes it was! oh thank Merlin!
Lyra laughed to herself slightly, but her laugh faded away when she noticed that Grace's voice was weak and...neck? she hurt her neck? oh no not good. Lyra was in a difficult possition now, she had learned from her uncle to NEVER walk to an opponent just like that, hurt or not, 'but' Lyra thought biting her lip 'Grace is my friend! not a deadly opponent! and she sounded hurt pretty badly' Running towards Grace , her wand still in her hand she dropped on her knees and tried to take the dummy off of her.

'Yes!' Grace thought as Lyra approached to her. 'Ready your wand!' She held her wand in her left hand and muttered some more. "I can't move my neck." Now, that was a big lie. Her whole aim was to hex Lyra. And if she played well, she could do it!

She saw Lyra drop on her knees and helped her to take the dummy off quickly, and she fiercely thought 'Levicorpus!' while her wand was aimed at Lyra. If she could manage to get off this close spell either, she'd give up and never annoy Lyra.

Lyra screamed when she was hit by a spell and flew upside down in the air, hanging there. "what the?" she said in shock and tried to locate Grace. "you! oooh your evil! a true Slytherin!" Lyra shouted and at the same time grinned. "is this the spell you talked about?" she asked hanging upside down.

Celandine nodded and offered Anna her wand, checking her own was safely reholstered before starting on a chart.

"It was pretty cool. I was thinking that the differences were interesting when we both cast Expelliarmus." Celandine finished up her chart and offered it to Anna. "What do you think?"

A rather blank expression took up residence on Anna's face, then she blinked...and then blinked again. "Whoa, Cela. That's like...some really good work right there. Yup, really good work," she said. This chart was just further proof that when the opportunity presented itself, one should always try and partner up with Celandine Toussaint. "Well, erm..." Anna was pretty much still in awe over the chart that had just been presented to her. As soon as she could speak, she'd share her ideas, too."

A few moments later, Anna said, "Expelliarmus...one thing I remember in particular, from my side, is that when my wand was pulled from my grasp, I remember feeling this...odd sort of suction-type feeling. The thought of a rather large vacuum pulling my wand from my grasp crossed my mind," she said. Yup. It'd been that strong. "Luck and abundance were definitely on my side, especially when I unintentionally conjured the flowers. I've never seen so many in a bouquet before...and their force was really strong, too! Same with the birds, too, you know. What'd you think about that last charm of yours? Pretty typical of merkstave, eh?"

"Do you want to copy it?" Celandine offered, "Since we worked together anyhow." Obviously.

"I was thinking that too, with the birds and the flowers, there were so MANY." Celandine nibbled on her quill thoughtfully. "I figured that Fehu merkstave would work well with any spells that throw up obstacles, and ropes obviously made sense, with the bondage association." She made a few more notes and smiled.

"I'd like to do some more research and experimenting with runes and their effects on spells. Maybe we could ask Professor Lupa about it?"

"Oh, sure. Thanks, Cells," Anna said, grabbing ahold of the paper. She pulled her wand out once again and cast a spell on the paper to duplicate. To her surprise, the paper copied itself a good thirty or so times, even without her meaning for it to. "Oh. Oops, haha," she said. "I forgot we still, well, you know... At least we know we can add that to the list." She stacked the papers neatly together, then put her wand away.

"Yeah, the whole bondage thing really tied in well with the end of the duel," Anna agreed. She grabbed a quill and a few spare pieces of parchment, then jotted down her own notes. "Dueling with other runes would be a fun topic to explore. I think asking Professor Lupa about that would be a really nice idea."

"Great. I think I'm pretty much done. Shall we finish this off and maybe go ask Professor Lupa about it?" Celandine eyed the copies and giggled a bit, taking back her original and stowing it carefully in her bag.

Once in the Dueling Arena, Lawliet was rather hoping that the girl would have been here by now. With a small, frustrated sigh, he decided to practice on a dummy while waiting for her to get there.

The boy took his wand out and made his way to one of the dummies, his wand at the ready. He muttered something very quietly under his breath and the thing was blown to pieces instantly. Practicing the Reductor Curse for a long time definitely paid off in the long run. He cleaned up the dust with a small wave of his wand and moved onto the next one...

Curious, small and blond, Diane crossed the door a moment later. Actually, she was just behind the cloud of smoke, watching with some unrepressed surprise as the physical existence of that dummy was literally obliterated except for bits and pieces.

"Thanks for meeting me here," she said a moment later, having caught up with the boy. From a closer distance, it was even more obvious the difference of height. Was Diane any closer, she would need to crack her neck to look at him in the... nose maybe.

