The Duelling Arena has been slightly remodelled over the summer break. The spacious, long room with lofty ceilings has not changed much; there are still several duelling pistes on raised platforms along the length of the room. However the spectator seating has been increased and made more comfortable. Along the length of the main duelling piste there are three-tiered bleachers, ideal for an entire class to sit and observe from.

At each end of the room there is space set aside for those who wish to practice on their own. There are targets and dummies set up and they can be charmed to move for more of a challenge.

As you walk the length of the room and pass each piste, your skin tingles just slightly. Not to worry, you are simply passing through magical safety barriers which stop any spells from passing the end of that particular platform. These barriers will not negate existing spell effects though, so if you’ve had parts hexed off, added, adjusted, morphed, mutated, remodelled or cursed and a simple finite won’t fix it, then you’ll still have to head up to the hospital wing.

It even smells magical in here. The air crackles with magical residue and certain pockets in the room almost cause a metallic taste in the back of your throat from more than a thousand years of magical duelling.

The scuffed purple carpet on each of the raised duelling platforms remains unchanged. Phases of the moon are depicted clearly on the carpet, even through all the wear and tear.

There are two doors leading into the Arena, as well as a narrow flight of stairs going up to what appears to be a mezzanine floor. One door is the one through which you entered, it will lead you right back out into the first floor corridor, the other door leads to the DADA professor’s office. The mezzanine floor is a learning area, a small classroom with plenty of books for studying duelling theory. Professor Truebridge feels right at home in here, so he’ll be seen around quite often and can always be asked to help out.

Ugh...this was certainly awful. She was scared, utterly terrified of these self control lessons. She didn't know what she was going to have ot do but for some odd reason, she didn't think she would like it. She came here though, like the good little girl she was. Savannah looked down at her nails, her eyes grew in horror. They were bitten down to a nub ! Savannah let out a cry, this is what happened when ever she got nervous. Ugh....

It's better than dentetion.....

Truebridge entered a little later than he intended to and as soon as he spotted Savannah he apologised.

"I'm sorry I am late, Savannah. I'm glad you are here though. Before we... do anything, perhaps we should have a little chat." Truebridge suggested. "The reason I asked for you to join me is because, even though it may surprise you, I occassionally have anger issues myself, and I particularly did when I was your age." He paused thoughtfully and then admitted in a quiet voice, "I almost got myself expelled once, for casting an entrail expelling curse on another student."

And of course it was over something relatively mundane too.

Savannah crossed her arms over her chest, listening as Truebridge spoke."Oh..."She said as he spoke. Well wasn't that lovely to know ? She let out a sigh and placed her hands on her hips,"I don't usually have "anger issues.""She said,looking at Truebridge. This was quite honestly the first time Savannah ever attacked someone like that.

Savannah looked down at the ground, biting her lip."It's just...Ella really really upset me."She said, still looking at the ground."I couldn't help it, sir."

"Whenever you are reacting to a situation, you aren't in control of the situation, regardless of the reasons for it." Truebridge informed Savannah, gently enough. "When you are reacting, your actions come from a place of weakness and others will easily have the upper hand over you. I'm sure that isn't something that sounds appealing to you."

Sav pouted. He did have a point, letting others have control wasn't good. Savvy needed all control for herself."I guess you are right ,sir."Savvy said, a shrug of her shoulders. She still kind of wanted Ella dead and would still like to attack her again but Sav knew that wouldn't be good.Tehehe.

"So, what are we going to do ?"

"We're going to create a few situations and you're going to be in control of them, rather than simply react to them. You'll need your wand."

There was a clatter and the suits of armour around the sides of the arena moved, scattering themselves with no apparent order around the arena.

Truebridge flicked his wand at the ground and a grid appeared, almost like a chess board, but the different squares were different colours.

"You won't be in any real danger, I promise you that much."

The suits of armour waited silently, almost ominously.

"EEEEP."Savannah squealed, seeing all the suits of armor move. Well, this was kind of scary. She didn't want to get her head chopped off or anything .Truebridge reassured her that wouldn't happen but Savvy didn't fully trust him. There suits of armor were SCARY and...tall. They looked angry too. Savvy looked down at the grid thingies on the floor, hm.. pretty colors.

"Okay..."Savannah said, getting her wand out of her pocket and holding onto it for dear life. She wanted out of here, now.

"Alright. See the door?" Truebridge gestured. There were quite a few coloured squares between where they stood and where the door was, and several suits of armour too. "You control those suits of armour based on which squares you step on. Each step you take will result in them taking a step. Red squares make them step forward, Green make them step to the left, Yellow make them step backwards and blue make them step to the right. If they end up on an adjacent square to where you are, they will take a swing at you and if you try to move more than one square at a time, they will too. So you're in control, but you need to think ahead, and think about what consequences your actions will have. Keep in mind they are all facing different directions so they won't all move in exactly the same direction." He paused to be sure she was listening.

"You need your wand just in case one gets too close. You'll need to shield yourself if that happens." Of course, Truebridge would do so too, but she did not at this point need to know that and certainly shouldn't rely on others to protect her.

"There are several ways to the door and you can take your time. Be in control. I'll demonstrate just now so you can see how the suits of armour react."

Truebridge stepped on a green square and each suit of armour stepped to the right. Two of them were nicely out of the way but several others were close enough that where he moved to next would be decisive. He chose a red square and watched as they stepped forward, one of them coming to a stop with only one square between them. He stepped on a blue square and it stepped to the right, out of the way, though another had moved close enough to Truebridge for him to concern himself with. The professor glanced at the Slytherin girl again, checking to see that she understood how it would work, then he reset the suits of armour and returned to the center of the room.

"You may begin when you are ready."


ooc: at least 5 posts with as many movements in each post as you like, and you can RP how close you get to the suits of armour, but Truebridge won't actually let them hurt her. Feel free to get creative. Any questions feel free to PM me.

Savvy cluchthed onto her wand nervously. She still didn't trust the head of house guy. These armor thingies were scaryyyyy. Savvy bit her lip, well this was not fun. She ran her fingers through her blonde hair. Well, she just realized she was goingto die today.

O____o IF SHE DIED ELLA WAS GOING TO GET AIDEN ?!?! NOOOO. she needed to live. So with a sigh, Savannah moved towards a yellow square, her eyes shut. Bravery wasn't her thing.

Well she wasn't dead.Yet.

It felt like it had been hours. Hours of just standing here...

In reality it had only been like 10 minutes. That didn't stop SAvvy from having a little emotional breakdown . ACK. sh wasn't going to let her emotions get ot the best of her though. With a sigh, Savvy stepped on a blue square.

"MEEEEEPPPPP !!!"Savvy squealed as she got close to a suit of armor. IT ALMOST KILLED HER !?

Ugh.She hated this school.

She took another step, blue. Nothing swung at her, thank merlin. She was still convinced she was going to die in this room.

Ellie walked into the duelling arena. She was not scared or nervous, but actually pretty happy. She was glad she wasn't just pushed off to the side, and that Professor Truebridge was willing to help. But she saw that he was with another student. So she just stood there and waited, taking out her wand and twirling it around to keep her hands busy.

"Keep it up, you're doing wel. You are in control." Truebridge encouraged, watching carefully. "Think about your actions, where will that next step lead you? When is it time to back track?"

"Hello Ellie." Truebridge greeted. "Mind the suits of armour. Come around the edge of the grid and join me." Ethan suggested.

Ellie nodded and edged around to where Truebridge stood. She sincerely hoped they weren't going to be dealing with suits of armour... Though she did remember seeing them in class... Gulp.

"Now, what was the last thing we covered in class before you left?" Truebridge asked, trying to recall the precise point Ellie had requested to go to the hospital wing.

"Uhm.." Ellie fought to think of what she had managed to learn. "Well, we did histedius..." That's what gave her the bloody headache. "And I came back from break.." A lot of good break did for her. But then after that was pretty fuzzy. "Uhm.. we were practicing that first spell...skew-something. And then I left." Yeah... way to miss half of your first DADA lesson, Ellie. Way to go.

"Alright. I'm going to get someone to come and work with you, because its always good to practice with another student. Is there anyone in particular you would like to have help you pick up the spells that were covered?" Truebridge answered.

Uhm... Anyone in particular? "Someone who's not going to accidentally jinx me?" Maybe. Ellie smiled up at him innocently. It was true. Why practice with someone who was going to put you in a worse state than you were already in. She just wanted someone who knew what they were doing. That's all. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Lukus haddent had a good duel in a very long time and seeing he was intending on taking DADA N.E.W.T this year he wanted to see if he still had what it took he be a good dueler.
Sitting down on a bench he watched the other duelist as he waited for someone to ask.