"Our first DADA class involved wand keeping, my stay on the Hospital Wing did the rest, so I'm afraid I've done no duelling whatsoever to this date." She brought out her wand, looking at it as she twirled between her fingers. "I'll need you to teach me how to curse, hex or jinx first, before we can duel. Will you?"

Lawliet nearly forgot that Diane was only a first year until he took into consideration her height... or lack there of. He cleaned up the other two dummies with another wave of his wand before directing his attention towards Diane. Though he hadn't known her for very long, it seemed like she had a lot of potential and she was very determined.

He nodded slowly as she spoke, "Alright, that I can do. Do you have anything in mind that you'd like to start with?" he inquired while playing with the wand between his fingers.

Diane considered it for a moment, then brought her wand pointing up as she stated, "Ah! I know. I've done nothing but summon things up to now. Do you have a spell that can push things away?"

She considered for a minute again, "I would love to learn one of each: lesser, medium and more important damage dueling spells, but I'll guess for me it's too advance for now. Something less destructive might be better, yet useful."

"We'll start off with the basics then," he said with a thoughtful look on his face. "First, I would like to see you do a Summoning Charm for me, after which I will teach you Depulso, which is the spell used to push things away rather than summon them to you. After that we'll get into dueling charms, hexes and spells as they are far more difficult than this basic stuff. Go on," Lawliet said, giving the girl an encouraging smile.

This... should be interesting.

As the one spell she had mastered in all her life, the request did seem a bit unessential. But she complied brighting up her wand and pointing at her own hand. There wasn't even movement on the other side, but a head of one of the dummies recently broken in practice materialized without incantation or even was perceived to displace through physical space. In other words, it just appeared magically, if I may be redundant.

Wordlessly, Diane handed over the... head. That thing and her face looked uncanningly similar.

A head. Out of all things that the girl could have summoned, she chose a head. Lawliet didn't know if he should find it amusing, morbid or a little but of both. He thought the latter fit best. But heck, she did indeed master the summoning charm and that was all that mattered.

"Very well, very well indeed," he muttered to her, with an approving look on his face. "Alright since you obviously have the summoning charm down, I'll teach you Depulso..."

The Slytherin boy grabbed the head that Diane had summoned and placed it on the floor. With his wand at the ready, he said "Depulso!" and made a Z-like motion with his wand as he pointed it at the head. The head zoomed across the room, nearly knocking a whole bunch of dummies over on the other side.

"So, we have the Z-like motion, point to the object and say Depulso very, very clearly. Spells like these, though very easy, can go extremely wrong if not pronounced correctly," he added on a more serious note.

"Mmh," Diane considered, a pensive look on her face while her wandhand, as if having a mind of its own, re-summoned the head at reach on the floor. She crouched down, and poked it with her wand, as if feeling for its texture.

"Just a Z motion and the incantation, that sounds easy enough... Though, I consider, it would also work if I kicked the head with my foot?" And there came the trademark, freakingly innocent nicest-person smile. But enough of that.

She stepped back for a minute, and pointed her wand at the floor where the head lied.

Then she zapped at the air like Zorro of that show, and the incantation left her lips before it even reached the head on the floor.

Consecuently, she knocked a torch that was hanging on the side of the wall instead, sending a showed of sparks on its wake as it aimlessly twirled on air accross the room--

And there was also... that. If anything could possibly go wrong while he was around Diane, it would. Lawliet flinched and flailed momentarily as he watched the sparks fly around the room, setting the curtains on fire as well. He muttered "Aguamenti!" quickly under his breath and pointed his wand towards the sparks, putting them out with a jet stream of cold water.

He turned his eyes back on Diane once he made sure there wasn't a danger of a fire starting anymore. "Very well executed as the spell did what it was supposed to, but let's try that again. Practice makes perfect after all," he said, though he was no longer smiling and he was more scared that she would set something else on fire at this point.

"And let's keep away from the torches this time," the boy added gravely. "Far, far away."

Diane watched, as if in unpreoccupied stupor, as the torch was flung around the room and then landed on a curtain. Prompt to act was the fourth year, who was there to put down the fire.

Still in her own easy if maybe curious kind of state, she walked up to the boy, much as if nothing was the matter, stood by the curtain and picked the burnt edge interested. "Um, is there a spell for this kind of... fixing up, I hope?"

The curtain fell off her gasp as said carbonized edge broke with the weight of the wet rest of the curtain. Mmhing more to herself as she walked back to her previous spot and to the severed head, she soundly mused something understood only by her.

Then she twirled her wand around, but more like warmed up her wrists before proceeding, then faced a blank wall while behind the head on the floor. Then she tried again, "De-pul-so!"

But nothing happened. A spell said slow enough for her to complete the Z motion did not carry enough power to be put into effect. Ah, the biggest problem was to end in the target while finishing the motion at the same time as the word of the incantation, with enough concentration and intent as to do all of that at once.