Nymphy walked in with his favorite purple sport robes. They weren't realy robes, but shorts and a shirts that fit very snug and had a holster for his wand on the thigh.

He placed his bag, alsong with the books he had checked out about defensive magic, on a chair at the edge of the room. He listened for any sounds, not knowing if the first part of the lesson would involve a sneak attack...but he was ready.

He had read about a protective charm that acted as a sereget for the damage. The spell incurred all the damage and usually was destroyed, but it helped to save you from the curse cast at you. It even worked on the Avada Kadavra.

His other trick involved a spell that created a "black hole", but only for magic. It sucked up curses and made them disappear. If one cast it to the right or left of themselves, all curse that were directed at them would be pulled away by the vortex.

He got his wand out of his holister and stood ready for the lesson.....

The sound of click-clacking heels loudly announced Lexi Carlton's presence. She wasn't in defense mode, so she'd opted to just keep her regular footwear on rather than going back to her quarters for some other pair. With her wand still inside its holster, Lexi headed across the room that housed the dueling arena. "Hello, Mr. Smith," she greeted, noticing the way the boy stood ready for...anything and everything, pretty much. "You can relax. I'm not going to sneak attack you or anything like that. We'll talk first about what spells you'd like to learn then the dueling will begin."

"I've brought someone along," she said, turning to see if the girl was behind her...or even next to her, maybe. "I thought it might be better to observe as you practice, so I won't be dueling today." Again she paused, waiting for some sign that Nymphy's future dueling partner had joined them.

Marie followed Professor Carlton into the dueling arena. It seemed she needed someone to duel a student who needed practice on his dueling techniques. Marie was happy to help with this task. She needed to duel someone to work out some of this anger she had, even if it was just for practice.

With her hand on her wand ready to release it from its holster at any time she stood there next to the professor as she told the boy to relax. Haha, the lesson hasn't even started yet and the boy is nervous. "Hello, I'm Marie," she said.

"Evening, Professor!" Nymphy said, smiling. He was releived that she had come (and not sneak attacked him), but he was a bit disappointed that he was to duel a girl who was (as far as he knew) a third year. He decided not to destroy her, but he would own her and prove his skills. He also decided to be nice and even to blame some of his wins on "chance" or "beginner's luck".......

"Nice to meet you..." he said.

Well now. At least this little dueling lesson was getting off to a polite start. Everyone had been greeted and now...it was time to begin. Well, sort of. Lexi still needed to get a better feel for what Nymphy was wanting to learn. "So have you come across anything you'd like to learn?" she asked. "I'll be willing to go over some advanced sixth and seventh year spells with both you and Miss Salazar, but that would be as far as I'd go for now. Since you're just a second year, I think tackling sixth and seventh year spells is enough for now."

After all, what sort of professor would Lexi be if she taught second and thirds years very advanced spells that they weren't likely to learn until early adulthood? While she waited on Nymphy to decide what he'd like to do, she turned her attention back to Marie. "...and how's your other half? Mr. Phillips?" she asked.

Marie stood there listening to the professor ask the boy what he wanted to learn. Just looking at him Marie got the feeling that the boy already thought he knew everything. If that was the case this was going to be a very interesing duel. With the mood she was in.... he better watch out.

A little surprised at Professor Carlton's question to her Marie looked up at her not smiling at all. "Umm, I don't know how he is. We aren't exactly speaking to each other right now." Thanks to that whiney baby Kay who only has time for her friends when her and dinodog are fighting.

It wasn't like she was here to duel. Not at all. So Gold tried to convince herself. But the fact that she had pinned her hair back, something she only did in a duel, when flying or in herbology class, had another tale to tell. It couldn't have been clearer that Gold wanted something to do.

Something that involved one of her favourite subjects.

She poked her head into the Duelling Arena, and was surprised to see that it wasn't empty. Well! This probably meant she could find a person, hopefully her age or older, to duel. Or maybe just watch people practice because, you know, there's nothing like witnessing a good duel. Her green gaze darted around, and landed on Professor Truebridge.

"'Lo, professor," she said politely. "Anything I can do?"

Say yes?