Indeed, a tricky endeavour.

"Depul-so!" she tried, and she ended up one leg parallel-perpendicular to the ground just as she had lost balance on her tiny feet from impulse. A beam of light shot from her wand, but hit the floor instead. "This will require some practice," she evaluated.

About three times later after that, managing to only push the head back for only a bit of space like a spiritless kick, the motion came in a single flow and the incantation "depulso!" pronounced.

At which point, the dummy lost an eye.

...Still looking interestedly unmoved, Diane turned to him blankly. "I think this will be a rather dangerous hex to duel with."

Lawliet's face dropped as the girl somehow managed to make the dummy's eye pop out, set something on fire but couldn't get an easy spell such as Depulso down. He thought for a moment before speaking again.

"Um Diane, maybe it's better that we do something else instead. You asked about a way to fix these things, right? Well the incantation for it is Reparo and it's just a simple wave of your wand," he spoke slowly, while demonstrating. The Slytherin boy pointed his wand at the curtains and muttered Reparo!, and the curtains looked brand new again.

Surely nothing could go wrong when using a spell to repair things... right?

"There, now you try it with the dummy's eye," he said, encouraging her. "You'll get it down eventually and then we can go back to practicing Depulso. At least this way you'll know how to fix things if you were to break them again," Lawliet added and gave her a small wink.

Oh, Lyra's wand was still in her hand. She didn't know the opposite spell of Levicorpus, but she still could hex Grace. Before answering her questions, Grace quickly muttered "Expelliarmus," a whisper Lyra wouldn't hear and hoped she wouldn't realise a red light coming towards her while she was screaming. She grinned too, for Lyra not to see the light. She was hanging upside down now, but she was still a Slytherin too.

Lyra hang there, up in the air by her ankle, reaaaally charming, and.....'wait a second, i still have my wand!' Lyra thought and felt her wand in her hand. 'Did Grace ever mentioned the opposite spell?' She couldn't remember, she closed her eyes for a few seconds, not seeing what Grace was doing and not seeying a flash of red light flying towards her, she opened her eyes in shock when she felt her wand shot out of her hand and flew towards Grace.
yea...Lyra had much to learn.

'stupid stupid stupid stupid!' Lyra continued to say to herself as she watched her wand and desperately tried to summon it back, but how could she? she was a first year so there for could not possibly manage non-verbal spells.....well except 'levicorpus' but her wand wasn't in her hand ...aargh!

"Ok, you win Grace, you, you uh..." lyra bit her lip and sighed deeply "you outsmarted me" Lyra hated to admit it, friends or not, Lyra. did. not. like. to. lose.
"uh Grace can you put me down now? my head is starting to explode" she said as her face became redder and redder.

Luckily, Lyra had closed her eyes just in time. Grace's spell hit her hand and her wand flew out of her hand to Grace's open and waiting hands. Grace smiled with pleasure. Also, good thing she hadn't mentioned the opposite spell, which was 'Liberacorpus.' Yeah, she was very happy with herself. She had just won her very first duel! That was a thing to applause, no?

Grace grinned even more deeply when Lyra said she had outsmarted her. A big yay for her! She again fiercely thought 'Liberacorpus!' to free Lyra. She intended to give her wand back, but then decided against to it as they were still in dueling arena. Lyra was a smart girl who knew what to do with wands.

"Am I really a true Slytherin?" Grace asked. She was proud of being one, and she felt even prouder when she heard it from someone else. "Yeah, this was the spell I talked about." she continued. "And the opposite of it is 'Liberacorpus.' "

Lyra saw that Grace was very pleased with herself, well who wouldn't if you just had won your first duel, Lyra was so sure of herself that she could have won this.
Gasping when she felt that the spell was away, she fell towards the ground, head first... "oh shiz" Lyra said and tried to block her fall, but how? she didn't have her wand, nor did she know how to block a fall if she did have it. Block it Muggle style? Lyra held her hands out to catch her fall, she fell on the floor and there was a sickening 'Crack'.
Tears started to sting in Lyra's eyes and she screamed out loud.
"My wrist! oww oww oww my wrist , it hurts!" she cried, tears streaming over her face. She didn't even hear Grace mentioned the countercurse but looked at her wrist which was started to get swollen.

It was mmhing time again. Diane crouched down at the head with the missing eye and, waved her wand repeatedly while saying continuously "reparo, reparo, reparo..."

Some time at the 18th or so time, she got it right. Now will you look at that. The eye just returned to the head! Diane stood and walked up to the boy. "I've done it," she announced cheerfully. "Now I would like to learn something to bind someone up," she explained non-paused.

And then a period of inconsequential silence...

And then Diane smiled. This turned out to be pretty good academic experience.